Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore was sentenced to two years in prison for helping lead a scheme to illegally influence then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah delivered the sentence in a Chicago courtroom on Monday. He said Pramaggiore was “all in” on a “creative arrangement” to bribe Madigan and cover it up.
“This was corruption expressed through the falsification of books and records,” Shah said from the bench.
Pramaggiore declined to address the judge before he sentenced her.
Pramaggiore’s lawyer Scott Lassar told Shah he would “never have a finer person appear before” him than Pramaggiore. He argued that Pramaggiore rose to power because she was a “transformational leader” who helped her employees. Lassar also said Pramaggiore “never requested help from Madigan to help pass legislation.”
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker argued Pramaggiore deserved a lengthy sentence to send a message that “legislation cannot be bought.”
“[Pramaggiore] had the power to stop this scheme at any time. She could have said ‘no’ to Madigan’s requests. She didn’t. Instead, she made a deliberate choice to continue it,” Streicker said.
Pramaggiore spent six years as the CEO of ComEd, Illinois’ largest utility, before moving on to become CEO of Exelon Utilities. In May 2023, a jury found her and three others guilty of the scheme aimed at Madigan.
Jurors heard that Pramaggiore and her co-conspirators arranged for ComEd to pay $1.3 million to five Madigan allies over eight years so that Madigan would look more favorably at the utility’s legislative agenda.
The money was not paid directly to Madigan’s allies, but through intermediaries. The recipients did little to no work for the utility.
Amid Pramaggiore’s tenure at ComEd, jurors heard that her strategy in Springfield basically amounted to “what’s important for the Speaker [Madigan] is important to ComEd.”
But they heard that Pramaggiore went further. Secret FBI wiretaps captured her telling a key ally of Madigan’s “you take good care of me and, and so does our friend, and I will do the best that I can to, to take care of you.”
Pramaggiore and others often referred to Madigan as “our friend,” according to trial testimony.
When told in May 2018 that Madigan wanted her to continue pressing for a prominent Latino businessman to be installed on ComEd’s board of directors, Pramaggiore immediately responded by saying, “Got it. I will keep pressing.”
Still, the feds’ most notable recording of Pramaggiore may be a conversation she had with Fidel Marquez, then an executive with ComEd. Marquez agreed to wear a wire, recording Pramaggiore and his other friends and colleagues for the FBI to avoid prison.
Marquez spoke to Pramaggiore by phone on Feb. 18, 2019, while working for the feds. He told her he was trying to figure out how to explain the payment arrangement for Madigan’s allies to the person who had succeeded her as ComEd’s CEO.
Marquez acknowledged that “all these guys do is pretty much collect a check.”
Pramaggiore suggested telling the new CEO “it’s probably a good time to make a switch,” but she said they should also wait until the end of the legislative session in Springfield.
“We do not want to get caught up in a, you know, disruptive battle where, you know, somebody gets their nose out of joint and we’re trying to move somebody off and then we get forced to give ‘em a five-year contract because we’re in the middle of needing to get something done in Springfield,” Pramaggiore said.
Pramaggiore testified at trial and argued the call actually proved her innocence, because at one point she could be heard saying “oh my God.” She said she was “taken aback” by some of Marquez’s comments.
She also said she’d forgotten about the call by the time she was approached by the FBI in May 2019. But prosecutors say her testimony about the call was an “outright lie.”
Pramaggiore is the second of the four defendants in the ComEd bribery case to be sentenced. Last week, the judge gave 18 months in prison to former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker.
Michael McClain, a longtime confidant of Madigan’s, is set to be sentenced Thursday. The fourth defendant, onetime City Club President Jay Doherty, faces sentencing Aug. 5.
A separate jury convicted Madigan earlier this year, in part for his role in the ComEd conspiracy. U.S. District Judge John Blakey sentenced him last month to 7 ½ years in prison.
Madigan is now asking Blakey to let him remain free while he appeals his conviction. Pramaggiore’s lawyer made a similar request Monday. Her legal team has long insisted upon her innocence.
Weeks after her conviction, her lawyer told a judge there’s a “significant chance that we may be trying this case again.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
