Legendary Organized Crime Figure Frank Colacurcio Sr. Dies

Frank Colacurcio Sr., the strip-club magnate whose organized-crime exploits covered more than half a century and helped define Seattle's history of police corruption and reform, died Friday. He was 93.

Mr. Colacurcio had been in declining health for some time, suffering from congestive heart failure. His death was confirmed by his attorney, Irwin Schwartz. Mr. Colacurcio died at University of Washington Medical Center, said spokeswoman Leila Gray.

In keeping with his life story, Mr. Colacurcio was under indictment at the time of his death, facing allegations of racketeering and promoting prostitution.

"It is the end of an era, hopefully one that won't be repeated," former Seattle U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Friday.

Mr. Colacurcio died only a week after the final dismantling of his strip-club operations by federal prosecutors, 67 years after he was first sent to prison for what was then called carnal knowledge with a teenage girl.

As Seattle's longest-running crime figure, Mr. Colacurcio often was portrayed by law-enforcement officials and the news media as one of Seattle's most notorious racketeering figures.

The reputation stemmed from convictions for tax evasion and racketeering that repeatedly sent him to prison. Adding to the lore were murky tales — involving corrupt cops and his cat-and-mouse dealings with law-enforcement officials — that no one could explain, except perhaps Mr. Colacurcio.

Despite his notoriety, Mr. Colacurcio wasn't flashy. He wore golf shirts, played cards and lived in a modest home in the Sheridan Beach neighborhood of Lake Forest Park at the north end of Lake Washington. His one indulgence was a 38-foot boat used for fishing in Alaska.

He benefited in the 1950s and 1960s when Seattle had rougher edges and police turned their eyes from vice and criminal activity in exchange for payoffs.

Eventually, he became a top target of federal and local law-enforcement officials.

For years, the feds and other investigators picked through his trash, eavesdropped on his conversations and recruited snitches. They finally got him in the 1970s, for racketeering and failing to pay taxes on money skimmed from his businesses. But their long-held suspicion that Mr. Colacurcio was involved in the execution-style slayings of several people who had crossed him never resulted in charges. In an interview a few years ago, Mr. Colacurcio dismissed the notion that he was involved in old killings or illegal activities. "They have been investigating me since the time I was born," he said.

Once considered Seattle's own connection to the Mafia, he more likely headed a homegrown organized-crime outfit, law-enforcement officials concluded.

"Mafia malarkey," he once complained, saying local investigators needed someone they could label as their own mob figure.

Yet he and his associates also seemed to enjoy the image. Five years ago, while he awaited a court hearing, a cellphone belonging to an investigator on his defense team rang. The ringtone: the theme song for the movie "The Godfather."

For some detectives, investigating Mr. Colacurcio was an obsession. They built dossiers with flow charts and pictures of his known associates. Once, they even rented a room next to his old SeaTac office to eavesdrop through an electrical outlet.

Mr. Colacurcio outlasted some investigators, who moved to other jobs or retired. One federal prosecutor who brought charges against him later became his defense attorney.

"I'll never be 'retired' retired," Mr. Colacurcio said in 1995. "Not until I'm in the grave."

He ran his operations from Talents West, a hiring agency and business office in a small building on Lake City Way. Its walls displayed photographs of scantily dressed women and a giant framed photo of Mr. Colacurcio leaving a courthouse.

Mr. Colacurcio was born in Seattle to immigrant parents on June 18, 1917. He quit school at age 15 to begin farming and started a produce-hauling business.

Beginning in the 1950s, he used thugs and threats to control Seattle's jukebox, pinball and cigarette-vending-machine business, competitors alleged. Those businesses historically had attracted organized crime because of their easily skimmed cash.

He also sought to expand into Portland, drawing the attention of a U.S. Senate committee investigating organized crime.

Under questioning by Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel for the committee, James "Big Jim" Elkins, a Portland crime figure, told the committee that Mr. Colacurcio asked for Elkins' help in opening prostitution houses there.

