Jurors in ‘ComEd Four’ trial see evidence from FBI raid on City Club and Jay Doherty’s condo
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Jurors in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial saw a parade of FBI agents testify Wednesday about raids on the City Club and the home of its longtime president, Jay Doherty, scooping up emails, invoices, text messages and voicemails tied to the far-reaching bribes-for-favors case.
The voicemails gave jurors their first opportunity to hear the voice of Ed Moody, the former Cook County official and longtime precinct captain in former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom.
Moody is not charged in the case and is expected to testify in the coming days, as prosecutors said they intend to wrap up their case in chief as soon as Tuesday.
The raid on the Wrigley Building office of the City Club, a forum for public and civic leaders, came on May 14, 2019, at the same time teams of FBI agents also conducted searches on the homes of more than half a dozen key players in the investigation.
The day before the raid, the City Club had put on a luncheon at Maggiano’s Banquets featuring a speech by U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley. The day after, Doherty was back in his usual form, introducing then-presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg at another lunch function.
Doherty wasn’t at the City Club office when agents arrived. Instead, a different team encountered him at his condo in Chicago’s posh Streeterville neighborhood, where he agreed to let agents seize his phone, according to FBI Special Agent Kyle Sherrer, who was one of four agents to testify Wednesday morning.
Found on Doherty’s phone was an October 2016 voicemail from Moody saying the speaker wanted him to call: “Hey Jay, this is uh, Ed Moody calling. The speaker wanted me to reach out to you, if you wouldn’t mind returning my call.”
Listen to the audio:
At the time, Moody had been receiving ComEd payments each month as a subcontractor with Doherty’s consulting and lobbyist firm. But Moody was moving into an appointed post as a Cook County Board member, which put him in conflict with Doherty’s duties of lobbying local officials, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors have alleged Moody was switched to another lobbyist’s payroll to keep his subcontract payments coming, even though agents testified they could find no records that indicated any work product with ComEd.
Jurors also got a peek at images of Doherty’s cluttered home office. Amid the stacks of papers and framed photos of Doherty with city luminaries were checks and invoices to and from Moody; another 13th Ward precinct captain, Ray Nice; former 13th Ward Ald. Frank Olivo; and Mike Zalewski, the former alderman of the 23rd Ward, Sherrer testified.
A text message exchange extracted from Doherty’s phone showed he reached out to Anne Pramaggiore, the former ComEd CEO who is a co-defendant, to complain in July 2014 about not getting paid.
“Anne for some reason we did not get paid in June,” Doherty wrote in the text, which was shown to the jury during Sherrer’s testimony. “Please check on this as I want to pay ‘our sub-contractors’ today, if possible. Thank you so much.”
“We are on it,” Pramaggiore soon texted back.
In addition to Doherty and Pramaggiore, the indictment charged Michael McClain, a former ComEd lobbyist and longtime confidant of Madigan, and John Hooker, a former ComEd executive and longtime lobbyist.
They 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 in a bid to win the speaker’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.
The indictment also alleged the defendants schemed to hire a clout-heavy law firm run by Madigan’s onetime ally Victor Reyes, appoint former Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority boss Juan Ochoa to the company’s board of directors, and stack the utility’s summer internship program with candidates sent from Madigan’s 13th Ward.
The four on trial have all pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers have contended the government is trying to turn legal lobbying into a crime.
Madigan and McClain face a separate racketeering indictment that is set for trial next year.
In addition to the raid on Doherty’s home, jurors on Wednesday saw more evidence gleaned from a search the same day of McClain’s home in Quincy, which led to the seizure of his phone and computer records.
FBI Special Agent Eileen McDermott showed the jury a chart she put together from McClain’s calendars and other sources showing he and Madigan had scheduled as many as 27 meals together over the course of a year, ending in April 2019.
“Would he enjoy an old, old friend for dinner both nights or one of those nights?” McClain asked Madigan’s assistant in an email ahead of a two-day trip to Chicago in April 2019.
“Of course he would!” she responded.
Their favorite haunts included Bruna’s Ristorante on Chicago’s West Side, Coco Pazzo downtown, Palermo’s in Oak Lawn and Saputo’s in Springfield, according to calendar entries shown to the jury.
Notes McClain made on the calendar entries indicated the two spoke about ComEd, pending legislation and politics, as well as the #MeToo scandal that had forced several of the speaker’s top advisers to resign.
One politically intriguing appointment on McClain’s schedule was a lunch with Madigan on May 16, 2019, two days after the raids. But there was not a specific indication in court that the two actually met.
Earlier Wednesday, another FBI special agent, Michael Fee, testified about the raid on Olivo’s home in Palos Heights. Along with other items, agents inventoried a 2011 letter found in a spare bedroom from 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke, congratulating Olivo on his retirement from City Council.
Burke had been charged with bribery several months before the raid. Two weeks later, he was indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy.
Fee testified that agents found numerous fax receipts and copies showing he’d been sending monthly invoices for $4,000 to Doherty’s administrative assistant beginning in 2011. But there was nothing in the home indicating he’d done any work for ComEd, the agent said.
To buttress that point, prosecutors called Patrick Comiskey, Olivo’s son-in-law, who testified that the former alderman was busy taking care of their two children all day at the time, and that he was unaware of any other employment he may have had.
Comiskey said at one point Olivo, who was old-school and not tech-savvy, asked him to fax invoices to Jay D. Doherty & Associates for him. Comiskey said he emailed the documents to Doherty’s assistant for several months in 2018 and 2019.
Other testimony Wednesday gave another example of how Madigan aggressively sought to put allies into positions. Emails showed McClain inquired whether Pramaggiore would take a recommendation from “a Friend of ours,” meaning Madigan, for a ComEd appointment created by state statute.
Pramaggiore eventually used ComEd’s appointment power to put former state Rep. Lisa Dugan on the Clean Energy Community Foundation, a move that followed Madigan’s recommendation and came with a stipend.
Dugan, a former Democrat from Bradley, voted for the 67% income tax increase that Madigan championed in a lame-duck session in early 2011.
Other evidence, meanwhile, centered on Ochoa’s appointment to the ComEd board.
An email extracted from Pramaggiore’s phone showed that Joseph Dominguez, her successor as CEO of ComEd, warned her that information about the appointment had leaked.
“Had dinner with Juan tonight,” Dominguez’s email read. “He is fine with our timing but said that the word is out. (Then-state Sen.) Marty Sandoval, Victor Reyes and others have called and said they heard the news he was going to be a director.”
Dominguez also said that Ochoa’s predecessor on the board, Jesse Ruiz, had been trying to reach Exelon CEO Chris Crane about a board seat “but has not gotten a return call.”
Ochoa’s appointment went through in early 2019. That May, ComEd Senior Vice President Fidel Marquez informed Pramaggiore that the move was not well received within Hispanic political circles in the Capitol.
“Tonight was Latino Unity day in Springfield,” Marquez wrote in an email shown in court. “Sadly it was not. Juan Ochoa was going around (Springfield) talking about his ComEd board appointment. It drew negative reactions from several folks … elected and community.”
