The Chicago Syndicate
The Mission Impossible Backpack

Friday, August 24, 2007

Third Defendant Testifies at Mob Trial

Former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle took the stand Wednesday to deny he ever helped the mob by passing along sensitive information about a mob murder.

Doyle, who was born Anthony Passafiume, is accused of using his position as an officer in the evidence room of the Chicago Police Department to check on the status of blood-soaked gloves worn by mobster Nick Calabrese in the slaying of John Fecarotta. What he found, prosecutors allege, is that the gloves had been turned over to FBI investigators, sealing Nick Calabrese's fate and forcing him down the road of mob informant. Feds have Doyle on video and audiotape visiting mobster Frank Calabrese Sr., Nick's brother, in prison. On the tapes, he tells the Calabrese one of the dates in the file on the gloves.

Doyle, being led through testimony by his attorney, Ralph Meczyk, began Wednesday to try to explain how that happened.

He is the third defendant in the mob conspiracy case to take the stand in his defense. The other two were Joseph Lombardo of Chicago and Frank Calabrese Sr. of Oak Brook. James Marcello of Lombard and Paul Schiro of Arizona are not expected to testify.

Doyle maintained that he knew Frank Calabrese Sr. since he was a young man and met him growing up. The two began an association based on a mutual love of athletics, Doyle said. Doyle hadn't seen Frank Calabrese Sr. for years when he began visiting a federal penitentiary in Milan, Mich., where another friend of Doyle's was incarcerated.

Doyle, apparently in an attempt to show he wasn't hiding anything in the visits, testified he had to fill out an application with the Bureau of Prisons, listing his employer, in order to visit.

Doyle's incarcerated friend mentioned his visit to Frank Calabrese Sr., who passed along word that he wanted to see his old friend, Doyle testified. "He'd (Calabrese) been my friend since I was a young boy. I thought maybe he was in need of a friend … so I agreed to go up and visit him in Milan," Doyle said.

Calabrese Sr. arranged for him to drive up with Mike Ricci, another former police officer indicted in the case. Ricci died of natural causes before trial.

Once at the prison, Doyle said, Calabrese Sr. and Ricci began speaking in a confusing lingo he didn't understand. "He spoke now more in some sort of a mind-boggling code," Doyle testified. But Meczyk didn't ask why Doyle never asked the two why they were speaking in code or what it meant.

Instead, he steered Doyle toward recalling why he looked up information on the gloves. Ricci, a fellow cop, had called and asked him for the information, Doyle testified. And why, then, did Doyle relay a date from the file to Calabrese, Sr. on a separate visit, Meczyk asked.

Ricci, Doyle claimed, asked Doyle to, saying Ricci had told Calabrese, Sr. once, but Calabrese Sr. believed Ricci was senile.

Meczyk will continue his questioning of Doyle today, and then prosecutors will cross-examine him.

Thanks to Rob Olmstead

Family Secrets Doctor is No McDreamy

"She's gotta get blood work, she's gotta get this before she sees the doctor."

"Oh, all right."

That's not some heated exchange on "House," because the doctor in this show isn't the sarcastic fellow with the cane on TV. And it's not "Grey's Anatomy" either, another doctor show favored by female viewers, where the male lead is nicknamed Dr. McDreamy by the steamy female staff.

No one would say the doctor referenced above is Dr. McDreamy. You wouldn't call him that. The Doctor McDreamy in "Grey's Anatomy" is a pretty boy. He would never sell pork chop sangwiches on 31st Street in the 11th Ward.

"The Doctor" is Outfit code in the historic Family Secrets federal criminal case against the Chicago mob. There've been so many nicknames lately, even I can't keep them straight, and neither can the witnesses.

Unlike other doctors, this one wasn't board certified. Law enforcement officials say he got his trauma license from Joe the Builder and from some guy named Johnny Bananas.

We'll hear more about the doctor in court on Thursday. He'll be identified as a certain Dr. Toots, who practices everywhere he wishes, when the exchange about the doctor and blood work will be played along with other FBI recordings.

The star of Thursday's show will be Anthony "Twan" Doyle, the former Chicago police officer and 11th Ward Democratic precinct captain who worked in the evidence room of the Chicago Police Department. He'll be cross-examined by federal prosecutors.

