Chicago sues city's former red light camera company: newspaper

Reuters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago has sued the company that formerly ran its red light traffic camera program for more than $300 million, alleging that the program was built on a bribery scheme, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported on Monday.

The former chief executive of the Australian camera firm Redflex Traffic Systems pleaded guilty on Aug. 20 in U.S. District Court to federal bribery charges.

The city earlier in August moved to intervene in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in April 2014 by a former Redflex executive vice president, Aaron Rosenberg, who said he was ordered by superiors to help organize the scheme, the Tribune reported.

Chicago alleges in the lawsuit, which was unsealed on Aug. 26, that the entire Redflex program was built on a $2 million bribery scheme, the Tribune reported.

Redflex had contracts with Chicago for 11 years, making as much as $25 million a year. The company was barred in 2013 from doing business with the city and a division of Xerox now runs Chicago's red-light cameras.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Lisa Lambert in Washington)