Friends of ours: Chris Petti, Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, Frank "The Bomp" Bompensiero, Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, Bonanno Crime Family
San Diego mob figure Chris Petti, whose attempts to earn money for the Chicago mob ultimately led to convictions of several underworld bosses as well as financier Richard Silberman, has died, the FBI confirmed yesterday. A close associate of slain Las Vegas rackets boss Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, Petti had lived in Chula Vista and reportedly had been in poor health.
Born Christopher George Poulos in Cicero, Ill., Petti died on New Year's Eve, according to an obituary notice published Friday. He was 78. Petti was long regarded as a low-level hood - a law enforcement official once suggested his lack of respect made him the Rodney Dangerfield of the mob - but his expletive-laced phone conversations, picked up in FBI recordings, led to major federal convictions here.
According to the FBI, Petti sought to fill the void created by the 1986 murder of Spilotro, who was beaten to death, along with younger brother, Michael, and buried in an Indiana cornfield. Petti was in frequent contact with Spilotro's bosses in Chicago and was directed to collect money still on Spilotro's books and to scout out earning opportunities.
According to court records, his extortions included threats to chop off one man's legs; in another, he told a victim that he owed the mob $87,000 and needed to come under Petti's wing. "When you eat alone, sometimes you choke," Petti threateningly told the man, according to court records.
One potentially major venture caught his bosses' attention: a scheme to infiltrate a casino planned in North County by the Rincon tribe.
During that late 1980s investigation, Silberman unexpectedly showed up in FBI surveillance, plotting with Petti and an undercover FBI agent to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars. Silberman had been a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. and was married to then-county Supervisor Susan Golding. Silberman was convicted in 1990 and sent to prison. He and Golding divorced, and she went on to serve two terms as San Diego mayor.
With the Silberman trial out of the way, federal prosecutors returned to the Rincon case. Top leaders of the Chicago mob were indicted in 1992; two were convicted the next year and sentenced to three years in prison. Petti pleaded guilty that year in a deal calling for 9½ years in prison but no requirement to testify against his bosses. When U.S. District Judge William B. Enright asked if Petti was indeed guilty, he at first replied: "I guess so." Petti gave a firmer answer when pressed by the judge. He also served a concurrent term in prison for a Las Vegas federal drug offense.
Petti's lawyer in the San Diego case was famed criminal-defense attorney Oscar Goodman, known for his defense of mobsters such as Spilotro. Today, he is mayor of Las Vegas. The prosecutor was Carol Lam, now U.S. attorney for San Diego and Imperial counties.
Retired FBI agent Charlie Walker, who had tracked Petti for years, said the Rincon case revealed Petti's ambitions. "A lot of law enforcement thought he was a two-bit punk, that he didn't have any connections, but he did," Walker said yesterday. Walker said he gained "a bit of grudging respect" for Petti for his refusal to turn informant. "You hate to say you respect anyone (in the mob)," said Walker, "but the one thing about Chris . . . when we arrested him, he had plenty of opportunities to cooperate, if he wanted to, but he steadfastly refused. "He went to his grave with a lot of secrets. I would have loved to have talked to him," said Walker, now assistant federal security director for the San Diego branch of the Transportation Security Administration. No doubt it would have been an interesting story.
Petti was listed in Nevada's "black book" of people - many of them mob figures - banned from Silver State casinos. In a confidential, 1975 intelligence report, the California Department of Justice listed Petti as a "close associate" of San Diego mob boss Frank "The Bomp" Bompensiero, who would be gunned down, gangland-style, in 1977 while walking to his home in Pacific Beach from a nearby pay phone. It was later learned that Bompensiero had been an FBI informant.
Infamous mob turncoat Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno claimed during San Diego federal court testimony in 1982 that Petti and Spilotro had plotted to kill him. Fratianno, who collaborated on an autobiography titled, "The Last Mafioso," went on to earn millions of dollars testifying against Mafia figures. He died in 1993.
Petti co-founded P&T Construction in the 1970s; at one time the company was believed to be involved in aluminum-siding schemes involving Bonanno crime-family figures. He had multiple arrests - for theft, extortion, gambling and other crimes - but few convictions. Among them: a 1970s conviction for a baseball-bat assault in La Jolla.
Thanks to Philip J. LaVelle
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
New Arrest Details for Joey the Clown
Friends of ours: Joseph Lombardo
Authorities described Joseph Lombaro's arrest as tense as FBI and other agencies SWAT teams prepared for a possible violent confrontation as Lombardo is known to possess a violent nature. Agents stated at the news conference that an "anonymous tip" lead them to the neighborhood where Lombardo was arrested. Agents identified him by the report on the clothing he was wearing, a white suit with green polka dots, a squirting flower, a spinaround green bow tie and fluorescent green fright wig. After agents frisked him and found 250 silk handkerchief's, a folding floral bouquet and a .38 caliber "Honk-Honk" horn, he slyly told the arresting agent; "Pull my finger."
