Friends of ours: Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Giuseppe Zanagara, Paul "The Waiter" Ricca
It felt strange giving a history lesson to a potential mayoral candidate about the Chicago Outfit and Chicago politics. And I probably should have kept my mouth shut. But when did that ever happen?
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the Chicago Democrat, and I were talking politics over the phone Wednesday. He explained the importance of coalitions and how other Chicago mayors have put such coalitions together. "If I don't organize Latinos, who will?" he said. "How do I challenge others to be fair and just and more equitable, if I don't organize that voice? If that leads people to seeing me purely in a very myopic way, well, you and I both know that's not representative of my life's work." What is a politician's life's work? This is an eternal question.
I'm more interested in the immediate, like: Will Gutierrez position himself as a viable alternative to Mayor Richard Daley as the feds hammer City Hall? Or, is it more likely that a three-way mayoral campaign between Gutierrez, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-Ill.) and Daley would split the vote and keep Daley in office? Consider it the Incumbent Protection Committee. We'll see. These can't be answered in a day, and Gutierrez was talking about coalitions.
"My life's work has been about immigrants. If you came to my office, you'd see Polish people, right? Irish people, Greek people, others, my office is rich in the immigrant history of Chicago. You go to my rallies, you see Asians, from China and the Philippines. That's been my history, but that's kind of the history of Cermak, wouldn't you agree? He kind of put together a coalition of those that were not part of the Thompson machine." Anton Cermak? "Yes," Gutierrez said.
Some of you have probably driven on the street named after Cermak but not known what happened to the former mayor. Gutierrez is correct. Cermak was a masterful coalition builder.
This is how I understand what happened: Back in the 1920s, the puppet mayor was William "Big Bill" Thompson, a blowhard who once threatened to punch English King George "in the snoot." But one snoot he'd never punch belonged to Al Capone. Thompson couldn't even think about touching Capone's snoot. That would have been more painful than punching himself in the nose hard, every day for a lifetime.
After doing the Outfit's bidding for years, Thompson was used goods. The boys found another politician--Anton "Pushcart Tony" Cermak, who was elected mayor in 1931 on the reform ticket. Foolishly, he decided to double-cross the Capone gang by siding with Capone rivals and sent police to exterminate Capone successor Frank Nitti.
Unfortunately for some, Nitti survived. So Cermak decided to take an extended vacation and hang out with President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Florida. On the night of Feb. 15, 1933, a former Italian army marksman, Giuseppe Zangara, was waiting in a crowd at Bayfront Park in Miami. Zangara had three things going for him as an Outfit assassin. He had an inoperable disease, he had a family and he had a gun. From about 30 feet, he popped Cermak in the chest. Roosevelt was not injured because he wasn't the target. Zangara was later executed.
By this time, Capone was in federal prison, slowly going insane as the result of a little something he picked up in his earthier travels between Chicago hotel rooms. His illness is well known to people who've watched the many movies made about Capone.
As I've written before, Hollywood never made a movie about Paul "The Waiter" Ricca. He was too shy. And he wisely let others pretend they were the boss and grab all the publicity. But he knew how to send a message. There was a main Chicago thoroughfare leading from the Capone headquarters at the Lexington Hotel on 22nd Street to the Outfit's hangouts in Cicero. This road was renamed Cermak Road. Every hood traveled it. They laughed. And every politician understood. But that's such ancient history.
On Wednesday, Chicago was still the reform capital of Cook County. And Gutierrez was talking on the phone about coalitions. "Cermak put together a coalition of those who were not part of the Thompson regime, right?" Gutierrez asked. Right. "And he put together a great coalition, of disparate people," Gutierrez said. And what happened to Cermak? There was a silence. "Oh, I know," Gutierrez said. "He got assassinated." I explained how Cermak was honored with his own street.
"Oh, I never thought of that," Gutierrez said. "I didn't know about that. I guess my point is, I look at the history of the city of Chicago, I look at the turn of the century, you know the Bohemians came together. It was a revolution in Chicago politics. Ask all the Irish politicians that have been elected ever since."
Gutierrez would make an entertaining candidate and might become mayor someday. He's smart enough. And besides, he likes history.
Thanks to John Kass
Sunday, December 18, 2005
End of the Run for Fugitive Mobster
Friends of ours: Frank "the German" Schweihs, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Nick Calabrese
The union boss slipped into a booth in a restaurant on Jackson Boulevard. He was wearing a federal wire, trembling, as the waitress brought over some ice water. The man he was to meet entered the restaurant, sat down and started glaring at him. The meeting didn't last long.
"The union boss, our potential witness, got scared. He started talking quickly, he started rushing, he blew it he was so scared. Frank Schweihs figured something was wrong. He got up, leaned over and said `I'll see you later' to our witness. The guy almost had a heart attack right there. He was that terrified. That's Frank Schweihs for you," said former FBI agent Jack O'Rourke. "He was a scary guy."
That's the effect Schweihs, known in Chicago Outfit circles as "The German," had on almost everybody he met professionally. He not only terrified witnesses; even Outfit bosses were afraid of him. But someone wasn't afraid of $20,000 and tipped the FBI on Friday that Schweihs, 75, was hiding out in Berea, Ky., some 35 miles south of Lexington. The tipster likely will accept the reward in private.
"Our people drove over to assist, but by the time they got there, the FBI agent had arrested him without incident," said Berea police Lt. Ken Clark. "I guess when the agent asked if he was Frank Schweihs, he said he wasn't, then he played some old mob trick and started grabbing at his chest, saying he had chest pains. But he refused transport to a medical facility. I guess he'll be back in Chicago before long."
The German had been running since before he and 13 other top Outfit figures were indicted in April as part of the FBI's Operation Family Secrets, the most significant and far-reaching investigation of organized crime in the city's history.
With Schweihs' capture, there's only one clown remaining out there. Mob boss Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo still has not been found, though he has the use of his fingers, since he's written letters to his attorney, Rick Halprin, and those letters have all been postmarked in Chicago.
I told you about Family Secrets as it broke, almost three years ago now, when imprisoned mobster Nick Calabrese was quietly whisked into the federal witness protection program and began connecting the dots on at least 18 unsolved mob murders. Calabrese's decision to turn government informant stunned the Outfit and the Outfit's allies in local law enforcement and politics, the three sides of the iron triangle that has strangled this region since the 1920s. When word began trickling out that Calabrese had started talking, the bosses panicked, went underground and weren't about to help their allies in politics.
By then, the politicians had their own problems, with unprecedented federal investigations into City Hall corruption, from trucking and phony affirmative action contracts to political hiring. For the first time in decades, the sides of the triangle couldn't support each other as they had when they were strong. And that alone makes Family Secrets important.
Unlike corruption, there is no statute of limitations on murder. Schweihs has been charged with two killings, and Lombardo was charged with one.
The life they allegedly had in common belonged to Danny Seifert, whose testimony in a federal case on the bilking of Teamsters pension funds could have put Lombardo in prison. But Seifert didn't testify, because he was shotgunned to death in front of his wife and 4-year-old son in 1974. When the gunmen approached him outside his Bensenville plastics factory, he started running and was knocked to the ground by the first blast. One of the killers walked up to him, put the shotgun muzzle against Seifert's head, and pulled the trigger. The federal government's pension fund case fell apart.
O'Rourke recalled that in the 1980s, he was contacted at home by a worried Chicago police officer in the East Chicago Avenue District, after two other cops arrested Schweihs for battery. He allegedly kicked their car because it was parked too close to his home.
"The young cops were full of muscles and Schweihs was angry and they all went at it and took him in, but Schweihs had political people in the station, some guys involved in Streets and Sanitation," O'Rourke said. "And they were arguing to let him loose and police dropped the charges.
"Those two young cops were angry. That was typical Chicago," he said, meaning that the Outfit was taken care of by politicians and cops when it was necessary.
I can't say things have changed much since. A white-owned company with Outfit connections gets $100 million in fake affirmative action contracts and the mayor says they're a hardworking family. The city's budget director said he wasn't surprised that the city's Hired Truck Program was mobbed up, and for that bit of truth, he was canned for poor management.
But it's encouraging when guys like Schweihs are brought in, when Lombardo and 12 others get indicted for unsolved killings. It tells me that things are changing, as the triangle is slowly pried apart.
Thanks to John Kass
The union boss slipped into a booth in a restaurant on Jackson Boulevard. He was wearing a federal wire, trembling, as the waitress brought over some ice water. The man he was to meet entered the restaurant, sat down and started glaring at him. The meeting didn't last long.
"The union boss, our potential witness, got scared. He started talking quickly, he started rushing, he blew it he was so scared. Frank Schweihs figured something was wrong. He got up, leaned over and said `I'll see you later' to our witness. The guy almost had a heart attack right there. He was that terrified. That's Frank Schweihs for you," said former FBI agent Jack O'Rourke. "He was a scary guy."
That's the effect Schweihs, known in Chicago Outfit circles as "The German," had on almost everybody he met professionally. He not only terrified witnesses; even Outfit bosses were afraid of him. But someone wasn't afraid of $20,000 and tipped the FBI on Friday that Schweihs, 75, was hiding out in Berea, Ky., some 35 miles south of Lexington. The tipster likely will accept the reward in private.
"Our people drove over to assist, but by the time they got there, the FBI agent had arrested him without incident," said Berea police Lt. Ken Clark. "I guess when the agent asked if he was Frank Schweihs, he said he wasn't, then he played some old mob trick and started grabbing at his chest, saying he had chest pains. But he refused transport to a medical facility. I guess he'll be back in Chicago before long."
The German had been running since before he and 13 other top Outfit figures were indicted in April as part of the FBI's Operation Family Secrets, the most significant and far-reaching investigation of organized crime in the city's history.
With Schweihs' capture, there's only one clown remaining out there. Mob boss Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo still has not been found, though he has the use of his fingers, since he's written letters to his attorney, Rick Halprin, and those letters have all been postmarked in Chicago.
I told you about Family Secrets as it broke, almost three years ago now, when imprisoned mobster Nick Calabrese was quietly whisked into the federal witness protection program and began connecting the dots on at least 18 unsolved mob murders. Calabrese's decision to turn government informant stunned the Outfit and the Outfit's allies in local law enforcement and politics, the three sides of the iron triangle that has strangled this region since the 1920s. When word began trickling out that Calabrese had started talking, the bosses panicked, went underground and weren't about to help their allies in politics.
By then, the politicians had their own problems, with unprecedented federal investigations into City Hall corruption, from trucking and phony affirmative action contracts to political hiring. For the first time in decades, the sides of the triangle couldn't support each other as they had when they were strong. And that alone makes Family Secrets important.
Unlike corruption, there is no statute of limitations on murder. Schweihs has been charged with two killings, and Lombardo was charged with one.
The life they allegedly had in common belonged to Danny Seifert, whose testimony in a federal case on the bilking of Teamsters pension funds could have put Lombardo in prison. But Seifert didn't testify, because he was shotgunned to death in front of his wife and 4-year-old son in 1974. When the gunmen approached him outside his Bensenville plastics factory, he started running and was knocked to the ground by the first blast. One of the killers walked up to him, put the shotgun muzzle against Seifert's head, and pulled the trigger. The federal government's pension fund case fell apart.
O'Rourke recalled that in the 1980s, he was contacted at home by a worried Chicago police officer in the East Chicago Avenue District, after two other cops arrested Schweihs for battery. He allegedly kicked their car because it was parked too close to his home.
"The young cops were full of muscles and Schweihs was angry and they all went at it and took him in, but Schweihs had political people in the station, some guys involved in Streets and Sanitation," O'Rourke said. "And they were arguing to let him loose and police dropped the charges.
"Those two young cops were angry. That was typical Chicago," he said, meaning that the Outfit was taken care of by politicians and cops when it was necessary.
I can't say things have changed much since. A white-owned company with Outfit connections gets $100 million in fake affirmative action contracts and the mayor says they're a hardworking family. The city's budget director said he wasn't surprised that the city's Hired Truck Program was mobbed up, and for that bit of truth, he was canned for poor management.
But it's encouraging when guys like Schweihs are brought in, when Lombardo and 12 others get indicted for unsolved killings. It tells me that things are changing, as the triangle is slowly pried apart.
Thanks to John Kass
Kentucky Residents Shocked by Mobster
Friends of ours: Frank 'the German" Schweihs, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello
Residents in Berea, Kentucky, are shocked at the news that an alleged Chicago mobster was arrested Friday at an apartment complex in their town by the FBI. Gas station cashier Sue Morton says the biggest news up until now was when Cracker Barrel moved to the small town of about ten thousand in the Appalachian foothills.
Frank "the German" Schweihs was allegedly part of the top echelon of the Chicago underworld and had been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since April. He and co-defendant Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo slipped away from federal prosecutors just before an indictment was unsealed against Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation.
FBI agents are still hunting for Lombardo.
Residents in Berea, Kentucky, are shocked at the news that an alleged Chicago mobster was arrested Friday at an apartment complex in their town by the FBI. Gas station cashier Sue Morton says the biggest news up until now was when Cracker Barrel moved to the small town of about ten thousand in the Appalachian foothills.
Frank "the German" Schweihs was allegedly part of the top echelon of the Chicago underworld and had been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since April. He and co-defendant Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo slipped away from federal prosecutors just before an indictment was unsealed against Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation.
FBI agents are still hunting for Lombardo.
Landlord Chat Leads FBI to Mob Slaying Suspect
Friends of ours: Frank "The German" Schweihs
An FBI agent arrived at the sprawling Blakewood Apartments complex in Berea, Ky., Friday with a photograph and a question for the landlord. Had she seen the old man in the picture? Her answer was yes--he was the polite gentleman who had been sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a woman for the last two months, the landlord and FBI officials said.
The agent, who was from the FBI's small office in Lexington, Ky., did not tell her she was renting an apartment to Frank "The German" Schweihs, the reputed Chicago Outfit hit man and enforcer. Schweihs had been one of the bureau's most wanted fugitives since he was charged in April in connection with 18 unsolved organized crime murders.
"I assisted only in that they asked me if I could see him in a photograph," the landlord said. "They showed me a picture, but I didn't know anything about him."
After talking to the landlord, the agent parked his car where he could see the front door of the two-bedroom townhouse apartment and called for backup from fellow agents in Lexington and local Berea police, said FBI spokesman David Beyer. But help was still at least five minutes away when Schweihs and a woman emerged from the apartment and got into the sport-utility vehicle parked out front, Beyer said. Afraid of letting the fugitive slip through the FBI's fingers if he drove off, the agent swung his car forward and blocked the path of the SUV, got out and made the arrest alone.
Schweihs, 75, was being held Saturday at the county jail in Lexington. He waived extradition proceedings and would be taken back to Chicago by U.S. marshals, Beyer said. The FBI in Chicago developed a lead that Schweihs might be in southeastern Kentucky, and asked local agents to search the area, Beyer said Saturday.
Berea, a scenic college town of more than 12,000 people about 40 miles south of Lexington, was one area of interest, but Beyer would not elaborate on the information that aroused the FBI's attention. "He went to Berea to check various addresses, and the agent learned of this address," he said.
The complex's owner and manager, who spoke on condition that her name not be published, said she had spoken to Schweihs "on three or four occasions" but had no idea who he was. She had visited the apartment recently to give him a new furnace filter, and as usual he was a "very, very nice guy. Very respectful," she said.
After the arrest, FBI agents interviewed the woman Schweihs was living with but she was not in custody or charged with a crime, Beyer said. The landlord said all she knew about the woman was from a reference sheet the woman provided when she rented the apartment. The woman has a one-year lease for $425 a month, the landlord said. FBI officials said the couple had paid the rent in cash.
The landlord described the nine-building complex as a mixture of families, retired people and students at Berea College.
Thanks to David Heinzmann
An FBI agent arrived at the sprawling Blakewood Apartments complex in Berea, Ky., Friday with a photograph and a question for the landlord. Had she seen the old man in the picture? Her answer was yes--he was the polite gentleman who had been sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a woman for the last two months, the landlord and FBI officials said.
The agent, who was from the FBI's small office in Lexington, Ky., did not tell her she was renting an apartment to Frank "The German" Schweihs, the reputed Chicago Outfit hit man and enforcer. Schweihs had been one of the bureau's most wanted fugitives since he was charged in April in connection with 18 unsolved organized crime murders.
"I assisted only in that they asked me if I could see him in a photograph," the landlord said. "They showed me a picture, but I didn't know anything about him."
After talking to the landlord, the agent parked his car where he could see the front door of the two-bedroom townhouse apartment and called for backup from fellow agents in Lexington and local Berea police, said FBI spokesman David Beyer. But help was still at least five minutes away when Schweihs and a woman emerged from the apartment and got into the sport-utility vehicle parked out front, Beyer said. Afraid of letting the fugitive slip through the FBI's fingers if he drove off, the agent swung his car forward and blocked the path of the SUV, got out and made the arrest alone.
Schweihs, 75, was being held Saturday at the county jail in Lexington. He waived extradition proceedings and would be taken back to Chicago by U.S. marshals, Beyer said. The FBI in Chicago developed a lead that Schweihs might be in southeastern Kentucky, and asked local agents to search the area, Beyer said Saturday.
Berea, a scenic college town of more than 12,000 people about 40 miles south of Lexington, was one area of interest, but Beyer would not elaborate on the information that aroused the FBI's attention. "He went to Berea to check various addresses, and the agent learned of this address," he said.
The complex's owner and manager, who spoke on condition that her name not be published, said she had spoken to Schweihs "on three or four occasions" but had no idea who he was. She had visited the apartment recently to give him a new furnace filter, and as usual he was a "very, very nice guy. Very respectful," she said.
