I was watching ESPN’s trade-deadline show when the Cubs sent closer Craig Kimbrel to the White Sox on July 30. After picking up my jaw from the floor, I changed the channel to see how the Cubs’ and Sox’ stations were covering the big news.

They weren’t.

It took Marquee Sports Network a little over a half-hour to take the replay of the Reds-Cubs game from the previous afternoon off the air and put on studio host Cole Wright and analyst Ryan Sweeney to discuss the trade and those that followed. But at least the network provided programming.

NBC Sports Chicago stuck with a repeat of a triathlon.

(In fairness, Chuck Garfien and Ryan McGuffey jumped on their “White Sox Talk Podcast” and put it on Facebook Live a little over an hour after the deal. It was nice, but they belonged on TV.)

Chicago has had two regional sports networks for a year and a half now, and deadline day showed the modus operandi of each. Marquee is complementing its games with original programming, while NBCSCH is leaning on its games to carry the freight.

This is strictly about linear TV. Both networks have digital and social platforms, though NBCSCH has more going on there with coverage of all five major teams in town. But on the air, Marquee is putting more around the Cubs than NBCSCH is around the Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks.

Perhaps that should be expected given that the Cubs are Marquee’s sole tenant. But in its previous iteration as Comcast SportsNet, NBCSCH aired the news and highlight show “SportsNet Central” several times a day. Even after the network was rebranded, it aired “SportsTalk Live” and “Beer Money.”

Marquee partners with VSiN to air a live sports-betting show in the morning and with Chicago-based Stadium to air a news and highlight show in the evening. It has produced documentaries and created shows for former Cub Doug Glanville and Fox sportscaster Chris Myers.

But NBCSCH is in a tough spot. Its parent company, NBC Universal, has reorganized its management teams and consolidated where it can. Kevin Cross used to be solely responsible for NBCSCH as senior vice president and general manager. Now he’s the president and general manager of NBC 5, Telemundo Chicago and NBCSCH.

Here’s the network’s biggest dilemma: Viewers generally turn it on for games. Maybe they’ll catch the end of a pregame show and stick around for the postgame show. But with so many competing platforms, from social media to streaming services, the RSN has had a tough time maintaining TV viewers. So does it create content when people aren’t watching, or does it focus on what they are watching?

The people at NBCSCH would love nothing more than to replace all those informercials, poker games and NBC Sports reruns with original content. They will bring back the popular Bears postgame program, “Football Aftershow,” this season. But it’s hard to justify the expense for much more if it won’t garner ratings. If you’re pining from the lack of content, make sure you have a Nielsen box in your home.

This isn’t meant to paint a dire picture for the network. After enduring multiple rounds of layoffs in the last year, it celebrated the promotion of John Schippman to vice president of content this week. With Cross now at NBC Tower, the highly regarded Schippman becomes Cross’ point man at NBCSCH’s offices in River North. His job is to ensure that the network is creating the best content for all of its platforms.

But losing the Cubs was a blow to the network, and down times for the Bulls and Hawks haven’t helped. If, as some in the industry say, an RSN is only as good as its teams, the Sox’ success couldn’t have come at a better time. And the Bulls and Hawks appear poised to return to relevancy.

It will be interesting to see how the teams themselves view the network. Bulls and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Hawks chairman Rocky Wirtz are partners, along with NBC Sports Group, and their contract runs through the 2024 MLB season. Granted, that’s three years away, but that’s not a ton of time in the sports-TV business.

Might the three teams venture out on their own, like the Cubs did? It’s possible, but it’s hard enough running a team, let alone a network. More important, it’s a no-risk relationship for the teams. The RSN bears the burden of distribution while paying the teams a rights fee. Though the business model has come under attack because of cord-cutting and streaming, it still can work.

But by then, the question might be whether the teams are satisfied with what else NBCSCH can provide.

