Feds make long-promised move to drop charges against former Chicago Alderman Daniel Solis

Ray Long and Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune on Apr 4, 2025

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CHICAGO — The U.S. attorney’s office officially has moved to drop the criminal case against high-profile government mole Daniel Solis, the former alderman who played key roles in federal prosecutions that brought down two of Chicago’s Democratic kingpins, ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan and ex-Alderman Edward Burke.

In a long-anticipated move, federal prosecutors on Friday filed a motion to dismiss a one-count criminal information filed April 8, 2022, that charged Solis corruptly solicited, accepted and agreed to accept campaign contributions in exchange for his actions as a longtime 25th Ward alderman and zoning chair of the City Council. But federal prosecutors said Solis’ “obligation to cooperate remains ongoing.”

The dismissal is part of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement in which Solis cooperated with the government in exchange for dropping the charge against him.

Amarjeet Bhachu, then the lead prosecutor in the case, said at the time the deal was revealed that Solis personally made “hundreds of recordings” and hailed his cooperation as perhaps “singular” even in Chicago’s long, sordid history of political corruption.

Solis now will no longer have a felony case hanging over him, and he will be able to keep raking in his six-figure city pension.

The former alderman’s favorable deal has long been viewed as too lenient by many in the political world, including then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who said when she first heard of the agreement that she was “deeply offended.”

Solis first took the stand in the 2023 Burke corruption trial as a defense witness. Burke’s team attempted to attack Solis’ credibility once recordings he made for the government were used extensively. Jurors could hear Burke when he used an expletive in a private meeting with Solis and could see him smile as he spoke about Jews and their business practices while allegedly plotting how to leverage business for his law firm from the Old Post Office’s main developer.

Burke blurted out on one tape that “the cash register has not rung yet,” and he most notably asked Solis about getting tax work with the classic political line, “Have we landed the, uh, the tuna?”

Once prosecutors determined Solis was battle tested in the Burke trial, they decided to put Solis on the witness stand as part of the main case against Madigan and then defended Solis when Madigan’s attorneys raked him over the coals in cross-examination in December.

The Madigan team managed to reveal sensational derogatory details about Solis, including that he had taken a suitcase of cash from a Chinese businessman in Shanghai and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from his sister that he never declared as income on his taxes.

“You cannot trust Danny Solis,” Madigan attorney Dan Collins told the jury in closing arguments, seeking to undermine Solis as a witness. “Cannot trust him. He’s got his own agenda, and he’s as sly as a fox.”

Bhachu countered simply that some of the defense claims about Solis were “overwrought” and that Solis’ discussions with Madigan were caught on tape, marginalizing the importance of the attacks on Solis’ credibility.

Burke was found guilty of 13 corruption counts alleging a variety of old-style shakedowns. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison and fined $2 million.

Madigan was found guilty of 10 of 23 counts, including bribery conspiracy, in February. Madigan allegedly squeezed ComEd to pay several of his political cronies through sham, do-nothing contracts while the utility wooed him to pass its multiyear legislative agenda and agreed to seek a state appointment for Solis in exchange for help in securing business for the former speaker’s law firm.

Madigan, who turns 83 this month, faces a wide range of potential punishments, from 20 years to house arrest. Prosecutors also seek as much as $3.1 million in a forfeiture hearing. Madigan’s team has sought to reverse the verdict and asked for a new trial.

Solis quietly signed his walk-free deal the day after Christmas 2018 and prosecutors kept it secret for years.

Despite dropping the charge against Solis, however, the U.S. attorney’s office said in its motion Friday that Solis is still obligated to cooperate until “all investigations arising from or requiring Mr. Solis’ cooperation are final and that his cooperation is complete.”

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