The Mitchell A. Mars Foundation to Honor a Mob-Busting True Public Servant

Powerful politicians often refer to themselves as "public servants," even as they warn young people against cynicism.

They stand proudly and brag loudly of their life's passion for the public good, even while filling the pockets of friends and family with public money.

A few even have a chorus of silky voices to sing their praises so we don't notice how closely they're attached to the belly of the beast. But there are true public servants, still. They don't get the benefit of the silky chorus, because silk costs money, and if public servants are doing their job properly, they're not using your government's purse to make somebody's somebody rich.

I'm thinking of a true public servant, the late Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars. He led the prosecution of the historic Family Secrets trial last year as he was dying of cancer. Young Americans seeking a role model for public service might consider using Mars as a compass so they don't get lost.

Though ill, Mars prosecuted the bosses of Chicago's organized crime—the Chicago Outfit underworld that reaches through politics into our lives on a daily basis.

"Few people tooted their own horn less," U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said at a memorial service for Mars in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse last week.

The event was held in the large ceremonial courtroom on the 25th floor, the same courtroom in which Mars faced down and convicted the Outfit bosses: the brutal Frank Calabrese Sr., Joey "The Clown" Lombardo and Jimmy "Shamrock" Marcello; the quiet enforcer Paulie "the Indian" Schiro; and corrupt Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Passafiume Doyle.

It was Doyle, the police messenger boy for the Outfit's Chinatown crew, who perhaps gave Mars his greatest praise on a government tape, a recording taken when members of the Outfit were panicking about the growing case against them. "I said, I'll bet you it's that [expletive] Mitch Mars, that's what I think," Doyle said.

It wasn't the first or the last time the Outfit used a sleeper cop—or even a chief of detectives—to carry messages. "That was the Outfit's view of Mitch Mars, and there is no finer compliment," said First Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro.

As the muscled-up Twan—who according to testimony is the servant of reputed Outfit street boss Frank "Toots" Caruso—made that remark just a few years ago, consider what was happening.

The federal investigation had sprung an internal leak that would lead to charges against a deputy federal marshal and would almost compromise the case. Chicago machine politicians were shrieking that the FBI should spend less time on corruption and more on chasing two-bit gun cases. A few critics ridiculed the idea that there even was an Outfit. But Mitch Mars and his team didn't give in.

"He was a public servant of the highest order," said Mars' closest friend, Thomas Moriarty, a special investigator in the U.S. attorney's office. Mars and Moriarty were born on the South Side and were raised Sox fans.

When he said the phrase "public servant," Moriarty felt the need to qualify the statement, acknowledging that roiling political corruption has smeared the phrase.

"That Mitch Mars," Moriarty said. "He was a patriot's patriot. . . . Chicago, a world-class city, had a malignant tumor: organized crime. Nothing bothered Mitch Mars more. . . . It became Mitch's quest to destroy this tumor, and he did."

FBI Special Agent Mike Maseth, who worked the Family Secrets case, noted that Mars was a Chick Evans scholar at Marquette, and that his love of golf helped provide the full scholarship that shaped Mars' life.

"If you watched the U.S. Open tournament, you would have noticed that there was something not right about Tiger [Woods]. That was what Mitch did last summer in this very courtroom.

"All of us knew there was something not quite right about Mitch, but he came here every day and worked on that case. On Aug. 30, he delivered one of the best closing arguments this courtroom, this building had ever seen," Maseth said.

I was privileged to be one of the lucky few to see Mars deliver that closing in the courtroom. A quote from the closing is now on a plaque in a third-floor conference room honoring Mars.

"Criminal cases are about accountability and justice, not only for the defendants, but also justice for our system, justice for our society, and justice for the victims," Mars told the jury. "Our system works. It is the greatest system in the world. But it only works when those who should be held accountable are held accountable."

The Mitchell A. Mars Foundation—created by his law-enforcement colleagues to establish an Evans scholarship in his name—is scheduled to hold a fundraiser on Sept. 22 at Cog Hill in Lemont.

Those of us who keep saying we need good public servants—not cynical politicians—should also be held accountable.

So save the date. Sept. 22. Cog Hill.

Thanks to John Kass

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Mob Prosecutor Honored in Special Ceremony

Judges and attorneys held a special ceremony on June 26th in US District Court in Chicago for prosecutor Mitchell Mars, who died just months after leading the government's landmark Operation Family Secrets case against the mob.

At the tribute, Mars was honored as a man dedicated to waging war on organized crime.

Mars died in February at age 55 after a battle against lung cancer.

A federal court jury in September returned guilty verdicts against Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and other top mobsters in the Family Secrets case involving 18 long unsolved organized crime murders.

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Did Federal Prosecutor Make Eyes at Mobster in Court?

Reputed mob hitman Frank "The German" Schweihs -- once among the most feared men in the Chicago Outfit -- wasted little time Tuesday showing that the cancer that ravaged his body has not softened his attitude.

"You making eyes at me?" Schweihs said from his wheelchair to a federal prosecutor during a status hearing in his criminal case."Yeah you, you making eyes at me? Do I look like a fag to you?" Schweihs asked.

Prosecutors ignored Schweihs' remarks and continued to take care of the routine business of his upcoming trial, scheduled to begin in October. Schweihs, 78, was originally to be tried along with five other defendants in the historic Family Secrets federal prosecution against the Chicago mob. But a battle with cancer made him too sick to go to trial with the other men, including Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr. and James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, who were convicted.

Schweihs, looking pale and gaunt, first asked his attorneys if they were in a foreign country after apparently noticing that one of the prosecutors wears a turban. Schweihs has a history of making racially insensitive remarks and has shown over the years a disdain for a wide variety of people. Schweihs later referred to another federal prosecutor in court as "another a--hole."

U.S. District Judge James Zagel did not reprimand Schweihs but ended the hearing quickly after his last remark.

One of Schweihs' attorneys, Ellen Domph, said outside court that Schweihs is usually "very polite."

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Part 2 of the Chicago Mob's Family Secrets Trial to Start by the End of the Year

Alleged mobster Frank "The German" Schweihs has eluded law enforcement officials twice but prosecutors said Thursday they are not through trying to bring him to trial.

Schweihs went on the run three years ago when prosecutors unveiled their sweeping Operation Family Secrets indictment against the top echelon of the Chicago mob.

He was missing for eight months before FBI agents swooped down on his hideaway nestled deep in the Kentucky hills.

Then he missed the Family Secrets trial due to a battle with cancer.

Federal prosecutors now say Schweihs is healthy enough to face trial. They have blocked out an early September date for his trial which they said could last as long as two months.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Markus Funk told U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel Thursday that the government could call as many as 110 witnesses.

Zagel said he didn't know if the September date would hold but added he would try to have the trial by the end of the year or soon after.

Schweihs is accused of a June 1986 murder in Arizona and squeezing "street tax" payments out of a suburban strip joint and an Indiana porn shop by threatening the owners with violence.

He's also accused of going on the run to avoid prosecution.

The Family Secrets trial ended in September with the conviction of five alleged mobsters in a racketeering conspiracy involving decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder.

One of the five Family Secrets defendants convicted in September, loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr., was in court Thursday to complain that he isn't getting enough time to study his case while locked up in the federal government's Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Calabrese, who according to witnesses strangled a number of victims and then slashed their throats to make sure they were dead, appeared before Zagel wearing orange prison coveralls and leg irons.

Federal officials said they had allotted extra time for Calabrese to have access to a computer and CD ROMs to study his case. But his attorney, Joseph Lopez, said the correctional officers on the floor where his cell is located haven't been honoring that order.

Zagel scheduled a hearing for next week and said he hoped the problem would be straightened out by then.

Thanks to Mike Robinson

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Was Marilyn Monroe Whacked by the Chicago Mob?

The I-Team looked into one of Chicago's most feared mob hit men, Frank "The German" Schweihs and whether he was behind the mysterious death of Hollywood legend, Marilyn Monroe in 1962.

