Developer who secretly recorded Mike Madigan for feds pleads guilty to wire fraud - Chicago Sun-Times

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A developer who made secret recordings for the feds of former Ald. Danny Solis and House Speaker Michael Madigan pleaded guilty to wire fraud Friday.

Federal prosecutors charged See Y. Wong back in March, days before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Chicago and years after he played a key role in a public corruption investigation that has embroiled city and state politics in recent years.

Wong made a secret 2014 audio and video recording for the feds of Solis and Madigan, according to court records and sources. That recording became part of the investigation that persuaded Solis to then secretly record the now-indicted Ald. Edward M. Burke.

However, Wong only helped the feds because he hoped a judge would go easy on him one day for a fraud that was only identified when the feds filed a seven-page charging document known as an information against him in March.

The alleged scam revolved around the Canal Crossing condominium development in Chinatown. Wong is accused of lying to buyers and to Cathay Bank. The bank loaned $13.7 million for the project to Emerald Homes, of which Wong was an owner. The feds say the scheme cost the bank $1.8 million and buyers of the condominiums $1 million.

Specifically, the feds pointed to a $170,100 wire transfer Wong made more than a decade ago, on May 18, 2010.

Wong’s case is a reminder of the early origins of the feds’ ongoing public corruption investigations that only became publicly known in November 2018, when the FBI raided Burke’s City Hall and ward offices. Burke was charged by criminal complaint more than a month later and hit with a racketeering indictment in May 2019.

Several other elected officials have been criminally charged since. In July, the feds implicated Madigan in a bribery case involving ComEd and hit his office with a wide-ranging subpoena. A grand jury number on that subpoena matched one on record in the Burke case. It also sought records related to Chinatown properties discussed during Wong’s recorded meeting with Solis and Madigan.

Madigan has not been criminally charged and has denied wrongdoing.

The Chicago Sun-Times first identified Wong and reported on his recording of Madigan and Solis in January 2019. The newspaper also revealed Solis’ cooperation that month. The details of Wong’s recording were contained in a bombshell 120-page federal court affidavit the Sun-Times first obtained. Citing the meeting with Wong, it alleged, “Solis has agreed to take action in his official capacity as an alderman for private benefits directed to Michael Madigan.”

Wong first began providing information to the FBI in May 2014, according to the affidavit. He represented a Chinese businessman seeking a zoning change in Chinatown to build a hotel on South Archer. To do so he went through Solis — then the head of the City Council’s zoning committee — and wound up in August 2014 in the meeting with Solis and Madigan.

The meeting took place at Madigan’s private law firm of Madigan & Getzendanner. Among the topics discussed were the law firm’s fees. Madigan made clear he was interested in a long-term deal with the hotel developer.

“We’re not interested in a quick killing here,” Madigan said during the meeting. “We’re interested in a long-term relationship.”

In addition to the hotel, the men also discussed a parking lot at Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue. A developer years later would try to slip legislation through the Illinois General Assembly, with support from Solis, that would have transferred the property from the state to the city to clear the way for a project he was proposing.

By then, Solis had also begun to cooperate with the feds.

Contributing: Mark Brown and Tim Novak

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