The CEO of a traffic camera company pleaded guilty to participating in an eight-year bribery and fraud scheme involving the cameras in Ohio, the Justice Department said Friday.
Karen Finley pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit federal bribery as part of a scheme to ensure that Redflex Traffic Systems’ red-light cameras were used in Columbus and Cincinnati. Her sentencing has not been set.
Redflex is an Arizona company that provides the ticket-producing systems for 220 communities in the U.S. and Canada.
“Finley and others, including another executive of the company, agreed to provide the conduit campaign contributions with the understanding that the elected public officials would assist the company in obtaining or retaining municipal contracts, including a photo red-light enforcement contract with the city of Columbus,” the Justice Department said.
Finley, who was CEO from 2005 and 2013, was also indicted with others for bribery and other corruption-related charges in 2014 in a similar case involving Chicago’s red light enforcement system. Redflex has acknowledged that it likely paid out $2 million in bribes in that case, which is ongoing.
Redflex was fired by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel last year. In a statement to the Washington Examiner, the company stressed that Finley had “departed” in 2013 and that it assisted the Justice Department in its investigation.
“The government’s actions are not a reflection of today’s Redflex, they are a reflection on the company’s past — a past that the company moved beyond over two years ago by taking specific, strong steps to improve compliance. Redflex’s focus remains on making a life-saving difference in the communities we serve,” the statement said.
An investigative report by the Chicago Tribune last year raised questions about whether the cameras there had been tampered with to snag more motorists, including ones who not made any moving violations. The paper’s report found unexplained spikes in camera activity at 12 intersections that resulted in more than $1,300 questionable $100 tickets.
In Ohio, the Columbus bribes were made through a consultant retained by the company, the department said. The money was reported as “consulting fees,” which were then funneled to the elected officials’ campaign committees. In exchange, the cities installed the company’s cameras at intersections throughout the cities to generate revenue from citations against motorists. The city hired Redflex in 2005 and extended its contract in 2009 and 2010.
The conduit was lobbyist John Raphael, a former city council aide, according to the Columbus Dispatch. In one instance, after City Council President Andy Ginther solicited a donation from Redflex in 2011, the company gave $20,000 to Raphael, who gave the funds to the Ohio Democratic Party, which subsequently gave Ginther $21,000 the following week.
Cincinnati officials were in talks to contract with Redflex as far back as 2005, but a deal became impossible in 2008 after voters approved an amendment to the city charter banning the use of the cameras.
In the Chicago case, Finley funneled bribes to John Bills, formerly the city’s managing deputy commissioner for transportation, through Martin O’Malley, 73, a longtime friend (not the former Maryland governor and current Democratic presidential candidate).
Bills worked with Redflex officials, coaching them to ensure they were picked by the city council. Redflex hired O’Malley as a consultant, funneling $570,000 through him to Bills between 2004 and 2012. O’Malley plead guilty to single count of bribery in December.
After Bills retired from his city job, Redflex arranged to have him hired as a consultant by the Traffic Safety Coalition, a nonprofit group. The coalition was established by Resolute Consulting, which was paid by Redflex. Bills is scheduled to go on trial in December.
Under Bills’ guidance, Chicago created an expansive network of 380 red-light traffic photo systems, generating an estimated $500 million in revenue for the city since 2003.
The Tribune’s investigation found that cameras that had previously generated ticket numbers in the single digits in a day would suddenly garner dozens daily for brief periods then drop back down to their previous levels, figures not explained by changes in traffic patterns.
Drivers who appeal tickets in Chicago ordinarily win 10 percent of the time, but the figures rose to 45 percent for tickets issued during the spike periods, with judges often finding the photos taken did not reveal any violations.
“The experts (consulted by the Tribune) all said the available evidence leads them to only two possible explanations — That ticket procedures were quietly broadened to catch more violators, or that malfunctions led the system to wrongly tag lawful drivers. In either case, the said, the fail-safes that should have guarded against such anomalies didn’t do their job,” the Tribune reported.
