Family Secrets Mobsters Seeking Gifts of Leniency and Mercy During Holiday Season Sentencing

It's not even October but several top Chicago Outfit bosses are already thinking about Christmas and hoping they'll receive gifts of leniency.

In rat-a-tat succession this December, five mobsters who were convicted in the milestone Operation: Family Secrets prosecution last year are now scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.

The pre-Christmas list of defendants who will stand before Judge Zagel begins with Anthony "Twan" Doyle, a former Chicago police officer. Doyle is to be sentenced Monday, December 8. Doyle's sentencing and the others will take place in Zagel's courtroom on the 25th floor of the Dirksen Federal Building, 219 S. Dearborn in downtown Chicago.

An Italian-American who was born "Passafume," the ex-cop changed his name to the Irish "Doyle" when he joined the Chicago Police Department. He was convicted of being the Outfit's "go-to guy" during some of his 21 years on the police force. The jury found that Doyle was part of a racketeering conspiracy that used violence to achieve its goals.

Next up in court will be Paul "The Indian" Schiro, who is due to be sentenced Wednesday, December 10. Schiro was convicted on racketeering charges.

The following day, Thursday December 11, lead defendant Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese, Sr. will be sentenced. It was Calabrese Sr.'s son and brother who both turned government witnesses and brought down the elder's Outfit street crew like a house of parlay cards. Nearly one year ago, a federal jury blamed "The Breeze" for nearly a dozen gangland murders and on Dec. 11 Calabrese Sr. is will face a sentence that will likely keep him locked up for the rest of his life.

The pre-holiday sentencing will continue the following week, on Monday December 15, when Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo will appear before Judge Zagel. Lombardo was also convicted of racketeering in connection with the old, unsolved mob murders, including those of notorious Las Vegas boss Anthony "Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael. The Spilotros were found buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986 after a dispute with their Outfit superiors. "The Clown" is known for his courtroom antics, such as peering out from behind a homemade newspaper mask, wise-cracking with lawyers and judges and once leading news crews on a downtown chase through a construction site. He is likely to be less jovial on Dec. 15, when he faces what will be tantamount to a life sentence.

The final sentencing for the five major Family Secrets defendants will be Wednesday, December 17. James "Little Jimmy" Marcello will also face the potential of life in prison for his role in mob killings and the collection of Outfit "street tax." The mob crew strong-armed protection money from businesses, ran sports bookmaking and video poker businesses as well as loan sharking operations. They rubbed out some of those who might have spilled their secrets to the FBI.

Admitted mob hitman Nick Calabrese, brother of Frank "The Breeze," will be sentenced Monday, January 26, 2009. Nick Calabrese had a hand in at least 15 gangland hits before turning informant. His cooperation was key to the original indictment of 14 Outfit bosses and soldiers and the success of the prosecutions.

Several lower-echelon members of the mob crew have already been sentenced. Also, Judge Zagel has denied defense motions for new trials.

Sentencing Dates

Anthony Doyle Sentencing Dec 8

Paul Schiro Sentencing Dec 10

Frank Calabrese Sr. Sentencing Dec 11

Joseph Lombardo Sentencing Dec. 15

James Marcello Sentencing Dec 17

Nicholas Calabrese Sentencing Jan 26, 2009

Frank Schweihs -- Died before trial.

Already Sentenced

Michael Marcello -- 8 1/2 years prison
Nicholas Ferriola three years in prison
Joseph Venezia -- 40 months prison
Dennis Johnson -- 6 months in prison

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Nicholas Ferriola, Son of Former Chicago Mob Boss, Sentenced to Prison

The son of a former Chicago Outfit boss was sentenced Tuesday to three years in federal prison for profiting from illegal sports gambling and extorting businesses on behalf of the mob.

Nicholas Ferriola admitted that from at least 1999 until he was indicted in March of 2007, he profited up to $160,000 a month from running gambling operations as part of the Outfit's 26th street crew. His father Joseph "Joe Nagal" Ferriola, a convicted felon, headed the Chicago mob from 1986 until he had a pair of heart transplants and died of cardiac failure three years later.

At Tuesday's sentencing hearing, the younger Ferriola was ordered by Judge James Zagel to forfeit more than $9 million and pay $6,000 in fines. Federal officials believe Ferriola made more than $9 million dollars during his career with the Chicago outfit, a figure Ferriola disputed. According to filings by the US attorney's office, Ferriola was pulled over when Chicago Police in 1999, suspected of driving under the influence. Officers found $15,000 in Ferriola's pants pocket. He was a high school drop out with no verified employment history and had no explanation for the cash. Weeks later, the government caught a conversation on tape, between Ferriola and a senior member of the Chicago outfit, Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese, discussing profits. Ferriola told Calabrese he is "making a hundred thousand" dollars each week. Calabrese Sr. told Ferriola to be careful when he's talking about money.

Ferriola, 33, is considered by federal law enforcement to be a low-level hoodlum compared to his co-defendants in last summer's Operation Family Secrets trial. Outfit bosses Frank Calabrese Sr., Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and James Marcello were among five Outfit bosses found guilty of 18 mob hits that went unsolved for years. The gangland killings included the murder of Tony "Ant" Spilotro, the Outfit's Las Vegas boss and the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie "Casino". Ferriola was not accused in any of the murders.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie and Ann Pistone

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Robert Maheu, Who Hired the Chicago Outfit to Kill Castro, Dies at 90

For one simple reason, nearly all of the notable and notorious from Robert Maheu's life couldn't make it to his funeral over the weekend.

