A social media-hungry west suburban restaurateur, and self-professed “connected guy,” is being held without bond in a wide-ranging illegal sports wagering business, federal authorities charged.
Filippo “Gigi” Rovito, owner of the popular Burr Ridge eatery “Capri,” is among 22 people indicted by a federal grand jury in Hammond alleging they played a role in an illicit gambling operation spanning several states, and sometimes operated with a very heavy hand, feds allege.
Rovito was arrested by federal agents on Wednesday and considered so dangerous that a judge ordered him held without bond until a full detention hearing on Monday.
That means Rovito, 49, won’t be at the front podium of Capri Restaurant greeting and gladhanding with guests as they arrive this weekend. His Italian restaurant has been a favorite for unknowing west suburbanites, and well-heeled Chicago Outfit bosses alike, according to federal court records and mob watchers.
This isn’t Rovito’s first felonious rodeo. In 1997, he was sent to prison for six years after authorities said he kidnapped and raped a 14-year-old girl. That crime took place in 1991 when Rovito was 17, according to investigators. At the time, he was also charged with heroin possession. Rovito was released from prison in 2002, but later cited for not registering as a sex offender, records show.
The newly filed indictment in Indiana reveals Rovito’s alleged role as a collector and enforcer for the gambling operation.
The court records describe how he tried to collect a $30,000 gambling debt on behalf of the Indiana ring leaders, allegedly working through a recovery mission while he was on a Florida vacation and gambling ring bosses were dining in his Burr Ridge restaurant.
Text messages between Rovito and the bosses supplied in court documents allege that Rovito was searching for a wayward gambler in a Florida casino and willing to knock the debtor’s “lights out” and then “shove his head into a machine.”
Requests for an interview with Rovito’s attorney were not immediately answered.
In the world of illegal bookmaking and unsanctioned sports betting, organized crime experts have known for decades that illicit big money operations don’t succeed for long without the involvement of traditional organized crime, also known as the mob.
Rovito is an Outfit “button man,” who earned his stripes by doing enforcement grunt work, while serving up pasta at his restaurant and playing chef on social media. His expanding digital footprint, complete with an in-store and online Gigi line of souvenirs and trinkets, has rankled some upper-crust hoodlums, according to Chicago mobologists. Traditionally, mob bosses have preferred a low-profile, so not to draw attention to themselves or Outfit rackets.
