A legendary precinct captain for then-House Speaker Michael Madigan took the witness stand Tuesday in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial, telling jurors what it was like going door-to-door for the speaker’s candidates beginning in the early 1990s.
Ed Moody, who rose to become Cook County commissioner and later the recorder of deeds, revealed he received an immunity letter from prosecutors in exchange for his testimony, meaning if he “simply tells the truth” the evidence can’t be used against him.
Moody said that over the years, he and his twin brother, Fred, won many accolades from Madigan for their successes going door-to-door for the speaker’s candidates. But while he loved campaigning, Moody said there was also a “fear component” to it that comes with the machine politics.
“The speaker had you know, very high standards, and he could punish you,” he said.
Wearing glasses and a gray suit, Moody began his highly anticipated testimony by telling jurors about growing up with a twin brother, Fred, in the Chicago area, where he had a variety of jobs before going to work for Madigan political operation.
“I worked for White Castles, I worked for a security firm, maintenance,” Moody said.
Moody said that when he was in his mid-20s, he and his brother would sometimes run into Madigan during their long walks in West Lawn neighborhood.
“My twin brother and I loved to walk. We literally could walk four five hours at a crack,” he said. When they’d bump into Madigan, he’d pause to talk politics, Moody said.
“He responded well,” Moody testified.
[ ‘ComEd Four’ bribery trial: What you need to know ]
Moody said he and his brother volunteered on Bill Lipinski’s campaign for Congress in the early 1990s, helping circulate petitions in his redrawn district. Shortly after, they got a call and “met with the speaker” at the 13th Ward office on Pulaski, where it was decided they’d be dispatched as precinct captains, he said.
Moody said Madigan’s office decided that “the worst thing you could do is split up twins,” so he and his brother were named co-precinct captains in the 54th precinct.
Being a precinct captain, Moody said, was “really about building relationships and building rapport and almost becoming a member of their family.”
“But it was also about winning elections, connecting them to city services, county services, state services,” he said.
Moody said he loved going door to door, meeting new people and convincing them to vote for his candidates.
[ ‘ComEd Four’ trial: Evidence seen and heard by the jury ]
After a 1992 win in a suburban election in a Republican-dominated district, Madigan met personally with the Moody brothers. He told them they were “Of the charts,” Moody says. “We did really well.”
As their wins piled up, Moody said, he was given a variety of politically connected jobs, including with the county highway department and as a jury coordinator for the chief judge in the Bridgeview courthouse.
He said he and his brother had a rare, angry confrontation with Madigan after asking him in 2012 for a lobbyist job that paid more money. After Madigan failed to respond, they demanded a meeting at the ward office.
“It was tense,” Moody said. “I told him I said you know, are you upset with us? What did we do wrong?”
Madigan was upset too, Moody said. “He said calm down. He said you’re gonna get your contract. You’re gonna make your $45,000 a year.” That’s when he was sent to Michael McClain, a lobbyist for ComEd and one of Madigan’s top confidants, he said.
Moody met with McClain at Huck Finn’s restaurant on the Southwest Side. McClain told him, “This was a hell of a plum and that I owe the speaker big,” Moody said He handed him a list of legislators and said call and ask if they had any issues with ComEd.
Moody said that speaker had made it clear: “I control that contract and if you stop doing political work, I would lose” it.
Moody’s testimony comes as prosecutors are preparing to rest their case.
Ed Moody, 58, who has not been charged with wrongdoing. His emergence as a government cooperator sent shockwaves throughout Democratic circles, from Madigan’s base of power on Chicago’s Southwest Side to the insiders hanging out in the Illinois Capitol’s rotunda.
As someone deeply embedded in Madigan’s organization, Moody could potentially spill secrets long suspected but rarely revealed outside of the 13th Ward, where Madigan first served as committeeman in 1969 under the tutelage of Democratic Mayor Richard J. Daley.
To be sure, Moody’s highly anticipated testimony promises an unprecedented street-level view of a political machine that dominated the state for decades and fueled Madigan’s 36-year nationwide record run as speaker of the Illinois House.