Doyle is accused of warning the Outfit's Chinatown crew that the FBI was seeking a key piece of evidence in the Outfit killing of mobster John Fecarotta. The tapes incriminate him. The key evidence was a glove that was worn by confessed hit man Nicholas Calabrese, the guy I told you about in this column years ago now, when the Family Secrets case began, as Nick slipped into the witness protection program to become the linchpin in this fantastic trial.

Testifying in his own defense Wednesday, Doyle said that he regularly visited Calabrese's brother and co-defendant, Chinatown no-neck Frank Calabrese Sr., in the federal prison in Milan, Mich. He felt sorry for Frank, who had family problems, and who helped him develop big muscles as a lad.

Doyle testified he'd drive up to prison with another of Chicago law enforcement's finest -- the late Michael Ricci -- a homicide detective who changed jobs to run the sensitive Cook County sheriff's home-monitoring program.

Who was it that said good government is good politics? It was probably some 11th Warder who knew how to find Chinatown.

On Wednesday, Doyle testified he suffered through these prison visits with Frank Calabrese, fetching sangwiches, listening to nonsensical coded talk he said he couldn't understand, for hour after hour, nodding dumbly but politely during the yapping about doctors and sisters and missing purses and "Scarpe Grande" finding those purses.

Scarpe Grande means "Big Shoes," Chinatown code for the FBI, and, you may have noticed, it's not Chinese. And "purses" probably means evidence.

Ralph Meczyk, Doyle's attorney, asked Doyle if he felt relieved once these prison visits were done. "I felt like I was paroled," Doyle told the jury. "Sitting in that chair, listening to gibberish I couldn't understand."

He sighed, seeking sympathy, a large man with muscles at 62, with a face like a stone and his voice a heavy door with old hinges. Doyle is not the Officer Friendly you would ask for directions for a pork chop sangwich. But he denied ever collecting juice loans for the Outfit, and insisted he never tipped off the mob about Scarpe Grande seeking the Nick Calabrese bloody glove from the police evidence room in January 1999.

Yet he proudly talked of working for the 11th Ward Democratic Organization, and hopping on the City Hall patronage payroll wagon, first at Streets and San, later running the parking lot at police headquarters and becoming a patrolman.

On Thursday, prosecutors will focus on the Chinatown code to explain their theory that Frank Calabrese was afraid someone close to him might be talking to the feds.

"What they should do is maybe bring her to see a psychiatrist," Calabrese says on tape, speaking of a sick sister, if a sick sister had hairy arms and killed people for money.

"Shock treatment," Doyle says, understanding the prescribed Outfit method to cure Feditis, a malady of the chattering mouth. "Probably needs a good prod."

I don't know how Doyle will deny all this -- and what he says about lead federal prosecutor Mitchell Mars, blaming him for their upset stomachs.

"I said I'll bet you it's that [four letter word]ing Mitch Mars, that's what I think," Doyle tells Calabrese.

"The doctor," says Calabrese.

"The doctor," says Doyle.

I know the doctor from Chinatown isn't McDreamy. But he's got to be mcsteamy right about now.

Thanks to John Kass

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Mob Plea Deal by Dad to Help Sons?

Frank Calabrese Sr. was never a part of the Chicago Outfit, he told a prosecutor Tuesday, and he only pleaded guilty to mob-related loan-sharking in the 1990s to get two of his sons better deals in the same case.

Anyone who didn't believe him should ask one of the sons, who was sitting in court, Calabrese testified, suddenly pointing over the shoulder of Assistant U.S. Atty. John Scully at his son Kurt, who was sitting in the third row of the gallery at the Family Secrets trial.

"There's my son," Calabrese said loudly, rising out of his chair slightly. "Ask him, he'd be glad to tell you."

With that remark, Kurt Calabrese stood up and left the courtroom, waving his hand over his head back toward his father as he went through the doors.

With lawyers in the case preparing to make closing arguments as soon as next week, the landmark trial has increasingly become a showcase for how the Calabrese family splintered and what those divisions allegedly meant for Chicago organized crime. Frank Calabrese Sr. has seen his brother, Nicholas Calabrese, a made member of the mob, testify against him, and another of his sons, Frank Calabrese Jr., has done the same.