They were dead.

At age 90, Maheu outlived the oddballs and Outfit members who made him a legend in law enforcement circles. Howard Hughes, the richest-man recluse with fingernails as long as his bank statement; Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro who ended up 6-feet under; Johnny Roselli, the crafty gangland killer; and Sam "Mooney" Giancana of Chicago mobdom fame. They were all Maheu associates who preceded him in death.

The one surviving celebrity from Mr. Maheu's storied past who might have shown up in the pews at St. Viator Catholic Church in Las Vegas on Saturday, didn't come.

Fidel Castro.

Of course Mr. Castro is preoccupied back in Cuba with his own health problems, those pesky reports of his personal demise and that continuing U.S. trade and travel embargo.

The fact is if Maheu's biggest professional project had succeeded, Cuba today would be more a popular tourist haven than the Bahamas and Castro would be a name carved onto an ornate Havana gravestone.

Maheu (pronounced May-hew) worked for the FBI during World War II in counter-espionage. He opened his own private-eye firm in 1954 and the Central Intelligence Agency was his best client, paying him a $500 retainer. The CIA handed him "cut-out" assignments that involved illegal tactics, which if exposed would be untraceable to the federal agency.

Maheu's most spectacular cut-out assignment from the CIA was to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro by murdering him. Thirteen million was budgeted to instruct paramilitary soldiers outside of Cuba for a guerrilla assault. Dozens of those rebels were trained in a Chicago warehouse, according to law enforcement officials cited in an ABC7 investigative report a few years ago.

As the soldiers-for-hire trained, Maheu recruited two top Chicago Outfit bosses, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, to carry out the Castro assassination. Roselli and Giancana preferred a scheme to poison Castro.

Giancana was the perfect candidate to eliminate Castro. He had the power, the firepower and the persona. In his autobiography, Maheu recalls how the mob boss enjoyed playing gangster. Once, when a young tough walked up to him, the Outfit boss put him in place.

"Without even looking at the punk, Giancana grabbed his necktie and yanked him close. Sam stared right into the kid's eyes and said, 'I eat little boys like you for breakfast. Get your ass out of here before I get hungry.'"

Recently declassified CIA records reveal that the government covertly offered Giancana $150,000 for the gangland hit on Castro but that Momo, as he was sometimes called, refused the money and wanted to do the job for free. The Chicago Outfit and the New York Mafia had an interest in getting rid of Castro.

"They'd had a grudge against Castro ever since he'd forced them out of the Havana casinos," Maheu recalled in a 1992 autobiography. "It was even rumored that Meyer Lansky had put a million-dollar bounty on Castro's head. CIA Director Allen Dulles passed the ball to his deputy director, Richard Bissell. Bissell handed off to the CIA security chief. Colonel Sheffield Edwards. And then I received the call..."

"They used the analogy of World War II," Maheu wrote. "If we had known the exact bunker that Hitler was in during the war, we wouldn't have hesitated to kill the bastard. The CIA felt exactly the same way about Castro. If Fidel, his brother Raul, and Che Guevara were assassinated, thousands of lives might be saved."

CIA memos show that at least two assassination attempts were made on Castro in early 1961 with CIA-supplied lethal pills and organized-crime support, but both failed. Testimony and evidence presented at congressional hearings in 1975 revealed that the CIA tried to kill Castro at least eight times in the early 1960s.

The attempts all failed just like the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Castro survived. Those who masterminded the plots against him didn't.

Except Robert Maheu. Until last week when he died of old age. "It's been a helluva ride," Maheu was quoted as saying in a fascinating story written in last November's Chicago Magazine by Bryan Smith, the fine freelance reporter.

Despite the morals and ethics that always tugged at his conscience, Maheu said that he might do it all again. "If I were called upon tomorrow again, and I thought it would save one American life, I think I'd be tempted."

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Was Marilyn Monroe Whacked by the Chicago Mob?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chicago's Crooked Chief of Detectives

On a gloomy winter day in 1983, two gunmen ambushed a businessman named Allen Dorfman as he walked across a hotel parking lot in suburban Chicago.

The city's infamous Outfit mob might as well have left a calling card. The killers pumped seven shots into Dorfman's head. It was a classic gangland whacking.

Dorfman, 60, had been a lieutenant of International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. He got rich as proprietor of the union's murky pension funds but had been convicted of bribery a month before his murder. Facing life in prison, he was rumored to be cutting a deal to implicate both Teamsters and gangsters.

Chicago gumshoes stifled a yawn over the rubout. It was an occupational hazard murder, like a drug deal gone bad. But one detail stopped cops cold. In Dorfman's little black book, investigators found the name of Bill Hanhardt, chief of detectives of the Chicago Police Department.

Hanhardt was a Windy City legend for his devilish ability to think like a criminal. He had collared dozens of hard-to-find perps, including several cop killers.

A Chicago cop since 1953, Hanhardt was seen as a bridge between old-school, sap-carrying policing and more enlightened modern methods. By reputation, he was as brainy as Inspector Morse, as leathery as Kojak, as passionate as Detective Sipowicz.

