Former ComEd board member Juan Ochoa testified Tuesday that then-House Speaker Michael Madigan backed him for the lucrative position with the utility after two of his political mentors, U.S. Reps. Luis Gutierrez and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, had endorsed Madigan in the general election.
Ochoa’s testimony is at the center of one of the biggest allegations in Madigan’s ongoing corruption trial: an alleged conspiracy by ComEd to win Madigan’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda.
It’s also a lesson in the strange political mechanizations of Chicago, where changing demographics in Madigan’s Southwest Side ward led to an unusual alliance with Gutierrez and Garcia, two influential Latino politicians who had never endorsed the speaker until the 2016 election.
Ochoa testified Tuesday that shortly after Madigan won reelection, Gutierrez had a conversation with the speaker about possibly finding him a position. Ochoa says Madigan called him about a week later and he met with the speaker at his ward office.
“It was small talk. I told him that I was an entrepreneur. We talked about the elections,” Ochoa said.
Months later, after learning that Jesse Ruiz was leaving ComEd’s board to run for governor, Ochoa decided to make a run at the position himself, asking Gutierrez to “figure out a way for me to be considered.”
“I asked him if he would consider setting up a meeting with Speaker Madigan and (then) Mayor Rahm Emanuel,” Ochoa testified.
In 2017, Ochoa and Gutierrez met with Madigan, again at the 13th Ward office, Ochoa testified. “I talked to (Madigan) about the importance of having Latinos on the board,” Ochoa told the jury. He said Madigan indicated his support and said he’d be seeing the CEO of Exelon later that week.
But the process dragged on for more than a year, in part because of pushback from people within ComEd who didn’t like Ochoa’s qualifications.
Ochoa said he sent his resume to then ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore’s assistant in November 2017. Two months later, Madigan called him and informed him “somebody from ComEd would be calling me.”
Sure enough, in late January 2018, he got a call from a ComEd lawyer seeking background information. Ochoa said at that point he did not think he was going to get the board position. Months went by, and then suddenly he got a call from Madigan. The speaker told him he was going to be seated on ComEd’s board later that year.
In September 2018, Ochoa had dinner with newly minted ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez and Vice President Fidel Marquez, who at that point had not started cooperating with the investigation.
“(Dominguez) told me ComEd was in the process of restructuring their board and that I would likely get appointed after the general election,” Ochoa testified. “At that point I felt pretty good about it.”
By early the next year, however, the appointment still had not been made. The jury is expected to hear later in the trial that Ochoa called Madigan’s office in February 2019 and left a voice message asking for a meeting with himself García, a powerful Democratic ally who had recently replaced Gutiérrez in Congress.
It wasn’t about the ComEd board seat, but to talk about the Latino Leadership Council, a political organization that García, Gutiérrez and he had recently formed.
That day, Madigan was recorded telling McClain about Ochoa’s cryptic message. Apparently assuming it was about the board seat, Madigan instructed McClain to reach out to him.
At Madigan’s direction, McClain called Ochoa that afternoon to talk about the situation.
“So I called (Madigan’s) office today to see if (Chuy) and I can go see him,” Ochoa said on the call played in court. “But it actually has more to do with the Latino Leadership Council organization that we formed, we just wanted to brief him on it.”
“Oh, OK, (Madigan) interpreted that you were calling because you were frustrated that this appointment hasn’t been made,” McClain said.
Ochoa said, “Probably I would have brought it up, but that was not the intention.”
ComEd finally made the appointment official two months later.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.
Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
