A federal judge on Wednesday called public corruption “an embarrassment to the great city of Chicago.” He said the city has a “well-earned, well-deserved reputation” for it, and he declared that there is a cell “ready and waiting” in federal prison for anyone convicted of it.
Then, he sentenced businessman James T. Weiss to 5 ½ years behind bars for bribing two Illinois lawmakers and lying to the FBI.
“Mr. Weiss, you added another star to Chicago’s walk of shame on the sidewalk of corruption,” U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger said at the end of a nearly five-hour hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Weiss, a son-in-law of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, paid $32,500 in bribes to then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo and $5,000 to then-state Sen. Terry Link — with plans to pay Link $25,000 more — in a corrupt bid to change state law to benefit his business.
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.
Seeger’s speech against public corruption Wednesday was not surprising, given his comments last year when he sentenced Arroyo to nearly five years in prison for his role in the scheme. During that hearing in May 2022, Seeger called Arroyo a “dirty politician who was on the take” and a “corruption superspreader.”
But Wednesday, Seeger said he found Weiss more responsible for the bribery scheme.
“Looks to me like it was your idea,” Seeger said.
Seeger’s latest comments come amid an unusual run of public corruption trials at the Dirksen courthouse in Chicago’s Loop. Weiss is one of seven people to be convicted at trial there this year as a result of public corruption investigations. His conviction in June came one month after four others were convicted of a separate bribery scheme in the Illinois Capitol.
Weiss is the second of the seven to be sentenced. 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 spent part of Wednesday’s hearing questioning attorneys on both sides about Chicago’s persistent public corruption problem. At one point he stopped Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine O’Neill and asked, “Why does public corruption keep happening?” She told him it is “very hard to detect” and “difficult to root out.”
“That’s true everywhere,” Seeger replied. “Why Chicago?”
Ilia Usharovich, one of Weiss’ defense attorneys, later told the judge, “I think that every major city has a problem with public corruption.” His co-counsel, Sheldon Sorosky, later stepped up to address the question. Sorosky once represented former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“We have a very effective, good United States’ attorney’s office here that prosecutes public corruption,” Sorosky said, noting that they’d “been my opponents for over 40 years.”
Prosecutors one week ago alleged ties between Weiss and the late Chicago mobster Frank “The German” Schweihs by revealing secretly recorded comments by Weiss’ brother. On his way out of the courthouse Wednesday, Weiss adamantly denied any tie to Schweihs, noting their age difference.
Weiss is 44. Schweihs died 15 years ago, in 2008, at age 78.
Weiss accused reporters of recklessly reporting the allegation. But a federal grand jury has also indicted Weiss’ brother, Joseph Weiss, for allegedly lying to the FBI when he denied knowing whether James Weiss “ever had anything to do with Frank Schweihs.”
Prosecutors again raised Weiss’ alleged ties to the Chicago Outfit during Wednesday’s hearing, but Seeger made clear he wasn’t considering it. He said, “I don’t know anything about Frank ‘The German.’”
Weiss’ prosecution 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.
Arroyo agreed to vote for and promote sweepstakes legislation in Springfield in exchange for Weiss’ bribes. But when the Illinois General Assembly passed gambling legislation in 2019 that didn’t include the language they sought, the men turned to Link.
Link turned out to be secretly cooperating with the feds and recorded the pair. Arroyo wound up handing him a $2,500 check from Weiss’ business, Collage LLC, and the FBI discovered another Collage check for the same amount in Link’s post-office box. The checks were made out to Katherine Hunter, a fictional consultant made up by the FBI.
Link still faces sentencing for his own separate tax crimes.
When the FBI confronted Weiss in October 2019, Weiss told agents he had spoken to the fictional consultant on the phone.
