Chicago City Wire

Former Chicago Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)  agent Don Sturn commented on the ComEd Four bribery convictions.

The ComED Four were involved in a scheme in which part of it, ComEd provided jobs – some of which were no show – and contracts to those with connections to former House Speaker Michael Madigan who at the time controlled the Democratic Party and had wielded power as the state’s most powerful politician as the longest serving state House Speaker in the nation.

“Graphic proof of Illinois's historical corruption by the reigning Democratic Party and leadership. Regularly fleecing taxpayers with bribery, lies and corruption,” Sturn said on Facebook. 

Sturn was previously Special Agent-in-Charge at U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. After a 30-year career with the DEA, he is now program manager for the Guidry Group.

Sturn’s comments come after the ComEd Four was convicted of scheming to pay $1.3 million to Madigan-connected people and companies. The ComEd Four is comprised of former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker along with Madigan’s right-hand man Michael McClain and lobbyist Jay Doherty, who previously ran the City Club of Chicago. They face sentencing in January 2024. 

ComEd, the state’s largest utility, engaged in the scheme to influence Madigan in order to get preferential treatment in the state House. Prosecutors called the foursome "grandmasters of corruption.” ComEd paid a $200 million fine in July 2020 and admitted to the scheme.

Sturn pointed to an article in the Cook County Record. 

“In exchange for such favors, Madigan steered passage of legislation sought by ComEd, including controversial new laws which steered billions of dollars worth of subsidies paid by electrical utility customers to ComEd, ostensibly to support ComEd’s aging nuclear power plants,” the Cook County Record article reads.

The former House Speaker's trial is not scheduled to begin until April 2024.