Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, Frank Cullotta
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro
The Spilotro Hollywood moment is that scene in "Casino" with the cornfield and the baseball bats that the critics loved, though it really didn't happen that way.
That's how America remembers the Chicago Outfit's Anthony Spilotro and his brother Michael, whose famous murders are among 18 Outfit killings comprising the historic federal "Family Secrets" mob trial set to begin this week. But there is another Spilotro Hollywood moment, long forgotten. In this one, actors don't play the Spilotros. Rather, Michael Spilotro played a tough FBI agent on the hit TV show "Magnum, P.I.," starring Tom Selleck.
Special Agent Spilotro appeared in the 1981 episode "Thicker than Blood." And you thought only Christopher from "The Sopranos" had a Hollywood urge.
Michael was the little brother of Tony, the Chicago Outfit's overseer in Las Vegas in the 1970s and 1980s. Michael received bit parts on "Magnum" and other shows. (I've got that "Magnum" DVD, but don't ask to borrow it.)
"Magnum" was a private-eye show set in Hawaii with a fancy red Ferrari and beautiful girls, gunplay, more beautiful girls, more gunplay and beautiful girls. That was when TV was TV. In the episode, a gang of wisecracking French drug dealers try to import loads of heroin. But G-man Michael Spilotro won't stand for such shenanigans.
Rather than wear a tie, Agent Spilotro wears a sports coat and an open shirt, but no gold chains. And Agent Spilotro did an interesting thing when he met Magnum in a parking lot in broad daylight. He reached for his gun. How rude.
Did Agent Spilotro think he was in some parking lot at Grand and Harlem?
Magnum was worried about his friend, TC, who'd been set up by the evil drug lords, so Magnum approached Spilotro to find out what happened to his buddy. "He doesn't wanna talk," Spilotro informed Magnum and Rick (played by native Chicagoan and Michael's boyhood friend Larry Manetti).
Spilotro unleashed his lines in an unmistakably thick Chicago accent, about as thick as mine, with the same flat vowels.
Later, FBI Agent Spilotro is hiding outside a warehouse, peering through a window, clenching a bullhorn while watching the drug dealers unload their heroin. One of the villains, in a thick French accent, says quite sarcastically, "$10 million worth of heroin, courtesy of zee United States Coast Guard."
Just then, Agent Spilotro springs into action: "This is a federal officer! The building is surrounded!! Come out with your hands in da air!!"
"Magnum" action music—including wailing guitars—pulsates to a disco beat. Agent Spilotro charges in, cornering the evildoers by firing his pistol into the air.
They surrender, and wisely. They didn't know if "Family Secrets" prosecution witness and Outfit enforcer Frankie Cullotta might have been hiding nearby, supporting Spilotro, with a vise that would fit several French heads. The vise thing was in "Casino," but it was drawn from Chicago Outfit war stories and, no wonder, since Cullotta was a technical adviser on "Casino" and knew what a vise could do to a head.
Spilotro may have been trying to increase his Hollywood profile for business reasons, but I don't think the old guys back home who ran things were too pleased about Michael raising his profile on TV. But others disagree, including Manetti, who ran a Chicago construction company that helped build Rush Street clubs before getting into acting. Manetti says he's developing several projects, including a TV comedy about burned-out cops working the night shift and a movie about Cuban refugees.
"I didn't know Michael as a gangster, I knew him as a guy I grew up with in the neighborhood," Manetti said. "Michael wanted to be on TV, that's all. Who wouldn't? It was a top show. He had fun. He wasn't trying to be a movie star or an actor, he was having fun."
Common wisdom is that Tony was the tough guy and Michael was the innocent victim, though some law enforcement sources suggest Michael may have been more devious than his brother. But that's not how Manetti saw his friend, who visited him in Hawaii and was offered a bit part.