REMOTE PATROL

Marquee Sports Network added 12 Cubs minor-league games to its broadcast schedule, with games from each of the organization’s full-season affiliates. Next up are games Friday and Saturday nights between the Cubs’ and White Sox’ Double-A teams, Tennessee and Birmingham. Elise Menaker will serve as the network’s minor-league reporter, contributing to Cubs pregame and in-game broadcasts.
NFL Media promoted Charlie Yook, who grew up in Glenview, to executive producer. The 1992 Glenbrook South graduate had been NFL Network’s vice president of production and led its draft coverage since 2014. Now he’ll oversee all content produced by the NFL Media Group in Los Angeles, including NFL Network and the league’s digital properties.
The City of Chicago recognized the late, great WGN sports editor Jack Rosenberg on Wednesday with an honorary street sign at the southeast corner of East Illinois Street and Cityfront Plaza Drive, which will double as “Jack Rosenberg Way.” “Rosey,” who died at 94 in December, spent 40 years at WGN TV and radio and was a pioneer in sports broadcasting.
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KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban violently dispersed scattered protests for a second day Thursday amid warnings that Afghanistan’s already weakened economy could crumble further without the massive international aid that sustained the toppled Western-backed government.

The Taliban have sought to project moderation and say they want good relations with the international community, but they will face a difficult balancing act in making concessions to the West, satisfying their own hard-line followers and suppressing dissent.

A U.N. official warned of dire food shortages, and experts said the country was severely in need of cash, while noting that the Taliban are unlikely to enjoy the generous international aid that made up most of the ousted government’s budget.

The Taliban have pledged to forgive those who fought them and to restore security and normal life to the country after decades of war. But many Afghans fear a return to the Taliban’s harsh rule in the late 1990s, when the group largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, chopped off the hands of suspected thieves and held public executions.

On Thursday, a procession of cars and people near Kabul’s airport carried long black, red and green banners in honor of the Afghan flag — a banner that is becoming a symbol of defiance. Video from another protest in Nangarhar province showed a bleeding demonstrator with a gunshot wound. Onlookers tried to carry him away.

In Khost province, Taliban authorities instituted a 24-hour curfew Thursday after violently breaking up another protest, according to information obtained by journalists monitoring from abroad. The authorities did not immediately acknowledge the demonstration or the curfew.

Protesters also took to the streets in Kunar province, according to witnesses and social media videos that lined up with reporting by The Associated Press.

The demonstrations — which came as people celebrated Afghan Independence Day and some commemorated the Shiite Ashoura festival — were a remarkable show of defiance after Taliban fighters violently dispersed a protest Wednesday. At least one person was killed at that rally, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, after demonstrators lowered the Taliban’s flag and replaced it with the tricolor.

Meanwhile, opposition figures gathering in the last area of the country not under Taliban rule talked of launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which joined with the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.

It was not clear how serious a threat they posed given that Taliban fighters overran nearly the entire country in a matter of days with little resistance from Afghan forces.

The Taliban so far have offered no specifics on how they will lead, other than to say they will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. They are in talks with senior officials of previous Afghan governments. But they face an increasingly precarious situation.

“A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,” warned Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the U.N.’s World Food Program in Afghanistan.

Beyond the difficulties of bringing food into the landlocked nation dependent on imports, she said that over 40% of the country’s crop has been lost to drought. Many who fled the Taliban advance now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.

“This is really Afghanistan’s hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,” she said.

Hafiz Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said some food has flowed into the capital, but prices have gone up. He hesitated to pass those costs onto his customers but said he had to.

“It is better to have it,” he said. “If there were nothing, then that would be even worse.”

Two of Afghanistan’s key border crossings with Pakistan are now open for trade. However, traders still fear insecurity on the roads and confusion over customs duties that could push them to price their goods higher.

Amid all the uncertainty and fears of Taliban rule, thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country.

At Kabul’s international airport, military evacuation flights continued, but access to the airport remained difficult. On Thursday, Taliban fighters fired into the air to try to control the crowds gathered at the airport’s blast walls.

After a chaotic start in which people rushed the runway and some clung to a plane taking off, the U.S. military is ramping up evacuations and now has enough aircraft to get 5,000 to 9,000 people out a day, Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor said Thursday.

