Hotline for Corruption Established by Chicago Crime Commission

Friends of ours: Al Capone

For more than 100 years, Chicago has had a reputation as the most corrupt city in America. A city attorney was once quoted as saying: "I wonder frequently if there is anyone in Chicago who really looks after its public affairs." That was said in 1903. this week somebody new will start looking after Chicago's public affairs.

The Chicago Crime Commission is rolling out a public corruption hotline and webpage, where government employees and concerned citizens may report official misconduct and wrongdoing. They may need a stable of operators standing by to take information, if history is any indication.

In the past few years, more than 200 city, county and state government employees and elected officials have been convicted of corruption while on the job. The list includes governors and judges, congressman and state legislators, and enough crooked aldermen to populate half the Chicago City Council.

On Thursday moring, the crime commission unveiled its new hotline phone number and webpage address that commission officials say are intended to ease the burden on the FBI and other staff-strapped federal agencies experiencing "resource limitations."

The hotline is (888) EYEONGOV or (888) 393-6646.

The Web site is www.888eyeongov.org.

Federal prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald and other law enforcement officials are doing their part to address public corruption, according to the crime commission, but some government employees fear on-the-job retaliation if they try to blow the whistle. So, the new crime commission hotline will promote anonymous reporting of corruption tips and complaints.

Since the days of notorious Chicago outfit boss Alphonse Capone, crime commission investigators have linked the success of mob rackets to political graft, judicial fixes and payoffs to government workers. The commission hopes its latest crime fighting tool will address the chronic plague of Chicago corruption. Consider that it was 1955, 51-years ago, on the night that Richard J. Daley was first elected mayor that Alderman Paddy Bauler issued his famous declaration, "Chicago ain't ready for reform."

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Junior Mourns Manly Mob on Prison Tapes

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Gambino Crime Family

As he languished in a federal prison in 2003, John "Junior" Gotti had plenty to worry about.

The jail, he told visitors, was crawling with informants. He had money problems. Old friends were getting indicted. Other members of the Gotti clan were stealing his money. But at the root of his troubles was this: The modern mob, he lamented, was losing its manliness. "Now are we men? Or are we punks or rats or weasels? You tell me," he angrily asked one friend while serving a racketeering sentence.

Gotti's conversations were routinely recorded before his release from prison last year, and the tapes have played a central role in his current racketeering trial in Manhattan. A jury was to begin deliberating the case Monday.

Among other things, the son of the legendary mafia boss "Dapper Don" John Gotti is accused of ordering an attack on Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who was shot twice by would-be kidnappers in 1992.

Prosecutors contend that "Junior" Gotti was involved in mob affairs even after he was imprisoned in 1999. The defense says the recordings, made at the federal prison at Ray Brook, N.Y., show that Gotti had developed a distaste for mob life and retired. In any case, the tapes provide an inside look at the gangster's code, particularly its obsession with "being a man" at all costs.

Lesson No. 1: Men fight.

"If a guy wants to get all fancy and prancy, if he picks his hands up to you, you pick your hands up back. You're not a punk," Gotti explained in one recorded discussion.

"No hiding behind fences," he said during another conversation. "Take our coats off like gentlemen. Now, let's see. Let's see who the tough guy is. No knives. No guns. Like gentleman. ... Let's see who the real man really is."

Lesson No. 2: Men tolerate no assault on their character.

Gotti is firm on this point when he discusses two uncles who diminished his leadership role in the gang by badmouthing him to his father in 2001, a year before the elder Gotti's death from cancer in prison. "If any of them ever come here, I'm telling you, I swear it to you, on my dead brother and my dead father, I swear to you, I will meet them by that (prison) door, with two padlocks in my hands and I will crack their skulls, I promise you that. I promise you that. This I take as a solemn oath as a man."

Lesson No. 3: Manliness is in the blood.

"You're a real man," he told longtime friend John Ruggiero. "You wanna know why, John? Not only for who you are. But for who your father was. You got his genes, you're a man."

A person who isn't a man, he added, can't simply become one by acting tough. "These ain't men you're dealing with, you're dealing with frauds," he said. "It's like a kid who gets (unintelligible) all his life ... and he gets his milk money taken. What does he grow up to be? A cop. He's got a gun and a badge. That's, that's his equalizer. Got a gun and a badge, now he's a man. Well, that's how all these guys are, John, they're no different."

Lesson No. 4: A man spends time with family.

"Listen, I love my brother," Gotti said. "But my brother's a bum. That's all he is. No more, no less. He doesn't spend a moment with his own children. I have a hard time respecting any man who doesn't spend any time with his wife and kids."

Lesson No. 5: Men can do prison time.

"Some guys are made for this. Some guys just aren't," Gotti said of his life behind bars.

"Gravano was an example," he said, speaking of Gambino crime family turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. "I mean he was a legendary soldier in the street. Brooklyn, he was a legend in Brooklyn. He got to jail, he fell to pieces."

Lesson No. 6: Real men don't snitch, but if they do, they don't make stuff up.

"Bottom line is, if you're gonna become a rat, become a rat: Tell the f------ truth. Don't go out of your way to hurt people," he said.

This is Gotti's third trial on the latest racketeering charges. The first two ended when jurors deadlocked on the charges, in part because of the defense argument that he became disenchanted with the mafia and retired long enough ago that the legal deadline for prosecuting him for old crimes had expired.

Which brings us to Gotti's Lesson No. 7: Mafia life stinks.

"So much treachery ... My father couldn't have loved me, to push me into this life," he lamented to friend Steve Kaplan.

"Oh ... I'd rather be a Latin King than be what I am," he said, referring to the Hispanic street gang. "I swear to you, Steve, and I, I mean it on my father's grave. I'm so ashamed. I am so ashamed."

