Ex-Ald. Ed Burke stood at the center of a “steady drumbeat of unlawful activity,” federal prosecutors said in closing arguments at Burke’s racketeering trial Wednesday, painting the powerful alderman as greedy and extortionate.
“Mr. Burke’s hand was out again and again, demanding money and benefits from the very people he was supposed to act on behalf of,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur told jurors. “Ed Burke was a powerful and corrupt politician and this was his racket.”
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Arguments in the landmark racketeering trial will cap off a hot-button case that laid bare the inner workings of “old-school” Chicago politics.
MacArthur displayed some of Burke’s own words to the jury, reminding them of some of the case’s most memorable moments, including when Burke said a developer could “go (expletive) themselves” allegedly since they acted too slowly in giving his private law firm business.
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“Instead of the polished image that Mr. Burke has presented to the city and to the world, Mr. Burke used his authority, entrusted to him by those citizens, to satisfy his own greed and to line his own pockets,” MacArthur said.
“Edward Burke used his public authority and his power to punish and extort,” she continued. “Edward Burke used his power to get what he wanted for himself.”
Closings are expected to be lengthy, with prosecutors’ initial argument lasting about five hours.
Burke’s legal team will then have a chance to address the jury. They’ve previously said there was no evidence Burke ever demanded anything in exchange for an official act and noted that for all of the allegations, he was never paid a dime by anyone.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall has said she is hopeful jurors will get the case by the end of the week.
Among the spectators in Kendall’s 25th Floor courtroom as closing arguments got underway was Chris Kennedy, the son of slain U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who ran for Illinois governor in 2018. Kennedy sat and chatted with Burke’s wife, Anne, the former chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, before the jury was called in.
Also in attendance was current Ald. Jim Gardiner, 45th, who told one of Burke’s lawyers he came over to watch after attending the City Council meeting. At a break in the action, Gardiner, who recently was the subject of a separate federal bribery investigation, walked up to Burke and shook his hand. “Good to see you,” Burke said.
Gardiner has not been charged.
As closings began, MacArthur stood and told jurors the pattern of corrupt activity they’d heard about over the past several weeks was orchestrated by “that man,” gesturing directly toward Burke at the defense table.
Burke, dressed in a dark gray suit, light green tie and ivory colored pocket square, showed no reaction to the remark.
MacArthur then launched into a detailed recitation of the 19 counts of the indictment, which were color coded to match the individual charges to Burke and his two co-defendants and assign each to one of the four main alleged schemes.
The racketeering case alleges that 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.
MacArthur began with the alleged Field Museum shakedown, which she said involved Burke using his powerful position simply to get something that he wanted, and “had nothing to do with protecting a one of the jewel museum’s of the city.”
MacArthur played a key wiretapped phone call where Burke dressed down the Field Museum’s government affairs director over the perceived oversight, telling her, “if the Chairman of the Committee on Finance calls the President of the Park Board, your proposal’s gonna go nowhere.”
“That is a true ‘take your breath away’ moment,” MacArthur said.
MacArthur noted that then-Field Museum President Richard Lariviere, who was good friends with Burke, immediately snapped into action, calling the alderman and apologizing profusely while promising to get to the bottom of what happened. “When you call, Ed, we jump,” Lariviere said on the recording.
Lariviere testified last month that he might have been exaggerating in that comment. But MacArthur told the jury what happened next “showed it was right on the mark”
“It truly was a panic station situation at the Field Museum,” she said.
In a flurry of emails and meetings, the museum’s top officials strategized on how best to placate Burke, who had a history of making fee increase proposals difficult for the city’s museums and could easily blow up theirs.
They considered a senior discount day, beginning with Burke’s 14th Ward, or even an internship position that Burke could award to a person of his choosing. But eventually, they decided to offer the daughter of Burke’s friend, former Ald. Terry Gabinski, an interview for a full-time job at the museum, which she ultimately declined.
MacArthur also played a lengthy conversation with Gabinski’s wife, Celeste, where Burke told her he’d read the Field Museum officials “the riot act” and they were now offering an olive branch.
That call, MacArthur said, showed Burke was “intending to carry on the extortion he is trying to accomplish with the museum.”
