Mobster Son's Brewery Stake Challenged by Feds

Friends of ours: Jackie Cerone

The federal agency that took over bankrupt Pittsburgh Brewing Co.'s pension plan has challenged the status of the brewery's second-largest investor as the sole creditor with rights to trademark beers Iron City and IC Light.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. wants to alter a March agreement that makes Jack P. Cerone, a Chicago attorney who owns a minority share in the Lawrenceville brewery, the only creditor of Keystone Brewers Holding Co., which owns the trademark rights. A hearing is scheduled for today in Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh.

The pension agency claims it too is a creditor because it assumed $11.8 million pension liabilities from bankrupt Pittsburgh Brewing in May. Cerone is owed about $6 million, according to a financial statement filed in April.

The pension insurer also wants the court to eliminate a provision in the March agreement that preserves Cerone's rights even if the brewery is forced into liquidation. Pittsburgh Brewing filed a Chapter 11 bankrutpcy in December and faces an Oct. 15 deadline to file a reorganization plan. The pension insurer declined to comment further, spokesman Gary Pastorius said.

The agreement between Cerone and a committee of unsecured creditors was approved March 9 without the agency's knowledge, the pension insurer said. Neither Cerone nor his Pittsburgh attorney, Donald Calaiaro, could be reached for comment.

Under the deal, Cerone gets weekly payments of $9,105 on two loans to Pittsburgh Brewing. He purchased the loans in 2003 for $1.5 million. Cerone also agreed to postpone payments of $2,200 a week on an August 2005 loan he made to the brewery. Joseph R. Piccirilli, Pittsburgh Brewing's president, has said he agreed to make the payments to Cerone because of his ownership of the loans.

Cerone acquired his minority stake in the brewery -- 10 percent of the brewery's stock, plus warrants that allow him to buy an additional 10 percent -- when he purchased a loan from Provident Bank of Cincinnati, Piccirilli said.

Cerone's father, the late Jackie Cerone, was "a notorious mobster in the 'Chicago Outfit,'" said Dan Moldea, author of "The Hoffa Wars" and an expert on the Teamsters union. Cerone had links to both labor unions and management, Moldea said.

Cerone's insurance firm, Marble Insurance Agency of Addison, Ill., was barred from doing business with Teamsters Local 727 of Chicago and other Teamster-related clients in 1993 because of his father's alleged ties to organized crime, according to a 2004 report prepared for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Separately, the union representing bottlers and brewers at Pittsburgh Brewing says it may take the company's latest contract offer to its membership for a vote. A decision will be made early next month. "I think we may be done negotiating," said George Sharkey, a business agent for the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America Local 144B, which represents the brewery's bottlers.

Two bargaining sessions last week failed to produce a tentative agreement, and the brewery's demands are similar to those made in July, Sharkey said. Pittsburgh Brewing wanted a 10 percent wage cut, but workers would get wage increases stipulated in the current contract, which took effect in May 2005, Sharkey said.

If the union does not approve the company's offer, Sharkey said he the brewery may renew its efforts to seek permission in Bankruptcy Court to terminate its labor contract. Pittsburgh Brewing asked the court for such permission, but postponed a hearing on the matter last month because negotiations had resumed.

Piccirilli declined to comment yesterday, but has said a cost-cutting labor contract is a key element of a successful reorganization.

Thanks to Joe Napsha

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No Verdict Yet for Junior Gotti

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti

Jurors in John A. (Junior) Gotti's racketeering trial wrapped up their fourth day of deliberations yesterday by asking for homework.

Jurors wanted to take home a lengthy jury charge, which details the law they must apply in reaching a verdict, but Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin denied the request after both sides objected. Prosecutors and the defense feared doing so might invite jurors to consult with relatives or friends.

Scheindlin suggested reading the charge at home over the weekend might help jurors as they ponder their decision. "I will be guided by your unanimity but I think it's unfortunate," Scheindlin told the attorneys.

Early in the day, jurors asked to listen to a tape of a recorded July 2003 prison visit, which included Gotti encouraging Howard Beach pal Steve Dobies to hold a fund-raiser to help him pay his legal bills.

Several of the jurors' notes to the judge have focused on testimony that centers on the key element in Gotti's defense - that he renounced all ties to the mob in 1999 around the time he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. Gotti served six years in prison on those charges.

