The Chicago Syndicate: 11/01/2010 - 12/01/2010
The Mission Impossible Backpack

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Sketch Artist Forbidden From Drawing Co-Defendant at Mob Bombing Trial

In federal court Tuesday, the mob racketeering trial of Michael "the Large Guy" Sarno and four alleged accomplices was abruptly halted when a witness was asked about Sarno's mob connections.

In this intelligence report: Why that wasn't the only unusual event during the trial.

Mike Sarno, a convicted Outfit boss, is accused of ordering the bombing of a Berwyn video poker machine maker that was in competition with the Outfit.

For the past two days one of Sarno's co-defendant's in the case has been testifying. Mark Hay is a career burglar, and unbeknownst to his accused criminal colleagues, he was cooperating with the FBI.

Tuesday, as the free-on bond "Large Guy" walked into federal court for another day of trial, his attorney Terry Gillespie was able to cross-examine one of the government's prime witnesses. His name: 54-year-old Mark Hay.

In an extraordinary request, the past two days, Judge Ronald Guzman asked that our ABC7 courtroom sketch artist not draw Hay's face, even though he was sitting in full view in a public courtroom and is a named defendant.

It is thought that Hay will enter the federal witness protection program and be given a new identity once this case is done.

More unusual is that Hay's picture is readily available to anyone searching the Illinois Department of Corrections website. He has been serving a lengthy sentence at the Logan Correctional Center on numerous burglary convictions.

The past two days, not only has Hay's testimony been seen and heard, so have his undercover tapes.

On those tapes Hay expresses his surprise that Mike Sarno hadn't been indicted during the fed's Operation Family Secrets, the feds' much more expansive mob murders prosecution from a few years ago.

It is unclear why a news organization's sketch artist would be singled out and asked not to draw a picture of someone who is appearing in a public courtroom when that person's current prison photo is available for anyone to see on a government website.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Friday, November 19, 2010

Frank Calabrese Sr Not a Happy Camper in Prison

It's been two years since Chicago mob boss and hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. was put into solitary confinement in a federal prison. Calabrese's lawyer says the treatment is unfair and unjust.

The United States Bureau of Prisons calls them "Special Administrative Measures." Federal authorities will not talk about who is placed under those provisions or why.

By definition the special measures -- or SAMs -- are intended for terrorists to prevent them from threatening national security by communicating plans to the outside. According to his lawyer, at age 73, Outfit boss Frank Calabrese Sr. doesn't qualify.

"He's in more like an old mop room that they keep him in," said Joe Lopez, Calabrese's attorney. "He's in this large room because its the only place they can keep him. It's not really a room, it's more of an old storage room that was converted just to house him as an inmate."

Frank "the Breeze" Calabrese is being held at the Springfield Correctional Center in near isolation at the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. The special incarceration is being used on terrorists, including shoe bomber Richard C. Reid who was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up a jetliner.

Calabrese got himself in trouble while playing mob boss behind bars in Milan, Mi., resulting in FBI undercover tapes that helped convict him and five Outfit associates during the 2007 Family Secrets trial.

"Based on other conduct that occurred while he was in prison, some of the things you heard at Family Secrets, some of the tapes that were being made by his son, they put him into this special administrative measure," said Lopez.

It didn't help that Calabrese allegedly threatened to kill former Family Secrets prosecutor T. Markus Funk.

"You look at a guy like Frank Senior, who I have a history with, and I'm not going to be on his Christmas card list, and he certainly isn't going to be on mine. But he did things, he was cruel, he went out of his way to brutalize people," said Funk.

In a 2008 court motion, Calabrese's lawyer compared him to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional psychopath in the movie Silence of the Lambs and predicted the Hollywood-style facemask was coming. Even though that hasn't happened, Lopez says just about every other freedom has been revoked.

"I know it's jail, and I understand he's not at the Four Seasons. Still there are other inmates in there who have committed mass murders, who have killed informants, have obstructed justice and they aren't put through the same type of stringent conditions he is in," said Lopez.

