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The Chicago man who served as a go-between for a local transportation official and a major red light camera company, Redflex, was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison.
In 2014, Martin O'Malley was the first to plead guilty in the trio of criminal cases involving Redflex. (This Martin O'Malley should not be confused with the former governor of Maryland and Democratic presidential candidate.)
O'Malley was paid $2 million for his services, which was more than anyone on Redflex's official payroll. But according to prosecutors, much of that money was funneled to John Bills, a former managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation and a longtime friend of O'Malley's.
Bills helped steer the City of Chicago to do business with Redflex. Chicago was at one time the company's largest deal worldwide. Since losing the Chicago contract as a result of this corruption scandal, Redflex's 2013 pre-tax profits in its North American division (its corporate parent is an Australian company) plummeted more than 33 percent—from $3.4 million in the first half of 2013 to $2.28 million in the second half.
Pity for O'Malley that the "extremely careless" defense had not yet been invented.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:55PM
Pity for O'Malley that the "extremely careless [cnn.com]" defense had not yet been invented.
Phoenix666, if you want to inject obvious political point scoring, please at least have the decency to be correct.
First, lack of mens ria [wikipedia.org] is a well known defense for many (but not all) crimes, and it would have actually gotten him out of this crime if he had been able to prove it. So your political snark fails on a literal level.
Second, different crimes have different requirements and different burden of proof. For example, "I didn't mean to do that" will get you out of a shoplifting charge (imagine a iPad accidentally fell into your purse without your knowledge), but it will not get you out of a manslaughter charge. So your political snark fails on a philosophical level.
Third, I am happy to provide examples of people who have been conviced of cronyism in the past. For example, US Army Major John L. Cockerham [wikipedia.org]. Your turn. Please name one person prior to Hillary Clinton who has been charged and convinced with negligent (not willful, but negligent) mishandling of classified information. I'm guessing you can't as the FBI noted in their press release. So your political snark fails on a factual level.
Well, I guess it did get me to respond, so it succeeds a bias clickbait, so there is that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:24PM
And although the FBI may not have been involved, there are indeed reported felony prosecutions of soldiers for putting copies of classified documents in a gym bag and then not returning them out of fear of discovery; placing classified documents in a friend’s desk drawer and forgetting them; tossing documents meant to be destroyed in a dumpster rather than in the appropriate facility.
Three cases are alluded to in the above sentence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:32PM
Prosecutions are not convictions.
IIRC, one of those took a weird plea bargain, none were convicted at trial.
The problem is not that clinton got the privilege of the benefit of the doubt, but that those so persecuted did not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:30PM
Do you have names, or other things which can be looked up? As always, circumstances matter a LOT in criminal proceedings, and the WSJ article you linked is paywalled.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:49PM
What reputation management tool are you guys at Camp Clinton using these days? I remember evaluating several when I ran things but I felt that $100K and $80K for a software license was silly when they were nothing more than a wrapper on a Google search. Obviously Clinton-as-presidential-candidate generates better cash flow than Clinton-as-Secretary-of-State...
So, how do you find the keyword cloud map, is it pleasing to the eye? Do you feel it's able to adequately measure the delta of your interventions? Also, just curious, do you draw your paycheck from the campaign, the Clinton Foundation, or Edelman PR?
Because we all know that no one writes apologia for Hillary Clinton who is not paid.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:41PM
Because we all know that no one writes apologia for Hillary Clinton who is not paid.
Seriously? So out of the 300+ million people in the US, literally 0 people actually believes in her or supports her? I guess it could be true. Or maybe you should you engage in some introspection and examination for bias.
If it makes you feel better, I am not being paid by the Clinton campaign (and lest you mince words, I'm not being paid by her at all in any fashion). Not that I expect you to believe the assertions of an AC... For what it's worth, I rather dislike her. I'm just tired of the constant attacks in regard to supposed mishandling of classified information.
People like to tote out the citation of the "make it a nonpaper" and how the FBI hasn't prosecuted her for it. Lots of people in the news and online like to rant about things for which they know nothing about. Several supposed smoking guns are in fact benign for those who actually know terminology and procedures. The requests are admittedly unusual, but there is nothing wrong with them.
It's like with George W. Bush. He's done a lot of despicable things, but the 9/11 "truthers" are full of garbage. Or Barack Obama and the "birthers." There are so many other things to attack them on which are real, don't go making stuff up.
If you want to go after Clinton, go after her mismanagement of records. Go after the alleged corruption of the link between the Clinton Foundation and meetings (I say "alleged" because it is currently a developing story and it could or could not be true). There are lots of things you can use to impeach her character or her qualifications. Don't go inventing non-stories about classified information mishandling.