Frank Schweihs' cancer kept him from being tried with the rest of the family secrets clan last summer. But on Thursday morning in federal court, prosecutors will proceed with their plans to try Schweihs this fall on charges of mob crimes and murder.

There won't be paparazzi nor any mention of Marilyn Monroe, even though her death and the death of a Chicago manicurist have been pinned on Schweihs.

In Chicago in 1962, the Dan Ryan Expressway opened. Mayor Richard J. Daley was in his second term. Integration started in the Chicago schools. The Cubs lost 101 games. And Frank Schweihs was a rising star in the Outfit, living in the west suburban home of his Outfit boss. By '62, Schweihs had been arrested as often as his age - he was 32 years old - for crimes from burglary to homicide. But he seemed to carry a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Even though he was German, Schweihs hung out in Greektown and it may have been during a night out there that he met a tall, slender 18-year-old manicurist, Eugenia Pappas. They called her Becca. They began to date to the dismay of her family.

"My sister came to see me eight days before she was murdered and I said, 'Please don't be involved with anyone like that because when you die, they just step over your body,'" said sister Diane Pappas.

It was advice not taken. Becca's body was found floating in the Chicago River. She had been shot through the heart, according to police, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car. Chicago detective Richard Cain, who led that investigation, was himself secretly on the mob's payroll. Schweihs was questioned but never charged.

Diane Pappas said she doesn't know what Schweihs' motive would've been.

"I wouldn't know. She was a naive 18-year old girl and that's all I know. She was smitten with him," Diane Pappas said.

The Pappas family cringed at reporting that Outfit bosses had ordered Schweihs to silence Becca because he had told her about his role in another murder.

A 1993 book about Marilyn Monroe, written by an L.A. private eye, concludes that "Eugenia Pappas found out about Marilyn Monroe," from Schweihs, who was then ordered to kill her. Whether that is true, Monroe's death was never officially ruled a suicide due to lack of evidence. Many investigators believe Monroe was *murdered* by the Chicago Outfit because of her connections to the Kennedy family and Chicago mob boss Sam "Momo" Giancana.

A police informant reportedly stated that Giancana deployed Schweihs and Anthony "Ant" Spilotro to kill Marilyn Monroe and make it look like a drug overdose.

John Flood spent 41 years in metro-Chicago law enforcement, most with the Cook County sheriff's police. He is now retired in Las Vegas and is considered an Outfit expert. Flood says there's a possibility they were involved because of the close relationship of Giancana, the Chicago boss, and Frank Sinatra. They would meet in Reno.

Flood says Schweihs, or Schways as he knew him, was the prime suspect in dozens of gangland hits.

"A cold-blooded, tough killer who would murder anyone if ordered to," Flood said of Schweihs.

In 1989, Schweihs was convicted of shaking down porno store owners and was recorded on an FBI tape boasting that he was the boss and no one else.

When the Family Secrets indictments were handed up in 2005, Schweihs went into hiding and was finally arrested in a Kentucky apartment house at age 76, living with a girlfriend, while his long-ago girlfriend can never rest in peace.

"How is that justice? Walking around for 45 years doing horrible deeds like he's always done? That's very unfortunate," said Diane Pappas. "I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life and suffers pain with the cancer."

And after 45 years, Diane Pappas heeded the suggestion of her late husband, a career Chicago cop, not to be too public in accusing Frank Schweihs. A crotchety, bad tempered hoodlum, Schweihs has never buckled under the weight of authority and will likely take to his grave, whatever he may know about a Hollywood death that stunned the world and a Chicago murder that has divested a family.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Four Chicago Defense Lawyers in A League of Their Own

In a city infamous for crime and corruption, the top criminal defense lawyers are as colorful and cunning as their clients.

They are routinely faced with insurmountable government evidence – wiretaps, surveillance tapes, fingerprints and informants. And they also claim the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are weighted in favor of the government.

On top of this, their cold-blooded clients can make a lawyer's life hell – especially when they lose.

"I think it's very difficult to do what they do," said Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, who has covered many corruption and mob trials in Chicago. "Their clients demand perfection. They're the kind of clients you don't want to anger."

This is a surprisingly small club, with only about 15 lawyers doing criminal defense work in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on a regular basis.

Lawyers USA interviewed four prominent Chicago criminal defense lawyers: Joseph "The Shark" Lopez; Rick Halprin, Edward Genson and Steven R. Hunter. All have recently handled high-profile federal trials.

Whether grilling government witnesses on the stand or trying to convince jurors to spare cold-blooded killers, these lawyers are in a legal league of their own.

Joseph "The Shark" Lopez

Lopez is the only one of the four who actually looks the part of a "wise-guy" lawyer.

Wearing a black suit, black shirt, a black tie with bright slashes of color and a diamond ring with enough bling to make a rapper blush, Lopez, 52, could care less if people call him a "mob lawyer."

"I've been called a mob lawyer, gang lawyer. I've represented a lot of mobsters," he said.

He's also been called "Shark" since he was a youth; it's on his license plate and his e-mail address.

Lopez, who represented Frank Calabrese Sr., in last year's "Family Secrets" trial in Chicago, is not exactly media shy. He wrote his own blog (The Chicago Syndicate) about the trial while it was under way – until the judge ordered him to shut it down.

"He's promoted himself in every way possible," said fellow criminal lawyer Halprin, who represented another defendant in the Family Secrets trial. "That blog was outrageous."

Lopez is unrepentant: "The government was mad because I was criticizing them and their witnesses."

He plans to re-launch his blog this summer during the trial of client Gary Kimmel, a Chicago dentist charged with laundering money for a nationwide prostitution ring.

A native Chicagoan of Mexican/Italian heritage, Lopez graduated from the University of Illinois law school. He planned to specialize in divorce law, but was asked to help out in a drug case. "My friends were Colombian/Mexican drug [defendants]," he said. "They sent me over there because I was squeaky clean."

A large swordfish hangs on the wall of his cluttered office. "I tell my clients, 'See how that fish's mouth is open? That's how it got caught,'" he said, laughing loudly.

Sketches on the wall depict Lopez in several of his biggest cases. He represented Rev. Jesse Jackson's brother, Noah, in a money laundering case; and one of the teenage defendants in the infamous Lenard Clark case. Clark, a young black teenager, was savagely beaten by a group of white teenagers in 1997 as he rode his bike home through a predominantly white neighborhood.

Lopez has a trial scheduled for the end of March involving Fernando King, the head of the Latin Kings gang in Chicago, on drug and weapons charges.

Lopez said he's always confident going into the courtroom. "Most lawyers are afraid they're gong to lose, so they talk their clients into pleading guilty," he said. "I always think I'm going to win. Even if there are 300 witnesses, I convince myself I'm going to win."

Rick Halprin

In stark contrast to Lopez, Halprin, 68, looks more like a securities lawyer than a criminal defense attorney. Dressed conservatively in a blue shirt with white collar, red checked tie, suit pants and vest, he said he is careful not to call attention to himself. "The most important thing is never lose your credibility with the jury," he said. "When the trial is about the lawyer, you're dead. When it's an endless cross examination that goes nowhere, you're dead. And when you dress flashy instead of conservative, you're dead."

Thomas A. Durkin, a veteran criminal defense lawyer and partner in Durkin & Roberts in Chicago, described Halprin as "absolutely one of the very best courtroom lawyers in Chicago."

"He's extremely persuasive with juries; he's very smooth," Durkin said. "He can be very low-key when the situation calls for it, and he can be aggressive when that's appropriate."

Halprin bristles at the term "mob lawyer," even though he defended Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, 78, in the Family Secrets trial – the biggest mob trial in Chicago in years.

"I'm not a mob lawyer," he said. "I think it's absurd."

Lombardo, along with Calabrese and mob boss James Marcello, were convicted of a total of 10 murders.

Although Halprin and Lombardo had their "moments" of disagreement in the courtroom, Halprin said Lombardo didn't blame him for the verdict. "I know to the whole world he's a scary guy, but if you explain something to him enough times he gets it," Halprin said. "The trial is about the evidence. You've got to be a good cross-examiner, and I'm very good at it," said Halprin. "You [attack] the lifestyle of the main witness – but if you can't take out the corroborative evidence, in the end, jurors are collectively just too smart to be swayed by that."

