A Cook County political operative has been indicted on federal charges alleging he conspired to pay bribes to a relative of an Oak Lawn trustee in 2017 to get lucrative red-light cameras installed there.
Patrick Doherty, 64, of Palos Heights, was charged in a three-count indictment made public Friday with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. An arraignment has not yet been scheduled.
Doherty, who serves as chief of staff to Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski, also worked as a sales agent for a red-light camera company that has had a contract to operate cameras in Oak Lawn since 2014, according to the charges.
The seven-page indictment does not identify the company, but details in the charges show it is SafeSpeed Inc.
The indictment alleged Doherty conspired with a co-owner of SafeSpeed as well as another sales agent for the company to pay $4,000 in bribes in exchange for the official support of an Oak Lawn trustee to add cameras at additional intersections.
The trustee was referred to in the indictment only as “Trustee 1.”
In a recorded telephone call in May 2017, Doherty told the other SafeSpeed agent he’d pay the trustee’s close relative the money “if it’s going to get us the job,” according to the charges.
“I’ll just pay it,” Doherty allegedly said on the call. “Just make sure we get the, make sure we get the f—– thing, the contract.”
The payments were going to be doled out to the relative in $500 installments over a period of eight weeks, according to the indictment. To hide the purpose of the bribes, the money would come from a company where Doherty was a manager.
On June 13, 2017, Doherty was recorded on a cellphone call by the FBI telling the trustee’s relative, “It’s not like I need ya,” but that he’d pay the money anyway, according to the charges.
Two days later, Doherty cut the relative a $500 check for the first installment, the indictment alleged. The charges do not state whether the rest of the money was ever paid.
Neither Doherty nor his attorney, Michael Monaco, could be reached for comment.
Doherty is the second person to be charged as part of a sprawling political corruption investigation that has orbited a who’s who of state power players, including elected officials; magnates in the construction, asphalt and casino industries; lobbyists; transportation officials; and Commonwealth Edison executives.
State Sen. Martin Sandoval pleaded guilty last month to bribery and tax charges. He admitted to taking $20,000 in campaign contributions — and later $70,000 cash from a SafeSpeed co-owner secretly working with agents — to act as SafeSpeed’s “protector” in the Illinois Senate.
The Tribune has reported that the cooperating SafeSpeed representative is Omar Maani, a Burr Ridge businessman who is one of SafeSpeed’s founders and biggest rainmakers.
SafeSpeed and owner Nikki Zollar have denied wrongdoing, saying they had no idea bribes were being paid.
The company released a statement Friday saying Doherty was not a SafeSpeed employee, but an “independent contractor” recruited by Maani to consult on sales.
“Mr. Doherty had no authority to take actions to bind the company, let alone engage in criminal behavior,” the statement read. “SafeSpeed never authorized Mr. Doherty or anyone else to engage in the alleged criminal behavior described in the indictment.”
The Tribune has reported on how SafeSpeed has hired as consultants several suburban officials including Doherty, Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan and former Justice police Chief Robert Gedville. Gedville was fired in 2012 after the newspaper reported on his relationship with the company.
Records obtained by the Tribune show that Oak Lawn Mayor Sandra Bury first signed a deal with SafeSpeed in 2014, calling for a goal of putting 10 cameras at five intersections.
Only three cameras were ever put into operation, however: one at the intersection of 95th Street and Pulaski Road and two more at 111th Street and Cicero Avenue, the records show.
While the Doherty indictment alleges there was a push to add more Oak Lawn cameras in 2017, it doesn’t appear any were ever installed, according to records reviewed by the Daily Southtown.
At the time the bribes allegedly were paid, Oak Lawn was raking in about $680,000 a year in total ticket collections, with about $340,000 annually going to SafeSpeed, an analysis of records provided at the time showed.
Meanwhile, the Daily Southtown reported last month that Oak Lawn had severed its relationship with SafeSpeed in the midst of the ongoing corruption probe.
Bury said the village decided not to renew its contract for a number of reasons — some of them long-standing — but that the ongoing federal investigation had not helped matters.
“When you look at the impact (red-light cameras) have on safety in the village, there is a benefit, but it’s a slight benefit when you look at the public almost feeling abused by these things where they’re triggered so often that people look at it as a cash cow kind of thing,” she said at a November board meeting. “There’s other ways we could be safer.”
Former Oak Lawn police Chief Michael Murray had also grown frustrated with the company’s representatives after they exerted pressure on the department to approve more red-light violations than he was comfortable with, Bury said.
“At one time, Chief Murray was basically told: ‘You’re not writing enough tickets,'” she said. The mayor said Murray and former village manager Larry Deetjen pushed back on the company.
Despite the souring relationship, however, the village board with Bury at the helm unanimously renewed SafeSpeed’s contract in June 2018 with no discussion, records show.
Bury could not be reached Friday for comment.
One Oak Lawn trustee, Thomas Phelan, told the Tribune he didn’t recall any talk of expanding the number of SafeSpeed cameras after he rejoined the board in May 2017, which is around the time the bribery scheme allegedly was unfolding.
Phelan said he’s not the council member referenced in the indictment and doesn’t know who is.
“I talked to the village attorney, police chief — the mayor’s texting me — we’re all asking the same questions,” he said.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
jmahr@chicagotribune.com