NWI Times
May 28, 1991
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Mobology (n., mob, organized crime, + ology, theory or science of): The study of the constantly shifting patterns of power in a shadowy world of illegal activity that generally shuns publicity.

The 1990 Chicago Crime Commission organized crime chart excludes the South Suburbs and Northwest Indiana. Only the latest FBI chart lists a Northwest Indiana mob street boss.

Despite the belated official recognition of hoodlum-ism in the area, there is a rich history for those who dig for it.

For some reason, said Lt. John Guarnieri of the Chicago Police Intelligence Unit, many of the hoods who do business on the Illinois side of the state line are moving into Indiana.

"Some of the up-and-coming young upstarts from the old (Albert) Tocco days have moved into Merrillville, Schererville, nice cities like that, and do their business in Cook County," Guarnieri said. "I don't know if they're trying to avoid law enforcement or if they just want better property taxes."

Today, the FBI says Northwest Indiana is controlled by Bernard "Snooky" Morgano, a Valparaiso resident and son of Gaetano "Tommy" Morgano, who ran the Lake County mob in the 1950s.

Morgano reports to the boss of the South Side street crew, identified as Dominic "Tootsie" Palermo, who is one of the seven members of "The Commission," the street crew bosses who report to the underboss of the Chicago mob.

After Gaetano Morgano returned to Sicily rather than go to jail, he was succeeded as Northwest Indiana mob chief by Frank Nick Zizzo, a Chicago native who lived in Gary, Griffith, Highland and Hammond while operating here, according to the FBI.

Zizzo, who was questioned by the Senate rackets committee in 1959, gave only his name and took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination on all other questions.

On the surface, Zizzo was a businessman, owner of the Pepper Pot Pizza restaurants with locations in Gary, Hammond and Highland and the Uptown Lunch Club in the 1600 block of 119th Street in Whiting.

In 1963, he was convicted of illegal gambling, along with three of his employees, one from Griffith and two from Chicago, for running more than a million dollars' worth of horse book in Burnham, Calumet City, Chicago, Hammond and Whiting.

The operations were in places like the old Reitz Inn, 5008 Calumet Ave., Hammond, run by Herman "Hymie" Goot, and the former Nardi's Tobacco Shop, 1612 119th St., Whiting, run by Edward Nardi.

In 1966, Zizzo was released from prison, but his parole was revoked in 1970 because of his meetings with Anthony "Nino" Gruttaduro of Calumet Township,

Zizzo's chief lieutenant and a convicted federal felon. Zizzo was released from prison for good in 1973.

The government again tried to put him in prison in 1976 in connection with the interstate theft of a number of television sets from a Chicago rail yard that eventually ended up in homes and businesses in Indiana.

Zizzo was acquitted, but his son Anthony, of Berwyn, was convicted along with four others. The younger Zizzo was given five years in prison. He is now listed on FBI mob charts as a co-street crew boss of the West Side crew, along with James Marcello.

Frank Zizzo's health began to decline in the early 1980s, and during his period of reduced capacity, soldiers from Joseph Ferriola's West Side crew moved in on some Northwest Indiana territory.

In an extortion that backfired, Richard "Big Richie" Piekarski and Frank Esposito tried to muscle the owner of Geno's Vending in Merrillville for 50 percent of his profits on electronic poker machines in taverns throughout Lake County.

The plot unraveled when Timothy "Geno" Janowsky, the owner of the vending machine company, became a government witness and taped his conversations with Piekarski and Esposito.

That led to their October 1983 conviction in federal court on charges of interference in interstate commerce by threats and violence and interstate travel to aid racketeering. Both drew 25-year sentences in 1984.

In the spring of 1986, Frank Zizzo died and was succeeded by Bernard Morgano.

That same year, the head of the Chicago Outfit, Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, was convicted in a cash-skimming case in Kansas City and sent to prison.

Aiuppa was succeeded by Ferriola, the old West Side crew boss, who died in 1989 and has been succeeded by DiFronzo or Carlisi.

The structure of the mob has always been such that the Northwest Indiana boss would report to the South Suburban street boss, who in turn would report to the Outfit underboss.

