As I was going through recorded newscasts, I came across this great piece of reporting from John "Bulldog" Drummond of WBBM-TV:

http://images.tekky.net/video/famsec-071707-sample2.wmv

Mafia man tells of murder that inspired 'Casino'
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 1:47am BST 20/07/2007



A former gangster has recounted the gruesome details of more than a dozen murders in the trial of five Mafia leaders in Chicago, including a killing that helped to inspire the Hollywood film Casino.

Nicholas Calabrese, the star prosecution witness and self-confessed killer in two of the murders, has been giving evidence against his alleged former cronies, including his brother Frank, in a Mob trial hailed as the biggest in the city since Al Capone's.

The five - Frank Calabrese Snr, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro and Anthony Doyle - are now in their 60s and 70s. They are charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, loan sharking, extortion and 18 long-unsolved murders.

advertisementThey deny the charges. Frank Calabrese's lawyers claim he is the victim of a spiteful brother who has told lies about him, but the accused has also had to listen to his son testify against him.

One of the killings by the Chicago Mafia - known as the "Outfit" - to be recounted in court concerned the Spilotro brothers. Their bloody deaths were dramatised in Martin Scorsese's Casino.

Nicholas Calabrese said that Tony "The Ant" Spilotro - the model for Joe Pesci's character in the film - had run the Outfit's interests in Las Vegas but had angered his superiors by attracting too much attention.

He was lured to a basement with the promise that he would become a mafia "capo", or captain, while his brother, Michael, would be inducted into the organisation as a "made guy". Within seconds of their arrival, Nicholas Calabrese had grabbed Michael's legs as an accomplice slipped a rope around his neck.

While they were strangling him, Calabrese said he heard Tony Spilotro, say: "Time to say a prayer", as he realising he had walked into a trap.

The trial continues.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/20/wmafia120.xml

Even Outfit hit men have feelings.

They can strangle tiny pet shop mice, fixing tiny nooses around their necks and hanging them from your windshield wipers as a warning. But that's work, not fun.

They can kill human beings with bats and ropes, though mostly with guns, shooting their friends as they beg for mercy.



But don't accuse Outfit assassin Nicholas Calabrese of being a serial killer. Serial killers do their thing with passion and hatred. Outfit killers do it for money and fear.

You're a serial killer, shrieked one of the defense attorneys in the historic Family Secrets trial of Outfit bosses and stooges.

Calabrese, the government's star witness, who has admitted to at least 13 hits, is a quiet, pale man. He became quieter still. His chin got longer, somehow, and there was some grief on the bones of his face. Outfit hit men don't let lawyers frazzle them, but he did sigh at the insult.

"I'm a killer, but I'm not a serial killer," Calabrese said.

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez, representing Calabrese's brother, Frank, ticked off a list of Nick's sins. Murders, lies, oaths broken, from the oath of silence when Calabrese became a made member of the Outfit to betraying friends before he shot them in the head. Lopez questioned Calabrese's manhood and loyalty.

"I was loyal because I was afraid. And I was a chicken and a coward because I didn't walk away from it," Calabrese said about his life in the Outfit's Chinatown crew in the politically heavy Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.

Lopez: Aren't you a mass murderer?

"I killed a lot of people," Calabrese said. "I did it because I didn't want it to happen to me ... I was afraid if I didn't do what I was supposed to do, I'd get killed."

Lopez mentioned the holy pictures that burned in Calabrese's hands during the mafia ceremony, the made men declaring they'd burn in hell before betraying the Outfit.

Lopez: Aren't you going to burn in hell like those pictures? And you're going to burn in hell for killing all those people, aren't you?

"If I didn't [kill], I was in trouble with him," Calabrese said, referring to his brother Frank, who kept smirking and nodding like a madman from across the room.

The cross-examination from defense lawyer Rick Halprin, representing mob boss Joseph Lombardo, was equally fine, especially when Halprin brought up Nick Calabrese's killing of mobster John "Big Stoop" Fecarotta.

"I can't call Mr. Fecarotta to the stand to refute your testimony, because you killed him in 1986, correct?" Halprin asked.

Yes, Nick said.

These were well-crafted dramatic maneuvers to insult the killer, to force him to admit being a liar. And it gave the wiseguys on trial their money's worth, because they've been getting a pounding from the U.S. attorney's office and Thursday was the day their lawyers could fight back.

But all week I've sat near the jury, watching them watch Nick. When he explained that he killed his victims because he was ordered to do so and knew what would happen to him if he refused, and that he urinated on himself after the first murder because he was so afraid, it was more than theatrics. It was believable.

I know it's a mistake to try to think what's going on in the minds of a jury. And I've been waiting for this trial for years, since February 2003, when I wrote a column about Nick Calabrese disappearing from prison and into the witness protection program, which caused panic among Chicago gangsters and their political puppets.

On the street, they're frantic. New indictments in the Outfit stronghold of Melrose Park, including that of former Police Chief Vito Scavo, will be discussed Friday.

If the FBI starts checking on the political and Outfit relationships in Rush Street real estate and nightclubs, they might really cause a tsunami of fear, or perhaps a crescendo of worry.

Nick Calabrese doesn't sit before the jury like some caricature from "The Sopranos," dripping testosterone and attitude. He's not like that.

Rather, he comes off as what he is: a technician, calmly describing his craft in a professional monotone, describing how to tune the frequencies for remote control detonators for car bombs. And how to alter brake lights in cars to avoid police, and how to plan a hit. It begins by establishing behavior patterns, as the victim drives unaware, often for weeks, laughing, stopping off at restaurants, oblivious to the hunters following him, a dead man still animated, marked, ready for the hole that's been dug.

The gray-haired man in jeans and a sweat shirt with the wire-rimmed glasses could be a master plumber, an expert cabinet maker, a fellow of high intelligence and skill, with a lot of tools in the garage, all properly maintained.

Except instead of making cabinets, he killed people.

* * *

Note: Friday marks a tragic 15th anniversary at the Dirksen Federal Building. Deputy U.S. Marshal Roy Frakes and court security officer Harry Belluomini were killed in a shootout with bank robber Jeffrey Erickson, who was wounded by Belluomini, but killed himself before being captured.

----------

jskass@tribune.com

more in /news/columnists

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Mobster: Fear led me to kill, then 'rat'
Outfit insider grilled by brother's lawyer

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
July 20, 2007
The lawyer started with "Good afternoon, Mr. Calabrese," but things didn't stay cordial for long.

Nicholas Calabrese, who had already acknowledged in testimony Thursday that he was "a rat" for testifying against his brother and other mob figures, was quickly cast by the defense as a mass murderer, racketeer, arsonist and liar.

Attorney Joseph Lopez, who is representing Calabrese's brother, seemed intent on provoking Nicholas Calabrese during cross-examination, even suggesting he could have avoided becoming an Outfit killer or mob traitor by hanging himself.



Calabrese, the government's star witness in the landmark Family Secrets trial in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, said he took part in 14 murders for the Chicago syndicate out of fear that he would have faced death himself if he refused.

"I was loyal because I was afraid," said Calabrese, barely raising his voice. "I was a chicken and a coward because I didn't walk away from it."

It was also his fear that he could be executed for murder that led him to turn stool pigeon for the federal government, he said.

"That's why you're sitting [on the witness stand] rather than sitting over at that table next to your brother," said Lopez, looking toward his client, Frank Calabrese Sr. The flashy lawyer, his normally colorful clothing toned down to an all-black suit, shirt and tie, paced around in front of Calabrese.

Frank Calabrese Sr. sat a few yards away, his eyes and head sometimes bouncing back and forth between his attorney and his brother like he was courtside at a tennis match.

During his four days of testimony this week, Nicholas Calabrese, 64, has described how he had gradually been drawn into Outfit life, collecting high-interest "juice" loans and keeping gambling books for his brother before graduating to an accomplice and then a triggerman in mob hits.

Calabrese portrayed himself as a reluctant participant, too scared to say no to his ruthless older sibling.

Lopez asked Nicholas Calabrese if his brother had ever called him a coward.

"There's not many names he didn't call me," Calabrese said.

On Tuesday, Calabrese testified that he wet his pants while he, along with his brother, buried his first murder victim, a fact that Lopez couldn't resist in his questioning.

Reminding Calabrese of the time in early 2000 when he learned that the FBI had matched DNA to him from a bloody glove left at one murder scene, Lopez asked, "When you learned that, you really wet your pants, didn't you?"Calabrese admitted he was concerned. Lopez pressed him, asking if he knew he couldn't beat DNA evidence. "That's correct," said Nicholas Calabrese, staying mostly unruffled.

"You didn't want to get fried either, is that correct?" Lopez asked, referring to the death penalty.

"That's correct," Calabrese said.

The longtime mob insider acknowledged agonizing over his decision to assist the government. He said he waited until his daughter finished high school to avoid bringing embarrassment to his family. Calabrese said he contacted the FBI in 2002, offered to cooperate and rid himself of "a load" he had been carrying. He was then in prison, finishing up a sentence for helping his brother's violent juice-loan operation.

Lopez repeatedly challenged Calabrese's version of his Outfit work, asking him over and over why he didn't just leave Chicago and move to California or elsewhere to avoid the mob and his supposedly evil brother.

"That's why I'm a coward," Calabrese replied.

Lopez asked if Calabrese hadn't in fact reveled in the life of a mobster,"No, I didn't like the fact that people would look at me and respect me for that," he answered. "And it was only a very few people that knew."

Before his life of crime, Nicholas Calabrese said he had held legitimate jobs, working in radio communications for the Navy, an ironworker on the the John Hancock Center construction project and even as a Cook County security officer at the courthouse in Maywood.

