Don't put anything in writing': Jury views undercover videos in Madigan corruption trial

CHICAGO — Jurors in the corruption trial of former House Speaker Michael Madigan saw a series of undercover videos on Wednesday made by a former ComEd executive detailing an alleged scheme by the utility to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars through do-nothing contacts to some of the powerful speaker’s longtime associates.

The videos, taken by then-ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez over a period of weeks in early 2019, go to the heart of the corruption charges against Madigan and Michael McClain, a former lobbyist who allegedly acted as a conduit between Madigan and ComEd, helping funnel a total of $1.3 million to a handful of the speaker’s loyalists from 2011 to 2019 for little or no work.

Marquez flipped and began cooperating with federal investigators after being confronted by the FBI in the early morning hours of Jan. 16, 2019.

Two weeks later, he was wearing a hidden video camera when he lunched at the Union League Club in Chicago with John Hooker, a ComEd lobbyist who had previously headed the utility’s governmental affairs unit.

The pretense of the meeting was how Marquez was going to explain to incoming ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez, a former federal prosecutor, why the company was paying so much money to subcontractors and what, if any, work they’d been doing.

The subcontractors, who at that point included precinct captains Ray Nice and Ed Moody and former 23rd Ward Ald. Michael Zalewski, were being paid under a contract with Jay Doherty, a consultant and then-head of the City Club of Chicago.

On the video, which showed mostly the ceiling and the top of Hooker’s head, Hooker told Marquez he started the subcontractor arrangement with McClain and ran it through then-ComEd CEO Frank Clark, who stepped down in 2012.

“I was the one — me and McClain was — I was the one that created it,” Hooker said on the recording. “And I had to explain it to Frank,” Hooker said.

On Feb. 7, 2019, Marquez had a similar meeting with McClain at Saputo’s, a popular restaurant in Springfield. The recording started as the two munched on pizza, and McClain pointed at a piece of paper on the table and told Marquez about the speaker’s reticence over McClain’s retirement.

“So I prepared this for Madigan, all the things I’m responsible for when I retired,” McClain said. “I handed it to him. He started reading it and he says, ‘I don’t think you’re done yet.'”

Marquez laughed. “Is that like tendering your resignation, but it gets denied? It gets rejected?”

“Yeah,” McClain said.

The two then talked about how to tell Dominguez about the subcontractors. McClain urged, “I would say you don’t put anything in writing,” saying it could end up being used against Marquez someday.

McClain told Marquez the subcontractors were on Doherty’s contract so if the IRS “ever comes in and says ‘Who are these guys and what do they do?'” then “Doherty’s gotta prove it.”

Marquez lamented that Dominguez — whom he regarded as a tiresome micro-manager — was going to have his ex-prosecutor hat on, asking pesky questions.

“It’s very possible that’s what his reaction is going to be,” McClain said, telling Marquez he wanted to meet with Dominguez directly.

“I’d ask you to recommend (to Dominguez) that ‘before you do anything, can McClain and you have a sit-down?'” McClain said.

After a lunch break, prosecutors are expected to play a third video Marquez made with Doherty in February 2019, in which Doherty laid out in detail how the subcontractors were arranged, how much they were paid, and that they did little to nothing for him on a day-to-day basis.

One of the prosecution’s star witnesses, Marquez took the witness stand Tuesday for the first of what is expected to be multiple days of testimony.

Marquez pleaded guilty in 2020 to conspiracy to commit bribery. In exchange for his truthful testimony, prosecutors have said they will recommend a sentence of probation instead of prison time.

On Tuesday, Marquez also admitted that earlier this year he incorrectly filled out an application for a gun, which he wanted to fend off rattlesnakes near his Arizona home. When the application asked whether he was under indictment or information for a felony, he said no. On the stand Tuesday, Marquez said that was inadvertent.

Marquez is not facing charges related to that application, but Madigan and McClain’s attorneys are almost certain to use it to attack his credibility. The judge overseeing Marquez’s case warned him of that earlier this year, telling him he had basically “given a really beautiful piece of ammunition to Madigan’s lawyers.”

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.

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

In earlier testimony Wednesday, jurors heard a wiretapped phone call in which Madigan gave the green light to Marquez to stop making payments to another subcontractor, former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, who had allegedly been hired by the utility as a favor to the speaker.

“I can get rid of Eddie?” Marquez asked McClain on the Dec. 5, 2018, call.

“Yep,” McClain replied.

“Alright, so he’s not gonna go screaming to the Spea– he’s gonna go screaming to our friend anyway?” Marquez said, using McClain’s “our friend” euphemism for Madigan to indicate that Acevedo was sure to complain directly to the speaker.

“No matter what,” McClain said.

McClain then told Marquez that he’d had his share of tough conversations over the years, making him more of an enforcer for Madigan than even his former chief of staff, Tim Mapes.

“Everybody else thinks that Tim Mapes is the enforcer,” McClain said on the call. “They have no (expletive) idea.”

The exchange was one of the few new excerpts played so far in Madigan’s trial that were not previously made public in the related ComEd Four trial last year, where McClain, Doherty, Hooker, and former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore were all convicted of bribery conspiracy.

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