After the arrest, FBI agents interviewed the woman Schweihs was living with but she was not in custody or charged with a crime, Beyer said. The landlord said all she knew about the woman was from a reference sheet the woman provided when she rented the apartment. The woman has a one-year lease for $425 a month, the landlord said. FBI officials said the couple had paid the rent in cash.
The landlord described the nine-building complex as a mixture of families, retired people and students at Berea College.
Thanks to David Heinzmann
Al Capone Index
Al "Scarface" Capone, was an infamous American gangster in the 1920s and 1930s, although his business card reportedly described him as a used furniture dealer. A Neapolitan born in New York, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming Chicago's most notorious crime figure. By the end of the 1920s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had placed Capone on its "Most Wanted" list. Capone's downfall occurred in 1931 when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income tax evasion and sent to the notorious island prison Alcatraz.
Capone's life of crime started early: as a teenager he joined two gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and engaged in petty crime. He quit high school at the age of 14 when he fought with a teacher and worked odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the notorious Five Points Gang headed by Frankie Yale. It was at this time he began working as a bartender and bouncer at Yale's establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was here, at the Harvard Inn, that Capone would engage in a knife fight with a thug named Frank Gallucio after Capone had made a bold move on Gallucio's sister. Gallucio had deeply slashed Capone's right cheek with a switchblade, earning him the nickname that he would bear for the rest of his life: "Scarface," a moniker he in fact detested.
In 1919 he lived in Amityville, Long Island, to be close to "Rum Row." Capone was still working for Frankie Yale and is thought to have committed at least two homicides before he was sent to Chicago in 1919. Yale sent his protege to Chicago after Capone was involved in a fight with a rival gang. Yale's intention was for Capone to "cool off" there; the move primed one of the most notorious crime careers in modern American history.
Initially, Capone took up grunt work with Johnny Torrio's outfit, but the elder Torrio immediately recognized Capone's talents and by 1922 Capone was Torrio's second in command, responsible for much of the gambling, alcohol, and prostitution rackets in the city of Chicago. Severely injured in an assassination attempt in 1925, the shaken Torrio returned to Italy and gave the reins of the business to Capone.
Capone was notorious during Prohibition for his control of the Chicago underworld and his bitter rivalries with gangsters such as Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss. Raking in vast amounts of money from illegal gambling, prostitution and alcohol (some estimates were that between 1925 and 1930 Capone was making $100 million a year), the Chicago kingpin was largely immune to prosecution due to witness intimidation and the bribing of city officials, such as Chicago mayor William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson.
In 1928, Capone bought a retreat on Palm Island, Florida. It was shortly after this purchase that he orchestrated seven of the most notorious gangland killings of the century, the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Although details of the massacre are still in dispute, and no person has ever been charged or prosecuted for the crime, the killings are generally linked to Capone and his henchmen, especially Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, who is thought to have led the operation along with a young Tony Accardo. By staging the massacre, Capone was trying to dispose of his arch-rival Bugs Moran, who controlled gang operations on the North Side of Chicago. Moran himself was late for the meeting and escaped otherwise certain death. Throughout the 1920s, Capone himself was often the target of attempted murders.
Although Capone always did his business through front men and had no accounting records linking him to his earnings, new laws enacted in 1927 allowed the federal government to pursue Capone on tax evasion, their best chance of finally convicting him. He was harassed by Prohibition Bureau agent Eliot Ness and his hand picked team of incorruptible U.S. Treasury agents "The Untouchables" and IRS agent Frank Wilson, who was able to find receipts linking Capone to illegal gambling income and evasion of taxes on that income.
The trial and indictment occurred in 1931. Initially, Capone pleaded guilty to the charges, hoping to a plea bargain. But, after the judge refused his lawyer's offers and Capone's associates failed to bribe or tamper with the jury, Al Capone was found guilty and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison.
Capone was first sent to an Atlanta prison in 1932. However, the mobster was still able to control most of his interests from this facility, and he was ordered to be transferred to the infamous California island prison of Alcatraz in August of 1934. Here, Capone was strictly guarded and prohibited from any contact with the outside world. With the repeal of Prohibition and the arrest and confinement of its leader, the Capone empire soon began to wither. At Alcatraz, Capone went in with his cocky attitude. However, when he attempted to bribe guards, he was sent to the "hole", or solitary confinement. The same also stood for socializing, and eventually Capone's mental stability began to deteriorate. One example of his erratic behavior was that he would make his bed and then undo it, continuing this pattern for hours. Sometimes, Capone did not even want to leave his cell at all, crouching in a corner of his cell and talking to himself in gibberish. He began telling people that he was being haunted by the ghost of James Clark, a victim in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It was apparent over time that Capone no longer posed any threat of resuming his previous gangster-related activities.
Sometime in the mid-1930s, and at Alcatraz, Capone began showing signs of dementia, probably related to a case of untreated syphilis he contracted as a young man, a sexually transmitted disease, potentially very harmful if not treated. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, and was released late in 1939. After spending a year of residential treatment at a hospital in Baltimore, he retired to his estate in Miami, Florida.
Capone was now a broken man. He no longer controlled any mafia interests. On January 21, 1947, he had an apoplectic stroke. He regained consciousness and started to feel better when pneumonia set in on January 24. The next day he went into cardiac arrest and that was his death. Capone was first buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago's far South Side between the graves of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Frank, but in March of 1950 the remains of all three were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery on the far West Side in Hillside, Illinois.
Past Chicago Syndicate Articles with Al Capone
Capone's life of crime started early: as a teenager he joined two gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and engaged in petty crime. He quit high school at the age of 14 when he fought with a teacher and worked odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the notorious Five Points Gang headed by Frankie Yale. It was at this time he began working as a bartender and bouncer at Yale's establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was here, at the Harvard Inn, that Capone would engage in a knife fight with a thug named Frank Gallucio after Capone had made a bold move on Gallucio's sister. Gallucio had deeply slashed Capone's right cheek with a switchblade, earning him the nickname that he would bear for the rest of his life: "Scarface," a moniker he in fact detested.
In 1919 he lived in Amityville, Long Island, to be close to "Rum Row." Capone was still working for Frankie Yale and is thought to have committed at least two homicides before he was sent to Chicago in 1919. Yale sent his protege to Chicago after Capone was involved in a fight with a rival gang. Yale's intention was for Capone to "cool off" there; the move primed one of the most notorious crime careers in modern American history.
Initially, Capone took up grunt work with Johnny Torrio's outfit, but the elder Torrio immediately recognized Capone's talents and by 1922 Capone was Torrio's second in command, responsible for much of the gambling, alcohol, and prostitution rackets in the city of Chicago. Severely injured in an assassination attempt in 1925, the shaken Torrio returned to Italy and gave the reins of the business to Capone.
Capone was notorious during Prohibition for his control of the Chicago underworld and his bitter rivalries with gangsters such as Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss. Raking in vast amounts of money from illegal gambling, prostitution and alcohol (some estimates were that between 1925 and 1930 Capone was making $100 million a year), the Chicago kingpin was largely immune to prosecution due to witness intimidation and the bribing of city officials, such as Chicago mayor William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson.
In 1928, Capone bought a retreat on Palm Island, Florida. It was shortly after this purchase that he orchestrated seven of the most notorious gangland killings of the century, the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Although details of the massacre are still in dispute, and no person has ever been charged or prosecuted for the crime, the killings are generally linked to Capone and his henchmen, especially Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, who is thought to have led the operation along with a young Tony Accardo. By staging the massacre, Capone was trying to dispose of his arch-rival Bugs Moran, who controlled gang operations on the North Side of Chicago. Moran himself was late for the meeting and escaped otherwise certain death. Throughout the 1920s, Capone himself was often the target of attempted murders.
Although Capone always did his business through front men and had no accounting records linking him to his earnings, new laws enacted in 1927 allowed the federal government to pursue Capone on tax evasion, their best chance of finally convicting him. He was harassed by Prohibition Bureau agent Eliot Ness and his hand picked team of incorruptible U.S. Treasury agents "The Untouchables" and IRS agent Frank Wilson, who was able to find receipts linking Capone to illegal gambling income and evasion of taxes on that income.
The trial and indictment occurred in 1931. Initially, Capone pleaded guilty to the charges, hoping to a plea bargain. But, after the judge refused his lawyer's offers and Capone's associates failed to bribe or tamper with the jury, Al Capone was found guilty and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison.
Capone was first sent to an Atlanta prison in 1932. However, the mobster was still able to control most of his interests from this facility, and he was ordered to be transferred to the infamous California island prison of Alcatraz in August of 1934. Here, Capone was strictly guarded and prohibited from any contact with the outside world. With the repeal of Prohibition and the arrest and confinement of its leader, the Capone empire soon began to wither. At Alcatraz, Capone went in with his cocky attitude. However, when he attempted to bribe guards, he was sent to the "hole", or solitary confinement. The same also stood for socializing, and eventually Capone's mental stability began to deteriorate. One example of his erratic behavior was that he would make his bed and then undo it, continuing this pattern for hours. Sometimes, Capone did not even want to leave his cell at all, crouching in a corner of his cell and talking to himself in gibberish. He began telling people that he was being haunted by the ghost of James Clark, a victim in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It was apparent over time that Capone no longer posed any threat of resuming his previous gangster-related activities.
Sometime in the mid-1930s, and at Alcatraz, Capone began showing signs of dementia, probably related to a case of untreated syphilis he contracted as a young man, a sexually transmitted disease, potentially very harmful if not treated. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, and was released late in 1939. After spending a year of residential treatment at a hospital in Baltimore, he retired to his estate in Miami, Florida.
Capone was now a broken man. He no longer controlled any mafia interests. On January 21, 1947, he had an apoplectic stroke. He regained consciousness and started to feel better when pneumonia set in on January 24. The next day he went into cardiac arrest and that was his death. Capone was first buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago's far South Side between the graves of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Frank, but in March of 1950 the remains of all three were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery on the far West Side in Hillside, Illinois.
Past Chicago Syndicate Articles with Al Capone
Friday, December 16, 2005
Mob Fugitive Arrested in Kentucky
Friends of ours: Frank "The German" Schweihs, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Paul Schiro
A 75-year-old man reputed to be a longtime mob enforcer was arrested Friday at an apartment complex in a small Kentucky town, eight months after being charged with two murders in a federal indictment in Chicago.
Frank "The German" Schweihs had eluded authorities since April when he and 13 other defendants, including reputed mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, were indicted in connection with 18 long-unsolved Outfit-related murders, loan sharking and illegal gambling. But local police said Friday that Schweihs apparently had been staying in the Blakewood Apartments in 12,000-resident Berea, Ky., for only two or three days. "I would say this is probably the biggest fish we ever got in our little pond," Berea police Lt. Ken Clark said of the capture.
A special agent from the FBI's Louisville office found Schweihs at the apartment complex and, at about noon Friday, the FBI called local police for backup, Clark said. "With his past history, they were sort of figuring it could get ugly," Clark said. But backup wasn't needed.
"We probably had people down there within 10 minutes, and by the time we got there [the agent] had already taken Mr. Schweihs into custody," Clark said. "Evidently [Schweihs] exited the apartment as if he was going to leave... So the FBI agent really had no choice. He had to [make the arrest]."
After the indictments in April, Schweihs and Lombardo became fugitives. FBI officials said both had disappeared before the indictments. Lombardo is still at large.
Federal prosecutors charged the two with the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman scheduled to testify against Lombardo and others in a Teamsters pension fund fraud case. Schweihs also was charged with joining co-defendant Paul Schiro in a 1986 gangland murder in Phoenix.
"I'm sure the agents are pleased," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said. "They're going to be able to devote more resources now to finding Mr. Lombardo."
Schweihs appeared Friday before a federal judge in Lexington, Ky., FBI officials said. He is being held in Lexington until he can be brought back to Chicago to face charges, officials said.
According to Clark, an apartment manager at the complex said Schweihs and a woman had been staying there for two or three days and were in the process of trying to lease an apartment.
Thanks to Michael Higgins and Matt O'Connor
A 75-year-old man reputed to be a longtime mob enforcer was arrested Friday at an apartment complex in a small Kentucky town, eight months after being charged with two murders in a federal indictment in Chicago.
Frank "The German" Schweihs had eluded authorities since April when he and 13 other defendants, including reputed mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, were indicted in connection with 18 long-unsolved Outfit-related murders, loan sharking and illegal gambling. But local police said Friday that Schweihs apparently had been staying in the Blakewood Apartments in 12,000-resident Berea, Ky., for only two or three days. "I would say this is probably the biggest fish we ever got in our little pond," Berea police Lt. Ken Clark said of the capture.
A special agent from the FBI's Louisville office found Schweihs at the apartment complex and, at about noon Friday, the FBI called local police for backup, Clark said. "With his past history, they were sort of figuring it could get ugly," Clark said. But backup wasn't needed.
"We probably had people down there within 10 minutes, and by the time we got there [the agent] had already taken Mr. Schweihs into custody," Clark said. "Evidently [Schweihs] exited the apartment as if he was going to leave... So the FBI agent really had no choice. He had to [make the arrest]."
After the indictments in April, Schweihs and Lombardo became fugitives. FBI officials said both had disappeared before the indictments. Lombardo is still at large.
Federal prosecutors charged the two with the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman scheduled to testify against Lombardo and others in a Teamsters pension fund fraud case. Schweihs also was charged with joining co-defendant Paul Schiro in a 1986 gangland murder in Phoenix.
"I'm sure the agents are pleased," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said. "They're going to be able to devote more resources now to finding Mr. Lombardo."
Schweihs appeared Friday before a federal judge in Lexington, Ky., FBI officials said. He is being held in Lexington until he can be brought back to Chicago to face charges, officials said.
According to Clark, an apartment manager at the complex said Schweihs and a woman had been staying there for two or three days and were in the process of trying to lease an apartment.
Thanks to Michael Higgins and Matt O'Connor
Call for Mob Sit Down
Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Carmine Sciandra, John Gotti, Bonanno Crime Family
Friends of mine: Patrick Balsamo
The Gambino organized-crime family, furious at the shooting of one of its bosses, is calling for a sit-down with the rival Bonannos to decide the fate of the ex-cop who allegedly pulled the trigger, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. The Gambinos are absolutely livid because the victim, Carmine Sciandra, who runs the Top Tomato produce market, is a top captain in the Mafia family and was once considered a successor to "teflon don" John Gotti, the sources said. Both residents and law-enforcement officials fear that unless the dispute is resolved, it could lead to war between the two families.
Sciandra was shot in the belly outside the market on Dec. 7 by former cop Patrick Balsamo, who brought along two Bonanno thugs to use as muscle, police said. Balsamo was angry because he believed Carmine's brother, Salvatore, groped the cop's 18-year-old daughter, Maria, a College of Staten Island student. The teen had worked as a cashier at the market before being fired. Discount Golf Equipment
Swinging a baseball bat, Balsamo smashed several windows before a melee erupted. During the fracas, the ex-cop drew a gun and blasted Sciandra, police said. Balsamo, now a security guard at a Brighton Beach nightclub, hasn't been seen since he was released on $25,000 bail last Friday. Law-enforcement officials believe he has gone into hiding. "I imagine Balsamo is terrified. We're all concerned," said a woman who has lived in the neighborhood for years.
Sciandra is recovering from his wound at Staten Island University Hospital. His wife hung up on a reporter who called his room yesterday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn and the FBI's organized crime task force are watching to see if any mobsters retaliate. The feds fear a mob war could erupt because the brazen attack on Sciandra was not approved by other bosses. "This was a renegade act," a police source said.
At the time of the shooting, witnesses said that they heard a shot and saw Sciandra go down. Then they saw several men with baseball bats chase a sedan out of the parking lot. Top Tomato employees would say only, "I don't know nothin'."
Thanks to various sources.
Friends of mine: Patrick Balsamo
The Gambino organized-crime family, furious at the shooting of one of its bosses, is calling for a sit-down with the rival Bonannos to decide the fate of the ex-cop who allegedly pulled the trigger, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. The Gambinos are absolutely livid because the victim, Carmine Sciandra, who runs the Top Tomato produce market, is a top captain in the Mafia family and was once considered a successor to "teflon don" John Gotti, the sources said. Both residents and law-enforcement officials fear that unless the dispute is resolved, it could lead to war between the two families.
Sciandra was shot in the belly outside the market on Dec. 7 by former cop Patrick Balsamo, who brought along two Bonanno thugs to use as muscle, police said. Balsamo was angry because he believed Carmine's brother, Salvatore, groped the cop's 18-year-old daughter, Maria, a College of Staten Island student. The teen had worked as a cashier at the market before being fired. Discount Golf Equipment
Swinging a baseball bat, Balsamo smashed several windows before a melee erupted. During the fracas, the ex-cop drew a gun and blasted Sciandra, police said. Balsamo, now a security guard at a Brighton Beach nightclub, hasn't been seen since he was released on $25,000 bail last Friday. Law-enforcement officials believe he has gone into hiding. "I imagine Balsamo is terrified. We're all concerned," said a woman who has lived in the neighborhood for years.
Sciandra is recovering from his wound at Staten Island University Hospital. His wife hung up on a reporter who called his room yesterday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn and the FBI's organized crime task force are watching to see if any mobsters retaliate. The feds fear a mob war could erupt because the brazen attack on Sciandra was not approved by other bosses. "This was a renegade act," a police source said.
At the time of the shooting, witnesses said that they heard a shot and saw Sciandra go down. Then they saw several men with baseball bats chase a sedan out of the parking lot. Top Tomato employees would say only, "I don't know nothin'."
Thanks to various sources.
