A federal judge Monday granted a new trial on some counts in the “ComEd Four” case alleging a wide-ranging plot to illegally influence then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, saying the Supreme Court’s ruling last year on a key bribery statute means the jury was not instructed properly.

In making his ruling, however, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah left intact the convictions on a number of other counts, including the lead count of conspiracy and charges alleging the defendants cooked ComEd’s books to hide the scheme.

It wasn’t immediately clear where the case will go next. The U.S. attorney’s office could seek to retry the defendants on the four bribery counts that were reversed, or appeal the ruling to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu told the judge he still needs to consult with his bosses, however he anticipated they will want to proceed to sentencing on the counts that remained, which could include long prison terms, rather than to retry the bribery counts.

Adding to the complexity was that four of the five counts that were left standing involve violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Last month, President Donald Trump ordered a review of how the Justice Department enforces that law, which he said has been “stretched beyond proper bounds and abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States.”

In the ComEd Four case, the four defendants were convicted for falsifying books and records, not any bribery of foreign officials that the law originally sought to punish, the defense pointed out in asking Shah last month to stay the proceedings.

Shah on Monday declined to stay the proceedings based on the president’s order. But Bhachu said his office would follow any direction that ultimately comes from the Justice Department.

The ComEd Four defendants — former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore; Madigan confidant and longtime lobbyist Michael McClain; internal ComEd lobbyist John Hooker; and consultant Jay Doherty — were convicted in May 2023 in an alleged scheme by the utility to funnel payments to Madigan-favored contractors in exchange for the longtime Democratic speaker’s influence over legislation in Springfield.

Lawyers for Pramaggiore and McClain declined to comment Monday. Attorneys for Hooker and Doherty could not immediately be reached.

Shah’s ruling comes three weeks after Madigan, once the most powerful politician in the state, was found guilty of bribery conspiracy and other corruption charges alleging he used his public office to increase his power, line his own pockets and enrich a small circle of his most loyal associates.

But neither prosecutors nor Madigan could declare total victory in that case either. Jurors’ final verdict was overall mixed, deadlocking on several counts — including the marquee racketeering conspiracy charge — and acquitting Madigan on numerous others.

Jurors also deadlocked on all six counts related to McClain, who was charged in both the Madigan and ComEd Four indictments.

In their motion for a new trial, defense lawyers in the ComEd Four case argued the entire prosecution was built on a “rotten foundation” and the charges should be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who was convicted of taking money from a company that had been awarded contracts for garbage trucks.

“From the outset of this case, the government maintained that giving things of value to a powerful politician as a reward for past acts or to curry favor without a quid pro quo is criminal,” the ComEd Four defense teams argued in the motion.

“On that foundation, the government built an edifice of overlapping charges. But as with all structures, if the foundation is rotten, the structure will fall. And in Snyder v. United States, the Supreme Court confirmed that the government’s theory has been rotten from the start.”

Sentencings have been delayed since January 2024 while the parties awaited and then parsed the Snyder decision. Meanwhile, the judge who presided over the trial, Harry Leinenweber, died in June 2024 at age 87, and the case was reassigned to Shah.

The defense motion said the prosecutors’ theory of the case was wrongheaded from the get-go, including in the grand jury, where they told the panel it could indict the defendants on the conspiracy charge “based on the legal conduct of paying a gratuity.”

The same ComEd allegations formed the backbone of the racketeering indictment of Madigan and McClain.

In making his ruling Monday, Shah said there was plenty of evidence that bribery did occur, meaning there was a “quid pro quo, upfront understanding between the parties” that a thing of value was being given in exchange for Madigan’s assistance with specific ComEd legislation.

“If all the evidence amounted to was a general attempt to keep Madigan happy and not a specific act, that would not have constituted bribery,” Shah said.

Shah also rejected defense arguments that the jury was allowed to convict based on a theory of gratuities — after-the-fact rewards for a politician that the high court ruled in Snyder was not barred by the federal bribery statute.

Shah pointed out that all four defendants clearly understood that ComEd was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to do-nothing “subcontractors” in order to influence the powerful speaker, and that “a reasonable jury could have determined Madigan had his metaphorical hand out in advance and agreed to “the bending of the machinery of government” in exchange for a “stream of benefits” to himself and his associates.

