Feds Charge Ald. Edward Burke, Allege Wiretap on Cellphone Captures Him in Attempted Extortion

By Jason Meisner
Chicago Tribune
January 4, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-alderman-ed-burke-charges-20190103-story.html

Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, who has represented the 14th Ward for decades and become one of the city's most powerful figures, has been charged with attempted extortion following FBI raids on his City Hall and Southwest Side ward offices. (Chicago Tribune)

Longtime Ald. Edward Burke, one of Chicago’s most powerful figures and a vestige of the city’s old Democratic machine, has often been considered too clever and sophisticated to be caught blatantly using his public office to enrich himself.

But after years of dodging investigations while watching dozens of his colleagues hauled off to prison, Burke has been accused of crossing the line himself — and doing so in a quintessential Chicago way.

A federal criminal complaint unsealed Thursday charged Burke with attempted extortion for allegedly using his position as alderman to try to steer business to his private law firm from a company seeking to renovate a fast-food restaurant in his ward. The charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison on conviction.

The complaint also alleged Burke asked one of the company’s executives in December 2017 to attend an upcoming political fundraiser for "another politician." Sources identified the politician as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who is running for Chicago mayor.

Authorities sought to seal warrant to arrest Ald. Burke so he wouldn't flee »

The case filed in U.S. District Court comes five weeks after the FBI carried out a stunning raid on Burke’s City Hall office, working for hours behind windows covered with brown butcher paper before leaving down a back staircase with computers and files.

The unveiling of the highly anticipated charges touched off a wild scene Thursday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where Burke turned himself in to federal prosecutors before appearing before a magistrate judge in a packed courtroom on the building’s 17th floor.

Dressed in a charcoal pinstriped suit, pink tie and his trademark pocket square, the silver-haired Burke, who turned 75 last week, sat with his attorneys before the hearing began, reviewing the charges with a deep frown on his face.

When the case was called, Burke walked to the lectern, buttoning his suit coat and standing with his hands at his sides while clasping and unclasping his fingers.

After Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu detailed the charges, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan asked Burke if he understood them.

“Yes, your honor,” Burke answered firmly.

Prosecutors revealed during the 10-minute hearing that the FBI found 23 guns in the raids on Burke’s City Hall and ward offices in November. As a condition of his bond, Burke, a former Chicago police officer, was ordered to surrender the firearms and any others he may own within 48 hours of his release.

Burke was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond, meaning he would have to pay that amount only if he failed to appear in court as required. He left the courthouse about a half an hour later amid a scrum of television news cameras, ignoring shouted questions from reporters. As Burke hailed a cab on Dearborn Street, his lawyer, Charles Sklarsky, said the charges were false.

“The transaction described in the complaint does not make out an extortion or an attempt to extort,” Sklarsky told reporters. “We look forward to a prompt day in court to prove the innocence of Ald. Burke.”

On Friday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Burke would step down from his powerful position of City Council Finance Committee chairman.

As a consummate insider with his hands on many of the city’s levers of power, Burke is arguably one of the biggest fish ever reeled in by the U.S. attorney’s office, which has famously indicted a succession of Illinois governors, aldermen and other politicians in a seemingly never-ending parade of graft.

While the allegations have a familiar ring, the details in the 37-page complaint hint that it could be the tip of the iceberg for Burke. According to the complaint, the FBI had won a judge’s approval to wiretap Burke’s cellphone and was already recording his calls before the alleged shakedown at the center of the charge began to unfold in May 2017. It’s unknown what other evidence federal prosecutors presented in the application for the wiretap because that filing remains under seal.

According to the charge, Burke tried to extort the owners of a company that operates dozens of fast-food restaurants in the Chicago area after they came to him in 2017 for help with permits for remodeling a restaurant in Burke’s 14th Ward on the Southwest Side. The complaint does not name the restaurant, but sources said it was a Burger King located at 4060 S. Pulaski Road — the same business that 17-year-old Laquan McDonald passed by moments before he was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer in October 2014.

The complaint quotes Burke in dozens of candid conversations over the course of eight months — from May 2017 to January 2018 — talking in surprisingly blunt language about the alleged extortion of two out-of-state businessmen whom the alderman did not know well.

In several recordings, Burke allegedly could be heard strategizing with his staffers on how to play “hard ball” with the executives once he realized they had moved forward with construction without hiring his law firm as promised.

“I took ’em to lunch,” Burke allegedly told one assistant, identified as Ward Employee 1, in a phone call in October 2017. “I was playing nice with ’em — never got back.”

“All right, I’ll play as hard ball as I can,” the staffer replied, according to the complaint.

The complaint does not identify the executives or their company, but details included in the charges show it is the Dhanani Group based in Sugar Land, Texas. The privately owned company is one of the country’s largest franchisees for Popeyes and Burger King restaurants, according to Forbes magazine.

The principal owner, Shoukat Dhanani, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Messages left for other executives at the company’s suburban Chicago office were also not returned.

The complaint details Burke’s repeated attempts to pressure the executives into hiring his law firm, Klafter & Burke, including during a June 2017 lunch meeting at the swanky Beverly Country Club at 87th Street and South Western Avenue. The FBI had the meeting under surveillance.

After the meeting, Burke called a “public official” in Texas to talk about what was discussed, the complaint alleged.

"I'll let him know how important you are," the undisclosed official said, according to the complaint.