After resounding ‘ComEd Four’ verdict, former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s legacy on the line
To Michael Madigan, the once-mighty Democratic House speaker, the issue in his federal racketeering trial next year is not just about guilt or innocence. It is a fight over how he will be remembered.
The outcome of his case will go a long way in determining whether the 81-year-old Madigan’s legacy will be that of a Southwest Side politician who set a nationwide record of 36 years as speaker or if he will be the latest example of an Illinois leader gone bad.
The just-completed “ComEd Four” trial, one of Illinois’ highest-profile political corruption cases in years, previewed many elements of the former speaker’s own case, one littered with an array of bribery and extortion allegations that portray his entire political operation as a criminal enterprise.
In closing arguments last week, federal prosecutors called the ComEd Four defendants the “grandmasters of corruption.”
But it was Madigan who allegedly was at the beginning and end of virtually every move.
The ComEd Four defendants were all found guilty Tuesday in a bribery conspiracy to woo Madigan into favoring the utility’s legislative agenda. Each played a role in sending money to the longtime speaker’s precinct captains, former aldermen and political allies, the jury found. Each operated in the political world where Madigan made the rules.
Madigan, meanwhile, was long thought by many to be too careful and shrewd of a tactician to ever be caught up in a criminal case. But now he’s playing on an unfamiliar field, one where federal prosecutors have shown time and again they know how to win.
It’s clear from the jurors who spoke after Tuesday’s clean-sweep guilty verdicts that the argument that Madigan and his associates have been pitching to the public — that this was all politics as usual — fell completely flat in a federal courtroom.
“We bought it for a while, but then when evidence started unfolding (we thought) ‘Explain to us how you can turn around and pay these folks gazillions of dollars and they’re not doing anything?’ ” juror Rob Garnes told the Tribune. “What does that have to do with lobbying?”
Garnes said the general consensus of the panel was that, while nobody’s perfect, it seemed like no one seemed willing to step in and put a stop to the corruption.
“They just continually do it over and over and over again,” said Garnes, an IT professional who lives in Westmont. “That would be my message to politicians: Do the right thing. Make the right decision. Sometimes the right thing is not the popular thing. You’re not going to have a lot of friends (by) doing the right thing.”
In addition to being a preview of Madigan’s trial, the ComEd Four case struck at the heart of Illinois politics itself, holding up a mirror to the entire system of relationships between lobbyists, legislators and government-regulated utilities that rely on the General Assembly for their profits.
After the verdicts were in, former House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs, a former Cook County prosecutor, said it is “bitterly disappointing that we’re in this situation — that we have Springfield on trial.”
Though Democrats hailed some recent minor tightening of ethics laws, Durkin said he opposed the last measure because it was “window dressing” rather than actual reform. Durkin, who just left Springfield a few months ago, predicted little-to-nothing substantive would be passed to upgrade ethics laws while both chambers and the governor’s office are in Democratic control.
But Durkin said the verdict clearly accomplished one major political change already: “Commonwealth Madigan has come to an end.”
Convicted in the ComEd Four trial were former ComEd contract lobbyist Michael McClain, Madigan’s longtime confidant; former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore; former ComEd executive John Hooker, the utility’s top lobbyist for years; and ComEd contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, the ex-president of the City Club, a civic forum for Chicago’s elite.
The jury found that the four conspired to funnel $1.3 million in payments to ghost “subcontractors,” largely through Doherty’s company, who were actually Madigan’s cronies.
The utility also hired a clout-heavy law firm run by political operative Victor Reyes, distributed numerous college internships within Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom and blatantly backed former McPier boss Juan Ochoa, the friend of a Madigan ally, for an $80,000-a-year seat on the utility’s board of directors.
The most serious charges carry up to 20 years in prison, though all four defendants would likely face far less given their lack of criminal history and other mitigating factors. Sentencing dates have not been set.
The conviction is also certain to be tested on appeal, given the deep division among several federal judicial circuits over where the line is between legal lobbying, gratuities and bribery.
