'He could put me away forever'
MOB TRIAL | Man testifies that defendant feared star witness flipping for feds

July 31, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter
When prolific burglar Richard Cleary visited his longtime friend Paul "The Indian" Schiro in prison in December 2003, Cleary told him the hot news: Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese had flipped for the feds.

"I asked, 'Do you know him?'" Cleary recalled Monday in his testimony in the Family Secrets trial.

"Yes," Schiro replied, according to Cleary.

"I asked him, 'Could he hurt you?'" Cleary testified.
Schiro said, "Yes, he could put me away forever," Cleary told jurors.

Cleary's testimony came Monday as prosecutors presented evidence to focus on Schiro, one of the defendants in the Family Secrets mob case, and his alleged role in Arizona for the Chicago Outfit.


Murders tied to casino skim
Mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese has already testified against Schiro, saying they both took part in the murder of Emil Vaci in Arizona in June 1986 after Vaci had testified before a grand jury in Las Vegas.
That grand jury was investigating the disappearance and presumed murder of slot-skimmer George Jay Vandermark. Trial testimony suggested on Monday that the Chicago Outfit would have had a great interest in Vandermark, who oversaw the mob-run skim at the slots at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas.

The mob got $4 million in one year from the skim. But authorities estimated the real skim was $7 million, with the mob getting shorted $3 million.

The grand jury was interested in Vaci, in part, because he ran an Arizona hotel where Vandermark hid out.

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Monday: Burglar Richard Cleary told jurors more details on Paul "The Indian" Schiro, an alleged Chicago mob killer living in Arizona.

Expected Wednesday: (No trial Tuesday) Jurors will hear more testimony on the murders of the Spilotro brothers in 1986.

The Spilotro story ...

July 31, 2007
BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist
It is the stuff of novels: a dentist on the trail of his brothers' killers who learns to extract more than teeth.

When Patrick Spilotro, 70, takes the stand this week in the federal "Family Secrets" mob trial, the gruesome odyssey of a brother thirsty for justice will unfold with a few shocking surprises.

In an interview last week, Spilotro detailed his obsession with bringing his brothers' killers to justice.

Spilotro told Sneed: "I promised my mother 21 years ago I would find the men who did it; who butchered my brothers and tortured her sons. We talked about it before she died in 1995. You never get over something like that. But I told her I would never give up."
Sneed is told mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, who was hiding in Chicago in hopes of not becoming part of the "Family Secrets" trial, was captured as a result of a visit to Spilotro's office for dental problems. A tooth abscess led the feds to the flamboyant mobster.

The story of how Spilotro, a suburban dentist, helped break the backbone of the old Chicago mob syndicate is the detritus of two decades spent searching for 12 men who beat and strangled his brothers, reputed mobsters Tony and Michael Spilotro. The menburied them in an unmarked grave in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.

It was the flipping of mobster Nick Calabrese and his nephew, Frank Calabrese Jr., that cracked the "Family Secrets" case. And it was Spilotro, who began working with the feds 21 years ago, who helped them do it.

Secretly taping Nick Calabrese while in prison for extortion, Spilotro primed the pump of redemption with the help of his dental patient, Nick's wife, Nora.

And it was Spilotro who tracked down Frank "The German" Schweihs, a reputed mob killer, in his Kentucky lair by tracing multiple cell phones used by Schweihs' son, Sneed hears.

Many of these men and their wives and kids and grandparents were patients of Spilotro over a 35-year span.

Spilotro did not know Calabrese was one of his brothers' murderers, and told Sneed that it would have been impossible for him to talk to Calabrese had he known.

Spilotro's intention was to get Calabrese to tell him what happened that night when a mobster named James Marcello, described in 2005 as the boss of the Chicago outfit, allegedly called Michael Spilotro's home and summoned him to the meeting that led to his death. Michael's daughter, Michelle, will reportedly testify that it was Marcello's voice she heard on the phone that night.

It was the flipping of Nick Calabrese that broke the case. But during Spilotro's meeting with the underworld kingpin, Spilotro discovered Calabrese hated his brother, Frank, whom he considered a dangerous psychopath. Spilotro also told the feds Frank Calabrese's son, Frank Jr., hated his father; important information for the feds to build a scenario to subsequently flip them, sources said.

Armed with Spilotro's information, and subsequent DNA evidence linking Calabrese to a mob hit, the feds were able to flip Calabrese -- whose wife, Nora, had urged him to cooperate.

Spilotro never knew of Nick Calabrese's involvement in his brothers' demise.

"They never told him that they did it," a source said.

"But there's no honor amongst these men," said Spilotro. "No respect. They are all a different breed. Money and power are their gods, nothing else."