For example, in the 1950s, Gaetano Morgano reported to Chicago mobster Johnny Formosa. By the time Frank Zizzo assumed power, he was reporting to South Side boss Frankie LaPorte, who was succeeded by Alfred Pilotto.

It was during this period the influence of the South Suburban crew waned, said Lt. John Guarnieri of the Chicago Police Department's intelligence unit and a mobologist.

"At one time, everything was based in Calumet City," he said, but as the notorious "Strip" along State Street and State Line Avenue dried up under several reform mayors, the mob profits shrunk and the importance of the south suburbs along with them.

On July 25, 1981, as Pilotto was golfing at the Lincolnshire Country Club in south suburban Crete, he was shot several times and collapsed. In June 1985, Richard Guzzino of Chicago Heights and Robert Ciarrocchi of Mattoon, were convicted of conspiring to kill Pilotto.

Testimony showed Guzzino's older brother, Sam, believed Pilotto was about to turn government witness and wanted him killed. Daniel Bounds, the actual triggerman in the Pilotto shooting, turned government informant and testified against Richard Guzzino and Ciarocchi, who helped plan the intended hit.

Bounds worked for the Guzzino's Chicago Heights cab company, and was recruited by Richard Guzzino for the murder. Ciarocchi provided the gun and drove the getaway car.

Sam Guzzino - who was in the foursome with Pilotto when the shooting happened - was never brought to trial; on Oct. 3, 1981, he was found in a ditch near Beecher. He had been shot once in the head and his throat slit. His killer has never been charged.

Pilotto, who was facing a labor racketeering trial in Florida, did not cooperate with the government. He was convicted in 1982, and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence.

After Pilotto's conviction, Albert "Sir Albert" Tocco of Chicago Heights moved in to take over the south suburban and Northwest Indiana mob, or so say some mobologists.

Others disagree. "Everybody says Tocco was the man, but the more we learn, the less I am convinced," said Robert Pertuso, FBI supervisor in Merrillville. "We think the man was Tootsie Palermo all along, and that Tocco reported to him."

But Guarnieri said he believes Tocco was the south suburban kingpin. "I would definitely say Palermo was a street boss, but if there was a commission meeting from Illinois and Indiana, I don't think Palermo would have been invited - Tocco would have been. Tocco was THE man, I am sure of that, there is no doubt in my mind."

Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, formerly of South Holland and now living in Orland Park, was indicted with 14 others last December in Hammond on federal gambling conspiracy charges, and faces a July trial.

Whatever the case, Tocco was active in Northwest Indiana, particularly in the area of "chop shops," where stolen cars would be brought to be disassembled into parts that would then be sold.

Tocco and Clarence Crockett, one of his tax collectors, were charged in 1988 in a federal indictment with running a major extortion racket in the south suburbs and Northwest Indiana from 1977 to 1986.

Both were convicted in 1989, and Tocco was given 200 years in prison and fined $2 million.

After Tocco's indictment, on Oct. 17, 1988, he disappeared - he had fled to Greece and was later returned after he was captured by the FBI - Palermo became the undisputed South Side boss and full-fledged member of the "Commission."

The "Commission" is identified as the street crew bosses who oversee mob activity in various geographic areas in and around Chicago. The include Palermo; Ernest "Rocky" Infelice (Lake County, Ill.); James "Jimmy L" LaPietra (city South Side); James Marcello and Anthony Zizzo (city and suburban West Side); Vincent "Innocence" Solano (city North Side) and Marco D'Amico, Joseph "The Builder" Andriacchi and Michael Castaldo (Elmwood Park-Northwest suburbs).

Other mob figures listed on former Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan's 1983 Chicago mob hierarchy list include several Northwest Indiana people, including Tocco soldiers Daniel Bonnets and Sheldon "Shelley the Whale" Fishman.

Bonnets owns a limousine service in Gary's Miller neighborhood, and Fishman, who owns an auto wrecking yard on Chicago's East Side, lives in St. John.

In 1982, Chicago police raided Fishman's auto yard on 100th Street, looking for stolen cars or parts. When a newspaper photographer walked onto the scene,

Fishman threatened her and snapped the camera from around her neck, flinging it onto the roof of his one-story office.

