Former state Sen. Terry Link is expected to resume testifying in a federal courtroom Monday about his undercover work for the FBI in a bribery investigation allegedly involving a colleague in the General Assembly and a politically connected businessman involved in the shady world of sweepstakes gaming machines.
Link, 76, a Vernon Hills Democrat who resigned in 2020 after being hit with federal tax charges, is the star prosecution witness in the case against James Weiss, the son-in-law of former Cook County Democratic boss Joseph Berrios, who is accused of agreeing to pay bribes to Link and then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo in order to advance legislation that would help Weiss’ sweepstakes gaming business.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Franzblau on Wednesday, Link spent about an hour and a half taking the jury through his role spearheading the state’s massive gambling overhaul legislation in 2019, as well as a shouting match he had with Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat, about it on the Senate floor and a secretly recorded meeting at a Highland Park Wendy’s where prosecutors say the proposal to pay off Link was first made four years ago.
When the trial resumes Monday, prosecutors are expected to play a key portion of the recording, when Link and Arroyo excused themselves from the table to talk privately outside. FBI agents stationed outside the Wendy’s took surveillance photos of the two legislators talking that are expected to be shown to the jury.
“This is you and I talkin’ now. Nobody else,” Link said to Arroyo once they were alone, according to court records.
“Whatever you tell me stays between you and me,” Arroyo allegedly responded. “That’s my word.”
During their purportedly private talk, Link told Arroyo he was “in the twilight” of his career and was “looking for something” to bolster his income. Arroyo said he would “make sure that you’re rewarded for what you do, for what we’re gonna do moving forward,” according to court records.
“Let’s be clear… my word is my bond and my, my reputation,” Arroyo allegedly said
Link’s appearance in a federal courtroom took on an added spectacle since he had vehemently denied reports — including in the Tribune — that he was the cooperating state Senator A mentioned in the charges first made public in October 2019.
His voice wavering and hand shaking from a medical condition, Link, told the jury he started cooperating with the FBI after being confronted with federal income tax evasion allegations.
Link, who long spearheaded the General Assembly’s massive gambling legislation, revealed to the jury for the first time that he spent some of the ill-gotten funds from the tax scheme on “gambling.”
He’s since pleaded guilty to the tax charges and is hoping for a break on his sentence in exchange for his undercover work, he said.
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.
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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 Arroyo and later to Link, who was a chief sponsor of the gambling bill in the Senate, according to prosecutors.
“Instead of giving up, the defendant doubled down,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine O’Neill said in her opening statement Tuesday.
Weiss’ attorneys, meanwhile, say Weiss was paying Arroyo as a legitimate consultant for his business, and that trying to enlist another politician’s help is not a crime.
“There isn’t any dispute concerning the payments that the government says Weiss paid,” defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky said in his opening statement. “We are saying those were not bribes, and those were not payments to deprive the people of the state of Illinois of the honest services of certain legislators.”
Arroyo pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged scheme but did not agree to cooperate with prosecutors. Seeger sentenced Arroyo to nearly five years in prison last year, calling him a “corruption superspreader.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