Even U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber acknowledged during the case that many of his rulings will be scrutinized by higher courts.
“Well, you’re making your record, and you have one,” Leinenweber told the defense at a jury instruction conference last month. “Eventually, it’s going to probably get to the Supreme Court, and either you’re right or you’re wrong. And if you’re right, then... ”
“Congratulations,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu interjected.
But that process could take years to play out. Meanwhile, Madigan and McClain are set to go to trial in April 2024 on separate racketeering charges that allege an array of corrupt acts, including the ComEd scheme as well as a similar but smaller set of allegations involving AT&T’s Illinois affiliate.
AT&T Illinois has admitted its wrongdoing in court as part of a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $23 million fine. Its former president, Paul La Schiazza, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, federal program bribery and using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity.
The Madigan indictment also alleges he illegally solicited business for his private property tax law firm during discussions about turning a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown into a commercial development.
McClain’s attorneys have maintained he is mixed up in the case only because federal prosecutors wanted to squeeze him to flip on Madigan, a prospect no one who ever dealt with him in Springfield would expect.
McClain’s loyalty to Madigan reaches back to the 1970s as they served together in the Illinois House. When Madigan became House minority leader in 1981, he put McClain, who is from downstate Quincy, on the Democratic leadership team.
Madigan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and released a statement after his indictment saying there was nothing illegal about a public official making job recommendations.
“Throughout my 50 years as a public servant, I worked to address the needs of my constituents, always keeping in mind the high standards required and the trust the public placed in me,” the statement read.
In a motion earlier this year to dismiss key allegations in the indictment, Madigan’s defense team argued that prosecutors, in their zeal to land a prized political target, cut corners in its investigation and ultimately filed charges that intentionally blur the bribery statute and attempt to criminalize legal lobbying and politicking.
“Currying favor with government officials — even those with the capacity to influence legislation of interest to the employers — is legal,” the motion stated, adding that the “far-flung” indictment “impermissibly treats lawful ingratiation as illegal bribery, and stitches together unrelated allegations of purported misconduct into a single scheme.”
The jury in Madigan’s trial will undoubtedly hear a parade of wiretapped recordings played in the ComEd Four case, including many of Madigan himself bantering with McClain about dinner plans, laughing about the size of Pramaggiore’s plane at Exelon and instructing his old friend on how to carry out his wishes.
This time, however, Madigan will be seated at the defense table in person rather than the jury being shown his image through a driver’s license photo.
The trial will also have an added twist: secret video recordings of the then-speaker made by Daniel Solis, the longtime 25th Ward alderman-turned-mole who cooperated with the investigation.
Solis allegedly recorded numerous conversations with Madigan as part of the Chinatown land probe, including one where the speaker told Solis he was looking for a colleague to sponsor a House bill approving the land sale, which was never consummated.
The indictment also alleged that Madigan met with then Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, a fellow Democrat, in December 2018 in part to discuss a lucrative state board position for Solis, ostensibly as a reward for helping Madigan win law business.
Before that meeting, Solis allegedly recorded video of Madigan telling him the speaker’s communication with Pritzker did not need to be in writing, according to the indictment. “I can just verbally tell him,” Madigan allegedly said.
Pritzker has not been accused of wrongdoing and his office has said the governor “does not recall” Madigan ever asking him to consider Solis for any position.
Several of the undercover video recordings made by Solis during his stunning turn as a government mole were made public for the first time last month in a separate corruption case against Solis’ former associate, Roberto Caldero.
Solis’ cooperation also helped bring down longtime Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, who is leaving the City Council later this month after 50 years leading the 14th Ward and faces a racketeering trial of his own in November.
Solis, meanwhile, was granted a deferred prosecution deal by the U.S. attorney’s office that many have said is unprecedented for an elected official accused of abusing the public’s trust.
As part of the deal, Solis was charged in a one-count criminal information with corruptly soliciting campaign donations from a real estate developer in exchange for zoning changes in 2015, when Solis was head of the City Council Zoning Committee.
