(The Center Square) – A judge is expected to rule on key motions that seek to limit what the jury will hear before a high-profile corruption case involving longtime former Illinois House Speak Michael Madigan begins in March.
Judge Harry Leinenweber said Tuesday he will rule on pre-trial motions from the four defendants and prosecutors in a federal bribery and conspiracy case also involving Illinois’ largest utility company at a hearing on March 9.
In November 2020, prosecutors charged former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker, former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty and former lobbyist and Madigan confidante Michael McClain with bribery conspiracy, bribery, and willfully falsifying ComEd books and records . All pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.
Leinenweber will decide what the jury hears and sees at the trial.
All four of the defendants want to keep details about the $200 million ComEd agreed to pay to resolve the federal bribery probe involving Madigan away from the jury.
In a 50-page deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, ComEd admitted it arranged jobs, subcontracts, and payments for associates of Madigan to get the then-House speaker to help the company with legislation before state lawmakers as part of a nearly decade-long scheme.
The defendants also don’t want prosecutors to put University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Emeritus Dick Simpson on the stand to explain Chicago’s Ward system, “including the operation of the political machine as it works through the Ward political organizations including the Ward Committeeperson, precinct captains and patronage hiring.”
The defense attorneys said Simpson’s testimony wasn’t relevant.
“Professor Simpson’s unreliable, irrelevant, cumulative, and prejudicial testimony is a transparent attempt to paint the four defendants with the broad brush of Chicago political corruption,” the attorneys wrote in a motion seeking to keep Simpson’s testimony out of the trial.
A jury trial is set to start on March 14.
Separately, Madigan also haces charges on more than 20 corruption-related charges and is scheduled to go to trial next year. Madigan also denies the allegations.
