Friends of ours: Michael Marcello, James Marcello, Nicholas Calabrese
Reputed U.S. Mob boss Michael Marcello apparently didn’t watch crime shows on television - otherwise he might have known the FBI often listens in to conversations in prison visitors rooms.
In 2003, the unsuspecting Marcello dropped broad hints about his source inside the U.S. Marshals Service during visits to his brother in the prison in Milan, Michigan.
FBI agents heard every word about the man Marcello called "The Babysitter." As a result, Deputy marshal John Thomas Ambrose surrendered on Thursday to FBI agents who say he was the source who told Marcello secrets about a federally protected witness.
"This defendant’s conduct in revealing closely guarded and highly sensitive information ... constitutes an egregious breach of his law enforcement duties," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro.
Ambrose is accused of leaking information about the whereabouts of reputed mobster Nicholas Calabrese, a key witness in a murder conspiracy case. Fourteen reputed mobsters and their associates are charged with at least 18 murders. Ambrose appeared briefly before a judge who scheduled a hearing for Jan. 30. Defense attorney Francis C. Lipuma told reporters that his client denied the accusations. "John Ambrose is not connected to the mob at all," Lipuma said.
Prosecutors said that between January and June 2003 they intercepted 11 conversations that took place when Michael Marcello visited his brother, James, at the Michigan prison.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia
The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia by Guy Lawson and William Oldham
Reviewed by:
Miles Corwin
Solana Pyne
Reviewed by:
Miles Corwin
Solana Pyne
Police Corruption and Cover-ups Surround "The Brotherhood"
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Gambino Crime Family, Fat the Gangster, Diamond LouieFriends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Burton Kaplan
In 1994, an underboss of the Lucchese crime family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, flipped. He was in federal custody, facing numerous murder and racketeering counts, when he informed FBI agents that, in return for a "pad" of $4,000 a month, two New York City Police Department detectives had regularly slipped him confidential information from police and FBI organized-crime files: names and addresses of confidential informants (who were then knocked off), tipoffs on raids and phone taps, and advance warnings of arrests.
For almost a decade, Casso said that the two detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, conducted secret investigations for the Lucchese family. Eventually, Casso claimed, he hired the detectives as hit men. They used their badges to put unsuspecting gangland targets at ease, killed them and collected payoffs of up to $100,000.
What makes "The Brotherhoods" even more alarming is the criminal negligence of law-enforcement officials, who showed little interest in bringing Caracappa and Eppolito to justice. "The Brotherhoods" chronicles years of egregious police corruption and the stupefying bureaucratic indifference that allowed it to flourish. It was not until 11 years after Casso first fingered the two cops that they were finally arrested.
After receiving life sentences last year, the two had their convictions thrown out by a judge who ruled that the statute of limitations had expired. At the time of their arrest, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said, "It's been a long time coming." Well, it's still not over. The book, published in November, closes with the government's appeal of the ruling.
Investigative journalist Guy Lawson teamed up for this book with William Oldham, a retired NYPD detective who spearheaded the police corruption investigation as an investigator for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. Oldham brings an insider's insight and analysis to this absorbing book, which serves as a cautionary tale to all police departments. Because the NYPD brass did not assiduously follow up on the signs of corruption, the job of every cop in the department became more difficult.
Eppolito and Caracappa were longtime best friends and former partners as young detectives in south Brooklyn. Thin, quiet and with a preference for dark suits, Caracappa was called "the Prince of Darkness" by other detectives. He was also one of the department's top detectives, a go-to guy in the elite Major Case Squad, which investigated high-profile, difficult cases. Caracappa had "written the book on organized crime murders in New York," the authors explain. "If a wise guy was killed in Queens or the Bronx and the homicide detective who caught the case wanted to know how his victim fit in the Mafia, he would look in Caracappa's book for connections."
Eppolito, on the other hand, was "fat, loud, foul-mouthed ... with a thick mustache and a taste for gold chains. ... He was a conspicuous cop - he dressed like a wise guy." He also wrote a memoir called "Mafia Cop
: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob." Given his family's connections with organized crime, it is remarkable that NYPD screeners let Eppolito onto the force. His grandfather - "Diamond Louie" - and his father - "Fat the Gangster" - were members of the Gambino crime family.
Eppolito served as his father's bagman when he was a boy, handing cash to local cops so they wouldn't break up Fat the Gangster's dice and poker games. At his father's funeral - where the FBI took surveillance photos of the numerous organized-crime figures in attendance - Eppolito was slipped notes by wise guys.
After killing time at a no-work job set up by a Gambino relative, Eppolito decided to join the NYPD. To Eppolito's way of thinking, he was simply exchanging one brotherhood for another.
Eppolito retired before his memoir was published; Caracappa didn't. He was still on the force, and in the author's note for "Mafia Cop," Eppolito calls him "my closest and dearest friend." When Oldham came across a copy of Eppolito's memoir in the early 1990s, he was assigned to the Major Case Squad along with Caracappa. Oldham was stunned that Caracappa, who had access to the department's most sensitive intelligence, would be best friends with a dubious character like Eppolito. That was Oldham's first clue that the Mafia might have made inroads into the NYPD.
When Casso told federal authorities about Caracappa and Eppolito's criminality, Oldham assumed investigations would be launched. When the detectives later retired to Las Vegas and bought homes in a luxury development across the street from each other, Oldham was outraged. The crooked cops had skated. Oldham decided to investigate the case himself - first as an NYPD detective and later from the U.S. attorney's office.
In 2004, Oldham's situation improved, as the book relates: "Finally ... a small group of detectives and investigators came together to work on the investigation. Oldham called them 'the cadre.' ... They were all determined to see that justice was done. All of the voluminous information Oldham had gathered over the years was examined anew. More evidence was uncovered. Compelling connections between 'the cops' and long-forgotten murders were unearthed. Even with the accumulated facts, Oldham knew the case needed someone inside the conspiracy ... to take the disparate strands of the case and pull them together. He needed a storyteller."
Oldham found him in "Downtown" Burt Kaplan, a colorful Jewish gangster who was one of the most notorious dealers in stolen goods in New York. It was Kaplan who first made contact with the two detectives; it was Kaplan who set them up with organized-crime figures, and it was Kaplan who ultimately turned on them and testified in court.
Of course, it shouldn't have taken until 2005 to convict Caracappa and Eppolito. Shortly after teaming up in the 1970s, they accumulated numerous Internal Affairs complaints, including cash stolen from arrestees and money missing from a homicide scene. When the nephew of crime boss Carlo Gambino was busted for attempting to set up a major heroin deal with an FBI undercover agent, agents searching the house discovered a confidential NYPD Intelligence Divisions file. The FBI ran the documents for fingerprints, and they matched Eppolito's.
