Considering Rockford's Bid for a Casino ...Mob Ties and Denials in Chicago: Deja Vu All Over Again

Friends of ours: Al Capone, Harry Aleman, Pat Marcy, Michael Magnifichi
Friends of mine: Robert Cooley, Donald E. Stephens, John D'Arco Sr., John D' Arco Jr., Betty Loren-Maltese, William "Bill" Hanhardt, Nick Boscarino, William "Bill" Daddano III

Nov, 2004. If you've been around Chicago politics long enough, you see certain cycles that repeat themselves—like those cicadas that crawl up from the ground every dozen years or so. Once again, people are questioning the organized crime associations of important public officials. Once again, those officials and their hired guns (usually a former U.S. Attorney or ex-FBI agent) are trying to laugh off those associations. Donald E. Stephens, the long-time mayor of suburban Rosemont, is a case in point, but there's a lot more at stake in his background than a history lesson. His city is on the verge of getting a casino license that could soon make it the gambling capital of Illinois. But if you know even a little bit about this mayor's old buddies, like I do, you wonder how this could ever happen.

When we were doing some research for my book, When Corruption Was King, we came across a newspaper clip from 1969. The Chicago Crime Commission had the insurance agency Anco Inc. on its watch list of "hoodlum-tainted" businesses. The company's president, John D'Arco Sr., had been a former alderman and was then Democratic committeeman for the First Ward. None other than Mayor Richard J. Daley jumped to his defense and charged, "It is one thing to have facts and another to report hearsay."

Questions about D'Arco's past faded from the press, but cropped up again, in 1980, when he engineered the appointment of Bill Hanhardt as Chief of Detectives for the Chicago Police Department during the administration of Jane Byrne. This time, Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek defended D'Arco, saying, "None of the allegations against him had ever been proved."

What a joke that was. Anybody could have gone to the newspaper clip files and found arrest reports on D'Arco linking him to Al Capone and various stick-ups, including one that cost a victim her life.

Meanwhile, at this very time in 1980, I was sitting with D'Arco most days in Counsellors Row restaurant across the street from City Hall. At the head of our table was Pat Marcy, the Outfit’s chief political operator. I watched as D'Arco and Marcy rigged city contracts, appointed judges, and even fixed murder cases for Mob hit men.

In fact, I helped them do that for the notorious killer Harry Aleman. In 1986, I went to the organized crime strike force and offered to wear a wire to help bring charges against Marcy, his political organization and associated mobsters. In the resulting trials, we ended up convicting, among others, D'Arco's son, State Sen. John D'Arco Jr., First Ward Alderman Fred Roti, some judges and even got to re-try Aleman for the murder case I helped fix. (Marcy died of a heart attack during his trial).

As we all know, the First Ward's choice for Chief of Detectives, Bill Hanhardt, was arrested many years later for leading a nationwide jewelry theft ring. He, too, had his FBI agent defenders, right until the day of his conviction.

Now here comes Rosemont's Mayor Stephens, another dinosaur who wants us to pretend he was never a reptile. This is especially laughable for me, because on at least two different occasions, I heard Marcy and D'Arco talk about him like he was another one of their go-fers. But what I say now should have little bearing on this debate.

The public record on Stephens is already damning enough. It's not just that his old Mob friend, Nick Boscarino, was convicted for an insurance scam. He was convicted for scamming the city of Rosemont, much like mobsters scammed the city of Cicero, and in that case, the mayor, Betty Loren-Maltese, was convicted, too. It's just not that some of Stephens's other buddies, like William Daddano III have Mob ties. They are tied to people like Michael Magnifichi, who I know to be long-time bookmakers.

The average person has no idea about all the ways mobsters get their hooks into legalized gambling. It starts even before the casino is built, when they use their political friends to win contracts for construction. It continues as they infiltrate the key unions involved. Outfit bookmakers hang out at the casino to take illegal sports bets, and finally, one way or another, the Mob finds a way to skim some of the cash that flies around the legal games. They did it in Las Vegas, and you can bet that they'll find a way to do it here.

In fact, you could say that law enforcement authorities who try to keep mobsters out of casinos already have the deck stacked against them. But if you were going to put a casino anywhere in Illinois, why would you start in the one city (Rosemont) that has the longest-serving mayor with Mob connections?

Thanks to Robert Cooley Co-author of When Corruption Was King with Hillel Levin.

Editor's note: According to Cooley, two Chicago newspapers declined to publish this editorial.

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Mafia Cop Trial Defense Was 'Excellent,' Judge Says

Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

The Mafia Cops corruption case swerved yet again into the unforeseen — and the astonishing — as a federal judge angrily exonerated one defense lawyer of professional neglect even as he briefly threatened to arrest another for his absence from court.

The first decision by the judge, Jack B. Weinstein, effectively put to rest charges that the first lawyer, Bruce Cutler, had bungled the defense of his former client, Louis Eppolito, a retired New York detective. In April, only days after a jury found him guilty of at least eight murders for the mob, Mr. Eppolito accused Mr. Cutler of botching the job and subpoenaed him to appear in court in his own defense.

