A federal judge sentenced a former Chicago transit official to 18 months in prison Nov. 20 for his role in a scheme to bribe a state senator on behalf of a contractor and to file a false tax return.
William Helm was deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation in 2018 when a construction company offered to pay him $20,000 as a consultant to help with Illinois Department of Transportation approvals for signage and work roads related to a development project in the east. Dundee, Ill., admitted in a plea deal earlier this year.
Helm offered some of that money to then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, who was chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, for his help in getting IDOT approved. Sandoval attended a meeting with IDOT, the contractor, and Helm, and tried to get IDOT to approve the signage and road work, although Sandoval told Helm that he did not trust the contractor and that Helm never paid him, according to the plea agreement.
Sandoval later resigned from the state senate while under investigation. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to unrelated bribery and filing false tax returns charges in a separate case. Sandoval died in late 2020 of COVID-19 before he was ever convicted.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the unidentified company was one controlled by Joseph Palumbo, who in 1999 had been sentenced to 21 months in prison for overbilling materials on highway projects in a separate case.
Helm faced up to 13 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000 on the two charges, but prosecutors recommended only 18 months, writing in a sentencing memorandum that Helm had admitted to other corruption cases in which he had been involved. The apparent details were in court records, but prosecutors previously wrote that he admitted to offering and obtaining other bribes totaling more than $40,000.
An attorney representing Helm did not immediately respond to inquiries.
