Sen. Emil Jones III to enter deferred prosecution agreement after
bribery mistrial
[December 12, 2025]
By Hannah Meisel
CHICAGO — State Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, has agreed to a deal
with federal prosecutors that would avoid a retrial and see the three
charges against him — including bribery, wire fraud and lying to the FBI
— dropped a year from now.
Jones’ deferred prosecution agreement, revealed during a Thursday court
hearing, requires him to pay a $6,800 fine and admit to making a false
statement to FBI agents during a surprise 2019 interview at his home.
The senator, who’s served 16 years in Springfield since replacing his
father, former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., was accused of
agreeing to take bribes from red-light camera
entrepreneur-turned-government cooperator Omar Maani in 2019. In
exchange, the feds alleged Jones held back legislation he’d introduced
that was harmful to the red-light camera industry.
But only one of the alleged bribes, a job for Jones’ former intern, ever
came to fruition. And the senator’s high-stakes turn on the witness
stand complicated prosecutors’ narrative that his red-light camera bill
didn’t pass because of Maani’s offers.
After nearly 23 hours of deliberation at the end of Jones’ April trial,
a jury deadlocked and U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood declared a
mistrial.
In June, prosecutors said they intended to try Jones’ case again,
including “a few additional witnesses,” according to Assistant U.S.
Attorney Prashant Kolluri. But the deferred prosecution agreement means
Jones’ retrial, scheduled for Jan. 12, will be canceled.
Jones, who testified during trial that he’d “never had an opponent to
run against” since he replaced his father on the ballot in 2008, is now
facing challenges from two Democrats in Illinois’ March 17 primary.
On Thursday, Jones told Capitol News Illinois that he wished the
deferred prosecution agreement could’ve been executed earlier this year
but was glad to put the case behind him.
“Just happy that I’m able to move on, have a fair election,” he said.
“Looking forward to getting back to serving the people. Sitting on some
committees, passing some bills that’ll benefit my district.”
Jones was removed from Senate leadership after his 2022 indictment but
said it was too soon to have conversations about being reinstated. He
won reelection six weeks after being charged, running unopposed.
Alleged bribes
Jones’ trial pulled back the curtain on a wider probe the feds had
focused on the senator’s longtime colleague, state Sen. Martin Sandoval,
D-Chicago. Maani, the FBI mole, had also bribed Sandoval. And in June
2019, Sandoval invited Jones to dinner with him and Maani at a suburban
steakhouse, during which Sandoval hinted at benefits he received from
Maani.
On secretly recorded video captured by Maani at the dinner, Sandoval
told Jones that Maani “wants to be your friend.”
Over another two dinners that summer, Maani offered a campaign
contribution to the senator in the same conversation he asked about
Jones’ willingness to drop or modify legislation that called for a
statewide study of red-light camera systems in Illinois. Maani testified
he worried a study could be a “prelude to a ban” on his industry.
But Jones was more interested in Maani hiring his former intern,
Christopher Katz.
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“If you can raise me five grand, that’d be good,” Jones said on a secret
video recording of his dinner with Maani on July 17, 2019, after Maani
pushed him to come up with a number for the proposed campaign donation.
“But most importantly, I have an intern working in my office and I’m
trying to find him another job, another part-time job while he’s in
school. … Do you all have any positions available?”
Maani would eventually hire Katz directly, telling Jones later in the
summer that he didn’t have much work for him to do at the time.
“I just wanted to make sure that he’s the type of kid that, you know,
when he gets a check and he’s not doing anything right away, that he’s,
you know, he’s not gonna be spooked by that,” Maani said on an Aug. 12,
2019, wiretapped call. “He’s not gonna be weird and stuff. … Is he —
would he be cool with that for a while? I mean, does he get it? Does he
understand this?”
“Yeah, but um, make sure we find him some work,” Jones replied.
Though he didn’t produce any work product, Katz ended up receiving a
total of $1,800 in weekly payments from Maani over the course of six
weeks until the feds’ investigation — and Maani’s role in it — was made
public on Sept. 24, 2019.On that same day, FBI agents raided Sandoval’s
offices and home. Before his death in late 2020, Sandoval pleaded guilty
to bribery and tax fraud and was cooperating with the government. But in
the hours before the public raids, a pair of agents came knocking at
Jones’ front door to ask about both Sandoval and Maani.
Jones denied having discussed with Maani how a campaign contribution
could be made without having it publicly reported, though another
secretly recorded video played during trial showed Maani asking Jones
how he could contribute to the senator’s campaign without it having to
be reported on public campaign finance records.
During an August 2019 dinner between Jones and Maani, the senator again
turned the conversation from a campaign contribution to a job for Katz.
Maani never wrote a check to Jones for $5,000 or otherwise.
Jones also made the risky decision to testify in his own defense. The
senator told the jury that he was trying to avoid taking money from
Maani, saying he gave off the vibe of a “used car salesman” and that he
was aware Maani was trying to bribe him. But he also contradicted
testimony from Katz, who downplayed his relationship with the senator,
while Jones said they were close.
During his surprise interview with the FBI, Jones also denied knowing
that Katz was getting paid, despite he and Maani agreeing that $15 an
hour was fair during their last dinner six weeks prior.
Other hung juries
Jones’ mistrial was the third high-profile federal public corruption
trial in seven months to end in a hung jury. In February, jurors in
former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s case deadlocked on six
of the 23 counts while convicting him on 10 and acquitting on seven. And
in September 2024, a judge had to declare a mistrial after jurors
deadlocked on all five counts alleging former AT&T Illinois President
Paul La Schiazza bribed Madigan in 2017.
La Schiazza also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the
feds earlier this fall, avoiding a retrial that had also been scheduled
for January.
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