Former red light camera CEO indicted, federal probe expands

[Newsjock]

Source: Chicago Tribune

Chicago's red light camera scandal deepened Wednesday with the federal indictment of a former Redflex Traffic Systems CEO on charges she and a top City Hall manager conspired to rig the camera business for a decade.

Karen Finley, one of several Redflex executives dumped amid the scandal, was indicted along with former city official John Bills and a longtime Bills friend accused of being the bagman in a $2 million bribery scheme that ran from 2002 until 2012, when the Tribune first disclosed Bills' ties to the company.

The Chicago program grew into a marquee system for Redflex — the largest in the United States — and generated nearly $500 million in $100 tickets for the cash-starved city. But now it is the subject of multiple probes and political attacks after the Tribune's reports and more recent revelations that thousands of drivers were fined during suspicious spikes in tickets.

... Finley, 54, of Cave Creek, Ariz., was indicted on nine counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, three counts of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.

Read more: http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81075238/

[hobbit709]

1. The red light cameras are nothing but a money making scam for the company-not the cities.

Especially when they got caught shortening yellow light times.

[MohRokTah]

3. Other towns in Illinois shut down their red light cameras.

It was determined that traffic accidents the intersections spiked due to people slamming on their brakes when the lights turned yellow to avoid the inevitable ticket should they go through the yellow light.

[MohRokTah]

2. What a scam!

Hundreds of millions of dollars, and there's no way to fight the bogus tickets because the system said you ran the red light and you cannot depose a robotic camera!

[frazzled]

5. Yeah, you can fight them: we did, and won

Six years ago, in 2008, my husband received one of those red-light tickets in the mail. I was hopping mad at him (assuming he'd done something wrong). We opened it and he was a bit mystified by the location of the infraction: somewhere way on the north side that he didn't recall ever being at. It was of course from several months earlier. I reminded him that sometimes when he visited his Mom at the nursing home in Skokie, he had to take a wacky alternate route home because of traffic. He agreed that he could well have been at that intersection making a right turn on red ... but that, from the three still images provided, he didn't see what he'd done wrong.

We went online to look at the video, and voila--the thing had been badly edited (on purpose?), but still it was clear that my husband was at a full stop before making the turn (you can see cars approaching the intersection in the adjacent lane: they are moving, he is not). So we decided to fight it and got a court date--yet another few months away.

It took several hours between getting there and waiting, and when his turn came he approached the judge (well, not a judge but an adjudicator of some sort) and politely said he didn't believe he had committed the infraction listed on the ticket. She said, "well, we'll see" and pulled up the video. A look of shock came over her face and she called my husband up to the bench to show it to him again (as if he didn't know). And then she announced to the courtroom: "It is incumbent on the state to bring evidence that an infraction has been committed, and the state failed to provide such evidence." She dismissed the ticket, saying it was a real oddity she had never seen before.

We doubt that. We still feel that this ticket was a scam, and that other people probably get them and never bother to check whether it is valid or not. Or even if they do, it is not worth their time and effort to fight it with a court appearance. They just mail in the $100. We don't.

There is no due process in this camera-generated policing. Because cameras can't catch the events on the ground. It may look like you turned left after the light turned red ... and indeed maybe you did. But many times, you honestly have to. You are in the intersection, and someone (a rogue pedestrian, a car coming through after the yellow) blocks your ability to turn, and your only way of getting out is to turn just after the light has turned red.

[cbdo2007]

6. I had one I would have for sure won on, but couldn't take off work to fight it...

in court, because it wasn't worth the $100 savings on the ticket for missing 1/2 day of work. I'm guessing most of them are not valid or are grey areas, but they count on people NOT fighting them and it seems to work. Glad you won yours though!

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Shocked, just shocked. nt

[ThoughtCriminal]

7. Bet Chicago was the only city

more likely graft was part of a business plan.

[L0oniX]

8. This same bullshit is going on everywhere.