But he drifted into organized crime, Calabrese said, eventually becoming his brother's "stooge." The two were convicted in 1995 in a racketeering case. Also convicted were his nephews, Frank Calabrese Jr. and Kurt Calabrese, who were forced into crime by their father, he said.



Lopez questioned Nicholas Calabrese about why he seemingly had no problem killing. Calabrese testified Wednesday he had a cup of coffee after taking part in the 1986 murders of mob figures Anthony and Michael Spilotro.

"You didn't have a problem drinking that coffee did you?" Lopez asked.

"Yes, I did," said Calabrese, his voice shaking slightly.

"You drank it anyway, didn't you?" retorted Lopez.

"I didn't drink it all," Calabrese answered.

Calabrese admitted he lied to the FBI after he began to cooperate, at first concealing co-defendant James Marcello's role in the Spilotros' killings because Marcello had been paying his wife $4,000 a month while he was in prison.

Lawyers for Joey "the Clown" Lombardo and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle, who are among those charged in the sweeping conspiracy case tied to 18 mob hits, also cross-examined Calabrese.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel halted the questioning at one point to tell Doyle's lawyer, Ralph Meczyk, to stop badgering Calabrese over inconsistencies in his statements to the FBI.

Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, leaned over a lectern, asking in a booming voice about Calabrese's accusation Wednesday that mob hit man John Fecarotta once told him in a restaurant that Lombardo had been involved in the murder of federal witness Daniel Seifert in 1974.

Halprin noted wryly that he couldn't call Fecarotta to the witness standbecause Calabrese had fatally shot him in the head. Still, Halprin scoffed at the idea that Fecarotta would have discussed the Seifert slaying with Calabrese.

"Did he order pie and coffee when he told you about the murder?" Halprin asked sarcastically.

Earlier Thursday, while still under questioning by prosecutors, Nicholas Calabrese detailed the Fecarotta slaying, the last of the 14 murders he said he took part in.

Calabrese said Fecarotta had displeased his mob bosses because of money problems and his once leaving Phoenix before completing a hit. Calabrese said he was selected to carry out the hit because Fecarotta, wary that he was a marked man, trusted him.

Fecarotta was misled into thinking he and Calabrese were headed to bomb the office of a dentist who had run afoul of the Outfit, Calabrese said. But as Calabrese reached into a bag to "light the fuse" of the bomb, he instead pulled out a gun as the two sat in a parked car outside the dentist's office.

"He caught the play," said Calabrese, testifying that a struggle ensued. "I believe I shot myself when I shot him."

Fecarotta fled from the car and Calabrese took off after him. As he chased his onetime friend, Calabrese said, he couldn't help but recall that two other mobsters had wound up in the trunk of a car dead after botching a hit.

"My mind is going, 'If I don't do this and he gets away, I'm dead,'" Calabrese testified. "I have to catch him and I have to shoot him."

Calabrese said he caught up to Fecarotta before he reached the back door of a bingo hall and finished him off with a shot in the head.

As he walked from the area, Calabrese said he thought he had slipped into his pocket the black golfing gloves he was wearing. But the gloves fell to the ground and were recovered by police. More than a decade later, blood on the gloves from the gunshot wound Calabrese sustained was matched by authorities to him through DNA, the break that enabled authorities to win his cooperation and construct the larger investigation that became Operation Family Secrets.

During his cross-examination, Lopez insinuated it was impossible to know when Calabrese was truthful, under oath or otherwise. Lopez asked Calabrese if he had lied to Fecarotta with a straight face before shooting him.

"If I had a straight face, yes," Calabrese replied.

----------



jcoen@tribune.com

Hit man: 'I was a chicken, a coward'
FAMILY SECRETS | Nicholas Calabrese says he should've run from Outfit, but 'I didn't have money'

July 20, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter swarmbir@suntimes.com
Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese called himself "a coward," "a chicken" and "a rat" on the witness stand Thursday, but saved his harshest words for the brother he's testifying against, Frank Calabrese Sr.

Nicholas Calabrese had testified for the prosecution over four days for the prosecution. He spilled the Outfit's Family Secrets -- the murders he committed for the mob, from stranglings to shooting a man in the head as the victim begged for his life.

On Thursday, as defense attorneys grilled him, Nicholas Calabrese revealed some of the Calabrese Family Secrets -- the hatred, violence and turmoil that consumed the family.

Nicholas Calabrese has admitted to taking part in at least 14 mob murders but balked when one defense attorney called him a serial killer.
"I am a killer," Calabrese said. "I am not a serial killer."

Calabrese took responsibility for what he did but laid heavy blame on his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., who allegedly committed some of the murders with him. Nicholas Calabrese Sr. is testifying against his brother and other alleged mobsters in the Family Secrets trial to avoid the death penalty and try to get something less than life in prison.

Nicholas Calabrese said his brother brought him into the Outfit.

Frank Calabrese Sr. would call him an idiot and a coward over the years, Nicholas Calabrese acknowledged.

"There's not many names he didn't call me," Nicholas Calabrese said.

But he feared his brother would do more than call him names if he didn't go through with the Outfit hits they were allegedly on together.

He figured his brother would kill him.

Frank Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph R. Lopez, dressed all in black Thursday, from his eyeglass frames to his socks, scoffed at that.

Lopez asked if Nicholas Calabrese really believed his brother would have killed him if he froze on a hit and let a victim escape.

"My brother would have, yes," Nicholas Calabrese said.

Nicholas Calabrese blamed himself, in part, for not walking away from Outfit life.

"I was loyal because I was afraid. And I was a chicken and a coward because I didn't walk away from it."

"To run away, you need money -- I didn't have money," Nicholas Calabrese said. Plus, he had a family.

Nicholas Calabrese saved his harshest words for how Frank Calabrese Sr. treated his own children, Frank Calabrese Jr. and Kurt Calabrese.

The four men were charged in 1995 for their roles in the street crew Frank Calabrese Sr. ran. Nicholas Calabrese blamed his brother for not doing more to save his sons from prison, especially Kurt Calabrese, who had a limited role in the operation.

Kurt Calabrese "was forced to do what he did by his father," Nicholas Calabrese said.

"His father didn't put a gun to his head, did he?" Lopez asked.

"No, but he put a fist in his face," Calabrese shot back.

When did the beatings happen? Lopez asked.

"You name the time," Calabrese said. "The kids went through hell with their father."

"And they gave 'em hell, didn't they," Lopez asked.

"No," Calabrese said firmly, "they did not."

Nicholas Calabrese said he would have taken his nephew Kurt Calabrese's prison time.

But there was nothing he could do because his brother Frank Calabrese Sr. wasn't interested in helping out early on in the case.

"No, because it had to be both of us to do something," Nicholas Calabrese said of him and his brother.


"I am a killer. I am not a serial killer."

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Thursday: During cross-examination, Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese called himself "a coward" and "a chicken" for not walking away from Outfit life but blasted his brother, reputed hit man Frank Calabrese Sr., whom he's testifying against.

Expected Monday: Nicholas Calabrese will continue getting grilled by defense attorneys.

Mobster sticks to his story
Defendant's brother ends stay on the stand

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
10:38 PM CDT, July 23, 2007

Nicholas Calabrese's final hours on the witness stand in the landmark Family Secrets trial were much like the first—his face fixed in a frown and turned away from his brother, defendant Frank Calabrese Sr.

To the end, the mob hit man maintained he turned on his brother and his Outfit cohorts out of fear of the death penalty, a desire to possibly see his family again, and to bring out the truth.Under cross-examination for almost the entire day, Calabrese denied that hatred for his brother played a role in his testifying."Hate consumes you," said Calabrese, 64. "I don't have much time left, so I don't hate him anymore."

Asked if that meant he thought he would die soon, Calabrese said, "We all die." .

Calabrese spent his fifth and final day on the stand in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse defending his account of more than a dozen Outfit killings dating back more than three decades. At times he sat slouched in a black sweat shirt, but his back stiffened as he insisted he was telling the truth.

Federal authorities code-named the investigation Operation Family Secrets after Frank Calabrese Sr.'s brother and son agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and tell all. The son, Frank Calabrese Jr., who testified earlier this month, secretly tape-recorded private conversations with his father while the elder Calabrese was in prison in the 1990s for running a violent loan-sharking operation.

On Monday, defense lawyer Thomas Breen paced in front of Nick Calabrese, asking why he had named mostly dead mobsters when he laid blame for the murders.

Breen suggested that Calabrese had sought to make himself more valuable as a prosecution witness by also implicating a few defendants, including his client, reputed mob figure James Marcello.

"I named the people that were there at those murders," Calabrese replied tersely.

As Breen pressed him for specifics about some of the killings, Calabrese said he wasn't testifying beyond what he saw with his own eyes or heard from his brother.

Last week Calabrese testified that Marcello was present at the 1981 murder of Nicholas D'Andrea. Mob leaders who wanted to question D'Andrea about an attempt on the life of an Outfit capo in the south suburbs had inadvertently beaten him to death, Calabrese had said.

Breen contended Calabrese implicated Marcello in the slaying to lend more credence to his account of Marcello becoming a "made" Outfit member at a ceremony in 1983. In order to become a made member, Calabrese had testified, a candidate had to have been involved in at least one killing and have 100-percent Italian heritage.

That prompted Breen to ask Calabrese if he had ever met Marcello's "lovely mother, Mrs. Flynn."

"Mrs. Flynn is as Irish as Paddy's pig, isn't she?" Breen asked.

"I didn't know he was half Irish," said Calabrese, accusing Marcello of lying to mob bosses about his heritage.

"Yeah, somebody's lying," Breen shot back.

Breen later asked whether the secret "made" ceremony was a celebration—and if there was any corned beef on hand for Marcello, drawing a laugh from the crowded courtroom.