FBI Nabs Reputed Runaway Mob Enforcer
Friends of ours: Frank "The German" Schweihs, James Marcello, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Tony "the Ant" Spilotro
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro
A reputed mob enforcer who has been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since federal prosecutors unsealed racketeering-murder charges against the alleged top echelon of the Chicago underworld was arrested Friday, the FBI announced. Frank "The German" Schweihs, 75, was captured without incident when agents swooped down on an apartment he had recently rented in Berea, Ky., a hilly area 40 miles south of Lexington.
Schweihs was one of two defendants who slipped away just before federal prosecutors in April unveiled the long-sealed indictment against reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation. FBI agents are still hunting Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 76, known as one of the senior figures in the Chicago mob.
The indictment charges that Chicago hoodlums and mob associates conspired in at least 19 unsolved deaths, including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas, and his brother Michael. Joe Pesci played a character based on Tony Spilotro in the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie "Casino."
The indictment charges Schweihs with taking part in the racketeering scheme, in which the participants allegedly agreed to commit a number of killings. It also charges him with extorting "street tax" on behalf of organized crime by using "force, violence and fear" against the owners of adult entertainment clubs in Indiana and the Chicago suburbs in 2001.
Schweihs had an initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate judge in Lexington at which he waived extradition. He will be held there until he can be returned to Chicago, officials said. When he returns, Schweihs will be arraigned before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who is presiding over the Family Secrets case.
FBI spokesman David Beyer said Schweihs first leased the Berea apartment two weeks ago and paid cash. His previous known residence was in Dania, Fla.
Federal law enforcement officers have been baffled in their search for Lombardo. They offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the two men.
Lombardo wrote a letter to Zagel last May, offering to turn himself in if he were guaranteed a trial separate from the other defendants. He later wrote a second letter, taking issue with news reports in the case.
Lombardo went to federal prison in the 1980s after being convicted along with then-International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Roy Lee Williams in a bribery conspiracy.
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro
A reputed mob enforcer who has been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since federal prosecutors unsealed racketeering-murder charges against the alleged top echelon of the Chicago underworld was arrested Friday, the FBI announced. Frank "The German" Schweihs, 75, was captured without incident when agents swooped down on an apartment he had recently rented in Berea, Ky., a hilly area 40 miles south of Lexington.
Schweihs was one of two defendants who slipped away just before federal prosecutors in April unveiled the long-sealed indictment against reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation. FBI agents are still hunting Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 76, known as one of the senior figures in the Chicago mob.
The indictment charges that Chicago hoodlums and mob associates conspired in at least 19 unsolved deaths, including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas, and his brother Michael. Joe Pesci played a character based on Tony Spilotro in the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie "Casino."
The indictment charges Schweihs with taking part in the racketeering scheme, in which the participants allegedly agreed to commit a number of killings. It also charges him with extorting "street tax" on behalf of organized crime by using "force, violence and fear" against the owners of adult entertainment clubs in Indiana and the Chicago suburbs in 2001.
Schweihs had an initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate judge in Lexington at which he waived extradition. He will be held there until he can be returned to Chicago, officials said. When he returns, Schweihs will be arraigned before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who is presiding over the Family Secrets case.
FBI spokesman David Beyer said Schweihs first leased the Berea apartment two weeks ago and paid cash. His previous known residence was in Dania, Fla.
Federal law enforcement officers have been baffled in their search for Lombardo. They offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the two men.
Lombardo wrote a letter to Zagel last May, offering to turn himself in if he were guaranteed a trial separate from the other defendants. He later wrote a second letter, taking issue with news reports in the case.
Lombardo went to federal prison in the 1980s after being convicted along with then-International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Roy Lee Williams in a bribery conspiracy.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
FBI Mob Files Deal with Garbage
Friends of ours: Joseph Zito, Joseph Auippa, Joseph Zammuto, Frank Buscemi
Eye-popping allegations are part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records concerning Joseph Zito, a reputed Rockford Mafia counsuleri, who reportedly had interests in the City of Rockford's garbage collection and disposal. Zito died of natural causes in 1981. Included in Zito's FBI file are allegations of bribery and intimidation during a time when a new garbage contract was being negotiated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Also during that time, the city closed the municipally-owned People’s Avenue landfill and began dumping its trash at the privately-owned Pagel Pit, which opened in July 1972.
The dump, which was formerly known as Pagel Pit, received approval from the Winnebago County Board Dec. 8 to expand Winnebago Landfill. The 18.7 million cubic-yard expansion is expected to serve 11 northern Illinois counties between 2010 and 2031. In 2004, the county also approved spending millions of taxpayer funds on two roads that lead to the landfill. The money will pay for 8 miles of road upgrades on Baxter Road and 5 miles on South Perryville Road.
According to the FBI file, Zito was allegedly part owner of the City of Rockford’s former waste hauler—Rockford Disposal Service Co. A March 31, 1970, FBI bulletin from Zito's FBI file reads that a male source "said [redact] for the Rockford Disposal Company and is also [redact] the Greater Rockford Airport Authority. "He said the site, which was under consideration as a new landfill site to be used for dumping garbage was under control of the airport authority and although unsuitable, in [redact] opinion, as a landfill site was being pushed in the City Council when the Illinois State Health Department advised that it would not be approved by that department as a landfill site.
"[Redact] advised that the City furnished the landfill site for the contractor who has the garbage disposal contact for Rockford, Illinois. "[Redact] said that in conversation with [redact] they stated no matter which site was selected for the landfill and no matter who the current contractor might be they would 'have to make their peace with Rockford Disposal Company.'
"He said he asked what was meant by that statement but received no answer. "He said when he was showing opposition to the airport landfill site, he was approached by [redact] Rockford Disposal Company, in approximately October 1969, was asked, 'What does it take to get you to leave us alone?'" wrote the unidentified FBI agent.
Less than two months after issuing that memorandum, the FBI issued another bulletin on May 13, 1970. The document concerned alleged "bribery negotiations relative to [the] Cherry Valley Landfill site." The bulletin reads: "[A source] states he was told it would cost $100,000 to obtain Rockford City Disposal contract. "It has been previously reported that sources believe Rockford Disposal Service, Inc., utilizes Joe Zito in quieting labor disputes when Rockford Disposal first obtained the Rockford City contract [in 1956]. ...
"Rockford is presently attempting to locate a landfill site which would then be used by Rockford Disposal in performance of its trash removal contract. ... The site most likely to be chosen is located in Cherry Valley Township, adjacent to Rockford."
During a Dec. 1 interview, Dave Johnson, Winnebago County clerk and former long-time Rockford alderman, said he thought the site referred to in Zito's FBI file was the City of Rockford's 155-acre composting facility at the northeast corner of South Mulford and Baxter roads. Johnson raised questions about the city’s garbage contract in 1974, which led to an investigation conducted by the Rockford Police Department.
According to a 1975 Rockford Police Department report, Browning Ferris Industries, the city' garbage hauler at that time, was also known as Rockford Disposal Service Co. State records indicate Rockford Disposal changed its name to Laidlaw Waste Systems (Illinois) Inc., on March 25, 1982.
When Zito died in 1981, an FBI surveillance photo shows Zito' funeral was attended by Chicago Mafia boss Joseph Aiuppa, Joseph Zammuto, head of the Rockford Mob, and Frank J. Buscemi, who took control from Zammuto after his retirement, according to a March 4, 1984, Rockford Register Star article.
Thanks to Jeff Havens
Eye-popping allegations are part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records concerning Joseph Zito, a reputed Rockford Mafia counsuleri, who reportedly had interests in the City of Rockford's garbage collection and disposal. Zito died of natural causes in 1981. Included in Zito's FBI file are allegations of bribery and intimidation during a time when a new garbage contract was being negotiated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Also during that time, the city closed the municipally-owned People’s Avenue landfill and began dumping its trash at the privately-owned Pagel Pit, which opened in July 1972.
The dump, which was formerly known as Pagel Pit, received approval from the Winnebago County Board Dec. 8 to expand Winnebago Landfill. The 18.7 million cubic-yard expansion is expected to serve 11 northern Illinois counties between 2010 and 2031. In 2004, the county also approved spending millions of taxpayer funds on two roads that lead to the landfill. The money will pay for 8 miles of road upgrades on Baxter Road and 5 miles on South Perryville Road.
According to the FBI file, Zito was allegedly part owner of the City of Rockford’s former waste hauler—Rockford Disposal Service Co. A March 31, 1970, FBI bulletin from Zito's FBI file reads that a male source "said [redact] for the Rockford Disposal Company and is also [redact] the Greater Rockford Airport Authority. "He said the site, which was under consideration as a new landfill site to be used for dumping garbage was under control of the airport authority and although unsuitable, in [redact] opinion, as a landfill site was being pushed in the City Council when the Illinois State Health Department advised that it would not be approved by that department as a landfill site.
"[Redact] advised that the City furnished the landfill site for the contractor who has the garbage disposal contact for Rockford, Illinois. "[Redact] said that in conversation with [redact] they stated no matter which site was selected for the landfill and no matter who the current contractor might be they would 'have to make their peace with Rockford Disposal Company.'
"He said he asked what was meant by that statement but received no answer. "He said when he was showing opposition to the airport landfill site, he was approached by [redact] Rockford Disposal Company, in approximately October 1969, was asked, 'What does it take to get you to leave us alone?'" wrote the unidentified FBI agent.
Less than two months after issuing that memorandum, the FBI issued another bulletin on May 13, 1970. The document concerned alleged "bribery negotiations relative to [the] Cherry Valley Landfill site." The bulletin reads: "[A source] states he was told it would cost $100,000 to obtain Rockford City Disposal contract. "It has been previously reported that sources believe Rockford Disposal Service, Inc., utilizes Joe Zito in quieting labor disputes when Rockford Disposal first obtained the Rockford City contract [in 1956]. ...
"Rockford is presently attempting to locate a landfill site which would then be used by Rockford Disposal in performance of its trash removal contract. ... The site most likely to be chosen is located in Cherry Valley Township, adjacent to Rockford."
During a Dec. 1 interview, Dave Johnson, Winnebago County clerk and former long-time Rockford alderman, said he thought the site referred to in Zito's FBI file was the City of Rockford's 155-acre composting facility at the northeast corner of South Mulford and Baxter roads. Johnson raised questions about the city’s garbage contract in 1974, which led to an investigation conducted by the Rockford Police Department.
According to a 1975 Rockford Police Department report, Browning Ferris Industries, the city' garbage hauler at that time, was also known as Rockford Disposal Service Co. State records indicate Rockford Disposal changed its name to Laidlaw Waste Systems (Illinois) Inc., on March 25, 1982.
When Zito died in 1981, an FBI surveillance photo shows Zito' funeral was attended by Chicago Mafia boss Joseph Aiuppa, Joseph Zammuto, head of the Rockford Mob, and Frank J. Buscemi, who took control from Zammuto after his retirement, according to a March 4, 1984, Rockford Register Star article.
Thanks to Jeff Havens
Officer killed in Bronx shootout; actor is suspect
Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
A young police officer dying from a bullet to his chest shot two burglars early Saturday, one of them identified as an actor who played a misfit mobster on "The Sopranos." The wounded suspects were quickly captured. Investigators identified one as Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who got his break in the Robert De Niro-directed film "A Bronx Tale
" in 1993, and played doomed mob wannabe Matt Bevilacqua during the 1999-2000 season of "The Sopranos: The Complete First Season
." Brancato, 29, of Yonkers, was also arrested in June for alleged heroin possession.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the actor and another man were breaking into a vacant home when Officer Daniel Enchautegui, who had just finished a late-night shift, heard the sound of smashing glass next door. Enchautegui was off duty and in his street clothes, but he alerted his landlord and dialed 911 to report a possible burglary in progress. Then he grabbed his badge and a gun and went out to investigate.
His landlord heard Enchautegui shout, "Police! Don't move!" followed by a burst of gunfire, Kelly said. Enchautegui, 28, collapsed in the driveway of his home in the Bronx borough and died shortly afterward.
A young police officer dying from a bullet to his chest shot two burglars early Saturday, one of them identified as an actor who played a misfit mobster on "The Sopranos." The wounded suspects were quickly captured. Investigators identified one as Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who got his break in the Robert De Niro-directed film "A Bronx Tale
" in 1993, and played doomed mob wannabe Matt Bevilacqua during the 1999-2000 season of "The Sopranos: The Complete First Season." Brancato, 29, of Yonkers, was also arrested in June for alleged heroin possession.Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the actor and another man were breaking into a vacant home when Officer Daniel Enchautegui, who had just finished a late-night shift, heard the sound of smashing glass next door. Enchautegui was off duty and in his street clothes, but he alerted his landlord and dialed 911 to report a possible burglary in progress. Then he grabbed his badge and a gun and went out to investigate.
His landlord heard Enchautegui shout, "Police! Don't move!" followed by a burst of gunfire, Kelly said. Enchautegui, 28, collapsed in the driveway of his home in the Bronx borough and died shortly afterward.
Mob Related Indictment
Friends of ours: Harry Aleman
A member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted to parole reputed mob hit man Harry Aleman because Aleman's friends were going to help get the board member's son a job in the music industry in Las Vegas, according to an indictment handed down by a Lee County grand jury Friday. Victor Brooks cast the lone vote to parole Aleman three years ago when the board decided 10-1 to keep Aleman in prison for the murder of Teamster official Willie Logan.
Though prosecutors say Aleman was a mob hit man, the only murder he has ever been charged with is Logan's. He was acquitted the first time after bribing a judge. But he was convicted after being retried for the crime.
Former Illinois Department of Corrections official Ronald Matrisciano was also indicted Friday. He spoke up on Aleman's behalf at the hearing at the Dixon Correctional Center in Downstate Lee County three years ago, calling Aleman a "model prisoner."
Matrisciano was a family friend of Aleman's. Brooks said at the parole hearing that he was impressed that a prison official of Matrisciano's stature would speak on Aleman's behalf. He said at the time that's why he voted for Aleman's parole.
What was unsaid at the time, according to Friday's indictment, is that Matrisciano and Brooks had "an agreement ... under which ... in return for Ronald Matrisciano's assistance in obtaining employment in Las Vegas for Victor Brooks' son, Nicolas Brooks, Victor Brooks would vote to parole Harry Aleman."
Nicolas Brooks reportedly had some success in the music industry, singing the national anthem at Cubs and Bears games. He was living in Las Vegas and the agreement was to help get him a music gig, according to sources familiar with the allegations.
Victor Brooks was a former warden at the state juvenile corrections facility in St. Charles and was highly regarded on the prisoner review board, said chairman Jorge Montes. "Brooks during his tenure on the board was basically a model member," Montes said. "It comes as a shock to the parole board that these allegations would be raised against someone who everybody held in high esteem."
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office brought the charges before the grand jury. "How Harry Aleman had access to a high-ranking IDOC official and why a member of the PRB would vote for his release are serious questions that have been raised," Lisa Madigan said in a release. "We allege that public corruption is part of the answer."
Brooks was appointed to the prisoner review board by Gov. Jim Edgar and was reappointed by Gov. George Ryan. But Gov. Blagojevich, after Brooks' vote to parole Aleman, chose not to reappoint him when his term was up for renewal.
When Aleman came up for parole again Wednesday, Aleman said he was "mad, very mad" that his friend Matrisciano was fired, ordered re-hired, demoted, then suspended with pay after testifying on Aleman's behalf. "You're saying anybody who speaks on my behalf gets into trouble? ...No one can talk for me or they get into trouble right away?"
Matrisciano faces five counts of official misconduct and two counts of wire fraud. Brooks faces one count of official misconduct and one of wire fraud
Thanks to Abdon Pallasch
A member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted to parole reputed mob hit man Harry Aleman because Aleman's friends were going to help get the board member's son a job in the music industry in Las Vegas, according to an indictment handed down by a Lee County grand jury Friday. Victor Brooks cast the lone vote to parole Aleman three years ago when the board decided 10-1 to keep Aleman in prison for the murder of Teamster official Willie Logan.
Though prosecutors say Aleman was a mob hit man, the only murder he has ever been charged with is Logan's. He was acquitted the first time after bribing a judge. But he was convicted after being retried for the crime.
Former Illinois Department of Corrections official Ronald Matrisciano was also indicted Friday. He spoke up on Aleman's behalf at the hearing at the Dixon Correctional Center in Downstate Lee County three years ago, calling Aleman a "model prisoner."
Matrisciano was a family friend of Aleman's. Brooks said at the parole hearing that he was impressed that a prison official of Matrisciano's stature would speak on Aleman's behalf. He said at the time that's why he voted for Aleman's parole.
What was unsaid at the time, according to Friday's indictment, is that Matrisciano and Brooks had "an agreement ... under which ... in return for Ronald Matrisciano's assistance in obtaining employment in Las Vegas for Victor Brooks' son, Nicolas Brooks, Victor Brooks would vote to parole Harry Aleman."
Nicolas Brooks reportedly had some success in the music industry, singing the national anthem at Cubs and Bears games. He was living in Las Vegas and the agreement was to help get him a music gig, according to sources familiar with the allegations.
Victor Brooks was a former warden at the state juvenile corrections facility in St. Charles and was highly regarded on the prisoner review board, said chairman Jorge Montes. "Brooks during his tenure on the board was basically a model member," Montes said. "It comes as a shock to the parole board that these allegations would be raised against someone who everybody held in high esteem."
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office brought the charges before the grand jury. "How Harry Aleman had access to a high-ranking IDOC official and why a member of the PRB would vote for his release are serious questions that have been raised," Lisa Madigan said in a release. "We allege that public corruption is part of the answer."
Brooks was appointed to the prisoner review board by Gov. Jim Edgar and was reappointed by Gov. George Ryan. But Gov. Blagojevich, after Brooks' vote to parole Aleman, chose not to reappoint him when his term was up for renewal.