But was he honest?

Questions about mob connections had dogged Hanhardt for much of his career, even as he was being promoted to sensitive command positions.

In 1979, Hanhardt was booted down to the traffic squad after he was accused of playing footsy with mobsters who ruled the city's corrupt downtown ward.

Yet, just months later, he was promoted to being chief of detectives by Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek after the election of Mayor Jane Byrne.

Even after his name turned up in Dorfman's black book, Hanhardt was allowed to enjoy the twilight of his police career as a district commander.

In 1986, while still on the job, he acted as a defense witness in the Nevada conspiracy trial of Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas. Hanhardt's testimony helped discredit one of the mobster's key accusers.

A few months later, he was feted by Byrne and hundreds of others at an elaborate retirement banquet. Hanhardt seemed to ride off into the sunset with a wink and a snicker. He was hired as a consultant to the TV drama "Crime Story."

In 1995, author Richard Lindberg asked him to ruminate on his career as a cop. His reply dripped with cynicism.

"You knew that you're going to get screwed over eventually, so you went into the game with that thought in mind," Hanhardt said. "You got a wife. You got kids. So you got to think about the future, right? But I never liked thinking about the future. I liked to live for the moment."

Hanhardt retired to a handsome home in the suburbs, but he stayed busy in his dotage.

In October 2000, he was indicted as the leader of a band of thieves who stole $5 million in jewelry over 12 years beginning in 1984, while he was still a top cop. Hanhardt fenced the goods through friends in the outfit.

His gang "surpasses in duration and sophistication just about any other jewelry theft ring we've seen," said prosecutor Scott Lassar.

It seemed Hanhardt was able to think like a criminal because he was one.

He used techniques he learned as commander of the police burglary squad to devise diabolically clever thefts.

He tapped active cop friends and private detectives for leads on potential victims, targeting gem salesmen traveling with valises of valuable samples.

In some cases they simply tailed a salesman and broke into his vehicle: such jobs included a $300,000 gem theft in Wisconsin in 1984, $500,000 worth of Rolex watches in California in 1986, and jewelry thefts of $125,000 in Ohio in 1989, and $1 million in Michigan and $240,000 in Minnesota in 1993.

The gang sometimes used the old spy scam of swapping identical bags with a salesman - a trick that netted $1 million worth of diamonds in Dallas in 1992 from a representative of J. Schliff and Son, a W. 48th St. jeweler.

Hanhardt's biggest score came in 1994. For two months before a gem wholesalers show at a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, a gang member checked in under the name Sol Gold and asked to store valuables in the hotel's safe-deposit boxes, which were in a secure room behind the front desk.

He systematically copied the keys until Hanhardt was able to create a master passkey. One night during the gem show, a desk clerk allowed "Mrs. Sol Gold" unsupervised access to the room. The safe-deposit boxes of eight gem dealers were relieved of some $2 million in valuables.

The jig was up when the woman went from accomplice to spurned wife and informed on the gang to the FBI.

City officials stammered to explain how Hanhardt managed to prosper as a cop and crook.

"The only thing I ever heard about him was good things," ex-Mayor Byrne told reporters.

"I know that he had an illustrious career," said his ex-police boss Brzeczek. "A lot of people knew him. He knew a lot of people. But I don't have any evidence whatsoever of him being mob-connected."

But the federal government had plenty of evidence, including 1,307 incriminating phone calls collected during a yearlong wiretap on his home phone.

For two years, cops and mobsters wondered whether Hanhardt would go to trial and give a public airing to his double life. But he pleaded guilty in 2002. He was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and packed away to a Minnesota prison for a 12-year sentence.

As they waved goodbye, Hanhardt's kin still viewed him as his good-cop mirage.

His son-in-law, Michael Kertez, called Hanhardt "probably the most wonderful detective in the history of Chicago."

Now 79, the disgraced top snoop faces a life behind bars until at least 2012

Thanks to David J. Krajicek

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Tony Spilotro's Vegas Meeting with a Drug Kingpin

In Las Vegas terms, it was like Godzilla meeting King Kong. Or maybe Al Capone bumping into John Dillinger.

It may have been the most infamous meeting Vegas has ever known. It occurred in the middle 1970s, before the town had been cleansed of the last vestiges of mob influence, during a time when marijuana was still the preferred smoke of many retro-Hippies and Hollywood jet-setters, and cocaine was just starting to come on the scene in a big way.

The place was Paul Anka’s Jubilation restaurant and discotheque, on East Harmon between the Strip and the university.

The meeting was between two notorious figures who carried themselves like kings in Las Vegas during that time: tough guy Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, an alleged enforcer for the Chicago mob, and marijuana importer-extraordinaire Jimmy Chagra, a smoothie from El Paso and the highest rolling gambler of his day.

From the Horseshoe to Caesars Palace to the Sands and beyond, casino pit bosses genuflected when Chagra and his brother, Lee, a famed Texas criminal defense attorney noted for his smartly cut black suits and walking stick, came striding up to the tables. The Chagra brothers could win or lose up to seven figures in a single evening, and if they got on a hot roll the dealers and cocktail waitresses could make their next three mortgage payments in tips.

