Former McCook mayor and Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for his part in an extortion and bribery conspiracy.
During his sentencing hearing, Tobolski said what he had done was wrong. He apologized to his victims and his wife and daughter.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of more than five years.
Tobolski, who pleaded guilty to an extortion conspiracy charge in September 2020, was sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall who called him a “Jekyl and Hyde human being.”
Terrance Carr, the current mayor of McCook, said the sentencing offers a sense of closure for the village.
“It’s nice to have closure. It’s nice to move onto the next chapter, put all this b******* behind us and we can move McCook forward. Nobody has to fear coming into town. We’re open for business. We’re open to help everybody. And you don’t have to pay to get help. We do it for free now,” Carr said.
He was referring to the shakedown Tobolski was found guilty of along with former Police Chief Mario DePasquale.
“He chose his bed. Now he’s got to lay in it,” Carr said of the disgraced former mayor.
The sentencing is “closure to all the nonsense that’s been going on for five years,” Carr said.
“I didn’t realize he was that big of a cooperating witness with the FBI. I heard he wore a wire for seven people, innocent business owners. … He was trying out to be an FBI agent. But he got four years, so he must have failed out of the academy,” Carr said with a chuckle.
Carr, a former trustee, in April 2020 became mayor to replace Tobolski who had resigned in March 2020. FBI raids on Tobolski’s village hall office and home took place in September 2019.
“It’s a black eye and a face-lift at the same time. I’ve been trying to upright the ship. Today, after he got sentenced, the ship is officially uprighted,” Carr said.
Former McCook Police Lieutenant Mark Elslager, 64, of Brookfield, retired in September 2015 during his 32nd year with the department. He said the sentencing was fair.
“I have a lot of respect (for judges), especially on the federal level. They don’t kid around,” Elslager said.
For the last eight years of Elslager’s career, Tobolski was McCook’s mayor.
Elslager found Tobolski “fine” to work for, “just like any other mayor.”
“I never had a problem with him,” said Elslager.
Nor did he have any indication of any wrongdoing or illegal actions taken by Tobolski or DePasquale. The latter, he said, “was always decent to me when he became chief.”
Tobolski agreed to work with federal prosecutors after his arrest, which saved him from years in prison. His guilty plea would have made him eligible for a prison term of 11-14 years, per federal sentencing guidelines.
Former McCook police chief Mario DePasquale, former state Sen. Martin Sandoval and Tobolski’s former chief of staff Patrick Doherty were all also charged with federal crimes related to Tobolski’s case.
Sandoval died in 2020. Doherty pleaded guilty in 2022, admitting to multiple corruption schemes that variously involved Tobolski, Sandoval and others. U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman sentenced Doherty in 2023 to more than five years in prison.
In 2024, U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo sentenced DePasquale to a prison sentence of more than two years .
Earlier this year, Tobolski’s name came up during the bribery trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III. That trial, which ended with a hung jury, featured testimony from Omar Maani, a former red-light camera executive who helped the feds build cases against Tobolski and others.
Tobolski once demanded a 10% kickback from Maani after Maani’s business was awarded a project in McCook. When Maani initially didn’t pay the bribe, Tobolski allegedly withheld payment of Maani’s invoices until the kickbacks were eventually paid in cash.
Tobolski took over as mayor of McCook in 2007 after the death of his father. He admitted in 2020 that he not only shook down a restaurant owner there, but that he’d engaged in other extortion and bribery schemes involving his two offices, agreeing to accept more than $250,000 “as part of criminal activity that involved more than five participants.”
He stepped down as mayor and commissioner in 2020 before the feds made their arrest. He was succeeded as mayor by Carr and as county commissioner by Frank Aguilar.
Steve Metsch contributed to this report