Forensic Pathologist Details Spilotro's Autopsies

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, James Marcello, Nick Calabrese
Friends of mine: Michale Spilotro, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal

A forensic pathologist who took part in the autopsies of mobsters Anthony and Michael Spilotro gave testimony on Wednesday that upended the Hollywood version of their deaths, which had the men beaten to death with bats and buried alive in an Indiana cornfield.

Dr. John Pless said at the Family Secrets trial that there was no evidence that the men had been buried alive. The grisly detail was popularized in the 1995 mob movie, “Casino.” Pless said the injuries the men received were more likely from fists than bats.

Pless riveted jurors with a detailed list of the injuries both men received. The Spilotros both died from multiple blunt trauma injuries and from having their lungs or airways so filled with blood from their wounds that they couldn't breathe, according to Pless’ testimony.

The men had been lured to the basement of a Bensenville area home in June 1986 after a mob hit squad had unsuccessfully tried to kill Anthony Spilotro in Las Vegas, according to earlier trial testimony.

Spilotro had tried to blow up a mob associate (Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal) without Outfit permission, had slept with that associate's wife and had committed unauthorized murders, according to evidence at trial.

Mob officials lured the men to the basement on the promise that Tony Spilotro was to be promoted to a capo position in the mob, and Michael Spilotro was to be a “made” member of the Outfit. Instead, a dozen killers were waiting for the men in the basement and jumped them as they came down.

Earlier in the trial, Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese, who is testifying for the government, described his own role in the murders. Calabrese testified he held Michael Spilotro while another man strangled him. Calabrese said he did not get a good look at how Anthony Spilotro was killed.

The forensic pathologist testified that he found abrasions around the neck of Michael Spilotro that could have come from a rope, but noted that the corpses had decomposed after being buried for at least a week in the cornfield, and it was difficult to find markings.

The attorney for reputed mob boss James Marcello jumped on the lack of clear strangulation marks. Defense lawyer Thomas Breen hammered home that point to the jury and will likely use it to bolster his argument that Nicholas Calabrese wasn’t even at the Spilotro murders and made up his account of them.

Calabrese’s testimony is important to Marcello because Calabrese contends Marcello took part in the murders by driving him and other killers to the Bensenville area home.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Tweet

The Dentist Who Drilled the Mob

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, Nick Calabrese, Frank Calabrase Sr., James Marcello, Joseph "Joey The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Frank Calabrese Jr.

It is the stuff of novels: a dentist on the trail of his brothers' killers who learns to extract more than teeth.

When Patrick Spilotro, 70, takes the stand this week in the federal "Family Secrets" mob trial, the gruesome odyssey of a brother thirsty for justice will unfold with a few shocking surprises.

In an interview last week, Spilotro detailed his obsession with bringing his brothers' killers to justice.

Spilotro told Michael Sneed: "I promised my mother 21 years ago I would find the men who did it; who butchered my brothers and tortured her sons. We talked about it before she died in 1995. You never get over something like that. But I told her I would never give up."

Sneed is told mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, who was hiding in Chicago in hopes of not becoming part of the "Family Secrets" trial, was captured as a result of a visit to Spilotro's office for dental problems. A tooth abscess led the feds to the flamboyant mobster.

The story of how Spilotro, a suburban dentist, helped break the backbone of the old Chicago mob syndicate is the detritus of two decades spent searching for 12 men who beat and strangled his brothers, reputed mobsters Tony and Michael Spilotro. The menburied them in an unmarked grave in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.

It was the flipping of mobster Nick Calabrese and his nephew, Frank Calabrese Jr., that cracked the "Family Secrets" case. And it was Spilotro, who began working with the feds 21 years ago, who helped them do it.

Secretly taping Nick Calabrese while in prison for extortion, Spilotro primed the pump of redemption with the help of his dental patient, Nick's wife, Nora. And it was Spilotro who tracked down Frank "The German" Schweihs, a reputed mob killer, in his Kentucky lair by tracing multiple cell phones used by Schweihs' son, Sneed hears.

Many of these men and their wives and kids and grandparents were patients of Spilotro over a 35-year span.

Spilotro did not know Calabrese was one of his brothers' murderers, and told Sneed that it would have been impossible for him to talk to Calabrese had he known.

Spilotro's intention was to get Calabrese to tell him what happened that night when a mobster named James Marcello, described in 2005 as the boss of the Chicago outfit, allegedly called Michael Spilotro's home and summoned him to the meeting that led to his death. Michael's daughter, Michelle, will reportedly testify that it was Marcello's voice she heard on the phone that night.

It was the flipping of Nick Calabrese that broke the case. But during Spilotro's meeting with the underworld kingpin, Spilotro discovered Calabrese hated his brother, Frank, whom he considered a dangerous psychopath. Spilotro also told the feds Frank Calabrese's son, Frank Jr., hated his father; important information for the feds to build a scenario to subsequently flip them, sources said.

Armed with Spilotro's information, and subsequent DNA evidence linking Calabrese to a mob hit, the feds were able to flip Calabrese -- whose wife, Nora, had urged him to cooperate.

Spilotro never knew of Nick Calabrese's involvement in his brothers' demise.

"They never told him that they did it," a source said. "But there's no honor amongst these men," said Spilotro. "No respect. They are all a different breed. Money and power are their gods, nothing else."

Thanks to Michael Sneed

Tweet

Nick Calabrese Blasted by Attorney on Cross Examination

Friends of ours: Nick Calabrese, James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Sam Carlisi, Frank Calabrese Sr., Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

An attorney for James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, the reputed head of the Chicago Outfit, today blasted a star witness' account that Marcello was made into the mob in a 1983 ceremony.

Marcello is half Irish, and according to the testimony of Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese, only men who are fully Italian can be made members of the Chicago Outfit.

Marcello's attorney, Thomas Breen, asked Calabrese on the witness stand if he had met Marcello's "lovely mother Mrs. Flynn," referring to her maiden name.

"And Mrs. Flynn is as Irish as Paddy's pig, isn't she?" Breen said.

"Then Jimmy Marcello lied," Calabrese shot back, apparently a little rattled. "[Marcello's sponsor] Sam Carlisi lied, they lied to the boss."

Nicholas Calabrese gave a detailed account of how he, Marcello and Calabrese's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., were made with several other men in a ceremony in a closed Chicago area restaurant in 1983.

Breen suggested through his questioning that Calabrese was lying about many details he gave to FBI agents and told jurors from the stand.

Breen asked Calabrese about the making ceremony.

"They serve food?" Breen asked.

"No," Calabrese said.

"No corn beef for Mr. Marcello?" Breen jabbed.

Calabrese has admitted to taking part in at least 14 murders for the mob. As part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, he is avoiding the death penalty and hoping to get something less than life in prison. He's testifying against his brother Frank Calabrese Sr., Marcello and three other men on trial.

Earlier in the trial, Breen scored a point when he was able to get Nicholas Calabrese to say he did not recognize the photo of one of the men that he took part in killing, Nicholas D'Andrea, in Chicago Heights in 1981.

Calabrese said he had only seen the man briefly. The mob was interested in grilling D'Andrea about the attempted murder of a south suburban mob boss but beat D'Andrea so badly that he died before questioning.

The attorney for Calabrese's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., revealed during his questioning earlier in the day that a family member of one of Nicholas Calabrese's murder victims secretly recorded Nicholas Calabrese during a prison visit.

Nicholas Calabrese took part in the murders of the mob's man in Las Vegas, Anthony Spilotro, and his brother, Michael Spilotro. Their brother, Dr. Pat Spilotro, a dentist, was a friend of Nick Calabrese and also did his dental work, Nicholas Calabrese testified. The dentist visited Nicholas Calabrese in prison once and recorded him, but Calabrese told him nothing about the murders.

In 2001, Nicholas Calabrese sent Pat Spilotro a Christmas card from prison, telling him that he had made a decision he never believed he would have made. Nicholas Calabrese was referring to cooperating with the FBI, according to court testimony.

"God willing, I'll be home next Christmas," Calabrese wrote.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Tweet

Mobster, Tony Spilotro, Fought Killers to Death

Friends of ours: Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, Frank Calabrese Sr., Nick Calabrese, James Marcello, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Paul "The Indian" Schiro, Anthony Doyle
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Frank Calabrese Jr.

A mobster who inspired a movie character warned his attackers before they beat him to death that they would get in trouble, an organized crime insider testified Monday.

Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, and his brother, Michael, had been lured to a basement on the pretext that Michael would be initiated as a "made guy" into the mob, Frank Calabrese Jr. said.

"He came into the basement and there were a whole bunch of guys who grabbed him and strangled him and beat him to death," Calabrese said at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. "Tony put up a fight. He kept saying, 'You guys are going to get in trouble, you guys are going to get in trouble,'" the prosecution witness said.

Five defendants, including Calabrese's father, reputed mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr., are charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 killings, gambling, loan sharking and extortion. The slayings of the Spilotro brothers - Michael was killed the same night - were among the murder charges.

Despite his graphic narrative, Calabrese was not a witness to the June 1986 death of Tony Spilotro, known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas and inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in "Casino."

Calabrese testified that he heard what happened from his uncle, Nicholas Calabrese, who has pleaded guilty and also is expected to testify at the trial. The younger Calabrese testified he was told Tony Spilotro would be killed because he was engaging in unauthorized activities in Las Vegas.

Calabrese Sr., 69, is on trial along with James Marcello, 65; Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78; convicted jewel thief Paul Schiro, 70; and former police officer Anthony Doyle, 62.

