June 12--A federal judge shot down a request Friday to move the trial out of Illinois for a former Chicago transportation official embroiled in a massive bribery scandal over the city's controversial red light camera program.
An attorney for John Bills had asked U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall to move Bills' trial on federal fraud and bribery charges to Las Vegas, arguing the extensive media coverage of the case -- which was prompted by a Tribune investigation -- had thoroughly tainted the jury pool.
In her 10-page ruling Friday, Kendall rejected arguments that Bills couldn't receive a fair trial in Chicago, saying the jury pool was large and diverse enough that any biased potential jurors could be weeded out through the jury selection process.
"Not everyone in the juror pool lives in Chicago, or a municipality that employs red light cameras," the judge noted. "Not every potential juror drives a car. Not every potential juror has received a ticket through the red light camera program. These are all questions that may be asked during voir dire."
According to the charges, Bills, a former top city transportation official who managed the red light camera program until 2011, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash spent on a vacation home, a boat and a Mercedes convertible, along with dozens of trips and an Arizona condominium in return for providing inside information and helping Redflex Traffic Systems obtain $124 million in city business.
The Tribune first disclosed the questionable relationship between Bills and Redflex in 2012 after obtaining a two-year-old internal whistleblower memo written by an ousted Redflex vice president.
After Bills' arrest in May 2014, the newspaper broke stories about still-unexplained spikes of violations at some intersections, resulting in thousands of tickets being sent to undeserving motorists.
In his motion to have the trial moved, Bills' attorney, Nishay Sanan, wrote that the media coverage of Bills had been so "pervasive, relentless and fierce" that Bills could not get a fair trial in Illinois.
The judge disagreed, however, saying that while the Tribune "began its heavy coverage of the case in 2012," only a handful of articles had specifically addressed Bills in the last year and those mostly discussed "factual events happening in court."
"So although reporters are continuously covering Bills' proceedings, 'the decibel level of media attention (has) diminished somewhat' in the time following Bills' indictment in August 2014," said Kendall, citing previous case law.
Bills is scheduled to go to trial on fraud and bribery charges in October.
Karen Finley, the former CEO of Redflex, is scheduled to plead guilty Aug 11, court records show.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