Wow would tony want his brother to testify though?

Witness: Mobsters not buried alive
Forensic pathologist testifies in Family Secrets trial

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:17 PM CDT, August 1, 2007
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E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: Unlike the Hollywood version of the mob murders of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, the brothers were not beaten with bats and buried alive, according to a forensic pathologist who took part in their autopsies.

Both suffered massive blunt-force injuries, consistent with being beaten with fists and kicked, Dr. John Pless testified today at the Family Secrets trial at Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Both also showed signs that a rope had been placed around their necks, he said.

Pless said the bodies had been in the ground at least a week and were "moderately decomposed" when he and a colleague studied them at the Indiana University Medical Center on June 23, 1986.

"The bodies were still covered with sand from their removal from the cornfield," Pless said, adding that the bodies were clad only in undershorts.

Michael Spilotro had neck fractures and his nose was broken, Pless said. He bled so much into his chest that asphyxia was a factor in his death, Pless said.

The skin was not broken, he testified, leading him to believe that no object with mass—such as a baseball bat—was used in the beating.

Anthony Spilotro also suffered blunt-force injuries, and it was noted that he had severe heart disease. "All of these things compounding to produce death," he said.

Pless said he could not determine how many assailants took part in the attack.

Long the stuff of mob and Hollywood legend, the brothers' murders were depicted in the movie "Casino," which was based on Anthony Spilotro's role as the Chicago Outfit overseer in Las Vegas. But the movie got the murders wrong, according to Family Secrets testimony.

The movie showed the Spilotros beaten with bats in the same cornfield in which the bodies were discovered. But star witness Nicholas Calabrese testified last month that after the original plot to kill the Spilotros with explosives in Vegas fell through, mob bosses lured the brothers to a meeting near suburban Bensenville on June 14, 1986, with promises of promotions, and then beat and strangled them.

Calabrese testified that he saw a rope put around Michael Spilotro's neck as he tackled him in a Bensenville basement along with a hit team.

Today, Pless said he did not note that any sand or debris was in the upper airway of either man, as has sometimes been included in versions of the deaths.

"No, there was no evidence of that," Pless said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars made the point again by asking if there was any indication that the men were buried alive. "That's correct," Pless said.

During cross-examination, defense lawyer Thomas Breen asked about the cause of the death of Michael Spilotro.

"Is it fair to say he was just beaten to death?" Breen asked.

"Yes," Pless said.

"By fists and perhaps feet?" the lawyer asked.

"Yes," was the answer.

Asphyxia was a factor in Anthony Spilotro's death, but it was caused by blood in his airway and not strangulation, Pless said.

Under cross-examination, Pless acknowledged it was "possible" that the Spilotros could still have been alive at the time of their burial, but when Mars asked him about it again, Pless reiterated that it was not his opinion that that had taken place.

The brothers' bodies, one on top of the other, were discovered June 22, 1986, in a 5-foot deep grave in a cornfield in Newton County, Ind., about 2 miles from the Illinois border and some 50 miles from Chicago.

The freshly turned earth was noticed by a farmer who thought the remains of a deer killed out of season had been buried there by a poacher.

The Spilotros had disappeared days before Anthony was to stand trial a second time in Nevada on charges he ran the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, a Las Vegas burglary ring.

Three months after the Spilotros' murders, John Fecarotta, a veteran mob muscleman, was slain because he botched the burial of the brothers.

jcoen@tribune.com

Widow: Slain mobster knew he was in danger
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:03 PM CDT, August 2, 2007


Michael Spilotro apparently knew he was in danger in the weeks leading up to his slaying in June 1986, and he was acting strangely the day he disappeared, his wife and daughter testified today at the Family Secrets mob-conspiracy trial in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

Ann Spilotro, at times sniffling and wiping her eyes, testified that her husband was nervous before he and his brother Anthony disappeared.

He was concerned, she said, despite having told her that he and his brother "were going to be No. 1." She said she took that to mean they would be leaders of the Chicago Outfit.

According to previous testimony from Nicholas Calabrese, a made member of the mob and the government's star witness, the Spilotros were killed after they were lured to a Bensenville basement under the ruse that they were to be promoted within the Outfit. He has said the brothers were killed because they were bringing too much heat to the mob's Las Vegas arm.

Today's testimony from Ann Spilotro is part of the continuing trial of five men accused in a conspiracy that allegedly included 18 previously unsolved murders, including the killings of the Spilotro brothers.

Early in the morning on the day Michael Spilotro vanished, he told his wife he had a meeting, she said in court today. "He said if he wasn't back by 9 o'clock, it was no good," she said.

"I didn't think as if he would lose his life, I just thought it would be a problem," she said.

