Federal Probe Alleges Mobster Involved in Naperville Hit

Friends of ours: Nick Calabrese, Anthony Chiaramonti

It was a crime in the heart of Naperville that had the markings of a mob hit.

Rosemarie Re was shot seven times in broad daylight July 16, 1997, outside Linden Oaks Hospital, where she was to meet her estranged husband to discuss one of their children. Police found Randall G. Re in the hospital lobby after the shooting, and the husband denied involvement. The gunman escaped, but detectives have suspected for almost 10 years Re was behind the attempted hit on his wife, who survived.

Their investigation sparked unrelated federal charges that landed Re and a reputed mob enforcer - who authorities say may be the gunman - in prison for extortion. As Re's accomplice, Anthony N. Calabrese, faces new allegations in the federal probe, authorities are hoping for a break in the long-unsolved attempted murder.

On Monday, Naperville police Detective Mike Cross met with top DuPage County prosecutors to discuss why there might now be enough evidence to indict the 52-year-old ex-husband on solicitation to commit murder charges. Rosemarie Re also met with the prosecutors.

The 51-year-old woman underwent 15 surgeries and still has three bullets lodged in her body. She lives in Venice, Fla., with the former couple's three children, now ages 21 to 16, and suffers from chronic pain. "I feel like it's close," she said after the meeting. "I'm real optimistic." Charges may come in the attempted murder by year's end, sources said.

Rosemarie Re filed for divorce six months before she was shot. The Lisle woman survived after spending three months in Edward Hospital, where she was guarded around the clock and registered under an assumed name. She remained in a coma for six weeks.

Police released Randall Re without charges after 24 hours of questioning, but they said he remained the prime suspect.

In April 2003, Re and Calabrese were sentenced to seven years in prison for trying to shake down a Florida businessman in 1997. Calabrese, a reputed member of the Chicago Outfit's Bridgeport-Chinatown Crew, beat the businessman with a baseball bat after he opened a warehouse in Florida next to one Re owned.

Rosemarie Re hasn't been able to identify her shooter. Law enforcement officials suspect Randall Re paid Calabrese at least $10,000 to do the hit.

Both men remain in federal prison. Re is scheduled for release in February 2009. Last month, prosecutors indicted Calabrese and four others in connection with three armed robberies in the Lockport and Morton Grove areas. Calabrese, 45, formerly of Lockport, is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.

Federal authorities also are investigating Calabrese in connection with an unrelated mob shooting, this one deadly. He surfaced as the suspected triggerman who killed loan collector Anthony "The Hatch" Chiaramonti Nov. 20, 2001, in the vestibule of a Brown's Chicken & Pasta restaurant on Harlem Avenue in Lyons, according to a federal indictment. The getaway driver who implicated Calabrese in the Lyons murder, Robert G. Cooper of Bridgeport, is serving a 22-year federal prison term after pleading guilty in 2003 to first-degree murder.

Although Calabrese has not been charged with killing Chiaramonti, authorities hope the two ongoing federal probes will lead to a break in the Naperville case. Cross recently interviewed Randall Re, and Calabrese and his co-defendants in the three armed robberies.

This development is just the latest in the twisted saga. The investigation was complicated in 1998 when a DuPage County judge allowed Randall Re's divorce lawyers to question Cross. Cross, whose work led to the federal charges, was forced to reveal some of the details of the attempted murder investigation during the deposition. Both former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan and DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett unsuccessfully fought the court order requiring Cross to testify.

Also, one of Randall Re's divorce attorneys was disbarred for stealing $2.5 million from his clients, including money from the sale of Re's warehouse meant for his children. Rosemarie Re has since recouped most of her losses. But in a development that netted some progress in the case, police in August 2002 recovered at the bottom of the Cal-Sag Channel in Alsip the .22-caliber gun used in the Re shooting. Police said the gun was found just a block from a business owned by Calabrese, who an informant involved in the Florida case said was known to toss his weapons in the channel. A ballistics test done at the FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Va., later confirmed it was the one used in the Re shooting, officials said.

Despite all of the twists, Rosemarie Re said she remains hopeful and is indebted to the Naperville Police Department, especially Cross, for never giving up on her case. "When I remember those nanoseconds of the shooting, I still feel the searing pain, like it was yesterday," she said. "Victims never forget.

"I'll always suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and will probably always be in counseling, but at least (with charges) my kids and I will have closure. We can move on with our lives."

Thanks to Christy Gutowski

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Mob Boss Son to Increase Brewery Equity Stake

Friends of ours: Jackie Cerone

Bankrupt Pittsburgh Brewing filed its long-awaited reorganization plan yesterday, saying it intends to modernize the 145-year-old Lawrenceville brewery with $7 million from investors and lenders.

The investment would be used to pay bankruptcy-related expenses and purchase a new boiler and a keg system, which would allow the brewery to expand sales to taverns. Remaining funds would be used for marketing. The plan is based on estimated annual savings of $1 million by revising its labor agreement and terminating a union pension plan.

Pittsburgh Brewing's plan, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Downtown, does not disclose the investors or who would provide financing to the company. The loans would be in addition to a $500,000 line of credit the company has arranged through Craig Newbold, an East Liverpool, Ohio, native whose fortune is based on a software venture he developed and sold.

Some long-suffering creditors will likely object to the 18-page plan, which contests claims filed against Pittsburgh Brewing by several major creditors, most of them government agencies. Unsecured creditors would get 33 cents for every $1 they are owed. They would get less if creditors win claims the brewery is disputing.