Prosecutors on Monday began playing tapes made secretly by Calabrese Jr. in talks with his father when they both were imprisoned for loan sharking. Calabrese Jr. said he wrote to an FBI agent volunteering to make the tapes because he wanted to change his life and get away from his father, whom he described as manipulative and unwilling to give up crime. The father sat expressionless as his son, who now runs a carry-out near Phoenix, said he wanted to "expose my father for what he was."

Also Monday, convicted bookie Joel Glickman, who went to jail rather than testify against Calabrese Sr., told jurors he paid thousands in "street tax" to the mob and once got a "juice loan" from Calabrese.

Glickman, looking haggard after spending a week behind bars for contempt because of his earlier refusal to testify, said he paid as much as $400,000 in "street tax" over 25 years of working as a bookmaker.

If he hadn't paid the mob for permission to do business, he would have lived in a state of fear, he said.

"Fear of what?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Markus Funk. "Fear of getting hurt," Glickman said.

Glickman said that he stopped working as a bookie for six years in the 1970s and went into the insurance business, but that while doing so he got a $20,000 loan for his boss from Calabrese.

"A juice loan?" Funk asked, using a mob term for usury.

"I'd say so," said Glickman, testifying under immunity from prosecution.

Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez tried to soften the impact of that testimony, asking Glickman whether "Calabrese ever threatened you."

"Never," Glickman said. He agreed with Lopez that Calabrese had always been polite and diplomatic with him.

Thanks to Mike Robinson

Tweet

How Much Power Does the Chicago Outfit Posess?

The "Family Secrets" trial of a group of alleged Chicago mobsters has drawn attention to the Windy City's gangland heritage and raises questions about the strength of today's "Outfit."

Is the shadowy organization - the modern-day legacy of Al Capone - on its last legs, or is it as strong as ever? Observers disagree.

Retired reporter John Drummond, who chronicled organized crime for WBBM-TV for decades, said the Outfit has been weakened through recent federal crackdowns and the aging of kingpins. Reputed mob boss Joseph "the Clown" Lombardo, one of the Family Secrets defendants, is in his late 70s. "I think they are pretty much in disarray," Drummond said. "Nobody wants to take over the mantle of leadership because of the scrutiny that they'd be under."

Jim Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, was less optimistic. The former FBI agent said the mob's influence remains as pervasive as ever and includes illegal activities such as gambling and prostitution as well as legitimate white-collar businesses that launder dirty money. "My concern is that people have the misunderstanding that this trial, as important as it is, represents an end of the Outfit, and nothing could be further from the truth," Wagner said. "The money's still there, and therefore the influence is still there."

All Illinoisans are affected by organized crime, Wagner said, because the crime syndicate's participation in any enterprise adds a layer of cost that is passed on to taxpayers or consumers.

The Illinois Gaming Board's 2001 decision to block a casino from being built in Rosemont centered on allegations that the project was tainted by mob influence. Late Rosemont mayor Donald Stephens was dogged for years by allegations that he had associated with Chicago mob chief Sam Giancana, but Stephens denied any connection beyond purchasing property from him in the early-1960s.

The sweeping Family Secrets trial that began in June in U.S. District Court is expected to offer an insider's view into the Chicago Outfit's past misdeeds. The alleged racketeering conspiracy at the heart of the case includes 18 long-unsolved murders and a myriad of crimes ranging from extorting "street taxes" from businesses to making "juice loans," or loan-sharking.

Probably the most notorious killing is that of Anthony Spilotro, who was found buried with his brother in an Indiana cornfield in 1986. In the 1995 movie "Casino," Joe Pesci's character - and his grisly end - is based on Spilotro.

Such displays of brutality generally are a thing of the past for organized crime, author and crime historian Richard Lindberg said. He said that's because mob hits tend to attract law enforcement attention. "The lesson that (mobsters) learned is that violence is bad for business," he said. "Once you stop seeing bodies being found in trunks at the airport or in ditches on the side of country highways, then the mob becomes invisible."

Even if the traditional Italian-American mob may be waning, experts say other kinds of gangs have moved into the Chicago region, possibly with the old syndicate's blessing. They include ethnic crime organizations from Eastern Europe and Asia. The new gangs are even more discreet, Lindberg said.

"What's happened, some people will tell you, is that the government has put too much priority on the traditional mobs, and the other ethnic groups are probably doing very well for themselves," Drummond, the retired reporter, said.

Chicago cannot shake its underworld history, particularly the image of Capone (1899-1947), whose bootlegging empire was the precursor to today's mob. Image-conscious city officials have tried to downplay that era, but it refuses to die.

Few Capone-related sites even survive today, but Don Fielding said his "Untouchables" bus tour continues to thrive. He said guides hit the highlights of Scarface's career. "I hope the trial goes on for years," Fielding said. "It gives people this little sense of intrigue."

In its central exhibit about the city's origins, the Chicago History Museum acknowledges the power that Capone wielded but frames him in a negative context. The display includes a graphic photograph of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which several of Capone's rival gang members were sprayed by machine-gun fire. "Part of what the museum is about is to promote a fuller understanding of the history of Chicago," museum historian Sarah Marcus said. "If you are choosing to erase portions of history, first of all, people are going to know you're doing it. And second of all, you have a responsibility to confront some of the less pleasant and disturbing aspects. ... It's not all sunshine and roses."

Thanks to Mike Ramsey

Tweet

How Do 18 Chicago Outfit Murders Remain Unsolved for Decades?

How do 18 Chicago Outfit murders remain unsolved for decades?

It might help to have the cops on your side.

This came out in the opening statement by Assistant U.S. Atty. John Scully in the historic Family Secrets trial, when Scully pointed at one of the accused, a fellow with the intriguing nickname of "Twan."

He's called Twan in the 11th Ward, in Bridgeport and Chinatown, where not only the wiseguys are nervous about this trial, but presumably some 11th Ward politicians, too, about information gushing from the mouths of Outfit informants.

Twan is a tough-looking fellow, with a muscly forehead and plates for eyebrows, a Chinatown Sammy Sosa in a nice suit, and the only one of five defendants not accused of being involved in the 18 murders.

The name Twan remains a mystery. If any of you know his longtime friend, Bridgeport's former labor boss, Frank "Toots" Caruso, and you ask Toots and he tells you, please call me. On a pay phone.

Scully's suggestion about how things work isn't in the name Twan, but in another, official name used by Twan: Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle.

According to Scully, Doyle was with the Outfit and a loan shark, but Doyle also worked in the evidence section of the Chicago Police Department for a time. If Scully's allegations are correct -- and Scully was correct a few years ago when he put former Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt behind bars for running the Outfit's jewelry-heist crew -- the Outfit's reach into local law enforcement will be demonstrated once again.

Good cops who make small mistakes are often publicly humiliated, trotted out and yelled at by politicians who wag their fingers for TV cameras. Their families are ruined. But law-and-order politicians somehow always forget to wag their fingers at cops like Hanhardt or Twan.

If you're a loyal reader, you might remember that I wrote about Outfit tough guy John Fecarotta years ago, after reporting that Chinatown crew member Nicholas Calabrese had sought refuge in the federal witness protection program, which started Family Secrets. Fecarotta was implicated in many of the 18 murders by Scully on Thursday, including the 1986 beating deaths of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro. It was Fecarotta's job to bury them. He blew it by inserting them in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield.

After the Spilotros' bodies were found, Fecarotta was invited to go on another crime, on Belmont Avenue. But he didn't know he was the intended target until Nick Calabrese pointed a gun at his face. There was a struggle, Nick was shot, and though Fecarotta ended up dead, a bloody glove was found, dripping with Nick's DNA. The glove ended up in the police evidence section where Doyle worked.

When the FBI began asking about the glove, Scully said Doyle became quite interested in this development, figuring that his Outfit superiors would be equally interested, if not more so. Scully alleged that Doyle told Nick Calabrese's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., about the glove that could put the Calabrese family in the Fecarotta murder.

"He betrayed his oath to the public and decided to remain loyal to Outfit interests," Scully said.

There were other highlights in court Thursday, including Frank Calabrese Sr.'s lawyer, the dynamic and splendidly dressed Joseph Lopez, the only lawyer in town tough enough to pull off pink socks and work for mobsters while remaining a loyal reader of my column.

He described his client as a man ruined by an ungrateful son, another informant witness, Frank Calabrese Jr. Junior was a drug addict who didn't want to go into the trucking business and who cared more about a tarty wife than his own father's love, Lopez said.

He pointed to his client, who allegedly strangled several people until their eyes popped out but who was so soft and kindly-looking in court, he could have been in a TV commercial for facial tissue.

"Who is this man in the powder blue suit who could be a cheese salesman from Wisconsin?" Lopez asked the jury about Frank Calabrese Sr.

Gentle Wisconsin cheese salesman? I wonder where he read that one.

Other highlights included the lists of the Outfit soldiers allegedly in on the 18 killings. And the repeated mention of Bridgeport hit man Ronnie Jarrett, who worked for Bridgeport trucking boss/mayoral favorite Michael Tadin and was the model for the James Caan crime classic "Thief."

Jarrett was gunned down in 1999, about the time that Twan was getting worried about the glove. Jarrett's murder is not included in this case.

"Unfortunately," said Lopez, arguing that his client was not involved in other murders, "people get killed for various reasons all the time."

"The truth," Lopez said, quoting a lyrical Italian proverb, "is somewhere between the clouds."

But I think it's in the evidence room of the Chicago Police Department.

Thanks to John Kass

Tweet

Blood and Gore Highlight Opening Statements at Family Secrets Mob Trial

Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Paul Schiro, Anthony Doyle, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Nicholas Calabrese, Michael "Hambone" Albergo
Friends of mine: William Hanhardt

Chicago's biggest mob trial in years started Thursday with a prosecutor urging the jury to forget what they know about movie mobsters and see the now-elderly defendants for who they are: men who "committed brutal crimes on behalf of the Chicago Outfit."

