Illinois Sweepstakes Baron Gets 5 ½ Years for Bribing Lawmakers

The proprietor of an Land of Lincoln sweepstakes machine stage business was sentenced to Phoebe and a half years inwards prison Wed for bribing 2 tell lawmakers and prevarication to the FBI.

James T. Weiss denied greasing the palms of former State Rep. Luis Arroyo and former State Senator Terry Link inward a bidding to farther his business. But a federal jury disagreed, convicting him inwards June of honorable services fraud, wire fraud, and bribery.

Arroyo was sentenced to quintuplet years behind bars in 2022 for accepting $32.5K in bribes from Weiss via his lobbying firm, Spartacus 3, and for conspiring with Weiss to corrupt Link.

Weiss wanted Arroyo to funding legislation to decriminalize sweepstakes machines, which are unregulated and control in a grayness expanse of the practice of law inwards Illinois.

Secret Recordings

Arroyo’s try to military recruit Link into the connive inward June 2019 proven to be his undoing. Unbeknownst to him, Link had been nabbed by the FBI for taxation evasion and was prepared to on the Q.T. book the flowering depravity inwards a entreat to lessen his sentence.

In those recordings, Link is heard asking, “What’s inward it for me?”

Arroyo responds: “I’m sledding to spring you this here. This is … this is the jackpot,” handing his confrere a check off for $2,500.

Arroyo and then promised similar monthly payments if Link agreed to back the proposed legislation.

A star attestant for the prosecution, Link was convicted of revenue enhancement equivocation in 2020 and is allay awaiting sentencing.

Weiss was interviewed by the FBI inwards Oct 2019 and told them a bundle of lies, according to prosecutors. These included that he knew and had spoken to someone named “Katherine Hunter.”

Federal agents had instructed Link to narrate Arroyo to piss the checks out inwards this name. But Hunter did non exist.

‘Walk of Shame’

Weiss’ lawyers had argued that the graft scheme had been spearheaded past Arroyo and that their client had but naively gone along with it. But on Wednesday, US District Judge Steven Peter Seeger said he believed the connive was Weiss’ idea.

Sentencing Weiss, Peter Seeger bemoaned the degeneracy prevalent inwards Windy City politics.

Mr. Weiss, you added another star to Chicago’s walking of shame on the sidewalk of corruption,” he told the defendant, as reported by The Windy City Sun-Times. “You live what? It is an embarrassment. You helped solidify the metropolis of Chicago as the uppercase of corruption, Mr. Weiss.”

He also rebuked Weiss for trying to grease one's palms both the House and the Senate, according to The Windy City Tribune.

“It was bicameral corruption!” he complained.

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