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South suburban mayor charged in red-light camera bribery scheme

When red-light cameras came to Crestwood in 2016, the village quickly became the top-ticketing Chicago suburb, issuing more than $6 million in fines a year.

Now four years later, its mayor has been indicted on federal charges that he accepted bribes to promote the cameras, the latest development in a wide-ranging political corruption probe.

According to federal prosecutors, Lou Presta was caught on a March 2018 recording accepting an envelope with $5,000 cash from a representative of the red-light camera firm, and then lied to the FBI and IRS when asked about it that September.

Presta, 69, is 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.

Presta, who has been mayor since 2013, denied the charges in a statement issued through his attorneys. The statement came hours after Presta’s campaign committee made an unusual filing with the State Board of Elections, in which it disclosed that in March 2018, a then-SafeSpeed representative provided him “election day workers and expenses” collectively worth $5,000. The connection to Presta’s criminal charges is unclear.

Presta attorney Thomas Breen did not address why the campaign filing was more than two years late, but said the cash was used for “incidentals during the campaign” and “certainly was not used to influence the mayor’s position on any issue that affected the village.”

“The donor was, of course, setting Mr. Presta up in an attempt to induce criminal activity which did not come about,” Breen said.

The indictment said Presta “asked for and accepted benefits from representatives of” the red-light camera firm, which it doesn’t name. But public records indicate the only company with cameras in the village is SafeSpeed, a clout-heavy firm that has surfaced elsewhere in the criminal probe.

Court records show former SafeSpeed principal Omar Maani has been cooperating with investigators. SafeSpeed has said it cut ties with the one-time rainmaker, and issued a statement Friday saying it “does not condone the conduct alleged in the (Presta) indictment.”

“The company holds its employees and representatives to high standards of conduct and ethics. SafeSpeed will continue to take the appropriate action to ensure these standards are followed,” according to its statement.

An attorney for SafeSpeed CEO Nikki Zollar and executive Chris Lai previously has said in a civil filing that the pair were not aware of any bribes paid by anyone on the firm’s behalf.

The indictment came 10 months after the Tribune reported that federal authorities were looking into Presta. In October 2019, Presta told the Tribune that he’d done nothing wrong and hadn’t spoken to federal authorities. But on Friday, authorities said that Presta was interviewed by the FBI and IRS the previous month, an interview in which he allegedly said there was no money in the envelope, according to the indictment.

During Presta’s tenure, Crestwood settled lingering legal actions over how previous penny-pinching officials repeatedly and secretly put toxic water into the village water system. But the village also inked a deal with clout-heavy red light vendor SafeSpeed for cameras, and the Tribune found the suburb quickly became the most prolific ticket-generator in the region.

The analysis found the suburb’s SafeSpeed system brought in roughly $8,000-a-day from right-on-red violations at an intersection at Cicero Avenue at Cal Sag Road. Cameras there issued roughly 100 tickets a day, almost all rolling right turns on red. A long-running, class-action lawsuit has alleged the intersection didn’t even qualify for cameras to be placed there under state law.

Presta has told the Tribune that he supported the cameras to improve public safety. During a campaign, he went as far as to say a rival who opposed cameras “should be ashamed of herself” for sacrificing lives “to win a political election.”

“I don’t like red-light cameras,” he wrote in a folksy appeal to voters in January 2018. “They rank right up there with trips to the dentist or waiting in a store while my wife tries on dresses. But something I like a lot less than any of those things is learning of another life taken at an intersection when I know it may have been prevented.”

At the time, Presta was in what would ultimately become a losing battle for a seat on the Cook County Board.

A month after preaching the need for cameras to protect lives, Presta took part in the first of at least three phone conversations involving bribery and official misconduct with the red-light cameras, according to the indictment. Between the second and third phone call, the indictment alleges, Presta was recorded accepting the envelope with $5,000 in it.

By then, SafeSpeed, its backers and their firms had become prolific campaign donors, including to Presta’s campaign fund, starting four days after he signed the lucrative camera contract in 2014. Since then, his campaign fund has received at least $14,000 from SafeSpeed or its backers.

That included receiving $300 worth of unspecified material for a golf outing from what was called the “Omar Cigar Company.” The fund listed the company’s address as the same one for a Countryside cigar shop by a different name that’s noted in a federal search warrant tied to the probe and was a known hangout for many others named in the warrant, including Maani, a now-former SafeSpeed official who donated to Presta’s campaign.

On the day charges were made public, Presta’s campaign fund filed an amended campaign finance disclosure form that claimed that, on March 13, 2018, Maani provided Presta an “in-kind” contribution tallied at $5,000.

In-kind contributions are defined as “goods or services provided” to a candidate — not cash — according to a state handbook on required disclosures, but Presta’s Friday filing described the 2018 contribution as “election day workers and expenses,” without further explanation.

Regardless, state law requires such contributions to be publicly disclosed within a week. State Board of Elections officials said Friday that Presta’s fund could be fined $1,250, based on current protocol.

Maani was a prominent figure in the case against then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, a Chicago Democrat who pleaded guilty in federal court in late January to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to act as a “protector” in Springfield for SafeSpeed.

SafeSpeed has said it did not know about or authorize any bribes paid by Maani, a one-time co-owner.

SafeSpeed’s business has relied on getting suburban mayors and aldermen to let it install cameras for a cut of the proceeds, and then persuading the Illinois Department of Transportation to allow cameras on busy state routes.

The company’s business model requires relationships with politicians, and it hired well-connected lobbyist Victor Reyes’ firm, the Roosevelt Group. In addition, the Tribune found more than $450,000 in political contributions to over 100 political funds by SafeSpeed, founder Nikki Zollar, Maani, and their related firms.

Beyond hiring lobbyists and making campaign contributions, which must be publicly disclosed, the Tribune previously reported how SafeSpeed put public sector workers and officials on its payroll, which state law does not require it disclose.

Among them was Patrick Doherty, indicted in February on allegations he conspired to pay bribes to a relative of an Oak Lawn trustee in 2017 to get lucrative red-light cameras installed there. SafeSpeed said it had no knowledge of the bribes. Doherty was chief of staff to Jeff Tobolski, who resigned from the County Board amid the investigation.

Another official pushing SafeSpeed cameras to suburbs was then-Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan. Presta previously told the Tribune that O’Sullivan “introduced” SafeSpeed to the village. O’Sullivan’s arrangement is being questioned as part of the class-action lawsuit. He left the township post amid the probe.

jmahr@chicagotribune.com