Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr., Jimmy "The Man" Marcello, Vincent "Jimmy Boy" Mosccio, Guido Cicero Pelini, Al Capone
The joint was jumping and it was all for Joey. I got to federal court early Tuesday knowing there would be a crowd. Within minutes, in came my Sun-Times colleague Mark Brown, a raft of other newspaper reporters, followed by the Associated Press, WBBM's Newsradio 780, three courtroom artists and every TV station in town. We had all come to get a good look at the notorious Chicago mob kingpin who had outwitted the FBI for nine embarrassing months.
When he was finally grabbed by a team of agents in an alley in Elmwood Park on Friday night, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo sported long hair and bushy beard. This infamous federal fugitive looked like a cross between Howard Hughes and one of the Smith Brothers of cough drop fame. But by the time The Clown was escorted into court Tuesday morning, his beard had been shaved and his hair had been cropped by a prison barber. But that wasn't what was so striking.
Joey "The Clown" Lombardo is tiny. A little chunky around the midsection perhaps but a tiny man nonetheless. At 77, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and leg irons, he shuffled into court appearing almost dazed or bewildered. He wore a goofy little smile as he promised U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel that he would tell him "nuttin' but the truth." And got a laugh from the gallery when Zagel asked had he seen a doctor recently. "I was supposed to see him nine months ago," said The Clown, "but I was, ah, what do they call it, I was unavailable."
It was nine months ago the feds indicted Lombardo and 13 others in the landmark "Family Secrets" case that spans more than 40 years and encompasses 18 old, cold, mob murder cases as well as gambling, extortion, conspiracy and racketeering.
Right now, a number of the defendants are being held in the federal lockup downtown but are not allowed to see or talk to one another. Joe Lopez, attorney for the imprisoned defendant Frank Calabrese Sr., complained to Zagel that such isolation is a hardship for the men because they "can't go to church together or the law library together."
Lombardo's attorney, Rich Halprin, wasn't about to join Lopez in any effort to reunite the boys behind bars. "Joey has stated on the record he doesn't know the other defendants," Halprin said. Of course not.
The Clown, by the way, is broke. Busted with about $3,000 in cash, beyond that the cupboard is allegedly bare and so Lombardo is asking the judge to appoint Halprin as his federal public defender. Anybody who thinks Lombardo isn't smart doesn't know what they're talking about. And they haven't watched him as he whispers in his lawyer's ear. Then and only then do you see his eyes harden and narrow. And his bewildered "Gosh, I'm just not sure what's going on" demeanor replaced by an ice-cold intensity.
In all, I counted 11 defense attorneys crowding around the judge Tuesday. Like Halprin, many of them are well-known in their own right, expensive and experienced when it comes to not answering reporter's questions. Longtime attorney Arthur Nasser comes to mind. Who of the defendants, I asked him Tuesday, is the boss of the Chicago Outfit? Is Joey "The Clown" running it or, say, Jimmy "The Man" Marcello, another of the defendants? "I don't know what you mean by 'running it'?" Nasser deadpanned.
The last time I talked to Nasser was in 1994. I had just dropped by the Forest Park home of another of his clients, Vincent "Jimmy Boy" Mosccio, to ask if he would do an interview. Jimmy Boy was in his late 60s. He and a partner, Guido Cicero Pelini, who was 70-something, were reputed to be "The Pineapple Bandits." That is to say, they dealt in large quantities of merchandise known as "stuff that falls off the truck." These elderly mob cartage thieves managed to make off with about $7 million in cases of Mr. Muscle Oven Cleaner, Drano, and Dole Pineapple. Hence, "The Pineapple Bandits."
While I sat in Mosccio's living room, he dialed his attorney, Mr. Nasser, to advise him of my visit which, after that call, abruptly ended. It wasn't too long after that that Mosccio and Pelini went off to federal prison.
I recount this little tale as just one, small example of how old mobsters don't retire. And from the days of Al Capone to the present, nobody, not Eliot Ness, not even U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, has put them out of business. At least, not yet.
Thanks to Carol Marin
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Lombardo looks like a new man - but he's still The Clown
Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
One picture would probably be worth more to you than the 800 words to follow. Even if I wrote an extra 200 words to make it an even thousand, that wouldn't solve the problem. You want to know what reputed mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo looks like these days, and I'm no substitute for the work of a photographer. But cameras aren't allowed in federal courtrooms, and it was the chance to see him for myself that drew me to the Dirksen Federal Building on Tuesday morning. So let me first report that, no, Lombardo doesn't look anything like that photo they snapped of him in a federal lockup after his Friday night arrest.
