Chicago’s Field Museum hoped it wouldn’t “end up in the newspapers” when it decided to raise admission prices in the summer of 2017 — so it reached out to Ald. Edward M. Burke.
Other museums such as the Art Institute had drawn Burke’s ire — and publicity — with their own fee hikes. Burke had long chaired the City Council’s Finance Committee, and the Field Museum decided to “preview” for him its own proposal to keep things clean and quiet.
The move wound up putting the Field Museum right in the middle of one of Chicago’s biggest public corruption cases in years.
Jurors on Monday heard what happened when Deborah Bekken, a government liaison at the museum, got on the phone with the powerful Chicago politician who’d failed to land an internship there for the daughter of a close friend.
“So now, you’re going to make a request of me?” Burke demanded of Bekken before adding, “If the chairman of the Committee on Finance calls the president of the Park Board, your proposal is going to go nowhere.”
Bekken and Burke crossed paths again Monday in the 25th-floor courtroom of U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, where Burke is on trial for racketeering, bribery and extortion. Prosecutors played the recorded call between the two from Sept. 8, 2017, as they began to move into the heart of the allegations against the longtime City Council member.
Bekken seemed to keep her eyes on a transcript of the call as it was played in the courtroom Monday. Burke simply looked forward, rubbing his chin with his left hand.
Prosecutors say Burke threatened to block the Field Museum’s fee increase because it failed to respond when he recommended the daughter of ex-Ald. Terry Gabinski for an internship. Burke’s lawyers told the jury last week that Bekken caught Burke “at a bad time” when he was “in a bad mood.” They also told jurors last week that Burke “never asked for anything.”
But when Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju asked Bekken on Monday about the call, Bekken told the prosecutor, “I perceived it as a threat.”
Kendall called a lunch break in the trial as soon as Raju’s direct examination of Bekken ended. Burke’s lawyers are expected to cross-examine her Monday afternoon.
Bekken explained to Raju that she wound up trying to get off the phone with Burke as quickly as possible. She testified that the whole point of reaching out to Burke “was to ensure that we didn’t have an upset public official.”
“And it was obvious I already had an upset public official,” Bekken testified. “And I had no idea why.”
She wound up sending her boss an email with the subject line “We have a problem.” Jurors then heard on Monday how she and her boss at the Field Museum brainstormed how to offer a “mea culpa prize” to the influential City Council member to keep him happy.
“I wonder if we can offer him an internship that he can award as a scholarship to an intern of his choosing?” Bekken wrote in one email.
Bekken said she liked the idea of ward-specific discount days for seniors that would start in Burke’s 14th Ward. But even if they offered it once a month, it would take “more than four years to get through all 50 wards.”
They realized such ideas were “either inappropriate or just not realistic.”
Instead, a “coordinator” position had opened up, so the Field Museum offered Gabinski’s daughter the opportunity to apply for it. She ultimately turned it down, though, writing in an email “I’m thankful that you thought of me for that position. However, I must respectfully decline.”
The Field Museum also wound up getting its fee increase.
Burke is also accused by prosecutors of using his seat on the City Council to steer business to his private law firm amid schemes that involved the Old Post Office, a Burger King at 41st and Pulaski, and a Binny’s Beverage Depot on the Northwest Side. On trial with Burke are political aide Peter Andrews and developer Charles Cui.