"He wanted me to arrange so that he could take over three or four houses," Elkins testified. "I told him if he wanted the houses to go buy them."

Elkins described Mr. Colacurcio as a fellow racketeer and a "boy that had various things operating in Seattle."

In the 1960s, Mr. Colacurcio held an interest in several bars, restaurants and nightclubs in Seattle. He ran a beer garden at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 and introduced go-go dancing to Seattle at the Firelite Room in 1965.

For years, the well-entrenched tolerance policy in Seattle and King County kept the police from bothering him until the payoff system crumbled, brought down by investigative reporters, Christopher T. Bayley, a reform-minded King County prosecutor, and Stan Pitkin, a hard-charging U.S. attorney in Seattle.

In a 1971 trial, Mr. Colacurcio was convicted of racketeering for bringing illegal bingo cards into the state. Federal prosecutors exposed a bribery scheme in which police were paid to ignore illegal gambling activities at area taverns. A nightclub owner testified that he paid Colacurcio $3,000 a month for police protection.

Around the same time, State Patrol investigators reported that Mr. Colacurcio had met in Yakima with Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno, the son of legendary New York Mafia boss Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, to discuss a business relationship. Mr. Colacurcio famously responded to a reporter that he and his family had gone to Yakima to pick hot peppers, "but I didn't pick no bananas."

Although he served prison stints for the 1971 conviction and a 1981 tax-fraud conviction, Mr. Colacurcio opened topless taverns and strip clubs — another cash business that allowed profit-skimming — throughout the Seattle area and beyond, eventually operating in at least 10 Western states.

Law-enforcement officials banded together in 1984, driving him out of many states.

For a period, Mr. Colacurcio almost faded into local lore. After a 1991 guilty plea to tax fraud and his 36-year-year marriage to Jackie Colacurcio ended in divorce about the same time, he and his son, Frank Colacurcio Jr., concentrated on running a smaller number of nude-dancing clubs.

The clubs, which years earlier had stopped selling alcohol to avoid state liquor inspectors, made their money from cover charges, high-priced soft drinks and charging a hefty per diem to the dancers. But Mr. Colacurcio and his son landed on the front page of newspapers in 2003 when the "Strippergate" scandal jolted Seattle City Hall.

For years, the Colacurcios had tried to expand parking at Rick's, a Lake City Way strip club, but were repeatedly rejected. When the parking plan came before the council again in 2003, Colacurcio associates contributed thousands of dollars to three City Council members, who helped form a majority that approved the plan.

Strippergate also cast a spotlight on the long friendship between Mr. Colacurcio and former Washington Gov. Albert Rosellini. Rosellini, who served as governor from 1957 to 1965 and is now 100 years old, played a role in pushing for the parking-lot rezone.

Their ties had gone back for years, dogging Rosellini during his political career, although there was never proof of illegal dealings.

In the Strippergate case, prosecutors charged Mr. Colacurcio, his son and two others with skirting donation limits by secretly reimbursing contributors. In 2008, Mr. Colacurcio, his son and an associate pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid fines. The fourth defendant was dismissed from the case. But even before that case was resolved, the Strippergate case prompted FBI and local law-enforcement officials to launch a broader investigation, looking for evidence of prostitution at Colacurcio clubs.

Investigators also reopened old homicide cases, trying to link Mr. Colacurcio or his associates to the slayings of five people in the 1970s and 1980s: a rival strip-club operator and his fiancée, a bar owner in Central Washington, a mechanic in a murder-for-hire scheme, and a police informant.

Neither Mr. Colacurcio nor his associates were tied to those cases, and involvement in the Central Washington case has been ruled out.

The four-year investigation culminated with racketeering charges brought against Mr. Colacurcio, his son and others last year, alleging they allowed rampant prostitution at Rick's and three other clubs in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties that generated million of dollars in business.

