Illinois Sen. Emil Jones III raved in 2019 to a red-light camera executive about Steak 48, the swanky downtown Chicago steakhouse where Jones said he’d visited “countless, countless, countless, countless” times — and always got the “Wagyu filet.”
Jones sat down for yet another dinner there on July 17, 2019. Red-light camera executive Omar Maani joined him. They complained about the rain outside. But Maani also told Jones he’d used Jones’ name to claim the reservation. He said the staff replied, “Senator Jones?”
Their chat then turned to fundraising. Maani asked how much he could raise for Jones “in an ideal world.” Jones initially told him, “I don’t give folks numbers. … I’m not greedy.” But eventually, Jones gave in and said, “If you can raise me five grand, that’d be good.”
“Done,” Maani told him.
That secretly recorded moment was among several viewed by jurors as Jones’ federal bribery trial got underway in earnest Wednesday. The panel of seven women and five men became the latest to get an up-front look at raw, behind-the-scenes Illinois politics caught on a secret FBI camera.
They heard directly from Maani, a man who’s admitted bribing several local politicians but dodged his own conviction by striking a deal with federal prosecutors. The jury also viewed a recording of Jones and Maani dining with the late state Sen. Martin Sandoval — once described on a separate FBI recording as an “indictment waiting to happen.”
In a recording viewed by jurors Wednesday, Sandoval made a crack about what he and Jones had in common.
“Both of our daddies was Emil Jones,” Sandoval quipped.
The comment referenced Jones’ actual father, former Senate President Emil Jones Jr. The once-powerful Chicago politician took a seat near the front of U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood’s 21st-floor courtroom Wednesday to watch his son’s trial begin.
Federal prosecutors say Jones III agreed to protect Maani in the Illinois Senate in exchange for $5,000 and a job for an intern. They also say he lied to the FBI when interviewed by agents in 2019 but admitted taking a bribe in a later chat with the feds in February 2020.
“This was politics for profit,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri said during opening statements. “And 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.”
Defense attorneys for Jones III focused their commentary squarely on Maani, calling him a “serial briber” who paid off town presidents “up and down the Chicagoland area.”
“He’s going to tell you about all the bribes he paid, all the lies he told and the lengths he went to conceal those bribes,” defense attorney Joshua Adams told jurors in his opening statement.
The case revolves around Jones III, Sandoval, Maani and a bill filed by Jones III in February 2019 that would have prompted a statewide study of red-light cameras by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Maani saw the bill as potentially bad for business.
Maani is a former principal of the red-light camera company SafeSpeed LLC. The company has long sought to distance itself from Maani, and in a statement Wednesday it decried what it called “false claims” by Maani about SafeSpeed.
“We want to be absolutely clear,” it said, “Omar Maani has not been affiliated with the company since February 2020 and we stand by our original statement: Our company was unaware of any illegal activities Omar Maani may have engaged in.”
From the witness stand Wednesday, Maani told the jury about “benefits” he gave to Sandoval. Maani often used the word “we,” and he clarified for a prosecutor that he meant “myself and my company.”
“We gave [Sandoval] campaign contributions, but they were directly tied to support for our industry,” Maani testified. “We gave him — I gave him — cigars, cigar labels. We took him out to dinner all the time.”
Maani testified that the FBI knocked on his door “really early” on Jan. 29, 2018, and agents told him they had a warrant to search his home. Maani said he agreed to cooperate with the feds to protect his wife and daughter.
He said his daughter was asleep in bed when the FBI arrived.
Maani helped the feds bring down former Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta, former Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan, former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci and others. Sandoval pleaded guilty in 2020 to crimes involving Maani, admitting that he once said he’d go “balls to the walls” for Maani. Sandoval died late in 2020.
But Sandoval joined Jones III and Maani for dinner at Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse in Oak Brook in June 2019, one month before Jones III’s later dinner with Maani at Steak 48. Sweaty cocktail glasses could be seen in the video from Gibsons recorded by Maani.
“I told Omar that you’re the kind of guy, that you’re kinda the same … that you do appreciate a more personal relationship rather than try having to deal with all the red tape,” Sandoval told Jones III during their dinner.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jones III replied.
Sandoval made his remark about Jones III’s father during that dinner. He also told Jones III and Maani that he’d once gone to seminary school.
“You would have been able to go to confession with me,” Sandoval told them.
“They did say,” Jones III replied, “politicians and clergyman, priests — they’re all crooked. Damn.”
And with that, the men erupted in laughter.