Calabrese also was questioned about the attempted murder of Nicholas Sarillo, who Breen said was a friend of Marcello's. But in the Outfit you can kill a friend, Breen said, noting Calabrese had testified about killing his friend, John Fecarotta.

"You weren't there," said Calabrese, seemingly growing upset. "You're trying to make it sound like I enjoyed this. I killed my friend."

The lawyer and the witness also exchanged jabs over the 1986 murder of businessman Emil Vaci in Arizona. Calabrese testified that he learned Marcello had financed the hit.

Breen mockingly asked when Calabrese had seen a copy of the Outfit newsletter that named Marcello as comptroller.

"Do you have a copy of the newsletter?" retorted Calabrese, the expression on his face unchanged.

Breen also concentrated on the 1986 killings of Anthony and Michael Spilotro. Last week Calabrese testified that Marcello drove him and other members of a hit team to a Bensenville residence, where the Spilotro brothers were beaten and strangled in a basement.

Calabrese said he just learned Monday that a brother of the Spilotros, Patrick Spilotro, had once tried to secretly record him discussing the killings. Calabrese said he had been a patient of Patrick Spilotro, a dentist. Breen reminded Calabrese that he had told Patrick Spilotro he didn't know anything about his brothers' deaths, but Calabrese said he was lying at the time.

"You have told a story about the Spilotros being killed, and you, in fact, were not even there, were you?" Breen asked.

"Yes, I was," Calabrese answered.

Breen asked why, according to Calabrese's version of events, Marcello would pick him up at a busy suburban shopping center in a family van to drive to the site of the killings. Calabrese said he was doing what he was told.

Breen also questioned why Sam "Wings" Carlisi, the then-head of the Chicago Outfit, then-mob underboss John DiFronzo and one of its chief moneymakers, Joseph Ferriola, would risk being seen near the murder scene. Calabrese also once told the FBI he thought he had seen mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice there, Breen noted, but that was impossible because Infelice was under surveillance by agents at the time.

Calabrese's account had ended abruptly last week with few details about the Spilotro brothers' final moments. Calabrese said he had his back to Anthony Spilotro as he grabbed Michael Spilotro by the legs and mob boss Louis "the Mooch" Eboli moved in to strangle Michael Spilotro.

Breen said he found it incredible that Calabrese wouldn't know exactly who killed Anthony Spilotro or how the bodies of the brothers wound up in a distant Indiana cornfield.

Calabrese said in his line of work, nobody asked those kinds of questions.

jcoen@tribune.com

Retired Cop Remembers Run-in with Mobsters

Steve Grzanich Reporting

CHICAGO -- Among the observers paying close attention to the “Family Secrets” mob trial in Chicago is retired police officer John J. Flood who boasts about having one of the first law enforcement run-ins with two of the key defendants in the case.

“Joey Lombardo and Frankie Schweihs: in my lifetime and career as a police officer I have been fighting those guys in different matters of law enforcement over those years,” Flood told WBBM’s Steve Grzanich during a recent interview from his home in Las Vegas.

It is the first meeting with Lombardo and Schweihs that Flood remembers best back in 1964 when Sgt. Flood, with the Cook County Sheriff's Police, interrupted Schweihs and Lombardo and thwarted an attempted hit on mob associate Richard Hauff.

“It was happening up on Mannheim Road and Lawrence Avenue at a hotel up there. I came upon it and almost got killed making the arrest,” Flood said.

That was back in the early days for Schweihs and Lombardo, before they hit police radar, said Flood. “I called into Chicago Intelligence and asked who is Frankie Schweihs and they didn’t know. I had to call a knowledgeable Chicago detective who told that’s Phil Alderisio’s bodyguard. He’s a bad guy. Find out who was in the car and who they were going to kill,” said Flood.

While the Family Secrets trial may close the books on 18 mob murders, Flood expects that other mysteries may go unsolved.

“The significant murders that Lombardo would know about would be the murders of Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. They were supposed to testify before the Church Commission on the assassination plot against Fidel Castro but they turned up dead. If Lombardo was talking, which I doubt he ever would because he lives by his code, he could tell you who killed (Jimmy) Hoffa and what happened.”

Will guilty verdicts mean the end of the Chicago outfit?

“Someone will replace Lombardo. All you have to do is look at the fabric of the American system – corporate crime, white collar crime, organized crime. There is no way in the world organized crime people are going to be leaving gambling, going to be leaving pornography, the lending of money, prostitution – it is not going to happen,” Flood said.

According to Flood, the “Family Secrets” trial will likely be the final chapter for the likes of Lombardo and Schweihs. The retired police officer said the trial also brings to a close his own 40 year career as an organized crime fighter.

Flood is the founder of the Combined Counties Police Association, one of the most well-known and respected independent law enforcement unions ever formed in the United States. He is also one of the foremost experts on organized crime and an authority on the Chicago Outfit.

On the web: http://ipsn.org/

Contents of this site are Copyright 2007 by WBBM

CHICAGO - The star witness at the trial of five suspected Chicago underworld figures came under attack Monday from an attorney who accused him of making up his eyewitness account of mobster Tony Spilotro's murder.

"You in fact were not even there," attorney Thomas M. Breen, representing suspected mob boss James Marcello, asked prosecution witness Nicholas Calabrese, who was in his fifth and final day on the stand.

"Yes, I was," shot back Calabrese, whose brother Frank is a defendant.

"You, sir, have no personal knowledge of how the Spilotros met their death," Breen insisted. Calabrese answered: "Yes, I do have knowledge."

The defendants are charged with a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 long-unsolved mob hits including the June 1986 deaths of Michael Spilotro and brother Tony, who was the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino."

Nicholas Calabrese became a government witness in 2002 after his DNA was found on a bloody glove left at the scene of another mob murder.

He testified earlier that Marcello drove him and two other men to a home where the Spilotros were lured into a basement with the promise that Tony would become a "capo" there and Michael a "made guy."

Instead, they were killed. Calabrese said he helped Louie "The Mooch" Eboli strangle Michael Spilotro with a rope around his neck.

Breen tore into the story, claiming Calabrese made it up to please prosecutors and make certain they would not rescind the deal under which he will avoid the death penalty in return for spilling mob secrets.

Breen focused on such details as the witness' claim that he was already wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints when the two doomed brothers entered the suburban basement where they were murdered.

"Did Mike Spilotro say, 'Hey, guys, why is everybody wearing gloves? This looks like a hit.'" Breen asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Breen asked Calabrese what he and Marcello said about the Spilotro slayings when they later found themselves together in the federal correctional center at downstate Pekin. He noted that the bodies were discovered buried in an Indiana cornfield 200 miles from the slaying scene.

"Did you say, 'Jim, you know that double murder we did? Isn't it interesting that the bodies showed up so far away in Indiana?'" he asked.

"You don't ask questions like that," Calabrese said quietly.

Under cross examination, Calabrese also testified that he has long been haunted by the murders he committed, including those of friends.

"It's a lot of weight to carry," he said.

He exploded when Breen suggested he might have enjoyed killing Michael Spilotro and John Fecarotta, a member of his own 26th Street mob crew.

"No, I didn't enjoy it," Calabrese said. "I live with it every day, and you're trying to make it out like I enjoyed killing my friend."

Breen noted that by far the majority of the mobsters Calabrese named as carrying out killings, some dating to the 1970s, already were dead when he gave their names to the FBI. A key exception was brother Frank.

"Your brother, Frank, the man you hate, is on there," Breen said, pointing to a list of suspected killers.

Calabrese testified that he used to hate his brother, but no longer.

Calabrese had testified earlier that his brother was a tough, domineering boss who forced him to commit murder and beat his own son, Frank Calabrese Jr. The son also was a witness for the prosecution.

When not painting Nicholas Calabrese as a liar, Breen tried to get him to boast about his exploits as a hit man for the Chicago Outfit.

"Give yourself some credit, sir, you were pretty good," Breen said.

"As I said," Calabrese retorted, "I was stupid and dumb. It doesn't take much to become a coward and do that."

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/23/ap3943417.html

Mobster sticks to his story
Defendant's brother ends stay on the stand

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
6:29 AM CDT, July 24, 2007
Article Tools
E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: Nicholas Calabrese's final hours on the witness stand in the landmark Family Secrets trial were much like the first -- his face fixed in a frown and turned away from his brother, defendant Frank Calabrese Sr.

To the end, the mob hit man maintained he turned on his brother and his Outfit cohorts out of fear of the death penalty, a desire to possibly see his family again, and to bring out the truth.Under cross-examination for almost the entire day, Calabrese denied that hatred for his brother played a role in his testifying."Hate consumes you," said Calabrese, 64. "I don't have much time left, so I don't hate him anymore."

Asked if that meant he thought he would die soon, Calabrese said, "We all die." .

OUTFIT ETIQUETTE
DO:
--Ask for permission when starting a new criminal racket.
--Always obey your capo (street crew boss).
--Put the Outfit above everything, including family and God.
DON'T:
--Take drugs.
--Steal from the Outfit.
--Talk of the Outfit to anyone outside the organization.
Source: Based on undercover tapes

Family Secrets Trial Exhibits
Calabrese spent his fifth and final day on the stand in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse defending his account of more than a dozen Outfit killings dating back more than three decades. At times he sat slouched in a black sweat shirt, but his back stiffened as he insisted he was telling the truth.

Federal authorities code-named the investigation Operation Family Secrets after Frank Calabrese Sr.'s brother and son agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and tell all. The son, Frank Calabrese Jr., who testified earlier this month, secretly tape-recorded private conversations with his father while the elder Calabrese was in prison in the 1990s for running a violent loan-sharking operation.

