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Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke will be sentenced on Monday for illegally wielding his considerable clout to strong-arm developers and threaten one of Chicago’s cultural icons for his own benefit.
Burke's sentencing will take place just three days after a federal judge denied a last-ditch effort to postpone the hearing until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a separate bribery case, according to the Chicago Tribune. Defense attorneys asked for a delay until the court makes a decision in the corruption case of former Portage, Indiana, Mayor James Snyder.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said she agreed with prosecutors that the high court’s decision in Snyder's case “will have little or no impact” on the sentence that Burke receives, the Tribune reported.
Federal prosecutors, in a 51-page court filing, pushed for a 10-year prison sentence, which would amount to one of the harshest public corruption sentences handed down in the city’s federal court in the last decade. Burke is 80 years old.
“He abused and exploited his office by pursuing his own personal and financial interests over a course of years,” prosecutors wrote in the memo. “Again and again, Burke used his significant political power to solicit and receive bribes from entities with business before the City of Chicago — all so he could obtain legal business for his private law firm.”
Meanwhile, Burke’s lawyers are asking a judge to give him no prison time, 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 so many and for so many years.”
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Days earlier, Burke was back in court, seeking either a new trial or overturned conviction.
A federal jury found Burke guilty in December of racketeering, bribery and attempted extortion after prosecutors argued Burke used his political clout to pressure people and businesses for personal gain.
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Monday's sentencing hearing is planned at 10 a.m.
