The Chicago Syndicate: James Marcello
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Showing posts with label James Marcello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Marcello. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Deputy US Marshal Breaks Down Meeting with Prosecutors Regarding Mob Leak

A deputy U.S. marshal from Chicago, once a rising star in his office and now accused of leaking information to the mob, was questioned about possible contacts with other reputed mobsters, according to testimony in federal court Tuesday.

Investigators quizzed Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose about any contacts he had with top reputed mobsters John "Pudgy" Matassa and Tony Zizzo, who is now missing, according to testimony. Ambrose denied even knowing who the men were.

Ambrose, 39, is charged with lying to the feds about leaking secret information about mob killer Nicholas Calabrese, who decided to cooperate with the government and was in the witness protection program.

The feds caught on tape two mobsters, reputed Chicago Outfit boss James Marcello and his half brother, Michael, talking about Calabrese's "baby-sitter" -- their code name for Ambrose -- and the information "the baby-sitter" was providing to them.

The hearing was to determine whether statements that Ambrose made to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and Robert Grant, the head of the FBI in Chicago, should be tossed out.

Ambrose contends he was in custody when he made statements and was not read his Miranda rights, so the statements shouldn't be allowed in. The feds say he wasn't in custody and gave the statements freely in talks with Fitzgerald and Grant in September 2006. Fitzgerald testified Tuesday that he told Ambrose he was not under arrest -- which Ambrose denies.

U.S. Marshal Kim Widup, Ambrose's boss, backed Ambrose's account in one key detail. Widup said he believed Ambrose was in custody when he was being questioned, which could support Ambrose and undermine the prosecution's case. Ambrose's uncle, Gerald Hansen, a retired Chicago police officer and current federal court security officer, visited Ambrose while he was at FBI offices and also said he believed his nephew was in custody.

It's unclear how much those statements will assist Ambrose. U.S. District Judge John Grady said he likely wouldn't consider their opinions all that helpful.

Ambrose broke down on the witness stand as he described how he was confronted by Fitzgerald and Grant.

"I was thinking about my wife and how she was going to raise the kids if we were separated, how we were going to provide," Ambrose said, tears coming to his eyes. "I felt I had been hurled into a vat of quicksand, and Mr. Fitzgerald was throwing bricks at me," Ambrose said.

Investigators were worried that Ambrose might kill himself, and lured him to FBI offices on a ruse.

Ambrose had to hand over his gun, a customary procedure, before he went up to 10th floor conference room at FBI offices, where he was confronted by Fitzgerald and Grant.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Illinois Governor Blagovich Leads List of Politicians Receiving Contributions from Friend of Mob Boss

An Oak Brook businessman who has extensive financial and personal ties to the former head of the Chicago mob has given more than $200,000 in contributions to Illinois politicians through personal and corporate donations -- with Gov. Blagojevich receiving the most money, $35,000, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Among other top recipients of donations from the businessman, Nicholas Vangel, a longtime friend of mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, were former Gov. George Ryan, House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Rep. Angelo "Skip" Saviano, an analysis of the political contributions shows.

Vangel has not been accused of any wrongdoing and did not return phone messages Friday. He has denied in court documents any connections to organized crime. Some politicians who received contributions from Vangel or his businesses told the Sun-Times they were either unaware of Vangel's relationship with Marcello or had no idea who he was.

"We don't know much about the person in question and are still reviewing the contributions," said Doug Scofield, a spokesman for the governor's campaign.

A spokesman for Madigan, who received more than $17,000 over 10 years, had no idea who Vangel was and noted the amount contributed was relatively small per year. Saviano, who got more than $20,000, did not return phone messages.

Vangel, 66, and his family have extensive investments in several nursing homes throughout the Chicago area, as well as other businesses, but another side of him was shown during the recent Family Secrets mob trial.

In a secret videotape made by the FBI and played to jurors, Vangel was shown chatting as he visited Marcello at the federal prison in Milan, Mich., in February 2003. As Marcello snacks on a bag of Fritos, Vangel talks with him about the secret ongoing federal investigation of unsolved mob murders, including which mob leaders have been swabbed for DNA testing. Vangel tells Marcello he will find out what he can.

The men at times speak in code, and Vangel tells Marcello he wishes an unnamed individual had gone to testify before the grand jury investigating the mob murders. "Fact is, I mean to tell ya the truth, I was almost hopin' he'd a gone to find out what they were gonna ask him," Vangel tells Marcello.

His assistance to Marcello did not end there.

Vangel at times would deliver cash to Marcello's mistress, according to the woman's testimony. The woman was also put on the payroll of one of Vangel's businesses, so she could get health insurance.

After Marcello was arrested in the Family Secrets case in 2005, Vangel offered to put up his home, which had more than $1 million in equity, for Marcello's bond.

The judge refused to release Marcello, but if he had gotten out, Marcello could have returned to the job Vangel gave him, which involved calling upon several nursing homes on behalf of Vangel's management company.

In the Family Secrets case, Marcello was convicted of racketeering and was found to have taken part in the 1986 murders of the mob's man in Las Vegas, Anthony Spilotro, and his brother, Michael.

Marcello drove the brothers to what they believed was a mob meeting at a Bensenville area home, where they were lured into a basement and beaten to death, according to court testimony.

Vangel is an investor in another company with the wife of a Marcello associate. Vangel is listed on the corporate records of a temporary worker business called Patriot Staffing Management Inc. with Susan Zizzo, wife of missing mobster Anthony "Little Tony" Zizzo, records show.

