Redflex trial: Is ex-city employee 'greedy' or cloutless scapegoat?

If Chicago's red-light camera operator wanted to bribe its way into a contract in 2003, it wouldn't have picked John Bills' palm to grease, the former city worker's lawyer told a federal jury Wednesday.

Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. would have bribed the mayor. Or an alderman. But Bills, an assistant commissioner in the Chicago Department of Transportation, just didn't have the clout to get the job done, according to attorney Nishay Sanan.

Federal prosecutors disagree and opened yet another sad chapter in Chicago's long saga of public corruption Wednesday, putting Bills on trial for fraud, extortion, bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and filing false tax returns. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Storino called Bills a "greedy public official" who reaped an "almost non-stop flow of benefits" as he helped Redflex cheat its way into $131 million in city contracts between 2002 and 2011.

For full story, click here.