Showgirls, hookers, even some celebrity headliners of the day, were known to party heavily when Chagra’s entourage rolled into town. Broadway Joe Namath was a pal, as were Liza Minelli and the crew from the Redford-Fonda flick The Electric Horseman, in which Chagra was typecast as a high-roller and given a speaking part. (Jimmy was cut from the final version after he was busted by the Feds.)

All the fast-laners knew there was action of every sort in the Chagras’ suite at Caesars. On other weeks, that same suite was occupied by Mr. Sinatra himself. The Chagra brothers were comped everywhere, and private jets were always on call when the boys from El Paso got the urge to make a wager or three.

Most gamblers rely on credit. Not the Chagras. They would drop off foot lockers containing millions of dollars at the Caesars cage and tell the cashiers, “Count it down, we’re going to gamble!”

Spilotro and his henchmen, who later became known as the Hole in the Wall Gang for several successful — and occasionally bungled — jewelry store heists, were feared up and down the Strip.

With Tony’s frequent perp walks becoming a staple of the evening news, and journalist Ned Day documenting his gang’s treachery in his thrice-weekly column, Spilotro kept anyone who encountered him on edge.

But on the night these two Vegas overlords, Tony Spilotro and Jimmy Chagra, met face to face, neither knew for certain who the other one was.

Here’s Chagra’s version of the meeting, recounted to me recently: “I was just out for a fun evening of dancing and cocktails with some of my pilots and a few lady friends, when this little guy comes up and says, “Get the (expletive) out of my booth.”

Chagra, who says he was a megalomaniac back in the day and had fear of no man, countered with, “I don’t see the name ‘Midget’ printed anywhere on this table. Get your own (expletive) booth.”

After several more pleasantries, Spilotro, seeing that he was outmanned, huffed out of the place with the line, “You don’t know who you’re talking to!”

Chagra was to find out several hours later when his phone rang about eight o’clock in the morning. On the line was his defense attorney, Oscar Goodman, insisting that Jimmy come to his office pronto.

“When I walked into Oscar’s office, there was that midget again,” Jimmy says. “Oscar introduced me to Anthony Spilotro, he insisted we shake hands, and he then told us that because we were both his clients and his friends, that we should make up and get along. He said that there was room in Las Vegas for both of us.”

•••

Both Chagra and Spilotro acknowledged that peaceful coexistence made more sense than all-out war, and they agreed to meet at a later date. That meeting also took place at Jubilation, in the same booth they’d argued over.

Spilotro, as was his modus operandi, wanted in on Chagra’s marijuana importing business. Jimmy was doing just fine without partners, and knew that the only thing Tony would bring to his operation was intense heat from law enforcement. Talk of the proposed partnership was going nowhere when a cocktail waitress accidentally spilled a drink on Spilotro. Chagra says that Tony went ballistic and called her every name in the book, even after she made a fearful and timid apology.

Three days later her picture appeared in a local newspaper as a missing person. She was never found.

It’s only speculation what happened to that pretty young woman. Maybe she got word later that evening that the man she spilled a drink on was alleged to have conducted more than a dozen hits for the Chicago syndicate. Maybe that caused her to find religion and take the next Greyhound out of Las Vegas.

Or maybe, as happened more often than we’d like to think in those earlier, rough and tumble times before Wall Street took over Las Vegas Boulevard, she took that long ride into the desert and sleeps among the cactuses and mesquite bushes.

Ten years after that evening, Tony got his comeuppance when he was savagely beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Jimmy Chagra, after 23 years in an assortment of federal penitentiaries, at last breathes fresh air on the outside of those dank prison walls, and looks back at that time with wonder and regret.

“I knew if I’d gotten involved with Spilotro he’d eventually pop me,” Jimmy says. “Las Vegas was crazy back then. But man, was it fun. When you had a trunk full of cash, there was no better place on earth to be. They treated us like gods.”

Thanks to Jack Sheehan

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Former Las Vegas Strip Club Owner Compared to Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Federal prosecutors never got a chance to prove a criminal case tying former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo to the mob.

Before that could happen, Rizzolo pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2006 and struck a deal to end a decadelong racketeering case against him. But that didn’t stop Stan Hunterton, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force, from keeping allegations of Rizzolo’s underworld associations alive during a hearing in federal court Friday on the status of the government’s efforts to sell the topless club it had seized from the imprisoned Rizzolo.

“Not since the reign of Anthony Spilotro and his associates has there been a more infamous hoodlum than Rick Rizzolo,” Hunterton told U.S. District Judge Philip Pro as Rizzolo’s father, Bart Rizzolo, cringed in the first row of the courtroom gallery.

Spilotro, the basis for Joe Pesci’s character in the 1995 movie “Casino,” ran street rackets in Las Vegas for the Chicago mob from the early 1970s until his gangland slaying in a Chicago suburb in 1986. He was considered a coldblooded killer, and before his death he was the FBI’s most wanted man in Las Vegas.

Hunterton represents Amy Henry, the wife of Kirk Henry, a Kansas City-area man who suffered a broken neck and became paralyzed following a fight in 2001 at the Crazy Horse Too. As part of Rizzolo’s plea arrangement with the government, he agreed to pay the Henrys $10 million to settle a civil suit they had brought against the nightclub.

