O'Neill's daylong testimony recounted how former Illinois legislator and Madigan-allied lobbyist Michael McClain, who was convicted earlier this year with three others involved in the scheme, including former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, facilitated getting the 2011 legislation to the house floor in exchange for a certain number of billable hours that ComEd paid to lobbyist Victor Reyes, internships for students from Madigan's southwest Chicago ward and other political favors. McClain is on trial again with Madigan, this time, for crimes not included in the earlier matter. 

O'Neill said that when he joined the utility giant in July 2010, it was in a "precarious financial position," and desperately needed to increase customer rates or it may have had to file for bankruptcy protection. He then told jurors at the federal courthouse in Chicago how over the following six years he spent much of his time in Springfield. Ill., lobbying for three separate energy bills, dealing mostly with McClain acting as a go-between for Madigan.

"Mr. McClain had free access in the speaker's suite," said O'Neill, connecting him to Madigan and the legislation pushes as well as to a contract entered into by ComEd, in October 2011, with Reyes Kurson, a law firm headed up by Victor Reyes, another political ally of Madigan.

The contract was agreed to just as the General Assembly voted to override Gov. Pat Quinn's veto of ComEd's first push for a rate hike. Years later, O'Neill attempted to cut the law firm's hours, as yet another ComEd bill was getting ready to be voted on, and ComEd's then-CEO, Pramaggiore, received an email from McClain warning her not to do so.

"I'm sure you know how valuable Victor is to our Friend," McClain said in the e-mail included in the case file. "I know the drill and so do you. If you do not get involved and resolve this issue of 850 hours for his law firm per year then he will go to our Friend. Our Friend will call me and then I will call you. Is this a drill we must go through?" Prosecutors said the "Friend" was Madigan and O'Neill testified that this was his understanding as well.

The contract between Reyes Kurson and ComEd was renewed several months later, and another of the ComEd-favored energy bills was passed in Springfield.

Prosecutors alleged that as a 40-year-plus fixture in Springfield, Madigan bringing such bills to the floor not only guaranteed their eventual passage in the Democratic-controlled Illinois House but also in the state Senate. Madigan was also the chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party at the time and both houses were controlled by Democrats. In 2011, both chambers voted to override a veto by then governor Pat Quinn (D) for one of the bills that benefited ComEd via rate hikes. 

"I got asked frequently, if not constantly: Does the speaker support this? Or, where is the speaker on this?" O'Neill testified.

Madigan faces 23 counts of bribery, racketeering, extortion, and wire fraud. One of the bills that Madigan supported and which benefited ComEd stopped more stringent clean energy standards and investment in the state energy grid because it passed instead of a more robust bill supported, at the time, by Madigan's own daughter, former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D).

"We've got — we’ve gotta kill it. Period," McClain told Pramaggiore in a recorded call in May 2018 according to an FBI affidavit filed in January 2019. Pramaggiore told others involved in the scheme that she was moving to a higher position with ComEd’s parent company, Exelon, and they would be on their own once she was gone if the energy bill Lisa Madigan favored had passed. ComEd settled with federal authorities and agreed to pay a $200 million penalty for its role in the scheme in 2020. O'Neill is cooperating with the government.