Crime & Law
‘I Agreed to Cooperate’: Disgraced Ex-Ald. Turned Government Mole Danny Solis Takes Witness Stand in Madigan Corruption Trial
Ald. Danny Solis, 25th Ward, appears on “Chicago Tonight” on Nov. 26, 2018.
Danny Solis — the disgraced former 25th Ward alderperson who became one of the most significant government informants in recent decades when he agreed to wear a wire and record his colleagues — took the witness stand Thursday to testify for the second time in under a year, this time in the corruption trial of ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Madigan, 82, and his longtime friend and confidant Michael McClain, 77, are charged with racketeering, bribery and wire fraud. They have each pleaded not guilty.
The longtime 25th Ward alderperson, who is testifying under a deferred prosecution agreement, marks the most substantial witness in the government's case against the former House Speaker. He is expected to testify for several days.
Solis is expected to testify about a pair of schemes Madigan allegedly orchestrated. In one, prosecutors have claimed the longtime speaker sought to help Solis secure a position on a state board in exchange for Solis referring legal business to Madigan’s private property tax law firm.
He’s also expected to detail Madigan’s alleged efforts to illegally steer business to his law firm amid efforts to develop a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown — which was in Solis’ aldermanic ward — into a commercial development.
Solis on Thursday confirmed that he began cooperating with federal authorities beginning in June 2016, shortly after he was confronted at his home by FBI agents carrying evidence of his own bribery activities.
“I agreed to cooperate,” he told jurors.
As part of that agreement, Solis wore a wire and recorded numerous phone calls and in-person conversations at the FBI's behest, sometimes feeding others false information given to him by the feds in an effort to root out any potential illegal activities. The deal also saw Solis receive a criminal charge himself, but as long as he agreed to cooperate truthfully, that charge would eventually be dropped.
“The charge was bribery,” he said, “and it consisted of trying to solicit campaign contributions from a developer that had a pending application in my Zoning Committee.”
Solis only testified briefly Thursday before proceedings concluded for the week.
He told jurors that he first met Madigan in the late 1980s while advocating for legislation in Springfield. But he only had intermittent contact with the speaker until 1996, when Solis was appointed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley to serve as 25th Ward alderperson.
Solis, who held that position for 23 years, explained Daley later appointed him as chair of the City Council’s Zoning Committee in 2009, a powerful role he maintained until 2019, when his federal cooperation was revealed publicly.
How Solis Was Approached
FBI Special Agent Ryan McDonald testified Thursday about how investigators first approached Solis and got him to cooperate.
He told jurors that when he and another agent met with Solis at his Chicago home on June 1, 2016, the alderperson had no idea he’d been under investigation or that agents had intercepted numerous calls on his cellphone between 2014 and 2015.
McDonald and another agent showed Solis some of the evidence they’d obtained against him — including several recordings showing he’d taken money, campaign contributions and trips from a developer in exchange for official action on the Zoning Committee.
“We were conducting a criminal investigation,” McDonald said, “and believed Mr. Solis had information that could help us further the investigation.”
Solis asked to speak with an attorney, and soon after, he’d agreed to begin secretly recording phone calls at the FBI’s behest.
McDonald explained that during the first year of Solis’ cooperation, the FBI’s investigation was not focused on Madigan. But that shifted in 2017, when Madigan reached out to Solis and asked to be introduced to a developer of the Union West project in the West Loop.
According to prosecutors, Solis in June 2018 spoke with Madigan about the potential for a state board seat before stating that he would “continue to get you legal business. I, I’ve got all kinds of stuff [referring to developments] happening in the South Loop and in the West Loop.”
Solis had been instructed by the FBI to make that board position and tell Madigan he’d introduce him to developers with the expectation Madigan’s private law firm would receive their business.
“... see, I never knew that that section was in your ward,” Madigan allegedly replied.
Later in the same conversation, after Solis again mentioned the possible board seat, Madigan allegedly stated that he would “put together a, uh, piece of paper that shows you all the” board members and their term dates.
Solis continued recording calls and conversations for the government until January 2019, when an affidavit detailing his cooperation that had been filed under seal was mistakenly made briefly available to the public — the details of which were reported on by the Chicago Sun-Times, and soon, others.
“Had Mr. Solis cover effectively been blown by these newspaper articles?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu asked Thursday.
“Yes,” McDonald testified.
Beyond Solis himself, McDonald on Thursday confirmed the FBI had sought to record Solis’ sister, Patti Solis Doyle, who served as campaign manager for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential run.
“That was a significant move for the FBI, right?” Madigan attorney Dan Collins asked FBI Special Agent Ryan McDonald.
“It was,” McDonald answered.
McDonald also testified that the wiretap obtained against Solis Doyle preceded her brother’s federal cooperation and that it was terminated after several months because it was not “fruitful.” According to McDonald, the FBI had not disclosed that wiretap to Solis and it had never been made public until Collins asked about it Thursday.
Solis has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the government after admitting he had taken bribes while serving as alderperson and chair of Chicago’s powerful Zoning Committee.