"Eppolito had a long, contorted explanation for how his fingerprints had magically appeared on a police department intelligence document found in a Gambino's house," Oldham recalled. "I wasn't buying it."
After the two cops retired, Oldham continued to try and bring them down. He told his NYPD supervisor about the trail he'd followed and the evidence he had collected. "He didn't want to hear about it. He said the words slowly, carefully enunciating them. 'I do not want to hear about that case ever again. Understand?'" Oldham recalled. "Catching Caracappa and Eppolito would ... hurt the whole department. Certain people think cops go bad every day. This would just confirm it."
"The Brotherhoods" is the anti-"Sopranos." Instead of yarns about colorful mobsters who believe in family, honor and omert ... , the book provides a glimpse of the New Millennium Mafia: arrested mobsters who start singing as soon as the cuffs are on, and crime bosses who let the families of loyal soldiers doing time live in penury. The book is long and dense, and it would have benefited from the perspective and insight of other detectives in "the cadre." On the other hand, readers will find this an important and well-told story.
Thanks to Miles Corwin
In 1994, an underboss of the Lucchese crime family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, flipped. He was in federal custody, facing numerous murder and racketeering counts, when he informed FBI agents that, in return for a "pad" of $4,000 a month, two New York City Police Department detectives had regularly slipped him confidential information from police and FBI organized-crime files: names and addresses of confidential informants (who were then knocked off), tipoffs on raids and phone taps, and advance warnings of arrests.
For almost a decade, Casso said that the two detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, conducted secret investigations for the Lucchese family. Eventually, Casso claimed, he hired the detectives as hit men. They used their badges to put unsuspecting gangland targets at ease, killed them and collected payoffs of up to $100,000.
What makes "The Brotherhoods" even more alarming is the criminal negligence of law-enforcement officials, who showed little interest in bringing Caracappa and Eppolito to justice. "The Brotherhoods" chronicles years of egregious police corruption and the stupefying bureaucratic indifference that allowed it to flourish. It was not until 11 years after Casso first fingered the two cops that they were finally arrested.
After receiving life sentences last year, the two had their convictions thrown out by a judge who ruled that the statute of limitations had expired. At the time of their arrest, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said, "It's been a long time coming." Well, it's still not over. The book, published in November, closes with the government's appeal of the ruling.
Investigative journalist Guy Lawson teamed up for this book with William Oldham, a retired NYPD detective who spearheaded the police corruption investigation as an investigator for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. Oldham brings an insider's insight and analysis to this absorbing book, which serves as a cautionary tale to all police departments. Because the NYPD brass did not assiduously follow up on the signs of corruption, the job of every cop in the department became more difficult.
Eppolito and Caracappa were longtime best friends and former partners as young detectives in south Brooklyn. Thin, quiet and with a preference for dark suits, Caracappa was called "the Prince of Darkness" by other detectives. He was also one of the department's top detectives, a go-to guy in the elite Major Case Squad, which investigated high-profile, difficult cases. Caracappa had "written the book on organized crime murders in New York," the authors explain. "If a wise guy was killed in Queens or the Bronx and the homicide detective who caught the case wanted to know how his victim fit in the Mafia, he would look in Caracappa's book for connections."
Eppolito, on the other hand, was "fat, loud, foul-mouthed ... with a thick mustache and a taste for gold chains. ... He was a conspicuous cop - he dressed like a wise guy." He also wrote a memoir called "Mafia Cop
: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob." Given his family's connections with organized crime, it is remarkable that NYPD screeners let Eppolito onto the force. His grandfather - "Diamond Louie" - and his father - "Fat the Gangster" - were members of the Gambino crime family.Eppolito served as his father's bagman when he was a boy, handing cash to local cops so they wouldn't break up Fat the Gangster's dice and poker games. At his father's funeral - where the FBI took surveillance photos of the numerous organized-crime figures in attendance - Eppolito was slipped notes by wise guys.
After killing time at a no-work job set up by a Gambino relative, Eppolito decided to join the NYPD. To Eppolito's way of thinking, he was simply exchanging one brotherhood for another.
Eppolito retired before his memoir was published; Caracappa didn't. He was still on the force, and in the author's note for "Mafia Cop," Eppolito calls him "my closest and dearest friend." When Oldham came across a copy of Eppolito's memoir in the early 1990s, he was assigned to the Major Case Squad along with Caracappa. Oldham was stunned that Caracappa, who had access to the department's most sensitive intelligence, would be best friends with a dubious character like Eppolito. That was Oldham's first clue that the Mafia might have made inroads into the NYPD.
When Casso told federal authorities about Caracappa and Eppolito's criminality, Oldham assumed investigations would be launched. When the detectives later retired to Las Vegas and bought homes in a luxury development across the street from each other, Oldham was outraged. The crooked cops had skated. Oldham decided to investigate the case himself - first as an NYPD detective and later from the U.S. attorney's office.
In 2004, Oldham's situation improved, as the book relates: "Finally ... a small group of detectives and investigators came together to work on the investigation. Oldham called them 'the cadre.' ... They were all determined to see that justice was done. All of the voluminous information Oldham had gathered over the years was examined anew. More evidence was uncovered. Compelling connections between 'the cops' and long-forgotten murders were unearthed. Even with the accumulated facts, Oldham knew the case needed someone inside the conspiracy ... to take the disparate strands of the case and pull them together. He needed a storyteller."
Oldham found him in "Downtown" Burt Kaplan, a colorful Jewish gangster who was one of the most notorious dealers in stolen goods in New York. It was Kaplan who first made contact with the two detectives; it was Kaplan who set them up with organized-crime figures, and it was Kaplan who ultimately turned on them and testified in court.
Of course, it shouldn't have taken until 2005 to convict Caracappa and Eppolito. Shortly after teaming up in the 1970s, they accumulated numerous Internal Affairs complaints, including cash stolen from arrestees and money missing from a homicide scene. When the nephew of crime boss Carlo Gambino was busted for attempting to set up a major heroin deal with an FBI undercover agent, agents searching the house discovered a confidential NYPD Intelligence Divisions file. The FBI ran the documents for fingerprints, and they matched Eppolito's.
"Eppolito had a long, contorted explanation for how his fingerprints had magically appeared on a police department intelligence document found in a Gambino's house," Oldham recalled. "I wasn't buying it."
After the two cops retired, Oldham continued to try and bring them down. He told his NYPD supervisor about the trail he'd followed and the evidence he had collected. "He didn't want to hear about it. He said the words slowly, carefully enunciating them. 'I do not want to hear about that case ever again. Understand?'" Oldham recalled. "Catching Caracappa and Eppolito would ... hurt the whole department. Certain people think cops go bad every day. This would just confirm it."
"The Brotherhoods" is the anti-"Sopranos." Instead of yarns about colorful mobsters who believe in family, honor and omert ... , the book provides a glimpse of the New Millennium Mafia: arrested mobsters who start singing as soon as the cuffs are on, and crime bosses who let the families of loyal soldiers doing time live in penury. The book is long and dense, and it would have benefited from the perspective and insight of other detectives in "the cadre." On the other hand, readers will find this an important and well-told story.
Thanks to Miles Corwin
U.S. Marshal Charged with Leaking Information to Chicago Mob
Friends of ours: John "No-Nose" DiFronzo, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr., Tony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Nick Calabrese
A federal deputy marshal was charged Thursday with leaking information about a reputed mobster's cooperation with prosecutors as they investigated the top echelon of Chicago's organized crime family.
John Thomas Ambrose, 38, a former supervisory inspector of the U.S. Marshals Service's Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, surrendered Thursday at the FBI's Chicago office, officials said. Ambrose has been on leave since September. He is charged with theft of government property, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Ambrose is accused of revealing information concerning the cooperation and travel plans of Nicholas Calabrese, expected to be a key witness in the government's Operation Family Secrets murder conspiracy case. Prosecutors said Ambrose told them in a Sept. 6 interview that he passed the information to an associate of reputed mob boss John DiFronzo in hopes of getting information on the whereabouts of then-fugitive organized crime figure Joseph Lombardo.
Prosecutors said that in later interviews Ambrose said he never believed the information would be passed to organized crime figures.
Lombardo, among those charged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment, was subsequently captured and is due to stand trial starting in May along with the others accused in the case.
Calabrese, 63, of Chicago and his brother, Frank Calabrese, 68, of Oak Brook are among 14 defendants charged in a sweeping indictment alleging a long-term conspiracy by Chicago mobsters to commit at least 18 murders. Victims include Tony Spilotro, the mob's one-time man in Las Vegas, who was beaten to death and buried in a corn field.
Prosecutors said Ambrose leaked information concerning Nicholas Calabrese while Calabrese was in the witness security program operated by the Marshals Service. They said in court papers that the information was given to members of the Chicago mob.
Gary Shapiro, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, said the alleged leak "constitutes an egregious breach of his law enforcement duties." There was no evidence that Calabrese or other witnesses were ever in danger, Shapiro said.
Friends of mine: Nick Calabrese
A federal deputy marshal was charged Thursday with leaking information about a reputed mobster's cooperation with prosecutors as they investigated the top echelon of Chicago's organized crime family.
John Thomas Ambrose, 38, a former supervisory inspector of the U.S. Marshals Service's Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, surrendered Thursday at the FBI's Chicago office, officials said. Ambrose has been on leave since September. He is charged with theft of government property, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Ambrose is accused of revealing information concerning the cooperation and travel plans of Nicholas Calabrese, expected to be a key witness in the government's Operation Family Secrets murder conspiracy case. Prosecutors said Ambrose told them in a Sept. 6 interview that he passed the information to an associate of reputed mob boss John DiFronzo in hopes of getting information on the whereabouts of then-fugitive organized crime figure Joseph Lombardo.
Prosecutors said that in later interviews Ambrose said he never believed the information would be passed to organized crime figures.
Lombardo, among those charged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment, was subsequently captured and is due to stand trial starting in May along with the others accused in the case.
Calabrese, 63, of Chicago and his brother, Frank Calabrese, 68, of Oak Brook are among 14 defendants charged in a sweeping indictment alleging a long-term conspiracy by Chicago mobsters to commit at least 18 murders. Victims include Tony Spilotro, the mob's one-time man in Las Vegas, who was beaten to death and buried in a corn field.
Prosecutors said Ambrose leaked information concerning Nicholas Calabrese while Calabrese was in the witness security program operated by the Marshals Service. They said in court papers that the information was given to members of the Chicago mob.
Gary Shapiro, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, said the alleged leak "constitutes an egregious breach of his law enforcement duties." There was no evidence that Calabrese or other witnesses were ever in danger, Shapiro said.
Discount Syndicate Honors the Golden Age
I am certain that some of my sharper soldiers have noticed that I have added a 5th site to the Syndicate Series. That site is called the Discount Syndicate. While you can make your bones at the Chicago Syndicate, relax at the Music City Syndicate, cheer at the Sport Syndicate and party at the Vegas Syndicate, the Discount Syndicate will help you save large.
In order to benefit from it the most, I recommend that you subscribe to it or save it as one of your favorites. Currently, over 40 associates of mine are offering discounts and special offers to the Syndicate crew. However, that is just a taste of what will eventually be available. When I finish opening the books, the total of connected specials will be closer to 100. Many of these offers will not be available anywhere else. The only way to save more would be to come heavy. Fortunately, I am not one to eat alone nor am I bound by a Code of Silence on these offers.
No need to pay tribute to the boss for this thing of ours. This is just my way of saying piacere.
In order to benefit from it the most, I recommend that you subscribe to it or save it as one of your favorites. Currently, over 40 associates of mine are offering discounts and special offers to the Syndicate crew. However, that is just a taste of what will eventually be available. When I finish opening the books, the total of connected specials will be closer to 100. Many of these offers will not be available anywhere else. The only way to save more would be to come heavy. Fortunately, I am not one to eat alone nor am I bound by a Code of Silence on these offers.
No need to pay tribute to the boss for this thing of ours. This is just my way of saying piacere.
Chicago Crime Commission Subpoenaed by Clown
Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs
Reputed Chicago mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo is looking to an unusual source for possible help in his defense at one of the most important mob trials in Chicago history: the Chicago Crime Commission.
Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, had a subpoena served on the Outfit-fighting organization Tuesday for all the supporting documents the commission used to justify putting Lombardo on a mob hierarchy chart the group created in the 1980s. The chart shows Lombardo as a top Chicago mobster. "I can think of no privilege they have with those files," Halprin said. "If they do, I'm sure we'll hear about it in court."
The commission's general counsel, Jeannette Tamayo, called the subpoena for the documents "fairly unusual" and said officials are determining what documents the commission has that are responsive to the subpoena and what the commission is legally obligated to provide.
It's unclear whether the subpoena will spark a legal showdown in federal court in the Family Secrets case. Prosecutors have charged Lombardo and other reputed Outfit leaders in a wide-ranging racketeering case that aims to solve 18 slayings.
Halprin said the late, well-known, former FBI agent William Roemer worked as a consultant for the crime commission in putting together the chart outlining the hierarchy of the Chicago mob.
Halprin is particularly interested in any documentation relating to the prosecution of Lombardo and several others in a scheme to embezzle more than $1 million from a Teamsters pension fund.
In 2005, authorities charged Lombardo, alleged mob hit man Frank "the German" Schweihs and others with the September 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman who authorities say was to be the key witness against Lombardo at the embezzlement trial.
The Teamsters embezzlement case is more than 30 years old, and documentation from it is scarce. Halprin is curious to find out if the crime commission has any historic FBI documents from the case or other matters involving Lombardo.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Reputed Chicago mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo is looking to an unusual source for possible help in his defense at one of the most important mob trials in Chicago history: the Chicago Crime Commission.
Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, had a subpoena served on the Outfit-fighting organization Tuesday for all the supporting documents the commission used to justify putting Lombardo on a mob hierarchy chart the group created in the 1980s. The chart shows Lombardo as a top Chicago mobster. "I can think of no privilege they have with those files," Halprin said. "If they do, I'm sure we'll hear about it in court."
The commission's general counsel, Jeannette Tamayo, called the subpoena for the documents "fairly unusual" and said officials are determining what documents the commission has that are responsive to the subpoena and what the commission is legally obligated to provide.
It's unclear whether the subpoena will spark a legal showdown in federal court in the Family Secrets case. Prosecutors have charged Lombardo and other reputed Outfit leaders in a wide-ranging racketeering case that aims to solve 18 slayings.
Halprin said the late, well-known, former FBI agent William Roemer worked as a consultant for the crime commission in putting together the chart outlining the hierarchy of the Chicago mob.
Halprin is particularly interested in any documentation relating to the prosecution of Lombardo and several others in a scheme to embezzle more than $1 million from a Teamsters pension fund.
In 2005, authorities charged Lombardo, alleged mob hit man Frank "the German" Schweihs and others with the September 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman who authorities say was to be the key witness against Lombardo at the embezzlement trial.
The Teamsters embezzlement case is more than 30 years old, and documentation from it is scarce. Halprin is curious to find out if the crime commission has any historic FBI documents from the case or other matters involving Lombardo.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Golfing with the Mob
Brooklyn's Marine Park Golf Course was under investigation Friday for having possible ties to the Colombo crime family. What took them so long to figure it out? The local rules give you a free drop away from the body, no closer to the hole.
Mob Links
Friends of ours: Craig Marino, Colombo Crime Family
A gangster has been linked to the new operator of a city-owned golf course in Brooklyn - creating a hazard and trap that has nothing to do with water and sand.
Sources familiar with the matter say the city Department of Investigation is examining the contract held by East Coast Golf to run the 18-hole Marine Park Golf Course, one of 12 public courses in the city.
The company, based in the Brooklyn Terminal Market, won out over four other bidders in 2005.
City Controller William Thompson asked the Parks Department to reconsider the deal in a letter yesterday. "The information we have obtained gives rise to numerous integrity concerns," Thompson wrote.
The owner of East Coast Golf is listed as Domenick Logozzo, who is financially connected to Craig Marino, an ultraviolent Colombo crime family soldier, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors. Marino, who has the phrase "F--- the Police" tattooed on his chest, has been accused by mob informants of stabbing two men and shooting another, prosecutors say. The two are linked through their joint investment in a company called Zone Chefs, which delivers food to dieters, according to court records.
Marino and several others - including Zone Chefs' president, Arthur Gunning - were indicted by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf last March on racketeering charges that included stock fraud and extortion. Logozzo was not charged.
Although Marino's name does not appear as an owner or officer of Zone Chefs, prosecutors say he is invested in the company through a bank loan taken out by Logozzo. Prosecutors say Marino was caught on a wiretap boasting of his ownership interest in Zone Chefs. Marino's lawyers have said in court papers that the investment is his "sole source of income."
Three months before the indictment, East Coast Golf began running the Marine Park course on Jan. 1, 2006, after agreeing to pay the city $9.6 million over 20 years.
The Parks Department could not say how much East Coast netted in fees in its first year running the course, where greens fees run from $16 to $38. "We awarded the contract before the indictment was handed down," said Warner Johnston, spokesman for the Parks Department.
Calls to Logozzo were not returned.
Thanks to Greg B. Smith
A gangster has been linked to the new operator of a city-owned golf course in Brooklyn - creating a hazard and trap that has nothing to do with water and sand.
Sources familiar with the matter say the city Department of Investigation is examining the contract held by East Coast Golf to run the 18-hole Marine Park Golf Course, one of 12 public courses in the city.
The company, based in the Brooklyn Terminal Market, won out over four other bidders in 2005.
City Controller William Thompson asked the Parks Department to reconsider the deal in a letter yesterday. "The information we have obtained gives rise to numerous integrity concerns," Thompson wrote.
The owner of East Coast Golf is listed as Domenick Logozzo, who is financially connected to Craig Marino, an ultraviolent Colombo crime family soldier, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors. Marino, who has the phrase "F--- the Police" tattooed on his chest, has been accused by mob informants of stabbing two men and shooting another, prosecutors say. The two are linked through their joint investment in a company called Zone Chefs, which delivers food to dieters, according to court records.
Marino and several others - including Zone Chefs' president, Arthur Gunning - were indicted by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf last March on racketeering charges that included stock fraud and extortion. Logozzo was not charged.
Although Marino's name does not appear as an owner or officer of Zone Chefs, prosecutors say he is invested in the company through a bank loan taken out by Logozzo. Prosecutors say Marino was caught on a wiretap boasting of his ownership interest in Zone Chefs. Marino's lawyers have said in court papers that the investment is his "sole source of income."
Three months before the indictment, East Coast Golf began running the Marine Park course on Jan. 1, 2006, after agreeing to pay the city $9.6 million over 20 years.
The Parks Department could not say how much East Coast netted in fees in its first year running the course, where greens fees run from $16 to $38. "We awarded the contract before the indictment was handed down," said Warner Johnston, spokesman for the Parks Department.
Calls to Logozzo were not returned.
Thanks to Greg B. Smith
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Top 10 Most Wanted True-Crime Movies
Friends of ours: Al Capone, Bugs Moran
Belatedly hitting theaters this week is "Alpha Dog," the story of Jesse James Hollywood, an alleged drug dealer-turned-killer who managed to make the FBI's most wanted list by the age of 20. Not only is Jesse's name real, but so is the story, adding "Alpha Dog" to a long list of films based on actual crimes.
We've called in some of the usual suspects and a few ringers to put together a lineup of the top 10 true-crime movies (although the names may have been changed to protect the innocent).
10. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967)
Perhaps no criminal has ever been featured in more pop culture than Al Capone. From 1932's "Scarface" to Brian DePalma's 1987 adaptation of "The Untouchables," the prohibition-era Chicago gangster has become a pop icon. While those two movies are mostly apocryphal, "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" is based on an actual February 14, 1929, strike by Capone against rival gangster Bugs Moran's crew. The tall, thin Jason Robards may not look like Capone the way Robert De Niro does in "The Untouchables," and George Segal (playing a mob enforcer) couldn't be menacing in any context, but B-movie auteur Roger Corman's stylish direction makes this one of the more memorable mob movies (look for a cameo by the young Jack Nicholson).
9. "Monster
" (2003)
Arguments will rage forever as to whether the Florida prostitute-turned-serial killer Aileen Wuornos was a victimized vigilante or a pure psychopath, but few can deny the power of Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning portrayal in this 2003 film. Yes, Theron gained 30 pounds and wore hideous false teeth to obscure her natural beauty, but to reduce her transformation to mere physicality is unfair. Theron manages to make Wuornos simultaneously sympathetic and terrifying. You find yourself hoping she'll get her life together even though the film's tragic end is a foregone conclusion.
8. "Reversal of Fortune" (1990)
Our tabloid culture's perverse fascination with crime takes on an air of Schadenfreude when it occurs in high society. "Reversal of Fortune" tells the true story of socialite Claus Von Bülow's attempt to overturn a conviction for attempted murder of his wife Sunny by insulin overdose. Glenn Close plays Sunny, both in flashbacks and in a voiceover narration from her vegetative comatose state. Jeremy Irons is at his icy best as the vindicated (but perhaps guilty?) Claus in a role that won him a Best Actor Oscar.
7. "The French Connection" (1971)
Gene Hackman plays "Popeye" Doyle, a New York City police detective obsessed with capturing a French heroin smuggler in this thriller, based on an actual Turkey-France-United States drug-trafficking scheme that exploded in the 1960s. William Friedkin directed this nail-biter, one of those great, gritty '70s flicks that's painted in a dozen shades of gray. The film won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, Screenplay and Editing and contains what many still consider the greatest car-chase scene in film history (as well as an achingly ambiguous ending that would never fly today).
6. "Heavenly Creatures" (1994)
Years before he brought to life orcs and giant apes, director Peter Jackson tackled another kind of monster in the real-life story of two 1950s New Zealand girls who murder the mother who forbids them to see each other when their close friendship becomes too obsessive. In her first film role, Kate Winslet plays the daughter who takes a brick to her mother's head — 45 times. Jackson, following up his gore-fest horror film "Braindead," crafts a movie that's part Merchant Ivory, part Martin Scorsese.
5. "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975)
Sidney Lumet directs Al Pacino in arguably his best role as Sonny Wortzik, a man who attempts to rob a bank to pay for his lover's sex-change operation, only to have everything go wrong on a sweltering New York summer day. As a police standoff drags on for 14 hours, the throng of onlookers begins to root for Sonny as a champion of the oppressed. While it sounds like this is one of those "based on a true story" flicks that plays fast and loose with the details for dramatic impact, it actually hews very closely to the actual events of the robbery.
4. "Rope" (1948) and "Compulsion" (1959)
The Leopold & Loeb murder case was one of the most notorious crimes of the early 20th century. In 1924, two wealthy law students kidnapped and killed a 14-year-old neighbor merely to prove their professed Nietzschean superiority. Their subsequent trial (during which it was revealed they were lovers) caused a media frenzy, and the story inspired dozens of works of fiction. While Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" is merely inspired by the events (turning the killers into two Manhattan students who strangle a friend right before a dinner party), it's a riveting portrait of narcissism. Hitch (no stranger to sublimated urges) paints almost every character (not just the killers) with black swaths of self-absorption, forcing the audience to consider the ease with which we all say we'd like to kill someone for the mildest infraction. "Compulsion" (which changes the names of the actual parties while mostly sticking to the details) is concerned more with the trial, with Orson Welles playing the stand-in for defense attorney Clarence Darrow. The movie has an oddly anachronistic style, never quite evoking the time period, but it is buoyed by some fine performances. More permissive times would allow 1992's "Swoon," which was more about the relationship between the two killers.
3. "All the President's Men
" (1976)
It had been not quite two years since Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States in the wake of the Watergate scandal when the film version of the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward hit theaters, so the wounds on the nation were still fresh. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford play the fledgling Washington Post reporters who uncover the connection between the White House and the break-in at the Democratic National Committee. As intricate as the story itself, the film still manages to be the most exciting "talking head" thriller you've ever seen.
2. "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" (1986)
At least in films, it used to be easy to spot the bad guys: They wore black, sported furrowed brow and sinister moustache, perhaps scarred by some past altercation. But "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" presented a new kind of terror — an otherwise normal guy who just liked to murder. Based on the confessions of Henry Lee Lucas, this brutally visceral film (directed by John McNaughton) has earned cult status over the years. Michael Rooker plays Henry alongside Tom Towles as his white-trash killin' partner Otis. The movie is made only slightly less disturbing by the revelation that the majority of the hundreds of murders to which Lucas confessed never occurred.
1. "In Cold Blood" (1967)
Truman Capote's groundbreaking 1965 book about the brutal slaying of a rural Kansas family was adapted into this chilling film two years later by Richard Brooks. The film opens by showing the parallel lives of the simple, God-fearing Clutters and Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock (Robert Blake and Scott Wilson), two hard-luck drifters who hear that there's a small fortune hidden on the Clutters' farm. The movie then cuts to the day after the murders — following the search for the killers, their capture, trial and execution — with the sad, maddening details of the pointless massacre told via flashback near the end of the film. The semi-documentary style of the movie combined with the stark black-and-white cinematography and understated performances by the cast add a harrowing air of authenticity to the film (and of course, recent events in the life of Blake have given "In Cold Blood" an ironic undercurrent that only adds to its true-crime résumé).
Of course, the term "true-crime movie" is usually an oxymoron. Dramatic license or studio legal departments almost always force alterations of the facts. Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) may be one of film's most celebrated crime dramas, but it's hardly an accurate depiction of the notorious Depression-era, bank-robbing duo. So please don't track us down and shoot us if some of the films on this list fall slightly short of documentary. Although that would make a great movie ...
Thanks to Karl Heitmueller
Belatedly hitting theaters this week is "Alpha Dog," the story of Jesse James Hollywood, an alleged drug dealer-turned-killer who managed to make the FBI's most wanted list by the age of 20. Not only is Jesse's name real, but so is the story, adding "Alpha Dog" to a long list of films based on actual crimes.
We've called in some of the usual suspects and a few ringers to put together a lineup of the top 10 true-crime movies (although the names may have been changed to protect the innocent).
10. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967)
Perhaps no criminal has ever been featured in more pop culture than Al Capone. From 1932's "Scarface" to Brian DePalma's 1987 adaptation of "The Untouchables," the prohibition-era Chicago gangster has become a pop icon. While those two movies are mostly apocryphal, "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" is based on an actual February 14, 1929, strike by Capone against rival gangster Bugs Moran's crew. The tall, thin Jason Robards may not look like Capone the way Robert De Niro does in "The Untouchables," and George Segal (playing a mob enforcer) couldn't be menacing in any context, but B-movie auteur Roger Corman's stylish direction makes this one of the more memorable mob movies (look for a cameo by the young Jack Nicholson).
9. "Monster
" (2003)Arguments will rage forever as to whether the Florida prostitute-turned-serial killer Aileen Wuornos was a victimized vigilante or a pure psychopath, but few can deny the power of Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning portrayal in this 2003 film. Yes, Theron gained 30 pounds and wore hideous false teeth to obscure her natural beauty, but to reduce her transformation to mere physicality is unfair. Theron manages to make Wuornos simultaneously sympathetic and terrifying. You find yourself hoping she'll get her life together even though the film's tragic end is a foregone conclusion.
8. "Reversal of Fortune
" (1990)Our tabloid culture's perverse fascination with crime takes on an air of Schadenfreude when it occurs in high society. "Reversal of Fortune" tells the true story of socialite Claus Von Bülow's attempt to overturn a conviction for attempted murder of his wife Sunny by insulin overdose. Glenn Close plays Sunny, both in flashbacks and in a voiceover narration from her vegetative comatose state. Jeremy Irons is at his icy best as the vindicated (but perhaps guilty?) Claus in a role that won him a Best Actor Oscar.
7. "The French Connection
" (1971)Gene Hackman plays "Popeye" Doyle, a New York City police detective obsessed with capturing a French heroin smuggler in this thriller, based on an actual Turkey-France-United States drug-trafficking scheme that exploded in the 1960s. William Friedkin directed this nail-biter, one of those great, gritty '70s flicks that's painted in a dozen shades of gray. The film won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, Screenplay and Editing and contains what many still consider the greatest car-chase scene in film history (as well as an achingly ambiguous ending that would never fly today).
6. "Heavenly Creatures
" (1994)Years before he brought to life orcs and giant apes, director Peter Jackson tackled another kind of monster in the real-life story of two 1950s New Zealand girls who murder the mother who forbids them to see each other when their close friendship becomes too obsessive. In her first film role, Kate Winslet plays the daughter who takes a brick to her mother's head — 45 times. Jackson, following up his gore-fest horror film "Braindead," crafts a movie that's part Merchant Ivory, part Martin Scorsese.
5. "Dog Day Afternoon
" (1975)Sidney Lumet directs Al Pacino in arguably his best role as Sonny Wortzik, a man who attempts to rob a bank to pay for his lover's sex-change operation, only to have everything go wrong on a sweltering New York summer day. As a police standoff drags on for 14 hours, the throng of onlookers begins to root for Sonny as a champion of the oppressed. While it sounds like this is one of those "based on a true story" flicks that plays fast and loose with the details for dramatic impact, it actually hews very closely to the actual events of the robbery.
4. "Rope
" (1948) and "Compulsion" (1959)The Leopold & Loeb murder case was one of the most notorious crimes of the early 20th century. In 1924, two wealthy law students kidnapped and killed a 14-year-old neighbor merely to prove their professed Nietzschean superiority. Their subsequent trial (during which it was revealed they were lovers) caused a media frenzy, and the story inspired dozens of works of fiction. While Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" is merely inspired by the events (turning the killers into two Manhattan students who strangle a friend right before a dinner party), it's a riveting portrait of narcissism. Hitch (no stranger to sublimated urges) paints almost every character (not just the killers) with black swaths of self-absorption, forcing the audience to consider the ease with which we all say we'd like to kill someone for the mildest infraction. "Compulsion" (which changes the names of the actual parties while mostly sticking to the details) is concerned more with the trial, with Orson Welles playing the stand-in for defense attorney Clarence Darrow. The movie has an oddly anachronistic style, never quite evoking the time period, but it is buoyed by some fine performances. More permissive times would allow 1992's "Swoon," which was more about the relationship between the two killers.
3. "All the President's Men
" (1976)It had been not quite two years since Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States in the wake of the Watergate scandal when the film version of the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward hit theaters, so the wounds on the nation were still fresh. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford play the fledgling Washington Post reporters who uncover the connection between the White House and the break-in at the Democratic National Committee. As intricate as the story itself, the film still manages to be the most exciting "talking head" thriller you've ever seen.
2. "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
" (1986)At least in films, it used to be easy to spot the bad guys: They wore black, sported furrowed brow and sinister moustache, perhaps scarred by some past altercation. But "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" presented a new kind of terror — an otherwise normal guy who just liked to murder. Based on the confessions of Henry Lee Lucas, this brutally visceral film (directed by John McNaughton) has earned cult status over the years. Michael Rooker plays Henry alongside Tom Towles as his white-trash killin' partner Otis. The movie is made only slightly less disturbing by the revelation that the majority of the hundreds of murders to which Lucas confessed never occurred.
1. "In Cold Blood
" (1967)Truman Capote's groundbreaking 1965 book about the brutal slaying of a rural Kansas family was adapted into this chilling film two years later by Richard Brooks. The film opens by showing the parallel lives of the simple, God-fearing Clutters and Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock (Robert Blake and Scott Wilson), two hard-luck drifters who hear that there's a small fortune hidden on the Clutters' farm. The movie then cuts to the day after the murders — following the search for the killers, their capture, trial and execution — with the sad, maddening details of the pointless massacre told via flashback near the end of the film. The semi-documentary style of the movie combined with the stark black-and-white cinematography and understated performances by the cast add a harrowing air of authenticity to the film (and of course, recent events in the life of Blake have given "In Cold Blood" an ironic undercurrent that only adds to its true-crime résumé).
Of course, the term "true-crime movie" is usually an oxymoron. Dramatic license or studio legal departments almost always force alterations of the facts. Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde
" (1967) may be one of film's most celebrated crime dramas, but it's hardly an accurate depiction of the notorious Depression-era, bank-robbing duo. So please don't track us down and shoot us if some of the films on this list fall slightly short of documentary. Although that would make a great movie ...Thanks to Karl Heitmueller
Sopranos Expand Empire
Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
So "The Sopranos" is finally available on basic cable.
As Tony S. might put it in his new A&E vocabulary, it's about freakin' time.
The Emmy-winning Mafia saga is one of two HBO dramas coming to basic cable this week. The second is the less-heralded but often brilliant "The Wire," which starts its own run on BET the same night.
No doubt the formidable crime series, with its blunt language and seething violence, also will be cleaned up to meet the tighter standards of basic cable, but BET did not provide edited screeners.
A&E did, however, send along edited versions of two early episodes, which I'm glad to say suffer very little from the editing.
This is mostly because - like HBO's "Sex and the City," now enjoying a profitable, if slightly primmer, afterlife on TBS and in syndication - "The Sopranos" is produced with a collection of alternative shots and tidied-up dialogue loops for later use.
Where bleeps and blurs would be intrusive or even ridiculous, mobsters who seem overly fond of the epithet "jerk" and cameras that avert their gaze from the strippers at the Bada Bing club are the mildest of annoyances.
If anything, losing the obscenity, the occasional nudity and some of the gore only emphasizes how much else this extraordinary series has in its arsenal.
In the seven years since "The Sopranos" debuted, I'd forgotten some of the power of its early episodes: Tony's doomed attempts to reconcile with his epically awful mother (Nancy Marchand); the increasingly bizarre cast his dreams take on after he starts therapy; daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) showing kid brother A.J. (Robert Iler) the crime-watch Web site confirming that their cushy lives have little to do with the waste management business.
One reason that a few words snipped out of the series here and there hardly matter is that the rest of them are so richly colorful.
Who cares if A&E viewers won't get to hear what one of Tony's lieutenants disdainfully calls Starbuck's? They'll still get to listen in on conversations about children and parents, sex and psychoanalysis, Hasidism and the History Channel, God and "The Godfather," plus enough discourse about bracciole, grappa, osso buco and agita to send them to a Web site or an Italian-American friend.
A&E has promised to run the episodes at or near their original length, with minimal editing for violent or sexual content. That's good news for those who want to see the series relatively intact, but it also means that viewers who are easily upset may still want to give "The Sopranos" a wide berth.
So "The Sopranos" is finally available on basic cable.
As Tony S. might put it in his new A&E vocabulary, it's about freakin' time.
The Emmy-winning Mafia saga is one of two HBO dramas coming to basic cable this week. The second is the less-heralded but often brilliant "The Wire," which starts its own run on BET the same night.
No doubt the formidable crime series, with its blunt language and seething violence, also will be cleaned up to meet the tighter standards of basic cable, but BET did not provide edited screeners.
A&E did, however, send along edited versions of two early episodes, which I'm glad to say suffer very little from the editing.
This is mostly because - like HBO's "Sex and the City," now enjoying a profitable, if slightly primmer, afterlife on TBS and in syndication - "The Sopranos" is produced with a collection of alternative shots and tidied-up dialogue loops for later use.
Where bleeps and blurs would be intrusive or even ridiculous, mobsters who seem overly fond of the epithet "jerk" and cameras that avert their gaze from the strippers at the Bada Bing club are the mildest of annoyances.
If anything, losing the obscenity, the occasional nudity and some of the gore only emphasizes how much else this extraordinary series has in its arsenal.
In the seven years since "The Sopranos" debuted, I'd forgotten some of the power of its early episodes: Tony's doomed attempts to reconcile with his epically awful mother (Nancy Marchand); the increasingly bizarre cast his dreams take on after he starts therapy; daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) showing kid brother A.J. (Robert Iler) the crime-watch Web site confirming that their cushy lives have little to do with the waste management business.
One reason that a few words snipped out of the series here and there hardly matter is that the rest of them are so richly colorful.
Who cares if A&E viewers won't get to hear what one of Tony's lieutenants disdainfully calls Starbuck's? They'll still get to listen in on conversations about children and parents, sex and psychoanalysis, Hasidism and the History Channel, God and "The Godfather," plus enough discourse about bracciole, grappa, osso buco and agita to send them to a Web site or an Italian-American friend.
A&E has promised to run the episodes at or near their original length, with minimal editing for violent or sexual content. That's good news for those who want to see the series relatively intact, but it also means that viewers who are easily upset may still want to give "The Sopranos" a wide berth.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Did the Clown Leave a Fingerprint Behind?
Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs
Jurors in the coming Family Secrets mob trial might hear newly revealed government evidence that a fingerprint of Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo links him to the slaying of suburban businessman Daniel Seifert in 1974.
Seifert was set to be a key witness against Lombardo in a Teamster pension fund embezzlement case when masked gunmen shot him down in front of his wife and young son.
In 2005, more than 30 years after the slaying, prosecutors charged Lombardo and another reputed mob hit man, Frank "the German" Schweihs, with killing Seifert. It's one of 18 Outfit rubouts the feds have charged in an indictment against some of the top alleged mobsters of Chicago -- all part of the Family Secrets trial set for May.
The fingerprint was referred to publicly, for the first time, in a court motion that Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, filed Friday. Halprin wants information on the methodology the government's expert used in linking the print to Lombardo so he can plan a possible challenge. Halprin said Friday he's interested in finding out whether any testing used on the fingerprint destroyed part or all of it. Still, Halprin dismissed the importance of the fingerprint Friday, arguing Lombardo has a strong alibi. Lombardo was at a Chicago police station making a report on another matter at the time of the Seifert slaying.
The print was on the title application for a Ford linked to the Seifert murder but purchased several months earlier, Halprin said. The masked gunmen drove the Ford to the Bensenville plastic factory that Seifert ran, police said.
Seifert's wife and 4-year-old son had accompanied Seifert to the factory that morning. The mother and son went into the factory first, where the gunmen accosted them, telling them it was a robbery and no one would get hurt. Moments later, Seifert came into the factory and was shot in the face.
