* Capitol News Illinois…

As prosecutors gave their closing arguments Monday in the trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III, they cast doubt on Jones’ testimony last week that red-light camera entrepreneur Omar Maani made him “uncomfortable” when he hinted at a bribe in the summer of 2019, asking the jury why — if that was true — did he keep meeting Maani for dinner and answering his calls and texts?

Maani, who’d been acting as an FBI cooperating witness for 1 ½ years by the time he and Jones kicked off what would eventually be a series of three dinners that summer, “littered” their meetings with words that should’ve been “screaming red flags,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam said.

She pointed to the times when Maani told Jones he wanted to get “creative” in how he’d pay a potential campaign contribution or otherwise “conceal” it from public reporting requirements — lest it look “goofy” or “funky” to either the media or other leaders inside his company, SafeSpeed.

“These words are giant red flags. These words should’ve had the defendant running for the hills,” Ardam said. “Instead, the defendant does the opposite.”

* Tribune…

His defense attorney, Victor Henderson, made a bid to dodge that label by pitching the case as a David versus Goliath battle between the government and one man, arguing that federal investigators deployed the executive to try to entrap Jones into taking a bribe.

Jones, Henderson said, never took a bribe and instead aimed to get a contribution of food for a legitimate campaign event.

“He doesn’t go to Omar. They send Omar to him,” Henderson said of the FBI. […]

Henderson, Jones’ lawyer, told the jury his client only met with Maani to try to overcome a roadblock in his long-stalled legislation for a statewide study on red-light cameras, seeking to balance a complex array of viewpoints and motivations in the state capital surrounding efforts to study the effectiveness of the technology.

* More from Capitol News Illinois…

But prosecutors argue it doesn’t matter that Maani never paid Jones, nor does it matter that the senator never amended his legislation in the way that Maani asked for.

“He doesn’t need to do it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri told jurors during the government’s rebuttal arguments Monday afternoon. “The agreement is the crime.”

Henderson, though, reminded the jury that the only reason Jones was invited to multiple dinners with Maani was because the FBI directed it, accusing Maani of trying to “set him (Jones) up.” Since he began cooperating with the government in January 2018, Maani had secretly recorded “dozens and dozens and dozens” of others caught up in the feds’ public corruption probe. […]

* Tribune Criminal Justice reporter Caroline Kubzansky…

* Sun-Times…

[Henderson] argued that the longtime senator had been set up. He questioned why the FBI never sent Maani with an envelope full of cash to offer Jones.

And on the whole, he accused prosecutors of the “Dirksen Two Step.”

“They knew he wasn’t dirty,” Henderson insisted. “They knew he wouldn’t take it.”

The jury deliberated for about two hours Monday before heading home for the night without reaching a verdict. The panel is expected to resume deliberations Tuesday morning.

Click here to follow the trial.