When Aleman came up for parole again Wednesday, Aleman said he was "mad, very mad" that his friend Matrisciano was fired, ordered re-hired, demoted, then suspended with pay after testifying on Aleman's behalf. "You're saying anybody who speaks on my behalf gets into trouble? ...No one can talk for me or they get into trouble right away?"
Matrisciano faces five counts of official misconduct and two counts of wire fraud. Brooks faces one count of official misconduct and one of wire fraud
Thanks to Abdon Pallasch
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Mob War?
Friends of Ours: Gambino Crime Family, Bonanno Crime Family, Carmine Sciandra, Ronald Carlucci, Michael Viga
The feds are keeping an eye out for a possible gangland blow-up following the shooting of a reputed Gambino capo on Staten Island, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. Mob heavy Carmine Sciandra was wounded Wednesday in the dust-up, which began after two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD cop showed up at a produce market he co-owned thinking Sciandra's brother Sal had groped the cop's daughter, police said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn and the FBI's organized-crime branch are watching in case any mobsters retaliate, sources said. "We're on top of it," said a law-enforcement official.
Yesterday, the two reputed Bonanno members, Ronald Carlucci, 62, and Michael Viga, 59, were released after the Staten Island District Attorney's Office decided not to press charges. The two were let go because of a lack of evidence, sources said.Ultimate Cigar Sampler - $120 value for $29.95
Former cop Patrick Balsamo brought Carlucci and Viga along to the Top Tomato market on Victory Boulevard, cops said. He started smashing some windows because his 18-year-old daughter had allegedly been groped and then fired from her cashier job at the market run by Sal Sciandra, cops said.
At Balsamo's arraignment yesterday, prosecutor Michele Molfetta told the court Balsamo is accused of pulling the trigger. "The defendant is charged with shooting the victim, a crime that resulted in serious physical injury" with damage to Carmine Sciandra's colon, she said in Staten Island Criminal Court. Prosecutors said a .25-caliber gun was used and a .25-caliber shell casing was recovered at the scene.
Defense lawyer Felix Gilroy said his client voluntarily turned over the weapon. The former cop was released on $25,000 bail and is due back in court Jan. 19 to face charges of assault, weapons possession and felony criminal mischief.
From Various Sources
The feds are keeping an eye out for a possible gangland blow-up following the shooting of a reputed Gambino capo on Staten Island, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. Mob heavy Carmine Sciandra was wounded Wednesday in the dust-up, which began after two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD cop showed up at a produce market he co-owned thinking Sciandra's brother Sal had groped the cop's daughter, police said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn and the FBI's organized-crime branch are watching in case any mobsters retaliate, sources said. "We're on top of it," said a law-enforcement official.
Yesterday, the two reputed Bonanno members, Ronald Carlucci, 62, and Michael Viga, 59, were released after the Staten Island District Attorney's Office decided not to press charges. The two were let go because of a lack of evidence, sources said.Ultimate Cigar Sampler - $120 value for $29.95
Former cop Patrick Balsamo brought Carlucci and Viga along to the Top Tomato market on Victory Boulevard, cops said. He started smashing some windows because his 18-year-old daughter had allegedly been groped and then fired from her cashier job at the market run by Sal Sciandra, cops said.
At Balsamo's arraignment yesterday, prosecutor Michele Molfetta told the court Balsamo is accused of pulling the trigger. "The defendant is charged with shooting the victim, a crime that resulted in serious physical injury" with damage to Carmine Sciandra's colon, she said in Staten Island Criminal Court. Prosecutors said a .25-caliber gun was used and a .25-caliber shell casing was recovered at the scene.
Defense lawyer Felix Gilroy said his client voluntarily turned over the weapon. The former cop was released on $25,000 bail and is due back in court Jan. 19 to face charges of assault, weapons possession and felony criminal mischief.
From Various Sources
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Gambino Capo is Shot on Staten Island
Friends of Ours: Gambino Crime Family, Bonanno Crime Family, Carmine Sciandra, John Gotti, Junior Gotti, Ronald Carlucci, Michael Viga
A reputed Gambino capo was shot in the gut in Staten Island during a window-smashing, bat-swinging brawl with two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD officer who attacked him because they thought his brother groped the cop's daughter, police said yesterday.
The Gambinos are "screaming for blood" over the attack on powerful capo Carmine Sciandra at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday outside the Top Tomato produce market, which he owns with his brothers.
Authorities fear a mob war could erupt because the brazen attack was not approved by other bosses. "This was a renegade act," a police source said. "The Gambinos are going to want some retribution."
Cops identified the suspects as Patrick Balsamo, a former city cop; Ronald Carlucci, 62, a "made" member of the rival Bonanno crime family; and mob associate Michael Viga, 59, of Staten Island. Balsamo allegedly brought along the two men as muscle to help him when he confronted Sciandra because his brother, Sal, allegedly groped his 18-year-old daughter, who worked at the market.
According to police sources, Balsamo smashed some windows at Top Tomato. In the ensuing melee, someone shot Sciandra in the belly. Balsamo and his two sidekicks allegedly fled in two sedans with three bat-wielding guys running after them from market. Balsamo and his two cohorts were arrested without incident after police spotted them at East Broadway and Shadow Lane down the block from Viga's house.
Sciandra was listed in serious condition. "He's going to need another surgery," said Top Tomato's lawyer, Joseph Benefante. "The bullet is lodged in his muscle tissue." Sciandra was once considered a dark-horse candidate to lead the family after the late "Teflon Don" John Gotti grew ill in prison and son John A. "Junior" Gotti was also jailed.
Balsamo served only eight years as a cop before retiring with a disability pension. A grand jury cleared him of wrongdoing for his role in the 1990 shooting of a disturbed man who rushed at him and his partner with a knife. Balsamo was charged with criminal mischief in Wednesday's brawl.
The two Bonanno thugs were charged with assault and weapons possession police did not specify which was the triggerman.
A reputed Gambino capo was shot in the gut in Staten Island during a window-smashing, bat-swinging brawl with two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD officer who attacked him because they thought his brother groped the cop's daughter, police said yesterday.
The Gambinos are "screaming for blood" over the attack on powerful capo Carmine Sciandra at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday outside the Top Tomato produce market, which he owns with his brothers.
Authorities fear a mob war could erupt because the brazen attack was not approved by other bosses. "This was a renegade act," a police source said. "The Gambinos are going to want some retribution."
Cops identified the suspects as Patrick Balsamo, a former city cop; Ronald Carlucci, 62, a "made" member of the rival Bonanno crime family; and mob associate Michael Viga, 59, of Staten Island. Balsamo allegedly brought along the two men as muscle to help him when he confronted Sciandra because his brother, Sal, allegedly groped his 18-year-old daughter, who worked at the market.
According to police sources, Balsamo smashed some windows at Top Tomato. In the ensuing melee, someone shot Sciandra in the belly. Balsamo and his two sidekicks allegedly fled in two sedans with three bat-wielding guys running after them from market. Balsamo and his two cohorts were arrested without incident after police spotted them at East Broadway and Shadow Lane down the block from Viga's house.
Sciandra was listed in serious condition. "He's going to need another surgery," said Top Tomato's lawyer, Joseph Benefante. "The bullet is lodged in his muscle tissue." Sciandra was once considered a dark-horse candidate to lead the family after the late "Teflon Don" John Gotti grew ill in prison and son John A. "Junior" Gotti was also jailed.
Balsamo served only eight years as a cop before retiring with a disability pension. A grand jury cleared him of wrongdoing for his role in the 1990 shooting of a disturbed man who rushed at him and his partner with a knife. Balsamo was charged with criminal mischief in Wednesday's brawl.
The two Bonanno thugs were charged with assault and weapons possession police did not specify which was the triggerman.
RIP Sandy Smith 1919-2005
Friends or ours: Murph the Surf and Anthony Accardo
As a longtime Chicago investigative reporter, Sandy Smith used to drop in on mob weddings and peek at the names on the gift cards to figure out family connections. At one event, Smith was in the lobby checking out the wise guys when a couple of toughs started roughing up his photographer.
"He grabbed the camera away from the thug and walked out of the building," said his wife, Lynda. "And he threw it in the back seat of a car driven by two FBI agent friends of his. Then he walked back in the building and got the photographer, who was shaking in his boots. Never would work with Sandy again."
Mr. Smith, 85, died of pneumonia Tuesday, Nov. 22, in Missoula, Mont. He had had Alzheimer's disease for years.
His 58-year career included stints at the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times and at Time, Life and other magazines, along with television journalism. He wrote fearlessly about murderers, racketeering and men with monikers such as "Murph the Surf" and Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo.
In a 1971 editor's note, Time stated that the "towering, jovial Smith has exposed much of organized crime's invisible empire, and in the process has become one of the best-known crime reporters in the nation." Mr. Smith had an uncanny ability to discern the threads that tied disparate data together, said Seymour Hersh, a New Yorker writer and former New York Times reporter.
In May 1973, Hersh wrote a story that the Times played as a major scoop: The Nixon White House had been wiretapping journalists and administration officials. But then someone clipped and sent him a paragraph from Time that Mr. Smith had written months earlier on the same topic. Hersh and others at the Times had missed the short piece.
"Time ran it as a, `We don't want to hurt the Nixon administration but we gotta keep this ... reporter happy,'" Hersh said. "They just buried the story. But he had it first. He was an amazing reporter. Everybody said he was too close to the FBI. He was close to the FBI, but he was not a patsy."
Mr. Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, and his family moved to Chicago when he was an infant. He attended Todd School in Woodstock at the same time as Orson Welles. There Mr. Smith met his first wife, Bette, whom he later divorced. Mr. Smith attended Northwestern University, and a Sandy Smith is recorded as having received his bachelor's degree in 1941. He worked at the Tribune from 1942 to 1962, apart from two years when he tried raising dogs professionally.
While at the Sun-Times, he met his second wife, Lynda. They got married in 1965. After he left for New York in 1967 to work for Life magazine, his pregnant wife returned to Chicago because she wanted her longtime obstetrician to deliver the baby. Two weeks after the birth, Mr. Smith phoned her from New York, telling her to run to her parents' place down the street--now! Two gangsters had moved into the hotel, apparently intending to menace her. "I stuck a .38 in my waistband in front and put another .38 in my back waistband," his wife said. "I picked up my infant daughter, and I ran down the street. Had my mother change all the locks on the door."
In the late 1960s, Smith wrote a story for Fortune listing the top 50 mobsters in the country, said George Lardner, a retired Washington Post reporter. "Afterward, they kept getting letters from the gangsters: `How come I'm No. 11? How come this guy got ahead of me?'" Lardner said. Historical and I have no doubt true.
The Smiths moved to Montana in 1992.Other survivors include three daughters, Pamela Conklin, Candace Andersen and Priscilla; three sons, Roderick, Roger and Casey; and three grandchildren. Services have been held.
Thanks to Russell Working
As a longtime Chicago investigative reporter, Sandy Smith used to drop in on mob weddings and peek at the names on the gift cards to figure out family connections. At one event, Smith was in the lobby checking out the wise guys when a couple of toughs started roughing up his photographer.
"He grabbed the camera away from the thug and walked out of the building," said his wife, Lynda. "And he threw it in the back seat of a car driven by two FBI agent friends of his. Then he walked back in the building and got the photographer, who was shaking in his boots. Never would work with Sandy again."
Mr. Smith, 85, died of pneumonia Tuesday, Nov. 22, in Missoula, Mont. He had had Alzheimer's disease for years.
His 58-year career included stints at the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times and at Time, Life and other magazines, along with television journalism. He wrote fearlessly about murderers, racketeering and men with monikers such as "Murph the Surf" and Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo.
In a 1971 editor's note, Time stated that the "towering, jovial Smith has exposed much of organized crime's invisible empire, and in the process has become one of the best-known crime reporters in the nation." Mr. Smith had an uncanny ability to discern the threads that tied disparate data together, said Seymour Hersh, a New Yorker writer and former New York Times reporter.
In May 1973, Hersh wrote a story that the Times played as a major scoop: The Nixon White House had been wiretapping journalists and administration officials. But then someone clipped and sent him a paragraph from Time that Mr. Smith had written months earlier on the same topic. Hersh and others at the Times had missed the short piece.
"Time ran it as a, `We don't want to hurt the Nixon administration but we gotta keep this ... reporter happy,'" Hersh said. "They just buried the story. But he had it first. He was an amazing reporter. Everybody said he was too close to the FBI. He was close to the FBI, but he was not a patsy."
Mr. Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, and his family moved to Chicago when he was an infant. He attended Todd School in Woodstock at the same time as Orson Welles. There Mr. Smith met his first wife, Bette, whom he later divorced. Mr. Smith attended Northwestern University, and a Sandy Smith is recorded as having received his bachelor's degree in 1941. He worked at the Tribune from 1942 to 1962, apart from two years when he tried raising dogs professionally.
While at the Sun-Times, he met his second wife, Lynda. They got married in 1965. After he left for New York in 1967 to work for Life magazine, his pregnant wife returned to Chicago because she wanted her longtime obstetrician to deliver the baby. Two weeks after the birth, Mr. Smith phoned her from New York, telling her to run to her parents' place down the street--now! Two gangsters had moved into the hotel, apparently intending to menace her. "I stuck a .38 in my waistband in front and put another .38 in my back waistband," his wife said. "I picked up my infant daughter, and I ran down the street. Had my mother change all the locks on the door."
In the late 1960s, Smith wrote a story for Fortune listing the top 50 mobsters in the country, said George Lardner, a retired Washington Post reporter. "Afterward, they kept getting letters from the gangsters: `How come I'm No. 11? How come this guy got ahead of me?'" Lardner said. Historical and I have no doubt true.
The Smiths moved to Montana in 1992.Other survivors include three daughters, Pamela Conklin, Candace Andersen and Priscilla; three sons, Roderick, Roger and Casey; and three grandchildren. Services have been held.
Thanks to Russell Working
Monday, December 12, 2005
Top 10 Lists
Top Ten Articles in The Mob Magazine
Top Ten Signs You're Watching A Bad Organized Crime Show
Top 10 Surprises in The Sopranos Series Finale
Top 10 Signs That You are Watching a Bad Mafia Movie
Top 10 Ways to Make the Godfather More Appealing to Teenagers
Top 10 Signs Your Neighbor is in the Mafia
Top 10 Signs a Mafia Boss is Nuts
Top 10 Mob Euphemisms for Killing a Guy
Top 10 Hilarious April Fool's Day Pranks in the Mafia
Top 10 Ways Mafia Can Improve Its Image
Top Ten Signs You're Watching A Bad Organized Crime Show
Top 10 Surprises in The Sopranos Series Finale
Top 10 Signs That You are Watching a Bad Mafia Movie
Top 10 Ways to Make the Godfather More Appealing to Teenagers
Top 10 Signs Your Neighbor is in the Mafia
Top 10 Signs a Mafia Boss is Nuts
Top 10 Mob Euphemisms for Killing a Guy
Top 10 Hilarious April Fool's Day Pranks in the Mafia
Top 10 Ways Mafia Can Improve Its Image
Overheard: Classic
The San Diego City Council decided to drop its official nickname, America's Finest City. It's because the mayor just resigned, the pension fund is a billion dollars short, the FBI is investigating City Hall, and two councilmen and the U.S. congressman were convicted of bribery. They've decided to go with Little Chicago.
Attorneys Get Richer, Judge Orders New Trial for Gotti
Friends of ours: Junior Gotti, John Gotti
A judge on Friday rejected John A. "Junior" Gotti's request to be acquitted of a racketeering charge, clearing the way for a new trial. A jury deadlocked on the charge at trial in September, and U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin declared a mistrial and freed Gotti, 41, on $7 million bond. Scheindlin said Friday that the government was entitled to a new trial, which is scheduled for February 13. Gotti's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he would appeal.
Gotti is charged with ordering a botched 1992 attempt to abduct Curtis Sliwa, a radio show host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against Gotti's father, the late mob boss John Gotti. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his work on the radio.
A judge on Friday rejected John A. "Junior" Gotti's request to be acquitted of a racketeering charge, clearing the way for a new trial. A jury deadlocked on the charge at trial in September, and U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin declared a mistrial and freed Gotti, 41, on $7 million bond. Scheindlin said Friday that the government was entitled to a new trial, which is scheduled for February 13. Gotti's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he would appeal.Gotti is charged with ordering a botched 1992 attempt to abduct Curtis Sliwa, a radio show host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against Gotti's father, the late mob boss John Gotti. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his work on the radio.
Mob Ties to Hired Truck Scandal
Friends of ours: James "Jimmy I" Inendino and Nick "The Stick" LoCocco
A trucking company owner from Lockport was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program. U.S. District Judge John Grady said Salvador Alvarez's decision to pay city employee John "Quarters" Boyle a bribe to join the program and later cover it up was a textbook case of "a decent man participating in a very evil enterprise." But probation, suggested by Alvarez's attorney Russell Green, would be too mild a punishment for the crimes, Grady said.
Although Grady was sorry for the toll that imprisonment would take on Alvarez, he said he needed to set an example for the community and deter others who might be tempted to walk down the same path. "The matter of official corruption, bribery and shakedowns is an endemic problem. The Hired Truck Program was a disgrace to the City of Chicago and to everyone who knew about the dishonest way it was conducted," Grady said. "The public needs to know that paying bribes and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes is conduct that will lead to serious punishment."
Alvarez, the owner of Sarch Hauling Ltd., also was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Before he was sentenced, Alvarez, 54, tearfully recalled how he immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1969, earned his GED and worked hard to make a living. Alvarez apologized to city residents, the government and his family, who joined him in court on what he said was a very "black" day. "I did something here that was very wrong," Alvarez said in a wavering voice. "It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake I'll never make again."
