CHICAGO – The FBI wasted no time giving Fidel Marquez his first assignment after the top lobbyist for power company Commonwealth Edison agreed to become a government mole in January 2019.

Before dawn on the morning of January 16, 2019, a pair of officers rang the doorbell of Márquez’s mother’s house. Standing in the lobby, Marquez told a federal jury Wednesday that he was “scared” when agents played excerpts of his wiretapped calls and immediately agreed to become a cooperating witness in the feds’ massive, ongoing investigation into corruption. public in Illinois. .

The next day, at the direction of the FBI, Marquez called two of ComEd’s top contract lobbyists to discuss the utility’s long-standing deals with several key political allies of the then-Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. , Michael Madigan. Beginning in 2011, ComEd indirectly paid what would eventually become five Madigan allies thousands of dollars each month for little or no work.

“I have never, ever said a word,” Chicago lobbyist Jay Doherty told Marquez in their January 2019 phone call about his long-standing agreement to funnel payments to Madigan associates through his contract with ComEd.

But four months later, FBI agents raided Doherty’s offices in downtown Chicago. Agents across the city and state executed similar search warrants against others involved in the alleged scheme. The FBI’s series of searches on May 14, 2019, included Mike McClain’s home in Quincy, the second call Marquez made after becoming a cooperating witness and ComEd’s top contract lobbyist in Springfield.

And this week, Márquez returned to Dirksen Federal Court for his second round as prosecutors’ star witness, testifying that ComEd agreed to pay Madigan’s allies “as a favor” to the powerful president in exchange for company-friendly legislation. public services in the General Assembly.

Marquez’s testimony already helped the feds win their case last year against McClain, Doherty and two other former ComEd executives for their role in the bribery scheme, and now Madigan and McClain are accused in a trial related to bribery and extortion that extends far beyond ComEd. accusations.

On Wednesday, the former president watched intently at a computer monitor on his defense table as prosecutors played video recordings that Marquez secretly made in the winter of 2019. In one video, Doherty explained to Marquez the origins of the settlement deals. outsourcing in 2011, which he claims were orchestrated. by then-ComEd CEO Frank Clark and Márquez’s predecessor, John Hooker, along with McClain.

That year, Doherty agreed to begin paying the recently retired Chicago Ald. Frank Olivo of Madigan’s District 13 political power base, as well as District 13 senior captain Ray Nice.

In the video, Doherty held up four fingers to indicate the $4,000 monthly stipend paid to Olivo; Nice received $5,000 a month.

A couple of years later, another top 13th District captain, Ed Moody, was moved from McClain’s contract to Doherty’s for $4,500 a month, although he was eventually moved to contracts with two other lobbyists. And in 2018, Ald. Mike Zalewski of Chicago’s 23rd Ward began receiving $4,000 monthly checks from Doherty shortly after he retired from the City Council.

When asked what the subcontractors were doing in exchange for the checks, Doherty told Marquez, “no, not much,” adding that he rarely spoke to the men.

“They keep their mouths shut,” Doherty said a few minutes later. “But do they do something for me on a daily basis? No.”

At the direction of the FBI, Marquez approached Doherty, McClain and Hooker for advice on a very real issue: how to explain subcontracting agreements to ComEd’s new CEO, Joe Dominguez.

Marquez was nervous about how Dominguez would react to his explanation, which was necessary to approve Doherty’s contract renewal for 2019. But Doherty advised Marquez to present the issue in the overall context of ComEd’s economic viability.

“Number one: Your money comes from Springfield,” Doherty said, referring to the state’s regulatory process for approving utility rates. “…My fundamental advice would be: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it with those guys.”

And if Dominguez asked himself, “Why would we pay all this money to a guy like Doherty and these three other people?” Doherty said “it can be answered in Springfield with Madigan.”

“And to keep Mike Madigan happy, I think it’s worth it,” he told Marquez.

A couple of weeks before the meeting with Doherty, Márquez secretly recorded Hooker during lunch at the Union League Club in Chicago. After Marquez took over Hooker’s job following his retirement from ComEd in 2012, Hooker became a contract lobbyist for the utility and the men remained close.

Although Marquez scheduled the lunch under the guise of discussing a similar post-retirement plan for himself, he also asked Hooker how he would approach Dominguez about subcontractors.

In addition to claiming credit for coming up with the subcontracting agreement in the first place, Hooker advised that Doherty write a report on what each of the subcontractors did.

But Márquez received conflicting advice from McClain at a similar lunch the two had in Springfield a couple of weeks later.

“I would tell them not to put anything in writing,” McClain advised between bites of pizza at Saputo’s.a staple restaurant in Springfield political circles. “…I think all that can do is hurt you.”

Early in their conversation, McClain affirmed Márquez’s concern that Dominguez might view Doherty’s contract through the lens of his former job as a federal prosecutor and start asking questions. In that case, McClain said, Márquez should explain how valuable the subcontractors were to Madigan’s political organization, adding that the agreement was a “favor.”

McClain also explained that by using Doherty’s contract to pay Madigan allies, ComEd was safe from any federal tax investigation “if the IRS ever comes along and says, ‘Who are these guys and what do they do?'”

“It’s Doherty’s contract, so Doherty is the one who has to prove it,” he said.

McClain then offered to speak to Dominguez himself. After initially declining help because the matter was internal to ComEd and McClain’s involvement could be considered “inappropriate,” Marquez invited McClain to a meeting with Dominguez and Hooker in early March 2019.

In the grainy video of the meeting, McClain explained to Dominguez that the subcontractors were a holdover from the “antiquated sponsorship system.”

“’You’re a district committee member and we have seven meter readers in your district and you can name four of them,’” McClain said of how utility officials may have presented job opportunities to elected officials in the past. . “And that was ComEd for years.”

McClain named two of the subcontractors and briefly explained their political importance to Madigan before he was interrupted, then ended by describing them as “good, solid people.”

“And available when we need help, right?” Dominguez asked, to which McClain responded, “mmhmm.”

None of McClain, Marquez or Hooker explicitly told Dominguez during that meeting that subcontractors had been paid for years without performing any work, but at the end of the meeting, Dominguez indicated that he agreed to the agreement.

“Fidel, my opinion about all this is that it is like the lobby team itself,” he said. “There are periods when people say, ‘What the hell are these guys doing?’ Why do we pay them? And then they will do something at that moment, at the magic moment…

“That is worth a hundred times more than what you are paying them,” Márquez intervened.

At the end of the trial Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu asked Marquez about a one-on-one conversation he had with Dominguez before the larger meeting in which Marquez was a little more forthcoming about subcontractors’ lack of work at on behalf of ComEd.

“Did he give you any reaction?” -Bhachu asked.

“His initial reaction was words like ‘there are some things I want to know and some things I don’t want to know,’” Márquez said.