Burke in spotlight with more bribery charges
4-count federal indictment shows power he amassed over 50 years
When real estate developer Charles Cui needed help at City Hall for his project in Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood, he knew exactly where to go — and it wasn’t to the local alderman.
He went to Ald. Edward Burke.
Even though Burke’s Southwest Side ward was nowhere near the project on West Irving Park Road, Cui hired Burke’s private law firm in exchange for the powerful alderman’s help with $2 million in tax increment financing and a permit for a large retail sign, alleged federal charges unveiled Friday against Cui.
“I have a TIF deal going with the city, and he is the Chairman of the Finance Committee,” Cui wrote in an August 2017 email explaining to his previous attorney why he was dumping him in favor of Burke. “… He is a powerful broker in City Hall, and I need him now.”
In the end, Cui appears to have received little benefit from enlisting Burke’s help. The TIF money has been held up because of problems with the development, the permit for the sign that Cui desperately wanted was never approved and Burke’s law firm failed to get the property taxes reduced by a penny, records show.
Still, the four-count indictment filed against Cui in U.S. District Court illustrates the immense power and influence Burke amassed over his 50-year career, leading developers to believe they must curry his favor even without an explicit demand.
The old-school way of greasing the wheels at City Hall became fodder in the mayoral campaign after the FBI made a highly visible raid on Burke’s offices in November, helping to catapult Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, to her landslide victory earlier this month.
The clamor for reform has grown only louder since Burke was charged in January with attempting to extort two businessmen seeking to renovate a Burger King restaurant in his ward. And although Burke was not charged as part of Cui’s indictment, it places him in the middle of another alleged pay-to-play scheme.
On Friday, Lightfoot wasted little time going on the attack, saying the charges give “more definition to the utterly corrupt way in which (Burke) has exploited his position and power.”
“This is exactly the kind of conduct that the voters mandated must change,” Lightfoot, who assumes office next month, said in a statement. “I was elected to build a government where you don’t have to give to get — where Chicagoans can receive basic city services, and where being business owners can get signs and permits without bribes and delays.”
Burke offers a convenient boogeyman for Lightfoot as she tries to hold together a coalition that wants her to clean up Chicago government. She relentlessly linked her opponents to Burke during the mayoral campaign. One of her TV ads displayed photos of candidates Gery Chico, William Daley, Susana Mendoza and Toni Preckwinkle as Lightfoot said on a voice-over that they were trying to distance themselves from Burke but were “all tied to the same broken Chicago machine.”
In an interview with the Tribune days after she beat Preckwinkle in the April 2 runoff, Lightfoot said that when federal agents raided Burke’s offices on Nov. 29, other candidates “were scattering like cockroaches.” She said she realized “this is an important thing that we need to talk about, make sure we capitalize on for sure.”
Burke’s return to the headlines came at the end of a rough week at City Hall for Lightfoot, who helped craft an agreement for billions of dollars in tax subsidies for megadevelopments — The 78 and Lincoln Yards — even though many of her supporters vehemently opposed the deals.
The filing of the criminal case gave Lightfoot a way to turn the focus back to her campaign pledge to bring ethics reform to the City Council.
While attacking Burke could prove useful in the court of public opinion, it likely holds less sway in dealing with veteran City Council members whose votes Lightfoot will need. Although he resigned his position as Finance Committee chairman after he was charged, Burke, who was re-elected to a record 13th term in February, remains well-liked by many of his peers and still wields considerable power.
On election night, Block Club, an online news operation, reported that Burke called Ald. Ariel Reboyras after he won his race to congratulate him. Reboyras answered the call in view of a reporter and called Burke, “My papi,” saying, “I’ve always said that I’m with you.”
Ald. Roderick Sawyer, the Black Caucus chairman who represents the 6th Ward, defended Burke’s way of doing business, even if it’s now the focus of an ongoing criminal investigation.
“Burke has been nothing but an honorable man with me,” Sawyer, whose father, Eugene, succeeded Mayor Harold Washington, told the Tribune on Friday. “He’s been nothing but helpful with me. I don’t know about anything else going on.”
Meanwhile, the indictment against Cui and the earlier extortion charges against Burke follow a similar pattern — one that could emerge as a focus of what’s expected to be a much broader indictment filed against Burke in May.
In both cases, prosecutors alleged Burke used his elected office to steer business to his private law firm from businessmen who needed city permits.
Cui, an immigration attorney, is also the managing member of a company that owned property at 4901 W. Irving Park Road, according to the charges. A former Bank of America building, it is anchored by a Binny’s Beverage Depot and Retro Fitness, which Cui also owns, according to state business records.
In 2016, the City Council’s Finance Committee, chaired by Burke at the time, recommended passing $2 million in tax increment financing for Cui’s redevelopment of an old movie theater in the building. Burke voted in favor of the TIF proposal when it cleared the council days later.
In 2017, Cui emailed Burke asking the alderman to “look into” an issue he was having over signage at the property, even though the project was outside Burke’s 14th Ward, according to the charges. He told the alderman that a retailer leasing space in his building — identified by sources as Binny’s — needed a permit for the large pole sign or Cui would be forced to reduce the rent, costing his company an estimated $750,000.
The pole sign had been used for years by Bank of America but had been abandoned and later declared “illegal” by the city’s Department of Planning and Development, according to the indictment.
“Can you look into the matter, and advise how to proceed?” the indictment quoted Cui as asking Burke in the Aug. 23, 2017, email. “(Binny’s) really needs it, otherwise they will either cancel the lease or ask for a significant rent reduction. It is such a beautiful sign, it is becoming a landmark for the community and it costs a lot of money to remove it.”
The next day, Cui emailed the Park Ridge real estate attorney who had been representing him on the development, asking if it was all right if Burke’s law firm took over property tax work for the site. Cui said Burke had handed “his tax appeal business card to me, and I need his favor for my tif money,” the charges allege.
A few minutes later, Cui emailed Burke asking for his legal business, the indictment alleges.
“I may need your representation for tax appeal,” he wrote. “… Please let me know if you have time to handle this matter for me. Thank you!”
Cui signed an agreement with Burke’s law firm, Klafter & Burke, to represent him on the real estate tax work, the indictment said. When the FBI interviewed Cui about the deal in November, he falsely said he had hired Burke’s firm “just because he is a good tax appeal lawyer,” the indictment alleged.
County records show that Cui replaced his property tax lawyer, George Reveliotis, with Burke’s law firm in 2017. Burke’s daughter, Jennifer, who works for the firm, filed a property tax appeal for the development, but the Cook County Board of Review declined to lower the property’s nearly $1.3 million assessment, the records show.
The next year, Cui brought back Reveliotis as his attorney, according to the records.
On Friday, Ald. John Arena, 45th, said that despite Cui’s attempt to circumvent the “community process,” his efforts to secure the permit for the abandoned pole sign — which is prohibited in the pedestrian street designation that covers the Six Corners shopping district — ultimately failed.
“When Mr. Cui approached me about the rejected pole sign permit, I worked with him to find an alternative solution within what was allowed and would satisfy the needs of his tenants,” Arena said in a statement. “Apparently that didn’t satisfy him, and he solicited Ald. Burke. At no point have I had any communication with Ald. Burke concerning the sign permit or legal work for his law firm.”
Arena also said Cui has “not received a penny” in TIF funds so far because he has failed to uphold his end of the redevelopment agreement, particularly promises to hire women- and minority-owned subcontractors and to lease the secondfloor theater to an arts organization.