CHICAGO — The former general counsel for Commonwealth Edison testified Tuesday that he had “reservations” about selecting Juan Ochoa for the utility’s board after a background check turned up some significant political baggage.

But Ochoa had something far more important in his back pocket: the recommendation of House Speaker Michael Madigan.

In one of the central allegations in Madigan’s corruption case, Tom O’Neill, ComEd’s former chief lawyer, testified that the then-powerful speaker wanted Ochoa, the former chief of McPier, placed in a rare vacant seat on the company’s board in late 2017 and that CEO Anne Pramaggiore was behind the move because Ochoa’s resume came from Madigan.

The position paid almost $80,000, and because ComEd was not publicly traded, the board was more “advisory” and its members served as “ambassadors” to the public, O’Neill told the jury in his second day on the witness stand.

The cushy position meant there was very little turnover. But a vacancy arose when longtime board member Jesse Ruiz decided to run for public office, according to records and O’Neill’s testimony.

On Nov. 14, 2017, Madigan’s office assistant forwarded Ochoa’s resume to Pramaggiore, with a note saying, “Speaker Madigan asked me to send this to you.” Pramaggiore passed it on to O’Neill.

When asked what he knew about Ochoa at that time, O’Neill said, “Nothing.”

O’Neill said they decided to do “due diligence” on Ochoa, and a background check turned up several items, including his former appointment of head of McPier by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. There was “bad press” around that job given his “lack of experience” and a general feeling that Ochoa was being rewarded for raising money for Blagojevich’s campaign, O’Neill said.

The background check also turned up Ochoa’s failure to keep up with mortgage payments on a property in Berwyn, resulting in foreclosure, and a lawsuit Ochoa filed claiming harassment by opponents in a political campaign, O’Neill said.

Though the issues were not immediately disqualifying, O’Neill said he talked with Pramaggiore about the “reservations” he had about Ochoa, including “that he had been referred by the speaker.”

“I thought that given some views in the community that we were very politically connected it would be in my words ‘bad optics'” to pick him, O’Neill said.

Pramaggiore said she understood those points, but still wanted to go forward with Ochoa, in part because he came recommended by Madigan and because he was Hispanic, and would be replacing a Hispanic member of the board, O’Neill said.

By the summer of 2018, Ruiz had lost the primary election and there was a “dust up” over possibly bringing him back to the ComEd board, O’Neill said. That led to more delay, and months later, the seat still hadn’t been filled.

In a November 2018 meeting, Pramaggiore, who by that time had been elevated to CEO of Exelon, stressed Ochoa should be picked, saying “it was important that the speaker referred” him and there was a “need to maintain good relations,” O’Neill said.

Ochoa was green-lighted at that meeting, and by spring of 2019, he was on the board. O’Neill testified.

Prosecutors allege the appointment of Ochoa was one of many political favors that ComEd bestowed on Madigan in exchange for his support for the utility’s legislative agenda.

The Tribune has previously reported that Ochoa’s appointment came about due to a strange political alliance between Madigan and former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who was one of the city’s most powerful Hispanic politicians.

Ochoa, who has not been charged, is expected to testify about his efforts to get on the board later in the trial, and the jury is expected to hear secretly recorded conversations where Madigan, Pramaggiore and the speaker’s longtime friend and confidant, Michael McClain, all weigh in on the effort.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise, scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work and using his public position to drum up business for his private law firm.

Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

O’Neill testified at length Monday about feeling pressured to complete, and then renew, a contract between ComEd and clouted law firm Reyes Kurson. Prosecutors allege that contract was among the many benefits the utility showered onto Madigan in exchange for his support of ComEd-friendly legislation.

O’Neill’s testimony has also reinforced what jurors have already heard from prior witnesses: The 2011 “Smart Grid” bill and the 2016 Future Energy Jobs Act were crucial to ComEd’s financial wellbeing and future stability, and Madigan was crucial to any legislation’s success.

Picking up in his testimony Tuesday, O’Neill said that even though McClain was ComEd’s top contract lobbyist for years, he had “a lot of different interests” and sometimes it was hard to figure out whom he was working for. One of his clients certainly seemed to be Madigan, he said.

“(We) had a joking term that he was a double agent,” O’Neill told the jury. “He had more than one client and it was hard to know which client he was serving.”

On cross-examination, Madigan attorney Dan Collins began by emphasizing that lobbying is a legal and recognized profession is Illinois, and showed jurors O’Neill’s own lobbyist registration paperwork to bring home the point.

And O’Neill agreed that the 2011 “Smart Grid” bill was extremely complex and, to get it passed, ComEd had to strategize around many different interests in Springfield inside and outside the legislature.

Collins also sought to portray Madigan’s staffers as diligent and hardworking in their talks with O’Neill and other ComEd representatives about getting the bill right.

O’Neill’s testimony was expected to conclude later Tuesday.

The trial, which began Oct. 8, started slowly but has ramped up considerably with the playing of a series of wiretapped phone calls from McClain’s phone that painted Madigan as hands-on to the extreme, ingrained in the day-to-day political minutia and particularly concerned about the negative optics the actions of others potentially posed for him.

Through tapes, emails and letters, jurors last week also got a clear window into the relationship between Madigan and McClain, who served together in the legislature in the 1970s and formed a friendship that put McClain in the extremely rare position of having the speaker’s ear.

The trial is expected to last until at least mid-December.

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