Last week, Frank Colacurcio Jr., 48, pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge that will cost him $1.3 million and likely land him in prison for a year and a day. Four close associates of his father earlier pleaded guilty to prostitution- and racketeering-related charges.

As part of plea deals, the Colacurcios' four strip clubs have been shuttered, and the government seized the buildings and other property valued at $4.5 million. The final piece of property, Talents West, was forfeited by Colacurcio Jr. under his plea.

In a final interview a year ago, while sitting in a leather chair, a blanket draped over his lap, Mr. Colacurcio was asked what he wanted his legacy to be. He paused, mulled the question and replied, "I think my background speaks for itself."

Thanks to Steve Miletich

Tweet

Former Chicago Police Commander Convicted of Perjury, Obstruction of Justice Related to Torture of Suspects

The Justice Department announced that a federal jury in Chicago convicted former Chicago Police Department (CPD) Commander Jon Burge, 60, of Apollo Beach, Fla., on perjury and obstruction charges related to his denials that he participated in the torture of suspects in police custody decades ago. The jury found that Burge lied and impeded court proceedings in November 2003 when he provided false statements in a civil lawsuit that alleged that he and others tortured and abused people in their custody.

During the trial, several victims testified that they had been tortured by Burge and other officers who worked for him in area two of the CPD. Various witnesses testified that the officers administered electric shocks to their genitals, suffocated them with typewriter covers, threatened them with loaded guns and burned them on radiators. The jury found that Burge had lied under oath when he claimed that he did not participate in any of these acts of torture, and that he was unaware of any other officers having done so.

“For decades, Jon Burge’s horrific actions ran contrary to all that our justice system stands for. Burge betrayed the public trust, first by abusing suspects in his custody, and then by lying under oath to cover up what he and other officers had done. The jury’s verdict allows those harmed by his actions to finally start the healing process,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division will aggressively prosecute any officer who violates the Constitution.”

“At long last, a measure of justice was delivered today when a jury returned a verdict of guilty against Jon Burge on obstruction of justice and perjury. The verdict necessarily found that torture and abuse occurred in police districts in the city of Chicago in the 1980s. It’s disgraceful that torture happened and sad that it took so long to bring Burge to justice, and the only thing that would have been worse is if this measure of justice never happened,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Burge faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count of obstruction of justice and five years in prison for perjury.

This case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Weisman and April Perry and Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Betsy Biffl.

Tweet

New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement will not appeal Casino License to a construction firm that it believes has ties to Organized Crime

Bringing a contentious case to a close, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement will not appeal the award of a casino license to a construction firm that the agency believes has ties to organized crime.

The New Jersey Casino Control Commission, over vehement objections from the DGE, approved a license in May for Pleasantville-based Bayshore Rebar Inc. and its owners, Joseph N. Merlino and his mother, Phyllis Merlino.

The DGE, which had discussed the possibility of an appeal, had 45 days in which to challenge the commission's ruling in state court. However, the division allowed the appeal deadline to lapse. DGE spokesman Paul Loriquet said Friday that the agency would not comment further about the case.

The licensing dispute pitted two government agencies against each other, with both sides accusing the other of misconduct as the case unfolded. The commission serves as the chief regulatory body for Atlantic City's $3.9 billion casino industry, while the DGE acts as an investigative agency.

John M. Donnelly, an Atlantic City attorney representing the Merlinos, said he is relieved the grueling regulatory battle has finally come to an end. "It's been an expensive ordeal," Donnelly said. "We don't need any more litigation."

During Bayshore's licensing hearing, DGE attorneys alleged that the Merlinos were linked to organized crime through their relatives. Joseph N. Merlino's cousin is jailed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph S. "Skinny Joey" Merlino. The late Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino, a high-ranking mobster, was Joseph N. Merlino's father and the ex-husband of Phyllis Merlino.

In a unanimous vote May 5, the five-member Casino Control Commission concluded the Merlinos were not connected to organized crime. The license allows the Merlinos and Bayshore to do business with Atlantic City's casinos.

