(The Center Square) – Michael Madigan’s defense team has begun cross-examination of former Chicago Alderman Daniel Solis at the former Illinois House speaker’s corruption trial.
Solis began cooperating with the government in 2016 and secretly recorded conversations until news of his cooperation was leaked to media in 2019.
The former 25th Ward alderman reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the government in April 2018.
Separately Monday, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Madigan codefendant Michael McClain and former Chicago Alderman and cooperating federal witness Daniel Solis enter the federal court building in Chicago Monday, Dec. 2, 2024.
Madigan defense attorney Dan Collins discussed the agreement with Solis Monday.
Although Solis admitted that he committed bribery multiple times, he said the agreement allowed him to be charged with only one count of bribery, which carries the potential for 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Solis said the potential punishments could be dropped under the terms of the deal and that he would also be able to continue receiving his pension from the city if the agreement is not dropped by the government.
Solis said his pension, funded by Chicago taxpayers, currently pays him $7,900 per month. Collins told Solis that would mean $2 million more in payments if he lives another 20 years.
Solis told Collins, “I hope to live as long as I can.”
Solis affirmed that the agreement could go out the window if he did not tell the truth.
Collins questioned Solis about some of his conduct as a public official and government cooperator, including massages that Solis’ friends arranged for him. Solis testified that he paid for all of the massages he received.
Solis said he went to Puerto Rico and stayed at his friend Brian Hynes’ house, where there were prostitutes and “smoking of marijuana.”
Solis said that he and the other public officials in attendance “took up a collection” to pay for the prostitutes. Solis said he paid for his airfare to Puerto Rico with campaign funds, because there was a meeting regarding Latino politics at another official’s home on the island.
Solis said his sister, Patti Solis Doyle, gave him referral payments because he referred her to Hynes’ vendors assistance program.
Collins questioned Solis repeatedly about the vendors assistance program and told him the amounts of the six-figure payments.
Collins asserted that, in 2017, Solis told the government that he had no involvement in the vendors assistance program and did not tell the government about the money he was receiving until 2018.
Solis said he thought the government was aware. He also said he was mistaken about the amount he thought he was receiving from his sister.
Collins displayed evidence of payments from Patti Solis Doyle’s organization, Solis Strategies, to Daniel Solis’ organization, Solis Enterprises. Collins also displayed Daniel Solis’ 2014 tax return and discussed Solis’ expenses claimed for the vendors program, including tens of thousands of dollars in vehicle expenses and travel expenses.
When Collins asked if the information was false, Solis answered, “I don’t know.”
Collins introduced Daniel Solis’ 2015 tax return along with evidence of payments from Solis Strategies to Solis Enterprises that year and said the ex-alderman did not report $137,000 of income from his sister’s organization. Solis said there was a year when he had to pay money back which he had not reported, but he said he did not remember which year it was.
Collins asserted that Solis failed to report more than $100,00 in income on his 2017 tax return.
Solis said he received $230,000 in payments from Solis Strategies in 2016, after he began cooperating with the government. Solis said he claimed the income as capital gains on the advice of his sister. Solis said he did not realize that his sister was recommending tax fraud.
Solis Doyle managed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008.
Collins asserted that Daniel Solis failed to report $140,00 in income on his 2017 tax return, and Solis said, “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Collins asked Solis if he was concerned that his deferred prosecution agreement “might go poof” because he violated federal law on his tax returns. Solis said he would prefer to talk with his accountant to get the issues straightened out.
Collins accused Solis of funding his personal lifestyle with credit-card purchases.
“I don’t believe that’s true,” Solis responded.
Collins introduced a political vulnerability assessment of Solis leading up to the election. Solis testified twice that he had not reviewed the document, but Collins pointed out what appeared to be Solis’ handwriting on it.
Collins asked Solis about a campaign donation to Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza. In a recording prosecutors played last week, Solis was heard referring to then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“Well, I still have to digest this thing with the mayor. He owes me some money,” Solis said.
Solis testified that he had made a campaign donation on behalf of the mayor, who promised to pay him back with a campaign donation to Solis.
Solis testified Monday that he made a $55,400 donation to Friends for Susana Mendoza in 2018 and that Solis’ friend Hynes made donations to both Solis and Mendoza.
Collins pointed out that the Illinois election code prohibits people from making campaign contributions in someone else’s name.
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors played a recording from Oct. 22, 2018 of Madigan’s son, Andrew Madigan, telling Madigan’s codefendant, Michael McClain, that then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore was helping Mendoza “build up support for her mayoral run.”
“She likes Susana a lot,” McClain responded.
Pramaggiore, McClain and two others were convicted of conspiracy, bribery and falsifying records in the ComEd Four trial last year.
Mendoza finished fifth in the primary election for mayor of Chicago in 2019.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s name was heard in a videotaped recording of a meeting between Solis and Madigan on Oct. 26, 2018, when Solis asked Madigan about a potential board appointment.
“I’ve got it in my notes. When I sit down with Pritzker, I’ll tell him, ‘Here it is. This is what we wanna do,'” Madigan responded.
In a video from Oct 2018, then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan tells then-Chicago Alderman Daniel Solis about how he’ll get Solis appointed to a high paying state board position. Madigan faces corruption charges in federal court.
Read more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/
The governor said in 2022 that he did not remember any conversation in which he was asked to find a position for Solis.
On Monday afternoon, Collins asked Solis to contrast his interactions with Madigan and Solis’ interactions with former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. After a sidebar discussion, Judge John Robert Blakey instructed the jury to disregard those questions and answers and asked that they be stricken from the record.
Burke was convicted of 18 corruption charges in 2023, including racketeering, bribery, attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion.
Madigan and McClain are facing 23 counts of bribery, racketeering and official misconduct.
Defense attorney John Mitchell followed Collins and began cross-examination of Solis on McClain’s behalf.
Mitchell is expected to continue his questioning of Solis on Tuesday, when United States of America v. Madigan et al is scheduled to resume at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.
