Another political family crashes and burns

Berrios relative indicted in federal bribery case involving ex-Rep. Luis Arroyo. 

The Chicago Sun-Times last year identified James T. Weiss — Joseph Berrios’ son-in-law — as a player in the case against Arroyo that also led to the downfall of former state Sen. Terry Link. (rumor has it that he is a blood member of the Daley family)

By Jon Seidel, Tim Novak, and Lauren FitzPatrick Oct 2, 2020, 2:49pm CDT

James T. Weiss owns and operates sweepstakes machines and runs the Alliance of Illinois Taxpayers, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, largely from personal injury law firms allied with House Speaker Michael Madigan. Illinois secretary of state



A son-in-law of former Cook County Democratic Party chair and county assessor Joseph Berrios has been charged as part of the federal bribery case filed last year against former state Rep. Luis Arroyo.

The Chicago Sun-Times last year identified James T. Weiss Jr. — husband of Berrios’ daughter Toni Berrios — as a player in the case against Arroyo that also led to the downfall of former state Sen. Terry Link. A new indictment filed in the Arroyo case Friday added Weiss as a co-defendant of Arroyo’s.

Federal prosecutors first signaled in June they would be expanding the case against Arroyo, telling a judge that “additional, related charges will be brought in the near future.” The new indictment charges Arroyo and Weiss with mail and wire fraud, as well as bribery. Weiss is also charged with lying to the FBI.

Weiss owns Collage LLC, which operates unlicensed video gambling machines known as sweepstakes machines. Weiss also ran the Alliance of Illinois Taxpayers, a PAC that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, largely from personal injury law firms allied with House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has already been implicated in a separate federal bribery case filed against ComEd.

Other donors to the PAC included individuals with ties to Madigan’s political organization.

Madigan has not been criminally charged and has denied wrongdoing.

Weiss, 41, of River Grove, lobbied Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), whose proposal to legalize sweepstakes machines in Chicago failed. Weiss’s company Collage LLC has spent more than $80,000 lobbying state legislators to legalize sweepstakes machines, which look like video poker machines that are legalized. The sweepstake companies operate in a gray area in which they are neither illegal or legal, but they are outlawed in the city of Chicago.


Prosecutors first charged Arroyo with bribery in a criminal complaint in October 2019. In doing so, they revealed a state senator had been cooperating with them off and on since 2016 and expected to be charged related to his filing of false income tax returns. A source identified that senator as Link.

Link publicly denied that he was the unnamed senator. But Link has since been charged and pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return, publicly agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors. He stepped down from the Senate last month.

The feds say Arroyo, who resigned from the House after he was charged last year, tried to bribe the senator to move sweepstakes gaming legislation forward in Springfield.

Though Arroyo has pleaded not guilty, the machinations of the case so far have signaled an eventual guilty plea. In February, Arroyo waived his right to be indicted by a federal grand jury, which would have had to find probable cause for the charge against him. That move followed the filing in January of a one-page charging document known as an information, which is another typical sign that a defendant intends to plead guilty.

Weiss was born into a politically-connected family in Bridgeport neighborhood, the longtime power base of the Daley machine.

His grandfather, Edward J. Murray, served as a deputy treasurer until he was fired by then-city Treasurer Miriam Santos. Murray ran an unsuccessful campaign to oust Santos and then became a cash manager for the Chicago Board of Education. Murrray also had ownership stakes in two restaurants at Navy Pier.

Five years ago, Weiss got married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios, whose father ran the Cook Democratic Party while serving as Cook County assessor ruling on property tax appeals filed by clout-heavy lawyers, including Madigan and Ald. Edward M. Burke.

The former assessor is also a lobbyist in Springfield, who clients have included the Illinois Gaming Machine Operators who oppose efforts to legalize sweepstakes machines, like those owned by Weiss.

Weiss is a close friend of Madigan’s only son, Andrew, an executive at Alliant/Mesirow Insurance Services which sells insurance to various government agencies.

Weiss and his mother, Mary C. Murray, have run two Bridgeport-based charities aided by powerful political allies such as Cook County Commissioner John Daley and his nephew Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th). One of the charities, the Benton House, is a former settlement house operating an emergency food pantry on South Gratten, and the other is a scholarship fund.

One of Weiss’ companies also held lucrative contracts parking cars on lots owned by the Chicago Public Schools near both ballparks, the United Center and Gibson’s Steakhouse downtown.

Those contracts were terminated in February after CPS sued him and his company earlier this year for allegedly failing to pay the schools system “no less than” $366,000 for the right to use the school lots for his car parking business, mostly near Wrigley Field. That case is pending.

Weiss was unavailable for comment as he is on vacation with the Berrios family in Puerto Rico.