Lombardo Just Pretends He's A Gangster

In the world of Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo presented at the Family Secrets trial Wednesday, he isn't a Chicago Outfit captain.

He's a mob gofer.

When he threatens a man with tough mob talk, he isn't a gangster. He is just acting like one.

When he says in a secretly recorded conversation about a massage parlor, "we'll flatten the joint," the word "we" doesn't really mean "we."

Lombardo gave those explanations Wednesday as he defended himself from the witness stand and took a verbal beating as a federal prosecutor grilled him over his account of his life, from his finances to his criminal career to the murder he is accused of committing in 1974.

Lombardo and members of his crew allegedly were trying to handcuff Bensenville businessman Daniel Seifert and take him away when Seifert got free and ran off.

"Then you had your crew chase him down and shoot him down, isn't that true, sir?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Mars, his voice rising. "That's not true, sir," Lombardo said.

The 78-year-old reputed top mobster denied knowing that Seifert was going to be a witness against him in a federal criminal trial involving allegations Lombardo and others embezzled from a Teamsters pension fund.

Mars suggested that if Seifert had testified, and Lombardo and a co-defendant, businessman Allen Dorfman, were convicted, it would have meant the end of "the golden goose" of access to those funds.

Dorfman provided profitable real estate deals for Lombardo, Lombardo acknowledged, including one in which his family invested $43,000 that turned into more than $2 million. Mars suggested a mob flunky wouldn't be handed such a sweetheart deal.

To show Lombardo collected street tax and extorted people, Mars referred to two secretly recorded conversations, both from 1979.

In one, Lombardo appears to be threatening a St. Louis lawyer with death unless he pays what he owes the mob.

Lombardo contended he was only acting like a mobster to get the attorney to pay up.

"That was a good role for you, wasn't it Mr. Lombardo?" Mars asked.

"Yeah, like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson . . ." Lombardo said.

"And Joe Lombardo," Mars cut in.

"Member of the Outfit," Mars added.

"No," Lombardo said.

"Capo of the Grand Avenue crew," Mars said.

"No," Lombardo said.

In another conversation, Lombardo and an alleged crew member, Louis "The Mooch" Eboli, allegedly discuss taking retribution against a massage parlor that's not paying a street tax. Lombardo acknowledged using the word "we" in the conversation but said he misspoke and didn't mean he was involved in the matter, only Eboli.

"Just like the president said, he doesn't always choose the right words," Lombardo explained.

"Well, the president didn't have a crew, did he?" Mars replied.

At times, Lombardo needled the prosecutor.

"No, no, can't you read?" Lombardo said, when questioned about one transcript.

And later, Lombardo added: "Sir, sir, sir. Let's read it together."

"Sir," Lombardo asked the prosecutor, "are you having trouble understanding me?"

"At times, I am, Mr. Lombardo, I must admit," Mars said.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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End of the Clown's Days?

The Joey "The Clown" Lombardo who testified Tuesday in his own defense was the boss of nothing, in his own mind.

Street boss, what street boss? Clown, what clown?

He was just an old man with a gray face in a gray suit with a cane, pushing 80, working his jaw, his tongue fishing some flecks of lunch out of his gums as he sat in the witness box, taking the one chance left to him in this historic Family Secrets trial of the Chicago Outfit in federal court:

To convince the jury he wasn't the Joey Lombardo of legend, but instead a humble shoeshine boy from the old neighborhood who hustled a bit for extra cash.

Lombardo said he grew up on the West Side, that his father worked at the Tribune in some unspecified capacity, and that Joe later took fencing lessons in high school, played handball, even rollerbladed in later years, ending up with a small interest in a floating craps game while running minor errands for bail bondsman and Outfit wiretapper Irwin Weiner.

Lombardo didn't kill anyone, he insisted. He wasn't the boss of anything. He wasn't a made member of the Outfit, which forms the base of the triangle that runs the town. Politicians, Lombardo said, were the real hoodlums.

"There's 50 bosses in Chicago," Lombardo said, "The 50 bosses are the 50 aldermen; without them you can't get anything done. If you want zoning, you see the alderman. If you want to run a card game, you go see the alderman. If you want a dice game, go see the alderman."

In Lombardo's mind, what does that make the boss of all the aldermen, that guy I used to call Mayor Fredo, who sits on the 5th Floor of City Hall? I couldn't ask Lombardo, since he's only talking from the witness stand.

The last time I tried speaking to Lombardo was years ago, at Bella Notte, a nice Italian restaurant on Grand Avenue, just after former Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt was indicted for running an Outfit-sanctioned jewelry-heist ring. I wanted to ask Lombardo about Hanhardt, another friend of the Outfit-connected Weiner. But before I could saunter over to Lombardo's table, he snapped his fingers, the busboys shoveled his food into containers and he walked out. The manager trotted over and said I was sadly mistaken if I thought he catered to clowns.

"Clown? Clown? What are you talking about, clown? What clown?" the manager said.

Well, wasn't that the Clown? "No, that was Mr. Irwin Goldman," the manager said, forgetting to explain why Mr. Goldman was wearing a St. Dismas medallion -- the Good Thief crucified next to Christ -- around his neck.

That was sure amusing, but Lombardo is weirdly amusing, and when he testified in court on Tuesday he got a laugh when he talked about shining shoes as a boy. Gamblers would tip him a dollar. The cops only gave him a nickel. "They were very cheap people," said Lombardo, and there was a loud chuckle in the courtroom, prompting U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel to admonish other lawyers laughing at Lombardo's wisecracks.

