Jurors found all four defendants in the highly publicized "ComEd 4" trial guilty on all counts Tuesday.
The verdict comes after a week of deliberations in the case, in which the defendants are accused of seeking favors for Illinois' largest electric utility by arranging $1.3 million in contracts and payments for associates of a powerful state politician.
The four people on trial are former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan confidant Michael McClain, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty. All pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including bribery conspiracy, and all four were found guilty on all counts.
Pramaggiore and McClain were convicted of four counts of falsifying records, four counts of bribery of a public official and one count of conspiracy. Doherty and Hooker were convicted of one count of conspiracy, one count of bribery of a public official, and four counts of falsifying records.
Madigan is not in court and faces his own trial in April 2024, after being charged with racketeering in a separate indictment. He was, however, a key part of the evidence presented throughout the trial.
Central to the trial was an allegation that ComEd paid $1.3 million to five Madigan allies through various intermediaries, including a consulting firm owned by Doherty. The recipients of that money allegedly did little or no work for it, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said the defendants knew it.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Amar Bhacu told jurors the defendants were careful not to disclose their alleged scheme.
“We are not talking about amateurs here. We are not talking checkers; we are talking chess. When it came to chess, Mr. McClain and the others were grand masters at corruption,” he said.
The government said legislation pulled ComEd back from the brink of bankruptcy.
The defendants say there was no criminal conspiracy, but they were building good will, just as any good lobbyist would have done.
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Illinois Senate President Don Harmon said in response to the verdict that the "behavior brought to light and put on display at this trial was shockingly gluttonous and unhealthy to democracy."
"We’ve taken concrete steps to discourage bad behavior. But most importantly, I believe we have people committed to behaving better," Harmon said.
Meanwhile, House Republican Leader Tony McCombie called the trial “a costly seven week reminder of just what is wrong in state government."
"This guilty verdict has proven that the system of doing business in Springfield is broken," McCombie said. "This should not have been the first step to rooting out corruption in Illinois, but after today, it is clear there must be a sense of urgency in bringing back the people’s trust in state government.”
The group will learn their sentence at a later date, the judge announced Tuesday.
Check back for more on this developing story.
