‘We weren’t bribing Speaker Madigan’: Ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore back on witness stand in her own defense in ‘ComEd Four’ case

Near the end of a long day of animated testimony Monday, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore’s voice grew quiet.

The jury in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial had just heard for the second time a wiretapped recording on which she told a close associate of then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, “You take good care of me, and so does our friend, and I will do the best that I can to, to take care of you.”

It’s a comment prosecutors have held up as real-time evidence of a scheme to bribe the powerful Democratic speaker, complete with a coded reference to Madigan and seemingly imbued with pay-to-play politics.

But Pramaggiore testified her comments in that September 2018 call with Michael McClain have a totally innocent explanation.

Asked why she said Madigan took “good care” of her, Pramaggiore said she wasn’t talking about it in “the legislative sense,” but perhaps about when the speaker had helped find her son volunteer work years earlier.

She also said that by referencing Madigan as “our friend” she was just trying to placate McClain.

“Mike reveres the speaker, and I would often mention him in our conversations in order to enhance our relationship,” Pramaggiore told the jury.

The exchange marked a day in which Pramaggiore methodically denied each of the allegations against her in the hot-button political corruption case, which is now in its sixth week.

In her roughly six hours of direct testimony, which began Thursday, Pramaggiore repeatedly said she was not involved in any scheme to influence Madigan and that she never believed he held his thumb on the scale to deliver for ComEd’s legislative agenda.

She said she had no idea the company she headed from 2012 to 2018 had been paying lobbying “subcontractors” out of her own budget — let alone that they were former elected officials and precinct captains with strong ties to Madigan, then the most powerful politician in the state.

And the jobs given to 13th Ward acolytes? The summer internships doled out by ComEd to college kids recommended by the speaker? The utility’s hiring of a law firm headed by Democratic operative and longtime Madigan associated Vicor Reyes?

None of it had anything to do with any illegal scheme, she said.

“No, we weren’t bribing Speaker Madigan,” Pramaggiore said bluntly at one point Monday.

Prosecutors will get the chance to cross examine Pramaggiore on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber’s 17th floor courtroom swelled to capacity during Pramaggiore’s highly anticipated testimony, which is a rare and risky move for a criminal defendant to take, especially in a high-stakes political corruption case.

A theater major from Dayton, Ohio, who earned a law degree and rose to become one of Chicago’s top female executives, Pramaggiore is hoping to convince the jury she is the highly ethical and honest leader described by her long lineup of character witnesses, not the person on FBI wiretaps who seemed at ease with participating in an Illinois’ notoriously rough-and-tumble political system.

Jurors will have to weigh Pramaggiore’s statements on the witness stand against what she said in the covert recordings, when she repeatedly pushed for things that Madigan wanted, sometimes even against the wishes of other top executives at ComEd or its parent company, Exelon Utilities.

At the end of her direct examination, her attorney, Scott Lassar, asked whether Pramaggiore was “careful” about her relationship with Madigan.

“Yes I was,” she replied. “You have to be careful about the appearance of impropriety and your relationships with all public officials. I just think you need to be cognizant of that.”

Charged along with Pramaggiore are McClain, a former lobbyist and Madigan’s trusted confidant; Jay Doherty, a former ComEd contract lobbyist and ex-president of the City Club, and John Hooker, a longtime ComEd lobbyist.

The indictment alleged the scheme included steering $1.3 million in payments from ComEd to Madigan-approved subcontractors, appointing former McPier boss Juan Ochoa to the utility’s board of directors, hiring Reyes’ clout heavy law firm, and stacking the utility’s summer internship program with candidates sent from the 13th Ward.

All four have pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers have contended the government is trying to turn legal lobbying and job recommendations into a crime.

Madigan and McClain face a separate racketeering indictment that is set for trial next year.

Under questioning from Lassar, Pramaggiore remained largely poised and conversational, often answering questions with long explanations about her role in winning the legislative victories she says saved ComEd from a period of declining revenues, crumbling infrastructure.

Among those bills was the smart grid legislation passed in 2011, which for the first time set a formula rate that ComEd could bill to customers, and the Future Energy Jobs Act legislation that was passed on the last day of the fall veto session in December 2016.

Pramaggiore stressed that the legislation was passed through old-fashioned legal lobbying, not bribery, and ComEd conceded many demands by Madigan’s staff that cost the company millions.