According to columnist Kass, "It's difficult to represent the Chicago Outfit – especially when they insist, as Lombardo did, on putting themselves on the stand."

While Lombardo "tried hard" to curb his wise-guy comments on the stand, Halprin said, he couldn't resist a few cracks that elicited laughter from the audience, and a rebuke from the judge.

"Joey is Joey," said Halprin. "There's no way you can get someone to change their contentious nature or stop making inappropriate jokes. He is a very funny guy, but there's a time and a place – and this was neither. But he tried hard."

Halprin, who described himself as a wild youth, never graduated from high school. He joined the Marines at 17, and eventually got enough hours of college credit so he could get into law school. He graduated from John Marshall Law School and has been practicing since 1970.

He learned the local legal ropes from Frank Oliver, a renowned Chicago criminal lawyer.

Sitting in his office a block and a half away from the federal courthouse, Halprin – who has a deep voice reminiscent of TV talk show host Larry King – said he has no plans to retire.

"I'm having too much fun. There's nothing like a federal courtroom. Federal trials are so challenging and so difficult to win," he said. "I'm going to die in the courtroom."

Edward Genson

At 66, Genson is the dean of Chicago's criminal lawyers. Just don't call him a "mob lawyer."

Genson detests the term so much that he stopped talking to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin after her description of Genson as a mob lawyer was picked up by Vanity Fair magazine.

"I was angry about it," he said. "At some point in my career I had a number of Italian politicians as clients. That was about 20 years ago, and it was never more than 10 percent of my practice."

In 43 years of practice, Genson has represented scores of well-known clients, including former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's aide Scott Fawell and lobbyist Larry Warner. Even young Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf called on Genson when he was arrested in Chicago last year for refusing to leave a Chicago drugstore. "A lovely young man," Genson said, noting that the charges against LaBeouf were dropped.

In a case that has dragged on for six years, Genson is currently defending rapper R. Kelly on charges of having sex with an underage girl. Kelly's trial will finally take place May 9, according to Genson, who quipped: "It has to take place sometime."

Genson was co-counsel in last year's trial of Canadian newspaper publisher Conrad Black, who was accused of mail fraud and obstruction of justice.

Although Genson was supposed to be second chair on the defense team, he wound up questioning 24 of the 28 witnesses and handling almost the entire closing argument.

On the day in early March that Black was scheduled to be sent to a federal prison in Florida on a six-year sentence, Genson was still critical of Canadian lead lawyer Eddie Greenspan's courtroom performance. "He was a very bright man and an extraordinarily good lawyer in Canada, but they can't work at this speed," he said.

The son of a Chicago bail bondsman, Genson remembers driving his father to police stations at night and sitting in courtrooms, listening to trial lawyers.

After graduating from Northwestern University Law School, he scrambled for clients, handling up to 100 trials a year. He still keeps a grueling pace, despite having suffered for years from dystonia, a neurological disorder that makes walking difficult, especially when he is tired or under stress.

Genson wears an arm sling while recuperating from recent shoulder surgery – the latest in a string of orthopedic surgeries related to his neurological condition. An electric wheelchair sits next to his desk in his office on the 14th floor of the 19th century Monadnock Building, across from the Federal Center.

Still, he has no thought of retiring. "Trial law is an all-encompassing kind of profession," he said. "It's your whole life when you're at trial. There's no such thing as sleeping with any regularity because you're always waking up with ideas. There's no such thing as weekends. When you occasionally go to a movie, you're thinking about what you should be doing the next day.

"A good trial lawyer just doesn't develop a whole lot of interests," he added. "So, what would I do if I retired?"

Despite his protestations, Genson has an obvious interest in art and antiques. The eclectic decorations in his office include: cowboy paintings by an art forger who testified as a government witness in one of his trials; a 19th Century desk he bought in London; a 16th Century Spanish credenza; and a portrait of Clarence Darrow, his idol.

Genson has a murder trial coming up in April, a money laundering trial set for June and a Medicaid fraud trial later this summer.

"I'll retire when they start laughing at me," he said. "So far, that hasn't happened."

Steven R. Hunter

Hunter, 45, knew from a young age he wanted to be a criminal lawyer. He remembers being inspired by the story of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"Something about defending the underdog just appealed to me," Hunter said.

Originally from Grosse Isle, Mich., Hunter graduated from University of Michigan Law School in 1997 and headed for Chicago. "I knew I wanted to be in Chicago," Hunter said. "To me, Chicago is the greatest city in the world."

But without any connections, it wasn't easy. Hunter worked as an immigration lawyer for Catholic Charities, and then landed a job with the public defenders' office.

He spent eight and a half years defending child abusers, juveniles and street gang members. "I was dealing with people who were whipping their children with extension rods and coat hangers," he recalled.

Overloaded with cases and long hours, Hunter left in 1986 to start his own practice. He qualified for the federal trial bar and was appointed to the federal defenders' panel.

He recently defended Anthony Calabrese (no relation to Frank Calabrese), an alleged mob hit man who was convicted of armed robbery. He also represented Eural Black, a Chicago police officer convicted in January of robbing drug dealers while on duty.

Although many of his cases still come through the panel, Hunter is getting an increasing number of calls from private clients. "It's really a slow, grinding process where you start out small," said Hunter. "If you work hard enough for your clients, if you fight cases, as opposed to pleading everybody out, that snowballs, and eventually you wind up having a pretty good practice."

Thanks to Nora Tooher

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Judge Takes No Action for Now on Alleged Threat by Mobster to US Attorney

The federal judge who presided over Chicago's biggest mob trial in years ruled Thursday that a threat allegedly uttered by one of the defendants during closing arguments calls for no immediate action.

It should be obvious that a defendant is not entitled to a new trial or any other relief merely because a juror observed his behavior in court, U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said in a 12-page opinion.

"A defendant seeking relief in this instance is somewhat like the apocryphal child who murders his parents and then asks the court to have mercy on an orphan," Zagel said.

The jury convicted five defendants of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that involved illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders that went unsolved for decades.

Among the victims was Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the mob's longtime man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie "Casino." He and brother Michael Spilotro were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in June 1986.

Other victims were strangled, beaten and shot to keep them from leaking secrets to the FBI, according to witnesses at the 10-week trial.

Several of those convicted at the trial argued that the alleged threat may have prejudiced the jury and one of them, mob boss James Marcello, asked for a new trial.

The alleged threat took place while Assistant U.S. Attorney Markus Funk delivered a closing argument for the government.

Four jurors told prosecutors after the trial that while Funk spoke, convicted loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. said: "You are a (expletive) dead man," according to a letter from the government to Calabrese's lawyer last October.

The juror who made the initial report was "extremely credible" in saying he heard part of the sentence and saw Calabrese mouth the rest of it, Zagel said in his opinion Thursday. Prosecutors didn't hear it.

Zagel said he held a hearing at the request of the defendants but found no reason for further action now. The judge did say, however, that he would address the issue further when he rules on the defendants' post-trial motions.

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Despite Recent Success in Fighting "The Outfit", Federal Prosecutors' Mob Focus Decreases

The ranks of the Chicago mob have taken some serious hits in recent years.

So have the ranks of federal prosecutors specializing in Outfit prosecutions.

The number of federal prosecutors dedicated solely to prosecuting Outfit cases has dwindled to an all-time low -- two attorneys -- just after one of the most significant victories ever by the U.S. attorney's office against the mob, the Family Secrets case.

Some prosecutors have been transferred out of the group over the years. Others have retired. And in the biggest blow to the group, its highly regarded chief, Mitchell Mars, died recently after battling cancer.

It's a fact that's causing great worry among some mob busters.

In interviews with the Chicago Sun-Times, six current or former law enforcement officials familiar with the situation said U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is making a mistake by not beefing up the unit.

