Guilty: Corrupt ex-city official who pushed red-light camera deal convicted
John Bills took bribes to push lucrative contract for Redflex—he bought a boat, car.
On Tuesday, a federal jury in Chicago found a former city transportation official guilty on all 20 counts of mail and wire fraud, bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and tax evasion charges.
John Bills, who was the managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation, helped steer a lucrative city contract to Redflex, the embattled Australian red-light camera vendor. He faces decades in prison but won't be sentenced until May 2016.
After Bills urged his colleagues to approve the deal, the city hired Redflex to provide automated enforcement cameras, known formally as its Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program (DARLEP), from October 2003 until February 2013. That contract abruptly ended after Bills was shown to have accepted a hotel room that Redflex paid for—but city officials believe that the corruption ran far deeper. In October 2013, Chicago selected Xerox ACS to replace Redflex as its new red-light camera operator. Since then, Redflex has suffered financially, dubbing North America a "low/no-growth market.”
The May 2014 criminal complaint against Bills states:
According to individuals at Redflex, the Chicago contract was the most important contract for the company, both because of the revenues it generated as well as the name recognition it gave to Redflex. By 2010, the Chicago red light program was the largest red light camera program in the United States and encompassed 20% of the total camera systems that Redflex operated in the US.
The criminal indictment further explains that Redflex hired Bills’ friend Martin O’Malley, who was paid $2 million for his services as a contractor, effectively making him one of the company’s highest paid workers. Much of that money was then funneled to Bills, who used it for personal gain. Via Redflex employees, Bills also acquired a Mercedes and a condominium in Arizona.
O’Malley and then-CEO Karen Finley, who have pleaded guilty in their own respective criminal cases, both testified against Bills at trial.
A May 2014 affidavit written by an FBI special agent suggests that Bills likely used some of this money to purchase and store a boat, buy a car, pay for an addition to his Michigan cabin, pay his girlfriend’s mortgage, pay his own mortgage, pay for his kids’ schools, and hire a divorce attorney over the course of several years.
A 2013 Redflex document states that two employees “paid for vacation-related expenses” for Bills “for at least 17 different trips from 2003 through 2010,” which included “hotels, flights, rental cars, golf games and meals” and a computer, for a total value of around $20,000. Karen Finley was vice president of operations at Redflex from 2001 until late 2005 and was then promoted to CEO from 2006 until February 2013.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Bills’ lawyer remained defiant even after the verdict.
"John is going to continue to fight for his innocence," his lawyer, Nishay Sanan, vowed outside the courtroom. "The fight is not over. The people who are guilty of this know who they are, (but) we don't expect them to come forward."
In December 2013, Ars reported on red-light cameras nationwide, with a particular focus on Redflex's four cameras in the central California town of Modesto.