Authorities described Joseph Lombaro's arrest as tense as FBI and other agencies SWAT teams prepared for a possible violent confrontation as Lombardo is known to possess a violent nature. Agents stated at the news conference that an "anonymous tip" lead them to the neighborhood where Lombardo was arrested. Agents identified him by the report on the clothing he was wearing, a white suit with green polka dots, a squirting flower, a spinaround green bow tie and fluorescent green fright wig. After agents frisked him and found 250 silk handkerchief's, a folding floral bouquet and a .38 caliber "Honk-Honk" horn, he slyly told the arresting agent; "Pull my finger."
Mobster embarassed after Justice Department releases secret tapes
Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Victor Riccitelli, John Gotti, Anthony "the Genius" Megale
An elderly Mafioso who was caught on tape discussing the Gambino crime family hierarchy asked a federal judge to dismiss his racketeering case this week, saying prosecutors unfairly embarrassed him by making his incriminating conversations public. Victor Riccitelli, 72, broke the mob's honor code in October, admitting his Mafia membership and pleading guilty to racketeering rather than have the FBI's tapes played in court.
Prosecutors surprised Riccitelli in December, however, when they included details of his conversations in a memo placed in the public court file. The Associated Press reported on the conversations, which included descriptions of the Mafia induction ceremony and the mob's leadership structure.
"The government's conduct in this regard was for the sole purpose of embarrassing the defendant and obtaining an outlet for the public disclosure of otherwise nonpublic materials," defense attorney Jonathan J. Einhorn wrote this week in a motion to dismiss the case. Einhorn said the disclosure amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. Justice Department spokesman Tom Carson said prosecutors would respond to Riccitelli's motion before he is sentenced Jan. 20.
In their December memo, prosecutors said they released the conversations to prove that Riccitelli had lied when he said his conversations about the Mafia were just things he had read in a book. "That was a weak excuse as a way to put on a show," Einhorn said Friday. "It was just a back-door opportunity for the government to show all the information it had."
Riccitelli is one of more than a dozen men arrested in a landmark Connecticut organized crime case in 2004. Prosecutors said the Gambino family, the crime syndicate once run by John Gotti, ran gambling and extortion rackets throughout Fairfield County.
Riccitelli's conversations pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the family. He talked openly with a Stamford strip club owner, not knowing the man was working for the FBI. In those conversations, Riccitelli identified Stamford sanitation worker Anthony "The Genius" Megale as the No. 2 man in the organization. Megale also pleaded guilty in the case and is awaiting sentencing.
Thanks to Matt Apuzzo
An elderly Mafioso who was caught on tape discussing the Gambino crime family hierarchy asked a federal judge to dismiss his racketeering case this week, saying prosecutors unfairly embarrassed him by making his incriminating conversations public. Victor Riccitelli, 72, broke the mob's honor code in October, admitting his Mafia membership and pleading guilty to racketeering rather than have the FBI's tapes played in court.
Prosecutors surprised Riccitelli in December, however, when they included details of his conversations in a memo placed in the public court file. The Associated Press reported on the conversations, which included descriptions of the Mafia induction ceremony and the mob's leadership structure.
"The government's conduct in this regard was for the sole purpose of embarrassing the defendant and obtaining an outlet for the public disclosure of otherwise nonpublic materials," defense attorney Jonathan J. Einhorn wrote this week in a motion to dismiss the case. Einhorn said the disclosure amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. Justice Department spokesman Tom Carson said prosecutors would respond to Riccitelli's motion before he is sentenced Jan. 20.
In their December memo, prosecutors said they released the conversations to prove that Riccitelli had lied when he said his conversations about the Mafia were just things he had read in a book. "That was a weak excuse as a way to put on a show," Einhorn said Friday. "It was just a back-door opportunity for the government to show all the information it had."
Riccitelli is one of more than a dozen men arrested in a landmark Connecticut organized crime case in 2004. Prosecutors said the Gambino family, the crime syndicate once run by John Gotti, ran gambling and extortion rackets throughout Fairfield County.
Riccitelli's conversations pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the family. He talked openly with a Stamford strip club owner, not knowing the man was working for the FBI. In those conversations, Riccitelli identified Stamford sanitation worker Anthony "The Genius" Megale as the No. 2 man in the organization. Megale also pleaded guilty in the case and is awaiting sentencing.