The Outfit may be battered, but it is far from dead, they say. It's getting more sophisticated in how it carries out and covers up its crimes.

"The lessons learned from the Family Secrets trial should tell everybody that the Outfit is alive and active in the city," said James Wagner, a retired FBI agent who battled the mob in Chicago and is now the head of the Chicago Crime Commission.

The crime commission will send a letter to Fitzgerald this week asking him to increase the number of attorneys in the group, Wagner said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago had no comment on the matter.

The organized-crime group of prosecutors doesn't need the dozen or so lawyers it had in the early 1990s, officials say, with some suggesting that five or six attorneys would be enough these days.

"I think it's a strategic mistake," said Ken Holt, a retired FBI agent who worked on several high-profile Outfit cases.

Holt and others point to the fact that the organized-crime group has lost a great deal of institutional memory with the death of Mars and the retirement of prosecutor John Scully last year.

Mars led the prosecution of the Family Secrets case, which resulted in the convictions of Chicago mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and top mobster Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, among others.

Scully, another prosecutor on Family Secrets, also worked on the case of former Chicago Police chief of detectives William Hanhardt, who led a mobbed-up jewelry theft ring before being sent to prison.

Law enforcement officials say the group needs veteran attorneys who know the history of and the players in various Outfit street crews, attorneys who can understand, for instance, the significance of an obscure reference from a wiretapped conversation between two mobsters.

The cases are long and complex -- Family Secrets spanned activities covering nearly 40 years -- and they build upon one another, yet another reason to have dedicated attorneys there for the long haul, officials say. And even with some top mobsters behind bars, it's not going away.

"When one guy gets locked up, another guy replaces him," Holt said.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Defining "The Chicago Way"

The Chicago Way.

What is it? Is it easily abused? Is it dangerous in the wrong hands?

This is critical, as the nation's eyes turn toward Chicago's federal building, where Barack Obama's personal real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, stands trial on federal corruption charges.

The phrase must be put in context, something the national media fails to do when they portray Obama as the boy king drawing the sword from the stone, ready to change America's politics of influence and lobbyists, ignoring the fact that Chicago ain't Camelot.

With opening statements expected Thursday, the court will be packed with journalists foreign to our idiom. In the past, a few reporters have applied "The Chicago Way" to our pizza, theater and opera, thereby embarrassing themselves beyond redemption.

To prevent such outrage, I've enlisted the help of George Washington, father of our country, crooner Dean Martin and aged action star Sean Connery in a cutting-edge video premiering now at chicagotribune.com/kass.

You know the movie "The Untouchables" in which Connery played the only Chicago cop in city history with a Scottish accent? "He [ Al Capone] puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue..." says Connery's cop. "That's the Chicago Way."

Perhaps.

Chicago's mob -- we call it the Outfit -- was slapped last summer by federal prosecutors in the Operation Family Secrets trial that convicted Outfit bosses, and cops and put political figures in with them. We've had our chief of detectives (William Hanhardt) sent to prison for running the Outfit's jewelry-heist ring. And we've had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley, who must have seen them pink and white and male at some point.

That's the Chicago Way.

"This country was built on taxes," said a Democratic machine hack, Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, as she and other Democrats prepared to slap Chicago with the highest sales tax of any major city in the country.

Her belief, that America was built on taxes, is one of the unique features of our own city's history, which reportedly began in 1776, when the Daleys boldly declared our independence from the English king.

"There's not that many political hacks in Cook County," Sims insisted after the tax hike.

Not that many hacks? The only one reporters need to bother about is also involved at the same federal building: the mayor's own Duke of Patronage, Robert Sorich.

Sorich has been found guilty by a jury, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals above the Rezko courtroom is still deciding whether to redeem the jury or redeem the mayor, who'd much rather have Sorich happy than Obama in the White House.

Sorich was convicted two years ago of running the mayor's massive and illegal patronage operation, and he's still not in prison. Thugs, morons, idiots, and convicts were put on the city payroll to work the precincts so that Daley could keep getting elected. Obama's spokesman, David Axelrod, defended Daley patronage in a Tribune op-ed piece.

The Daley family's parish priest in Bridgeport, Rev. Dan Brandt, lovingly compared Sorich to Jesus Christ as both had troubles with the law.

"People often say, what would Jesus do?" he said, loyal not only to his faith but to the 11th Ward's place at the head of Chicago Way. "I put a twist on it and say, 'What would I do for Jesus?' With whom Robert has a lot in common as far as legal problems ... [The Lord] was a convicted felon. And Robert was convicted, and so he may have a lot in common with Jesus."

When the parish priest does right by the patronage boss to protect the mayor who gets endorsed by that great reformer Sir Barack of O'bama, that's the Chicago Way.

Naturally, there are some squares who don't think taxpayers should pave the Chicago Way to make it easy for Rezko to help purchase the senator's dream house in a kinky deal exposed by the Tribune and still not fully explained.

"It's really the Old Chicago Way," said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. "In the old days they would pretty much admit it up front, and now they deny it. It's essentially about power, access to government jobs, government contracts and taking care of your own."

One secret DaVinci Code-type sign for the Chicago Way is in the back room of the Chicago City Council chambers at City Hall, where a portrait of George Washington looks down at the crookedness below, and extends his own hand, palm up, itchy, needing that special grease. But some strangers to our lands have used the Chicago Way with perfect pitch. Rezko's buddy, former Iraqi electricity minister, Aiham Alsammarae, escaped an Iraqi prison where he was being investigated for corruption.

A reporter asked -- How did you escape?

"The Chicago Way," he said.

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Did US Marshall Put Flipped Mobster at Risk?

In a brief but loud confrontation, the top FBI agent in Chicago, Robert Grant, underscored the deadly potential of a deputy U.S. marshal leaking information to the Chicago mob about a star government witness, as Grant verbally battled with the deputy marshal's attorney during a court hearing on Monday.

"This leak put at risk the most important witness in the Family Secrets case. It put at risk the agents guarding him. It put at risk his wife," Grant said, during questioning by Francis C. Lipuma, the lawyer for U.S. Deputy Marshal John Ambrose. "This leak was no small leak."

Ambrose is accused of leaking information about mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese, the star witness in the Family Secrets trial, which ended in September with the convictions of five defendants, including Calabrese's brother, mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr.

Chicago mobsters "protect their own because it's assumed they won't cooperate. Once that cooperation becomes known, it's fair game," Grant said.

A federal judge is holding a hearing to determine what statements by Ambrose, if any, should be allowed at his trial.

Ambrose contends when he was lured to FBI offices in September 2006 on a ruse, he was in custody but not initially read his Miranda rights.

Both Grant and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who paired up to talk with Ambrose initially, testified at the hearing that they told Ambrose he wasn't under arrest.

Ambrose's name came to light during secret FBI recordings of Chicago mob boss James Marcello while in prison.

Grant said that Ambrose admitted he knew two of his friends had connections to mob bosses Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and John "No Nose" DiFronzo.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Now an Author, Retired Chicago Cop to Write about the Chicago Mob

A retired Chicago police officer who gained notoriety writing about an infamous triple murder is now at work on his next book, about the mob.

James Jack's book "Three Boys Missing: The Tragedy That Exposed the Pedophilia Underworld" won awards for its telling of the murders of Robert Peterson and Anton and John Schuessler in 1955. The boys' murders ended an era of perceived innocence for many Chicago families.

As a rookie detective, Jack helped investigate the case, but it went unsolved for four decades before horse trainer Kenneth Hansen was convicted.

Now, another high-profile case is giving Jack material for his second career as a writer.

The Daily Herald wrote about Jack in June, just before the Family Secrets mob trial, recounting his run-ins in the 1950s and '60s with Frank Calabrese Sr. and other players in the Chicago Outfit. Since then, Jack has become something of a minor local celebrity, attending the trial every day and commenting on it for WGN 720-AM, WLS-TV Channel 7 and other media outlets.

Now, Jack is working on his next book, about his brushes with the mob since his youth with young hoodlums in pool halls on the city's West Side.

