By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com

CHICAGO — After nearly five days of testimony, state Sen. Emil Jones III’s federal corruption trial appeared to be nearing its end Tuesday afternoon — until the senator unexpectedly took the witness stand. 

Over the last week, the jury has gotten to know Jones’ voice and mannerisms through several hours of secretly recorded footage taken by corrupt red-light camera entrepreneur-turned-cooperating witness Omar Maani in addition to a covertly taped FBI interview. Jurors have learned about Jones’ affinity for wagyu steak and New Orleans from those recordings, which captured conversations the feds characterize as having crossed the line into bribery. Prosecutors also allege the senator lied to federal agents about it.

Now, jurors would hear from the senator in real time. Taking the stand gave Jones, D-Chicago, a chance to give additional context or explanations for key moments heard on the tapes. But it also opened him up to potentially confrontational cross-examination from government lawyers.

As Jones crossed the wood-paneled courtroom to swear an oath to tell the truth during his testimony, he became the first sitting state official in nearly 20 years to testify on his own behalf in trial. Former state Rep. Patricia Bailey, D-Chicago, did the same before her 2005 conviction on felony perjury and forgery charges stemming from her use of false addresses on election documents, though hers was a bench trial with no jury to perform for.

“Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a state senator like my father,” Jones told the jury, briefly explaining that he decided to run for the Senate after his father, former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., announced his intention to retire from his near-40-year legislative career.

The senator did not mention the heat he took when he replaced the elder Jones on the November 2008 ballot months after the primary election was over. Former president Jones has been in the courtroom most days of his son’s trial but left the Dirksen Federal Courthouse before his son took the stand Tuesday.

After finishing his associate’s degree, Jones worked for a decade in various jobs within state government, starting with “selling license plates,” he said. By the time he won his father’s Senate seat, Jones had spent nearly two years at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity helping “small and large businesses relocate to Cook County” by taking advantage of state incentives.

In contrast to his father’s reputation, Jones has mostly flown under the radar during his time in the General Assembly. The senator didn’t land on the FBI’s radar until Jones was a decade into his role as a lawmaker — and only because he’d caught the attention of Maani, a co-founder of Chicago-based red-light camera company SafeSpeed, who began cooperating as a government witness in January 2018.

Maani had been caught bribing several public officials in connection with his red-light camera business, including Jones’ colleague, then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago. As chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Sandoval was in a position to protect SafeSpeed from legislation the red-light camera industry viewed as potentially harmful.

And in the spring of 2019, Maani flagged a measure that Jones had introduced as one of those potentially harmful bills. Jones’ legislation called for a statewide study of red-light camera systems. The bill echoed similar proposals Jones filed for several years running, which never became law.

On Tuesday, Jones explained on the stand what he’d also said on the tapes secretly recorded by Maani and the FBI agent in 2019: That he’d become skeptical of red-light cameras after seeing the impact of the expensive tickets on his constituents while the companies made “millions and millions of dollars.”

The senator claimed he’d seen reports showing that cameras at certain intersections “could make $50,000 a day from violations.”

But he also testified that there was nuance to his criticism of the industry and came to believe that the city of Chicago’s red-light camera program was more egregious than red-light camera systems in other communities. The original 2007 law that allowed municipalities in Illinois to adopt the technology allowed Chicago to operate by its own rules but put far more state oversight on programs adopted by suburbs. 

And as a representative of Illinois’ 14th Senate District, Jones was able to compare the programs between the half of his district that covers Chicago’s South Side and the other half that encompasses five of the city’s southwest suburbs.

Still, Jones’ 2019 legislation called for a study of red-light cameras everywhere in Illinois, and Maani made it his mission to talk Jones into limiting his bill to studying only the city of Chicago. After Maani brought up Jones to Sandoval during a March 2019 dinner, SafeSpeed lobbyists — who happened to be friends of Jones’ — invited the senator to a site visit and informational meeting the following month.

But on secretly recorded video of that meeting, Jones told company officials and the lobbyists that he couldn’t commit to changing his legislation.

Jones’ bill went nowhere during the remainder of the General Assembly’s spring legislative session, but at the FBI’s direction, Maani asked Sandoval to set up a dinner between himself, Sandoval and Jones.

The jury earlier Tuesday heard Jones tell FBI agents that he became wary of his meal companions’ intentions during the June 2019 dinner at a suburban steakhouse as Sandoval told Jones that Maani “wants to be your friend.”

Still, Jones agreed to two more dinners with Maani as the summer wore on. At the July dinner at yet another steakhouse, Maani pushed the senator to come up with a number that Maani could contribute to Jones’ upcoming fundraiser.

Eventually, Jones relented, telling Maani, “If you can raise me five grand, that’d be good.”

“But most importantly, I have an intern working in my office,” Jones continued. “And I’m trying to find him another job, another part-time job.”

Prosecutors alleged Jones agreed to accept the $5,000 from Maani and the job for his former intern as bribes in exchange for changing his proposed legislation as Maani requested. And although the $5,000 never materialized and Jones never amended his bill, the feds say the agreement is enough to prove Jones’ “corrupt intent.”

The jury spent the morning listening to prosecutors pick apart a roughly 40-minute recording of Jones speaking to FBI agents at his home in September 2019. Special Agent Timothy O’Brien testified he and his partner told the senator they were there to ask him questions for their investigation into Sandoval — but opted to not tell Jones that they were also investigating him.

The feds allege the senator lied to agents during that interview, downplaying both his willingness to accept the $5,000 and to change his legislation. Prosecutors lingered on those parts of the interview while questioning O’Brien Tuesday morning, also pointing out that Jones told the agents he didn’t know how much his former intern, Christopher Katz, was being paid by Maani, even though they’d discussed paying him $15 an hour at a dinner 1 ½ months prior.

But while cross-examining O’Brien, Jones’ attorney Joshua Adams pointed to all the times during the recording when the senator volunteered information even before the agents told him that he’d be subject to federal charges if he hadn’t been telling the truth.

O’Brien testified that when he returned Jones’ cellphone later on Sept. 24, 2019, after it was searched at the FBI’s Chicago offices post-interview, Jones made a passing comment that he was “chewed out by his dad and his attorney for speaking to me.”

Nearly five months later, Jones sat for another interview with federal agents and a prosecutor at the Internal Revenue Services’ downtown Chicago office. The senator changed his story, agreeing with agents’ contentions that he’d made a deal with Maani to amend his legislation in exchange for a campaign contribution and a job for Katz.

Five years later, Jones will return to the witness stand Wednesday morning in a courtroom across the street from those offices and finish testifying in his own defense.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.