Ending a 24-year legislative profession, state Sen Terry Link introduced his resignation on Friday, just about a month after being hit with a federal tax fee.
The Vernon Hills Democrat’s resignation is going into impact at nine a.m. Saturday.
In August, Link was once charged in federal courtroom with submitting a false source of revenue tax go back for the yr 2016, claiming his source of revenue was once $264,450 even if he knew his general source of revenue “substantially exceeded that amount.”
Link may just now not be reached for remark Friday.
State Senate President Don Harmon issued a terse remark, pronouncing best “I look forward to welcoming and working with a new senator from Lake County. We’ve got a lot of work to do for the people of Illinois.”
The case in opposition to Link, 73, is only one piece of a winding federal corruption probe into town and state politicians that looks to were rekindled following a quiet stretch after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
In July, prosecutors charged ComEd with bribery in a case that implicated House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has now not been criminally charged and denies wrongdoing.
Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta was once additionally charged in a bribery case involving the politically hooked up red-light digital camera corporate SafeSpeed. Presta pleaded now not accountable.
There’s additionally hypothesis that Link was once concerned within the downfall of a fellow state lawmaker, former Rep. Luis Arroyo.
Link has denied being the unnamed senator who became on Arroyo and wore a cord for the feds after a supply showed to the Chicago Sun-Times that Link was once the similar senator who have been stuck filing false source of revenue tax returns to the IRS, anticipated to be charged for it, and cooperated as a result of he was hoping it’d earn him some leniency at sentencing.
The feds’ investigations have additionally ended in fees in opposition to former state Sen. Martin Sandoval, and Sen. Thomas Cullerton, who stays in administrative center. Both are Democrats.
First elected to the state Senate in 1996, Link is an established recommend of playing growth, in the end securing a Waukegan on line casino with the sweeping regulation signed through Gov. J.B. Pritzker ultimate yr.
Link was once the top of the Lake County Democratic Party from 1992 till stepping down ultimate month. He is a former poker good friend of ex-President Barack Obama, courting again to the times when the 2 served in combination within the state Senate.
Obama even discussed Link in his 2016 speech to the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield. Though Link ran for mayor of Waukegan in 2013, he completed ultimate in a three-way Democratic number one.
Link is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.