Victim's widow implicates Lombardo
Witness testifies about 1974 murder

By Jeff Coen
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 29, 2007
Emma Seifert was a young mother preparing coffee at her husband's Bensenville business when two masked men burst through the office door, brandishing guns at her and her 4-year-old son.

More than three decades later, Seifert, a poised woman now in her early 60s, recounted those horrible moments for federal jurors Thursday as the Family Secrets trial ventured for the first time into the bloody details of one of the 18 gangland slayings at the heart of the landmark case.

"I believe they said, 'This is a robbery and where is' ... and I don't know if they said my husband or that S.O.B.," she testified in a calm, even voice.

Within minutes, her husband, Daniel Seifert, who was scheduled to testify against reputed mob boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, was chased down and fatally shot.

Jurors looked up from their note-taking at one point Thursday to view a large photo of Daniel Seifert's crumpled body lying in the grass outside his plastics firm.

In what is thought to be her first public comments on the 1974 murder in more than 30 years, Emma Seifert said she believes one of the gunmen was Lombardo, for whom her son was named. Lombardo and her husband had once been close friends.

Even though the gunmen wore masks, Seifert said she thought she recognized Lombardo "by his build, the way he moved."

"He was light on his feet," she testified. "He was agile in his day. He was a boxer."

But the defense questioned Seifert why she had never reported her suspicions about Lombardo's involvement until an FBI interview in 2003. She insisted she had told an agent in the weeks after her husband's death but wasn't sure if he wrote it down.

Seifert's voice dropped only when she talked about her son, Joseph, who was at his father's business that day because he was feeling ill. Now a grown man, he sat in the second row of the courtroom gallery and listened to his mother's testimony.

Lombardo listened intently too. He looked on as Seifert, dressed in a dark pantsuit, worked a laser pointer with an overhead projector to show where she stood in the office when the gunmen surprised her.

Lombardo looked up at the screen and over to Seifert and then sat scratching his head.

There had been warnings in the weeks and months leading up to the shooting, Seifert testified. A federal trial was just a few weeks away. Lombardo and several others were charged in a fraud case linked to the Central States Pension Fund of the Teamsters.

Among the defendants was Irwin Weiner, whom Seifert knew because Seifert had done carpentry work for him, Emma Seifert said. Weiner also had put up money for International Fiberglass, a company Seifert managed and one of the businesses to which investigators had traced fraudulent funds.

Daniel Seifert and Lombardo had a falling out and by late 1972 Seifert was fearful. Emma Seifert told jurors she had seen Lombardo drive slowly by their house as she stood waiting for her older son, Nick, to come home from school.

"I told [Daniel] they had driven by," she said. "He told me to keep the children inside and keep the doors locked, to get a gun and he was going to call the police."

Ronald Seifert, Daniel's brother, testified Thursday that Daniel told him that he had told Lombardo he was cooperating with the government in the case. At one point, Lombardo called him, Ronald Seifert told jurors.

"He said I'd better straighten Danny out, or 'You know what's going to happen to him,' " Seifert said.

Seifert said he told his brother about the call, but it didn't matter.

"He said, 'To hell with them, I'm gonna testify against them,' " Seifert said.

But he never got the chance.

Emma Seifert testified that she screamed when the gunmen rushed into the office, but her husband was returning from their car and didn't hear her cry out. He was knocked down when one of the assailants hit him with a gun, she said.

The courtroom grew still as Seifert described what happened next. She and her son were pushed into a bathroom at gunpoint by one of the men, she said.

"He told me to be quiet and not to worry," she said.

"Then I heard a gunshot, and the man left my side," she said. "Then I didn't hear anything for a few seconds."

Seifert's voice broke momentarily as she recalled telling Joseph to stay put. Seifert said she looked out the front door and caught a glimpse of her husband running across the parking lot toward another building. Waiting there was another gunman, holding a sawed-off shotgun, she said.

He, too, wore a mask, she said. His gun gave off a glint, leading her to believe it could have been nickel-plated, she said.

Seifert said her husband made it to the neighboring building.

"That was the last time I saw him," she said under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. John Scully.

Arriving for work was Ken Norten, who also testified Thursday. He said he heard a shot and looked up to see a man running around a building across the street and in his direction.

"There was another gunshot, and he grabbed at his knee," Norten said.

Seifert fell, Norten said, and a gunman ran up from behind.

"He pointed his shotgun at him and stood right above him and shot him," Norten said.

Seifert's brother, Ronald, backed up Emma Seifert's testimony that she had told people at the time that Lombardo was involved in the killing.

"What she told me is that she knew it was Joey that held her in the washroom," Seifert said, "her and her son, Joey."

The defense did not cross-examine the witnesses who followed Norten, including those who talked about the two cars the gunmen apparently drove from the scene.

They left one at a car dealership and outran police in a powder blue-and-white Dodge Challenger.

The one left behind was a brown Ford LTD outfitted with a quick-change license plate holder, switches to kill the brake lights, heavy shocks, a police scanner and even a siren. Also found in the car were two ski masks like those worn by the gunmen.

Prosecutors have said they can link that car to Lombardo through a fingerprint they allegedly found on the title certificate filed for the car.

Some of that evidence is expected to come into the trial next week, at which point Emma Seifert's sons said they will speak more openly about their father and his killing.

As they left court Thursday, they stopped only long enough to say they were proud of their mom.

"She held up," Nick Seifert said. "It was a lot of strain and stress."

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jcoen@tribune.com