State Sen. Emil Jones III says he had 'strange' feeling about red light camera exec but asked him to hire ex-intern (2025)

Illinois Sen. Emil Jones III told a jury that red-light camera executive Omar Maani gave him a “strange” feeling.

The South Side Democrat testified that he’d realized Maani had been “trying to buy me off.” And in a July 2019 text message, Jones made a crack: “LMAO Omar trying to make sure I don’t file my red light camera bill anymore. He thinks steak 48 will do it.”

But a federal prosecutor seized on that exchange in court Thursday. She forced Jones to admit, under oath, that he didn’t contact his ethics officer, he “didn’t call the FBI,” and that he knew from his training that he needed to report an attempted bribe to the Illinois State Police.

Instead, Jones admitted that he “set up” his 23-year-old ex-intern to be hired by Maani, who also promised to raise $5,000 for Jones’ campaign while pressuring the senator to change a bill in Springfield.

“You understand a campaign contribution could be part of a bribe, correct?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam asked during her cross-examination of Jones.

“Yes,” Jones told her.

Jones left the witness stand later Thursday afternoon, having spent more than nine hours testifying over three days. A short time later, U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood told jurors to return to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Monday for closing arguments.

Jones’ risky decision to testify — a new trend among federal corruption defendants in Chicago — extended a trial that appeared to be winding down earlier in the week. Now testimony is finally complete, and the case will soon be in jurors’ hands.

Though straightforward, the feds’ case against Jones has been full of intrigue. That continued Thursday when Jones blurted out that federal officials wanted him to wear a wire in 2020 against Roseland Community Hospital CEO Tim Egan.

The senator did not say why officials would have wanted him to do so. Calls seeking comment from Egan and Roseland hospital officials were not returned. Egan has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Still, the comment disrupted testimony in the trial for more than an hour while the lawyers debated it in a private sidebar. Wood eventually told jurors to disregard the comment.

Prosecutors say Jones agreed to protect Maani in the Illinois Senate in exchange for $5,000 and a job for Jones’ former intern, Christopher Katz. The ex-intern was paid $1,800 by Maani even though he did no work. Jones filed a bill in February 2019 that could have prompted a statewide study of red-light cameras, and Maani saw it as bad for business.

But Maani was also working for the FBI, having been caught delivering “benefits” to other public officials. The alleged deal between Jones and Maani arose over two dinners in Summer 2019 at the downtown steakhouse Steak 48, which Jones has made clear is his favorite spot in town.

Maani later struck a deal with the feds that saved him from a conviction.

Prosecutors charged Jones with bribery and lying to the FBI. His freedom and career will be on the line when jurors hand down their verdict, likely next week. Senate President Don Harmon recently told the Chicago Sun-Times he’d been following coverage of the trial.

“I think it’s about to go to the jury,” Harmon said Wednesday. “So we’ll wait and see what happens with the jury.”

Harmon also said he’d “not had any conversations with [Jones] about his predicament.”

Another revelation in the case involved late-night text messages Jones traded with Katz in July 2019. Katz was 23 at the time and had worked for Jones in 2014 and 2018. Jones was 41.

Jones told Katz in text messages “I want to hang out with u” and “I want to see u after” as the ex-intern asked him for money and said he’d be visiting a strip club. The senator told jurors Thursday that he “hung out with Chris all the time.”

“Including at 3 a.m.?” Ardam asked.

“At times, yes,” Jones responded.

“You would agree with me that, as his employer, you were in a position of authority?” Ardam asked him.

Jones told the prosecutor he wasn’t Katz’s employer in 2019, but she confirmed that he had been, at one point.

“And you weren’t just any employer,” Ardam said. “You were a state senator?”

“Correct,” Jones replied.

During his testimony Thursday, Jones acknowledged that he’d once decided to cooperate with prosecutors. He said he made the call between a pair of meetings with federal authorities in February 2020.

“You know, I was thinking about my career and all the good things I have done,” Jones told the jury. “And I was just confused.”

That’s when Jones said agents asked him to wear a wire against Egan. Jones admitted, for Ardam, that he provided information about “multiple individuals.” But he also told the jury that federal officials asked him to do things “I was not willing to do” like “wear wires on my colleagues.”

Finally, Jones faced questions Thursday about his father. Jones is the son of former Senate President Emil Jones Jr., who led the chamber from 2003 until 2009. Jones III then took over his father’s seat.

That hand-off generated controversy nearly 17 years ago, and Ardam tried to wade into it in front of the jury.

“Were you appointed to fill your father’s seat from August to November 2008?” Ardam asked.

“No,” Jones III told her.

“You were not?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” Jones III insisted.

“Were you appointed in 2008?” Ardam asked, trying again.

“No,” Jones said once again.

Seth Perlman/AP

The Senate biography for Jones III says his tenure actually began in 2009. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in August 2008 that Jones III was chosen to replace his father on the ballot in the November 2008 election.

Still, Ardam pointed to the work history of Jones III, before he became a senator, and noted it was made up of state jobs.

“When you got these jobs, your father was a senator, correct?” Ardam asked.

“Correct,” Jones III replied.

“And your father wasn’t just any senator,” Ardam said, “He was the president of the Senate, right?”

“Not when I first started working at the Secretary of State,” Jones pushed back.

But the prosecutor reminded jurors that, in his testimony earlier this week, Jones III described the Senate president as the “boss of the Illinois Senate.”

Ardam quoted Jones III, asking if that’s “the guy with all the juice?”

“Yes,” the senator replied.

Contributing: Tina Sfondeles and Dave McKinney