For the first time, the jury in the bribery trial of a politically connected businessman on Tuesday heard a veiled reference to the businessman’s father-in-law: ex-Cook County Democratic boss Joseph Berrios.
The moment came during a recorded interview defendant James T. Weiss gave to the FBI after being pulled over near his west suburban home in October 2019.
In trying to explain how he came to send a $2,500 check to a “consultant” who was actually invented by investigators, Weiss, who is married to Berrios’ daughter, told the agents a story about how hard it had been to gain traction with legislators in Springfield and help advance his sweepstakes gaming machine business.
Weiss said that it was so bad that even then-state Sen. Terry Link, who was spearheading the state’s gambling overhaul and knew his father-in-law well, told him off in vulgar terms at the Capitol.
“My father-in-law interacted with Terry Link for 30 years, and (Link) told me, ‘(Expletive) you’ to my face,” Weiss said on the recording, which was played in court Tuesday. “I didn’t know what to do.”
The reference marked one of the only times Weiss’ influential political family has been mentioned so far in the trial, which is now in its fifth day and could be headed to the jury as soon as Wednesday. The government was expected to rest its case-in-chief Tuesday afternoon.
Joseph Berrios, who was head of the Cook County Democratic Party and also served as Cook County Assessor from 2011 to 2019, has not been accused of wrongdoing, and Weiss’ defense team had argued to keep his name out of the trial to avoid prejudicing the jury.
Jurors on Tuesday were also shown a Post-it note Weiss wrote instructing that paperwork purportedly involving the consulting contract be signed and emailed to a Vanessa Berrios, who was working as Weiss’ assistant at his valet parking company.
Weiss, 44, who is married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios, is charged in a superseding indictment filed in October 2020 with bribery, wire fraud, mail fraud and lying to the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case centers on the largely uncharted world of sweepstakes machines, sometimes called “gray machines,” which allow customers to put in money, receive a coupon to redeem for merchandise online and then play electronic games like slot machines.
Since the machines can be played for free, they are not considered gambling devices. Critics, however, contend the unregulated devices, which operate in cities, including Chicago, that have banned video gambling, are designed to skirt the law.
Prosecutors have alleged Weiss desperately wanted the state’s gambling expansion bill to include language explicitly legalizing sweepstakes machines, but it was left out of the proposal in the 2019 spring session. Weiss then agreed to pay monthly $2,500 bribes to get a deal done, first to then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo and later to Link, who was a chief sponsor of the gambling bill in the Senate, according to prosecutors.
Unbeknown to both Arroyo and Weiss was that Link, a Vernon Hills Democrat, was cooperating with the FBI. Link, who is hoping for a break on his own federal tax conviction in exchange for his cooperation, testified over two days beginning last week about his undercover role.
Arroyo, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to bribery but did not agree to cooperate with prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger sentenced Arroyo to nearly five years in prison last year, calling him a “corruption superspreader.”
Link took the jury through the meetings and phone calls he secretly recorded for the FBI, including one at a Wendy’s restaurant in Highland Park as well as another meeting weeks later at a Skokie pancake house, where Arroyo allegedly handed over the first $2,500 check from Weiss.
“This is, this is the jackpot,” Arroyo told Link as he handed over the check, according to the recording played for the jury Monday. Additional monthly $2,500 payments were expected to be made over the next six to 12 months, totaling $30,000, the charges alleged.
At the direction of the FBI, Link had told Arroyo to have the checks made out to a purported associate named Katherine Hunter, who didn’t actually exist.
When Weiss was later questioned by agents, he lied and said Hunter was a lobbyist who lived in Winnetka and that he’d spoken to her on the phone, according to a recording of the interview also played for the jury Monday.
Weiss’ attorneys have argued Weiss was paying Arroyo as a legitimate consultant for his business, and that trying to enlist another politician’s help is not a crime.
FBI Special Agent Curtis Heide, who was one of Link’s handlers and conducted surveillance of Link’s the senator’s meetings with Arroyo, testified they had search warrants for Weiss’ phone and were sitting outside his house on the morning of Oct. 25, 2019, when Weiss exited and drove away.
They pulled him over and asked him to get in the car, questioning him for nearly an hour and a half next to a soccer field in Maywood, he said.
At one point, Heide confronted Weiss about the payments. “To me this looks like a bribe,” Heide said in the interview.
“That wasn’t my intention,” Weiss replied. “I hired a consultant, I hired a lobbyist to carry out to the legislative action on behalf of my company.”
Weiss was also repeatedly asked about Katherine Hunter — the woman that the FBI had invented — and whether she worked for Arroyo. Weiss said he’d only talked to Hunter once. “It was brief. It was a two-minute phone conversation,” he said on the recording.
At one point, Weiss said he could look through his phone to find out when he talked to her, but then said he didn’t have her number stored.
Testimony Tuesday began with prosecutors playing another clip from the interview where Heide confronts Weiss about whether he’d really talked to Hunter.
“You never had a phone conversation with Katherine Hunter. You didn’t,” Heide said on the tape.
“There was a woman who Luis (Arroyo) put me in on the phone with,” Weiss insisted. “We were … where the hell was it? We met in person. … I’m trying to give you guys the details.”
Suddenly Weiss remembered they were at Tavern on Rush. He said he and Arroyo were at the restaurant on Chicago’s Near North Side when Arroyo said, “I gotta put you on the phone with Katherine about engaging in the agreement.”
“OK, and he said Katherine?” one of the agents asked.
“I believe it was Katherine, yes,” Wiess replied.
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On cross examination, Weiss’ attorney, Ilia Usharovich, pressed Heide about his interrogation methods, suggesting Weiss was intimidated and not given ample opportunity to get out of the car or ask for a lawyer.
“For one hour, you had Mr. Weiss, who is not the smallest fella here, we can see that, in the back of a car with you and another agent?” Usharovich asked.
Heide said Weiss was free to leave at any time, although they still would have seized his phone pursuant to a search warrant. The agent also testified that Weiss had boasted, “He was not a rookie and that he could get an attorney but that he would continue to speak with us.”
Usharovich also played a clip from the interview where Weiss was being grilled about driving Arroyo to the meeting at the Skokie pancake house on Aug. 22, 2019. Over and over, Heide and his partner asked Weiss about giving Arroyo the $2,500 check, his business card, and copies of the legislation he wanted Link to have.
Finally, Weiss seemed to get annoyed.
“C’mon guys. You guys are trying to trap me,” he said on the recording.