Under the terms of the agreement, the charge will be dropped on April 8, 2025, allowing him to keep his $100,000 annual city pension as long as he continues to cooperate with the ongoing investigations.
It’s unclear if Solis will have to testify at Madigan’s trial or if prosecutors will seek to introduce the recordings he made through another witness.
In defending the deal last year, Bhachu told U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood that Solis’ cooperation was perhaps “singular” even in the city’s long history of political corruption.
“A lot of people talk about cleaning up corruption, and often all it amounts to is talk,” Bhachu said. “It’s rare when someone actually delivers, and in this regard, Mr. Solis delivered.”
Despite the evidence that has emerged in the ComEd case, there is no shortage of Madigan defenders in Springfield, where his long reign of concentrated power gave him the ability to make life-or-death decisions about the fate of major legislation for all but two years between 1983 and 2021.
It is not hard to find a pack of Madigan loyalists looking to cast doubt on the allegations in his indictment. Many of them left his staff over the years to become lobbyists, many of whom will swear to the end that he did no wrong, that his ethics were pure, that his personal code of conduct kept him out of trouble.
During his last few years in Springfield, the speaker’s standing among House Democrats was weakened by sexual harassment scandals among misbehaving aides in 2018. But Madigan gained seats in that fall’s election as Pritzker led the Democratic ticket and defeated Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
FBI agents raided the homes of McClain and other Madigan associates in May 2019, just as Madigan worked feverishly during Pritzker’s first spring session to pass a $45 billion pork-barrel bonanza, a massive gambling expansion and the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes.
The Tribune first reported that July that the FBI had raided McClain’s home in Quincy as part of an ongoing criminal probe. The newspaper also revealed four months later that the feds had wiretapped McClain’s cellphone, the first major hint that Madigan may be the ultimate target.
The first big shoe dropped in July 2020, when the U.S. attorney’s office unveiled a deferred prosecution agreement where ComEd admitted in court that it funneled payments to Madigan’s associates through Doherty’s consulting company, Jay D. Doherty & Associates.
ComEd agreed to pay a $200 million fine and cooperate in the probe, which at the time referred to Madigan only as “Public Official A.”
Republicans used Madigan’s new moniker as an albatross in the fall 2020 election to sink a sitting Illinois Supreme Court justice and Pritzker’s attempt to raise taxes on Illinoisans with the biggest incomes, defeats that caused more political problems for the speaker.
Only weeks after the November election, the ComEd Four defendants were indicted, and a movement already driven by women to dump Madigan kicked into high gear.
With the ComEd case engulfing Madigan’s associates and the sexual harassment scandal still lingering, House Democrats decided to dethrone him from his speakership in January 2021.
He then gave up the House legislative seat he’d held for more than 50 years and the chairmanship of the Illinois Democratic Party that he’d held since 1998.
If his trial date next April holds, Madigan will turn 82 in the middle of the case, which is expected to last at least two months and will once again put the political world he lorded over in a less-than-flattering spotlight. And it would be making headlines in the run-up to Chicago hosting the Democratic National Convention next August.
Among the central questions will be whether Madigan created a political environment in which lobbyists, corporations and other special interests felt that they had to shower him with gifts and favors just to have a chance to advance their legislative agendas.
No doubt Madigan allies will be watching closely from Springfield, where lobbyists and legislators alike worry about how the federal court cases may change the rules of the game at the Capitol, a bazaar of incalculable giving and taking where the real deals often go down behind closed doors.
There will be a line of current and former lawmakers, including testimony designed to give the jury a glimpse of how members of the General Assembly view Madigan when they are sworn to tell the truth rather than forced to kiss the ring.
One of those could be incumbent Rep. Bob Rita, a Blue Island Democrat who testified in the ComEd trial after receiving a “nontarget letter” from prosecutors.
Rita left no doubt that Madigan did not often rule the House based on altruistic goals.
In fact, Rita said, Madigan ruled through “fear and intimidation.”