Vangel's interests do not end there. He has been, for instance, an investor in the well-known Rush Street restaurant Tavern on Rush, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Vangel is the former owner of the Carlisle banquet hall in west suburban Lombard and was among nine people arrested there during a gambling raid of a Super Bowl party in 1991. Among those arrested were William Galioto, who is a former Chicago Police officer and Marcello's brother-in-law. Galioto has been identified by the Chicago Crime Commission as a mob lieutenant. Also there were two union leaders, who lost their positions after their locals were found to be mobbed up.

Charges against all the men were dropped when prosecutors missed a filing deadline, authorities said.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Shark Tales and Thanksgiving Wishes

Joseph "The Shark" Lopez returns with more Shark Tales. In this addition, he comments on the surreal celebrity event status the Family Secrets trial acheived this past summer. He also catches up on his work and travels since the first phase of the trial concluded and passes along Happy Thanksgiving wishes. Lopez represented Frank Calabrese who was a defendent with 4 others including Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and James "Little Jimmy" Marcello.

In July one day a family of tourists came to see the trial. They were dressed in shorts and were from Europe they came to see the trial because they wanted to see real American gangsters. They were not the only ones who came. People flocked to see us like we were an attraction at Navy Pier.

The courtroom was packed everyday with gawkers and gangster groupies. All eyes were upon us. Needless to say Frank was the main attraction, followed by Lombardo and Marcello. Lombardo has that catchy moniker and Jim Marcello looks like a next door neighbor.

This case reinvents itself every few weeks with new legal issues. This jury issue of the alleged overhearing of a threat to Markus Funk raises a whole new issue for all the defendants. This issue will not be resolved until next year. Meanwhile, the guys wait it out.

As for me, the trial may be over but the work continues on this case and others. I have been doing a lot traveling taking the dog and staying in truck driver motels. I was down in the Okefenokee forest at a small jail, a place of American I have never seen. There was not a wiseguy in sight. I wonder if any beefers live down there in obscurity. It was a million miles from Taylor street. I was happy to find a Ruby Tuesday to eat dinner where i enjoyed two glasses of Cabernet, a mound of mixed greens and a prime beef burger. As I looked around, I saw people living a simple life, not like the rat race that I am used to here in Chicago.

I want to wish all my supporters and my critics who despise me a wonderful Thanksgiving. We should be proud to be Americans and this day is one that belongs to us to show the world how strong and tight we really are on this holiday. To my paisans out there do not eat too much lasagna and sausage; eat more turkey and on Friday get some Italian bread, mayo, turkey, provolone, and hot peppers and make a giant sangwich. Do not drive and drink. I know I will drain a bottle of wine and I have a designated driver. Ciao! - Joe Shark

Saturday, October 20, 2007

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.

ZIRH - CorduroyLopez 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.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A Dentist Gets Drilled by "The Shark"

Joseph "The Shark" Lopez returns with more Shark Tales from the Family Secrets trial and some questions for Pat Spilotro, the dentist brother of Tony and Michael Spilotro. Pat testified during the trial regarding his relationship with some of the defendants. Nick Calabrese, testifying for the prosecution, revealed how both Tony and Michael met their demise.

"The trial was quite a show of characters. The best was Dr. Spilotro, the rat. If his brothers could have seen him on the stand testifying as a government witness they would have puked. He was disgusting. He sat there like a big church victim crying about his brothers.

What about the families of the guys his brother killed, did he weep for them? What about the guy whose head went into the vise or the burglars that were killed? What about those guys doc?

There were times I thought the trial would never end. Day after day was a grind. Judge Zagel kept it going at a good pace. The big issue on appeal will be the double jeporady arguments of Calabrese and Marcello. This case will go on for years to come and it aint over yet!" - Joe Shark

Thursday, October 11, 2007

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.
Charles Tyrwhitt
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

Saturday, October 06, 2007

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

3 Hour Diet at Home

Monday, October 01, 2007

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

$5 Off Discount Coupon Code for Magazines.com, Inc.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

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

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Upholding the Legacy of Al Capone

To me the Chicago Outfit has always meant a Bears shirt and some loud sweatpants.

That's how little I've followed our neighboring city's organized crime syndicate until this week's verdict nailing five of its aging leaders and associates.

It's like "The Sopranos" episode that Tony hoped would never come. Tough guys with colorful nicknames were dragged into court by the feds to answer to charges of racketeering, illegal gambling, extortion, obstructing justice and 18 murders dating back to 1970. The jury returned guilty verdicts on the other counts but has yet to decide on the murder charges.

A panel of 12 peers, if that word can apply to a mobster trial, convicted James Marcello, 65, said to run the Outfit; Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78; Paul "the Indian" Schiro, 70; Frank Calabrese Sr., 70; and Anthony "Twan" Doyle, 62, a former Chicago cop.

The summer-long trial followed an investigation code-named Operation Family Secrets because two star witnesses were the brother and son of accused hit man Calabrese, who shouted, "Them are lies!" as the prosecutor told the jury he had left a trail of bodies.

Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, who pleaded guilty, said he peed his pants in fear as they dug a shallow grave for one victim. And he recalled that "Strangers in the Night" was playing on the jukebox at the restaurant where one guy was whacked.

There was plenty of mob-speak about high interest "juice loans" and grownup bullies collecting "street taxes" from fearful merchants. The jury saw surveillance photos and listened to tape recordings made in secret. They heard about "made" guys and "capos," bookies and henchmen. There was even talk of a severed puppy head and a dead rat being left to get someone's attention.

Wisconsin, long a vacationland for gangsters, got only brief attention at the trial. The Outfit buried a few hundred thou in cash up here but found it soaked and smelly when they dug it up.

