CHICAGO — Nearly three and a half years after he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and resigned from the Illinois Senate, Terry Link was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation.
Link, 76, has admitted he dodged nearly $82,000 in taxes by underreporting his income over several years and spent more than $73,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including gambling.
But the longtime chief of the Lake County Democratic Party has been able to avoid a prison sentence and keep his nearly $100,000-a-year state pension after he cooperated with the FBI and federal prosecutors in a statehouse corruption probe.
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Link, a sponsor of the bill that legalized gambling in Illinois and earmarked his native Waukegan for a casin, wore a wire while taking part in a corruption scheme with then-State Rep. Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat who was sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison in May 2022.
Court records show the FBI was listening in when Link met with Arroyo and clout-heavy businessman James Weiss at a Highland Park Wendy’s to discuss a payoff for his support for “sweepstakes” gambling machines. The feds were also listening to his phone calls, prosecutors said.
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The former state senator testified at Weiss’s trial last year before Weiss, the son-in-law of former Cook County Democratic Party chief Joe Berrios, was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years and 6 months.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for Link to be sentenced to between 6 months and 1 year in prison. But due to his cooperation with the government, federal prosecutors recommended that he only receive a probationary sentence.
At Link’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland said it was “despicable” that Springfield is a place where elected officials can ask, “What’s in it for me?” as Link did to Arroyo, “and we’d be off to the races with a federal case,” Capitol News Illinois reported.
Addressing the judge, Link said he accepted responsibility for his tax fraud and felt horrible about it. He said he would “have to pay the consequences for it,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
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Link is on track to keep his nearly $96,000-a-year statehouse pension benefits, according to the Chicago Tribune, with the felonious former senator having already collected nearly $300,000 since he resigned in response to his September 2020 indictment.
Despite his misappropriation of campaign funds for personal use, Rowland and prosecutors agreed that it was not directly related to his public office.
During his 24 years in the state Senate, Link developed a close relationship with former President Barack Obama, with Obama starting a regular poker game at Link’s house.
Link described he and Obama as “polar opposites” in a 2007 Tribune interview.
“He won easy, I had a difficult race. He was Harvard Law, and I was lucky to get out of high school,” Link said. “He was backed by the independents and here I was, a party leader.”
Related: After Wearing Wire On Lawmaker, Ex-Sen. Link Deserves Probation, Federal Prosecutors Say
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