Ex-ComEd executive caught up in bribery scheme avoids prison after testifying against Madigan, others

Fidel Marquez may not have been the architect of the vast ComEd bribery scheme that brought down former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.

But the utility executive still sensed the moral danger.

He knew that pleasing a powerful politician by hiring his allies for do-nothing jobs was wrong, a prosecutor said Thursday. So when the FBI gave Marquez the opportunity to put things right in January 2019, he took it — and wore a wire against his friends and colleagues.

That decision also spared him any prison time. U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland agreed Thursday to give Marquez only two years of probation and a $50,000 fine for his role in the scheme.

But first, she made one thing clear: “We need people like you to stand up sooner.”

“If we can’t have ComEd stand up to this stuff, we are sunk,” Rowland said. “We’re in real trouble if we don’t have powerful entities saying ‘enough’ to unreasonable, corrupt politicians.”

The low-key, 75-minute sentencing of Marquez seemed to finally close the book — in the lower courts, anyway — on the blockbuster corruption investigation that upended Chicago politics and led to prison sentences for Madigan and ex-Chicago Ald. Edward M. Burke.

There was little suspense, though, as prosecutors had agreed in 2020 to seek probation if Marquez continued his cooperation. The main point of contention in Thursday’s hearing revolved around whether Marquez should pay a fine as high as $250,000, and whether he should be ordered to perform 320 hours of community service.

In the end, Rowland ordered Marquez to pay a fraction of the fine sought by prosecutors. She also spared him any court-ordered community service. Christopher Niewoehner, his defense attorney, said Marquez already spent “at least” 336 hours in 2025 helping students at Pima Community College in Arizona, where he lives.

"I sincerely regret my actions and participation in the bribery of Michael Madigan," Marquez told the judge before she handed down the sentence. "I am ashamed."

The longtime ComEd employee rose in 2012 to become the utility's senior vice president of governmental affairs before his career there ended amid the Madigan investigation in 2019.

His light sentence came after Marquez testified in two trials against five people who now sit in federal prison: Madigan, former ComEd lobbyists Michael McClain and John Hooker, ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and onetime City Club President Jay Doherty.

The only person caught up in the scandal who seemed to fare better was Danny Solis. The former Chicago City Council member wore a wire against Madigan, Burke and others — and struck a deal that helped him avoid even a criminal conviction.

But while Solis has previously been described as one of Chicago’s “most significant cooperators in the last several decades,” prosecutors on Thursday heaped praise upon Marquez for his role in ending the ComEd conspiracy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman even suggested Marquez deserved to be known as a “super cooperator.”

“It is simply difficult to describe in words how important and powerful that cooperation was,” Chapman said.

Niewoehner, a former federal prosecutor, compared Marquez to influence peddler Stuart Levine, a crucial cooperator caught up in the investigation that snared ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich more than a decade ago.

“I think when you sentence Mr. Marquez, he truly is the most extraordinary cooperator in the living memory, I think, of the U.S. attorney’s office,” Niewoehner told the judge.

When the FBI confronted Marquez at his mother’s home in Hammond, Indiana, on Jan. 16, 2019, he “made an immediate decision to help because he thought it was the right thing to do,” Niewoehner said.

“It was a chance for him to stop something he thought was wrong,” the attorney said.

Marquez gathered much of the feds’ most crucial evidence without the assistance of a lawyer, Niewoehner wrote in a recent court memo. The attorney said Marquez didn’t find counsel until after May 2019, once he’d secretly recorded McClain, Pramaggiore, Hooker and Doherty.

Marquez testified during Madigan’s trial that ComEd funneled cash to Madigan’s allies over several years as a “favor” so that Madigan would be “more positively disposed toward ComEd’s legislative agenda.”

Madigan’s trial ended in February 2025, with jurors agreeing that the former speaker conspired to have ComEd officials pay $1.3 million to his allies as part of the scheme.

McClain, Pramaggiore, Hooker and Doherty were convicted by a separate jury in May 2023 for their roles in the plot.

U.S. District Judge John Blakey sentenced Madigan last summer to 7 ½ years in prison. The once-powerful Democrat is serving his sentence in West Virginia. However, he’s challenging his conviction, and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments in his case April 9.

U.S. District Judge Manish Shah gave McClain and Pramaggiore two-year prison sentences. He gave Hooker 18 months and Doherty one year.

McClain and Pramaggiore are also pursuing an appeal, and arguments in their case are set for April 14.