Gov hopeful took money from exec of garbage hauler dogged by mob allegations

A waste hauling business whose reputed mob connections years ago helped tank a casino project in Rosemont — and more recently was discovered hauling debris from the construction site of the Bally’s permanent casino without approval from regulators — is now surfacing in video gambling magnate Rick Heidner’s campaign for governor.

The president of D & P Construction Co., Inc., Sherri Clementi, contributed $1,000 in recent days to Rick for Illinois, Heidner’s main campaign fund, as he runs in the March 17 Republican primary, according to records with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Clementi has never been accused of any wrongdoing and said in an email response to Chicago Sun-Times questions:

"Any lawful political contribution by [an] individual associated with D & P Construction is a constitutionally protected act and does not imply motive or influence. Since 2021, D&P Construction has operated under entirely new leadership and governance, with a focus on ethical standards, employee development and customer satisfaction. We trust that future coverage will reflect these facts accurately."

Heidner told the Sun-Times: “I don’t even know who Sherri Clementi is. I have used D & P dumpsters through our construction… We use a lot of dumpsters. You know, I do a tremendous amount of business."

"I haven’t even asked people for money,” he said of a mostly self-funded campaign that he's pumped at least $1 million into so far.

In addition to his video gambling machine company, Heidner and his family operate a massive real estate firm and the Ricky Rockets Fuel Center chain.

“People that I do business with, friends of mine, if they want to give me money, OK, but I'm not out there asking people for money. I appreciate it. Trust me, this is a heavy lift… And, yeah, I appreciate it — and by the way, I've given people money all the time, my whole life. And if somebody wants to give a little back, I'm not going to be mad.”

But the company Clementi runs was once secretly “controlled” by late mob bosses John and Peter DiFronzo, the Illinois Gaming Board alleged more than two decades ago amid the government licensing battle for a proposed Rosemont casino.

The gaming board also cited information from the FBI that under the DiFronzo brothers, D & P allegedly “obtained contracts through illegal payoffs or intimidation.”

D & P was under the gaming board’s microscope at the time because the company was discovered to have been working at the Rosemont casino construction site, and gave campaign money to then-Rosemont Mayor Donald E. Stephens — all seen as evidence of organized crime influence in Rosemont and the casino project.

Ultimately, plans for the Rosemont casino were scuttled among those and other concerns. The gaming license ended up in Des Plaines as Rivers Casino.

In 2025, the Chicago Sun-Times spotted D & P’s lime-green dumpsters at the Bally’s Chicago site in River West, where a massive casino complex is being built, and asked the gaming board about its presence. The agency — which reports to Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire whose personal portfolio has included casino investments in Illinois and elsewhere in past years — confirmed the company wasn’t among the vetted and approved contractors for the project.

Tasked with keeping organized crime away from the gambling industry among other duties, regulators hastily shut down the project amid an investigation. The agency later allowed work to resume and won’t say whether Bally’s would face a fine, as has been the case with other casinos in similar trouble. That includes Rivers, and Elgin’s Grand Victoria Casino when Pritzker held an ownership stake before he was governor.

The gaming board had no immediate comment on the political donation from Clementi.

John DiFronzo died in 2018 and Peter DiFronzo died in 2020, with the latter man’s widow Josephine DiFronzo long on the official paperwork as a top D & P executive. FBI documents show agents routinely monitored D & P through surveillance when the DiFronzo brothers were alive and allegedly active in the mob.

Clementi’s LinkedIn page indicates she’s worked for D & P, with offices in Chicago and Melrose Park, and an affiliate for nearly 40 years. Records show the company was incorporated in the 1970s.

Heidner and his wife oversee a company called Gold Rush Amusements that provides video gambling machines to hundreds of businesses in Illinois where video gambling payouts are allowed.

Heidner said he wouldn’t return Clementi’s contribution “to grandstand because you say something to me — I'm not gonna do that.”

He added that Clementi’s father used to visit one of his Ricky Rockets Fuel Centers in Hoffman Estates “and get gas all the time.”

“And once in a while, I'd be there, and he'd say hi to me. So maybe it's because of that,” Heidner said of her campaign contribution. “I don't know.”

Heidner’s associations have been questioned before, with the Chicago Tribune reporting in 2019 that he’d done business for years with banker Rocco Suspenzi who had invoked his right against self-incrimination amid questioning in 2005 about alleged secret ownership of part of the proposed Rosemont casino.

The article also revealed that Heidner had done business with Dominic Buttitta around the time Buttitta and a son were investigated by federal authorities for overseeing an illegal sports gambling operation out of Blackjacks Gentlemen’s Club near South Elgin and pocketing cash from strippers without telling the IRS.

The Buttittas were later convicted and sent to prison.

Also in 2019, Heidner’s name appeared in search warrants related to other investigations into then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval and then-McCook Mayor and Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski. Heidner was never charged with a crime and has long denied any wrongdoing.

Around that time, Heidner was trying to develop a horse-racing and casino complex in Tinley Park, but needed property owned by state government to make the project work. Pritzker halted the sale of that land not long after the Tribune disclosures and revelations of search warrants — and the “racino” development wilted.

Later in 2019, the gaming board sought to revoke Heidner’s video gambling license, saying he had offered an “illegal inducement” of as much as $5 million to the owner of a gambling parlor chain that planned to remove Heidner’s video machines.

State gambling law prohibits “giving anything of value to an establishment as an incentive” to use a company’s machines.

Regulators later backed off the effort.

Heidner said his ordeals with the state cost “about half my wealth.”

“Falsely accused, being attacked with my license because of optics, having the racino completely stripped from me — you know, that was pretty painful,” he said. “You couldn't believe the things that happened with me.”