"This is not The Sopranos. This is not The Godfather. These are real people, very corrupt and without honor," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Scully told the jury.

As Scully described a blood-drenched litany of murders, he showed the jury large photos of the victims. He talked about Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie Casino. Spilotro and his brother were allegedly lured into a basement and beaten to death, then buried in an Indiana cornfield.

The men on trial — reputed mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, Paul Schiro, 69, and former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62 — are accused in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders. All have pleaded not guilty.

An anonymous jury is hearing the case, with the jurors being identified only by court-issued numbers to protect their identities.

"Four of the five defendants in this room committed brutal crimes on behalf of the Chicago Outfit," Scully told the jury in his opening statement. The fifth, Doyle, protected them, he said.

Scully described Calabrese as a violent loan shark who strangled witnesses with a rope and cut their throats to make sure they were dead.

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez painted a different picture for the jury, describing Calabrese as a much-maligned, deeply religious man "who believes in peace" and loved his family. He ripped into Calabrese's son, Frank Jr., who is expected to be a key witness for the government against his father.

"He's going to say, 'My father is a rotten S.O.B., my father never loved me' — none of this is true," Lopez said. He said the jurors would see letters between the father and son "expressing love for one another."

"You're going to hear that Frank did slap his son around on numerous occasions," Lopez said. But he said that was only because the youngster was robbing the neighbors of their jewelry and taking cocaine.

He said Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, also expected to be a key witness, once stole a rifle with a silencer from Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, where it had been used to shoot birds that congregated on the scoreboard.

Scully described Marcello as one of the top leaders of the Chicago Outfit. He said Lombardo was the boss of the mob's Grand Avenue crew. Schiro was jailed five years ago for taking part in a jewel theft ring led by the Chicago police department's one-time chief of detectives, William Hanhardt.

Doyle, the retired Chicago police officer, also worked as a loan shark under Calabrese, according to federal prosecutors. He is the one defendant in the case not directly accused of murdering anyone. But Scully said that he aided and abetted the others in their work.

Scully was graphic in describing the killings, but it was Lopez who offered the juiciest details.

He recounted how FBI agents, acting on an informant's tip, tore up concrete in a parking lot near U.S. Cellular Field, home of the White Sox, looking for the last remains of murdered loan shark Michael Albergo. He said they found "thousands of bones" under the parking lot. But DNA testing couldn't tie any of the bones to Albergo, Lopez said, repeatedly referring to the victim by his mob nickname of "Hambone."

Tweet

Inside the Mind of Mobster Frank Cullotta

Friends of ours: Frank Cullotta, Joe Cullotta, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Jimmy Miraglia, John "Billy" McCarthy

In the high profile mob trial that began Tuesday in Chicago, one witness for the government is expected to be Frank Cullotta. For more than 25 years, Cullotta was part of the Chicago mob.

Unit 5's Carol Marin got a rare glimpse into the mind of a mobster. Her report is presented here verbatim:

The story of Frank Cullotta is a disturbing and twisted tale. The son of a gangster, he became one himself. He befriended many of the Outfit's top leaders. He stole. He beat people. And he killed twice -- all with little thought of the consequences of his actions.

Cullotta: "There were times that I muscled people."

Frank Cullotta loved the life of the mob. He loved the scores.

Marin: "How many burglaries would you estimate?"

Cullotta: "Minimum 300. Robberies, maybe 200."

He loved the thrills.

Marin: "Your two killings, how were they done?"

Cullotta: "One was a car explosion, and the other was a guy getting shot in the head."

Cullotta shot his victim in the side, back and front of the head.

Marin: "So, you shot him three times?"

Cullotta: "About 10 times."

Cullotta: "I come from a good family, loving mother, loving father. But my father was a shady guy."

Joe Cullotta was a thief and wheelman for the mob, who died in a high speed chase with police in hot pursuit.

Frank Cullotta: "I just felt like he was the model I wanted to follow after."

Over the years, Frank Cullotta graduated from small time thug to big time mobster, aided by his friendship with Tony "The Ant" Spilotro.

Cullotta: "We met each other on Grand Avenue in Chicago ... we became friends."

But Cullotta was soon to learn a lesson about friendship and the mob -- a lesson that years later helped him make the biggest decision of his life.

Jimmy Miraglia and John "Billy" McCarthy were members of Cullotta's burglary crew. When they carried out an unauthorized hit, they were tortured. The M&M boys fell victim to mob justice. McCarthy was the first to die.

Cullotta: "They stuck his head in a vice and start turning the vice. They didn't think the eyeball was going to pop out or whatever, and his eyeball popped out. And then he gave up Jimmy's name. Then they just cut his throat."

Cullotta lead McCarthy and then Miraglia to their deaths.

Cullotta: "It bothered me for a long time. But you know, you live in that world and you say, 'You know, if I don't give 'em up ... they are going to whack me."

When we met Cullotta two weeks ago in Las Vegas, we asked how the mob justifies killing another person.

Cullotta: "First of all you are told this guy could hurt you ... he's no good so you kill 'em."

Marin: "What if you know them or their family?"

Cullotta: "You just justify it, you are doing his family a favor by getting rid of this scumbag."

Marin: "Do you think about it? Does it stay with you?"

Cullotta: "You just forget about it."

In 1979, Cullotta moved to Vegas. He and his crew, the Hole in the Wall gang, stole with abandon under the protection of his pal, Tony Spilotro.

Cullotta: "He was a good friend. For many years, he was a good friend."

But in 1982, Cullotta says, he learned Spilotro was plotting to have him killed. He quit the mob and became a government witness against his former friends. Today, it's a pen and not a pistol you will find in Cullotta's hand. In Las Vegas, he was signing autographs in a new book about his life.

Rick Halprin: "It's just a cheap, trashy book full of stories, which he knows are not true."

Rick Halprin is the lawyer for Joey "The Clown" Lombardo. Cullotta says he will testify in the "Family Secrets" trial that Lombardo has long been a leader in the outfit.

Halprin: "Frank Cullotta is a two-bit burglar who has been telling the same story since 1982."

Cullotta: "I'm old now."

A grandfather, today he is cashing in on his notoriety. He's served as a technical advisor to the mob movie "Casino," and hopes the book will spawn a movie deal.

Marin: "But you are a killer, a burglar, a thug -- I mean you robbed big people and little people, didn't you?"

Cullotta: "I was, I was ... I probably couldn't kill a fly now, really. I've changed ... They tried to kill me ... I wasn't going to become part of the list of guys that were all murdered by their friends. I was a little smarter than them."

Thanks to Carol Marin

Tweet

Saluting the Best Mafiosa Court Room Antics

Friends of ours: Frank "the German" Schweihs, Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano, Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, John Gotti, Joey “Doves” Aiuppa, Jackie “The Lackey” Cerone, Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Judge Thomas Maloney

“The Sopranos” might have ended, but the first episode of Chicago’s latest mob drama begins Tuesday.

How fitting that the official festivities will take place in the feds’ ceremonial courtroom. The Outfit is big on ceremony, beginning with the oath that “made” guys take. They also take an oath of Omerta, promising never to talk about family secrets to the big bad wolf with the menacing initials: FBI. But how many of us can keep a good secret for life? So, between the gangsters who are desirous of saving their own hides and those who have or will be pleading guilty to high crimes and non-misdemeanors, only five wiseguys are expected to actually be sitting on their ceremonial behinds when jury selection begins Tuesday.

The lawyers for La Cosa Nostra have some serious work ahead of them in the next four or five months. I’m talking about the new, outlandish stunts the hoods will need if they expect to get a mention in the Mob’s Greatest Trial Antics.

It appeared as though Frank “The German” Schweihs might offer the first memorable moment. The German, who was one of the Outfit’s most feared and proficient hitmen, according to federal authorities, is said to be terminally ill.

There was a time when Schweihs would have come to trial with the rest of them, his skin pasty white and IV tubes plugged into his veins, a sad and pathetic character worthy of great sympathy from the jury. But now, Schweihs has been “severed” from the trial, which seems to be an apt legal description for somebody who federal authorities say cut short a few dozen lives himself.

Judge James Zagel didn’t want Schweihs dying one day during the case and creating a mistrial for the others, so he allowed him time to heal … a consideration that Mr. Schweihs himself allegedly would rarely grant those who begged him for mercy.

Schweihs could have followed the script written by Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano back in the ’60s. The vicious mob enforcer would feign illness so he had to be wheeled into court on a gurney while wearing pajamas. Once, Mad Sam used a bullhorn in the courtroom so he was assured of being louder than prosecutors.

The crafty New York mafia boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante use to wear his bathrobe to court, mumble to himself and claim God was his lawyer in an effort to persuade jurors that he was deranged. It worked for many years until The Chin was eventually convicted. In 2003, two years before he died in prison, Gigante admitted it had all been an act.

The best courtroom performance by a mob lawyer was in 1986 by Bruce Cutler, who was representing John Gotti at the time. Cutler took the thick federal indictment against Gotti and stuffed it in a courtroom wastebasket. “It’s garbage,” Cutler shouted at prosecutors. “That’s where it belongs.”

Sickness and sympathy has been a favorite play by hoodlums for decades. When Chicago Outfit boss Joey “Doves” Aiuppa was on trial in Kansas City 20 years ago, Aiuppa hunched over a walker coming and going from court. Nevertheless, he managed to get in and out of a taxi and his hotel just fine.

During that same trial, Aiuppa’s vice consigliore Jackie “The Lackey” Cerone delivered a veiled threat to a Chicago news reporter while they were riding on a crowded elevator.

