* Sun-Times…

Defense attorneys’ aggressive questioning of a star witness in the trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan opened the door to testimony Thursday about criminal charges that were leveled against ComEd and three people with close ties to the utility.

Jurors now know that former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker, onetime City Club President Jay Doherty and even ComEd itself faced charges, based in part on the undercover FBI work of former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez.

The jury still doesn’t know what came of any of those charges. And they don’t know that Madigan’s longtime ally and current co-defendant, Michael McClain, was also among those charged.

But defense attorneys in Madigan’s trial had hoped to keep all of it from the jury. When prosecutors asked for permission to walk through that door early Thursday, Madigan defense attorney Daniel Collins protested and acknowledged only that there had been a “light” cross-examination of Marquez.

* Tribune…

Once the jury returned, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu] got right to it, asking Marquez about covert calls and in-person meetings he secretly recorded with McClain, Doherty, Pramaggiore and Hooker.

“You wore a wire on them, fair to say?” Bahchu said. “And they were all charged as a result?”

Bhachu also pointed out Marquez has been cooperating for more than five and a half years so far with more still possibly to come.

“Under the terms of your agreement, will you have to testify in any future proceedings if the government asks you to?” he asked. Marquez answered, “Yes.”

* Capitol News Illinois…

While attorneys for the former speaker used cross-examination of Marquez to try to distance Madigan from McClain, the jury heard more intercepted phone calls on Thursday aimed at undercutting that narrative.

In one February 2019 conversation, McClain and former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker discussed having come up with the subcontractor arrangement in 2011, starting with Olivo. By the time of the call, Doherty had spent years paying three other Madigan allies under his contract, while other lobbyists close to Madigan had also taken on two of the do-nothing contractors for periods of time.

“We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan came to us,” McClain told Hooker. “It’s just that simple … So if you want to make it a federal court suit, okay, but that’s how simple it is.”

Hooker agreed, asserting that the arrangement was “clean for all of us.”

“Right. We don’t have to worry about whether or not – I’m just making this up – whether or not Mike Zalewski Sr., is doing any work or not,” McClain said, referring to a former Chicago alderman who’d been put on Doherty’s contract the summer before, after he’d retired from the city council. “That’s up to Jay Doherty to prove that.”

* WGN…

“My instinct is that I come up to Chicago,” Michael McClain says on a 2019 wiretap. “I come to Chicago and sit down with Joe Dominquez and say, ‘Look it, blankity blank!’ You want to pass this bill? This is what it requires.’”

Federal prosecutors are targeting utility executive Joe Dominguez for McClain’s bare-knuckle tactics as the government works to expose how Madigan’s closest advisor would operate.

Prosecutors say the alleged racketeering bribery case points to no-work jobs and other perks in exchange for legislative action.

* Courthouse News Service…

After Marquez left the stand Thursday, prosecutors called several financial employees of ComEd and its parent company Exelon to the stand. They offered testimony that backed up what Marquez told jurors over the preceding week, such as noting that numerous invoices Doherty billed to ComEd made no mention of subcontractors on the list of services his firm performed.

After prosecutors exhaust their witnesses for the ComEd “episode” of the trial, there are still four more episodes to get through. They include accusations of Madigan attempting to help property developers in Chicago move along construction with help from former city zoning chair Danny Solis and his effort to get Solis a position in state government in 2018.

Presiding U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey said Thursday morning that he expects trial to continue into the new year, adding that there will likely not be proceedings over the week of Christmas.

* Meanwhile… The Sun-Times…

A federal judge promised to rule by mid-December on whether to acquit a former AT&T Illinois executive accused of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.

As Paul La Schiazza returned to Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Thursday, the man he was accused of bribing sat in another courtroom listening to key witnesses testify in his own corruption trial.

In September, a jury — after deliberating for three days — failed to reach a unanimous verdict in the case against La Schiazza, a former AT&T Illinois president.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman declined to schedule a new trial for the case until he could take a “serious look” at a defense motion for acquittal.