Crime & Law

Ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore Gets 2 Years in Prison Following Conviction in Madigan Bribery Conspiracy

Anne Pramaggiore was a rising star in the utilities industry, hailed as a “transformational leader” during her time as CEO of Commonwealth Edison who focused on the consumers, improved safety and energized a demoralized workforce.

But all the while, federal prosecutors said she was a key leader in a criminal conspiracy that sought to “corrupt the highest levels of state government” by bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan to secure his support on critical legislation in Springfield.

On Monday, Pramaggiore was sentenced in a downtown Chicago courtroom to two years in federal prison, more than two years after she was convicted of bribery conspiracy and willfully falsifying the company’s books as part of the “ComEd Four” trial alongside Madigan’s longtime confidant Michael McClain, ex-ComEd consultant Jay Doherty and former ComEd exec John Hooker.

“You had the power to stop this,” U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said in handing down the sentence. “You could have said, ‘No, this is not how legislation should be done.’ You had the power to change the culture at ComEd. … When it came to Mr. Madigan and Mr. McClain, you didn’t think to change the culture of corruption. Instead, you were all in.”

Pramaggiore is the second of the four to be sentenced. Last week, Shah sentenced Hooker to a term of 18 months in prison.

Beyond the prison sentence, Pramaggiore was also ordered to pay a fine of $750,000.

Pramaggiore’s sentence comes more than two years after the four were convicted following a two-month trial that concluded in May 2023.

Prosecutors alleged the group plotted to provide “a continuous stream of benefits” to “corruptly influence and reward” Madigan, in order to secure the powerful speaker’s backing on critically important energy legislation in Springfield.

The four did so by arranging for ComEd to pay $1.3 million to Madigan allies who were hired as subcontractors, but who actually did virtually no work for the utility company. Rather than paying them directly, prosecutors said the defendants arranged for them to be paid through an intermediary — Doherty — in an effort to conceal the payments.

Madigan himself was convicted at a separate trial earlier this year and was sentenced in June to more than seven years in prison.

After the hearing, Pramaggiore issued a statement saying “we are disappointed by the sentence imposed today,” noting that it’s “nearly impossible” to reconcile the sentence with the federal Probation Department’s recommendation of probation.

She said that sentence is “even harder to fathom” after bribery charges Pramaggiore and her codefendants were convicted of were previously tossed out.

“Ms. Pramaggiore, a civic leader, trailblazing electric utilities executive, the only female CEO in Commonwealth Edison’s history — and an innocent woman — will appeal the verdict and sentence to the Seventh Circuit and, if necessary, to the Supreme Court,” her statement read.

Pramaggiore took over as ComEd’s CEO in 2012, a position she maintained until she was promoted to the role of senior executive vice president and CEO of ComEd’s parent company, Exelon Utilities, in 2018.

But even after she left ComEd, prosecutors alleged she continued to “support the illicit subcontractor arrangement.”

“She had the power to stop this scheme at any time,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said Monday. “She could have said no to Madigan’s requests. She didn’t.”

According to prosecutors, Doherty’s contract was included under the CEO’s budget, meaning it was Pramaggiore who had to authorize his payments and the false invoices Doherty submitted to ComEd.

Prosecutors in their sentencing memo claimed Pramaggiore perjured herself when she testified in her own defense at trial.

When asked on the witness stand whether she’d been a part of any conspiracy to bribe Madigan or if she’d conspired to falsify documents, she told jurors she had not. She also claimed she didn’t know that the subcontractors paid through Doherty had been Madigan allies until after the feds’ investigation became public knowledge in 2019.

At trial, jurors heard numerous secretly recorded phone conversations obtained either through a government wiretap or by Fidel Marquez, another ComEd exec who began operating as an undercover mole for the feds.

On the call, Marquez talks about how  subcontractors like former Chicago Ald. Frank Olivo did no work, saying he met with Doherty who indicated that “all these guys do is pretty much collect a check,” and that the setup dates back to “way back when,” before Pramaggiore’s time as head of ComEd.

“Oh my god,” Pramaggiore said on the call.

Shah did not believe this was her response to learning about this news, but rather it was her “exasperation and worry about another problem she would need to use her intellect to solve.”

As he did at Hooker's sentencing, Shah said Pramaggiore's general denials that she was involved in the conspiracy did not amount to perjury. But he did find that she provided “knowingly false” testimony at other points in an attempt to conceal her involvement in the conspiracy.

Shah noted that Pramaggiore was a “busy executive, but not a careless one,” and found it implausible that such a bribery conspiracy could have been going on so close to her without her knowledge.

“Mr. Pramaggiore had and has an impressive capacity to be present, to listen, to be aware and to execute,” the judge said. “Absentmindedness … is not her approach.” 

Pramaggiore did not address the court during Monday’s hearing, instead relying on the remarks of her defense attorney Scott Lassar, who told Shah that no matter how long he serves as a judge, he will never have a “finer person” appear before him than his client.

He continued to maintain that Pramaggiore was innocent and that the bribery arrangement was set up by McClain and Hooker through her predecessor, Frank Clark. He also claimed that throughout her years as CEO, there was no evidence Pramaggiore ever called on Madigan directly to support her company’s legislative goals.

Pramaggiore is scheduled to turn herself in to authorities and begin serving her prison sentence Dec. 1.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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