Growing up, he knew future mob members like Frank Santucci and Phil Tolomeo, who was briefly his police partner before working on juice loan collections and eventually turning state's witness. "I was like the nice guy," said Jack, a former Gold Gloves boxer. "I used to tell these guys to back off."

After all these years, Jack's glad that the hoods who caused so much trouble are finally being put away. "These guys will never see green again," he said. Though he talked to one of the defendants, a fellow former cop, Anthony Doyle, during the trial, others, like reputed mob boss James Marcello, didn't speak with him, and instead gave him the "cold eye."

At age 79, Jack has survived open heart surgery and is in remission from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He still appears for occasional book signings at bookstores, most recently in Schaumburg, and will speak at the Palatine Public Library in April.

Thanks to Robert McCoppin

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The Chumbolone Casino

So as I took last week off -- with some readers fearing I'd been chained in a City Hall dungeon for writing the words "Mayor Chucky" -- an amazing thing happened. (I took the week off after Kass did, which is why you are going to get a slew of articles today.)

Mayor Richard Daley agreed he'd like City Hall to own a gigantic casino, with all the contracts to be overseen by a special city gaming board hand-picked by the mayor himself. Please don't call it the City Hall Casino or the Daley Casino. That's rude. Call it the Chumbolone Casino.

A casino with all the contracts and jobs and deals hidden from public view should be named for all of us chumbolones who believe taxes will decrease if the casino is built.

So I'm calling on you, the readers of this column, to help the mayor by coming up with recommendations for the posts of Chumbolone Casino boss and on the Chumbolone Casino board.

The mayor has been under great stress, and nobody wants him to get angry and transform into the Mayor Chucky persona, which would terrify the Olympic selection committee. Let's help the mayor instead.

Send your Chumbolone Casino recommendations to me, and we'll present them to the mayor in a special ceremony to be held either at the Polish sausage stand on 31st Street, or at Tavern on Rush, whichever he prefers.

"Who'll handle the patronage at the mayor's casino?" asked a loyal reader who calls himself Leprechaun. "There will be jobs there, right?"

Robert Sorich. Who else?

Sorich, the mayor's former patronage boss, was convicted in federal court as part of a scheme that rigged city job applications to illegally build massive patronage armies for the mayor, in direct violation of a federal court order. Sorich is appealing his conviction on mail fraud, not racketeering, as I'd reported recently.

But who'll run the gambling? I've got just the guy behind the guy:

Rayjo.

Rayjo -- known formally as Raymond John Tominello -- comes from the mayor's neighborhood. Nobody calls him Raymond, or Ray. They call him Rayjo.

I have a suspicion that the mayor may know Rayjo, but I've been waiting for those tough TV reporters who like spanking the Urkel out of the hapless Todd Stroger to ask Daley if he knows Rayjo, or not.

Rayjo is eminently qualified. Consider his background.

Rayjo tutored under the famous Don "The Wizard of Odds" Angelini and Dominic Cortina, the Chicago Outfit's top bookies back in the 1980s, and he pleaded guilty to being one of their top lieutenants and went to prison for his crimes.

Before and after his release, Rayjo was in the real estate business with the mayor's second favorite developer, Thomas DiPiazza, on several deals in Bridgeport, and the sale of land to the Chicago Board of Education for almost a million dollars.

See? Rayjo and Tommy D. care about the school children.

And a few months ago, Rayjo was also mentioned in federal testimony in the Family Secrets trial. Chicago Outfit hit man-turned-government witness Nick Calabrese testified about a meeting to establish the pecking order in a Bridgeport gambling operation.

Calabrese said he met with several tough guys, including Outfit loan shark and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony "Twan" Doyle. Twan was convicted in Family Secrets for passing key information on an Outfit murder to Calabrese's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., while the FBI was recording their conversations.

(Ironically, Twan invented the term "chumbolone," which he insisted means stupid idiot.)

At that meeting were Frank Sr., the late Outfit enforcer Ronnie Jarrett and Outfit figure Mario Dispensia. Oh, and one other guy.

Rayjo.

How's that for qualifications?

Like his buddy Tommy D., Rayjo also worked for the city, so he has a public service background too.

So Rayjo it is, for chief operating officer of the Chumbolone Casino.

Yet there are other important casino jobs, from scooping up the quarters in the slot machines, to running the VIP bottle service for high-rollers, even building the casino itself, and securing City Hall occupancy permits. And don't forget the Chumbolone Casino board. I'm sure you'll find responsible people. But don't ask Jim Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission. He argues that, given City Hall's habit of playing footsie with the Outfit for the last century, a casino won't save taxpayers money.

"You'll end up having to pay a tax for all the corruption that will be brought into play, with the contracts, with the sweetheart deals, with the ghost employees and, history has shown, with the corruption of government and law enforcement," Wagner said.

Wagner spent decades with the FBI, hunting the Chicago Outfit. So, naturally, City Hall sniffs at his concerns.

So who will we put on the board? And who'll scoop up the quarters?

Please help the mayor help you.

Your baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Thanks to John Kass

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Jurors Claim Mob Defendant Threatened Prosecutor, New Trial Coming?

At least four jurors in the city's biggest mob trial in years allegedly heard one of the defendants threaten a federal prosecutor as he delivered closing arguments, according to a published report.

Convicted loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. allegedly told Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcus Funk, “You are a (expletive) dead man,” according to a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times and WMAQ-TV.

A juror met with prosecutors after the trial and told them about the alleged threat, according to the letter, sent to Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez by lead prosecutor Mitchell A. Mars. Three other jurors “confirmed the juror's observations and heard Mr. Calabrese say the same thing,” Mars' letter said.

Lopez told the Sun-Times for a story posted Friday on its Web site that he sat next to his client and never heard any threat. “My client has more brains than that,” Lopez said. “We were surrounded by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys and spectators and nobody heard anything, and now a month later ... Why wasn't something said immediately right afterwards? That's what I want to know. It's an overactive imagination, that's all I can think of.”

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.

If jurors heard Calabrese threaten a prosecutor it could have unfairly affected deliberations, raising the possibility of new trials, attorneys for Calabrese's co-defendants said. “This is quite a development,” said Rick Halprin, attorney for Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo. “I have grave concerns about this. ... You would assume it impacted their thought process. We know from the letter that one-third of them talked about it. I expect to be in court on it next week.”

Marc Martin, attorney for James Marcello, who was held responsible for two murders, said he had argued the defendants should have had separate trials. “Marcello has been complaining about this since day one, and this just adds more fuel to the fire,” said Martin, who also questioned whether Mars and Funk broke rules by having contact with a juror without court permission.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who also got a copy of the letter, could let the verdict stand if he reconvenes the jurors and hears from each one that the alleged threat did not affect the deliberations, Alschuler said.

Calabrese was among five defendants convicted last month for taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, loan sharking, extortion and murder.

The defendants were accused of squeezing “street tax,” similar to protection money, out of businesses, running sports bookmaking and video poker operations, and engaging in loan sharking. And they were accused of killing many of those who they feared might spill mob secrets to the government - or already doing so.

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Ex-Cop Doyle, Denied Bail

federal judge turned down a request for bail Wednesday from a retired police officer convicted along with four alleged mobsters at Chicago's Family Secrets racketeering conspiracy trial.

"I believe the evidence at trial has shown that he is a danger to the community," said U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who presided over Chicago's biggest mob trial in years, aimed at leaders of organized crime.

Anthony Doyle, 62, a former Chicago police officer, is being held in federal custody pending sentencing for taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, loan sharking, extortion and murder.

Doyle himself was not accused of murdering anyone, although the jury found that three other defendants were directly responsible for mob hits.

In his five-page order, Zagel said that Doyle had shown a strong loyalty to convicted loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, who could be sentenced to life in prison for his part in assorted mob murders.

"The evidence showed that Mr. Calabrese Sr. is an advocate and practitioner of lethal violence and that he does not hesitate to enlist others to do his violence," Zagel said. "In addition, Mr. Calabrese displayed a profound lack of control of his own emotions at trial."

