WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ED BURKE

 

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 14^th 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 116^th 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 14^th 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 14^th 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 20^th 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