The former ComEd vp who secretly recorded his colleagues as a part of a federal corruption investigation started testifying in opposition to former House Speaker Michael Madigan on Tuesday, the primary of what’s anticipated to be many days on the witness stand .
One of the prosecution’s star witnesses, Fidel Márquez’s cooperation with federal investigators offered the spine of prosecutors’ allegations that Madigan and his co-defendant Michael McClain supported ComEd-friendly laws in trade for advantages from the utility , as do-not-do contracts for his or her members.
Márquez started working with the FBI in early 2019, after brokers confronted him at his mom’s residence and performed his wiretapped cellphone calls that they stated confirmed he was committing crimes. He has continued to make quite a few undercover recordings, each audio and video, and is predicted to testify that ComEd paid Madigan’s most popular associates a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} for nearly no work.
“I do know they have been introduced ahead as a favor to Michael Madigan,” Marquez testified final 12 months within the associated “ComEd Four” corruption trial, which ended with the conviction of McClain and three others. “For Madigan to see ComEd positively. So that may maybe be useful to our legislative agenda in Springfield.
Marquez took the stand briefly earlier than a lunch break Tuesday to inform jurors that he had pleaded responsible in 2020 to conspiracy to commit bribery. In trade for his truthful testimony, he stated, prosecutors will advocate a sentence of probation as an alternative of jail.
He additionally admitted to jurors that earlier this 12 months he had incorrectly stuffed out an utility for a gun. When the query requested if he was being charged or briefed for a criminal offense, he stated no. On Tuesday within the stands, Marquez stated it was involuntary.
He merely needed a gun to repel rattlesnakes close to his residence in Arizona, he stated.
Marquez won’t face expenses associated to that request, however legal professionals for Madigan and McClain are virtually sure they may use it to assault his credibility. The decide overseeing Márquez’s case warned him of this earlier this 12 months, telling him that he had basically “given Madigan’s legal professionals an excellent piece of ammunition.”
Marquez is predicted to get to the center of his testimony on Tuesday after the lunch break.
He is one in every of two essential witnesses who made undercover recordings whereas cooperating with federal authorities. The different, former Ald. Daniel Solis, is predicted to testify later within the trial about Madigan’s alleged makes an attempt to make use of his public place to acquire work for his personal legislation agency. Solis, who additionally testified in final 12 months’s corruption trial of former Ald. Edward Burke, himself accused of corruption, obtained an unprecedented deal in trade for his cooperation.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who was speaker of the Illinois House for many years and head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering expenses that allege he ran his state and political operations as a prison enterprise.
Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former contract lobbyist for ComEd from southern Quincy state, have pleaded not responsible and denied any wrongdoing.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
