Former Ald. Edward Burke, whose federal racketeering trial begins next week, has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting” fees in recent years from campaign funds he controls to one of his co-defendants, campaign records show.
Lawyers for Peter Andrews Jr., a key player for years in the ex-alderman’s 14th Ward Democratic organization, said money from Burke’s political funds was used by Andrews to cover his legal fees.
State law allows campaign funds to pay for legal costs, but a campaign finance expert told the Tribune it was unusual to see an arrangement in which funds are sent to another co-defendant, classified as “consulting” and then used for legal fees.
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Andrews, 73, is charged alongside Burke with collaborating on an attempt to shake down business owners who wanted to renovate a Burger King in the 14th Ward. Burke faces additional charges as part of a sweeping federal case first filed in 2019, and both men have pleaded not guilty.
Campaign finance records show that in some instances, money from Burke’s political funds was sent directly to a law firm handling Andrews’ criminal case. Between 2019 and 2022, the Friends of Edward M. Burke campaign paid the firm, Blegen & Garvey, more than $165,000 and clearly marked the payments in campaign records as legal fees, campaign finance records show. The firm is now known as Blegen and Associates.
But since Burke’s office was raided five years ago, that same campaign fund plus another one Burke controls also have sent $220,000 directly to Andrews for what campaign records stated was for “consulting.”
That $220,000 included $30,000 from Burke’s 14th Ward Regular Democratic Organization committee fund, and a steady stream of 16 checks for $10,000 each from Friends of Edward M. Burke since August 2022, as well as six prior checks for $5,000 each between April 2019 and May 2022, records showed.
The most recent $10,000 check was delivered this September, records showed.
None of those payments specified they were for legal fees.
Andrews’ lead attorneys, Patrick Blegen and Todd Pugh, said that since their client was “wrongfully accused” of crimes committed while he was an employee of the 14th Ward, it’s entirely appropriate for Burke’s campaign fund to be used to pay for Andrews’ defense.
“Like many employees charged with workplace wrongdoing, his longtime employer has indemnified his legal fees,” Blegen and Pugh wrote in an emailed statement.
After a pretrial court hearing in the Burke case Thursday, Blegen and Pugh said they did not know why the Burke payments to Andrews were classified as “consulting” on campaign records.
Overall, Burke also has spent more than $3 million out of his campaign funds on legal fees since 2018, mostly for his own attorneys.
Campaign finance expert Kent Redfield, a retired political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said the arrangement between Burke and Andrews struck him as unusual. He also questioned whether “consulting” incorrectly identified the true use of the funds.
Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said that generally nothing in state law prohibits spending campaign funds for the “customary and reasonable expenses” of a politician or officeholder.
If a complaint were filed and the state board upheld that the purpose of the funds was misidentified, officials may ask the campaign fund to amend its campaign finance reports, he said.
Reporting an expenditure as “consulting” would not automatically cause the state board’s staff to question the nature of that description, Dietrich said. The board’s main purpose is to ensure funds are disclosed, he said.
Andrews has received payments for political work in prior years from Burke-controlled political funds, records showed. But previous payments were mostly smaller and scattershot, unlike the recent stream of $10,000 checks.
Burke, 79, was originally charged in a criminal complaint in January 2019, weeks after the FBI raided his City Hall office suite.
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.
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The 59-page indictment outlines a series of schemes in which Burke allegedly tried to muscle developers into hiring his law firm, Klafter & Burke, to appeal their property taxes. In addition to the charges related to the Burger King, Burke tried to capitalize on projects including the massive $800 million renovation of the Old Post Office in the West Loop, according to the charges.
Andrews is charged with assisting Burke in trying to extort two business owners seeking to renovate the Burger King restaurant.
Also charged is Charles Cui, who is accused of hiring Burke’s property tax appeal law firm in exchange for the alderman’s help with a sign permit and financing a deal for a project in the Portage Park neighborhood.
Cui also has pleaded not guilty. Jury selection for all three defendants is scheduled to begin Monday, and the trial is expected to last up to six weeks.
