THE LOOP (WBBM Newsradio) -- The former CEO of ComEd and a former top lobbyist for the utility are being released from federal custody, as they wait for new trials on corruption charges tied to disgraced former state House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and ex-lobbyist Michael McClain made up half of the group known as the "ComEd Four."
Federal prosecutors accused them of conspiring to bribe Madigan by installing friends and operatives in highly-paid do-nothing jobs in exchange for Madigan's support for legislation the utility backed, and a jury convicted them in 2023.
But a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals here in Chicago has ordered them released and granted their requests for new trials, based on recent decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, including a ruling in the case of the former mayor of Portage, Indiana that appears to change the legal definition of a bribe.
"If you give somebody a gratuity based on something that they did, but you didn't ask them to do it, and it wasn't a bribe to get 'em to do it, then there's no problem," IIT-Kent College of Law professor Richard Kling told WBBM Newsradio.
It'll now be up to the US Attorney's office in Chicago to decide whether to pursue a new trial, but Kling said it's more than possible that the Justice Department might drop the cases based on the narrower standard: "I think it's likely."
He says the high court's rulings have muddied the waters for authorities trying to root out public corruption.
Appeals court orders two of 'ComEd Four' released
Appeals court orders two of 'ComEd Four' released