"I loved Michael. I don't know what the rumors are, he wasn't a bad guy. Everybody has aspirations of being a movie star. We thought about it. It was funny, you know, Spilotro, FBI agent. . . . With us, it was all fun, no bad stuff. I think we talked about him playing a guy named Zookie the Bookie once, you know, just fun stuff. He was OK as an actor, he wasn't so stiff."
Manetti, who lives in California, said he'll read the Tribune to follow the "Family Secrets" trial. "I miss him. Listen, if it's about the guys who killed Michael, let them burn."
Some who ordered the murders have already been burned, and are likely burning still. And though Michael Spilotro may have had fun on TV, I've got a feeling that a few Chicago critics who could make him or break him didn't like his performance as a crime-fighting fed.
They gave it two broken thumbs down.
Thanks to John Kass
Monday, June 18, 2007
Mafia Cop Sends Letter from Jail Declaring Innocence
Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
One of two former NYPD detectives accused of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob considers himself an innocent man wrongly imprisoned for more than year after news outlets "crucified" him in reports about the sensational case.
Louis Eppolito made the assertions in a rambling two-page letter written to The Associated Press from a federal jail in Brooklyn. Both Eppolito, 58, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, remain jailed there while prosecutors appeal a judge's decision last summer to overturn their convictions in eight Mafia murders.
"As you know, this case was overturned by the judge, yet we linger in solitary confinement (free men by law) for the past 15 months," Eppolito said in the handwritten letter dated June 7.
Eppolito also accused the government of suppressing evidence that would prove his innocence, and complained about the "media circus" that surrounded the case.
"We were both crucified with each and every story that was written," he wrote in response to an interview request. "It was proven to me by the press that they are not after the truth, but only to sell their newspapers with lies made to make us look like corrupt dirty cops, who were more like monsters then (sic) the good family men which we are."
Eppolito's attorney did not immediately respond Friday to a telephone message. The text of the letter was written in block letters, but Eppolito signed it in script with a flourish.
The former detectives were convicted in April 2006 of leading double lives, working for both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. They earned $65,000 for one of the slayings, authorities said.
A jury found the so-called "Mafia Cops" were responsible for the eight murders, along with kidnapping and other crimes. The pair had been out on $5 million bail for nine months before their convictions on racketeering conspiracy put them behind bars.
Two months later, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein stunned prosecutors by saying he was compelled to set aside the verdict because the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings, which occurred between 1986 and 1990.
After hiring new attorneys, Eppolito and Caracappa sought their release on bail while they awaited the outcome of a government appeal of Weinstein's ruling or _ if it was upheld _ a retrial on lesser charges stemming from a 2005 drug sting in Las Vegas, where the partners both had retired. But the judge rejected their bid for freedom, calling them "dangerous criminals with no degree of credibility."
It's not unusual for federal appeals to take a year or more to decide.
Thanks to Tom Hays
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
One of two former NYPD detectives accused of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob considers himself an innocent man wrongly imprisoned for more than year after news outlets "crucified" him in reports about the sensational case.
Louis Eppolito made the assertions in a rambling two-page letter written to The Associated Press from a federal jail in Brooklyn. Both Eppolito, 58, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, remain jailed there while prosecutors appeal a judge's decision last summer to overturn their convictions in eight Mafia murders."As you know, this case was overturned by the judge, yet we linger in solitary confinement (free men by law) for the past 15 months," Eppolito said in the handwritten letter dated June 7.
Eppolito also accused the government of suppressing evidence that would prove his innocence, and complained about the "media circus" that surrounded the case.
"We were both crucified with each and every story that was written," he wrote in response to an interview request. "It was proven to me by the press that they are not after the truth, but only to sell their newspapers with lies made to make us look like corrupt dirty cops, who were more like monsters then (sic) the good family men which we are."
Eppolito's attorney did not immediately respond Friday to a telephone message. The text of the letter was written in block letters, but Eppolito signed it in script with a flourish.
The former detectives were convicted in April 2006 of leading double lives, working for both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. They earned $65,000 for one of the slayings, authorities said.
