Feds say they will call ex-Ald. Daniel Solis to testify against Madigan

Federal prosecutors said Monday they plan to call former Chicago Ald. Daniel Solis to the witness stand at the upcoming corruption trial of former House Speaker Michael Madigan, marking a key change in strategy on how to introduce secret recordings Solis made during his turn as an FBI mole.

The disclosure came in two lengthy filings that also made public new details in the investigation of Madigan, the longtime former leader of the state Democratic Party who is charged in a racketeering indictment with using his office to bolster his own political power and rain cash on his friends.

Among the new revelations:

• Madigan was allegedly recorded talking to his longtime confidant Michael McClain about getting a job for the wife of a state representative, identified only as “Public Official E,” who had gone to Madigan because he needed money. The state representative, whom the Tribune has confirmed is Jaime Andrade, a Chicago Democrat, was later recorded thanking McClain for their efforts, which resulted in his wife landing a spot with the Illinois secretary of state’s office, according to the filings.

• In addition to Solis, prosecutors plan to call former state Rep. Edward Acevedo, a Madigan ally, to testify about efforts by AT&T Illinois to pay him $4,500 as a “consultant” in order to win Madigan’s influence on pending legislation. Acevedo, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to tax-related offenses, had not previously been disclosed as a witness.

• Prosecutors want to introduce evidence of a secret plan to funnel money to ex-aide Kevin Quinn, who was ousted from Madigan’s 13th Ward organization for sexually harassing a campaign worker. Among the recordings they want to play is one where McClain allegedly tells a former top Madigan aide he wants to keep the circle of people who knew about the plan “real small” because “the more people that know … it’s too easy for people to babble.”

• Prosecutors say they will play more than 250 undercover recordings at Madigan’s trial, including wiretapped calls, consensual phone recordings and secretly videotaped in-person meetings. In one, Solis allegedly tells Madigan the developers of a Chinatown project were on board with hiring Madigan’s law firm.

Meanwhile, the decision to call Solis is somewhat of an about-face for the U.S. attorney’s office, which decided last year not to call him in the trial of former Ald. Edward Burke. Solis secretly recorded Burke for more than a year as he allegedly schemed to pressure developers in the massive $600 million renovation of the Old Post Office to hire his law firm to do property tax work.

Solis wound up being called as a witness by the defense, though attempts to dirty him up over his own allegedly corrupt acts appeared to have backfired since Burke was convicted on every count involving the Old Post Office scheme.

According to the new documents in the Madigan case, which were filed several days after the original deadline due to technical issues at the U.S. attorney’s office, Solis’ testimony will add key context to many of Madigan’s responses on the secret recordings and allegedly show how he was using Solis to get introductions to big time developers.

Among them was the same New York-based firm in charge of the Old Post Office project that Burke had pursued — an only-in-Illinois political scenario that Solis captured on tape.

“I can bring you him, but you know … Burke has been, I, I’ve connected him to him, but he didn’t give him the work for the post office,” Solis explained during the meeting with Madigan, according to the new court filings. But Solis said the developer was also in line to purchase another downtown skyscraper that could have proven lucrative for Madigan.

“Yeah. Oh yeah. I know,” Madigan allegedly said.

“So, if you want, I can bring him to you too,” Madigan replied, according to the filing.

Solis is expected to testify that in return for the introduction, he asked Madigan for help securing a state board position once he retired from City Hall, a prospect that was actually part of an FBI ruse.

When Solis asked Madigan about the process of getting a state board spot, the speaker was recorded telling Solis that he would go to then-Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker and that Solis would “come in as Pritzker’s recommendation,” according to the government filings.

“Solis is expected to testify he understood this to mean that Madigan would convince (Pritzker) to appoint him to the state board,” prosecutors said.

In another conversation, Solis told Madigan the developers of a Chinatown parcel were on board hiring Madigan’s firm to help get the deal done.

“And I think they understand how this works, you know, the quid pro quo, the quid pro quo,” Solis allegedly said.

Madigan responded, “OK,” according to the filing.

“This call is devastating evidence that Madigan intended to personally benefit himself by causing Solis to leverage his official position to in turn cause (the Chinatown developer) to give Madigan business,” prosecutors wrote.

The 23-count indictment alleges Madigan participated in an array of bribery and extortion schemes from 2011 to 2019 aimed at using the power of his public office for personal and political gain.

The case punctuated a stunning downfall for Madigan, the longest serving leader of any legislative chamber in the nation who held an ironclad grip on the state legislature as well as the Democratic party and its political spoils. He was dethroned as speaker in early 2021 as the investigation swirled around him, and soon after resigned the House seat he’d held since 1971.

Also charged in the indictment was McClain, a former state legislator and lobbyist who was convicted last year of orchestrating an alleged bribery scheme by Commonwealth Edison. McClain’s sentencing in that case is pending.

That same alleged scheme forms the backbone of the indictment against Madigan and McClain, outlining a plan by the utility giant to pay thousands of dollars to lobbyists favored by Madigan in order to win his influence over legislation the company wanted passed in Springfield.

Both Madigan and McClain have denied any wrongdoing. Their lawyers have until April 26 to respond to Monday’s filings.

Their trial, one of the biggest scheduled at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in years, had been slated to begin April 1, but was delayed until October by U.S. District Judge Robert Blakey as the parties await a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a bribery case from northwest Indiana that involves similar prosecution paths.

In addition to the ComEd allegations, the indictment also accuses Madigan and McClain in a similar scheme to funnel payments from AT&T to a Madigan associate in exchange for the speaker’s influence over legislation the telephone company wanted passed in Springfield.