“How’s the wife and that new baby of yours?” Cerone asked the newsman, whose coverage he must have under appreciated. The question stunned the reporter, who certainly never had spoken to Cerone about his wife or his new daughter, Caylen Goudie.

Once, in 1983, I asked the infamous Outfit tough-guy Tony “The Ant” Spilotro a question that now seems prophetic.

“Tony, are you concerned for your personal safety?” I asked The Ant as he bailed out of Cook County jail.

Spilotro just sneered at me … a far different look than he must have displayed three years later when he and his brother were clubbed and buried alive in an Indiana cornfield.

When defrocked Cook County Judge Thomas Maloney was on trial for taking bribes to fix murder cases, the mob-connected Maloney tried his best every day to avoid TV crews staked out in front of the federal building.

Once, Maloney thought he had outsmarted news jockeys by sneaking into the federal building basement and walking up a ramp from the underground parking garage.

Not to be tricked, camera crews were waiting atop the ramp when Maloney strutted up dressed in a black trench coat and fedora. He began running across Adams Street in the Loop, pursued by TV crews until he tripped and did a belly flop onto the asphalt, staggering to his feet with a mouthful of gravel.

The finest out-of-court routine was put on by Joey “The Clown” Lombardo, who will go on trial again Tuesday. Years ago when he was free on bond, The Clown enjoyed living up to his nickname by shielding his face from photographers using a newspaper with cut-out eyeholes.

While he was a fugitive, Lombardo wrote a letter to Judge Zagel, who is hearing his case, stating that he was unfairly targeted by prosecutors who could convict “a hamburger” in federal court.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Tweet

Murder, Juice Loans, Pornography, Street Gambling, All Part of Mob Family Secrets Trial

Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Paul "the Indian" Schiro, Anthony Doyle, Tony Spilotro, Frank "the German" Schweihs, Nick Calabrese, John Fecarotta, Rocco Infelice, William Hanhardt
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

With the sweeping "Family Secrets" conspiracy trial just days from starting, reputed mobster Joey "the Clown" Lombardo was looking pretty relaxed. If not for the orange jumpsuit and the federal courtroom, he could have been passing time in a coffee shop or one of his favorite Grand Avenue restaurants.

As he sat in a wheelchair with his legs crossed, he gestured and chatted with court personnel and lawyers about the clothes he'll wear when a jury hears allegations that he and several co-defendants ruthlessly steered the Outfit through years of vice and violence. "Do I get a haircut too?" he said with a smile, drawing a laugh.

Even in a city as heavy with mob history and lore as Chicago, the landmark trial set to begin Tuesday with the selection of an anonymous jury promises to be a spectacle.

There will be veteran prosecutors who have made careers targeting wiseguys. There will be flamboyant defense lawyers unafraid to make a joke in court and wear pink socks while doing it. And there will be Lombardo and at least four other defendants, a group accused of forming the backbone of the Chicago Outfit for much of the 1970s and '80s. The trial will lay bare secret ceremonies, 18 long-unsolved gangland slayings and the mob's grip on the city's dark side -- street gambling, juice loans and pornography.

They are now shadows of the men who have stared coldly out of mug shots. They have limped into court using canes, the 78-year-old Lombardo leading a geriatric assortment of characters that has complained of bad backs, poor eyesight and heart trouble in the months leading up to the trial.

Federal prosecutors have targeted individual Outfit street crews and their leaders in the past, but Family Secrets will essentially put on trial the structure and enterprise that was the Chicago mob during the last few decades.

Expected to go on trial with Lombardo for racketeering conspiracy will be James Marcello, named as the boss of the Chicago mob at the time of his arrest; Frank Calabrese Sr., a made member of the Outfit's 26th Street crew and once Chicago's reputed top loan shark; Paul "the Indian" Schiro; and former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle.

The case started with a bang when the indictments came down in the spring of 2005. Lombardo and reputed hit man Frank "the German" Schweihs -- now too sick to go on trial -- were on the lam for months.

While a fugitive, Lombardo wrote letters to the judge in the case, signing some "an innocent man" and promising to swallow truth serum to prove he wasn't involved in the murders. He vowed to turn himself in if he would be released on bail and tried separately. He was arrested in suburban Elmwood Park in January 2006.

As the case finally goes to trial, interest is expected to cause it to be moved to the ceremonial courtroom on the 25th floor of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, the building's largest.

Prosecutors will tell the jury that Lombardo, Marcello and others helped control the organization born with Al Capone, which has persisted and flourished in all manner of illicit business, and has protected itself through murder when necessary. The most sensational of the 18 killings are the 1986 beating deaths of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, who were found buried in an Indiana cornfield and whose murders were featured in the movie "Casino."

"This ranks up there with the great cases ... based on the number of people and the high-profile crimes involved," said Lee Flosi, a former FBI agent who was the supervisor of Chicago's organized crime task force in the early 1990s.

It could even be the last great mob case, Flosi said, as the FBI devotes fewer resources to taking on a somewhat downtrodden Outfit. "It'll be many years before there's anything that rivals it," he said.

Observers are calling the case the most important involving the Chicago mob since Lombardo and three bosses were convicted in 1986 of skimming millions of dollars from a Las Vegas casino.

The trial, expected to last as long as four months, will feature high-ranking turncoats, including a made mob member, Nicholas Calabrese, who will testify against his brother, giving the case its Family Secrets code name. It will include undercover recordings of prison meetings between the incarcerated Marcello and his brother, Michael, and even a government expert dubbed a "mobologist" by the defense to try to tie it all together. A parade of prosecution witnesses that includes hit men, pornographers, bookies, career burglars, gamblers and other mob associates are expected to testify about their dealings with the Outfit.

As the government attacks the mob as a racketeering enterprise, the case will attempt to close the books on the Spilotro killings and a series of other hits that for years sat among the hundreds of unsolved mob slayings in Chicago. Prosecutors will use the rarest of tools to take jurors inside organized crime -- a member of the Outfit's inner circle.

Billed as the most significant witness against the Chicago syndicate in decades, Nick Calabrese has the insider's knowledge to name names. Associated with the Outfit since 1970, he has admitted taking part in 14 Outfit killings and has information on many more, prosecutors have said.

A made member of the 26th Street crew, he began cooperating in 2002 after being confronted by authorities with DNA evidence that linked him to the 1986 killing of mob hit man John Fecarotta. Calabrese recently pleaded guilty.

He also will supply firsthand information about mob business, the Outfit's structure and its customs. And he will explain the backdrop and motives for many of the slayings. He is expected to directly link James Marcello to the murders of the Spilotros, according to prosecutors' documents. The brothers were beaten and strangled in a home near Bensenville after running afoul of the Chicago Outfit while heading its Las Vegas operation.

Calabrese is expected to tell jurors about an underworld ceremony in 1983 when he was welcomed into the mob's leading ranks with Marcello and Frank Calabrese Sr. Calabrese will describe how each inductee was joined by his crew boss and how the highest-ranking Outfit leaders had them pledge absolute allegiance.

To fight Calabrese and his testimony, defense lawyers said they will attempt to show the motives for many of the murders were unrelated to the mob, or that their clients were not directing the conspiracy. According to the defense, the government's case is built on the idea that the Outfit was structured from the top down. "In past cases, the government has shown all of this thuggery, and then asked the jury to reasonably infer that it was done on behalf of the mob," said Rick Halprin, Lombardo's lawyer and a veteran of the federal courthouse. "This case is the reverse. They will be proving that there was organized crime."

Halprin, an ex-Marine who was wounded in Vietnam, has a booming courtroom voice and is quick with a quip. Halprin intends to portray Lombardo as a lifelong working man. "He doesn't have a home in River Forest," he said. "He doesn't drive fancy cars."

Frank Calabrese Sr.'s lawyer, Joseph Lopez, who has defended other mob figures as well, is known for his sharp suits, occasionally accented with pink socks. He said he agrees the team of prosecutors on the case must show that the orders for the killings came down the mob's chain of command.

It doesn't matter, Lopez said, that his client has previously pleaded guilty to being in the Outfit. Prosecutors have to prove the slayings were mob hits. "The question is, were these killings sanctioned by the mob," Lopez said. "People get killed for a variety of reasons."

Lopez said he will present evidence to show that two individuals who have no connection to the mob killed Richard Ortiz and Arthur Morawski, one of the mob hits with which his client is charged. "We're not charged with murder. We're charged with conspiracy," Lopez said. "If we were charged with murder down at 26th Street [the Criminal Courts Building], this would be a different story."

"They can't show these [murders] were done to protect the Outfit," he said. But leading the prosecution team are two of the most seasoned, savvy assistant U.S. attorneys, Mitchell Mars, the office's organized crime chief, who headed the prosecution in the early 1990s of mobster Rocco Infelice, and John Scully, who prosecuted William Hanhardt, a former Chicago police chief of detectives convicted of running a mob-connected jewelry theft ring.

To be sure, they won't be in a joking mood, even though Lombardo might be. "You know he doesn't want to just sit there silently with his hands folded," Flosi said of Lombardo, who once famously covered his face with a newspaper -- a hole cut out for him to see -- as he left a 1981 court appearance. "Maybe he'll come to court in his pajamas," Flosi said. "Who knows?"

Thanks to Jeff Coen

Tweet

Michael Spilotro P.I.?

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, Frank Cullotta
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

The Spilotro Hollywood moment is that scene in "Casino" with the cornfield and the baseball bats that the critics loved, though it really didn't happen that way.

That's how America remembers the Chicago Outfit's Anthony Spilotro and his brother Michael, whose famous murders are among 18 Outfit killings comprising the historic federal "Family Secrets" mob trial set to begin this week. But there is another Spilotro Hollywood moment, long forgotten. In this one, actors don't play the Spilotros. Rather, Michael Spilotro played a tough FBI agent on the hit TV show "Magnum, P.I.," starring Tom Selleck.

