Racketeering trial of ex-Ald. Ed Burke sees second day of jury selection, courthouse display of corruption cases past covered in brown paper
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The historic corruption trial of ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Burke continued to move slowly Tuesday with the questioning of more potential jurors, who so far have been asked everything from whether they know what ward they live in to the names and breeds of their dogs.
Over the course of two days, a total of 37 people have been questioned, with 26 making it through “for cause” strikes to the next round.
A pool of at least 47 people is needed before proceeding to the next phase, in which each side will get to strike a certain number of people from the jury pool without giving a reason. The slow pace means opening statements in the case will likely be Thursday at the earliest.
“We’ll keep going at the best pace I can, but it doesn’t seem like we’ll get this jury until Thursday, unless something magical happens,” U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said after sending the prospective jurors home.
The proceedings got a jolt of only-in-Chicago political coincidence late in the day when one of the prospective jurors disclosed that her neighbor in Hinsdale is the son of famed Ald. Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, one of Burke’s closest allies in the City Council in the 1980s who teamed up to block then-Mayor Harold Washington’s agenda.
The woman, 60, told the court she was working as a nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital the day Washington died in 1987. She didn’t know a lot about Burke, but remembered her father remarking that Vrdolyak and Burke and another politician were all named Ed — an apparent reference to Edmund Kelly, the former Park District boss and Democratic ward committeeman.
Vrdolyak, Burke and Kelly were collectively known as “The Three Eddies.”
The woman said she’d never met Ed Vrdolyak, who has twice been convicted of federal crimes and sent to prison, and thought she could still be impartial in the trial, despite the strange connections.
One thing the jury pool did not see as they assembled in the 25th-floor ceremonial courtroom for coffee and doughnuts Tuesday morning: the large wall display featuring famous public corruption cases at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, including former Illinois governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan.
Per the request of Burke’s attorneys, the display, part of a larger montage about the court, was covered up with brown paper and cordoned off by a black screen so Burke’s jurors don’t see it.
Burke’s family, including his wife, Anne, and at least one of his sons, sat in the front row alongside a priest who attended to support the former alderman. Burke swiveled in his chair and smiled broadly at them as they arrived.
Anne Burke, a former state Supreme Court justice, examined a printed copy of a spreadsheet with details about each prospective juror.
Among those questioned Tuesday morning were a social worker who works for an Alzheimer’s organization and a mother of seven who loves NASCAR. A Wicker Park man in his 20s said he already knew a little about the Burke case.
“I’m not sure how impartial I could be,” he said, a little shyly. The judge said they would discuss that at sidebar.
The questions have gotten detailed and sometimes unorthodox.
Todd Pugh, who represents Burke co-defendant Peter Andrews, had one prospective juror do a word-association exercise. What word, he asked, does she associate with the phrase “Chicago politics”?
“Messy,” replied the potential juror, who is a therapist in the suburbs.
There were also moments of humor in spite of the high-stakes nature of the trial. One prospective juror started off by identifying himself as a 62-year-old man from northwest suburban Kildeer, “where I live with my gorgeous wife of five years.”
“Just wanted to get that on the record,” he quipped, prompting laughter in the courtroom and Burke lawyer Chris Gair to say, “Your Honor, can we get a transcript?”
The son of a Democratic ward boss and alderman, Burke, 79, served more than 50 years on the City Council and allegedly ran the Finance Committee like his own personal fiefdom before his office was dramatically raided by the FBI in November 2018.
When the judge Monday asked the potential jurors if anyone knew Burke, a woman raised her hand and said she knows him from “the country club,” presumably meaning the Beverly Country Club, which was staked out by the FBI as part of the investigation. Kendall said they would ask about it more specifically when it’s the woman’s turn to be interviewed.
The judge and attorneys delved deep into jurors’ hobbies and personal lives, down to their favorite “Ted Lasso” characters and the names of their pets.
Prospective jurors who live in Chicago were asked if they knew who their alderman was. Generally they answered that they did not. A few said they had heard of Burke, but didn’t know details about his case.
Burke is charged with 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.
Burke’s longtime ward aide, Peter Andrews Jr., 73, is charged with one count of attempted extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, two counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity, and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.
The third defendant, real estate developer Charles Cui, 52, of Lake Forest, is charged with one count of federal program bribery, three counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity, and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.
At the heart of the indictment are more than a hundred secretly recorded meetings and phone calls allegedly showing Burke using his elected office to win benefits for himself, mostly through business for his private law firm.
Burke’s defense team, meanwhile, will try to show that Burke’s maneuvering was nothing more than politics as usual. In fact, Burke is not charged with performing a single official act as alderman in exchange for anything of value, and some of the projects he allegedly put his thumb on the scale for weren’t even in his ward, his attorneys have argued.
The crux of Burke’s defense will likely be to knock down former Ald. Daniel Solis, who was caught in his own corruption scheme before agreeing in 2016 to become an FBI mole and secretly record Burke and others over a period of nearly two years.
