God and the Godfather

Call it the case of God and the Godfather.

A brand new seminary is going up near the campus of Loyola University. But student Stan Golovchuk, who's also an editor on the Loyola Phoenix, found something on the construction site that now has church officials scrambling.

Golovchuk noticed a dumpster labeled "D & P Construction" across the street from the student newspaper's offices, and started investigating. "I found they have business all over the city, throughout the suburbs. And I also found out not a lot of people wanted to talk about them," Golovchuk said.

Funny, cause that's the same reaction FOX Chicago News got two years ago when we began poking around D & P's business with suburban governments, including some contracts worth millions of dollars. We even got shouted at and chased away from D & P's headquarters.

On paper, D & P is owned by a woman named Josephine DiFronzo, but an FBI report says the company is actually controlled by Josephine's husband Peter DiFronzo and his brother John "No-Nose" DiFronzo, the reputed head of the Chicago Outfit. Both brothers are convicted felons.

Two summers ago, we watched John DiFronzo walk in and out of D & P's Melrose Park construction yard on an almost daily basis. At the time, he told us he "don't do nothing" for D & P.

"I just thought it was unusual that this company that has a questionable past and reputation is doing business with the Archdiocese of Chicago. In a way it's almost as if the ultimate good is working with the ultimate evil," Golovchuk said. But things got even more bizarre when Golovchuk began to ask questions about how D & P got hired. The Archdiocese refused to talk to him, and instead issued this terse statement: "We do not arrange interviews for student newspaper reporters. We only provide student reporters with direction on how to access public information on the Archdiocesan website."

"I think it's disrespectful and rude, and I was offended and surprised. Not only because I go to a Catholic university, and the Archdiocese is connected to the school. But just because I'm a student I think it's unusual they wouldn't want to talk to me," he said.

The Archdiocese was more willing to talk to FOX Chicago News. In a statement, a spokesman said "a very large number of ongoing construction projects are conducted in the archdiocese every year. Sub-contractors, especially at this level, are hired by the general contractor without consultation with the Archdiocese."

After Golovchuk began digging, the D & P dumpsters disappeared. Henry Brothers Construction, the chief contractor for the new seminary, said the Archdiocese asked them to find another company.

Thanks to Dane Placko

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Mob Wives "The Bitch is Back" Episoide

The showdown continues at Carla Facciolo's birthday party as Renee Graziano and Karen Gravano both refuse to back down. When Drita D'avanzo decides to take matters into her own hands, all hell breaks loose. Old friendships are tested and new alliances are formed. While Karen rebuilds her old relationships on Staten Island, Renee clashes with her ex-husband and Drita receives shocking news from prison.

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Chicago Bus Tour Of Past Mob Boss Homes

With a half-dozen people aboard a tour bus looking on, Greg Gullo chipped grounders to his son with a fungo bat in his River Forest front yard.

The bus wasn't at his house so passengers could admire Gullo's swing last weekend, but there was a time when seeing the owner of the home in the 1400 block of Monroe Street with a baseball bat in his hands would have gotten a lot of attention. As tour guide John Binder explained, the four-bedroom house was an early purchase of up-and-coming mobster Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo — nicknamed by Al Capone for his skill at pummeling people with blunt objects.

"I think the first time the tour came by, my kids were actually out in the yard playing cops-and-robbers with squirt guns," Gullo recalled. "Everyone on the bus kind of stood up and watched."

The Gullos have gotten used to the occasional tours led by Binder, their neighbor, a mob history buff and a University of Illinois at Chicago professor. He began offering tours devoted to Oak Park and River Forest's upper-class underbelly in 2005.

To be sure, the area boasts more admirable figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway, but it has a rich mob history as well. The 10-mile circuit of Binder's tour passes more than a dozen homes that once belonged to top mob figures, including the Oak Park bungalow where Sam "Mooney" Giancana was gunned down in 1975.

"For the most part, the hoods appear to have wanted the same things as other folks in the suburbs: someplace quiet, away from work, with good schools for their kids," said Binder, author of the book "The Chicago Outfit."

A prime suspect in the killing, Dominic "Butch" Blasi, lived just three miles away from the Giancana house. The .22-caliber pistol used in the murder was found in a forest preserve between the two houses.

The Giancana hit was a rare instance of mob violence in the suburbs, Binder said. Like their neighbors in legitimate businesses, mob bosses commuted into the city to do most of their business. In fact, after Accardo's house was burglarized in 1978, mob hit men reportedly found, tortured and killed all six suspected burglars — a revenge spree that terrified hoods across the city.

Thanks to Andy Grimm

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