For all of Edward Burke’s speeches, his waxing on about Chicago history and his self-anointed role as City Council parliamentarian, it was the words he spoke when he thought no one was listening that mattered most, prosecutors said in closing out arguments in Burke’s corruption trial Friday.
Among them: “The cash register has not rung yet,” “They can go (expletive) themselves,” and “Did we land the tuna?”
As those now-notorious phrases were posted on screens for the jury, as well as an image of a smirking Burke behind his City Hall office desk as he talked about the ringing cash register, Assistant U.S Attorney Sarah Streicker said it was their ticket into Burke’s real frame of mind.
“What’s the best evidence of Burke’s intent? The words that came out of his mouth,” Streicker said in her rebuttal argument, which wrapped up a marathon 16 hours of closings from prosecutors and defense attorneys over the course of three days. “And those words were captured on recordings.”
Burke used his immense power as head of the Finance Committee to trawl for business for his private law firm, Streicker said, and his position gave him a unique way to shake down his marks.
Streicker reminded the jury of a recorded call between Burke and another Democratic heavyweight, Gery Chico, talking about a construction company that was slow to get the message about how important it was to donate to Burke’s campaign coffers.
“Well maybe if they don’t have any access to the property because the driveway isn’t legal they might get the message,” Burke said on the call.
“Mr. Burke did have institutional knowledge about the city,” Streicker said. “He knew about driveways. He knew they gave him leverage. It’s a very specific technique to extort money.”
As for the defense argument that Burke was just a hardworking steward of his ward, Streicker said, his own words prove that false. “He was focused on business. Not what’s best for the city of Chicago, but his own private business,” she said.
After Streicker finished, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall sent the jury home for the weekend, saying she would begin reading the more than 300 pages of jury instructions to them Monday morning, then send them back to deliberate.
With Christmas week looming, Kendall told the panel of nine women and three men that they should not feel rushed in their discussions, particularly after a six-week trial, so if there is no verdict by Friday, they would not come back until after the New Year.
“I don’t want you to think I’m going to be Scrooge if you want to take a long time,” the judge said. “I’m not going to make you sit Christmas week. I don’t want anybody to be stressed that you can’t be with your families.”
During their closing argument, Burke’s attorneys emphasized that none of the people he allegedly tried to shake down ever raised concerns to law enforcement until the government came calling.
“Nobody complained, nobody thought they were a victim until the FBI knocked on their door and started playing tapes,” said Joseph Duffy, who then began knocking on the lectern as if he was an agent at someone’s house. “Oh, I think you were a victim!”
Duffy told jurors that much of the case was pieced together after the government lost confidence in ex-Ald. Daniel Solis, who secretly recorded Burke for more than two years.
It’s fair “to conclude Danny Solis is out for Danny Solis and (is) a bit of a con man, plain and simple,” Duffy said. “What do they have at the end of 30 months? They’ve got Danny Solis, who they don’t trust. … They take their tapes, they go out to four people, and they say ‘you’re a victim.'”
One of the main “targets” of an alleged shakedown, Harry Skydell, developer of the massive Old Post Office renovation project, didn’t testify for prosecutors either, Duffy noted.
“The only appropriate inference to be drawn by the failure to call Mr. Skydell, he would not have supported the government’s theory,” Duffy said, noting that Skydell was also “harassed” by Solis.
Moving to allegations that Burke tried to shake down a local Burger King, Duffy noted that Burke’s interactions with owner Shoukat Dhanani were actually warm and friendly, including during a December 2017 meeting at the Union League Club.
“They were in a festive mood,” Duffy said. “They were at a Christmas party. Can you imagine somebody is going to shake you down and you’re going to sit with them for 90 minutes? Use your common sense.”
Duffy also shot back against the government’s two other allegations: that Burke threatened to hold up a fee increase for the Field Museum after they snubbed an internship application from his goddaughter, and claims that he pulled strings on behalf of a developer because the developer signed on with his law firm.
Burke had no intent to violate the law or extort anyone, Duffy said — he was just a conscientious public servant who loves his city, his family and his church.
“You’ve heard from witnesses who have known him and worked alongside him in city government for decades. He is nothing like the person being portrayed in this courtroom,” Duffy said, noting that Burke is about to turn 80. “You should send Ed Burke home to celebrate his birthday!”
In her rebuttal, Streicker said for all the talk about faulty memories, the recordings and emails that formed the backbone of the government’s evidence are “frozen in time” and have not changed.
Streicker said the defense made a big deal that prosecutors didn’t call Daniel Solis “because the statements that (Burke) made to Solis are absolutely devastating to him.”
Streicker said Burke’s own words show the argument that he was just being a good steward of his ward and the city is “false.” “He was focused on business,” she said. Not what’s best for the city of Chicago but his own private business.”
Following Duffy was attorney Patrick Blegen, who represents Burke’s longtime ward aide and co-defendant Peter Andrews Jr.
Blegen contended prosecutors failed to show Andrews knew anything about the Burke’s alleged efforts to shake down the Burger King owners.
Blegen argued Andrews only met with the owners and Burke once at the Burger King for 24 minutes, showing the jury an FBI surveillance photo of Andrews trailing Burke and the owners walking through the restaurant parking lot.
Andrews’ original plan, Blegen said, was to take the “billionaire” Burger King owners to the Polish Highlanders restaurant on South Archer Avenue after the walk-through, for “not just polish sausage, but free polish sausage for the guys who volunteer to run the neighborhood shred-a-thon.”
Blegen mocked the idea that the cargo-short-wearing, polish-sausage-eating Andrews was keyed in on some nefarious plan to shake down billionaires for legal business.
He also disparaged the government’s “smoking gun” that proved bad intentions, citing a recording in which Andrews told Burke the owners still were dragging on permits and that he would call them to “play hardball.”
Blegen said Andrews asked for the Burger King to shut down its remodeling work rather than demand. He also said the city driveway permits that the company had failed to procure were “a legitimate thing they needed.”
“This was not a wild-goose chase,” Blegen said. “The Burger King needed driveway permits. It’s 100% true.”
In closing arguments for developer Charles Cui, attorney Tinos Diamantatos lashed out at the accusations that developer Charles Cui offered Burke legal business to lure the alderman into muscling through the pole sign permit.
“He is looking for legal assistance — not offering a bribe,” Diamantatos said, pointing to repeated emails in which Cui asks for Burke’s representation.
“People all the time hire lawyers for who they are, their experience, their training, their prominence, their connections,” Diamantatos said. “It doesn’t automatically mean you’re seeking that for illegal reasons when it involves a public official.”
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, Andrews, 74, 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.
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.