Ex-ComEd lawyer testifies that former Illinois House Speaker demanded favors for utility support

Thomas O’Neill, the former general counsel of powerful Illinois electric utility CommonWealth Edison, testified Oct. 28 that his lobbying efforts targeting former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) and his associates saved the utility from what he claims was an impending bankruptcy for him. interest rate increases that the speaker got approved through energy bills that only he could bring to the Illinois floor.

In exchange for political favors, O’Neill said, O’Neill provided lobbying payments to Madigan associates.

O’Neill’s daylong testimony detailed how former Illinois lawmaker and Madigan-linked lobbyist Michael McClain, who was convicted earlier this year along with three others involved in the scheme, including former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, facilitated passage of the 2011 legislation in exchange for a certain number of billable hours that ComEd paid to lobbyist Victor Reyes, internships for students from Madigan’s southwest neighborhood of Chicago and other political favors. McClain is once again on trial before Madigan, this time, for crimes not included in the earlier case.

O’Neill said that when he joined the utility giant in July 2010, it was in a “precarious financial position” and urgently needed to increase customer rates or the company might have had to file for bankruptcy protection. He then told jurors at the federal courthouse in Chicago how he spent much of his time in Springfield over the next six years. Illinois, lobbying for three separate utility bills, with McClain acting primarily as a go-between for Madigan.

“Mr. McClain had unfettered access to the speaker’s suite,” said O’Neill, who linked him to Madigan and the legislation, as well as to a contract ComEd entered into in October 2011 with Reyes Kurson, a law firm led by Victor Reyes , another political ally of Madigan.

The contract was approved as the General Assembly voted to override Governor Pat Quinn’s veto of ComEd’s first attempt at a rate hike. Years later, O’Neill tried to cut the law firm’s hours because yet another ComEd bill was about to be voted on, and then-ComEd CEO Pramaggiore received an email from McClain asking her warned not to do this.

“I’m sure you know how valuable Victor is to our friend,” McClain said in the email included with the file. “I know the business, and so do you. If you don’t get involved and solve this issue of 850 hours a year for his law firm, he will go to our friend. Our friend will call me and then I will call you. Is that so?” Is this a drill we have to go through?” Prosecutors said the “friend” was Madigan and O’Neill testified that was his view as well.

The contract between Reyes Kurson and ComEd was extended several months later, and another ComEd energy bill was approved in Springfield.

Prosecutors alleged that by bringing such bills to the floor, Madigan, a Springfield resident for more than four decades, not only guaranteed their eventual passage in the Democratic-controlled Illinois House, but also in the Senate. Madigan was also the chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois at the time and both houses were controlled by Democrats. In 2011, both chambers voted to override a veto by then-Governor Quinn for one of the bills that benefited ComEd through rate hikes.

“I was often, if not constantly, asked: Does the speaker support this? Or: Where is the speaker on this?” O’Neill testified.

Madigan faces 23 counts of bribery, extortion and wire fraud. One of the bills that Madigan supported and that benefited ComEd ended stricter clean energy standards and investments in the state’s energy grid because it was passed instead of a more robust bill backed at the time by Madigan’s own daughter, the former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. (D).

“We have to – we have to kill it. Period,” McClain told Pramaggiore in a recorded phone call in May 2018, according to an FBI affidavit filed in January 2019. Pramaggiore told others involved in the plan that she would be moving to the next level. position at ComEd’s parent company, Exelon, and they would be on their own if she were gone if the energy bill favored by Lisa Madigan had passed. ComEd settled with federal authorities and agreed to pay a $200 million fine for his role in the scheme in 2020. O’Neill is working with the government.