‘You won’t spend a day in jail’: Madigan attorney hammers Solis’ agreement with feds

[December 05, 2024]  By Hannah Meisel

CHICAGO – The day after Christmas 2018, then-Chicago Ald. Danny Solis signed an agreement with federal prosecutors, with whom he’d spent the last 2 ½ years working as a secret cooperating witness in a sprawling corruption investigation.

Solis’ undercover work helped bring down two of Illinois’ biggest and longest-serving Democratic powerbrokers. Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke is now serving a two-year prison sentence after his bribery, racketeering and extortion convictions last December, while the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is in its seventh week of testimony at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

But Solis’ continued cooperation with the government after his Dec. 26, 2018, signature on a deferred prosecution agreement with the government – capped off by his testimony in Madigan’s trial this week and last – will likely mean the former alderman will see the single bribery charge against him dropped. He’ll also get to keep his taxpayer-funded pension that’s worth nearly $100,000 annually.

“You’re not gonna spend a day in jail if the government thinks you fulfilled your agreement?” Madigan attorney Dan Collins asked Solis on Tuesday, framing it as more of an accusation than a question.

“Yes,” Solis replied.

Had Solis not cooperated with the government, the former alderman could’ve faced a maximum prison sentence of up to 50 years for the bribes he’s admitted to taking while in office, Collins pointed out during his cross-examination on Monday.

“I guess technically yes,” Solis said.

Public corruption prison sentencing guidelines are not typically indicative of prison time ultimately handed down, but the jury likely isn’t aware of that.

“How old are you?” Collins asked.

“I’m 75,” Solis replied.

“So that was a scary proposition,” Collins said.

A pair of FBI agents showed up at Solis’ door on the morning of June 1, 2016, armed with evidence that the alderman had taken bribes while in office. Solis had become one of the most influential Latino politicians in Illinois after his 1996 appointment. He replaced another alderman who’d pleaded guilty to corruption charges. But 20 years later, the FBI asked him to cooperate with the government.

“I was shocked, I was afraid, I was nervous,” the ex-alderman told a federal jury last week, recalling the pre-8 a.m. visit. The agents played him wiretapped calls going back to 2014 and showed him surveillance photos.

For the next three years, the feds wiretapped thousands of calls on Solis’ cell phone in an effort to expose more corruption schemes. The alderman also agreed to wear a hidden camera to record targets of the FBI’s still-unfolding investigation. At first, those targets included Burke and Solis’ longtime friend and consultant Roberto Caldero, who is also serving prison time after pleading guilty to bribing Solis and another government employee.

But in 2017, the feds turned their attention to Madigan, according to testimony from both Solis and the FBI agent who’s been overseeing the agency’s investigation for more than a decade.

Solis’ government position helped him form relationships with real estate developers, and Madigan wanted access to them. Solis chaired the city council’s powerful Zoning Committee and served as alderman of the 25th Ward, which included the booming West Loop and South Loop. Prosecutors allege Madigan engaged in bribery and extortion in his quest to woo some of those real estate developers to hire his property tax appeals law firm.

The former speaker made his first wiretapped call to Solis about one such developer in June 2017.

More than seven years later, Collins attempted to undercut the alderman’s credibility on Monday. Collins alleged Solis had committed tax fraud and broke election law while he was cooperating with the feds – both of which would violate his deferred prosecution agreement.

But Collins also repeatedly attacked the very heart of the government’s agreement with Solis, hammering multiple times on the fact that prosecutors promised to drop the single bribery charge brought against him in 2022 if he testified truthfully during Madigan’s trial.

“You won’t spend a day in jail,” Collins said. “No $250,000 fine … you won’t have a conviction at all.”

Solis acknowledged that’s how he understood the terms of his agreement, and also affirmed that his pension would be in jeopardy if he was convicted or pleaded guilty to a felony.

