One month after his trial ended with a hung jury, State Senator Emil Jones III will be tried again on bribery charges, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday, June 10, at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Jones is accused of protecting red-light camera executive-turned-government-witness Omar Maani in exchange for $5,000 and a job for a former intern. He remained a free man after a deadlocked jury forced U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood to declare a mistrial on April 24. Jurors deliberated for 23 hours and were unable to convict Jones on two of three counts of bribery and lying to the FBI.
Wood is expected to set a new trial date later this month.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri said prosecutors intend to call additional witnesses that could stretch the new trial to four weeks.
Jones did not attend Tuesday’s hearing. His attorneys indicated he’d need to be present for next week’s appearance to discuss a retrial schedule.
Jones has served 16 years in the Illinois Senate. He’s the son of former Senate President Emil Jones Jr.
In 2022, Emil Jones III was indicted on three counts of bribery. Despite pressure from Senate leadership and even Gov. JB Pritzker, Jones resisted calls to resign. He won another term in the Illinois Senate six weeks later, running unopposed. He’s up for another four-year term in next year’s election cycle and must decide this summer whether he’ll circulate petitions in the fall to get on the March 2026 primary ballot while fighting his indictment.
During Jones’ three-week trial in April, federal prosecutors called five witnesses, including Maani, who testified that he’d met with Jones for three separate dinners in the summer of 2019 at the FBI’s direction. 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.
Jones was also interested in Maani hiring his former intern, Christopher Katz.
During a secret video recording of his dinner with Maani on July 17, 2019, Jones said “If you can raise me five grand, that’d be good. 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?”
During his trial, Jones made the risky decision to testify in his own defense. Jones 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.
Jones told the jury that after seeing the tapes in full, he concluded the feds “tried to twist what I was saying” when he was initially shown “snippets” of the recordings in February 2020 after his attorney received a letter that charges were imminent.
Prosecutors also called Katz to the witness stand, along with a pair of federal agents who questioned Jones about Maani in September 2019. But the jury could neither agree on whether Jones lied to the agents, nor whether Jones agreed to bribes in the form of a job for Katz or the campaign contribution — money that Maani never actually paid the senator.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri said the fact that Jones was still willing to move forward with Maani even after the FBI cooperator hinted that the contribution and job would be part of a bribe indicate that Jones had no objections — despite his testimony six years later.
Maani’s own bribery charge was dismissed in 2023 as part of his agreement as government witness. Maani’s cooperation with federal prosecutors also led to guilty pleas from a handful of public officials involved with Maani and his businesses, including then-Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, who received $75,000 in cash from Maani, never knowing the cash was provided by the FBI. At a dinner between the three in late June 2019, Sandoval hinted at benefits he received from Maani and told Jones that Maani “wants to be your friend.”
After Jones’ trial ended, the five-term senator returned to Springfield for the final weeks of the General Assembly’s spring legislative session; prior to his time in court, Jones hadn’t been to the Capitol since January’s lame duck session and inauguration activities.