Chicago Democrats and the Chicago Mob

Barack Obama's key fund raiser, Tony Rezko, went on trial last week. It's important to take a broader look at America's most corrupt large city: Chicago. (We apologize from the outset,some links no longer exist or passages we quote never existed on the web.) Chicago has had a Democratic Mayor since 1931,and today in 2008,49 of 50 Chicago Aldermen are Democrats.This long post is about the Chicago Mob and the Democratic Party machine.
Former Alderman Dick Simpson, who's now a professor at University of Illinois-Chicago, has some disturbing numbers on Chicago and Illinois politicians:

Since 1973, the U.S. attorney has indicted 30 aldermen and convicted 27 (one died before trial and two stand trial this spring). The Public Corruption and Accountability Project at UIC calculates that there have been more than 1,000 local and state governmental officials convicted since the 1970s. The "corruption tax," or cost of government corruption for Cook County residents, is now more than $300 million a year, greater than the local government tax increases this year. We can't really afford more local "Hired Truck" schemes, patronage hiring, or the state pension and driver license scandals of recent years.

Sounds like becoming an elected Alderman in Chicago has an unusual felony conviction rate,which certainly says something about the people who seek elected office in Chicago and the voters who put them in office.Yes,there have been many corrupt Aldermen in Chicago. But,one man stands above all other in terms of institutionalizing corruption in Chicago: Alderman Fred Roti.

Unless we understand the prolific criminal legacy of Alderman Roti,we can't understand how today,in 2008,Alderman Roti along with his friends,relatives,and associates have turned Chicago's city government into a racketeering enterprise.We must go back in time to a Chicago Tribune article on February 14,1982 titled BEST AND BRIGHTEST NO MATCH FOR OLD GUARD AT CITY HALL to understand the power of Alderman Roti:

Roti has placed nearly as many city employees on the payroll as the city personnel department,and many of them are his own family members.This is not a new trend under [Mayor] Byrne,however.Under former Mayors Richard Daley and Michael Bilandic,members of the Roti clan have always had spectacular success gaining public employment.Last fall it was disclosed that Roti family payrollers include his daughter,Rosemary,a press aide to Mayor Byrne at $25,992 a year;and Rosemary's husband,Ronald Marasso,who had been promoted from city painter to $34,000 -a -year general manager of maintenance at O'Hare International Airport.Fourteen other Roti clan members were on various other city payrolls.Because of his ward number,Roti's name is always called first during council roll calls,and he revels in that privilege.His initial response gives other administration alderman their cue as to what Roti-and,therefore,the mayor-wants.It's often said that roll calls could stop after Roti votes-the outcome is already known.Roti,an affable fellow, controls the Chicago City Council with an iron fist.

Years later in May of 2006,The Chicago Sun-Times gave a more disturbing explanation of who Alderman Fred Roti really was:

Roti became 1st Ward alderman in 1968. He soon became one of the most powerful, well-liked and respected members of the City Council. Roti was also a "made member" of the mob, according to the FBI

Think about it,the Chicago Mob ran a "made-member" for political office to take control of a city.This is why the Chicago Mob went on to become the most powerful organized crime family in all of U.S. history.As criminal defense attorney Robert Cooley explains the history of Chicago :

The city’s grim reputation is rooted back in the Roaring Twenties when Al Capone emerged victorious from gang warfare and went on to become a household name. Oddly enough, far less is known about his successors and their grip on the city during the last half of the twentieth century. But that is when Chicago’s Mafia became the single most powerful organized crime family in American history. While Mob bosses knocked each other off on the East Coast, in Chicago they united into a monolithic force called the Outfit. They would literally control the cops, the courts and the politicians – a corrupt trifecta that Capone dreamed about, but never came close to achieving. The Outfit demanded a cut of every criminal enterprise in the region, from a lowly car theft or private poker game to a jewelry heist. To enforce this “street tax,” their Hit Men killed with impunity, knowing that crooked judges would throw out any case against them. Their bookies brazenly took bets in nightclubs, at racetracks and even in government office buildings, confident that contacts in the police department (at one point as high up as the Chief of Detectives) would warn them before the vice squad could make a raid. Mobsters ran Chicago union locals, and national organizations for the Laborers and the Teamsters. This unprecedented combination of brute force and political clout let the bosses feed at the public trough with no-show jobs for their goons and municipal contracts for themselves and their associates. Government became one of their most lucrative rackets.

In his 1969 book, Captive City, investigative journalist Ovid Demaris called the Outfit, “the most politically insulated and police-pampered ‘family’ this side of Sicily” and estimated, even then, that their take was in the billions. With such total domination of their home turf, they could wander far and wide. By the Seventies, the FBI reported that Chicago’s Mob controlled all organized criminal activity west of the Mississippi – including and especially Las Vegas. Millions were skimmed from casinos like the Tropicana and the Stardust, and bundles of cash, stuffed in green army duffel bags, found their way back to the Outfit’s bosses. Meanwhile New York’s mobsters had to content themselves with the slim pickings of Atlantic City.

Here's an amazing chart of the Roti family from May 2006 from the Chicago Sun-Times(remember this is a conservative chart,the black dots are "made-members" of the Chicago Mob).

With all of Alderman Roti's power it's instructive to look at two of his major accomplishments in strengthening the power grip of the Chicago Mob over Chicago.The Chicago Mob couldn't operate without a corrupt police force.When Mayor Byrne had honest Superintendent Joe DiLeonardi run things for a while Alderman Roti put his foot down.As Robert Cooley explains:

According to Roti,he issued an ultimatum to Her Honor:either she got rid of DiLeonardi,or the municipal unions would shut down the city during the upcoming contract negotiations.Just as the Mob thought she would,Jane Byrne buckled.

With DiLeonardi gone,Roti demanded that William Hanhardt be appointed Chief of Detectives.Hanhardt was the Chicago Mob's long term plant on the police force.The position of Chief of Detectives is the fifth highest ranking position in the Chicago Police Department.Here's a quote from a federal indictment on Hanhardt and his achievements as a Chicago Police Officer and running the most successful jewelry theft ring in United States history :

COUNT ONE



The SPECIAL JANUARY 1999-1 GRAND JURY charges:



1. At all times material to this indictment:

(a) From July 13, 1953, until his retirement on pension as a captain on March 26, 1986, defendant WILLIAM A. HANHARDT was employed by the Chicago police Department (CPD"), and held several supervisory positions, including Chief of Detectives, Chief of Traffic, Commander of the Burglary Section, Deputy Superintendent for the Bureau of Inspectional Services, and District Commander. For a portion of the period of the indictment until the date of the indictment, defendant HANHARDT resided at 835 Heather Road, Deerfield, Illinois.

and

Defendant WILLIAM A. HANFLARDT (hereafter "HANHARDT^), was the leader of the enterprise. In that capacity he supervised codefendant JOSEPH N. HASINSKI and together they directed the activities of others employed by and associated with the enterprise- HANHARDT directed the other defendants and others in their gathering of information on potential jewelry theft victims and the surveillance of several such individuals. He utilized certain CPD[Chicago Police Department] officers to do database searches of CPD and other law enforcement computers to obtain information concerning jewelry salespersons. Similarly, he caused a private investigator to conduct credit bureau database searches and other database searches to gather information concerning individuals who were traveling jewelry salespersons. At times, HANHARDT used the telephone at his residence at 835 Heather Road, Deerfield, Illinois, to direct certain defendants and others to further the interests of the enterprise. HANHARDT personally participated in the theft of jewelry.

So,Hanhardt loaded up the Chicago Police Department with individuals who'd help him commit criminal acts long after leaving the police force.To understand the magnitude of Hanhardt's danger to Chicago citizens we'll quote U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in 2001:

"It's remarkable that a person who was chief of detectives of the Chicago Police Department admits to being part of a racketeering conspiracy," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said afterward.
"There's no controversy over whether Mr. Hanhardt is guilty -- he stood up in court and said that today," Fitzgerald said.

Here's what U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar said about Hanhardt's operation:

"Hanhardt's organization surpasses, in duration and sophistication, just about any other jewelry theft ring we've seen,"

With the appointment of Hanhardt to Chief of Detectives, what else could Alderman Roti and the Chicago Mob do to become a more effective criminal organization?? Disarm the citizens of Chicago so they'd be no match for the Chicago Mob and corrupt Chicago police officers.Guess who lead the fight for gun control in Chicago and voted on Chicago's strict gun control ordinance leaving innocent Chicago citizens defenseless against corrupt police officers like Hanhardt and his cronies? None other than Alderman Roti.As the Chicago Tribune reported on March 20,1982 in an article titled MAYOR'S FORCES WIN HANDGUN CURB:

As Friday's council session began,[Mayor]Byrne feared the vote was too close to call.There was extensive backroom debate to determine if the matter should be brought up.But,Byrne allies,primarily Alderman Fred Roti(1st),Edward Burke(14th)and Wilson Frost(34th),moved through the council chambers,persuading wavering aldermen to back the mayor's proposals.Still,Some of Byrne's staunchest allies,including Alderman Robert Shaw(9th) and Richard Mell(33rd),deserted ranks and voted against the ordinance.Streets and Sanitation Commissioner John Donovan made a last-minute deal with at least three aldermen who threatened to walk out of the meeting to avoid voting for the proposal.Donovan promised to improve city services in their wards.

Today,in 2008,Chicago has a major police corruption problem because of the handgun ban.Here's a recent look at Chicago's elite police officers officers:

A major police corruption probe is under way in Chicago.

Its target: an elite police tactical unit. Its alleged ringleader: a highly decorated police officer who, with other cops, allegedly committed home invasions and robberies.

