Feds’ star witness takes stand in ‘ComEd Four’ trial, testifying utility worked to gain leverage with Michael Madigan

More than four years after the FBI knocked on his door, former ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez finally began his long-awaited turn on a federal witness stand Monday, testifying about his role in an elaborate scheme to lavish associates of Michael Madigan with do-nothing contracts to win the powerful speaker’s influence.

Appearing relaxed and speaking in a direct, firm voice, Marquez took the jury to the heart of the allegations in the “ComEd Four” case, explaining the push to get in Madigan’s good graces, the legislative wins that followed, as well as his understanding that the hiring orders were coming directly from the speaker himself.

The roster of “subcontractors” was curated by Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, and read like a who’s who of Madigan’s vaunted political operation, including two legendary precinct captains, a former assistant majority leader in the House and two former Chicago alderman at the center of Madigan’s Southwest Side base of power, according to Marquez.

Over the course of eight years, ComEd paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though they had no particular expertise and ultimately did virtually no work for the utility. Some seemed to be downright incompetent, Marquez said.

“I know that they were brought on as a favor to Michael Madigan,” Marquez testified. “For Madigan to see ComEd positively. So that he could perhaps be helpful for our legislative agenda in Springfield.”

During Marquez’s testimony, prosecutors also played several of the key wiretapped recordings in the case, including a May 2018 call between McClain and Anne Pramaggiore, ComEd’s then-CEO.

“Have you thought any more about Mike Zalewski?” McClain asked on the call, referring to putting the retiring 23rd Ward alderman on the ComEd payroll.

“Yeah I told Fidel to hire him, to get it done,” Pramaggiore responded.

Marquez also told the jury about several intriguing behind-the-scenes political maneuvers, including the alleged plot to put former McPier boss Juan Ochoa on ComEd’s board and how the speaker allegedly gave the company the go ahead to kill a piece of legislation that had been pushed by his own daughter, then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Marquez, 59, who is considered to be the star witness for prosecutors, took the stand as the ComEd Four trial kicked off its third week Monday, and his testimony is expected to last several days.

On trial are McClain, Pramaggiore, former ComEd contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, and John Hooker, who preceded Marquez in the job before retiring in 2012 and becoming a contract lobbyist for ComEd.

Madigan and McClain, meanwhile, are facing separate racketeering charges alleging an array of corrupt schemes, including the bribery plot by ComEd.

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.

Marquez began by telling the jury about being confronted by the FBI in January 2019 and his subsequent decision to cooperate and make secret recordings of his colleagues. He ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of bribery conspiracy and faces up to five years in prison, but if he testifies truthfully prosecutors will recommend no jail time, he said.

When asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu what he pleaded guilty to, Marquez responded, “Conspiracy to corruptly influence and reward Speaker Michael Madigan.”

He told the jury that Madigan “wielded immense power” in the legislature, noting the speaker could put up roadblocks at several stages of the legislative process and that ComEd would have difficulty passing legislation without repairing the relationship with him.

In the late 2000s, the company’s relationship with Madigan “was not a very good one,” he said, adding that Madigan’s experience in getting inaccurate information during ComEd’s efforts to pass the failed merger legislation meant “he grew to mistrust” the utility.

“Efforts had to be made to improve that relationship with Michael Madigan and regain his trust,” Marquez said.

At the forefront of that effort was McClain, whom Marquez described as “very loyal” to the utility but also somewhat of a double-agent.

“If there was a difference between ComEd and Michael Madigan, if there was an issue, (McClain) would side with Michael Madigan,” Marquez testified.

Pramaggiore, meanwhile, developed a “close, if not somewhat personal” relationship with Madigan after she took over as ComEd’s CEO in 2012, getting to know his family and traveling with the speaker on an economic junket to Turkey, Marquez said.

“She was aware of his children, when Michael Madigan had a new grandbaby ... things of that nature,” Marquez told the jury.

Marquez said that top people in Madigan’s office participated in the negotiations of major legislation pushed by ComEd, including the 2011 Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, which created a new formula rate and rescued ComEd from dire financial hardship.

During those negotiations, as well as in other talks about the ensuring Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016, Madigan continually sought “sunset provisions” in order to make the company return to Springfield to seek extensions to its electricity rate formulas, Marquez said.

Marquez said that soon after the EIMA bill passed, Pramaggiore called a meeting at ComEd where they discussed a “to-do list” that had come from straight from Madigan. Among the items were to hire “certain individuals,” including a relative of then-state Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, he said.

Marquez says he first learned about the broader “subcontractor” plot in June 2013, via an email that McClain sent to Pramaggiore asking that Ed Moody, a longtime precinct captain for Madigan’s 13th Ward operation, be moved “off my contract and onto Jay Doherty’s or someone else’s.”

In November 2016, after Moody was named a Cook County commissioner, his contract was moved again to avoid a “significant ethics concern,” Marquez said. This time, he was to be paid by the consulting firm headed by Shaw Decremer, another Madigan lieutenant.

