Convictions in 'ComEd Four' bribery trial appear to be on thin ice

CHICAGO — Three years after the historic “ComEd Four” bribery trial, the convictions of former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and lobbyist Michael McClain appeared to be on thin ice Tuesday as a federal appeals court indicated recent Supreme Court rulings could force a retrial.

During consolidated arguments for McClain and Pramaggiore before the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the three-judge panel had tough questions for a government lawyer about how the conspiracy conviction could stand after the high court said “gratuities” given to elected officials with no direct tie to official actions are not illegal.

After that ruling, a district court judge threw out underlying bribery convictions in the “ComEd Four” case but left intact the main conspiracy count as well as guilty verdicts on other counts of falsifying ComEd’s books and records.

Paul Clement, the lead attorney for Pramaggiore, argued that there was no possible way for the court to know that the jury didn’t convict the defendants based on the government’s bribery theories — and therefore a new trial was inevitable.

At least two of the three judges on the panel appeared to agree.

“Here’s the problem,” Judge Thomas Kirsch II said to Assistant U.S. Attorney Irene Hickey Sullivan just moments after she stepped to the podium. “When you charge the case and try it as a bribery case, what’s to say the jury just didn’t consider the illegal bribery object and stop right there?”

Sullivan argued the evidence in the case overwhelmingly showed the defendants’ motive to falsify records was to hide the nature of illicit subcontractor payments to friends of House Speaker Michael Madigan.

But another member of the panel, Judge Joshua Kolar, appeared to also have major issues with trying to determine what prongs of the conspiracy counts the jury considered proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The very first prong listed in the counts was bribery, Kolar noted.

“How do we know that the jury didn’t just say, ‘Welp, we agree with that, we don’t need to go on. That’s it.'” he asked.

Another Supreme Court decision in the case against former Chicago Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, who was convicted of lying to banking regulators, also factored heavily into the discussion Tuesday. That ruling said the law does not criminalize statements that are misleading but true.

In his argument, McClain attorney Joel Bertocchi said witnesses at trial testified ComEd was not interested in listing subcontractor payments in records and the defendants should not have been convicted of falsifying records by simply omitting them.

“You can’t make a false records count out of the omission of information that was neither asked for nor expected,” Bertocchi said. “If ComEd thinks its books and records are accurate without listing subcontractors…then no defendant in this case is going to question their judgement.”

Kolar, however, remarked that such a circumstance would seem to be “a roadmap for corruption.”

Though it’s typically difficult to read tea leaves during appellate arguments, the 45-minute session on Tuesday seemed solidly in favor of Pramaggiore and McClain.

Near the end of the arguments, Clement went so far as to tell the judges he felt like he was “in pretty good shape on a new trial,” and asked that if they were to vacate the convictions if the defendants would be granted a bond.

Sullivan said she would have to check with her office but did not think prosecutors would oppose such a motion — which would make it very likely both Pramaggiore and McClain would be freed soon after a ruling.

Pramaggiore, 67, was sentenced in July 2025 to two years in prison. She reported to a minimum-security facility in Marianna, Florida, in January and is currently due to be released in August 2027, U.S. Bureau of Prison records show.

McClain, 78, is serving his 1 1/2-year sentence at a facility in Lexington, Kentucky, and is also scheduled for release in August 2027, records show.

The arguments Tuesday come nearly three years after Pramaggiore and McClain, as well as two colleagues, were convicted in the “ComEd Four” case, one of the biggest political corruption scandals in state history.

The two other defendants, ex-ComEd executive John Hooker and former City Club of Chicago head Jay Doherty, did not appeal their convictions and have already served prison sentences and been released to halfway houses in the Chicago area.

The bulk of the ComEd allegations centered on a cadre of Madigan allies who were paid a total of $1.3 million from 2011 through 2019 through allegedly do-nothing consulting contracts. Among the recipients were two former aldermen, Frank Olivo and Michael Zalewski, precinct captains Ray Nice and Edward Moody, and former state Rep. Edward Acevedo.

In addition, prosecutors alleged ComEd also hired a clouted law firm run by political operative Victor Reyes, distributed numerous college internships within Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom, and backed former McPier chief Juan Ochoa, a 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 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.

After the jury’s verdict in May 2023, the “ComEd Four” case was beset by a series of delays, first due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reset the rules for a key federal bribery statute and then again after the death of the judge who’d presided over the trial, Harry Leinenweber.

After he was selected to take over the case, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah tossed the underlying bribery counts due to the Supreme Court’s decision, but kept intact the main conspiracy count as well as guilty verdicts for falsifying ComEd’s books and records, which were charged under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Madigan, meanwhile, was convicted in a separate trial of an array of schemes that included the ComEd bribery payments. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, and his appeal is pending.

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