On Monday, defense lawyer Thomas Breen paced in front of Nick Calabrese, asking why he had named mostly dead mobsters when he laid blame for the murders.

Breen suggested that Calabrese had sought to make himself more valuable as a prosecution witness by also implicating a few defendants, including his client, reputed mob figure James Marcello.

"I named the people that were there at those murders," Calabrese replied tersely.

As Breen pressed him for specifics about some of the killings, Calabrese said he wasn't testifying beyond what he saw with his own eyes or heard from his brother.

Last week Calabrese testified that Marcello was present at the 1981 murder of Nicholas D'Andrea. Mob leaders who wanted to question D'Andrea about an attempt on the life of an Outfit capo in the south suburbs had inadvertently beaten him to death, Calabrese had said.

Breen contended Calabrese implicated Marcello in the slaying to lend more credence to his account of Marcello becoming a "made" Outfit member at a ceremony in 1983. In order to become a made member, Calabrese had testified, a candidate had to have been involved in at least one killing and have 100-percent Italian heritage.

That prompted Breen to ask Calabrese if he had ever met Marcello's "lovely mother, Mrs. Flynn."

"Mrs. Flynn is as Irish as Paddy's pig, isn't she?" Breen asked.

"I didn't know he was half Irish," said Calabrese, accusing Marcello of lying to mob bosses about his heritage.

"Yeah, somebody's lying," Breen shot back.

Breen later asked whether the secret "made" ceremony was a celebration -- and if there was any corned beef on hand for Marcello, drawing a laugh from the crowded courtroom.

Calabrese also was questioned about the attempted murder of Nicholas Sarillo, who Breen said was a friend of Marcello's. But in the Outfit you can kill a friend, Breen said, noting Calabrese had testified about killing his friend, John Fecarotta.

"You weren't there," said Calabrese, seemingly growing upset. "You're trying to make it sound like I enjoyed this. I killed my friend."

The lawyer and the witness also exchanged jabs over the 1986 murder of businessman Emil Vaci in Arizona. Calabrese testified that he learned Marcello had financed the hit.

Breen mockingly asked when Calabrese had seen a copy of the Outfit newsletter that named Marcello as comptroller.

"Do you have a copy of the newsletter?" retorted Calabrese, the expression on his face unchanged.

Breen also concentrated on the 1986 killings of Anthony and Michael Spilotro. Last week Calabrese testified that Marcello drove him and other members of a hit team to a Bensenville residence, where the Spilotro brothers were beaten and strangled in a basement.

Calabrese said he just learned Monday that a brother of the Spilotros, Patrick Spilotro, had once tried to secretly record him discussing the killings. Calabrese said he had been a patient of Patrick Spilotro, a dentist. Breen reminded Calabrese that he had told Patrick Spilotro he didn't know anything about his brothers' deaths, but Calabrese said he was lying at the time.

"You have told a story about the Spilotros being killed, and you, in fact, were not even there, were you?" Breen asked.

"Yes, I was," Calabrese answered.

Breen asked why, according to Calabrese, Marcello would pick him up at a busy suburban shopping center in a family van to drive to the site of the killings. Calabrese said he was doing what he was told.

Breen also questioned why Sam "Wings" Carlisi, the then-head of the Chicago Outfit, then-mob underboss John DiFronzo and one of its chief moneymakers, Joseph Ferriola, would risk being seen near the murder scene. Calabrese also once told the FBI he thought he had seen mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice there, Breen noted, but that was impossible because Infelice was under surveillance by agents at the time.

Calabrese's account had ended abruptly last week with few details about the Spilotro brothers' final moments. Calabrese said he had his back to Anthony Spilotro as he grabbed Michael Spilotro by the legs and mob boss Louis "the Mooch" Eboli moved in to strangle Michael Spilotro.

Breen said he found it incredible that Calabrese wouldn't know exactly who killed Anthony Spilotro or how the bodies of the brothers wound up in a distant Indiana cornfield.

Calabrese said in his line of work, nobody asked those kinds of questions

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...ack=2&cset=true

Jesus it's hard to keep track of everything thats happening
but it's so interesting im just trying to take it all in.

Defense tries to shoot holes in mob hit man's testimony
FAMILY SECRETS | Attorney suggests star witness wasn't at Spilotro murders

July 24, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter swarmbir@suntimes.com
Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese was under the gun Monday as an attorney for the reputed head of the Chicago mob tried to shoot holes in Calabrese's account of mob murders and a making ceremony.

Calabrese is testifying against reputed Chicago mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and Calabrese's own brother Frank Calabrese Sr. as part of a deal with the feds to avoid the death penalty and possibly life in prison.

Marcello's attorney, Thomas Breen, drilled down into Calabrese's account to try to crack the foundation.

Breen, at times, focused on seemingly small details -- a mobster's ethnic background or whether a killer was wearing gloves.
Nicholas Calabrese has testified that a man has to be fully Italian to be made into the mob, and that he, Frank Calabrese Sr., and Marcello were made into the Outfit in a ceremony in 1983.

The only problem, Breen noted, was that Marcello is half Irish. His mother's maiden name is Irene Flynn.

"Have you met his lovely mother, Mrs. Flynn?" Breen asked. "And Mrs. Flynn is as Irish as Paddy's pig, isn't she?"

Calabrese suggested Marcello and his sponsor, mob boss Sam Carlisi, must have lied about Marcello's background to get him made.

Nicholas Calabrese has implicated Marcello in the murders of the Outfit's man in Las Vegas, Anthony Spilotro, and his brother, Michael. Calabrese said Marcello drove him and other Outfit killers in 1986 to the basement of a Bensenville area home where they waited to pounce on the men.

Breen suggested Calabrese was never at the murder. Breen asked Calabrese if he and other killers were wearing gloves. Calabrese said all the men downstairs were wearing gloves and affirmed his testimony that he came up and shook Michael Spilotro's hand and said hello before he was jumped and strangled to death.

"Did Michael Spilotro say, 'Hey guys, why is everybody wearing gloves, this looks like a hit?' " Breen asked.

Calabrese was a friend and dental patient of Pat Spilotro, one of the murder victims' brothers.

Pat Spilotro visited Nicholas Calabrese in prison and secretly recorded him for the FBI, according to court testimony.

"Nicky, what did my brothers do wrong . . . to deserve what happened to them?" Spilotro asked Calabrese during the prison visit.

"If I knew, I would tell you," Calabrese replied.

Breen suggested Calabrese told the truth in prison and lied on the stand, which Calabrese denied.

In other courtroom testimony, Chicago businessman Victor Cacciatore testified he was a victim of Outfit extortion and went to late 1st Ward Ald. Fred Roti for help. Roti has been identified as a made Outfit member.

Cacciatore testified he paid $200,000 in the early 1980s to the people extorting him and threatening his family.

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Monday: Thomas Breen, an attorney for reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello, tried to shoot holes in the testimony of star witness Nicholas Calabrese, a mob hit man.

Expected Tuesday: Ronald Jarrett Jr., the son of the alleged late Outfit killer who was gunned down in 1999, will take the stand for prosecutors.

Small item raises big questions

July 25, 2007
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
I could just kick myself for missing Monday's installment of the Family Secrets mob trial playing out at the federal building here in Chicago. There's so much that doesn't make the headlines that is every bit as spellbinding as the stuff that does.
No, I'm not talking about who got whacked in 18 old, cold, brutal unsolved mob hits. Or even referring to the riveting testimony of Nicholas Calabrese, the mob hit man and betraying brother of defendant Frank Calabrese Sr., whose deadpan delivery and downcast eyes mesmerized the jury for five days.

What I'm talking about are those little snippets and small moments when the intersection of the Chicago Outfit and this city's powerbrokers and businessmen comes into startling focus.

The high drama of the day dealt with the cross-examination of Calabrese by defense attorneys who sought to undercut his credibility and shore up the fortunes of the five defendants whose prospects of dying outside prison are looking rather dim. But what happened at the end of the day wasn't even mentioned in the Tribune account and only briefly in the Sun-Times, the last paragraphs of which read:

"CHICAGO BUSINESSMAN VICTOR CACCIATORE TESTIFIED HE WAS A VICTIM OF OUTFIT EXTORTION AND . . . PAID $200,000 IN THE EARLY 1980s TO THE PEOPLE EXTORTING HIM AND THREATENING HIS FAMILY."

Victor Cacciatore? The Chicago attorney and real estate developer? Chairman of Lakeside Bank? Member of convicted ex-Gov. George Ryan's transition team? One of the partners of now-indicted Antoin "Tony" Rezko's defunct 62-acre riverfront parcel in the South Loop? Holder of loads of government contracts and political contributor of at least $385,000 since 1995?

Yes, that Victor Cacciatore.

When he took the stand this week at the request of federal prosecutors, it was to buttress what Nick Calabrese had been saying about the Chicago mob. That they will muscle, extort, threaten or kill anybody if they think they can get away with it.

Thank goodness for Sun-Times reporter Steve Warmbir's blog that delved into this small but fascinating aspect of the trial.

Warmbir reports that Cacciatore testified he was being extorted by the mob in the 1980s, though "his memory was fuzzy."

In the 1980s, Cacciatore told the court, somebody put the head of a dog on his son's car and shot out his back windshield. Cacciatore called the cops. Oddly, he refused to tell police at the time who exactly it was who was extorting him to the tune of $5 million. Instead, Cacciatore went to 1st Ward Ald. Fred Roti, someone who had sent a lot of business Cacciatore's way. The extortion demand dropped to a mere $200,000.

Roti, you may recall, went to federal prison in the 1990s on corruption charges. It was revealed that he was a made member of the Chicago mob.

