Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced yesterday he is filing a $300 million lawsuit against Redflex, the company federal prosecutors proved had paid a $2 million bribe to win the contract to install red light cameras throughout the city. Chicago has intervened as a plaintiff in a whistle blower lawsuit filed under seal in Cook County Circuit Court by Aaron Rosenberg, a former executive at Redflex who first went to federal prosecutors and told them about the bribery scheme.
Ironically, the City of Chicago has been rewarded handsomely in terms of revenues generated by the contract. Since it began in 2003, the program has generated more than $500 million in traffic fines, although critics say it produced those traffic fines by unfair ticketing practices. Redflex's former CEO, Karen Finley, pleaded guilty earlier this month to her role in the bribery scheme. The bribed former city official, John Bill, is scheduled to go to trial in January.
According to the lawsuit, it would have been a better option if the city had leased rather than purchased the red light camera system from Redflex. The bribery scheme allowed the company to win a one-sided contract that helped the company with capitalization issues it was facing and made it much harder for the city to switch vendors later on since it owned the company's equipment. Bills is accused of circumventing bidding requirements and finding ways to increase the fees Redflex earned under the contract because of the kickbacks he was receiving according to the lawsuit.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was just at least one honest person with a conscience in the administration of Mayor Greg Ballard who would turn whistle blower on his various illegal deals with Blue Indy, Vision Fleet and other companies awarded one-sided contracts during his two terms in office at a huge loss to Indianapolis taxpayers? Hell, do it for greed or spite like this disgruntled former Redflex employee. As a whistle blower, you could hit the lottery from your percent of any recovery against the companies defrauding city taxpayers with the help of our corrupt mayor for the past eight years. We sure as hell aren't going to get any help from our useless federal and state prosecutors, council members or either of the tweedledum and tweedleedee candidates from which we have to choose for mayor this year.
4 comments:
We need to get the Chicago U.S. Attorney to have a way to exercise some jurisdiction in Indiana.
Indiana will only cease being this fiefdom when it is subjected to outside influences.
Yes. It would be WONDERFUL if one or more of the people in the Ballard administration would turn whistleblower (bell ringer) and publicly disclose information about Ballard's illegal deals. He/she/they would be forever known as local heroes!
Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate, had this to say.
Judiciary Branch Has Self-Abolished
The US no longer has a judiciary. This former branch of government has transitioned into an enabler of executive branch fascism. Federal judges are chosen by the executive branch.
Robert's was writing about Privacy issues being run over by the Federal Courts.
Robert's statement is certainly true in Indianapolis. The Elected and Appointed Officials here in Indianapolis are selected based upon loyalty to the Republicrat Party. Thus, there are no checks and balances by the legislative, executive or judicial branches of government. The goal is the furtherance of Crony-Capitalism another name for fascism.
MCB:
They'd probably be killed.
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