Crime & Law
‘ComEd Four’ Will Seek to Have Convictions Tossed After Supreme Court Bribery Ruling
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
Attorneys representing four former Commonwealth Edison officials will formally ask a judge to toss out their clients’ convictions, more than a year after they were found guilty of conspiring to bribe ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah on Tuesday set a briefing deadline for the so-called “ComEd Four” to file motions seeking a new trial or a directed verdict of not guilty after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month redefined a federal bribery statute that was at the heart of several of their charges.
But any decision on a new trial or verdict is still months away, as the briefing schedule extends into mid-November. The four defendants were convicted back in May 2023.
Madigan’s longtime confidant Michael McClain, ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, retired ComEd executive John Hooker and former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty were all initially set to be sentenced months ago after being found guilty of bribery conspiracy, bribery and willfully falsifying ComEd’s books.
Federal prosecutors argued they did this through a number of means, including paying Madigan allies as ComEd subcontractors, who in turn would actually do little or no work for the utility company; offering a lucrative contract to a law firm run by Madigan ally Victor Reyes; and fighting to get Juan Ochoa appointed to the ComEd board of directors at the former speaker’s behest.
Ex-City Club of Chicago president and former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty, retired ComEd executive John Hooker, former ComEd lobbyist Mike McClain and ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore were found guilty. (File photos)
But last month, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision redefined the federal bribery statute after it reversed a lower court’s opinion in an appeal filed by James Snyder, a former Indiana mayor who’d been convicted of bribery after he accepted $13,000 from a local towing company after steering a city garbage truck contract to that business.
The court’s ruling means the federal statute will still criminalize quid pro quo bribery, but won’t extend to cover gratuities — which are payments made in recognition of actions a state or local official has already taken or has committed to take, without any quid pro quo agreement in place.
Defense attorneys in the “ComEd Four” case had previously argued that such a ruling would require their clients’ convictions to be tossed out and the case to be retried.
Pramaggiore’s attorney Scott Lassar on Tuesday said he plans to renew his motion for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that no jury could have found his client guilty if they had been instructed properly under the statute following the Snyder decision.
Federal prosecutors have vehemently disagreed with that notion.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu on Tuesday argued that some of the charges in the case remain unchanged by the Snyder decision and that even those that do include other acts under which the four could have still been found guilty.
“We do not believe a new trial is necessary in this case,” he said.
Tuesday’s hearing marked the first in the “ComEd Four” case since the Snyder ruling was handed down, and the first since the case was transferred to Shah following the death last month of Judge Harry Leinenweber, who’d presided over the trial and all subsequent proceedings.
Madigan is set to go to trial alongside McClain later this year on racketeering charges, but that case had also been delayed pending the Snyder decision.
Defense attorneys now have until Aug. 27 to file their motions. Prosecutors must respond to those by Oct. 15 and the defense must file its response to those filings by Nov. 14.
Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected] | (773) 509-5431
