Prosecutors are expected to play more undercover videos Thursday in the bribery trial of Democratic state Sen. Emil Jones III, where a former red light camera company executive who went undercover for the FBI will be back on the witness stand for a second day.
Also Thursday, U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood will take up an emergency motion filed by the Tribune and Sun-Times objecting to any denial of access to the recordings and other exhibits published in court.
Wood took the issue under advisement Wednesday after the defense objected to the release of evidence while the trial was ongoing, citing the potential to bias jurors who may see “snippets” of evidence on the news.
In the motion, filed late Wednesday, attorneys for the newspapers said there is lengthy court precedent giving the public and media the right to access information shown in open court. Delaying the release would also be a violation of long-standing constitutional protections, they said.
“There will be intense and legitimate public interest in this trial and a corresponding expectation that the press will keep the public informed of developments,” write attorneys Steve Mandell and Brian Saucier. “This is truly a matter of access delayed equating to access denied.”
Testimony from former SafeSpeed executive Omar Maani is expected to resume at 11 a.m. The motion by the Tribune and Sun-Times will be argued before the lunch break.
Jones III, 46, is charged with bribery, use of an interstate facility to solicit bribery and lying to federal agents. The most serious charge carries up to 10 years in prison, while the others have a five-year maximum term.
According to the charges, Jones, whose father, Emil Jones Jr., led the state Senate for years before orchestrating to have his son replace him in 2009, agreed to take $5,000 in contributions promised by Maani in exchange for his help with legislation Maani’s company, SafeSpeed LLC, wanted altered in Springfield.
Jones also is accused of pushing Maani to hire his legislative intern for a $15-an-hour part-time job at SafeSpeed. And he later lied to the FBI about his contacts with Maani and his knowledge of his intern’s salary, the charges allege.
Jones’ trial is the first of a sitting politician at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse since then-Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson was convicted in 2021 on counts of tax fraud and lying to banking regulators. The last sitting state legislator to face trial was Derrick Smith, a then-state representative who was convicted of bribery nearly a decade ago.
If convicted, Jones would be forced to resign under Illinois law and would almost certainly forfeit any future pension.
In his opening statement to the jury Wednesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri said Jones “knew exactly what he was doing” when he agreed to keep evidence of the relationship with Maani out of public view.
“This was politics for profit,” Kolluri said. “The crime here is that the defendant put his power as an Illinois senator up for sale and then lied about what he had done.”
Jones, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence. His lawyers have indicated they intend to argue that his actions were business as usual and that the government is trying to stretch political give-and-take into bribery.
Jones’ defense attorney Joshua Adams said in his opening remarks that the case was one more instance in Maani’s long history of “serial bribery” around the Chicago area, and he reminded the jury that Maani had agreed to cooperate with the government to avoid consequences for other charges against him.
“In exchange for wearing a recording device and following the FBI’s orders, he doesn’t have to spend one day in jail, one night in a federal prison,” Adams said. “He gets to walk away from all of this.”
Adams also called Maani a practiced liar who is only testifying “because he has to” to secure his end of the deal.
“If he doesn’t, the consequences are dire,” Adams said. “But make no mistake, Omar Maani is a criminal.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com