Special Agent Spilotro appeared in the 1981 episode "Thicker than Blood." And you thought only Christopher from "The Sopranos" had a Hollywood urge.

Michael was the little brother of Tony, the Chicago Outfit's overseer in Las Vegas in the 1970s and 1980s. Michael received bit parts on "Magnum" and other shows. (I've got that "Magnum" DVD, but don't ask to borrow it.)

"Magnum" was a private-eye show set in Hawaii with a fancy red Ferrari and beautiful girls, gunplay, more beautiful girls, more gunplay and beautiful girls. That was when TV was TV. In the episode, a gang of wisecracking French drug dealers try to import loads of heroin. But G-man Michael Spilotro won't stand for such shenanigans.

Rather than wear a tie, Agent Spilotro wears a sports coat and an open shirt, but no gold chains. And Agent Spilotro did an interesting thing when he met Magnum in a parking lot in broad daylight. He reached for his gun. How rude.

Did Agent Spilotro think he was in some parking lot at Grand and Harlem?

Magnum was worried about his friend, TC, who'd been set up by the evil drug lords, so Magnum approached Spilotro to find out what happened to his buddy. "He doesn't wanna talk," Spilotro informed Magnum and Rick (played by native Chicagoan and Michael's boyhood friend Larry Manetti).

Spilotro unleashed his lines in an unmistakably thick Chicago accent, about as thick as mine, with the same flat vowels.

Later, FBI Agent Spilotro is hiding outside a warehouse, peering through a window, clenching a bullhorn while watching the drug dealers unload their heroin. One of the villains, in a thick French accent, says quite sarcastically, "$10 million worth of heroin, courtesy of zee United States Coast Guard."

Just then, Agent Spilotro springs into action: "This is a federal officer! The building is surrounded!! Come out with your hands in da air!!"

"Magnum" action music—including wailing guitars—pulsates to a disco beat. Agent Spilotro charges in, cornering the evildoers by firing his pistol into the air.

They surrender, and wisely. They didn't know if "Family Secrets" prosecution witness and Outfit enforcer Frankie Cullotta might have been hiding nearby, supporting Spilotro, with a vise that would fit several French heads. The vise thing was in "Casino," but it was drawn from Chicago Outfit war stories and, no wonder, since Cullotta was a technical adviser on "Casino" and knew what a vise could do to a head.

Spilotro may have been trying to increase his Hollywood profile for business reasons, but I don't think the old guys back home who ran things were too pleased about Michael raising his profile on TV. But others disagree, including Manetti, who ran a Chicago construction company that helped build Rush Street clubs before getting into acting. Manetti says he's developing several projects, including a TV comedy about burned-out cops working the night shift and a movie about Cuban refugees.

"I didn't know Michael as a gangster, I knew him as a guy I grew up with in the neighborhood," Manetti said. "Michael wanted to be on TV, that's all. Who wouldn't? It was a top show. He had fun. He wasn't trying to be a movie star or an actor, he was having fun."

Common wisdom is that Tony was the tough guy and Michael was the innocent victim, though some law enforcement sources suggest Michael may have been more devious than his brother. But that's not how Manetti saw his friend, who visited him in Hawaii and was offered a bit part.

"I loved Michael. I don't know what the rumors are, he wasn't a bad guy. Everybody has aspirations of being a movie star. We thought about it. It was funny, you know, Spilotro, FBI agent. . . . With us, it was all fun, no bad stuff. I think we talked about him playing a guy named Zookie the Bookie once, you know, just fun stuff. He was OK as an actor, he wasn't so stiff."

Manetti, who lives in California, said he'll read the Tribune to follow the "Family Secrets" trial. "I miss him. Listen, if it's about the guys who killed Michael, let them burn."

Some who ordered the murders have already been burned, and are likely burning still. And though Michael Spilotro may have had fun on TV, I've got a feeling that a few Chicago critics who could make him or break him didn't like his performance as a crime-fighting fed.

They gave it two broken thumbs down.

Thanks to John Kass

Tweet

Spilotro's Daughter to Testify at Family Secrets Mob Trial

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, James Marcello, Joseph Lombardo, Frank Schweihs
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

The daughter of executed mobster Michael Spilatro will testify that the day her father disappeared, he received two calls from James Marcello of Lombard, the man prosecutors call the head of the Chicago Outfit, it was revealed in court today.

Michelle Spilatro’s identification of Marcello in a “voice line-up” was being opposed by Marcello’s attorney, Marc Martin, who called an expert in court to testify that the way the lineup was conducted was faulty and was suggestive to her that she identify Marcello.

Martin is opposing the use of the identification for use at trial. U.S. District Judge James Zagel held off on ruling on its admissibility after a hearing today.

Prosecutors contend Anthony and Michael Spilatro were lured to a DuPage area home - reportedly near Bensenville - and beaten to death on June 14, 1986. Their bodies were later found in an Indiana corn field.

That day, prosecutors said Michelle Spilatro will testify, she answered two calls from Marcello asking to talk to Michael Spilatro. They said she will also testify that she heard Marcello’s voice around 80 times over several years that way, and is “100 percent” certain it was Marcello who called that day.

Prosecutor Marcus Funk also intimated through questions of the defense witness that Michelle Spilatro can clearly ID Marcello’s voice because she at one point recognized it in a phone conversation and confirmed with him that he was the man who always called for her father.

Defense attorneys contend Michelle Spilatro cannot possibly identify the voice because she was asked to perform the voice lineup more than three years after the day her father was murdered.

Jury selection begins Tuesday in the mob case, which features not only defendant Marcello, but such legendary mob figures as Joey “The Clown” Lombardo and Frank Calabrese, Sr. Also Friday, Zagel granted a motion from lawyers for Frank “The German” Schweihs to release him from trial for now because he is severely ill and under the care of a doctor. Schweihs reportedly has cancer.

Opening arguments in the case are expected to begin June 25.

Thanks to Rob Olmstead

Tweet

Made to Be Mayor

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, Frank Cullotta
Friends of mine: Oscar Goodman

Oscar Goodman once defended some of Chicago's most notorious hoodlums and is now running the city they once ran: Las Vegas.

When federal prosecutors in Chicago put 14 mobsters on trial this summer, an aspect of the case will be how the outfit once controlled criminal rackets in Las Vegas. That prospect has Las Vegas' most prominent politician somewhat skittish because he was part of that past.

In a city of lights and largess, no one shines brighter or bigger these days than Oscar Goodman, the mayor now in his third term. The seat behind his city hall desk isn't just a chair, it's actually a throne. Even the headliners billed out on The Strip haven't played the halls that King Oscar once played before becoming mayor: the halls of justice, where for years as a lawyer, he tried to keep some top Chicago hoodlums out of jail.

The Chicago mob-the outfit, which is the given name for traditional organized crime founded in Chicago almost a century ago, is an organization pioneered by Al Capone and perfected by Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro, the outfit's Las Vegas emissary into the 1980s, frequently shadowed by his lawyer, Oscar Goodman.

"From a government perspective, he killed 26 people 21 people or 19 or whatever, but when I represented him he never did a day in jail. From '72 until the time he was killed ...They created him to be much greater than the role that he was really playing on behalf of Chicago while he was here, but they made him into an everyday news item and caused him to have a reputation perhaps he didn't deserve," Goodman said.

Nor did Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael deserve this, according to Goodman: the men were buried alive in an Indiana cornfield after angry mob bosses ordered them pummeled and planted.

"It was a violent death," said Goodman. "I think it was interesting when they were filming the movie Casinoand depicting the murder of Tony and his brother, it was so rough, that even during the production of a movie, somebody broke their arm. That's how violence it was."

Oscar Goodman knows all about the brutal movie. He played a mob lawyer in the film, and Goodman reveals that, as the Spilotro murders remained unsolved for years, he was never contacted by investigators. "I was always disappointed that nobody asked me any questions about who had done it or what was happening as far as Tony was concerned before it took place," Goodman said.

I-Team: "They didn't ask you a single question?"

Goodman: "No, not a single one. Don't you think they would've asked: Do you have any idea who might have done this?"

Despite smothering the opposition in last April's mayoral election, Goodman is not without critics.

"He's a braggadocio man. He's got an ego as big as it can be, and he's got the right job, because he's got a big mouth and he can promote [Las Vegas]," said Frank Cullotta, ex-mob hitman.

Cullotta was Tony Spilotro's major domo In Las Vegas before rolling over in 1982 to help the government prosecute outfit bosses. Cullotta and two former lawmen are authors of a new book on the Chicago mob and contend that Goodman had little to do with the mob's eventual exodus from Las Vegas.

"The Chicago Outfit is much less potent than it was years ago," said Dennis Griffin, author/former policeman.

"It is interesting that the mayor stopped it. Because before he said there was no organized crime," said Dennis Arnoldy, author/former FBI agent.

"Big corporations cleaned up this town...not Goodman," said Cullotta.

Unlike Mayor Richard M. Daley, who refuses to capitalize on Chicago's rich mob history, Goodman proudly displays outfit trinkets in his office and is turning a historic Las Vegas building into a mob museum.

"To celebrate that era, basically it's going to be telling the truth about Las Vegas. We're not going to implode any decades here...I won't whitewash our history here. We advertise as what happens here stays here, the mystique of Las Vegas. I don't want to give that up," said Goodman.

Goodman says that during the time he was representing mobsters, federal prosecutors tried to have him indicted for obstruction of justice but could never convince a grand jury that he did anything wrong. He has never been charged with anything.

