[3] On May 20, 1992, D'Amico was brought before a federal grand jury in Chicago after the bombing of a BMW sports car outside the home in Chicago's West Rogers Park neighborhood of Sharon Patrick, the estranged daughter of turncoat mobster Leonard Patrick, who was set to testify for the prosecution against his old boss, mob fixer Gus Alex.

[5] D'Amico, who was ordered held without bond, was accused of running an illegal sports bookmaking business from 1978 until 1992, operating an illegal poker business from 1980 until 1991, attempting extortion against corrupt former attorney Robert Cooley, who was cooperating with authorities and posing as a bookmaker, making "juice," or excessively high, loans at rates of 2 percent a week, extorting "street taxes" from independent illegal bookmakers, and conspiring to rob a moving, high-stakes poker game near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in late 1989.

[6] After being confronted with incriminating taped evidence and the cooperation of Cooley, D'Amico on May 1, 1995 pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to rob what he had been told was a high-stakes card game in Lake Geneva, in 1989 (in which the take could have been as much as $1 million), running a sports bookmaking business and a high-stakes poker game of his own for years, using extortion to collect gambling debts and "juice" loans, and extorting $1,000-a-month payoffs from former Chicago police officer Robert Cooley so Cooley could operate a poker game in a Chicago social club without mob interference.

However, federal prosecutors had been set to call as many as eight witnesses, including several former mob insiders, to testify that D'Amico was second-in-command in the Chicago Outfit's Elmwood Park "street crew," under John DiFronzo.

Instead, D'Amico abruptly backed off demands that the government prove that he was a "made member" of the Chicago Outfit, and signed a stipulation acknowledging his leading role with the Elmwood Park street crew and its link to the mob.