This is the point where most of the big time criminals make their fatal mistakes, meaning sometimes they push people to the point where they no longer care about anything. Like for example, with the help of Giancana’s paranoia, the Outfit has created two unnecessary problems, meaning they created two potential informers. Both Schang and D’Argento were forced to make their final decisions by running straight into the arms of the feds. Schang was the first to “sing” and that is why, suddenly in April, 1966, the feds arrested all 18 men who were allegedly involved in the silver burglary ring, including Daddano, Infelise, Varelli, and the rest of the Chicago crew, and also New York mobster Mike D’Alessio who was arrested in a Staten Island restaurant. Most of the men were rounded up in a series of pre-dawn raids by federal agents who acted on warrants who were secretly issued. I say “secretly” because at the time, the Chicago Outfit was still deeply involved in the city’s everyday politics, police force and judicial system.


Rocky Infelise

This attack which was made by the feds was regarded as one of the largest moves against members of the Outfit who masterminded operations of professional bands of hijackers and burglars. Also, in the indictment Daddano was named as the key figure behind the whole operation, who was arrested in front of his home as he returned from an exciting night with his mistress. Daddano was on trial for conspiracy and masterminding the hijackings and burglaries but in the end, all of the defendants were found guilty and got convicted except for the “untouchable” Daddano and his east coast business partner D’Alessio. They were acquitted on all charges by the jury that involved the theft of the silver because the prosecutors couldn’t connect them directly to the crime and so the mobsters walked free.


Willie Daddano

But the battle was far from over since the FBI had one more ace up its sleeve. On October 15, 1967, D’Argento decided to spill the beans also in order to save his family and also his own life. The Outfit continued to send deadly messages to D’Argento’s family but when he decided to cooperate, the feds immediately relocated his wife and kids to a safer place. So now the government had two good reasons to place Daddano in jail but that wasn’t the end. Later that year, with the help of Schang and D’Argento, the feds again indicted Daddano, but this time they charged him for the Franklin Park bank job. Since the trial went under a review, which occurred in September 1968, one other crew member decided to cooperate just to save his own skin. Mike LaJoy also decided to cooperate with the feds against his own uncle, who didn’t give two bits about his own nephew and so in a record time, all of Daddano’s associates including Richard Cain, Rocco Montagna, John Varelli, Frank Sr. and Frank Jr. DeLegge were indicted on the same charges.

By the end of the year, during the preliminary court hearing regarding the bank robbery, word got out that Varelli tried to hang himself in his prison cell but luckily, he failed. When he entered the court room he was all stressed up, with his eyes wide open, while whispering nonsense. Suddenly, Varelli pulled out a razor blade and tried to cut his neck. I’m not sure if Varelli only made an act just to fool everybody in the courtroom, but if he did than his trick really worked because the judge declared him incompetent to stand trial and sent him to medical prison in Springfield. After that, during the trial another quite funny moment occurred and that was Cain’s act as his own lawyer. Story goes that Cain couldn’t afford a good lawyer because one year before the trial, Cain had problems with his stature within the Chicago Outfit and his profits from the illegal schemes became limited. But even with his act as man of the law, Cain still failed to accomplish his plan because he and the rest of the defendants were destroyed by the prosecutors and their star witnesses such as Schang, D’Argento and LaJoy and also Mrs. Dorothy Sampson. She was the last witness during the trail, by being Frank DeLegge’s neighbor, and she said that at the day when the bank job occurred, she heard squealing of auto tires and she went out and saw three men run from DeLegge’s house. When she asked DeLegge Sr. who were those men, he told her that they were real estate agents, an answer she hardly believed in. So, after her testimony and the jury’s decision, the judge asked for the defendants to rise. Daddano on purpose came to court dressed as a bum, which was in his way showing disregard towards the law, and stood proudly in front of the judge with his hands in his pockets, while waiting for his sentencing.


The judge sentenced William Daddano to 15 years in prison and a fine of $13,000. The old mobster took his sentencing like a real man and while leaving the court room, he waved and smiled at the present people. Richard Cain received 4 years and a fine of $15,000, Rocco Montagna received 3 years, DeLegge Sr. also received 15 years and Junior received 7 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Obviously, the government thought that their participation was equally meaningful and important, thus making the DeLegges punishable same as the rest of defendants. In return for such a flawless victory, the government introduced their witnesses to the witness protection program and on top of that, the government has given money to the families of LaJoy, Schang and D'Argento in return for the information received.

