'The Oven' felt Outfit's heat
Crematory owner tells of helping mob

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
July 27, 2007
As the owner of both a crematory and a gun shop, Ernest Severino was doubly valuable to the Chicago Outfit in the late 1970s.

Mob figures called him Ernie "the Oven" and asked his staff for keys to the furnace, Severino testified Thursday at the Family Secrets trial.And Outfit hit man William "Butch" Petrocelli regularly wanted .38-caliber pistols, hunting rifles and MAC-10 submachine guns from his store -- but didn't bother to pay for any of them, Severino said.

In fact, Severino testified, Petrocelli often expected him to be his go-fer, regularly asking him to hold envelopes, drive him around and just do "this or that." Petrocelli wasn't the kind of guy to whom you could say no, Severino said.



"I didn't want to put myself in any harm's way, let's say," said Severino, seemingly still a little nervous even more than a quarter-century after Petrocelli's murder, one of 18 gangland slayings at issue in the trial.

Severino, dressed in a dark sport coat over a black shirt, said he remained at Petrocelli's beck and call until his disappearance in late 1980. He said he didn't find out what happened until Gerald Scarpelli, Petrocelli's one-time partner in the Outfit, asked for Petrocelli's cash and guns in Severino's possession.

At first, Severino said, he balked at the request, fearing Petrocelli would return and angrily wonder what happened to his stuff.

Don't worry, Severino said Scarpelli told him.

"He says he's never coming back," Severino told jurors. "He said he was at a meeting with the older guys, and they told him to take care of the garbage in the next room. And that was supposedly Butch."

Petrocelli's body would be discovered weeks later in a car parked on a Chicago street.

The key witness in the Family Secrets trial, Nicholas Calabrese, had testified earlier this month that he was involved in the killing. He alleged that his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., one of five defendants on trial, had strangled the mobster. Bosses wanted Petrocelli eliminated for flaunting his position and holding lavish parties in downtown hotels.

On cross-examination by defense lawyer Joseph Lopez, Severino said that he never saw Frank Calabrese Sr. during the time he was running mob errands and paying "street taxes."

Also Thursday, the jury heard details about the bombing of Michael Cagnoni, another mob hit that Nicholas Calabrese said he took part in.

At the start of the trial, federal prosecutors told the jury that Cagnoni had decided to stop paying the Outfit -- and "paid the ultimate price." His Mercedes-Benz was obliterated by a bomb under the driver's seat as he drove on a ramp to the Tri-State Tollway in June 1981.

Margaret Wenger turned away from a computer screen on the witness stand as she identified a photo of her husband. Cagnoni had been acting strangely before the bombing, she said, but he hadn't told her what was bothering him.

The morning he died, Wenger testified, she first used the car to drive their son to school, corroborating an account given by Calabrese.

The star witness had become emotional on the stand, telling jurors he became upset on learning from an Outfit spotter that the mother and son had nearly been killed by the remote-controlled explosive. If they had driven toward the tollway, the car would have blown up.

Instead, Wenger said, she returned home, and Cagnoni drove the car to work.

"He hugged me and kissed me goodbye and said, 'Remember, I love you very much,'" said Wenger, her voice dropping with emotion. It was the day after her birthday, she said, and she hadn't yet learned that she was pregnant.

In other testimony, Fred Pavlich, who once led security for Cagnoni's produce-shipping business, said he drove Cagnoni around to meetings with Outfit figures such as Ernest Rocco Infelice.

Cagnoni would bring a suitcase stuffed with cash every week to Flash Trucking, a Cicero business run by reputed organized-crime figures Paul and Michael Spano, Pavlich said. Cagnoni also attended at least one meeting in Rosemont with reputed mob boss Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo, he said.

Cagnoni would set up fake names on his payroll to generate cash, Pavlich said, but he grew weary of the practice, feeling that he was spending more time trying to create the cash than running his business. The payments were intended to avoid problems with a union at his shipping yard.

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jcoen@tribune.com