“That’s a huge benefit for you, isn’t it?” Collins asked, later adding that Solis’ monthly annuity is roughly $7,900. “So if you live another 20 years, you’d receive another $2 million in payments.”

“I hope to live as long as I can, yes,” Solis said.

The Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago where former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is on trial for bribery, racketeering and extortion in a case partially built on secret recordings made by former Chicago alderman-turned-FBI mole Danny Solis, who wrapped up his time on the witness stand Tuesday. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Hannah Meisel, inset by Andrew Adams)

Madigan’s trial is not the first time prosecutors have had to defend the deal they made with Solis. After Solis was formally charged with a single count of bribery in April 2022, the feds finally publicly revealed his December 2018 deferred prosecution agreement.

In a hearing later that month to extend the agreement for another three years, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu called Solis one of Chicago’s “most significant cooperators in the last several decades.” Bhachu’s signature appears on Solis’ 2018 agreement.

At the time, critics including then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, herself a former federal prosecutor, and Solis’ successor in city council loudly criticized the prospect that Solis would avoid punishment.

This past summer, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall criticized Solis’ deal just before handing down a two-year sentence to Burke.

“If the prosecutor’s office is so concerned about public corruption, it does seem a little unwarranted to say that Mr. Solis will get absolutely no time at all for his criminal activity,” she said.

Kendall was elevated to chief judge for the Northern District of Illinois in September.

The parties in Madigan’s case had agreed beforehand to keep Burke-related matters out of Madigan’s trial, but Collins on Monday seized on the opportunity to question Solis about a comment the former alderman made in a secret video recording of Madigan in June 2018.

The two were talking in Madigan’s downtown Chicago law office after a meeting Solis had arranged with a real estate developer so the speaker and his law partner could pitch their property tax appeals services.

In the post-meeting huddle, Madigan brought up wanting to meet the developer behind Chicago’s Old Post Office revitalization project, who Burke was also chasing for his own property tax firm. Solis remarked that the speaker’s approach was “very different” than Burke’s, prompting Madigan to laugh.

Collins noted that Burke offered to pay Solis for business referrals and said things like “the cash register hasn’t rung” and “did we land the tuna?”

“Mike Madigan never offered a dime to you, did he?” Collins asked, his voice raised.

MacArthur objected and after a lengthy sidebar, U.S. District Judge John Blakey told the jury to disregard the questions and answers about Burke. But on Tuesday, MacArthur was allowed to bring up Burke in her redirect, though not by name.

“Did you record … a high-ranking official in Chicago?” she asked, which Solis affirmed. “Was that high-ranking official ultimately charged?”

“Yes,” Solis replied.

MacArthur also asked Solis if he recorded Caldero and if he was ultimately charged. The jury heard multiple times during Solis’ testimony that Caldero, who is serving a near-five-year sentence, bribed the former alderman with Viagra and arranged for massages that ended with a sex act.

Though Solis claimed during Collins’ cross-examination Monday that he’d always paid for his own massages, at the end of Collins’ second round of questioning on Tuesday, he left jurors with a memorable vignette.

Collins began by prompting Solis to acknowledge the FBI directed him to keep up his normal routines, “talk to the usual people” and “go to the usual places” – including a July 2016 trip he and Caldero took to a massage parlor.

“They patted you down to see how much cash you had on you,” Collins said, explaining a wire recording Solis apparently made.

Afterward, Collins claimed Solis still had cash on him, minus the $25 tip he’d paid, though Solis said he didn’t remember.

“Yesterday you said you always paid for your own massages,” Collins said. “But Mr. Caldero paid for the massage that day, correct?”

“He must have if I didn’t pay for it, yes,” Solis replied.

“Mr. Caldero made sure a woman named Cynthia was with you, correct?” Collins asked.

After prosecutors objected, Collins said he was “happy to withdraw” the inquiry and quickly wrapped up his questions before Solis departed the courtroom for one final time Tuesday afternoon.

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