Calabrese's lawyer tried to put a wholesome sheen on his client by saying he might as well be "a cheese salesman from Wisconsin."

One old-time Outfit figure mentioned at the trial was Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio. According to the Journal Sentinel archives, he oversaw organized crime activity in Milwaukee for his Chicago bosses in the 1950s and 1960s. He died in 1971.

Much better remembered here, of course, are the Balistrieris - dad Frank P. and sons Joe and John. They lacked a cool name like the Outfit, but they were the faces of our reputed Milwaukee mob. All three went to prison in the 1980s but were later released. Frank died in 1993, and his sons still live quietly here in town.

The FBI in Milwaukee has an organized crime detail, but these days they spend more time on groups from Eastern Europe and Asia, and street gangs.

"We don't see the Italian organized crime as being a large threat in the Milwaukee area," said special agent Doug Porrini. "There just haven't been any cases since the Balistrieris," Milwaukee U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic added.

That's OK, we don't miss it. The level of disorganized crime here is bad enough.

The U.S. Department of Justice in Chicago admitted that this prosecution wounded the Outfit but did not kill it. As these men go off to prison, new leaders will step in.

It just wouldn't be Chicago without someone upholding the legacy of Al Capone.

Thanks to Jim Stingl

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Thanks to Feds, We Hear the "Lies"

Federal prosecutor Mitchell Mars was telling the jury about a litany of 18 Outfit murders -- solved by federal investigators, not locals -- and he put several corpses at the feet of convicted mobster Frank Calabrese Sr.

"He has left a trail of bodies, literally ..." Mars said Tuesday, as Calabrese began shouting, interrupting him.

"THEM ARE LIES!!" Calabrese shrieked, startling the jury.

It was the real Frank coming out after weeks of suppression in federal court, with that tight little smile of his. It was Chinatown Frank, the scary Frank with the famous thumbs, and federal marshals inched closer lest Frank pop for good.

Mars didn't flinch, and he continued speaking.

" ... during his career with the Outfit."

Then the jury retired to deliberate on the second phase of the landmark Family Secrets trial -- deciding which Outfit figures committed previously unsolved murders -- and my guess is that the jury is ready to be done with this.

What must bother Calabrese, and his co-defendants Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, Paul "The Indian" Schiro, and James "Little Shamrock" Marcello, is what Mars told that jury.

"This is not a case of guilt by association. It is guilt by participation in a criminal organization that protected itself and its members by homicide," Mars said. "They lived to kill. They lived to have money, and they lived to kill."

The "Them are lies" shriek was the dramatic highlight of the day, but here's one thing that isn't a lie:

Since the Chicago Outfit began controlling select politicians at City Hall, and select businesses and select cops and county judges, there have been hundreds of Outfit hits. And local law enforcement hasn't solved one for more than 40 years. They've only solved a scant few Outfit killings since Paul "The Waiter" Ricca let Al Capone pretend to be boss of Chicago.

I might be wrong. There might be one, or two, solved in the last four decades by local law enforcement, perhaps the real police in blue uniforms, the men and women who don't get promoted because they don't know the secret political passwords. And if I'm wrong, I'm sure that interim Chicago Police Supt. Dana Starks will invite me to Cafe Bionda for lunch and lecture me on my heresy, as legendary Bionda chef and Reserve nightclub fixture Joe Farina whips us up something tasty. But according to a Chicago Tribune investigation in 1989, no Outfit murder had been solved in Cook County in 20 years.

That was 18 years ago.

The report focused on the Cook County sheriff's office, and how high-ranking sheriff's officials "sabotaged investigations of brutal, execution-style murders and covered up evidence of possible crimes of other law enforcement officials, and judges."

Back then, sheriff's officers, the Tribune said, systematically concealed evidence, blocked efforts by other law enforcement agencies to interview witnesses, and hid their own relationships with organized crime suspects in murder investigations.

One of the murders was the 1976 slaying of Michael Curtin, a chemical company executive found facedown in the back of his tan Cadillac in Maywood, strangled, Chinatown-style, and shot twice in the head for good measure.

Curtin's murder was not one of the 18 homicides in the Family Secrets trial.

A tiny black notebook was discovered in Curtin's pocket. In that notebook, the Tribune reported, were the names of Cook County judges and lawyers, with dollar amounts written alongside.

Lt. James Keating seized the evidence, including Curtin's precious little black book, which vanished forever, as did the bullets that were mysteriously removed from Curtin's cold skull. Keating was convicted in 1986 for taking payoffs to protect Outfit vice operations in the suburbs. And in 1989, he was convicted in federal court for racketeering and murder conspiracy.

Since then, he's been in prison. Some literary muse must have whispered to him in the federal pen, because he's written a novel, "All on the Same Side," about the friendships between politicians, local cops and the Outfit.

One of the characters in the book is a so-called Chief William Murphy -- who vaguely resembles former Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt, himself in federal prison for running an Outfit jewelry heist ring with Schiro.

Murphy's buddy is a mob boss named Dominic, who answers to another mob boss named Johnny, who may or may not have been shot in the nose years ago in real life, ruining his looks. And Murphy promises to kill investigations.

The book is fiction, sort of. But here are two facts:

If it weren't for the feds, the Chicago Outfit wouldn't worry about murder cases. And Frank Calabrese wouldn't have to scream "Them are lies" to the jury deciding the rest of his life.

Thanks to John Kass

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Brother of Murder Victim Cheers Mob Trial's Guilty Verdicts

A relative of a mob murder victim wasted no time applauding the guilty verdicts in the Family Secrets case.