Ann Spilotro said she went to a baseball game with her son, and came home to find that before her husband left for the meeting, he had given his daughter some of his personal items.

"Her dad had given her his jewelry, his driver's license and a medal he wore around his neck," she said. He also had given her money to take to a graduation party that night.

Spilotro's daughter, Michelle, now 38, also took the stand today.

She said she noticed her father was acting oddly the morning he left.

She said her father always told her he loved her when he left their Oak Park home. "That day he said it at least 10 times," she said, fighting back tears.

She said her father left his jewelry in a Ziploc bag on the kitchen counter, and told her to tell her mother to bring it to the graduation party.

Ann Spilotro said she went to the party, and watched the clock knowing her husband had mentioned 9 p.m.

Right at 9, she said, a woman whose husband happened to have been killed previously sat next to her, Spilotro testified.

"I started shaking," she said. "I couldn't stop shaking."

The next day, Father's Day, she called around to see if anyone had seen her husband. No one had, and she reported him missing the following day.

A week later, she learned the brothers had been killed, she said.

Michelle Spilotro spent some of her time on the stand today testifying about taking a number of calls over the years from a man she knew as "Jim."

Prosecutors allege that was Family Secrets defendant James Marcello.

The man would often call and ask for her father, Michelle Spilotro said, and she grew to recognize his voice.

Her father would tell her, "If that guy calls, I need to get the call," she said. Or, "If that guy calls, I'm not here."

After her father was killed, FBI agents had her listen to a voice lineup, she testified, in an attempt to identify "Jim."

She said she had no problem picking out the voice.

"I just remember immediately identifying the voice," she said. "I didn't even have to listen to the rest of the tape."

Spilotro said she did listen to the other voices, but just told agents, "That's it," when she heard "Jim's" voice.

She will be cross-examined by lawyers for Marcello this afternoon.

jcoen@tribune.com

Mistress tells of life with reputed mobster
Spilotro's daughter also takes stand

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
August 3, 2007

The reputed mob boss did his best to keep a poker face Thursday.

First, the daughter of one of the Spilotro brothers tried not to cry as she indirectly blamed James Marcello for luring her father to his violent death.

Then a second witness, a slim, woman with shoulder-length brown hair testified against him in a quiet voice he knows well.

Connie Marcello, 53, who changed her name after becoming Marcello's mistress, said she met him while she was tending bar in Cook County strip clubs such as Michael's Magic Touch and The Hollywood. James Marcello, who was married to another woman, gave her thousands a month in cash for more than 20 years, she told jurors at the Family Secrets mob conspiracy trial in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

The gifts are important because prosecutors allege Marcello ran an illegal, cash-based gambling empire that saw video poker machines placed in bars around the Chicago area. If she was ever asked where her money came from, Connie Marcello testified, she was supposed to say her mother gave it to her.

Her testimony came during the continuing trial of five men -- including Marcello -- for a conspiracy that allegedly included 18 previously unsolved murders, including the killings of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro.

Connie Marcello calmly said she lied to Marcello in 2005 after she appeared before a grand jury, telling him the subject of the money never came up.

"I just said it was things about the '80s," she said she told him.

She was still getting money from him as late as June, she said. His brother or a friend would hand her an envelope or a coffee cup stuffed with $100 bills, she said.

Marcello paid for her lawyers, she said, and when she ran up $15,000 in gambling debt, Marcello's cash made it go away. If she was forced to testify at the Family Secrets trial under a grant of immunity, as she did Thursday, she was expected to say nothing and go to jail, she said.

On cross-examination, she was asked if Marcello was being kind to her and her two children, one of whom was adopted and has special needs. That, she said before leaving the courtroom, was true too.

Connie Marcello's testimony followed an earlier session where Michelle Spilotro, the daughter of mob figure Michael Spilotro, talked about working as a hostess at her father's restaurant in the 1980s. She watched him whisper with mobsters in the back room, she said, and told jurors she watched in her house as her dad and alleged mob leader Joey "the Clown" Lombardo wrote each other notes on a child's toy instead of talking out loud.

It was a board that could be written on and then erased by pulling a plastic sheet away from its backing.

"You'd see scribbling and they'd lift it up," she said.

And she received directions from her father about taking phone calls, especially when a man she knew as "Jim" rang the house.

"Jim," who authorities allege is James Marcello, had a distinct voice with a thick Chicago accent.

Spilotro, 38, now a homemaker, fought tears on the witness stand as she thought about the day in June 1986 when her father disappeared. Her father and uncle were waiting for "Jim" to call, and she answered the phone. After that, she said, the Spilotro brothers got dressed to leave the house.

She said her father left his jewelry in a Ziploc bag on the kitchen counter, and told her to tell her mother to bring it to a graduation party they were attending that night. But she never saw him again.

