Possible ComEd 4 retrial up in the air months after 7th Circuit ordered
prison release for 2
[August 21, 2026]
CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors on Thursday told a judge
they aren’t yet ready to say whether they’ll retry the lead defendants
in the “ComEd Four” case who were convicted in 2023 of bribing former
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
But U.S. District Judge Manish Shah asked the parties to be ready for a
possible retrial early next year.
“I want you to be thinking about February 2027,” he said during a brief
hearing.
Thursday morning’s hearing comes four months after a seismic shift in
the case when, just hours after hearing appellate arguments, the 7th
Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the release from prison of longtime
Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain and former Commonwealth Edison CEO
Anne Pramaggiore. The other half of the ComEd Four did not appeal their
convictions but had already finished their own monthslong sentences by
then.
In June, the three-judge panel issued a full opinion in the case ruling
the feds are free to retry McClain and Pramaggiore. The opinion made
clear the government had presented “significant and compelling evidence
in the case,” rejecting defendants’ arguments for full acquittal.
“Do not misread our opinion. We are not suggesting that Pramaggiore and
McClain are innocent, only that their convictions were flawed and that
they have a right to see their sentences vacated,” Judge Thomas Kirsch
II, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote for the panel.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur on Thursday told Shah it’s
too early to commit to a retrial and asked to convene again in late
October, which would give Pramaggiore’s new lawyers two months to catch
up on the case.
Pramaggiore has a new legal team as of Monday when the change of
representation was logged in the case docket. After nearly six years,
former U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar is off the case and has been replaced
by T. Markus Funk, a former federal prosecutor who worked on a major
Chicago mob case in the early 2000s. Attorney Carolyn Gurland, who
helped represent former Govs. George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich in their
own corruption cases, and former Department of Justice criminal chief
Brent Wible have also been retained.
Funk told Shah that an early 2027 retrial date would be “ambitious,”
saying he’d just received 5 million documents in the case this week.
“It’s difficult to see how we could be prepared at this point,” he said
of Shah’s proposed February scheduling.
Patrick Cotter, who represented McClain both during the ComEd Four trial
and alongside Madigan in a separate trial that ended with the jury
deadlocked on all six charges involving McClain, told Shah he’d retired
and his involvement in the case going forward would only be a “cameo.”
A retrial is far from certain, given the resources involved in getting a
major case in front of a jury; the original 2023 trial lasted seven
weeks and MacArthur told Shah it would take the government “four to six
weeks” to present its case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has seen massive turnover since President
Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, including the
departures of two lead attorneys on Madigan-related cases: former
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amarjeet Bhachu and Sarah Streicker.
The office has also faced major scrutiny in the last year over its
decisions to pursue charges stemming from Operation Midway Blitz, the
Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign in the Chicago area.
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Lobbyist Mike McClain and former Commonwealth Edison CEO Anne
Pramaggiore leave Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse in July 2025
after both were sentenced to two years in prison in connection to a
bribery scheme centered on former Illinois House Speaker Michael
Madigan. (Capitol News Illinois photos by Andrew Adams)
In the wake of revelations of prosecutorial misconduct in the “Broadview
Six” immigration protest case this spring, MacArthur was assigned to
multiple cases that had fallen apart in the aftermath. In early June,
U.S. District Judge Mary Roland remarked the veteran prosecutor’s
involvement in the cases was tantamount to cleanup duty.
“I understand why the office is assigning you to these cases, frankly,
and why I’m sure you’ve taken them on,” she told MacArthur during a June
9 hearing. “The front office, as you know, has created a credibility
crisis. And that’s a real problem.”
Instead of proceeding to retrial, the government could offer a plea deal
on some of the smaller counts or a deferred prosecution agreement — a
fate granted to former AT&T Illinois President Paul LaSchiazza, whose
own trial on charges he’d attempted to bribe Madigan in a similar manner
to ComEd defendants ended in a deadlocked jury. Before a planned January
2026 retrial, he agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement last fall.
But if prosecutors do stage a ComEd Four retrial, the charges would be
significantly pared down. In the years since Pramaggiore and McClain
were convicted, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two rulings affecting the
case. A 2024 opinion narrowed the federal bribery statute, which led
Shah to toss the bribery charges in the case and offer a new trial,
which prosecutors at the time did not go for, instead dismissing the
bribery charges at sentencing.
And in a 2025 decision in the government’s case against former Chicago
Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson for lying to bank regulators, the high court
unanimously ruled that the law doesn’t criminalize statements that are
misleading but not false. Prosecutors would likely have to refine the
books and records charges against Pramaggiore and McClain, as ComEd’s
internal records did not require the names of subcontractors, making it
easier to hide the fact that the utility funneled $1.3 million to a
handful of Madigan allies over a period of eight years despite them
doing little to no work for their monthly checks.
On Thursday, Shah approved the government handing over to defense
attorneys the years-old grand jury transcripts involving discussion of
the books and records charges.
But the judge noted the U.S. Supreme Court may soon weigh in on another
matter that could affect the ComEd Four case. Last month Madigan filed
an official intention to appeal to the high court after losing at the
7th Circuit this spring. If the court decided to take up the case, Shah
said it would be “useful to know” before parties begin diving into
proposed jury instructions, on which both legal strategy and future
appeals rest heavily.
In October, Madigan reported to a West Virginia federal prison to begin
serving his own 7 ½-year sentence on bribery and other related
convictions
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