The special prisoner designation is good for one year, then prosecutors must petition the U.S. Attorney General if they want it to continue for another 12 months. There is no public record of prisoners who are placed in these harsh conditions so it is unclear whether the federal prosecutor in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, has renewed his Calabrese request. Fitzgerald's spokesman declines to comment.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Reviewing the History Behind Famous Mob Nicknames

A colorful nickname comes with the job when you are a reputed Chicago crime boss, often whether you like it or not.

The trial of Michael "Big Mike" Sarno is getting underway in federal court in Chicago, with prosecutors arguing that the 6-foot-3-inch, 300-pound Sarno wasn't just imposing because of his size, but because he was the big man behind a violent mob jewelry theft and illegal gambling ring.

Imposing aliases have captivated the public and aggravated mobsters since the days of Al "Scarface" Capone, a fact that apparently was too much for one prospective juror. The juror, a suburban businessman, told U.S. Judge Ronald Guzman he would be biased by the repeated use of nicknames during the trial. So Guzman sent him home.

Defense attorney Michael Gillespie said he's not worried about his large client's nickname, which is pretty mild for an alleged mobster. "There's nothing nefarious about that nickname," Gillespie said. "But I do think (federal prosecutors) put the nickname in there for a reason. They could've just charged him as 'Michael Sarno.'"

A big appetite is a more benign way to get a pet name than, say, Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo, the former reputed mob kingpin who earned his sobriquet for beating people with baseball bats. The story goes that after hearing of one such beating, Capone himself said, "That guy, (Accardo), he's a real Joe Batters." Throughout his life, everyone called Accardo "Joe," said Gus Russo, author of "The Outfit."

"They started to call (Accardo) 'Big Tuna' in the press, but no one ever called him that," said Russo. Mobsters' nicknames often were generated by the press or FBI agents eager to antagonize their targets, a favorite tactic of longtime Chicago FBI chief William Roemer. "(Roemer) was the one that referred to (Outfit Vegas boss) Anthony Spilotro as 'The Ant,'" Russo said. "That was (Roemer's) way of infuriating these guys."

Attorney Joseph Lopez said the press hung the nickname "The Breeze" on his loan-sharking client Frank Calabrese Sr. "That's a media nickname. No one ever called him that. He was 'Cheech,'" said Lopez. "Cheech is 'Frank' in Italian. It's a neighborhood thing. These guys get their nicknames like anyone else, as young kids in the neighborhood."

Of course, former Lopez client Anthony "The Hatchet" Chiaramonti was known for attacking juice-loan delinquents with a hatchet, the attorney acknowledged. "Hatchet earned that nickname," said Lopez, noting that jurors heard Chiaramonti strangle an informant — who was wearing a wire at the time — during a trial in the 1990s. "I called him Tony."

When reputed mobsters deny, or take offense to, their nicknames, it may be because they haven't heard them until someone plays them tapes of a wiretap. Wiretaps in Sarno's case will show that some of his lieutenants often called their boss "Fat Ass" behind his back. Not a good career move in most jobs, and a potentially deadly one in The Outfit.

"These are not guys you might want to call by a nickname to their face," said Markus Funk, one of the lead prosecutors in the Family Secrets trial that featured defendants Frank "the German" Schweihs; Paul "the Indian" Schiro; and Joseph Lombardo, who was listed with three nicknames: "the Clown," "Lumbo" and "Lumpy."

U.S. attorney's office policy is to include nicknames in an indictment only when the monikers are used in wiretaps or correspondence, said former prosecutor Chris Gair. However, modern mobsters are so paranoid about wiretaps and FBI surveillance that they seldom even risk using a nickname, Gair said. Their coded euphemisms get so vague, often it's clear the mobsters can barely carry on a conversation.

"Instead of a name or a nickname, they'll say something like 'You know that guy down by Grand and Ogden (avenues)?' 'You mean the guy who stands outside the grocery?' And the circumlocutions are so obscure, it's obvious they don't know who the other guy's talking about," Gair said. "But they're so paranoid, they still won't use a name."

Gair, for the record, said he seldom used nicknames in cases he handled.

"I would almost never put (nicknames) in an indictment. FBI agents and IRS guys have a nickname for everybody," he said. "For most guys, they use nicknames the way you or I do among friends."

Thanks to Andy Grimm

More Mob Nicknames

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Opening Statements Made in Chicago Mob Bombing Trial

Federal prosecutors say an explosion at the building housing a video poker-machine distributor is at the heart of the trial of a reputed mob boss and his alleged cohorts.

In an opening statement Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Donovan says Michael "Big Mike" Sarno and his alleged crew wanted to send a message to C&S Coin Operated Amusements not to encroach on Sarno's turf.

Prosecutors say as a result of the 52-year-old Sarno 's orders to bomb the Berwyn offices of the video game distributor in 2003, the company's Berwyn offices were destroyed.

Sarno and four others have pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering charges.

Donovan says he will make the case against Sarno and his four co-defendants with evidence from witnesses, wiretaps and a bug planted in a Cicero pawn shop.

The defense will give opening statements Monday.

Thanks to KWQC

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Potential Juror Scared Off by Mob Nicknames

A potential juror has been dismissed in a reputed mobster's trial in Chicago after expressing unease at the defendants' nicknames.

Jury selection in the racketeering trial of Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno and four others began today with 60 would-be jurors packing a federal courtroom.

No one in court mentioned allegations of mob links. But the excused juror told U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman he saw nicknames for some defendants on a document that flashed on a courtroom monitor.

The investment banker says the implications of the nicknames would influence his ability to be impartial. Guzman then dismissed him.

Picking 12 jurors and four alternates could take days. The trial is expected to last a month.

Thanks to WGN

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Large Guy Trial Starts

An unusual organized crime case began Wednesday in Chicago federal court. Prosecutors say there was an alliance between the Outfit and the Outlaws. In this Intelligence Report: Why is this considered a "large" case for the government?

The Chicago Outfit has always been an insular organization, top hoodlums usually unwilling to welcome other criminal groups to the fold. So this alliance that federal prosecutors say was forged between the Outfit and the Outlaws motorcycle gang is considered unique in all of mobdom.

The largest part of this five-defendant case walked into the Dirksen Federal Building Wednesday predicting victory. Michael Sarno, 52, known in mob circles as "the Large Guy," is a convicted west suburban rackets boss now on trial for allegedly ordering the 2003 firebombing of a Berwyn business that was competing against the mob's illegal video poker trade.

Standing trial with Sarno are 86-year-old Samuel Volpendesto, his son, Anthony, Mark Polchan, an admitted member of the Outlaws biker gang, and Casey Szaflarski, who allegedly ran illegal gambling operations.

According to the indictment, Sarno oversaw the Outfit-Outlaw joint venture and received a cut of the illegal wagering profits.

"I think that case provides a perfect illustration of why the Outfit is still dangerous and shouldn't be counted out," said T. Marcus Funk, former federal prosecutor. "Forming an alliance like that, being adaptable, being able to change with the circumstances, and also using being able to use violence when necessary. It may not be something done on a daily basis like it was in the 50s, but violence is still a tool for the Outfit."

The case took shape in 2008 when FBI agents raided several Outlaws clubhouses, seizing weapons, bulletproof vests and police badges-- at the same time executing search warrants on Sarno's suburban home.

As a budding hoodlum, Sarno once tipped the scales at about 400 pounds, and at that time went by the nickname "Fat Boy."

Even though he appears to have dropped a few pounds, by whatever mob moniker Wednesday, the issue of nicknames was a factor in jury selection. Several prospective jurors were dismissed after saying mob nicknames might cause them to be prejudiced against the defendants.

Several casino employees were also dismissed. Six jurors were seated to hear the case.

The mob trial will be off Thursday for federal Veterans Day and jury selection resumes on Friday morning. It is expected to last about three weeks.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie and Ann Pistone

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Peeking Inside Chicago's Modern Day Mob

The trial of a reputed mob boss known for his wide girth and alleged penchant for violence will offer a peek into the inner workings of Chicago-area organized crime, laid low by prosecutions that sent older mobsters to prison for life.

Michael “The Large Guy” Sarno, whose racketeering trial starts Wednesday in Chicago, is considered — at the relatively young age of 52 — a different breed of mobster, someone whose talents as an enforcer normally would not have translated into a top mob job.

“I would say he is the perfect example of the new face of the mob,” said Art Bilek, a one-time mob investigator at the Cook County State’s attorney’s office. “He has street smarts — he’s not a dope. What he simply doesn’t have is the intelligence some of the earlier guys had.”

That goes to show how far the mob has fallen, he and other law enforcement experts said.

The 2007 Family Secrets trial, the biggest such trial in Chicago in decades, was a body blow to the Chicago-area mob, also known as the Chicago Outfit. It ended in life sentences for reputed bosses James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo.

With aging kingpins behind bars and others dying, a weakened Outfit has scaled back a network that in its heyday, around 1970, encompassed operations ranging from prostitution and drugs to multimillion-dollar scams involving corrupt unions or Las Vegas casinos. But racketeering laws designed to target organized crime, aggressive federal prosecutors and competition from big-city street gangs or biker syndicates have severely cut into mob-associated operations. Not surprisingly, mobster numbers are down.

There are now fewer than 100 people formally initiated into the Chicago-area mob compared with more than 200 ‘made men’ around 1970, estimated Scott Burnstein, co-author of a book on the Family Secrets trial.

In Chicago, the mob now focuses more heavily on running illegal video gaming, with approximately 25,000 machines in bars and restaurants, generating millions of dollars in revenue, according to some estimates.

It’s leaders allegedly include Sarno, who weighed as much as 300 pounds and was known for using his bulk to collect mob gambling debts as an enforcer. Bilek says he suspects Sarno may have taken over operations in the city’s western suburbs from one of the imprisoned bosses.

Sarno’s defense attorney, Michael Gillespie, said allegations his client is linked to the mob are “fanciful.”

“The associations he has are with his family — his mom and dad,” Gillespie said Tuesday.

Whatever the case, it is impossible to know just where Sarno would fit in. That’s partly because the mob’s old pyramid structure is coming undone and true leaders are eager to maintain a low profile, even endeavoring to keep violence at a minimum, Bilek said.

Burnstein said there are reasons to question what would be the extent of Sarno’s power. For one, mob bosses want to see crime organizations they built up over decades continue after their deaths, so it’s likely more savvy mobsters also are being promoted. “I don’t think it’s quite fair to say Sarno’s the new face of the mob, therefore the mob is dead because he’s an idiot,” Burnstein said. “If he is the new power, I agree it wouldn’t bode well. But I’m sure there are other competent mobsters who aren’t just thugs.”

Sarno is accused of ordering co-defendants Mark Polchan and Sam Volpendesto to set off a bomb that wrecked the offices of a gaming company in Berwyn, C&S Coin Amusements. The aim, say prosecutors, was to send a message: Stop horning in on a profitable mob business.

The indictment alleges the enterprise Sarno was a part of also was responsible for burglaries and jewel thefts. The armed robbery of the Marry Me Jewelry Store in LaGrange Park netted nearly $650,000-worth of jewelry and other valuables, according to the indictment.

Sarno, Volpendesto and Polchan all have pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other related charges.

Polchan’s attorney, Damon Cheronis, would only say Tuesday that trial observers will see “a different picture painted than the one painted by the government.” Volpendesto’s lawyer, Michael Mann, declined to comment.

Thanks to LCN

The Chicago Mob's Underground Tunnel System

It was The Roaring Twenties. Prohibition was the law of the land. But in Chicago, that didn't seem to matter.

The city was wide open and just plain wild, nowhere more so than in the notorious levee district, now Chicago's South Loop. The only surviving building from that vice-filled era now houses Blue Star Auto Parts. Back then, it was the Cullerton Hotel.

"This was a very respectable hotel early on. But by 1900, it had taken on a very unsavory character. In the basement, there were illegal gambling games going on. Upstairs, it has become a brothel. And it continued as a brothel through the 1920s," said Rich Lindberg, author and historian.

It was a very popular brothel, said Lindberg, an authority on this unseemly side of Chicago history. "It was a place where men came to consort with prostitutes, to wager. There was likely a dope den at one time," said Lindberg. "In the heyday of the 1910s, 1920s, Michigan Ave., State St. [there] were a lot of hotels that catered to high-class vice, high-class bordellos."

It was a place to visit, but you didn't want to get caught there. So the mobsters had a system.

"Usually a clerk on the first floor would ring a bell, and the patrons would make a fast escape," Lindberg said.

Deep below the hotel was a series of secret tunnels, an elaborate 25-mile system. Today, you can still see bricked-up traces of one of the numerous gangster getaways. "To gain protection from raids, they would come down here and they would escape," said Lindberg.

Nowhere was Chicago's underworld underground more evident than at the legendary Green Mill Lounge on the North Side. "Well, it was a real fancy joint years ago," said Dave Jemilo, Green Mill owner. And it was also the favorite hangout of Chicago's most infamous mobster.

"This booth here is where Al Capone used to sit. It was his favorite booth because he could see the front door and the side door without his back being to either one. So that's why he would always sit here," said Jemilo.

He could also see a trap door behind the bar. It led to the epicenter of a thriving bootleg and smuggling operation. There were miles of underground tunnels, running to the nearby Aragon Ballroom as well as the Uptown and Riviera theaters. It was a massive complex of both tunnels and private rooms, top-secret rooms where the parties were said to be out of control.

"Up here you get the liquor in a coffee cup or something. Down there, you know, anything goes! These guys wanna have stuff that you can't even do now. And you have parties down there and you got raided or something, you don't come up the trap door to get out, you go through the tunnels, and you could be on the street walking with your girl on your arm, and the coppers says 'Hey were you in the Green Mill?' 'No I was at the Riviera Theater seeing a movie with my girl. Leave us alone,'" said Jemilo.

Thanks to Hosea Sanders

Monday, November 08, 2010

Genovese Crime Family Control of New York's Construction Projects Detailed in Court

An Irish contractor delivered a detailed account of the Italian mafia's involvement in New York's construction industry in a Manhattan courtroom last month.

James Murray, the immigrant builder, told the court how he climbed the ranks to success with help from the mob before crashing and losing everything. Murray addressed the court in a low voice as federal prosecutor Lisa Zornberg questioned him according to the Village Voice.

Murray had immigrated from Ireland in the prime of his youth twenty years ago.

"I was looking for work. I had an argument with my father, and I came to the States."
He dropped out of school at 13 the reason being, he told the court he had a difficulty reading. When he got to New York he started work as a carpenter before he started up his own business renovating homes. A fellow Irish man then helped him develop his modest business into a bigger operation.

To get the bigger jobs he signed up with the New York City District Council of Carpenters, pledging to build his projects with the union labor: "You can't work unless you're union," he reminded the court.

Things were going well for Murray, who called his company “On Par Contracting” and soon had 700 workers on the pay roll courtesy of the union and some shady background figures. Their extensive list of projects included the Times Square Tower, high-rises, hospitals and university projects. We were everywhere," he said. "We were all over the city, all over the tri-state area." And money was rolling in for the Irish firm.

By ignoring union agreements he had signed he increased profits by employing fellow Irish men illegally, who were just off the boat. He payed these young men $25 to $40 an hour as opposed to the $75 demanded by union workers. "We didn't pay the benefits," he said. "We paid the guys in cash."

This gave the company the upper hand when pricing jobs. “You could be the low bidder," he said. Construction expenses, he said, run roughly "one-third materials, two-thirds labor." It was "a big cost savings."

Murray also bribed every union official he could, shop stewards for leaving workers off the books, business agents were paid not to come snooping and the top union leaders were paid to keep everyone in line. More than $100,000 was given to District Council chief Michael Forde."He would help me get the shop stewards," explained Murray. The president of the Local 608 union, John Greaney got cash and tickets to the Super Bowl.

All the corruption and bribery took place under the eyes of the Genovese crime family. Which has had a significant stronghold over the city's building trade for decades.

One of the mob's biggest liaison to the construction business Joseph Rudy Olivieri proved to be Murray's right hand man. Olivieri worked as the head of the Association of Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York. The court heard that the pair looked after each other.

Murray loaned Olivieri hundreds of thousands of dollars but in return he ran interference when a court-appointed investigator of the union Walter Mack started raising questions about Murray's success.

In 2005 the same court official subpoenaed Murry to testify. When Mack ordered for the company to be shut down, Murray called Olivieri immediately:"I called Joe Olivieri right away," said Murray. "He said, 'Give me a couple minutes."

He cobbled together a rescue plan to appease Mack and the company stayed in business. When Murray was asked if he continues to cheat he simply replied “Yes”

The sordid relationships between Murray, the union and the Italian mafia handlers were a long kept secret. But Walter Mack's persistence and the follow up investigation by prosecutor Zornberg nailed Murray.

Murray's first indictment came in 2006 on fraud and money-laundering charges. He proceeded to flee to Ireland. Two years later after he was persuaded to return to the U.S. after the feds seized his extensive farm and other properties. He plead guilty and agreed to provide the evidence that led to the conviction of Olivieri, Forde, Greaney and seven others.

Olivieri was found guilty of perjury. He is currently out on a $500,000 bond and is facing up to five years in prison plus future prosecution for conspiracy and fraud.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk explained the necessity of the case. "Olivieri attempted, but failed, to mask his association with the Genovese Organized Crime Family and a dishonorable union contractor," she said. "The guilty verdict represents a dual victory: weeding out corruption in the New York City Carpenters Union and removing a crooked trustee of the benefit funds."

Thanks to Molly Muldoon

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Anthony Volpendesto Tossed from Court While Representing Himself

A federal judge ordered a defendant in a Chicago mob trial removed from the courtroom Thursday morning after the man threatened to have all the attorneys disbarred and loudly noted he did "not consent to any of these proceedings."

The disruption happened in the case of alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Sarno, who will soon stand trial with four other men, including Anthony Volpendesto, who created the disturbance and has been custody since his arrest.

Volpendesto is charged with racketeering for allegedly being part of a jewelry store robbery crew with ties to organized crime.

Volpendesto, who is not a lawyer, has filed numerous legal motions in the case on his own, which have advanced unique legal theories concerning his innocence or how the court has no jurisdiction over him. His attempts so far have not been successful.

Volpendesto referred to himself in court Thursday as "the executor of the Anthony Volpendesto estate" and repeatedly interrupted U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Guzman during a status hearing.

Volpendesto warned all attorneys in the room at one point, "either dismiss or disbar."

"I have no further business with this court," he said at another point, but continued talking anyway.

"I do not consent to any of these proceedings," he said, apparently unaware that his consent is not required.

The judge had deputy U.S. Marshals take Volpendesto away. He could still be heard chattering away in a holding cell as the door to the area opened and closed.

Volpendesto's talkativeness may come back to haunt him and some of the men on trial with him. He apparently made phone calls from jail after he was arrested for one of the jewelry store robberies, and prosecutors had indicated they will introduce recordings of some of those calls at trial.

Also on trial is Volpendesto's 87-year-old father, Sam, who is accused of helping bomb a video poker business in Berwyn in 2003 that was competing with a mob-sanctioned business. Prosecutors say Sam Volpendesto ran a Cicero house of prostitution and once had a suspected government cooperator beaten with a baseball bat, but he hasn't been convicted of either crime.

Guzman said he planned on having the younger Volpendesto brought over to the courtroom on Friday to remind him of the rules of conduct in court and work to obtain his cooperation during trial. If he refuses to come, deputy U.S. Marshals were ordered to use reasonable force to bring him.

Thanks to FoxChicago

Boardwalk Empire Does Not Show the Real Uncle Al Capone

Deirdre Marie Capone isn't a TV critic, but she has some strong views on Stephen Graham's take on her great uncle, Al Capone, in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."

"I have watched it," she tells me in a phone interview from her Florida home. "I think that Stephen Graham job does a great job. I don't like the character that he is playing at all."

"They had him cooking with his mother, the other night, in New Jersey. That never happened. They have him kidnapping people in New Jersey, which never happened.

"It's one more thing where they take his name and they create a character that is not really him," she says. "There's nothing I can do about it."


Well, there is something she can do, and Capone, the granddaughter of Al's older brother, Ralph, is telling her family's story in the new book "Uncle Al Capone."

It's a family story, including her memories of her great uncle (he died when she was 7). "I had my grandfather until I was 45, and I had Al's younger sister until I was 54, and I was very very close to them."

Her goal is to tell the story of a different Al Capone. "He would get down on the floor like a big teddy bear," she recalls. "He loved children."

It even includes recipes for some of her great uncle's Italian favorites.

She's not trying to say that Capone was just misunderstood. But she's still defensive about his line of work, saying there were few opportunities for Italian immigrants when he arrived in the U.S.

"There was no opportunity to be a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman," she says. "He could make money for his family.

"At one point, he ran over 350 speakeasies in the city of Chicago and he didn't have a fax machine and a cellphone... The only thing they could get him on is tax evasion, everything else is alleged."

The self-published book came out about a week ago, and is available from on-line bookshops, like Amazon. "I went round and round and round with publishers," she said, comparing that industry to the recording industry of a few years ago, out of touch with technological change.

That's why she went the self-publishing route, she tells me, although she's open to signing a publishing deal now that the book is out.

The 70-year-old Deirdre, by the way, is publishing the book under the name she was born with. "That is the name on my baptismal certificate," she says. But she's not revealing her married name, trying to hold on to a little anonymity for a while.

"It's going to be very hard for me to keep it private," she says. "It's going to come out."

But it's worth it, she says, since she had to tell this story.

"If I don't, who's going to?" she asks.

Thanks to Tim Cuprisin

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

"Mama Versus the Mob" in Prohibition-era Chicago

Watch a couple episodes of “The Sopranos” or a few Martin Scorsese movies, and it becomes clear that rivaling mob bosses are a hallmark of the gangster genre. One thing these bosses almost always have in common is they’re male.

Vancouver writer Gary Corbin decided to present a new twist on this familiar formula by having women vie for control of the Chicago organized crime scene in his interactive murder mystery dinner show, “Mama Versus the Mob.”

Magenta Theater will present Corbin’s work Saturday and the following week at Rosemary Cafe in downtown Vancouver. Tickets to the show include a multicourse Italian dinner prepared by Rosemary Cafe owner Cheryl Cameron and her staff, as well as live music. Hadas Cassorla, who plays crooner Lola Falanova in the show, will sing Gershwin tunes accompanied by Steve Goodwin on piano.

Corbin’s show is set in Prohibition-era Chicago, and centers on dueling bosses “Smart” Alex Caponi (based on real-life gangster Al Capone) and George “Bugsy” Moroni (inspired by Bugs Moran and played here by Goodwin), as well as the women in their lives. Especially central is “Mama” Mia Mangia, Caponi’s half-sister who is secretly dating Moroni. Together she and Caponi run a restaurant and nightclub, and Mangia begins clamoring for more power.

The other women in the show, having recently achieved the right to vote and currently enjoying the freedom of the flapper era, also start to hunger for control of the mob. When a main character dies, everyone — women and men — jockeys for position.

Corbin said the show is really a comedic battle of the sexes.

Though Corbin has acted in murder mystery shows in the past, this is the first he has written. It’s also a first for Magenta. The theater group has done staged readings before at Rosemary Cafe, but never a full show with a themed dinner menu. Magenta plans to do another murder mystery dinner show at Rosemary in August 2011.

“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Cameron, who has put together a special “Mama Versus the Mob” menu featuring Parmesan bread sticks, Caesar salad, three-cheese ziti with sausage or vegetarian marinara sauce and a dessert of biscotti accompanied by limoncello- and blueberry-topped ice cream.

The show is capped at 40 guests, so it will be an intimate, participatory experience, said director Bonnie Littleton, who lives outside Camas. Patrons will mingle and dine with the characters and be part of the action. At the end, audience members will decide not only who the murderer is but also who should take control of the Chicago mob scene.

“The audience will really feel like they’re part of it,” Littleton said.

Among the characters the audience will get to know is Mangia, the show’s titular Mama, played by Vancouver resident and Magenta regular Andrea K. Adams. She is one of eight performers from the greater Vancouver-Portland area featured in the program.

The show is scripted, but parts are improvised because of the audience participation factor. Several performers have experience with improvisation through Magenta or ComedySportz Portland, but it’s new to Adams. “You just really have to know your character inside and out, you have to have a backstory, and you can’t waver,” she said.

