Former Ald. Daniel Solis will resume testifying Monday within the corruption trial of former House Speaker Michael Madigan about his bombshell flip as an FBI mole.
Solis, 71, a former twenty fifth District alderman and longtime head of town council’s influential zoning committee, took the stand late final week to start what will likely be an interesting dive into one of the main instances of public corruption in Chicago’s sordid historical past.
His testimony – which may lengthen into December – will embrace clandestine video recordings made by Solis throughout face-to-face conferences with Madigan, the place the longtime House chief and head of the state Democratic Party allegedly used his official affect to shake up the enterprise builders. for his personal tax attraction legislation apply.
Jurors will hear Madigan in his personal phrases, inform Solis in a recorded name that he would strategy then-Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker a couple of profitable place on the state board for Solis, presumably as a reward for Solis bringing in big-time builders to the speaker.
It may even characteristic recorded conversations through which Madigan allegedly requested Solis for assist convincing the speaker’s son, insurance coverage dealer Andrew Madigan, to do enterprise with a Pilsen-based nonprofit group that had acquired thousands and thousands of {dollars} in state funds.
Some of the investigation’s extra peripheral figures can also be talked about, together with his sister, longtime Democratic political adviser Patti Solis Doyle, Chicago legal professional Brian Hynes and different politicians, from lobbyist and fundraiser Victor Reyes to the previous US Representative Luis Gutiérrez.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served as speaker of the Illinois House for many years earlier than resigning in 2021, faces racketeering costs that allege he ran his state and political operations as a legal enterprise.
He is charged together with Michael McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from southern Quincy state who for years was certainly one of Madigan’s closest confidants. Both males have pleaded not responsible and denied any wrongdoing.
Solis’ testimony is the end result of a saga that started practically eight and a half years in the past, when FBI brokers confronted him at his dwelling in June 2016 and confirmed him proof that they had gathered of his personal misdeeds.
That day the feds had been ready to raid the Solis metropolis corridor workplaces. Instead, he reversed himself, providing what prosecutors described as “peculiar” cooperation that helped topple not solely Madigan however one other Chicago political big in former Ald. Edward M. Burke.
Lawyers for Madigan and McClain, in the meantime, could have loads of ammunition to deliver to what’s anticipated to be a protracted and grueling cross-examination.
Unlike Burke’s trial final 12 months, through which Solis was known as as a protection witness, this time he will likely be subjected to a much wider line of questioning, with the protection probing not solely the unprecedented deal of deferred prosecution of Solis, but additionally episodes of the FBI investigation into his misdeeds that might show personally embarrassing.
In his opening assertion to the jury final month, Madigan legal professional Tom Breen painted Solis as a “dick” with “a decrepit private {and professional} life,” somebody who lied to chop a sweetheart cope with the feds that did not It will solely maintain him out of jail, but additionally assist him preserve a wealthy metropolis pension.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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