A manager at McCormick Place and an associate were arrested Wednesday morning on federal fraud charges alleging they collected kickbacks they referred to in coded communications as “bottles of wine” from inflated bills for snow removal projects at the Chicago convention center.
Dominick Gironda, 54, of Bloomingdale, and his associate James Sansone, 38, of Batavia, were each charged in a three-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court with mail fraud and honest services fraud. Each of the counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Both men were arrested early Wednesday and pleaded not guilty during arraignments before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan, who ordered them released on their own recognizance.
According to the indictment, Gironda signed off on payment for the false invoices on items including compensation for equipment that hadn’t been used or people who hadn’t worked on a project. Sansone, who acted as an intermediary with the snowplow companies, received the money and passed some of it back to Gironda, the charges alleged.
In all, the two collected about $26,700 in kickbacks from 2022 to earlier this year, the indictment alleged.
Sansone, Gironda and an unnamed company president discussed the kickbacks in coded text messages that referred to the payments as “bottles of wine,” according to the indictment. Sansone was related to the president of one of the plowing companies, referred to as “Individual A” in the indictment.
The president of another contractor, referred to in the charges as “Individual B,” was also involved in the scheme, the indictment alleged. Three checks totaling more than $90,000 were sent to a Tinley Park post office box for Individual B’s company, the indictment said.
Gironda appeared in court Wednesday and entered his not guilty plea through his attorney, Mark Sutter. Sansone appeared right after Gironda and also pleaded not guilty.
Among the conditions for Gironda’s release were to avoid contact with anyone involved with snowplowing at McCormick Place, and to notify his employer of the charges within 10 days.
Sutter initially objected to the last requirement, saying there was “a significant rumor mill” around McCormick Place and he didn’t the news about his client “to be blasted all over the McCormick Place bulletin and turn him into something he’s not.”
Finnegan said Gironda could just notify his direct supervisor, OVG360, which the McPier Authority contracts to run services at McCormick Place.
“It may be in the news, no?” the judge said.
Reached by phone after the hearing, Sutter declined to comment on the case, saying he needed time to examine the government’s evidence.
McCormick Place, one of the largest convention centers in the world with over 2.6 million square feet of exhibition space, has over the years been a hotbed of fraud, ghost payrolling and bid-rigging, much of it related to organized crime.
A decade ago, reputed Chicago Outfit enforcer Rudy Fratto was sentenced to federal prison for using confidential pricing information about competitors’ bids to undercut the competition and come in with the low bid on forklift contracts for two trade expositions at the convention center.
