CHICAGO – Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning in the federal corruption trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, who stands accused of accepting alleged bribes from a red-light camera company executive whose cooperation with the feds has also brought down several other Chicago-area politicians.
Jones, the son of former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., has remained in office since his September 2022 indictment on three counts including bribery and lying to the FBI, even winning another four-year term in an unopposed race six weeks after being charged.
Jones has remained stripped of his previous leadership and committee chair roles for the last 2 ½ years. Jones has not been in Springfield for any legislative session days since lawmakers' early January lame duck session and subsequent inauguration events.
If convicted, Jones would be forced to give up his seat in the legislature.
The trial, which is expected to be short, will finally shed more light on a federal corruption probe that went public in the fall of 2019, just as a concurrent investigation into then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's inner circle began heating up.
The trial will mark the first and likely only airing of secret recordings of Jones' former colleague state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, who began cooperating with the FBI after the feds raided his offices in dramatic fashion in September 2019 but died a little over a year later.
