Will Daley Bring Back Fugitive From Mexico to Testify?

As chairman of the new Chumbolone Museum of Grant Park, I have an important announcement regarding my top underling and museum co-chair, Mayor Richard Daley.

We at the Chumbolone Museum have ordered the mayor to lead an expedition into Mexico to find Chicago's missing link: Marco Morales, the notorious corrupt fugitive and bribe-paying city contractor.

The Chumbolone Museum doesn't care how Daley brings him back, as long as he brings him back. Alive.

What we don't need is Marco in pieces, wrapped in butcher paper. Sure, we'll stuff Marco, if that's what the mayor wants, but only after Marco testifies in federal cases about bribes at City Hall.

"I don't think that's a very good idea," said a real top Daley administration official when I explained the extradition expedition. "I don't think he'll want to go."

Not even to bring Marco back? Alive? "No, not even for Marco," the official said.

Well, too bad. He's going, whether he likes it or not. Daley has already traveled to France and demanded the French extradite a suspected murderer for trial in Chicago. How can my own Chumbolone Museum vice chairman not apply his rigorous extradition standards to Mexico?

As loyal readers know, the mayor and I are co-founders of the Chumbolone Museum, so he won't have to support that other museum nobody wants in Grant Park. Chumbolone is Chinatown slang for fool, and as election results prove, there are millions of us in the Chicago area. We need a museum more than rich kids need a museum.

So if you don't see the mayor, don't worry, he'll be in Mexico, on the Marco hunt, with a hand-picked team of experts. They'll wear pith helmets and cute khaki shorts, and carry big nets on long poles over their shoulders, as befitting a proper museum expedition. Except for the mayor.

He'll have his own net, but he won't wear a pith helmet. A pith helmet would smash his hair and make his head perspire. Instead, he'll wear his famous Indiana Jones hat.

On Thursday, Tribune reporters Ray Gibson, Dan Mihalopoulos and Oscar Avila broke the news on the Tribune's Web site that Mexican federal police had seized Morales.

Morales had a deal with federal prosecutors here in Chicago years ago that he'd testify about bribes he paid to Daley administration officials in exchange for lucrative city contracts. But he changed his mind, ran to Mexico instead, and his son began receiving $40 million in Daley administration contracts. Naturally, the mayor knew nothing about hush money.

Mexican authorities arrested Morales in 2004, but denied extradition on corruption charges. Recently, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Morales on drug charges, making extradition easier. It also makes City Hall nauseous.

"I miss Chicago so much," Marco Morales told me in a phone interview last September. "I miss everything about Chicago."

But not enough to come back? "No," he said then. "I've got issues up there."

The main issue was the Chicago Outfit promising to blow his brains out if he continued talking about bribes he allegedly paid to Tony Pucillo, Daley's former Department of Transportation boss. And about his relationship with Daley insider and trucking boss Michael Tadin.

Pucillo's brother and Tadin were involved in a company that paved the city's streets, in a contract overseen by Tony and supported by Daley.

Back in the day, at Department of Transportation golf outings, Tony, Mike and the mayor would ride in the same golf cart, saying hello to laborers and vendors in the asphalt business. It was Daley's way of advertising that his boys had his blessing. Only a chumbolone wouldn't get it.

So we at the Chumbolone Museum called Pucillo and Tadin on Thursday, telling them to report for duty with the mayor. They'll ride a golf cart around and around the walls of the prison in Mexico City. The mayor will yell from the back seat.

"Marco! Marco! Where are you? Marco?"

Every great expedition requires bait to lure exotic creatures into the open, so explorers can catch them in their nets. And I've got just the thing.

"There's no Polish sausage around here. No Italian sausage," Marco told me in our interview. "You know that place the Carusos have in Bridgeport? Well, I'd die for one of those Polish sausages."

He meant the Maxwell Street Polish stand on 31st Street, and brothers Frank "Toots" Caruso and Bruno Caruso. The FBI considers them to be the experts on the Outfit's Chinatown crew.

"I just remember what a Polish tastes like and I miss it, you know, like I miss Chicago," Morales told me.

Don't worry Marco. The Chumbolone Museum will pay Toots to bring a hot sack of sangwiches for you. You're coming home, buddy.