What Hunterton was doing in court was challenging an effort by Sierra Pacific Bank to foreclose on the land beneath the Crazy Horse Too. The bank wants the land as payment for a $5 million loan it extended to Rizzolo seven months before he struck his deal with the government. Hunterton wants to make sure the bank’s claim against the property won’t hurt the Henrys’ chances of getting paid once money comes in from the government’s sale of the Crazy Horse Too.

He raised the specter of mob connections while arguing that Sierra Pacific was negligent when it lent Rizzolo the $5 million when he was under the well-publicized racketeering investigation. Hunterton contends that bank officials either turned a blind eye to Rizzolo’s reputation or failed miserably in their due diligence obligations.

Hunterton told Pro he would drop his effort to push the bank’s claim aside if, as prosecutors reported in court, the government signs a contract this week to sell the Crazy Horse Too for $30 million to an undisclosed buyer. If that happens, there will be plenty of money for all of Rizzolo’s creditors.

After the hearing, however, Rizzolo’s lawyer, Mark Hafer, wasn’t very happy.

Hafer described Hunterton’s comments about his client as “somewhat slanderous” and “definitely a cheap shot.”

All Bart Rizzolo could do was shake his head in disgust.

Thanks to Jeff German

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A Dentist Gets Drilled by "The Shark"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like a mob princeling sending a letter to the FBI.

Thanks to John Kass

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Difronzo Family Secrets

John DiFronzo was implicated in outfit murders and other crimes during the recent mob trial of the century, but he wasn't charged. The I-Team has learned more about the man they call "No Nose."

You can call him "No Nose," or you can call him "Johnny Bananas" as he is sometimes known. But to the thugs, hustlers and hoodlums who report to him in the outfit, federal authorities say 78-year-old John DiFronzo is known as the boss. And they say DiFronzo's top lieutenant has the same last name because it's his younger brother.

A finger to the nose: that's mob sign language for John "No Nose" DiFronzo, according to feds. The pantomime act was caught on covert jailhouse tapes of meetings between Chicago Outfit bosses that were used as evidence during this summer's Family Secrets trial.

Authorities say DiFronzo's position is so important to the mob, that his underlings don't want to implicate him by speaking his real name.

So, they signal his nickname "No Nose," awarded to DiFronzo decades ago after a Michigan Avenue fur heist when part of his sniffer was severed as he jumped through a plate glass window.

John DiFronzo cut his teeth with the mob's Elmwood Park crew. He and his wife once lived in a Grand Avenue apartment house that they own, where their name is still on the front mailbox.

No Nose's rap sheet stretches back to the 1950s and features dozens of arrests and convictions. During the Family Secrets trial, federal prosecutors portrayed DiFronzo as a top outfit leader, and for the first time, said he was involved in the 1986 gangland murders of Anthony Spilotro -the mob's Las Vegas boss - and his brother, Michael, who were found six feet under an Indiana farm field.

The only evidence of DiFronzo's role in the Spilotro hit was from mob snitch and star witness Nick Calabrese. Law enforcement sources say they didn't want to risk losing a case against DiFronzo.

In one 2003 conversation between mobster brothers Jimmy and Michael Marcello, feds say they discussed No Nose.

James: "it quieted down on this guy, they didn't have what they thought they were gonna have or something like that?

Michael: I guess. That's what we heard. They thought they had something now they're not so sure."

DiFronzo is now atop the mob's flow chart that started with Scarface and continued through the Big Tuna, according to former federal agent and ex-Chicago crime commission director Bob Fuesel. "Their spots change, but they're still the same outfit that we know about from the days of Capone through Accardo for 50 years up until John DiFronzo today," Fuesel said.

DiFronzo was unreachable in River Grove or at his corner lot vacation home in Lake Geneva. His longtime lawyer, Carl Walsh, declined to comment Wednesday.

The FBI said a gag order prevented them from answering why DiFronzo hasn't been charged with the murders that prosecutors say he committed.

Do they even know where he is? "There is no reason for us to know his whereabouts because he hasn't been charged with anything," said Ross Rice, FBI spokesman.

Mob investigators say No Nose will lean on his brother, Peter DiFronzo, to help manage outfit rackets. Peter DiFronzo is a convicted warehouse thief who did time at Leavenworth. He and his brother are both fully initiated "made" members of the Chicago Outfit, according to the Chicago Crime Commission.

FBI records state that Peter and No Nose operate a west suburban construction and waste hauling firm, a politically connected company that "obtained contracts through illegal payoffs or intimidation."

When the I-Team visited D and P Construction Tuesday, Peter DiFronzo thought we were there to survey for new sewer lines. When told that the I-Team was there on an outfit investigation, he claimed to no know nothing and drove off in a new Cadillac Escalade.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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The Clown goes verbal to deny he’s Keyser Soze

Reputed top mobster Lombardo makes high risk gambit
By Josh Casey

In a move that radically departed from mob courtroom strategies of thirty years or more, Joseph ‘The Clown’ Lombardo, reputed mobster and, moreover, widely alleged to be the hidden boss of the Chicago Outfit, took the stand in his own defense.


Mob boss 1982? or Keyser Soze 2006?