Seifert ran for his life, blood streaming from his face. He was gunned down outside the factory in front of his family as his wife begged for mercy for him, press accounts say.
The gunmen fled in the Ford, which they soon abandoned for a 1973 Dodge. Police pursued the gunmen in a high-speed chase but eventually lost them.
The Ford was bought in the name of a fictitious security company with an address on Grand Avenue in Chicago. Notarizing the application was the secretary of Irwin Weiner, a mob-connected bail bondsman also charged with Lombardo in the pension embezzlement case.
Lombardo was convicted in 1982 in a conspiracy to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, and the Seifert slaying came up as part of his sentencing.
A hoodlum associate of Lombardo's, Alva Johnson Rodgers, testified for prosecutors and told jurors of Lombardo's reaction the day after Seifert's murder. "That S.O.B. won't testify against anybody now, will he?" Lombardo allegedly boasted, according to Rodgers' testimony.
When given his chance to address the judge, Lombardo pleaded innocence. "I never ordered a killing, I never OK'd a killing, and I never killed a man in my life," he said.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Jurors in the coming Family Secrets mob trial might hear newly revealed government evidence that a fingerprint of Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo links him to the slaying of suburban businessman Daniel Seifert in 1974.
Seifert was set to be a key witness against Lombardo in a Teamster pension fund embezzlement case when masked gunmen shot him down in front of his wife and young son.
In 2005, more than 30 years after the slaying, prosecutors charged Lombardo and another reputed mob hit man, Frank "the German" Schweihs, with killing Seifert. It's one of 18 Outfit rubouts the feds have charged in an indictment against some of the top alleged mobsters of Chicago -- all part of the Family Secrets trial set for May.
The fingerprint was referred to publicly, for the first time, in a court motion that Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, filed Friday. Halprin wants information on the methodology the government's expert used in linking the print to Lombardo so he can plan a possible challenge. Halprin said Friday he's interested in finding out whether any testing used on the fingerprint destroyed part or all of it. Still, Halprin dismissed the importance of the fingerprint Friday, arguing Lombardo has a strong alibi. Lombardo was at a Chicago police station making a report on another matter at the time of the Seifert slaying.
The print was on the title application for a Ford linked to the Seifert murder but purchased several months earlier, Halprin said. The masked gunmen drove the Ford to the Bensenville plastic factory that Seifert ran, police said.
Seifert's wife and 4-year-old son had accompanied Seifert to the factory that morning. The mother and son went into the factory first, where the gunmen accosted them, telling them it was a robbery and no one would get hurt. Moments later, Seifert came into the factory and was shot in the face.
Seifert ran for his life, blood streaming from his face. He was gunned down outside the factory in front of his family as his wife begged for mercy for him, press accounts say.
The gunmen fled in the Ford, which they soon abandoned for a 1973 Dodge. Police pursued the gunmen in a high-speed chase but eventually lost them.
The Ford was bought in the name of a fictitious security company with an address on Grand Avenue in Chicago. Notarizing the application was the secretary of Irwin Weiner, a mob-connected bail bondsman also charged with Lombardo in the pension embezzlement case.
Lombardo was convicted in 1982 in a conspiracy to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, and the Seifert slaying came up as part of his sentencing.
A hoodlum associate of Lombardo's, Alva Johnson Rodgers, testified for prosecutors and told jurors of Lombardo's reaction the day after Seifert's murder. "That S.O.B. won't testify against anybody now, will he?" Lombardo allegedly boasted, according to Rodgers' testimony.
When given his chance to address the judge, Lombardo pleaded innocence. "I never ordered a killing, I never OK'd a killing, and I never killed a man in my life," he said.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Accused Heads of Chicago Outfit Due in Federal Court
Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro, Frank Schweihs, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
Reputed leaders of Chicago's organized crime family have status hearings scheduled today in federal court. Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro and Frank Schweihs (SHWYS) are charged with conspiring to commit 18 murders going back three decades.
They're among 14 reputed mob figures charged in a racketeering indictment stemming from the F-B-I's "Operation Family Secrets."
The murders include the June 1986 hit on Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the mob's man in Las Vegas for two decades.
Reputed leaders of Chicago's organized crime family have status hearings scheduled today in federal court. Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro and Frank Schweihs (SHWYS) are charged with conspiring to commit 18 murders going back three decades.
They're among 14 reputed mob figures charged in a racketeering indictment stemming from the F-B-I's "Operation Family Secrets."
The murders include the June 1986 hit on Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the mob's man in Las Vegas for two decades.
The Patriotic Don
The first book in a new saga by Allan Shiflet, "The Patriotic Don" is a mafia drama of international proportions. Shiflet twists the characteristic conflict between honor and prosperity, introducing the aftermath of 9/11 into a troubled criminal legacy passed on from father to son.
Shiflet is clearly unsatisfied with justifications used by current mafia fiction writers to address the internal struggle of crime lords. Religion plays a central role in the moral decisions of the main character, as does a sense of patriotic obligation. Shiflet's inclusion of Osama bin Laden and the poppy fields of Afghanistan add complexity and dimension to what was the tired world of mafia drug trafficking.
The world of "The Patriotic Don" extends far beyond New York City. With the death of a twentieth century mindset that struggled with its morality, the stage is set for a much more ruthless generation of drug lords that abandon morality altogether. Readers will be on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the sequel to this epic novel.
An on-and-off writer for over 30 years, Allan Shiflet has realized his dream with "The Patriotic Don," the first in a two-part mafia drama. Shiflet attended the University of Texas where he majored in business management and also played professional baseball. He has worked in a corporate setting since the 1970's, owning several businesses and traveling extensively. He and his wife, proud parents of five, currently reside in Texas.
Shiflet is clearly unsatisfied with justifications used by current mafia fiction writers to address the internal struggle of crime lords. Religion plays a central role in the moral decisions of the main character, as does a sense of patriotic obligation. Shiflet's inclusion of Osama bin Laden and the poppy fields of Afghanistan add complexity and dimension to what was the tired world of mafia drug trafficking.
The world of "The Patriotic Don" extends far beyond New York City. With the death of a twentieth century mindset that struggled with its morality, the stage is set for a much more ruthless generation of drug lords that abandon morality altogether. Readers will be on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the sequel to this epic novel.
An on-and-off writer for over 30 years, Allan Shiflet has realized his dream with "The Patriotic Don," the first in a two-part mafia drama. Shiflet attended the University of Texas where he majored in business management and also played professional baseball. He has worked in a corporate setting since the 1970's, owning several businesses and traveling extensively. He and his wife, proud parents of five, currently reside in Texas.
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