Feds seek six year sentence for McClain, his attorneys want probation

CHICAGO — The feds say a man who once had an “unbreakable” bond with former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan should be sentenced to nearly six years in prison, partly for serving as Madigan’s “agent, messenger” and “henchman” in a lengthy conspiracy involving ComEd.

Prosecutors said Thursday that Michael McClain’s “tight connection” with the former speaker led to McClain “making demand after demand of ComEd to fulfill Madigan’s directives,” as a jury concluded in May 2023.

“McClain’s plan was illegal to its core,” they wrote.

But McClain’s attorneys say he should get probation when he’s sentenced July 24. They said the 77-year-old former lobbyist once operated in an Illinois Capitol where favors were “not perceived by the vast majority of legislators and lobbyists … as being in any sense illegal.”

They also said the “most important consideration”for U.S. District Judge Manish Shah could be the adequacy of medical treatment McClain might receive behind bars. They cited the possibility that he could “die alone in prison, separated from his family and loved ones.”

“Mr. McClain has not held political office in over 30 years,” his lawyers told the judge. “He is neither responsible for, nor is it just to punish him to any degree for generations of the way politics has been conducted by other people in this state.”

Below is a letter Michael McClain wrote to the judge, which was included in his sentencing papers submitted to federal court on Thursday.