ComEd will pay $200 million to resolve a federal criminal investigation into a bribery scheme in which investigators say the utility company admitted to arranging jobs and payments for associates of an elected official, referred to only as “Public Official A," for nearly a decade, prosecutors announced Friday.
The court filing identifies that elected official as "Speaker of the Illinois House and the longest serving member of the House of Representatives," a description that seems only to fit Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. A spokesman for Madigan did not immediately respond to request for comment.
ComEd "arranged jobs, vendor subcontracts, and monetary payments associated with those jobs and subcontracts, for various associates of a high-level elected official for the state of Illinois, to influence and reward the official’s efforts to assist ComEd with respect to legislation concerning ComEd and its business," the office of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch said in a statement.
"We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior. In the past, some of ComEd’s lobbying practices and interactions with public officials did not live up to that commitment," Exelon CEO Christopher Crane said in a statement. "When we learned about the inappropriate conduct, we acted swiftly to investigate. We concluded from the investigation that a small number of senior ComEd employees and outside contractors orchestrated this misconduct, and they no longer work for the company."
Read the full court filings - including the complete delayed prosecution agreement - below:
