Bacci Pizzeria Owner Charged With Arson

The owner of a Chicago pizzeria, Bacci's, has been accused of hiring a gang to set fire to a building he owned so he could collect the insurance.

Federal agents asked the owner of the Bacci pizzeria chain to drop by the Chicago police bomb and arson squad office last week to discuss the 2000 fire that damaged a building he owned in Little Italy.

When Robert Didiana arrived at the West Side office, the agents said they had solved the case—and that he was under arrest for allegedly hiring a street gang to burn down the building for insurance money, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

Didiana, who lives in Darien and owns 18 Bacci Pizzeria restaurants in Illinois, is charged with two counts of aggravated arson in the fire at his 913 S. Western Ave. building, according to Cook County prosecutors.

The fire, which caused heavy damage to the building on Christmas Eve 2000, began while a family who rented an apartment on an upper floor celebrated the holidays there. The family escaped without harm when the arsonists sent a junior gang member into the building after the fire was started to evacuate the couple, their child and an elderly relative, according to the source.

Authorities said Didiana, 39, collected about $250,000 in an insurance settlement from the fire. The restaurateur was released from the Cook County Jail on $150,000 bail last weekend, prosecutors said. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.