Peeking Inside Chicago's Modern Day Mob

The trial of a reputed mob boss known for his wide girth and alleged penchant for violence will offer a peek into the inner workings of Chicago-area organized crime, laid low by prosecutions that sent older mobsters to prison for life.

Michael “The Large Guy” Sarno, whose racketeering trial starts Wednesday in Chicago, is considered — at the relatively young age of 52 — a different breed of mobster, someone whose talents as an enforcer normally would not have translated into a top mob job.

“I would say he is the perfect example of the new face of the mob,” said Art Bilek, a one-time mob investigator at the Cook County State’s attorney’s office. “He has street smarts — he’s not a dope. What he simply doesn’t have is the intelligence some of the earlier guys had.”

That goes to show how far the mob has fallen, he and other law enforcement experts said.

The 2007 Family Secrets trial, the biggest such trial in Chicago in decades, was a body blow to the Chicago-area mob, also known as the Chicago Outfit. It ended in life sentences for reputed bosses James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo.

With aging kingpins behind bars and others dying, a weakened Outfit has scaled back a network that in its heyday, around 1970, encompassed operations ranging from prostitution and drugs to multimillion-dollar scams involving corrupt unions or Las Vegas casinos. But racketeering laws designed to target organized crime, aggressive federal prosecutors and competition from big-city street gangs or biker syndicates have severely cut into mob-associated operations. Not surprisingly, mobster numbers are down.

There are now fewer than 100 people formally initiated into the Chicago-area mob compared with more than 200 ‘made men’ around 1970, estimated Scott Burnstein, co-author of a book on the Family Secrets trial.

In Chicago, the mob now focuses more heavily on running illegal video gaming, with approximately 25,000 machines in bars and restaurants, generating millions of dollars in revenue, according to some estimates.

It’s leaders allegedly include Sarno, who weighed as much as 300 pounds and was known for using his bulk to collect mob gambling debts as an enforcer. Bilek says he suspects Sarno may have taken over operations in the city’s western suburbs from one of the imprisoned bosses.

Sarno’s defense attorney, Michael Gillespie, said allegations his client is linked to the mob are “fanciful.”

“The associations he has are with his family — his mom and dad,” Gillespie said Tuesday.

Whatever the case, it is impossible to know just where Sarno would fit in. That’s partly because the mob’s old pyramid structure is coming undone and true leaders are eager to maintain a low profile, even endeavoring to keep violence at a minimum, Bilek said.

Burnstein said there are reasons to question what would be the extent of Sarno’s power. For one, mob bosses want to see crime organizations they built up over decades continue after their deaths, so it’s likely more savvy mobsters also are being promoted. “I don’t think it’s quite fair to say Sarno’s the new face of the mob, therefore the mob is dead because he’s an idiot,” Burnstein said. “If he is the new power, I agree it wouldn’t bode well. But I’m sure there are other competent mobsters who aren’t just thugs.”

Sarno is accused of ordering co-defendants Mark Polchan and Sam Volpendesto to set off a bomb that wrecked the offices of a gaming company in Berwyn, C&S Coin Amusements. The aim, say prosecutors, was to send a message: Stop horning in on a profitable mob business.

The indictment alleges the enterprise Sarno was a part of also was responsible for burglaries and jewel thefts. The armed robbery of the Marry Me Jewelry Store in LaGrange Park netted nearly $650,000-worth of jewelry and other valuables, according to the indictment.

Sarno, Volpendesto and Polchan all have pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other related charges.

Polchan’s attorney, Damon Cheronis, would only say Tuesday that trial observers will see “a different picture painted than the one painted by the government.” Volpendesto’s lawyer, Michael Mann, declined to comment.

Thanks to LCN

Tweet

The Chicago Mob's Underground Tunnel System

It was The Roaring Twenties. Prohibition was the law of the land. But in Chicago, that didn't seem to matter.

The city was wide open and just plain wild, nowhere more so than in the notorious levee district, now Chicago's South Loop. The only surviving building from that vice-filled era now houses Blue Star Auto Parts. Back then, it was the Cullerton Hotel.

"This was a very respectable hotel early on. But by 1900, it had taken on a very unsavory character. In the basement, there were illegal gambling games going on. Upstairs, it has become a brothel. And it continued as a brothel through the 1920s," said Rich Lindberg, author and historian.

It was a very popular brothel, said Lindberg, an authority on this unseemly side of Chicago history. "It was a place where men came to consort with prostitutes, to wager. There was likely a dope den at one time," said Lindberg. "In the heyday of the 1910s, 1920s, Michigan Ave., State St. [there] were a lot of hotels that catered to high-class vice, high-class bordellos."

It was a place to visit, but you didn't want to get caught there. So the mobsters had a system.

"Usually a clerk on the first floor would ring a bell, and the patrons would make a fast escape," Lindberg said.

Deep below the hotel was a series of secret tunnels, an elaborate 25-mile system. Today, you can still see bricked-up traces of one of the numerous gangster getaways. "To gain protection from raids, they would come down here and they would escape," said Lindberg.