“These are not the tokens of appreciation that the Supreme Court worried about in Snyder,” the judge said.

But when it came to the jury instructions in the ComEd case, Shah said clearly there was enough error to warrant a new trial because he could not say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have reached the same verdict if given instructions that were in alignment with the Snyder case.

Ironically, he pointed to the 7th Circuit’s own ruling in Snyder’s case in November granting the former Portage mayor a new trial.

In that opinion, the three-judge panel wrote that while the Supreme Court did not address jury instructions directly, its opinion in Snyder made clear the jury instructions were erroneous “because they permitted the jury to convict on a gratuity theory.”

“The jury instructions here were basically the same ones” given in that Snyder trial, Shah said, meaning they were erroneous under the Supreme Court’s finding, and that the error was “not harmless.”

Shah’s ruling was just the latest case to see the ripple effect of the high court’s ruling in the Snyder case.

Last year, a mistrial was declared in the bribery case against former AT&T boss Paul La Schiazza after the jury deadlocked on all charges alleging he schemed to pay a Madigan associate to win the speaker’s influence on legislation.

Months earlier, a different jury acquitted suburban fencing contractor Robert Mitziga on charges of bribing Cook County assessor’s office employees with access to an exclusive Michigan golf club in exchange for reduced property tax rates.

One of the assessor’s office employees who allegedly took the bribes, Lumni Likovski, had been scheduled for trial last month. However, a day after the Madigan verdict, the U.S. attorney’s office abruptly filed a motion to drop the charges “based on the jury’s finding in Mitziga’s trial, and, upon review of the government’s evidence.”

The ComEd Four indictment, which was filed in November 2020, alleged the four conspired to funnel $1.3 million in payments to ghost “subcontractors,” largely through Doherty’s company, who were actually Madigan’s cronies.

The utility also hired a clouted law firm run by political operative Victor Reyes, distributed numerous college internships within Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom, and blatantly backed former McPier chief Juan Ochoa, the friend of a Madigan ally, for an $80,000-a-year seat on the utility’s board of directors, the indictment alleged.

In return, prosecutors alleged, Madigan used his influence over the General Assembly to help ComEd score a series of huge legislative victories that not only rescued the company from financial instability but led to record-breaking, billion-dollar profits.

Among them was the 2011 smart grid bill that set a built-in formula for the rates ComEd could charge customers, avoiding battles with the Illinois Commerce Commission, according to the charges. ComEd also leaned on Madigan’s office to help pass the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016, which kept the formula rate in place and also rescued two nuclear plants run by an affiliated company, Exelon Generation.

The indictment charged a total of nine counts, including a main bribery conspiracy count lodged against each of the four defendants. Other charges include circumventing internal business controls and the falsification of business records to allegedly hide the payments ComEd was making.

Defense attorneys argued over and over that the government is seeking to criminalize legal lobbying and job recommendations that are at the center of the state’s legitimate political system.

They ripped the government’s star witness, former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez, as a liar and opportunist who was so terrified when FBI agents confronted him in January 2019 that he flipped without even consulting a lawyer and agreed to secretly record his friends.

Marquez testified in March 2023 that the roster of “subcontractors” hired by ComEd was curated by McClain and read like a who’s who of Madigan’s vaunted political operation, including two legendary precinct captains, a former assistant majority leader in the House and two former Chicago aldermen at the center of Madigan’s Southwest Side base of power.

Over the course of eight years, ComEd paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though they had no particular expertise and ultimately did virtually no work for the utility.

Some seemed to be downright incompetent, Marquez told the jury.

“I know that they were brought on as a favor to Michael Madigan,” Marquez testified on direct examination. “For Madigan to see ComEd positively. So that he could perhaps be helpful for our legislative agenda in Springfield.”

On cross-examination, Marquez, who pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy and is awaiting sentencing, acknowledged that there was “no guarantee” that Madigan was going to help pass ComEd bills, but added that the company still tried to make him happy because “not doing it would cause us to be negatively looked on by” the speaker.

He also admitted that he initially told the FBI he didn’t believe any of it was bribery.

“You did not believe that ComEd had bribed Mike Madigan, did you?” Pramaggiore attorney Scott Lassar asked.

“Correct,” Marquez answered.

jmeisner@chicagotribune .com