In 1999,the Justice Department announced to America what many had long suspected:Alderman Roti was a "high ranking made member" of the Chicago Mob(look at pages 27 and 47 of this civil racketeering indictment).Here's the description of Alderman Roti:

FRED B. ROTI, a politically powerful former Chicago First Ward alderman, is the uncle of former CLDC president/ business manager Bruno Caruso and former CLDC official and Pension Fund Director Frank "Toots" Caruso. In 1992, in the case of United States v. Pat Marcy, et al. 90 CR 1045 (N.D. Illinois), Fred Roti was convicted of RICO conspiracy, bribery and extortion regarding the fixing of criminal cases in the Circuit Court of Cook County, including murder cases involving organized crime members or associates and was sentenced to 48 months' imprisonment. Roti was released from prison in 1997. As First Ward alderman, Roti was a key political patronage boss and, along with his co‑defendant Pat Marcy, a fixer for the Chicago Outfit. Roti has directly participated in interfering with the rights of the members of LIUNA in the selection of their officers and officials in that he has improperly influenced the selection of officers of the CLDC and has been responsible for the pervasive hiring of LaPietra crew members and associates at the Chicago streets and sanitation department. Roti is a made member of the Chicago Outfit.

Two points of note here on the above quote.LaPietra is the infamous Angelo "the Hook" LaPietra ,Chicago Mob Capo who earned his nickname by torturing people by putting them on meat hooks.Pat Marcy,at the time of his indictment,in the early 1990's was one of the people Roti reported to in the Chicago Mob.Marcy was the number 3 man in the Chicago Mob.Here's the New York Times on the Roti and Marcy operation:

This is at least the third major Federal inquiry into official corruption in the Chicago courts and political system within recent years. Operation Graylord, a sweeping investigation into corruption in the Cook County courts, has resulted in the convictions of more than 70 people, including 15 judges, since the mid-1980's. Operation Incubator has obtained about a dozen convictions or guilty pleas, including those from five members of the City Council and a former aide to the late Mayor Harold Washington. 'Fixed' Murder Trials

Among the accusations are that two of the men were involved in efforts to fix two separate murder trials. In both instances, the murder defendants were acquitted by judges, who heard the cases without juries.

In the first murder case, prosecutors say Pasquale Marcy, a 77-year-old official in the First Ward Democratic organization, fixed the 1977 murder trial of Harry Aleman, who was accused of killing a teamsters' union steward, by paying $10,000 to the judge assigned to hear the case. In the second, Mr. Marcy and Fred Roti, the First Ward's Alderman since 1969, are accused of having accepted $75,000 in exchange for fixing the trial of three men accused of a 1981 murder in the city's Chinatown neighborhood.

The indictment does not name the judges who presided over the murder cases. Prosecutors refused to answer further questions at the news conference about the murder cases beyond the few details laid out in the indictments.

The allegations involving the murder cases are in the first of the three indictments. That indictment charges Mr. Marcy and Mr. Roti with multiple counts of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, bribery and extortion in various attempts to fix a wide range of matters, including the results of civil bench trials, other criminal cases, zoning chanaes and judicial appointments. Indictment of Judge

In the second indictment, Federal prosecutors named David J. Shields, 58, formerly the presiding judge of the Chancery Division of the Cook County Circuit Court; and Pasquale F. De Leo, 45, a lawyer, on charges of extortion, false statements and other criminal acts in connection with attempts to fix a civil case -- filed by undercover Federal agents posing as litigants -- before Judge Shields in 1988.

In the third indictment, prosecutors charged John A. D'Arco Jr., 46, an Illinois State Senator for 13 years, with extortion and tax fraud. The indictment says Mr. D'Arco, whose district includes parts of Mr. Roti's ward, extorted $7,500 in exchange for promising to introduce into the Legislature a bill to allow a travel insurance business to sell insurance without the required state license.

With Alderman Roti and Pat Marcy indicted the Chicago Mob was never the same.The frequent Mob killings stopped because the Mob couldn't be guaranteed any longer of going up in front of judges on their pad.So who took control of Chicago's political system? One of Alderman Roti's colleagues,a close friend,Alderman Ed Burke.

Most of America thinks Mayor Daley runs Chicago.Those on the inside know that's not the case.The man who runs Chicago from behind the scenes,since the early 1990's, is Alderman Ed Burke,Chairman of Chicago's Finance Committee.Burke went from being an errand boy for Alderman Roti to the most powerful elected figure in the state of Illinois.In a corrupt state like Illinois,the guy with the most money in his campaign fund is the man at the top.In Illinois,it's not Chicago's Mayor Daley or Governor Blagojevich but Alderman Burke.The Chicago Tribune explains:

But the state’s richest political family was Ald. Edward Burke (14th) and his wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke. Together, their political committees held $8.3 million in cash. The Tribune reported Monday that Anne Burke’s campaign was returning a large portion of her cash to donors because she is running unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Mayor Richard M. Daley, who traditionally ceases fundraising after elections, raised just $43,000 in the last six months, but had $3.1 million in cash on hand.

The guy with the most money obviously had the track record to get things done.Alderman Burke has never had a serious opponent run against him but sure has amassed a massive campaign fund.Not only is Burke the boss of Chicago's City Council, he's the person that slates all the judges in Cook County.With all judges in Cook County members of the Democratic Party, that makes Ed Burke the boss of the judicial branch.No man in America has more unchecked power than Alderman Burke with his control of the tax code in Chicago and the judicial branch of government.Alderman Burke also runs a law firm in the property tax appeals business:

The primary focus of the firm involves contesting real estate tax assessments in the office of the respective county assessors, before boards of review and, when appropriate, in the trial and appellate courts.

Recently, a founder of Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA) has asked the Illinois Supreme Court to investigate Alderman Burke and his wife justice Ann Burke.One of the allegations concerned fixing a murder trial for Alderman Roti :

I am co-founder of the non-profit organization known as Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA) which was created to stop the public corruption in the family courts in Illinois that is hurting the children of Illinois families.

Multiple IFCAA co-members, including myself, have had or are having our cases heard in the domestic relations court of the Circuit Court of Cook County in which it is apparent that rampant, unchecked, improper, and illegal activities have taken and are taking place.

It is clear that the corruption does not just involve a few judges and attorneys on the trial level. The material evidence in court records reveals that the corruption is systemic up through the reviewing courts. Further research has revealed that a critical intervention point is with the individual primarily responsible for which attorneys end up on the Chicago bench, specifically, Alderman Edward Burke.

One could argue with confidence that there is no way Chicago’s court system can or will be cleaned up until there is an investigation of Alderman Ed Burke and his wife, the newest appointee of the Illinois Supreme Court, Justice Anne Burke.

I have read the book, When Corruption Was King, by Robert Cooley, and have been in contact with him. Mr. Cooley is the former criminal attorney who was responsible for the FBI investigation, Operation Gambat, which resulted in the successful prosecution and conviction of three judges, one alderman, several attorneys, and multiple other Circuit Court of Cook County and City of Chicago officials. After reading Mr. Cooley’s book, I researched other sources regarding the professional and personal backgrounds of Justice Anne Burke and her husband, Edward, the longtime alderman from the 14th Ward, and the powerful and influential chairman of Chicago’s City Council's finance committee and chairman of the Democratic Party’s judicial slate-making subcommittee, the alleged “gatekeeper” of who becomes a judge in Chicago’s courts.

As a resident of the State of Illinois, I am writing to you and all your colleagues on the Illinois Supreme Court to formally request an investigation of Justice Anne Burke and her husband as well as others who were specifically named by Mr. Cooley in his book, When Corruption Was King. I am formally requesting that you, as a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, cause an investigation to be initiated by the appropriate authorities.

I respectfully call your attention to the information and allegations presented herein as well as to your Oath of Office, and to the absolute duty to report misconduct of judges and attorneys under Illinois Supreme Court Rules, which rules mandate an investigation of the allegations herein. [Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 63 (B)(3)(a) and/or Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 8.3(a)&(b); See Endnotes.] Further, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern District opinion entered on November 1, 2005 in Case No. 05 C 0283, Golden and Golden v. Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli, LLC, et al, stated in pertinent part, “The court notes that Illinois attorneys have an absolute duty to report misconduct of other attorneys. See Skolnick v. Altheimer & Gray, 191 Ill.2d 214, 226, 730 N.E.2d 4, 246 Ill. Dec. 324 (2000)”

In Mr. Cooley’s book, he specifically stated that Alderman Ed Burke contacted Judge Cieslak, recently deceased, regarding at least two murder cases and tried to influence his decision on those cases. In his book, that was printed and distributed nationally, Mr. Cooley stated that Alderman Ed Burke and his wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, were involved in a molestation case that he, himself, was asked to fix. After these allegations were published, when Alderman Ed Burke and his wife, Justice Anne Burke, were asked to comment on the allegations, they stated, “No comment.”

These and other very serious allegations that were made sometime ago about these individuals have gone unopposed and uninvestigated After these allegations were made public, Justice Anne Burke was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court and her attorney husband, Alderman Ed Burke, has been allowed to remain as Chairman of the Democratic Committee that slates judges.

After I read the book, I was able to make contact with Robert Cooley and he told me that he was informed years ago that Ed Burke was to be indicted for a number of illegal activities he was involved in, including the fixing of murder cases. He also told me that there were a number of cases he was involved in fixing and a number of other illegal activities and yet no one from any state investigative agencies ever contacted him or the late Judge Cieslak nor anyone else who witnessed illegal acts involving the Burkes. [He indicated that the Burkes are still involved in alleged illicit activities including recently attempting to get the Emerald City Casino license returned to a number of close friends.] He told me that within the past year, Judge Cieslak gave an interview to two members of the media in which Judge Cieslak verified that all the allegations made in Cooley’s book were true. After the judge gave the interview, the two separate reporters specifically told Mr. Cooley that they were “not allowed to do the story because it involves Ed Burke.”

Mr. Cooley told me that he has talked to a number of people and has provided information about Ed and Anne Burke similar to that which resulted in indictments and convictions in Operation Gambit. He told me that major newspaper and television entities flat out told him that they could not do a substantive story on Ed Burke or Anne Burke.