A jury found the so-called "Mafia Cops" were responsible for the eight murders, along with kidnapping and other crimes. The pair had been out on $5 million bail for nine months before their convictions on racketeering conspiracy put them behind bars.
Two months later, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein stunned prosecutors by saying he was compelled to set aside the verdict because the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings, which occurred between 1986 and 1990.
After hiring new attorneys, Eppolito and Caracappa sought their release on bail while they awaited the outcome of a government appeal of Weinstein's ruling or _ if it was upheld _ a retrial on lesser charges stemming from a 2005 drug sting in Las Vegas, where the partners both had retired. But the judge rejected their bid for freedom, calling them "dangerous criminals with no degree of credibility."
It's not unusual for federal appeals to take a year or more to decide.
Thanks to Tom Hays
Spilotro's Daughter to Testify at Family Secrets Mob Trial
Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, James Marcello, Joseph Lombardo, Frank Schweihs
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro
The daughter of executed mobster Michael Spilatro will testify that the day her father disappeared, he received two calls from James Marcello of Lombard, the man prosecutors call the head of the Chicago Outfit, it was revealed in court today.
Michelle Spilatro’s identification of Marcello in a “voice line-up” was being opposed by Marcello’s attorney, Marc Martin, who called an expert in court to testify that the way the lineup was conducted was faulty and was suggestive to her that she identify Marcello.
Martin is opposing the use of the identification for use at trial. U.S. District Judge James Zagel held off on ruling on its admissibility after a hearing today.
Prosecutors contend Anthony and Michael Spilatro were lured to a DuPage area home - reportedly near Bensenville - and beaten to death on June 14, 1986. Their bodies were later found in an Indiana corn field.
That day, prosecutors said Michelle Spilatro will testify, she answered two calls from Marcello asking to talk to Michael Spilatro. They said she will also testify that she heard Marcello’s voice around 80 times over several years that way, and is “100 percent” certain it was Marcello who called that day.
Prosecutor Marcus Funk also intimated through questions of the defense witness that Michelle Spilatro can clearly ID Marcello’s voice because she at one point recognized it in a phone conversation and confirmed with him that he was the man who always called for her father.
Defense attorneys contend Michelle Spilatro cannot possibly identify the voice because she was asked to perform the voice lineup more than three years after the day her father was murdered.
Jury selection begins Tuesday in the mob case, which features not only defendant Marcello, but such legendary mob figures as Joey “The Clown” Lombardo and Frank Calabrese, Sr. Also Friday, Zagel granted a motion from lawyers for Frank “The German” Schweihs to release him from trial for now because he is severely ill and under the care of a doctor. Schweihs reportedly has cancer.
Opening arguments in the case are expected to begin June 25.
Thanks to Rob Olmstead
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro
The daughter of executed mobster Michael Spilatro will testify that the day her father disappeared, he received two calls from James Marcello of Lombard, the man prosecutors call the head of the Chicago Outfit, it was revealed in court today.
Michelle Spilatro’s identification of Marcello in a “voice line-up” was being opposed by Marcello’s attorney, Marc Martin, who called an expert in court to testify that the way the lineup was conducted was faulty and was suggestive to her that she identify Marcello.
Martin is opposing the use of the identification for use at trial. U.S. District Judge James Zagel held off on ruling on its admissibility after a hearing today.
Prosecutors contend Anthony and Michael Spilatro were lured to a DuPage area home - reportedly near Bensenville - and beaten to death on June 14, 1986. Their bodies were later found in an Indiana corn field.
That day, prosecutors said Michelle Spilatro will testify, she answered two calls from Marcello asking to talk to Michael Spilatro. They said she will also testify that she heard Marcello’s voice around 80 times over several years that way, and is “100 percent” certain it was Marcello who called that day.
