A high-profile lobbyist who is a former top aide to Gov. JB Pritzker is cooperating with investigators, her lawyer says, in a case involving a man facing federal charges that accuse him of extorting a Lincoln Park restaurant owner.
Will County treasurer’s office records show Lisa Duarte, the former Pritzker aide, had paid $19,947 in property taxes for a Lemont estate that comprised three adjacent properties that were raided by the FBI in connection with the federal investigation of Jawad Fakroune, records show.
The tax bills for the $2.5 million estate, where Fakroune lived, went to Duarte at her Lincoln Park condo. They covered one year of property taxes on each of the three properties, which are owned by a trust whose beneficiaries aren’t public.
She said in a brief interview that she did nothing wrong and that she was a victim of Fakroune, declining to explain more, including how she knows Fakroune or why she was paying the property taxes on the Lemont home, saying of the taxes: “I can’t talk to you about that.
“This has nothing do with politics,” said Duarte, who also was a City Hall aide to then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “I haven’t committed a crime. I don’t even have access to that [Lemont] house. I believe I’m a small sliver in a long trail of victims.”
Duarte’s lawyer Daniel Collins said Duarte “was unaware of the violent conduct that led to [Fakroune’s] arrest. She has not been accused of wrongdoing and is assisting authorities.”
Duarte, who in addition to being a lobbyist is a lawyer, was named one of Crain’s Chicago Business’s 2025 Women of Influence.
She was first assistant deputy governor under Pritzker from 2019 to 2021, working on his administration’s COVID-19 response, and previously was chief of staff to Emanuel’s economic council in 2015.
She parlayed her government experience, including her work on gambling legislation, into a high-profile lobbying practice. Businesses that have included the state’s largest operator of video gaming machines have hired her to speak on their behalf with state regulators.
Duarte formerly was a lobbyist for the Bears, working on the team’s plans for a new stadium. Last year, she was registered with the state and City Hall as a lobbyist for the White Sox, the United Center, Wirtz Corp., which owns the Blackhawks, and other high-profile clients, records show. She also represents the CTA.
The case against Fakroune
The case put together by the FBI accuses Fakroune, 45, of beating up the owner of a Lincoln Park restaurant last November in a shakedown scheme. It centers on a $405,000 loan he gave the Chicago man to open the restaurant. The charges, originally filed under seal in December, don’t name the restaurant nor the owner.
In early 2024, Fakroune, using the alias Angelino Escobar, demanded that the man pay him back $4,000 a month, according to the federal criminal complaint against him.
Fakroune and the restaurateur had previous business dealings involving restaurants, according to the FBI.
The complaint says the restaurateur said he repaid Fakroune about $160,000 of the loans for the Lincoln Park restaurant and that last year Fakroune told him he actually owed $1.5 million.
The restaurant owner then began cooperating with the FBI.
On a recorded call, authorities said, he pleaded with Fakroune about the growing money demands: “What’s the interest? 20%? 30%? It never ends.”
They said that, during another call, Fakroune warned him, “Do not be my enemy.”
Then, on Nov. 21, Fakroune went to the Lincoln Park restaurant, pushed the owner against a brick pillar, kicked him in the leg and punched him in the face, according to an FBI affidavit that says the attack was captured on audio and video.
Fakroune allegedly warned, “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 said Fakroune told people in Chicago he was a relative of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
But the FBI learned Fakroune is an “undocumented” Moroccan immigrant in this country who came to New York in the late 2000s under the name Foudel Ban Abdrahime.
In 2007, the New York Post wrote about police in Manhattan arresting a man named “Foudel Banabdrahime” for allegedly running up $3,200 in charges on two American Express cards belonging to a woman he met at a nightclub that “caters to the rich and famous.”
Fakroune was convicted in New York of identity theft, bribery of a public official and other crimes under his Ban Abdrahime alias, according to federal prosecutors. He served prison time and is now listed as a parole “absconder” by the New York Department of Corrections, prosecutors said.
Barefoot escape in New York
On Dec. 18, the FBI tried to arrest Fakroune at an apartment where he was living in Manhattan, but he escaped barefoot, wearing only underwear and a plastic garbage bag. Surveillance videos show him running down a street and in to a restaurant, where diners appear to ignore him. He stepped into the kitchen and left wearing clothes, officials say.
The FBI searched the New York apartment and found 150 watches, $191,000 in cash, two Glock handguns, licenses and credit cards in seven names, including Angelino Escobar, and marijuana, according to court records.
The FBI also searched the home where Fakroune was living in Lemont, where agents said they found more marijuana, two gun holsters and instructions for a rifle. Fakroune kept a fleet of Mercedes vehicles at the southwest suburban home, according to a witness who said he would grab a handgun before answering the doorbell.
The FBI tracked Fakroune to a luxury rental home in Michigan City, Indiana, in a secluded, wooded area at the end of a long gravel driveway. He was arrested there Jan. 18. Agents said they seized three phones and almost $60,000 in cash.
Fakroune is now being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail, in downtown Chicago. In a court filing, his lawyer downplayed his physical encounter with the restaurant owner, saying the alleged victim didn’t go to the hospital and didn’t document any injuries other than a bruise that was mentioned at a court hearing.
The lawyer, Aubrea Drake, said the business relationship between Fakroune and the restaurant owner was “nuanced.” In their discussions they referred to the money for the restaurant both as a “loan” and as profits owed to Fakroune as a partner in the restaurant, Drake said.
Who is Jawad Fakroune?
Fakroune is well known to customers at high-end restaurants on Rush Street and downtown who know him as Angelino Escobar.
He listed himself as president and chief executive officer of B. Hartman Group LLC, a property tax scavenger company, in early 2024, according to records filed with the Illinois secretary of state’s office. He applied to reinstate the company after it was legally dissolved in 2021. Boris Nitchoff, founder of the company, died in late 2020.
Nitchoff and his sons Alex Nitchoff and Constantino Nitchoff were named in a 2019 federal search warrant looking into business dealings with former Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) and her chief of staff Chester Wilson.
Austin and Wilson are awaiting trial on federal fraud and bribery charges. Alex Nitchoff is serving a five-year sentence for fraud and racketeering in a separate federal case. Constantino Nitchoff died in early 2022.
According to Will County property records, Constantino Nitchoff’s widow was the previous owner of the Lemont home, which was sold to a trust in mid-2022, according to the FBI. Fakroune was living at the property, the FBI said.