Years later, an FBI agent sat her in a car and played her a "voice lineup" of five investigators and Marcello reading a couple of paragraphs from an item in a Chicago newspaper.

When Marcello's voice came on, Spilotro told agents she didn't need to hear anymore, she was sure it was the caller.

On cross-examination, Spilotro acknowledged she hadn't heard "Jim's" voice for three years before listening to the tape. Spilotro's testimony followed that of her mother, Ann Spilotro, who told jurors her husband had once told her that he and his brother "were going to be No. 1" in the hierarchy of the Outfit. The men eventually were targeted for death because Anthony Spilotro, the mob's Las Vegas boss, was attempting unauthorized hits and attracting the attention of authorities too often.

Star Family Secrets witness Nicholas Calabrese has testified that the brothers were lured to their deaths with an offer of a promotion within the Outfit.

Early on the day he vanished, her husband told her that he had a meeting that day, Ann Spilotro told jurors.

"He said if he wasn't back by 9 o'clock, it was no good," she said.

Spilotro said she went to the graduation party, and watched the clock knowing her husband had mentioned 9 p.m. The bag of his jewelry was in her purse.

The brothers would be found a little more than a week later buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Spilotro said she eventually sold her husband's restaurant, Hoagie's, in a building owned by Lombardo's wife.

The buyers were James DeLeo, now a state senator, and James Banks, a Chicago lawyer, she said.

When contacted by phone, DeLeo said he and Banks were among a group of investors in a now-defunct pizza franchise chain and denied buying the building. He said the group -- which lost money -- only rented the building from Ann Spilotro and bought tables and other restaurant equipment from her.

Spilotro said she wasn't happy with the money she received, and went to Marcello.

"I thought he was in a position to help me," she said.

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jcoen@tribune.com

Mistress humiliates Marcello
DOUBLE-CROSS | She made him think she'd kept mum, but she talked to grand jury

August 3, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
For more than 20 years, reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello gave his mistress thousands of dollars a month, making sure she got the cash even when he was in prison.

He put her and her two children up in a lovely suburban home.

He took care of the $15,000 gambling debt she ran up in one month.

The mistress, Connie Marcello, a former bartender at a Cicero strip club, publicly humiliated Marcello by revealing she conned him into believing she had told a grand jury nothing in March 2005. For more than two years after that, she got up to $5,000 a month from Marcello, even though she had secretly spilled the beans.

The reputed mob boss told her to say she got the monthly cash from her mother, if she was ever asked.

But the mistress told the truth to the grand jury when she faced jail if she didn't talk.

Connie Marcello was tending bar at the Cicero club when she met Marcello in the mid-1980s. They never married, but she legally changed her last name to his. She said that she, her son and daughter would act like "a normal family" when James Marcello visited them.

Connie Marcello originally refused to testify when she was called before a grand jury in February 2005.

"It was always understood not to say anything," Connie Marcello said.

But a month later, prosecutors granted her immunity and she faced testifying or going to jail.

James Marcello paid for her attorney but did not balk at her going to jail, the mistress said.

"He just always believed that I could go to jail for the length of the trial, and it would be over," Connie Marcello said.

In earlier testimony Thursday, James Marcello was linked to the brutal beating murders of the Spilotro brothers in 1986.

Jurors already have heard from Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese, who told them James Marcello drove him and two other mob killers to a home in the Bensenville area to wait for Anthony and Michael Spilotro to arrive.

The brothers believed they were attending a ceremony to mark their promotions in the mob.

In fact, they were attending their executions. A dozen or so mob killers jumped the brothers as they came down into the basement and beat them to death, according to previous trial testimony.

Michael Spilotro's daughter, Michelle, identified Marcello's voice as the man who called her home asking to speak to her father the day he went to that fateful meeting from which he never returned, according to testimony from her and a former FBI agent.

Michael Spilotro's widow, Ann, testified how she reached out to James Marcello for help after she believed she got ripped off after selling her restaurant to state Sen. James DeLeo (D-Chicago) and attorney James Banks, the nephew of 36th Ward Ald. William Banks.

Ann Spilotro never said if she got the help. DeLeo on Thursday expressed amazement at her complaint. DeLeo said he and James Banks converted the place into a pizza parlor that failed.

"This is the first time I've ever heard of it," DeLeo said. "All of a sudden, 23 years later, I'm hearing she was treated unfairly? It's amazing."


Contributing: Chris Fusco

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Thursday: A former mistress of reputed top Chicago mob boss James Marcello hung him out to dry, while the daughter of Michael Spilotro, who was killed with his brother in a brutal 1986 hit, tied Marcello to the murders. Marcello's defense questioned why the daughter didn't initially mention apparently key facts to the FBI after the murders.