Goodman says he is so well liked that a movement is underway to eliminate term limits in Las Vegas so he can continue to sit on the throne.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Tweet

Appeals Court Orders Chicago Mob Bosses to Stand Trial

Friends of ours: James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Two alleged Chicago mob bosses must go to trial this week despite their claims that they already have been convicted of the charges in the indictment, an appeals court said Tuesday.

James Marcello and Frank Calabrese Sr. each were convicted of taking part in racketeering conspiracies more than a decade ago but now are charged with an entirely different conspiracy, Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a nine-page majority opinion.

He said the latest conspiracy charges outlined a completely new case even though some of the same criminal acts were part of the indictments when the two reputed mob bosses previously were convicted.

''We have no basis at this early stage for thinking that the government will fail to prove separate conspiracies,'' the appeals court said in the 2-1 ruling. But it said the men could have grounds for appeal if new evidence ''differs only trivially'' from the evidence used to obtain the previous convictions.

Marcello and Calabrese are among a dozen alleged mob bosses and associates set for trial on charges involving 18 long unsolved killings, including that of Tony ''The Ant'' Spilotro, long the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas. Spilotro was the basis for the Joe Pesci character in the movie ''Casino.'' He was found buried with his brother in an Indiana cornfield.

The trial is expected to last four months and stems from a long-term FBI investigation dubbed Operation Family Secrets. It is considered one of the biggest mob trials in Chicago in a number of years.

Marcello and Calabrese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Marcello and eight other men were charged in a 1992 indictment with conspiring to conduct the affairs of the Carlisi street crew by means of numerous illegal acts including extortion, intimidation, arson, murder plots, loan sharking, tampering and gambling between 1979 and 1990. He was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison.

Calabrese was charged with six others in a 1995 indictment alleging a similar conspiracy involving the Calabrese street crew. He pleaded guilty in 1997 and was sentenced to almost 10 years in federal prison.

The two men noted that there was considerable overlap between the conspiracies in which they previously were convicted and the new one alleged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment involving the Chicago Outfit. Federal prosecutors argued that the Chicago Outfit was a separate criminal enterprise from either the Carlisi or Calabrese street crew.

While Posner and Judge Diane Sykes agreed that the alleged conspiracy was something new, Judge Diane Wood said in a minority opinion she would have removed the overlapping allegations against the two men from the indictment. But she said she would still make them go to trial on the allegations that don't overlap.

Tweet

The Ruthless Rise of Mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo

To neighbors, Joseph Lombardo was a beloved family man and respected boys baseball coach in his West Side neighborhood -- "more liked than the priest" in the community, according to one friend.

To the feds, Lombardo is the man who had a factory owner slain in front of the man's wife and 4-year-old son.

To investigators, he's the man who knows no loyalty, signing off on the murders of three close friends.

When he appears in federal court these days, for updates on the trial starting June 19 that could put him in prison until his dying days, he's the wisecracking senior citizen. At 78, he's the oldest of a mostly geriatric bunch of mobsters in what likely will be the last great Outfit trial in Chicago history -- the Family Secrets case.

He's "the Clown," known for his quick wit. When the cops stopped him once in the 1980s, after he fled a gambling raid, he had $12,000 in cash on him and a book filled with jokes. But the wisecracks, investigators say, only mask the brutality of one of the last of the old-time Chicago mobsters.

Interviews with people who have known and investigated Lombardo, as well as a review of thousands of pages of court records and law enforcement documents, reveal the story of the ruthless rise of Lombardo in the Chicago Outfit.

"He was vicious and a killer," said retired FBI Agent Jack O'Rourke. "He was their prime enforcer."

Lombardo has denied hurting anyone. Now behind bars at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, he declined an interview request.

In court in 1983, Lombardo said: "I never ordered a killing, I never OKd a killing, and I never killed a man in my life."

His attorney, Rick Halprin, says his client has never been a mob leader. But investigators say Lombardo was a top mobster for years, thanks to his criminal versatility.

He allegedly went from busting heads and two-bit burglaries to orchestrating a bribe attempt of U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon. He was convicted in that case in the 1980s, as well as another one for skimming millions from Las Vegas casinos for the mob. He allegedly controlled millions of dollars in Teamster pension funds through his friend, insurance magnate Allen Dorfman, and was responsible for getting the skim from Las Vegas casinos to Chicago mob bosses.

As a child, Lombardo never knew such wealth, growing up poor in Depression-era Chicago, one of 11 children, the son of a printer. A graduate of Wells High School, he worked as a paperboy, plucked chickens, shined shoes, loaded boxcars at Union Station for 69 cents an hour and handled room service at the Blackstone Hotel.

He was also quite the athlete, playing on wrestling, basketball, fencing and swimming teams and even taking square-dancing lessons. He found a passion for golf and caddied for top Chicago gangster Jackie Cerone. He was also quite the gin rummy cardshark. But he didn't have to rely on cards for cash. His criminal work was apparently quite profitable, authorities said. In recent years, while Lombardo pleads poverty, his family trust benefitting his ex-wife, son and daughter has sold real estate for millions. Authorities believe the trust was set up to keep the feds from seizing assets.

Lombardo's success was punctuated by violence. He has been a suspect in numerous murders but never convicted. What's more, authorities say, he had control over the most allegedly vicious hit man around, Frank "The German" Schweihs. Schweihs is charged in the Family Secrets case with Lombardo. Schweihs would talk about doing an Outfit killing like he was taking out the garbage, court records show.

Even before Lombardo was a somebody in the Chicago Outfit, he was "the Clown."

It was 1964, and Lombardo was on trial in Chicago with other alleged loan sharks for beating a man who owed the mob money. The case was making headlines, and so was Lombardo. When police took his mug shot, he opened his mouth into a cavernous yawn to stop the cops from getting a good photo of him.

Even then, Lombardo -- then going by a variation of his birth name, Joseph Lombardi -- was referred to in the press as the Clown.

The other notable twist: Lombardo was innocent of the charge. But he was part of a clever plot to scotch the case, authorities said. When police rounded up the loan sharks, they arrested the wrong Joseph Lombardi. At the time, two Chicago gangsters had that name and looked similar. Defense attorneys for the men realized the error but kept silent to spring a trap on prosecutors, authorities said. It worked. When the victim took the stand, he could identify all the defendants as his attackers, all except the Clown.

"Talk about having your jaw drop and your case collapse," said attorney Louis B. Garippo, who prosecuted the case. Lombardo walked out a free man. His fellow mobsters walked too, after a jury acquitted them.

Lombardo's antics would be only his first of many public displays.

After he was arrested in 1980 for leading police on a chase, he left the courthouse one day, past the press corps, hidden behind a newspaper with a peephole cut out for his eyes. He was tripped up, though, as he went through the revolving door.

When Lombardo got out of prison in 1992, the FBI in Chicago began getting strange phone calls from a man identifying himself as Long John Silver. The caller would let agents know when he was going to call through newspaper ads.

The caller provided good info about the Outfit's hierarchy but was anxious to steer agents away from one person -- Lombardo's son, Joseph Jr., whom agents were investigating but never charged. Agents traced the calls as coming from pay phones near Lombardo's home, sources said.

The phone calls never amounted to much, and the agents never proved they were coming from Lombardo. But there was a tantalizing clue. Flip the initials for Long John: you get J and L. Short for Joseph Lombardo? Lombardo could pull that stunt, agents figured.

To get into the Chicago Outfit as a made member -- to have the full rights of membership -- a candidate must murder for the mob. Lombardo's qualifying kill was allegedly the 1965 hit of mob associate and hotel owner Manny Skar, according to court records. Lombardo allegedly shadowed Skar for two days before Skar was killed as he exited his car to enter his apartment on Lake Shore Drive.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Lombardo was on the move, wearing multiple hats for the Outfit and allegedly signing off on the murders of three close friends.

The first was in 1974 -- the slaying of businessman Daniel Seifert. Seifert ran a fiberglass business in the suburbs and was an unwitting front for Lombardo. Lombardo and Seifert were so close that Lombardo baby-sat Seifert's kids. But when the feds came calling and Seifert decided to cooperate, Lombardo decided his friend had to go, authorities charge. On Sept. 27, 1974, Seifert was gunned down outside his Bensenville factory as his wife and 4-year-old son watched. With Seifert dead, the charges against Lombardo evaporated. Lombardo is charged in connection with Seifert's murder in the Family Secrets case along with racketeering.

The next to go was insurance magnate Allen Dorfman, who went on Hawaii golf vacations with Lombardo. Lombardo was close to Dorfman, a clout-heavy insurance broker. Lombardo and Dorfman allegedly schemed to control the Teamsters' pension funds, which loaned millions to build Vegas casinos. Lombardo would allegedly muscle people for Dorfman.

In one conversation, secretly tape-recorded by the feds, Lombardo spoke to mob lawyer and casino investor Morris Schenker, who wasn't coming up with the money Dorfman believed Schenker owed the Outfit.

"Now, it's getting to the point now where you either s - - - or get off the pot," Lombardo said to Schenker, who was 72 at the time of the 1979 conversation. "If they come back and tell me to give you a message and if you want to defy it, I assure you that you will never reach 73," Lombardo said.

Schenker died of natural causes. Dorfman did not, getting gunned down in 1983 in Lincolnwood after Outfit leaders worried he'd turn stool pigeon.

Three years later, another Lombardo friend, mob killer Anthony Spilotro, was beaten to death along with his brother, Michael Spilotro. Lombardo allegedly oversaw Spilotro, who was the Outfit's man in Las Vegas. The Spilotros and Lombardo were close. Their families came over on the same boat from Italy.

In the end, though, Anthony Spilotro had to die, Outfit leaders decided. He was causing too much heat in Vegas, including taking out a contract on an FBI agent.