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, prosecutors asked everyone involved in the trial not to talk to the media yet, but one man decided to speak out.

Ron Seifert seemed eager to talk about the guilty verdicts after a federal jury convicted five men Monday in a racketeering conspiracy that involved decades of extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders aimed at rubbing out anyone who stood in the way of the ruthless Chicago mob. "It makes you feel good. Anybody would feel good," Seifert said.

His brother Danny was one of the victims of the Chicago mob. Danny Seifert was just 29 years old and the owner of a Bensenville plastics factory. The feds say Joey "The Clown" Lombardo muscled in on the business, and then helped kill Seifert when it looked like he'd testify against the outfit guy in a fraud trial.

"I'm just glad they convicted Joey, that's all. Why? Because I think he was involved with my brother, killing my brother," Ron Seifert said.

Emma Seifert and her son Joe had little to say after the convictions were handed down by the jury. But in July, the widow of Danny Seifert told CBS 2 News about the murder, at a time when son Joseph was only four years old.

"… And then when the other one was struggling with my husband and he took Joseph and I into the bathroom and held a gun to my head and just told me to be quiet. The next thing I remember hearing was a gunshot," Emma Seifert said.

A known associate of convicted mobster James Marcello was distraught, and seen in tears after hearing the verdict. Prosecutors say Marcello was involved in the murders of rogue mobsters, the Spilotro brothers.

Thanks to Mike Parker

RapidFAX

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Playing Dumb is Wrong Prescription on Witness Stand

Anthony (Passafiume) Doyle, the hulking former Chicago cop tied to the Chicago Outfit, doesn't look like a guy who takes many beatings.

Known as "Twan" on the street, Doyle looks more like a guy who gives them for free. But he needed a doctor after the beating he took on the witness stand Thursday in the Family Secrets Outfit trial.

After a severe cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Atty. Markus Funk, Doyle looked flat and gray, like the pork chops in the sandwiches at the Maxwell Street Polish stand on 31st Street byda viaduct.

Twan looked like he needed a doctor.

So I drove over after testimony was done, for a pork-chop sandwich, to the doctors office there, to see if Dr. Frank "Toots" Caruso would make a house call and tend to his lifelong friend.

Federal authorities consider Caruso, a former labor leader ousted from his union for crime connections, to be a major street boss in the Outfit. Funk kept referring to him in open court as "The Doctor," which he said was Outfit code, in the tape recordings from the federal prison in Milan, Mich., where Doyle visited Chinatown loan shark Frank Calabrese.

Prosecutors say Calabrese wanted the doctor to make a visit, to tend to sickly friends who might talk to the feds.

Since I was hungry, and Doyle appeared in need of doctorly advice, there was only one place to go. This doctor's office smelled of onions and grilled meat, which is nicer than antiseptics.

Is Dr. Toots here? Where's Dr. Toots?

"Toots no here," said the grill man through the window.

So I left my office number and ordered two pork-chop sandwiches, or sangwiches as they are called, one for me and one for my trusty colleague, the Polish Spartacus.

Light on the onions, I said. "I'll take mine regular," Spartacus said.

We stood outside, eating our tasty sangwiches at the counter on the sidewalk, reflecting on the testimony and anticipating walking across the street for a fine cigar.

Doyle's testimony had been rather predictable. He didn't know nothing. He didn't know why he used code words so easily that he appeared quite fluent in the obscure Chinatown dialect of the Outfit language.

It's not Chinese. It's not classic Italian. It's Chitalian.

On tape, Doyle and Frank Calabrese spoke of "doctors" (Caruso) and "purses" (bloody gloves sought by the FBI) and "sisters" (gangsters) and "sickly sisters" (guys who might testify against the Outfit) and the "family" (you know) and so on.

It sure sounded incriminating, but Doyle had a reason. He testified that he played along with the Calabrese code he called "gibberish" and "mumbo jumbo" because he didn't want to look stupid. So he kept talking, incriminating himself into a federal charge that as a cop in the police evidence section, he warned Outfit bosses that the FBI was looking for a bloody glove that would frighten "sickly sisters." At least, that's his theory.

"I gave him lip service," Doyle said. "I didn't know what he was talking about. I don't wanna look like a chumbolone, an idiot, stupid," Doyle said from the witness stand.

There is a tasty Sicilian Easter cake called ciambellone, but Twan doesn't look like a tasty Easter cake. He looks more like the guy you never want to meet in a parking lot at night.

He was especially upset that prosecutors dropped the portion of the tape on him where he keeps referring to "the doctor." He didn't want to be a chumbolone about "the doctor" either, but that put him in a bind with prosecutor Funk.

"I never heard of a name called 'doctor,'" Doyle said of Caruso. "And I've known him my entire life!"

He denied this, he denied that, and if I hadn't been reading the transcripts and watching the tapes along with the jury, I'd have believed him. Perhaps they do believe him.

Outside the federal building, Hollywood producers were filming another exciting Batman movie -- this one about Batman fighting the Chicago Outfit.

The streets were crowded with extras and trucks, and production crew members told me that the big trucks with the equipment belonged to "Movies in Motion," the company founded by William Galioto, another former Chicago cop and brother-in-law of Jimmy Marcello, one of the other Outfit bosses on trial in Family Secrets.

They must think we're chumbolones. We reflected on this, walking across the street to the cigar shop, hoping to find Dr. Toots enjoying a stogie. We had two fine cigars ourselves, but the Doctor wasn't in.

