The federal government indicted longtime Chicago mob figure and Grand Avenue crew staple Robert (Bobby Popcorn) Dominic for five counts of tax evasion on Tuesday morning. He is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of kickbacks from a pair of sweepstakes gambling machine businesses ran by the son-in-law imprisoned former Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios — businesses the feds believe he holds a silent ownership in — during the years 2014 through 2020.
Seventy-one year old “Bobby Popcorn” owns the building where Chicago Outfit’s Grand Avenue Crew is widely-known to congregate and houses both the La Scarola Italian restaurant and Richard’s Bar watering hole where Grand Avenue capo and reputed Outfit street boss, Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena, headquarters his operations. Local law enforcement surveillance reports from the 2010s note Dominic meeting with Vena, 75, at Richard’s Bar regularly.
Legendary Chicago mafia consigliere, Joey (The Clown) Lombardo, the undisputed Godfather of Grand Avenue for three decades, spent most of his nights on the job holding court at La Scarola, located next door. FBI and federal court records from the 1980s and 1990s listed Dominic as a mob lieutenant of Lombardo’s, helping him oversee the Grand Avenue crew’s sports gambling and sex rackets on Chicago’s Near Westside. Lombardo died in prison doing life on murder charges stemming from the landmark 2005 Operation Family Secrets case.
Sources say these days, Dominic serves as one of Albie Vena’s top advisors and along with Christopher (Christy the Nose) Spina looks after day-to-day affairs at the crew’s Ground Zero on Vena’s behalf. Dominic’s only convictions are misdemeanors for theft and breaching obscenity laws. According to court records and FBI intelligence briefing memos, Dominic was mentored in the rackets by deceased Grand Avenue crew enforcer Frank (The German) Schweihs and Windy City Jewish gangster Mike (Little Pippy) Posner, currently living as an expat gambling czar in the Carribean.