Boyle, the politically connected former city employee at the center of the Hired Truck probe, told Alvarez he needed to pay $30,000 up front to get into the program and $2,000 per truck per season and an additional $1,000 per truck as a bonus every Christmas, according to Alvarez's plea deal with prosecutors, which calls for his cooperation in the investigation. Boyle, who also pleaded guilty, took $4,000 in shakedown money from Alvarez for a trip to Acapulco, Mexico.
There was no discussion of Sarch's ties to reputed mobsters during Wednesday's hearing. The company leased garage space for its trucks from mob loan shark James Inendino, who was recommended to Alvarez by Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a mob bookie and city employee who also was charged in the Hired Truck investigation. LoCoco died in an accident before going to trial. Sarch also bought a truck from Mayor Daley ally John Cannatello, who also has pleaded guilty to paying bribes for Hired Truck business.
Thanks to Rummana Hussain
A trucking company owner from Lockport was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program. U.S. District Judge John Grady said Salvador Alvarez's decision to pay city employee John "Quarters" Boyle a bribe to join the program and later cover it up was a textbook case of "a decent man participating in a very evil enterprise." But probation, suggested by Alvarez's attorney Russell Green, would be too mild a punishment for the crimes, Grady said.
Although Grady was sorry for the toll that imprisonment would take on Alvarez, he said he needed to set an example for the community and deter others who might be tempted to walk down the same path. "The matter of official corruption, bribery and shakedowns is an endemic problem. The Hired Truck Program was a disgrace to the City of Chicago and to everyone who knew about the dishonest way it was conducted," Grady said. "The public needs to know that paying bribes and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes is conduct that will lead to serious punishment."
Alvarez, the owner of Sarch Hauling Ltd., also was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Before he was sentenced, Alvarez, 54, tearfully recalled how he immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1969, earned his GED and worked hard to make a living. Alvarez apologized to city residents, the government and his family, who joined him in court on what he said was a very "black" day. "I did something here that was very wrong," Alvarez said in a wavering voice. "It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake I'll never make again."
Boyle, the politically connected former city employee at the center of the Hired Truck probe, told Alvarez he needed to pay $30,000 up front to get into the program and $2,000 per truck per season and an additional $1,000 per truck as a bonus every Christmas, according to Alvarez's plea deal with prosecutors, which calls for his cooperation in the investigation. Boyle, who also pleaded guilty, took $4,000 in shakedown money from Alvarez for a trip to Acapulco, Mexico.
There was no discussion of Sarch's ties to reputed mobsters during Wednesday's hearing. The company leased garage space for its trucks from mob loan shark James Inendino, who was recommended to Alvarez by Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a mob bookie and city employee who also was charged in the Hired Truck investigation. LoCoco died in an accident before going to trial. Sarch also bought a truck from Mayor Daley ally John Cannatello, who also has pleaded guilty to paying bribes for Hired Truck business.
Thanks to Rummana Hussain
Friday, December 09, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Harry Aleman pleads for parole
Reputed mob hit man Harry Aleman pleaded for mercy from state parole board members Wednesday by insisting he was set up by government "stool pigeons" for a 1972 murder he didn't commit. Dressed in blue prison-issued garb and his hands curiously manicured for a prison janitor, Aleman told members of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board that he is undeserving of the 100- to 300-year prison term he received for the shotgun murder of a union official once married to his cousin.
"Serial killers get that," Aleman said in disgust, seemingly oblivious to the notion that some officials pin 20 mob killings on him, though he has been convicted of murder only once. "I caused no problems for anybody, and I'm no threat to anybody. And 27 years is a long period," Aleman said. He has spent most of the last 27 years in state or federal custody for various crimes. "That's double for what they give in this state for murder."
Aleman, 66, is locked up for the murder of William Logan, a Teamsters Union steward, on Chicago's West Side. In a 1977 trial, Aleman was acquitted of that crime, but it was later determined that the judge in the case had been bribed with the help of mob lawyer Bob Cooley, who later became a government informant. With Cooley's help, Aleman was retried in 1997 and convicted.
Aleman said his former "partner," William "Butch" Petrocelli
, now dead, killed Logan in a dispute over the affections of Logan's ex-wife and allegations that Logan "used to knock Phyllis around and give her black eyes all the time."
During Wednesday's hearing at Western Illinois Correctional Center, Aleman also denied ever being affiliated with the mob, complained about having art supplies withheld from him and feigned ignorance when asked by one Prisoner Review Board member whether he had ever read Cooley's tell-all book on the mob, When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down. Pausing for a moment, Aleman asked, "Bob Cooley, the stool pigeon guy?"
"He's the lawyer who allegedly carried the $10,000 to Frank Wilson, the judge," replied board member David Frier. "Oh, now I know who you mean, yeah. No, I never read his book," Aleman said. "He's a rat. He's going to say anything they want him to say, sir. C'mon. A rat, that's what they do. Give him a script, and he reads it."
Contacted by the Sun-Times afterward, Cooley called Aleman's foggy memory about him "comical," particularly given the role he played in helping bring Aleman down. "Maybe Harry is trying to get out on a medical. He must have Alzheimer's," Cooley cracked.
The board is expected to make its determination on Aleman's parole request at its next meeting on Dec. 15.
Scott Cassidy, the Cook County prosecutor who helped put Aleman behind bars, urged the board not to show any leniency toward him because he evaded prosecution for the crime for so long, prompting Aleman to interrupt. "Look at me and say that. I got 27 years in prison, almost half of my life," Aleman snapped. Staring back into Aleman's penetrating dark eyes, the veteran prosecutor continued to say his piece.
"Harry should be denied parole because the fact he escaped justice for so many years, and he lived the best part of his life while Billy Logan was dead," Cassidy said.
"Serial killers get that," Aleman said in disgust, seemingly oblivious to the notion that some officials pin 20 mob killings on him, though he has been convicted of murder only once. "I caused no problems for anybody, and I'm no threat to anybody. And 27 years is a long period," Aleman said. He has spent most of the last 27 years in state or federal custody for various crimes. "That's double for what they give in this state for murder."
Aleman, 66, is locked up for the murder of William Logan, a Teamsters Union steward, on Chicago's West Side. In a 1977 trial, Aleman was acquitted of that crime, but it was later determined that the judge in the case had been bribed with the help of mob lawyer Bob Cooley, who later became a government informant. With Cooley's help, Aleman was retried in 1997 and convicted.
Aleman said his former "partner," William "Butch" Petrocelli
, now dead, killed Logan in a dispute over the affections of Logan's ex-wife and allegations that Logan "used to knock Phyllis around and give her black eyes all the time."During Wednesday's hearing at Western Illinois Correctional Center, Aleman also denied ever being affiliated with the mob, complained about having art supplies withheld from him and feigned ignorance when asked by one Prisoner Review Board member whether he had ever read Cooley's tell-all book on the mob, When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down. Pausing for a moment, Aleman asked, "Bob Cooley, the stool pigeon guy?"
"He's the lawyer who allegedly carried the $10,000 to Frank Wilson, the judge," replied board member David Frier. "Oh, now I know who you mean, yeah. No, I never read his book," Aleman said. "He's a rat. He's going to say anything they want him to say, sir. C'mon. A rat, that's what they do. Give him a script, and he reads it."
Contacted by the Sun-Times afterward, Cooley called Aleman's foggy memory about him "comical," particularly given the role he played in helping bring Aleman down. "Maybe Harry is trying to get out on a medical. He must have Alzheimer's," Cooley cracked.
The board is expected to make its determination on Aleman's parole request at its next meeting on Dec. 15.
Scott Cassidy, the Cook County prosecutor who helped put Aleman behind bars, urged the board not to show any leniency toward him because he evaded prosecution for the crime for so long, prompting Aleman to interrupt. "Look at me and say that. I got 27 years in prison, almost half of my life," Aleman snapped. Staring back into Aleman's penetrating dark eyes, the veteran prosecutor continued to say his piece.
"Harry should be denied parole because the fact he escaped justice for so many years, and he lived the best part of his life while Billy Logan was dead," Cassidy said.
Lawyer alleges mob-tie affidavit on him is a fake
A well-known Loop attorney has alleged that an affidavit accusing him of having ties to organized crime is a forgery and was not signed by a former FBI agent as his legal opponents claimed. Michael Ficaro of Ungaretti & Harris made the allegation this week as part of a libel suit he filed in August against three Chicago lawyers and a businessman who he says used the affidavit to falsely discredit him. The affidavit--purportedly signed by former FBI agent Francis Marrocco--said a four-year FBI investigation had revealed that Ficaro had relationships with members of organized crime.
Ficaro's lawyer, Robert Clifford, said Tuesday that the affidavit was concocted to try to pressure Ficaro to settle a lawsuit in which his clients were seeking $15 million from the businessman, Nicholas Betzold. "One or more of the [libel case] defendants forged the signature of an ex-FBI agent to a fictitious, created, false and untrue affidavit," Clifford said in a statement. "The affidavit was intended to extort Ficaro and his law firm into settling."
Named as defendants in the case are attorneys Larry Levin, David Missner and William Choslovsky, all of Chicago, and Betzold. Martin O'Hara, an attorney for Missner and Choslovsky, said Wednesday that Ficaro had raised the forgery claim only after his clients filed a motion to dismiss his original complaint. "We're going to investigate these new issues," O'Hara said. "But we don't believe there's any merit" to them.
Ficaro is a former assistant Illinois attorney general and former lawyer for Emerald Casino, a gambling firm that had hoped to build a casino in Rosemont.
The dispute stemmed from an arbitration proceeding in which Betzold was battling with three partners for control of an investment company. Ficaro represented the three partners. The arbitrator ruled in favor of Ficaro's clients in April 2004, clearing the way for an award that could have approached $15 million, Ficaro said. But Betzold filed for bankruptcy. In August 2004, Betzold's attorneys filed documents in Bankruptcy Court alleging Ficaro had ties to organized crime and had improperly influenced the arbitration proceeding.
The filings were accompanied by affidavits from Marrocco and Robert Cooley, a former mob lawyer who became an undercover informant for the FBI.
In the court filing Tuesday, Ficaro alleged that Marrocco had spoken to Levin and gave a short statement about Ficaro. But Marrocco "refused to sign an affidavit [and] never did sign an affidavit," Ficaro said in filings. Marrocco could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Thanks to Michael Higgins
Ficaro's lawyer, Robert Clifford, said Tuesday that the affidavit was concocted to try to pressure Ficaro to settle a lawsuit in which his clients were seeking $15 million from the businessman, Nicholas Betzold. "One or more of the [libel case] defendants forged the signature of an ex-FBI agent to a fictitious, created, false and untrue affidavit," Clifford said in a statement. "The affidavit was intended to extort Ficaro and his law firm into settling."
Named as defendants in the case are attorneys Larry Levin, David Missner and William Choslovsky, all of Chicago, and Betzold. Martin O'Hara, an attorney for Missner and Choslovsky, said Wednesday that Ficaro had raised the forgery claim only after his clients filed a motion to dismiss his original complaint. "We're going to investigate these new issues," O'Hara said. "But we don't believe there's any merit" to them.
Ficaro is a former assistant Illinois attorney general and former lawyer for Emerald Casino, a gambling firm that had hoped to build a casino in Rosemont.
The dispute stemmed from an arbitration proceeding in which Betzold was battling with three partners for control of an investment company. Ficaro represented the three partners. The arbitrator ruled in favor of Ficaro's clients in April 2004, clearing the way for an award that could have approached $15 million, Ficaro said. But Betzold filed for bankruptcy. In August 2004, Betzold's attorneys filed documents in Bankruptcy Court alleging Ficaro had ties to organized crime and had improperly influenced the arbitration proceeding.
The filings were accompanied by affidavits from Marrocco and Robert Cooley, a former mob lawyer who became an undercover informant for the FBI.
In the court filing Tuesday, Ficaro alleged that Marrocco had spoken to Levin and gave a short statement about Ficaro. But Marrocco "refused to sign an affidavit [and] never did sign an affidavit," Ficaro said in filings. Marrocco could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Thanks to Michael Higgins
Badfella Henry Hill
Henry Hill, the former mobster immortalized in "Goodfellas," was sentenced Monday to 180 days in jail for threatening his wife and another man last summer. The judge ordered the sentence to be served concurrently with a six-month term Hill is already serving for attempted methamphetamine possession. Hill pleaded no contest to making terroristic threats.
Hill, portrayed by Ray Liotta in the 1990 mob movie, was also given credit for time served after Hill's wife and the other victim wrote letters on his behalf. The victims told the judge they didn't want Hill to receive additional jail time. Hill, 62, will complete both the sentences Dec. 29.
Police say Hill threatened his wife with a knife on July 8 at a hotel, then followed her after she left and threatened the man who had been waiting for her. Hill told The Associated Press last week that this current jail sentence had given him a chance to sober up, and now he has another chance to live a "normal life."
Hill sought refuge in the witness protection program after agreeing to testify against his former New York mob bosses. He has since left the program and lives in North Platte with his wife, who is from the area.
Hill, portrayed by Ray Liotta in the 1990 mob movie, was also given credit for time served after Hill's wife and the other victim wrote letters on his behalf. The victims told the judge they didn't want Hill to receive additional jail time. Hill, 62, will complete both the sentences Dec. 29.
Police say Hill threatened his wife with a knife on July 8 at a hotel, then followed her after she left and threatened the man who had been waiting for her. Hill told The Associated Press last week that this current jail sentence had given him a chance to sober up, and now he has another chance to live a "normal life."
Hill sought refuge in the witness protection program after agreeing to testify against his former New York mob bosses. He has since left the program and lives in North Platte with his wife, who is from the area.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Victim's sister wants mob hit man to rot in prison
Friends of ours: Harry Aleman, William "Butch" Petrocelli
Betty Romo won't be able to attend today's parole hearing for Harry Aleman, the mob hit man convicted of killing her brother. But if anybody at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board is curious about her opinion, this pretty well sums it up: "We just hope he stays where he's at and rots there." I have every confidence the Prisoner Review Board will come to the same determination, but you can never take these things for granted.
Three years ago, when Aleman first came up for parole, a state prison official was somehow persuaded to testify on Aleman's behalf, calling him a model prisoner who would pose no danger if released. One board member even voted in favor of parole. A grand jury has been poking into the matter, but no charges have been filed.
Aleman was, after all, originally acquitted of this crime, the 1972 murder of Teamsters official William Logan, only to be retried and convicted in a second trial in 1997 on the strength of testimony that Cook County Judge Frank Wilson had been bribed to fix the original case.
Romo, now 70 and living in the western suburbs, testified at both trials and attended every hearing. She said her late brother was never afraid of Aleman, despite his fearsome reputation, and she's obviously cut from the same cloth. "Listen, if he could get money to somebody, they would," she said, meaning he'd bribe his way out if he could.
Romo is not really concerned that will happen, although she was more than a little suspicious that Aleman was angling to rehabilitate his public image with an eye toward parole when he granted an exclusive interview in September to the Sun-Times' Robert Herguth. Herguth turned the interview into a two-part series, "Through the Eyes of a Hit Man," which I found to be great reading. It's not every day you get a sit-down with the guy believed to be one of the Chicago mob's most prolific hit men of the past half-century, even if he wasn't exactly spilling any family secrets.
For Romo, though, reading Aleman's continued denials along with his thoughts on everything from prison life to Jesus Christ -- only days before the anniversary of her brother's murder -- was another painful cut. "Look at what he's done to our family, all these years of stress," she said. "I'm the only one left. He tormented my family for 33 years. This has been torture. He's still doing it. How? Because he's alive, and his mouth keeps going."
"My dad died of a broken heart 14 years later," Romo said, also blaming the crime for health problems that claimed the lives of a sister and another brother.
"These have been bad, bad years for us," said Romo, who heard the gunshots the night of the murder from the second-floor apartment she shared with her brother. She raced to the street where he lay dying.
"He was still alive. He mumbled something. His keys fell. I held his head. I said, 'I'm not getting up. I don't want his head on the ground.' It was like in the movies."
In his interview with Herguth, Aleman attributed the murder to a man he referred to as his "partner," William "Butch" Petrocelli, also a mob hit man who was killed in 1980. Romo isn't buying it. "When you come from the old neighborhood, people tell you things," she said, referring to the old Italian neighborhood on the West Side, where she and her brother were raised.
Their father, also a Teamsters official, was Irish, their mother Italian. A cousin married one of the Giancanas, Romo observed pointedly. People tell you things. "[Aleman] didn't get an OK to kill my brother," she said. "We found out."
'At the second trial, Romo suggested a bitter custody dispute between Logan and his ex-wife was a possible motive in the killing. Aleman is a cousin of the ex-wife. But another witness had testified the motive was a dispute involving the Cicero trucking company where Logan worked. "This killing was personal, not business," Romo insisted, saying her brother was not involved in anything criminal.
A young mechanic, Bob Lowe, witnessed the murder and identified Aleman as the killer. Tribune reporters Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan wrote a book about Logan's murder titled, Everybody Pays, with Lowe as a central character. Romo always thought there should be a book with her brother as the central character. She has picked out a title, Tonight Brings No Tomorrow.
Aleman is serving a 100- to 300-year sentence at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, which given his eligibility for parole, was obviously a sentence devised before truth-in-sentencing laws. Aleman, 66, deserves to spend the rest of his tomorrows just like he'll spend tonight.
Thanks to Mark Brown
Betty Romo won't be able to attend today's parole hearing for Harry Aleman, the mob hit man convicted of killing her brother. But if anybody at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board is curious about her opinion, this pretty well sums it up: "We just hope he stays where he's at and rots there." I have every confidence the Prisoner Review Board will come to the same determination, but you can never take these things for granted.
