Cross-examination of star witness begins in Mike Madigan corruption trial

CHICAGO (CN) — Ex-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s federal corruption trial began its 30th day Monday with the start of cross-examination for Danny Solis, a former Chicago city councilor-turned-FBI informant.

Solis is one of the government’s star witnesses in its case against Madigan. From 1996 to January 2019, he served as alderman for Chicago’s development-heavy 25th Ward, and from 2009 to January 2019, he also chaired the city’s influential zoning committee. Solis began working as a government informant in June 2016 in exchange for a deferred prosecution agreement — signed December 2018 and made public in April 2022 — on his own corruption charges.

Last week jurors saw multiple videos of meetings with Madigan, and other people in Madigan’s network, that Solis secretly recorded between 2017 and 2018. They also heard dozens of wiretapped phone conversations featuring Solis, Madigan and others during the same period.

Prosecutors say the evidence showed how Madigan, with Solis’ help, tried to funnel property developers’ tax law work to his private law firm Madigan & Getzendanner, now recast as Holland Hicks Law.

Jurors also saw evidence that in 2018, Madigan tried to help get Solis a six-figure position on a state board with the then-incoming administration of Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Solis testified as much while he was on the stand for direct examination from late Thursday, Nov. 21 to this past Wednesday morning, Nov. 27.

But Madigan’s defense attorney Dan Collins tried to undermine Solis’ reliability as a witness on Monday. In the morning, he dredged up more lurid details of Solis’ corruption accusations, including his receipt of Viagra and visits to massage parlors for sexual favors, arranged by onetime political operator Roberto Caldero. Collins also brought up a 2015 trip to Puerto Rico — where he purportedly stayed for free at the house of his friend, Chicago attorney and Madigan associate Brian Hynes — where Solis got high and hired sex workers with other public officials.

Collins also attacked the legitimacy of Solis’ deferred prosecution agreement, which stipulates he cannot commit any other federal crimes while cooperating with the government, and must report any federal crimes he witnesses. The defense attorney roped in Solis’ sister Patti Solis Doyle — a Democratic political insider who once acted as Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager — to claim Solis filed less-than-honest tax returns both before and after he began working for the FBI.

These tax returns did not properly claim hundreds of thousands of dollars that Collins said the sister’s company, Solis Strategies, sent Solis’ own company, Solis Enterprises, between 2014 and 2018. The money stemmed from the financial services firm Vendor Assistance Program LLC, which Solis Doyle co-founded with Hynes in 2010. The company buys debt from Illinois’ log of unpaid bills, and collects on late fees.

Solis Doyle paid Solis $230,000 in 2016 this way, the same year he began working for the FBI. Collins said a recorded call from April 2017 showed Solis Doyle recommended “revising documents” to her brother so that he could claim the money as capital gains.

“Did you realize your sister was recommending tax fraud?” Collins asked Solis.

“No,” Solis responded. He repeatedly said he didn’t understand tax paperwork.

Later, Collins asked Solis if he was concerned these apparent violations of federal law would jeopardize his deferred prosecution agreement — through which Solis may avoid jail time still or have the single bribery charge he still faces thrown out, while still collecting a nearly $95,000 annual city pension.

“We’ve just gone through several years where you did not report income … are you concerned whether this agreement is going to go ‘poof’?” Collins asked.

Solis said he’d want to talk to his accountant to straighten the issue out.

In the afternoon, Collins tried to recontextualize the wiretapped calls and secretly recorded videos jurors saw earlier at trial. One issue he focused on was a land transfer bill in the state Legislature that, had it passed, would have shifted a public parking lot in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood from state to Chicago ownership.

Prosecutors say Madigan tried to help move this ultimately-failed transfer along so that he could get his law firm tax work from the developers who eventually built on the site once they took it off the city’s hands. But Collins suggested there wasn’t any solid evidence establishing this motive.

“‘Well, what about the developers, can I meet them?’ He doesn’t say that.,” Collins said, regarding a March 2018 discussion between Madigan and Solis on the land transfer deal.

Collins also interrogated Solis’ supposed desire for a state board position. The former alderman testified on direct examination that he raised the issue with Madigan at the government’s instruction. He also told Madigan on an Aug. 2, 2018 videotaped conversation that he’d continue to help Madigan with developments in his ward, despite not seeking aldermanic reelection a few months later.

“I’ve helped you in the past, I’m gonna continue to help you … there’s a lot of good stuff happening in my ward,” Solis told Madigan during that talk.

Collins suggested Madigan didn’t care about that help, and instead just sought to aid a longtime colleague who was looking to have a better job for his own family. He showed jurors a letter Solis wrote Madigan in 1985, thanking the then-Speaker for attending a meeting of Solis’ political group the United Neighborhood Organization, and followed it up with an excerpt of a separate 2018 conversation where Madigan told Solis “your only obligation in life is to take care of your kids.”

Collins also had Solis confirm that Madigan responded “don’t worry about it,” when Solis offered the speaker his “help” in August 2018 in exchange for the state board job.

Collins did not remind jurors that a few moments later in that August 2018 conversation, Madigan told Solis there was one thing he could do — help Madigan’s son Andrew Madigan with his own business.

Collins wrapped up cross-examination of Solis around 4 p.m. John Mitchell, an attorney for Madigan’s co-defendant, veteran Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain, began his own cross-examination shortly thereafter, but did not finish before trial ended for the day.

Solis will remain on the stand tomorrow; the trial is expected to continue into the new year.

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