A Moroccan man who claimed he was the son of notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was sentenced Tuesday to six and a half years in federal prison for beating and threatening to kill his Chicago business partner over a $1.5 million debt he insisted he was owed.
Jawad Fakroune, 46, was convicted of extortion in January after prosecutors said he terrorized restaurant owner Adolfo Garcia by assaulting him and threatening to kill him and his family unless he paid up.
“You are a lawless, violent bully,” U.S. District Judge Manish Shah told Fakroune before sentencing him. “Nothing suggests you have any interest in redemption.”
In addition to his 78-month prison term, Fakroune was fined $50,000. After he completes his time behind bars, the federal Department of Homeland Security will evaluate whether Fakroune should be deported.
Fakroune’s sentencing comes as he faces an even broader legal fight. He’s separately charged in federal court with cheating investors out of millions of dollars through sham ventures, including a shipping container company and a marijuana farm, while dodging taxes and using the money to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.
Prosecutors said that money paid for a sprawling Lemont estate, a New York City apartment, luxury cars and high-end watches.
Fakroune cultivated an image as a wealthy international businessman, at times telling people he was the son of Escobar, the late Colombian drug lord.
His criminal history stretched back years. In 2008, he was convicted in New York of bribery and theft and served about four years behind bars.
Even so, Fakroune had built relationships with influential figures in Chicago’s business and political circles, including former Gov. JB Pritzker aide Lisa Duarte, Tavern on Rush owner Phil Stefani and Illinois Sports Facilities Authority board member Patricia “Trish” Rooney. They weren’t accused of any wrongdoing.
Fakroune became a “Robin Hood of Rush Street” of sorts, buying drinks for people on the upscale strip of bars and restaurants in the Gold Coast, but those same pals have since abandoned him, his lawyer Damon Cheronis said.
Before he was sentenced, Fakroune told the judge he had lost control of himself when he beat Garcia.
“I am sorry I hurt him, I am sorry I scared him,” said Fakroune, who was wearing an orange jail suit with his long salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a knot.
But prosecutors said Fakroune’s crime wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment act of violence.
“This was a campaign of terror executed over several years,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Rothblatt said.
Rothblatt read a victim impact statement from Garcia, who had owned several Chicago restaurants including Yours Truly, a River North oyster and martini bar, where the beating happened on Nov. 25, 2025.
“I felt hopeless, suicidal and completely defeated,” Garcia wrote.
“I am always watching over my shoulder,” he added.
Garcia said his restaurant business is gone and he now works in a construction job.
In a court filing, Fakroune’s lawyer Cheronis suggested that the government had exaggerated Fakroune’s animosity toward Garcia. He pointed to messages the two had exchanged before the FBI launched its investigation in 2024, in which Fakroune and Garcia called each other “brother.”
Cheronis also portrayed Garcia as a dishonest business partner and unreliable government witness.
“This was not the typical extortion that you see,” Cheronis said in court Tuesday. “It was a very messy situation.”
Fakroune said he was born into poverty in 1979 in Casablanca, Morocco, where he witnessed machete fights and was tortured by law enforcement officials before immigrating to the United States in 2001. He lived in Boston and New York before settling in Chicago.
But the judge said Fakroune’s difficult upbringing in Morocco didn’t have a bearing on his sentence. He noted his New York convictions, his possession of guns as a felon and his attempts to evade the FBI.
He called Fakroune a “sophisticated criminal.”
In late 2024, Fakroune slipped away from the FBI during a raid on his New York apartment. He was dressed only in a black garbage bag when he walked into an upscale Italian restaurant, obtaining clothes and disappearing, authorities said.
His run from federal agents ended in early 2025 when the FBI tracked him to a hideout in Michigan City, Indiana, where he was living under an alias. He’s been held in the federal lockup in downtown Chicago since his arrest.
Contributing: Tim Novak