Cammon and Remy Murder Cases

In his book, Mr. Cooley stated Ed Burke and Anne Burke along with Attorney Pat Tuite fixed a murder case before Judge Maloney. Herbert Cammon’s case was a murder case in which it was alleged that Herbert Cammon, a gay black man, murdered his wife with the help of his gay lover by stabbing her over 40 times and leaving the knife sticking out of her mouth. It was alleged that he murdered his wife to obtain the proceeds of a $250,000 life insurance policy. The case was originally assigned to Judge Arthur Ceilsik. After a mistrial because of a hung jury, Ed Burke approached Judge Cieslik and told him to withdraw from the case. When the judge refused to withdraw from the case, he told the judge, “What’s the big deal. It’s only a fucking nigger.”[1] Ed Burke’s wife, Anne, had filed an appearance in the case as co-counsel with Pat Tuite. Anne Burke also requested that the judge withdraw from the case saying, “My husband was the one who put you on the bench.” [Judge Cieslek lived in the 14th ward.] When the judge finally withdrew from the case due to media pressure initiated by the attorneys, the case was assigned to Judge Tom Maloney. Judge Maloney dismissed the case in a bench trial. Cooley revealed that he was wearing a wire when the aforementioned events took place such that the FBI was fully informed. Cooley revealed that he was in communication with Judge Cieslik and he tried to encourage the judge to not let the case go. He also reported to the feds that the case would be assigned to Judge Maloney who would fix the case.

Mr. Cooley revealed that this was the second murder case that Ed Burke tried to fix before Judge Ceislak. Prior to the Cammon case, Cooley wrote about a murder case that Ed Burke tried to fix before Judge Cieslik as a favor to one of the mob bosses, Angelo “The Hook” LaPeitra. This was the Remy murder case in which some Chicago Police officers beat a black man to death for smoking on an “L” train. Cooley stated in the book that one of the police officers was a relative of LaPeitra. He also reported that when Ed Burke was talking to Attorney Sam Banks, Ed Burke made similar racist statements as in the Cammon murder case, specifically, “It’s only a fucking nigger. I can’t see why the judge is making such a big deal about it.”

He also reported that when Ed Burke was in Counselors Row he made a similar racist statement as in the Cammon case. When he specifically said to the group at the First Ward table “I can’t see why the judge is making such a big deal about it. It’s only a fucking nigger.”

At the time the book came out, Anne Burke was a sitting judge on the appellate bench and she never sued the author or publisher when they made these statements. The accusations appear to be true.

A report by Abdon M. Pallasch from Chicago Lawyer dated January 1998 stated that WBBM-TV reported “U.S. Attorney’s Office investigated rumors in 1988 that [Ed] Burke bribed judges to fix two murder cases.”

Why weren’t Anne Burke and/or Ed Burke questioned about their involvement in the Cammon or Remy murder cases? If there was an investigation, why weren’t Judge Arthur Cieslik or Attorney Robert Cooley interviewed?

Politicians are called many things but fixing a murder trial is well... very serious business.Just why didn't Alderman Burke sue Robert Cooley for claiming Alderman Burke fixed a murder trial for the Chicago Mob?

With Tony Rezko's trial,who do you think Rezko went to for some legal work? None other than Alderman Ed Burke.The Chicago Sun Times reports:

Why did Ald. Edward M. Burke vote to approve Tony Rezko’s plans to develop the South Loop’s biggest piece of vacant land even as he was working for Rezko on that same deal?

Burke says: I forgot to abstain.

Burke says: I forgot to abstain.

The much-conflicted alderman says he meant to sit out the vote. He’d even sent a letter to the Chicago Board of Ethics in August 2003 saying he would abstain from any Council votes on Rezko’s plan to put as many as 5,000 homes and stores on a 62-acre site along the Chicago River at Roosevelt Road.

The much-conflicted alderman says he meant to sit out the vote. He’d even sent a letter to the Chicago Board of Ethics in August 2003 saying he would abstain from any Council votes on Rezko’s plan to put as many as 5,000 homes and stores on a 62-acre site along the Chicago River at Roosevelt Road.

But then Rezko’s project came before the City Council on March 31, 2004, and Burke cast his vote — in favor.

“An error occurred,” the alderman said in a written response to questions, “and Rule 14 was not invoked.”

That would be the Council rule under which aldermen are supposed to abstain from a vote when they have a conflict of interest.

Of course, it’s up to the alderman who has a conflict to invoke the rule.

Burke’s legal work for Rezko’s Rezmar Corp. is referenced in records on the 62-acre site Rezko wanted to develop with $140 million in city subsidies. The project fizzled, and Rezmar sold the land.

Rezko has since been indicted on federal corruption charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state contracts under Gov. Blagojevich.

When Burke voted for Rezko’s project, the alderman’s law firm was trying to get a 77 percent cut in the site’s real estate taxes, arguing that Cook County Assessor James Houlihan was wrong to have used the sale price to determine the property’s value.

If it had succeeded, the appeal would have saved Rezmar more than $390,000 in real estate taxes. And Burke would have gotten 20 percent of that savings, according to Daniel Mahru, Rezko’s former partner.

But Burke lost and got nothing. Because he didn’t get paid, he never had to publicly disclose his legal work for Rezmar.

“The ordinance did not require me to disclose that my law firm represented this company,” Burke said in his statement to the Sun-Times. “The rule is very simple: You must receive ‘compensation in excess of $5,000,’ as outlined in the city’s own disclosure form. In fact, my law firm received no compensation at all.”

Burke spent at least six months trying to win the tax cut for Rezko:

• On Nov. 24, 2003, Burke asked Houlihan to lower the assessed value. He didn’t get what he wanted.

• On Dec. 16, 2003, Rezmar hired Burke to appeal to the Cook County Board of Review.

• On March 31, 2004, Burke joined fellow aldermen to approve Rezko’s development plans for the 62-acre site.

• On May 25, 2004, Burke appealed to the Board of Review, which refused to give Rezmar a tax break.

Burke has a history of voting on legislation involving his legal clients. Ten years ago, the Sun-Times found Burke voted to approve city leases for two airlines represented by his law firm. Burke then used a rare parliamentary move to change four “yes” votes to abstentions. Burke blamed those “yes” votes on the late Ald. Thomas Cullerton, claiming he told Cullerton that he planned to abstain from voting on the airline leases.

In conclusion,Alderman Roti is gone but his legacy lives on.On August 11,1999 the Justice Department named Alderman Roti as a high ranking "made member" of the Chicago Mob.Did Roti deny it? No.He died just weeks later on September 20,1999.When the Chicago City Council came back to meet on September 29,1999 one of the first orders of business was to honor the life of Alderman Roti.No we aren't joking.Being convicted for felonies on the job as Alderman Roti was, is to be honored by Chicago Democrats.We'll quote to you the full resolution entered on pages 11238,11239,and 11240 of the Journal-City Council-Chicago on September 29,1999 :

Rules Suspended--TRIBUTE TO LATE ALDERMAN FRED B.ROTI.
The Honorable Richard M.Daley,Mayor,presented the following communication:
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
CITY OF CHICAGO
September 29,1999.
To the Honorable,The City Council of the City of Chicago:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN--I transmit herewith a resolution honoring the life and memory of Alderman Fred B. Roti.

Your favorable consideration of this resolution will be appreciated.

Very truly yours,
(Signed) Richard M.Daley

Mayor.

Alderman Burke moved to Suspend the Rules Temporarily to permit immediate consideration of and action upon the said proposed resolution.The motion Prevailed.

The following is said proposed resolution:

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti passed away on Monday,September 20,1999,at the age of seventy-eight;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti,one of eleven children,the son of southern Italian immigrants,was born in an apartment over a store in Chinatown,the near south die neighborhood where he spent his whole life;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti spent more than fifty years in government service,the jobs ranging form state senator to city drain inspector to a post at the city morgue;and

WHEREAS,In 1968 Fred B. Roti was elected alderman of Chicago's great 1st Ward;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti loved his work as alderman,and he counseled mayors,encouraged downtown development,helped shape the Chicago skyline and served the citizens of the 1st Ward ably and with vigor until 1991;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti's talents,hard work and friendly,humorous manner earned him the respect and affection of former colleagues,constitutients,citizens and the press;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti is remembered as a kind,considerate person,who had great love for his family and community;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti is survived by his loving son,Bruno;his loving daughters,Rose Mary Marasso and Mary Ann Walz;and his two sisters;and

WHEREAS,Fred B. Roti was much loved by his six grandchildren;and

WHEREAS,Fred B.Roti, a committed public servant, a cherished friend of many and good neighbor to all,will be greatly missed and fondly remembered by his many family members,friends and associates;now therefore,


Be it Resolved,That we ,the Mayor and members of the City Council of the City of Chicago,assembled this twenty-ninth day of September,1999,do hereby extend to the family of the late Fred B. Roti our deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies upon their loss;and

Be it Further Resolved,That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of the late Fred B. Roti as a sign of our sympathy and good wishes.

On motion of Alderman Burke,seconded by Aldermen Granato,Tillman,Beavers,Balcer,Rugai,Solis,Suarez,Mell,Allen,O'Connor,Natarus,Hansen and Schulter,the foregoing proposed resolution was Adopted by a rising vote.


At this point in the proceedings,The Honorable Richard M. Daley,Mayor,rose and on behalf of his own family and the people of Chicago extended condolences to the family of former Alderman Fred Roti.Mayor Daley remembered the Alderman as a true Chicagoan who served his constituents without regard to wealth or status,as a public official who refused to permit the intensity of the political debate to impinge upon the civility of personal relationships.Fred Roti loved politics and loved government because he loved people,Mayor Daley declared,and he leaves his family a legacy of public service.

There you have it: Mayor Daley,Alderman Burke, and the rest of the Chicago City Council believes a "high ranking made member" of the Chicago Mob was a "committed public servant" and "leaves his family a legacy of public service".These are the values of the Chicago Democratic Machine.

Thanks to Steve Bartin

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School Bus Company Owner Disputes Ties to the Mob

Upset over online columns linking him to the mafia, a school bus company owner is considering a libel suit against a veteran reporter, but wants the details kept secret, attorneys said Wednesday.

The face-off is between Domenic F. Gatto, chief executive of the Staten Island-based Atlantic Express Transportation Corporation, and Jerry Capeci, mafia expert and author of the weekly ganglandnews.com.

