Star government witness cross-examined in ex-House speaker’s corruption trial
CHICAGO – Former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis spent more than 2 ½ years living a double life as an FBI cooperating witness after agents approached him in 2016, asking him to wear a wire on his colleagues or risk being charged for multiple bribes he’d taken while in office.
Solis’ extraordinary cooperation deal will see the single bribery charge that was eventually pressed against him in 2022 dropped so long as prosecutors are satisfied with the truthfulness of his testimony in the trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
But, as Madigan’s attorney Dan Collins pointed out early in day one of Solis’ cross-examination on Monday, much of Solis’ FBI cooperation involved lying to others under “direction from law enforcement.”
“When I was undercover, I was basically lying all the time,” Solis affirmed.
While the feds were keeping track of the lies they’d instructed Solis to tell, Collins on Monday accused Solis of lying to the FBI and federal prosecutors during his period of undercover work – at least by omission. He also accused Solis of breaking federal tax law even as he was cooperating with the government.
Both would be violations of his deal with the feds.
“You haven’t told the government all the crimes you committed, have you?” Collins asked Solis.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, sir,” Solis shot back.
Collins spent hours going over Solis’ bank records and tax returns for several years beginning in 2014, during which Solis received a total of $617,000 from his sister Patti Solis Doyle.
Solis Doyle, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager for her 2008 bid for the White House, was a co-founder of a company called the Vendor Assistance Program along with Solis’ close friend Brian Hynes, a former Madigan staffer who’d had a falling out with the speaker years ago.
When the company was founded in 2010, the state of Illinois was struggling to pay its bills on time. Instead of having to wait on the state to pay, vendors could get paid by VAP, which would then collect on the interest the state eventually paid the vendor.
Solis Doyle and Hynes profited richly off the enterprise. And, Solis testified Monday, in exchange for referring his sister to Hynes, Solis Doyle paid him a cut of her earnings. Though Solis estimated it was $200,000, Collins showed bank statements totaling $617,000 in payments from 2014 to 2018, which were funneled from Solis Doyle’s company Solis Strategies to the alderman’s company named Solis Enterprises.
But those earnings weren’t reported as income on Solis’ tax returns, Collins pointed out. Additionally, Solis tried to lower his tax liability on that money by claiming expenses for VAP despite his testimony that he was never an owner or investor in the company.
And in April 2017 – nearly a year into his cooperation with the government – Solis had separate conversations with both Hynes and Solis Doyle about whether he should report the $230,000 in payments he received in 2016 as a “capital gain,” which Collins pointed out would be taxed at a lower rate.
Though Collins didn’t publish the wiretapped calls to the jury, he did show the transcripts to Solis after he claimed not to recall the conversations.
“Did you recognize that your sister was recommending tax fraud?” Collins asked.
“No,” Solis replied.
When Collins reminded Solis that he’d signed agreements to tell the feds “if anyone did anything illegal” during the time that he was cooperating, Solis said he “didn’t know that was the case” that Solis Doyle was suggesting anything illegal.
Solis also claimed to struggle with reading the tax returns Collins presented to him and even tried to shift blame to his accountant on a couple occasions.
“Are you concerned about whether this agreement’s going to go poof?” Collins asked.
“I’d prefer talking to my accountant and getting an explanation on each of these tax returns and see what the rationale was,” Solis replied.
Collins on Monday also accused Solis of having “been with prostitutes,” alleging that during a post-election trip to Puerto Rico in March 2015, Solis and other aldermen were provided with prostitutes arranged for by Hynes when they stayed at his home on the island.
Solis claimed it was part of a “strategy meeting” trip for him and other Latino elected officials, though he did admit to the group having taken up “a collection” for the prostitutes, denying Hynes paid for them. A spokesperson for Hynes also denied the account when reached Monday.
Solis acknowledged he used campaign funds for the trip, which Collins asked him if he believed was an appropriate use for going “down to Puerto Rico, where you slept with prostitutes and smoked weed with other public officials?”
“In one day, yes,” Solis said.
Collins also alleged Solis illegally colluded with Hynes to give Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza $55,400 for her reelection bid in 2018 – far more than is allowed for individuals to contribute under Illinois law – and that Hynes paid his 25th Ward Regular Democratic Organization campaign committee back via three of his companies.
State campaign finance records from February and June of 2018 reflect the alleged transactions.
