Prosecutors prepare to rest in ComEd bribery case after 36 witnesses

[April 12, 2023]  By Brett Rowland | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Prosecutors have nearly finished presenting their case to jurors in the Commonwealth Edison bribery trial after calling 37 witnesses over 16 days.

For most of the day Tuesday, prosecutors had one of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's top political operatives on the stand. Madigan's former precinct captain, Edward Moody, told jurors he was paid through utility contracts with lobbyists for years despite doing little, if any, work for many of those years.

Moody explained how he met Madigan while walking through the neighborhood near Midway Airport with his twin brother, Fred.

Prior to that he worked at White Castle and a security firm.

Eventually, after building a reputation as a valuable campaign worker – in part due to intensifying the use of yard signs in political campaigns in the early 1990s - he got a job working as a jury supervisor in Cook County. He didn't apply for the job or get an interview.

"I wasn't interviewed because I knew I already had the job," he said, explaining that Madigan got him the position.

Moody also told the jury that as part of an immunity letter he got from prosecutors he was required to testify truthfully at trial.

Defense attorneys pushed back on allegations that Moody didn't do any work. Defendant Michael McClain's attorney, Patrick Cotter, on cross-examination pointed to a report that showed Moody performed 225 hours of canvassing during a four-month period in 2013 in neighborhoods related to ComEd service.

The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago on Tuesday, April 5, 2023.
By Brett Rowland | The Center Square

Prosecutors hit back, noting that outside of that period, Moody did little work to justify his $4,500 monthly payments which were paid out through lobbying contracts with four different lobbyists over a span of years.

Moody said the payments stopped when he became the Cook County Recorder of Deeds in late 2018.

Prosecutors have charged longtime Madigan associate McClain, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, one-time ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and former ComEd contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, who also once served as the head of the City Club civic group, with conspiracy, bribery, and willfully falsifying ComEd books and records.

Prosecutors allege the four gave out $1.3 million in jobs, contracts, and payments in exchange for favorable treatment on legislation affecting the utility in Springfield. All four have pleaded not guilty.

Madigan, who resigned from the legislature after losing the House speakership in January 2021, has been charged with 23 counts of racketeering, bribery, and official misconduct in a separate case that could go to trial in April 2024. Madigan also has pleaded "not guilty."

Brett Rowland is an award-winning journalist who has worked as an editor and reporter in newsrooms in Illinois and Wisconsin. He is an investigative reporter for The Center Square.