The unkempt gray beard and whiskers that he grew during nine months on the lam have already been shaved clean, revealing a 77-year-old man who looks much more like the character who once famously hid his face behind a copy of the Sun-Times that he'd doctored with an eyehole cutout.
Lombardo's full head of hair is still dark and bushy. He's got the same short, muscular build, the short sleeves of his orange prison jumpsuit revealing forearms that are still formidable.
The eyeglasses have changed. Lombardo's got wire frames to replace the big lenses that always look so 1970s in the few photos and videotapes that are available from his heyday in the upper echelon of Chicago organized crime.
"The Clown" had proved elusive long before he went underground as the feds came calling last April with an arrest warrant. (And I must add that I don't see any resemblance to the guy on the bicycle, you remember, the poor mope from Lombardo's Grand Avenue neighborhood who our friends at Brand X mistakenly identified on the front page as an accused mobster.)
As long as we're relying on your imagination, forget Friday's Saddam Hussein look-alike photo altogether and conjure up one of those images of Lombardo from the early 1980s, then mentally run him through one of those computer programs that adds age lines, wrinkles and jowls. But keep one other feature: that mischievous twinkle in the corner of his eyes that always helped explain how somebody with a reputation as a stone-cold killer could have his particular nickname.
Lombardo clowned around just a little Tuesday with U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who had asked about Lombardo's health and whether he'd seen his doctor as part of the routine inquiry before taking his initial "not guilty" plea. "I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was, ah, what do they call it - I was unavailable," Lombardo said with a smile.
That was the only time Lombardo intentionally drew a laugh, although much of the audience also got a chuckle when he was sworn in and promised to tell "nuttin but da troot."
Lombardo gave several indications that he was having trouble hearing Zagel, leaning in closer and turning his head when the judge was speaking.
He also peered quizically around the courtroom at the spectators in the gallery and at the lawyers of his many co-defendants. But Lombardo attorney Rick Halprin said his client was neither confused nor agitated when I suggested otherwise in a question.
Halprin said Lombardo just didn't recognize all the lawyers for his alleged co-conspirators, who by coincidence were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a regular status hearing. Halprin said Lombardo denies knowing all but one of his mob co-defendants, too.
I liked the fact that the FBI caught up to Lombardo in Elmwood Park, which is close to my home turf. The agents haven't given us any details on how long Lombardo had been in Elmwood Park, let alone how he passed the time, but I like to picture him slipping into the back room at Gene's Deli for lunch or sending his buddy to Johnnie's for a beef sandwich, except for Friday's when he'd get pepper 'n egg. Or maybe Lombardo would visit Caputo's on Harlem early in the morning to shop for his own groceries, and if anybody recognized him, they'd just wink.
If he wanted to come downtown, he'd just ride Metra, nobody being in the habit of looking for mob fugitives sitting across from them on the train.
I don't mean for the tone of this to minimize Lombardo's alleged crimes - which haven't exactly been spelled out with much specificity to this point - although I expect that to resolve itself now that he's in custody. (He must be forgetting about the murder charges against him.)
As he left the courtroom, Lombardo was engaging in some sort of banter with the federal agents who would escort him back to jail. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but they were smiling.
Thanks to Mark Brown
One picture would probably be worth more to you than the 800 words to follow. Even if I wrote an extra 200 words to make it an even thousand, that wouldn't solve the problem. You want to know what reputed mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo looks like these days, and I'm no substitute for the work of a photographer. But cameras aren't allowed in federal courtrooms, and it was the chance to see him for myself that drew me to the Dirksen Federal Building on Tuesday morning. So let me first report that, no, Lombardo doesn't look anything like that photo they snapped of him in a federal lockup after his Friday night arrest.
The unkempt gray beard and whiskers that he grew during nine months on the lam have already been shaved clean, revealing a 77-year-old man who looks much more like the character who once famously hid his face behind a copy of the Sun-Times that he'd doctored with an eyehole cutout.
Lombardo's full head of hair is still dark and bushy. He's got the same short, muscular build, the short sleeves of his orange prison jumpsuit revealing forearms that are still formidable.
The eyeglasses have changed. Lombardo's got wire frames to replace the big lenses that always look so 1970s in the few photos and videotapes that are available from his heyday in the upper echelon of Chicago organized crime.
"The Clown" had proved elusive long before he went underground as the feds came calling last April with an arrest warrant. (And I must add that I don't see any resemblance to the guy on the bicycle, you remember, the poor mope from Lombardo's Grand Avenue neighborhood who our friends at Brand X mistakenly identified on the front page as an accused mobster.)
As long as we're relying on your imagination, forget Friday's Saddam Hussein look-alike photo altogether and conjure up one of those images of Lombardo from the early 1980s, then mentally run him through one of those computer programs that adds age lines, wrinkles and jowls. But keep one other feature: that mischievous twinkle in the corner of his eyes that always helped explain how somebody with a reputation as a stone-cold killer could have his particular nickname.
