A day after a federal jury May 1 found four former Commonwealth Edison officials, including the CEO, guilty of bribery, Chicago-based parent Exelon said the scandal could end up costing the holding company more than $400 million. The company, parent of Chicago-based ComEd, has already forked out $200 million as a result of the criminal scheme to keep two uneconomic nuclear power plants working, and now faces another $173 million or so, Exelon said.
The jury found the executives “guilty on all counts charged, including conspiring to influence and reward the former Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives in order to assist with the passage of legislation favorable to the electric utility company, in addition to multiple bribery and record falsification charges.” The penalties include potentially serious jail time as well as significant fines.
The charges relate to a practice ComEd engaged in with then Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, agreeing to provide “no-show” jobs and “consulting contracts” to his cronies in exchange for legislation to keep the Byron and Dresden nuclear plants in service despite their inability to win in the PJM Interconnection’s capacity auctions. Democrat Madigan, by many accounts the most powerful politician in the state and speaker for 18 terms, was forced to step down when the illegal scheme became public. The utility’s actions amounted to a benefit to Madigan and his political operation of an estimated $150 million.
Those guilty, as identified by the U.S. Justice Department, include:
- Anne Pramaggiore, 64, “who served as CEO of ComEd from 2012 to 2018, and later served as a senior executive at an affiliate of Exelon Corp., of which ComEd was a subsidiary.”
- Michael McClain, 75, “who worked as a lobbyist and consultant for ComEd after serving in the Illinois House of Representatives in the 1970s and early 1980s.”
- John Hooker, 74, “who served as ComEd’s executive vice president of legislative and external affairs from 2009 to 2012, after which he worked as an external lobbyist for ComEd.”
- Jay Doherty, 69, “who owned Jay D. Doherty & Associates, which performed consulting services for ComEd from approximately 2011 to 2019.”
Pramaggiore was the only one of the “ComEd Four” to take the stand in their defense, according to Chicago’s ABC 7 television station. After serving as ComEd CEO, she was promoted to be CEO of Exelon’s entire utility fleet. She resigned in October 2019 as Exelon Utilities CEO, amid the controversy, with a $7.7 million golden parachute.
Asked by her attorney, “Are you aware of anything that Speaker Madigan did to get these bills passed?” she answered “No.” Asked, “Were you part of a conspiracy or agreement to influence or bribe Speaker Madigan by hiring people on his request?” she said, “I was not.”
The TV station reported, “Her statements, however, stand in contrast to a multitude of emails and phone calls prosecutors have played in court over the last several weeks, including a 2018 conversation between herself and fellow defendant and Madigan confidant Mike McClain, where they happily discuss her promotion to CEO of Exelon.”
The Justice Department said, “Sentencing dates have not been set. Count 1, charging the conspiracy, has a possible punishment of up to five years in federal prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. Counts 2, 5, 6, and 8, charging bribery, have a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. Counts 3, 4, 7, and 9, charging record falsification, have a possible punishment of up to 20 years in federal prison, a fine of $5,000,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.”
In addition to the $200 million Exelon has already paid out, Exelon said it could face another $173 million or more as a result of a shareholder suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, on top of another shareholder suit filed earlier.
Exelon is the nation’s largest electric utility company, serving a total of about 10 million customers through six regulated utilities: The ComEd flagship, BGE in Baltimore, PECO in Philadelphia, Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power on the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia Delmarva peninsula, and PEPCO, serving the District of Columbia of nearby communities in Maryland.
At the time of the bribery scandal, the company also managed Exelon Generation, which consisted of the nation’s largest fleet of nuclear plants including Byron and Dresden in Illinois, the focus of the scandal. In 2022, Exelon spun off all subsidiary Exelon Generation’s assets to Baltimore-based Constellation Energy. Constellation was a separate energy company that owned BGE, which Exelon acquired in 2012. It became the vehicle for Exelon’s exit from generating power.
In 2021, as Exelon was preparing to spin off all of its generation, including 4,100-MW of power in Byron and Dresden, the Illinois legislature passed and Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation worth $700 million in subsidies to rescue Byron, Dresden, and Braidwood nuclear plants from closure. Those plants are now owned by Constellation and sell power to ComEd.
–Kennedy Maize
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