The ruling reversed 21 years of state policy. The Merlinos were denied a license by the commission in 1989 and again in 1997 based on the belief that they had "inimical associations" with organized crime.

This time around, the commission ruled the Merlinos were free of any mob influence. Joseph N. Merlino and his mother insisted they had long ago severed all ties to any family members involved in organized crime.

Thanks to Donald Wittkowski

Tweet

Jonathan Eig's "Get Capone"

The fix was in.

Al Capone, the iconic Chicago gangster who in the 1920s gave a face to the American mob, got sandbagged by the legal system he had artfully abused for years.

The result: a conviction for income-tax evasion and a sentence of 11 years in prison. But that wasn’t the way it was supposed to play out.

According to Jonathan Eig, in his fascinating new book “Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster,” Big Al was supposed to get 2 1/2 years after pleading guilty in 1931 to income-tax evasion and Prohibition-violation charges.

The deal was worked about by his lawyers and federal prosecutor George Johnson, head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago.

Johnson knew he had a weak case built on circumstantial evidence and less-than-credible witnesses. He agreed to the deal, figuring any conviction involving Capone — who epitomized a criminal underworld out of control — was worth taking. But the federal judge in the case, after what Eig implies was pressure from President Herbert Hoover, nixed the deal. Hoover, Eig writes, used to start each day with an exercise routine, but before he began, he would ask his Cabinet members, “Have you got Capone yet?” Not only did Judge James H. Wilkerson sandbag the lawyers and prosecutors, Eig writes, but he also may have rigged the jury pool for the subsequent trial, making sure it was stacked with middle-aged or older white males from the suburbs.

Capone’s lawyers had hoped for at least some ethnic, working-class Chicagoans as potential jurors. But there were none.

Eig’s book is a sweeping account of Capone’s life set against the backdrop of a city where corruption was the norm and a country dealing with the hypocrisy of Prohibition and the devastation of the Great Depression.

Federal court was the only place authorities had a shot at convicting Capone, Eig wrote, noting that city courts were a place where “crooked lawyers bribed crooked cops to testify the right way before crooked judges.”

Capone had quickly established himself in the bootlegging business after moving from New York to Chicago.

He also generated income from gambling, extortion, narcotics and prostitution and was a suspect in more than a few murders. But he was never convicted of any of those crimes.

Eig has built his book around extensive research in court records and in newspaper accounts from the day — Capone was an unbelievably loquacious mob boss who was constantly granting interviews.

Some samples of his bons mots to reporters:

“You can get a lot farther with a smile and a gun than you can with just a smile.”

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in Chicago drink and gamble. I’ve tried to serve them decent liquor and square games.”

“If I were guilty of all the newspapers accuse me of, I would be afraid of myself.”

In addition to positing that the judicial system was manipulated to send Capone to jail, the book also puts the lie to the theory that Capone was behind one of Chicago’s more infamous mob hits — the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

More probable, Eig writes, is that the shootings, in which seven gangsters were killed, were carried out by police to avenge the murder of the son of a law enforcement figure.

Eig also says it was a bookish accountant with the Internal Revenue Bureau named Frank Wilson who built the tax case used to convict Capone.

In a short chapter titled “The So-Called Untouchables,” Eig notes that Eliot Ness “gave terrific interviews” and that he came up with a “catchy nickname for his squad of gangbusters” that had newspaper reporters “dashing for their typewriters.” But while Ness’ squad busted up some breweries, it did little to bust up the mob.

The book also provides an interesting account of Capone’s arrest in Philadelphia and his one-year stay at Eastern State Prison. Capone was pinched on a gun-possession charge as he exited the old Stanley Theater after watching a movie.

Big Al and three associates had stopped there while traveling home by train from Atlantic City, where a big mob confab had been held.

Capone, who was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1930 in an article that described him as the “John D. Rockefeller of the underworld,” is presented by Eig as a multifaceted and charismatic crime titan.

