Former state Sen. Terry Link asks judge for probation after wearing wire on fellow lawmaker

Link testified he’d withdrawn money from his campaign account and ‘used some for gambling.’

Former state Sen. Terry Link asked a judge Wednesday to give him probation for dodging $82,000 in taxes, arguing that he has done everything in his power to make amends — including wearing a wire.

“In word and in deed, Mr. Link has done everything in his power to right his wrong,” his defense attorney Catharine O'Daniel wrote in a 20-page memo to U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland.

The request comes more than three years after Link, a Vernon Hills Democrat, pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return. Lawyers only began to move forward with his sentencing after his testimony in last year’s trial of businessman James T. Weiss.

Weiss now is serving a 5 ½-year prison term in Minnesota for bribing Link and then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo, both Democrats. Arroyo also is serving a 57-month prison sentence in Florida for taking Weiss’ bribes.

But by the time Weiss and Arroyo approached Link in 2019, Link had become a secret FBI informant who would wear a wire, hoping to catch a break in his separate tax case.

Link’s sentencing hearing now is set for March 6.

This report was published in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For more, visit chicago.suntimes.com.