The manager of a sweepstakes gaming company in Chicago has received a sentence of five and a half years incarceration for his implication in a complex bribery scheme involving two Illinois state legislators. This development was affirmed by the US Attorney’s Office – Northern District of Illinois – this past Thursday.
James T. Weiss, who presided over a gaming corporation named College LLC, received a sentence of five and a half years in federal prison because of his involvement in the notorious bribery plot. This plan also implicated Luis Arroyo, a prior Illinois State Representative, and Terry Link, who used to be an Illinois State Senator. In June of this year, a federal jury declared Weiss guilty of making false statements, along with committing fraud. Following a trial at the Chicago federal court earlier this week, the sentence was handed down by US District Judge Steven C. Seeger.
Through this bribery scheme, Weiss attempted to broaden his sweepstakes machines business. By bribing Arroyo, the gaming company’s manager aimed to gain his endorsement for the legalization of sweepstakes machines. Currently, these machines are not subject to any regulation in Illinois, and they can function freely given the lack of any legislations that prohibit their use.
For the duration of 2006 to 2019, Arroyo served as an Illinois House Representative. In 2022, he admitted guilt regarding his part in the aforementioned bribery plot and, as a result, he was sentenced to a prison term of almost five years for his role in this felony.
The Quest for Legalizing Sweepstakes through Bribery
This bribery plot can be traced back to 2018 and 2019. During this period, Weiss disbursed substantial amounts of money to Arroyo, who was a State Representative at the time. As per the information provided by the US Attorney’s Office, these bribes were transferred from Weiss’ gaming company to Arroyo’s private lobbying entity in Chicago, named Spartacus 3 LLC.
The bribes took the form of checks which were made payable to Arroyo’s firm in consideration for his advocacy for the legalization of sweepstakes machines. In accepting these bribes, the State Representative consented to endorse such a bill in the Illinois General Assembly and to advance the legalization of sweepstakes machines.
The scope of the bribery scheme grew in August 2019, when Arroyo proposed making bribe payouts to then-Illinois State Senator, Link, so as to secure his support for the sweepstakes legislation. Court documents reveal that Weiss sought to mask these payments in order to give the appearance that they were for “bona fide consulting services”. In an attempt to hide the bribery payments, Weiss issued two checks amounting to $5,000 to an imaginary third party and had them delivered to the Senator.