Members of the IUE/Communications Workers of America have thus far rejected the wage and other concessions the brewery is seeking, saying they will base their final decision on the merits of the reorganization plan.

President Joseph Piccirilli, who would continue to run the brewery, would increase his ownership of the company to 50 percent under terms of the plan. Jack P. Cerone, the son of a former Chicago mob boss who has an $8 million claim against the company, would double his ownership stake to 40 percent by converting the unpaid loans he provided to the brewery to equity.

Other secured creditors who would be paid in full include the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority, which would receive $577,700 owed on a $1.4 million, five-year loan it provided in 1996; a union pension plan that would receive $200,000 in overdue contributions; and the City of Pittsburgh, which would collect $50,800 in unpaid real estate taxes. Mr. Piccirilli would also receive $112,000 in unpaid wages.

Pittsburgh Brewing is contesting a $2.7 million claim by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. The agency's threat to terminate service over unpaid bills triggered the brewery's decision to seek bankruptcy protection Dec. 7.

The brewery also is contesting the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s $1.8 million claim over a terminated pension plan; a $309,500 claim by the Internal Revenue Service; $120,000 of an $814,400 claim for unpaid federal excise taxes filed by the U.S. Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau; $136,100 in claims by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue; and a $38,200 claim for Allegheny County real estate taxes.

Unsecured creditors have filed claims in excess of $18 million, but the brewery estimates legitimate claims at $6 million, a figure the 33-cent-on-the-dollar payout is based on. Robert Sable, attorney for the unsecured creditors, declined comment, saying he wanted to review the plan with his clients.

The brewery provided estimates of its financial results based on the reorganization plan. It projects losses of $1.6 million this year and $347,000 next year before turning profits of $575,000 in 2008 and $1.1 million in 2009.

Thanks to Len Boselovic

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Judges Tied to Syndicate? Criminal Contempt is the Response

Michael Lynch's campaign to expose what he says are judges involved in a conspiracy linked to organized crime was put on hold Friday when a judge sentenced him to 60 days in Cook County Jail for criminal contempt.

Lynch once headed Michigan Avenue Partners and turned Chicago-based McCook Metals into a major aluminum force. The New York Times wrote of his entrepreneurial skills when McCook offered a higher bid than Alcoa for Reynolds Metals.

Now fighting bankruptcy, he tells judges to their faces in federal and state court that he thinks they have ties to organized crime and need to recuse themselves from his cases -- such as those seeking to foreclose on his Lake Forest home.

Cook County Judge Paddy McNamara, who gets good ratings from lawyers' groups, sent him to jail Friday after a two-hour hearing in which he repeatedly accused other judges of getting mob money and then produced what he said were some of the judge's own financial records.

Lynch sees a conspiracy of judges linked to law firms that represent Alcoa trying to take him down. He suspected his own lawyers were involved. Lynch said when one judge seemed ready to rule in his favor, the case was suddenly transferred to another judge who ruled against him.

Cook County Judge Alexander White -- as highly rated as McNamara -- told Lynch two weeks ago "Counsel, that's libelous. . .. I have never received a penny," in response to Lynch's demand that White "admit or deny" ties to organized crime.

On Friday, Lynch asked McNamara to let him bring in a source from an organized crime family to back up his claims, but the judge said she had heard enough.

Thanks to Abdon M. Pallasch

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Dapper Don Instigated Bloody Mob War

Friends of ours: John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Colombo Crime Family, Carmine "The Snake" Persico, Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico, Vic Orena, John "Junior" Gotti, William "Wild Bill" Cutolo

The late Gambino boss John Gotti instigated the bloody civil war within the Colombo crime family in a diabolical scheme to consolidate his power on the Mafia Commission, a turncoat witness testified yesterday. Gotti falsely branded jailed Colombo boss Carmine (The Snake) Persico "a rat" in an attempt to get him replaced by another Colombo gangster who was close to Gotti, according to former Gambino capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo.

DiLeonardo, testifying at the racketeering trial of Persico's son and acting boss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico, surprised Brooklyn Federal Judge Sterling Johnson when he matter-of-factly said that Gotti was behind the conflict that left a dozen gangsters dead and an innocent bystander slain outside a Brooklyn bagel shop in the early 1990s.

"John Sr. instigated it?" the judge asked the witness.

"Oh, yeah," DiLeonardo replied.

DiLeonardo explained Gotti's strategy this way: "John was close to Vic Orena and figured if he could get him in, and Allie out, he [Gotti] would have a majority vote on The Commission," DiLeonardo said. "He [Gotti] owned Vic Orena."

During the war, DiLeonardo said he accompanied John A. [Junior] Gotti to Rockaway Beach for secret late-night meetings with members of the Orena faction to try to iron out a settlement.

DiLeonardo said he thought that it was wrong that the Dapper Don had slurred the elder Persico's name. "Allie found out about it and wasn't happy," he recalled. "I told him it wasn't right and I set out to try and make things right."

Alphonse Persico is charged with ordering the 1999 murder of Colombo underboss - and Orena loyalist - William (Wild Bill) Cutolo.

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Jack Nicholson Researches for Role in The Departed

The Departed topped the box office nationwide Sunday, starring Jack Nicholson as a cocaine-snorting, hard-drinking, womanizing Mafia boss. He had to do a lot of research for the role. He had no idea what it's like to be a Mafia boss.<br><br>

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