Fakroune trial promises to expose the 'cutthroat' side of Chicago's restaurant business
Jawad Fakroune isn’t a dangerous extortionist — despite FBI video and audio recordings that show him punching and threatening to murder a Chicago restaurant owner, his lawyer told jurors Tuesday.
Fakroune, 46, is standing trial in federal court in the first of two criminal cases he’s facing. Prosecutors say the Moroccan national threatened to kill restaurateur Adolfo Garcia and his family in November 2024 unless he forked over $1.5 million.
To bolster his tough-guy reputation, Fakroune told people he was a son of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug kingpin who died in 1993, prosecutors say.
Assistant U.S. attorney Richard Rothblatt gave jurors a glimpse of the threats Fakroune was making while he was beating Garcia inside a now-closed restaurant, Yours Truly in River North, all captured on the restaurant's video cameras.
“I’m going to bury you. I’m going to kill you and your kids, I promise you. I’m going to f—- your wife and your children. I’m going to murder you before they get me," said a transcript that Rothblatt read to jurors.
Fakroune's attorney Damon Cheronis acknowledged his client's threats and violence against Garcia, but insisted Fakroune was a business partner with Garcia, not a thug trying to collect on an loan.
Cheronis described Garcia as a liar, pointing out he originally told federal agents he had no business dealings with Garcia.
Cheronis said Garcia actually was stealing from Fakroune and sharing the money with other partners.
"This was a toxic business relationship that blew up in the ugliest way possible," Cheronis told jurors.
"You are going to learn that the restaurant industry in Chicago is cutthroat," Cheronis said. "And Adolfo Garcia lives in the middle of that."
Garcia is a former partner of one of Chicago’s biggest restaurateurs, Phil Stefani, who introduced Garcia to Fakroune in the spring of 2021, Cheronis said.
Stefani has operated many of Chicago's busiest, high-end restaurants including Tavern on Rush, Stefani Prime and Riva Crab House, the Navy Pier establishment that ceased operations in 2021 after 25 years.
Stefani has told the Sun-Times he didn't know Fakroune, who was a regular customer at many of Chicago's fancy restaurants.
Cheronis pointed out that Garcia had operated a string of failed restaurants when he and Fakroune became business partners.
Garcia is expected to testify Wednesday when he will have to come face to face with Fakroune, who's been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center following his arrest in January 2025.
Fakroune was financially connected to Lisa Duarte, a lobbyist and former high-level aide to Gov. JB Pritzker. She paid the property taxes on an estate Fakroune owned in Lemont, records show.
Duarte told the Chicago Sun-Times she was a victim and was cooperating with federal authorities.
According to prosecutors, Fakroune also is tied to a Chicago police officer whose guns were seized in late 2024 in an FBI raid of a New York home where Fakroune was staying. Fakroune escaped capture, running barefoot down the streets of Manhattan clothed only in a plastic garbage bag.
In court papers, Cheronis described the unidentified cop as a drunk and a liar. Chicago police officials said last year that they opened an inquiry into the officer’s story.
In January 2025, federal agents arrested Fakroune at a remote Michigan City, Indiana house where they say he was hiding out. Agents said they seized hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash they found during the raids of the New York and Indiana homes where Fakroune was living.
At the heart of his extortion case, Fakroune is accused of going to Yours Truly — a now-shuttered oyster and martini bar on North Wells Street — where he pushed the owner, Garcia, against a brick pillar, kicked him in the leg and punched him in the face, according to an FBI affidavit, which says the Nov. 21, 2024 attack was captured on audio and video.
Fakroune allegedly warned Garcia, “Get me all my money,” and said, “$1.5 million belong[s] to me” in addition to threatening “your wife and your childrens [sic] and everyone in your life.”
Sources say Fakroune developed relationships with rich and famous people in Chicago, including a former local sports legend and a rock star.
Fakroune is separately charged with evading federal income taxes from 2020 through 2023.
He’s accused of defrauding unidentified investors of millions of dollars in schemes involving restaurants and a marijuana farm. In that case, authorities are seeking to seize his Lemont estate and $2.6 million from him. A status hearing in that case is scheduled for next month.