‘They scared the daylights out of you, didn’t they?’ Cross-examination underway for star witness in ‘ComEd Four’ trial
The prosecution’s star witness in the “ComEd Four” trial testified Wednesday that then-House Speaker Michael Madigan called upon the utility to raise $450,000 at its annual fundraiser for the Illinois Democratic Party during the middle of negotiations over a massive utility bill that would pass later that year.
Fidel Marquez, a former senior vice president at ComEd, told the jury he was “surprised” by the size of the demand, which represented an increase of as much as $200,000 from previous fundraisers coordinated for Madigan each year by ComEd and its parent company, Exelon.
The copious amount of campaign cash was just one hoop ComEd allegedly jumped through to please the now-indicted ex-speaker, whose record run at the top of the Illinois political food chain is a central issue in the trial.
The jury on Wednesday saw a string of emails and other evidence detailing Madigan-backed demands for jobs and contracts for political associates, including the wife of convicted former City Clerk Jim Laski, the convicted son of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, former U.S. Rep. Morgan Murphy, and two daughters of former Cook County Democratic Chairman Joe Berrios, who doubled as county assessor.
All of the demands came through Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, who constantly reminded everyone in his communications that he was working on behalf of “our Friend” — his code name for Madigan.
On cross-examination Wednesday afternoon, however, Marquez was asked point-blank whether he’d ever witnessed Madigan directly help pass or block legislation on ComEd’s behalf.
“In seven years, you never saw any evidence that Speaker Madigan ever did anything to help get a ComEd bill passed, right?” asked Scott Lassar, who represents former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore.
“Um, I disagree with that,” Marquez said.
But he later acknowledged that there was “no guarantee” that Madigan was going to help pass ComEd bills and that the company was constantly being worked over by the speaker’s staff for concessions on major bills.
Marquez said ComEd still tried to make Madigan happy because “not doing it would cause us to be negatively looked on by” the speaker.
But Madigan was far from the only public official that asked ComEd for favors, Marquez said, explaining the state-regulated company routinely made efforts to stay on good terms with elected officials in Springfield, including the senate president, minority party leaders and the governor.
Marquez, who was in charge of ComEd’s large government affairs team, has pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy and is cooperating with the government.
He spent nearly 15 hours over three days testifying for the prosecutors, taking the jury through ComEd’s legislative strategy, the constant pressure from McClain to do the speaker’s bidding, and meetings and conversations he secretly recorded with defendants after he flipped.
Charged in the far-reaching bribes-for-favors conspiracy case are McClain, a former legislator and lobbyist; Pramaggiore; former ComEd executive John Hooker; and Jay Doherty, a longtime ComEd lobbyist and ex-president of the City Club civic group.
The defendants are accused of steering $1.3 million in payments from ComEd to Madigan-approved subcontractors with Doherty’s consulting firm who did little or no work.
The indictment also alleged the defendants provided a slew of other favors and perks to the speaker in exchange for his influence of the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield, including hiring a clout-heavy law firm, appointing former McPier boss Juan Ochoa to the company’s board of directors, and stacking its summer internship program with candidates sent from Madigan’s 13th Ward.
The defense has argued that what prosecutors say was bribery was actually nothing more than honest, legal political lobbying, and that there was no evidence Madigan did anything to directly help ComEd in exchange for benefits that flowed to his cronies.
Attorneys for the defendants have sought to paint Marquez as an opportunist who cooperated with the government to save his own skin. They’ve also pointed out that Marquez was being coached by investigators on what to say in the conversations he recorded.
At the outset of cross-examination, Lassar asked Marquez about the morning two FBI agents knocked on the door to his mother’s home at 6 a.m., rousing him from sleep and confronting him with wiretapped recordings.
“They scared the daylights out of you, didn’t they?” Lassar asked. Marquez agreed, saying “I was scared.”
“And you hoped you wouldn’t be prosecuted?” Lassar asked.
“I did not expect to be charged, correct,” Marques responded.
Marquez also told the jury it was true that soon after he was confronted, he told the FBI he’d done nothing illegal.
“And you believed that?” Lassar asked, to which Marquez replied, “Yes.”
“You did not believe that ComEd had bribed Mike Madigan, did you?”
“Correct.”
