U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual | U.S. Department of Justice
An operations manager at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago has been indicted on federal fraud charges. The manager, Dominick Gironda, is accused of receiving kickbacks from a snowplow services vendor.
Gironda was employed by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which oversees McCormick Place. His role involved managing vendor contracts for services across the facility's campus. According to an indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Gironda conspired with James Sansone to approve inflated invoices for unprovided services. These false invoices reportedly included payments for non-existent workers and unused equipment.
Once these invoices were approved, cash was allegedly funneled back to Sansone, who shared it with Gironda. Between 2022 and earlier this year, they supposedly received around $26,700 in kickbacks. Communications about the scheme used coded language referring to the payments as "bottles of wine."
Both Gironda, 54, from Bloomingdale, Illinois, and Sansone, 38, from Batavia, Illinois, were arrested this morning. They are scheduled for initial court appearances today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila M. Finnegan.
The indictment includes three counts of mail fraud against them, each carrying a potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.
The announcement was made by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and Douglas S. DePodesta from the FBI's Chicago Field Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sushma Raju and Richard Rothblatt.
It is important to note that an indictment does not equate to guilt; both defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a fair trial.