President Joe Biden said he was committed to keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan until every American is evacuated, even if that means maintaining a military presence there beyond his Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal.

In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Biden said he thought the Taliban were going through an “existential crisis” about whether they wanted to be internationally recognized as a legitimate government. “I’m not sure they do,” he said.

The Taliban have urged people to return to work, but most government officials remain in hiding or are themselves attempting to flee. The U.S. has apparently frozen Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and shipments of dollars that help sustain the local currency, the afghani. The International Monetary Fund has cut off access to loans or other resources for now.

“The afghani has been defended by literally planeloads of U.S. dollars landing in Kabul on a very regular basis, sometimes weekly,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant researcher with the Overseas Development Institute. “If the Taliban don’t get cash infusions soon to defend the afghani, I think there’s a real risk of a currency devaluation that makes it hard to buy bread on the streets of Kabul for ordinary people.”

Smith, who has written a book on Afghanistan, said the Taliban are unlikely to ask for the same billions in international aid sought by the country’s fallen civilian government — large portions of which were siphoned off by corruption.

The Taliban have long profited off the drug trade in Afghanistan, which is the world’s top cultivator of the poppy from which opium and heroin are produced. The militants now have access to customs duties from the border crossings, which were the main source of domestic income for the previous government.

But 75% of the previous government’s budget was covered by donor countries.

“It costs a lot less to run an insurgency than it does to run a government,” said Laurel Miller, director of the Asia program at the Crisis Group, an international think tank. “The opium trade and the border crossings (are) not enough money to run a government, at least as it has been run in recent years.”

The Taliban will struggle to make accommodations to the West while satisfying the ultraconservative Muslim fighters that brought them to power after a 20-year insurgency, with the latter likely being the priority, Miller said. Even a significant shift toward moderation might not be enough for Western countries to keep the aid flowing.

“How ready is Congress going to be to vote for development assistance for a Taliban government?” she said.

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Akhgar reported from Istanbul, Gannon from Guelph, Canada, and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Istanbul, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

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Five days after agreeing to sign a one-year deal with the Bears, 39-year-old left tackle Jason Peters completed the coronavirus test intake process for unvaccinated players and practiced for the first time Thursday.

He’s scheduled to participate in pregame drills Saturday but won’t play in a game setting until the preseason finale Aug. 28 at the Titans.

Coach Matt Nagy said the Bears want to make sure that Peters feels healthy and learns the playbook, in that order, after spending the last 12 years in Philadelphia. He is expected to be the Bears’ Week 1 starter.

Nagy said he was excited to see “a guy that is that athletic, that talented,” and who cares.

“I know that he’s in a good place right now mentally,” he said. “So, yeah, there’s excitement to get out there. Even talking to the younger guys, we got a young offensive line and they’re at a point right now where I think they’re kind of eager to learn from him and to see what kind of advice he has.”

Peters has been to nine Pro Bowls, but none since 2016. In the last four seasons he’s missed an average of five starts per year because of injury. Still, the Bears are hoping he can help fill a void created when rookie Teven Jenkins, a former second-round pick who had back surgery Tuesday. Nagy said the surgery “went well” but offered no timeline update. There’s a chance Jenkins — who thanked fans on social media for their get-well-soon messages Wednesday — can return this season.

Veteran Elijah Wilkinson and rookie Larry Borom, a fifth-round pick, will continue to play left tackle in camp. Borom returned Thursday after missing two weeks with a concussion. The Bears were excited about Borom’s play at left tackle during “Family Fest” on Aug. 3.

“To me that kind of showed, ‘Hey, the stage wasn’t too big for him,'” Nagy said. “The first day of pads, out there in front of everybody, that was a different setting for our players, and he did great.”

No agent

Inside linebacker Roquan Smith, who’s in line for a massive payday, confirmed that he doesn’t currently have an agent. How, then, would he negotiate an extension with the Bears?

