A former Melrose Park police officer on Thursday became the latest gambling defendant in Chicago’s federal court to avoid prison time when a judge ordered him to serve six months in home detention.
U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold handed down the sentence to John Amabile after calling corruption among police “incredibly dangerous” but acknowledging Amabile immediately tried to make things right after being caught up in the federal investigation.
The sentence also came after Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney insisted Amabile should go to prison for a year for his role in what Kinney called an “organized-crime, big-time, big-stakes, manipulative gambling operation.”
