ComEd lobbyist warns FBI mole to 'keep Madigan happy' and not engage in non-employment contracts

(CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS) – The FBI wasted no time in giving Fidel Marquez his first assignment after Edison, the chief lobbyist for the electric company Commonwealth, agreed to become a government mole in January 2019.

Before sunrise on the morning of January 16, 2019, a pair of agents knocked on the door of Marquez’s mother’s home. While standing in the foyer Wednesday, Marquez told a federal grand jury that he was “terrified” when agents played excerpts of wiretapped phone calls and quickly agreed to be a cooperating witness in the feds’ ongoing, massive investigation into public corruption in Illinois. .

The very next day, at the direction of the FBI, Marquez called two of ComEd’s most senior contract lobbyists to discuss the organization’s longstanding regulations with some key political allies of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Beginning in 2011, ComEd paid this group of what would eventually become five Madigan allies thousands of dollars each month for little or no work.

“I never, never, never said a word,” Chicago lobbyist Jay Doherty told Marquez in a January 2019 phone call about his long-ago agreement to funnel payments to Madigan employees through the ComEd contract.

But four months later, FBI agents raided Doherty’s offices in downtown Chicago. Agents across the city and state executed similar search warrants for others involved in the alleged scheme. The series of FBI searches on May 14, 2019, included the Quincy home of Mike McClain, the second search Marquez conducted after becoming a cooperating witness and ComEd’s top contract lobbyist in Springfield.

And this week, Marquez returned to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse for his second trial as prosecutors’ star witness, testifying that ComEd agreed to pay Madigan allies “as a favor” to the powerful speaker in exchange for legislation favorable to the utility. General Assembly.

Marquez’s testimony helped the feds win their case last year against McClain, Doherty and two other former ComEd executives for their roles in the bribery scheme, and now Madigan and McClain are defendants in a related bribery and racketeering case that extends well beyond ComEd. Allegations.

On Wednesday, the former speaker carefully watched the computer monitor at the defense table as prosecutors played video recordings Marquez secretly made in the winter of 2019. In a video, Doherty explained to Marquez the origins of the 2011 subcontracting arrangements and said they were planned. by ComEd’s then-CEO Frank Clark and Marquez’s predecessor, John Hooker, and McClain.

That year, Doherty agreed to begin paying newly retired Chicago Ald. Frank Olivo, from Madigan’s 13th Ward political power base, and Ray Nice, the 13th Ward precinct’s top captain. In the video, Doherty holds up four fingers to indicate the $4,000 monthly salary paid to Olivo; Nice was receiving $5,000 a month.

A few years later, another top Ward 13 captain, Ed Moody, moved from McClain’s contract to Doherty’s for $4,500 a month, but was eventually shifted to the contract of two other lobbyists. And in 2018, Ald. Mike Zalewski of Chicago’s 23rd Ward began receiving $4,000 monthly checks from Doherty shortly after retiring from the city council.

When asked what the subcontractors did in return for the checks, Doherty told Marquez “not really,” adding that he rarely even spoke to the men.

“They keep their mouth shut,” Doherty said a few minutes later. “But do they do anything for me every day? NO.”

At the FBI’s prompting, Marquez turned to Doherty, McClain, and Hooker for their advice on a very real issue: how to explain subcontracting arrangements to ComEd’s new CEO, Joe Dominguez.

Marquez was nervous about how Dominguez would react to Doherty’s announcement, which was necessary to confirm his contract renewal for 2019. But Doherty advised Marquez to present the issue in the overall context of ComEd’s economic sustainability.

“Number one: Your money is coming from Springfield,” Doherty said, referring to the state’s regulatory process for approving utility rates. “… Finally, my advice is this; If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it with those guys.”

And if Dominguez said, “Why would we pay that kind of money to a guy like Doherty and three other guys?” Doherty said it “could be answered with Madigan in Springfield.”

“And I think it’s worth it to make Mike Madigan happy,” he told Marquez.

A few weeks before meeting Doherty, Marquez secretly recorded Hooker during lunch at Chicago’s Union League Club. After Marquez took over Hooker’s job following his retirement from ComEd in 2012, Hooker became a contract lobbyist for the utility and the men remained close.

Although Marquez had planned the lunch under the pretext of discussing a similar post-retirement plan for himself, he also asked Hooker how he would approach Dominguez about subcontractors.

In addition to claiming credit for arranging the subcontractors in the first place, Hooker advised Doherty to write a report on what each of the subcontractors did.

But Marquez received conflicting advice from McClain at a similar lunch meeting the two had in Springfield a few weeks later.

“Don’t put anything in writing,” McClain advised between bites of pizza at Saputo’s, a prominent restaurant in Springfield’s political circles. “…I guess all I can do is hurt you.”

Earlier in the meeting, McClain confirmed Marquez’s concern that Dominguez might look at Doherty’s contract through the lens of his former job as a federal prosecutor and begin asking questions. In this case, McClain said Marquez should have explained how valuable the subcontractors were to Madigan’s political organization, adding that the arrangement was a “favor.”

McClain also said ComEd used Doherty’s contract to pay off Madigan allies, allowing “the IRS to come in and say, ‘Who are these guys and what are they doing?’ He also explained that if he says “he is protected from any federal tax investigation.”

“This is Doherty’s contract, so Doherty is the one who has to prove it,” he said.

McClain then offered to speak with Dominguez personally. Marquez, who initially declined assistance on the grounds that the matter was internal to ComEd and McClain’s involvement could be seen as “improper,” invited McClain to a meeting with Dominguez and Hooker in early March 2019.

In grainy video footage of the meeting, McClain explained to Dominguez that subcontractors were a remnant of the “old-fashioned patronage system.”

“’You’re a ward committee member, and we have seven meter readers in your ward, and you can name four of them,’” McClain said of the way utility officials have offered job opportunities to elected officials in the past. “And ComEd has been that way for years.”

McClain named two of the subcontractors and briefly explained their political significance to Madigan before interrupting, then finished by describing them as “good, solid people.”

“And we’re available when we need help, right?” Dominguez asked and McClain replied “hmm.”

None of McClain, Marquez, or Hooker publicly told Dominguez during this meeting that subcontractors had been paid for years without any work being done, but at the end of the meeting Dominguez stated that he was satisfied with this arrangement.

“Fidel, my view on all this is that it’s like the lobby team itself,” he said. “I hear people say, ‘What are these guys doing? Why do we pay them?’ And then all of a sudden, in that magic moment, they’ll do something—”

“It’s worth a hundred times what you paid them,” Marquez interjected.

At the end of the hearing Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu asked Marquez about the one-on-one conversation he had with Dominguez before the larger meeting; In this meeting, Marquez was a little more frank about the subcontractors not doing enough on this issue. On behalf of ComEd.

“Did he give you any reaction?” Bhachu asked.

“His first reaction was words to the effect of ‘there are some things I want to know and there are some things I don’t want to know,'” Marquez said.

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