Orland Park businessman Vincent Del Giudice has been a bookie for most of his adult life, but it was a collaboration with an illegal offshore website that shot his sports gambling operation into the stratosphere, federal prosecutors say.
At its height, Del Giudice’s gambling ring generated as much as $161 million in illegal wagers in a single year and employed more than a dozen agents, including mob-connected runners, corrupt cops and even Casey Urlacher, a legendary Chicago Bears linebacker’s brother who later received a presidential pardon, court records show.
On Wednesday, Del Giudice, 56, who goes by the nickname “Uncle Mick,” was sentenced to a year and a half in federal prison for gambling conspiracy and money laundering charges, marking an end to what prosecutors have described as the biggest illegal bookmaking case ever to be brought in Chicago.
In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said Del Giudice was something of a “chameleon” to her, someone who for years ran an illegal enterprise but also was known as being generous and kind to others.
“To see these two sides of your personality is challenging to a judge, it really is,” Kendall said.
In addition to the prison sentence, Kendall ordered Del Giudice to pay about $3.5 million in forfeiture, including $1.06 million in cash and $450,000 worth of silver bars, jewelry and gold coins, that were found in his home when agents raided it in April 2019.
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Before the sentence was handed down, Del Giudice read a brief statement to the court apologizing for any hurt he caused.
“I understand what I did was wrong and I affected many people with my poor decisions,” he said. “I would like nothing more than to start the process of making things right for my family, my friends and the community.”
The case made national headlines in early 2020 when the U.S. attorney’s office announced an indictment that included allegations that Urlacher, the mayor of suburban Mettawa and brother of Chicago Bears legend Brian Urlacher, was among the agents employed by Del Giudice.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney has said that Del Giudice tried to keep the operation going even after the indictment, but the ensuing media frenzy had brought so much “heat” to the Costa Rica-based company that ran Del Giudice’s website that they decided to shut it down.
“It’s all due to Urlacher,” someone affiliated with the site texted to Del Giudice in February 2020, according to evidence filed by prosecutors. “I like you and you’re a good guy but we have (no) choice but to shut it down.”
According to prosecutors, Del Giudice had been paying the offshore site a service fee of $10,000 a week to use its online platform and recruited gamblers to place wagers on his website. To expand the operation, Del Giudice hired people to act as agents and enlist new gamblers as well as collect on debts.
The indictment alleged Del Giudice kept in regular contact with all the agents and discussed their clients’ losses — which often totaled tens of thousands of dollars — in coded language.
Also acting as an agent was Nicholas Stella, 44, an 18-year veteran Chicago police officer, according to the indictment. Stella pleaded guilty to his role in the gambling ring and was sentenced last year to 15 months in federal prison.
All of the other agents sentenced in the case have been given probation.
Urlacher, meanwhile, was among 140 defendants granted executive clemency by President Donald Trump just hours before he left the White House.
In asking for as much as two years in prison, prosecutors have said Del Giudice’s operation victimized addicted gamblers, many of whom jeopardized their careers, marriages and family life by continuing to place bets.
One victim said he felt threatened by an agent after he fell behind on his debts and wound up embezzling nearly $1 million from his employer to cover his losses and is now facing federal sentencing in Indianapolis, Kinney said.
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The investigation also had connections to the case against Gregory Paloian, an Elmwood Park bookie with long-standing ties to the Chicago mob who has since pleaded guilty to gambling-related charges and was sentenced to a year in prison.