Three years ago, when Aleman first came up for parole, a state prison official was somehow persuaded to testify on Aleman's behalf, calling him a model prisoner who would pose no danger if released. One board member even voted in favor of parole. A grand jury has been poking into the matter, but no charges have been filed.
Aleman was, after all, originally acquitted of this crime, the 1972 murder of Teamsters official William Logan, only to be retried and convicted in a second trial in 1997 on the strength of testimony that Cook County Judge Frank Wilson had been bribed to fix the original case.
Romo, now 70 and living in the western suburbs, testified at both trials and attended every hearing. She said her late brother was never afraid of Aleman, despite his fearsome reputation, and she's obviously cut from the same cloth. "Listen, if he could get money to somebody, they would," she said, meaning he'd bribe his way out if he could.
Romo is not really concerned that will happen, although she was more than a little suspicious that Aleman was angling to rehabilitate his public image with an eye toward parole when he granted an exclusive interview in September to the Sun-Times' Robert Herguth. Herguth turned the interview into a two-part series, "Through the Eyes of a Hit Man," which I found to be great reading. It's not every day you get a sit-down with the guy believed to be one of the Chicago mob's most prolific hit men of the past half-century, even if he wasn't exactly spilling any family secrets.
For Romo, though, reading Aleman's continued denials along with his thoughts on everything from prison life to Jesus Christ -- only days before the anniversary of her brother's murder -- was another painful cut. "Look at what he's done to our family, all these years of stress," she said. "I'm the only one left. He tormented my family for 33 years. This has been torture. He's still doing it. How? Because he's alive, and his mouth keeps going."
"My dad died of a broken heart 14 years later," Romo said, also blaming the crime for health problems that claimed the lives of a sister and another brother.
"These have been bad, bad years for us," said Romo, who heard the gunshots the night of the murder from the second-floor apartment she shared with her brother. She raced to the street where he lay dying.
"He was still alive. He mumbled something. His keys fell. I held his head. I said, 'I'm not getting up. I don't want his head on the ground.' It was like in the movies."
In his interview with Herguth, Aleman attributed the murder to a man he referred to as his "partner," William "Butch" Petrocelli, also a mob hit man who was killed in 1980. Romo isn't buying it. "When you come from the old neighborhood, people tell you things," she said, referring to the old Italian neighborhood on the West Side, where she and her brother were raised.
Their father, also a Teamsters official, was Irish, their mother Italian. A cousin married one of the Giancanas, Romo observed pointedly. People tell you things. "[Aleman] didn't get an OK to kill my brother," she said. "We found out."
'At the second trial, Romo suggested a bitter custody dispute between Logan and his ex-wife was a possible motive in the killing. Aleman is a cousin of the ex-wife. But another witness had testified the motive was a dispute involving the Cicero trucking company where Logan worked. "This killing was personal, not business," Romo insisted, saying her brother was not involved in anything criminal.
A young mechanic, Bob Lowe, witnessed the murder and identified Aleman as the killer. Tribune reporters Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan wrote a book about Logan's murder titled, Everybody Pays, with Lowe as a central character. Romo always thought there should be a book with her brother as the central character. She has picked out a title, Tonight Brings No Tomorrow.
Aleman is serving a 100- to 300-year sentence at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, which given his eligibility for parole, was obviously a sentence devised before truth-in-sentencing laws. Aleman, 66, deserves to spend the rest of his tomorrows just like he'll spend tonight.
Thanks to Mark Brown
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Fact or Fiction?
Many years ago, while standing next to a bullet-riddled, blood-splattered car on Diversey Avenue in Chicago, a homicide detective peered into the carnage of a mob hit, then looked around quickly to make sure no one else with a badge was within earshot.
"Look, I know this is supposed to be against the law and all of that," he said. "But you do have to admire professionalism when you see it."
"Look, I know this is supposed to be against the law and all of that," he said. "But you do have to admire professionalism when you see it."
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Lawyer: Mob client's body in trunk
Friends of ours: Lawrence Ricci, Genovese Crime Family
A body believed to be that of a mobster who vanished during his waterfront corruption trial was found in the trunk of a car parked behind a diner in New Jersey. Investigators had yet to identify the victim positively as Lawrence Ricci, a reputed Genovese family capo last seen on October 7. But Ricci's lawyer said the body found Wednesday at the Huck Finn Diner in Union, New Jersey, was definitely his client.
"There's not the slightest doubt. The vehicle was the last vehicle he was seen in. Does anyone think it's somebody other than him?" said attorney Martin Schmukler. Schmukler won an acquittal for Ricci in federal court in Brooklyn after the mobster's disappearance. The 60-year-old Ricci had been accused of steering a dockworkers union contract to a mob-connected pharmaceutical company.
One news report suggested he was killed after ignoring a Mafia "request" to cop a plea in the waterfront trial. A law enforcement official was also quoted as saying the slaying was the result of an unrelated power struggle in Ricci's mob crew. The answers will eventually come out, said Ronald Goldstock, former head of the New York state Organized Crime Task Force. "In the old days, you might never find out," Goldstock said. "In current times, you will because somebody will talk. You can't keep these mob guys quiet anymore."
A body believed to be that of a mobster who vanished during his waterfront corruption trial was found in the trunk of a car parked behind a diner in New Jersey. Investigators had yet to identify the victim positively as Lawrence Ricci, a reputed Genovese family capo last seen on October 7. But Ricci's lawyer said the body found Wednesday at the Huck Finn Diner in Union, New Jersey, was definitely his client.
"There's not the slightest doubt. The vehicle was the last vehicle he was seen in. Does anyone think it's somebody other than him?" said attorney Martin Schmukler. Schmukler won an acquittal for Ricci in federal court in Brooklyn after the mobster's disappearance. The 60-year-old Ricci had been accused of steering a dockworkers union contract to a mob-connected pharmaceutical company.
One news report suggested he was killed after ignoring a Mafia "request" to cop a plea in the waterfront trial. A law enforcement official was also quoted as saying the slaying was the result of an unrelated power struggle in Ricci's mob crew. The answers will eventually come out, said Ronald Goldstock, former head of the New York state Organized Crime Task Force. "In the old days, you might never find out," Goldstock said. "In current times, you will because somebody will talk. You can't keep these mob guys quiet anymore."
Sentence put off for alleged Gambino Capo
Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, John Gotti, Salvatore Locascio
The sentencing today of a North Naples resident charged with receiving several million dollars from a massive, illegal phone cramming operation that federal prosecutors said was run by the Mafia was postponed to later this month.
Salvatore Locascio, 45, was set to receive up to 10 years in prison at a hearing today in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The sentencing may get put off into next year, U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Robert Nardoza said Thursday. "The defense is looking for even more time," Nardoza said.
Judge Carol Amon will decide whether to give Locascio, 9778 Bent Grass Bend, the 10-year maximum. Federal sentencing guidelines call for between five and six years in prison. Locascio's attorneys have said they would ask the judge to impose a sentence not involving incarceration, including probation.
While Locascio's attorneys have denied Locascio was affiliated with the Mafia, prosecutors say he was a leader in the Gambino Organized Crime Family. And the defense signed an agreement that will allow the court to sentence him as a capo, or captain, in the mob family once headed by John Gotti.
Locascio pleaded guilty in February to receiving the proceeds of a $200 million phone cramming scam. He had faced up to 20 years in prison and pleaded guilty to money laundering. Also under the plea agreement, the court ordered a $23.5 million asset forfeiture divided among Locascio and six other co-defendants. Locascio's share of the forfeiture is $4.7 million.
The agreement with the prosecutors says the payments from the phone scam to Locascio's company, Creative Program Communications, won't be considered "tribute" payments. The indictment alleged the scam was run in part by lower-level operatives who paid Locascio kickbacks because he's a captain in the crime family. Locascio remains free on $10 million bond.
Thanks to Chris Colby
The sentencing today of a North Naples resident charged with receiving several million dollars from a massive, illegal phone cramming operation that federal prosecutors said was run by the Mafia was postponed to later this month.
Salvatore Locascio, 45, was set to receive up to 10 years in prison at a hearing today in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The sentencing may get put off into next year, U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Robert Nardoza said Thursday. "The defense is looking for even more time," Nardoza said.
Judge Carol Amon will decide whether to give Locascio, 9778 Bent Grass Bend, the 10-year maximum. Federal sentencing guidelines call for between five and six years in prison. Locascio's attorneys have said they would ask the judge to impose a sentence not involving incarceration, including probation.
While Locascio's attorneys have denied Locascio was affiliated with the Mafia, prosecutors say he was a leader in the Gambino Organized Crime Family. And the defense signed an agreement that will allow the court to sentence him as a capo, or captain, in the mob family once headed by John Gotti.
Locascio pleaded guilty in February to receiving the proceeds of a $200 million phone cramming scam. He had faced up to 20 years in prison and pleaded guilty to money laundering. Also under the plea agreement, the court ordered a $23.5 million asset forfeiture divided among Locascio and six other co-defendants. Locascio's share of the forfeiture is $4.7 million.
The agreement with the prosecutors says the payments from the phone scam to Locascio's company, Creative Program Communications, won't be considered "tribute" payments. The indictment alleged the scam was run in part by lower-level operatives who paid Locascio kickbacks because he's a captain in the crime family. Locascio remains free on $10 million bond.
Thanks to Chris Colby
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Grand jury hears evidence on ex-member of prison board re: Harry Aleman parole hearing
A grand jury has heard evidence about possible wrongdoing by a former state Prisoner Review Board member who was involved in the 2002 parole hearing for mob "hit man" Harry Aleman, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Until now, public attention in the unusual case has been focused on Ronald Matrisciano, a former assistant deputy director for the state's prison system. Matrisciano, 51, raised eyebrows in December 2002 when he testified during the hearing that Aleman had been "a model inmate" with an "exceptional disciplinary record." But in addition to Matrisciano, the grand jury has heard evidence about a former Prisoner Review Board member involved with the Aleman hearing, sources familiar with the case said. The sources would not name the individual, and it is too early to say whether the person would face criminal charges.
The grand jury, however, is expected to wrap up its work by mid-December, potentially lifting a veil on what investigators have been probing regarding Matrisciano's decision to support Aleman's release.
Matrisciano identified himself as a friend of Aleman's family during the 2002 hearing and said he was not representing the prison system. But he also identified himself as a corrections official -- a move that showed poor judgment, state officials said, and contributed to a January 2003 demotion.
Matrisciano eventually was laid off by the Blagojevich administration, but the Illinois Civil Service Commission ordered him re-hired in March 2004. He immediately was placed on paid administrative leave, where he remains as the investigation continues. He is being paid $78,696 a year.
The Prisoner Review Board decided to keep Aleman -- who is serving a 100- to 300-year sentence for the 1972 murder of a former Teamsters official -- behind bars. Aleman is up for parole again Dec. 7.
Matrisciano has maintained he did nothing wrong in testifying for Aleman three years ago. He had "a number of conversations" with his superiors about the matter and "his testifying did not become an issue" until the press got a hold of it, said his lawyer, Howard Feldman of Springfield.
Thanks to Chris Fusco and Stephano Esposito
Until now, public attention in the unusual case has been focused on Ronald Matrisciano, a former assistant deputy director for the state's prison system. Matrisciano, 51, raised eyebrows in December 2002 when he testified during the hearing that Aleman had been "a model inmate" with an "exceptional disciplinary record." But in addition to Matrisciano, the grand jury has heard evidence about a former Prisoner Review Board member involved with the Aleman hearing, sources familiar with the case said. The sources would not name the individual, and it is too early to say whether the person would face criminal charges.
The grand jury, however, is expected to wrap up its work by mid-December, potentially lifting a veil on what investigators have been probing regarding Matrisciano's decision to support Aleman's release.
Matrisciano identified himself as a friend of Aleman's family during the 2002 hearing and said he was not representing the prison system. But he also identified himself as a corrections official -- a move that showed poor judgment, state officials said, and contributed to a January 2003 demotion.
Matrisciano eventually was laid off by the Blagojevich administration, but the Illinois Civil Service Commission ordered him re-hired in March 2004. He immediately was placed on paid administrative leave, where he remains as the investigation continues. He is being paid $78,696 a year.
The Prisoner Review Board decided to keep Aleman -- who is serving a 100- to 300-year sentence for the 1972 murder of a former Teamsters official -- behind bars. Aleman is up for parole again Dec. 7.
Matrisciano has maintained he did nothing wrong in testifying for Aleman three years ago. He had "a number of conversations" with his superiors about the matter and "his testifying did not become an issue" until the press got a hold of it, said his lawyer, Howard Feldman of Springfield.
Thanks to Chris Fusco and Stephano Esposito
Bridgeview officials subpoenaed in probe
Friends of mine: Fred Pascente
Friends of ours: William Hanhardt
The U.S. attorney's office has subpoenaed trustees and employees of the Village of Bridgeview as part of its investigation into whether coercive tactics were used to lure the Chicago Fire soccer team to town.
John LaFlamboy, who was the owner of the World Golf Dome, filed a lawsuit in August against Bridgeview Mayor Steve Landek and other town officials saying they ran a conspiracy to strong-arm him into selling his 50 percent ownership interest in the dome to the city. The village used the dome successfully to lure the Fire to Bridgeview.
Subpoenas went out to village trustees and to "a handful" of employees, said attorney Chris Gair, who is representing them. Landek and other possible targets of the investigation apparently did not get subpoenas. Landek declined to comment.
LaFlamboy charges he refused all pressure from the village to sell his dome, even after he said the village sent inspectors and police out to give him bogus tickets, including one for providing pizza without a proper license, even though the pizza was for disabled children. He also faced nuisance lawsuits, he said.
In September 2003, LaFlamboy said Landek's $3,200-a-month consultant, Steve Reynolds, and former Chicago Police detective Fred Pascente showed up at LaFlamboy's office and used strong-arm tactics to pressure him into selling his ownership stake to Pascente for $175,000. LaFlamboy said it was worth about $1.5 million.
Pascente, a friend of convicted former Chicago Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt, has denied wrongdoing or having mob connections, even though he is banned from Nevada casinos for alleged mob ties. He is a convicted felon.
Trustee Norma J. Pinion said she was informed there was a letter on her desk waiting for her regarding the subpoena.
Thanks to Mark J. Konkol and Abdon M. Pallasch
Friends of ours: William Hanhardt
The U.S. attorney's office has subpoenaed trustees and employees of the Village of Bridgeview as part of its investigation into whether coercive tactics were used to lure the Chicago Fire soccer team to town.
John LaFlamboy, who was the owner of the World Golf Dome, filed a lawsuit in August against Bridgeview Mayor Steve Landek and other town officials saying they ran a conspiracy to strong-arm him into selling his 50 percent ownership interest in the dome to the city. The village used the dome successfully to lure the Fire to Bridgeview.
Subpoenas went out to village trustees and to "a handful" of employees, said attorney Chris Gair, who is representing them. Landek and other possible targets of the investigation apparently did not get subpoenas. Landek declined to comment.
LaFlamboy charges he refused all pressure from the village to sell his dome, even after he said the village sent inspectors and police out to give him bogus tickets, including one for providing pizza without a proper license, even though the pizza was for disabled children. He also faced nuisance lawsuits, he said.
In September 2003, LaFlamboy said Landek's $3,200-a-month consultant, Steve Reynolds, and former Chicago Police detective Fred Pascente showed up at LaFlamboy's office and used strong-arm tactics to pressure him into selling his ownership stake to Pascente for $175,000. LaFlamboy said it was worth about $1.5 million.
Pascente, a friend of convicted former Chicago Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt, has denied wrongdoing or having mob connections, even though he is banned from Nevada casinos for alleged mob ties. He is a convicted felon.
Trustee Norma J. Pinion said she was informed there was a letter on her desk waiting for her regarding the subpoena.
Thanks to Mark J. Konkol and Abdon M. Pallasch
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
New head of the Chicago Crime Commission
The ABC7 I-team has learned Illinois is losing its top gambling investigator, who is now taking over as head of the Chicago Crime Commission.
The I-team has learned that veteran mobfighter Jim Wagner accepted the job as president of the Chicago Crime Commission, a position that has been vacant for the past six months. Wagner is a career lawman but will soon leave the government job he has held for five years...that of chief investigator for the Illinois Gaming Board...a post that has put him right in the middle of the Rosemont casino controversy.
As the village of Rosemont saw dollar signs in landing a gambling casino...gaming board chief investigator Jim Wagner saw signs of trouble...alleged mob links to Rosemont mayor Don Stephens, the Emerald Casino and some of it's shareholders. "As you all know the Outfit makes its money on gambling; they always go were the cash is. So we have to remain diligent," said Jim Wagner on April 28, 2005.
Wagner will be remaining diligent against the outfit from a new vantage point: here at the Chicago crime commission where he takes over as president the middle of next month. He is expected to rejuvenate the crime commission's roots...that were planted in 1919: the same year that Al Capone moved to Chicago.
It was no coincidence that the nation's first citizen anti-crime organization grew during the heyday of the Chicago mob. Jim Wagner could be considered a modern day Elliott Ness the G-man who brought down Capone.
As a career special agent with the FBI here in Chicago, Wagner toiled for years on outfit cases, eventually becoming supervisor of the organized crime squad. Wagner had trained many of the federal agents whose investigation recently resulted in the indictment of top hoodlum Jimmy "the man" Marcello and more than a dozen other Chicago mob figures in connection with 18 unsolved gangland murders.