Expected next week (no trial today): On Monday, Patrick Spilotro, a brother of the two mobsters slain in 1986, could take the stand and reveal what he knows of the Chicago Outfit.
And on Thursday, at the Family Secrets trial, he watched as she hung him out to dry.

Alleged mob boss pays a call
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
August 7, 2007
Article Tools
E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: Dominic Calarco said he went to his social club seven days a week to cook for its members, but that routine was broken by a knock on his door in January 2006.

He thought he knew the bearded man standing in front of him. But he wasn't sure until he heard the man speak, he told jurors Monday at the Family Secrets mob-conspiracy trial. The man asking for shelter at Calarco's Elmwood Park home was Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, an alleged leader of the Chicago Outfit who was on the run from federal authorities.

"He said, 'I got no place to go, can I stay with you for a couple of weeks?'" Calarco said.

Lombardo sat in the back of a row of defense tables at the trial Monday, and he didn't have any noticeable reaction to hearing about his last days of freedom. He tilted his head as he listened to Calarco, looking ahead through his tinted eyeglasses.

The two were once neighbors said Calarco, 85, and they had known each other for more than 70 years. He said he invited Lombardo in, and he said that although the case against Lombardo was "none of my business," he soon began to urge his fugitive friend to turn himself in.

There were nights Lombardo cried because he missed his family, and he appeared to be in poor health, Calarco said. They wouldn't have had far to go to find an officer, he added.

"I said all we've got to do is walk across the street," Calarco said, referring to his home being within a block of the Elmwood Park police headquarters.

"He said he had a few more things to do," Calarco said.

Among them was a visit to dentist Patrick Spilotro, the brother of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, for some dental work. The deaths of Anthony and Michael Spilotro are among the 18 mob-related slayings in the case.

Star government witness Nicholas Calabrese has also testified about seeing Spilotro for dental care. Spilotro is expected to testify Tuesday.

Lombardo was arrested in Elmwood Park soon after the visit with Patrick Spilotro, nine months after he was indicted along with the other defendants in the Family Secrets case.

Prosecution wrapping up

Calarco's testimony came as prosecutors are wrapping up their presentation of evidence, telling U.S. District Judge James Zagel that they expect to rest their case by Wednesday at the latest. Defense attorneys could begin putting on witnesses next week.

Earlier Monday, prosecutors added Sal Romano to the long list of underworld characters they have called to the stand since the landmark trial began in late June.

Romano was a burglar and government informant who turned on the "Hole-in-the-Wall" burglary ring of mobster Anthony Spilotro in the 1980s.

Now an elderly man with a tuft of gray hair, Romano was brought into court in a wheelchair, facing jurors in a blue sports coat and yellow tie. He spoke in a low, mumbling voice, talking about his life of crime in Chicago and Las Vegas, which Spilotro controlled for the Chicago Outfit.

He said he had a "rather good" childhood, and simply ran into the right people to become involved in burglaries.

"Locks and alarms fascinated me," he testified, telling jurors he would buy locks and take them apart to see how they worked. "I developed skills in those things."

At 26 or 27 years old, he began burglarizing different types of coin-operated machines around Chicago, he said. If he got caught, he would just pay off the police, Romano testified.

"You indirectly paid the lawyer they requested you get," he said.

Asked outside the presence of the jury which lawyers he was talking about, he named Dean Wolfson and Sam Banks.

Banks, who has not been charged with wrongdoing in relation to Romano's claims, could not be reached for comment Monday. Wolfson pleaded guilty in 1985 to bribing judges in an unrelated case.

Late in the 1970s, Romano said he was brought to Las Vegas by Peter Basile, who was later charged with the Hole-in-the-Wall gang. The group had been having trouble stealing artwork and other valuables because of alarm systems.

Romano said he knew Family Secrets defendant Paul Schiro during this time.

Spilotro once told him that if he was going to do anything with Schiro, he should do what Schiro said.

And Romano later said he was told by someone else that Schiro could be a dangerous man, though he acknowledged on cross-examination that he was never threatened.

Aborted burglary recounted

Romano said he once attempted a burglary at Schiro's request. The plan was to go into a home belonging to a friend of Schiro's during a family wedding in Phoenix, which Schiro would attend as an alibi.

Supposedly, the friend had $50,000 stashed in a home safe, Romano said.

The men entered after he had taken care of the alarm, Romano said, but a small dog then ran up "screaming, hollering and barking." Romano said he told his partners they should end the attempt, and they did.

Once safely outside and away from the home, Romano said he was asked why he hadn't just "taken care of the dog," meaning silence it for good.

