Chicago City Wire

SAFE-T Act sponsor, State Sen. Emil Jones III (D-Chicago) has been indicted on three charges of bribery. 

The charges were revealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois Tuesday. Jones has been accused of taking a $5,000 bribe to amend a bill to further study red light cameras. 

“Company A was a Chicago-area company that provided automated traffic enforcement systems, commonly known as red-light cameras, which enabled municipalities to enforce certain traffic violations and issue traffic­ violation tickets," the indictment reads. "Company A did not provide any automated traffic enforcement systems to the City of Chicago. Individual A had an ownership interest in Company A. Unbeknownst to Jones, Individual A was cooperating with law enforcement.” 

The filing notes Jones “corruptly solicited” the payment. 

“In or around 2019, Jones agreed that, in exchange for benefits provided by Individual A to Jones and Individual B, Jones would oppose legislation that required the study of automated traffic enforcement systems located outside of Chicago, and would limit any legislation regarding IDOT's study of and recommendations concerning automated traffic law enforcement systems to those automated traffic enforcement systems utilized in Chicago, thereby excluding from study and recommendations automated traffic enforcement systems utilized in numerous other municipalities that Company A served,” the indictment stated further. 

SafeSpeed co-founder Omar Maani entered a deferred-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2020 that calls for a bribery charge to be dropped in return for his cooperation. 

“SafeSpeed remains both shocked and saddened that one of its former colleagues was engaged in criminal conduct and recruited outside individuals to help further his self-serving activities,” SafeSpeed told WTTW News. “Their actions were clearly in their own self-interest and done without SafeSpeed’s knowledge and undercut the important work SafeSpeed does.”

Jones made no mention of the indictment on his Facebook page.

On his campaign website, Jones notes he ran to put “an end to business as usual in Springfield.”

The SAFE-T Act, a bill supported by Jones, is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. The bill will result in the release of thousands of criminals who are now being imprisoned in jails throughout the state while they wait to face serious offense charges. People who are awaiting trial must be handled by courts more rapidly. If the SAFE-T Act is carried out as intended, those accused of the most horrific crimes—such as robbery, kidnapping, arson, second-degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, aggravated flight, drug-related homicide and threatening a public official—will be freed, Will County Gazette reported.