Prosecutors plan to wrap up their case Monday in the bribery trial of Democratic state Sen. Emil Jones III by playing portions of his video-recorded interviews with the FBI.
Jones, 46, whose father, Emil Jones Jr., led the state Senate for years before orchestrating to have his son replace him in 2009, 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 solicited $5,000 from Omar Maani, the co-founder of red light camera company SafeSpeed LLC, in exchange for Jones’ help with legislation in Springfield. Jones also asked Maani to give his former office intern a part-time job, the charges alleged.
On Friday, prosecutors took the former intern, Christopher Katz, through evidence showing Jones took him to an expensive steak dinner, gave him money for a strip club and sent late-night texts asking to get together, all shortly before pushing Maani for him to be hired by SafeSpeed.
“I want to see u,” Jones texted Christopher Katz at about 2 a.m. on July 7, 2019, according to one string of messages shown to the jury.
Katz, then 23, had partied with Jones earlier in the night and twice asked the senator to send him cash, which evidence showed he did. Katz also invited Jones to the strip club, Sky11 in Harvey, but Jones did not agree to go.
Hours later, shortly after 5 a.m., Jones sent Katz another message, saying, “Yo Wyo,” or “What you on?”
Prosecutors have said their remaining witnesses are all FBI agents, who are expected to testify about Jones’ allegedly evasive answers in two interviews he had with the FBI in 2019, including telling agents he was unaware of the intern’s $15-an-hour salary.
Jones was unaware that Maani was cooperating with the FBI and secretly recorded meetings showing Jones was the one who proposed the hourly wage.
Lawyers for Jones, meanwhile, have so far previewed only one short witness for their case. They have not ruled out Jones testifying in his own defense, a risky move for any federal criminal defendant, let alone a sitting state legislator.
Late in the day Friday, prosecutors called FBI agent Kelly Shanahan, one of the lead agents on the case who gave the greatest detail yet on how investigators got onto Maani in the first place.
Shanahan said the investigation into Maani began in 2017 and was part of a broader probe of bribery and corruption in the south suburbs. While looking into bribes paid to a municipal official to obtain a liquor license, the FBI intercepted Maani on wiretap calls, talking to SafeSpeed sales consultants about red-light cameras and benefits and other types of contributions being made, she said.
The FBI began tapping Maani’s cellphone in the summer of 2017 and listened to his calls for about two months, which included calls with then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval and numerous other public officials, she said. On Jan. 29, 2018, Shanahan and an IRS agent approached Maani at his Burr Ridge home to try to get him to cooperate.
“He potentially had the ability to sit down and meet with individuals and record conversations,” things the FBI couldn’t do, Shanahan said.
At the time they had secured four search warrants, including for Maani’s home, his cellphone, SafeSpeed’s offices in Chicago and Casa de Montecristo, a cigar bar in Countryside where Maani often met with officials, she said.
A couple of hours later, Maani called the FBI and asked for a meeting, arriving at the FBI office in Orland Park without an attorney. “He said that he didn’t want an attorney, that he didn’t trust anybody,” Shanahan said. Maani said he’d cooperate undercover, and wound up doing so for the next 18 months, she said.
Jones came into the picture relatively late in the investigation, after Sandoval was recorded discussing Jones and his legislation proposing a statewide study of red-light cameras. The FBI then instructed Maani to go to Sandoval and ask for an introduction to Jones.
Asked to estimate how many people Maani cooperated against in total, Shanahan thought for a moment before replying, “several dozen.”
Shanahan’s testimony will continue Monday.
If convicted, Jones would be forced to resign under Illinois law and would almost certainly forfeit any future pension.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
