The year after Michael J. Madigan secured the unprecedented 2016 endorsement of then-U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Madigan found himself in a meeting with Gutierrez and Juan Ochoa, a prominent Latino businessman seeking a slot on ComEd’s board of directors.
Ochoa believed the seat should go to a Latino candidate. He wasn’t impressed with the field lining up for it. And he told a jury Tuesday that he left that meeting feeling he had the support of Madigan, then Illinois’ powerful House speaker.
It took a while, but Madigan eventually learned from his longtime ally, Michael McClain, that Ochoa would fill the seat. McClain suggested Madigan call Ochoa to give him the news. But Madigan said he’d rather call Gutierrez, who by then was planning to leave Congress.
Gutierrez was “the reason I would talk to Juan Ochoa,” Madigan told McClain. “When I thought he was still gonna be a congressman.”
Now Madigan, who resigned in 2021, is on trial for a racketeering conspiracy, accused of leading a criminal enterprise designed to enhance his political power and reward his allies. Jurors Tuesday heard that July 2018 phone call, which was secretly recorded by the FBI, as prosecutors laid out the lengthy saga in which they contend Madigan pushed for Ochoa to join ComEd’s board as an apparent favor to Gutierrez.
The process took more than a year. It prompted pushback from Latino leaders such as Martin Sandoval and Iris Martinez, who were Democratic state senators at the time. But jurors also heard how Madigan told McClain he wanted then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore to keep pushing. They also heard McClain pass along the instruction and Pramaggiore agree to it.
“I will keep pressing,” she said of the pending Ochoa appointment, which didn’t become official until April 2019.
Along the way, Pramaggiore told McClain that, “you take good care of me … and so does our friend, and I will do the best that I can … to take care of you.” Jurors have heard that McClain and others often used the phrase “our friend” to refer to Madigan.
Ochoa took the stand to testify about the episode Tuesday. He explained that Gutierrez had endorsed Madigan for the first time in 2016. That helped Madigan maintain crucial support in his Southwest Side House district, where the Latino population had been growing, though Ochoa didn’t get to explain that to the jury.
Ochoa testified that he prompted the meeting with Gutierrez and Madigan. Todd Pugh, one of Madigan’s defense attorneys, pressed Ochoa on the point Tuesday. He asked Ochoa, “Mike Madigan didn’t reach out to you or Congressman Gutierrez to say, ‘Hey, thanks for helping me out with the election’? That’s not the way it worked, correct?”
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, left, with then Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, at a news conference in 2017 to announces his retirement from Congress.
Max Herman/For the Sun-Times.
Ochoa agreed that wasn’t how it happened.
Pugh also confirmed with Ochoa that neither Madigan nor McClain ever guaranteed him a seat on the board.
McClain and Pramaggiore were convicted at trial in 2023 for their role in a larger bribery scheme at ComEd, which included the Ochoa episode. Prosecutors say it was part of a larger plot designed to make Madigan look favorably at ComEd legislation.
Before he was appointed to the ComEd board in 2019, Ochoa had already served in a number of high-profile positions, including as CEO overseeing the agency that ran McCormick Place and Navy Pier at the appointment of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
He was also a leader in Chicago’s Latino community and had a close relationship with Gutierrez. He leaned on those relationships in 2017 when he decided to seek the ComEd board seat left open when Jesse Ruiz ran for attorney general.
As the process played out, McClain reached out to Ochoa in February 2019. He said he was reaching out for the speaker, who wanted to “tap down any anxiety” Ochoa might have about how long the appointment was taking.
Ochoa testified Tuesday that he was surprised that McClain seemed to know so much about the board seat. Ochoa said he knew McClain as a lobbyist but wasn’t aware of his connections to Madigan.
“I was not aware that he knew anything about my interest in the board,” Ochoa said.
After Ochoa attended his first board meeting in May 2019, Ochoa said he called McClain to thank him — and Madigan — for their support. He said McClain told him “it was a bigger team” and that he should “whisper” into Pramaggiore’s ear “because she was very helpful.”
Michael McClain walks into the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in 2023.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur asked Ochoa on Tuesday if McClain specifically used the word “team,” and Ochoa said that was his recollection.
But Pugh later confirmed with Ochoa that he also had the support of politicians such as Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Rahm Emanuel, as well as incoming ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez, none of whom are accused of playing any part in the larger conspiracy.
Meanwhile, when word got out that Ochoa would be joining the board, Pramaggiore apparently began to feel the heat. Jurors heard phone calls in which she and then-ComEd executive Fidel Marquez commiserated that Sandoval — who died in 2020 — and Martinez — now the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County — were complaining about the pick.
Martinez allegedly complained in 2018 that, with the campaign of future Gov. JB Pritzker, Blagojevich cronies were coming out of the woodwork, “like that motherf—- Juan Ochoa.”