Zagel said that he had "no doubt that Frank Calabrese Sr. would be willing to take steps against those who testified against him (most of whom are not under federal protection), even if it was against his interest to do so." He said that even though Doyle and Calabrese are barred from direct communication, they might communicate indirectly. "The risk that defendant Doyle would attempt to assist Frank Calabrese Sr. is too high to be disregarded," Zagel said.

He also said Doyle is desperate because he may soon lose his police pension and will leave a sick wife behind when he goes to prison. He said that could prompt him to "do desperate things."

"He is a man skilled in the ways of crime and criminals," Zagel said.

Convicted in the case along with Doyle and Calabrese were James Marcello, 65, Paul Schiro, 70, and Joseph (Joey the Clown) Lombardo, 78.

Thanks to CBS2

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More Family Secret Murders

The milestone mob case has solved many more Chicago Outfit killings than first thought. When the curtain went up on Operation Family Secrets, authorities said the plot involved 18 old gangland murders. But 18 is just the number of killings that were part of the court case.

The I-Team has learned that federal authorities consider as many as 40 mob murders now solved because of their investigation.

The mob's hit parade has been rolling since 1919 with corpses in cars and alleys; on street corners, sidewalks and alleyways; even in back yards and barber chairs. And in almost 90 years of keeping the stats, just a few Outfit murders have ever been solved.

"Whenever we had an organized crime homicide in Area 4, they were some of the hardest cases to work because even their own family members wouldn't talk to you," said Steve Peterson, Chicago police.

When you're a contract killer for La Cosa Nostra, or the LCN, part of the deal is, you don't get caught.

"This is the first investigation that I can recall where so many murders are charged...it goes to the heart of the LCN and that is a bunch of murderous thugs," said Robert Grant, FBI.

One man was *the* most murderous of the thugs: Nick Calabrese, mob hitman-turned-government informant.

During the summer-long trial, Calabrese admitted that he personally took part in more than a dozen gangland killings. But the I-Team has learned that during months of interviews with Chicago FBI agents, Nick Calabrese identified the Outfit triggermen in many additional murders that were never revealed in court.

"About 20 or so that Nick Calabrese provided information on," said John Scully, Family Secrets prosecutor. "I haven't looked at it in a while, but there are a number of murders beyond the ones that he testified about. Again, that he was not involved in, but through conversations with other mobsters."

Retired federal prosecutor Scully revealed the information during a recent interview about the Family Secrets case. While Scully declined to provide details, the I-Team has learned that the case of one mob murder victim is atop those cleared by Calabrese.

Manny Skar, a mob gambling functionary was mysteriously shot dead in 1965 as he emerged from his car near the garage of this Lake Shore Drive apartment house where he and his wife lived. Skar was about to snitch on the Outfit.

According to FBI interview reports, known as 302's, Nick Calabrese told agents that the hit man who rubbed out Skar was none other than Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo.
Mob investigators believe it was Lombardo's first hit, carried out as a requirement of The Clown's induction into the outfit.

Skar's murder and the numerous other "bonus killings" cleared by Nick Calabrese, will be used by prosecutors at the upcoming sentencing of Lombardo, Nick's brother Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese and "Little Jimmy" Marcello.

"At some point, if they haven't done it already, the FBI will be advising the police departments that have an interest in those murders now that this case is done," said Scully.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice confirms that the bureau is providing local authorities with details of the old mob murders, but he says in some cases, informant Nick Calabrese didn't even know the name of the victim.

However, from court records and law enforcement sources, these are among the secret murders also believed cleared by Calabrese:

-Sam Annerino, 1971. A top south suburban enforcer, taken out by masked gunmen in the middle of an Oak Lawn street.

-Anthony Reitinger, 1975. Mob bookie, gunned down in Mama Luna's restaurant on the Northwest Side.

-Tony Borsellino, 1979. A mob assassin shot five times in the back of the head and dumped in a Frankfort farm field.

-Sam Guzzino, 1981. Outfit bodyguard found mangled in a southwest suburban ditch.

-Ronnie Jarrett, 1999. South Side mob lieutenant ambushed on his Bridgeport doorstep.

Besides Nick Calabrese lifting the veil of secrecy on as many as 20 additional Outfit murders, he has also disclosed details of a number of botched gangland shootings, where the target survived.

Defense lawyers declined to comment on Calabrese' additional statements, saying that his FBI records are still under a court-protective order.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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The Fed's Secret Weapon to Bust the Mob

The end of the Operation Family Secrets trial in Chicago has also brought an end to one of the government's secret weapons against the mob.

The secret weapon has a name: John Scully.

For 25 years, Mr. Scully has been a gangbuster for the United States attorney in Chicago, a workhorse prosecutor who put away dozens of organized crime figures with piercing arguments, a devotion to justice and a gentlemanly style.

Scully timed his retirement for the end of the Family Secrets trial last week. He talked with the I-Team about the case and his career.

"The family secrets trail that just ended, was that the highlight of your career, would you say?" ABC7's Chuck Goudie asked.

"Yes," Scully answered. John Scully is a man of few words, maybe because those he does speak carry so much weight.

Just ask Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese and "Little Jimmy" Marcello, three of the Chicago Outfit bosses who Scully helped to convict last month of their roles in decades of criminal rackets and eleven long-unsolved gangland murders.

"There have been very few mob murders solved over the years," Scully said. "This is the result of the work of an awful a lot of people for an awful long period of time, resulted in basically in the solving of a number of cases."

After the Family Secrets victory last week, Scully's retirement was one of the first things they noted. "I can't think of retiring on a higher note," said Pat fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney.

Sixty-year old Scully is a South Sider who graduated from De LaSalle High School. He attended the Naval Academy and was assigned to ship duty during the Vietnam War aboard the U.S.S. Hull, a destroyer that put Captain Scully right off the coast of Vietnam for months.

When Scully received his law degree from the University of San Diego after the war, his enemies changed, from the North Vietnamese to North Side Chicago mobsters and their outfit brethren on 26th Street, from Grand Avenue, Cicero and Elmwood Park.

In 1993, Scully prosecuted the On Leong gambling ring based in Chinatown, a major case that exposed payoffs to the mob, Chicago police and even a Cook County judge.

Five years ago, he took down William Hanhardt, the once-successful chief of detectives for the Chicago police. Hanhardt was sentenced to 15 years for operating a nationwide jewelry theft ring, and he was an outfit operative with a badge.

"A perfect cop in the mind of an awful amount of people. He cleared so many cases and did police work that resulted in a number of people being prosecuted and being prosecuted legitimately," Scully said. "He just never took his skills against the Chicago Outfit."

At the time Hanhardt went to prison, Scully was already working on a cloak-and-dagger investigation targeting the upper crust of the outfit.

It began with a letter from Frank Calabrese Jr., son of mob boss "Frank the Breeze." It was a letter so secret that Scully's long-time trial partner, Mitch Mars, didn't reveal it to others in the office for months.

"What was the danger at that point?" Goudie asked.

"Frank Jr. was cooperating, and it was going to be against his father who was a killer in the Chicago mob," Scully answered.

In 2002, with Frank Jr. still undercover, his uncle Nick Calabrese stunned prosecutors by offering to cooperate as well, admitting that he had committed at least 14 mob hits. "There was not the realization on the part on our office or the FBI that he had been involved with murders," Scully said.

Scully said he is amazed that murderer Joey "the Clown" Lombardo took the witness stand and tried to talk his way out of the charges.

"As you sat there and looked at him, could you get the clown image out of your head?" Goudie asked. "No, I didn't have the image of Joey 'The Clown,' I had the image of Danny Seifert," Scully said.

Seifert was the Bensenville business owner that Lombardo murdered in 1974 to prevent him from testifying in a case that Scully had assisted.

"Did you feel threatened by these people?" Goudie asked.

" No, that has never been a part of the Chicago outfit's background, at least in recent years, over the last 30 or 40 years& going after agents, going after prosecutors, going after police officers," Scully said.