Thanks to David B. Caruso

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Deputy US Marshal Investigated in Operation Family Secrets

Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs, Frank Calabrese Sr.
Friends of mine: Anthony Doyle, Michael Ricci, Frank Sinatra

A deputy U.S. marshal has been placed on paid administrative leave while the FBI investigates whether he was involved in leaking information in the federal Operation Family Secrets mob case, law enforcement sources said Thursday.

The deputy, a member of the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, was required to surrender his badge and gun last week, sources said. He is not identified because he is not charged with a crime.

His role in the Operation Family Secrets case is unclear. In 2005, federal authorities charged 14 people in the sweeping mob indictment. The investigation, which is continuing, pinned 18 previously unsolved murders on the Chicago Outfit.

The deputy marshal has spearheaded several high-profile fugitive arrests, including the capture of an Italian mobster living in the west suburbs and a Chicago street gang member named as one of the country's 15 most-wanted fugitives. "Everyone realizes this is a good guy, and in some ways heroic," one law enforcement source said.

The deputy's father was a Chicago Police officer who was convicted in a corruption scandal and died in prison, sources said.

The Family Secrets case is set to go to trial next May. High-profile defendants, including Joey "The Clown" Lombardo and Frank "The German" Schweihs, were charged in the case, and both initially fled and were fugitives.

Schweihs was found late last year in Kentucky. The FBI tracked down Lombardo in Elmwood Park in January after he was on the lam for about nine months. Sources say Lombardo's flight and his apprehension remain closely guarded details.

Two former Chicago Police officers -- Anthony Doyle and Michael Ricci, a onetime bodyguard for Frank Sinatra -- were also charged in the case. Doyle and Ricci allegedly provided inside information or passed along messages from mob loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr. to the Chicago Outfit while he was in prison. Ricci died in January after undergoing heart surgery.

The deputy marshal could not be reached for comment Thursday. Spokesmen for the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI declined comment. Kim Widup, the U.S. marshal in Chicago, also declined comment.

Thanks to Frank Main

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Gotti Never Quit Mafia Says Prosecutor

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti

A prosecutor argues that John "Junior" Gotti never quit the mob. In her closing statement at Gotti's racketeering retrial in New York, Miriam Rocah told jurors there is ample evidence that Gotti's alleged departure from the Mafia in 1999 was a sham.

John A. Gotti, the 42-year-old son of the late John J. Gotti, could face 30 years in prison if convicted. He claims he left the mob in 1999. If the jury accepts that claim, the charges would fall outside the statute of limitations.

Two previous trials have ended with deadlocked juries.

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Matty the Horse Cuts a Deal

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante

The ailing, aging reputed boss of the Genovese crime family pleaded guilty Thursday to helping try to infiltrate a union and thwart a federal grand jury probe.

The 86-year-old Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, his wooden cane hanging on a chair beside him, entered the plea before U.S Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis in Manhattan.

A plea agreement signed with the government called for Ianniello to be sentenced to 1-1/2 to two years in prison on the single racketeering charge. Without the deal, Ianniello would have faced up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing was set for December 14. He also agreed to forfeit up to $1 million to the government.

Ianniello was reputedly a longtime capo in the crime family and allegedly became one of its acting bosses after the 1997 racketeering conviction of Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, who died in prison last December. Ianniello, who lives on Long Island, is free on bail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Treanor told the judge that Ianniello participated in a conspiracy in which union officers lied to federal investigators about the involvement of organized crime in union business, among other things.

In court, Ianniello was difficult to understand as he read a statement admitting a role in efforts to corrupt a union and to prevent the union's leaders and employees from being honest with the government during a federal grand jury probe of mob activities. Ianniello's lawyer said his client's voice was affected by a stroke.

In his plea, Ianniello admitted receiving unlawful payments from a labor union and that he conspired to obstruct justice between 1990 and 2005.

Gigante had long been dubbed the "Oddfather" for bizarre behavior that included wandering the streets of Greenwich Village in nightclothes, muttering incoherently.

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Junior Attempted to Provide "Hottie" for Prisoners

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti

Mafia scion John "Junior" Gotti invested about $20,000 US in a failed magazine for prisoners called Hottie, according to tapes played at his racketeering trial.

Gotti discussed the venture with friend Steven Dobies, wondering about who should run the project, which would have offered free legal advice, as well as photos of female hip-hop stars.

He asserted the investment was made with "clean" money, a claim prosecutors dispute.

The tapes were used to try demonstrate Gotti's involvement with organized crime.

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Here We Go Again: Judge Tosses Junior's Racketerring Charge

For the second time, a judge on Wednesday tossed out racketeering charges filed against John "Junior" Gotti, finding the evidence introduced at his trial insufficient to support a conviction.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin decided the government had not proven its claims that money invested in several of Gotti's properties stemmed from alleged loansharking or construction industry extortion.

The government filed the new charges several months ago in a bid to boost its case against Gotti, the son of late mobster John Gotti, after two juries in the last year deadlocked on racketeering charges against him. Closing arguments in his retrial could begin as early as Thursday.

A spokeswoman for prosecutors, Lauren McDonough, said the government had no comment on Scheindlin's ruling. Scheindlin had thrown out the new charges last month before Gotti's retrial started but changed her mind and reinstated them days later.

With the new charges, the government had tried to prove that Gotti continued to benefit from Gambino crime family money even after he said he quit the mob when he pleaded guilty to charges in another racketeering case in 1999. The government's new strategy did have some benefits because the judge decided that jurors could consider new evidence about Gotti's finances even though they could not use that evidence to convict him on the new racketeering charges.

Gotti is still charged with racketeering related to other alleged crimes, including an allegation that he ordered two 1992 attacks on radio show host and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against his father.

The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002, 10 years after he was sentenced to life for racketeering.

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