In a column last December, Capeci cited sealed court documents for the assertion that law enforcement officials in 1989 "pegged the current owner of New York City's largest school bus company as a labor racketeer with ties to the mob and a corrupt bus drivers union executive."

The column said "Domenic F. Gatto, whose company now earns more than $200 million a year busing city school kids, was linked to bid-rigging and illegal activities with Julius (Spike) Bernstein, the late secretary-treasurer of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, according to the documents."

Peter R. Silverman, Gatto's attorney, said his client is "absolutely not" linked to the mafia and the sealed court documents contained "lies and fabrications made up by a convicted felon."

Mr. Silverman said, "If we choose to litigate this, we do not want the sealed court documents to be open to the public again."

Capeci's attorney, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, argued that the First Amendment protects his client and that any libel suit must be entirely public.

"Jerry Capeci meticulously reported on documented alleged ties between Mr. Gatto, the mafia and price fixing in the school bus industry," said Margulis-Ohnuma. "Mr. Gatto has the right to respond to these allegations but if he wants to sue, he has to do it in public."

A Staten Island judge rejected Gatto's request to temporarily seal the court documents at issue, but the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn took the case on appeal and will again consider the matter next week.

Thanks to WNBC

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Defining "The Chicago Way"

The Chicago Way.

What is it? Is it easily abused? Is it dangerous in the wrong hands?

This is critical, as the nation's eyes turn toward Chicago's federal building, where Barack Obama's personal real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, stands trial on federal corruption charges.

The phrase must be put in context, something the national media fails to do when they portray Obama as the boy king drawing the sword from the stone, ready to change America's politics of influence and lobbyists, ignoring the fact that Chicago ain't Camelot.

With opening statements expected Thursday, the court will be packed with journalists foreign to our idiom. In the past, a few reporters have applied "The Chicago Way" to our pizza, theater and opera, thereby embarrassing themselves beyond redemption.

To prevent such outrage, I've enlisted the help of George Washington, father of our country, crooner Dean Martin and aged action star Sean Connery in a cutting-edge video premiering now at chicagotribune.com/kass.

You know the movie "The Untouchables" in which Connery played the only Chicago cop in city history with a Scottish accent? "He [ Al Capone] puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue..." says Connery's cop. "That's the Chicago Way."

Perhaps.

Chicago's mob -- we call it the Outfit -- was slapped last summer by federal prosecutors in the Operation Family Secrets trial that convicted Outfit bosses, and cops and put political figures in with them. We've had our chief of detectives (William Hanhardt) sent to prison for running the Outfit's jewelry-heist ring. And we've had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley, who must have seen them pink and white and male at some point.

That's the Chicago Way.

"This country was built on taxes," said a Democratic machine hack, Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, as she and other Democrats prepared to slap Chicago with the highest sales tax of any major city in the country.

Her belief, that America was built on taxes, is one of the unique features of our own city's history, which reportedly began in 1776, when the Daleys boldly declared our independence from the English king.

"There's not that many political hacks in Cook County," Sims insisted after the tax hike.

Not that many hacks? The only one reporters need to bother about is also involved at the same federal building: the mayor's own Duke of Patronage, Robert Sorich.

Sorich has been found guilty by a jury, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals above the Rezko courtroom is still deciding whether to redeem the jury or redeem the mayor, who'd much rather have Sorich happy than Obama in the White House.

Sorich was convicted two years ago of running the mayor's massive and illegal patronage operation, and he's still not in prison. Thugs, morons, idiots, and convicts were put on the city payroll to work the precincts so that Daley could keep getting elected. Obama's spokesman, David Axelrod, defended Daley patronage in a Tribune op-ed piece.

The Daley family's parish priest in Bridgeport, Rev. Dan Brandt, lovingly compared Sorich to Jesus Christ as both had troubles with the law.

"People often say, what would Jesus do?" he said, loyal not only to his faith but to the 11th Ward's place at the head of Chicago Way. "I put a twist on it and say, 'What would I do for Jesus?' With whom Robert has a lot in common as far as legal problems ... [The Lord] was a convicted felon. And Robert was convicted, and so he may have a lot in common with Jesus."

When the parish priest does right by the patronage boss to protect the mayor who gets endorsed by that great reformer Sir Barack of O'bama, that's the Chicago Way.

Naturally, there are some squares who don't think taxpayers should pave the Chicago Way to make it easy for Rezko to help purchase the senator's dream house in a kinky deal exposed by the Tribune and still not fully explained.

"It's really the Old Chicago Way," said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. "In the old days they would pretty much admit it up front, and now they deny it. It's essentially about power, access to government jobs, government contracts and taking care of your own."

One secret DaVinci Code-type sign for the Chicago Way is in the back room of the Chicago City Council chambers at City Hall, where a portrait of George Washington looks down at the crookedness below, and extends his own hand, palm up, itchy, needing that special grease. But some strangers to our lands have used the Chicago Way with perfect pitch. Rezko's buddy, former Iraqi electricity minister, Aiham Alsammarae, escaped an Iraqi prison where he was being investigated for corruption.

A reporter asked -- How did you escape?

"The Chicago Way," he said.

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US Marshall Wore Wire to Investigate Mob Witness Leak

A deputy U.S. marshal secretly wore a wire against a man who was like a father to him as part of the investigation into the leak of confidential witness information to the Chicago Outfit.

The details were revealed Tuesday in federal court as the deputy marshal, John Ambrose, battled prosecutors to get certain statements he allegedly made to investigators thrown out of his upcoming trial. Ambrose is charged with leaking information on a star witness, hitman Nick Calabrese -- information that made its way to mob boss James Marcello.

Federal agents focused on Ambrose as the source of the leak after listening to secret prison tape recordings of Marcello.

Ambrose was lured to FBI offices on a pretense in September 2006, then the feds revealed their evidence against him. The feds needed Ambrose to detail how the information got from him to Marcello. Ambrose answered the feds' questions but initially balked at wearing a wire, worrying he would be viewed as "a snitch," FBI Special Agent Ted McNamara testified.

Ambrose eventually recorded William Guide, a former Chicago Police officer who was convicted with Ambrose's cop father in the Marquette 10 scandal. Ambrose's father died in prison, and Guide became a second father to Ambrose.

The feds haven't charged Guide but claim in court filings Ambrose passed witness information to Guide, who allegedly has mob ties.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Did US Marshall Put Flipped Mobster at Risk?

In a brief but loud confrontation, the top FBI agent in Chicago, Robert Grant, underscored the deadly potential of a deputy U.S. marshal leaking information to the Chicago mob about a star government witness, as Grant verbally battled with the deputy marshal's attorney during a court hearing on Monday.

"This leak put at risk the most important witness in the Family Secrets case. It put at risk the agents guarding him. It put at risk his wife," Grant said, during questioning by Francis C. Lipuma, the lawyer for U.S. Deputy Marshal John Ambrose. "This leak was no small leak."

Ambrose is accused of leaking information about mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese, the star witness in the Family Secrets trial, which ended in September with the convictions of five defendants, including Calabrese's brother, mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr.

Chicago mobsters "protect their own because it's assumed they won't cooperate. Once that cooperation becomes known, it's fair game," Grant said.

A federal judge is holding a hearing to determine what statements by Ambrose, if any, should be allowed at his trial.

Ambrose contends when he was lured to FBI offices in September 2006 on a ruse, he was in custody but not initially read his Miranda rights.

Both Grant and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who paired up to talk with Ambrose initially, testified at the hearing that they told Ambrose he wasn't under arrest.

Ambrose's name came to light during secret FBI recordings of Chicago mob boss James Marcello while in prison.

Grant said that Ambrose admitted he knew two of his friends had connections to mob bosses Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and John "No Nose" DiFronzo.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Will Artifacts Confirm Discovery of Secret Capone Hideout?

Jean Garland had always admired the stately home where she and her family now live. But she never knew that secrets dating back more than a half century could have been buried beneath it.

In May 2000, the Garlands bought the home, which sits on a bluff overlooking Three Mile Lake in Paw Paw. And in the years since, neighbors started telling them stories about how the house was a getaway and hideout for notorious Chicago mob boss Al Capone. Capone died in 1947.

Eventually, their curiosity got the best of them. Last spring, they began digging for answers.

They found a hole in a wall in the basement, and upon looking down inside it, saw a shaft reinforced with steel and wood ran from the bottom of the hole further back into the basement.

They started clearing an area around a place they thought the shaft -- which might have provided a stream of fresh air -- could have ended. What they found surprised them.

A circular outline in the concrete about four feet in diameter emerged, and they went to work smashing through the concrete to see what was below.

All of a sudden, the concrete gave-way, revealing a hole with brick walls and a heavy iron fixture at its top.

"That's when our hearts started beating," Jean said.

Jean's husband, Jim, grabbed a hand-held ice auger and began slicing through the dirt. When he got down nearly six feet, he stopped.

They found Chicago Daily Tribune newspaper clippings from the 1930s and 1940s, along with assorted empty bottles and other items.

Could this have been a secret area for Capone or one of his associates to hide if law enforcement came knocking? Or is it an old well? Jean said it's not likely to be a well because there is no solid bottom to it.

"If it is a real hideout, then it's really interesting what we've found," Jim said.
In all, the Garlands have collected about 100 artifacts, he said. None of the items bears Capone's name, however.

Behind the main house, a yellow carriage house sits close to the Garlands' garage. Jim and Jean's daughter, Cara, currently lives there, but neighbors told the family that employees of Capone stayed there when he was staying at the main house.

Further back, encased in a heavily wooded area, is a five-sided, three-story silo, with windows on each side.

Neighbors said it served as a look-out tower for Capone's security detail, who would position themselves on the top floor, where a pool table currently sits, Jim said. On the bottom floor, Capone would host cock fighting contests, Jean said neighbors told her.

Tom Dietz, curator of research at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, said he has heard stories over the years about the possibility of a Capone home in the area, but he remains skeptical.

"There certainly have been legends and folklore that Capone did have such a home," he said. "But so far, I have not been persuaded."

