Former Ald. Danny Solis, who secretly recorded some of Chicago’s most powerful politicians for the FBI after it accused him of selling his influence for campaign cash and Viagra, has taken the witness stand in the trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.
Solis’ testimony comes nearly six years after the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that he’d been working undercover for the feds, a revelation that effectively ended Solis’ 23-year Council career and sent him into hiding.
Now, in addition to testifying against Madigan, Solis could finally answer for the details contained in a bombshell 2016 FBI affidavit. It alleged that Solis took — or offered to take — official action for people providing him with campaign contributions, prostitution services, the use of a multi-million-dollar farm once owned by Oprah Winfrey, and Viagra.
He called it the “blue medicine.”
In fact, defense attorney John Mitchell told jurors in opening statements last month that “it’ll take [Solis] a week to testify about all the bribes he took.” Prosecutors have formally charged Solis with only one count of bribery, alleging he agreed to accept campaign contributions between July and September 2015 in exchange for amendments to a zoning ordinance sought by developers.
The feds have called Solis’ cooperation with the FBI “extraordinary” and labeled him one of Chicago’s “most significant cooperators in the last several decades.” But the deal they struck with Solis — in which he may be spared even a criminal conviction in return for his help — is not without controversy.
Virginia Kendall, who is now Chicago’s chief federal judge, criticized the deal in June when she handed a two-year prison sentence to ex-Ald. Edward M. Burke. Solis helped prosecutors build their case against Burke, as well, and Burke has since reported to prison.
Though Solis testified during Burke’s 2023 trial, he was summoned as a defense witness. Prosecutors didn’t ask him a single question, and Burke’s attorneys were apparently blocked from asking about Solis’ dirty laundry. His appearance lasted only three hours.
Things are likely to be different this time around.
Danny Solis’ political rise and connection to Michael Madigan
A former activist, Solis’ ascent to the City Council came when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley picked him in 1996 to replace Ald. Ambrosio Medrano (25th), who pleaded guilty that year to accepting $31,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI mole.
Solis went on to represent the 25th Ward for the next 23 years. He also became chairman of the Council’s Zoning Committee — a post that gave him significant sway over local developers.
But by 2014, he’d caught the attention of the FBI. That was partly because of Chinatown developer See Wong, who found himself in hot water with the feds and hoped to catch his own break at sentencing by helping them out. Wong wound up secretly recording Solis and Madigan during an August 2014 meeting at Madigan’s law firm.
Madigan’s lawyers now say a comment by Solis after that meeting — that if a Wong associate “works with the speaker, he will get anything he needs” — inspired the feds’ probe into whether the House speaker was using his public office to squeeze profits out of developers.
But investigators had gathered additional evidence against Solis.
How Danny Solis became an FBI informant
The FBI tapped his phone and surveilled him as he visited a North Side massage parlor and planned a graduation party at Oprah’s onetime Indiana farm — even while seeming to struggle with poor credit and unpaid debts. They heard him dodge a collection agency in 2015, claiming he was “out of a job” and insisting “I can’t pay it, I’m sorry.”
The FBI finally knocked on Solis’ door just before 8 a.m. on June 1, 2016. The confrontation that followed turned out to be a pivotal moment in Chicago history, though it wouldn’t be publicly known for years to come.
Two agents in suits asked to speak with Solis at his home on Delano Court. They came inside, took a seat near his kitchen, and they told him to listen — not speak. Then, over the next 45 minutes or so, they shared with Solis audio and video recordings they’d made.
Solis soon agreed to wear a wire for the FBI. And the agents chose not to execute search warrants at Solis’ City Hall offices because, if they had, the probe “would be known to the public,” one of the agents testified.
Instead, the agents swarmed City Hall more than two years later, descending on Burke’s offices on Nov. 29, 2018. That signaled, for the first time publicly, the existence of a sweeping corruption investigation that led to Burke’s imprisonment and Madigan’s indictment.
The raid also eventually led to the revelations about Solis. The Sun-Times first reported that he’d been making undercover recordings — and that he’d been secretly taped along with Madigan — in January 2019.
Solis is now expected to testify about three schemes alleged in the 117-page indictment leveled against Madigan in 2022. Madigan and a longtime ally, Michael McClain, are on trial for a racketeering conspiracy. Madigan is accused of leading a criminal enterprise designed to enhance his political power and enrich himself and his allies, with McClain as his agent.
Madigan resigned from the Legislature in 2021.
The FBI’s case against Michael Madigan
Madigan’s alleged schemes involving Solis revolved around an apartment project in Solis’ ward at Sangamon Street and Washington Boulevard, a Chinatown parking lot at Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue, and the Old Post Office that sits over the Eisenhower Expressway. They all took place while Solis was cooperating with the FBI.
Prosecutors say Madigan tried to take advantage of Solis’ position as zoning chair to steer money from developers to his private tax law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner.
Madigan reached out to Solis about the apartment project on June 12, 2017, prosecutors say. He told Solis he’d like to get to know its developers, who had been trying to secure approvals from City Hall.
Solis said he’d try to introduce them. A little more than a week later, Solis assured Madigan, “I think they understand how this works.
“You know, the quid pro quo, the quid pro quo,” Solis said. “I just wanted to let you know that I did that, and I’ll follow up with you.”
Madigan replied, “very good.” But he later cautioned Solis about his remark, insisting, “You shouldn’t be talking like that.” Eventually, Madigan landed business from the apartment developers, records show.
Madigan’s interest in the Chinatown parking lot can be traced back to 2014, when he was recorded by Wong along with Solis. Developers wanted to put a hotel on the state-owned property. But before anything could happen, the state had to transfer the property either to the city or the developers.
Madigan was deep in a feud at the time — 2017 — with then-Gov. Bruce Rauner. Madigan allegedly decided to distance himself from the effort and told Solis to have the developers “talk to a man named Mike McClain.”
Solis and McClain enlisted a lobbyist more amenable to Rauner to help them out. But in December 2017, Solis told McClain that, “in the past, um, uh, I have been able, uh, to steer some work to, to Mike [Madigan]. And these guys will do, do the same thing.”
The effort in Chinatown stalled, in part, because of opposition from other legislators. Meanwhile, on June 20, 2018, Solis allegedly confided in Madigan that he planned to leave the City Council. He asked Madigan to help him land a seat on a state board, eventually seeking one that paid at least $93,000 a year.
Madigan promised to “take a note down,” but Solis immediately added, “and I’ll continue to get you legal business.” Madigan wound up mentioning that he’d been trying to get in touch with the developer of the Old Post Office, Harry Skydell, prosecutors say.
The men continued to talk over the next few months, mixing conversations about the state board seat with Madigan’s interest in Skydell. The two politicians finally sat down with Skydell on Sept. 4, 2018, and Skydell said he’d be happy to start a business relationship with Madigan’s law firm.
Two months later, Madigan confirmed with Solis his continued interest in a state board appointment. But the alleged scheme ended in January 2019 — when Chicago learned Solis had been working for the FBI.
Contributing: Dave McKinney, Fran Spielman and Mitchell Armentrout