Jay Doherty, the former City Club of Chicago leader and Commonwealth Edison consultant, reported to federal prison Tuesday to begin serving a one-year sentence handed down in the bribery scandal involving ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Doherty, 72, checked in at the federal correctional institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, a medium-security, male-only facility, according to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesperson. He must serve 85% of his sentence, though because of his age he could be released to a halfway house or home confinement sooner.
Doherty is the first person directly linked to the Madigan case to wind up behind bars, as other defendants, including Madigan himself, have asked to remain free on bond pending appeal.
Several others convicted in offshoot cases, including former state Reps. Eddie Acevedo and Annazette Collins, have already served their prison terms.
Madigan, 83, has been ordered to report to prison on Oct. 13, though his attorneys have asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow him to remain free on bond while his appeal is pending.
Doherty’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
A longtime political consultant and lobbyist, Doherty was convicted in 2023 of acting as the pass-through in a scheme to pay off a cadre of Madigan associates, including former Aldermen Frank Olivo and Michael Zalewski and 13th Ward precinct captains Ed Moody and Ray Nice, by making them do-nothing subcontractors under Doherty’s company, J.D. Doherty and Associates.
In return, prosecutors alleged, Madigan used his influence over the General Assembly to help ComEd score a series of huge legislative victories that not only rescued the company from financial instability but led to record-breaking, billion-dollar profits.
Among them was the 2011 smart grid bill that set a built-in formula for the rates ComEd could charge customers, avoiding battles with the Illinois Commerce Commission, according to the charges. ComEd also leaned on Madigan’s office to help pass the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016, which kept the formula rate in place and also rescued two nuclear plants run by an affiliated company, Exelon Generation.
Doherty was captured on undercover video telling then-ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez, who was secretly cooperating with the FBI, that ComEd “saw the value of being able to sit next to people in soft situations.”
When Marquez asked him what the Madigan associates were doing for ComEd, Doherty answered “not much.” So why pay them all that money?
“That I guess can be answered in Springfield with Madigan,” Doherty said in the February 2019 recording. “And to keep Mike Madigan happy, I think it’s worth it. I mean, just ’cause you’d hear about it otherwise.”
In sentencing Doherty to a year in prison in August, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said that for all Doherty’s talk about “soft” relationships, he ultimately “played the hard game of passing money on to Olivo, Nice, Moody and Zalewski.”
“Behind the scenes, you played a criminal game that undermines all that the soft power of persuasion, organization and debate is meant to achieve … how civic, lawful democracy is supposed to work,” Shah said.
Before he was sentenced, Doherty told the judge his skills for bringing people together served him well in his career and charitable work, but that somehow he lost his way.
“Sometime over the years, instead of seeing my job as a means of service, it became simply a way to make more money and build myself up. To gain, not give,” Doherty said, standing at the lectern in a rumpled blue suit and reading from notes in a clear voice. “This happened so slowly, your honor, over time, that to be honest I did not see this even within myself, and I am deeply ashamed that I did not see it.”
The son of a pharmacist and small-town mayor, Doherty grew up in McHenry with nine siblings. Early in his career, Doherty served as a fundraiser and political consultant for Democratic candidates in Chicago from members of the Kennedy family to Mayor Harold Washington.
In asking for probation, his attorney, Gabrielle Sansonetti called him an “honest man” and downplayed his conduct, arguing there was a “gaping hole in the evidence of this case” that failed to show Doherty, who lobbied largely in Chicago and Cook County government, knew of any specific exchange with Madigan or the ComEd legislation moving through the state capitol.
“Jay did not work in Springfield,” Sansonetti said. “He did not work with Madigan. He did not discuss the hiring of these subcontractors with Madigan at all.”
Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and lobbyist Michael McClain, who was one of Madigan’s closest confidants, were each sentenced to two-year prison terms in July. Ex-ComEd executive John Hooker, meanwhile, was given a year and a half behind bars.
Madigan, meanwhile, was convicted in a separate trial of an array of schemes that included the ComEd bribery payments. He was sentenced in June to 7½ years in prison.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