It's not inconceivable that the gangster -- who was known to have spent time in Michigan -- could have had a house in the area, Dietz said, given the Kalamazoo area's equidistance from Chicago and Detroit. The proximity would have been a boon to his alleged bootlegging operations.

Dietz has investigated several claims from area homeowners who insisted their homes were used by Capone, but all were unsubstantiated, he said.

Still, he's curious about the Garland home.

"I'd be happy to take a look out there," he said. "Who knows what we'll find."

For their part, the Garlands are cautiously optimistic that their home is the real deal, saying they believe they have encountered paranormal activity.

Routinely, a television in their main living room turns on suddenly. A rocking chair in the carriage house rocked even when no one was in it. Disturbed, Cara got rid of the rocking chair.

"If this was an Al Capone house, then it's almost like he's still here," Jean said.

Thanks to Chris Killian

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Mob Mentality at the Movies

The nearly concurrent DVD releases of Alberto Lattuada's "Mafioso - Criterion Collection, and Marco Turco's "Excellent Cadavers," from First Run, make for a discerningly complementary treatment of the Sicilian Mafia as an indestructible force of evil. Americans have adopted mobsters as cultural house pets — as urban outlaws, dapper rogues, or House of Atreus incendiaries, depending on one's metaphorical preference. These two films — a dark comedy from 1962 featuring a perfectly judged performance by Alberto Sordi and a documentary from 2005 — go beyond catchphrases and soap opera to capture the chilling reality of an institution that appears to be as secure as the church, even though for a long time it was hardly acknowledged at all.

Mafia movies, like mafia prosecutions, were redefined in the 1950s by two commissions. First, the 1951 televised Kefauver Committee hearings concluded that organized crime existed, despite suspiciously stubborn denials by the FBI. The stars of the proceedings were Frank Costello's hands. The mob boss had somehow convinced the committee and the broadcaster not to show his face. A better symbol for the manipulations of an invisible puppeteer could not have been invented.

The cinematic response was instantaneous, as a slew of films appeared about the secret empire. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s, which focused on individuals, these films looked at a larger enterprise: "The Enforcer," "The Big Heat," "On the Waterfront (Special Edition)," "The Big Combo," "The Miami Story," "The Phenix City Story," "The Brothers Rico," "Chicago Confidential," "New York Confidential," "The Garment Center," and dozens more. They often avoided ethnicity, steered clear of the word "mafia," and usually ended with Mr. Big taking a fall. "I'm glad what I done to you," Terry Malloy chided Johnny Friendly in "On the Waterfront" — all it took was a stand-up guy. Even so, J. Edgar Hoover persisted in characterizing the mob as a chimera, unlike the bank robbers he had dispatched in the happier days of the Depression. Even Hoover had to moonwalk, however, after the mob bosses convened their own 1957 commission in Apalachin. Local police intruded, sending made men scurrying into the nearby woods. Denial was no longer an option, though it was the Treasury Department's Bureau of Narcotics, not the FBI, which soon compiled the first bestiary of connected men, published only last year as "Mafia."

This time the cinematic response was more violent and morally baroque, animated by realism that the Production Code could not entirely repeal. Richard Widmark (in 1947's "Kiss of Death") and Eli Wallach (in 1958's "The Lineup") played psychopaths who push wheelchair-bound seniors to their deaths. In the first film, the victim is a harmless woman, and the death of the predator restores social order; in the second, the victim is a kingpin, and the death of the hit man who pushes him over the railing of a skating rink resolves nothing. Richard Wilson's "Pay or Die" (1960) tells the true story of the fearless Italian-American cop who visited Sicily in 1909 seeking information to expose the secret society. He was promptly assassinated: end of story.

The Italian film industry, which had ignored the Mafia to this point, now began to acknowledge its barbarity, if somewhat obliquely. In the late 1950s, Francesco Rosi began his career by exploring the rituals of organized crime in "La Sfida" (shot in Naples for fear of offending Sicilians) and the bumbling "I Magliari" (starring Sordi). He found a voice of his own in "Salvatore Giuliano" (1962), using documentary meticulousness to trace the rise of a mob chieftain in the postwar years as the Allies cemented a Mafia-government coalition — a theme briefly explored in "Excellent Cadavers."

That same year, Sicily's underground was further breached in two comedies set in the present: Pietro Germi's flat-out hilarious "Divorce Italian Style," in which the rule of the dons is a given and pandemic bloodlust is played out in a burlesque of marital honor; and Lattuada's "Mafioso," in which the comic elements are, at first, disarmingly unclear. If "The Godfather" is a bloody epic that leaves residual recollections of star-powered romance, nostalgia, and wit, "Mafioso" is a comedy of manners that leaves the chill of unappeased horror. It drolly meanders for half its running time, a beautifully played character study without urgent direction. The viewer is encouraged to feel superior to the naïve Nino, until Nino and viewer alike are placed in the dark — a plane's cargo hold, en route to New York to commit a crime for which neither he nor we are quite prepared.

Lattuada makes clear from the beginning that Mafia tentacles reach well into the north. Nino has lived in Milan for eight years as an efficiency expert in a factory. He now chooses to take a long-delayed vacation, bringing his wife and children to meet his family in his native Sicily. His boss gives him a package to be hand-delivered to Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attanasio), which turns out to be an American-made golden heart that will adorn the church's Madonna and also contains coded instructions for a death warrant.

Nino is a fish out of water (except in the zone afforded by his family and by vanity), never more so than when shipped to New York, oily and overdressed — though he briefly feels at home as he looks up at the astonishing skyscrapers and sees a poster for a Sophia Loren film. The favor Don Vincenzo demands of him is filmed as a dream, a few hours on the other side of the looking glass. Nino and we know virtually nothing of his target, but the deed is compromising all around. "Mafioso" is built like a snare, supported by the sumptuous photography of Armando Nannuzzi and a wonderfully mottled score by Piero Piccioni, who mixes idioms and underscores ill omens with electrical rumbling.

"Excellent Cadavers" is not for the faint of heart or the cheery of disposition. It argues that the Mafia, which, during a two-year period in the early 1980s, left 300 slaughtered bodies on the streets of Palermo, could be eradicated. It almost was, according to Mr. Turco, when two magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, combined to launch the maxi-trial that placed more than 400 Mafia suspects before a judge and, despite interference by the Italian government, ultimately won convictions. The reprisals were swift. In 1992, Falcone and Borsellino were murdered, months apart, in explosions that observers likened to nuclear blasts. Silvio Berlusconi's government then undid much of what had been accomplished, even dismantling the witness protection program. Today the mafia is said to extort tributes from 80% of Sicilian businesses, to say nothing of its role in the international heroin trade.

Much of the archival footage in "Excellent Cadavers" is astonishing, including dozens of photographs by Letizia Battaglia, who appears on camera at 70 and recalls the almost daily calls to various murder sites. Her pictures of bodies surrounded by grieving widows and curious onlookers are horrific; in one, a severed head is set upon a car seat. So much of the film is admirable that its missteps are especially regrettable. Mr. Turco's film is based on a book by Alexander Stille, who is inexplicably on camera throughout, lugging a shoulder bag, occasionally pretending to read or write. He also serves as narrator and lacks authority in the role. He doesn't even explain the title, which is mob slang for the bodies of political officials.

Yet the film tells a complicated story, involving a great many names (First Run ought to have provided a dramatis personae); it is coherent and dramatically sound. Falcone and Borsellino emerge as genuine heroes. Asked if he is afraid, Falcone, who looks disconcertingly like Alberto Sordi, says, "Living with one's fear, without being conditioned by it, that's courage. Otherwise, it's not courage but recklessness." "Excellent Cadavers" is one of the saddest films I've ever seen.

Thanks to Gary Giddins. Mr. Giddins is the author of "Natural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music, and Books."

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Tony Spilotro's Vegas Meeting with a Drug Kingpin

In Las Vegas terms, it was like Godzilla meeting King Kong. Or maybe Al Capone bumping into John Dillinger.

It may have been the most infamous meeting Vegas has ever known. It occurred in the middle 1970s, before the town had been cleansed of the last vestiges of mob influence, during a time when marijuana was still the preferred smoke of many retro-Hippies and Hollywood jet-setters, and cocaine was just starting to come on the scene in a big way.

The place was Paul Anka’s Jubilation restaurant and discotheque, on East Harmon between the Strip and the university.

The meeting was between two notorious figures who carried themselves like kings in Las Vegas during that time: tough guy Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, an alleged enforcer for the Chicago mob, and marijuana importer-extraordinaire Jimmy Chagra, a smoothie from El Paso and the highest rolling gambler of his day.

From the Horseshoe to Caesars Palace to the Sands and beyond, casino pit bosses genuflected when Chagra and his brother, Lee, a famed Texas criminal defense attorney noted for his smartly cut black suits and walking stick, came striding up to the tables. The Chagra brothers could win or lose up to seven figures in a single evening, and if they got on a hot roll the dealers and cocktail waitresses could make their next three mortgage payments in tips.

Showgirls, hookers, even some celebrity headliners of the day, were known to party heavily when Chagra’s entourage rolled into town. Broadway Joe Namath was a pal, as were Liza Minelli and the crew from the Redford-Fonda flick The Electric Horseman, in which Chagra was typecast as a high-roller and given a speaking part. (Jimmy was cut from the final version after he was busted by the Feds.)

All the fast-laners knew there was action of every sort in the Chagras’ suite at Caesars. On other weeks, that same suite was occupied by Mr. Sinatra himself. The Chagra brothers were comped everywhere, and private jets were always on call when the boys from El Paso got the urge to make a wager or three.

Most gamblers rely on credit. Not the Chagras. They would drop off foot lockers containing millions of dollars at the Caesars cage and tell the cashiers, “Count it down, we’re going to gamble!”

Spilotro and his henchmen, who later became known as the Hole in the Wall Gang for several successful — and occasionally bungled — jewelry store heists, were feared up and down the Strip.

