Jon Seidel
Federal courts reporter
Jon Seidel covers federal courts for the Chicago Sun-Times.
“They ran an undercover investigation on Mr. Burke for 30 months — with the star witness being Danny Solis — and they didn’t have the decency to bring him to you,” said attorney Joseph Duffy.
The dispute is over whether a federal bribery statute criminalizes only bribery, as opposed to also criminalizing so-called gratuities or rewards.
‘You have heard about a pattern of unlawful activity,’ prosecutor Diane MacArthur said. ‘Standing at the center of that steady drumbeat of unlawful activity is this man, Edward Burke.’
Ed Burke’s defense attorneys made good on their promise to call Solis to testify, forcing him out into the open nearly five years after the Chicago Sun-Times revealed his cooperation with the feds in January 2019.
Burke’s defense team has promised to summon former Ald. Danny Solis to the witness stand — finally giving Burke the chance to confront the man who famously turned on him while wearing an FBI wire.
Prosecutors in Burke’s corruption trial say the call in 2017 demonstrated the former alderman’s “modus operandi.”
City Hall bureaucracy took center stage in former Ald. Ed Burke’s corruption trial Thursday as one of the finer disputed points in the case came to a head.
Restaurant employee is pressed why he didn’t initially tell FBI agents about the former alderperson’s apparent interest in getting private business from Burger King owners.
“We were going to talk about the real estate tax representation, and you were going to have somebody get in touch with me so we can expedite your permits,” Burke was recorded saying during a call with an executive.