Ex-McCook police chief gets more than 2 years in prison for extortion that 'takes my breath away,' judge says

Mario DePasquale once carried a gun and a badge as the top cop in the tiny southwest suburb of McCook.

But he also kept them handy when he played the other role he’ll long be remembered for: Jeff Tobolski’s bagman. He even summoned a local business owner into his office at the police station to demand routine $1,000 payments for McCook’s corrupt mayor at the time, according to the feds.

With a gun on his hip, DePasquale allegedly told the owner, “You need to be happy you’re not one of the guys that’s paying me as well.”

U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo said Wednesday that it all “just takes my breath away.” And then she sentenced DePasquale to more than two years in prison, telling McCook’s former police chief “there’s just no putting the blame on the mayor.”

“You don’t join the corruption,” Bucklo said. “You go and report it.”

DePasquale pleaded guilty late last summer to the extortion conspiracy involving Tobolski. On Wednesday, he insisted his crimes were completely out of character.

“I am a good person,” DePasquale insisted. “I’m a good father and a good husband … I’m the guy that helps other people without needing to be asked to do so.”

But he also told the judge he’d become “surrounded by, and ultimately involved with, some very bad people” in McCook — people “without morals” who were “ethically bankrupt.”

His attorney, Jonathan Minkus, went further and called Tobolski “one of the most vile and corrupt people that one could possibly imagine.”

Minkus said Tobolski “created in the western suburbs an almost unfathomable wild west-like atmosphere where everybody was fair game.”

Bucklo rejected that argument, though. And prosecutors insisted that DePasquale was exactly the person who should have put a stop to Tobolski’s crimes. Tobolski also served as a Cook County commissioner.

“Mario’s incredibly sorry and remorseful,” Minkus told reporters after the hearing. “And very much hopes that he’s able to move on from this.”

Asked how DePasquale reacted to his sentence of 27 months behind bars, Minkus said, “He accepts it.”

DePasquale’s sentencing hearing was the latest salvo in the feds’ pursuit of corruption in Illinois.

Former state Sen. Annazette Collins, a Chicago Democrat, was convicted just last week of cheating on her taxes while working as a lobbyist. 

The same day, a judge sentenced the longtime chief of staff to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Tim Mapes, to 2½ years in prison for perjury and attempted obstruction of justice.

Tobolski pleaded guilty back in 2020, admitting he’d engaged in multiple extortion and bribery schemes involving both of his public offices and accepted more than $250,000 in payments “as part of criminal activity that involved more than five participants.”

He agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and has not been sentenced. DePasquale was indicted a few weeks after Tobolski’s plea.

The former police chief admitted last summer that he shook down the owner of a McCook restaurant starting in 2016, as well as the owner of another McCook business starting in 2015.

Tobolski signed a five-year deal in 2013 that allowed the victimized restaurant to operate on McCook-owned property. Then, in 2016, the restaurant began hosting themed events. But DePasquale and Tobolski demanded $1,500 payments for each of those events — $1,000 for Tobolski and $500 for DePasquale, records show.

Even when the events didn’t generate enough money to make the payment, the feds say DePasquale insisted on it. And when the restaurant owner fell behind on sales tax payments, he still paid DePasquale for fear of the consequences, they said.

The restaurant owner eventually recorded one July 15, 2018, shakedown in which DePasquale collected only $600 and said the “boss” — Tobolski — would not be happy about the shortfall, records show. The feds say the restaurant was shut down the next day.

Identified in court Wednesday as “Individual A,” the restaurant owner spoke to Bucklo and told her that DePasquale should have turned in his gun and badge and reported Tobolski’s conduct “to make sure citizens are free from this problem.”

Meanwhile, DePasquale summoned the other business owner to his office in 2015 to demand monthly $1,000 payments, records show. That business owner told the feds he left the meeting feeling “scared to death.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Ardam also told Bucklo that the business owner tried to speak to DePasquale about family and faith so that DePasquale might show him some mercy. But DePasquale allegedly reacted “indifferently.”

DePasquale collected $29,700 from the restaurant owner and $55,000 from the owner of the other business, prosecutors say. The restaurant owner also made $2,500 in payments to Tobolski’s campaign, records show.

Meanwhile, the other business owner apparently once told DePasquale he’d pray for him.