“You know that the Illinois election code prohibits donations in the name of another person, correct?” Collins asked.
“I don’t know that,” Solis replied.
Through a spokesperson, Hynes denied all of Collins’ allegations raised on Monday.
“Solis was neither an owner or investor in nor was paid by the company (Vendor Assistance Program),” the spokesperson said. “Claims made by the defense that tax advice was provided are false and while Solis stayed at the San Juan home when the owner was not present, other insinuations made by the defense are also false.”
Collins also claimed Solis was inflating his campaign expense reports in order to hide the personal purchases he was making with campaign money, including charges at Macy’s and upscale retailer Burberry.
Solis also allegedly used campaign cash to pay for his son’s tuition at prestigious Chicago high school St. Ignatius – also Madigan’s alma mater, which he and Solis discussed in one of the videos Solis secretly recorded while undercover.
Solis claimed he reimbursed his campaign for those personal expenses.
Collins then turned his attention to those secretly recorded videos prosecutors showed the jury last week during the government’s questioning of its star witness.
Solis spent a decade as chair of the city council’s powerful Zoning Committee and toward the end of his time in office, his 25th Ward included Chicago’s booming West Loop and South Loop neighborhoods. As a result, Solis had relationships with real estate developers – as well as huge sway over their proposed projects.
Solis had been taking bribes from certain developers as he faced personal financial turmoil in the wake of the Great Recession, a situation stressed even more as he and his wife separated after finding out he’d been having an affair in 2010, Solis testified last week.
But the feds leveraged Solis’ unique position with the developers after Madigan called Solis out of the blue in June 2017 asking about a proposed apartment complex in the West Loop.
Solis offered to introduce Madigan to the developer so the speaker could pitch his property tax law firm’s services. In a wiretapped recording last week, the jury heard Solis awkwardly telling Madigan a couple weeks after the speaker’s initial call that the developer understood “how this works, you know, the quid pro quo.”
“I think they understand – they’ve got some issues that they still have to deal with me in terms of zoning,” Solis said on the recording.
Under questioning from the government last week, Solis said he didn’t know why he’d used the phrase “quid pro quo” on the call.
“It was dumb,” Solis said. “I thought it was too blunt but basically what I was trying to say was we could have this meeting and he could probably get business from them, and I could work on the zoning.”
Right before they were to step into the meeting with the developer at Madigan’s law offices, the speaker admonished Solis for using the phrase.
“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Madigan said. “You’re just recommending our law firm because if they don’t get a good result on the real estate taxes, the whole project would be in trouble. Which is not good for your ward. So you want high quality representation.”
The feds alleged that was Madigan coaching Solis on a cover story for the recommendation.
But on Monday, Collins showed the jury video that Solis made before he walked the developers over to Madigan’s law office.
In the video, Solis appeared to be coaching Union West developers Andy Cretal and Rick Vogel on what to say during the meeting.
“I want you to say you’ll at least think about it,” Solis said during the brief meeting in his office at City Hall.
Cretal told Solis that they were “happy to have a meeting,” though typically wouldn’t engage with a property tax attorney until they started construction on a project.
“If you can also add something like, ‘the alderman has recommended you, we’re going to give it high consideration,’ something to that effect,” Solis said. “It’s important to me that you give them that message.”
Cretal and Vogel complied with the request, which Collins pointed out in the transcript of the wider meeting.
“Nowhere in this call does he ask you to withhold approval of this project,” Collins asked about Madigan’s initial June 12, 2017, call about Union West.
“That’s correct,” Solis said.
“He asked for an introduction, period” Collins said.
Collins took Solis through the arcs of similar meetings with developers the alderman arranged for Madigan through September 2018, again noting that all the speaker ever asked for was an introduction so he and his law partner could pitch their services.
Toward the end of the day, Collins riffed on a comment Solis made during one of his and Madigan’s last recorded meetings in 2018, where the alderman noted that Madigan’s approach to property tax clients was different than then-Chicago Ald. Ed Burke. Solis also made recordings against Burke, who is now serving two years in prison after his conviction last December.
Collins noted that Burke offered to pay Solis for business referrals and said things like “the cash register hasn’t rung” and “did we land the tuna?”
“Mike Madigan never offered a dime to you, did he?” Collins asked, his voice raised.
But prosecutors objected to the questions and after a nearly 10-minute sidebar, U.S. District Judge John Blakey told the jury to disregard the questions and answers about Burke.