A Batavia man who admitted helping orchestrate a kickback scheme that bilked McCormick Place out of more than $57,000 was sentenced Friday to two years of probation, avoiding the prison time prosecutors had sought. James Sansone, 40, was also fined $8,000 and ordered to pay roughly $57,000 in restitution to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns the sprawling convention center.
Sansone pleaded guilty in June to one count of mail and honest services fraud, as reported by Yahoo News. He admitted in his plea agreement that he helped orchestrate the scheme beginning in December 2022, conspiring with Dominic Gironda to inflate labor and machine-usage hours for snowplowing the center's grounds and then kick back a portion of the overpayments to Gironda. McCormick Place, which spans more than 2.6 million square feet of exhibition space, is owned by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority.
How the Scheme Unraveled
Prosecutors said the arrangement caused the authority to pay over $57,000 for services that were never performed. More than $26,000 of that money went to Gironda and a relative of Sansone's, according to the same Yahoo News account, while the rest was distributed to Sansone and other individuals at his direction. An earlier Chicago Sun-Times report on the charging documents described Gironda signing off on the bogus invoices while Sansone served as an intermediary for kickbacks, netting the pair $26,700 between 2022 and 2024.
The scheme fell apart after an informant tipped off law enforcement. Wiretapped conversations reportedly captured the defendants using the coded phrase “bottles of wine” to refer to the kickbacks, the Sun-Times reported. The article notes there were no allegations of mob involvement in the case against Sansone and Gironda.
A Judge Weighs Prison vs. Probation
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju had asked for a sentence of six months in prison for Sansone, per the same Yahoo News account. His attorney, Jonathan Brayman, pushed back and requested probation instead, citing dozens of support letters from Sansone's relatives and friends.
U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo ultimately sided with probation, saying prison time “doesn’t make sense” given Sansone's lack of criminal history, family support and well-paying contracting career. At the same time, Bucklo made clear she did not take the conduct lightly, saying Sansone took taxpayer money for work he did not perform and that the scheme likely would have continued without government discovery.
Sansone's Apology and What Comes Next
Sansone apologized for his actions, telling the court the case had caused pain for his wife and four young children. “I put everything I worked for at risk here,” he said, according to the Yahoo News report. His children, who were ages 2 through 8 at the time of the November 2026 sentencing report, were home when the FBI arrested him in December 2024.
Gironda, 54, of Bloomingdale, has also pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme, but his sentencing remains unresolved. Bucklo postponed her ruling on his case until January to give him time to make restitution payments — a notable detail given that Gironda had not made any restitution payments in the two years since being charged. Whether he ultimately does, and what sentence he receives, remains to be seen when the case returns to court.
