State Sen. Emil Jones was dining at a downtown Chicago steakhouse with a clout-heavy red light camera company executive in the summer of 2019 when the executive expressed concern about Jones’ pending bill requiring a study on the ubiquitous and publicly maligned automated traffic systems.
The executive, Omar Maani of SafeSpeed LLC, then asked Jones a point-blank question: How much do you want?
“You can raise me five grand. That’d be good,” Jones, a Chicago Democrat, allegedly told Maani over that July 17, 2019 dinner at Steak 48, according to a prosecution court filing late Tuesday. Jones also told Maani it would be nice if he could secure a part-time job for his legislative intern.
Maani, who was secretly recording the meeting for the FBI, told Jones that he needed to think of a “creative way” to get the money to him. “We have reporting requirements and everything and I just don’t want to go down that path,” Maani said, according to prosecutors.
“I get it,” Jones allegedly replied.
That conversation and other key details were revealed for the first time as Jones’ April 1 trial date on bribery charges fast approaches.
Jones’ trial is set, though the parties have also told U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood that they’ve been negotiating a possible guilty plea. If it does go to trial, Jones would be the first sitting elected official to face a jury in Chicago’s federal court since then-Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, who was convicted of tax-related charges while still in office.
His lawyer, Victor Henderson, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Jones’ case has unfolded in strange fashion from the start. After he was charged in 2022, Jones, who has held his seat he took over from his powerful father, then-Senate President Emil Jones Jr., since 2009, resisted calls from his own party leaders to step down.
Four days after his arraignment, Jones, running unopposed, was reelected to a fifth term, despite being charged by the U.S. attorney’s office via a criminal information, which is typically a sign a defendant intends to quickly plead guilty.
Instead, however, Jones changed legal teams and demanded trial. The U.S. attorney’s office never brought the case to a grand jury to secure an indictment, leaving the original, six-page information filed in September 2022 as the only document on the docket laying out the allegations for more than two years.
Jones, 46, was charged with 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 federal prosecutors.
Jones had introduced a bill in the Senate in February 2019 that would have required the Illinois Department of Transportation to conduct a statewide study of automated traffic law enforcement systems, including red-light cameras such as those operated by SafeSpeed, according to the six-page information.
The charges alleged Jones agreed with Maani to “protect” SafeSpeed by limiting any traffic studies to the city of Chicago, excluding the suburbs where the company does much of its business.
In exchange, Jones took $5,000 in benefits and wanted a job and additional payments for his intern, identified as Individual B, according to the charges. In August 2019, Jones told Maani that if he contributed $5,000 by sponsoring an event, they “would not have to report that contribution” on state campaign funding reports, the charges alleged.
On Sept. 24, 2019, the day the FBI raided the offices of then-powerful state Sen. Martin Sandoval, the head of the Transportation Committee, Jones was interviewed by agents. According to the charges, he lied by saying he had not agreed to protect SafeSpeed in exchange for Maani hiring or paying Individual B and had not discussed any plan with Maani to skirt campaign financing disclosures.
Records from the Illinois General Assembly show that Jones’ proposal was approved by the Senate Transportation Committee on Nov. 19, 2019, which at the time was no longer being headed by Sandoval because he had stepped down as head of the panel in October of that year amid the federal investigation.
Sandoval would eventually be indicted and plead guilty to bribery-related corruption counts, but he died of COVID-19 complications in December 2020 while cooperating with the government.
The red-light camera investigation ensnared more than a dozen politicians, political operatives and businessmen, many of whom were either moonlighting for SafeSpeed as consultants or had direct influence on just how much money the company could rake in.
SafeSpeed and its president, Nikki Zollar, have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying Maani was operating without the company’s knowledge or approval.
Maani, who was given a deferred prosecution by the U.S. attorney’s office in exchange for his cooperation, is no longer affiliated with the company. Because everyone in the investigation has so far pleaded guilty, Maani has never testified publicly about his turn as an FBI mole, and was never even required to step foot in open court due to pandemic-related restrictions at the time.
That would change if Jones’ case goes to trial. The filings by prosecutors on Tuesday show that Maani would be the star witness, testifying about the meeting at Steak 48 and others with Jones and Sandoval at Gibsons Steakhouse later that summer.
Prosecutors also attached an exhibit list listing a number of wiretapped phone calls and at least one email with Zollar from 2016 about “E. Jones senate resolution.”
Jones’ father was one of the state’s most powerful machine Democrats who often batted away allegations of nepotism and famously gave a boost to the budding political career of Barack Obama, who rose from the Illinois Senate to eventually become president. In a statement Tuesday, the former Senate president defended his son, saying the charges “do not reflect the man he is.”
“Everyone knows he is an honest, hardworking legislator,” Jones Jr. said. “I intend to fight with him and stand alongside him throughout this process.”
Jones III among a handful of politicians to be charged in the sweeping federal investigation centered on red-light cameras installed by SafeSpeed LLC, a once clout-heavy camera company that secured contracts to run red-light cameras in nearly two dozen Chicago suburbs that generated millions of dollars in fines from motorists annually.