Three Chicago Police detectives were inside, smoking cigars, resting their paws on their guns on their belts.

How's crime? "It always goes down when it rains," said one detective, and everybody laughed.

The TV was on, with a rerun of a M*A*S*H episode, and Col. Sherman T. Potter was speaking kindly, giving fatherly advice. I wonder if Dr. Toots would give his friend Twan that same medicine.

Thanks to John Kass

Saturday, August 18, 2007

From Eating Oatmeal as a Boy to Earning for the Mob

Chicago Outfit loan shark and accused hit-man Frank Calabrese Sr. didn't have the gall to wear his First Communion suit on the witness stand. It wouldn't have fit, anyway.

Instead he wore a pale sports coat just on the edge of ivory, like an older bride with plenty of miles, still yearning for the white on her big day.

Calabrese testified in his own defense in the "Family Secrets" trial on Thursday, explaining that as a boy, his family was so poor they ate oatmeal most every night, that he had to leave school in the 4th grade to help deliver coal. And, how he grew up with an intense desire to protect the weak against the strong, even when the weak owed him money from his juice loans and couldn't pay him on time.

"I hated bullies and I still hate them today," said the knightly Calabrese, led through his story by crafty defense lawyer Joseph Lopez.

Yet when court resumes Monday, Calabrese will face cross-examination by federal prosecutors, so the jury won't see Sir Frank of Chinatown, but a different Frank, the Frank on federal tape giggling about murders.

The jury will hear about his many alleged victims, dumped into holes like so many goo-goo dolls, those yellow rubber toys of years ago. Put your thumbs on their throats, squeeze hard, and their eyes bug out, the tongues protrude, they make a strange noise, which is the way his brother, Nicholas Calabrese, described the effects of Frank's heavy work in earlier trial testimony.

"Murder? No way. No way," Frank kept telling Lopez, also resplendent in a pink shirt and electric yellow tie, as Lopez directed him through more than two hours of testimony designed to give context to Calabrese's life and have his client repeatedly deny he killed anyone.

Lopez's theory is that Frank's son and his brother Nick conspired to rip off Frank's money and keep him in prison. It's an interesting theory. But on Monday, as those tapes are played, the tapes his son Frank Jr. recorded in prison conversations with his father for the FBI, the theory will have a side effect.

Calabrese's co-defendants -- Joseph Lombardo, Paul Schiro, Anthony Doyle and James Marcello -- will look up and feel the fork in them and know they're done.

Some of my colleagues have been tempted to say that the Chicago Outfit is done, too, but it is not. Today's web was woven long ago, when Paul "The Waiter" Ricca moved here from New York and quietly allowed Al Capone to play the loud baboon in the shiny suit.

Calabrese is an example of this influence, a portly squire from the Chinatown crew, which still reaches into the 11th Ward, home of mayors. His brother-in-law was the late Ed Hanley, president of the powerful international hotel workers union, who dabbled in wiseguys and politics from Chicago to Las Vegas.

Hanley got him a city job, and later Frank got Nick a city job running McCormick Place, and depending on what testimony you believe, they either killed a lot of people together or they didn't, but they made a lot of money.

Calabrese explained on Thursday that the Outfit is dedicated to money, composed of two kinds of men, those who earn, and those who do the heavy work.

"And what is the heavy work?" Lopez asked.

"Killing people," Calabrese said, "but I didn't kill people, I was an earner ... I earned millions ... I didn't have time to do that other stuff."

He did this, he said, by loaning money at high rates to gambling addicts who couldn't go into a bank and apply for loans.

Listening to him, I wondered how lousy he must feel, in prison now, with so much opportunity outside, as City Hall pushes quietly for a giant city-run gambling casino, one that would have its own "independent" gaming commission controlled by the mayor, so it won't be subject to bothersome state regulations.

Loan sharking is part of gambling, in casinos or on Rush Street, though scary collectors aren't featured in the commercials. Calabrese testified that in his loan-sharking business, he never threatened or hurt anyone, but they paid anyway, but not from fear.

Yet it was instructive, with Calabrese explaining the meaning of "the sit down," a meeting designed to settle disputes, like the time Butch Petrocelli (one of the alleged victims) "kept sticking his nose in there" to try and take away Calabrese's card games, Calabrese said.

"It was all done diplomatically," Calabrese said. "The head of this group sits there, the head of that group sits there. And someone very important, like [late Outfit boss] Joey Aiuppa sits there."

Lopez asked: "Was there any swearing or cursing?"

"Swearing or cursing? Oh, no. It was diplomatic," Calabrese said. The way he said "oh, no" was quite odd. It was something a PTA mom would say, not some Chinatown bone-crusher who sat meekly before the boss.

The jury stopped taking notes, and stared, transfixed, as if a penguin from the zoo were sitting in front of them reading "The Divine Comedy." And Calabrese faced them, in his almost white ivory jacket, blinking.

Thanks to John Kass

Friday, August 17, 2007

End of the Clown's Days?

The Joey "The Clown" Lombardo who testified Tuesday in his own defense was the boss of nothing, in his own mind.

Street boss, what street boss? Clown, what clown?

He was just an old man with a gray face in a gray suit with a cane, pushing 80, working his jaw, his tongue fishing some flecks of lunch out of his gums as he sat in the witness box, taking the one chance left to him in this historic Family Secrets trial of the Chicago Outfit in federal court:

To convince the jury he wasn't the Joey Lombardo of legend, but instead a humble shoeshine boy from the old neighborhood who hustled a bit for extra cash.

Lombardo said he grew up on the West Side, that his father worked at the Tribune in some unspecified capacity, and that Joe later took fencing lessons in high school, played handball, even rollerbladed in later years, ending up with a small interest in a floating craps game while running minor errands for bail bondsman and Outfit wiretapper Irwin Weiner.

Lombardo didn't kill anyone, he insisted. He wasn't the boss of anything. He wasn't a made member of the Outfit, which forms the base of the triangle that runs the town. Politicians, Lombardo said, were the real hoodlums.

"There's 50 bosses in Chicago," Lombardo said, "The 50 bosses are the 50 aldermen; without them you can't get anything done. If you want zoning, you see the alderman. If you want to run a card game, you go see the alderman. If you want a dice game, go see the alderman."

In Lombardo's mind, what does that make the boss of all the aldermen, that guy I used to call Mayor Fredo, who sits on the 5th Floor of City Hall? I couldn't ask Lombardo, since he's only talking from the witness stand.

The last time I tried speaking to Lombardo was years ago, at Bella Notte, a nice Italian restaurant on Grand Avenue, just after former Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt was indicted for running an Outfit-sanctioned jewelry-heist ring. I wanted to ask Lombardo about Hanhardt, another friend of the Outfit-connected Weiner. But before I could saunter over to Lombardo's table, he snapped his fingers, the busboys shoveled his food into containers and he walked out. The manager trotted over and said I was sadly mistaken if I thought he catered to clowns.

"Clown? Clown? What are you talking about, clown? What clown?" the manager said.

Well, wasn't that the Clown? "No, that was Mr. Irwin Goldman," the manager said, forgetting to explain why Mr. Goldman was wearing a St. Dismas medallion -- the Good Thief crucified next to Christ -- around his neck.

That was sure amusing, but Lombardo is weirdly amusing, and when he testified in court on Tuesday he got a laugh when he talked about shining shoes as a boy. Gamblers would tip him a dollar. The cops only gave him a nickel. "They were very cheap people," said Lombardo, and there was a loud chuckle in the courtroom, prompting U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel to admonish other lawyers laughing at Lombardo's wisecracks.

Rick Halprin, the seasoned criminal lawyer whose job it is to try and keep Lombardo from dying in prison, took a gamble in putting Lombardo on the stand. Halprin had no real choice, with Lombardo's fingerprint on the title application from a car used in the killing of Danny Seifert, a Lombardo partner-turned-federal witness in 1974. That fingerprint has an itch the Outfit can't scratch. It waits, still, quiet, filed, hanging over Lombardo's head.

In 1974, Seifert was killed in front of his family. Seifert was the key witness in the federal case against Lombardo. The case against him exploded the way Seifert exploded, when the shotguns came out. Halprin had to gamble the jury would see a cane in the fingers of the grandpa on the stand, not a shotgun.

The other accused Outfit bosses and soldiers on trial must be thinking that now they've got to follow him up there, too, and swear another oath, this one before God. They watched Lombardo in cold blood. There was Paul "The Indian" Schiro, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle, accused of warning the Outfit when the FBI began investigating the 18 formerly unsolved mob killings that are part of this landmark case.

Their eyes black, their heads framed against black leather courtroom chairs, they leaned back and watched the shoeshine boy. Their chins rested on fists, they took deep breaths, their eyes sponging up the light of the world.

Halprin: "On Sept. 27, 1974, did you kill Danny Seifert?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

Halprin: "Have you ever been a capo or a made member of the Chicago Outfit?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

The old man pushed that second "positively, no" too quickly past his choppers, the delivery was rushed, so it fell in front of the jury with a thunk, like a car trunk slamming shut in a lonely parking lot.

There wasn't anything amusing about it.

It wasn't funny, like a clown.

It was desperate, an old man holding his cane, seeing the end of days.

Thanks to John Kass

Monday, August 13, 2007

Feds Rest Their Case at Family Secrets Trial

Federal prosecutors rested their case Monday at the racketeering trial of alleged mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and four other reputed members of the Chicago underworld.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel quickly denied requests by the defendants for immediate acquittal and began setting the stage for perhaps a week of defense witnesses -- including Lombardo himself -- at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. "It's quite plain that all of these motions for acquittal at the end of the government's case must be denied and I deny them," Zagel said.

Besides the 78-year-old Lombardo, those on trial are James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese, 69, Paul Schiro, 70, and Anthony Doyle, 62.

They are charged with operating Chicago's organized crime family -- known as the Chicago Outfit -- as a racketeering enterprise that included gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 long-unsolved murders.

Among those murdered was Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, for years the mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino." He and his brother Michael were beaten and strangled in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Lombardo plans to take the witness stand in his own defense sometime this week, attorneys said. Defense attorneys for Calabrese and Doyle did not rule out the possibility that their clients also could testify.

Lombardo's defense is based on the claim that, after serving years in prison for attempting to bribe a U.S. senator and involvement in Las Vegas casino skimming, he swore he would never take part in any further crimes.

Zagel said he would allow Lombardo to talk about his withdrawal from a life of crime despite grumbling from prosecutors that it amounted to letting him vouch for his own good behavior.

On cross examination, prosecutors are guaranteed to ask him why he went on the lam for months after the indictment was unsealed. He was arrested after FBI agents cornered him in an Elmwood Park alley.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

The Clown to Enter Center Ring at MobTrial

Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Nick Calabrese, Michael Marcello

In the upcoming defense of the five men on trial in the Family Secrets case, there will be one star attraction: the Clown.

Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo will take the witness stand in his own defense, his attorney, Rick Halprin, said in court Wednesday as the prosecution all but wrapped up its case.