In an email to Marquez that was shown to the jury, McClain wrote: “Fidel, our friend has talked to Ed Moody. Shaw is OK with his role. Please initiate all the paperwork. ... I thank you. Best, Mike.”

Marquez testified that by “our friend,” he knew that McClain meant Madigan.

Marquez also testified that on McClain’s request, he agreed to pay $5,000 a month to former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, a former Madigan assistant majority leader who left the House to start a lobbying business.

Marquez said he had reservations about Acevedo’s qualifications, but agreed to pay him anyway because he came from Madigan.

“I considered Eddie Acevedo as a legislator who was very emotional, someone who was typically high maintenance,” Marquez said. “I didn’t consider him as very smart.”

He said at after-hours gatherings, Acevedo would “drink excessively and become very sloppy.”

Marquez testified McClain promised to have a “Daddy Talk” with Acevedo to rein him in.

At one point in his testimony, Marquez also explained a cryptic email that McClain wrote indicating that ComEd had the “green light” to kill a major bill that the speaker’s daughter, wanted passed in 2018, the last of her 16 years in the statewide post.

In the email, Marquez testified, McClain described to ComEd that the attorney general was seeking to make the legislation a “legacy” bill as she was heading out the door, but that he had secured permission for ComEd to block it in the House,

Coming near the end of the spring legislation, McClain’s email told ComEd executives “a month ago a friend of ours,” meaning Madigan, “alerted me and thereby us to this initiative. As we all know, that was code for we can go ahead and kill it.”

McClain also wrote ComEd initially failed to kill the legislation and warned that “now it has substantial legs,” a term indicating the attorney general’s bill had momentum.

One key part of the attorney general-backed bill would have required ComEd to give more assistance to low-income electricity users, but the company opposed it because other customers would pay more to cover the costs, Marquez testified.

Even as Lisa Madigan negotiated with ComEd, though, prosecutors have alleged her father was pressing the utility for two key jobs.

One Madigan push allegedly was to put Ochoa, the former chief of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, on ComEd’s board of directors. Madigan allegedly backed Ochoa, who previously battled the speaker over political issues, because he was a friend of then-U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

The second hire Madigan allegedly sought was for Ald. Zalewski, a longtime ally of the speaker.

Prosecutors played a May 2018 recording between McClain and Pramaggiore in which he informed her the speaker wanted her to keep pressing to get Ochoa appointed to the ComEd board and Zalewski on a contract.

“OK got it. I will keep pressing,” Pramaggiore said.

McClain told Pramaggiore on the call that when he talked to Madigan about Ochoa’s potential financial problems, the speaker’s response was that “Harry Truman filed for bankruptcy” too.

Pramaggiore laughed. “It is classic him! I love it. And he would know that, you know?” she said.

Listen to the audio:

ComEd eventually put Ochoa and Zalewski into the positions Madigan allegedly requested, and the legislation Attorney General Madigan sought was defeated during a full-court press by ComEd lobbyists.

Prosecutors showed McClain briefed Pramaggiore on Madigan’s political machinations during a call in 2018. McClain told Pramaggiore how Madigan was taking advantage of Democratic J.B. Pritzker’s self-funding on his governor campaign, saying the speaker was going to regular givers in gubernatorial races, raised $13 million and had another million more stashed in campaign funds of legislative allies.

The last recording played in court Monday captured McClain and Marquez talking about revamping the “magic list” of Madigan-favored lobbyists that McClain kept. A previous witness testified that McClain kept the handwritten list on stationery from the Talbott Hotel in Chicago’s Gold Coast.

“There are two Republicans on that list, Matt O’Shea and Nancy Kimme,” McClain said on the Dec. 5, 2018, call. O’Shea was a former Republican staffer, while Kimme was a lobbyist who’d served as chief of staff to Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

“OK, OK. Good to know that,” Marquez replied.

Before Marquez got started Monday, jurors heard about how Pramaggiore had such a close relationship with Madigan that she called him first when she was given a promotion to Exelon Utilities, which is affiliated with ComEd’s parent company.

Soon after giving the speaker the happy news, which was not yet public, Pramaggiore called McClain, saying her promotion “never would have happened without you and John (Hooker) and the speaker.”

“You’ve been my spirit guides and more on that,” Pramaggiore told McClain, who at the time was waiting outside Madigan’s office at the Capitol while the speaker was meeting with his political nemesis, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

“Well we love ya,” McClain responded. “I’m so proud of you.”

Weeks later, McClain and Hooker were secretly recorded by the FBI talking about Pramaggiore’s move to the big time at Exelon.

“When we pulled up, we had the little jet,” Hooker said on the call, laughing. “She had the big Exelon jet. The big one you can stand up in.”

The grandeur of Exelon’s private jet also caught the fancy of Madigan, who joked with McClain on another recorded call that he might want to go back to work for a power company later in life, “because the plane that Anne rides in? You could carry the president of the United States in the thing.”

Pramaggiore abruptly stepped down from Exelon in October 2019, and was indicted the next year.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

rlong@chicagotribune.com