Mayor Daley is on his way. But before he persuades me to stuff and mount you in the Chinatown Asphalt wing at our Chumbolone Museum, you'll have to talk to other experts.

Federal prosecutors and the FBI. But they're no chumbolones.

Thanks to John Kass

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Partial Transcript of Witness Testimony Given to Chicago Mob Jury

The weekend has arrived and jurors in Chicago's biggest mob trial in years have gone home without determining individual responsibility, if any, of the defendants for the murders mentioned in the charges.

The jury has already found all five defendants guilty of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that involved illegal gambling, loan sharking, extortion and a wave of 18 murders.

If the jurors find that any of 4 men are individually responsible for specific murders, those defendants will face a maximum of life in prison. The maximum sentence for racketeering conspiracy alone is 20 years.

The jurors went home today after getting Federal Judge James Zagel to agree to help them refresh their memories about witness testimony by sending them a portion of the transcript.

Zagel didn't reveal what portion of the written transcript of the 10-week trial the jurors had requested.

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Difronzo Family Secrets

John DiFronzo was implicated in outfit murders and other crimes during the recent mob trial of the century, but he wasn't charged. The I-Team has learned more about the man they call "No Nose."

You can call him "No Nose," or you can call him "Johnny Bananas" as he is sometimes known. But to the thugs, hustlers and hoodlums who report to him in the outfit, federal authorities say 78-year-old John DiFronzo is known as the boss. And they say DiFronzo's top lieutenant has the same last name because it's his younger brother.

A finger to the nose: that's mob sign language for John "No Nose" DiFronzo, according to feds. The pantomime act was caught on covert jailhouse tapes of meetings between Chicago Outfit bosses that were used as evidence during this summer's Family Secrets trial.

Authorities say DiFronzo's position is so important to the mob, that his underlings don't want to implicate him by speaking his real name.

So, they signal his nickname "No Nose," awarded to DiFronzo decades ago after a Michigan Avenue fur heist when part of his sniffer was severed as he jumped through a plate glass window.

John DiFronzo cut his teeth with the mob's Elmwood Park crew. He and his wife once lived in a Grand Avenue apartment house that they own, where their name is still on the front mailbox.

No Nose's rap sheet stretches back to the 1950s and features dozens of arrests and convictions. During the Family Secrets trial, federal prosecutors portrayed DiFronzo as a top outfit leader, and for the first time, said he was involved in the 1986 gangland murders of Anthony Spilotro -the mob's Las Vegas boss - and his brother, Michael, who were found six feet under an Indiana farm field.

The only evidence of DiFronzo's role in the Spilotro hit was from mob snitch and star witness Nick Calabrese. Law enforcement sources say they didn't want to risk losing a case against DiFronzo.

In one 2003 conversation between mobster brothers Jimmy and Michael Marcello, feds say they discussed No Nose.

James: "it quieted down on this guy, they didn't have what they thought they were gonna have or something like that?

Michael: I guess. That's what we heard. They thought they had something now they're not so sure."

DiFronzo is now atop the mob's flow chart that started with Scarface and continued through the Big Tuna, according to former federal agent and ex-Chicago crime commission director Bob Fuesel. "Their spots change, but they're still the same outfit that we know about from the days of Capone through Accardo for 50 years up until John DiFronzo today," Fuesel said.

DiFronzo was unreachable in River Grove or at his corner lot vacation home in Lake Geneva. His longtime lawyer, Carl Walsh, declined to comment Wednesday.

The FBI said a gag order prevented them from answering why DiFronzo hasn't been charged with the murders that prosecutors say he committed.

Do they even know where he is? "There is no reason for us to know his whereabouts because he hasn't been charged with anything," said Ross Rice, FBI spokesman.

Mob investigators say No Nose will lean on his brother, Peter DiFronzo, to help manage outfit rackets. Peter DiFronzo is a convicted warehouse thief who did time at Leavenworth. He and his brother are both fully initiated "made" members of the Chicago Outfit, according to the Chicago Crime Commission.

FBI records state that Peter and No Nose operate a west suburban construction and waste hauling firm, a politically connected company that "obtained contracts through illegal payoffs or intimidation."

