The Complete Public Enemy Almanac

THE COMPLETE PUBLIC ENEMY ALMANAC - New Facts and Features On the People, Places, and Events of the Gangster and Outlaw Era: 1920-1940

If American crime had a golden age, it was between 1920 and 1940—the roller-coaster years when a rural nation became urbanized and the nineteenth century finally gave way to the twentieth. The same forces that reshaped society also changed the face of crime, and soon the Progressive movement that battled urban decay led to the unintended consequences of increased police and political corruption, drunkenness transformed from a working-class vice to a middle-class rebellion, and organized crime established nationally.

The Completely Public Enemy Almanac is the ultimate reference book for the gangster era, with many unique features:

* A highly original and revisionist history of the period, covering the entire nation
* A unique, unmatched collection of gangster and outlaw biographies
* Hundreds of illustrations and period photographs
* A full, first-ever crime chronology of the period
* Dozens of short features on everything from the shift from local to federalized law enforcement to the history of body armor and goofy schemes to deal with "motorized bandits"
* The origins and meanings of such terms as the "one-way ride," "X marks the spot," "the real McCoy," "G-Man," "Public Enemy," and many more
* Innovative lists, including the Chicago Crime Commission's "body count" of gang-style murders during the period
* New light on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre , the Kansas City Massacre, the deliberate killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, the mysterious death of Baby Face Nelson, and other events
* An exhaustive bibliography (including numerous short reviews) of every true-crime book published about gangsters and outlaws of the twenties and thirties

Meticulously documented, lavishly detailed, exhaustively researched, and written with an eye for the truths that have remained largely hidden, The Complete Public Enemy Almanac provides a reliable source of information about the violent and lawless era of the twenties and thirties.

WILLIAM HELMER, a former senior editor at Playboy, is the author of The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar and is coauthor of Dillinger: The Untold Story Expanded Edition, Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy, and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone. He lives in Boerne, Texas.

RICK MATTIX, an expert on the criminal gangs of the twenties and thirties, is a prominent researcher and consultant to authors and television documentaries. The coauthor of Thompson, the American legend: The first submachine gun and Dillinger: The Untold Story Expanded Edition, and author of numerous magazine and journal articles, he lives in Bussey, Iowa.

Tweet

Secret Societies

Sylvia Browne’s research, combined with her amazing communication with her spirit guide Francine, has uncovered the fact that many secret societies affect the lives of each of us every day...whether it be in the areas of religion, politics, economy, government, crime, or other worldwide influences. Throughout her lecture tour, Sylvia shares her knowledge of the conspiracies, coverups, long-held secrets, misinformation, and power manipulations of secret societies in both the past and present and how they can affect us today and in the future.

Sylvia explores it all, and even gives us information on a powerful secret society that no one has even heard about. You will learn about secret societies that have good intentions, those that do not, and the ones to watch, which have goals that could help or hinder us. Some will really raise the hair on your neck!

Tweet

The Fed's Secret Weapon to Bust the Mob

The end of the Operation Family Secrets trial in Chicago has also brought an end to one of the government's secret weapons against the mob.

The secret weapon has a name: John Scully.

For 25 years, Mr. Scully has been a gangbuster for the United States attorney in Chicago, a workhorse prosecutor who put away dozens of organized crime figures with piercing arguments, a devotion to justice and a gentlemanly style.

Scully timed his retirement for the end of the Family Secrets trial last week. He talked with the I-Team about the case and his career.

"The family secrets trail that just ended, was that the highlight of your career, would you say?" ABC7's Chuck Goudie asked.

"Yes," Scully answered. John Scully is a man of few words, maybe because those he does speak carry so much weight.

Just ask Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese and "Little Jimmy" Marcello, three of the Chicago Outfit bosses who Scully helped to convict last month of their roles in decades of criminal rackets and eleven long-unsolved gangland murders.

"There have been very few mob murders solved over the years," Scully said. "This is the result of the work of an awful a lot of people for an awful long period of time, resulted in basically in the solving of a number of cases."

After the Family Secrets victory last week, Scully's retirement was one of the first things they noted. "I can't think of retiring on a higher note," said Pat fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney.

Sixty-year old Scully is a South Sider who graduated from De LaSalle High School. He attended the Naval Academy and was assigned to ship duty during the Vietnam War aboard the U.S.S. Hull, a destroyer that put Captain Scully right off the coast of Vietnam for months.

When Scully received his law degree from the University of San Diego after the war, his enemies changed, from the North Vietnamese to North Side Chicago mobsters and their outfit brethren on 26th Street, from Grand Avenue, Cicero and Elmwood Park.

In 1993, Scully prosecuted the On Leong gambling ring based in Chinatown, a major case that exposed payoffs to the mob, Chicago police and even a Cook County judge.

Five years ago, he took down William Hanhardt, the once-successful chief of detectives for the Chicago police. Hanhardt was sentenced to 15 years for operating a nationwide jewelry theft ring, and he was an outfit operative with a badge.

"A perfect cop in the mind of an awful amount of people. He cleared so many cases and did police work that resulted in a number of people being prosecuted and being prosecuted legitimately," Scully said. "He just never took his skills against the Chicago Outfit."

At the time Hanhardt went to prison, Scully was already working on a cloak-and-dagger investigation targeting the upper crust of the outfit.

