Musings, murders and morals
Tapes of reputed mobster portray life in Outfit
By Liam Ford
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 11, 2007
FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL -- As an imprisoned Frank Calabrese Sr. began to suspect his brother, Nicholas, might be cooperating with federal authorities, he expressed betrayal on undercover tapes played Tuesday in court, saying he had brought his brother into the Outfit.
In what he thought was a private conversation with his son in a federal prison, the elder Calabrese said he left "in God's hands" if other Outfit members felt his brother needed to be whacked.
"I don't wanna see nothing happen to him, but I'm gonna tell you something," Calabrese Sr. told his son in a 1999 recording. "If somebody feels that's it, it's either them or him, he's gone. That's the bed he made."
Asked if he would be angry if someone killed his brother, the elder Calabrese told his son, "In fact, if something did, I will send my blessing."
Jurors and defendants alike sat glued to computer monitors at the Family Secrets trial as the prosecution aired audio and video recordings throughout the day in the packed courtroom, the largest in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
The recordings touched on a loan the elder Calabrese said he and another mob boss made to a prominent Chicago union leader and how the same boss, Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa, ordered the killing of the Outfit's overseer in Las Vegas, Anthony Spilotro.
At times on the tapes the elder Calabrese, 70, waxed philosophical, once telling his son, Frank Jr., that he liked the Old Testament because "God was a little stern. He was stern, and I appreciate that."
Prosecutors accuse Calabrese of taking part in 13 long-unsolved gangland slayings. He is on trial with reputed mob figures Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello and Paul "the Indian" Schiro as well as Anthony Doyle, a former Chicago police officer.
Authorities code-named the federal investigation Operation Family Secrets because of the extensive cooperation of Frank Calabrese Sr.'s son and brother. In testimony Monday, the son said he decided to turn on his father after he failed to follow through on a promise to reduce his mob activities. When he testifies later in the trial, the brother is expected to implicate Frank Sr. in many murders.
Both mob turncoats secretly tape-recorded conversations with Frank Calabrese Sr., his guard down as he talked with trusted relatives and Outfit associates. Nicholas' tapes will be played when he testifies.
On grainy videotapes played in court Tuesday, Frank Calabrese Sr. conferred with Doyle and Michael Ricci, also a former Chicago police officer, about who might be cooperating in a federal investigation of the Outfit. The scene unfolded in a waiting room in a federal prison in Milan, Mich., where Calabrese was serving time for operating a violent loan-sharking operation.
On the tapes, children screeched in the background as other prisoners and visitors moved in and out of view. The video shows Calabrese in tan prison clothes seated next to a plaid-shirted Ricci. Doyle, in a green polo shirt with his back to the camera, sits hunched over in metal bench chair across from the other two. The two cops allegedly passed information to and from the imprisoned Calabrese. Ricci died before he could go to trial.
According to prosecutors, Doyle, then working in the police evidence section, had tipped Calabrese that federal investigators were examining a bloody glove left by Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, at the scene of the 1986 murder of John Fecarotta.
Authorities have said Fecarotta was killed for botching the burials of Spilotro and his brother, Michael. The brothers' bodies were discovered in an Indiana cornfield. Calabrese feared that investigators, armed with DNA from the bloodied glove, could force Nicholas to cooperate, a fear that proved to be valid.
In a taped conversation with his son, Calabrese, feeling betrayed by his brother's apparent cooperation, said that he worked hard to help his brother over the years, bringing him into the Outfit only after he asked. But he didn't force him to become a killer, he said.
In another conversation with his son, Calabrese talked about how Aiuppa had ordered that Anthony Spilotro be killed. Aiuppa and other top members of the Outfit were about to go to prison in connection with skimming profits from Las Vegas casinos.
"Aiuppa had a meeting before they all went to jail and he told them he wanted him knocked out," Calabrese said on the tape played Tuesday. "'I don't care how you do it, get him. I want him out'," he quoted Aiuppa as saying.
Calabrese Sr. displayed more of his Outfit-style moralism as he spoke with his son about one of the factors that helped lead to the Spilotros' killings - Anthony's rumored affair with a married woman.
"That's a friend, and that's a commandment," Calabrese told his son. "He, right then ... nail went in the coffin, right then, that was one nail."
The younger Calabrese also testified that his uncle, Nicholas, suspected that his brother was suspicious of him and feared retaliation from his brother and Outfit associate Ronnie Jarrett. Nicholas Calabrese believed his brother and Jarrett were responsible for the deaths of William and Charlotte Dauber, who were gunned down by rifle and shotgun blasts in a car chase on a rural Will County road in 1980, Frank Jr. testified.
"My uncle was telling me that if he went with Ronnie Jarrett and my father, he would be killed, because ... Ronnie Jarrett, he was with my father when the Daubers were killed," Frank Jr. said.
Frank Calabrese Jr. said his father often spoke in a crude code when he talked with trusted associates in the Milan prison. In one taped conversation, Frank Calabrese Sr. speculated with Doyle and Ricci whether it was his brother or another Outfit associate who has spoken to "Scarpe Grande." Frank Calabrese Jr. said "Scarpe Grande" was Italian slang meaning "big shoes" or "wingtips" and referred to the FBI.
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lford@tribune.com