When the I-Team visited D and P Construction Tuesday, Peter DiFronzo thought we were there to survey for new sewer lines. When told that the I-Team was there on an outfit investigation, he claimed to no know nothing and drove off in a new Cadillac Escalade.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Family Secrets Judge Trusts Jury

After a week off, jurors went back to work at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years Thursday, and the judge refused to poll them on whether news stories may have biased them.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said it would be a mistake to treat jurors "as if they were some delicate object that must be encased in glass" and that he had reviewed recent news stories and saw no problems. "The system is that we trust the jurors unless we have some definitive evidence that that trust is not justified," Zagel said.

The five defendants already have been convicted by the jury of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that involved illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders that went unsolved for decades.

Among the victims was Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, long the mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie "Casino." He and brother Michael Spilotro were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in June 1986.

Other victims were strangled, beaten and shot to keep them from leaking secrets to the FBI, according to witnesses at the 10-week Operation Family Secrets trial.

The jury now is deciding what, if any, individual responsibility four of the defendants have in specific murders that are listed in the indictment. Only one of the defendants, retired Chicago policeman Anthony Doyle, 62, is not accused of taking part in any of the murders.

The other defendants are James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, and Paul Schiro, 70. Each faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if he is found responsible for any of the murders.

Marcello has been described by prosecutors as a major figure in the mob. Calabrese was previously convicted of loan sharking, Lombardo of conspiring to bribe a senator and Schiro of being part of a jewel theft ring headed by Chicago police department's former chief of detectives.

All the defendants except Doyle have been in custody for more than a year. Doyle was taken into custody after he was found guilty on the racketeering conspiracy charge and now is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a block from the courthouse.

Zagel said Thursday that he would consider a defense request to free Doyle on bond pending sentencing, but not until after the jury reaches its decision on whether Calabrese was responsible for murder.

Prosecutors say the husky, broad-shouldered Doyle was a collector for Calabrese's loan sharking business while also working as a police officer. The government also has videotapes of Doyle visiting Calabrese in prison and discussing what prosecutors describe as a mob murder investigation.

Zagel said Wednesday he thought the deliberations might go on for a long time, but on Thursday indicated he was as much in the dark as anyone. He said the jurors have sent no signal to him on how they are progressing. "When the jury hasn't said anything that could mean in the next 10 minutes or the next 10 days," Zagel said.

Thanks to Mike Robinson

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Delay in Jury Delibertations Should Be Minimal Say Legal Experts

A defense attorney at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years said Friday he is unhappy about a delay in jury deliberations, but experts suggested its impact on the case is likely to be minimal.

Professor James B. Jacobs of New York University School of Law said in a telephone interview that "trial judges have a great deal of leeway in managing their juries and granting delays and adjournments."

"Sometimes a juror gets sick and they suspend jury deliberations," he said. "I can say for sure that it's not automatically impermissible. Does it raise an issue in the event that the defendants are convicted? Sure."

He said defense attorneys might be able to argue the delay prejudiced jurors "because it broke the flow of the discussions or increased the risk the jurors might discuss the case" with outsiders. "But I think the presumption is that the management of the trial is properly up to the trial judge," he added.

Professor John R. Kroger of Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who as a federal prosecutor handled organized crime cases, said trial adjournments are common enough but "it's a little unusual for jury deliberations to be adjourned."

Some judges who must leave during jury deliberations arrange for another judge in the same courthouse to handle any matters that arise.

"I don't know why the judge chose not to go that route here," Kroger said. But he suggested defense attorneys' protests might yield little.

"I doubt there's any real appellate issue there as long as the judge ensures when the jury returns that they haven't been discussing the case during the adjournment and that they haven't been following media reports," he said. "In that case there should be no problem with them returning after a week off."

Lombardo and three co-defendants could face life sentences if jurors find them responsible for specific murders. The fifth defendant convicted, retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, is not accused of directly taking part in any of the murders.

If the jurors do not find the four defendants responsible for specific murders, they still face 20-year maximum sentences on for racketeering and some who were convicted of other offenses such as obstruction of justice, tax fraud and gambling could be subject to more time.

Thanks to Mike Robinson

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