Co-star Martin Slagle, who plays Caponi, has participated in Magenta Improv Theater for about a year, but this will be his first time doing a scripted play-improvisation hybrid. “It’s something new and different, which I’m always excited about,” said Slagle, a Vancouver resident.

Slagle is most looking forward to seeing how the audience interacts with Caponi, the boss of Chicago’s South Side. “The audience interaction is going to be fantastic,” he said.

Thanks to Mary Ann Albright

Monday, November 01, 2010

Salvatore Vitale Murders 11, Serves Only 7 Years in Prison

A Mafia boss who turned informant on one of New York's notorious five families - and pleaded guilty to 11 murders - has been sensationally sentenced to 'time served' today.

Salvatore Vitale, 63, immediately cooperated with the FBI and prosecutors after his arrest and imprisonment in January 2003.

He identified more than 500 gangsters and helped convict more than 50 - including his brother-in-law and former Bonanno chief Joseph Massino.

Today's sentence will mean that Vitale will have served around 18 months for each of his 11 murders.

It is expected that he will immediately enter the witness protection programme
.
'Quite simply, Vitale has likely been the most important cooperator in the history of law enforcement efforts to prosecute the Mafia,' said Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, of United States District Court in Brooklyn, when he meted out the sentence today.

Judge Garaufis noted that the criminal justice system was 'dependent on the cooperation of criminals in the prosecution of other criminals'. He added: 'This cooperation does not come without a cost.' The judge noted that he was under no illusion that Vitale had become a government witness for any reason other than self-preservation, noting that he did so only when he realised that the crime family had come to see him as a liability.

The judge said: 'It is unfortunate that law enforcement must, of necessity, obtain the cooperation of felons to address the pernicious crimes committed by organised crime,' the judge said. 'But without the benefit of cooperating witnesses like the defendant, the government’s ability to prosecute the secretive and rule-bound world of organised crime would be greatly impaired.'

In October 2004, information he gave to federal officers led to the discovery of three bodies in Ozone Park, Queens.

Vitale’s lawyers, Kenneth Murphy and Brian Waller, had pushed for the sentence to be 'time served'.
Vitale had been facing life in prison.

In a bid to put Vitale away for good, prosecutor Greg Andres read aloud letters sent to the judge from the wife and daughter of one of the victims. Robert Perrino was a Bonanno associate who was the superintendent of deliveries at The New York Post and who was slain in 1992. Vitale ordered the killing based on the fear that Perrino might cooperate with the authorities. Perrino’s body was not found until Vitale himself began cooperating with police. Perrino'd widow Rosalie wrote: 'As a result of Salvatore Vitale’s criminal inhuman behaviour, my grandson never knew his grandfather, and he and our granddaughter have grown up without this special man. 'Salvatore Vitale caused my own life to unravel and the colour in my life to drain away.'

Vitale alternately stared at the table before him and watched the judge as Mr Andres read the letter.
At the end of the hearing, the judge asked the people in the gallery to remain seated so deputy United States marshals could escort Vitale out of the courtroom. He left through the courtroom’s rear door, beside the judge’s bench, and did not look back.

It is not the first time Mafia informants have been given lesser sentences for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of their bosses. Salvatore Gravano, an underboss for the Gambino family known as 'Sammy the Bull', admitted to 19 murders in 1991 in exchange for a lesser sentence and served just five years.
As part of his testimony, notorious gangster John Gotti was jailed for life.

Vitale, wearing a blue suit and silver pattered tie, twice dabbed tears from his eyes during the court proceeding - and exhaled sharply just before the judge read out the sentence.

The former paratrooper - known as Good Looking Sal' during his three decades committing countless crimes on behalf of the Bonanno family - read from a statement where he apologised to the families of his victims.
He said: 'I would say to them that I pray daily for my victims’ souls and I’m truly sorry. I stand in front of you, your honour, ashamed of the life I used to live. 'I disgraced my father’s name, my name, my sons’ name.'

Vitale operated at the highest levels of organised crime while a member of La Cosa Nostra, and knew many of the Bonanno secrets - including quite literally where bodies were buried.

Affliction!

Affliction Sale

Flash Mafia Book Sales!