The Spilotro brothers were lured to a Bensenville area home on the ruse they were getting promotions. Instead, when they went down to the basement, several mobsters surrounded them and beat them to death. They were buried in an Indiana cornfield.

In recent years, Lombardo has kept a low profile. He has been seen hanging out more at the Italian restaurant La Scarola than with other mobsters.

His defense -- unique but possibly workable -- is that he has moved away from the mob life.

In short, he's retired.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Tweet

Mobster Frank Cullotta Gives Another "Exclusive" Interview

Friends of ours: Frank Cullotta, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
Friends of mine: William "Slick" Hanner

Investigative reporter Chuck Goudie traveled to Las Vegas for an "exclusive" interview with the former mob hitman, Frank Cullotta, who will be a key witness in Chicago's upcoming mob murder trial. Recently, Frank Cullotta gave another "exclusive" interview to George Knapp. Chuck needs to head back to Las Vegas and interview Slick Hanner as well, which is what George did. Plus, who can pass up a business trip to Vegas?

There was a time about 25 years ago when the Las Vegas Strip was dominated by the Chicago outfit. History will be revisited during this summer's upcoming Operations Family Secrets trial in federal court in Chicago, largely through the testimony of a hoodlum named Frank Cullotta.

"I only had a few legitimate friends. They were like my best friends. But everybody I hung with I stole with; robbed with; killed with," said Frank Cullotta, mob informant.

For decades in Chicago and Las Vegas he was a robber by trade and a killer by necessity. But, since Frank Cullotta turned on the outfit 25 years ago, he has been a professional government witness. When Cullotta makes his next court appearance this summer in the case against 14 accused Chicago mobsters, prosecutors are expected to have him explain the outfit's historical hierarchy and testify how lead defendant Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo has been Chicago's top hoodlum.

"He knew everything that was going on, it had to go through him. This is what I would believe, he's the boss," said Cullotta.

Cullotta, an ex-con, is about to release a mob book, co-written with a crime author and a former FBI agent, timing that Lombardo's lawyer says is no coincidence. "There is no question that this was all orchestrated for the benefit of this horribly written book in terms of the writing style. Somebody said it was a third grade level. I think that is two grades above the level at which it's written," said Rick Halprin, Lombardo lawyer.

Much of the book and Cullotta's testimony will focus on Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, the outfit's emissary in Las Vegas until the early 1980s. "To me, he was a friend...I grew up with this guy. I knew he was ruthless, he was mean, he was tough. He could kill easily," said Cullotta.

Cullotta ran Spilotro's burglary crew in Vegas, known as the "hole in the wall gang," and he helped collect on mob juice loans from broken down gamblers.

"Ya tell 'em, you know, 'We need the money. We're not gonna keep on waiting.' And after about the third time, if they didn't listen ,you just give 'em a beating," said Cullotta. "Or we'll make their wife a widow."

I-Team: "How many people did you take out?"

Cullotta: "Two direct, two indirect."

I-Team: "Who were the two direct?"

Cullotta: "Some guy, he was a union guy for the barbers union (in Chicago)."

Cullotta himself re-enacted the 1979 murder of Jerry Lisner (a small time drug dealer and hustler) in the movie Casino, shooting Lisner twice in the head, chasing him through his home and in real life strangling him with an electrical cord before dumping the body in a swimming pool.

"You become the judge, jury and executioner, so you justify that in your own mind so it makes it a little easier on you. Most of the guys who got whacked or got killed, I'd say the majority of them probably deserved it."

Cullotta has received immunity from prosecution for the murders and crimes he committed. The former FBI supervisor on Cullotta's case is now Cullotta's book partner. "In law enforcement you use the tools that are available. Sometimes you have to use tools like that. In fact, you want to use tools like that because I am not going get the information from you or anyone else. It has to be someone inside," said Dennis Arnoldy, former FBI agent and supervisor on Cullotta's case.

A few years after Cullotta turned on the mob, his former boss Tony Spilotro and Spilotro's brother were savagely beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield. They are among the 18 murders that are central to this summer's Chicago trial. "If I had to, and I was ordered to kill him and his brother, I'd have just shot 'em...unless they told me to do opposite, then I'd find somebody else to do it," Cullotta said.

Tony Spilotro's widow calls Cullotta a liar and told the I-Team she would like to have a hand in administering justice for his killers.

"If I could do it myself I would," said Nancy Spilotro.

Cullotta still travels with a bodyguard, although he admits it is mainly for show. "I am sure somebody would like to whack me if they had the opportunity to try to make some points. I don't know if they were making any points. They would probably get whacked after they whacked me," Cullotta said.

There is not much whacking going on those days in the city of Las Vegas and hasn't been for the last 20 years or so. There are a lot of construction cranes and new buildings going up, including hotels and casinos.

For the record, defense lawyers in the Chicago case note that Cullotta's testimony has not always resulted in convictions, something they hope will be the case during this summer's trial.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Tweet

Will Mob Family Secrets be Revealed?

Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Nick Calabrese, Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, James LaPietra, John Fecarotta
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael were heading to a meeting with top mobsters, and they were worried.

Tony Spilotro, already a made member of the mob and the Outfit's man in Las Vegas, was told he was going to be promoted. Michael was to become a "made" member. But they weren't acting like men in line for promotions, recently released court records show.

Michael gave his daughter his rings, a phone book and a cross to give to his wife. Tony gave the girl a briefcase containing money, rings and a phone book to pass on to his family in case he didn't return. The men never came back from the June 1986 meeting. It was a setup for them to be killed.

Fresh details about the murders could come to light this week when a federal judge will hold a hearing on evidence from the Spilotro murders that could become part of the Family Secrets trial.

It's one of 18 murders charged in the case, which involves some of the top mobsters in the Chicago area.

Top mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello doesn't want jurors to hear from a member of the Spilotro family, who would testify he called Michael Spilotro at home regarding the meeting where the brothers were killed. The family member has not been named in court records but apparently can recognize Marcello's voice.

Marcello also didn't want jurors to hear from one of the Spilotro brothers' widows, who can testify about statements the men made before they left for the meeting.

The brothers' brutal murders are easily the best known among the murders charged in the case. In the mob movie "Casino," the Spilotro brothers -- with Joe Pesci playing the character based on Tony Spilotro -- were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

In real life, they were slain in a basement in a Bensenville-area home and later buried in a cornfield.

Several top mobsters were waiting in the basement and attacked the Spilotro brothers as they entered. Among the attackers waiting downstairs were several mobsters, now dead, including top mob boss Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, James LaPietra and John Fecarotta.

The FBI learned the details of the murder from one of the men who was there, reputed mob hitman Nick Calabrese, who now is cooperating with the feds and is expected to testify at trial.

Marcello is charged in the murders and allegedly drove the Spilotro brothers to the Bensenville-area home and their deaths.

Tony Spilotro asked his killers if he could say a novena before he died. His request was denied, and the killers strangled the brothers.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Tweet

Spilotro Brothers Murder Not in a Cornfield?

Friends of ours: Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, Nick Calabrese, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Rocco Lombardo, Joe Ferriola, James Marcello, Frank Cullotta, John Fecarotta
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, William "Slick" Hanner

It's been 21 years since Tough Tony Spilotro, the reputed rackets boss of Las Vegas, was murdered along with his brother, presumably by members of "The Outfit" in Chicago. But the best-known version of how the men were killed is simply wrong, according to federal prosecutors in Chicago, who are preparing to out away the men responsible.

Operation Family Secrets is the name of the FBI probe that led to the indictment of 14 Chicago mobsters, charged with 18 gangland murders, including those of the Spilotro brothers. The trial, slated to begin in two weeks, will challenge widely held views of what really happened to "Tough Tony."

Movie fans around the world are familiar with the bloody end met by Las Vegas mob boss Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael. In the film "Casino," the characters based the Spilotro brothers were taken to an Indiana cornfield, then were beaten to a pulp, one at a time, with baseball bats, and then buried while still alive.

In Chicago, federal prosecutors are prepared to make the Spilotro murders a centerpiece of the massive prosecution of 14 mob figures. The case that will be presented at the Dirksen Courthouse lists 18 murders in all, along with many other crimes, but because of their movie notoriety, the Spilotro's are likely to get top billing.

Rick Halprin, Chicago defense attorney, said, "The event is depicted in a movie, and anybody sitting on a jury, or most of the jury, is going to associate the two. The judge is going to have to deal with that when we select a jury."

Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp: "But the movie version is wrong. Mobster-turned-informant Nick Calabrese is ready to testify that the Spilotro brothers were killed, not in Indiana, but instead, here in a quiet suburb of Bensenville."

Why should a jury believe Nick Calabrese about the Spilotro murders? Because Calabrese admits that he was one of the killers. He's also fessed up to participating in 14 other mob murders and is ready to tell all he knows about the Chicago outfit, including his own brother Frank.

This is the story told by Calabrese and corroborated by the FBI with other sources. Tony Spilotro, who was facing three indictments in Las Vegas, returned to Chicago in the belief that he might be in line for a promotion in his hometown.

Former mob associate "Slick" Hanner said, "The reason they got killed was because they were going back to Chicago to take over The Outfit. He was telling his crew we're going back to Chicago."

Acting boss Joe Ferriola, now deceased, saw it differently and ordered the murders. Spilotro's presumed boss, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, allegedly signed off on the hit. The Spilotro brothers were wary about going to a meeting, but changed their minds about taking guns along, presumably because someone close to them put their minds at ease.

According to Calabrese, the Spilotro's were picked up by James Marcello, currently listed as boss of The Outfit, and were driven to a house in the Bensenville suburb. Tony was supposed to get a promotion. Michael was to become a made member. When they got to the house, they were taken to the basement for the ceremony, and that's where Marcello, Calabrese, and four other men beat them to death.