Solis acknowledged Thursday he’s still under that deferred prosecution agreement until April 2025 and if he violates that deal — for instance, by lying under oath while testifying — he could face up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge and could be prosecuted for any other illegal activities covered by the agreement.
Bhachu previously said in 2022 that Solis deserved an unprecedented plea deal due to the lengths of his cooperation, calling him one of the government’s most important informants in recent history.
Solis was not called as a witness by prosecutors in Burke’s corruption trial last year — though numerous secretly recorded calls and videos he made were used as evidence — but he was called by the defense, which sought to portray him as a “con man” who was only out to save himself when he was approached by federal investigators.
“I was trying to help myself by recording Ed Burke,” Solis testified in that trial. “But I wasn’t trying to get him to say a particular thing.”
The backbone of that case consisted of dozens of recordings made by Solis that captured Burke berating those who had displeased him, while attempting to charm those he sought to sign up as clients.
Burke was ultimately convicted last December on 13 of 14 counts of racketeering, bribery and extortion.
To help explain the role of alderpeople and their role in city politics, prosecutors on Thursday called former 43th Ward Ald. Michele Smith — who retired from her office in 2022 after serving for more than a decade — to testify.
Smith, herself a former assistant U.S. attorney, told jurors how alderpeople fulfill constituent needs, serve on the City Council and control developments within their ward.
She explained how committee chairs — like Solis in the Zoning Committee — were highly sought after positions that allowed them to set committee agendas and pick up additional staff workers.
She agreed the Zoning Committee is a highly influential body on the City Council because it deals with massive real estate transactions and “big business” for the city.
Former Precinct Captain, ComEd Subcontractor Testifies
Also on Thursday, Ed Moody — one of the subcontractors allegedly hired by Commonwealth Edison as a favor to Madigan — concluded his testimony after telling jurors he had done essentially no work for the company while pulling in a regular salary from them for years.
A longtime 13th Ward precinct captain for Madigan, Moody testified that despite doing little to no work to earn the money, he spent nearly seven years collecting $4,500 each month, paid indirectly from ComEd through a series of lobbyists connected to Madigan.
Between mid-2012 and late 2018, Moody received $354,000, rarely interacting with the lobbyists who signed his checks.
Instead, Moody told the jury that Madigan arranged the no-work contracts for him contingent on him maintaining his campaign work for the speaker.
“Do the political work, keep the contract,” Moody said Wednesday, characterizing his understanding of the arrangement. “Don’t do the political work, don’t keep the contract.”
Moody and his twin brother, Fred, were ranked as the top precinct captains in their area, and Moody testified that he got a job working as a jury supervisor at the Cook County courthouse in Bridgeview in 1993.
He stayed working in that role for more than 20 years, all the while continuing to spend thousands of hours campaigning through his precinct for Madigan’s candidates.
Then sometime around 2011, when Moody approached Madigan about getting a lobbying job that would pay him around $45,000 per year on top of his courthouse position, Madigan didn’t respond. Moody said he felt disrespected by the speaker, and went with his brother to confront Madigan at his office.
On Wednesday, he described the emotional meeting and said the normally taciturn Madigan grew upset too.
“He said, ‘calm down, calm down,’” Moody recalled. “He said ‘you’ll get your contract.’ ... As the conversation was settling down a bit, Mr. Madigan said, ‘This is how I reward my good soldiers.’”
Moody testified a contract was arranged about a half hour later with Madigan’s longtime friend and advisor Mike McClain, who had spent decades lobbying for ComEd in Springfield.
For the next two years, Moody made calls to about a dozen legislators each month asking if they or their constituents had any problems with ComEd service — or other utilities for the members who weren’t in ComEd’s northern Illinois service territory — and then directed them to McClain.
But on cross examination Thursday, McClain’s attorney Patrick Cotter pointed to an invoice Moody submitted to McClain regarding work he’d done in the first four months of 2013, which showed Moody had completed 225 hours of door-to-door canvassing in and around Chicago to gather their thoughts on ComEd and the Smart Grid legislation.
Cotter sought to show that, while Moody felt he wasn’t doing any work for ComEd, the work he was doing was assisting McClain, who was a contract lobbyist for the utility company, thus he was providing them with value through his work.
“After canvassing for hundreds of hours in these different communities,” Moody wrote in the invoice, “it is my understanding that a majority of those I communicated with regarding ComEd feel the utility is headed in the right direction, they support and appreciate the smart grid program.”
“Is this a lie?” Cotter asked Thursday morning.
“No,” Moody replied.
“You did this?” Cotter asked
“Yes,” Moody answered.
Moody also testified that at no point did McClain ever tell him that he’d been hired to work any “no show, no work” jobs. But he said he never did any other canvassing work during his time working under McClain and that he typically only spent about an hour per month making calls and checking in with legislators while receiving monthly checks ranging from $3,750 to $4,500.
Capitol News Illinois and Heather Cherone contributed to this report.