With Tony’s frequent perp walks becoming a staple of the evening news, and journalist Ned Day documenting his gang’s treachery in his thrice-weekly column, Spilotro kept anyone who encountered him on edge.

But on the night these two Vegas overlords, Tony Spilotro and Jimmy Chagra, met face to face, neither knew for certain who the other one was.

Here’s Chagra’s version of the meeting, recounted to me recently: “I was just out for a fun evening of dancing and cocktails with some of my pilots and a few lady friends, when this little guy comes up and says, “Get the (expletive) out of my booth.”

Chagra, who says he was a megalomaniac back in the day and had fear of no man, countered with, “I don’t see the name ‘Midget’ printed anywhere on this table. Get your own (expletive) booth.”

After several more pleasantries, Spilotro, seeing that he was outmanned, huffed out of the place with the line, “You don’t know who you’re talking to!”

Chagra was to find out several hours later when his phone rang about eight o’clock in the morning. On the line was his defense attorney, Oscar Goodman, insisting that Jimmy come to his office pronto.

“When I walked into Oscar’s office, there was that midget again,” Jimmy says. “Oscar introduced me to Anthony Spilotro, he insisted we shake hands, and he then told us that because we were both his clients and his friends, that we should make up and get along. He said that there was room in Las Vegas for both of us.”

•••

Both Chagra and Spilotro acknowledged that peaceful coexistence made more sense than all-out war, and they agreed to meet at a later date. That meeting also took place at Jubilation, in the same booth they’d argued over.

Spilotro, as was his modus operandi, wanted in on Chagra’s marijuana importing business. Jimmy was doing just fine without partners, and knew that the only thing Tony would bring to his operation was intense heat from law enforcement. Talk of the proposed partnership was going nowhere when a cocktail waitress accidentally spilled a drink on Spilotro. Chagra says that Tony went ballistic and called her every name in the book, even after she made a fearful and timid apology.

Three days later her picture appeared in a local newspaper as a missing person. She was never found.

It’s only speculation what happened to that pretty young woman. Maybe she got word later that evening that the man she spilled a drink on was alleged to have conducted more than a dozen hits for the Chicago syndicate. Maybe that caused her to find religion and take the next Greyhound out of Las Vegas.

Or maybe, as happened more often than we’d like to think in those earlier, rough and tumble times before Wall Street took over Las Vegas Boulevard, she took that long ride into the desert and sleeps among the cactuses and mesquite bushes.

Ten years after that evening, Tony got his comeuppance when he was savagely beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Jimmy Chagra, after 23 years in an assortment of federal penitentiaries, at last breathes fresh air on the outside of those dank prison walls, and looks back at that time with wonder and regret.

“I knew if I’d gotten involved with Spilotro he’d eventually pop me,” Jimmy says. “Las Vegas was crazy back then. But man, was it fun. When you had a trunk full of cash, there was no better place on earth to be. They treated us like gods.”

Thanks to Jack Sheehan

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Drug and Weapons Indictment Added to Charges Against Reputed Mobster

An alleged mob associate from Staten Island who already faced a slew of federal charges after being nabbed in a massive organized crime sweep weeks ago, was indicted on several drug and weapons charges.

Tottenville resident Michael Urciuoli -- whom federal authorities say is known to his Bonanno family associates as "Mike the Electrician" -- is accused of stowing more than a pound of cocaine and several handguns in his Sprague Avenue home and his car.

During a raid of his home last weekend, police said they found the drugs in a shoebox in the rafters of the garage, in a duffel bag on a workbench and in a dresser, tucked underneath his wife's clothes. They also said they found chemicals to dilute the cocaine, as well as a digital scale, mixing bowls, a plastic spoon and a spatula, all bearing cocaine residue.

A loaded .22 caliber pistol with two boxes of ammo was discovered hidden in a pigeon coop in the garage, police said. When Urciuoli was pulled over in his Lincoln pickup in the 4300-block of Amboy Road, police said they also found four more ounces of cocaine and a loaded .25 caliber pistol in the armrest.

The 43-year-old man's wife, Susan Urciuoli, 40, was also charged.

The top count against both of them, first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, carries the prospect of 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

The drug bust came just two and a half weeks after Urciuoli was charged in one of the biggest federal organized crime indictments in U.S. history. More than 80 people -- including almost the entire hierarchy of the Gambino crime family, and a few Bonanno crime family associates -- were arrested in the Feb. 6 sweep.

Federal authorities accused Urciuoli of conspiring to extort a granite company.

Urciuoli pleaded not guilty on Feb. 7 to the mob-related charges, and had his wife put up the Sprague Avenue house as collateral so he could make his $1 million bail the next day.

Last Sunday, he was sent back in jail on the new charges -- and, this time, was given no bail. His wife was released on her own recognizance after the couple's arraignment in Stapleton Criminal Court.

Urciuoli was scheduled to make an appearance Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn on the mob charges, but instead was held at Staten Island Supreme Court, possibly to appear before a grand jury.

A notice of indictment was filed with the court clerk today, and Urciuoli is expected back in Staten Island Supreme Court for an arraignment on the new charges this Wednesday.

He remained remanded without bail.

Thanks to Peter N. Spencer

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Genovese Mob Boss Heading to Prison

Danny "The Lion" Leo, acting boss of the Genovese organized crime family, was sentenced to 60 months in prison Thursday following his guilty plea in federal court last October to two counts of extortion, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said.

At the same court hearing Thursday, Leo's nephew and chief lieutenant, Joseph Leo, received a 45-month prison sentence. Joseph Leo had pleaded guilty in October to one count of extortion, prosecutors said.

Court documents said between 2002 and 2006 both Danny and Joseph Leo used threats of violence against a business owner to force him to repay loans and debts made to him by the members of the Genovese crime family.

The documents also said Danny Leo extorted the owners and operators of an illegal gambling business by threatening violence and economic harm in order to force them to make payments to the Genovese crime family.

Investigators said the Genovese organized crime family, once led by the late Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, is the most powerful organized crime family in the United States.

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The History of Organized Crime Control of Gay Bars

I had a reader send me a link to the the History of Gay Bars in New York City from 1900 to the present. In addition to the Big Apple, you can also read accounts regarding the history of gay bars in Chicago, Montreal, Philadelphia and Washington DC.

Mob buffs will be most interested in the New York articles which include several accounts of involvement by the Bonannos, Colombos, Gambinos, Genoveses, and Luccheses crime families.

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AMW All Star Week One Winner

AMW All Star Week One Winner: A Christiansburg, Va. police officer who was one of the first to respond to the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University and is credited with saving the life of a gravely-injured student has become the first weekly finalist in the 2008 America's Most Wanted All-Star Contest, sponsored by Sprint.

Also on America's Most Wanted this week:

Brianna Denison Killer: Reno, Nev. cops announced that a pair of thong underwear found near Brianna Denison's body contains both the DNA of an unknown female and that of the serial rapist who kidnapped and raped -- and may have murdered -- the 19-year-old college student. Police do not believe that the black, "Pink Panther" thong belonged to Denison and are hoping that someone will come forward to claim the underwear.

Ahmet Gashi: Kemal Kolenovic was a New York welterweight champion who took one hit from which he'd never recover on New Years Eve 2006. Cops say a vicious foe, Ahmet Gashi, came at Kemal with some heavy armor, and he's been on the run ever since.

Unknown New Mexico “Boots” Jane Doe Killer: It was one of New Mexico 's most mysterious unsolved Jane Doe cases: a pair of hikers found a murder victim, buried in a shallow grave in the unforgiving desert. But when AMW brought you the story two weeks ago, a tipster called our hotline and helped cops crack the case. The "Boots" Jane Doe now has a name: Sandra Jean Brady.

Thomas Gleason: BMX Racing and teenage boys are not a good combination for Tom Gleason: after years of coaching kids in the extreme sport, police say he went too far and victimized several members of his team. Now, he's racing to stay away from the cops and families aching for justice who want him caught.

Pamela Biggers: Police have very few clues in the search for 52-year-old Pamela Biggers who went missing while on a business trip in Panama City , Fla. on January 28, 2008. The Bay County Sheriff's Office says Pam was last seen at 7 p.m. the night before at the La Quinta Inn, but the next morning, she was gone.

Nai Yin Xue: It's been more than five months since the international manhunt for self-proclaimed martial arts master Nai Yin Xue began. Now, police say the search is over after Xue was captured in Chamblee , Ga. after Chinese-American locals recognized him and hogtied him until authorities arrived. Authorities say Xue killed his wife and abandoned his young daughter in a train station.

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US Links Being Restablished by Sicilian Mafia

Sicily's Mafia is rebuilding its networks in the US, according to an Italian parliamentary report.

The report says Cosa Nostra has been sending people to the US to form alliances with families with which it had lost contact in the 1980s.

It says that while the mob maintains a foothold in the lucrative drugs trade, it is now moving into new areas.

Although Cosa Nostra has its roots in Italian organised crime, it has long been a separate organisation in the US. But this month in an operation codenamed Old Bridge, a reference to these long-standing links between Sicily and New York, the FBI revealed details of the new relationships being formed across the Atlantic.

They rounded up more than 80 gangsters in New York including the acting bosses of the Gambino crime family - known to have direct links with Sicily.

The Italian anti-mafia commission says Old Bridge was a remarkable success but it shows the Sicilian Cosa Nostra is "re-establishing its links with the American cousins".

The commission says it has evidence Cosa Nostra is sending its top members to New York while allowing those expelled by the mob during the clan wars of the 1980s to return home to Sicily.

Their report says that many US food distribution and construction firms are now controlled by the US Cosa Nostra, whose bosses are of Sicilian origin and have direct links. And while Cosa Nostra still maintains its control over the lucrative drugs trade and its traditional activities of extortion and racketeering, it is now diversifying into new industries like online gambling.

Angela Napoli, a member of the anti-mafia commission, says the work to defeat Cosa Nostra falls on the Italian politicians - who must do more - and on the very brave witnesses who come forward to give evidence.

The commission says not enough is being done to help them.

Those under state protection say they feel abandoned. And consequently the number now prepared to come forward is falling.

