Posted on 02/18/2023 4:50:22 AM PST by Salman
A recently unsealed court document reveals for the first time that two top officials at a red-light camera company were caught on undercover FBI recordings talking about giving a suburban mayor campaign contributions and other perks at the same time their firm was pressuring the mayor to increase ticket revenue.
The 2018 FBI search warrant, which sought court approval to search an email account of then-Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta, was part of the broad, yearslong investigation into corruption surrounding red-light cameras operated by SafeSpeed LLC, a probe that has netted charges against more than half a dozen public officials, businessmen and political operatives.
Prosecutors have built much of their case on Omar Maani, one of SafeSpeed’s founders and biggest rainmakers, who turned informant in early 2018 and made undercover recordings and participated in FBI stings where he handed over envelopes of purported cash bribes to Presta and others on the take.
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(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Wow. An FBI sting for a corrupt mayor taking red light camera bribes. They really are tackling the tough cases./s
Since they didn’t mention party affiliation, I looked it up, Democrat, of course.
...Omar Maani, one of SafeSpeed’s founders ...
Is it fair to presume that any city with this company’s cameras had a similar arrangement?
When I first heard about traffic cameras, I was in favor of them, provided that neither the company nor the unit of government that built, installed and operated them was not in any way compensated based on ticket volumes.
Business as usual. Boy our FBI is penetrating into real criminal influence problems. These guys were probably sexually corrupting our children and turning them all into communists too. And bringing in fentanyl. And human sex trafficking.
How much do these guys cost us?
Texas Governor Gregg Abbott just signed legislation here in Texas banning red light cameras.
I love that in Alaskan cities people tent to take twelve gauge shotguns to the cameras.
You want to catch me blowing a light wait there and catch me then pull me over
I disagree, this is what they SHOULD be doing instead of suppress free speech for the Democratic Party.
Clintoons are laughing uncontrollably
I guess “SafeSpeed” needed to be bribing the FBI as well as the run-of-the-mill crooked local politicians. /s
Insurance companies are in on this too as they will raise your rates as you accumulate more of these tickets.
Right. They didn’t grease all the right wheels.
Evidently our LMNOQIAMLEGION communist education system, Mexican cartels, etc. ARE greasing all the right wheels.
I hope you changed your mind a minute later. They are nothing but a money grab.
Between shortening yellow lights, hiding the cameras and bribes.
Speed camera’s are worse. I got tagged in Washington DC. The speed limit dropped from 50 to 25 in about 40 feet. The single camera brought in $13,000,000 in “safety” a year.
Someone finally “accidentally” hit it with a snowplow.
Baltimore County Police had to refund a few hundred thousand dollars after it was discovered that the sworn law enforcement officer who reviewed and signed each ticket had been dead for six months.
Really?
Not familiar with the slippery slope the left uses?
You know they used seatbelt laws as an argument to force people to get “vax”.
We shouldn’t give these commies one single inch. Further we need to claw inches back.
“I was in favor of them”
You wouldn’t if you got one of their CS tickets for not coming to a complete dead stop. I got one once and the video showed wheel lugs barely moving.
Still no arrests in the hunter laptop/bribery/pedo case.
Lots of people value safety over freedom.
Red light cameras are banned in Kentucky, but a new democrat in the state legislature is just introduced a law to try and make them legal.
I think it’s unlikely based on talking to my representative that it could become law. But you never know. The state gets pressure from localities because of their insatiable desire for revenue
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