A federal jury has begun to deliberate the corruption case against businessman James T. Weiss, who is accused of bribing two state lawmakers to have legislation passed in Springfield.
The jury retired at 10:18 a.m. Thursday after hearing a final argument from Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine O’Neill. She told them “the corruption in this case was blatant and obvious.”
“The defendant tried to buy laws that were favorable to his business,” O’Neill said. “He did this not once, but with two sitting politicians.”
Then, when confronted by FBI agents in October 2019, O’Neill said the agents gave Weiss “off-ramps on his highway of lies, and he refuse(d) to take them.”
Weiss sat forward in his seat at the defense table during O’Neill’s argument, watching her intently. He is a son-in-law of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios.
Weiss is accused of paying $32,500 in bribes to then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo, a Democrat, to push legislation that would explicitly legalize unregulated gambling devices known as sweepstakes machines. When a landmark gaming package passed the Illinois General Assembly without that language, the men allegedly paid bribes to then-state Sen. Terry Link, a key lawmaker on gaming.
Link, also a Democrat, was secretly cooperating with the FBI at the time. He has since left the Senate, pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and is awaiting sentencing. Arroyo has admitted taking bribes from Weiss and is serving a nearly five-year prison sentence.
Weiss’ attorneys insist the payments he made to Arroyo between November 2018 and October 2019 were not bribes but consulting fees for Arroyo’s help blocking an ordinance before the Chicago City Council. It would have banned sweepstakes machines in the city.
O’Neill told jurors they’d “heard zero evidence at this trial that Rep. Arroyo ever did anything in the city for sweepstakes.”
Weiss’ lawyers also say he was not aware of a bribery deal struck between Arroyo and Link. But O’Neill crossed her fingers as she told jurors Weiss and Arroyo had become “intertwined” during their scheme.
Finally, O’Neill addressed the claim that prosecutors can’t disprove Weiss’ comment that he once spoke to someone on the phone he thought was Katherine Hunter — a fictional person created by the FBI amid its investigation. Weiss is charged with lying to the FBI in part for having said so to agents.
“We can’t prove that he didn’t talk to the Tooth Fairy on the phone either,” O’Neill said. “But you know that that didn’t happen.”
Former state Sen. Terry Link walks with his lawyer to the exit of the Dirksen Federal Building Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times file
Former state Rep. Luis Arroyo walks out of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse after pleading not guilty to charges of bribery in February 2020.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
State Rep. Bob Rita during a public opening of BetRivers Sportsbook, the first brick-and-mortar sportsbook approved by the Illinois Gaming Board at Rivers Casino in Des Plaines.
Ashlee Rezin /Sun-Times file
James T. Weiss, left, with his attorney Ilia Usharovich, at the Dirksen Federal Building on June 1, 2023.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file