Madigan also is charged alone with illegally soliciting business for his private property tax law firm during discussions to turn a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown into a commercial development.

Solis recorded numerous conversations with Madigan as part of the Chinatown land probe, including one in which the speaker told Solis he was looking for a colleague to sponsor a House bill approving the land sale, which was never consummated.

“I have to find out about who would be the proponent in the House,” Madigan allegedly told Solis in the March 2018 conversation. “We gotta find the appropriate person for that. I have to think it through.”

The indictment also alleged that Madigan met with Pritzker in December 2018 in part to discuss a lucrative state board position for Solis, ostensibly as a reward for helping Madigan win law business.

Before that meeting, Solis allegedly recorded Madigan telling him the speaker’s communication with Pritzker did not need to be in writing,” according to the indictment. “I can just verbally tell him,” Madigan allegedly said.

Pritzker, who agreed to be interviewed by the feds and is not accused of any wrongdoing, has said he “does not recall” Madigan ever asking him to consider Solis “for any position” and that the administration has no record of the alleged recommendation.

The prosecution filings also added new details into another allegation in the indictment: That Madigan at one point beseeched Solis for help getting the speaker’s son, insurance broker Andrew Madigan, business with The Resurrection Project, a Pilsen-based nonprofit group that had received millions of dollars in state funds.

During the same recorded meeting about the Solis board appointment, Madigan allegedly told Solis that his son had not heard back from the group. “Just ask him, give (Andrew) something. … Give him a chance to show what he, what he can do,” Madigan told Solis near the end of the meeting, according to the filing.

To prove the existence and purpose of the alleged enterprise, prosecutors are also seeking to introduce evidence about other political favors done by Madigan and McClain in the same time frame, including landing a job for Illinois Representative E’s wife at the secretary of state’s office.

While the court filings do not name the representative, Andrade, who represents parts of Chicago’s Northwest Side, confirmed to the Tribune that Madigan was one of many people he reached out to at that time regarding his wife’s potential employment.

He said Madigan and others mentioned an open position under then-Secretary of State Jesse White, a longtime Madigan ally.

Andrade has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

On July 2, 2018, Madigan told McClain on a wiretapped call that Madigan said Andrade “came to me and same story, he needs money, and he had the thought that maybe I could help his wife on something,” according to government filings.

Madigan explained that he thought of placing Andrade’s wife with Jay Doherty, a ComEd consultant and then-head of the City Club of Chicago, though “not necessarily with ComEd.”

“I had the thought that I could actually put Jay Doherty on a retainer,” Madigan said, “We’d tell (Andrade) to prepare some monthly reports on what she’s doing. So he’s got it on file.”

Later, Andrade “reached out to thank McClain for landing his wife a job at the secretary of state’s office,” prosecutors wrote in the filing, arguing the episode provides “another example of Madigan and McClain rewarding Madigan’s political allies with benefits, which is alleged as one of the purposes of the criminal enterprise.”

In his comments to the Tribune on Monday, Andrade said he didn’t know if Madigan had anything to do with his wife’s hiring. And while Andrade remembers talking to McClain, he’s not sure why he would have thanked him specifically.

He said a bout with COVID has caused lapses in his memory. But Andrade said he did remember that, during the call, McClain misidentified the division of White’s office where his wife worked.

Andrade’s wife currently makes about $62,000 a year in a law-related position. Andrade said he has not talked to any federal authorities and does not expect to be called to testify in the upcoming trial.

The filings also gave a deep background lesson into how Madigan and his hand-picked 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn allegedly developed plans to give themselves political cover as McClain worked out a back-door payment scheme to send money to the alderman’s brother, Kevin Quinn, himself a longtime Madigan government and political aide.

The payment scheme came only months after Madigan, in a high-profile move at the height of the national #MeToo movement, publicly cut ties with Kevin Quinn following a sexual harassment scandal the Tribune detailed in February 2018.

The Tribune first reported how McClain rounded up several clout-heavy lobbyists with deep ties to Madigan to send payments to Kevin Quinn. A search warrant affidavit made public in 2022 revealed that Madigan knew about the payments ahead of time but allegedly “wanted to be able to appear to have no knowledge” of the plan.

New details revealed in Monday’s filings alleged that minutes after speaking with Madigan, McClain called Marty Quinn to ask whether he wanted to know details about how his brother, Kevin, would receive payments or “like to stay in the dark on that.”

The alderman’s response was he’d “rather stay in the dark,” the filings alleged.

The next day, Aug. 30, 2018, McClain called Kevin Quinn and explained how he’d pulled “a few guys together to try to give you a bridge … of uh, some money,” according to the filing. McClain said on the recorded call that the money would come through a “consultant contract” with “like three or four or five people” who would pay him “five or six grand a month.”

McClain told Kevin Quinn he should promise “to do some research for them” and then, at the end of six months, file a “paragraph or two” about about senators, County Board members or City Council members and perhaps a “little bit about maybe who they’re, they’re closest to,” prosecutors said.

Signaling the “paperwork” would not be too burdensome, McClain allegedly told Quinn he could give the same document to “all five or six people” rather than create a different report for each one.

The reason for the unusual arrangement, McClain said on the recording, was so “if they got audited … they can show the IRS agent the contract and … can also show ’em that one or two-page document,” according to the prosecution filing.

When one of the individuals that McClain approached said he wanted Kevin Quinn to “actually really help rather than simply fill out a “bull—- report,” McClain answered that such a circumstance meant “I’ll just have your contract different,” prosecutors wrote.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

rlong@chicagotribune.com