The former police chief of west suburban McCook was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison Wednesday for conspiring with the town’s then-mayor to extort two businessmen out of tens of thousands of dollars, a scheme the judge called breathtaking in its depth of corruption.
Mario DePasquale, 50, pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, admitting he helped extort a total of about $85,000 from two business owners over a period of five years, often at meetings while he was wearing his gun and badge.
“The idea of a police chief extorting money from local businesses is just — I’d like to think that it was just not done, at least not in this country in the 21st Century,” U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo said in handing down the 27-month prison term. “It just takes my breath away to think that this is happening right now, or was, in the suburbs of Chicago.”
In a statement to the court, DePasquale said he was a good man who fell in with a corrupt crowd with Tobolski, and that he still cannot wrap his head around “who that person was, what he was doing or why he was doing it.”
“I became surrounded by and ultimately involved with some very bad people,” DePasquale said. “These were people without morals, who were ethically bankrupt. I wish I had an answer.”
DePasquale was charged more than three years ago as part of a sprawling federal corruption probe that also ensnared Tobolski as well as a host of other suburban mayors and Democratic power players.
Tobolski, who at the time doubled as a Cook County commissioner, pleaded guilty in September 2020 to participating in the extortion schemes with DePasquale and has been cooperating with the government while awaiting sentencing.
DePasquale, who became McCook’s police chief in 2013, admitted in his 20-page plea agreement with prosecutors that in 2016 he conspired with Tobolski to shake down a business owner who ran a restaurant at a McCook-owned facility and needed the mayor’s approval to host events with liquor.
The charges stated DePasquale demanded the restaurant owner — identified only as Individual A — pay $1,500 in bribes for each “themed event” that he wanted to host. DePasquale later picked up the money in person, and he and Tobolski split the cash, according to the plea.
DePasquale also told the restaurant owner he had to donate to Tobolski’s political campaign funds, which the victim did on multiple occasions, according to the charges.
In all, DePasquale collected $29,700 in cash from the business owner, who “reasonably feared” that if payments were not made, Tobolski and DePasquale would interfere with the themed nights and the restaurant “would go out of business,” according to the plea.
While the charges against DePasquale and Tobolski didn’t identify the restaurant involved in the extortion scheme, federal records from the Sept. 26, 2019, FBI raid in McCook shows authorities seized checks related to the “Pub Max project” and items related to an event dubbed “Latino Night at the Max.”
The Pub at the Max restaurant was part of the McCook Athletic & Exposition Center facility until it closed in 2018 and was replaced with another eatery.
DePasquale also admitted to a second extortion scheme involving another new business owner in town, identified as Individual B. According to the plea, beginning in 2015, DePasquale and Tobolski demanded $1,000 monthly payments from Individual B, who agreed to pay out of fear of losing the business.
In February 2015, DePasquale summoned Individual B to his office, where, “while armed and wearing a badge,” DePasquale told the business owner that they had to make the payments just like the previous owner did.
When Individual B asked what would happen if the payments were not made, DePasquale said words to the effect that “it would not be good” for the company, according to the plea.
Individual B made the $1,000 monthly payments from 2015 to 2019, when the FBI raided McCook’s village hall along with a series of other searches across the suburbs. In all, DePasquale, on behalf of Tobolski, collected about $55,000 from Individual B, according to the plea.
Over the years, DePasquale also asked Individual B for payments for fundraisers and campaigns and “several free items” from the company, which totaled about $1,100 in value, according to the plea.
In his plea agreement, Tobolski admitted that he extorted or collected bribes from at least three other people by abusing his official position as mayor or county commissioner. The amount of bribes he collected totaled at least $250,000, though the plea does not spell out how many victims were involved.
A sentencing date in Tobolski’s case has not been set.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com