"I said, 'I don't do dogs,'" he said.

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jcoen@tribune.com

Dentist: Toothache led to mobster's arrest
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:06 PM CDT, August 7, 2007
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E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: A toothache led to the arrest of reputed mob boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo in January 2006, a dentist testified today.

Patrick Spilotro, a Park Ridge dentist and a brother of two men allegedly murdered by the Chicago Outfit, testified that his tip to the FBI led to the arrest of Lombardo, one of five alleged Chicago mob figures in the landmark Family Secrets trial.

In federal court today, Spilotro testified that he provided information to the FBI for more than two decades in a bid to catch his brothers' killers.

While a fugitive in 2006, Lombardo visited Spilotro's Park Ridge office to have a painful abscess treated, the dentist said.

When Lombardo returned for a follow-up visit, Spilotro told the FBI.

"They knew the exact time," he said. Lombardo was arrested in Elmwood Park the same day.

Spilotro said he had known Lombardo for decades, and had often questioned him about why his brothers were killed.

The bodies of Anthony and Michael Spilotro were found in a cornfield in Indiana in June of 1986.

Lombardo always told him that if he had not been in prison at the time the men were slain, it would not have happened, Spilotro said. But at Lombardo's first secret dental visit, the answer changed.

"I recall his words very vividly," Spilotro testified. "He said: 'Doc, you get an order, you follow that order. If you don't follow the order, you go too.' "

The star witness in the case, mob turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, has testified that he followed an order to kill the Spilotros along with a team of Outfit members.

Calabrese has said that the men were killed because Anthony Spilotro, who ran the mob's Las Vegas interests, was acting too independently and bringing too much heat.

Lombardo and four other defendants are accused of taking part in a mob racketeering conspiracy that allegedly included the murders of the Spilotros and 16 others.

jcoen@tribune.com

Dentist's drill: Rinse. Spit. Talk to feds.
John Kass
August 8, 2007

Patrick Spilotro, dentist with a pinky ring and brother of two slain Outfit hoodlums, testified in federal court that he's been informing to the FBI for the last two decades.

"About that," he said, discussing the murders of brothers Michael and Anthony, "and other things."

He paused for a bit on Tuesday, an old man now, blue suit, white hair, his face a map to his brothers. He'd been fixing teeth for Outfit families for decades and kept his ears open. He considered a bit, and spoke again.

"And about other things," said the dentist. "About other things."

What could those other things be? Spilotro didn't say.

The 1986 murders of his brothers, like all the other murders being dissected in the government's Family Secrets trial, have received most of the publicity, as have any references to animals, barking dogs, and tiny mice hung from a windshield as a warning.

But it's the "other things" that send a wave through Chicago.

Not like a pebble dropped in the federal pool, but more like a washing machine falling off a truck into a puddle, splashing on political shoes.

Mayor Richard Daley is furious, since his trucking boss friend and fashionista Freddie Barbara was mentioned from the witness stand by a hit man as a bomber driving Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra to arson parties.

So Barbara is hot and the mayor wants Freddie cooled down, so look for a settlement to be announced in the big feud over Tavern on Rush, the profitable nightspot in the Viagra Triangle.

The owners of the Tavern real estate -- Barbara and Bridgeport developer Tommy DiPiazza -- allegedly used Tavern partner Marty Gutilla to try and push restaurateur Phil Stefani out of his own place.

Barbara and DiPiazza are close to mayoral brain Tim Degnan. And Daley does not need Degnan heated up any more. If Degnan gets hot, the mayor could get crisp. So a splash in federal court in Family Secrets will most likely lead to a happy ending for Stefani.

Not everything about this town is in a press release. You have to study the waters, the tributaries, the pools, and that boiling caldron that is now the 36th Ward Democratic Organization.

The 36th keeps getting mentioned in Family Secrets, not by its official title, but through the individuals who run it, the guys who pick judges in Cook County and put people in the right places, cleaning the streets, expanding the airports, and other stuff.

But the names of their 36th Ward political superiors have been mentioned in the trial, including that of ward boss Sam "Pastries" Banks.

Banks in the old country means Panebianco (white bread), although now it's quite toasty.

Banks was brought up by a federal witness, a burglar friend of Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, as a guy criminals go to, and pay to take care of the cops. Banks and his brother Ald. William Banks (D-Zoning) have also installed their own candidates for judge. "Pastries" did not return our calls Tuesday.

Another 36th Warder mentioned the other day is State Sen. James DeLeo (D-How You Doin'). And another, zoning lawyer James Banks, the son of Sam.

DeLeo and James Banks bought the Spilotros' restaurant, Hoagies, from Michael Spilotro's widow, Ann, after the brothers were murdered in 1986.