Scully's retirement became effective while the jury was deliberating. He was given special permission to remain at the government table. Then when the verdicts came in, he packed up and went home.

Scully said he has no plans for the big salaries that some of his colleagues receive after retiring to private practice. He plans to spend time with his grandchildren.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Family Secrets of the Murderous Kind

Chicago mobsters planted a bomb in the car of Michael Cagnoni, killing him, in 1981. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice

It all started with a letter sent to our Chicago office in 1998: the son of a Windy City mobster wanted to help us collect enough evidence to have his gangster father put away for life. The letter spawned a seven-year investigation that culminated in a federal courtroom in September with guilty verdicts.

We dubbed it “Operation Family Secrets,” and it’s one of our most successful organized crime investigations ever. The indictment named 14 defendants and included 18 previously unsolved murders.

The man who approached our Chicago office with an unprecedented offer to help was at the time serving a prison sentence with his father, Frank Calabrese Sr. The son agreed to wear a wire during conversations with his father as they talked about the family business.

That family business was the Chicago Outfit, a criminal enterprise operating out of the city for more than four decades. The Outfit had an organized structure and chain of command with “crews” that were assigned specific geographic territories around Chicago.

What kind of business was it? Typical mob stuff: loan sharking, extortion, and gambling, to name just a few. And, of course, murder. Calabrese Sr. talked to his son about three murders he was connected to, with our tape recorders catching all the details.

Thanks to the recordings, our agents got court permission to tape other conversations between Calabrese Sr. and certain visitors. The mobster liked to talk and apparently didn’t mind conducting business from prison.

Soon, our agents had collected enough information—and corroborated it with evidence—to build an iron-clad case against the senior Calabrese for the 1986 murder of mobster John Fecarotta in Chicago. The evidence also clearly implicated Calabrese’s brother, Nicholas W. Calabrese.

Faced with the overwhelming evidence, Nicholas decided he wanted to cooperate, too. He started spilling more family secrets. A lot of them, in fact, including details about 18 previously unsolved mob hits.

Eventually, seven agents worked the Family Secrets case. Everything our agents learned—through the different wire taps, through our own surveillance, and statements from cooperating witnesses—had to be checked out and verified, a process that literally took years to accomplish.

Agents pored over thousands of documents—including old police reports, financial statements, property records, and even seized gambling receipts. “We were checking material that went all the back to the ‘70s,” said Special Agent John Mallul, our Organized Crime Squad supervisor in Chicago and one of the original agents to work on the case.

All the evidence was handed over to a federal grand jury that in April 2005 returned a 43-page indictment. The list of those charged read like a “Who’s Who” in the Chicago mob.

The trial for five men—Calabrese Sr., James Marcello, Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo, Paul “The Indian” Schiro, and Anthony “Twan” Doyle—started in June and ended August 30. The government called more than 125 witnesses and presented more than 200 pieces of evidence, including dozens of photos. All five were found guilty of racketeering and related crimes September 10.

Of the remaining defendants in the indictment, two died prior to trial (Frank Saladino and Michael Ricci), six pled guilty, and one (Frank “The German” Schweihs) was too ill to stand trial.

“This was an exceptional case,” Mallul said. “We haven’t had an individual cooperate like this, and give us this kind of detailed information, before. It helped us take out three crew bosses and the acting head of the Chicago Outfit.”

Thanks to the FBI

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All-Star FBI Team Responds to Letter and Puts Its Stamp on Chicago Outfit

The letter that spilled the Outfit's Family Secrets arrived at the Chicago offices of the FBI in November 1998.

It was addressed to now-retired FBI supervisor Tom Bourgeois, who was then the organized crime section chief. It was from Outfit prince Frank Calabrese Jr., serving a prison sentence in Milan, Mich.

Junior offered to implicate his father, Frank Sr., and uncle Nick in the unsolved murder of Outfit hit man John Fecarotta.

"It came in the mail. I couldn't believe it," Bourgeois told me last week during an interview with current FBI agents at the FBI's expansive new headquarters on the West Side. "We went to Frank to authenticate what he told us in the letter. And then we formulated a strategy on how we were going to approach this case. Strategy was the most important part here."

The recently concluded Family Secrets case took agents countless hours transcribing and decoding prison-house code, in which, for example "Zhivago" meant the two murdered Spilotro brothers buried in a cornfield. It also sent them reinvestigating cold Outfit hits from 30 years ago.

"It's hard to explain to the public how much work is involved," said James Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission and a former FBI supervisor, who trained several of the agents. "You have to sit and transcribe those conversations in paper format, and that takes days and days of work right there, a mountain of paperwork," Wagner said. "And go back and find old witnesses."

Family Secrets began long before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There were two FBI squads working the Chicago Outfit then. One was working the Calabrese end, the family that ran the Chinatown crew through gambling, loan-sharking, extortion and murder. But there was another FBI squad focusing on mob-boss heir apparent Jimmy Marcello of the western suburbs, who was preparing to get out of prison and run things the Chicago way.

Both squads folded into one after 9/11. Though resources were shifted toward terrorism, the Chicago FBI kept some of its top people on the Family Secrets case that many of you have been reading about this summer.

This weekend, thousands of words and hours of video will be devoted to great sports plays, the stupendous touchdowns and home runs, and all that pressure on the necks of the Cubs and Bears, professional athletes whose names are known to millions.

FBI agents on Family Secrets aren't on baseball cards. Their names are not known. Yet they're a team more important than a bunch of ballplayers.

The lead case agent was Mike Maseth, who knew relatively little about the Outfit when he was assigned the Calabrese case at its beginning. He spent nine straight determined years working the case and countless hours with Nick Calabrese after he flipped him. And agent Anita Stamat, working on the Marcello angle, decoded the Outfit dialect with the help of Ted McNamara, the FBI's walking Outfit encyclopedia. Veteran John Mallul was the supervisor with the institutional memory who took over when Bourgeois retired.

"Ted McNamara was the mastermind with the code," Stamat said. "He's worked organized crime for 15 years. He helped guide us through the context of the prison conversations. We were recording them in the visiting room. There could be 200 people there, having their own conversations, and sometimes, Marcello would say, 'Cover your mouth,' to his brother Michael, thinking we were reading lips."

They didn't have to read lips, because they were listening and taping.

Other agents include Luigi Mondini, Chris Mackey, Christopher Smith, Tracy Balinao, Andrew Hickey, Mark Gutknecht, Dana DePooter, Trisha Holt and Tim Keese. And from the Internal Revenue Service, there were Bill Paulin, Laura Shimkus and Mike Welch.

You might not know their names, but mention Maseth or Stamat or Mallul or McNamara or the others around wise guys, and their faces freeze. The officials say is the new reputed Chinatown boss, Frank "Toots" Caruso, wouldn't be afraid of an NFL linebacker, but he'd tighten up if Ted McNamara came by for a pork chop sandwich at the Caruso polish sausage stand on 31st Street in Bridgeport.

Outfit bosses Joseph "the Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr. and Marcello will probably spend the rest of their lives in prison as a result of the case, and Paul "the Indian" Schiro might die inside too. The youngest person convicted in the Family Secrets trial is Anthony "Twan" Doyle, 62, not a boss but a Chicago cop who spilled police secrets about the Fecarotta murder to the Outfit.

Once the FBI flipped Nick Calabrese and began decoding the prison talk of his brother Frank and of Marcello, the case mushroomed. One phase is done. Other cases are being developed as you read this. "I feel this is what the FBI does best," Mallul said, "good old-fashioned police work and investigations, combined with fortuitous events that align themselves."

Like a mob princeling sending a letter to the FBI.

Thanks to John Kass

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Feds Searching for Mob Money

Federal authorities have told top Chicago hoodlums to show them the money - ten million dollars in racketeering profits - and hand it over.

Some of the outfit figures claim they're broke, but federal investigators believe those mobsters are hiding millions in assets.

The trail of mob money begins with eight slices of Sopressata Italian salami and two men - convicted Chicago outfit boss Frank Calabrese and suburban lawyer Alphonse Talarico.