Cacciatore told the court this week that he had some familiarity with mob figures and had lived next door in River Forest to Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, the onetime head of the Outfit. When shown the so-called Last Supper photo of Accardo, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Jackie "The Lacky" Cerone and others, Cacciatore was able identify a number of them.

But on the stand, he still could not identify those extorting him nor did he recall telling investigators years ago that by naming names he'd be signing his own death warrant.

Cacciatore, a civic-minded philanthropist not accused of anything, didn't return my calls Tuesday. But, like the trial itself, he leaves us wanting to know much more.

Small item raises big questions

July 25, 2007
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
I could just kick myself for missing Monday's installment of the Family Secrets mob trial playing out at the federal building here in Chicago. There's so much that doesn't make the headlines that is every bit as spellbinding as the stuff that does.
No, I'm not talking about who got whacked in 18 old, cold, brutal unsolved mob hits. Or even referring to the riveting testimony of Nicholas Calabrese, the mob hit man and betraying brother of defendant Frank Calabrese Sr., whose deadpan delivery and downcast eyes mesmerized the jury for five days.

What I'm talking about are those little snippets and small moments when the intersection of the Chicago Outfit and this city's powerbrokers and businessmen comes into startling focus.

The high drama of the day dealt with the cross-examination of Calabrese by defense attorneys who sought to undercut his credibility and shore up the fortunes of the five defendants whose prospects of dying outside prison are looking rather dim. But what happened at the end of the day wasn't even mentioned in the Tribune account and only briefly in the Sun-Times, the last paragraphs of which read:

"CHICAGO BUSINESSMAN VICTOR CACCIATORE TESTIFIED HE WAS A VICTIM OF OUTFIT EXTORTION AND . . . PAID $200,000 IN THE EARLY 1980s TO THE PEOPLE EXTORTING HIM AND THREATENING HIS FAMILY."

Victor Cacciatore? The Chicago attorney and real estate developer? Chairman of Lakeside Bank? Member of convicted ex-Gov. George Ryan's transition team? One of the partners of now-indicted Antoin "Tony" Rezko's defunct 62-acre riverfront parcel in the South Loop? Holder of loads of government contracts and political contributor of at least $385,000 since 1995?

Yes, that Victor Cacciatore.

When he took the stand this week at the request of federal prosecutors, it was to buttress what Nick Calabrese had been saying about the Chicago mob. That they will muscle, extort, threaten or kill anybody if they think they can get away with it.

Thank goodness for Sun-Times reporter Steve Warmbir's blog that delved into this small but fascinating aspect of the trial.

Warmbir reports that Cacciatore testified he was being extorted by the mob in the 1980s, though "his memory was fuzzy."

In the 1980s, Cacciatore told the court, somebody put the head of a dog on his son's car and shot out his back windshield. Cacciatore called the cops. Oddly, he refused to tell police at the time who exactly it was who was extorting him to the tune of $5 million. Instead, Cacciatore went to 1st Ward Ald. Fred Roti, someone who had sent a lot of business Cacciatore's way. The extortion demand dropped to a mere $200,000.

Roti, you may recall, went to federal prison in the 1990s on corruption charges. It was revealed that he was a made member of the Chicago mob.

Cacciatore told the court this week that he had some familiarity with mob figures and had lived next door in River Forest to Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, the onetime head of the Outfit. When shown the so-called Last Supper photo of Accardo, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Jackie "The Lacky" Cerone and others, Cacciatore was able identify a number of them.

But on the stand, he still could not identify those extorting him nor did he recall telling investigators years ago that by naming names he'd be signing his own death warrant.

Cacciatore, a civic-minded philanthropist not accused of anything, didn't return my calls Tuesday. But, like the trial itself, he leaves us wanting to know much more.

Angelo LaPietra
Led the Extortion?

It's the small moments in the Family Secrets trial that get overshadowed but are often fascinating.

Take the testimony of real estate investor Victor Cacciatore.

Cacciatore's testimony came at the end of a long day filled with the cross-examination of the prosecution's star witness, Nicholas Calabrese.

While Calabrese's testimony will get the headlines, Cacciatore's statements contain some interesting nuggets.

Cacciatore testified about being extorted by the mob during the early 1980s.

His memory was fuzzy in a few places.

But his testimony confirmed the basic account of two other witnesses, the prosecution's star witness, mob killer Nicholas Calabrese, and bookmaker Michael Talarico.

Calabrese testified last week how he was directed by his boss, Angelo LaPietra, to terrorize Cacciatore to get him to cough up some money.

Calabrese said the other main players in the extortion were his brother, reputed Outfit hitman Frank Calabrese Sr., and the late alleged mob killer Ronald Jarrett.

Talarico testified that he was instructed to do some surveillances of Cacciatore at the instruction of LaPietra.

Cacciatore confirmed he was the victim of mob threats, including having the head of a dog placed on his son's car.

Cacciatore had his back windshield shot out and received threatening phone calls.

Cacciatore said he was initially extorted for $5 million and wound up paying $200,000 to get the Outfit off his back.

Cacciatore reported his problems to the police at the time. Reports show that Cacciatore told authorities he knew who was extorting him but would not say because of the danger to him.

On the witness stand on Monday, though, Cacciatore couldn't recall ever knowing the names of his extortionists.

Cacciatore was not unfamiliar with reputed mobsters.

He happened to live next door for a time to top mob boss Anthony Accardo in River Forest.

Cacciatore knew who Jackie Cerone was because he would see Cerone visit Accardo while Cacciatore was mowing his lawn.

Cacciatore also had met Frank "Skid" Caruso because Caruso used Cacciatore as a lawyer to buy some property. The late Caruso was once the leader of the 26th Street/Chinatown crew.

And Cacciatore was well acquainted with Fred Roti, the late Chicago alderman who has been identified as a made member of the mob.

Roti was one of Cacciatore's first clients when Roti was just a humble Streets and Sanitation worker.

Roti referred him a lot of business, Cacciatore testified.

When he was getting extorted, Cacciatore told law enforcement that he went to a house to a middleman of the extortionists to see what could be done about the payment.

He told authorities then that the person frisked him for a wire and told him the original $5 million demand could be decreased to a $1 million.

Cacciatore also told investigators he would be signing his own death warrant if he said who the extortionists were.

On the witness stand Monday, Cacciatore said he didn't recall any of this.

"I recall talking to Fred Roti as to who could do this," Cacciatore said.

"I may have gone to his house," Cacciatore said.

'Casino' didn't need facts to be great
Mob trial shows movie 'adapted' story into its own

July 25, 2007
BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist
"The coppers blamed me for every little thing [in Las Vegas], and I mean every f - - - - - - little thing. If a guy f - - - - - - slipped on a f - - - - - - banana peel, they blamed me."
-- Joe Pesci as "Nicky Santoro" in "Casino," which contains 422 uses of the f-word.

As we learned from testimony in the Family Secrets mob trial last week, Tony "the Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael were not beaten with aluminum baseball bats and buried alive in an Indiana cornfield, as was portrayed in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film "Casino."

According to mob turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, the Spilotros were killed in a basement in suburban Bensenville a little more than 21 years ago -- and then their bodies were dumped in that field in Newton County, Ind.

As Sun-Times ace reporter Steve Warmbir wrote, the movie got the details of the twin killings wrong -- but it's highly unlikely Scorsese would have adhered to a literal re-telling of the tale even if he had known about the Bensenville locale when he made the film.


Adapted from a true story
"Casino" is one of the best films ever made about Las Vegas -- and one of the best films of the 1990s, period. I watched it again on DVD the other night, and I was once again dazzled by Scorsese's amazing camera work, his pitch-perfect use of music -- everything from "Contempt: Theme De Camille" to "Hoochie Coochie Man" to "Nights in White Satin," and his ability to capture great acting from the expected (Robert De Niro, Pesci) and the unexpected (veteran funnyman Alan King is sharp in a supporting role as a Teamsters boss, and Sharon Stone gives the performance of her life in this film).
Though well-reviewed at the time by most critics, "Casino" is probably a bit underrated because of similarities in tone and subject matter to Scorsese's "Goodfellas," perhaps THE best film of the 1990s. Still, "Casino" is a jolting, bloody mob-opera, as well as an expert anthropological examination of Vegas in the transition period between the old-school days and the "Disneyland" era. There's fiercely funny dialogue -- and cringe-inducing violence. It's "Goodfellas" on a bigger, bolder canvas.

It's also a detailed tutorial of how the mob could control the entire operation of a casino, with the "relics" in the Midwest telling the muscle guys and the oddsmakers in Vegas exactly how to run things.

But it's not a documentary, nor is it even a fictional but faithful-to-the-facts procedural. As the opening titles tell us, "Casino" was merely "adapted from a true story." Like hundreds of other movies -- some "adapted," some "based on," some "inspired by" -- it uses elements of the truth as ingredients for creating a fictional, parallel universe.

The details of the Spilotro murders would be just one example of how the movie veers away from the facts. There are literally dozens of others.


When Lefty becomes 'Ace'
Based on the book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi (who also authored Wiseguy, the source material for "Goodfellas"), "Casino" is a sprawling, nearly three-hour, street-level epic that covers the Vegas scene in the 1970s and the 1980s. It begins with a stylized shot of De Niro's Ace Rothstein literally flying through the air after his car explodes upon ignition. Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" accompanies the flames -- and then we transition to Ace overlooking a casino, lighting a cigarette.
"Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a hell of a handicapper," says Ace.

The story is on. But from the jump, "Casino" strays from the actual history.

You start with the names. Everybody gets a new name.

Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal becomes Sam "Ace" Rothstein.

Tony "the Ant" Spilotro becomes Nicky Santoro. His brother Michael is renamed Dominick.