Thanks to Christian Fraser

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Former Las Vegas Strip Club Owner Compared to Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Federal prosecutors never got a chance to prove a criminal case tying former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo to the mob.

Before that could happen, Rizzolo pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2006 and struck a deal to end a decadelong racketeering case against him. But that didn’t stop Stan Hunterton, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force, from keeping allegations of Rizzolo’s underworld associations alive during a hearing in federal court Friday on the status of the government’s efforts to sell the topless club it had seized from the imprisoned Rizzolo.

“Not since the reign of Anthony Spilotro and his associates has there been a more infamous hoodlum than Rick Rizzolo,” Hunterton told U.S. District Judge Philip Pro as Rizzolo’s father, Bart Rizzolo, cringed in the first row of the courtroom gallery.

Spilotro, the basis for Joe Pesci’s character in the 1995 movie “Casino,” ran street rackets in Las Vegas for the Chicago mob from the early 1970s until his gangland slaying in a Chicago suburb in 1986. He was considered a coldblooded killer, and before his death he was the FBI’s most wanted man in Las Vegas.

Hunterton represents Amy Henry, the wife of Kirk Henry, a Kansas City-area man who suffered a broken neck and became paralyzed following a fight in 2001 at the Crazy Horse Too. As part of Rizzolo’s plea arrangement with the government, he agreed to pay the Henrys $10 million to settle a civil suit they had brought against the nightclub.

What Hunterton was doing in court was challenging an effort by Sierra Pacific Bank to foreclose on the land beneath the Crazy Horse Too. The bank wants the land as payment for a $5 million loan it extended to Rizzolo seven months before he struck his deal with the government. Hunterton wants to make sure the bank’s claim against the property won’t hurt the Henrys’ chances of getting paid once money comes in from the government’s sale of the Crazy Horse Too.

He raised the specter of mob connections while arguing that Sierra Pacific was negligent when it lent Rizzolo the $5 million when he was under the well-publicized racketeering investigation. Hunterton contends that bank officials either turned a blind eye to Rizzolo’s reputation or failed miserably in their due diligence obligations.

Hunterton told Pro he would drop his effort to push the bank’s claim aside if, as prosecutors reported in court, the government signs a contract this week to sell the Crazy Horse Too for $30 million to an undisclosed buyer. If that happens, there will be plenty of money for all of Rizzolo’s creditors.

After the hearing, however, Rizzolo’s lawyer, Mark Hafer, wasn’t very happy.

Hafer described Hunterton’s comments about his client as “somewhat slanderous” and “definitely a cheap shot.”

All Bart Rizzolo could do was shake his head in disgust.

Thanks to Jeff German

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5 Things You Could Do to Kill the Mafia

As a little kid growing up in Palermo (Sicily), I used to dream of chasing the Bad Guys who were terrorizing my beautiful city.

In my teens, I started to consider the idea of stopping the Mafia one of those naive dreams that could never become a reality.

But now, for the first time in the last 20 years, there is a concrete possibility to kill the Sicilian Mafia, ending its presence in Italy, in USA, and everywhere else it operates, thus improving the lives of thousands of people around the world. And your help is needed, so listen up.

Sicily. Maybe the last place in the world where you can find yourself having lunch next to Armani or Madonna in an inexpensive restaurant overlooking a turquoise sea. Unfortunately, a land still plagued with organized crime, which protects tourists – they bring money to the local economy – but merciless target local business owners, demanding a large share of their revenue in exchange for "Protection."

Locals call the extortion racket “Pizzo”, and experts agree that this criminal activity is Mafia’s core business, bringing in a steady cash flow which finances its worldwide operations. But “Pizzo” offers much more than just a large financial gain: the protection racket is Mafia’s way to affirm its control over a city, sending the message "I own this place, so you must give me a share of anything you earn, and you must ask my approval for anything you do."

The extortion racket has flourished for decades with the Italian business organization Confindustria secretly telling his associate to comply with Mafia's financial requests: “If we all pay” they used to say “We will all pay less.”

Recently, things have started changing for the better:
- The association of Italian business owner is now expelling from its ranks anyone who pays the “Pizzo.”
- Police has been very successful in taking into custody Mafia bosses, whilst at the same time confiscating Mafia's financial assets.
- Business owner who have said no to Pizzo are increasingly joining an association called AddioPizzo (Goodbye Pizzo) which put them in contact with thousands of Sicilians who are tired of the Mafia and are willing to buy only mob-free products.

The association AddioPizzo is really hitting the Mafia where it hurts, and its leaders now lives in constant danger of a terrible retribution: their popularity is their only defense, since Mafia knows that if AddioPizzo leaders were killed today, thousands of people would take the street in protest, and new stronger leaders would inevitably emerge. So everything depends on national and international attention: the moment we forget about AddioPizzo, Mafia will destroy them without too much fuss, maybe killing a few and spreading negative rumors about the others.

Considering the goal it pursues, AddioPizzo has yet to receive a decent level of International media attention: only a bunch of articles from BBC, Telegraph, Herald Tribune and The Independent, and then nothing else.

Silence is Mafia's natural ally, so please talk about what's happening. Pick one or more activities from the following list and dedicate the next five minutes to it:
1- Write your name on AddioPizzo guestbook to publicly express your support for this brave organization.
2- Help AddioPizzo with a donation. It can be very safely done via PayPal and you get an email confirmation at the end of the process.
3- If you write on a Blog, a Newspaper on any other media, please talk about the possibility of killing the Mafia: nothing scares the Mob more than people not being afraid of it.
4- Alternatively, please Digg this article, review it on StumbleUpon or save it on Delicious. Let’s have as many people as possible knowing that together we can kill the Mafia.
5- If a friend of yours is planning an holiday in Sicily, make sure he’ll sleep only in a beautiful Pizzo-free hotel, such as Addaura Residence or Amarcord Hotel. If you want to try typical Sicilian wine or food, make sure you’ll buy it only from a pizzo free online portals such as Buona Sicilia, and let them know that you are purchasing from them because you’ve read that they are pizzo-free. In short, let’s make sure that Pizzo-free business increase their sales, so they can have an added incentive to stay clean. (The growing list of businesses who have publicly said no to the Mafia is here.) In fact, anyone who speak out against the Mob should be protected and rewarded. So long life to AddioPizzo, and long life to you.

Thanks to Even Happier

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Prison Sentence for 87 Year Old Mafia Capo

Federal authorities announced that Ciro Perrone, 87, a “capo” or captain in the Genovese Organized Crime Family, has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Perrone was convicted by a jury in June 2007 following a two-week trial of all counts against him, including racketeering.

Perrone has been a member of the Genovese Family since at least the 1960s, the feds said.

He was convicted of four separate racketeering acts including operation of a gambling business, loan-sharking conspiracy, and loan-sharking against two victims; RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to make extortionate extensions of credit; and conspiracy to use extortionate means to collect extensions of credit.

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Last Photo of John Gotti Emerges

Here's the last photo ever taken of John Gotti, the murderous degenerate who once headed the Gambino crime family. Gotti, the so-called Dapper Don, posed for the below Bureau of Prisons photo on October 17, 2001, less than eight months before he died, at age 61, at the federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri.

The Gotti image was released this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Smoking Gun. According to a BoP letter, the color image was Gotti's "institution commissary photo." The once-robust Gotti appears frail in the prison photo, which was snapped more than two years after the convicted killer was operated on for head and neck cancer.

Compare the above photo with that of perhaps of John Gotti's "rookie card". Unearthed from the files of New York's Suffolk County Police Department, the photo captures a Brylcreem-laden Gotti, then 24, following his March 1965 arrest for a botched burglary.

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IRS Agents Used Muscle to Get Capone

Recently released memos written by the IRS investigators who brought down Al Capone are shedding new light on the way federal agents successfully ended the reign of the Chicago crime lord.

IRS investigators could prove Capone had money, but they couldn't prove where he was getting it from, said Jonathan Eig, a Chicago author who is writing a book about the investigation leading to Capone's arrest and conviction.

Agents found one bookkeeper who could testify to Capone's income source, and they "used a lot of muscle to get this guy to testify," Eig said.

The bookkeeper was sent to South America for a time to safeguard him from assassins, he said.

"The evidence shows the IRS agents really did get out of the office and track down this accountant and really put the screws to him to get him to testify," he said.

Eig sought the material through the Freedom of Information Act, something others had previously done without success. A new lawyer at the IRS reviewed Eig's request and released the documents to him.

Eig's book, whose working title is Get Capone, is being published by Simon & Schuster. It focuses on the last years of Capone's reign. Eig said he hopes to correct the myth that Eliot Ness brought down the man known as "Public Enemy No. 1."

"'The Untouchables' movie has made Eliot Ness the hero of the story," he said. "The IRS agents are."

Thanks to Kara Spak

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Sam Giancana Mini-Series Announces New Ownership

Zuma Beach Entertainment, Inc. (Pink Sheets: ZMBC) ("Zuma") announced today that "MOMO," The Sam Giancana Story, is the first project of a slate of film and television projects in which ownership interest has been acquired from Westlake Productions, LLC ("Westlake").

Mark Wolper, President of The Wolper Organization, prolific producers of television mini-series and movies, is developing and producing the six-hour mini-series for Warner Bros. Entertainment, a Time Warner Company (NYSE: TWX).

The high profile television mini-series details the life of infamous Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana whose rein spanned the 1950's and 1960's. Giancana was best known for his ties to John F. Kennedy and is reputed to have played a key role in helping Kennedy take the White House in 1960.

After Giancana's wife died as a result of a rheumatic heart, he was left to raise three daughters while carrying out his role as a mob leader. Giancana, a larger-than-life character whose flamboyant lifestyle included friendships with celebrities like Frank Sinatra of the "Rat Pack," paved the way for high profile mobsters until his assassination in 1975.

Wolper optioned rights to the life story of Giancana from Nicholas Celozzi who had acquired them from
Giancana's daughter Francine, who is Celozzi's cousin. Wolper is producing the project for Warner Bros. while Dimitri Logothetis and Nick Celozzi are co-writing and co-executive producing the television mini-series. Production of the project is scheduled for summer/fall 2008.

