Lawyers for Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta said Thursday he now plans to plead guilty in a red-light camera bribery case that has toppled a number of politicians and clout-heavy operatives in Chicago’s west and southwest suburbs.
Presta, 70, was charged in U.S. District Court last year with taking an envelope stuffed with cash bribes from a representative of SafeSpeed LLC, a red-light camera company that does business in his town. The representative was actually cooperating with the FBI and the entire exchange was caught on an undercover camera, records show.
Presta had been scheduled to go to trial in December. But in a telephone hearing Thursday, his attorney, Thomas Breen, told U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin that a plea agreement was in the works and asked that the trial date be scuttled.
Durkin set a change of plea hearing for Oct. 29.
The scheduled plea is the latest in a red light camera bribery scheme that rocked the political landscape from Chicago to Springfield when it first came to light two years ago.
Former state Sen. Martin Sandoval pleaded guilty to accepting cash to act as the company’s “protector in the General Assembly. He was cooperating with prosecutors before his death in December 2020 from COVID-19-related complications.
Earlier this year, John O’Sullivan, the former Worth Township supervisor and state lawmaker who was a longtime ally of former House Speaker Michael Madigan, also pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.
Prosecutors alleged O’Sullivan conspired with political operative Patrick Doherty and SafeSpeed executive Omar Maani to pay $4,000 in bribes to receive the official support of an Oak Lawn trustee to put the ticketing cameras at additional intersections.
Doherty, a Democratic political operative and former chief of staff to then Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski, has been charged with bribery conspiracy alleging he funneled payments from a SafeSpeed agent to Sandoval in exchange for the senator’s help in Springfield. Doherty is also accused in a 10-page indictment with conspiring with Tobolski to shake down a real estate developer doing business in McCook.
Doherty is scheduled to plead guilty on Oct. 21.
Maani, meanwhile, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with prosecutors after he wore a wire for federal investigators.
Neither SafeSpeed nor any of its current owners has been charged with wrongdoing. CEO Nikki Zollar has said Maani was acting without the company’s knowledge.
Presta, also a Democrat, was charged with three counts of using a facility in interstate commerce in aid of bribery and official misconduct, two counts of willfully filing a false income tax return, one count of willfully failing to file an income tax return and one count of making false statements to the FBI and IRS.
According to prosecutors, Presta was caught on a March 2019 recording accepting an envelope with $5,000 cash from Maani and then lied to the FBI and IRS when asked about it that September.
The Tribune first reported in 2019 that authorities had sought information related to $27,000 worth of expense reimbursements to Presta as part of the corruption investigation.
Asked at the time why authorities were interested in the reimbursement material, Presta told the Tribune he wasn’t sure:
“You’ve got the $1 million question,” he said, “I don’t know.”
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Crestwood mayor scheduled to plead guilty next month in red light camera bribery scheme - Chicago Tribune
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