“I haven’t gotten there yet,” he said. “We’ll see when I get there.”

Asked whether he’d represent himself, he repeated that “I’ll get there when I get there.”

Smith had to be encouraged by extensions given to two inside linebackers: the 49ers’ Fred Warner [five years, $95.5 million] and the Colts’ Darius Leonard [five years, $98.5 million] since July.

“The contracts they’re getting, they’ve earned them,” he said.

Smith smiled when asked whether those deals set the bar.

“That’s what they call it,” he said.

Mask rule

Per the Chicago mandate that kicks in Friday, Bears fans will be required to wear masks inside indoor areas of Soldier Field on Saturday. The masks can be removed while eating or drinking.

They’re optional for fans in outdoor parts of the stadium but recommended for unvaccinated fans.

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It remains to be seen if Robert Quinn can re-start his career at 31 after a disappointing first season with the Bears. The veteran pass rusher got off to a slow start in 2020 — he missed most of training camp and was inactive for the season opener. And after a sack and forced fumble on his very first snap against the Giants in Week 2, he had just one more sack the rest of the season.

He never looked comfortable as an outside linebacker in defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano’s 3-4 alignment, lamented his ineffectiveness throughout the season and just never fired despite diligent efforts by the coaching staff to break him out of a season-long pass-rushing funk. Quinn’s two sacks were a huge drop from the 11.5 sacks he had with the Cowboys in 2019. And when it was all over, he had to live with the fact that he was a huge disappointment after signing a five-year, $70 million contract that included $30 million in guaranteed money. He had to live with a lot of stuff.

But not any more. Quinn is neither living with the disappointment nor lamenting his plight. The season he’d like to forget is all but forgotten.

“I’m in a great place mentally and spiritually,” the soft-spoken Quinn told reporters this week. “Physically is what it is. It all kind of starts with the mental. I think I’m in a great place for myself. Now it’s just see if I can continue what you all see. So come in a few weeks.”

Maybe that fresh approach will help him regain the groove that made him one of the NFL’s best pass-rushers. Even he doesn’t know. But at least he’s in the right frame of mind to give it a shot, buoyed by a “heavenly peace” he hopes will prevent the memory of last season from dragging him further into the hole this season. So far, the renewed energy he is playing with in practice is a good first step.

“I realized, don’t let the tacky-tack stuff bother you,” Quinn said. “Don’t dwell on my disappointments or [anyone’s] disappointment — because once something happens, it has happened [and] you can’t change it. So how do you move on and grow from the situation? Don’t keep yourself in that type of dark place feeling sorry for yourself. Figure out how you can grow and become a better person and player.”

Bears first-year defensive coordinator Sean Desai lauded Quinn’s approach and has been encouraged that Quinn has been receptive to ideas from new voices — including himself and new outside linebackers coach Bill Shuey.

“He’s been extremely humble, really grateful, taking advantage of all the opportunity, taking in all the coaching,” Desai said. “For a veteran guy that’s aging, his effort is unbelievable every day — his play speed is unbelievable every day. He just goes at one speed.”

Even the best pass rushers can lose it in a hurry, especially after turning 30. Quinn’s 2020 demise was a bit confounding, because he was in a defense — even without nose tackle Eddie Goldman — where he was surrounded by playmakers, including Akiem Hicks, Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith.

But everyone — except the up-and-coming Smith — suffered as the Bears’ defense as a whole lost its dominant edge in 2019 and 2020. With Goldman returning and a new coordinator in Sean Desai, it’s still possible that Quinn will benefit by a defensive resurgence.

But even Desai acknowledges that it’s a work in progress.

“I’m not sure if it’s been unlocked,” Desai said. “Coach Shuey’s been tremendous with him and working with him to develop a plan that we want for him to respond to, and Robert’s been awesome in terms of responding and embracing that challenge.”

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WASHINGTON — A man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hourslong standoff Thursday that prompted a massive police response and the evacuations of government buildings and businesses in the area.

