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Former ComEd CEO, company lobbyist walk free day after Chicago appeals court ruling

Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune on

Published in News & Features

CHICAGO — Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and retired lobbyist Michael McClain were released from federal prison Wednesday, but their freedom comes with a future that remains uncertain.

A day after an appeals court said it would reverse their convictions in the “ComEd Four” conspiracy case and ordered them freed “forthwith,” Pramaggiore, 67, was released from a federal prison camp facility in the Florida panhandle, where she had been confined since January, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesperson confirmed.

“Ms. Pramaggiore walked out of federal prison today and her case stepped closer to achieving justice,” Mark Herr, a spokesman for Pramaggiore, said in a statement. “She is grateful for the Seventh Circuit’s ruling, glad the ‘forthwith’ meant today, and looks forward to returning home.”

McClain, meanwhile, was released per the same judicial order from a medical prison facility in Lexington, Kentucky, the BOP spokesperson confirmed.

McClain’s longtime attorney, Patrick Cotter, said Tuesday evening that McClain was with his wife, Cinda, and that they’d be driving back home in the coming days.

Both Pramaggiore and McClain have been ordered to check in with federal pretrial services in Chicago, where they will remain free on bond pending the resolution of their case.

How long that will take is not yet known. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has yet to issue a formal opinion outlining its decision to reverse their 2023 convictions in the landmark ComEd Four case, which alleged a conspiracy to influence then-House Speaker Michael Madigan by funneling payments to do-nothing subcontractors and washing it from the utility’s books.

Once the reversal is officially entered, the U.S. attorney’s office will then have to decide how to proceed. Prosecutors could choose to retry the case, enter into some kind of deal with the defendants to avoid another lengthy jury trial or drop the charges altogether.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office has so far declined to comment.

 

The stunningly swift appellate decision Tuesday came three years after Pramaggiore and McClain, as well as two colleagues, were convicted in the ComEd Four case, which grew into one of the biggest political corruption scandals in state history.

Both Pramaggiore, a onetime rising star in Chicago’s corporate world, and McClain, who was a top lobbyist for the utility and one of Madigan’s closest confidants, were sentenced to two years behind bars and had been scheduled for release in August 2027.

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 case was upended after consolidated arguments for McClain and Pramaggiore before the 7th Circuit, where a 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.

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.

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 after arguments were held last week.

McClain also stood trial with Madigan but was not convicted on any of the counts against him in that case.

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©2026 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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