Man Charged With Conducting Illegal Sports Gambling Business

 CHICAGO — A man has been charged in federal court with conducting an illegal sports gambling business in Chicago and the suburbs.

JOHN AMABILE, 33, of Melrose Park, Ill., is charged with one count of conducting an illegal gambling business, according to a criminal information filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago.  According to the charge, Amabile conducted an illegal sports bookmaking business in 2018 and 2019 in Chicago, Elmwood Park, and Melrose Park.  The information seeks forfeiture from Amabile of $100,000 in alleged criminally derived proceeds.

Arraignment in federal court in Chicago has not yet been scheduled.

The information was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; and Tamera Cantu, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division.   The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Terry M. Kinney and Ankur Srivastava.

The public is reminded that a charge is not evidence of guilt.  The defendant is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The gambling charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.  If convicted, the Court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.