CHICAGO (CN) — The CEO and co-founder of a billion-dollar fast food franchise company took the stand Tuesday in the federal corruption trial of ex-Chicago alderman Ed Burke, who faces 14 racketeering, bribery and extortion charges.
Federal prosecutors accuse Burke and his former aide Peter Andrews of attempting to extort the CEO via one of his company's Burger King franchises in the former alderman's city ward. Burke's office held up renovations the CEO, Shoukat Dhanani, wanted to carry out at the restaurant between 2017 and 2018, ostensibly over truck parking and driveway permitting issues. But prosecutors said Burke's real goal was to have Dhanani direct property tax work for over a hundred Illinois fast food restaurants to his private law firm Klafter & Burke.
“I’d also like to get some of his law business and get him involved here in Chicago,” Burke said of Dhanani to their mutual acquaintance, former Democratic Texas state Senator Rodney Ellis, in a June 11, 2017, phone conversation the FBI was secretly recording.
Dhanani's Texas-based company Dhanani Group Inc. is worth over $1.3 billion as of 2023 and owns, according to Dhanani himself, about 800 fast food franchises. Some 510 of those are Burger Kings, he said, about 150 of which are located in Illinois. In 2017 Shoukat and his son Zohaib wanted to begin renovating one particular Burger King located in Burke's former 14th Ward on Chicago's South Side, but ran into roadblocks from Burke's office.
"Hello Ed, this is Shoukat Dhanani… If you could give me a call when you get a chance. We have an application we made for a remodel and I think it’s stuck at your office or something," Dhanani said in a May 2017 voicemail that prosecutors played for the jury.
Burke got back to Dhanani later that day and eventually set up a June 14 meeting at Chicago's Beverly Country Club, where prosecutors portrayed him as trying to wine and dine the CEO into hiring Klafter & Burke.
“My understanding was that obviously he wanted to resolve the truck parking issue and secondly, maybe, we should look at giving some property tax business to… his law firm," Dhanani told prosecutors on Tuesday, adding, “I thought it might make it easier for us to get our permits.”
To the prosecutors' point, a week prior to the meeting, Burke told an office aide to look into who handled Dhanani Group's property tax work.
"There’s a Burger King in the 4000 block of Pulaski… I want somebody at the law office to check to see who’s filed with the assessor of the board on that one," Burke said in the recorded June 8, 2017, message.
The city issued Dhanani permits for the Burger King renovations a week after his meeting with Burke, but in October 2017 the alderman's office once again shut down the project. Dhanani said he wasn't sure why, though in a phone call investigators recorded between Burke and Andrews on Oct. 25, Andrews assured Burke he'd play "as hardball as [he] can" over Dhanani lacking driveway permits for the site.
“My gut feeling was that maybe since I had not responded about the property tax business, maybe that’s why it was shut down. I couldn't see any other reason it would be shut down,” the CEO told the jury.
Another meeting with Burke at Chicago's Union League Club followed that December. There, Burke reportedly encouraged Dhanani to get more involved with Chicago politics by inviting him to a January 2018 fundraiser for Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle's Chicago mayoral run, and once again brought up the issue of property tax work for Klafter & Burke.
In an email chain from later in December, a member of Burke's office asked Dhanani's employee Jimmy Wachaa to send over tax work information for "everything" — all of Dhanani's 150 or so restaurants — in Illinois.
Renovations at the Burger King resumed shortly thereafter, with work finally finishing up in 2018, but not before Dhanani made two separate $5,600 donations to Preckwinkle's unsuccessful mayoral campaign — one for himself and one in his son's name. Preckwinkle announced in January 2019 that she would refund all donations made in connection with the fundraiser a year earlier.
Though the prosecution used the above timeline to paint a picture of corporate extortion, Burke and Andrews' defense team pointed out one crucial element that U.S. Attorneys left out — the Dhanani Group never actually hired Klafter & Burke for any property tax work.
“Your company… never gave any legal work to Mr. Burke’s law firm, correct?” defense attorney Joseph Duffy asked Dhanani on cross-examination.
“Correct,” Dhanani responded.
The CEO's cross-examination was only beginning when presiding U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall ended proceedings for the day. Cross-examination will continue Wednesday before trial proceedings pause Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday.
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