What makes Lombardo’s appearance on the stand highly unusual is that for decades, alleged mobsters have relied upon the maxim that silence is golden. In other words, you can’t get caught out if you don’t speak out. That, along with leaving the prosecution to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt without the assistance of self-incrimination has become standard practice for all mobsters, and especially those with most to lose, the bosses. Another factor in that strategy has been that most often the cases were slam-dunks anyway, so little was to be gained but much more could be lost by being tripped-up by cross examination.

What makes a difference in the Family Secrets trial (the name originating from the FBI code name for the investigation) as far as Lombardo is concerned is twofold. First, most of the evidence against him is historical; he had previously been found guilty in two federal trials in the 1980s and duly served his time.

Secondly, much of the accusations against him in the Family Secrets case have been circumstantial and/or based on anecdotal accounts and rumor bordering at times on folklore. Witnesses, mostly criminals or associates, and most with an axe to grind, expressed mostly hearsay reports of his alleged culpability in this or that, or of him being the fiendish mastermind behind the Outfit.

There has barely been any of the ‘hard evidence’ normally required for murder trials, indeed, one of the most emotive accusations - that by the former wife of Daniel Seifert, who was shot to death in 1974 - was starkly undermined by the very star witness widely expected to confirm Lombardo’s guilt: ‘made’ Outfit member, Nicholas Calabrese.

It had long been speculated that Lombardo was one of the masked killers of Daniel Seifert, and the former Mrs. Seifert gave evidence earlier in the trial that she believed the man who delivered the coup de grace was Lombardo, based on her personal familiarity with him as a family friend at the time – citing his height and build, and in particular that he was ‘light on his feet’, remarking that Joseph Lombardo had once been a boxer and was very nimble on his feet also.

Calabrese, however, revealed his knowledge to be that Joseph (Joey) Hansen, a now deceased member of Tony Spilotro’s street crew of that time, fired the fatal shot. Allegedly, Seifert was killed because he was due to give evidence implicating Lombardo and Spilotro (also alleged to have been among the masked killers) in an impending fraud trial; hence a Spilotro henchman being the culprit would have as much logic as any other scenario. The defense also called a former FBI agent who told how Mrs. Seifert offered no such information at any time during the original investigation.

It can only be a matter of speculation whether Rick Halprin, Lombardo’s wily and respected attorney, announced that he was putting his client on the stand as a sign of confidence or of desperation, but it was a considerably risky gambit.

The current trial, it can be argued, has produced little beyond material already used in the 1980s trials, for which Mr. Lombardo has already paid his debt. Since then he has taken the eccentrically bizarre step (he’s not called the clown for nothing) upon his release in 1992 of publicly renouncing any involvement in organized crime via an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune. Since then, he has been accused of no further crimes, regardless of the widespread belief in some quarters that he is the clandestine Eminence Grise of the Outfit.

Suspicion, anecdote and accusation, and especially hearsay, are not usually regarded as evidence, and few of these charges would seem likely to hold water anywhere beyond the U.S. Title 18, chapter 96, so-called RICO statutes where the establishment of a criminal enterprise is the primary requirement. Under this amorphous definition, the alleged collective crimes required to be proven to qualify the enterprise often seem to suffer from a lower, hazier level of scrutiny, a kind of sub-prime justice.

In other words, if you throw enough shocking photographs of disfigured remains, and the tawdry usual suspects point fingers alleging that this man is the Outfit’s Keyser Soze, and that guy cut people’s throats (true though any of it might be), combined with endless tales of beaten up bookies, extortion, killings, bombings and mayhem in general, and all the names can be joined up from time to time, then bundle it all up together, the mud sticks in the minds of juries, without each component being tried to the normally necessary standards of proof as when a single charge.

While the prosecution scored no direct hits on Lombardo (in fact the prosecution have signally failed to live up to the pre-trial ballyhoo and nail anything of substance to its primary target) with its opening evidence, significant circumstantial mud was spattered and Lombardo’s team have decided he is best placed to rid himself of it. A likely tactic always was for him to deny any association with any criminal enterprise since his release in 1992, something the cold record might seem to support, and that to penalize him for past misdeeds would be tantamount to double jeopardy. And any conclusion implied that he is still involved simply because he discussed the Spilotro killings while in the dentist’s chair of their brother, whom he had known for decades, seemed tenuous, to say the least, and even a finger print on a document might not necessarily construe that he pulled a trigger, at least not this time.

The greatest danger for defendants with a long past of criminal association taking the stand is that whatever they say opens the door for the prosecution to dissect all that they utter, and any topic introduced means that topic is then fair game. And if a defendant’s history is long enough, and Lombardo is now 78 years old, that is a lot of topics to avoid and protect from slip-up and errors brought about by the intense probing, and preparation, of the prosecutors. And Lombardo could be certain that those U.S. Attorneys did not get the last couple of weekends off.

His gambit was highly risky, but time and the jury will tell if it paid off. On the other hand, the U.S. attorney’s case has looked sadly anemic in places, and perhaps Lombardo and Halprin did not think there was too much to worry about, so could afford to try to swing the jury to thinking he is a kindly, humorous retired senior citizen, who has left a regrettable past far behind. He’s not called the clown for nothing. But Lombardo better than most should appreciate what the word gambit really means, as its roots, like his own, are Italian. It derives from Gambetto, and means ‘tripping up’ and that can hobble you for life.

