Veteran Chicago Mob Investigator Passes

The trait that made retired Chicago Police Cmdr. Michael J. O'Donnell such a great mob, loan-shark and prostitution investigator may have been his kindness. That may sound like an odd crime-fighting trait, but John Spellman, a retired police officer who worked for Cmdr. O'Donnell for many years, said it set him apart.

"He had a kindness and a kind nature for people who had weakness," Spellman said.

During the 1960s, Cmdr. O'Donnell led teams of officers investigating organized crime, especially loan-sharking operations that preyed on gambling addicts. It was the kind of corruption that struck at the core of Cmdr. O'Donnell's beliefs, said his son William, who followed in his dad's footsteps.

"He did not like anyone who would take advantage of another person," said his son, commander in the Near North Police District, the same district his father commanded when he retired in 1989. "The one thing that stands out with him is his integrity. The jobs they gave him were based on that. He was my hero."

Cmdr. Michael O'Donnell, 79, who lived in the Sauganash neighborhood, died Monday, Oct. 24. He had been undergoing treatment for leukemia at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

During Cmdr. O'Donnell's career, federal investigators came to rely on him as a tough, reliable cop to work organized crime cases. He "was one of the most trustworthy officers I knew in the department at that time," said retired FBI agent Vincent Inserra.

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Cmdr. O'Donnell moved to Chicago with his family after his father died, leaving his mother to raise 10 children. He enlisted in the Navy while attending Providence-St. Mel High School on the West Side and served on a ship in the Pacific during World War II.

He joined the Police Department in 1952, became a detective in 1954 and became a sergeant in the intelligence unit in 1961, working on organized crime cases. In the early 1960s he investigated loan-sharking operations run by some of Chicago's biggest reputed Outfit figures.

He became commanding officer of the vice control division in 1974, and eventually was made commander of the East Chicago District, now the Near North District, which includes Rush Street and the Gold Coast.

William O'Donnell said his father was a role model for him as he followed in his footsteps. "It was so much fun when I was named commander of [the Near North District] to go home and compare notes. For me, that's been the highlight of my career."

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Unwise Guy, Ends Up as Mafia Hit

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Lawrence Ricci, George Barone

A top Mafia capo who recently vanished during his trial was rubbed out by bosses because he balked at copping a plea to spare them embarrassing courtroom disclosures, federal probers now believe.

Reputed Genovese crime-family captain Lawrence Ricci, 60, had been on trial along with two high-ranking International Longshoremen's Association officials who were allegedly handpicked for their posts by the mob. Law-enforcement sources suspect that before the case went to trial, Ricci's Mafia higher-ups "long known for tight lips and low profiles" demanded that the rakish Ricci dodge an expected messy proceeding by copping a plea.

Ricci - charged with steering an ILA contract to a pharmaceutical company with mob ties - likely would have been able to negotiate a deal with just a couple of years in jail. Instead, authorities suspect that he was rolling the dice for an acquittal when he mysteriously vanished after borrowing a relative's car Columbus Day weekend.

"I do not consider my client's absence to be a voluntary one," his lawyer,Martin Schmukler, has warned the court. The new theory about why Ricci may have been killed surfaced amid the ongoing extortion and conspiracy trial of the two ILA officers, Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey.

Daggett yesterday wept like a baby when describing early dealings with a former Genovese hit man and now elderly mob turncoat in the case, George Barone, 81. Barone accused him of trying to wrest control of the powerful union away from him in the early 1980s - and brutally interrogated him at one point, a tearful Daggett testified in Brooklyn federal court.

"I'll kill you and your wife and children if you take this local," Daggett said a seething Barone warned him. "He pulled out a gun and stuck it in my head here," Daggett said, pointing to his temple. "[Then Barone] cocked the trigger and said, 'I'll blow your brains all over the room.' "I prayed to the Blessed Mother he wouldn't do it. He said, 'Get the fuck out of here.' I was so nervous, I urinated all over myself."

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Major Mafia Boss Arrested

Friends of ours: Umberto Di Fazio, Bernardo Provenzano, Salvatore "Toto" Riina

Italian carabinieri military police on Sunday arrested a major Sicilian Mafia boss who had been on the run for five years, police said. They said Umberto Di Fazio, 42, considered to be the leader of the Cosa Nostra's notorious Santapaola clan, was captured near Enna, a mountaintop town in the center of the island.

Di Fazio, whose "family" dominated Catania, the main city on Sicily's east coast, was wanted for extortion and murder and international warrants had been issued for his arrest. He took over leadership of the clan after the 1993 arrest of Nitto Santapaolo, known as "The Hunter", and once the undisputed Mafia boss in Catania.

Di Fazio's arrest came two days after Italy's new national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Pietro Grasso, caused a storm by saying Bernardo Provenzano, the top Mafia chief who has been a fugitive for four decades, had been protected by politicians and policemen.

Until his appointment earlier this month, Grasso was for years the chief anti-Mafia investigator in the Sicilian capital Palermo, and often expressed frustration over the failure to capture Provenzano.

Provenzano, 71, once nicknamed "Binu the tractor" because of the way he would mow down his opponents, has managed to run the crime group like a phantom.

Provenzano, a native of Corleone -- a town made famous in "The Godfather" films -- assumed control of the Mafia after the state scored major arrests against the mob in the early 1990s, including that of top boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina in 1993.

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