Lombardo's defense "obviously centers around his testimony," Halprin said. And he has been put at the highest levels of the Chicago Outfit in trial testimony. Lombardo, 78, has never testified in a criminal case in his own defense. He gave a deposition in a union proceeding and spoke to the judge before he was sentenced in a criminal case in the 1980s.

Halprin deferred his opening statement for Lombardo until after the prosecution rested its case. Halprin is expected to give his opening on Monday.

Lombardo has an alibi for the day Seifert was killed. He contends he was reporting his stolen wallet to police at the time of the murder.

Defense attorneys for other men on trial, including the reputed head of the Chicago mob, James Marcello, will say Monday whether their clients will take the stand too.

As prosecutors brought their case to a close Wednesday, they played several more secret tape recordings made when Marcello was visited by his half-brother, Michael, at a federal prison in Milan, Mich. The tapes appear to show great concern by the Marcellos over the cooperation of Nick Calabrese, a mob killer who has testified at the trial.

Michael Marcello was the owner of a company that put video gambling machines in bars in the western suburbs. IRS Revenue Agent Michael Welch testified that the company failed to report at least half its income from 1996 to 2003, to the tune of $4.3 million. A top mob investigator with the IRS, William Paulin, testified earlier that when he and other agents searched Michael Marcello's company in 2003, they found thousands of dollars in apparently unreported cash.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Dentist and Lawyer in Heated Courtroom Exchange

Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Anthony Spilotro, James Marcello, Nicholas Calabrese
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Michael Marcello

Joey "the Clown" Lombardo spent months eluding federal authorities after he was indicted in the Family Secrets mob-conspiracy case, but he couldn't outrun the pain of an abscessed tooth.

So in January 2006, he quietly made arrangements to see his dentist, Patrick Spilotro, after Spilotro's Park Ridge practice had closed for the night. But Lombardo didn't know that Spilotro was an FBI tipster, hoping to help solve the murders of his reputed mobster brothers, Anthony and Michael Spilotro.

Testifying Tuesday at the Family Secrets trial, a sometimes tearful Patrick Spilotro said he told the FBI about a second clandestine appointment a few days later with the fugitive -- this time to adjust a bridge.

"They knew the exact time" of the visit, he testified in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, providing the most complete account yet of how Lombardo was captured after nine months on the lam. The reputed mob boss was arrested in Elmwood Park that same day.

Lombardo is one of five men on trial in the sweeping conspiracy case involving 18 previously unsolved murders, including the Spilotros' killings in 1986.

During the visit for dental work, Spilotro said he pressed Lombardo again about what had happened to his brothers. Lombardo, who was in prison when the slayings occurred, had always told him the slayings wouldn't have happened if he had been free, Spilotro said. But this time the answer changed. "I recall his words very vividly," Spilotro testified. "He said, 'Doc, you get an order, you follow that order. If you don't follow the order, you go too.'"

Lombardo occasionally leaned over on his cane to talk with a lawyer during Tuesday's testimony.

Upon cross-examination, Lombardo's lead attorney, Rick Halprin, asked Spilotro whether the person he treated was simply an old man with a bad tooth. Lombardo, whose defense strategy suggests he is preparing to testify on his own behalf, contends he is only a mob-connected business man, not an Outfit boss.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel is expected to ask each of the five defendants whether they plan to testify as soon as Wednesday.

Spilotro also testified that his brother, Anthony, was in his office on June 12, 1986, just two days before he vanished. While there he had access to a phone, and apparently called the home of defendant James Marcello, according to phone records displayed Tuesday.

Marcello, the reputed leader of the Chicago Outfit, already has been blamed in the Spilotro killings by the trial's star witness, mob turncoat Nicholas Calabrese. And Michael Spilotro's daughter has testified that Marcello called her father at home the day he and his brother disappeared.

Patrick Spilotro's testimony Tuesday led to one of the most heated cross-examinations to date in the trial.

Marcello's lawyer, Thomas Breen, asked Spilotro about his decision to clean out Anthony Spilotro's hotel room before he had been reported as a missing person and before police had searched the room for fingerprints.

"It's what I did at that time," said Patrick Spilotro, who seemed to struggle with his emotions throughout his testimony. "I really didn't have my whole head on at that time."

Breen asked what would have happened if the Spilotro brothers had returned to the room and thought there had been a burglary. They had been missing for barely 24 hours when Patrick Spilotro cleaned out the room.

"That would've been a blessing for me then," said Spilotro, who said he knew enough at the time to guess that his brothers would never be coming back. His sister-in-law, Ann, had told him that her husband, Michael, believed he could be in danger.

"She told me where they went," Spilotro said, raising his voice slightly. "They went with Marcello."

At that remark, Breen paced around the lectern, then walked up to Spilotro. Breen told Spilotro his sister-in-law never mentioned Marcello by name during her testimony. "You were the first person to ever share that, doctor," Breen said sarcastically. "Ever report that to the FBI?"

"The FBI was aware that Marcello had called there and [my brothers] went to meet him," Spilotro answered.

"Yeah, right," Breen shot back. "That's the problem when somebody does [their own] investigation."

Prosecutors ended the day by playing recordings made while Marcello was being visited by his brother, Michael, at a federal prison in Michigan. The men, who did not know they were being recorded, spoke about the Family Secrets investigation with code and hand gestures.

Allegedly referring to Nicholas Calabrese as "Slim," authorities said the men can be heard speculating about whether Calabrese is cooperating with them.