Marquez also agreed that Pramaggiore was a smart, hardworking boss, often the first one into the office in the morning and the last to leave at night. “No one was harder working than Anne,” he said.
Pramaggiore’s strategy was to win in the legislature, Marquez said. To do it, the ComEd team put together coalitions of vendors and interest groups and worked to create legislation that would have bipartisan support, which was the only way it would pass, he said.
Toward the end of a long day on the stand, Marquez was asked about some of the subcontractors paid by ComEd through Doherty’s company. One of them, former 23rd Ward Ald. Michael Zalewski, was a good hire, he said, as he had a good reputation and could be valuable in helping negotiate ComEd’s expiring franchise agreement with the city.
Asked if it made sense to put him as a subcontractor to Doherty, a city lobbyist, Marquez answered, “That’s right.”
Lassar also brought up Ochoa, asking, “He was not a Michael Madigan associate was he? … In fact he was close to (Jesus) ‘Chuy’ Garcia?”
“That’s what I was aware of, yes,” Marquez said.
The Tribune has previously reported that Ochoa’s appointment came about due to a strange political alliance between Madigan and Gutierrez, who was one of the city’s most powerful Hispanic politicians. At the same time, Garcia, an ally of Gutierrez, had also joined forces with Madigan, though he’s denied any involvement in recommending Ochoa for the position.
Marquez, meanwhile, testified he knows Garcia is a congressman, but was unaware he recently ran for mayor — a bid that ended a month ago when he failed to make the runoff.
“You’ve been out of town,” Lassar quipped.
Also Wednesday, prosecutors played a secretly wiretapped call in which McClain let Madigan know that Marquez wanted to get the speaker’s permission before he extended a labor agreement between ComEd and two major unions. Madigan checked in with the union leaders and approved sealing the deal.
“I’d like to understand what our Friend’s wishes are. ... And I want to extend that quietly before the new guy (CEO Joe Dominguez) shows up,” Marquez said on the 2018 call.
In addition, prosecutors played another recording where McClain quizzed Pramaggiore about finding a job for Tim Mapes.
Madigan dumped Mapes from his three roles as chief of staff, House clerk and executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois in June 2018 when a clerk working for Mapes accused him of sexual harassment, bullying and creating an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Marquez and Pramaggiore were later captured in another recording discussing whether Mapes was employable at ComEd or Exelon.
“I keep thinking about how we can be helpful to (Mapes),” Pramaggiore said. “It’s hard to do anything directly.”
Listen to the audio:
McClain took a similar action to help out longtime Madigan lieutenant Kevin Quinn following his February 2018 ouster over sexual harassment allegations. The Tribune has reported McClain orchestrated a group of utility lobbyists to send at least $31,000 in checks to Quinn to help him soften the blow of getting booted from Madigan’s operations.
Quinn is the brother of Madigan’s hand-picked 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn.
At one point, McClain also was caught on a recording lamenting that Mapes’ departure disrupted Madigan’s organization because the speaker had delegated so many campaign-related tasks over the years and few knew what Mapes did to get things done.
McClain explained that a list of go-to lobbyists was held so tightly that only he and Mapes had a copy.
Word of the Madigan-run Democratic Party request to give far more than normal in the 2016 utility fundraiser came in an email that August that McClain sent to a utility lobbyist that provided a note of warning:
“I hope you are sitting down.”
McClain then explained that “Our friend,” meaning Madigan, had called and requested moving the amount of money he wanted from the utility fundraiser to be as much as $450,000.
Marquez acknowledged under questioning that he was surprised by the big increase. He said ComEd was deep in the negotiations at that point on what became the Future Energy Jobs Act, which was passed in a frenzied fall veto session less than four months later on Dec. 1, 2016.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bachu also asked Marquez questions about Madigan’s own longtime annual fundraiser held at the Island Bay Yacht Club on Lake Springfield.
The annual “Evening on the Lake” served as one of the don’t-miss moments every spring in which lobbyists, fellow lawmakers and other wannabe bigshots bought fundraiser tickets and got brief facetime with the speaker as he shook hands at the door and inside in between food and cold drinks.
For years, the speaker would set up a House calendar that left open a single day in May when he would hold the fundraiser, a move that avoided a conflict with a law at the time that did not allow legislative fundraisers in Springfield on days when lawmakers were in session at the Capitol.
