From Mailroom Clerk To Indicted Power Broker: A Clout Story

CHICAGO — What do House Speaker Michael Madigan, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. J.B. Pritzker all have in common?

They've all been big fans of John Hooker.

Chances are you have never heard of the political power broker before Thursday.

That's when Hooker and three others got indicted on federal charges of allegedly facilitating a ComEd bribery scheme to win legislative favors by handing out jobs and contracts to associates of Madigan — who has been implicated but not charged with a crime.

To define Hooker by his connection to the ComEd scheme alone would sell short the clouted journey of a West Side nobody who became a trusted friend of the Chicago Democrat Machine's corrupt status quo.

Hooker, 71, grew up in Chicago's Lawndale community. He started working for ComEd in the mail room in 1966, the same year he graduated from Farragut High School.

He worked as typist, clerk and timekeeper, and got promoted to work in the public utility's human resources and marketing departments.

Hooker, who is Black, became an unlikely player in Chicago politics in 1987 when ComEd officials assigned him to serve as its liaison to Chicago's first Black mayor, the late Harold Washington.

Three years later, in 1990, Hooker earned his bachelor's degree from Chicago State University, according to a state House resolution celebrating his being awarded CSU's "Circle of Friends" Award.

The 2010 resolution, introduced by former state Rep. Constance Howard — who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2013 for pocketing cash earmarked for student scholarships — wished Hooker "continued success and happiness in the future."

A year later, in 2011, is when the feds say the ComEd bribery scheme began in an attempt to gain favor from Madigan, referred to as "our Friend" in alleged shakedown emails sent to Hooker cited in the indictment, court papers show.

Over the years, Hooker has gained a lot of powerful friends.

In July 2015, Emanuel tapped Hooker to lead the Chicago Housing Authority board.

That same week, Emanuel appointed Hooker's former ComEd boss, Frank Clark — whose name also popped up in a Madigan subpoena related to the federal probe but hasn't been charged with a crime — as head of the Chicago Public Schools.

Hooker and Clark have remained close after leaving ComEd. They even live a few floors apart in a South Loop high-rise, according to public records.

It's the kind of political relationship that knows no governmental boundaries.

Here's an example: In September, after the feds expanded their corruption probe to include a controversial $1 billion worth of Chicago Public School custodial contracts, I talked to an African American entrepreneur from Detroit who told me that, in 2017, he met with Hooker for breakfast after hearing rumors he was getting cut out of part of the deal.

MORE ON PATCH: Are Feds Sniffing CPS Custodial Contract To Make Insiders Squirm?

Sitting across the table from Dan Ringo, CEO of a joint venture a vote away from a multimillion-dollar deal, Hooker phoned his neighbor and former boss.

"Hooker called Clark and basically said, 'Hey, this is a decent guy,'" Ringo told me. Then, Hooker clicked off the speakerphone and "his whole body language changed," Ringo said. After the call, Ringo said Hooker had questions on a singular topic: "Who do you know?"

Ringo didn't have clout. Four days after breakfast with Hooker, Ringo got a letter from CPS that said: "After further review, we will not be recommending reward of a contract."

That wasn't the only time Hooker has found himself somehow connected to inside dealings while serving as Emanuel's CHA board chairman.

In January 2016, Hooker and ComEd chief executive Anne Pramaggiore got an email from their co-defendant, Madigan confidant Michael McClain, advocating for the public utility to "resolve this issue of 850 hours" for a certain law firm with haste to avoid provoking a "reaction from our friend."

Hooker, Pramaggiore and McClain "corruptly arranged for jobs, vendor contracts and subcontracts, as well as monetary payments" to various Madigan associates, according to the criminal indictment.

In early 2019 — just months after Pritzker had both donated $10 million to campaign funds controlled by Madigan and won election — the new governor cleaned house at the Illinois Tollway Authority, a well-known haven for political patronage.

Pritzker picked former Chicago Housing Authority chief of staff Jose Alvarez to run the Illinois Tollway Authority's day-to-day operation and Will Evans, a former Peoples Gas executive, as the tollway board president after the men had been "strongly endorsed" by Hooker, the governor's office told the Sun-Times.

Between August and December 2019, the Daily Herald reported, Alvarez had hired at least eight former Chicago Housing Authority employees to jobs that pay between $85,000 to $195,000 a year.

Hooker, through his attorney, says he's not guilty of the federal charges against him. “It is unfortunate that in its zeal to prosecute another, the government has run roughshod over the life of a distinguished and inspiring role model like Mr. Hooker,” criminal defense lawyer Michael Monico said in a statement.

Hooker's rise from ComEd's mail room to government boardrooms certainly has been distinguished. There's even that state House resolution to prove it.

But an inspiring role model?

Maybe in corrupt Chicago.

Let's see what a federal jury decides.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."
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