Geraldine McKenna, the beautiful show girl/hustler/addict who became Lefty's wife and reportedly had an affair with Tony Spilotro, is Ginger McGee.

Frank Cullotta is Frankie Marino.

Allen Dorfman, the insurance king and Teamsters lieutenant who was gunned down in the parking lot of the Hyatt Lincolnwood Hotel in 1983, is Andy Stone.

And so on. Even the casino featured in "Casino" is a fictional creation. In real life, Lefty ran a number of casinos. In the movie, Ace runs the Tangiers, loosely based on the Stardust.

More tomorrow.

Top cops took bribes, mobster testifies
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:25 PM CDT, July 25, 2007
Article Tools
E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: A mob informant testified at the Family Secrets trial today how former high-ranking Chicago police officers were on the take, receiving cash payments and new cars from the Outfit.

Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel—a burglar, jewel thief and mob enforcer—testified in Chicago federal court how he came up through organized crime before beginning to cooperate with the government in the mid-1990s.

Siegel, 71, said the mob at one point was paying off William A. Hanhardt, the corrupt Chicago police chief of detectives who was later convicted of operating a nationwide jewelry theft ring. Hanhardt and his partner were getting $1,000 a month from the mob, and a new car every two years, Siegel testified at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

"He told them I would be working for him, and not to bother me," Siegel testified.

Siegel, now in witness protection, was among the informants whose cooperation led to charges against Hanhardt.

Other police officers were on the take as well, Siegel testified, including an officer he said was a leader in the Police Department's vice unit in the late 1960s. Siegel said he watched mobster Angelo Volpe meet the officer, who Siegel did not name, at a restaurant and give the cop "a bag of money."

They then discussed a location that police were about to raid.

"[Volpe] told him that was OK, it wasn't one of ours," Siegel testified.

In earlier testimony today, Siegel said he had been impressed with the Outfit as a teenage thief in the 1950s.

"They made the money, and they didn't go to jail," he said, chuckling. "Most of the police were on the payroll at that time."

Siegel said in his past he burglarized "maybe 100" stores, robbed three or four banks and took part in three murders as an enforcer and collector of juice loans.

He said mobster Frank Teutonico became a father figure to him, schooling him on who was who in the mob, and who needed to be respected.

Among the names that came up, Siegel testified, were Family Secrets defendants Frank Calabrese Sr. and Joey "The Clown" Lombardo.

Siegel's testimony was expected to continue this afternoon.

CHICAGO (AP) - A mobster who spent years in the witness protection program emerged today to testify in Chicago at the trial of 5 alleged underworld figures.

Robert Siegel told jurors that -- when he set out on a life of crime in the 1950s -- mob members rarely went to prison. The 71-year-old admitted stickup man and killer says that's because "most of the police were on the payroll."

Siegel -- whose nickname on the streets of Chicago was "Bobby the Beak" -- described how one officer who rose to become Chicago's chief of detectives got about a thousand dollars every month from the mob.
Cops were on the payroll in the old days, mobster says


Siegel is testifying at the trial of 5 men charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included illegal gambling, loan sharking and 18 mob murders. They've pleaded not-guilty.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=6838747&nav=1sW7

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
9:39 PM CDT, July 25, 2007
Article Tools
E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: His burglar pals had been disappearing one by one, so career thief Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel didn't exactly jump at the opportunity when a mobster offered him a score involving gold coins.

Burglars John Mendell and Buddy Ryan heard the same pitch in early 1978, Siegel said in a deep and scratchy voice, and he had never heard from either one again.

"I didn't have to be too bright to figure out what that was," Siegel testified Wednesday at the Family Secrets trial.



Related Links
In the courtroom Photos
The Chicago Outfit, it turned out, was taking a scorched-earth approach to rooting out the crooks who had burglarized the River Forest home of mob boss Tony Accardo, so Siegel said he went so far as to take a lie-detector test to prove he wasn't involved.

Later, Siegel approached mobster Gerald Scarpelli to ask why his friends had been eliminated and why he had been put on the same list, he told jurors. It had been a warning from the Outfit to burglars, whether they were involved in Accardo's break-in or not, Siegel said he was told.

"They were trying to make it one guy of every nationality," Siegel said he was told by Scarpelli of the hit list. "He said, 'You just happened to be the Jew.' "

Siegel, a tall man with swept-back gray hair and a prominent nose, sat on the witness stand in a light-colored T-shirt with a pair of eyeglasses stuffed in his front pocket. He often gestured with his hands to make a point and offered jurors a bit of a history lesson on Chicago's crime scene from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Now 71 and in the Witness Protection Program, Siegel said he fell into a life of crime on Chicago's West Side after dropping out of school in the 5th or 6th grade. He was 13 or 14, tagging along with friends and stealing "anything we could make a buck with," he said.

By 16, he had graduated to armed robberies, Siegel testified, and he had become aware of the neighborhood's Outfit toughs.

"They made the money, and they didn't go to jail," testified Siegel, chuckling at the memory. "Most of the police were on the [Outfit] payroll at that time."

Over the years, Siegel estimated, he burglarized as many as 100 stores, robbed three or four banks and took part in three murders as an Outfit enforcer and collector of high-interest "juice" loans.

His first link to the mob came from Frank "the Calico Kid" Teutonico, who earned his Wild West nickname by firing a gun into the ceiling before a card game as a warning to would-be cheaters that things would be "on the square," Siegel said. Siegel emphasized the point to jurors by forming his hand into the shape of a gun and raising it above his head.

Siegel told jurors he was a collector for Teutonico, making $400 a week. "If a guy didn't pay the money, I would go out and get a hold of him," he said.

By the late 1960s, Siegel was working for mobster Angelo Volpe, who ran a numbers racket on the South Side, he said. Siegel said he once watched Volpe bribe a Chicago cop who was a boss in the vice unit.

"He gave him a bag of money," Siegel said. The cop then revealed a gambling site that police were about to raid. "[Volpe] told him that was OK, it wasn't one of ours," Siegel testified.

Siegel also alleged that William Hanhardt, a Chicago police officer then in a police intelligence unit, was also on the take. Hanhardt and his partner received $1,000 each month from the mob as well as a new car every two years, Siegel said.

In the mid-1990s, Siegel cooperated against Hanhardt, now serving a 12-year prison term after pleading guilty to running a mob-connected theft ring that stole jewels from traveling salesmen.

Siegel said he met Mendell, the burglar, in 1973 while in federal prison in Minnesota. After both had been released, they teamed up on a few crimes together in Chicago, he said. According to Siegel, Mendell knew "a little bit" about alarms.

Siegel testified he got a call from Mendell in early 1978.

"He called me on the phone and told me he got a call from 'the Little Guy,' " reputed mob hit man Ronnie Jarrett's nickname. Jarrett had told Mendell he had something good for him, Siegel testified, and Mendell had promised to bring Siegel in.

But Siegel never saw him again. Mendell's body turned up in the trunk of his car.

That account would corroborate Nicholas Calabrese, the key government witness in the Family Secrets trial who told jurors last week that Jarrett brought Mendell to a garage where he was killed. Calabrese said his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., one of five defendants on trial, strangled Mendell. Nick Calabrese said he cut his throat.

Siegel told jurors that burglar Buddy Ryan contacted him just after Mendell disappeared and told him Johnny "Bananas" DiFronzo had called him about a job involving gold coins. Ryan called Siegel about joining in, he testified.

"I never heard from him no more neither," Siegel said.

In all, six suspected burglars were killed for burglarizing Accardo's home. But Siegel was spared after he passed a polygraph in which he denied any involvement.

According to a government filing in the case, a witness has told authorities that Mendell admitted to him taking part in the Accardo break-in in order to reclaim gems Mendell had earlier stolen from a jewelry store.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-070725mobtrialjul25,0,7069795.story?coll=chi_features_promo

Daley not the Only One Quiet on City’s Mobsters

By RAY HANANIA


I am always amazed at how the media covers mob trials.

There are so many expert commentators. They all report on the mob like they have been covering them for years.

Actually, some reporters have been covering for them for years.

One reporter was on the payroll of a mobster for years. Every reporter knew but no one said his name, because the mobster was an alderman and committeeman.

No. I’m not talking about Fred Roti, the kindly alderman of the First Ward who was the City Hall representative for the Mob’s political enforcer, John D’Arco Sr.

When I first arrived at City Hall in 1976, as a freelance writer doing my first interview with the first Mayor Daley, “da Boss,” to the time I left in 1992, it was obvious that many reporters knew a lot more about the Chicago mob than they let on.

The only time we write about them is when one of them decides to squeal, or is brought before a court.

And then the reporters, hypocritically, pontificate about the ills of the Chicago Outfit, the Mafia, la Cosa Nostra.

Hypocrites because all of the reporters, including me, knew which ones were the mobsters and which ones weren’t.

We knew which powerful aldermen and committeemen were the lackeys of the Chicago mob, and who were their attorneys, too.

Yet, we never exposed them. These mobsters walked into the Chicago City Hall Press Room all the time. They attended meetings of the Chicago Democratic Organization, all the time.

They buddied up to even the Republicans out in DuPage County and stood next to Cook County State’s Attorneys.

When I left newspapering for a brief sabbatical into the dark and seamy world of Chicago politics as a consultant, some of my clients were, in fact, mobsters. The most notorious were those in the Town of Cicero.

I was always amazed at how reporters called Betty Loren-Maltese asking for favors on one hand, and, maybe not getting them, sat back while their newspapers pummeled her in their coverage on the other.

I’m not defending the incarcerated mob heiress and vicious Town President who relished in destroying lives and careers and lying. She deserves her prison sentence and far more.

But let’s not pretend that the news media in Chicago isn’t cozy with the mob or that just Mayor Richard M. Daley is afraid to talk about the topic.