Thanks to their testimonies, the government managed to re-open many old cases and also to deny many appeals. Like for example, in March, 1969, five members of the gang, who had been convicted as being members of the silver hijacking ring and who won new trials from the United States court of appeals, all were re-indicted and convicted. All of the men were top echelon criminals such as John Varelli, John Borsellino, Thomas Bambulas, Max Heckmnyer and Albert Cardenas. The government managed to convict all of the defendants on one conspiracy charge rather than several. Also on July 8, 1969, Richard Cain again returned to court to face perjury charges in the Zahn Drug Company robbery in Melrose Park. Cain has discovered that his former colleague Bill Witsman was talking to the feds and that he testified against his former chief, which was Cain, who had given him a list of the questions, told him to go to a motel, then give the polygraph tests to men who would be produced by another man who he would meet there, not to interpret the charts, but to give them to that same man. Witsman also testified that he telephoned Cain and he told him not to worry about the charts because he had flushed them down the toilet. In the end, with no other choice, Cain decided to plead guilty and was sentenced to additional six months in prison.

In December, 1969, Varelli was declared incompetent to stand trail and was placed in a medical prison. I don’t know if the government had anything to do with it, but later Varelli’s psychiatrist Dr. Glotfelty suddenly changed his story and reported that his patient was quite competent to stand trial and was capable of understanding the charges against him. During the hearing on January 2, 1970, Varelli again made an appearance by showing up with a long beard, while continuously shaking. And he again pulled out a razor blade but this time he managed to slice his wrists and spray blood all over the courtroom. He decided to pull the stunt when the chief psychiatrist testified that the defendant was capable of understand everything. Two deputy marshals leaped up and wrestled the blade from Varelli and after that they took him to the marshal’s lockup where his wrists were treated and bandaged. Later, Varelli was sentenced to serve his 15 years in prison.

While in jail, most of the Outfit members easily adjusted in that kind of ambient because most of them already spent some time during their criminal careers. But the situation was different for Cain since he previously worked for Sheriff’s office and to keep his job or his image as an honest cop, he had to place more than few guys, guilty or not, in jail. So now Cain also had more than few enemies at the Cook County prison but the good thing was that some of his Outfit peers were also imprisoned and so he had the backup. Story goes that Cain had a problem with one African-American inmate, and while in the prison yard, the inmate approached Cain and tried to provoke him but suddenly Daddano showed up and the inmate backed off and never tried to bother Cain ever again.


Old man Daddano

Following the imprisonments of Daddano, Cain and the rest of the crew members, the so-called burglary group was completely destroyed. By “destroyed” I don’t mean disbanded, but instead some of them died in jail and the others were killed. For example, Cain was released from prison on October 20, 1971, but two years later he was shot in the head with two shotgun blasts. Also, while serving his prison term at the Marion, Illinois, federal penitentiary, on September 9, 1975, Willie Daddano died of heart failure in his prison cell. Story goes that he couldn’t take the killing of his boss Sam Giancana which occurred 3 months before his death. On January 20, 1976, only a year as he was paroled from prison, Frank DeLegge Jr. vanished from the face of the earth and two days later, his frozen throat-slashed body was found in a ditch in Elmhurst. Story goes that he was killed because of the money that he allegedly stole from the Franklyn Park job because the Outfit never forgets. There’s also another version of the story and that is DeLegge Sr.’s huge gambling debts. Story goes that Junior vouched for his father but the problem was that Sr. never managed to payback and so in the world of the Mafia, the one who vouch for another individual is responsible for the actions of that same individual. There’s even a third version regarding the reason for DeLegge Jr.’s slaying, and that was his violent style towards his wife who, as I previously stated, was in fact Nick Palermo’s daughter. After the murder of DeLegge Jr., Palermo immediately sold the DeLegge house and bought his daughter a new apartment.

As time passed by, many stories and legends started spreading all around the “Windy City” about the group’s alleged hidden treasures. For example, one legend goes that the late Daddano liked to keep several locations in Cook County as hiding spots for the stolen merchandise that he collected during his criminal career, and he was also known to rent barns from farmers where he allegedly kept some of his stolen goods. Since Daddano also worked as a “fence” for the burglary crews, he always had to keep large empty spaces to stash the stolen merchandise.

During the following decades, the Mafia’s involvement in the burglary business has become a huge problem not just in Chicago, but instead all around the country. The thing is that there was some type of “evolution” of the professional burglars at the time, by being more sophisticated and began stealing only cash, such as in Chicago’s infamous Purolator Heist or New York’s so-called Lufthansa heist. Also, by stealing cash only, the burglars didn’t need to get involved with the so-called fences, who were mostly associated with organized crime figures but by the end of the day, many of them still weren’t able to escape the Outfit’s “clutches” and continued to pay tribute to Chicago’s number one crime syndicate.

Cheers