Politics

Ex-City Club President, ComEd Consultant Jay Doherty Gets 1 Year in Prison on Madigan Conspiracy Conviction

Jay Doherty, the longtime City Club president and consultant for utility giant ComEd, will be headed to prison for his role in a yearslong conspiracy to bribe ex-Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan.

Doherty on Tuesday was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, more than two years after he and his three codefendants were convicted in the “ComEd Four” trial.

“Behind the scenes you played a criminal game that undermines all that the soft power of persuasion, organization, debate is meant to achieve — how civic, lawful democracy is supposed to work,” Judge Manish Shah said during the hearing. “You cheated the very thing that you put a face to at the City Club of Chicago.”

Doherty and his codefendants — former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s longtime confidant Michael McClain and ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker — were each convicted in 2023 of bribery conspiracy and willfully falsifying the utility company’s books.

Prosecutors alleged they had plotted to give “a continuous stream of benefits” to “corruptly influence and reward” Madigan in order to get his support on critical 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 little or no work for the utility company. Madigan himself was convicted at a separate trial earlier this year and was sentenced in June to more than seven years in prison.

Rather than paying the subcontractors directly, prosecutors said the defendants arranged for them to be paid through an intermediary — Doherty and his company, Jay D. Doherty & Associates — in an effort to conceal the payments. Jurors at trial heard numerous secretly recorded conversations in which Hooker and his codefendants discussed these plans.

Each time Doherty took on a new “ghost” worker, prosecutors said ComEd would increase his contract, which grew from $20,000 per month up to $37,000 per month.

In a 2019 conversation with then-ComEd exec Fidel Marquez, who unbeknownst to Doherty was recording the chat while operating as an undercover government mole, Doherty joked that it appeared he was making a “gillion dollars,” even though much of that money was being handed off to Madigan allies.

During that chat, Doherty detailed how the subcontractor conspiracy would play out, prosecutors said. He would get a call from Hooker, who would tell him he wanted “to slug this guy on.”

When Marquez asked what work those subcontractors were actually doing, Doherty replied, “Not much … to answer the question,” before adding “they keep their mouth shut … do they do anything for me on a day-to-day basis? No.”

Shah said it was Doherty’s demeanor and answers in that recording which demonstrated that he knew exactly what type of corruption he was involved in.

“You and your company were the metaphoric ‘cash in an envelope’ that amounted to bribes,” the judge said.

Already McClain and Pramaggiore have been sentenced to prison terms of 24 months each, while Hooker was handed an 18-month sentence. Madigan and Pramaggiore have since moved to appeal their convictions.

Doherty offered the most thorough apology for his actions, saying he was wrong not to ask ComEd what work the subcontractors were supposed to be doing and ensure that work was getting done. He told the court that while he’d spent his life working to connect and help people, he got caught up in trying to become the “big man on campus.”

“For many years, I thought this approach to life and work was honorable, but now I see I was not being honorable,” he said. “Sometime over the years instead of seeing my job as a means of service, it became simply a way to make more money and build myself up. To gain, not give.”

Shah commended Doherty for taking accountability publicly, but noted it should have come sooner.

“What I see,” he said, “are serious crimes committed by an insider who knew better, could have prevented it and could’ve helped remedy it, but that has come too late in the process.”

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