According to Marquez’s testimony, ComEd had 10 tickets set aside for the Springfield yacht club event in 2016, the year FEJA negotiations were ramping up.
McClain explained via an email shown to the jury that he and Hooker had determined years before that it was better to wait until after the regular May 31 annual legislative deadline. Often, contributors try to wait to give donations when the legislature is not meeting to avoid any appearance of pay-to-play activity.
In the email, McClain suggested holding back the checks to cover the donations for the event until after June 1, the day after the legislative deadline.
Marlow Colvin, a former House lawmaker who became ComEd’s vice president of government affairs, confirmed the checks would not be sent from the utility’s campaign fund until June 1, prompting McClain to reply: “Terrific. I just think it is smart.”
In August 2015, McClain emailed the group to complain that ComEd’s political contributions were not as high as they should be and it was “sticking out like a sore thumb.”
“As you know, he watches these items like a hawk, and I think we look (bad),” McClain wrote.
Prosecutors also played one secret recording in which Marquez asked McClain if he could get Madigan’s nod of approval before ComEd sewed up an extension of a contract with two of their unions.
“Good thinking, Fidel,” McClain said. “Good thinking.”
Marquez said he wanted to get it done before ComEd replaced CEO Pramaggiore with Joe Dominguez, a person that Marquez said could be difficult.
Further, Marquez explained that by contacting Madigan ahead of ComEd taking action, he would have the chance to personally give a heads-up to the labor leaders, James Sweeney, the president of Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, and James Connolly of the Chicago Laborers’ District Council.
“I know how it works,” said Marquez.
McClain immediately called Madigan, who would get back with McClain after contacting the two labor leaders with information McClain supplied.
Asked if he had put Madigan’s wishes over those of Dominguez, Marquez gave a one-word answer: “Yes.”
In addition to more testimony about Ochoa’s appointment, the string of jobs that Madigan allegedly demanded included keeping former state Rep. Toni Berrios as an Exelon lobbyist and searching for a job for Vanessa Berrios, who had worked in the Cook County assessor’s office before and during the time her father was assessor.
Madigan himself was on a recording suggesting Vanessa Berrios for a position at ComEd.
Toni Berrios is married to James Weiss, who is currently facing trial on federal charges alleging he bribed a state senator.
In multiple emails, McClain made it clear that Madigan had inquired repeatedly about making sure that the law firm of Morgan Murphy, a former congressman, would keep getting legal business from ComEd.
A tranche of emails were introduced as McClain pushed for Kathleen Laski, the wife of the former city clerk who went to prison for corruption, to get a position with the utility company even though she didn’t want to work extra hours during storms.
“Kathy doesn’t want to work storm duty?? Really?” a ComEd human resources official wrote in one email, asking who sent her. Marquez wrote back: “Laski came to us from the Speaker.”
Another hiring request that came directly from Madigan in 2018 was for Jeffrey Rush, the son of the longtime congressman, who had made headlines a decade earlier when he was convicted of official misconduct for having a sexual relationship with female parolees while working at a state-run halfway house.
“So this is a guy that I’m gonna wanna help somewhere along the road,” Madigan explained to McClain in an Aug. 30, 2018, wiretapped call. The speaker said Rush “has got a real good background in criminal justice” but “got himself jammed up” over the sex-with-inmates scandal.
Madigan asked McClain to think over whether “in a new administration” there could be a consulting job for Rush with the Department of Corrections.
Listen to the audio:
Nearly a year later, in May 2019, Marquez, who by then was cooperating, secretly video-recorded a meeting where McClain asked him if there might be a spot for Rush at ComEd. Marquez balked after McClain described Rush’s criminal past.
“I appreciate you being clear on his indiscretions,” Marquez said. “That makes it hard for me to place him in good conscience within the company. The last thing I need is for that to come out ... you know ‘cause there’s no secrets, Mike.”
Some of the emails showed that Marquez had become frayed over McClain’s constant badgering.
In March 2017, McClain emailed Marquez about the status of a hire requested by former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, writing Acevedo was “driving our Friend crazy” about it.
“Geez,” Marquez shot back. “He has a son and a nephew at ComEd. He’s got a contract with ComEd. Has he no limit?”
Acevedo was later convicted on federal tax charges stemming from the ComEd investigation and sentenced to six months in prison.