Mr. Wagner will replace Thomas Kirkpatrick as head of the crime commission. Kirkpatrick resigned last summer but his departure wasn't made known until the i-team revealed it ten days ago. "I'd say he did a pretty good job. It was time we branched out into different areas," said Douglas Kramer, Crime Commission Board Chairman in November 15, 2005 I-Team Interview.
One key area will have to be fundraising, attracting financial support from local businesses with programs such as the safe neighborhoods project that featured the late Johnny Cochran in TV ads. "If you're a felon caught with a gun...not even I can get you off, " Cochran says in the ad.
If Wagner can help cure the crime commission's dire financial ailment, his first major duty will be to hire a chief investigator. That person would undoubtedly share Wagner's educated belief that the mob in Chicago is far from dead as some so-called experts suggest.
The crime commission had hoped to keep Wagner's hiring under wraps until the organization's annual luncheon on December 14th, but last week Wagner informed his own staff at the gaming board.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie.
The I-team has learned that veteran mobfighter Jim Wagner accepted the job as president of the Chicago Crime Commission, a position that has been vacant for the past six months. Wagner is a career lawman but will soon leave the government job he has held for five years...that of chief investigator for the Illinois Gaming Board...a post that has put him right in the middle of the Rosemont casino controversy.
As the village of Rosemont saw dollar signs in landing a gambling casino...gaming board chief investigator Jim Wagner saw signs of trouble...alleged mob links to Rosemont mayor Don Stephens, the Emerald Casino and some of it's shareholders. "As you all know the Outfit makes its money on gambling; they always go were the cash is. So we have to remain diligent," said Jim Wagner on April 28, 2005.
Wagner will be remaining diligent against the outfit from a new vantage point: here at the Chicago crime commission where he takes over as president the middle of next month. He is expected to rejuvenate the crime commission's roots...that were planted in 1919: the same year that Al Capone moved to Chicago.
It was no coincidence that the nation's first citizen anti-crime organization grew during the heyday of the Chicago mob. Jim Wagner could be considered a modern day Elliott Ness the G-man who brought down Capone.
As a career special agent with the FBI here in Chicago, Wagner toiled for years on outfit cases, eventually becoming supervisor of the organized crime squad. Wagner had trained many of the federal agents whose investigation recently resulted in the indictment of top hoodlum Jimmy "the man" Marcello and more than a dozen other Chicago mob figures in connection with 18 unsolved gangland murders.
Mr. Wagner will replace Thomas Kirkpatrick as head of the crime commission. Kirkpatrick resigned last summer but his departure wasn't made known until the i-team revealed it ten days ago. "I'd say he did a pretty good job. It was time we branched out into different areas," said Douglas Kramer, Crime Commission Board Chairman in November 15, 2005 I-Team Interview.
One key area will have to be fundraising, attracting financial support from local businesses with programs such as the safe neighborhoods project that featured the late Johnny Cochran in TV ads. "If you're a felon caught with a gun...not even I can get you off, " Cochran says in the ad.
If Wagner can help cure the crime commission's dire financial ailment, his first major duty will be to hire a chief investigator. That person would undoubtedly share Wagner's educated belief that the mob in Chicago is far from dead as some so-called experts suggest.
The crime commission had hoped to keep Wagner's hiring under wraps until the organization's annual luncheon on December 14th, but last week Wagner informed his own staff at the gaming board.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Firm with reputed mob ties flourishes
Friends of ours: Peter DiFronzo, John DiFronzo, James Marcello, Sam Carlisi
Near the front of this fall's Columbus Day Parade rolled a shiny, massive truck from D&P Construction -- one of many signs the local waste-hauling business is prospering.
D&P dumpsters, often emblazoned with painted American flags, have sprouted up all over the Chicago region: at an Old Town-area church being rehabbed; outside a Loop bridgehouse renovated by the Friends of the Chicago River; at a new strip mall in Niles, and along a canal in Evanston. But the company also continues to surface in other places: the files of the FBI and Illinois Gaming Board. Officials from those agencies have, in recent years, repeatedly described D&P as a mob-linked company.
On paper, D&P is run by Josephine DiFronzo. But authorities contend D&P really is "controlled" by her husband Peter and his brother John, and a Chicago Sun-Times examination indicates that Peter DiFronzo is deeply involved with the company.
The DiFronzo brothers are identified in law enforcement documents as "made" members of the Chicago mob, with John "No Nose" DiFronzo, 76, allegedly one of the three top organized crime figures in the city. Peter DiFronzo, 72, allegedly is his chief lieutenant and, at least for a time, was a leader of the mob's Elmwood Park Street Crew.
A recently released report from an Illinois Gaming Board hearing officer offers disturbing new allegations about D&P's operations -- and its success. The report, penned by retired judge and congressman Abner Mikva, cited an internal FBI memo from 2003 that not only alleged that D&P is "controlled by Peter and John DiFronzo," but it also said that the business "obtained contracts through illegal payoffs or intimidation."
Reached on the phone at her Barrington-area home this week, Josephine DiFronzo declined to comment. "I have a wake to go to. I'm just running out the door," she said before hanging up. Neither she nor her husband responded to subsequent phone calls to D&P. John DiFronzo's lawyer had no comment.
Despite the DiFronzos being shy with the press, D&P's profile only has increased in recent years. The company and a sister recycling and materials firm, JKS Ventures, now have sophisticated Web sites that, among other things, boast about them being family-owned for more than 30 years. "Whether it is providing waste removal options, delivering material or tearing down your old facility . . . D&P is 'At Your DISPOSAL!' " the D&P site reads.
D&P and JKS contribute generously to certain politicians, including state Rep. Angelo "Skip" Saviano (R-Elmwood Park) and Republican Cook County commissioner and Elmwood Park Mayor Peter Silvestri. D&P, with addresses in Chicago and Melrose Park, co-sponsored a charity golf event earlier this year.
D&P used to operate quietly as a subcontractor for the once-mighty Palumbo Construction, which specialized in road building and public works projects but ultimately ran afoul of the law. Peter and John DiFronzo, one law enforcement source said, had a firm foundation from which to build D&P. "[Peter] knows trucking. He knows road building. He knows construction. He's got experience in those areas," the source said. "And his brother John knows cars. He's been a car dealer his whole life . . . he went to the auctions and would buy cars. He knew a good car from a bad car."
D&P now does a good deal of work leasing dumpsters for home renovations and larger developments. A D&P dumpster even was spotted around the corner from mob turncoat Nick Calabrese's old Norridge home, where a neighbor's building a new house. The number of union employees working for the DiFronzos has doubled in the past few years, said a person familiar with Peter DiFronzo and D&P. "While others are struggling . . . he is getting bigger every day," said the person. "He's definitely moving through the ranks, big and getting bigger."
The person believes D&P is offering competitive prices to beef up its customer list and sell, perhaps to a larger rival. Industry officials contacted in recent days said they aren't aware of that strategy and didn't want to speculate.
A D&P customer willing to talk is well-known developer Sam Zitella, who has used D&P dumpsters "for many years." Zitella lives near Peter and Josephine DiFronzo, and he considers Peter DiFronzo a good friend. "He's been providing my dumpsters for many years, he's a good guy," Zitella said. "He's a hard worker" who helps run a "great operation."
"He's a good person, good family, very family-oriented," Zitella added. "He gets a lot of business because the service is there, decent price."
While some customers are aware of the DiFronzo brothers' reputations, others are not. Like the Archdiocese of Chicago. This week, a D&P dumpster was on site at St. Joseph's Catholic Church near Orleans and Division in the Old Town area. Neither the contractor overseeing a project to convert an old rectory into a parish center nor the archdiocese's construction office apparently was aware of D&P's history.
After a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry to the archdiocese, the contractor agreed to hire a different firm, said Jim Dwyer, an archdiocese spokesman. "We don't micromanage our projects to the extent we would know who's doing the waste hauling," Dwyer said. "The contractor we had wasn't aware of anything like this, and they have volunteered to hire somebody else." Still, "we're not making any judgments about this company," Dwyer said, adding he was not aware of D&P being involved in any other current archdiocese construction work. A D&P dumpster, however, was at an archdiocesan facility on the Northwest Side in recent years.
D&P was widely publicized as a mob-linked firm in March 2001, when the Gaming Board took issue with D&P hauling trash from the Rosemont site where Emerald Casino Inc. tried to build a gambling barge. Emerald's use of D&P, the board stated, was one of many reasons Emerald discredited the integrity of state casino operations and deserved to have its gaming license revoked. Mikva's ruling last week supports the board's original finding. Emerald is expected to appeal the case.
Former federal prosecutor Gregory Jones was the Gaming Board chairman in 2001. Reached Wednesday, he said he wasn't surprised by D&P's growth. "It's a little hard to say what the public reacts to. . . . It could be there are so many allegations surfacing around today that they don't pay too much attention to it until there's some sort of action from a legal standpoint," Jones said. "Our views back from the Gaming Board were that you don't have to be convicted for something to be hurting your reputation or hurting the integrity of gaming. That's a much broader standard."
The DiFronzo brothers have had their share of legal trouble. John DiFronzo, whose family has residences in River Grove, McHenry County and southern Wisconsin, has more than two dozen arrests, and he was convicted in 1993 in a scheme to infiltrate an Indian casino. Peter DiFronzo did time in Leavenworth in the 1960s for a warehouse heist. Their younger brother Joseph, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Springfield, Mo., on federal drug offenses.
Peter DiFronzo's other trouble has stemmed from the Teamsters. In 1998, a government-union agency known as the Independent Review Board tried to kick him out of the group "for being a member of the Chicago La Cosa Nostra . . . and knowingly associating with other organized crime members," according to union documents.
Those reputed mob figures included John DiFronzo and Joseph Andriacchi, described as a childhood friend of Peter DiFronzo. "According to the FBI, [Peter] DiFronzo has a close relationship with his [older] brother," the union documents stated.
Peter DiFronzo was believed to be a liaison between his older brother and other reputed hoodlums, including James Marcello and the late Sam Carlisi, according to records and the law enforcement source. A confidential informant told the FBI in 2001 that John DiFronzo "visits Peter DiFronzo every morning at . . . JKS Ventures, and gives Peter DiFronzo instructions and orders for the day with regards to Chicago Organized Crime," according to testimony at the Gaming Board's Emerald Casino disciplinary hearing.
Peter DiFronzo resigned from the Teamsters in 1998, but did not admit to any of the charges.
Since then, it's clear that he's been part of D&P's operations.
Peter DiFronzo is listed as the D&P contact for the June charity golf event; he's the point person for the sale of an old JKS grinder, according to a U.S. Manufacturing Inc. Web site, and he regularly directs D&P workers, said the source familiar with the company. "He has daily contact with the drivers, or their supervisors," the source said.
Meanwhile, two workers from D&P ran unsuccessfully in the most recent Teamsters Local 731 election, raising concerns among some about whether Peter DiFronzo was trying to exert influence at his former union. "There seems to be a general attitude that there's no need to be concerned about the Outfit" any more, the law enforcement source said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
Thanks to Robert Herguth and Chris Fusco
Near the front of this fall's Columbus Day Parade rolled a shiny, massive truck from D&P Construction -- one of many signs the local waste-hauling business is prospering.
D&P dumpsters, often emblazoned with painted American flags, have sprouted up all over the Chicago region: at an Old Town-area church being rehabbed; outside a Loop bridgehouse renovated by the Friends of the Chicago River; at a new strip mall in Niles, and along a canal in Evanston. But the company also continues to surface in other places: the files of the FBI and Illinois Gaming Board. Officials from those agencies have, in recent years, repeatedly described D&P as a mob-linked company.
On paper, D&P is run by Josephine DiFronzo. But authorities contend D&P really is "controlled" by her husband Peter and his brother John, and a Chicago Sun-Times examination indicates that Peter DiFronzo is deeply involved with the company.
The DiFronzo brothers are identified in law enforcement documents as "made" members of the Chicago mob, with John "No Nose" DiFronzo, 76, allegedly one of the three top organized crime figures in the city. Peter DiFronzo, 72, allegedly is his chief lieutenant and, at least for a time, was a leader of the mob's Elmwood Park Street Crew.
A recently released report from an Illinois Gaming Board hearing officer offers disturbing new allegations about D&P's operations -- and its success. The report, penned by retired judge and congressman Abner Mikva, cited an internal FBI memo from 2003 that not only alleged that D&P is "controlled by Peter and John DiFronzo," but it also said that the business "obtained contracts through illegal payoffs or intimidation."
Reached on the phone at her Barrington-area home this week, Josephine DiFronzo declined to comment. "I have a wake to go to. I'm just running out the door," she said before hanging up. Neither she nor her husband responded to subsequent phone calls to D&P. John DiFronzo's lawyer had no comment.
Despite the DiFronzos being shy with the press, D&P's profile only has increased in recent years. The company and a sister recycling and materials firm, JKS Ventures, now have sophisticated Web sites that, among other things, boast about them being family-owned for more than 30 years. "Whether it is providing waste removal options, delivering material or tearing down your old facility . . . D&P is 'At Your DISPOSAL!' " the D&P site reads.
D&P and JKS contribute generously to certain politicians, including state Rep. Angelo "Skip" Saviano (R-Elmwood Park) and Republican Cook County commissioner and Elmwood Park Mayor Peter Silvestri. D&P, with addresses in Chicago and Melrose Park, co-sponsored a charity golf event earlier this year.
D&P used to operate quietly as a subcontractor for the once-mighty Palumbo Construction, which specialized in road building and public works projects but ultimately ran afoul of the law. Peter and John DiFronzo, one law enforcement source said, had a firm foundation from which to build D&P. "[Peter] knows trucking. He knows road building. He knows construction. He's got experience in those areas," the source said. "And his brother John knows cars. He's been a car dealer his whole life . . . he went to the auctions and would buy cars. He knew a good car from a bad car."
D&P now does a good deal of work leasing dumpsters for home renovations and larger developments. A D&P dumpster even was spotted around the corner from mob turncoat Nick Calabrese's old Norridge home, where a neighbor's building a new house. The number of union employees working for the DiFronzos has doubled in the past few years, said a person familiar with Peter DiFronzo and D&P. "While others are struggling . . . he is getting bigger every day," said the person. "He's definitely moving through the ranks, big and getting bigger."
The person believes D&P is offering competitive prices to beef up its customer list and sell, perhaps to a larger rival. Industry officials contacted in recent days said they aren't aware of that strategy and didn't want to speculate.
A D&P customer willing to talk is well-known developer Sam Zitella, who has used D&P dumpsters "for many years." Zitella lives near Peter and Josephine DiFronzo, and he considers Peter DiFronzo a good friend. "He's been providing my dumpsters for many years, he's a good guy," Zitella said. "He's a hard worker" who helps run a "great operation."
"He's a good person, good family, very family-oriented," Zitella added. "He gets a lot of business because the service is there, decent price."
While some customers are aware of the DiFronzo brothers' reputations, others are not. Like the Archdiocese of Chicago. This week, a D&P dumpster was on site at St. Joseph's Catholic Church near Orleans and Division in the Old Town area. Neither the contractor overseeing a project to convert an old rectory into a parish center nor the archdiocese's construction office apparently was aware of D&P's history.
After a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry to the archdiocese, the contractor agreed to hire a different firm, said Jim Dwyer, an archdiocese spokesman. "We don't micromanage our projects to the extent we would know who's doing the waste hauling," Dwyer said. "The contractor we had wasn't aware of anything like this, and they have volunteered to hire somebody else." Still, "we're not making any judgments about this company," Dwyer said, adding he was not aware of D&P being involved in any other current archdiocese construction work. A D&P dumpster, however, was at an archdiocesan facility on the Northwest Side in recent years.
D&P was widely publicized as a mob-linked firm in March 2001, when the Gaming Board took issue with D&P hauling trash from the Rosemont site where Emerald Casino Inc. tried to build a gambling barge. Emerald's use of D&P, the board stated, was one of many reasons Emerald discredited the integrity of state casino operations and deserved to have its gaming license revoked. Mikva's ruling last week supports the board's original finding. Emerald is expected to appeal the case.
Former federal prosecutor Gregory Jones was the Gaming Board chairman in 2001. Reached Wednesday, he said he wasn't surprised by D&P's growth. "It's a little hard to say what the public reacts to. . . . It could be there are so many allegations surfacing around today that they don't pay too much attention to it until there's some sort of action from a legal standpoint," Jones said. "Our views back from the Gaming Board were that you don't have to be convicted for something to be hurting your reputation or hurting the integrity of gaming. That's a much broader standard."
The DiFronzo brothers have had their share of legal trouble. John DiFronzo, whose family has residences in River Grove, McHenry County and southern Wisconsin, has more than two dozen arrests, and he was convicted in 1993 in a scheme to infiltrate an Indian casino. Peter DiFronzo did time in Leavenworth in the 1960s for a warehouse heist. Their younger brother Joseph, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Springfield, Mo., on federal drug offenses.
Peter DiFronzo's other trouble has stemmed from the Teamsters. In 1998, a government-union agency known as the Independent Review Board tried to kick him out of the group "for being a member of the Chicago La Cosa Nostra . . . and knowingly associating with other organized crime members," according to union documents.
Those reputed mob figures included John DiFronzo and Joseph Andriacchi, described as a childhood friend of Peter DiFronzo. "According to the FBI, [Peter] DiFronzo has a close relationship with his [older] brother," the union documents stated.
Peter DiFronzo was believed to be a liaison between his older brother and other reputed hoodlums, including James Marcello and the late Sam Carlisi, according to records and the law enforcement source. A confidential informant told the FBI in 2001 that John DiFronzo "visits Peter DiFronzo every morning at . . . JKS Ventures, and gives Peter DiFronzo instructions and orders for the day with regards to Chicago Organized Crime," according to testimony at the Gaming Board's Emerald Casino disciplinary hearing.
