Commonwealth Edison made a huge document drop today in response to a request from the Illinois House committee investigating House Speaker Michael Madigan’s part in a decade-long bribery and patronage hiring scheme with the energy giant.
The documents revealed that Madigan, who is a partner in of Chicago’s largest property tax appeal law firms, showed repeated interest in who was doing the energy utility’s property tax appeal work. the documents also disclosed for the first time that the company secretly paid Cook County Recorder of Deeds Ed Moody, a key Madigan precinct captain, $4,500-a-month fee. Those payments were filtered mainly through Quincy lobbyist and Madigan confidante Michael McClain and the utility’s top in-house lobbyist Fidel Marquez.
Both revelations reveal further insight about the interactions between Madigan and ComEd when the utility had a key piece of utility rate legislation in front of the General Assembly.
Marquez plead guilty in a criminal information filed in September to bribery. It was revealed earlier this week that Marquez has been in full compliance with federal investigators, who said his continued cooperation is expected for the next several months. McClain and four former ComEd executives and lobbyists had similar charges described in a sweeping federal indictment last week. McClain, like Madigan, has professed his innocence in released statements through legal counsel.
The indictment last Wednesday also outlines an unnamed law firm to do work for ComEd. Today’s document dump confirmed the law firm to be Reyes and Kurson Law Office, run by Victor Reyes. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Reyes was former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s chief for making patronage hiring. Reyes has also been implicated but not charge in the SafeSpeed stop light camera scandal surrounding former Senator Martin Sandoval and 14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke who have both been indicted in federal court. Reyes Kurston Ltd. Was also one of the companies named in the federal subpoena of documents from Madigan’s office earlier this year. Reyes was secretly recorded by former Chicago Alderman Danny Solis in the Burke investigation and lobbied on behalf of the Vondra asphalt company that tied into Sandoval’s indictment and eventual plea in federal court in January.
The House Investigative Committee is set to reconvene hearings on December 14th.