Mr. Cutler did just that, taking questions from Joseph Bondy, his old client's new lawyer, on everything from his courtroom style (the words "eviscerate" and "pulverize" came up) to his decision not to let his former client testify. If Mr. Eppolito had testified, the prosecution would have buried him in evidence, Mr. Cutler said. He added that he would have gone so far as to tackle Mr. Eppolito — no mean feat for a man with a 54-inch chest — rather than to let him take the stand.

Nonetheless, after two hours of intense interrogation, Judge Weinstein cut the hearing short, ruling that Mr. Cutler had not only put on a "professional" defense but that Mr. Eppolito's "immorality and lack of credibility" had led him "to ignore his testimony on any point." The immediate result of this was that Mr. Cutler — surprised but apparently much relieved — got to go home, more or less unscathed, on what could have been a brutal day in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Momentum for the hearing had been rising since the day that Mr. Eppolito told the press that Mr. Cutler had "abandoned" him and filed a motion for a new trial. Beyond a glance into Mr. Cutler's methods ("After the government's case is eviscerated," he explained, "I sum up and then I win"), the hearing was rather tame. Judge Weinstein was unimpressed enough by Mr. Bondy's arguments that he said he saw no need for the government to cross-examine Mr. Cutler — in essence saying that its point (that Mr. Cutler was, in fact, a fine lawyer) had already been made.

Mr. Eppolito, along with his co-defendant, Stephen Caracappa, were trying to prove that they deserved new trials based on the issue of inadequate representation, among others. While Judge Weinstein rejected Mr. Eppolito's motion for a new trial based on the representation grounds, he has not ruled on the former detective's other motions. It was also unclear how today's ruling would affect Mr. Caracappa's case against his defense lawyer, Eddie Hayes.

On Friday, Mr. Eppolito testified for the first time since his case originally went to court. He assaulted Mr. Cutler's reputation, saying that although he had paid the lawyer a $250,000 retainer, Mr. Cutler had never fully explained to him the charges in the case and had refused to work through lunch.

In fact, he said, Mr. Cutler not only refused four times to let him take the stand, he refused to speak with him at all. "Tell him he's annoying me," Mr. Eppolito quoted Mr. Cutler as having told a colleague one day. This was within earshot of the client, who said he had answered, "I'm not deaf."

Mr. Eppolito's testimony made it evident why Mr. Cutler had kept him off the witness stand during the trial. Mr. Eppolito revealed himself to be a man with a tangential relation to reality — who, in one breath, said he wanted to attack a man with a hatchet and in the next proclaimed, "I'm not a violent guy."

In a particularly odd moment, Mr. Eppolito swore — in open court and on penalty of perjury — that he would have no trouble lying, none at all, if he thought it would help his case.

It was perfectly in keeping with the hearing that the chief investigator for the case came around to his adversary's point of view.

"I hate to agree with Cutler," the investigator said, referring to Mr. Eppolito, , "but this guy should be nowhere near the stand."

Thanks to Alan Feuer

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Mafia Cop Testifies It's True He's a Liar

Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Burton Kaplan

Mafia cop Louis Eppolito took the witness stand yesterday to get his conviction tossed - and seemed to prove that his lawyers made the right decision by not allowing him to testify during his racketeering trial. Finally getting the chance to speak in his own defense, Eppolito admitted he's a liar, a phony and maybe even a racist.

"You'll tell a lie if it will help you?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch asked.

"Yes, if it will help me get a movie done," replied Eppolito, who launched a fledgling career as an actor and screenwriter after his retirement from the NYPD in 1989.

Eppolito, 57, and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64, were convicted in April of participating in eight gangland murders while on the mob payroll. The former cops are arguing that their trial attorneys - Bruce Cutler, who was paid $250,000 by Eppolito, and Edward Hayes, who pocketed $200,000 from Caracappa - failed to properly defend them.

Eppolito's current defense lawyer, Joseph Bondy, objected yesterday when the prosecutor asked Eppolito about his frequent use of the N-word and his admission that he always washes his hand after shaking a black man's hand. But Federal Judge Jack Weinstein ruled the questions were appropriate. "We're trying to determine if it was desirable to keep this witness off the stand; this is what the jury would have heard," Weinstein pointed out.

Eppolito acknowledged using the N-word and slurs for Asians and Hispanics. But he said he only used them as slang terms - "not to hurt their feelings."

He also insisted he's not violent. But he confirmed an anecdote in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop," in which he described shoving a shotgun into a man's mouth and feeling "this wonderful, heady urge to pull the trigger" as the man soiled his pants.

Eppolito was later asked how he knew mob associate and garment dealer Burton Kaplan, who testified that he had been the go-between for Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso and the mob cops.

"I bought clothes from him. He's the one guy who would switch the [36-inch] pants with a bigger [54-inch] jacket," the rotund convict explained.

Thanks to John Marzulli

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