The question of whether to retry two former ComEd officials caught up in a massive corruption investigation officially landed in the lap of U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros on Monday, when Chicago’s federal appeals court released a 16-page opinion formally wiping out their convictions.
Two months have passed since the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the release from prison of former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and longtime ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain. That means the opinion from a three-judge panel came as no surprise.
But Boutros refrained from commenting on his plans for Pramaggiore and McClain until after he had a chance to read the appeals court’s official reasoning. The judges’ final opinion found the 2023 conviction of Pramaggiore and McClain legally problematic, but it also ended with a word of caution.
“Do not misread our opinion,” it said. “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.”
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah sentenced Pramaggiore and McClain in 2025 to two years in prison for their role in a lengthy conspiracy to illegally sway former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan. The former speaker was convicted separately and is still in prison.
In a statement Monday, Boutros called the appeals court’s ruling “well-reasoned and thoughtful.” He also noted that it found “significant and compelling evidence” had been presented at trial.
“Because the Seventh Circuit has stated that the government is ‘entitled to retry’ both defendants ‘at its discretion,’ we are weighing our options and will advise the District Court of our decision at the appropriate time,” Boutros said.
The appeals court said it could not be sure that jurors convicted Pramaggiore and McClain on a legal basis that remains valid after a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, though.
Judge Thomas Kirsch wrote Monday’s opinion, in which he was joined by Judges David Hamilton and Joshua Kolar. Kirsch was appointed by President Donald Trump, Hamilton by President Barack Obama and Kolar by President Joe Biden.
The question of whether to take McClain and Pramaggiore to trial again comes at a particularly fraught time for Boutros. His office has spent the last three weeks trying to contain fallout after allegations of prosecutorial misconduct led to the collapse of a case it brought against a group of Operation Midway Blitz protesters known as the “Broadview Six.”
Last week, his office also dropped charges against two others in a fraud case tied to Loretto Hospital after a judge threatened to hold an evidentiary hearing over similar alleged misconduct by the same prosecutor involved in the “Broadview Six” case.
Another judge said Boutros and his leadership team had created a “credibility crisis.”
Two of the four prosecutors who tried Pramaggiore and McClain in 2023 have left the U.S. attorney’s office. And McClain and Pramaggiore have each served roughly three months behind bars.
They were convicted on one count of conspiracy, as well as four bribery counts and four counts of falsifying ComEd’s books and records.
Shortly before the pair could be sentenced, the Supreme Court picked up a corruption case from Northwest Indiana that revolved around the same bribery law used to prosecute Pramaggiore and McClain.
In June 2024, the high court found that the law does not criminalize after-the-fact rewards known as “gratuities.” Nine months later, Shah threw out the bribery convictions against Pramaggiore and McClain but left the remaining convictions intact.
Their remaining conspiracy conviction featured multiple so-called “objects,” including some that were invalidated by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The appeals court said Monday it could not be sure that jurors rested their conviction on a theory that remains valid.
“Pramaggiore and McClain have the right to a jury verdict, and we do not know what the jury did,” the panel concluded.
Because Madigan went to trial after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the judge and lawyers in his case had the benefit of the high court’s guidance. The appeals court upheld Madigan’s conviction in April, and he continues to serve a 7 ½-year prison sentence in West Virginia.