After a month of legal jockeying, lawyers for former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke confirmed in court Monday they will call alderman turned government mole Daniel Solis as a defense witness at Burke’s upcoming racketeering trial.
The announcement by Burke’s high-powered defense team comes a month after prosecutors left Solis off their witness list, saying they planned to introduce dozens of undercover audio and video recording Solis made in the bombshell investigation through other witnesses.
Prosecutors had asked that Burke’s attorneys be barred from calling Solis simply to try to impeach his credibility and question the unprecedented deal he got from the U.S. attorney’s office.
But at a pretrial conference in the case Monday, Burke attorney Chris Gair told U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall he can “assure the government we’re not calling Solis just to impeach him.”
“We’re calling him for substantive reasons, to illuminate the facts of the case,” Gair said. “Anybody can impeach a witness who is called for proper reasons.”
The prospect of Solis, one of the most famous government moles in Chicago political history, hitting the witness stand adds a decidedly more dramatic flavor to the trial, which is set to begin Nov. 6 and expected to last about six weeks.
Prosecutors initially had left one caveat, saying they could potentially call Solis if Burke’s lawyers tried to present an entrapment defense. While defense attorneys ruled out the prospect of an entrapment argument at the outset of Monday’s hearing, they instead confirmed their intent to call Solis as their own witness and put his deal “squarely on the table.”
In exchange for his cooperation, Solis was granted a rare deferred prosecution deal that will see corruption charges against him dismissed in three years, leaving him with a clean criminal record and allowing him to keep his nearly $100,000-a-year city pension.
By calling him themselves, Burke’s defense will be able to delve into the parameters of Solis’ agreement with the government and raise issues about his motivation for getting Burke to agree to certain actions.
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But the move could backfire. Solis, a seasoned politician, will certainly be well-coached by prosecutors and could come across as likable to the jury instead of being a question mark in the back of jurors’ minds if he didn’t appear in the trial.
The fight over Solis’ testimony could also have reverberations in another high-profile public corruption case — the prosecution of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who scheduled to go on trial April 1. Solis also made secret recordings of Madigan that helped lead to his indictment.
A decision on whether he’ll take the stand in that case is still months away.
Burke, 79, was originally charged in a criminal complaint in January 2019. He was indicted four months later on 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity. Also charged was developer Charles Cui.
The 59-page indictment outlined a series of schemes in which Burke allegedly tried to muscle developers into hiring his law firm, Klafter & Burke, to appeal their property taxes. Among the projects Burke tried to capitalize on was the massive $800 million renovation of the Old Post Office in the West Loop, according to the charges. Solis recorded numerous conversations with Burke about that deal, records show.
Also charged was Burke’s longtime aide, Peter Andrews, who was accused of assisting the alderman in attempting to shake down two business owners seeking to renovate a Burger King restaurant in the 14th Ward.
In addition to an answer on Solis’ testimony, Monday’s six-hour pretrial hearing also saw a number of rulings from Kendall on specific evidence and arguments that can come in to the trial.
Burke’s attorneys argued vehemently to exclude statements the Burke made on the recordings about the Jewish heritage of the Post Office developer, saying it’s highly prejudicial in light of the terrorist attacks on Israel earlier this month and the ongoing situation in Gaza.
“Given the heightened sense of alarm” after the Hamas attacks, “any member of the jury sympathetic toward what the Jewish people have endured might find Mr. Burke’s comments to be particularly distasteful” and unfairly hold it against him, argued Burke attorney Kimberly Rhum.
Prosecutors noted that the previous judge on the case had already ruled the comments were probative of Burke’s allegedly corrupt intent, outweighing any danger of embarrassment.
Kendall took the issue under advisement, saying she’d make a decision when the specific recording comes up at trial.
Kendall also ruled over defense objections that prosecutors can play a recording from 2016 when Burke and Solis allegedly discussed another developer, identified only as individual G-1.
Burke told Solis on the recording that his firm had done one job for Individual G-1 and “really hit it out of the park,” and that he couldn’t understand why they hadn’t given him more work, according to court records.
“Let me talk to him,” Solis allegedly responded.
“If you can tee him up, then you can be our consultant,” Burke told Solis, according to a transcript of the call in court records.
Later in the same conversation, after Solis assured Burke there are “a lot of developers” to pitch business to, Burke allegedly replied: “They all, ah, they all need somebody that does what I do.”
Kendall also ruled the jury can hear evidence that Burke offered to pay Solis “consulting” fees to help bring business to Klafter & Burke. According to prosecutors, Burke was recorded talking about hiding the arrangement by going through a third party.
During a recorded meeting in September 2016, Burke told Solis he was a big believer in “sharing the wealth,” prosecutors said.
Solis’ legal saga began in 2016 when he secretly agreed to wear a wire for the FBI and helped build racketeering cases against Burke and Madigan, two of the longest-serving and most powerful politicians in the state.
A bombshell court filing made public in 2019 showed the FBI spent more than two years investigating Solis before he was confronted and flipped, secretly listening in on thousands of phone calls as the alderman solicited everything from campaign donations to sexual services at a massage parlor.
The deferred prosecution deal was signed by Solis on the day after Christmas 2018 and kept secret for nearly 3 1/2 years before the U.S. attorney’s office finally put it on the record last year.
As part of the deal, Solis was charged in a one-count criminal information with corruptly soliciting campaign donations from a real estate developer in exchange for zoning changes in 2015, when Solis was head of the City Council’s zoning committee. That charge will be dropped in three years if Solis continues to cooperate.
Last year, the federal prosecutor leading the Burke and Madigan investigations delivered an impassioned defense of the deal with Solis, telling the federal judge overseeing the high-profile case that Solis’ cooperation was perhaps “singular” even in the city’s long history of political corruption.
During the course of his undercover work, Solis personally made “hundreds of recordings” and helped form the basis of government requests for wiretaps on others, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said.
“Some may view (Solis’ deal) as being with little precedent, but what Mr. Solis did also was with little precedent,” Bhachu said. “He didn’t just talk. He took action. He worked with the federal government for six years to expose corruption.”
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Solis has been free on bond since he was charged in 2022.