‘I want to see u': State Sen. Emil Jones III sent ex-intern late-night texts, money for strip club

Yahoo

12-04-2025

Prosecutors in the bribery trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III presented evidence Friday showing Jones took a former intern to an expensive steak dinner, gave him money for a strip club and sent late-night texts asking to get together, all shortly before pushing for him to be hired by an executive for a red-light camera company.
'I want to see u,' Jones texted Christopher Katz at about 2 a.m. on July 7, 2019, according to one string of messages shown to the jury.
Katz, then 23, had partied with Jones earlier in the night and twice asked the senator to send him cash, which evidence showed he did. Katz also invited Jones to the strip club, Sky11 in Harvey, but Jones did not agree to go.
Hours later, shortly after 5 a.m., Jones sent Katz another message, saying, 'Yo Wyo,' or 'What you on?'
'Sleep,' Katz replied.
'Naw u up?' Jones asked.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri asked Katz if he found it 'surprising or curious' that his much older former boss was seeking to party with him. Katz said he didn't at the time.
'I figured … maybe once or twice we could maybe get outside the workplace and maybe hang out,' Katz said.
Within days of that episode, Jones, a Chicago Democrat, sat down for dinner at Steak 48 with SafeSpeed LLC co-founder Omar Maani, who wanted Jones' help with red-light camera legislation pending in Springfield. In addition to asking Maani to raise $5,000 for his campaign, Jones pushed for a part-time job for Katz with SafeSpeed — something that seemed far more important to him than the money.
'The main thing is, take care of my intern,' Jones told Maani, who was secretly recording the meeting for the FBI. 'That's it.'
Maani wound up paying Katz a total of $1,800 over a six-week period even though he didn't do any work.
In his direct examination Friday, Kolluri asked Katz: Did you ever ask Jones or Maani why you were being paid week after week when you weren't doing any work?
'Well, I assumed that work would come — eventually,' Katz said.
Jones, 46, whose father, Emil Jones Jr., led the state Senate for years before orchestrating to have his son replace him in 2009, is charged with bribery, use of an interstate facility to solicit bribery and lying to federal agents. The most serious charge carries up to 10 years in prison, while the others have a five-year maximum term.
If convicted, Jones would be forced to resign under Illinois law and would almost certainly forfeit any future pension.
The trial, which began with jury selection on Monday, is expected to wrap up next week.
Katz, who was the prosecution's second witness, told the jury Friday he met Jones about 10 years ago through his mother. He started working as a summer intern at Jones' district office in Roseland in 2014, and had a similar position in 2018 when he was between schools.
The next year, Katz testified, he was looking for work because he was about to start school at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Katz says he checked in with Jones but there was no job available with his office at the time.
It was around that time that the text messages shown by prosecutors started. On July 7, 2019, Jones sent Katz a message saying, 'Sup u going to the after party?' Katz replied that he 'may have other plans,' then asked: 'U think u can slide me a lil sum thru cash app?'
Katz testified the request for money 'was more like me asking for a little bit of change for me for later on.'
'At the time I was a little low on funds and he had given me jobs in the past,' Katz told the jury. 'I figured that it would be I guess wise from my point of view to ask him.'
He said he didn't remember how much money the senator sent. The texts show he wrote, 'Thanks Senator!' Jones then responded: 'U Welcome. I want to hang out with u.'
Meanwhile, Jones met with Maani and floated the idea of hiring Katz. Maani testified earlier this week that it caught him 'off guard a little bit' and that Jones was the one who came up with the $15-an-hour figure. But he promised to make the hire, saying he'd keep it quiet to avoid raising any alarms with SafeSpeed.
As part of an FBI ruse, Maani later told Jones that he actually didn't have a position for Katz, but would pay him for 20 hours a week anyway.
'I just wanted to make sure that he's the type of kid that when he gets a check and he's not doing anything right away that he's not gonna be spooked by that,' Maani told Jones on a phone call that August. 'He's not gonna be weird and stuff, you know, he gets it.'
'Yeah, but make sure we find him some work,' Jones replied. When Maani asked again if Katz could be trusted, Jones replied, 'Oh yeah. Definite. Definite.'
Later, Katz and Jones joked over text message about going to Steak 48 on Maani's dime.
'LMAO Omar trying to make sure I don't file my red light camera bill anymore. He thinks steak 48 will do it,' Jones wrote in one exchange.
Katz responded: 'lol I see.'
During cross-examination, Jones' attorney Robert Earles did not address the texts at all, instead taking Katz through his resume and qualifications as a member of the National Honor Society and aspiring architect who was paying his way through school.
Earles also hammered home repeatedly that Katz believed he was being hired for a legitimate job at a reasonable hourly rate, and the fact that he was not assigned any work did not seem unusual to him at the time.
Late in the day, prosecutors called FBI agent Kelly Shanahan, one of the lead agents on the case who gave the greatest detail yet on how investigators got onto Maani in the first place.
Shanahan said the investigation into Maani began in 2017 and was part of a broader probe of bribery and corruption in the south suburbs. While looking into bribes paid to a municipal official to obtain a liquor license, the FBI intercepted Maani on wiretap calls, talking to SafeSpeed sales consultants about red-light cameras and benefits and other types of contributions being made, she said.
The FBI began tapping Maani's cellphone in the summer of 2017 and listened to his calls for about two months, which included calls with then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval and numerous other public officials, she said. On Jan. 29, 2018, Shanahan and an IRS agent approached Maani at his Burr Ridge home to try to get him to cooperate.
'He potentially had the ability to sit down and meet with individuals and record conversations,' things the FBI couldn't do, Shanahan said.
At the time they had secured four search warrants, including for Maani's home, his cellphone, SafeSpeed's offices in Chicago and Casa de Montecristo, a cigar bar in Countryside where Maani often met with officials, she said.
A couple of hours later, Maani called the FBI and asked for a meeting, arriving at the FBI office in Orland Park without an attorney. 'He said that he didn't want an attorney, that he didn't trust anybody,' Shanahan said. Maani said he'd cooperate undercover, and wound up doing so for the next 18 months, she said.
Jones came into the picture relatively late in the investigation, after Sandoval was recorded discussing Jones and his legislation proposing a statewide study of red-light cameras. The FBI then instructed Maani to go to Sandoval and ask for an introduction to Jones.
Asked to estimate how many people Maani cooperated against in total, Shanahan thought for a moment before replying, 'several dozen.'
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