11/28/23
Given my extensive writing on Chicago politics, including my
two books, on which more will be written later in this post, how could I not
write something on yet another “Trial of the Century” in Chicago and Illinois
politics, that of former 14th Ward Alderman and Committeeman Ed
Burke, the quintessential Chicago ward boss and power broker? Yours truly is not at all confident about
the outcome of this trial, but I am confident that this will not be my last
post on Mr. Burke and/or his trial.
Given all the eccentricities of the legal process, the
apparent and not so apparent skills, or lack thereof, of the lawyers involved,
and the difficulties of getting into the heads of any group of jurors, only a
fool tries to call the outcome of a trial.
Not being a fool (though others might argue the contrary), I will not
venture into this graveyard of guessmen.
I will, however, make a few observations, which run counter to each
other, at this stage of the legal proceedings against Mr. Burke and his two
co-defendants.
First, given the resources of the federal government and its
determination to go after corruption, both real and perceived, it is a rare
occurrence for a federal defendant, especially a high profile federal
defendant, to walk out of a Dirksen Building corruption trial a free man
or woman. The odds, therefore, do not
appear to favor Alderman Burke.
I do have a good story, however, about one of those high
profile federal defendants who did indeed walk out of the Dirksen Building a
free man, albeit temporarily. Recall
that, in his first trial, former Governor Rod Blagojevich was found not
guilty on the majority of the counts against him while the jury was hung on the
two or three remaining counts. Mr.
Blagojevich’s attorneys in the first trial were Sam Adam, Sr. and Sam
Adam, Jr., two of Chicago’s most prominent defense attorneys, at least at
the time. Sam Adam, Sr. made an
impassioned speech after the verdict about the power of the federal government
and the potential for abuse that went with that power, using, of course, the
feds’ treatment of his and his son’s client as Exhibit A in that argument. Being one of libertarian tendencies, and
more so at the time, I was beyond impressed with the speech. When Mr. Blagojevich was re-tried on the
counts on which the first jury had been hung, and Messrs. Adam decided to pass
on representing him in that second trial, the former governor was convicted and
went to prison for a long time, but this digression is not the point of this
larger digression.
A month or so after the first Blagojevich verdict, my son
Mark and I were having Sunday breakfast at Lume’s, a neighborhood
pancake house, after Mass and Mark’s Religious Education class at Sacred
Heart, where Mark and his sisters were confirmed. Lume’s, the subject of a now seminal 8/20/21
post on this blog (THIS
WEEKEND’S MASS SHOOTING AT LUME’S, A PLACE IN THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE YOURS
TRULY HAS ENJOYED MANY A MEAL), is located at 116th and Western,
in my old neighborhood, which lies directly south of Beverly, where Sam Adam,
Jr. lives, or did at the time. So it
came as scant surprise that sitting next to us at Lume’s that morning were Sam
Adam Jr. and Sr. along with Sam Jr.’s wife and small children. As Mark and I were preparing to leave, I
went over to the Adam table, politely introduced myself, and told Sam Sr. how much I admired his
speech. Sam Jr.’s response was,
paraphrasing…
Oh, great. Now
I’m going to have to hear from my dad all day, and probably all week and all
month, about what a great orator and lawyer he is because the guy at Lume’s
took the time to tell him what a great speech he made after Blagojevich’s
trial. Thanks a lot!
Of course, I digress; that tale had nothing to do with
Mr. Burke’s trial and is repeated in the cited August, 2021 post, but I still
thought the story was worth re-telling.
Back to the Burke trial:
Second, I have three sub-observations regarding the
current Burke trial and the facts surrounding it:
1.
Mr. Shoukhat Dhamani, who runs the
franchisee corporation that owns the Burger King on Pulaski in the 14th
Ward that is at the center of one of the allegations against Mr. Burke and one
of his co-defendants, Peter Andrews, an old-time 14th Ward
political hand, DID NOT HIRE Klafter and Burke for any legal work. Mr. Dhamani’s company DID GET the
driveway permits it was seeking.
2.
Mr. Peter Cui, a co-defendant and a
developer who was seeking a large display pole for a Binney’s Beverage Depot
store in a strip mall he owned on the north side, EAGERLY HIRED Klafter
and Burke. Mr. Cui DID NOT GET
the permits necessary to erect said pole.
3.
The Field Museum allegedly was bullied by
Alderman Burke; if the Museum did not hire the daughter of Alderman Terry
Gabinski, who was also Mr. Burke’s Goddaughter, as an intern, it would not
get the increase it sought in its admission fees. The Field Museum DID NOT OFFER Ms.
Gabinski the internship. It DID GET
the admission fee increase it sought. To
be fair, the Museum later offered Ms. Gabinski a paid position, but this was
after-the-fact and, by that time, she had moved on and no longer wanted the
job. Still, this is another case in
which the alleged victim did not bow to Mr. Burke’s alleged demands but still
got what it wanted.
Hmm…Two alleged victims did not do what Mr. Burke’s
wanted them to do but still got what they were seeking from the City. One co-defendant did what Mr. Burke wanted
him to do but did not get what he wanted from the City. If I were a defense attorney, I would make
this abundantly clear to the jury that is charged with deciding whether Mr.
Burke was running some kind of extortion racket.
One more digression…
When I was in the green room waiting to go on Milt
Rosenberg’s Extension 720 program on WGN Radio in the wake of the
publication of my first book, Dr. Rosenberg, whom I had never met before, came
into the room and, before saying hello or exchanging any other pleasantries,
looked me in the eye and asked
“Is Chairman Collins (the main character in my book) Ed
Burke?”
I answered “No” and further elaborated on the show;
guessing who was who in my book had become something of parlor game among
readers who were knowledgeable of Chicago’s political history. Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins was
much like Don Vito Corleone, but not in the way one might suspect. Many people thought that Don Vito was Joe
Bonanno, Russell Bufallino, Vito Genovese, or any number of prominent Mob
bosses on the East Coast in the post-War years. But Don Vito was none of those people and
all those people. He was an amalgam of many
of them. Similarly, many people thought
Chairman Collins was Mike Madigan, Ed Burke, Richard J. Daley, Dick Mell, Ed
Vrdolyak, or any number of the denizens of Chicago politics in the latter
part of the 20th century.
But Chairman Collins was none of those people and all those people. He was an amalgam of many of them, with a bit
of fiction thrown in to make for a more entertaining novel, if such a thing
were possible.
Let me also remind my readers that both my books are
timeless classics and are still available at, among other places, Amazon. You should read them if you haven’t already
and re-read them if you have:
The Chairman, A Novel of
Big City Politics
The Chairman’s Challenge,
A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics
