After nearly seven weeks of evidence and arguments, a federal jury is now deliberating the fate of the “ComEd Four,” a group of executives and lobbyists accused of bribing then-House Speaker Michael Madigan to win his influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.

The jury began its discussions shortly after 3 p.m. after hearing nine hours of closing arguments beginning Monday.

In his rebuttal argument Tuesday, the lead prosecutor on the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu, told the jury that the efforts the four defendants made on behalf of ComEd to woo Madigan were like a “corruption toll” similar to something motorists must pay to continue on their trip.

“It was a corruption toll to make sure that Mr. Madigan was not an obstacle to their legislative agenda,” Bhachu said. “And they paid that toll every month, from 2011 to 2019 when they were caught.”

Attorneys for defendants, however, have argued that prosecutors failed to show any connection between payments the utility made to lobbying subcontractors and any official act taken by Madigan.

The ComEd Four case marks the most significant public corruption trial since former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted 12 years ago.

It has struck at the heart of Illinois politics itself, holding up a mirror not only to Madigan’s vaunted political operation but also the entire system of relationships between lobbyists, legislators, and government-regulated utilities that rely on the General Assembly for its profits.

Trying to read tea leaves on how long the jury might deliberate is usually an effort in futility.

What is clear that in deliberating the case, jurors will have to sift through a mountain of evidence, including dozens of wiretapped phone calls and secretly recorded videos, hundreds of emails and internal documents, and the live testimony of some 50 witnesses, including current and former state legislators, ComEd executives, and Madigan insiders.

The indictment charges the four defendants with a total of nine counts, including bribery conspiracy, circumventing internal business controls and the falsification of business records to allegedly hide the payments ComEd was making.

Charged are Michael McClain, 75, a longtime ComEd contract lobbyist and one of Madigan’s closest confidants; former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, 64, a lawyer and onetime rising star in Chicago’s corporate world; Jay Doherty, 69, a lobbyist and ex-president of the City Club of Chicago; and John Hooker, 74, who over a 44-year career worked his way from the utility’s mailroom to become its point man in Springfield.

The indictment alleged the four conspired to funnel $1.3 million in payments to ghost “subcontractors,” largely through Doherty’s company, who were actually Madigan’s cronies.

The utility also hired a clouted law firm run by political operative Victor Reyes, distributed numerous college internships within Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom, and blatantly backed former McPier chief Juan Ochoa, the friend of a Madigan ally, for an $80,000-a-year seat on the utility’s board of directors, the indictment alleged.

In return, prosecutors say, 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.

Defense attorneys have argued over and over that the government is seeking to criminalize legal lobbying and job recommendations that are at the center of the state’s legitimate political system.

In his rebuttal argument Tuesday, however, Bhachu said the notion that the defendants didn’t know what they were doing was corrupt is “absurd.”

Bhachu scoffed at defense arguments that no one at ComEd mentioned having Madigan in their pocket at meetings, so therefore there was no effort to corruptly influence him.

“They didn’t talk about it because the defendants are not that stupid,” Bhachu said. “They didn’t advertise their criminal activity in an all-hands meeting at ComEd” or take out ads in the Tribune.

He also said that the scheme went on for eight years, “and this type of conduct does not go on for that long if you’re foolish… Secrecy was very important to this conspiracy.”

“We’re not talking about amateurs here,” Bhachu said. “They were not playing checkers, they were playing chess. And when it came to playing chess, they were grand masters.”

Earlier Tuesday, the jury heard closing arguments from Hooker and Doherty, rounding out more than five hour of remarks by the defense over the past two days.

In her hourlong argument, Hooker’s attorney, Jacqueline Jacobson, said the feds had failed to prove Hooker “knowingly participated in a conspiracy to bribe Mike Madigan,” and that Hooker’s own testimony showed he had no corrupt intent when he hired two of the speaker’s associates, former 13th Ward Ald. Frank Olivo and precinct captain Ray Nice, as subcontracted lobbyists in 2011.

Both Olivo and Nice were good hires, with deep relationships with city officials and working knowledge of the issues confronting the then-floundering utility, Jacobson said.

“Folks, this is not a bribery conspiracy, this is a business decision that John made in 2011. And a pretty good one,” Jacobson said.

She said that the wiretapped conversations at the center of the prosecution’s case only show Hooker “reminiscing” about his role with the company in 2011, not participation in some grand scheme that allegedly kept unfolding after his retirement.