Nowhere was Chicago's underworld underground more evident than at the legendary Green Mill Lounge on the North Side. "Well, it was a real fancy joint years ago," said Dave Jemilo, Green Mill owner. And it was also the favorite hangout of Chicago's most infamous mobster.

"This booth here is where Al Capone used to sit. It was his favorite booth because he could see the front door and the side door without his back being to either one. So that's why he would always sit here," said Jemilo.

He could also see a trap door behind the bar. It led to the epicenter of a thriving bootleg and smuggling operation. There were miles of underground tunnels, running to the nearby Aragon Ballroom as well as the Uptown and Riviera theaters. It was a massive complex of both tunnels and private rooms, top-secret rooms where the parties were said to be out of control.

"Up here you get the liquor in a coffee cup or something. Down there, you know, anything goes! These guys wanna have stuff that you can't even do now. And you have parties down there and you got raided or something, you don't come up the trap door to get out, you go through the tunnels, and you could be on the street walking with your girl on your arm, and the coppers says 'Hey were you in the Green Mill?' 'No I was at the Riviera Theater seeing a movie with my girl. Leave us alone,'" said Jemilo.

Thanks to Hosea Sanders

Tweet

Genovese Crime Family Control of New York's Construction Projects Detailed in Court

An Irish contractor delivered a detailed account of the Italian mafia's involvement in New York's construction industry in a Manhattan courtroom last month.

James Murray, the immigrant builder, told the court how he climbed the ranks to success with help from the mob before crashing and losing everything. Murray addressed the court in a low voice as federal prosecutor Lisa Zornberg questioned him according to the Village Voice.

Murray had immigrated from Ireland in the prime of his youth twenty years ago.

"I was looking for work. I had an argument with my father, and I came to the States."
He dropped out of school at 13 the reason being, he told the court he had a difficulty reading. When he got to New York he started work as a carpenter before he started up his own business renovating homes. A fellow Irish man then helped him develop his modest business into a bigger operation.

To get the bigger jobs he signed up with the New York City District Council of Carpenters, pledging to build his projects with the union labor: "You can't work unless you're union," he reminded the court.

Things were going well for Murray, who called his company “On Par Contracting” and soon had 700 workers on the pay roll courtesy of the union and some shady background figures. Their extensive list of projects included the Times Square Tower, high-rises, hospitals and university projects. We were everywhere," he said. "We were all over the city, all over the tri-state area." And money was rolling in for the Irish firm.

By ignoring union agreements he had signed he increased profits by employing fellow Irish men illegally, who were just off the boat. He payed these young men $25 to $40 an hour as opposed to the $75 demanded by union workers. "We didn't pay the benefits," he said. "We paid the guys in cash."

This gave the company the upper hand when pricing jobs. “You could be the low bidder," he said. Construction expenses, he said, run roughly "one-third materials, two-thirds labor." It was "a big cost savings."

Murray also bribed every union official he could, shop stewards for leaving workers off the books, business agents were paid not to come snooping and the top union leaders were paid to keep everyone in line. More than $100,000 was given to District Council chief Michael Forde."He would help me get the shop stewards," explained Murray. The president of the Local 608 union, John Greaney got cash and tickets to the Super Bowl.

All the corruption and bribery took place under the eyes of the Genovese crime family. Which has had a significant stronghold over the city's building trade for decades.

One of the mob's biggest liaison to the construction business Joseph Rudy Olivieri proved to be Murray's right hand man. Olivieri worked as the head of the Association of Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York. The court heard that the pair looked after each other.

Murray loaned Olivieri hundreds of thousands of dollars but in return he ran interference when a court-appointed investigator of the union Walter Mack started raising questions about Murray's success.

In 2005 the same court official subpoenaed Murry to testify. When Mack ordered for the company to be shut down, Murray called Olivieri immediately:"I called Joe Olivieri right away," said Murray. "He said, 'Give me a couple minutes."

He cobbled together a rescue plan to appease Mack and the company stayed in business. When Murray was asked if he continues to cheat he simply replied “Yes”

The sordid relationships between Murray, the union and the Italian mafia handlers were a long kept secret. But Walter Mack's persistence and the follow up investigation by prosecutor Zornberg nailed Murray.

Murray's first indictment came in 2006 on fraud and money-laundering charges. He proceeded to flee to Ireland. Two years later after he was persuaded to return to the U.S. after the feds seized his extensive farm and other properties. He plead guilty and agreed to provide the evidence that led to the conviction of Olivieri, Forde, Greaney and seven others.

Olivieri was found guilty of perjury. He is currently out on a $500,000 bond and is facing up to five years in prison plus future prosecution for conspiracy and fraud.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk explained the necessity of the case. "Olivieri attempted, but failed, to mask his association with the Genovese Organized Crime Family and a dishonorable union contractor," she said. "The guilty verdict represents a dual victory: weeding out corruption in the New York City Carpenters Union and removing a crooked trustee of the benefit funds."

Thanks to Molly Muldoon

Tweet