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Joey the Clown Becomes Court Ringmaster

Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio, Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Irwin Weiner, Allen Dorfman

After stopping momentarily to flirt with the blond court reporter and swearing to tell the truth with a raspy "I do," Joey "the Clown" Lombardo lowered himself onto the witness stand with the help of a cane.

The 78-year-old with a Caesar haircut leaned toward the microphone Tuesday afternoon and took off his rounded eyeglasses, settling in to answer his lawyer's questions at the landmark Family Secrets trial.

With the revelation last week that one of the city's quirkiest reputed mob figures would take the stand in his own defense, his testimony became one of the most anticipated moments in a trial that already has earned a place in Chicago mob lore.

A long line of spectators waited for a seat in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse's largest courtroom, filled to capacity with federal judges, FBI supervisors, veteran federal prosecutors, a flock of reporters and dozens of the simply curious.

Defense attorney Rick Halprin wasted no time in getting to the heart of the charges, asking Lombardo whether he took part in killing federal witness Daniel Seifert in 1974 and whether he was a "capo" in the Chicago Outfit.

"Positively no," Lombardo responded to both questions.

Lombardo is a reputed organized-crime figure with a flair for humor and theatrics, known for once leaving a court date with a mask made of newspaper to hide his face from cameramen. Another time he took out advertisements disavowing any mob ties.

When the Family Secrets indictment came down two years ago, he vanished, writing the judge letters asking for his own trial before he was apprehended in the suburbs sporting a beard that resembled the one Saddam Hussein grew while hiding in his spider hole. Brought to court for the first time in the case, Lombardo announced he simply had been "unavailable."

On Tuesday, he was at center stage again, telling jurors how he worked the streets as a youngster, shining shoes of police officers in his Grand Avenue neighborhood. They paid him only a nickel a shoe, he said.

"Very cheap people," said Lombardo, sending a wave of laughter through the courtroom.

"Let's not press our luck," shot back Halprin, trying to keep his client focused.

"You told me to tell the truth," countered Lombardo, drawing more laughter.

The guffaws, some from other defense lawyers in the case, brought a stern warning from U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who said he didn't see anything funny about a sweeping conspiracy case that includes the murders of 18 individuals.

Lombardo, one of five men on trial, took the stand as the best way to flesh out his defense that he was essentially an errand boy for powerful mob-connected businessmen such as Irwin Weiner and labor racketeer Allen Dorfman, who ran an insurance agency that did business with the Teamsters. He contended he has always held legitimate jobs and got caught up in criminal conduct through friends.

The jury knows about Lombardo's celebrated convictions from the 1980s for attempting to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon (D-Nev.) and for skimming millions of dollars from the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.

Lombardo set about to describe his work history, starting with shoe shining and detouring briefly to his dice game. Lombardo acknowledged he ran one, blessed by city aldermen, from 1976 until the bribery indictment. "I didn't have time to play dice because I was on trial," he said matter of factly.

Lombardo, dressed in a conservative gray jacket and silver tie, sometimes rubbed his hands in front of him as he testified and sometimes played with his glasses. He often gave brief answers in a sing-song tone and looked toward the jury as he talked.

Lombardo said he worked a dumbwaiter at a hotel, drove trucks, built two six-flats in a small construction business and worked at a salvage warehouse.

Through his relationships with Weiner and Dorfman, Lombardo said, he met Outfit figures such as Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio and Anthony Spilotro.

Lombardo testified that Weiner also led him to International Fiberglass, where he worked with Seifert. Prosecutors contend Lombardo had Seifert killed before he could testify against Lombardo in a pension fraud case.

The business was failing when he got there, Lombardo said, telling jurors he agreed to round up out-of-work "kids" in the Grand Avenue area to help make sinks and other company products. He helped Seifert pay bills and manage the business, Lombardo said.

A host of nicknames used for Lombardo have surfaced during the trial, including "Lumpy," "Lumbo" and "Pagliacci," the Italian word for clowns. On Tuesday, Lombardo acknowledged he used another name for himself in some of his business dealings in the 1970s: Joseph Cuneo. "Because my name, Lombardo, was always in the paper for different things," he said.

Halprin tried to take on evidence that prosecutors say points to Lombardo's involvement in Seifert's killing. But Lombardo appeared confused on one critical issue and Halprin moved to another topic.

Lombardo's fingerprint was found on the title application for a car used by the gunmen to flee from the scene of Seifert's shooting at his Bensenville business. In addition, Lombardo was identified as having often bought police scanners like the one found in the getaway vehicle.

Lombardo acknowledged buying police scanners from a local store but said he was running errands for Weiner and his bail-bonding business. But Lombardo said he was puzzled about the fingerprint. Halprin asked how it could have been left on the title document.

"What are my prints on? On what?" he asked. "Is that document in Irv Weiner's office?"

Halprin promised to come back to the subject.

Lombardo also denied that he had attempted to bribe Sen. Cannon. He said he was recorded in Dorfman's office discussing his idea to have the senator buy a Las Vegas property that was being purchased by someone else with a large loan from a Teamsters pension fund. He got nothing out of the deal, Lombardo said, except "15 years and 5 years probation."

Earlier Tuesday, Lombardo's lawyers called a series of witnesses who testified that they saw Lombardo at work at legitimate jobs, including International Fiberglass.

