James Formato was preparing for bed after a shift as a Berwyn police officer in 2004 when he glanced in the bathroom mirror and barely recognized his own reflection, his face prematurely aged by stress, alcohol abuse and more than a year spent committing crimes as part of a violent group linked to the Chicago Outfit.
Formato said he vowed at that moment to abandon the crime ring and straighten out his life.
But more than two years later federal agents confronted him about his involvement with the crew, which had bombed a rival video poker business and pulled off home invasions and jewelry heists that netted nearly $2 million.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman sentenced Formato to almost 4 years in prison. The 47-month sentence had been worked out in a plea deal in return for Formato’s cooperation with investigators.
In pleading guilty nearly two years ago to racketeering and obstruction of justice, Formato acknowledged that he passed sensitive law enforcement information to mobsters, cased burglary targets and often acted as a lookout for robberies and burglaries, sometimes while he was on duty as a cop in the west suburb.
“I really feel that I need to apologize to the people that I took an oath to protect,” Formato, 45, told the judge Tuesday. “I went rogue and that was not anywhere in my plan for life.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tinos Diamantatos said Formato was “a good cop” for most of his first decade in Berwyn, but his descent into criminal activity in 2002 was swift and complete.
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In a letter to the judge, Formato said he became involved with the mob-connected crime ring at a time when he “felt like my life was falling apart.” After discovering his wife’s alleged infidelity, Formato said, he began abusing alcohol, his marriage crumbled and he was blocked from seeing his son.
Around the same time James Tortoriello Sr. — Formato’s biological father and a reputed mobster with whom Formato had previously had little contact — asked him to deliver a cardboard box stuffed with at least $150,000 in cash, according to court records. Formato agreed to drive the alleged proceeds from the holdup of a drug dealer to his father’s home in Florida.
“For one of the first times I can remember, he seemed proud of me,” Formato wrote of his father, who has died.
Tortoriello introduced Formato to the crime crew led by Michael “the Large Guy” Sarno, and he was soon a key part of their schemes.
The first home Formato burglarized belonged to an elderly woman who lived down the street from him. While on duty, he had been sent to check on the neighbor and realized the home was a good burglary target, so he and an accomplice returned a few hours after his shift ended.
In another case, Formato arranged for a crew member to spray graffiti on the garage of a coin dealer targeted for burglary. Formato later went to the house on duty under the pretense of investigating the vandalism, but he was actually checking out the home’s locks and interior.
Another time Formato was investigating a burglary when the homeowner mentioned that the thieves missed a safe — and that the victim would soon be leaving town for a week. The crew struck the day he departed.
“There could be no worse abuse of trust than a sworn law enforcement officer, a civil servant … ultimately abusing that power in trying to enrich himself or herself,” Diamantatos said.
But the prosecutor also credited Formato’s cooperation — he wore a wire and testified at trial — for leading to the convictions of Sarno, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and several others.
Twitter @RyanTHaggerty