Rick Halprin, the seasoned criminal lawyer whose job it is to try and keep Lombardo from dying in prison, took a gamble in putting Lombardo on the stand. Halprin had no real choice, with Lombardo's fingerprint on the title application from a car used in the killing of Danny Seifert, a Lombardo partner-turned-federal witness in 1974. That fingerprint has an itch the Outfit can't scratch. It waits, still, quiet, filed, hanging over Lombardo's head.

In 1974, Seifert was killed in front of his family. Seifert was the key witness in the federal case against Lombardo. The case against him exploded the way Seifert exploded, when the shotguns came out. Halprin had to gamble the jury would see a cane in the fingers of the grandpa on the stand, not a shotgun.

The other accused Outfit bosses and soldiers on trial must be thinking that now they've got to follow him up there, too, and swear another oath, this one before God. They watched Lombardo in cold blood. There was Paul "The Indian" Schiro, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle, accused of warning the Outfit when the FBI began investigating the 18 formerly unsolved mob killings that are part of this landmark case.

Their eyes black, their heads framed against black leather courtroom chairs, they leaned back and watched the shoeshine boy. Their chins rested on fists, they took deep breaths, their eyes sponging up the light of the world.

Halprin: "On Sept. 27, 1974, did you kill Danny Seifert?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

Halprin: "Have you ever been a capo or a made member of the Chicago Outfit?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

The old man pushed that second "positively, no" too quickly past his choppers, the delivery was rushed, so it fell in front of the jury with a thunk, like a car trunk slamming shut in a lonely parking lot.

There wasn't anything amusing about it.

It wasn't funny, like a clown.

It was desperate, an old man holding his cane, seeing the end of days.

Thanks to John Kass

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Lombardo Claims Alibi for Murder

Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo

Reputed mob boss Joey “The Clown" Lombardo told a packed courtroom Wednesday that he had an alibi for the morning a federal witness was executed by ski-masked gunmen: He was in a Chicago police station miles away complaining that someone had stolen his wallet.

Curiosity seekers jammed U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel's court for a second day, eager to see the now-frail, gravel-voiced 78-year-old who has been tied for years to the top echelons of the mob. Also Wednesday, a juror was dismissed for personal reasons.

Delivered to the witness stand in a wheel chair by a federal marshal, Lombardo gripped his cane as he testified, and at times seemed slightly absent minded as he was questioned by chief defense attorney Rick Halprin.

As CBS 2’s John “Bulldog” Drummond reports, most significant charges against Lombardo stem from the September 1974 of Daniel Seifert, a government witness. Seifert was gunned down outside of his Bensenville factory.

Seifert's widow, Emma, testified earlier in the trial that she believes Lombardo was one of the gunmen.

Lombardo, however, testified that he got up early on that September morning and went out to buy an electric garage door opener. He said the store was closed and he stopped at a pancake house for some breakfast. Returning to his car, he found that his glove compartment had been opened and his wallet taken from it, Lombardo testified.

Lombardo said he returned to the restaurant and told his story to two police officers who were having breakfast there. He said they took him to the Shakespeare Avenue stationhouse on Chicago's North Side, where he filled out a complaint about his stolen wallet.

Emerging from the station afterward, he was surprised, he said. "Then I got the news about Danny Seifert," he testified.

Immediately on taking the stand Tuesday, Lombardo denied that he had anything to do with the Seifert murder.

Sources say the district commander at Shakespeare was later convicted of masterminding a stolen jewelry ring.

On Tuesday Lombardo denied killing Seifert and Wednesday his lawyer asked Lombardo, “What was your relationship with Daniel Seifert?” Lombardo replied, “Very friendly.”

Lombardo explained to the court why he was in the famous “last supper” picture where a number of mob heavyweights had gathered in 1976 to pay tribute to a dying colleague. Lombardo said he had just happened to stop at the restaurant for ice cream when, by chance, he joined the group.

The topic of his 1986 conviction was skimming money from Las Vegas casinos. When Halprin asked Lombardo if he’d ever received any skim money he answered, ”I have to tell the truth. I’m under oath. Not a red penny.”

“The Clown” became a fugitive in April 2005 when he was indicted in the Family Secrets case, but he testified that when he was on the lam for 9 months, he never left Illinois.

Halprin asked him if he believed he committed a federal crime, to which Lombardo replied “Absolutely not.”

Lombardo has admitted that he was a "hustler" who ran a floating crap game and associated with numerous members of the Chicago Outfit, as the city's organized crime family calls itself. But he denies that he has ever been a full-fledged mobster.

Lombardo is one of five alleged mob members on trial, charged with a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders. Prosecutors say he is responsible for the shooting of Seifert, who was a witness against him in a federal investigation.

After his 1992 release from prison, Lombardo took out an ad in the Chicago Tribune, denying that he had ever taken part in the secret ceremonies by which mob members are initiated as "made guys." The ad invited anyone hearing of criminal activity on his part to call the FBI. But Lombardo did acknowledge on the witness stand Wednesday that he once posed as a mobster to pressure a St. Louis lawyer to pay old debts he owed to Allen Dorfman, the Chicago insurance man who ran the mammoth Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

The fund was riddled with corruption in the era when it was operated by Dorfman, who himself was gunned down in gangland fashion shortly after he and Lombardo were convicted in the 1986 bribery conspiracy case.

Thanks to John Drummond

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