By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
Former Democratic State Sen. Martin Sandoval died Saturday, Dec. 5, from COVID-19 complications, according to his criminal defense attorney Dylan Smith. Sandoval was 56.
Sandoval had been facing prison time after pleading guilty to taking bribes from the red-light camera company SafeSpeed.
Smith said he spoke with Sandoval’s family and learned the once-powerful Illinois politician had died after contracting the novel coronavirus. Smith said Sandoval, “cared deeply about his community and he did a great deal of good … Although he had made mistakes, he took responsibility for them and was sincerely remorseful.”
Sandoval pleaded guilty to corruption charges and was helping authorities to reveal more wrongdoing. He admitted to bribery and tax evasion charges in federal court last January, acknowledging he illegally pocketed more than $250,000 and abused his power as a state lawmaker on behalf of a red-light-camera company.
Just last month, federal investigators wrote in a court filing that Sandoval “has provided valuable cooperation that is expected to last several months.”
Sandoval lived in the Gage Park neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago and died at 10:01 a.m. Dec. 5, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Illinois public health officials reported 9,887 COVID-19 cases and 208 related deaths Dec. 5—the second-highest daily death total since the start of the pandemic.
Sandoval, SafeSpeed sued for racketeering
In February, 2020, the Independent reported that Sandoval and SafeSpeed LLC, the red-light camera company, were targets of a racketeering lawsuit that seeks to void tens of thousands of traffic citations issued through the company’s devices.
The lawsuit alleged that SafeSpeed, its officers and employees, paid bribes to Sandoval and several other local government officials to gain approval for placing its red-light cameras at various intersections in area suburbs.
The lawsuit alleged that Sandoval and others were paid as “undisclosed sales agents” or “consultants” based on a percentage of the revenue generated by the cameras.
Sandoval served in the state Senate from 2003 until Jan. 1, 2020, when he resigned amid the corruption scandal. Starting in January 2009, he was chairman of the powerful Senate Transportation Committee and was instrumental in securing passage of last year’s $45 billion capital improvements program known as Rebuild Illinois.
He was removed from his chairmanship in October, just weeks after federal agents executed a search warrant on his Statehouse office in Springfield where they seized a number of computers, cellphones and boxes of documents.
On Jan. 28, Sandoval pleaded guilty to one count each of federal bribery and tax fraud charges as part of a deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to cooperate with their ongoing investigations.
The suit was filed on Feb. 3 under the federal Racketeering, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law most often used to prosecute organized crime syndicates. But RICO also allows for private civil suits for actions that are part of a criminal enterprise.
The RICO lawsuit, however, is separate from the criminal case, but it is based largely on the same set of facts to which Sandoval has already pleaded guilty.
The suit alleged that beginning sometime in 2016 and continuing through October 2019, SafeSpeed operated a corrupt enterprise, known as an “association-in-fact,” by conspiring with the other defendants to pay bribes or kickbacks to public officials who would steer contracts toward the company for operating red light cameras.
Sandoval was accused of using his position in the Senate to serve as the company’s “protector” by ensuring legislation unfavorable to the company, including bills to ban the use of red-light cameras, would never pass and to help override objections from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) about the placement of certain cameras.
In exchange, SafeSpeed and its employees reportedly arranged to pay $20,000 a year in donations to Sandoval’s campaigns.
The lawsuit was filed as a proposed class action on behalf of an estimated 100,000 or more individuals who were fined between $100 and $200 for each ticket issued by a red-light camera that was “corruptly and improperly installed, over repeated objections from IDOT, as a direct and proximate result of bribes paid.”
While the claim of each individual member of the class is relatively small, the lawsuit argues, combined they add up to millions of dollars.
Among the defendants named in the suit was former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci, whose home was investigated in October of 2019, when federal agents seized more than $60,000 in cash from Ragucci’s home.
It is the second RICO case that lead plaintiff attorney Lawrence Gress has filed involving Sandoval. Another pending case was originally filed in 2017 after Gress was passed over for a job as community relations representative for the Pace Suburban Bus Company in favor of Sandoval’s son, Martin Sandoval II.
That suit refers to Sandoval as “the kingpin at the center of the wide-ranging and longstanding conspiracy” alleged in the case.