“There is no way in the world that this man would brag about committing a crime,” Jacobson said, pointing at Hooker at the defense table. She asked the jury if Hooker would really “throw it all away, all 44 ½ years (of his career), to join some conspiracy to benefit a company that he’d announced his retirement from?”

Michael Gillespie, the attorney for Doherty, sounded a similar theme, saying in his hour-long argument that of all the dozens of wiretaps and videotapes played in the trial, Doherty is on only two of them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect to this table,” Gillespie said, gesturing toward prosecutors, “there is not a chance. Not a chance that they’ve proven (their case).”

Gillespie said that not only did Doherty have nothing to do with the plan to pay Madigan surrogates, he’s not even “a Madigan guy.”

“He doesn’t go to dinner with Madigan. He’s not on one of those tapes with Michael Madigan,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie pointed to the “Magic List” of Madigan-approved lobbyists cultivated by his co-defendant, Michael McClain, which was shown to the jury with some fanfare by prosecutors last month.

“Lot of names on there. A lot of names. Look at them all,” Gillespie told jurors. “But you know who’s name is not on there? Jay Doherty. Jay’s not a Madigan guy. He’s not.”

Gillespie also reminded the jury they are being asked to pass judgment on a fellow citizen. “Mistakes in these courtrooms alter lives,” he said. “Mistakes in these courtrooms break hearts. It’s a heavy burden and it should be.”

In his rebuttal, Bhachu said the ComEd payments were going to the precinct captains who were going to make sure that Madigan got the votes to stay speaker. “When it came to the requests that were super important to Mike Madigan, this company was all in,” he said.

Bhachu also blasted defense arguments that Fidel Marquez lied to his friends when making secret recordings.

“How else are you going to get people to talk about criminal activity … go up to them and say, “Guess what? I’m working for the FBI! What are you going to tell me?” Bhachu said.

In her closing argument Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said the defendants weren’t operating a bribery scheme where a cash-stuffed envelope was was passed under a restaurant table, but a sophisticated web of illicit payments funneled to Madigan’s cronies for years.

“There isn’t an envelope in this world big enough to fit all the money that they made ComEd pay out,” MacArthur said in her closing argument to the jury.

MacArthur then methodically took the jury through the evidence in the case and the nine counts in the indictment, which include bribery conspiracy, circumventing internal business controls and the falsification of business records to allegedly hide the payments ComEd was making.

She said ComEd was teetering on the edge of financial disaster when McClain and his three co-defendants got together on a scheme to shower Madigan with a stream of benefits and “turn the tide” for the utility with a series of big wins in Springfield.

“Madigan wanted, ComEd gave, and ComEd got,” MacArthur said.

MacArthur also bluntly accused Pramaggiore and Hooker of lying on the witness stand when they testified in their own defense earlier this month.

But defense attorneys scoffed at that notion, saying their clients were not only innocent, but that they were “collateral damage” in the government’s yearslong quest to bring down Madigan, the Democratic leader at the apex of Illinois politics who was long considered to be untouchable.

Toward the end of his nearly two-hour presentation, Patrick Cotter, who represents McClain, told the jury that the entire case was “a conclusion in search of evidence.”

“They already had their target. They already knew who was guilty — it was Mike Madigan,” Cotter said, adding that once prosecutors assumed the speaker was guilty, “then everyone near him begins to look guilty.”

His voice quaking with emotion, Cotter urged the jury to “be the shield that you were meant to be.”

“The shield between an individual citizen and a very powerful government, in this case a very powerful government committed and dedicated to getting Mike Madigan,” Cotter said. “Don’t let Mike McClain be collateral damage in that war.”

Following Cotter’s emotional conclusion, Scott Lassar, the lead attorney for Pramaggiore, told the jury that there was simply no evidence of any conspiracy.

“The reason the government didn’t prove their case is because their case was dead wrong,” Lassar said in his typically understated style. “ComEd was not bribing Madigan.”

He ended by urging the jury not to hold it against Pramaggiore because she was the CEO, and to not compromise its verdict because being found guilty of just one of the lesser charges would still be “devastating” for Pramaggiore.

“Anne Pramaggiore is completely innocent,” Lassar said. “End this nightmare for her. Send her back to her family. Find her not guilty on every count.”

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

rlong@chicagotribune.com