Prosecutor Marcus Funk also intimated through questions of the defense witness that Michelle Spilatro can clearly ID Marcello’s voice because she at one point recognized it in a phone conversation and confirmed with him that he was the man who always called for her father.
Defense attorneys contend Michelle Spilatro cannot possibly identify the voice because she was asked to perform the voice lineup more than three years after the day her father was murdered.
Jury selection begins Tuesday in the mob case, which features not only defendant Marcello, but such legendary mob figures as Joey “The Clown” Lombardo and Frank Calabrese, Sr. Also Friday, Zagel granted a motion from lawyers for Frank “The German” Schweihs to release him from trial for now because he is severely ill and under the care of a doctor. Schweihs reportedly has cancer.
Opening arguments in the case are expected to begin June 25.
Thanks to Rob Olmstead
Mobster May Avoid Trial Due to Health Issues
Friends of ours: Frank "The German" Schweihs, Nicholas Ferriola, Joseph Ferriola, Joseph Venezia
A reputed prolific hit man for the Chicago Outfit, battling cancer, won't be going to trial with his fellow mobsters starting Tuesday in the historic Family Secrets mob case -- and may never face a jury at all.
Frank "The German" Schweihs was severed from the trial because of "physical incapacity," according to a decision by U.S. District Judge James Zagel. While Schweihs could be tried alone if his health improves, sources familiar with his prognosis doubt that will happen.
The turn of events Friday angered some family members of victims allegedly slain by Schweihs. "Now I won't feel closure," said Nick Seifert, a son of Bensenville factory owner Daniel Seifert, whom Schweihs allegedly killed in 1974 to prevent his testimony. "I want him in that courtroom. I don't care if he's on a respirator or on a gurney. I want him tried and convicted for the crime he did."
Schweihs is charged in the Seifert slaying -- one of 18 unsolved Outfit hits that are part of the Family Secrets case. But there are many more murders in which Schweihs was a suspect but never charged. One was the 1985 murder of Pasquale "Patsy" Ricciardi, the owner of the X-rated Admiral Theatre movie house, who was slain as the Outfit consolidated control over the lucrative pornographic movie industry.
When told Schweihs wouldn't be going to trial, Ricciardi's daughter Marianne said Friday: "If anybody has witnessed someone dying of cancer, all I can say is, 'God works in mysterious ways.'"
In other developments, two more men charged in the case, Nicholas Ferriola, the son of late mob boss Joseph Ferriola, and Joseph Venezia, an alleged worker in an illegal video gambling business, were expected to plead guilty Monday.
If that happens, it would bring the total guilty pleas to six and leave five defendants to stand trial.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
A reputed prolific hit man for the Chicago Outfit, battling cancer, won't be going to trial with his fellow mobsters starting Tuesday in the historic Family Secrets mob case -- and may never face a jury at all.
Frank "The German" Schweihs was severed from the trial because of "physical incapacity," according to a decision by U.S. District Judge James Zagel. While Schweihs could be tried alone if his health improves, sources familiar with his prognosis doubt that will happen.The turn of events Friday angered some family members of victims allegedly slain by Schweihs. "Now I won't feel closure," said Nick Seifert, a son of Bensenville factory owner Daniel Seifert, whom Schweihs allegedly killed in 1974 to prevent his testimony. "I want him in that courtroom. I don't care if he's on a respirator or on a gurney. I want him tried and convicted for the crime he did."
Schweihs is charged in the Seifert slaying -- one of 18 unsolved Outfit hits that are part of the Family Secrets case. But there are many more murders in which Schweihs was a suspect but never charged. One was the 1985 murder of Pasquale "Patsy" Ricciardi, the owner of the X-rated Admiral Theatre movie house, who was slain as the Outfit consolidated control over the lucrative pornographic movie industry.
When told Schweihs wouldn't be going to trial, Ricciardi's daughter Marianne said Friday: "If anybody has witnessed someone dying of cancer, all I can say is, 'God works in mysterious ways.'"
