Five years after the FBI raided his offices and six weeks after his federal corruption trial began, former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke on Thursday inched closer than ever to learning his fate, as prosecutors and his defense delivered their closing arguments.
Burke - 14th Ward alderman for 54 years and longtime chair of the powerful City Council Finance Committee - was indicted on 14 counts of racketeering, extortion and bribery. He's accused of using his government positions to lure in business for his private law firm specializing in property tax work. Also charged alongside Burke are his longtime aide Peter Andrews and real estate developer Charles Cui.
Prosecutors laid out four separate episodes for which Burke is charged. He’s accused of taking official action as he pursued tax work from the developer of Chicago’s Old Main Post Office, halting the remodeling of a Burger King in his ward as he sought their business, getting involved in an issue related to a pole sign for a Northwest Side Binny’s, as well as threatening to withhold support for the Field Museum’s fee increase proposal after his goddaughter’s internship application fell through the cracks.
“For the past weeks, you have heard about a pattern of unlawful activity,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur began the prosecution's closing argument Wednesday.
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“Standing at the center of that steady drumbeat of unlawful activity is this man, Edward Burke,” she said, gesturing to Burke.
“Mr. Burke used his authority… to satisfy his own greed and to line his own pockets,” MacArthur continued.
“These actions,” she said, “flipped our system from right to wrong, from legal to illegal, from above board to thoroughly corrupt.”
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Central to the case are wiretapped phone calls and secretly recorded meetings, some of which prosecutors played for jurors again in closing. That included a 2017 call in which Burke asks fellow alderman-turned-FBI-mole Danny Solis about getting business from the developer of the Old Post Office.
“So did we land the, uh, the tuna?” Burke can be heard asking.
“That’s a financial tuna that he’s referring to,” MacArthur told the jury as her closing argument continued into Thursday. “Mr. Burke, in his mind, was seeking to land a financial tuna for himself and his law firm.”
Earlier in the week, Burke’s defense called Solis to testify and he conceded – he agreed to wear a wire after he was confronted with evidence of his own alleged crimes, and he lied to Burke at the direction of the FBI.
Thursday, MacArthur told jurors that while Solis may have lied, “It is the words and actions of Mr. Burke that are really the focus in this case.”
After MacArthur’s methodical closing argument stretched for roughly seven hours split over the course of two days, it was Burke’s team that had their chance to make a final pitch to the jury.
“The government has provided to you a lot of noise and confusion,” Burke’s attorney Joseph Duffy said.
“They still haven’t figured out what crime he’s committed,” Duffy continued. “It is not your job to clean up a mess.”
“They promised you a corruption case. Ed Burke lined his pockets,” Duffy said, before drilling down on a point his team has made repeatedly over the course of the trial. “In three years, you know how much money went into his pocket? Nada. Zero."
Duffy pointed to Solis as pushing both Burke and the developer of the Old Post Office at the direction of the FBI.
“Solis needed somebody to hire Ed Burke. Why? Because Danny Solis did not want to go to jail,” Duffy said. “He’s a corrupt public official. He’s cooperating with the government. He told you: whatever the FBI told me to do, I did.”
Duffy also highlighted both Burke’s method for recusing himself from City Council votes on matters related to clients, as well as the efforts by other public officials like then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Dick Durbin to push the Old Post Office renovation forward
“Solis told you what we’ve been telling you for weeks: Nobody needed Ed Burke’s help,” Duffy said, “except Danny Solis.”
All three defendants on Wednesday declined to testify in their own defense. Defense attorneys were expected to finish closing arguments Friday and the jury is poised to begin deliberating early next week.