Among those testifying was Johnny Lira, 56, a Golden Gloves boxing champion and a one-time lightweight title contender. Lira said he renewed a relationship with the reputed mobster when Lombardo left prison in the early 1990s. Lombardo worked every day at a business that dealt with concrete-cutting machines, he said.

He described Lombardo as "a grease monkey" who worked on equipment in the business' warehouse on Racine Avenue until his arrest in early 2006. Assistant U.S. Atty. Markus Funk asked whether Lira knew Lombardo was a fugitive in his final months on the job. "He didn't act like a fugitive," Lira said. "He came there every day."

In his testimony, Lombardo tried to portray himself as a normal working guy who liked sports. He can "ice skate, roller skate, Rollerblade and bowl," Lombardo testified.

Prosecutors are likely to go hard after that image during their expected cross-examination on Wednesday, and there will be no chance for "the Clown" to disappear.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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Spilotro Brothers Leave Court

Friends of ours: Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

Reputed mobster Anthony Spilotro, left, and his brother, Michael, leave the federal building in Chicago after a bond hearing in this June 17, 1986 photo. Anthony Spilotro was known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas and inspired the Joe Pesci character in the movie casino. He and his brother were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in June 1986.

On Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007, a forensic pathologist who did autopsies on the Spilotros, testified at the trial in Chicago of five men charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders. He said there was no evidence that the two men were buried alive.

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Feds Rest Their Case at Family Secrets Trial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dentist and Lawyer in Heated Courtroom Exchange

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're kidding," his brother replied.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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Career Burglar, Sal Romano, Admits to Bribing Cops

A career burglar with ties to the mob testified today in the Family Secrets case that he indirectly bribed police through Chicago attorneys, including Sam Banks, the brother of 36th Ward Ald. William Banks.

Sal Romano, who worked under Anthony Spilotro, said he paid hired Sam Banks on the advice of Chicago police after Romano was arrested and believed they were bribed through money Romano paid his attorney. But Romano acknowledged he never saw Banks hand any money to police.

Romano said his case involving stolen property was thrown out.

Banks could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday.

Romano said another lawyer he hired for another case, Dean Wolfson, was more direct about the bribery. Wolfson was later convicted of bribing judges as part of Operation Greylord. Romano said after he gave Wolfson $10,000, the attorney instructed an assistant that a certain portion of the money was for the judge in the case, while the remainder was for the police.

Romano described working out in Las Vegas with a variety of career criminals, including Spilotro, who was slain in 1986, and Paul "The Indian" Schiro, who is a defendant on trial in the Family Secrets case.

Romano said Schiro set up a burglary of a home owned by people Schiro knew. Schiro said the people were going to be at a wedding and gave Romano the key to their front door. Inside the home was a closet safe supposedly containing $50,000, Romano said.

Romano and another burglar went into the home, but a little dog came out yapping like crazy. The dog made it out to the backyard and continued barking. "Let's go, I'm gone," Romano recalled saying. When he got grief from Schiro for not disposing of the dog, Romano said "I don't do dogs."

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Protected Witness, Sal Romano, Testifies at Mob Trial

Sal Romano has been in and out of the Witness Protection Program since the early 1980s, working for a time as an apartment manager. But Romano's real talent was as a lock picker. It was a talent he says he exploited for himself and the Chicago Outfit.

Romano, an admitted burglar, knew his way around the Outfit in Chicago and Las Vegas. His testimony in the mid-1980s helped jail the Hole in the Wall gang that reported to Vegas mob boss Tony Spilotro.

Romano testified that police payoffs helped grease the way for the mob. He said that often, those payments were channeled through attorneys.

Romano said his first exposure to the Outfit was breaking into some laundry machines for mob boss Joseph Ferriola. "He's not the kind of guy you say, 'No, I don't want to talk to you,'" Romano said.

Romano also recounted an alleged botched burglary attempt in Vegas with defendant Paul Schiro. They were looking for $50,000 kept in a closet safe, but when a small dog surprised them and started barking, Romano said he called the job off. When asked later why he didn't just take care of the dog, Romano responded, "I don't do dogs."

It is alleged that Schiro was a mob hit man who could often be volatile. Romano said he was told to be careful with Schiro because he could be a dangerous man.

Other testimony on Monday focused on the gambling machine business run by Mike Marcello, called M & M Amusements. A Cook County Sheriff's lieutenant testified about the raids that saw Marcello and Thomas Johnson arrested in 2003.

Still to take the stand is one of the prosecution's other big witnesses -- the brother of Anthony and Michael Spilotro. A dentist by trade, Pat Spilotro often worked on other mobsters. He also wore a wire for federal investigators, Charlie Wojciechowski reported.

Pat Spilotro is also thought to have helped the feds track down Joey "The Clown" Lombardo when he was on the run in 2005. Lombardo reportedly went to Pat Spilatro for secret dental work.

Pat Spilotro was also the dentist for Nick Calabrese, the mob hit man involved in Spilotro's brother's murder, Charlie Wojciechowski reported. Pat Spilotro is expected to take the stand on Tuesday.

Thanks to Charlie Wojciechowski

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Mistress Faces Reputed Mobster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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Mistress of Mob Boss to Testify

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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