Feds want nearly 6 years for former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore
The feds say a former ComEd CEO who “enthusiastically and unreservedly authorized” a criminal conspiracy aimed at former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan deserves a sentence of nearly six years in prison.
Anne Pramaggiore “made the choice to participate in a years-long conspiracy that corrupted the legislative process in Springfield,” federal prosecutors wrote in a 64-page court filing Monday night.
“As CEO of ComEd and then CEO of Exelon Utilities, Pramaggiore could have put an end to these crimes at any time,” they said. “She had that power.”
Instead, Pramaggiore faces sentencing July 21.
Her attorneys were expected to file their own sentencing recommendation later Monday.
The feds’ bid to put the former head of the state’s largest utility behind bars comes a week after they asked for a sentence of more than 4 ½ years for John Hooker, a former top lobbyist for ComEd. Both were convicted at the end of a six-week trial in 2023.
Also convicted were longtime Madigan confidant Michael McClain and Jay Doherty, the onetime president of the City Club. All four face sentencing in the coming weeks.
The hearings come weeks after U.S. District Judge John Blakey sentenced Madigan to 7 ½ years in prison, in part for his role in the same conspiracy involving ComEd. Blakey emphasized that he believed Madigan lied on the witness stand at trial.
Hooker and Pramaggiore could face a similar problem at sentencing. However, their fate will be determined by U.S. District Judge Manish Shah, who did not preside over the ComEd trial in 2023. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, who died in 2024, handled that trial.
Still, jurors in the 2023 trial seemed to reject claims made by Pramaggiore on the witness stand, including about a secretly recorded phone call in February 2019 that she insisted “proves” her innocence.
In their filing Monday night, prosecutors wrote that Pramaggiore “made a conscious choice to break the law, and then she made a conscious choice to testify at trial and lie under oath.”
They even quoted Blakey’s words last month to Madigan, in which the judge told the former politician, “you had a right to sit there and exercise your right to silence. But you took that stand, and you took the law into your own hands.”
Jurors in both cases heard that five Madigan allies were paid $1.3 million by ComEd over eight years so that Madigan would look more favorably at the utility’s legislation in Springfield. The money was paid through intermediaries, including Doherty’s consulting firm.
Fidel Marquez, then an executive with ComEd, helped make secret recordings for the FBI. In the February 2019 call with Pramaggiore, Marquez said he was trying to figure out how to explain the arrangement with Madigan’s allies to ComEd’s new CEO.
Marquez told Pramaggiore he’d learned the Madigan allies “pretty much collect a check,” and that messing with it could mean things go “bad for us in Springfield.”
Pramaggiore told him “it’s probably a good time to make a switch” but suggested Marquez wait until the end of the legislative session. She said they did not want someone to get “their nose out of joint,” forcing ComEd to give someone “a five-year contract because we’re in the middle of needing to get something done in Springfield.”
When a prosecutor asked her about that call in 2023, Pramaggiore testified that she’d forgotten about it by the time two FBI agents showed up with a search warrant for her phone in May 2019.
Pramaggiore told the prosecutor that, if she’d remembered it, “I would have shared it with you because it proves my innocence.”
At one point in the call, Pramaggiore can be heard saying “oh my God.” During her 2023 testimony, she said it was because she was “taken aback” by some of Marquez’s comments.
“You were so taken aback you forgot this call?” the prosecutor retorted.
In their filing Monday night, the feds insisted Pramaggiore’s testimony about the call was “an outright lie.”