Chicago Ald. Daniel Solis was a newly minted FBI mole in August 2016 when he was instructed to call his then-powerful colleague, Ald. Ed Burke, and talk about the massive $600 million renovation of the Old Post Office.
After some seemingly innocuous conversation about the project’s New York-based developers and local contractors who’d be vying for work, Burke made an unsolicited comment that surely perked up the ears of the FBI agents listening in the wire room.
“Well, while you’re at it, recommend the good firm of Klafter & Burke to do the tax work,” Burke told Solis on the Aug. 26, 2016, recording, which was played for the jury in Burke’s corruption trial Tuesday.
Solis laughed and agreed to mention Burke’s law firm, which did property tax appeals for a roster of wealthy clients, to the Old Post Office developers at their next meeting.
“And then we can certainly talk about a marketing arrangement for you,” Burke said, which prosecutors allege was an illegal offer by Burke to pay Solis an under-the-table referral fee for any law business he brought in.
“OK, all right. Let’s sit down and talk about it,” Solis replied.
The call, which came on the seventh day of evidence in Burke’s high-profile trial, goes to the heart of allegations that Burke used his position as an elected official and chairman of the Finance Committee to pressure developers to hire his private law firm.
To be sure, the Old Post Office wasn’t just any project. In opening statements this month, prosecutors said the sheer size of the historic, 2.5 million-square-foot building straddling the Eisenhower Expressway represented a huge potential payday for Burke.
In a later call with Solis that has yet to be played for the jury, Burke allegedly referred to getting the developer’s business as “landing the tuna.”
As part of the investigation, Solis recorded dozens of conversations with Burke over the phone and secretly videotaped meetings in Burke’s City Hall offices with a camera hidden on his clothing.
In one of those meetings, from Sept. 26, 2016, Burke could be seen sitting behind his large desk dressed in his usual pinstriped suit, blue tie and American flag lapel pin, as Solis told him about a meeting he’d had with the lead Old Post Office developer, Harry Skydell, and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The video, which was also played for the jury Tuesday, appeared to be taken with a camera hidden somewhere on Solis’ chest, with the image shaky and Burke’s face coming in and out of the picture. On the video, Solis told Burke, he felt he and Skydell “got to the understanding that they work through me” on any issues going forward.
Solis also told Burke that he’d brought up the “law work that you do.”
[ Ex-Ald. Edward Burke corruption trial: Evidence seen and heard by the jury ]
“They’re very impressive,” Solis said of Skydell and his son. “The mayor really kinda gravitated to them. Other than I think the fact that they’re also Jewish.”
Burke laughed. “Could be, yeah,” he said. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”
“So can you get me some face time with them?” Burke asked, sitting in front of a large framed print that appeared to depict the Great Chicago Fire.
“Oh absolutely, absolutely,” Solis said. “I was also interested in the marketing piece that you told me that you could help me out.”
Burke assured Solis he’d be taken care of. “I’m a believer in sharing the wealth,” he said, though he added they had to “figure out a way that it can be done so that there’s no pitfalls, legally.”
The talk then moved to other real estate megaprojects that Skydell had done, including the $375 million Harborside development in New York. Burke also said he believed Skydell worked for the owner of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers.
“I mean, he’s a gazillionaire,” Burke said.
The recording ended with Burke capping a pen in his hand, and telling Solis he would “depend” on him to set up the face-to-face. “I don’t need to call him? You’re gonna handle that?”
“Yes,” Solis said.
Nine days later, Solis called Skydell as promised. “If you’re in Chicago some time in the next few weeks or days, maybe we could have a meeting with Alderman Ed Burke?” Solis asked. “I don’t know if you know of him, but he asked me if I could introduce you to him.”
They agreed to set up the meeting. Jurors are expected to see video of that meeting later in the trial.
Earlier Tuesday, FBI Special Agent Ryan McDonald gave new details of the moment Solis was confronted in June 2016 with evidence of his own alleged wrongdoing.
McDonald testified the FBI had a wiretap on Solis’ cellphone from September 2014 to September 2015 and had gathered evidence that he was taking money and other things of value from developers with business before the Zoning Committee, which Solis chaired.
Shortly before 8 a.m. on June 1, 2016, McDonald and another agent knocked on Solis’ door in the South Loop armed with search warrants for his cellphone, residences, and City Hall offices, McDonald testified.