In a later video from January 2003, the brothers are seen sitting side-by-side in a prison visiting room. They are heard discussing a source -- who authorities contend was a U.S. marshal (John Ambrose) working a witness security detail. The source had confirmed for the brothers Calabrese's cooperation with the authorities.

The source had seen a summary from Calabrese outlining the participants in some 18 homicides, including the slayings of the Spilotro brothers, which the Marcellos referred to in code as "Zhivago."

"All your names are on that [expletive]," Michael Marcello could be heard to say.

"You're kidding," his brother replied.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

Monday, August 06, 2007

Mistress Faces Reputed Mobster

Friends of ours: James Marcello, Tony Spilotro, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

The reputed mob boss did his best to keep a poker face Thursday.

First, the daughter of one of the Spilotro brothers tried not to cry as she indirectly blamed James Marcello for luring her father to his violent death.

Then a second witness, a slim, woman with shoulder-length brown hair testified against him in a quiet voice he knows well.

Connie Marcello, 53, who changed her name after becoming Marcello's mistress, said she met him while she was tending bar in Cook County strip clubs such as Michael's Magic Touch and The Hollywood. James Marcello, who was married to another woman, gave her thousands a month in cash for more than 20 years, she told jurors at the Family Secrets mob conspiracy trial in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

The gifts are important because prosecutors allege Marcello ran an illegal, cash-based gambling empire that saw video poker machines placed in bars around the Chicago area. If she was ever asked where her money came from, Connie Marcello testified, she was supposed to say her mother gave it to her.

Her testimony came during the continuing trial of five men—including Marcello—for a conspiracy that allegedly included 18 previously unsolved murders, including the killings of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro.

Connie Marcello calmly said she lied to Marcello in 2005 after she appeared before a grand jury, telling him the subject of the money never came up. "I just said it was things about the '80s," she said she told him.

She was still getting money from him as late as June, she said. His brother or a friend would hand her an envelope or a coffee cup stuffed with $100 bills, she said.

Marcello paid for her lawyers, she said, and when she ran up $15,000 in gambling debt, Marcello's cash made it go away. If she was forced to testify at the Family Secrets trial under a grant of immunity, as she did Thursday, she was expected to say nothing and go to jail, she said.

On cross-examination, she was asked if Marcello was being kind to her and her two children, one of whom was adopted and has special needs. That, she said before leaving the courtroom, was true too.

Connie Marcello's testimony followed an earlier session where Michelle Spilotro, the daughter of mob figure Michael Spilotro, talked about working as a hostess at her father's restaurant in the 1980s. She watched him whisper with mobsters in the back room, she said, and told jurors she watched in her house as her dad and alleged mob leader Joey "the Clown" Lombardo wrote each other notes on a child's toy instead of talking out loud.

It was a board that could be written on and then erased by pulling a plastic sheet away from its backing. "You'd see scribbling and they'd lift it up," she said. And she received directions from her father about taking phone calls, especially when a man she knew as "Jim" rang the house.

"Jim," who authorities allege is James Marcello, had a distinct voice with a thick Chicago accent.

Spilotro, 38, now a homemaker, fought tears on the witness stand as she thought about the day in June 1986 when her father disappeared. Her father and uncle were waiting for "Jim" to call, and she answered the phone. After that, she said, the Spilotro brothers got dressed to leave the house.

She said her father left his jewelry in a Ziploc bag on the kitchen counter, and told her to tell her mother to bring it to a graduation party they were attending that night.

Years later, an FBI agent sat her in a car and played her a "voice lineup" of five investigators and Marcello reading a couple of paragraphs from an item in a Chicago newspaper.

When Marcello's voice came on, Spilotro told agents she didn't need to hear anymore, she was sure it was the caller.

On cross-examination, Spilotro acknowledged she hadn't heard "Jim's" voice for three years before listening to the tape. Spilotro's testimony followed that of her mother, Ann Spilotro, who told jurors her husband had once told her that he and his brother "were going to be No. 1" in the hierarchy of the Outfit. The men eventually were targeted for death because Anthony Spilotro, the mob's Las Vegas boss, was attempting unauthorized hits.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Mistress of Mob Boss to Testify

Friends of ours: James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Nicholas Calabrese, Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Mike Spilotro

A one-time mistress of reputed top Chicago mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello is scheduled to be called today as a witness for the prosecution in the Family Secrets trial, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

It could not be determined what Connie Marcello will tell jurors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Mars referred to her only as "Miss Marcello" when asked by U.S. District Judge James Zagel Wednesday for a list of witnesses who are expected to appear today.

While there is a marital privilege that generally prohibits prosecutors from calling wives to testify against their husbands, there is no mistress privilege. Connie Marcello adopted James Marcello's last name, but the two never married.

It's the latest twist in the Family Secrets case, in which one defendant, reputed Outfit killer Frank Calabrese Sr., saw his son, Frank Jr., and brother, Nicholas, testify against him.

Also expected to appear today as witnesses are the widow and daughter of Michael Spilotro, who was killed in a brutal gangland beating in 1986 with his brother, Anthony Spilotro, who oversaw the Outfit's interests in Las Vegas.

Michael Spilotro's daughter, Michelle, is expected to testify that James Marcello called her home twice looking for her father, who left for a meeting and never returned. Spilotro's daughter said in an affidavit that she had heard Marcello's voice many times before. She later identified his voice from an FBI recording.

On Wednesday, a forensic pathologist testified Michael and Anthony Spilotro died from blunt force injuries and could not breathe because blood filled their airways or lungs. There was no evidence they were buried alive or hit with baseball bats -- a version popularized in the 1995 movie "Casino."

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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