Longtime state Sen. Terry Link was charged Thursday with a federal count of income tax evasion — the third Democratic state senator to face felony charges in a little more than a year.
The one-page criminal information filed in U.S. District Court accused Link, of Vernon Hills, of failing to report income on his 2016 tax return to the IRS. Link listed his income as $264,450 when in fact his income “substantially exceeded” that amount, according to the charge.
Link’s legislative pay is about $88,000 a year, state comptroller records show. He was also one of four state senators who serve on the Legislative Ethics Commission — a position he resigned from Thursday after the charge was made public.
Link, 73, who has served in the senate since 1997 and rose to assistant majority leader, could not immediately be reached for comment, and his lawyer did not return messages. Defendants are typically charged via an information if they intend to eventually plead guilty.
The Chicago Tribune reported last year that Link wore a wire for the FBI in a bribery investigation of his colleague, then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo.
Federal prosecutors alleged Arroyo had sought an unnamed state senator’s support on legislation involving video gambling sweepstakes games that would benefit one of Arroyo’s lobbying clients.
During one recorded conversation, the senator told Arroyo he was “in the twilight” of his career and was “looking for something” to bolster his income, according to the criminal complaint filed against Arroyo in October. Arroyo said he would “make sure that you’re rewarded for what you do, for what we’re gonna do moving forward,” the complaint alleged.
“Let’s be clear … my word is my bond and my, my reputation,” Arroyo allegedly said.
The state senator was also wearing a wire for the FBI when Arroyo delivered the first of the promised $2,500 checks at a restaurant in Skokie in August 2019.
“This is, this is the jackpot,” the complaint quoted Arroyo as telling the senator — identified as Cooperating Witness 1 — as he handed over the check.
Additional $2,500 payments were expected to be made over the next six to 12 months, federal authorities alleged.
The complaint against Arroyo revealed that the unnamed state senator first began cooperating with the FBI in 2016 but was terminated as a confidential source after it was revealed he had filed false income tax returns.
The senator later agreed to cooperate with the FBI again in the hopes of winning a break at sentencing on expected tax fraud charges, according to the complaint.
The Chicago Tribune has previously identified the state senator as Link, though he has repeatedly denied being the cooperating witness mentioned in the complaint.
“Anybody can tell you anything,” Link told a Tribune reporter on the day Arroyo was charged.
Also involved in Arroyo’s alleged scheme was businessman James Weiss, the son-in-law of former Cook County assessor and county Democratic Party boss Joseph Berrios, whose house was raided by the FBI shortly before the charges against Arroyo were unsealed, the Tribune has reported.
In addition, Weiss’ business partner, John Adreani, opened V.S.S. Inc., a sweepstakes machine company that hired Arroyo as a lobbyist, after his firing as a Chicago police officer for consorting with a drug trafficker, the Tribune reported.
Arroyo has pleaded not guilty, and his case is pending.
Neither Weiss nor Adreani has been charged.
The charge against Link marked the latest in a series of wide-ranging investigations against Illinois political leaders.
Last year, Link’s colleague state Sen. Thomas Cullerton was charged in an alleged ghost payroll scheme involving the Teamsters union. Cullerton has pleaded not guilty.
In September, another then-state senator, Martin Sandoval, was accused of taking bribes from a representative of a red-light camera company to act as the company’s “protector” in Springfield. Sandoval pleaded guilty earlier this year and is cooperating.
In addition to Link’s income tax troubles, the Tribune reported in December that Link failed to report a $50,000 profit from the sale of a Florida condominium as required on his state ethics form.
The buyer of Link’s condo happened to be the mother-in-law of a man who sources said is under investigation in the federal probe of Sandoval and SafeSpeed. Link told the newspaper that the tie is a coincidence.
He also said that, after consulting with an ethics officer, he would be amending his statement of economic interests that covered 2016 to include the real estate deal.
“I’m glad you brought it to my attention,” Link said at the time. “To me, it was something I never intended to skirt the issue.”
Meanwhile, the revelation that Link was wearing a wire for the FBI sent ripples through the state’s political landscape.
His cooperation was revealed during the fall legislative session as Link served as the assistant Senate majority leader and a co-sponsor of the state’s massive gambling expansion passed in June 2019.
Link has been integrally involved in efforts to expand casino gambling for many years, and his goal of bringing a casino license to his hometown of Waukegan was finally realized as part of that deal.
Nothing new with dems none of them pay taxes , what is strange is him being charged !!!