The former CEO of Redflex Traffic Systems has agreed to plead guilty to one count of bribery in connection with a federal corruption case brought against a former Chicago city employee and others accused of fixing the awarding of the $124 million contract the company won under the administration of former Mayor Richard Daley, which was later terminated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Karen Finley, the former CEO, faces up to five years in prison
Karen Finley and other Redflex associates were charged by federal prosecutors with paying former Chicago city official John Bills $570,000 in cash and other perks, including an Arizona condo and a Mercedes automobile in exchange for steering the lucrative red-light camera contract to the company. Emanuel replaced Redflex with ACS/Xerox, the same politically-connected company that Mayor Greg Ballard awarded a 50-year lease of Indianapolis' parking meter assets. A politically-connected consultant, Martin O'Malley, was paid $2 million by Redflex for his services and used as a conduit for funneling the bribes to Bills according to federal prosecutors.
UPDATE: The Cincinnati Enquirer has an online story following word of Finley's plea agreement in Chicago indicating an active investigation continues in the state of Ohio to determine whether Finley and other Redflex officials and lobbyists improperly influenced officials in Columbus and Cincinnati to win red-light camera contracts in those respective cities.
5 comments:
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/08/19/red-light-camera-bribery-case/31996249/
Wow, so the company played the game the way of most successful government vendors... Why are they being singled out and held out to dry? Makes me wonder who they pissed off. They are not a rare bad apple folks, this pay to play crap happens all day every day!
9:22 PM you said exactly as I was thinking. Bribery is the cost of doing business in Crook County, Illinois. Instead of shutting off the RLC's like New Jersey did, Chicago handed the scam over to another shadow government megacorp - ACS/Xerox.
"A politically-connected consultant, Martin O'Malley, was paid $2 million by Redflex for his services and used as a conduit for funneling the bribes"
Martin O'Malley??? *blink* I knew the guy was a crook when he was Governor of Maryland but wow....
In a topsy turvy world where men want to marry men and have babies, it's nice to know that Chicago officials are still willing to accept bribes. Some things will never change.
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