Reputed mobster shows his soft side
Calabrese denies roles in mob deaths
Courtroom sketch for the Tribune by Cheryl A. Cook, August 16, 2007
Family Secrets defendant Frank Calabrese Sr. testifies at his federal trial in Chicago.
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
11:17 PM CDT, August 16, 2007
Frank Calabrese Sr., a reputed mob enforcer alleged to have fatally strangled, slashed, shot, beaten or bombed 13 victims, seemed more like a polite, chubby grandpa than a hit man in court Thursday.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Calabrese volunteered as he gave a slight nod in the jurors' direction before taking a seat on the witness stand and aiming his good ear toward his lawyer.
During a couple of hours of testimony, the balding 70-year-old with a short white beard described a gentler Outfit than others have at the Family Secrets trial, though Calabrese emphatically denied being a made member himself. He said he detested bullies like the ones who picked on him in school and he repeatedly gave the same simple reply to questions about whether he took part in specific murders: "No way," he said.
Calabrese acknowledged he put out street loans and that he paid a mob boss some of the proceeds, but he denied dishing out beatings to customers who didn't pay up in a timely fashion.
"I would sit and talk to them and ask, 'What's the least you can pay or what's the most you can pay?' " Calabrese said in a voice higher than expected for a supposed tough guy. "Sit-downs" with bosses would resolve any disputes over territory, he said, but profanity was frowned on at these meetings. "Oh no," Calabrese said. "It was all done diplomatically."
Calabrese's appearance on the witness stand marked that rare event: a reputed mob boss testifying in court in his own defense. Incredibly, he was the second one this week at the landmark trial, following Joey "the Clown" Lombardo by a day.
Five men, all but one reputed to be Outfit figures, are on trial in connection with 18 long-unsolved gangland slayings. Federal authorities code-named the investigation Operation Family Secrets after obtaining cooperation from Calabrese's brother and son.
During the prosecution case, Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, detailed how Frank Calabrese allegedly strangled many of his alleged 13 victims with a rope and then slashed their throats. Many of the bodies were stuffed into car trunks. In addition, Frank Calabrese's son, Frank Jr., testified about prison conversations he secretly recorded with his father.
Prosecutors have called Frank Calabrese Sr. a leader of the mob's 26th Street, or Chinatown, crew. During his testimony, Calabrese often looked toward the jury, the people who ultimately must decide if the Calabrese on the witness stand was believable or simply trying to put on a convincing show in a last-ditch attempt to save himself from dying in prison.
Calabrese told jurors his personal story, how he grew up on the West Side and sold newspapers on Grand Avenue and ate oatmeal for dinner when times were hard. But prosecutors seemed determined to block as many of those sympathetic tales as possible, repeatedly objecting as Calabrese testified.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel warned Calabrese's lawyer, Joseph Lopez, to keep his client from going into too much detail.
"How are these people supposed to know what I'm doing?" protested Calabrese, looking toward the jury again.
Lopez, who has taken to wearing pink on trial days that are important to Calabrese's case, chose a pink shirt and a highlighter-yellow tie Thursday. He tried to calm Calabrese and walk him through his testimony.
But Calabrese quickly veered off target when he started discussing a favorite nightclub and its fashion shows. Lopez said Calabrese loves to talk and blamed his Italian ethnicity, but Zagel told the lawyer he was running low on the number of open questions he would be allowed to ask.
"Can I have some extra ones, maybe?" Lopez asked.
"We'll see how it goes," the judge responded.
When he finally got into the meat of his testimony, Calabrese, who pleaded guilty in the 1990s in a mob loan-sharking case, acknowledged he put loans on the street beginning in the 1960s.
Eventually he learned from mobster Angelo "the Bull" LaPietra that he had missed one detail—paying LaPietra his cut of the action.
Calabrese described LaPietra as his partner, but he insisted he never joined him in the Outfit.
He went on to describe his meetings and dealings with organized-crime figures such as Johnny "Apes" Monteleone, Jimmy LaPietra, James "Turk" Torello, William "Butch" Petrocelli and John Fecarotta.
Calabrese said his interests shifted to the Chinatown area after the death of Frank "Skids" Caruso resulted in Angelo LaPietra assuming control over that turf. Still, he denied being in the mob himself.
"Joe, Mr. Lopez, I'm sorry," he began. "When they said Outfit, they're talking about guys like Angelo and Jimmy and Johnny 'Apes' and John Fecarotta. Them are Outfit guys," said Calabrese, calling the Outfit a group that hung out and did business together.
Calabrese, who was implicated by his brother in the 1970 murder of Michael "Hambone" Albergo, called Albergo a freelance agent who brought him loan business.
Calabrese testified he knew Albergo had been subpoenaed to testify before a crime commission, but he denied killing him.
"What did I do that he could testify [about]?" Calabrese said. "There was no way that them loans meant that much."
Calabrese denied ever getting involved in sports bookmaking, telling jurors that he didn't even know how to run a betting ring. Calabrese then launched into denials of murdering Paul Haggerty or burglar John Mendell. He said he hadn't even heard of another murder victim, Henry Cosentino.
He denied killing Donald Renno, Vincent Moretti or Petrocelli, a mob figure whom Nick Calabrese said was ordered eliminated for being too flamboyant.
He said he didn't kill federal informant William Dauber and his wife, Charlotte, either. Neither did he plan the murder of Fecarotta, his friend, the murder that broke the case when Nick Calabrese's DNA was found on a glove that had been recovered at the murder scene.
Calabrese said he also did not kill businessman Michael Cagnoni with bomb, as his brother testified. He also denied his brother's account of how a blasting cap exploded in his hand during a trial run for the bombing. And with that, he held his hands over his head and wiggled his fingers for the jury to see he had no missing digits.
Calabrese also denied extorting James Stolfe, the founder of the Connie's Pizza chain, who told jurors he paid street tax to Calabrese for years. Calabrese said Stolfe was a friend that he "loved."
Lopez asked what he felt like when he learned that the Outfit was demanding a payment from Stolfe. "A piece of [expletive]," Calabrese answered.
When the trial resumes Monday, Calabrese will continue testifying and will eventually undergo grilling by prosecutors who will likely try to use his own words against him, as they did with Lombardo. On the secret tapes recorded by son Frank Jr. during prison visits, Calabrese Sr. talked about mob business, murders and a secret "making" ceremony. Calabrese may also have harsher words for his turncoat brother who broke the Family Secrets case.
He told jurors Thursday that it was Nick Calabrese who took the darker path into Outfit life.
"I even told him he wasn't a man to do that," Calabrese Sr. said.
jcoen@tribune.com