It began with a letter from Frank Calabrese Jr., son of mob boss "Frank the Breeze." It was a letter so secret that Scully's long-time trial partner, Mitch Mars, didn't reveal it to others in the office for months.

"What was the danger at that point?" Goudie asked.

"Frank Jr. was cooperating, and it was going to be against his father who was a killer in the Chicago mob," Scully answered.

In 2002, with Frank Jr. still undercover, his uncle Nick Calabrese stunned prosecutors by offering to cooperate as well, admitting that he had committed at least 14 mob hits. "There was not the realization on the part on our office or the FBI that he had been involved with murders," Scully said.

Scully said he is amazed that murderer Joey "the Clown" Lombardo took the witness stand and tried to talk his way out of the charges.

"As you sat there and looked at him, could you get the clown image out of your head?" Goudie asked. "No, I didn't have the image of Joey 'The Clown,' I had the image of Danny Seifert," Scully said.

Seifert was the Bensenville business owner that Lombardo murdered in 1974 to prevent him from testifying in a case that Scully had assisted.

"Did you feel threatened by these people?" Goudie asked.

" No, that has never been a part of the Chicago outfit's background, at least in recent years, over the last 30 or 40 years& going after agents, going after prosecutors, going after police officers," Scully said.

Scully's retirement became effective while the jury was deliberating. He was given special permission to remain at the government table. Then when the verdicts came in, he packed up and went home.

Scully said he has no plans for the big salaries that some of his colleagues receive after retiring to private practice. He plans to spend time with his grandchildren.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Tweet

Ex-FBI Agent Chooses Bench Trial

A former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation waived his right to a jury trial on murder charges yesterday, instead putting his case in the hands of a judge whom the F.B.I. once investigated when he was a student. The former agent, Roy Lindley DeVecchio, has been charged with helping a prized informer from an organized crime family commit four murders in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As jury selection was set to begin yesterday, lawyers for Mr. DeVecchio asked for a bench trial before the judge overseeing the case, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach of State Supreme Court. Justice Reichbach warned the lawyers that he had been investigated by the F.B.I. while a student at Columbia University, where he organized student protests in the 1960s. Mr. DeVecchio was undeterred. The trial was set to begin on Oct. 15.

Tweet

Family Secrets of the Murderous Kind

Chicago mobsters planted a bomb in the car of Michael Cagnoni, killing him, in 1981. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice

It all started with a letter sent to our Chicago office in 1998: the son of a Windy City mobster wanted to help us collect enough evidence to have his gangster father put away for life. The letter spawned a seven-year investigation that culminated in a federal courtroom in September with guilty verdicts.

We dubbed it “Operation Family Secrets,” and it’s one of our most successful organized crime investigations ever. The indictment named 14 defendants and included 18 previously unsolved murders.

The man who approached our Chicago office with an unprecedented offer to help was at the time serving a prison sentence with his father, Frank Calabrese Sr. The son agreed to wear a wire during conversations with his father as they talked about the family business.

That family business was the Chicago Outfit, a criminal enterprise operating out of the city for more than four decades. The Outfit had an organized structure and chain of command with “crews” that were assigned specific geographic territories around Chicago.

What kind of business was it? Typical mob stuff: loan sharking, extortion, and gambling, to name just a few. And, of course, murder. Calabrese Sr. talked to his son about three murders he was connected to, with our tape recorders catching all the details.

Thanks to the recordings, our agents got court permission to tape other conversations between Calabrese Sr. and certain visitors. The mobster liked to talk and apparently didn’t mind conducting business from prison.

Soon, our agents had collected enough information—and corroborated it with evidence—to build an iron-clad case against the senior Calabrese for the 1986 murder of mobster John Fecarotta in Chicago. The evidence also clearly implicated Calabrese’s brother, Nicholas W. Calabrese.

Faced with the overwhelming evidence, Nicholas decided he wanted to cooperate, too. He started spilling more family secrets. A lot of them, in fact, including details about 18 previously unsolved mob hits.

Eventually, seven agents worked the Family Secrets case. Everything our agents learned—through the different wire taps, through our own surveillance, and statements from cooperating witnesses—had to be checked out and verified, a process that literally took years to accomplish.

Agents pored over thousands of documents—including old police reports, financial statements, property records, and even seized gambling receipts. “We were checking material that went all the back to the ‘70s,” said Special Agent John Mallul, our Organized Crime Squad supervisor in Chicago and one of the original agents to work on the case.

All the evidence was handed over to a federal grand jury that in April 2005 returned a 43-page indictment. The list of those charged read like a “Who’s Who” in the Chicago mob.

The trial for five men—Calabrese Sr., James Marcello, Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo, Paul “The Indian” Schiro, and Anthony “Twan” Doyle—started in June and ended August 30. The government called more than 125 witnesses and presented more than 200 pieces of evidence, including dozens of photos. All five were found guilty of racketeering and related crimes September 10.

Of the remaining defendants in the indictment, two died prior to trial (Frank Saladino and Michael Ricci), six pled guilty, and one (Frank “The German” Schweihs) was too ill to stand trial.

“This was an exceptional case,” Mallul said. “We haven’t had an individual cooperate like this, and give us this kind of detailed information, before. It helped us take out three crew bosses and the acting head of the Chicago Outfit.”

Thanks to the FBI

Tweet