Courts
The defense teams for Michael Madigan and co-defendant Michael McClain are seeking to strike their upcoming trial date and delay all proceedings until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling in a case that could rewrite the federal bribery statute.
Mustafaa Saleh, 37, was sentenced last week to a year and one day in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of wire fraud.
Deliberations began Monday afternoon after U.S. District Court Judge Virgina Kendall spent more than three hours reading more than 300 pages of jury instructions.
By contrast, Burke’s attorney portrayed the former alderperson as a “good man” and a dedicated public servant who relished his ability to move the city’s bureaucracy and “thrived on connecting the right people.”
Illinois’ new law banning “deceptive” practices by anti-abortion ministries, passed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, is scrapped before ever materially taking effect.
Burke’s defense calls the government’s case ‘a bunch of noise’
Closing arguments continued Thursday in the high-profile corruption case of the longtime 14th Ward alderperson and Finance Committee chair, with prosecutors zeroing in on perhaps the most elaborate of four criminal schemes Burke is charged with.
Four former Commonwealth Edison officials convicted of conspiring to bribe Michael Madigan are seeking to delay their sentencing after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a separate case the defendants say “has the potential to upend” their own proceedings.
Closing arguments began Wednesday, more than a month after proceedings began in Ed Burke’s landmark corruption case. Prosecutors painted the longtime 14th Ward alderperson as a “powerful and corrupt” politician who was motivated by greed to “get what he wanted for himself.”
The settlement is the largest police misconduct settlement approved by the City Council in 2023.
The Chicago City Council voted 31-18 to resolve the lawsuit filed by the family of Darius Cole-Garrit, which claimed the officers who shot the 21-year-old threatened him hours before they nearly ran him over and then shot him in the back as he fled.
As disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) took the stand Tuesday afternoon in the landmark corruption trial of his former friend and colleague, who ruled City Hall with an iron fist for decades, Burke’s squad of attorneys will now get their chance to make their case that he is not a criminal, but an “old school, hardworking public servant.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of three minor, unnamed victims, alleged that Federico Garcia Lorca Elementary School teacher Andrew Castro was able to continuously abuse the boys despite prior complaints of similar abuse.
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case-in-chief on Tuesday, setting the stage for disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) to be called to the stand to testify in the landmark corruption trial of his former friend and colleague.
If approved, the settlement would be the largest police misconduct settlement approved by the City Council in 2023, and the largest since May 2022, records show.
In a surprise move Monday, Crimo III told the court he wishes to proceed pro se and will act as his own attorney. The 23-year-old also invoked his right to a speedy trial — pushing what had been expected to be a February 2025 trial date up to Feb. 26, 2024.
The vote on Monday by the City Council’s Finance Committee, which came over the objections of at least seven alderpeople, means the full City Council will once again consider resolving the lawsuit filed by Darius Cole-Garrit’s family.