Yahoo News Ex-Ald. Ed Burke’s defense blasts FBI mole in closing arguments: ‘Why did we have to bring Danny Solis in here?’
Lawyers for ex-Ald. Edward Burke on Thursday sought to portray the once-mighty Democratic machine politician as an honest broker of city business who respected the guardrails between public and private life but fell victim to an unscrupulous FBI mole out to save himself.
Yes, there was a scheme, Burke’s attorney Joseph Duffy told jurors in closing arguments at his corruption trial, but Burke was its target, not its mastermind. He never took any official action in exchange for anything of value, Duffy said. In fact, the evidence showed he never got a dime.
Instead, the case is a product of overzealous government agents and their puppet, alderman-turned-FBI cooperator Daniel Solis, according to Duffy, who noted with indignation that it was the defense side that put Solis on the witness stand, not prosecutors.
“The fact alone that they didn’t call Danny Solis in their case creates a reasonable doubt,” Duffy said. “Why did we have to bring Danny Solis in here? That should give you pause, the fact that they ran an investigation on Mr. Burke for 30 months with a star witness Danny Solis undercover and they didn’t have the decency to bring him here.”
Duffy’s argument has been nearly five years in the making, ever since Solis, the former 25th Ward alderman and Zoning Committee chairman, was outed as the undercover federal cooperator who secretly recorded hundreds of phone calls and meetings that form the backbone of the racketeering charges against Burke.
With his voice alternately rising to a shout and slipping into sarcasm, Duffy branded Solis over and over as a liar and manipulator, a corrupt politician who did everything he could to harass Burke, dangling the idea that the developers of the $600 million Old Post Office would hire Burke’s law firm if only he could help bring the project home.
Duffy also milked the limited information the jury has heard about Solis’ own wrongdoing for all it was worth, asking at one point, “What do we really know about Danny Solis?”
“We know that he was a corrupt public official,” Duffy said. “We don’t know the breadth of his corruption, but you can infer that it was substantial because he confirmed he was facing many years in jail.”
Later, Duffy ridiculed Solis for his “relentless” pursuit of the New York-based developer of the post office, Harry Skydell, who Duffy said had let Burke know in their very first meeting in October 2016 he was not interested in hiring Burke’s law firm.
“When Skydell said, ‘Nice to meet you Mr. Burke. I’m committed to another law firm, have a nice life,’ why didn’t they stop?” Duffy asked. “Why did Solis have to come back in November and December and January and February and lie?”
For much of Duffy’s argument, Burke, dressed in a pinstriped suit and bright blue pocket square, remained stoic at the defense table, looking straight ahead, unsmiling, his hands folded in his lap.
But he broke into a grin when Duffy mentioned some of the “colorful” comments Burke uttered in some of the wiretapped conversations, which Duffy chalked up to Burke’s mounting frustration over Solis’ repeated overtures.
“Put aside the old Irish temper … think about how long they ran him as a fool, how trusting he was, how deferential he was to Solis as a fellow alderman, and he didn’t figure it out,” Duffy said. “You’d get frustrated too, you may have some colorful language.”
The trial recessed for the day in the middle of Duffy’s argument, which will resume Friday, followed by attorneys for Burke’s two co-defendants and then government rebuttal. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said after the jury left the courtroom that deliberations would not start until sometime Monday.
The racketeering charges allege Burke used his significant City Hall power to try to get business for his private law firm from developers of the Old Post Office, owners of a Burger King in his Southwest Side 14th Ward and a developer desperate to install a sign for a Binny’s Beverage Depot in Portage Park.
He is also accused of threatening to block an admission fee increase at the Field Museum to retaliate against officials who failed to give a paid internship to a daughter of one of his longtime City Council allies.
Before Duffy took his turn at the lectern, prosecutors finished walking jurors through the 19 counts in the indictment, including playing some of the greatest hits from the undercover tapes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said Solis was never instructed to seek out Burke and start taping him.
“I want to emphasize to you that there was no expectation at the time Mr. Solis began his cooperation (in June 2016) that it would have anything to do with Mr. Burke,” MacArthur said.
It was Burke who first brought up his law firm, MacArthur said, playing a recording from August 2016 where Solis tells Burke he’s going to meet with Skydell and his son for the first time. “While you’re at it, recommend the good firm of Klafter & Burke,” Burke said on the call.
“This was from Mr. Burke and Mr. Burke alone, and he was the first person who named the firm,” MacArthur said. “Nothing was said to Mr. Solis to trigger that remark.”
