SE Illinois News

Illinois State Representative Paul Jacobs (R-Pomona) shared information regarding former State Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) and his state pension in a Facebook post published on June 26.

"The General Assembly Retirement System board voted Friday to strip former state Rep. Luis Arroyo of his more than $4,500-a-month state pension," Jacobs wrote, adding a link to a Chicago Sun-Times article on the topic published on June 23.

Jacobs was first elected to represent Illinois' 115th District in the State House of Representatives in 2020. Known for his optometry practice and successful winery, Jacobs also served in the U.S. Navy from 1965 to 1971.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the decision to revoke Arroyo's pension followed his sentencing to nearly five years in prison on bribery charges. Arroyo, a one-time member of former State House Speaker Michael Madigan's leadership team, had initially had his pension suspended in November 2021 after pleading guilty to wire fraud related to accepted bribes.

On November 7, 2019, the Illinois Times reported that legislators had learned of Arroyo's arrest on charges of public corruption on October 28 of the same year. Arroyo, who had been accused of bribing a state senator, among other crimes, resigned from the State House by the end of the week. According to the Daily Herald, Arroyo pled not guilty to the aforementioned bribery charges in Chicago's U.S. District Court on February 4, 2020.

"In 2018 and 2019, Arroyo accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from the gaming company, Collage LLC, in the form of checks made payable to Spartacus," the United States Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Illinois wrote in a May 2022 press release. "In exchange for those bribes, Arroyo promoted legislation in the Illinois House of Representatives related to the sweepstakes industry and advised other state lawmakers to support the legislation."

"In August 2019 Arroyo offered to have payments made to an Illinois state senator in return for the senator’s support of sweepstakes-related legislation. On Aug. 22, 2019, Arroyo met with the senator at a restaurant in Skokie, Ill., and provided him with a $2,500 check from Collage as an initial bribe payment, with the expectation that the senator would receive similar payments for 12 months. Arroyo told the senator, 'This is the jackpot,' and then wrote the name of the senator’s nominee on the company’s check. The nominee’s name was used for the purpose of concealing the illicit payment."