Particularly in the case with FEJA, which began as an effort to save two failing nuclear power sites, she said their team at ComEd and Exelon brought together a broad coalition of environmentalists, consumers and organized labor to compel Madigan and other legislative leaders to bring the bill up for a vote.

“The bills had to stand on their own. The bills had to make political sense for the speaker and his caucus,” Pramaggiore testified. “I don’t think that hiring people would have any influence on that calculus.”

One of the most sweeping denials Pramaggiore delivered from the witness stand dealt with Madigan-backed subcontractors that are central to the allegations. Pramaggiore testified that she did not even know there was an issue with ComEd subcontractors until “after this investigation became public in 2019.”

Lassar took Pramaggiore through a secret recording made by Fidel Marquez, a former senior vice president who cooperated with the government in the case, in which they discussed how to explain the subcontractors to her successor, Joe Dominguez, a former federal prosecutor.

“I met with Jay, uh, Jay pretty much, well he did say, ‘Well, you know all these guys do is pretty much collect a check, um, and you should just leave it alone,’ ” Marquez said on the February 2019 recording. “‘Don’t mess with it, just leave it alone, um, otherwise things can go, you know, bad for us in Springfield.’”

Pramaggiore blurted on the tape, “Oh my God,” and Lassar had the recording paused in court.

“Why do you think you said, ‘Oh, my God?’ ” he asked Pramaggiore.

She testified she was “taken aback” that Marquez was telling her that there were subcontractors originally lined up years before by her predecessor, former ComEd CEO Frank Clark, but still getting paid.

Even after that call, Pramaggiore testified, she still did not know that the subcontractors were related to Madigan’s operation.

Among them, according to court testimony, were former Ald. Frank Olivo of Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom; two former precinct captains, Ray Nice, and Ed Moody, the former Cook County recorder of deeds; and former Ald. Mike Zalewski, who represented the 23rd Ward based in Madigan’s sphere of influence.

Pramaggiore testified that she put her signature on Doherty’s annual contract as a matter of routine, and that she expected underlings to have checked out the contract thoroughly by the time it got to her.

She also sought to explain to jurors why she said to Marquez that Dominguez would “take a victory lap” if he learned of the subcontracts. She testified that the two were rivals and that he would blame her for a “management mess-up” on her watch.

Pramaggiore also attempted to explain another part of the call highlighted by prosecutors, where she told Marquez, “We do not want to get caught up in a ... disruptive battle where, you know, somebody gets their nose out of joint” and they’re forced to give someone a five-year contract.

She testified she wasn’t specifically talking about Madigan getting his nose out of joint — just that it was a bad time in general to rock the boat. “I didn’t use Madigan’s name,” she said.

“Did you think that Fidel Marquez had told you that a crime had been committed?” Lassar asked.

Pramaggiore responded, “No.”

“There was nothing to suggest that we were in that sort of world,” she said. “It sounded like a management problem. I thought Fidel had been mismanaging these people.”

Pramaggiore also attempted to downplay the string of Madigan job candidates that ended up on ComEd’s payroll, saying she denied many jobs for people he sent her way. She also said that receiving hiring recommendations from public officials was just part of the job.

Among the politicians to send people her way over the years were Mayor Richard M. Daley, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Gov. Pat Quinn, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and state Rep. Luis Arroyo, Pramaggiore said.

She also acknowledged that politics played a role in the push to put Ochoa on ComEd’s board — but not in any illegal way. She said that not only had Madigan recommended Ochoa, so had then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “He called me on the phone,” she said.

Pramaggiore says it was a “positive” that Ochoa was recommended by both Democratic heavyweights because it showed he had a “good network,” she says.

“It also represented a good opportunity to create some goodwill with these two elected officials,” Pramaggiore said.

She testified that despite what was discussed on one of the wiretaps, there was never any plan on her part to hire Ochoa for some other part-time job at ComEd that would pay the same as the $80,000-a-year board seat.

“That would not have been very smart on my part,” she said.

Earlier Monday, Pramaggiore testified about another undercover recording made in 2018, where she told McClain that her promotion to Exelon wouldn’t have been possible without their help.

“It never would have happened without you, and John (Hooker) and the speaker,” she said on the recording. “I mean, really, ‘cause the only reason I am in this position is because ComEd has done so well, and you guys have been my, my spirit guides and more on that, I love you guys.”

Pramaggiore testified she was referencing McClain and Hooker when she talked about spirit guides, not Madigan.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

rlong@chicagotribune.com