Police retrieved the broken camera, and the photographer filed a criminal damage to property complaint against Fishman. The following day, the photographer's car exploded on the street in front of her home on Chicago's East Side. She dropped the damage charges and was not bothered again.

Fishman was never charged with the damage, nor was he linked to the auto bombing. Charges brought against him from the raid were later dropped on a technicality.

NWI Times
May 28, 1991
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Gamblers connected to the Outfit-controlled rackets in Northwest Indiana figured they had a friend in Lt. Fred Bemish, head of the Gary Police vice squad.

They figured wrong.

From October 1984 to May 1986, Bemish took bribes from these gambling figures, from the low levels up to the mob's man on the street, Anthony Leone.

In return, he promised protection from the Gary police and would stage raids on non-paying competitors.

All the time, he was compiling information that led to the indictment of Leone and more than a dozen others in 1988 on illegal gambling charges.

It was a lonely game Bemish played. "Only one or two others inside the department knew I was doing this," he said. "The others, I guess they just thought I was making some money on the side."

Bemish had done some undercover work before in his 21-year career with the Gary department, before he retired in 1986, and said going up against crime syndicate figures was just part of the job.

"I was careful, but you're always careful. But I was never threatened, before or after they knew what I was really doing," he said. "My primary mission was to meet with these people and gather information."

It began when Chief Deputy Inspector Cobie Howard, now Gary chief, approached Bemish and told him he had been "talked to" about which police officers needed to be bribed for police cooperation.

"They (gamblers) knew what I did, that I was commander of the Public Morals Bureau," Bemish said. "They came to me. All I had to do was play to their greed. I presented myself as a corrupt officer, and the greed factor took over."

It began with some of the street-level gambling operators. "Donaldson paid me, then he brought me Shivers. Then Shivers brought me some other people," he said. "It just mushroomed over a period of time."

Charles E. Donaldson, of Gary, owner of the West Side Lounge at Fifth Avenue and Chase Street, and Richard L. Shivers, also of Gary, were arrested July 27, 1988, on gambling charges.

Following their federal convictions, Donaldson got a two-month work release sentence and was fined $15,000 and Shivers was given 18 months in prison and fined $3,000.

It worked to the point where Bemish met with Leone, former mill foreman and pizza maker turned Outfit "street tax" collector, about bigger fish.

"Leone wanted me to meet with Nuzzo and Steve Sfouris, but that never materialized," Bemish said, mostly due to his retirement. "Sure, I wish I could have gone on with it, but I had an opportunity to make more in the private sector and I had to think of myself and my family first."

Sam Nuzzo Jr. is described by the FBI as controlling 80 percent of the card and dice gambling in Northwest Indiana; Steve Sfouris allegedly ran large scale dice games from restaurants in East Chicago and Gary and ran an adult book store and a lounge that was a prostitution front.

Both were indicted for racketeering in December 1990. Nuzzo is incarcerated awaiting trial; Sfouris has allegedly fled the country for Greece.

Leone and Bemish would meet in Leone's black Cadillac outside McDuffy's Restaurant in Portage, according to Bemish. "Leone'd come out in that Cadillac, what a sleazeball," Bemish said. "Always crying about how poor he was, how short of money and he's driving a Cadillac with a car phone."

Over the weeks and months, Bemish worked to gain the trust of operators like Vincente "Pee Wee" Lozada, of Merrillville, who ran an illegal lottery.

"There was a trust factor there. Pee Wee checked me out thoroughly, asked some of his contacts on the (Gary) force about me, asked me straight out if I was with the feds, if I was working with the FBI," Bemish said. "I told him I had a real job. So Lozada felt I was like him, just trying to hustle a buck.

"He wouldn't even talk to me at the trial. He thought I betrayed him because I was honest. He saw honesty as betrayal. What can you do?"

Lozada, indicted along with Leone in 1988, was convicted and given three years in prison. He is now out.

May 27, 1991
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Of the 33 murders credited to the Chicago crime Outfit in the past decade, only three were in Northwest Indiana.

Several others happened in nearby southern Cook County and two others in adjacent Will County.

All but one remain officially unsolved.

The March 2, 1983, shooting of Michael "Monk" Chorak, 35, of Lansing inside his M&J Auto Wrecking was charged to Joseph Rodish, a former employee of Chorak who had been living above a Serbian tavern on Chicago's Southeast Side since his Jan. 26 escape from the farm at Stateville Prison in Joliet.

Chorak's body was found behind the counter at M&J at 130th Street and the Calumet Expressway on the western fringe of Chicago's Hegewisch neighborhood by Officer Randy Zawis of the South Chicago District, who had been assigned to check out the building after Chorak's wife said her husband was missing.

Rodish was arrested several days later by Chicago and Calumet City police as he left a tavern on State Street in Calumet City. He was convicted in December 1983 of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.

He was said to have believed Chorak ordered him killed for alleged cooperation with authorities. Rodish escaped from prison, where he was serving time for auto theft and bribery, and followed Chorak for a month before killing him.

The previous owner of M&J, William "Billy" Dauber, a suspected mob hit man, was gunned down July 2, 1980, along with his wife, Charlotte, as they traveled along a remote road in Will County on their way home from a court date.

Two vans filled with gunmen attacked Dauber's Oldsmobile, riddling it and its passengers with bullets.

"It looked like something out of Bonnie and Clyde," one investigator said.

No one was ever charged with the Dauber murders, but local and federal authorities have several suspects. At least one, Calumet Region drug figure John Greichunos, is dead of an apparent suicide. Another is in a federal witness protection program.

Chorak's death came less than two months after the murder of Robert "Pitsy" Subatich, 44, of Calumet City, a reputed "chop shop" operator who had also once owned the Mugs and Pits Tavern on Chicago's East Side.

Subatich, who was believed ready to be indicted, was found shot to death in the trunk of his car Jan. 11, 1983, at O'Hare International Airport. No one has been charged.

Perhaps the most stellar of mob executions in this area was the murder of Anthony Spilotro, the head of Outfit operations in Las Vegas, who was found buried in a cornfield in Newton County, along with his brother, Michael, a minor mob figure.

Anthony Spilotro, once a hit man for the notorious Chicago gangster Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano - who was slain in the driveway of his home - had been indicted and was reportedly too flashy and high-profile for the new head of the Outfit, Joseph Ferriola.

Although no one was ever charged with the murders, an FBI memo from a conversation with Betty Tocco, wife of former Chicago Heights mob boss Albert Tocco, shed some light on what may have happened.

The memo said Albert Tocco left his home June 14, 1986, to meet with organized crime figures she named as Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, Albert "Chickie" Roviaro and Albert "Nicky" Guzzino.

All but Palermo dug a deep grave inside the Willow Slough preserve in Newton County, the memo said, and threw in the alive but unconscious Spilotro brothers.

Palermo and Guzzino were indicted in December 1990 for gambling conspiracy but never for the Spilotro killings. Roviaro, who owns a Hammond beverage distributorship, has never been charged with anything, and Tocco is in prison on an unrelated conviction.

The latest local killing occurred Aug. 14, 1988, at 2547 Springhill Drive, Schererville, when 65-year-old John Pronger went to his front door to answer a pounding. Someone outside shot through the door, hitting Pronger in the wrist.

As the door gave way, Pronger fell back and was shot once in the chest.

Investigators have three theories about the Pronger killing: a mob hit, a former associate or an angry wife.

The mob hit theory says Pronger owed the mob $30,000 in appeal bond money on an auto theft arrest and conviction and was having problems coming up with the cash.

The former associate theory says that an associate owed Pronger money in connection with a narcotics deal, and the wife theory said his wife, a much younger woman, had a boyfriend on the side and decided to get rid of Pronger without getting rid of the house, cars and bank accounts.

None of the theories have ever advanced beyond the investigation stage.

Pronger, who was out on an appeal bond for stealing a truck in Chicago in 1985, was also allegedly a cocaine supplier for local dealers. Chicago police said a substantial amount of cocaine was found in the stolen 1979 Ford pickup when they stopped it in Calumet Park, Ill., in October 1985.