Thanks to Matt Apuzzo
FBI captures Lombardo
Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs, Paul Schiro
Fugitive mobster discovered in Elmwood Park
After an international manhunt, FBI agents captured reputed mob boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo Friday night in Elmwood Park, not far from where he disappeared nine months ago, officials said. Lombardo had changed his appearance, growing a beard, after becoming a fugitive in April, when federal prosecutors charged him and more than a dozen other defendants in 18 Outfit-related murders dating to 1970.
FBI spokesman Ross Rice said Lombardo was arrested without incident. Rice said Lombardo was arrested about 8:30 p.m. outside a home on 74th Avenue. A law enforcement source said Lombardo cooperated with arresting officers. "He was very compliant and just put his hands up," the source said. Authorities said they were planning to release a more complete account of Lombardo's apprehension at a news conference Saturday.
Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, said the U.S. attorney's office notified him of the arrest Friday night. He said Lombardo was arrested with a friend. Halprin talked to Lombardo as he was being transported to a police lockup by FBI agents. "His spirits were good," Halprin said. "He said he had been treated very well by the FBI."
Prosecutors charged Lombardo and Frank "The German" Schweihs with the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman scheduled to testify against Lombardo and others in a Teamsters pension fund fraud case. Schweihs also was charged with joining co-defendant Paul Schiro in a 1986 gangland murder in Phoenix. Schweihs was a fugitive for eight months before being captured last month in a small town in Kentucky. FBI officials said Lombardo and Schweihs had apparently disappeared a "significant time" before the indictments in order to avoid capture.
The search for Lombardo included a number of federal agencies, including the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Leads had raised suspicions that Lombardo could be in the Caribbean or in Mexico. Ultimately, he was "right under our noses," the law enforcement source said.
Lombardo, a longtime resident of Chicago's West Town neighborhood, has two federal convictions in the 1980s--for conspiring to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada for help in defeating a trucking deregulation bill and for scheming to skim $2 million from a Las Vegas casino.
While Lombardo has been missing, he was apparently not silent. Two attorneys reported getting letters from Lombardo, which they turned over to federal authorities. In May, Halprin delivered a four-page letter to a federal judge purportedly written by Lombardo. The letter said Lombardo would surrender if he would be released on his own recognizance and prosecuted in a separate trial after the fate of his co-defendants had been decided. U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel promptly rejected the offer. Halprin said he also got a letter in August that indicated Lombardo offered to take truth serum or a lie detector test if the FBI supervisor and its informant did too.
Thanks to Todd Lighty Matt O'Connor, and Michael Higgins
Fugitive mobster discovered in Elmwood Park
After an international manhunt, FBI agents captured reputed mob boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo Friday night in Elmwood Park, not far from where he disappeared nine months ago, officials said. Lombardo had changed his appearance, growing a beard, after becoming a fugitive in April, when federal prosecutors charged him and more than a dozen other defendants in 18 Outfit-related murders dating to 1970.
FBI spokesman Ross Rice said Lombardo was arrested without incident. Rice said Lombardo was arrested about 8:30 p.m. outside a home on 74th Avenue. A law enforcement source said Lombardo cooperated with arresting officers. "He was very compliant and just put his hands up," the source said. Authorities said they were planning to release a more complete account of Lombardo's apprehension at a news conference Saturday.
Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, said the U.S. attorney's office notified him of the arrest Friday night. He said Lombardo was arrested with a friend. Halprin talked to Lombardo as he was being transported to a police lockup by FBI agents. "His spirits were good," Halprin said. "He said he had been treated very well by the FBI."
Prosecutors charged Lombardo and Frank "The German" Schweihs with the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman scheduled to testify against Lombardo and others in a Teamsters pension fund fraud case. Schweihs also was charged with joining co-defendant Paul Schiro in a 1986 gangland murder in Phoenix. Schweihs was a fugitive for eight months before being captured last month in a small town in Kentucky. FBI officials said Lombardo and Schweihs had apparently disappeared a "significant time" before the indictments in order to avoid capture.
The search for Lombardo included a number of federal agencies, including the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Leads had raised suspicions that Lombardo could be in the Caribbean or in Mexico. Ultimately, he was "right under our noses," the law enforcement source said.
Lombardo, a longtime resident of Chicago's West Town neighborhood, has two federal convictions in the 1980s--for conspiring to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada for help in defeating a trucking deregulation bill and for scheming to skim $2 million from a Las Vegas casino.
While Lombardo has been missing, he was apparently not silent. Two attorneys reported getting letters from Lombardo, which they turned over to federal authorities. In May, Halprin delivered a four-page letter to a federal judge purportedly written by Lombardo. The letter said Lombardo would surrender if he would be released on his own recognizance and prosecuted in a separate trial after the fate of his co-defendants had been decided. U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel promptly rejected the offer. Halprin said he also got a letter in August that indicated Lombardo offered to take truth serum or a lie detector test if the FBI supervisor and its informant did too.
