By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com
Article Summary
- Mike McClain, who spent decades as one of the most influential lobbyists in Springfield due to his close relationship with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, has been sentenced to 24 months in prison.
- McClain is the third of his “ComEd Four” co-defendants to face sentencing for his role in a yearslong bribery scheme aimed at Madigan, in which the speaker’s allies got jobs and contracts at electric utility Commonwealth Edison to grease the wheels for major legislation the company was pushing at the Statehouse.
- Like Madigan, McClain plans to appeal and will be asking to stay out of prison while the legal process plays out.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
CHICAGO — Longtime Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain, who spent years as a close friend and advisor to ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday for his role in a bribery scheme targeted at the former speaker.
McClain, 77, was the marquee defendant in 2023’s “ComEd Four” trial and the third of his co-conspirators to be sentenced for their convictions related to the yearslong scheme. As electric utility Commonwealth Edison’s top contract lobbyist, McClain pushed for the company to give jobs and contracts to Madigan allies, which the feds say greased the wheels for major legislation the company was pushing in Springfield.
Before handing down his sentence Thursday, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah directly refuted McClain’s repeated defense that he was merely engaging in normal and legal lobbying when he passed job recommendations from Madigan to ComEd. Shah said there was “nothing wrong with … building goodwill to get a seat at the table,” but said that should never have involved “phony contracts, false invoices and do-nothing jobs” involved in a cumulative $1.3 million paid to a handful of Madigan’s political allies.
“You preferred secrecy and lies,” Shah said, pointing out that McClain had not only been the architect of the ghost contractor program but also paid one of the speaker’s most valuable political workers under his own contract from 2012 to 2014. “You preferred Mr. Madigan. You chose his way and the consequences of that choice are yours to bear.”
Sentencing hearings in the ComEd Four case were put off for more than two years, in part to let the related corruption trial of Madigan himself play out. McClain was also a defendant in that trial, but the former lobbyist walked out of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse without a conviction after the jury delivered a mixed verdict, including deadlocking on all six counts pertaining to both Madigan and McClain.
Madigan was sentenced to 7½ years in prison last month for his convictions on bribery and other corruption charges, most of which stemmed from the ComEd scheme.
In hundreds of FBI wiretapped calls played at both trials, McClain constantly referenced his relationship with the speaker, which stretched back to the 1970s when they were both young Democratic state representatives. As he explained on one recording, he called Madigan “our friend” in order to minimize others overhearing him talking about the powerful speaker. In other key calls, he referred to Madigan as his “real client,” and called himself the speaker’s “agent.”
But for all the secretly taped conversations presented as evidence in the case, McClain attorney Patrick Cotter on Thursday told the judge: “You never heard him ask Mike Madigan to help with legislation.”
“He never did that,” Cotter said, echoing his arguments from both trials that McClain helped ComEd pass legislation through sophisticated and expensive lobbying campaigns that often took years.
Cotter, who has represented McClain since the day in May 2019 when the lobbyist’s home was searched as part of a coordinated FBI effort, said his client’s story hasn’t changed since the feds asked him to cooperate.
“Mike was told six years ago that if he would just say he intended to bribe (Madigan), he’d be much better off. He could help himself,” Cotter said. “But he couldn’t say it then, and he can’t say it today. Because in his heart, he does not believe it is true.”
The attorney said McClain “has paid a very large price” for refusing to go along with the government’s story “as some others did” — a reference to government witnesses including former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez, who agreed to wear a wire on McClain and their colleagues. Marquez testified in both trials and will likely see his single conspiracy charge dropped.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur, a prosecutor in both cases, said McClain’s willingness to be used as a conduit between Madigan and ComEd — McClain’s biggest client — subverted the autonomy of not just a private business but a utility regulated by the state of Illinois.
“It allowed Madigan to use ComEd like a benefit fulfillment warehouse, with Michael McClain taking Madigan’s requests, boxing them up and delivering them straight to the speaker of the Illinois House,” she said.
Shah echoed MacArthur’s sentiments before handing down his sentence, referencing how decades ago, a division within Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation — where the speaker’s father and eventually a young Madigan worked — was nicknamed “Madigan Electric” for the speaker’s ability “to get people jobs in that bureau.”
“It seems like with your help, ‘Madigan Electric’ included ComEd itself,” the judge said.
Beyond the $1.3 million paid out in do-nothing contracts with Madigan allies, ComEd was also pressured to hire constituents of Madigan’s and those connected to those in the speaker’s orbit. McClain could be pushy about those applicants, as well as students from Madigan’s 13th Ward on Chicago’s Southwest Side, who were hired as interns through a separate process than competing candidates.
McClain got ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore involved in other matters, including the speaker’s push for a political ally’s appointment to ComEd’s board and the renewal of a multi-year contract for a law firm owned by Democratic fundraiser and Madigan ally Victor Reyes.
MacArthur on Thursday quoted from a 2016 email McClain wrote to Pramaggiore about the flagging contract negotiations, which he warned might “provoke a reaction from our Friend.”
“I know the drill and so do you. If you do not get involve(d) and resolve this issue of 850 hours for his law firm per year then he will go to our Friend,” McClain wrote of Reyes. “Our Friend will call me and then I will call you. Is this a drill we must go through?”
Earlier this week, Pramaggiore was also sentenced to two years in prison, while former ComEd executive John Hooker received an 18-month sentence last week. Lobbyist Jay Doherty, who agreed to be used as a pass-through for the clouted do-nothing contractors, faces sentencing in early August.
All four co-defendants received across-the-board guilty verdicts after their 2023 trial, but Shah earlier this year tossed the convictions on most of the bribery counts, only leaving in place an overarching conspiracy charge. Their sentences are based on that count, as well as charges involving having falsified ComEd’s books and records in the co-conspirators’ efforts to further the bribery scheme.
Prosecutors won’t pursue a retrial on the bribery charges and have been asking Shah to dismiss the counts after each sentencing.
Though the feds had originally asked Shah to impose a near-six-year sentence on McClain, Pramaggiore’s and Hooker’s lighter sentences — along with the former lobbyist’s significant health challenges — prompted prosecutors to downgrade that recommendation to 36 months, which they announced in court on Thursday.
Potter had referenced the “financial ruin” that the last six years had brought on McClain, and Shah agreed the former lobbyist didn’t have the means to pay a large sum.
McClain was stoic while the judge read his sentence but began crying as he started hugging his similarly tearful family after the hearing, starting with his wife, Cinda. Later, McClain left the courthouse with Cotter and his family, avoiding reporters gathered in the lobby.
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