His brother, Robert "Mr. Big" Pronger, a major player in Calumet Region chop shop operations in the 1960s and early 1970s, was reported missing in 1971.

A decomposed body, believed to be Robert Pronger's, was found in a wooded area in Griffith the following year.

Mob muscle spreads fear
NWI Times
May 26, 1991
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The scheduled July trial of 15 reputed organized crime figures in Hammond could be a summer rerun of a "program" first aired in 1959.

It was in June of that year that the U.S. Senate rackets committee, led by its counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, turned the spotlight on the Lake County arm of the Chicago Outfit.

One of those named as the Northwest Indiana gambling kingpin in 1959 was Gaetano "Tommy" Morgano of Gary. Convicted of illegal gambling, Morgano returned to his native Sicily in 1963 rather than go to prison.

Indicted in December 1990 was Bernard "Snooky" Morgano, 54, Tommy's son, who lives in rural Porter County.

The government intends to show how the Outfit muscles its way into the widespread illegal gambling business in Northwest Indiana and how it maintains its sway through fear and intimidation.

Gambling, the federal government alleges, is the lifeblood of organized crime, providing its bankroll to buy into legitimate business fronts. Most of the traditional mob families have shunned trafficking in narcotics, at least on an organized level, federal authorities say.

With the changing of the guard in the Chicago Outfit, such considerations may change, said FBI Supervisor Robert Pertuso, in charge of the organized crime unit in the agency's Merrillville office.

He said current mob bosses John "No Nose" DeFronzo and Sam "Wings" Carlisi are not seen as opposed to large scale, coordinated drug trafficking as were their predecessors.

A pattern may have been set in the last decade when one of New York City's five crime "families," the Bonnano family, broke ranks with the other four and sanctioned narcotics traffic as a way to raise cash quickly.

According to the FBI, the largest gambling operation in Lake County is run by Sam Nuzzo Jr., 45, of Merrillville, who is said to control more than 80 percent of the illegal gambling in the county, primarily in Merrillville and Gary.

A number of bookmakers in the county are independent, but "lay off" a portion of their bets to the Nuzzo syndicate, a confidential informant has told the FBI.

In other areas, the government has identified major gambling operators who are not connected with the Nuzzos but are linked with the Chicago Outfit, who run games like barbooth, a fast-paced, high-stakes dice game long associated with the Greek community; bolita, a Latino version of the lottery; and the policy, or numbers, rackets in predominantly black neighborhoods.

These include Efrain "Puerto Rican Frankie" Santos, who runs the bolita operations in East Chicago, and James A. "Sonny" Peterson, of East Chicago, who controls the policy (numbers) rackets in predominantly black neighborhoods.

Much of the following information is from sealed court records on a government request to tap the telephones of organized crime figures in Northwest Indiana from the mid to late 1980s.

The application obtained by The Times, which was granted, detailed allegations of how the mob operates and persuaded a federal judge more necessary information could be found by tapping the phones of Morgano and Leone. Information in that record includes facts upon which the December 1990 indictments are based.

Vicente "Pee Wee" Lozada, 65, a Merrillville gambling operator, told undercover Gary police officer Fred Bemish he originally worked for "Snooky" Morgano, to whom he paid a 10 percent street tax through Morgan's nephew, Anthony Leone.

Setbacks which led Leone to owe Lozada $10,000 forced Lozada to switch to working for Santos, who demanded 15 percent of his gross take. He also said Santos was a partner in the bolita operation with Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto, a Chicago hoodlum who turned government witness after two Outfit hit men botched an assassination attempt on him.

Even when Lozada was working for Leone, Bemish said, he had to pay the 15 percent to Santos. "All Latins involved in illegal activity paid street tax to Puerto Rican Frankie," Bemish said. "Those are Lozada's words, not mine."

According to federal court records, Lozada told Bemish - who was posing as a corrput police officer - that Santos was so successul that he was regarded in Chicago as bigger than "Snooky" Morgano.

By Christmas 1985, Leone had again taken over the Lozada operation, and was now demanding 10 percent plus $1,000 a month went out of business when Lozada could not come up with the demanded 10 percent plus $1,000 monthly street tax.