At least two men, including hitman John Fecarotta, put the bodies in a car and jumped on the highway. As the I-Team learned, one of the first signs they would have seen directs them toward Indiana and the cornfield. Former Spilotro underling, hitman Frank Cullotta, tried to put Spilotro away, but is still bothered by the imagery.

Cullotta said, "If I had to kill him, I couldn't kill him that way. I'd a just shot him. I couldn't beat him to death like that, let his brother watch. I just assume they were showing one or the other, you're not such a tough guy after all."

The bodies were never supposed to be found, but were. For botching that job Ferracotta was murdered by Nick Calabrese. Years later, DNA evidence from that murder allowed the FBI to turn Calabrese into a witness, which led to the indictments of all the others.

Defense attorney Rick Halprin ridicules the government for going after men whose average ages are 75. He says his client, Joey Lombardo, was in prison when the Spilotro murders took place and had nothing to do with it.

It's decades later, but the trial will still be watched in Las Vegas where family ties run deep.

This year, when Rocco Lombardo, brother of Joey "The Clown," appeared in federal court, he was defended -- ironically enough -- by Attorney John Spilotro, the nephew of Tough Tony.

A lot of Spilotro family members still live in Las Vegas, including Tony's wife Nancy. They generally don't speak about those days long ago but have told the I-Team they feel some relief that the government is finally prosecuting someone for the murders.

Thanks to George Knapp

Tweet

Slick Hanner Challenges Frank Cullotta's Credibility on Family Secrets

Friends of ours: Frank Cullotta, Tony Spilotro, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Nick Calabrese
Friends of mine: William "Slick" Hanner, Michael Spilotro, Frank Calabrese Jr.

Chicago's still powerful Mafia family, known as "The Outfit," is about to be pummeled by Operation Family Secrets, an FBI probe aimed at fourteen top mobsters.

The Outfit once had considerable control of casinos and street rackets in Las Vegas. Now, the remaining bosses will be prosecuted for eighteen unsolved murders. Among the witnesses will be former mob soldiers, including one time Las Vegas hitman Frank Cullotta.

Will Cullotta be credible when he takes the stand? Other "wiseguys" aren't so sure.

Frank Cullotta told Chief I-Team Reporter George Knapp, "I would think it's the end. I don't think it will ever be as strong or as organized as it was."

Admitted hitman and thief Frank Cullotta was raised on the mean streets of Chicago. He robbed people, boosted cars, and ran with a bad crowd, including his future boss, tough Tony Spilotro. In the late '70s, Cullotta joined Spilotro in Las Vegas as part of a burglary ring known as The Hole in the Wall Gang.

Cullotta committed at least one murder on orders from Spilotro, eventually joined the witness protection program and testified against Spilotro and other former associates. Now, he is listed as a likely witness in the prosecution of what remains of the Chicago outfit -- 14 alleged mobsters charged with 18 murders -- including those of Spilotro and his brother Michael. "There's guys who killed guys that have been killed for murders. Jesus, there's a lot of guys," Cullotta said.

Defense attorneys found out what Cullotta might say in court by obtaining a preview copy of his soon-to-be released book about his life of crime. A former federal prosecutor who helped turn Cullotta thinks he's a credible witness.

Don Campbell explained, "Certainly Frank knew what was going on in Chicago. How intimate his knowledge might have been on any particular crime, it depends on the crime. Clearly he was in the loop on an awful lot of criminal activity."

But others, including Spilotro's defense attorney, now Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, have complained for years that Cullotta isn't believable. Oscar Goodman said, "He's a liar, he's a pimp, he's a thief."

Another Cullotta critic, former mob associate, William "Slick" Hanner said, "What can he say that they don't know?"

Hanner, who grew up in the same Chicago neighborhoods, ran with the same crowd, but even before Cullotta. Hanner said, "I ain't saying I'm better than him. I'm not a killer, but I don't embellish things. He said Tony sent for him. Tony never sent for him. He came out here to put a girl to work. She was a prostitute. Then he went to Tony and said he's gonna bring his crew out."

Hanner, who ended up working in licensed casinos despite his long criminal record, has written his own book about the bad old days, entitled "Thief." He admits to being a participant in skimming millions from the mob-tainted Stardust casino but feels Cullotta is exaggerating his own importance "I would have never given him witness protection, never. He's as bad as the ones he's testifying against," Hanner continued.

Cullotta is expected to testify that his boss, Spilotro, reported to longtime reputed outfit kingpin Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, the best known of the fourteen defendants in the Operation Family Secrets case. Two other mobsters, Frank and Nick Calabrese, are ready to tell what they know about the other defendants. Lombardo's lawyer thinks those two will be tough witnesses, but he sounds like he will be ready for Cullotta.

Rick Halprin, Lombardo's defense attorney, said, "Even though I've seen tapes of Cullotta, I don't know what he's gonna be like until I see him on the stand. I don't think he'll be what I've seen on the tapes. I really don't."

Anyone who's seen the movie "Casino" probably believes the Spilotro brothers were murdered in a cornfield. Not so.

Thanks to George Knapp

Tweet

Chicago Mafia Figures on Trial For Spilotro Murders

Friends of ours: Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Al Capone, Frank Cullotta
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

Federal prosecutors are ready to drive what may be the final nail into the coffin of the country's most powerful Mafia family. It's the most significant prosecution of the Chicago outfit in history.

Fourteen suspected Mafia leaders are charged with numerous crimes, including the murders of suspected mobsters who controlled street rackets in Las Vegas.

This week marks what would have been Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro's 69th birthday. He was a feared man in the '70s and '80s, but was murdered in 1986 along with his brother Michael. Murders that were made famous by the movie "Casino." The case was never solved but now federal prosecutors are going after some of the men they believe were involved, men whose criminal enterprises are inextricably linked to Las Vegas.

On the wall of defense attorney Rick Halprin's Chicago office is a newspaper cartoon, which pokes fun at how Joey "The Clown" Lombardo got his nickname. While in federal court one day, and to avoid being photographed, Lombardo made a mask out of a newspaper. People thought it was clownish.

In the big-shouldered city of Chicago, where organized crime has been a fact of life since before Al Capone, everyone knows Lombardo's name. For more than 30 years, the word "reputed" has been attached to it.

Rick Halprin, Lombardo's defense attorney, said, "Without question, when you walk down the street, if you ask a citizen about the case, the mob case, the only name they know is Joey Lombardo." Defense attorney Rick Halprin knows that overcoming Lombardo's longstanding reputation, as a top boss of Chicago's outfit will be his major challenge in the upcoming trial based on the FBI's "Operation Family Secrets."

Lombardo is one of fourteen Windy City Mafia figures charged with a vast assortment of serious crimes, including eighteen unsolved murders. More than 1,000 murders have been attributed to the Chicago outfit over the years. Fewer than twenty have been solved. This massive indictment represents the most serious assault on the mob since Capone was put away.

Rick Halprin continued, "The interest is intense, and the pressure -- it's very, very big 'cause you're talking about Chicago. You're talking about an indictment that goes back 63 years."

A document known as a Santiago Proffer outlines the government's case. It reads like a Mario Puzo novel. Much of the information is so sensitive, involving protected witnesses, which the government blacked it out. What's clear from the case is the symbiotic relationship between mob bosses in Chicago and their emissaries in Las Vegas.

Loans from the Mafia-controlled Teamsters pension fund built much of Las Vegas. The loans came with strings attached. The mob not only used Nevada casinos to launder money from illicit businesses, they skimmed tens of millions of dollars from the countrooms, money that found its way back to Chicago. In the 1980's, Joey Lombardo was one of several mobsters convicted in a federal skimming case. Those prosecutions spurred many of the murders that only now might be resolved.

John Flood, a former Chicago lawman, said, "Any outfit murder out of Chicago, Lombardo would have been involved in it."

John Flood spent more than 30 years chasing mobsters in Chicago. He says Lombardo once tried to kill him by running him down with a car. He and others believe that Lombardo would have had to okay all of the murders mentioned in the indictment, including those of brothers Tony and Michael Spilotro.

Tony was Chicago's main man in Las Vegas. He protected the skim and allegedly oversaw a criminal operation known as the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. The murders of the Spilotro brothers were immortalized in the movie "Casino." One man who agrees that Lombardo played a role is Frank Cullotta, a Spilotro soldier who turned government witness and who is likely to be called in the Chicago trial. Cullotta gave the I-Team an exclusive interview earlier this year.

Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp: "Joey Lombardo?"

Frank Cullotta: "He was Tony's boss and he was my boss."

George Knapp: "You guys reported directly to him."

Frank Cullotta: "Tony did. I reported to Tony, so Joe relayed messages to Tony. Do I think Joe Lombardo was involved in it? I think they would have to go to him for an okay."

Cullotta has written a book about his life with the mob. It's due out in a matter of weeks. Rick Halprin thinks Cullotta is a flawed witness. However, he admits the government has stronger witnesses, including two members of the Calabrese family, made members of the mob who agreed to testify.

They've already given tips that led to the search for buried remains of murder victims. But don't count the Cagey Lombardo out. He's ready to spring a unique strategy called the withdrawal defense. After his release from prison in the '90s, he took out an ad in a Chicago paper announcing his formal withdrawal from the mob. It's not a joke.

Rick Halprin said, "So, ultimately we have to let the jury decide whether: a) Lombardo was involved in a conspiracy at all, which we say he wasn't, and b) if he was, did he withdraw from the conspiracy? And the government would like to prove that he did not."

The trial was scheduled to begin Tuesday, May 15th but has been delayed for another two weeks. The notoriety of the Spilotro murders means those slayings will play a central part in the government's case. But the version we've all seen is not how the murders went down at all.

Thanks to George Knapp

Tweet