Said Wolper, in an earlier press release; "This is a fascinating chapter in American history with an incredibly compelling family story and real-life character in Sam Giancana as the patriarch. We envision the mini-series as a true-life "Sopranos" meets "The Gangster Chronicles," shedding light on never-before-exposed parts of the story."

Wolper is the recipient of multiple Emmy Award-nominations including those for the mini-series "The Mists of Avalon," the television movie "Murder in Mississippi," the CBS mini-series "Queen," and the Showtime series "Penn & Teller's Bullshit".

Logothetis has served as an executive producer and showrunner for two shows on Warner Bros. Television -- "Code Name Eternity" and "Dark Real".

Celozzi is a prominent Actor, Director, Producer and Writer. He was the Executive Producer and starred in "Dumb Luck in Vegas" (1997) and directed "Deep Cover, a.k.a. Checkmate" (1996) and "Dark and Deadly" (1995). Along with Freddy Braidy, he recently co-produced the film "Bottoms Up" starring Paris Hilton and released from Sony Pictures Entertainment, a U.S. business of Sony Corporation of America.

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Is the Mafia a Farce?

A contrite former Bonanno crime associate trashed the Mafia as "a farce" at his sentencing for murder yesterday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Francesco (Frank) Fiordilino was then rewarded for his cooperation against Bonanno big shots with a sentence of time served plus 30 days.

"Cooperating witnesses are essential to achieving justice, and you have done your part," said Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

Fiordilino, 37, pleaded guilty to shooting drug dealer Thomas Sajn in the throat in 1993 in Ridgewood. Sajn wasn't immediately killed by the gunshot, so a second assailant cut his throat, nearly decapitating him.

At the time, Fiordilino was paying his dues, making espresso and cappuccino at coffee shops under the control of the crime family. His uncle, Frank (Cheech) Navarro, was a made member of the Bonanno family.

Fiordilino was after Sajn's drug money and also wanted to prove to gangsters that he was capable of committing a murder. But after the feds arrested him in 2002, Fiordilino decided to change sides.

"I'm totally at peace with my decision to defect," Fiordilino said yesterday. "I no longer have to lie, cheat or pretend anymore."

He acknowledged the taking of Sajn's life was "cowardly," and reflected on the hypocrisy of the Mafia.

"The mob was and still is a farce that's built on deceit, venom, greed and destruction," he said. "As for loyalty and respect, I never seen it. I could recall hundreds of conversations in which guys would sit around a table bad-mouthing each other. I'm so glad that's behind me."

Prosecutor Greg Andres said Fiordilino's testimony against former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino and soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato contributed to their convictions.

"I apologize as well, especially to anyone of Italian background, by conspiring and utilizing our culture in the same manner the entertainment industry does with its stereotypes. ... Hollywood intensified my love for that life, and in the process blindsided what being Italian meant," Fiordilino said.

Thanks to John Marzulli

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American Gangster on DVD

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe butt heads in the excellent crime drama, American Gangster. The film, based on a true crime story has, in addition to superb acting, excellent cinematography, interesting sets, and the hard-hitting direction by Ridley Scott.

This is an adult crime thriller with powerful dialogue and shocking images you won’t soon forget. The special features on the bonus disk are very entertaining and extremely beneficial for their historical value. The added 18 minutes include longer scenes and an extended ending.

Frank Lucas (born 1930 in Washington, DC), was a heroin dealer and organized crime boss in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in Southeast Asia. He organized the smuggle of heroin from Vietnam to the US by using the coffins of dead American servicemen ("cadaver connection"). Excerpt from the New York Magazine, 14 August 2000.

But the story of Frank Lucas (Washington) is much more than just a gangster who takes over the New York mob trade with some devious methods. It’s also about a relentless, righteous cop, Ritchie Roberts (Crowe), who will stop at nothing to bring him down. When their worlds collide, the two find themselves in a confrontation with no chance of backing out.

Crowe as the persistent cop, and Washington as the relentless drug king pin, are excellent together. Crowe brings his tough, unforgiving persona to the role of Roberts. While other cops think he’s a sucker for not taking mob money, it’s this ethic that keeps him going on his quest to bring down the mob. Nothing stands in the way of Roberts, and Crowe makes him believable. Washington does what he does best—shows the burning side of his character. Much like his past performances in films such as Training Day, Man On Fire and Déjà Vu, his Lucas controls the screen with a hot temperament and a strong will.

Keeping the action going, with not a stretch or a yawn in the lengthy film, director Ridley Scott is back in true form from his early days of Blade Runner, Thelma And Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. I like this side of Scott. I believe he makes better films when the subject matter is powerful and the pace is intense.

DVD Features:

Topping the special features are the Case Files. In them you will find three bonuses, “Setting up the take down", “Testing for heroin", and “Script meeting". Of the three I enjoyed the take down where they bust Lucas’s heroin den. It was interesting to see how it was filmed and Crowe kidding around on the set.

Of the other features, "Tru Blu" was outstanding. In it you will get to meet the still-living Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas, and hear what they have to say about the film’s authenticity and their role in collaboration.

There are two ways you can watch American Gangster, the R rated film version and the extended, Unrated film. Either way, the film plays well, but why not see it with the 18 additional minutes?

FINAL ANALYSIS:
American Gangster is a very good, all-encompassing crime film containing a lot of action, an interesting plot and awesome acting. The special features are definitely worth the watch.

Reviewed by John Delia

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Organized Crime Connection in the Drew Peterson Case?

A convicted cop killer reputed to have organized crime connections was subpoenaed to testify at the grand jury investigating the fate of Drew Peterson's last two wives.

State police served Anthony "Bindy" Rock, 68, with his papers Friday (the 15th), a source said. Contacted Friday night, Rock declined to comment.

Rock was a central figure in an unsanctioned undercover investigation Peterson undertook while he was on loan from the Bolingbrook Police Department to the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad in 1985. That investigation led to Peterson's indictment on charges of official misconduct and failure to report a bribe.

Peterson was fired following his indictment when the Bolingbrook Police and Fire Commission found him guilty of those charges, as well as disobedience and conducting a self-assigned investigation.

On different occasions, two appellate court judges ruled Peterson's firing was excessive. The criminal charges against him were dropped and he got his job back.

Peterson's trouble from two decades ago started when he revealed to his supervisors that he'd embarked on a solo narcotics investigation of Rock. A state police undercover officer was already working on Rock, according to court documents, but Peterson went ahead with his probe and failed to tell his superiors until it hit a dead end.

"You had better take your guns off. I have something to say that's real bad," Peterson allegedly told his supervisors at the time.

And Peterson's former supervisor with the narcotics squad, retired state police Lt. Col. Ronald Janota accused Peterson of leaking the state agent's identity to Rock.

Before he was investigated by Peterson, Rock was convicted of the April 1970 murder of Joliet police Det. William Loscheider. But it was actually a fellow officer who gunned down Loscheider during a burglary investigation at a North Broadway liquor warehouse, but courts blamed Rock because the death occurred while Rock was committing a crime. Rock, a reputed loan shark, was allegedly fleeing the scene with two accomplices when Loscheider was killed by friendly fire.

The spokesman for the state's attorney's office, Charles B. Pelkie, said he could not comment on why or even if Rock was subpoenaed. Peterson himself could not understand what prosecutors wanted with Rock, who he had arrested once before the unauthorized investigation in 1985.

"All he knows is, I tried to buy dope from him a couple times. I put him away for 20 years," Peterson said. "He got out on appeal."

Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been missing since Oct. 28.

Thanks to Joe Hosey

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Are the Clintons the New Corleones?

Interesting call from a woman to the Rush Limbaugh radio show in which Hillary Clinton is compared to mafia wives and Bill Clinton is portrayed as The Godfather.

RUSH: Peggy in Fort Pierce, Florida, great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. Rush --

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: -- just what you said before, it's a theory I've had for a long time. I think Hillary is a Mafia wife. If you saw the Married to the Mob movie, it was those gals that pretended they didn't know how their husbands gave them the money, or got the money for their perks. Now, I feel Hillary is the same thing. I think Tim Russert is way off saying, you know, she wasn't aware, everybody feels so badly for her --

RUSH: Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa -- Russert said she wasn't aware of what?

CALLER: That she was not aware that he was that much of a cheese or that he was cheating on her, or as she said, he's never going to do it again. This gal doesn't care. This gal has a nuptial agreement, never mind a prenup. She is going to go for the perks just like, God forgive me, the Kennedy women did. It's you just turn a blind eye, you turn your head, your husband's cheating, but you're getting power, money, notoriety. It's like selling your soul.

RUSH: You know, I can't argue with that. That is a pretty good analogy.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I'll tell you why I like it, too. I like it because it's coming from you, a woman.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: See, if I had said that, a lot of women who might be predisposed to agree with me would still have gotten angry because I was sounding like I was speaking disrespectfully, but you can say that, and it has power because it connects. I'm glad that you called. I had never consciously looked at it that way. Because you're absolutely right, there's no way she doesn't know what he's been doing --

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: -- for all of these years.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: She's exacted a price for it.

CALLER: Yes, she has, and she's going to exact a bigger price if she gets in any position to. She's going to buy his silence. Omerta.

RUSH: Well, all right, now, let me ask you this. Continuing here with the Mafia analogy.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Don Clintonleone.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: It is now his wife who seeks to run the mob.
CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: What if she loses? What if she loses? Don Clintonleone is of no more value to her.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: He is only a liability. And, of course, Don Clintonleone will see her as a liability, because you can't get back where he wants, the White House, without her getting there. What, then, happens to this famous mob couple?

CALLER: I wonder if they would have the guts to shed themselves of each other, because I think they're just hanging on to each other for what they can get out of it.

RUSH: Well, this is --

CALLER: There's no love there. I don't know if there ever was. But even if there was, as I said, she sold out a long time. She sold out on women. That's why I can't understand why more women don't see that. Women are smart.

RUSH: A lot do. A lot do.

Thanks to Rush Limbaugh

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