Former city official signals he will plead guilty in bribery case
A longtime Chicago political operative who was charged in March with bribing a state lawmaker in the ongoing federal probe of Illinois political corruption signaled late Friday that he may make a plea deal in the case, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court.
Prosecutors have alleged that William Helm, a former deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, paid at least $5,000 to former state Sen. Martin Sandoval in 2018 to influence the development of a northwest suburban road project near land owned by a construction company who employed him as a lobbyist.
At the time, Sandoval was head of the Senate Transportation Committee and held significant influence over the approval of state road projects and the Illinois Department of Transportation.
In an unrelated case, Sandoval in late January admitted taking more than a combined quarter of a million dollars in bribes in exchange for his political influence or official action, including at least $70,000 in government-supplied cash from a SafeSpeed representative who was working with authorities in return for Sandoval acting as its “protector” in the state Senate.
In a status report filed Friday, prosecutors and Helm’s lawyer entered a joint statement saying “the parties anticipate that this case will be resolved without a trial, and the parties request a status hearing on or after September 30, 2020. Defendant agrees to the exclusion of time until the next hearing to allow the defense to review discovery and to negotiate a plea agreement.”
According to prosecutors, Helm was hired in 2018 by a construction company that the Tribune has identified as a business controlled by Joseph Palumbo, a convicted felon who was imprisoned two decades ago along with his father and brother in a massive road-building fraud scheme prosecuted by federal authorities.
The current charges involved the Terra Business Park along
Route 72 and Christina Drive in East Dundee, a mixed-use development that includes an office building, trucking service bays and a planned Speedway gas station.
Helm offered the bribe to Sandoval as his client sought signalization and a road construction project near the development, according to the indictment.
Business and land records show Palumbo controls two firms involved in the project. Palumbo Management LLC oversees the development while PAL LLC owns the land.
Palumbo, 68, has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Helm, a long time operative of the 47th Ward organization, also previously worked for IDOT. He was forced out of his public payroll jobs after being accused of pressuring airport truck drivers to do political work. He denied the allegation.
Helm also has surfaced in other tentacles of the government’s sprawling probe. His name was listed in the 2019 search warrant seeking records from village hall files in southwest suburban McCook, where now-former Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski was mayor. SafeSpeed records were also on the list of records sought.
The Tribune has reported previously that Helm was among a list of clouted political players working as sales agents for SafeSpeed, the company that has been at the center of multiple cases brought by prosecutors in the investigation.
In an unrelated announcement Friday, federal prosecutors revealed the latest bribery-related charges in the red-light camera scandal. In a case that does not involve Helm, prosecutors charged Lou Presta, the mayor of south-suburban Crestwood, with taking money to promote the use of the cameras in his town. Federal authorities said they have a video recording of Presta accepting an envelope containing $5,000 in cash from a SafeSpeed official in March 2018. Presta has denied any wrongdoing, and authorities said he told them there was no money in the envelope.
More than 100 people rallied Saturday morning at Chicago’s Daley Plaza, demanding police reform, asking people to make sure they vote in November and decrying instances of alleged police violence in the city and suburbs.
The crowd carried signs with photographs of their loved ones and sang together as participants played drums and shouted, “No justice, no peace.”
Bertha Rosiles’ hand shook slightly as she cried and called for justice for her son, Abel Rosiles Jr., 21, who died June 18 after an encounter with police officers eight days earlier at a Round Lake Beach gas station in Lake County. Bertha Rosiles said her son was arrested at the gas station under unclear circumstances and later was admitted to a hospital.
Round Lake Beach police have said Abel Rosiles swallowed a plastic baggie of apparent cocaine, but the family does not believe the police department and has demanded answers. Rosiles said her son appeared physically injured at the hospital.
“My son had dreams. He had goals,” Rosiles said in Spanish, translated by her daughter.
LaToya Howell, the mother of Justus Howell, who was shot and killed by a Zion police officer in 2015, stood behind Rosiles and rubbed her back as she spoke about her son.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., spoke at the rally and noted the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, a police reform bill he has cosponsored. Among other measures, the bill would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants for federal agencies and limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to local departments.
Durbin said the bill has little chance of passing while President Donald Trump is in office.
On the stage, Beatrice Roberson held a large photograph of her son, Jemel Roberson, who was shot and killed by a Midlothian police officer while working security outside a Robbins bar in 2018. Nearly two years later, no charges have been filed in connection with her son’s death, which happened as he subdued a shooting suspect outside the bar.
“I still haven’t been able to rest,” she said. “Jemel, mommy is fighting for you.”