The mobsters have been crawling around Chicago City Hall, and Democratic and Republican politics in Illinois, for generations and we only address it when it becomes the headline and can’t avoid writing about it.

I won’t spill any beans. Why should I be any different? The Chicago news media doesn’t care and I doubt that most Chicagoans really care either.

We know they are there. We voters elect them to office. And we elect their political pals, cronies, lackeys and funders to government office, too.

So, as we listen to the sordid and grisly tales offered by Nicholas Calabrese in the highly touted “Family Secrets” mob trial now taking place and filling our front page headlines and columns and the TV reports of overly tanned and hyped up TV reporters, remember, the mob is there because we all allow them to be there.

I wonder if Chicago politics depends on them being there

http://www.swnewsherald.com/news_inside/2007/07/072607cs_rh_mob.php

Tootsie Babe, Part II
The son of reputed Outfit killer Ronald Jarrett brought Frank "Tootsie Babe" Caruso back into focus again at the Family Secrets trial this week.

The younger Ronald Jarrett, who shares his father's name, explained to jurors that after his father was gunned down in 1999 in a mob hit, the younger Jarrett worked with Nick Ferriola, the son of top mobster Joseph Ferriola, to run a bookmaking operation.

Nick Ferriola explained to Jarrett that Frank Calabrese Sr. had said there were certain people you could trust in the Bridgeport/Chinatown neighborhood.

One of those people was Frank "Tootsie Babe" Caruso, according to trial testimony.

The elder Caruso also made the trial this week when real estate businessman and lawyer Victor Cacciatore explained Frank "Skid" Caruso, the father of "Tootsie Babe" was his client on some real estate deals

http://blogs.suntimes.com/mob/2007/07/tootsie_babe_part_ii.html

Master thief tells how he survived Outfit vendetta
MOB'S MESSAGE | Burglars slain after break-in at Accardo's

July 26, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter
First one burglar, then another, told their friend, master thief Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel, the same story: They had just been told about a great score and were going to a meeting to learn more.

Then they were never heard from again.

First, Siegel heard from John Mendell, who was going out to meet reputed Outfit killer and thief Ronald Jarrett.

Siegel passed on the meeting, and Mendell wound up in a car trunk.

'I knew I was on the list'
Next, Siegel heard from Bernard "Buddy" Ryan, who told him mob boss John DiFronzo had told him about a score with gold coins.
Ryan was found shot to death in Stone Park.

Then Siegel got a call from a man he knew, but not well, telling him about a great score -- involving gold coins.

"That's when I knew I was on that list," Siegel told jurors Wednesday in the Family Secrets trial.

It was a list of burglars to be killed to send a message about breaking into the home of mob boss Anthony Accardo in the late 1970s.


Took polygraph test
Siegel, 71, who is in witness protection, told jurors he originally believed the Outfit furor was over burglarizing a jewelry store owned by a friend of Accardo's.
As burglars he knew were getting murdered, Siegel took a polygraph test to show he had nothing to do with that burglary. Siegel passed the test, sent the results to the mob through attorneys, and survived.

Only later, Siegel testified, he learned from his friend, mobster Gerald Scarpelli, that the Outfit was killing burglars, not even ones necessarily involved in the Accardo break-in, to send a message. Scarpelli told Siegel, "There was a message they were trying to get out, but it didn't turn out the way they wanted."

The Outfit wanted to kill one burglar of every nationality, Scarpelli told him.

"You just happened to be the Jew," Scarpelli told Siegel.


Admitted 3 murders
Earlier in the trial, Siegel described how his mob boss in the 1960s, Angelo Volpe, the head of the South Side numbers racket, bribed top Chicago cop William Hanhardt to look the other way. Hanhardt got $1,000 to $1,200 a month and a new car every two years, Siegel said.
Hanhardt's attorney, Jeff Steinback, declined to comment. Hanhardt was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison in 2002 for running a nationwide jewelry theft ring.

Siegel began working with investigators in the mid-1990s after he was convicted in a series of jewelry store robberies. In a deal with prosecutors, he admitted killing three people for the mob, including an informant for the federal government, but was never tried for murder.

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Wednesday: Master thief Robert Siegel told jurors how he survived an Outfit effort to kill a slew of burglars to send a message about breaking into a mob boss' home.

Expected today: Ernest Severino, who worked for the late reputed Outfit killer William "Butch" Petrocelli, will testify about circumstances surrounding Petrocelli's murder.

Are you still recording all the news from the trial DN?

CHICAGO: As both a gun dealer and an undertaker, Ernie Severino was positioned to serve the Chicago mob in various ways.

The soft-spoken 60-year-old testified Thursday in the trial of five reputed mobsters that he supplied his friend, William "Butchie" Petrocelli, the leader of a gang called "The Wild Bunch," with up to 100 guns for free. He was hazier about what happened when Petrocelli asked about using his funeral parlor's crematorium.

Then, just after Christmas in 1980, Petrocelli vanished. Some of the toughest men in the Chicago underworld came to Severino, telling him to turn over bank documents and other items he kept for Petrocelli. He was reluctant, afraid Petrocelli would come back for revenge.

"No, he's not coming back," Severino said Gerry Scarpelli told him.

Scarpelli went on to say that mob bosses told him he was taking over Petrocelli's gang, Severino said, and the bosses told Scarpelli: "You can go in the next room and take care of the garbage if you want to."

Calabrese's brother, Nicholas Calabrese, the government's star witness, testified earlier that mob bosses turned against Petrocelli because he was too flamboyant. Nicholas Calabrese became a government witness in 2002 after his DNA was found on a bloody glove left at the scene of another mob murder.

The underworld bosses resented the glittering Christmas party Petrocelli threw at a Gold Coast hotel and his boasting that some day he would be the boss of the Chicago Outfit, as the city's mob family calls itself, Nicholas Calabrese said.

Severino said that when the mobsters asked him where Petrocelli's money and other possessions were stored, he told them everything.

"They don't ask unless they already know the answer," he said.

In testimony about another killing, retired security consultant Fred Pavlich said Thursday that the head of a cooperative association specializing in shipping fruits and vegetables was delivering cash to mob figures before he was killed by a car bomb.

Pavlich said he accompanied Michael Cagnoni when he delivered cash to Cicero-based Flash Trucking, which made most of his local deliveries.

Pavlich said he resigned as head of security for the shipping cooperative the day after he received a threatening phone call that persuaded him it was time for him to step aside. The caller did not mention Cagnoni, but weeks later, Cagnoni died when the bomb erupted under the seat of his Mercedes on June 24, 1981.

Prosecutors say Frank Calabrese was responsible for the Cagnoni murder. On the stand, Nicholas Calabrese described how the bomb was planted in Cagnoni's car and detonated by an automatic radio-controlled device.

Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez asked Pavlich if Cagnoni had been paying the money in hopes that it would head off labor union problems. Pavlich said he understood that was part of the reason.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/27/america/NA-GEN-US-Mafia-Trial.php

yes

'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.

------------

jcoen@tribune.com

BY CHRISTY GUTOWSKI
DAILY HERALD LEGAL AFFAIRS WRITER
Posted Saturday, July 28, 2007



After learning his mobster brothers planned to kill him, the stocky bank robber figured his only way out alive was to turn FBI informant.

So, for 16 months, the self-professed soldier secretly recorded 186 conversations with his Chicago Outfit associates. He also detailed about 40 unsolved mob murders.

It was during one of those chats that FBI agent Jack O'Rourke said his informant nonchalantly mentioned a mob graveyard in southeast DuPage County near the former home of syndicate enforcer Joseph "Jerry" Scalise, imprisoned at the time for a London jewelry heist.

"What are you talking about?" O'Rourke, now a private consultant, recalls asking. "He said it was common knowledge."

For five months, an elite FBI-led task force excavated 8æacres near Route 83 and Bluff Road, near Darien. They found bodies of two low-level wise guys before calling it quits in October 1988.


A tip led an FBI-led task force to excavate a site near Darien for the victims of mob hits, not far from the former home, above, of mob enforcer Joseph “Jerry” Scalise. (BRIAN LOEB/bloeb@dailyherald.com)


Nearly 20 years later, the group's early intelligence work remains significant.

It laid part of the foundation for the Family Secrets trial under way in Chicago in which five defendants are accused of racketeering conspiracy in an indictment that outlines 18 murders, gambling and extortion.

A construction crew also resurrected the field's ominous past in March 2007 after unearthing a third body just north of the site.

It's unknown if more vanquished mobsters remain there undiscovered. A fabled 45-carat gem known as the Marlborough diamond that Scalise stole also was never found. Some theorize he hid it on his property.

And, finally, just who is the turncoat who led FBI agents long ago to the burial site?

'No way out'

For decades, Chicago gambling kingpin Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto was a loyal soldier.

That changed in February 1983 when he survived three gunshots in a botched hit.

Eto played possum, and later turned informant. His would-be killers were later found dead in a trunk in Naperville - the price for not getting the job done right.

Eto proved to be a valued government witness before his Jan. 23, 2004 death, but he was not the one who led authorities to the graveyard.

His attempted assassination, though, in part sparked the formation of the organized crime task force of FBI, Chicago, state and local officials in the mid-1980s to curb such mob violence.

An early goal was to bring down the crime family or "crew" of mob boss Joseph Ferriola of Oak Brook, who operated lucrative gambling rackets from Cicero to Lake County until his 1989 death.

Members of the task force said they focused on Gerald Scarpelli, who along with Scalise, known as Whiterhand because he was born minus four fingers, were Ferriola's busiest hitmen.

About this time, another mob guy started getting cold feet. O'Rourke identified him as James Peter Basile, a convicted Chicago bank robber best known as "Duke."