Lozada told Bemish he did not feel he could complain to Santos because Leone, Morgano, Santos and Leon'e street tax collector, Peter "Cadillac Pete" Petros, all were allied with the Chicago Outfit.

Leone was convicted in 1988 of running the illegal lottery and sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Lozada was convicted in the same trial and given three years in prison. He was again indicted in 1990 as part of the December anti-mob strike.

The FBI said Santos owns F&K Printing in East Chicago, and is also an officer with the International Longshoreman's Association, one of four national unions that are considered to be mob-infiltrated. He and mob figure Eugene "Geno" Izzi were convicted in federal court in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in April 1977, of smuggling 122 pounds of heroin into Puerto Rico and selling it to undercover FBI agents. Both were given eight years in prison in a plea bargain.

Several of the Chicago Heights mobsters are connected with one of the other reputed mob-dominated unions, the Laborer's Union. Former South Side boss Alfred Pilotto, whose brother, Henry, was once Chicago Heights police chief, was the president of Laborer's Local 5 in Chicago Heights.

Pilotto is currently serving a federal prison term. Two of the reputed hoodlums indicted last December in federal court in Hammond, Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo and Albert "Nicky" Guzzino, are also officers of Local 5.

Most of the gambling operators must go up the local chain of command when reporting to Chicago, but FBI Supervisor Robert Pertuso, the chief of the organized crime specialists in the Merrillville office, said Santos and Peterson are so well established they can go directly to Chicago - either South Suburban street crew boss Palermo or above.

Nuzzo, his brother, Arthur, his father, Sam Sr., and his sisters, Jennifer Kaufman and Sandra Mynes, were among the 15 indicted in December. Confidential informants have told the FBI Nuzzo pays "street tax" to Chicago, as do all mob organized illegal gamblers.

"You just can't have illegal gambling and not pay street tax," Pertuso said.

"The only exceptions would be some of the small, independent numbers operators, mostly in the black community. They run out of gas stations, mom-and-pop groceries, and they're just too hard for the Outfit to keep track of. It's not worth their time."

Bigger operators pay the extortion, or "street tax," to continue operation, or they face being shut down.

Such was the case with independent Gary bookmaker Franklin Burton, who took over the bookmaking operations of the late James "Jungle Jim" Tonevich when Tonevich became ill in 1986.

Burton told Bemish he had been told in 1984 by an Outfit street tax collector he identified as Peter "Cadillac Pete" Petros that Burton would have to pay $1,000 a month street tax or close down. Burton closed down.

When he reopened in 1986, he began to get threatening telephone calls, then two shots were fired through a window of his business. The next night, a caller told him, "We warned you a long time ago. Cadillac Pete told you two years ago to get out of the gambling business. This isn't a joke. We're going to start on your family next."

Burton then met with Gary gambling figure Sam "Frog" Glorioso, 49, who asked him if anyone had inquired about his business starting up again. When Burton told Glorioso of his problems, Glorioso told him "new people" were in charge and wanted their cut - and that "they mean business."

Burton later met Glorioso at Hydad's, a bar at 31 W. 80th Place, Merrillville, owned by Nuzzo. Burton met Nuzzo there, and was told, "Everything is okay, you're with the right people."

Nuzzo said the "new people" were "from the Heights," meaning they were connected with the Chicago Heights branch of the Outfit.

It was determined later that some of the phone calls to Burton had been made from Hydad's, and FBI surveillance allegedly showed Morgano, Leone and Glorioso in the bar at the time.

Glorioso was set up as Burton's collector for a $700 a month payment. When Burton met gambling figure Louis "Mr. G" Gerodemos, who placed bets with Burton, Gerodemos told him he would be collecting the money for "them," and that "they" was "Snooks," a nickname for Bernard Morgano.

In the December indictment, Glorioso and Petros were charged, and Burton and Gerodemos were named as victims of attempted mob shakedowns.

During the period in 1986 and 1987, FBI agents tailed Morgano and Leone to meetings in various restaurants, including the Taste of Italy in Calumet City, the Parogon in Hobart, Schoop's Hamburgers in Munster, the Round The Corner Pub in Hobart and the former Carrie's Pepper Pot Pizza in Hobart.