Lombardo clowned around just a little Tuesday with U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who had asked about Lombardo's health and whether he'd seen his doctor as part of the routine inquiry before taking his initial "not guilty" plea. "I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was, ah, what do they call it - I was unavailable," Lombardo said with a smile.
That was the only time Lombardo intentionally drew a laugh, although much of the audience also got a chuckle when he was sworn in and promised to tell "nuttin but da troot."
Lombardo gave several indications that he was having trouble hearing Zagel, leaning in closer and turning his head when the judge was speaking.
He also peered quizically around the courtroom at the spectators in the gallery and at the lawyers of his many co-defendants. But Lombardo attorney Rick Halprin said his client was neither confused nor agitated when I suggested otherwise in a question.
Halprin said Lombardo just didn't recognize all the lawyers for his alleged co-conspirators, who by coincidence were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a regular status hearing. Halprin said Lombardo denies knowing all but one of his mob co-defendants, too.
I liked the fact that the FBI caught up to Lombardo in Elmwood Park, which is close to my home turf. The agents haven't given us any details on how long Lombardo had been in Elmwood Park, let alone how he passed the time, but I like to picture him slipping into the back room at Gene's Deli for lunch or sending his buddy to Johnnie's for a beef sandwich, except for Friday's when he'd get pepper 'n egg. Or maybe Lombardo would visit Caputo's on Harlem early in the morning to shop for his own groceries, and if anybody recognized him, they'd just wink.
If he wanted to come downtown, he'd just ride Metra, nobody being in the habit of looking for mob fugitives sitting across from them on the train.
I don't mean for the tone of this to minimize Lombardo's alleged crimes - which haven't exactly been spelled out with much specificity to this point - although I expect that to resolve itself now that he's in custody. (He must be forgetting about the murder charges against him.)
As he left the courtroom, Lombardo was engaging in some sort of banter with the federal agents who would escort him back to jail. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but they were smiling.
Thanks to Mark Brown
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Supreme Court Rejects Mobster's Appeal
Friends of ours: Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo
Friends of mine: Leonard Pelullo
The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to decide whether defendants should get new trials when prosecutors withhold evidence. The court rebuffed an appeal by a reputed mob associate convicted of looting a small New Jersey printing company's pension fund.
In the 1990s, Leonard Pelullo, a Miami businessman, was investigated by federal authorities in Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Federal officials raided a large warehouse in Miami, where they seized 904 boxes, 114 file cabinets and 10 file drawers containing documents from Pelullo's 25 companies. Before his trial, prosecutors insisted they had not found any documents that would have helped Pelullo's defense to the New Jersey charges.
He was convicted and sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison in 1997 for siphoning $4.2 million from Compton Press' pension and retirement funds after he took control of the firm and put it out of business. Pelullo's lawyers later discovered what a federal judge described as "a mass" of evidence that could have helped Pelullo contradict several government witnesses. The judge ordered a new trial for Pelullo. But the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed, saying prosecutors had given Pelullo and his lawyers numerous chances to review the documents. The appellate court also said Pelullo should've know what was in the records because they were his.
Pelullo also was convicted in Philadelphia on fraud and racketeering charges. Mob informant Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, a former underboss of the Philadelphia Mafia, testified in that case that Pelullo was an associate of his uncle, convicted mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.
Friends of mine: Leonard Pelullo
The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to decide whether defendants should get new trials when prosecutors withhold evidence. The court rebuffed an appeal by a reputed mob associate convicted of looting a small New Jersey printing company's pension fund.
In the 1990s, Leonard Pelullo, a Miami businessman, was investigated by federal authorities in Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Federal officials raided a large warehouse in Miami, where they seized 904 boxes, 114 file cabinets and 10 file drawers containing documents from Pelullo's 25 companies. Before his trial, prosecutors insisted they had not found any documents that would have helped Pelullo's defense to the New Jersey charges.
He was convicted and sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison in 1997 for siphoning $4.2 million from Compton Press' pension and retirement funds after he took control of the firm and put it out of business. Pelullo's lawyers later discovered what a federal judge described as "a mass" of evidence that could have helped Pelullo contradict several government witnesses. The judge ordered a new trial for Pelullo. But the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed, saying prosecutors had given Pelullo and his lawyers numerous chances to review the documents. The appellate court also said Pelullo should've know what was in the records because they were his.
Pelullo also was convicted in Philadelphia on fraud and racketeering charges. Mob informant Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, a former underboss of the Philadelphia Mafia, testified in that case that Pelullo was an associate of his uncle, convicted mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.
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