{"id":90618,"date":"2016-11-06T19:30:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T00:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/?p=90618"},"modified":"2016-11-06T19:35:02","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T00:35:02","slug":"chicago-official-sentenced-red-light-camera-corruption-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/chicago-official-sentenced-red-light-camera-corruption-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Official Sentenced in Red-Light Camera Corruption Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Bills once held a position of trust as Chicago\u2019s assistant transportation commissioner. Now the 55-year-old is serving a 10-year prison sentence for his role in a long-running corruption scheme involving the city\u2019s red-light camera contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicago has a well-known history of public corruption,\u201d said Special Agent Brian Etchell, \u201cbut even by Chicago\u2019s standards, this case stands out.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the corruption went on for nearly a decade, and \u201cthe sheer amount of cash bribes to Bills\u2014more than $600,000\u2014was stunning,\u201d said Etchell, who investigated the case with Special Agent Craig Henderson from the FBI\u2019s Chicago Division. Henderson noted that the corruption scheme involved payments and perks that totaled more than $2 million.<\/p>\n

In 2003, Bills served on a committee seeking vendors for the city\u2019s Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program. That committee recommended awarding contracts to Redflex Traffic Systems, an Arizona company eventually hired to install cameras that automatically recorded and ticketed drivers who ran red lights.<\/p>\n

From the time Redflex received the contract in 2003 until Bills retired in 2011, evidence showed that the transportation official used his influence to expand Redflex\u2019s business in Chicago. That resulted in millions of dollars in contracts for the installation of hundreds of red-light cameras. Redflex was enriched\u2014and the company made sure Bills was as well.<\/p>\n

The company gave Bills cash, expensive meals, golf outings, airline tickets, hotel rooms, and more. Some of the benefits were given to him directly, while hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was funneled to Bills through his friend Martin O\u2019Malley, whom Redflex hired to facilitate the payoffs.<\/p>\n

As a Redflex contractor, O\u2019Malley was paid lavish bonuses as new cameras continued to be added in the city. O\u2019Malley, in turn, stuffed envelopes full of his bonus cash and gave them to Bills, often during meals in Chicago restaurants. O\u2019Malley also used some of the money to buy and maintain a condo in Arizona that Bills used as his own.<\/p>\n

Bills had more cash than he knew what to do with. \u201cHe would ask co-workers to purchase airfare tickets on their credit cards,\u201d Henderson said, \u201cand then he would repay them on the spot in cash. He had his friends write him personal checks, and then he would immediately give them cash\u2014he would just hand over $3,000 right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"[While<\/a>
[While he was an influential official with Chicago’s Department of Transportation, John Bills took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from an Arizona company that was contracted to provide the city with red-light cameras. Through a middleman, the company provided Bills with the use of a luxury condominium in Arizona, shown here in an exhibit presented at his trial.]<\/figcaption><\/figure>When a Redflex employee alleged misconduct regarding how Chicago\u2019s red-light camera business was being conducted, the company did an internal investigation and found nothing wrong. Later, after a newspaper expos\u00e9 raised questions about the relationship between Redflex, O\u2019Malley, and Bills, the company began another inquiry, and information from that investigation was presented to the FBI and the United States Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the company’s investigation, we opened a case starting in 2013,\u201d Etchell said. \u201cWe were able to establish a direct link between O\u2019Malley, Bills, and the Arizona condominium. The majority of the bribes were flowing through Redflex to O\u2019Malley to that condominium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etchell and Henderson specialize in public corruption investigations, the FBI\u2019s top criminal investigative priority. They painstakingly documented patterns that tied O\u2019Malley\u2019s cash withdrawals to purchases by Bills and showed how O\u2019Malley\u2019s cash withdrawals coincided with personal meetings with Bills.<\/p>\n

Even so, \u201cmuch of the evidence was still circumstantial,\u201d Henderson said. So the investigators interviewed countless individuals, many of whom worked with Bills and at Redflex. In 2014, O\u2019Malley was arrested. Faced with the mounting evidence against him, he began cooperating with the investigation and laid out the entire scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the middleman, the bagman,\u201d Etchell said, \u201cand he decided to cooperate with us.\u201d Bills was indicted in 2014. In January 2016, a federal jury convicted Bills on all counts against him, among them mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery, and filing false tax returns. He was sentenced in August 2016. A month later, O\u2019Malley, 75 and in frail health, received a six-month prison term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Bills once held a position of trust as Chicago\u2019s assistant transportation commissioner. Now the 55-year-old is serving a 10-year prison sentence for his role in a long-running corruption scheme involving the city\u2019s red-light camera contracts. \u201cChicago has a well-known history of public corruption,\u201d said Special Agent Brian Etchell, \u201cbut even by Chicago\u2019s standards, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5409,"featured_media":90619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nChicago Official Sentenced in Red-Light Camera Corruption Case - Breaking911<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/chicago-official-sentenced-red-light-camera-corruption-case\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago Official Sentenced in Red-Light Camera Corruption Case - Breaking911\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Bills once held a position of trust as Chicago\u2019s assistant transportation commissioner. Now the 55-year-old is serving a 10-year prison sentence for his role in a long-running corruption scheme involving the city\u2019s red-light camera contracts. \u201cChicago has a well-known history of public corruption,\u201d said Special Agent Brian Etchell, \u201cbut even by Chicago\u2019s standards, this […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/chicago-official-sentenced-red-light-camera-corruption-case\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Breaking911\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Breaking911\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-07T00:30:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-07T00:35:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/large-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"614\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"T. 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