The Pepper Pot pizza restaurants, which had locations in Highland and Gary, were at one time owned by Frank Nick Zizzo, the boss of organized crime in Northwest Indiana. Morgano inherited his mantle when Zizzo died in the spring of 1986. Zizzo's son, Anthony, is described as a street boss in the western Chicago suburbs and a rising star in the Outfit.

Another local Outfit gambler, Steve "Bozo" Sfouris, 56, of Munster, owned the Broadway Book Shoppe, an adult book store in Gary, the Duchess Lounge, a now-defunct nightclub in Gary, which was a front for prostitution and also owned the Indiana Restaurant in East Chicago, described by the FBI as the location of "an all night, high stakes barbooth game on the second floor."

Sfouris ran afoul of Morgano in early 1987, and on Feb. 3, Morgano was overheard by FBI agents to tell Leone, "We'll give (Sfouris) three more weeks."

On Feb. 25, the three met at the Duchess Lounge and drove to the parking lot of the Handy Andy Lumber Company in Munster, where they met Albert N. "Nicky" Guzzino. They talked for 20 minutes, after which they all left.

Morgano was followed by the FBI to the Automotive Parts and Services store in Hobart owned by Arnold "Jew Arnie" Bard, 50, of Munster, a reputed gambler who has a 1980 federal gambling arrest.

Morgano and Sfouris met again in March at the Builders Square in Homewood, where they again met with Guzzino. They spoke for seven minutes, then left.

It is not known what the substance or outcome of the conversations was, but Sfouris and Guzzino were among the 15 indicted in December. Sfouris has subsequently fled the country, and is believed to be living in Greece.

On April 2, Morgano and Leone met at the Azar's Big Boy restaurant in Merrillville, from which Leone drove to the Beer Barrel restaurant in unincorporated Ross Township and met with owner Ned Pujo. The Beer Barrel is "tied to Nuzzo," FBI Supervisor Pertuso said, and although a legitimate business itself, is also a hot spot for football parley card gambling. Pujo and his wife, Yolande, were among the 15 indicted in December.

Fear, Disgust Led Wife to Testify Against Mobster
May 16, 1990
CHICAGO (AP) _ Fear, disgust and an overriding desire to protect her children from their father - an organized crime boss - drove Betty Tocco to testify against her husband, she said.

In an interview published in Wednesday’s Chicago Sun-Times, she called Albert Tocco a ruthless thug who broke the mob’s code of ethics and even cheated his daughter at tic-tac-toe.

Mrs. Tocco is believed to be the first wife of an organized crime leader to testify against her spouse.

Tocco, 61, convicted of running a racketeering and extortion ring on the South Side of Chicago, was sentenced Monday to 200 years in prison and fined $2 million. It was the stiffest penalty ever handed to a Chicago mob leader.

Describing what led her to testify, Mrs. Tocco said until 1986 she believed Tocco’s story that he was not a mob boss.

She learned otherwise when she drove to an Indiana cornfield to pick up her husband and he told her he had just buried Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael.

?I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,? she said. ?I was shocked, nauseated, disgusted. It was Father’s Day. His sister and mother were coming over for a barbecue. What was I supposed to say? ’Albert just buried the Spilotros last night so we can’t barbecue today.?

She said Tocco was abusive at home and threatened her and her children. When an unexpected knock came from the front door, she said her husband made her answer it, especially after a killing Tocco would later be linked to by federal prosecutors.

He often told her to pack his bags on a moment’s notice, she said, and he would disappear without telling her where he was going.

It was during one of those disappearances that FBI agents came looking for him. Tocco was arrested on Jan. 5, 1989, after his wife told FBI agents that Albert was trying to get her son, Michael, out of the country.

Tocco’s conviction and incarceration have done little to ease her fears, she said.

A jailhouse informant told authorities Tocco said he’d like to get his hands ?around her throat.?

But she believes she did the right thing.

?It’s not because of me he’s where he’s at,? she said. ?I didn’t tell him to go out there and bury people, to go out there and murder people.

Great reads but less than 10 years later, the crews consolidated to 3; for the City itself, maybe 1 crew and then everything else.