CHICAGO — The stepsons of a deceased mob-connected businessman have pleaded guilty to participating in a red-light camera kickback scheme that funneled thousands in cash payments to the then-mayor of Oakbrook Terrace in exchange for a lucrative cut of ticket proceeds.

James Colucci, 56, of Lisle, and Joseph Colucci, 51, of Mokena, each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Friday to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, court records show. Sentencing guidelines call for up to about three years in prison for each defendant.

U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold has not set a sentencing date. Attorneys for the Colucci brothers could not immediately be reached Monday.

The guilty pleas mark the latest — and perhaps the last — convictions stemming from a sweeping federal investigation into bribes and kickbacks involving red-light cameras installed by SafeSpeed LLC, which generates millions of dollars in fines from motorists each year in nearly two dozen Chicago suburbs.

They also scuttled a potentially fascinating trial that had been scheduled for later this year and would have featured the testimony of former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci, who admitted to starting the kickback scheme with the Colucci brothers’ stepfather, Dennis Colucci, a onetime associate of notorious Outfit hit man Harry Aleman.

Ragucci was expected to testify about accepting envelopes filled with cash from Dennis Colucci in his office and later from the brothers after lunch meetings at Chicago-area steakhouses like Gibsons, court records show.

“Hi T … Are you still good at 1 @ Gibs?” Joseph Colucci texted Ragucci before one meeting at Gibsons in February 2019, court records show. After Ragucci responded, “Yes,” Colucci texted “Cool….see you there.”

Ragucci also met frequently with SafeSpeed co-founder Omar Maani, who began secretly cooperating with the FBI and recorded a July 2018 meeting where Ragucci asked for an additional cash each time he re-upped the village’s contract with the camera company, according to a recent prosecution filing.

“I do everything myself,” Ragucci allegedly said during the meeting. “If you could give me … uh …” Ragucci said, placing five fingers down on the table to indicate that he wanted $5,000 for signing the renewal letter, according to prosecutors.

“Five?” Maani allegedly asked.

Ragucci replied, “Is that too much?”

Prosecutors said Dennis Colucci’s company, DSC Enterprises, which acted as a sales representative for SafeSpeed LCC as it sought to expand to new territory, signed an agreement with Ragucci more than a decade ago to collect a whopping 14% of the revenue that SafeSpeed generated in Oakbrook Terrace, court records show.

After the money started flowing, Dennis Colucci agreed to pay $3,500 a month in cash bribes in return for the mayor’s continued support of SafeSpeed-operated cameras in his town, according to Ragucci’s plea agreement.

Before he died in January 2018 at the age of 78, Colucci met with Ragucci and his stepsons to discuss the arrangement, telling the brothers to “continue making monthly payments to Ragucci” after his death, according to court records.

The Colucci brothers allegedly continued to pay the mayor each month until September 2019, when the investigation went public with a series of FBI raids.

In all, Ragucci accepted about $88,000 in illicit funds from the Colucci’s and Maani over the three years of the scheme, according to his plea agreement.

Investigators seized $67,000 from Ragucci’s home in 2019, about $7,000 of which was in “marked bills” that had been provided to Maani by law enforcement during the undercover investigation, according to prosecutors. He also must pay about $7,000 in unpaid taxes to the federal and state government.

Maani, meanwhile, struck a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office, and bribery charges against him have since been dismissed.

SafeSpeed and its CEO, Nikki Zollar, have not been accused of any wrongdoing and say any bribes offered by Maani — who has since left the company — occurred without the company’s knowledge.

The sprawling case also ensnared the now-deceased state Sen. Martin Sandoval, who headed the powerful Senate Transportation Committee, Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta, and several longtime Democratic political operatives.

Democratic State Sen. Emil Jones III, the scion of the former Senate President, was also charged with taking bribes from Maani, but a jury deadlocked in 2025 and he later entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office.

News reports and sources indicate Dennis Colucci’s ties to Outfit figures went back decades, though he never was charged with any mob-related activity and neither of his sons had any reputed mob ties.

In May 1977, Dennis Colucci was one of four alibi witnesses who testified on behalf of Aleman, one of the Outfit’s most feared killers, who was on trial for the 1972 slaying of William Logan, a truck dispatcher and Teamsters union member.

According to a Tribune report of the trial, Colucci, then a dock worker at McCormick Place, testified he was with Aleman hitting golf balls at a Melrose Park driving range on the night Logan was gunned down outside his West Side home.

Ragucci was expected to testify he met the elder Colucci in 2006 at a bar in Broadview that they both frequented. After Dennis Colucci died, he frequently complained to Maani that the Colucci brothers were not as attentive with their payments, though eventually they ironed things out, according to the recent prosecution filing.

In April 2019, Maani recorded a meeting at a restaurant where Ragucci said the Colucci brothers had been “consistent” with their payments, according to prosecutors.

“The Colucci boys are alright,” Ragucci said on the recording. “They come see me every two months.”

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