Sen. Terry Link Resigns, Pleads Guilty To Years Of Tax Fraud

CHICAGO — The former chair of the Lake County Democratic Party and assistant majority leader of the Illinois Senate, Terry Link, pleaded guilty to tax fraud Wednesday, admitting in a plea agreement that he used his campaign fund for personal expenses and lied on at least five years of income tax returns. The deal clears the way for Link to avoid having to serve any jail time or forfeit his public pension.

Link under-reported his 2016 income by about $93,900 — more than his salary as a state senator — during a year when he made at least $358,300, according to the plea agreement. Though he was only indicted and convicted on a single count of federal tax fraud, the Indian Creek Democrat also admitted knowingly filing false tax returns in 2012 through 2016 and misappropriating about $73,000 of money from his political action committee, Friends of Terry Link.

Although federal sentencing guideline calculations call for a prison sentence in the range of 10 to 16 months, prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of probation if Link fully cooperates with authorities, according to the plea agreement. Link reportedly wore a wire as part of a bribery investigation into former Illinois state Rep. Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat who pleaded not guilty to federal program bribery.

Link, 73, resigned the state senate seat he has held since 1996 on Saturday, one day after a key election deadline. The maneuver allows the person party leaders appoint to succeed him as 30th District state senator to avoid having to stand for election to the seat in November.

Last month, Link announced his resignation as chair of Lake County Democrats would only be effective Tuesday, which would have allowed him to pick his own senate successor. Facing backlash, he moved the effective date of his resignation forward to Aug. 29, two days before a majority of party committeepeople were set to vote to oust him from the party role.

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Link, who formerly chaired the Senate's gambling committee and sat on a legislative ethics panel, has not responded to requests for comment since his Aug. 13 indictment. Last year, he repeatedly denied being the Illinois state senator in the "twilight" of his career who prosecutors said wore a wire while soliciting bribes from Arroyo at restaurants in Skokie and Highland Park in exchange for a more lenient sentence on a tax fraud case.

Prosecutors agreed during a hearing Wednesday that the tax fraud Link committed was not related to his employment. Despite the felony conviction, Link is eligible to receive a taxpayer-financed lifetime pension as long as the board of the General Assembly Retirement System does not find the offense to have been committed in his official capacity.

The Waukegan native has long had a close relationship with former President Barack Obama, according to past reports, with Link hosting a poker game at his home frequented by his former senate colleague.

"We were just polar opposites," Link told the Chicago Tribune in 2007, ahead of Obama's first run for the White House. "He won easy, I had a difficult race. He was Harvard Law, and I was lucky to get out of high school. He was backed by the independents and here I was, a party leader."

Link was the third Democratic state senator in Illinois to face federal charges in Illinois in the past 13 months and the second to be convicted.

Sen. Tom Cullerton, of Villa Park, remains in the Senate after he was charged in August 2019 with being on the ghost payroll of a union. He has pleaded not guilty to the pending charges. Former Sen. Martin Sandoval, of Chicago, who was charged in September 2019 with taking bribes from red-light company officials, resigned his senate seat in January and pleaded guilty, pledging to cooperate with investigators.

Link's successor as local party chair, Lauren Beth Gash, will have the decisive vote on his replacement, which must be named by Oct. 12. She said nearly 40 people had already contacted her with interest in the job.

"We're in the process of figuring out how we'll make this decision and hope to announce that within a few days," Gash said Wednesday. "This is the last thing we need. We do not want to be dealing with this right now. We don't need distractions while we're working on electing our candidates. That's why Democratic leadership and elected officials called on him to resign much earlier in the summer."

There was no date set for Link's sentencing hearing, indicating his cooperation with prosecutors is not yet complete. U.S. District Judge Robert Dow Jr. scheduled a hearing to check on the status of the case for March 30, 2021.

UPDATES: Convicted Ex-State Senator, Democrat Chair Admits Wearing Wire For FBI