(The Center Square) – Sentencing is scheduled Monday for former ComEd Chief Executive Officer Anne Pramaggiore, who was convicted of corruption in a scheme to bribe former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
In May of 2023, a federal jury convicted Pramaggiore and three others of conspiracy, bribery and falsifying records. Last Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Manish Shah sentenced the first of the ComEd Four defendants, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker, to 1.5 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay a $500,000 fine.
Prosecutors said Pramaggiore should serve 70 months, or nearly six years in prison and pay a fine of $1.75 million.
University of Illinois Chicago professor emeritus Dick Simpson said he doesn’t expect any of the defendants to get less than Hooker’s 18 months.
“I think what is most important is that they be sentenced and that they be fully shown as they were in the trial to have been corrupt and to indicate to other companies that they shouldn’t engage in these kinds of practices with politicians in Illinois,” Simpson told The Center Square.
Simpson testified during the Madigan trial, but Judge Harry Leinenweber did not allow prosecutors to call Simpson as a witness in the ComEd Four case. Leinenweber ruled that a detailed history of the corruption of the Chicago political machine could prejudice the jury.
Simpson said judges account for the fact that more than 2,200 public officials in Illinois have gone to federal prison since 1976.
“They’re going to make sure that they give a sentence, whatever the length is, that tries to signal to others not to do the same thing,” Simpson explained.
Pramaggiore served as president and CEO of ComEd from 2012-2018, when she was promoted to senior executive vice president and CEO of ComEd’s parent company, Exelon Utilities. She resigned in 2019, when news broke of the federal investigation involving Madigan, lobbyists and ComEd. Soon after, Pramaggiore stepped down from her post as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
St. Xavier University professor David Parker said Pramaggiore’s position may call for enhanced sentencing.
“She was the CEO. Now you might try to claim plausible deniability on corporate structure and say, ‘I was too far removed.’ In fact, that’s what they tried with the subcontractors, to build layers between themselves. At the trial, they said, “No, you were guilty of conspiracy and bribery, willingly falsifying books and records.’ The jury just didn’t believe that they didn’t know what was going on,” Parker told The Center Square.
ComEd agreed to pay $200 million in 2020 to resolve a criminal investigation into the years-long bribery scheme. As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, ComEd admitted it arranged $1.3 million in jobs, vendor subcontracts and payments to influence Madigan.
On Feb. 12, a jury convicted the former speaker on 10 counts of bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and use of a facility to promote unlawful activity. On June 13, Judge John Robert Blakey sentenced Madigan to 7.5 years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of $2.5 million. The longtime speaker and Democratic Party of Illinois chairman is scheduled to report to prison Oct. 13, although his attorneys have asked that he be allowed to remain free pending an appeal.
Madigan’s former associate, former state representative and ex-lobbyist Michael McClain, D-Quincy, was not convicted in the former speaker’s trial but faces sentencing on Thursday, July 24 in the ComEd Four case.
Sentencing for the final ComEd four defendant, former contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, is set for Aug. 5.
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Pramaggiore’s sentencing is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.
Brett Rowland contributed to this story.