Southern Illinois News

Illinois Rep. Paul Jacobs (R-Pomona) shared an update regarding former state Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) and his state pension in a Facebook post from 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.

Jacobs was first elected to represent Illinois' 115th District in the Illinois 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. He currently represents the 118th District.

In his post, Jacobs added a link to a Chicago Sun-Times article regarding the topic. The Chicago Sun-Times says that the decision to revoke Arroyo's pension followed his sentencing of nearly five years in prison on bribery charges. Arroyo, a one-time member of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's (D-Chicago) leadership team, had initially had his pension suspended in November 2021 after pleading guilty to wire fraud related to bribery.

In November 2019, the Illinois Times reported that legislators had learned of Arroyo's arrest on charges of public corruption on Oct. 28 of the same year. Arroyo, who had been accused of bribing a state senator, in addition to other crimes, resigned from the Illinois House by the end of the week. The Daily Herald reported that Arroyo pleaded not guilty to the bribery charges in Chicago's U.S. District Court in February 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 U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Illinois said on its website in May 2022. "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... 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."