From the witness stand this week, Ann Spilotro, who also runs The Back Room, a jazz club on Rush Street, said Jim Banks and DeLeo ripped her off in the purchase.

Jim Banks and DeLeo are also involved in the Tavern on Rush feud, with Banks on the DiPiazza/Barbara side. DeLeo is an investor in the restaurant. But a funny thing happened when I asked DeLeo who the landlords were at Tavern.

He told me he didn't know.

DeLeo probably meant he didn't know that the son of Sam was one of the landlords, even though they hail from the same political organization, and bought Ann Spilotro's place together, which actually belonged to the wife of the Clown.

I suppose I should tell you that another name came up in the trial Tuesday:

Mine.

One of the Outfit bosses on trial, James Marcello, was videotaped in prison discussing my column with his good friend, Nick Vangel, nicknamed "The Caterer" by his Outfit pals and known to many in DuPage County as the former owner of The Carlisle banquet hall in Lombard.

"I just saw the last thing in the Trib," Vangel tells Marcello, also an avid reader of mine.

FBI Agent Edward "Ted" McNamara was questioned about this reference to the newspaper, and he said they were talking about my column published Feb. 21, 2003.

It was about mobster Nicholas Calabrese entering the federal witness protection program, and some of the murders he'd testify about in the case that became Family Secrets.

That made a little splash. But now, in the hands of prosecutors and the FBI, it's a tsunami.

----------

jskass@tribune.com

Steve Warmbir's blog on the Sun Times web site is as compelling as his newspaper articles. Read 'em here:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/mob/

tony b.

Lombardo taking stand
Reputed mob boss to testify, judge told

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
August 9, 2007

Joey "the Clown" Lombardo quietly watched Wednesday as the government all but wrapped up its case against him and four other defendants in the Family Secrets trial, but he won't be silent for much longer.

His attorney, Rick Halprin, ended speculation about whether jurors will hear from the reputed mobster who is known for his sense of humor.

"It's no secret that Mr. Lombardo is going to testify," Halprin told U.S. District Judge James Zagel as attorneys were handling motions at the end of the day and the jury had been allowed to leave.

The testimony would be Lombardo's first under oath in a criminal case and would come as he tries to portray himself as a mob-connected businessman -- not an Outfit leader as alleged by prosecutors.

Halprin's announcement came after the judge told jurors to return to the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Monday. Prosecutors have told the judge they've finished calling witness and only expect to submit a few more documents before the defense case starts.

None of the other defense lawyers formally notified the judge Wednesday that their client would take the stand, though some have signaled they are considering it.

"Important decisions have to be made over the weekend," Marc Martin, an attorney for defendant and reputed mob boss James Marcello, said to the judge.

After the government rests, Zagel told defense lawyers that the first thing jurors will hear Monday from the defense is the opening statement from Halprin on behalf of Lombardo. The lawyer had made the rare decision to withhold his opening statement at the start of the case in late June until the defense began.

Zagel warned Halprin that his statement should cover only what he believes the evidence in his case will show, and that he is not to begin arguing evidence already presented by the government. Halprin said he is well aware of the limits.

"I'm just reminding you," Zagel said.

Halprin's statement will mark the first efforts by the defense to counteract the gripping testimony last month of Nicholas Calabrese, who testified against his brother and others in the conspiracy case against the Outfit. Before he left the stand last month, Calabrese was asked whether a weight had been lifted off his chest.

"No, it's still there, because I gotta live with it," Calabrese said of his own admitted involvement in some 14 gangland killings in the 1970s and 1980s.

His testimony remains the spine of the milestone trial that has played out all summer at the downtown courthouse. Calabrese said he watched men kill and be killed, and in some cases, he cut a throat or pulled the trigger himself.

Prosecutors started presenting evidence with overview testimony from a mob expert and continued through a long list of former mob-associated thugs, safecrackers, bookies and porn merchants. They even called Marcello's mistress to talk about getting cash from him.

Family members of many of those slain also have testified, sometimes crying as they remembered learning about deaths that still haunt them.

The government has described the Outfit as "the charged business" in a broad conspiracy that controlled Chicago's underworld and alleged that the men on trial were key parts of it.

The decades-old criminal enterprise -- subject to anti-racketeering laws -- made money through illegal gambling, loan-sharking and the collection of street tax, prosecutors have said. They allege the organization protected itself through violence and murder when necessary, and jurors have heard details about 18 killings and one attempted murder.

When it came time for the mob to collect what it thought it was owed, the threat of violence was always present, witnesses have said. Messages could be sent with a word, a slap, a puppy's head or a bomb tucked under a car seat.