On Tuesday, Scully cross-examined Frank Calabrese Sr. using tapes Frank Calabrese Jr. secretly made of their conversations when the two were imprisoned together beginning in 1999.

For hours, Scully and the elder Calabrese argued and talked past each other, with Scully asserting that Calabrese was talking with his son about specific murders that are part of the case, and Calabrese insisting either that he was not, or that he was just trying to impress his son.

Prosecutors contend Calabrese mentions three of his four co-defendants in the case, including James Marcello, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle. They, along with Paul "the Indian" Schiro, are alleged to have been a part of the broad conspiracy to further Outfit interests.

An intense Calabrese seemed to be trying his best to explain what he contends he was talking about Tuesday, answering questions in an earnest tone as if begging those in the courtroom to believe him. He leaned on the witness stand, shifted in his seat and at times sneered at Scully.

He wore a gray jacket and a dark shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck, looking like he might pop one of those buttons as he grew animated on the stand. Calabrese his said brother lied "like a pig" when he accused him of taking part in 13 murders for the mob.

"I never killed anybody," Calabrese said. He added that if he had killed someone, he would have killed the man who he believes shot his former partner, Larry Stubich. If he were a made member, "How come I don't get paid?" Calabrese said, arguing that no one has helped him financially since he has been incarcerated. "How come I don't get things like that? You know that."

Calabrese said he was jealous that his brother had better relationships with his sons than he did, so he tried to impress Frank Calabrese Jr. by talking about murders and a mob making ceremony with candles and burning of religious cards. But he said he got his knowledge from books, magazines and movies.

In the tape-recorded conversations, heavy with code, Calabrese allegedly can be heard talking about some of the high-profile murders in the case. Scully asked about the killings of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, William and Charlotte Dauber, William "Butch" Petrocelli, Hinsdale businessman Michael Cagnoni, Richard Ortiz and Arthur Morawski.

In a recording made in February 1999, Calabrese can be heard telling his son that the Spilotros were killed because Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, the reputed head of the mob at the time, was angered that Anthony Spilotro was growing boastful. "It was on the street," Calabrese said Tuesday. "Everybody knew about that."

Calabrese denied helping to plan the bombing of Cagnoni, whose Mercedes was blown up on a ramp to the Tri-State Tollway. He said he was moved when Cagnoni's widow testified earlier in the trial.

In a March 1999 recording, Calabrese could be heard telling his son about placing a person under a spot near Comiskey Park that is now a parking lot, which prosecutors contend was the murder of Michael "Hambone" Albergo.

Calabrese first told Scully he was actually talking about burning a garage, but then said he was just impressing his son with a story when confronted with the portion of the transcript where he said he threw lime on the person's body. "Did you find a person there?" Calabrese asked Scully. A search of the spot in 2002 did not turn up human remains.

Calabrese also said he was not being truthful when he bragged in a recording to his son that Ortiz and Morawski had been torn up by "double-ought buckshot."

"I wanted to win my son over," he said.

Calabrese's other son, Kurt, is not expected to be called as a witness in the case, even after Calabrese's outburst. But the government may call Calabrese's former attorney, Jeffrey Steinback, after Calabrese testified earlier Tuesday that his 1997 guilty plea in the loan-sharking case was not fully explained to him. Calabrese said he didn't read the document and understand that he was pleading guilty to leading an Outfit crew that collected on juice loans by making threats.

Scully asked if he had admitted to making "multiple extortionate extensions of credit."

Calabrese said he didn't understand and had never looked at the allegation word for word. "I probably would've looked cross-eyed at myself," he said.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

Calabrese Mob Brothers Exchange the Judas Kiss for Christmas

It was Christmas Eve 1996, and reputed Outfit hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. was seeing his brother Nicholas out the door after breaking out the Napoleon brandy, when his brother made an unusual request.

"He walks to the door and says, 'Can I kiss you on the lips?' " Calabrese Sr. recounted to jurors in the Family Secrets trial Monday. "He kissed me on the lips," Calabrese Sr. said. Only later, Calabrese Sr. testified, would he realize "the kiss he gave for Christmas was a Judas kiss."

