Former state Sen. Terry Link on Wednesday became the latest government mole to take the witness stand in a Chicago political corruption trial, testifying about wearing a wire against then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo and a politically connected businessman as part of a bribery probe involving the shady world of sweepstakes gaming machines.

Link, 76, is the star prosecution witness in the case against James Weiss, the son-in-law of former Cook County Democratic boss Joseph Berrios, who is accused of agreeing to pay bribes to Arroyo and Link in order to advance legislation that would help his sweepstakes gaming business.

Link’s appearance in a federal courtroom took on an added spectacle since the Vernon Hills Democrat had vehemently denied reports — including in the Tribune — that he was the cooperating state Senator A mentioned in the charges first made public in October 2019.

His voice wavering and hand shaking from a medical condition, Link, who resigned in 2020, told the jury he started cooperating with the FBI after being confronted with federal income tax evasion allegations.

Link, who long spearheaded the General Assembly’s massive gambling legislation, revealed to the jury for the first time that he spent some of the ill-gotten funds from the tax scheme on “gambling.”

He’s since pleaded guilty to the tax charges and is hoping for a break on his sentence in exchange for his undercover work, he said.

Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Franzblau, Link spent about an hour and a half taking the jury through his role in the gambling bill, as well as a shouting match he had with Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat, about it on the Senate floor and a secretly recorded meeting at a Highland Park Wendy’s where prosecutors say the proposal to pay off Link was first made four years ago.

U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger recessed the trial for the week with Link still on direct examination. His testimony is expected to continue Monday.

Link’s long-awaited turn on the witness stand came on the heels of testimony by two of his former colleagues in the General Assembly, current state Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, and ex-state Sen. Tony Munoz. They both told the jury about Arroyo’s push to add language legalizing sweepstakes gaming machines to the gambling legislation in 2019.

“He continually pressed the issue to the point that I didn’t want to talk to him any more,” said Rita, who also testified in March in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial. “The frequency and the persistence was pretty extreme.”

Weiss, 44, who is married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios, is charged in a superseding indictment filed in October 2020 with bribery, wire fraud, mail fraud and lying to the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty.

The case centers on the largely uncharted world of sweepstakes machines, sometimes called “gray machines,” which allow customers to put in money, receive a coupon to redeem for merchandise online and then play electronic games like slot machines.

Since the machines can be played for free, they are not considered gambling devices. Critics, however, contend the unregulated devices, which operate in cities, including Chicago, that have banned video gambling, are designed to skirt the law.

Prosecutors have alleged Weiss desperately wanted the state’s gambling expansion bill to include language explicitly legalizing sweepstakes machines, but it was left out of the proposal in the 2019 spring session. Weiss then agreed to pay monthly $2,500 bribes to get a deal done, first to Arroyo and later to Link, who was a chief sponsor of the gambling bill in the Senate, according to prosecutors.

“Instead of giving up, the defendant doubled down,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine O’Neill said in her opening statement Tuesday.

Weiss’ attorneys, meanwhile, say Weiss was paying Arroyo as a legitimate consultant for his business, and that trying to enlist another politician’s help is not a crime.

“There isn’t any dispute concerning the payments that the government says Weiss paid,” defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky said in his opening statement. “We are saying those were not bribes, and those were not payments to deprive the people of the state of Illinois of the honest services of certain legislators.”

In his testimony Wednesday, Link said he was “adamantly opposed” to sweepstakes machines being added to the bill because “they didn’t want to be regulated and taxed the same as the slot machines that are governed by the Gaming Board.”

Link said Arroyo kept pestering him about it as the bill was being finalized in the spring 2019 session, culminating in a confrontation on the Senate floor where Link said he “kind of exploded.”

“I used some unfriendly language,” Link testified, “like, ‘Get out of here, it’s not gonna happen.’ ”

After the judge told Link it was OK to use the exact language, Link testified: “I said, ‘Get the f— out of here.’ And I apologize for saying that (in court).”

In a July 2019 phone call that Link secretly recorded, Link apologized to Arroyo for his blowup, saying he had “10,000 things on my mind” that day and that getting the gambling bill to a vote was “like trying to herd cats.”

“You were a little aggressive but I guess you had a job to do,” Arroyo said on the call. “In the heat of battle, you gotta battle right?”

Later that month, the two legislators arranged in another call to meet at the Wendy’s to talk about sweepstakes machines. Link started the call by telling Arroyo, “Sorry I’m getting old I couldn’t get to the phone fast enough.”

Arroyo laughed, saying, “I’m getting there too, brother.”

Link told the jury that was actually part of the ruse. He’d let the phone go to voicemail because the FBI recording equipment could only be activated on outgoing calls.

Link said he drove to the meeting at the Wendy’s on Route 41 and Half Day Road on Aug. 2, 2019, while wearing the recording equipment. There at a table were Arroyo, Weiss, and “another gentlemen who I didn’t know who he was.”

Court records show the fourth person was an associate of Weiss.

The recordings made by Link that were played in court Wednesday are very muffled and at times drowned out by the restaurant’s background music, including the 1980s-era hit “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister.

