* Courthouse News Service…

Juan Ochoa, a former board member of Illinois’ largest electric utility company ComEd, took the stand Tuesday in the ongoing federal corruption trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Ochoa, current CEO of facilities services company Miramar Group, is a businessman who has been active in Chicago politics for decades. He told jurors Tuesday he had done “election work” for ex-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, and he helped found the Latino Leadership Council PAC in Chicago in 2018.

Blagojevich also appointed Ochoa CEO of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which operates Chicago’s McCormick Place and Navy Pier, in January 2007, though Ochoa left the authority in May 2010.

Ochoa only stayed on the board of ComEd for a year, from April 2019 to April 2020, but how he got his seat — and the $78,000 pay that came with it — informs several of the government’s conspiracy and bribery charges against Madigan. Jurors saw evidence Tuesday that then-House Speaker Madigan pushed ComEd to take on Ochoa as a favor to other influential Latino politicians in the Chicago area, including former Democratic Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez and current Democratic Illinois Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

* Tribune…

The episode of Ochoa’s appointment to ComEd’s board is central to the one of the biggest allegations in the case against Madigan and McClain, a longtime ComEd contract lobbyist and self-described “agent” of the speaker. In exchange, prosecutors allege, Madigan used his position to help with the utility’s legislative agenda.

It’s also a lesson in the strange political machinery 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.

In fact, Ochoa had been on the outs with Madigan ever since he had personally fired a McPier employee in 2007 who’d previously served as a Madigan legislative staffer in the General Assembly.

After the employee’s termination, Ochoa hit a brick wall when it came time to negotiate for House approval of legislation to refinance McPier’s high-interest bonds in early 2008. Eventually, Ochoa resigned because he felt the debt refinancing would never pass if he stayed on, according to Ochoa’s statements to investigators

* Sun-Times…

The process took more than a year. It prompted pushback from Latino leaders such as Martin Sandoval and Iris Martinez, who were Democratic state senators at the time. But jurors also heard how Madigan told McClain he wanted then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore to keep pushing. They also heard McClain pass along the instruction and Pramaggiore agree to it.

“I will keep pressing,” she said of the pending Ochoa appointment, which didn’t become official until April 2019.

Along the way, Pramaggiore told McClain that, “you take good care of me … and so does our friend, and I will do the best that I can … to take care of you.” Jurors have heard that McClain and others often used the phrase “our friend” to refer to Madigan.[…]

Ochoa testified that he prompted the meeting with Gutierrez and Madigan. Todd Pugh, one of Madigan’s defense attorneys, pressed Ochoa on the point Tuesday. He asked Ochoa, “Mike Madigan didn’t reach out to you or Congressman Gutierrez to say, ‘Hey, thanks for helping me out with the election’? That’s not the way it worked, correct?”

Ochoa agreed that wasn’t how it happened.

* Capitol News Illinois…

They spoke once more a couple months later once Ochoa had finally been appointed to the board, asking McClain to pass along his thanks to Madigan. McClain told Ochoa that there was a “bigger team” behind him all along, including Pramaggiore, whom McClain encouraged Ochoa to thank separately.

Late in the afternoon on May 14, 2019 – two weeks after Ochoa’s first ComEd board meeting – Ochoa did just that, emailing Pramaggiore and asking if he could take her to breakfast or lunch that summer.

Unbeknownst to Ochoa, a few hours before he sent his message, FBI agents conducted a coordinated series of searches at the homes of Madigan allies, including McClain. Agents also showed up to Pramaggiore’s door with a subpoena to seize her cell phone, according to her testimony in last year’s “ComEd Four” trial.

Did Ochoa ever end up sharing a meal with Pramaggiore that summer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur asked as she wrapped up her direct examination on Tuesday.

“I did not,” Ochoa replied.

* More…

* Tribune | Madigan jury expected to hear from precinct captain: Jurors in the Michael Madigan corruption trial on Wednesday are expected to hear testimony from legendary 13th Ward precinct captain Edward Moody, the onetime Cook County Recorder of Deeds who prosecutors say raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from ComEd through do-nothing consulting contract. Moody, who along with his twin brother, Fred, was one of Madigan’s most trusted election-time door-knockers, testified at the related “ComEd Four” bribery trial last year that the speaker made it clear that the money would dry up if Moody stopped working on campaigns.