Solis answered the door and they asked to speak to him. He invited them into the kitchen, where they served the warrant for his cellphone and played him some of the recordings they had made of Solis, McDonald said.
While details of what they played were not provided to the jury, a source told the Tribune that Solis was shown undercover video of a meeting in Solis’ office between a developer and longtime Democratic political operative Roberto Caldero, who was later convicted in a separate corruption scheme.
They also played an audio recording during which Caldero and Solis agreed to meet at a Near Northwest Side massage parlor.
McDonald said Solis contacted his lawyer, and agents decided not to execute the warrants at City Hall that day so as not to expose the still-secret investigation. The next day, Solis decided to provide “proactive cooperation” and make recordings of others for investigators, McDonald said.
In late July 2016, the FBI traveled to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Solis was a delegate, according to McDonald’s testimony.
While Solis did not record Burke at the convention, McDonald testified he told them in one of the debriefings that Burke had approached them at a caucus breakfast and asked about a local contractor, Heneghan Wrecking, possibly getting some of the Post Office demolition work.
McDonald testified that after the convention, agents directed Solis to keep the conversation about Heneghan going. That led to the first recorded call involving the Burke probe on Aug. 4, 2016, just days after they returned to Chicago.
The Tribune has previously reported that at the time of the convention, Solis was already cooperating against an even bigger target: Then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Madigan’s name was not mentioned in Tuesday’s testimony, but McDonald confirmed during questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur that Solis had been providing cooperation against “other individuals” well before the convention even started.
On cross-examination, Burke attorney Joseph Duffy tried to dirty up Solis however he could, given the strict limits U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall has placed around what jurors can hear about Solis’ wrongdoing and unprecedented deferred-prosecution deal.
Solis was being investigated for misusing his own office, McDonald testified on cross, and he got cash and campaign contributions from developers who were appearing before Solis’ Zoning Committee.
“Campaign contributions that you, the FBI, believed were really disguised bribes for political favors?” Duffy asked, to which prosecutors successfully objected.
Duffy, however, could only scratch the surface of what the FBI allegedly uncovered against Solis, and was not allowed to go into Solis’ unprecedented deferred prosecution deal with the U.S. attorney’s office, that will leave him not only with a clean criminal record, but also receiving his $100,000-a-year city pension.
On cross-examination, Duffy repeatedly noted that the FBI had instructed Solis to give Burke false information in order to see how Burke would respond, and that the FBI had instructed Solis to broadcast to other city officials that he was in a position to recommend contractors for the Old Post Office job.
In opening statements, Burke’s attorneys repeatedly claimed the alleged Old Post Office scheme only came about because Solis was eager to save his skin and pressured the developers to give Burke their business.
Even the in-person meeting that Solis set up between Burke and Skydell was at the behest of the FBI, Duffy noted.
“Mr. Burke did not reach out to Mr. Skydell to set up a meeting, did he?” Duffy said.
McDonald said no.
[ Ed Burke trial: What you need to know ]
The defense has told the judge they intend to put Solis himself on the stand, though they did not mention that to jurors in opening statements. If they ultimately decide not to call him, they will have to challenge his credibility by sparring with witnesses such as McDonald.
Burke, 79, who served 54 years as alderman 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.
Also testifying Tuesday was David Reifman, Chicago’s former planning and development commissioner, who helped shepherd the redevelopment through city bureaucracy.
Before it was revamped, the hulking building was so dilapidated that chunks of concrete were falling onto the train tracks below, according to a complaint filed by the city. When Skydell’s company agreed to take on the project, the city wanted it done with all due speed, Reifman testified.
The developers wanted a Class L tax benefit worth up to $100 million, which would need approval from the City Council. Around the time that an ordinance proposing it was referred to Burke’s Finance Committee, Burke called Reifman, noting the huge size of the potential tax break, and asking whether Reifman was supportive.
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The tax break, as well as an $18 million tax-increment financing ordinance benefiting the project, ultimately sailed through the Finance Committee and the full City Council.
On cross-examination, Burke attorney Chris Gair noted that the mayor as well as Reifman himself were strongly supportive of the Post Office project, suggesting Burke’s role in the matter, if any, was minor. He also noted that it was Emanuel who had persuaded Reifman to take the job as commissioner in the first place.
“Mayor Emanuel is a pretty persuasive guy?” Gair asked.
“He’s persuasive, yeah — he’s a lot of things,” Reifman said, prompting chuckles to ripple through the courtroom.
