Exelon Unit to Pay $200 Million to Resolve Lobbying Probe -- Update
July 17 2020 - 2:04PM
Dow Jones News
By Joe Barrett
CHICAGO -- Exelon Corp.'s Commonwealth Edison unit agreed to pay
a $200 million fine for a long-running bribery scheme in which the
utility gave jobs and contracts to associates of Illinois House
Speaker Michael Madigan, the state's most powerful politician for
decades, the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of
Illinois said Friday.
Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the Illinois utility
must continue to cooperate with the continuing investigation until
it is complete, the U.S. attorney said. It wasn't immediately clear
whether Mr. Madigan, who has held the post of speaker for all but
two years since 1983 and is also head of the state Democratic
Party, was a target of the investigation.
A spokesman for Mr. Madigan didn't immediately return calls for
comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined to comment on
whether Mr. Madigan was a target of the probe.
Exelon said it acted swiftly to conduct its own investigation
when it learned of the allegations and determined that a small
number of senior ComEd employees and outside contractors were
responsible.
"Since then, we have taken robust action to aggressively
identify and address deficiencies, including enhancing our
compliance governance and our lobbying policies," the company
said.
The U.S. attorney said that ComEd awarded the jobs and
contracts, some of which involved little or no actual work, to
associates of Mr. Madigan when the company had substantial matters
before the legislature, including legislation affecting the
rate-making process. Mr. Madigan, the U.S. attorney said, controls
what legislation is voted on in the state house and has substantial
sway over lawmakers.
Court documents refer to Mr. Madigan as Public Official A and
later identify Public Official A as the Speaker of the Illinois
House.
ComEd also said that it had named a member of its board at the
request of Mr. Madigan, retained a law firm at his request and
accepted a certain number of students from his Chicago ward into
its internship program, the U.S. Attorney said.
As head of the state Democratic Party, Mr. Madigan wields a
campaign chest that essentially bankrolls the campaigns of many
state legislators, said Dick Simpson, a political-science professor
at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a former Chicago
alderman.
The indictment is part of a probe of members of the Illinois
legislature, including efforts by some suburban lawmakers to lobby
local officials to install red-light cameras on behalf of companies
that make the cameras, said Mr. Simpson, who is also co-author of
the book "Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism and
Criminality."
The investigation has revealed an "intertwined shakedown and
bribery operation," Mr. Simpson said, noting that based on overall
convictions of public officials since the 1970s, Chicago is the
most corrupt metropolitan region in the country, and that Illinois
is the third-most corrupt state, based on per capita convictions of
public officials.
Four previous Illinois governors, including most recently
Democrat Rod Blagojevich and Republican George Ryan, have been
convicted of crimes during or after their time in office.
Write to Joe Barrett at joseph.barrett@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 17, 2020 13:49 ET (17:49 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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