Basile already had the FBI zeroing in on him for a 1983 race track robbery in Crete. So, after he also learned Scarpelli, his longtime associate, was planning to kill him, Basile realized he had no other choice but to break the mob's code of silence.

For 16 months, he helped the FBI listen in on his chats with Scarpelli and other associates before serving a few years in prison for the race track robbery and slipping into a witness protection program in the early 1990s.

Basile re-emerged briefly in June 1996 at a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing.

"I finally decided to do something because it seemed there was no way out," he testified. "I began informing on the mob."

It was during one of his recordings of Scarpelli that the FBI first learned of the DuPage County graveyard. Basile later took them to the site, near Scalise's former home. The FBI heard there could be as many as seven bodies buried in the field.

A Dick Tracy jaw

It was painstaking work.

For five months, task force members traded in suits, badges and guns for jeans, chain saws and shovels.

They dug up acres of soil, trees and drained a pond. Members hand sifted truckloads of dirt through mesh screens for trace evidence.

"We were meticulous," said Jerry Buten, a retired 30-year FBI supervisor. "This was way before CSI, but we knew the way you solve most major crimes was through physical evidence."

Authorities speculated the field held victims of the infamous chop shop wars of the 1970s, when the mob seized control of the stolen auto-parts trade and wiped out uncooperative dealers.

State police stood guard 24 hours a day. Large canopies were erected to block circling media helicopters. But they weren't the only pests.

"I gave an order that anyone who came in was given a pair of work gloves because I got tired of all the suits showing up just to look at us," former DuPage Coroner Richard Ballinger said. "We'd spend 12 hours out there, come back to the office to do more work and sleep, then go back out the next morning."

On May 16, 1988, members unearthed the first skeletal remains. On June 9, a second shallow grave was found. Both men were shot to death.

Authorities brought in experts from across the country, from archaeologists to soil scientists, including top forensic anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow of Oklahoma.

Snow had identified the remains of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in Brazil and some victims of John Wayne Gacy and the 1979 American Airlines crash near O'Hare.

Using dental records and facial reconstruction, Snow relied mostly on computerized skull-face superimposition to identify the corpses.

The second body, buried in a ski mask and with a cache of pornographic materials, was that of Michael S. Oliver, 29, a Chicago machinist who vanished November 1979.

In the FBI recordings, Scarpelli is heard saying that Oliver was a minor hoodlum shot during a syndicate raid on an independent porn shop near Elk Grove Village.

Not sure how to dump the body, in a scene similar to that in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas," his underworld pals talked over a bite to eat as the corpse sat in the trunk.

It took more than one year to identify remains in the first grave as Robert "Bobbie" Hatridge, a 56-year-old Cincinnati man with a distinctive Dick Tracy square jaw, flat feet and a flair for fashion.

The FBI said his girlfriend later told agents that Hatridge came to Chicago in April 1979 to meet with Scalise and Scarpelli about a big robbery.

He never made it home.

Making history

Basile's graveyard tip was considered one of the task force's first big scoops. Nearly 20 years later, its intelligence work reverberates still.

The secret tapes Basile made led to Scarpelli's arrest in July 1988. He killed himself a year later, but not before making a 500-page confession that exposed many mob secrets. He also admitted to 10 murders, including some in the Family Secrets trial.

The task force also made history with another big bust. It brought down Ferriola's nephew, Harry Aleman, for killing a union steward in 1977. He was acquitted, then retried and convicted.

Aleman, 68, and still in prison, is the only person tried twice for the same crime. Double jeopardy was discarded after it was learned his first judge took a bribe.

"The entire (Ferriola) crew was prosecuted as a result of the task force," Buten said. "It marked the beginning of the Chicago Outfit's end."

The mob graveyard made news again in March when crews building townhouses unearthed a third body several blocks north of the field near 91st Street.

The remains were identified as Robert Charles Cruz of Kildeer, who vanished Dec. 4, 1997. Cruz, who was Aleman's cousin, had been on Arizona's death row just two years earlier until his conviction for a 1980 double murder was overturned.

The discovery of his body begs the question - Could more graves be found there?

Members searched far and wide, with one exception. At the time, a large drug rehab facility was being built there. Many wonder if beneath its foundation lie the bodies of more hoodlums.

It's possible, task force members say, but unlikely. The bodies were unearthed in shallow graves less than 5 feet deep. They argue crews dug deeper when laying the foundation and probably would have found more graves if they existed.

Also still missing is the fabled $960,000 Marlborough diamond that Scalise stole during a 1980 London jewelry store heist. It was once owned by Sir Winston Churchill's cousin, the duchess of Marlborough.

Years ago, O'Rourke visited Scalise in his cell on England's Isle of Wight - the British version of Alcatraz - where he was imprisoned for the jewelry heist.

"Scalise would do a lot of talking but never say anything," O'Rourke said. "Informants told us he shipped it to Chicago, where it was broken up and sold."

Scalise, 69, has kept a low profile since returning to the Chicago area after finishing an Arizona prison stint on drug charges. But, long ago, he was rumored to be working on his memoirs.

So far, though, he has upheld the mob's code of silence.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=335452

Brothers on opposite sides of defendant
FAMILY SECRETS | 1 testifies against him, 2nd advises him

July 30, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter swarmbir@suntimes.com
In the Family Secrets mob trial in Chicago, a brother has testified against a brother, and a son has testified against a father.

But in recent days, the trial has revealed another family twist.

Bookmaker Michael Talarico took the stand against Frank Calabrese Sr., who ran the street crew that made Talarico pay a "street tax."

Days later, another Talarico family member -- civil attorney Al Talarico, Michael's brother -- entered the courtroom and promptly sat a few feet away from Calabrese Sr. He sat on a courtroom bench and started taking notes, whispering comments to Calabrese Sr.

Al Talarico even wanted to enter the case officially on Calabrese Sr.'s behalf, but Judge James Zagel denied his request.

Calabrese Sr. already has one lawyer, defense attorney Joseph "The Shark" Lopez.

Lopez, normally a font of quotes for inquiring reporters, declined to comment on Al Talarico's appearance. Lopez cited a gag order the judge has imposed.

Lopez, though, appears to have grown increasingly irritated by Talarico's presence. Lopez now has his client and Talarico whispering advice to him at trial.

Calabrese Sr. may need all the help he can get. He is accused of murdering 13 people for the mob. His brother, alleged Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese, and his eldest son have testified against him.

Michael and Al Talarico are nephews of the late mob boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra, a brutal killer who ran the 26th Street/Chinatown crew to which Calabrese Sr. belonged.

Al Talarico could not be reached for comment Friday. He has done civil work for the Calabrese family involving real estate, records show.

One deal involved a home that the feds contended Calabrese Sr. stole from a man who owed him thousands of dollars in juice loans.

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL

U.S. tries to fill in 'Secrets' trial gaps
Prosecutors focus outside Chicago

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
July 31, 2007

Visiting his friend Paul Schiro in prison in 2003, longtime burglar Richard Cleary mentioned he had heard that the federal government was talking to an invaluable informant in Chicago.

A man named Nicholas Calabrese was telling them "where all the bodies are buried," Cleary said he told Schiro, asking if that was a problem.

"[Schiro] said, 'Yes, he could put me away forever,'" Cleary testified Monday at the Family Secrets trial at Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.



The testimony came as federal prosecutors shifted the focus of the sweeping conspiracy case from Outfit business in Chicago to its influence in Las Vegas and Phoenix in an attempt to fill in gaps for the jury, which has been hearing evidence for more than a month.

Some of Monday's testimony covered the background behind the slaying of Emil Vaci in Arizona. In his testimony two weeks ago, Calabrese said he shot Vaci for the mob with the help of Schiro, known as "the Indian," who is among the five defendants on trial.

Testimony also touched on a skimming case at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas at the time Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro was running Outfit interests there. Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, another Family Secrets defendant, would later be convicted in that case.

The gray-haired Cleary testified in a quiet voice, donning eyeglasses during his time on the stand. He was indicted in the 1980s along with Spilotro and his brother, Michael, as part of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, an infamous Las Vegas burglary ring, he said.

He saw Anthony Spilotro and sometimes met with Schiro at the Arizona Manor, Cleary said, a hotel and restaurant where Vaci was the general manager. Vaci also ran a tour company that shuttled gamblers from Phoenix to the Stardust, where he worked for a time as a pit boss.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Rick Halprin asked Cleary about his testimony that Schiro once told him his Outfit boss was Joey Lombardo. Cleary acknowledged he had no firsthand information.

The day's testimony began with witness Dennis Gomes, a former investigator for the Nevada Gaming Control Board whose work unveiled the Stardust skimming case.

In 1975, Gomes told the jury, he began to focus on properties run by Argent Corp. and its casinos, which were known to have been funded by loans from the mob-dominated Central States Pension Fund of the Teamsters.

A man named Jay Vandermark had been hired to manage slot machines.

"It was sort of like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop," Gomes said.

Casinos convert coins to cash based on their weight, not by counting them, Gomes said. If the scales could be rigged to undercount the coins, he said there would be leftover cash that could be taken undetected.

Gomes and his agents found that $7 million had been taken in just that way, he said, and Vandermark would never be seen again.

L.J. O'Neale, a deputy district attorney in Nevada, testified that he investigated the Vandermark disappearance in 1986. O'Neale said he had reason to believe that the people who thought they were controlling the skimming operation understood the take was $4 million. He said the $3 million discrepancy may have contributed to Vandermark's disappearance.

Vandermark was last known to have been at Vaci's Arizona Manor, witnesses testified, and O'Neale said he called Vaci into the grand jury in early 1986. Calabrese would shoot him in the head months later, according to testimony.

----------

jcoen@tribune.com