Previous Chicago Ald. Ed Burkethe longest-serving alderman in city history, has officially reported to a federal prison to begin serving a prison sentence after being convicted in a corruption trial.
Burke, 80, was reported for the start of his two-year sentence at a federal minimum-security prison in Thomson, Illinois, according to prison officials.
Burke was originally expected to serve his sentence at the minimum security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, but those plans changed before he reported.
In June, Burke was sentenced to two years in prison and a $2 million fine after he was convicted of illegally using his power to win private law deals from developers to threaten one of Chicago’s cultural icons for his own sake. The court determined the financial value of the crimes was set at $215,000, which came with a federally recommended sentence of 78 to 97 months.
Federal prosecutors, in a 51-page court filing, asked for 10 years in prisonwhich would have amounted to one of the harshest public corruption sentences handed down in the city’s federal court in the past decade.
“He abused and exploited his office by pursuing his own personal and financial interests over several years,” prosecutors wrote in the memo. “Time and time again, Burke used his considerable political power to solicit and accept bribes from entities operating before the City of Chicago – all so that he could obtain legal business for his private law firm.”
Meanwhile, Burke’s lawyers asked a judge not to give him prison, which they say would “be a powerful and just expression of mercy for an 80-year-old man in the twilight of his life who has given so much of himself to it. many and in so many years.”