That night would be the last one when Calabrese Sr. would hear his brother talk at length -- until Nicholas Calabrese, now a confessed Outfit killer, took the stand in the Family Secrets trial to bury his brother and tell jurors how they murdered people together for the mob.

Calabrese Sr., on trial for allegedly killing 13 people for the Chicago mob, struck back against his family on Monday after first hearing his brother, Nicholas, and then his son, Frank Jr., testify against him.

Frank Calabrese Jr. told jurors how he secretly recorded his father while they were both in prison. Then jurors heard those recordings of Frank Calabrese Sr. apparently describing in detail various mob murders.

On Monday, in his first full day of testimony, Frank Calabrese Sr. tried to counter his family's testimony and explain his own recorded words.

Calabrese Sr., accused of being a mob crew leader, said his brother Nicholas was really in charge and compared him to the weak brother, Fredo, in the 1972 mob movie "The Godfather."

Except Calabrese Sr., in one example of many verbal slips throughout the trial, used the name "Alfredo."

"My brother was like Alfredo in 'The Godfather,' " Calabrese Sr. testified. "If he wasn't running things and screwing things up, he wasn't happy."

Weak though Nicholas Calabrese may be, he still turned Calabrese Sr.'s two eldest sons, Frank Jr. and Kurt, against him, Calabrese Sr. testified.

Calabrese Sr. accused his oldest son, Frank Jr., of repeatedly leading him into conversations while they were both in prison to make him sound like a murderous gangster. "He can make Jesus look like the devil on the cross," Calabrese Sr. said.

On one secret recording, Calabrese Sr. describes how top mobsters inducted him into the Chicago Outfit as a full member, how his finger was cut, how a holy card was burned in his hand.

On the stand, Calabrese Sr. scoffed at the notion that he was a made member.

So how did he know the ritual? "The Valachi Papers," Calabrese said, referring to the 1968 memoir by gangster Joseph Valachi. "I seen that in the book."

In another recording, Calabrese Sr. tells his son that he stripped the clothes off a man he had just killed. "I told him that to humor him," Calabrese Sr. explained.

Other times, Calabrese Sr. said, he just lied to scare his son out of mob life.

Calabrese Sr. blames his family for conspiring to keep him in prison, so they could steal his money. "Joe, I love my kids and my brother . . . it's just that they gotta grow up," Calabrese Sr. told his lawyer, Joseph R. Lopez.

Calabrese Sr. has strived to appear even-tempered, but his anger flared earlier in the day when the judge refused to let him detail how his family stole from him.

Calabrese Sr. snapped after the judge upheld another prosecution objection to his testimony.

The judge declined to let Calabrese Sr. testify about matters he couldn't prove and threatened him with contempt. "Your honor, how am I supposed to defend myself?" Calabrese Sr. said, his jaw clenched, his lower lip quivering with rage, the face of the kindly grandfather long gone.

"My brother was like Alfredo in 'The Godfather.' If he wasn't running things and screwing things up, he wasn't happy."

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Announcement on Mafia 2 Made

2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), today announced that it will publish MAFIA II, a sequel to the original Mafia title that sold more than two million copies worldwide and helped popularize the gangster genre. Featuring a deep mobster-driven narrative packed with both behind-the-wheel and on-foot action, Mafia 2 is the sequel fans have been clamoring for. The game is being developed by Illusion Softworks, developers of the original Mafia title, for next generation consoles and Games for Windows.

Like the original Mafia title, MAFIA II immerses players in the mob underworld of a fictitious late 1940's-early 1950's scenario. Players will easily become engaged in the game's cinematic Hollywood movie experience with strong, believable characters in a living, breathing city. By fusing high octane gunplay with white knuckle driving and an engaging narrative, Mafia 2 looks to be the industry's most compelling Mafia title to date.

"As the original Mafia was a big success, we are excited to leverage the power of next generation console technology to create an all-new experience, while embracing the elements that resonated with the previous game's fans," said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. "The 'wow' factor of MAFIA II is definitely the benchmark-setting visual quality and action that you expect to see only in Hollywood movies."

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