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Former Niles police employee pleads guilty to theft
Gary Amato
Updated: September 10, 2012 12:52PM
NILES — A former employee of the Niles Police Department who was accused of faking a 2011 robbery pleaded guilty Aug. 6 to felony theft and official misconduct.
Gary Amato, 53, of Niles, who had worked as a civilian employee of the Police Department, was sentenced in Cook County Circuit Court in Skokie to two years probation and 100 hours of community service, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Amato will also be required to pay the village of Niles restitution totaling $5,037, the Police Department said.
Amato was arrested in July 2011 following a police investigation of an armed robbery that Amato reported in January of that year. Amato had alleged that three men robbed him of $44,000 in Niles bank deposits while he was driving a village-owned car to a bank near Golf Mill Shopping Center. Most of the deposits were in check form, police said.
Amato also reported that he had been pepper-sprayed and stabbed in the arm, but authorities later said the stab wound appeared self-inflicted and that Amato made up the story of the robbery in order to steal from the village and establish a workmen’s-compensation case or disability claim.
