The co-founder of red light camera company SafeSpeed LLC testified in a federal courtroom Wednesday that his company routinely sought to influence elected officials with campaign cash, dinners and cigars to secure more business.
“We would cut deals with legislators for financial support,” said Omar Maani, who is the star prosecution witness in the bribery trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III. “We would write checks for them from different companies to conceal it from the public…We were concerned the media would write there was some sort of collusion”
Maani, who was confronted by the FBI in 2018 and agreed to cooperate undercover, testified that Jones was one of the state legislators that he bribed. His first interaction with Jones, who had authored several anti-red light camera bills, was at a dinner SafeSpeed sponsored in Springfield in 2016, Maani said.
Three years later, Maani recorded several dinner meetings with Jones, talking about building a relationship, the meaning of friendship, and the possibility that Maani might throw Jones a fundraiser or make a contribution — as long as they could keep it a secret, federal prosecutors say.
In his opening statement to the jury, 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’ defense attorney Joshua Adams argued the case was one more instance in Maani’s long history of “serial bribery” around the Chicago area and 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.”
Maani, 44, took the witness stand for the first time Wednesday dressed in a black sport coat and dark T-shirt. He testified in a loud, deep voice, at times leaning directly into the microphone with his voice booming in the courtroom.
He is the star witness against Jones and is expected to testify about secret recordings he made of dinner meetings where he allegedly discussed paying the senator $5,000 for his help on red-light camera legislation.
“You can raise me five grand. That’d be good,” Jones allegedly told Maani over dinner at Steak 48 in July 2019.
But Jones was hardly the first elected official that Maani said SafeSpeed paid off. Another was then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, the head of the powerful Senate Transportation Committee who held enormous sway over SafeSpeed’s ability to operate and their eventual profits, Maani testified.
Sandoval, who pleaded guilty to taking bribes to be SafeSpeed’s “protector” in the Senate, died of COVID-19 complications in December 2020 while he was cooperating with the government.
With a photo of Sandoval displayed in the courtroom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam asked Maani on Wednesday when he started giving Sandoval bribes.
“Probably not long after we met,” Maani said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Why?
“For bribery — for his assistance and legislative initiative in helping us with bills that were adverse to us and making sure that they would stay in his committee,” Maani testified.
Maani testified Sandoval was given cash, cigars, cigar labels and taken out to dinners all the time. After 2018, it was at the direction of the FBI. But plenty of it was before his cooperation, he said. Sandoval also asked the company to give his daughter a promotion.
Who gave Sandoval the bribes? Ardam asked.
“Myself and my company,” Maani said.
Which company?
“SafeSpeed.”
SafeSpeed and CEO Nikki Zollar have not been charged and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, describing Maani, who left the company in 2020, as a rouge actor.
On Wednesday the company released a statement regarding Omar Maani’s ongoing testimony: “We are deeply offended to see that Omar Maani, despite admitting to criminal acts, is now refusing to accept responsibility for his own criminal conduct, and he is making false claims about SafeSpeed.”
“We are committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and professionalism, and we are committed to ensuring the public knows the truth,” the statement read.
Maani, meanwhile, testified that in March 2019, he met Sandoval for a meal at a Mexican restaurant and asked him to set up a meeting with Jones. At the time, Jones was pushing a bill that would mandate a statewide study of red-light cameras, which Maani described as a “prelude to a ban.”
“In worst case scenario, it could put us out of business,” he said. “It could put our industry out of business.”
Before the lunch break, prosecutors played an undercover recording of the meeting with Jones, Zollar, and several other company executives and lobbyists at SafeSpeed’s offices. Zollar talked on the recording about Jones’ bill for a study on red light cameras — which Maani said the company vehemently opposed — and whether it would be just for Chicago or for all of the state.
Lobbyist Mike Noonan asked Jones during the meeting for a “solid commitment from your side that this is not going to bleed into changing the program outside the city of Chicago.”
“I can’t give you that commitment any other better way that I have over the years,” Jones replied.
But Jones later said: “I’m very confident in SafeSpeed. We talked before, Nikki. Um and a few years back about 20 mayors had an intervention with me. I think you all probably put that on,” prompting others in the room to erupt in laughter. “I’m not going to go after you guys.”
Maani testified that Jones was noncommittal to helping them at the meeting, so he asked Sandoval to set up a private dinner where they could talk.
Prosecutors are expected to play the video recording of that meeting after a lunch break.
Jones, 46, whose father, Emil Jones Jr., led the state Senate for years before orchestrating having 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.
Maani was the first witness called by prosecutors after opening statements and his direct testimony will likely take the entire day.
Jones’ trial is the first of a sitting politician at the federal 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.
The jury of five men and seven women as well as two alternates was finalized in Jones’ case shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday following the questioning of 45 potential jurors over two full days.
Among the panel of regular jurors: a man who works to clean up hazardous waste sites and is an avid fly fisherman; an accounting clerk from the west suburbs who says he dislikes red light cameras; a woman who is dean of students for small private college; and a man whose sister-in-law is an Illinois deputy governor.
Most of the jurors selected said they’d never heard of Jones, though a few said they believed they knew his name or saw a brief account of his case on the news.
Jones, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence. His lawyers have indicated they intend to argue his actions were business as usual and that the government is trying to stretch political give-and-take into bribery.
”Everyday events involving elected officials must be placed in an honest and fair context,” Jones’ lead attorney, Victor Henderson, told the Tribune last month. “The Senator is looking forward to his day in court.”
Maani’s cooperation was also instrumental in bringing down a host of other elected officials and Democratic political operatives, including Sandoval and several suburban mayors who were in SafeSpeed’s pocket.
Maani was granted a deferred prosecution deal because of his efforts and will wind up without a felony conviction on his record.
Meanwhile, because he was charged in the midst of the pandemic, Maani has not had to appear physically in court until Wednesday.
Originally Published: April 9, 2025 at 6:57 AM CDT
