Jason MeisnerContact ReporterChicago Tribune.
Mob associate given four years in prison for plotting to break both legs of car dealer who owed him $250,000
The two mob-connected tough guys were expecting a big payday for breaking the legs of a deadbeat suburban businessman, but like any job it came with its own headaches.
The guy who had ordered the beating, Michael "Mickey" Davis, wasn't just anybody. He was a longtime partner of reputed mob lieutenant Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis and had Outfit connections that purportedly went all the way to the top.
Davis was looking for a crew that would administer a vicious beating to Melrose Park used car dealer R.J. Serpico for failing to pay back a $300,000 loan. He wanted the beating to look like a domestic incident. And he wanted it done in short order, court records show.
"We definitely can't (expletive) around with these guys or we're gonna have a big (expletive) headache," Paul Carparelli, the man entrusted to get the beating done, told his associate in a series of recorded phone calls in July 2013. "The guy already gave the down payment. He's a (expletive) mean mother(expletive). I don't wanna have no problems with him."
Unbeknownst to Carparelli, the beefy union bodyguard he'd enlisted to coordinate the assault, George Brown, had been nabbed months earlier in an unrelated plot and was secretly cooperating with the FBI. In July 2013, agents swooped in to stop the beating before it was carried out.
On Tuesday, Davis was sentenced to four years in prison for ordering the violent assault that seemed ripped from the pages of a low-grade gangster film.
"No one is above the law, and the means used, breaking legs, should only be seen in the movies," U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan said in handing down the sentence.
Davis, 58, a wealthy landfill owner, showed no emotion as the decision was announced. In the courtroom gallery, several family members wiped tears from their eyes, and Davis' wife, Lisa, doubled over at the waist and stared at the floor.
Davis was convicted in June of two extortion-related counts. Prosecutors had asked Der-Yeghiayan for a sentence of up to six years in prison, saying Serpico still suffers from lingering psychological issues stemming from the ordeal.
Serpico testified at trial that he was afraid he would "end up dead" after Davis paid a visit to Ideal Motors one day in early 2013 and demanded his money back. According to Serpico, Davis asked him in a thinly veiled threat, "How are your wife and kids doing? Are you still living in Park Ridge? Does your wife still own that salon in Schaumburg?"
"These kind of people are — they are ruthless," Serpico testified. "And they're going to do whatever they can to get their money."
Serpico testified at trial that he was well aware of Davis' friendship with reputed Outfit bosses John and Peter DiFronzo and that he often saw Davis and Peter DiFronzo cruising past his Ideal Motors dealership in DiFronzo's black Cadillac Escalade. Serpico said he also had heard that Davis was partnered with DeLaurentis, a feared capo convicted in the 1990s of racketeering conspiracy in connection with a violent gambling crew.
Prosecutors allege that within months of the ominous confrontation at Ideal Motors, Davis, infuriated that Serpico had still failed to pay back the loan, ordered his brutal beating, enlisting the help of the owner of a well-known Italian restaurant in Burr Ridge to find the right guys for the job. The restaurateur went to Carparelli, who in turn hired a team to carry out the beating for $10,000, according to prosecutors. Carparelli pleaded guilty to a separate extortion in May.
Davis' lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin, said Davis has known the DiFronzo brothers since childhood and that for years he has maintained a business relationship with them through his landfill in Plainfield, where two DiFronzo-owned construction companies have paid millions of dollars to dump asphalt and other debris.
Durkin even showed jurors a photograph that Davis kept on his office desk of him and a shirtless Peter DiFronzo deep-sea fishing off the coast of Mexico.
In court Tuesday, Durkin painted a picture of Davis as a kind and generous person who overcame a hardscrabble upbringing on Chicago's Northwest Side to become a successful businessman.
"He's not a mobster. There's no evidence of that whatsoever," Durkin said. "Unfortunately, in this town there are people who have grown up with people like that, but it doesn't mean you can't speak to them, it doesn't mean you can't play golf with them."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
Twitter @jmetr22b
The guy who had ordered the beating, Michael "Mickey" Davis, wasn't just anybody. He was a longtime partner of reputed mob lieutenant Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis and had Outfit connections that purportedly went all the way to the top.
"We definitely can't (expletive) around with these guys or we're gonna have a big (expletive) headache," Paul Carparelli, the man entrusted to get the beating done, told his associate in a series of recorded phone calls in July 2013. "The guy already gave the down payment. He's a (expletive) mean mother(expletive). I don't wanna have no problems with him."
Unbeknownst to Carparelli, the beefy union bodyguard he'd enlisted to coordinate the assault, George Brown, had been nabbed months earlier in an unrelated plot and was secretly cooperating with the FBI. In July 2013, agents swooped in to stop the beating before it was carried out.
On Tuesday, Davis was sentenced to four years in prison for ordering the violent assault that seemed ripped from the pages of a low-grade gangster film.
"No one is above the law, and the means used, breaking legs, should only be seen in the movies," U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan said in handing down the sentence.
Davis, 58, a wealthy landfill owner, showed no emotion as the decision was announced. In the courtroom gallery, several family members wiped tears from their eyes, and Davis' wife, Lisa, doubled over at the waist and stared at the floor.
Davis was convicted in June of two extortion-related counts. Prosecutors had asked Der-Yeghiayan for a sentence of up to six years in prison, saying Serpico still suffers from lingering psychological issues stemming from the ordeal.
Serpico testified at trial that he was afraid he would "end up dead" after Davis paid a visit to Ideal Motors one day in early 2013 and demanded his money back. According to Serpico, Davis asked him in a thinly veiled threat, "How are your wife and kids doing? Are you still living in Park Ridge? Does your wife still own that salon in Schaumburg?"
"These kind of people are — they are ruthless," Serpico testified. "And they're going to do whatever they can to get their money."
Serpico testified at trial that he was well aware of Davis' friendship with reputed Outfit bosses John and Peter DiFronzo and that he often saw Davis and Peter DiFronzo cruising past his Ideal Motors dealership in DiFronzo's black Cadillac Escalade. Serpico said he also had heard that Davis was partnered with DeLaurentis, a feared capo convicted in the 1990s of racketeering conspiracy in connection with a violent gambling crew.
Prosecutors allege that within months of the ominous confrontation at Ideal Motors, Davis, infuriated that Serpico had still failed to pay back the loan, ordered his brutal beating, enlisting the help of the owner of a well-known Italian restaurant in Burr Ridge to find the right guys for the job. The restaurateur went to Carparelli, who in turn hired a team to carry out the beating for $10,000, according to prosecutors. Carparelli pleaded guilty to a separate extortion in May.
Davis' lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin, said Davis has known the DiFronzo brothers since childhood and that for years he has maintained a business relationship with them through his landfill in Plainfield, where two DiFronzo-owned construction companies have paid millions of dollars to dump asphalt and other debris.
Durkin even showed jurors a photograph that Davis kept on his office desk of him and a shirtless Peter DiFronzo deep-sea fishing off the coast of Mexico.
In court Tuesday, Durkin painted a picture of Davis as a kind and generous person who overcame a hardscrabble upbringing on Chicago's Northwest Side to become a successful businessman.
"He's not a mobster. There's no evidence of that whatsoever," Durkin said. "Unfortunately, in this town there are people who have grown up with people like that, but it doesn't mean you can't speak to them, it doesn't mean you can't play golf with them."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
Twitter @jmetr22b
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