Police did not immediately know whether there were explosives in the vehicle, but authorities were searching the truck in an effort to understand what led the man, identified by law enforcement officials as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina, to drive onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress and make bomb threats to officers.

The standoff was resolved peacefully after roughly five hours of negotiations, ending when Roseberry crawled out of the truck and was taken into law enforcement custody. But the incident brought the area surrounding the Capitol to a virtual standstill as police emptied buildings and cordoned off streets as a precaution. Congress is in recess this week, but staffers were seen calmly walking out of the area at the direction of authorities.

The episode unfolded during a tense period in Washington, coming eight months after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and and one month before a planned rally in Washington that law enforcement officials have been preparing for.

The incident began about 9:15 a.m. when a truck with no license plate drove up the sidewalk outside the library. The driver told the responding officer that he had a bomb, and was holding what the officer believed to be a detonator. The truck had no license plates.

Police negotiators spent hours communicating with Roseberry as he wrote notes and showed them to authorities from inside the truck, according to the two people and a third person also briefed on the matter, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

“My negotiators are hard at work trying to have a peaceful resolution to this incident,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said earlier in the day. “We’re trying to get as much information as we can to find a way to peacefully resolve this.”

While police continued negotiations, video surfaced of Roseberry on Facebook Live inside the truck, which was stuffed with coins and boxes. He was threatening explosions, making anti-government threats and talking about what he believes are the ills of the country, including the U.S. position on Afghanistan, health care and the military.

He said Democrats needed to step down, then also said he loved the president, Democrat Joe Biden. Facebook removed the videos a few hours after they were apparently filmed. Roseberry did not appear to have a specific demand for law enforcement other than to speak with Biden.

Videos posted to his Facebook before the page was taken down appears to show Roseberry at the Nov. 14 rally attended by thousands of Trump supporters to protest what they claimed was a stolen election. One video appears to be filmed by Roseberry as he’s marching with a crowd of hundreds of people carrying American flags and Trump flags and shouting “stop the steal.”

Roseberry’s ex-wife, Crystal Roseberry, said she had seen images of the man in the standoff at the Capitol and confirmed to The Associated Press that it was her ex-husband. She said had never known him to have explosives, but that he was an avid collector of firearms.

The nation’s capital has been tense since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Fencing that had been installed around the Capitol grounds had been up for months but was taken down this summer. A day before thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, pipe bombs were left at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington. No one has been arrested yet for placing the bombs.

The RNC, not far away from where the truck was parked Thursday, was also evacuated over the threat. Officials are also jittery over a planned rally in September in D.C.

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Long reported from New Buffalo, Michigan. Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Nathan Ellgren, Ashraf Khalil, Alex Brandon and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — The man who claimed to have bomb in a pickup truck near the U.S. Capitol has surrendered to law enforcement, ending an hourslong standoff on Thursday.

The man, identified by law enforcement officials as Floyd Ray Roseberry, 49, of North Carolina, crawled out of the vehicle and was being taken into custody shortly before 2:30 p.m.

He had pulled up outside the library earlier in the day and told police he had a bomb in his truck. An officer saw what appeared to be a detonator in the man’s hand.

Officials earlier evacuated a number of buildings around the Capitol and sent snipers to the area after officers saw the man holding what looked like a detonator inside the pickup, which had no license plates. Congress is in recess this week, but staffers were seen calmly walking out of the area at the direction of authorities.

Police negotiators were communicating with him as he wrote notes and showed them to authorities from inside the truck, according to three people who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. They were trying to determine whether it was an operable bomb, the officials said.

“My negotiators are hard at work trying to have a peaceful resolution to this incident,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “We’re trying to get as much information as we can to find a way to peacefully resolve this.”

The episode began about 9:15 a.m. when the truck drove up the sidewalk outside the library, Manger said. The driver told the responding officer that he had a bomb, and was holding what the officer believed to be a detonator, The truck had no license plates.

The nation’s capital has been tense since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Fencing that had been installed around the Capitol grounds had been up for months but was taken down this summer. A day before thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, pipe bombs were left at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington. No one has been arrested yet for placing the bombs.