In other developments, two more men charged in the case, Nicholas Ferriola, the son of late mob boss Joseph Ferriola, and Joseph Venezia, an alleged worker in an illegal video gambling business, were expected to plead guilty Monday.
If that happens, it would bring the total guilty pleas to six and leave five defendants to stand trial.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Made to Be Mayor
Friends of ours: Tony Spilotro, Frank Cullotta
Friends of mine: Oscar Goodman
Oscar Goodman once defended some of Chicago's most notorious hoodlums and is now running the city they once ran: Las Vegas.
When federal prosecutors in Chicago put 14 mobsters on trial this summer, an aspect of the case will be how the outfit once controlled criminal rackets in Las Vegas. That prospect has Las Vegas' most prominent politician somewhat skittish because he was part of that past.
In a city of lights and largess, no one shines brighter or bigger these days than Oscar Goodman, the mayor now in his third term. The seat behind his city hall desk isn't just a chair, it's actually a throne. Even the headliners billed out on The Strip haven't played the halls that King Oscar once played before becoming mayor: the halls of justice, where for years as a lawyer, he tried to keep some top Chicago hoodlums out of jail.
The Chicago mob-the outfit, which is the given name for traditional organized crime founded in Chicago almost a century ago, is an organization pioneered by Al Capone and perfected by Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro, the outfit's Las Vegas emissary into the 1980s, frequently shadowed by his lawyer, Oscar Goodman.
"From a government perspective, he killed 26 people 21 people or 19 or whatever, but when I represented him he never did a day in jail. From '72 until the time he was killed ...They created him to be much greater than the role that he was really playing on behalf of Chicago while he was here, but they made him into an everyday news item and caused him to have a reputation perhaps he didn't deserve," Goodman said.
Nor did Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael deserve this, according to Goodman: the men were buried alive in an Indiana cornfield after angry mob bosses ordered them pummeled and planted.
"It was a violent death," said Goodman. "I think it was interesting when they were filming the movie Casinoand depicting the murder of Tony and his brother, it was so rough, that even during the production of a movie, somebody broke their arm. That's how violence it was."
Oscar Goodman knows all about the brutal movie. He played a mob lawyer in the film, and Goodman reveals that, as the Spilotro murders remained unsolved for years, he was never contacted by investigators. "I was always disappointed that nobody asked me any questions about who had done it or what was happening as far as Tony was concerned before it took place," Goodman said.
I-Team: "They didn't ask you a single question?"
Goodman: "No, not a single one. Don't you think they would've asked: Do you have any idea who might have done this?"
Despite smothering the opposition in last April's mayoral election, Goodman is not without critics.
"He's a braggadocio man. He's got an ego as big as it can be, and he's got the right job, because he's got a big mouth and he can promote [Las Vegas]," said Frank Cullotta, ex-mob hitman.
Cullotta was Tony Spilotro's major domo In Las Vegas before rolling over in 1982 to help the government prosecute outfit bosses. Cullotta and two former lawmen are authors of a new book on the Chicago mob and contend that Goodman had little to do with the mob's eventual exodus from Las Vegas.
"The Chicago Outfit is much less potent than it was years ago," said Dennis Griffin, author/former policeman.
"It is interesting that the mayor stopped it. Because before he said there was no organized crime," said Dennis Arnoldy, author/former FBI agent.
"Big corporations cleaned up this town...not Goodman," said Cullotta.
Unlike Mayor Richard M. Daley, who refuses to capitalize on Chicago's rich mob history, Goodman proudly displays outfit trinkets in his office and is turning a historic Las Vegas building into a mob museum.
"To celebrate that era, basically it's going to be telling the truth about Las Vegas. We're not going to implode any decades here...I won't whitewash our history here. We advertise as what happens here stays here, the mystique of Las Vegas. I don't want to give that up," said Goodman.
Goodman says that during the time he was representing mobsters, federal prosecutors tried to have him indicted for obstruction of justice but could never convince a grand jury that he did anything wrong. He has never been charged with anything.
