A lawyer for deceased former state Sen. Martin Sandoval wants the politician's name dropped from a class action lawsuit, which alleges Sandoval and suburban Chicago officials should pay for allegedly taking bribes to bring red light traffic cameras to their towns.
Sandoval's lawyer says the plaintiff who is pressing the class action did not move quickly enough to replace Sandoval with the former state senator's estate on the list of defendants, as required by law.
More than a year ago, in Chicago federal court, plaintiff Lawrence H. Gress, of Downers Grove, filed a class action suit against Sandoval, a Democrat from Chicago's Southwest Side, who served in the state senate from 2003 to 2020.
Kent Maynard Jr
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The suit said Sandoval took hundreds of thousands of dollars from SafeSpeed, a maker of red light cameras, to promote the cameras and protect them from state attempts to regulate or prohibit their use. Gress further claimed SafeSpeed made "campaign contributions" to Sandoval.
Gress also sued SafeSpeed, former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci, former village of Justice Police Chief Robert Gedville, Alsip Mayor John Ryan and Summit Mayor Sergio Rodriguez, as well as former McCook Village President and former Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski.
Other defendants include Tobolski's chief of staff Patrick Doherty, and former Chicago Deputy Aviation Commissioner Bill Helm.
Gress said he and more than 100,000 drivers were ticketed through red light camera regimes in the southwest suburbs, paying $100 fines for each ticket. However, these motorists should be paid back three times the costs of their fines, because the cameras would not have been in place, if not for a conspiracy by defendants based on bribes and graft, Gress alleged.
According to Gress, the cameras were generating more than $5 million per year in fines for Oakbrook Terrace alone, of which more than $2 million went annually to SafeSpeed.
Sandoval resigned from office and pleaded guilty in January 2020 to federal charges of tax fraud and taking $250,000 in bribes in connection with the cameras. He was working with investigators and had not yet been sentenced, when he died in December from COVID-19 complications at age 56, according to published reports.
Craig Tobin, of Tobin & Munoz, of Chicago, a lawyer for Sandoval, notified Gress of Sandoval's death six days after his passing. In a March court filing, Tobin said Gress had 90 days to substitute another party for Sandoval, but did not do so, which means Sandoval's name must be dropped from the case.
Gress countered the 90-day deadline is not meant to hinder a meritorious action.
"A transitory and inconsequential delay in the filing of a motion to substitute does not constitute 'a basis to dismiss the case outright, nor a sufficient basis to deny substitution,'" Gress contended, quoting from a February ruling by a Chicago federal magistrate judge in another case.
U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold and Magistrate Judge Beth Jantz are handling Gress' suit. Gress asked for an extension to name Sandoval's son, Martin "Marty" Sandoval II, as representative of his father's estate in the suit.
Gress pointed out the junior Sandoval is also a defendant in another allegation of his suit, which claimed Gress was skipped over for a job with Pace suburban bus service, because he was over 60 and white. Marty Sandoval has been a community relations representative for Pace, court papers said.
Tobin urged the court to reject Gress' argument, saying, "There is no question that the 90-day clock began and expired before Plaintiff made any suggestion it was seeking a substitution of a party."
Tobin added that Gress took no steps during the 90 days to replace the deceased Sandoval and did not explain why he was prevented from doing so.
The next hearing in the case is not yet scheduled.
Besides Tobin, the deceased Sandoval has been defended by James Sipchen Jr., of Pretzel & Stouffer, of Chicago, as well as by Chicago lawyer Thomas Crooks.
Gress is represented by attorney Kent Maynard Jr., of Kent Maynard & Associates, of Chicago.