Gotti, 42, is accused in a wide-ranging conspiracy of loansharking, extortion, witness-tampering and kidnapping. He's accused of sending thugs to silence radio host Curtis Sliwa in June 1992, after Sliwa repeatedly mocked the Gotti clan on the air.

The mob scion scored mistrials when jurors deadlocked at two earlier trials.

Thanks to Thomas Zambito

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Mob Boss Hit List Results in Terror Case Restrictions

Friends of ours: Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano

A set of restrictive rules established for terrorism suspects has been imposed on a convicted mob figure under investigation for plotting to kill a federal judge and others, prosecutors disclosed in a court hearing Thursday.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales imposed the rules on reputed mob boss Vincent Basciano after a jail house informant revealed a list that Basciano wrote, which prosecutors allege was a hit list with the names of the judge, a prosecutor and three mafia turncoats.

Basciano gave the list to the informant, a fellow inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, according to prosecutors, and indicated he wanted the people on it killed. A lawyer for Basciano has said that the list was intended for a mystical religious ceremony, recommended by the informant, to improve Basciano's fortune in his trial.

Basciano, known as Vinny Gorgeous, was convicted earlier this year of racketeering charges, though jurors deadlocked over more serious allegations including murder.

The special rules imposed on Basciano, known as special administrative measures, restrict privileges including phone and mail use and visits. They also require his lawyers to sign affidavits saying they will not pass messages from their client to anyone.

The measures have been used 40 times since they were developed in 1996, according to a Justice Department spokesman. Twenty-five of those instances involved terrorism cases. The spokesman said that the rules had been used in three other organized crime cases, but would not say which.

A prosecutor in the hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn suggested the rules were meant to keep Basciano from communicating what they allege are bad intentions.

Basciano now faces a murder and racketeering indictment including the accusation that he planned to kill the prosecutor whose name appeared on the list. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

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Chicago Outfit's #2 Man is Missing

Friends of ours: Anthony "Little Tony" Zizzo, Sam "Wings" Carlisi

Anthony Zizzo is currently the major domo of the Chicago mob, considered by law enforcement to be the outfit's No. 2 man or "underboss." Officially, Zizzo is considered a missing person. But in the mob, "missing" is historically defined as "deceased but not located." And in Zizzo's case, the clues left behind certainly point that direction.

Anthony Zizzo drove away from his condominium in the west suburbs three weeks ago, August 31. He said goodbye to his wife Susan and left to conduct some business, possibly a meeting in the Rush Street area on Chicago's near North Side.

When the bespectacled Zizzo didn't return home, his wife came to the Westmont Police Station to fill out a missing persons report. The report, obtained by the I-Team, states that the 71-year-old Zizzo is very ill with kidney failure but left home without his daily medication. He was wearing a grey shirt with black pants black shoes and a black jacket.

Susan Zizzo told police he possibly diverted to their vacation home in Lake Geneva but his I-Pass had not been used. That's because her husband apparently only made it as far as Melrose Park. His Jeep was found in a restaurant parking lot on Division Street. The restaurant owner tells the I-Team that Zizzo was a regular customer but that he doesn't recall seeing him there the day he vanished. According to an alert sent to Chicago area law enforcement, the car was undisturbed and Zizzo's cellular telephone equipped with a GPS tracking device was still in the car.

Zizzo was a key operative of the late Chicago rackets boss Sam "Wings" Carlisi. Zizzo specialized in loan sharking and extortion, is considered a trusted outfit enforcer and claimed to be a legitimate trucking business owner. He goes by a list of mob aliases including: Little Tony, LT, Tony Z and Tony the Hat. He is "Little Tony" in height, just a bit over 5 feet tall, but hardly small in girth -- his 200 pound frame prompting the official police report to describe his build as "pot belly."

Law enforcement sources say the FBI crime scene technicians processed Zizzo's car looking for clues as to who might have hustled him off. The FBI role strongly suggests that Zizzo was not suddenly put into federal witness protection.

Mobwatchers and outfit lawyers say they cannot explain why there might have been a contract on Zizzo's life. He did prison time in a mob racketeering case in the 90s but was not charged in the current operation family secrets.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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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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