He could be violent and short-tempered, yet was also caring and sympathetic. A loving father and husband, he also ran and frequented brothels. He counseled peace during a turbulent period of underworld unrest, yet was suspected of orchestrating some of gangland’s most violent murders. And all the while, he and other members of the Chicago Outfit made millions.

The estimates: $50 million a year from bootlegging; $25 million from gambling; and $10 million each from prostitution and narcotics. That came to $95 million annually, or, Eig noted, “about $1.2 billion by today’s dollars.”

Capone never denied he was a bootlegger, but said he was just giving the public what it wanted. In an interview with the New York Times just days before his aborted sentencing, he asked how his crimes stacked up against the pirates in the banking business and on Wall Street who had stolen from the public.

“Why don’t they go after those bankers who took the savings of thousands of poor people and lost them in bank failures?” asked Capone, who was sitting behind his desk in a suite of rooms he kept at the Lexington Hotel, “his hulking frame clad in black, silk pajamas.” But those bankers, Eig seems to argue, were part of the system.

Capone was not. His lavish lifestyle — a home in Florida, another in Chicago, fancy clothes, big cigars, and days of leisure at the racetrack, on the golf course, or in some brothel — did not sit well with Hoover and those in his administration.

While the feds were never able to prove many of the things they believed Capone had done, “Get Capone” argues that they were determined to put him behind bars because of who he was — a quick-talking, larger-than-life outlaw who had become America’s first celebrity gangster.

Thanks to George Anastasia

Tweet

Leaders of the Detroit Highwaymen Found Guilty of Racketeering, Drug, and Weapons Charges

Six leaders of the Detroit Highwaymen Motorcycle Club were found guilty on a variety of charges, including conspiracy to violate federal racketeering laws and conspiracy to commit murder, along with controlled substance, stolen property, and firearm violations, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced. These six defendants are the first of 91 Detroit Highwaymen members and associates to go to trial.

United States Attorney McQuade was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Andrew G. Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Leonard “Dad” Moore, 61, Joseph “Little Joe” Whiting, 56, Anthony “Mad Anthony” Clark, 52, Michael “Cocoa” Cicchetti, 55, Aref “Scarfare” Nagi, 46, and Gary “Junior” Ball Jr., 44, were found guilty today by a federal jury in United States District Court empaneled before Judge Nancy G. Edmunds. The jury deliberated for approximately 25 hours before returning the verdict, concluding a two-month long trial.

United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade said, “Violent crime is a top priority of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and we will use all of the tools available to us to attack violent criminal organizations like this one.”

“Dismantling violent gangs is a continuing priority for the FBI. This verdict is the direct result of joint efforts with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners, and we will continue to work diligently with our colleagues to investigate and eradicate gangs and the violence they perpetrate,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew G. Arena. “Together we are committed to restoring safety and security to our neighborhoods.”

The Highwaymen Motorcycle Club is headquartered in southwest Detroit and has numerous chapters in the city of Detroit, in several cities in southeast Michigan, and has chapters in other states. Prosecutors were able to prove the violent nature of the club when witnesses testified to a range of criminal activity including armed robbery, attempted murder, conspiracies to kill witnesses, use of firearms during acts of violence, and the distribution of large amounts of marijuana, cocaine, and steroids.

Evidence at trial also established the highly structured organization and chain of the command of the Highwaymen. These six defendants represented many of the officers, or bosses, of the enterprise. Evidence also showed that other members of the club were heavily involved in narcotics trafficking and theft offenses.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their Violent Crime Task Force, with the assistance of the Brownstown Township Police Department, Detroit Police Department, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department and the Michigan State Police. FBI Special Agent Ted Brzezinski was the lead case agent responsible for handling and coordinating the multi-year investigative effort.

Each defendant faces a potential life sentence due to the nature of the offenses. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Diane Marion and Christopher Graveline.

Tweet