(WTTW News)

Four former Commonwealth Edison officials convicted earlier this year of conspiring to bribe ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan are seeking to delay their sentencing after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a separate case the defendants say “has the potential to upend” their own proceedings.

Defense attorneys for the so-called “ComEd Four” filed a motion to stay Thursday, arguing that the Supreme Court’s ruling in a new case it has taken up out of the Seventh Circuit could redefine the federal bribery statutes.

“In approximately six months, the Supreme Court will rule definitively on the question of whether the Government or the Defendants were correct from the start of this case about what conduct is criminal, and thus whether their convictions are valid,” defense attorneys for the four defendants wrote in the motion.

“If Defendants’ long-expressed and strenuously argued-for position becomes the law of the land,” they continued, “then the Government will have done a terrible injustice to them by prosecuting them for conduct that is not criminal, irreparably and forever damaging their lives, careers, reputations, and relationships.”

Ex-City Club of Chicago president and former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty, retired ComEd executive John Hooker, former ComEd lobbyist Mike McClain and ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore were found guilty. (File photos)

Madigan’s longtime confidant Michael McClain, ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, retired ComEd executive John Hooker and ex-City Club of Chicago president and former ComEd consultant Jay Doherty were each convicted in May of bribery conspiracy, bribery and willfully falsifying the company’s books.

Federal prosecutors argued the four did this through a number of means, including paying Madigan allies as ComEd subcontractors, who in turn would actually do little or no work for the utility company. They also allegedly offered a lucrative contract to a law firm run by Madigan ally Victor Reyes and fought to get Juan Ochoa appointed to the ComEd board of directors at the former speaker’s behest.

They did this, prosecutors said, in order to curry Madigan’s support on legislation favorable to ComEd in Springfield.

According to the defense motion, the new case before the Supreme Court (James E. Snyder v. U.S) could determine whether the statute at issue in the ComEd Four case ​​criminalizes only bribery or also reaches gratuities — defined as payments in recognition of actions a state or local official has already taken or committed to take, without any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions.

“If the Court finds that the statute does not include gratuities and criminalizes only quid pro quo bribery,” the defense attorneys wrote, “then Defendants are entitled to acquittal because the Government failed to allege or prove a quid pro quo, or at a minimum, a new trial because the jury could have found the Defendants guilty based on provision of legal gratuities.”

Each of four defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in January, after Judge Harry Leinenweber rejected a previous request to delay those hearings.

The ruling could also impact Madigan, who is scheduled to go to trial alongside McClain in April.

The Supreme Court decision is expected by June 2024.

Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected] | (773) 509-5431