Man goes on trial for allegedly ordering 'break-both-legs beating' to collect on $300K loan

The man with the slicked-back hair and leathery tan accused of ordering a “break-both-legs beating” to collect on a $300,000 debt in 2013 might look the part.

Even his lawyer said so after he asked Michael “Mickey” Davis to stand in front of a federal jury Monday.

“He looks like a mobster, right?” defense attorney Christopher Grohman said, pointing to his client.

But Grohman told the jury at the start of Davis’ trial Monday that that’s not enough to convict Davis of attempted extortion and using extortion to collect a debt. Grohman said Davis didn’t need to “hire a bunch of goombahs” to deliver a beating to a man who prosecutors said used the $300,000 loan from Davis to start a used-car dealership with his father in Melrose Park.

“He could do it himself,” Grohman said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Donovan said Davis threatened the man’s family when he didn’t get paid — asking questions like “how are your wife and child doing?” and “does your wife still own that salon in Schaumburg?”

Donovan said Davis took control of the man’s dealership and even opened new bank accounts for the business. And eventually, the prosecutor said, Davis paid a mob associate for the man’s “thorough” beating. He went to Paul Carparelli, an Itasca man who pleaded guilty last month to three counts of conspiracy to commit extortion.

Davis offered to pay Carparelli $10,000 for the beating with $5,000 up front, prosecutors said in court documents. The feds have said they have recorded conversations as evidence.

But one of Carparelli’s associates — George Brown — turned out to be a government informant. And Donovan said the feds interrupted the plot before things turned violent.

“That beating never happened,” Donovan said.

Grohman, of the firm Durkin, Roberts & Grohman, said Davis was an active investor in the father-son car dealership from “day one.” Though prosecutors accused Davis of ordering a beating for the son, Grohman said it was actually the father who gambled away Davis’ money.