Jurors in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial saw a parade of FBI agents testify Wednesday about raids on the City Club and the home of its longtime president, Jay Doherty, scooping up emails, invoices, text messages and voicemails tied to the far-reaching bribes-for-favors case.
The voicemails gave jurors their first opportunity to hear the voice of Ed Moody, the former Cook County official and longtime precinct captain in former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom.
The raid on the Wrigley Building office of the City Club, a forum for public and civic leaders, came on May 14, 2019, the day after the group featured a speech by U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley on China and a day before U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, according to testimony and City Club’s website.
Doherty, with an attorney present at his condo in Chicago’s posh Streeterville neighborhood, agreed to let agents seize his phone, according to FBI Special Agent Kyle Sherrer, who was one of four agents to testify Wednesday morning.
On the phone was an October 2016 voicemail from Moody saying the speaker wanted him to call Doherty. “Hey Jay, this is uh, Ed Moody calling. The speaker wanted me to reach out to you, if you would you please return my call.”
[ ‘ComEd Four’ bribery trial: What you need to know ]
According to the indictment, Moody had received ComEd payments each month as a subcontractor on Doherty’s consulting and lobbyist firm, but he was just moving into an appointed post as a Cook County Board member, which put him in conflict with Doherty’s duties of lobbying local officials.
Prosecutors have alleged Moody was switched to another lobbyist’s payroll to keep his subcontract payments coming even though agents testified they could find no records that indicated any work product with ComEd.
Moody is not charged in the case and is expected to be called as a prosecution witness before the government rests, possibly as soon as Tuesday.
Jurors also got a peek at photos of Doherty’s cluttered home office. Amid the stacks of papers and photos of Doherty with city luminaries were checks and invoices to and from Moody, another 13th Ward precinct captain Ray Nice, former 13th Ward Ald. Frank Olivo and Mike Zalewski, the former alderman of the 23rd Ward, Sherrer testified.
[ ‘ComEd Four’ trial: Evidence seen and heard by the jury ]
Among that evidence was a text message exchange between Doherty and Anne Pramaggiore, the former ComEd CEO who is a co-defendant, in which he complained about not getting paid in July 2014.
“Anne for some reason we did not get paid in June,” Doherty wrote. “Please check on this as I want to pay ‘our sub-contractors’ today, if possible. Thank you so much.“
“We are on it,” Pramaggiore soon texted back.
An FBI raid on the same day of McClain’s home in Quincy led to the seizure of his phone and a review of computer records that showed a calendar in which he and Madigan had sched
uled as many as 27 meals together over the course of a year up through April 2019.
One politically intriguing date on the schedule was a lunch McClain had set aside with Madigan on May 16, 2019, two days after the raids. But there was not a specific indication in court that the two actually met.
Doherty also noted in email to Pramaggiore from October 2014 that
he was “thrilled” that she and the speaker had developed a “nice relationship” based on an observance at a reception the prior night.
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She responded by thanking Doherty, saying it had been a “long path” to get to that point and thanked him because he was “always there for us.”
FBI agents repeatedly testified they did not find evidence of any work product done for ComEd by any of the Doherty subcontractors.
The ComEd Four trial is now in its fourth week, with prosecutors more than halfway through their case in chief.
Charged in the case are McClain, Pramaggiore, Doherty, and John Hooker, a former ComEd executive and longtime lobbyist.
They are accused of steering $1.3 million in payments from ComEd to Madigan-approved subcontractors with Doherty’s consulting firm who did little or no work in a bid to win the speaker’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.
The indictment also alleged the defendants schemed to hire a clout-heavy law firm run by Madigan’s onetime ally Victor Reyes, appoint former McPier boss Juan Ochoa to the company’s board of directors, and stack the utility’s summer internship program with candidates sent from Madigan’s 13th Ward.
The four on trial have all pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers have contended the government is trying to turn legal lobbying into a crime.