By mid-afternoon, MacArthur had outlined charges of how Burke tried to get the owners of a Burger King in his ward to give business to his law firm in exchange for greenlighting the restaurant’s remodeling.
While Burke’s team has argued that the alderman was concerned about the Burger King having the proper permits to move forward on the job, MacArthur told jurors that was just a “pretext” for Burke to seek law business from owner Shoukat Dhanani for dozens of restaurants in the Chicago area.
MacArthur maintained Burke was “attempting to leverage his position, his power” as a public official by talking about permits, but she contended the fight over driveway permits merely served as “background noise” because he wanted to meet with Dhanani to solicit tax appeal business.
After meeting at the Burger King, Burke entertained Dhanani at a private country club and pitched his law firm to handle Burger King tax appeals, MacArthur said. Burke did not sign a simple letter of aldermanic support for the project, MacArthur said, because Burke “had yet to see” if he would get any tax business.
She also underscored a call Burke had with Dhanani’s son, Zohaib, where the alderman said they were going to “talk about the real estate tax” representation and also the need for them to discuss expediting the eatery’s permits.
“This was a direct, in your face, I want your business move by Mr. Burke,” MacArthur said, adding that linking his firm’s hiring with the permit approvals was corrupt. “This statement alone...shows you Mr. Burke crossed those lines and committed a crime.”
She also noted that Burke moved to have the Burger King remodeling shut down when the Dhananis failed to give him business, and when Burke saw activity at the restaurant, he called co-defendant Peter Andrews Jr., a longtime aide who responded he would “play as hardball as I can.”
MacArthur used that comment to tell jurors that Andrews should be called “Hardball Pete,” a contrast to the softer label of “Part-Time Pete” his defense team presented to the jury in their opening statement.
One other point MacArthur reminded jurors how Burke had solicited Dhanani for a political contribution for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a 2019 mayoral candidate who would be at a fundraiser held at Burke’s house. Dhanani tried to send a $10,000 donation but hit a snag because the contribution exceeded donor limits.
Burke’s repeated attempts to leverage his public position to get Dhanani to cave in to the alderman’s demands showed the extent of the crimes in the Burger King episode, MacArthur said.
Dhanani eventually did not give Burke any legal business, MacArthur said, but that does not mean Burke and Andrews should get a “free pass.”
Federal prosecutors put on three dozen witnesses to elaborate on four separate instances of alleged corruption. But the most hotly anticipated witness came from Burke’s defense, who called ex-Ald. Daniel Solis to the stand on Tuesday.
Solis, who turned FBI mole in 2016 and cooperated extensively against Burke and others, secretly recorded dozens of conversations with Burke that were played for the jury.
[ Ex-Ald. Ed Burke corruption trial: Evidence seen and heard by the jury ]
The recordings have Burke saying lines that have surely stuck in jurors’ minds: He was “not motivated” to help the developers, he said, since “the cash register has not rung yet.” When the developers dragged their feet, he told Solis “as far as I’m concerned they can go (expletive) themselves.” And perhaps most memorably, he asked Solis on a wiretapped call: “So did we land the, uh, the tuna?”
But in questioning Solis on Tuesday, Burke attorney Chris Gair steered clear of those lines, instead using Solis’ time on the stand to reiterate the more flattering parts of the recordings: the parts where Burke is careful about conflicts of interest and says he’ll do what Solis wants regardless of whether he gets business.
In a high-stakes roll of the dice, Burke’s legal team put Solis on the witness stand in an attempt to dirty him up, poke holes in his cooperation, and suggest that Solis enticed Burke and fed him FBI-scripted lies to try to get Burke to say incriminating things on tape.
Former Ald. Daniel Solis arrives at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Dec. 12, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Gair also took the opportunity to slam Solis’ unprecedented deferred prosecution deal with the feds, asking in one memorable exchange near the outset of the testimony, “Now sir, your reason for agreeing to cooperate with the government was to save yourself, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Solis said.
The racketeering case alleges that 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 on the Northwest Side.
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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.
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, 73, is charged 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 Charles Cui, 52, is facing counts of federal program bribery, using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity and making false statements to the FBI.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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Originally Published: Dec 13, 2023 at 10:38 am