The sentencing comes roughly a week after the feds unveiled details of a recorded conversation that allegedly tied Weiss to the late Chicago mobster Frank “The German” Schweihs.
By Jon Seidel
James T. Weiss walks out of the Dirksen Federal Building after being found guilty of bribery in June.
Politically connected businessman James T. Weiss was sentenced to 51⁄2 years in prison Wednesday for bribing two Illinois lawmakers in a corrupt attempt to change the state’s laws in his favor and then trying to lie his way out of it when the FBI confronted him.
“Mr. Weiss, you added another star to Chicago’s walk of shame on the sidewalk of corruption,” U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger said before handing down the sentence. “Chicago has a hard-earned, but well-earned, well-deserved reputation for public corruption.”
A jury convicted Weiss in June of honest services wire and mail fraud, bribery, and lying to the FBI. His trial stretched over seven days and featured 15 witnesses, including four who have held elected office.
The bribery scheme involved former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, who is now in prison, and former state Sen. Terry Link, who cooperated with the FBI but still faces sentencing for his own tax crimes.
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Seeger told Weiss the scheme was “just gross. Honestly, it’s just gross. We, the people, deserve better. ... You tried to corrupt the state of Illinois and its legal system so you could profit, personally, at the expense of everybody else.
“Some of the arguments that I have heard have suggested to me that you just don’t get it,” the judge said. “In your bones, you don’t get it.”
Weiss’ sentencing comes roughly a week after the feds unveiled details of a recorded conversationthat allegedly tied Weiss to the late Chicago mobster Frank “The German” Schweihs. Weiss’ brother, Joseph Weiss, has been separately indicted for lying to the feds about his brother’s alleged ties to the mobster, who died in 2008.
“Jimmy and Frank were good friends,” Joseph Weiss was secretly recorded as saying, according to prosecutors.
Seeger said he didn’t take those allegations into consideration when handing down Weiss’ sentence.
James Weiss hails from a politically connected family. He is the husband of former state Rep. Toni Berrios and son-in-law of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios. He is also one of seven people who have been convicted at trial this year as a result of the feds’ public corruption investigations here. He is the second of that group to face sentencing.
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Alex Acevedo, a son of former state Rep. Edward “Eddie” Acevedo, was sentenced in July to two months in prison for filing false tax returns. He is already in custody and due to be released next month, records show.
Seeger also last year handed a nearly five-year prison sentence to Arroyo. The judge called the once senior member of the Illinois House of Representatives a “dirty politician who was on the take” and a “corruption superspreader.”
The prosecution of Weiss and Arroyo revolved around unregulated gambling devices known as sweepstakes machines, which can look like video slot machines but offer “free play” options and coupons to users.
Yet Mike Madigan continues to collect 1million a year plus 3% COLA every year in pension.
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