The RNC, not far away from where the truck was parked Thursday, was also evacuated over the threat.

The area was blocked off by police cars and barricades, and multiple fire trucks and ambulances were staged nearby. Also responding were the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police, FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The White House said it was monitoring the situation and was being briefed by law enforcement.

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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Nathan Ellgren, Ashraf Khalil, Alex Brandon and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

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A former Melrose Park police officer on Thursday became the latest gambling defendant in Chicago’s federal court to avoid prison time when a judge ordered him to serve six months in home detention.

U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold handed down the sentence to John Amabile after calling corruption among police “incredibly dangerous” but acknowledging Amabile immediately tried to make things right after being caught up in the federal investigation.

The sentence also came after Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney insisted Amabile should go to prison for a year for his role in what Kinney called an “organized-crime, big-time, big-stakes, manipulative gambling operation.”

Before learning his sentence, Amabile admitted he was “100 percent guilty” of working as an agent in a gambling operation. He said he was “bothered” by his portrayal as a predator, though. Rather, he said most gamblers placed bets to “enhance their excitement” while watching a game.

Amabile said he left the Melrose Park police department in November 2020 — months before he was charged. He then got involved in the logistics industry before selling his assets, giving him the money to pay $52,000 of a $100,000 forfeiture in the case. He said he hopes to pay further by selling his house.

“I will never put myself or my family through anything like this ever again,” Amabile said.

Amabile pleaded guilty in April to running an illegal gambling business with Gregory Paloian, a bookie with purported mob ties who admitted running that ring from 2015 until 2019 in Chicago, Elmwood Park and Melrose Park.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow gave Paloian a two-and-a-half year prison sentence last April, but she has since agreed to push his surrender date back until August 2022 for health reasons.

Amabile recruited, managed and supervised gamblers, gave them credentials for the gambling website Unclemicksports.com, and met with them regularly to settle up, according to his plea agreement. He shared wins and losses with Paloian on a 50% basis, it said.

The website Unclemicksports.com is also central to a separate gambling indictment filed in February 2020 against 10 individuals, including Vincent “Uncle Mick” DelGiudice and Mettawa Mayor Casey Urlacher. Donald Trump pardoned Urlacher, the brother of Chicago Bears great Brian Urlacher, during the final hours of Trump’s presidency last January.

That case also recently led to a 15-month prison sentence for a Chicago police officer, Nicholas Stella. But two other defendants, Eugene DelGiudice and Todd Blanken, avoided prison at sentencing.

Kinney explained in court Thursday the connection between DelGiudice and Paloian, telling the judge that Paloian ran his operation involving about 60 gamblers through DelGiudice, “who had a well-established network all set up.”

In an earlier court memo, Kinney told the judge that Amabile “was a key player and top agent” in Paloian’s organization.

Amabile’s late grandfather was a reputed mob boss and his uncle was convicted in a mob-related extortion case in 2015. Still, defense attorney George Becker complained in a fiery response to Kinney’s memo of the “great lengths” prosecutors made to tie Paloian’s gambling operation to organized crime. He wrote that “the only characteristic John Amabile has with these individuals is that he is of Italian [descent].”

“Having a last name that ends in a vowel does not mean John Amabile was or is associated with the ‘mob,'” Becker wrote. “In this case there is no evidence of John Amabile ever threatening gamblers who lost money, much less hired or used thugs to collect money.”

Becker alleged that “what this case is really about is the government not getting its cut of gambling money.” He listed several legal gambling options that continue to grow, writing that “the government feeds into the frenzy by approving of licensed gambling and taxing winnings.”

He noted that Amabile pleaded guilty, resigned his job as a police officer, started a business with his mother and “worked his butt off every day.”

“This court can say John Amabile was a police officer who disgraced his uniform and disgraced honest policemen everywhere and sentence him to jail,” Becker wrote. “Or the court can say John Amabile is an individual with a gambling disease. He is not a bad person. He needs help.”

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