Peter DiFronzo resigned from the Teamsters in 1998, but did not admit to any of the charges.
Since then, it's clear that he's been part of D&P's operations.
Peter DiFronzo is listed as the D&P contact for the June charity golf event; he's the point person for the sale of an old JKS grinder, according to a U.S. Manufacturing Inc. Web site, and he regularly directs D&P workers, said the source familiar with the company. "He has daily contact with the drivers, or their supervisors," the source said.
Meanwhile, two workers from D&P ran unsuccessfully in the most recent Teamsters Local 731 election, raising concerns among some about whether Peter DiFronzo was trying to exert influence at his former union. "There seems to be a general attitude that there's no need to be concerned about the Outfit" any more, the law enforcement source said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
Thanks to Robert Herguth and Chris Fusco
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
New charges for 'Mafia cops'
The "Mafia Cops" have something else to digest over Thanksgiving: a new version of the federal indictment accusing them of being hitmen for the mob. Brooklyn federal prosecutors Wednesday released a retooled indictment, their fourth version, in the racketeering charges against ex-NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa.
Eppolito and Caracappa already face a total of 10 homicide charges in the racketeering case that started with their arrest in March. The new indictment didn't add any new murder victims but did add two murder-for-hire allegations to cover the killings of Gambino mobster Edward Lino in 1990 and diamond dealer Israel Greenwald in 1986. The new charges also added a 1982 bribery allegation against Eppolito,56.
News of a new indictment angered defense attorney Edward Hayes who is representing Caracappa, 63. Hayes said the defense now has to revise motion papers, which already cost tens of thousands of dollars to prepare, because of the latest grand jury action. He thinks prosecutors are trying to delay the trial, now set for February. "This is their fourth try to make this case," said Hayes. "I think it is fair to ask if there are facts they want to put before the jury or whether they want to postpone it because they don't see a way to try the case." A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
Caracappa and Eppolito are accused in the case of being hitmen for Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the now imprisoned former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Some of the murders took place while they were with the NYPD. Both defendants had been kept for a time in solitary confinement after their arrest in their home state of Nevada. But Brooklyn federal judge Jack B. Weinstein released them on house arrest with separate $5 million bail packages. Eppolito is living with relatives on Long Island while Caracappa is staying at his mother's house on Staten Island.
Weinstein has expressed concern that the original federal indictment has a serious statute of limitations problems. Generally, racketeering conspiracies like the kind Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with require some act to have been committed within five years of the time of indictment. The original indictment was filed in early March of this year.
The most recent homicide in the case was in 1991. However, prosecutors also originally said Eppolito and Caracappa took part in money laundering and a narcotics conspiracy in late 2004.
Challenging the indictment, the defense has claimed that the drug charges aren't related to the earlier Mafia-linked racketeering homicides and thus can't save the indictment from dismissal. After Weinstein also stated in court that he thought the case had a problem with the statute of limitations, prosecutors began revising the indictment to include crimes as late as October 2002. Prosecutors also made Eppolito and Caracappa the racketeering enterprise, instead of La Cosa Nostra. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned next Wednesday.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Eppolito and Caracappa already face a total of 10 homicide charges in the racketeering case that started with their arrest in March. The new indictment didn't add any new murder victims but did add two murder-for-hire allegations to cover the killings of Gambino mobster Edward Lino in 1990 and diamond dealer Israel Greenwald in 1986. The new charges also added a 1982 bribery allegation against Eppolito,56.
News of a new indictment angered defense attorney Edward Hayes who is representing Caracappa, 63. Hayes said the defense now has to revise motion papers, which already cost tens of thousands of dollars to prepare, because of the latest grand jury action. He thinks prosecutors are trying to delay the trial, now set for February. "This is their fourth try to make this case," said Hayes. "I think it is fair to ask if there are facts they want to put before the jury or whether they want to postpone it because they don't see a way to try the case." A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
Caracappa and Eppolito are accused in the case of being hitmen for Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the now imprisoned former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Some of the murders took place while they were with the NYPD. Both defendants had been kept for a time in solitary confinement after their arrest in their home state of Nevada. But Brooklyn federal judge Jack B. Weinstein released them on house arrest with separate $5 million bail packages. Eppolito is living with relatives on Long Island while Caracappa is staying at his mother's house on Staten Island.
Weinstein has expressed concern that the original federal indictment has a serious statute of limitations problems. Generally, racketeering conspiracies like the kind Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with require some act to have been committed within five years of the time of indictment. The original indictment was filed in early March of this year.
The most recent homicide in the case was in 1991. However, prosecutors also originally said Eppolito and Caracappa took part in money laundering and a narcotics conspiracy in late 2004.
Challenging the indictment, the defense has claimed that the drug charges aren't related to the earlier Mafia-linked racketeering homicides and thus can't save the indictment from dismissal. After Weinstein also stated in court that he thought the case had a problem with the statute of limitations, prosecutors began revising the indictment to include crimes as late as October 2002. Prosecutors also made Eppolito and Caracappa the racketeering enterprise, instead of La Cosa Nostra. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned next Wednesday.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Pier Pressure
Friends of ours: Alex "The Ox" DeBrizzi, Anthony Scotto, Gambino Family, Genovese Family, George Barone, Tommy Cafaro
Friends of mine: Al Cernadas
Mob domination of the dock workers' union is the stuff of legend in New York. For more than half a century, the International Longshoremen's Association has provided a haven for a rogues' gallery of hoodlums, ranging from Alex "The Ox" DeBrizzi, who kept his local union's treasury in a jar at home, to the urbane Anthony Scotto, the ex-Mafia capo who called mayors and governors his friends. With leadership like that, the ILA had a decades-long losing streak in the city's courtrooms, as scores of officials were convicted of extortion, racketeering, and worse crimes perpetrated from their waterfront roosts. But that streak ended dramatically this month when a pair of high-salaried ILA officials won acquittal on fraud and conspiracy charges in Brooklyn federal court. "This case is about the Mafia's stranglehold on the ILA," prosecutors promised jurors when the case got under way in late September. But eight weeks later, the jury found Harold Daggett, the head of New Jersey's most powerful local union, and Arthur Coffey, the leader of its growing Florida chapters, not guilty on all counts. Jurors even voted to acquit a third defendant, an alleged captain in the Genovese crime family who disappeared and was believed to have been murdered midway through the trial. "The jury was so disgusted they acquitted an empty chair," said Gerald McMahon, a defense attorney in the case.
The only conviction was of a man named Al Cernadas, the former leader of a large Newark local union who had the bad luck to have pled guilty before the trial began, admitting that he knew about, but failed to prevent, a mob plot to foist an expensive medical plan upon the members.
Immediately after the acquittals on November 8, the union issued a press release hailing the verdict. "Today is a wonderful day for our ILA," said international union president John Bowers, whose father and uncle once ruled the "pistol local" on Manhattan's West Side docks, so named because that weapon settled all disputes.
Two days later, Bowers's office announced that the union had taken additional cleanup steps. A new code of ethics that bars officials from associating with organized crime figures, among other prohibitions, was made a permanent part of the ILA constitution; an outside investigator - former state appellate judge Milton Mollen - was given an expanded, three-year term to look into corruption allegations, and a former top federal judge, George C. Pratt, was named to serve as a final arbiter on ethical matters. "It is a checks-and-balances system to show that the ILA is serious about reform and protecting members' rights," said union spokesman James McNamara.
The union's other acknowledged goal is to short-circuit a civil racketeering case against the ILA filed in Brooklyn by the U.S. Department of Justice this summer. The lawsuit alleges that the union has long been controlled by the Gambino and Genovese crime families and calls for a court-im posed trusteeship and the ouster of Bowers and other top officials. When the lawsuit was filed in July, Bowers accused the government of perpetuating "an outdated stereotype" of the union and focusing on "stale allegations of wrongdoing." Bowers said the feds had ignored its efforts to turn itself around, including adopting the ethics code and hiring Judge Mollen.
"The ILA's commitment to honest trade unionism and vigorous representation of its members' interests is second to none," said Bowers. But not everyone's been convinced. Tony Perlstein, co-chairman of a group called the Longshore Workers' Coalition which has members at ports around the country, said the union has much further to go. "I don't believe having an ethics counsel is sufficient," he said. The coalition is demanding direct elections for members of the union's executive council and salary caps for officers. (At the Brooklyn trial, prosecutors made a point of introducing evidence of the high salaries paid Coffey, who took in $353,000 in 2003, and Daggett, who topped out at $475,000 the same year.)
Part of the government's problem was that the defendants were not accused of violent crimes, while its own witnesses had murder and mayhem on their resumes.
The prosecution's most compelling testimony came from George Barone, an ailing 81-year-old former top ILA leader and Genovese mobster. Barone, whose testimony helped convict a group of Gambino mobsters at an earlier trial, said he had committed more hits than he had counted. "I didn't keep a scorecard, y'know," he barked at one point. His tool of choice was a gun, and his deadly m.o., defense attorney McMahon pointed out, was one shot to the chest to stun the victim, followed by a kill shot to the head.
At some point in the early 1980s Barone had threatened to kill Daggett, then a young union official. Barone told the story in a matter-of-fact manner, acknowledging that Daggett's demise was discussed and that someone had pegged a shot in his direction during the confrontation. But then an unusual thing happened. Guided by George Daggett, his attorney (and cousin), Harold Daggett took the stand and gave his own account of the incident.
He was in the midst of making plans to build a new headquarters for his union, Local 1804-1, moving it from the lower West Side docks to northern New Jersey, where the jobs had already migrated, when a mob messenger named Tommy Cafaro told him that Barone wanted to see him. Daggett said he agreed to get in the car, and it raced up the FDR Drive to East 115th Street. There, he was escorted into a large fruit and vegetable store, through a steel door to a darkened room at the rear. "It was dark, boxes all around, no windows," said Daggett. A single lightbulb illuminated Barone, who sat with his back to him. Two other men stood at the door. On the floor was a large, empty canvas bag with an open zipper. All of a sudden, Barone threw down the paper he'd been reading and snarled at Daggett: "You motherfucker, who the fuck are you to take this local away from me? I'm going to fuckin' kill you." Daggett broke down sobbing as he told the story ("blubbering," as the Daily News' John Marzulli reported it). Judge Leo Glasser told him to relax and take a drink of water. Daggett soldiered on. " 'This is my fuckin' local; I built this local,' " he said Barone screamed. " 'I'll kill you, your wife, and children.' He pulled out a gun and shoved it in my head. I said, 'Please, don't do this to me,' and he cocked back the trigger, and he said, 'I will blow your brains all over the fuckin' room. I'm going to kill you.' "
Barone didn't shoot. Instead, after some more growling, he told Daggett he could leave. But he couldn't. "I was so nervous I urinated all over myself," Daggett testified. "I couldn't walk. I said, 'I can't move.' I thought one of them was going to shoot me in the back of the head, and I opened the door, and I could hardly walk. I walked and I kept thinking, 'They're going to shoot me.' " At the door, Barone dismissed the staggering Daggett. "Take this guy back to his local," Barone instructed his emissary.
Pending the outcome of the trial, Daggett and Coffey were both suspended from their posts, albeit with pay. Since their acquittal, "they're unsuspended," an ILA spokesman said. But Judge Mollen, the union's ethical-practices counsel, still has jurisdiction over any violations he finds. "I have obtained the transcript of the trial and I have a big stack of it on the floor," he said. "I am reading."
Thanks to Tom Robbins - Village Voice
Friends of mine: Al Cernadas
Mob domination of the dock workers' union is the stuff of legend in New York. For more than half a century, the International Longshoremen's Association has provided a haven for a rogues' gallery of hoodlums, ranging from Alex "The Ox" DeBrizzi, who kept his local union's treasury in a jar at home, to the urbane Anthony Scotto, the ex-Mafia capo who called mayors and governors his friends. With leadership like that, the ILA had a decades-long losing streak in the city's courtrooms, as scores of officials were convicted of extortion, racketeering, and worse crimes perpetrated from their waterfront roosts. But that streak ended dramatically this month when a pair of high-salaried ILA officials won acquittal on fraud and conspiracy charges in Brooklyn federal court. "This case is about the Mafia's stranglehold on the ILA," prosecutors promised jurors when the case got under way in late September. But eight weeks later, the jury found Harold Daggett, the head of New Jersey's most powerful local union, and Arthur Coffey, the leader of its growing Florida chapters, not guilty on all counts. Jurors even voted to acquit a third defendant, an alleged captain in the Genovese crime family who disappeared and was believed to have been murdered midway through the trial. "The jury was so disgusted they acquitted an empty chair," said Gerald McMahon, a defense attorney in the case.
The only conviction was of a man named Al Cernadas, the former leader of a large Newark local union who had the bad luck to have pled guilty before the trial began, admitting that he knew about, but failed to prevent, a mob plot to foist an expensive medical plan upon the members.
Immediately after the acquittals on November 8, the union issued a press release hailing the verdict. "Today is a wonderful day for our ILA," said international union president John Bowers, whose father and uncle once ruled the "pistol local" on Manhattan's West Side docks, so named because that weapon settled all disputes.
Two days later, Bowers's office announced that the union had taken additional cleanup steps. A new code of ethics that bars officials from associating with organized crime figures, among other prohibitions, was made a permanent part of the ILA constitution; an outside investigator - former state appellate judge Milton Mollen - was given an expanded, three-year term to look into corruption allegations, and a former top federal judge, George C. Pratt, was named to serve as a final arbiter on ethical matters. "It is a checks-and-balances system to show that the ILA is serious about reform and protecting members' rights," said union spokesman James McNamara.
The union's other acknowledged goal is to short-circuit a civil racketeering case against the ILA filed in Brooklyn by the U.S. Department of Justice this summer. The lawsuit alleges that the union has long been controlled by the Gambino and Genovese crime families and calls for a court-im posed trusteeship and the ouster of Bowers and other top officials. When the lawsuit was filed in July, Bowers accused the government of perpetuating "an outdated stereotype" of the union and focusing on "stale allegations of wrongdoing." Bowers said the feds had ignored its efforts to turn itself around, including adopting the ethics code and hiring Judge Mollen.
"The ILA's commitment to honest trade unionism and vigorous representation of its members' interests is second to none," said Bowers. But not everyone's been convinced. Tony Perlstein, co-chairman of a group called the Longshore Workers' Coalition which has members at ports around the country, said the union has much further to go. "I don't believe having an ethics counsel is sufficient," he said. The coalition is demanding direct elections for members of the union's executive council and salary caps for officers. (At the Brooklyn trial, prosecutors made a point of introducing evidence of the high salaries paid Coffey, who took in $353,000 in 2003, and Daggett, who topped out at $475,000 the same year.)
Part of the government's problem was that the defendants were not accused of violent crimes, while its own witnesses had murder and mayhem on their resumes.
The prosecution's most compelling testimony came from George Barone, an ailing 81-year-old former top ILA leader and Genovese mobster. Barone, whose testimony helped convict a group of Gambino mobsters at an earlier trial, said he had committed more hits than he had counted. "I didn't keep a scorecard, y'know," he barked at one point. His tool of choice was a gun, and his deadly m.o., defense attorney McMahon pointed out, was one shot to the chest to stun the victim, followed by a kill shot to the head.
At some point in the early 1980s Barone had threatened to kill Daggett, then a young union official. Barone told the story in a matter-of-fact manner, acknowledging that Daggett's demise was discussed and that someone had pegged a shot in his direction during the confrontation. But then an unusual thing happened. Guided by George Daggett, his attorney (and cousin), Harold Daggett took the stand and gave his own account of the incident.
He was in the midst of making plans to build a new headquarters for his union, Local 1804-1, moving it from the lower West Side docks to northern New Jersey, where the jobs had already migrated, when a mob messenger named Tommy Cafaro told him that Barone wanted to see him. Daggett said he agreed to get in the car, and it raced up the FDR Drive to East 115th Street. There, he was escorted into a large fruit and vegetable store, through a steel door to a darkened room at the rear. "It was dark, boxes all around, no windows," said Daggett. A single lightbulb illuminated Barone, who sat with his back to him. Two other men stood at the door. On the floor was a large, empty canvas bag with an open zipper. All of a sudden, Barone threw down the paper he'd been reading and snarled at Daggett: "You motherfucker, who the fuck are you to take this local away from me? I'm going to fuckin' kill you." Daggett broke down sobbing as he told the story ("blubbering," as the Daily News' John Marzulli reported it). Judge Leo Glasser told him to relax and take a drink of water. Daggett soldiered on. " 'This is my fuckin' local; I built this local,' " he said Barone screamed. " 'I'll kill you, your wife, and children.' He pulled out a gun and shoved it in my head. I said, 'Please, don't do this to me,' and he cocked back the trigger, and he said, 'I will blow your brains all over the fuckin' room. I'm going to kill you.' "
Barone didn't shoot. Instead, after some more growling, he told Daggett he could leave. But he couldn't. "I was so nervous I urinated all over myself," Daggett testified. "I couldn't walk. I said, 'I can't move.' I thought one of them was going to shoot me in the back of the head, and I opened the door, and I could hardly walk. I walked and I kept thinking, 'They're going to shoot me.' " At the door, Barone dismissed the staggering Daggett. "Take this guy back to his local," Barone instructed his emissary.
Pending the outcome of the trial, Daggett and Coffey were both suspended from their posts, albeit with pay. Since their acquittal, "they're unsuspended," an ILA spokesman said. But Judge Mollen, the union's ethical-practices counsel, still has jurisdiction over any violations he finds. "I have obtained the transcript of the trial and I have a big stack of it on the floor," he said. "I am reading."
Thanks to Tom Robbins - Village Voice
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