Former Cook County official Patrick Doherty sentenced to more than five years for bribery, tax evasion

The former chief of staff for disgraced Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski is the latest public official sentenced to prison in a wide-ranging federal corruption probe targeting Chicago’s south suburbs.

Patrick Doherty, 67, was sentenced to more than five years in prison on counts of bribery and tax evasion and will have to pay back some $80,000 in state and federal taxes. Doherty last year pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors, admitting he was involved in multiple bribery schemes spanning several years, seeking contracts for SafeSpeed to install cameras in south suburban towns and fend off state regulation of the devices.

A longtime political operator who received letters of support from former U.S. Rep. Daniel Lipinski among other Southwest Side pols.

Doherty sat beside his lawyers with his eyes closed as Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam listed the many payoffs Doherty coordinated while working both as a sales agent for SafeSpeed while also holding down a part-time job working for Tobolski.

Doherty considered bribes a cost of doing business, Ardam said, quoting from a wiretapped conversation where he Doherty counseled an unnamed confederate about paying off a public official to get work from the village of McCook, where Tobolski also served as mayor.

“It’s all contingent on what you can give,” Ardam quoted.

Doherty’s interlocutor responded: “It’s like you’re paying a little tax?”

“Right ... juice, street juice …. I hope we can get it before he goes to jail. I hope we can retire,” Doherty replied.

Tobolski pleaded guilty to charges in 2020, agreed to cooperate with investigators and is awaiting sentencing.

Across a half-dozen schemes between 2015 until his indictment in 2020, Doherty paid or coordinated a total of at least $148,000 in bribes. Payouts included $2,000 monthly payments routed to state Sen. Martin Sandoval, who sat on the Transportation Committee, as well as making payments on Sandoval’s mortgage.

Doherty also brokered a $25,000 payout to Sandoval from a trucking business owner to arrange the purchase of a parcel of state-owned land in McCook. Doherty also tried to arrange a no-show job for the son of a trustee in another village where he was seeking a camera deal, and paid dozens of people to do campaign work for suburban officials in exchange for village business.

In an emailed statement, a SafeSpeed spokesman said the bribes were paid out without the company’s knowledge, blaming them on a rogue shareholder.

“SafeSpeed remains profoundly disappointed that a former shareholder was engaged in alleged criminal conduct and that this person allegedly recruited outside individuals, including Patrick Doherty, to help further criminal activities,” the statement read.

Doherty, described by his lawyers as a “broken man,” leaned on a lectern with his eyes downcast as he spoke to the judge.

“I feel sorry for what I’ve put my family through, what I’ve put the system through,” he said. “We will lose our home, we will lose everything we had. I hope you’ll consider my family and what I’ve done to my family and my friends.”

Handing down his sentence, U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman noted that Doherty’s schemes spanned years, and that often he was the one driving the outreach to public officials.

“This was not just a way of doing business, this was a way of life,” Guzman said.

“The defendant’s conduct in this case was not out of character, it was not a mistake, a bad judgment, a spontaneous event.”

Editor’s note: The article was updated to correct Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam’s title.