Transcripts of the recordings have been given to the jury but not disseminated to the public as of Wednesday.

Link could be heard at one point apologizing again for his rant earlier on the Senate floor. “Everything is timing,” Link said to the group.

“You was under a lot of pressure that week, so was I,” Arroyo replied, before giving another pitch for adding sweepstakes legislation in the veto session that fall. “I don’t know if there was something we could work on now.

Link testified that Arroyo wanted to use a “trailer bill” in the fall session, and asked Link if he would support it.

“I don’t work too well on the Senate side, Terry,” Arroyo could be heard saying on the recording.

Link testified that meant Arroyo “was basically looking for a Senate sponsor because he didn’t have any Senate sponsor at that time to do the legislation that he wanted.”

On another clip from the conversation played for the jury, Weiss explains at length how hard it had been to get legislative clarity on sweepstakes machines, even after distributing draft language to Shaw Decremer, a lobbyist who had spent years as a top legislative aide to then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

“There is a misconception of whether it’s legal or not legal,” Weiss said on the recording.

Link said on the recording he’d talked to Decremer in April 2019, and he was supposed to get the draft bill to him but never did. “Nothing against Shaw … he forgot it or something, it wasn’t in its final form,” Link said.

When the trial resumes Monday, prosecutors are expected to play a key portion of the recording, when Link and Arroyo excused themselves from the table to talk privately outside. FBI agents stationed outside took surveillance photos of the two legislators talking that are expected to be shown next week.

“This is you and I talkin’ now. Nobody else,” Link said to Arroyo once they were alone, according to the charges.

“Whatever you tell me stays between you and me,” Arroyo allegedly responded. “That’s my word.”

During their purportedly private talk, Link told Arroyo he was “in the twilight” of his career and was “looking for something” to bolster his income. Arroyo said he would “make sure that you’re rewarded for what you do, for what we’re gonna do moving forward,” according to court records.

“Let’s be clear … my word is my bond and my, my reputation,” Arroyo allegedly said.

Arroyo pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged scheme but did not agree to cooperate with prosecutors. Seeger sentenced Arroyo to nearly five years in prison last year, calling him a “corruption superspreader.”

Earlier Wednesday, Rita, who memorably told a federal jury at the “ComEd Four” trial in March how Madigan ruled his fellow Democrats “through fear and intimidation,” took another turn as a government witness. Rita testified he received a “non-target letter” in connection to the Weiss investigation and other federal probes. Rita testified in the recent ComEd Four bribery-related trial that convicted top utility officials and lobbyists.

A champion of casino expansion into Chicago and elsewhere, Rita testified Arroyo was “persistent” and “extreme” in his efforts to add sweepstakes machines to the gambling package, confronting him in the Capitol hallways and on the House floor. Rita also received a text message from Arroyo to call him as the far-reaching gambling package lumbered toward passage in late May during the spring 2019 legislative session, Rita said.

At one point in the legislative process, Rita saw an amendment to the gambling package that included legalizing sweepstakes machines. And while his name went on the amendment, he testified he was unaware of how the sweepstakes provision was added and then called legislative staff.

Rita said he opposed the sweepstakes provision, and it was removed from the ultimate bill that passed.

It’s not uncommon for lawmakers to have legislation introduced in their name before they can read the full text of the bill during the hectic days at the end of a legislative session.

Pressed further by O’Neill whether someone tried to “sneak” the sweepstakes piece into the package, Rita said: “It appears that way, yes.”

Trying to throw Rita off balance, Weiss attorney Ilia Usharovich prompted the lawmaker to acknowledge he’d accepted campaign donations from both sweepstakes proponents and opponents, including Rick Heidner, a video poker kingpin. But Rita also testified he was not improperly influenced by political donations.

When Rita was asked to identify Weiss in the courtroom, the defendant stood up immediately from his seat between his two lawyers. Rita noted a blue shirt and other clothing on Weiss. Absent from Rita’s description was the large cartoon Mickey Mouse on Weiss’ tie.

Also taking the witness stand Wednesday was Munoz, a Chicago Democrat who is now a lobbyist for the video gaming industry. Munoz said he was also approached several times by Arroyo about the sweepstakes gaming legislation, which he opposed because “they don’t get vetted by the Gaming Board.”

Munoz said that Arroyo and Weiss approached him twice at the Capitol in the spring of 2019 asking for a meeting about sweepstakes machines, but he put them off, saying they’d “have to get a meeting with everyone” involved with the bill.

On cross-examination by Usharovich, Munoz confirmed that Arroyo never tried to bribe him.

He also said that he’d taken campaign donations from Heidner and others in the video gaming industry that he now works for but said he doesn’t know how much.

“Over 2 million?” Usharovich asked.

“I’ve never received any kind of money like millions,” said Munoz.

Usharovich also asked about a junket Munoz went on to Las Vegas, where he stayed at a lobbyist’s house and was wined and dined.

“They paid for your stuff?” Usharovich asked. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yes,” Munoz replied.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

rlong@chicagotribune.com