On August 16, during a courtroom break in the Operation Family Secrets trial, attorney Talarico was visiting with Frank the Breeze, whose family he'd represented in real estate. Federal marshals say Talarico passed contraband to prisoner Calabrese and is now banned from the courtroom. Talarico claims the contraband salami was his lunchmeat. "Must've fallen out of my pocket," he told the I-Team. "It wasn't anything devious. I wasn't trying to be a wiseguy."

He admitted to being related to wiseguys. He is the brother of mob bookmaker Michael Talarico, who testified in the case; nephew of the late mob boss Angelo "The Hook" Lapietra and ex-in-law of mob hit man Frank "The German" Schweihs. But it's Talarico's role as the real estate attorney and taxman for Frank Calabrese that has the attention of federal agents far more than his fallen salami.

Since the early 1980's, Talarico has handled vacation land deals in Williams Bay, Wisconsin for the Calabreses. Authorities are said to be examining Walworth County deed records for Calabrese and Talarico as they try to determine find Frank the Breeze's assets.

At Talarico's Oakbrook law office, he declined to appear on TV but said the allegations are "totally inaccurate. I don't know anything about it. The U.S. government can follow anything they want."

U.S. prosecutors are also following the money behind mob leader Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, unraveling what they contend was an intricate scheme to camouflage his personal fortune.

The Clown was arrested last year after being on the lamb for months with $3,000 in his pocket. But he claimed to be in the poorhouse, living on Social Security with six-figure debts. His attorney was ordered paid with tax money.

The feds don't buy Lombardo's poverty act, and the I-Team has learned agents recently delivered a subpoena to the suburban home of his son, Joey Jr.

In what's called a "third party citation to discover assets," the junior Lombardo and other members of his family are being commanded to appear in federal court with records of money or property they may be holding for The Clown.

Feds want Joey Jr.'s tax returns and records of his father's trust account that names his mother, himself and his sister as beneficiaries. Prosecutors question how The Clown could have a trust fund if he was penniless.

According to public records, Joey The Clown and his wife, Marion, divorced in 1992. But federal authorities say the split-up was a sham, that they continued to live together in a West Side apartment building until he was indicted in 2005. And when the Lombardo family sold their Florida golf course property in 2003, eleven years after their divorce, Marion Lombardo still listed herself as "a married woman" while collecting $4.5 million.

In the past year, Mrs. Lombardo has sold two properties, totaling almost $800,000.

Joey Lombardo's lawyer and the others in the mob case are bound by a gag order because the jury is still deliberating murder charges. But Joe Dinatale, who represents Lombardo's ex-wife, son and daughter, said they're cooperating and plan to turn over documents early next month.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Smaller Christmas Tree for Chicago Outfit

While under investigation in 2001, mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr. was captured on tape predicting what the Chicago Outfit's future might look like, describing the crime syndicate in coded language as, of all things, a Christmas tree.

"It's gonna be a smaller Christmas tree that's gonna have the loyalty that once was there," Calabrese, then in prison for loan-sharking, said on the undercover recording. "And the, the big Christmas tree ... it'll never hold up. It's gonna fall. Watch it," he said.

Thanks in part to Calabrese's own recorded words, the Christmas tree tumbled last week as the Family Secrets jury found three Outfit figures responsible for 10 of 18 gangland slayings. Earlier this month, the same jury convicted the three as well as two others on racketeering conspiracy charges.

As a result, Calabrese, 70, a feared hit man blamed by the jury for seven of the murders; James Marcello, 65, identified by the FBI in 2005 as the head of the Chicago Outfit; and legendary mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, 78, face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in prison. But as sweeping as the case was -- resolving some of the most notorious mob murders in modern Chicago history -- organized-crime experts say the Family Secrets prosecution won't derail an entrenched Outfit that dates to Al Capone.

After the trial Thursday, Robert Grant, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office, said the Outfit remains a priority because of its propensity for violence and corruption. "They're much like a cancer," Grant said. "Organized crime, if not monitored and prosecuted, can grow, can corrupt police departments, can corrupt public officials."

"We have dozens of open investigations," John Mallul, supervisor of the FBI's organized crime unit in Chicago, said in an interview.

Calabrese's prison musings about a slimmer but more focused mob appear to be on the mark, the experts said.

Law enforcement officials and the Chicago Crime Commission say the mob is now run in northern and southern sections, with street crews consolidated from six geographical areas to four: Elmwood Park, 26th Street, Cicero and Grand Avenue. Mallul estimates the Outfit has about 30 "made" members and a little more than 100 associates.

Although the mob may be smaller and more tightly controlled, it remains a force with an ability to deliver its trademark illicit services as always, the FBI and experts said.

The mob continues to push its way into legitimate businesses and infiltrate labor unions, offer gambling and high-interest "juice loans," as well as extort "street taxes" from businesses, Mallul said. "In a lot of ways, it's still the same rackets -- 50 years ago, 25 years ago and today," Mallul said.

The Outfit still controls dozens of bookies who rake in millions of dollars a year in the Chicago area, he said, giving the mob its working capital for juice loans and other ventures.

"Sports bookmaking is still a huge moneymaker for them," Mallul said. "On the low end, that can include parlay cards in a tavern all the way up to players betting $5,000 or $10,000 or more a game across the board on a weekend."

James Wagner, head of Chicago Crime Commission, said his organization's intelligence from law enforcement sources indicates Joseph "the Builder" Andriacchi controls the north while Al "the Pizza Man" Tornabene runs the south.

Wagner, a former longtime FBI organized crime supervisor, said the Caruso family runs the 26th Street crew, Andriacchi leads the Elmwood Park crew, Tony Zizzo controlled the Cicero crew until he disappeared a year ago and Lombardo still held influence over the Grand Avenue crew before his arrest.

Authorities believe John "No Nose" DiFronzo also continues to play a prominent role for the mob. His name came up repeatedly in the Family Secrets trial as an Outfit leader, sometimes under another nickname, "Johnny Bananas."

Neither Andriacchi, Tornabene nor DiFronzo has been charged in connection with the Family Secrets investigation. None returned calls seeking comment. An attorney who has represented DiFronzo in the past declined to comment. Wagner said all three reputedly rose in the ranks of the Outfit through cartage theft and juice-loan operations and have since moved into legitimate businesses.

Authorities have said Andriacchi earned his nickname through his connections in the construction business. In the undercover prison recordings, Calabrese identified Andriacchi as the boss of the Elmwood Park crew.

DiFronzo has long had a reputation as a car expert who attended auctions and worked at dealerships, Wagner said. He was convicted of racketeering in the early 1990s for trying to infiltrate an Indian casino in California. He also had connections to waste hauling, Wagner said.

Tornabene, believed by some to be the Outfit's current elder boss, earned his nickname from his family's ownership of a suburban pizza restaurant, authorities said. Law enforcement has recently observed Tornabene, who is well into his 80s, being taken to "business" meetings at his doctor's office, Wagner said.

"Many of these guys are obviously trying to stay out of the limelight as much as they can," he said.

The Family Secrets convictions could further embolden prosecutors in their assault on the Outfit. The verdicts appear to vindicate Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, one of the most significant mob turncoats in Chicago history, who provided crucial testimony on many of the gangland slayings.

His testimony could still spell trouble for DiFronzo and others he named in wrongdoing but who were not indicted, said John Binder, a finance professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and mob researcher who wrote the 2003 book, "The Chicago Outfit."

Calabrese testified that DiFronzo was among the dozen men or more who fatally beat Anthony Spilotro, the mob's Las Vegas chieftain, and his brother Michael in 1986.

"This trial showed how many of these guys had jobs where they worked for the city or at McCormick Place," Wagner said. "When you look at the number that have been connected to the Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Water Department, it's hard to explain without the idea of clout being a factor."

In addition, a former Chicago police officer, Anthony "Twan" Doyle, was convicted of leaking inside information to the mob about the then-covert Family Secrets investigation.

"It's a problem Chicago has preferred to ignore," Wagner said.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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