The highly anticipated bribery conspiracy trial of the so-called “ComEd Four” on charges involving an alleged scheme to influence then-House Speaker Michael Madigan has been delayed by a week for undisclosed reasons.
Jury selection had been set to begin March 6 at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, with opening statements to immediately follow. In a pretrial conference Tuesday, however, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber announced they will now begin picking the jury on March 14.
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No reason for the delay was put on the record during the 20-minute discussion. Leinenweber said a pool of prospective jurors will still come in next week to fill out questionnaires, which are designed to weed out people with conflicts or scheduling hardships in what is expected to be a two-month trial.
Charged in the case were Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, 75, of downstate Quincy, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, 64, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker, 73, and Doherty, 69, the former head of the City Club of Chicago. All of the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
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The trial is the first arising from the years-long corruption investigation into ComEd’s lobbying practices in Springfield, and will offer a preview of the criminal case against Madigan, who was indicted separately in March 2022 and is currently set for trial next year.
The ComEd conspiracy charges alleged McClain, a former legislator and lobbyist whose connections to Madigan go back to their time in the General Assembly together in the 1970s, orchestrated a scheme to funnel jobs and hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from the utility to Madigan-approved consultants in exchange for Madigan’s assistance with legislation the utility giant wanted passed in Springfield.
The indictment also alleged ComEd agreed to hire numerous summer interns from Madigan’s 13th Ward, and install former McPier boss Juan Ochoa on the company’s board of directors in order to curry favor with the then-powerful speaker.
ComEd, meanwhile, entered into a deferred prosecution deal with prosecutors in July 2020, agreeing to pay a record $200 million fine and cooperate with the investigation in exchange for bribery charges being dropped in three years.
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Leinenweber on Tuesday said that he intends to run the logistics of the trial much like he did in another recent high-profile case against R&B star R. Kelly.
As he did in the Kelly trial, Leinenweber said he will conduct the questioning of prospective jurors in open court before determining a group of about 34 members, which will then be whittled down through for-cause strikes by either side.
The judge said he intends to impanel a final jury of 12 plus six alternates. The trial will run Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with Fridays being a day off, he said.
Leinenweber also withheld from ruling on a flurry of pretrial filings over evidence that the defendants want to keep out of the trial, including the utility’s admissions of the scheme to influence Madigan, the millions of dollars in campaign contributions ComEd showered on lawmakers, and a prosecution expert who would testify about machine politics and corruption.
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Leinenweber said he would make those rulings at a final conference on March 9.