Thanks to Todd Lighty Matt O'Connor, and Michael Higgins
Joey 'the Clown" Lombardo caught
Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, Frank "the German" Schweihs
Joey "the Clown" Lombardo was the big fish that slipped through the FBI's hands. On Friday, the feds had the last laugh. Lombardo, the notorious reputed mob boss, was caught in Elmwood Park after nine months on the lam, the FBI said Friday.
A stunned Lombardo was sporting a beard and was caught about 8 p.m. as the FBI ran surveillance on another "person of interest" and found the two meeting together. "He was a little bit shocked, to say the least," FBI Supervisory Special Agent John Mallul said. Lombardo did not say anything to authorities.
Lombardo, 77, was charged last year along with 13 others - two have since died - in a sweeping mob indictment as part of the Operation Family Secrets federal investigation. The indictment tied 18 previously unsolved murders to the Chicago mob and charged the Outfit itself as a criminal enterprise.
Lombardo and Frank "the German" Schweihs, a fugitive until last month when he too was caught, are specifically named in the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert in Bensenville.
Mallul said the feds had set up surveillance on the man Lombardo was found with, after suspecting he was in contact with Lombardo. "We had a person of interest we were looking at. . . . Then we got the both of them together and we effectuated the arrest," Mallul said. The other man was not arrested.
Authorities have said they always believed Lombardo didn't stray far. In his time on the lam, he wrote letters to his attorney, and they carried local postmarks. Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, said he received a call late Friday from the U.S. attorney's office, notifying him that Lombardo had been caught while driving with an unidentified friend. His client was picked up on 74th Avenue in the western suburb.
Halprin said Lombardo was being housed at 17th and State, a police facility, after the Metropolitan Correctional Center refused to take him, possibly because of his age and a needed health waiver. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. "His chances of getting bond are the same as Osama bin Laden's," Halprin said. "Maybe not as good."
The fact that Lombardo was caught due to surveillance is ironic because after he and Schweihs fled, questions arose as to why the two were not kept under surveillance before the April 25, 2005, arrests.
In a July interview with the Sun-Times, Mallul and Special Agent Michael Maseth, who leads the Family Secrets investigation, said the two left "well before" the mob indictments and their fleeing didn't come as a surprise to the FBI. The feds swabbed Lombardo for DNA in 2003. At the time, the agents said the FBI did everything it could to track them without tipping off the dozen others caught.
Thanks to Natasha Korecki
Joey "the Clown" Lombardo was the big fish that slipped through the FBI's hands. On Friday, the feds had the last laugh. Lombardo, the notorious reputed mob boss, was caught in Elmwood Park after nine months on the lam, the FBI said Friday.
A stunned Lombardo was sporting a beard and was caught about 8 p.m. as the FBI ran surveillance on another "person of interest" and found the two meeting together. "He was a little bit shocked, to say the least," FBI Supervisory Special Agent John Mallul said. Lombardo did not say anything to authorities.
Lombardo, 77, was charged last year along with 13 others - two have since died - in a sweeping mob indictment as part of the Operation Family Secrets federal investigation. The indictment tied 18 previously unsolved murders to the Chicago mob and charged the Outfit itself as a criminal enterprise.
Lombardo and Frank "the German" Schweihs, a fugitive until last month when he too was caught, are specifically named in the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert in Bensenville.
Mallul said the feds had set up surveillance on the man Lombardo was found with, after suspecting he was in contact with Lombardo. "We had a person of interest we were looking at. . . . Then we got the both of them together and we effectuated the arrest," Mallul said. The other man was not arrested.
Authorities have said they always believed Lombardo didn't stray far. In his time on the lam, he wrote letters to his attorney, and they carried local postmarks. Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, said he received a call late Friday from the U.S. attorney's office, notifying him that Lombardo had been caught while driving with an unidentified friend. His client was picked up on 74th Avenue in the western suburb.
Halprin said Lombardo was being housed at 17th and State, a police facility, after the Metropolitan Correctional Center refused to take him, possibly because of his age and a needed health waiver. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. "His chances of getting bond are the same as Osama bin Laden's," Halprin said. "Maybe not as good."
The fact that Lombardo was caught due to surveillance is ironic because after he and Schweihs fled, questions arose as to why the two were not kept under surveillance before the April 25, 2005, arrests.
In a July interview with the Sun-Times, Mallul and Special Agent Michael Maseth, who leads the Family Secrets investigation, said the two left "well before" the mob indictments and their fleeing didn't come as a surprise to the FBI. The feds swabbed Lombardo for DNA in 2003. At the time, the agents said the FBI did everything it could to track them without tipping off the dozen others caught.
Thanks to Natasha Korecki
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