MacArthur said that while Solis did mislead Burke at times, it’s not what Solis says on the tapes that’s important, but “the words and actions of Mr. Burke.”
As Burke’s comments about Jewish lawyers and winking nods to the “cash register” that “has not rung yet” were played, Burke gazed downward toward the defense table and leaned back in his chair, occasionally rubbing his lips with a forefinger.
MacArthur also highlighted perhaps the most infamous comment of the trial, the moment Burke asked Solis in May 2017, “So did we land the, uh, the tuna?” when referencing the Post Office developers hiring his private law firm to do property tax work.
“That’s a financial tuna he was referring to,” MacArthur said, noting Burke seemed unconcerned with issues the Post Office developers had been having with Amtrak, just his own potential windfall. “Mr. Burke, in his mind, is seeking to land a financial tuna for himself and his law firm.”
MacArthur also played a clip from a video-recorded meeting where Burke told Solis he’s working “pro bono” for Skydell, who Burke knew was of Jewish heritage.
“Jews are Jews and they’ll deal with Jews to the exclusion of everyone else unless there’s a reason for them to use a Christian,” Burke said to Solis with a slight smile.
MacArthur said Burke’s comments about Jews show how he believed he had to overcome Skydell’s preferences. “(Burke) knows there is something he can do for Mr. Skydell, because of his power as an alderman, that other attorneys cannot do,” she said.
Solis was called to the stand Tuesday by Burke’s defense in an attempt to dirty him up and poke holes in his cooperation, but largely held his cool under intense questioning.
MacArthur noted that during Solis’ testimony, Burke’s defense apparently wanted to leave the impression that Solis was orchestrating everything Burke said.
“But the evidence is the other way around,” MacArthur said. “It was Mr. Burke who was fully in control of the progression, or lack thereof, in what was going on.”
She urged jurors to pay particular attention to the details of the October 2016 meeting, in which Burke spoke to the Post Office developers in Solis’ office.
Burke dropped the name of a powerful politician in New York and shifted to “what I can do for you” mode by bringing up his friendship with an Amtrak board member, she said.
“It really is a master class in Mr. Burke using and exerting his power. This meeting is taking place in City Hall, not at Klafter & Burke. In City Hall,” MacArthur said. “This is the use of the trappings of government to try and convince someone to become a client of his law firm.”
In the Portage Park pole sign matter, MacArthur said it was common sense Burke’s intervention was odd since the project was nowhere near his Southwest Side ward. The developer, co-defendant Charles Cui, is accused of hiring Burke’s law firm in an attempt to get him to pull strings at City Hall.
“Mr. Cui wanted Mr. Burke involved for the power and clout that Mr. Burke could bring to try and resolve this pole sign issue,” MacArthur said.
Burke, in turn, is accused of using his public power on Cui’s behalf because Cui hired the firm.
“There is no reason, other than the fact that Mr. Burke is acting on behalf of a client, for him to have any interest whatsoever in this pole sign,” MacArthur said. “The reason he (intervened) was in response to Mr. Cui’s retention of Mr. Burke’s firm.”
In his argument, Duffy noted that Burke was alderman for more than five decades, and his law firm was meticulous about screening for conflicts of interest.
“Fifty years on the job, he knows how to cut through bureaucracy. And that’s why people come to him. Because he can cut the red tape, he can get it done,” Duffy said.
Tipping again into sarcasm, Duffy noted that the corruption charges only involve the tail end of Burke’s time on the City Council: “All of a sudden I’m going to be corrupt, but I’m going to be corrupt in such a way that I don’t make any money?”
A bit of courtroom drama broke out late in Duffy’s argument when members of a pro-Burke section of spectators groaned loudly on two separate occasions over MacArthur’s objections to Duffy statements. The second time prompted a court security officer to walk down the center aisle and glare at the group. The judge asked the audience to refrain from making comments.
Burke smiled broadly at the dust-up, leaning forward to slip on a set of headphones to listen as the lawyers haggled in sidebar.
Burke, 79, who served 54 years as alderman before leaving the City Council in May, is charged with 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.
His longtime ward aide, Peter Andrews, 73, is charged as part of the Burger King episode with one count of attempted extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, two counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.
Real estate developer Cui, 52, is facing counts stemming from the Binny’s pole sign chapter of federal program bribery, using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity and making false statements to the FBI.