Goodman says he is so well liked that a movement is underway to eliminate term limits in Las Vegas so he can continue to sit on the throne.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Friends of mine: Oscar Goodman
Oscar Goodman once defended some of Chicago's most notorious hoodlums and is now running the city they once ran: Las Vegas.
When federal prosecutors in Chicago put 14 mobsters on trial this summer, an aspect of the case will be how the outfit once controlled criminal rackets in Las Vegas. That prospect has Las Vegas' most prominent politician somewhat skittish because he was part of that past.
In a city of lights and largess, no one shines brighter or bigger these days than Oscar Goodman, the mayor now in his third term. The seat behind his city hall desk isn't just a chair, it's actually a throne. Even the headliners billed out on The Strip haven't played the halls that King Oscar once played before becoming mayor: the halls of justice, where for years as a lawyer, he tried to keep some top Chicago hoodlums out of jail.The Chicago mob-the outfit, which is the given name for traditional organized crime founded in Chicago almost a century ago, is an organization pioneered by Al Capone and perfected by Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro, the outfit's Las Vegas emissary into the 1980s, frequently shadowed by his lawyer, Oscar Goodman.
"From a government perspective, he killed 26 people 21 people or 19 or whatever, but when I represented him he never did a day in jail. From '72 until the time he was killed ...They created him to be much greater than the role that he was really playing on behalf of Chicago while he was here, but they made him into an everyday news item and caused him to have a reputation perhaps he didn't deserve," Goodman said.
Nor did Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael deserve this, according to Goodman: the men were buried alive in an Indiana cornfield after angry mob bosses ordered them pummeled and planted.
"It was a violent death," said Goodman. "I think it was interesting when they were filming the movie Casinoand depicting the murder of Tony and his brother, it was so rough, that even during the production of a movie, somebody broke their arm. That's how violence it was."
Oscar Goodman knows all about the brutal movie. He played a mob lawyer in the film, and Goodman reveals that, as the Spilotro murders remained unsolved for years, he was never contacted by investigators. "I was always disappointed that nobody asked me any questions about who had done it or what was happening as far as Tony was concerned before it took place," Goodman said.
I-Team: "They didn't ask you a single question?"
Goodman: "No, not a single one. Don't you think they would've asked: Do you have any idea who might have done this?"
Despite smothering the opposition in last April's mayoral election, Goodman is not without critics.
"He's a braggadocio man. He's got an ego as big as it can be, and he's got the right job, because he's got a big mouth and he can promote [Las Vegas]," said Frank Cullotta, ex-mob hitman.
Cullotta was Tony Spilotro's major domo In Las Vegas before rolling over in 1982 to help the government prosecute outfit bosses. Cullotta and two former lawmen are authors of a new book on the Chicago mob and contend that Goodman had little to do with the mob's eventual exodus from Las Vegas.
"The Chicago Outfit is much less potent than it was years ago," said Dennis Griffin, author/former policeman.
"It is interesting that the mayor stopped it. Because before he said there was no organized crime," said Dennis Arnoldy, author/former FBI agent.
"Big corporations cleaned up this town...not Goodman," said Cullotta.
Unlike Mayor Richard M. Daley, who refuses to capitalize on Chicago's rich mob history, Goodman proudly displays outfit trinkets in his office and is turning a historic Las Vegas building into a mob museum.
"To celebrate that era, basically it's going to be telling the truth about Las Vegas. We're not going to implode any decades here...I won't whitewash our history here. We advertise as what happens here stays here, the mystique of Las Vegas. I don't want to give that up," said Goodman.
Goodman says that during the time he was representing mobsters, federal prosecutors tried to have him indicted for obstruction of justice but could never convince a grand jury that he did anything wrong. He has never been charged with anything.
Goodman says he is so well liked that a movement is underway to eliminate term limits in Las Vegas so he can continue to sit on the throne.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
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