From the time Redflex received the contract in 2003 until Bills retired in 2011, evidence showed that the transportation official used his influence to expand Redflex’s business in Chicago. That resulted in millions of dollars in contracts for the installation of hundreds of red-light cameras. Redflex was enriched—and the company made sure Bills was as well.

The company gave Bills cash, expensive meals, golf outings, airline tickets, hotel rooms, and more. Some of the benefits were given to him directly, while hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was funneled to Bills through his friend Martin O’Malley, whom Redflex hired to facilitate the payoffs.

As a Redflex contractor, O’Malley was paid lavish bonuses as new cameras continued to be added in the city. O’Malley, in turn, stuffed envelopes full of his bonus cash and gave them to Bills, often during meals in Chicago restaurants. O’Malley also used some of the money to buy and maintain a condo in Arizona that Bills used as his own.

Bills had more cash than he knew what to do with. “He would ask co-workers to purchase airfare tickets on their credit cards,” Henderson said, “and then he would repay them on the spot in cash. He had his friends write him personal checks, and then he would immediately give them cash—he would just hand over $3,000 right there.”