Marco "The Mover" D'Amico (January 1, 1936 – April 22, 2020) was a
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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mobster and
consigliere
Consigliere ( , ; plural ) is a position within the leadership structure of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Italian-American Mafia. The word was popularized in English by the novel '' The Godfather'' (1969) and its film adaptation. In the novel, a ...
of the
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, ...
crime organization. He admitted his role in the Chicago Outfit in
federal court in 1995.
Chicago Outfit career
D'Amico was arrested for gambling in 1958 and 1968 and also for being a patron in an illegal card game in 1976.
He also was involved in a fight at the corner of
Oak Street and
Rush Street, in Chicago, in 1978.
[ He is related by marriage to Robert (Bobby the Boxer) Abbinatti, who is a ]made man
In the American and Sicilian Mafia, a made man is a fully initiated member of the Mafia. To become "made", an associate first must be Italian or of Italian descent and sponsored by another made man. An inductee will be required to take the oa ...
in the Chicago Outfit.
D'Amico has been arrested twice for DUI
Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...
s, once in 1983 and another time in 1989. In the 1983 DUI, D'Amico was charged with aggravated battery
Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the act of creating apprehension of such contact.
Battery is a specific common law offense, although the term is used more generally to refer to ...
in Palatine, Illinois for biting off a police officers finger during the DUI stop. However, the charges were dropped.
For years, however, D'Amico was believed by organized-crime watchers to be the Chicago Outfit's top sports-gambling figure, and he was frequently spotted at funerals for top mob figures.[
On May 20, 1992, D'Amico was brought before a federal grand jury in Chicago after the bombing of a BMW sports car outside the home in Chicago's West Rogers Park neighborhood of Sharon Patrick, the estranged daughter of turncoat mobster ]Leonard Patrick
Leonard "Lenny" Patrick (October 6, 1913 – March 1, 2006) was Jewish-American organized crime figure affiliated with the Italian-American Chicago Outfit. Patrick was involved in bookmaking and extortion and later a government informant.
Emigra ...
, who was set to testify for the prosecution against his old boss, mob fixer Gus Alex.
Indictment, conviction and imprisonment
On November 18, 1994, with a five-year statute of limitations
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
set to expire, D'Amico was indicted
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
on charges of conspiring to commit robbery, operating sports bookmaking
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Bookm ...
and poker businesses, using extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
to collect gambling debts and "juice" loans, and conspiring to commit racketeering. Also indicted were Rick lentini, who was D'Amico's top aide, and Robert Abbinanti
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
, a truck driver for Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department who is related to D'Amico by marriage.
D'Amico, who was ordered held without bond, was accused of running an illegal sports bookmaking business from 1978 until 1992, operating an illegal poker business from 1980 until 1991, attempting extortion against corrupt former attorney Robert Cooley, who was cooperating with authorities and posing as a bookmaker, making "juice," or excessively high, loans at rates of 2 percent a week, extorting "street taxes" from independent illegal bookmakers, and conspiring to rob a moving, high-stakes poker game near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in late 1989.
After being confronted with incriminating taped evidence and the cooperation of Cooley, D'Amico on May 1, 1995 pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to rob what he had been told was a high-stakes card game in Lake Geneva, in 1989 (in which the take could have been as much as $1 million), running a sports bookmaking business and a high-stakes poker game of his own for years, using extortion to collect gambling debts and "juice" loans, and extorting $1,000-a-month payoffs from former Chicago police officer Robert Cooley so Cooley could operate a poker game in a Chicago social club without mob interference.
On October 3, 1995, United States District Judge Blanche M. Manning sentenced D'Amico to 12 years and 3 months in prison.organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
. However, federal prosecutors had been set to call as many as eight witnesses, including several former mob insiders, to testify that D'Amico was second-in-command in the Chicago Outfit's Elmwood Park "street crew," under John DiFronzo. Instead, D'Amico abruptly backed off demands that the government prove that he was a "made member" of the Chicago Outfit, and signed a stipulation acknowledging his leading role with the Elmwood Park street crew and its link to the mob. By signing this stipulation D'Amico had admitted to his crimes and received a reduced sentence.
D'Amico was released from federal prison on July 21, 2005.
Later life
D'Amico lived for many years in South Barrington, Illinois
South Barrington is a residential suburb in Cook County, Illinois, United States, south of Barrington. Per the 2020 census, the population was 5,077. South Barrington is a wealthy suburb of Chicago. It is the location of the famous megachurch W ...
. In the 1990s, he moved to Naperville, Illinois
Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is in the Chicago metro area, west of the city.
Naperville was founded in 1831 by Joseph Naper. The city was ...
, where he lived with his daughter and son-in-law until he went to federal prison. Upon his release from federal prison, D'Amico moved to Westchester, Illinois
Westchester is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a western suburb of Chicago. The population was 16,892 at the 2020 census. The current Village President is Nick Steker, serving in the special role of acting president after ...
, where he resided with his wife. D'Amico was married to his wife Patricia for over 50 years and has 4 children.
D'Amico's cousin, a former Chicago Police Officer Roland "Ricky" Borelli, was part of D'Amico's gambling operation and was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.
References
* Cooley, Robert, with Levin, Hillel. '' When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down''. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004.
{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Amico, Marco
1936 births
2020 deaths
American gangsters of Italian descent
Chicago Outfit mobsters
People from Westchester, Illinois
People from Elmwood Park, Illinois
People from South Barrington, Illinois