For years, Moody and his twin brother, Fred, promulgated an almost mythical reputation as a special-operations team that Madigan often referred to as his “best,” legendary for their door-knocking skills and a gift of persuasion that kept votes coming in for the speaker and his acolytes year after year.
They were the go-to twins dispatched all over the state when Madigan needed to turn around the voters in a critical legislative district in the heat of the campaign. And they did it time after time since the mid-1990s.
Former Madigan staffer Will Cousineau, who testified for the prosecution last month, told the jury that when it came to the Moody brothers’ involvement in state’s tightest House campaigns, door-to-door work was “basically all they did.”
“They were some of the best,” Cousineau testified. “We would typically assign them to some of our hardest races.”
Fred Moody, who retired after working for years at the Cook County Circuit Court clerk’s office, also is not accused of wrongdoing and is not expected to testify in the trial.
Charged in the ComEd Four case are Michael McClain, a retired lobbyist and Madigan’s closest confidant; former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore; ex-ComEd executive and lobbyist John Hooker; and former ComEd contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, the ex-president of the City Club civic group.
The indictment alleges the four defendants steered $1.3 million in payments from ComEd to Madigan-approved subcontractors — including Moody — 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 political operative Victor Reyes and stack the utility’s summer internship program with candidates sent from the 13th Ward.
The four on trial have all pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers have contended the government is trying to turn legal lobbying and job recommendations into a crime.
Madigan and McClain face a separate racketeering indictment that is set for trial next year.
Prosecutors have said that Moody will testify he began receiving $45,000 per year from McClain beginning in May 2012, at first for doing nothing more than calling a list of legislators “to determine if they had any issues relevant to ComEd.”
Jurors got a look at Moody’s alleged work product earlier in the trial, which he submitted to ComEd in the early stages of the payments.
His one-page report from August 2013 listed nine state legislators he reached out to over the course of the month. For each one, he wrote that he’d simply given them McClain’s number and “encouraged” them to call “if they had any questions.”
Moody will testify that the work “was a ‘joke,’ because there was no substance to it,” prosecutors said in a pretrial filing.
Moody’s payments were later bumped up to $4,500 a month and were distributed through Doherty, but when Moody was appointed Cook County commissioner in 2016, he had to be moved from Doherty’s account because of the potentially bad optics, according to trial testimony.
One wiretapped call played for the jury captured McClain letting Doherty know in October 2016 that Madigan had OK’d the move.
“I talked to the speaker,” McClain said on the voicemail he left for Doherty. “Speaker talked to Ed Moody, and, um, so speaker suggested Ed and you get together and talk ‘cause, ya know, he’s got some disclosure things he’s gonna have to do at the county board level.”
As a workaround, Moody’s payments started coming from two “intermediaries” allied with Madigan who did contract work for ComEd, according to prosecutors.
One of the intermediaries was Shaw Decremer, a Democratic House staffer for Madigan who became a lobbyist but was ousted from the speaker’s political operations after a lawmaker complained that he was abusive while working on campaigns.
The other was John Bradley, a former veteran House Democrat from Marion who served on Madigan’s leadership team but lost his 2016 bid for reelection and became a lobbyist.
Prosecutors said Moody will testify that he went to Madigan at one point and told him he was worried that his contract claimed he was doing work for the utility, when in fact he’d done nothing. Madigan allegedly told him he was a “valuable political operative” and to keep working on his campaigns.
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“Madigan responded that (Moody) did not have to worry, because what (Moody) was doing right then — meaning campaign work — was what was important to Madigan,” prosecutors said in their pretrial filing.
Moody stopped being paid through the intermediaries when he was appointed to be Cook County’s recorder of deeds in late 2018, according to prosecutors. The investigation went overt five months later with a series of raids in the Chicago area and downstate.
Earlier in the trial, jurors heard a May 16, 2018, call between McClain and Marquez, then a senior governmental affairs executive at ComEd, talking about Moody’s work for Madigan and his possible ascension to a new elective position.
“Now, he’s no longer a commissioner, but he’s going to be recorder of deeds?” Marquez asked on the call.
McClain burst out laughing, saying, “I don’t think — it’s possible!”
“OK, all right, someone thought that might be the case,” Marquez said.
McClain, still laughing, responded, “Oh, it’s funny business up here.”