Four of the men on trial, Marcello, Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr. and Paul "the Indian" Schiro, have been described as longtime organization members. The fifth defendant, former Chicago cop Anthony Doyle, is charged in the conspiracy for allegedly passing information to Outfit higher-ups about the investigation that centered on Nicholas Calabrese.

In order to find each defendant guilty of the racketeering conspiracy, lawyers in the case have said, jurors would have to believe each was guilty of two or more of the underlying offenses in the case. Those include any of the 18 homicides, as well as extortion and fraud, running an illegal gambling business or obstruction of justice.

In his testimony, Nicholas Calabrese named Marcello as taking part in three murders, including the infamous slayings of mobsters Anthony and Michael Spilotro. The jury has also heard evidence that Marcello met with top mob bosses and had control over a business that distributed video-poker machines to bars.

Calabrese blamed his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., for more than a dozen murders, telling jurors that Frank Calabrese had a penchant for ending the lives of enemies with a rope around their neck. Other witnesses, including Calabrese Sr.'s son, Frank Calabrese Jr., have said Frank Sr. made money through loan-sharking and collecting street tax.

Lombardo allegedly is tied to the murder of federal witness Daniel Seifert through a fingerprint left on the title application for a car that fled the shooting scene. Other witnesses have described Lombardo as a ranking Outfit member. And he was once convicted of skimming millions from a Las Vegas casino. .

Schiro has been described as a mobster based in Phoenix who Nicholas Calabrese said was part of a hit team that killed witness Emil Vaci in 1986.

Defense lawyers don't argue that the Outfit exists, just that those on trial ran it. They have promised to attack Nicholas Calabrese as the real mob killer in the case.

--------

jcoen@tribune.com

Will 'Clown' stick to previous story?

August 13, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter
When mobster Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo was in prison in 1989, he was asked during a court deposition what he wanted to do when he got out.
"In my opinion, what I want to do when I get out, I want to go into the woods . . . into the wilderness and get away from everybody, wherever they let me go," Lombardo told a federal prosecutor.

"I want to disappear into the woods and be with the animals if I can," Lombardo continued. "I don't think my wife will come with me."

This week, Lombardo, far from any forest, will take the stand in his own defense in the Family Secrets trial.

He's been accused of being a capo in the Chicago Outfit -- overseeing shakedowns, extortions -- and of killing a man who was to be a federal witness against him.


1989 deposition may give hint
Lombardo has faced criminal charges before but never taken the stand. So it's anyone's guess as to what the wise-cracking gangster will say.
But the best preview of his much-anticipated testimony may lie in a little-known 1989 court deposition that runs 196 pages, in which he was asked to answer many of the same questions likely to face him at trial.

The deposition is part of the public record of a New York civil case in which the feds ejected Lombardo and other mobsters from the Teamsters Union.

One of the most serious allegations against Lombardo is that he was part of a hit team that killed Bensenville businessman Daniel Seifert in 1974, just yards from Seifert's wife and 4-year-old son.

In the deposition, Lombardo denies having anything to do with Seifert's murder or knowing Seifert had been contacted by federal agents.

"I don't recall if I ever knew about it," Lombardo said. "I don't remember. I doubt if I ever recall."

When asked if he was at the scene of the Seifert murder, Lombardo responded: "Absolutely not."

Lombardo also downplays his relationship with Allen Dorfman, the man who helped arrange Teamster pension fund loans to build Las Vegas casinos.

Federal authorities have contended Lombardo controlled Dorfman, while Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, suggests Lombardo was nothing more than an errand boy for Dorfman.


Says he was never 'made'
Lombardo said he would give his opinion to Dorfman, "who I thought was a rat, who was lying to him, who's a bullsh-----."
Dorfman "just looked at me sometimes like I was nuts."

Dorfman was gunned down in a mob hit in 1983. Lombardo had this back-and-forth with the prosecutor about his death:

"Do you know who shot him?" Lombardo was asked.

"They say I did," Lombardo shot back.

"I take it you did," the prosecutor said.

"I sure did," Lombardo said. "I drove the car, and the warden shot him. Now, that's a lie. I'm just lying here. That's not the truth. I was locked up at the MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center] at the time. When I heard it, I was the sickest man in the world. I had tears in my eyes. I couldn't believe it."

What's more, Lombardo denies ever being "made" as a mob member.

"Now, the only way I can answer that question: I never pricked my fingers and never took an oath over guns or over swords and never put burning paper in my hand," he said.

Holy carp!!!

Calabrese to take stand in mob case
Defense testimony set for this afternoon

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
12:36 PM CDT, August 13, 2007

His brother and son have testified against him. Now Frank Calabrese Sr. will take his turn on the witness stand at the Family Secrets trial.

Calabrese's lawyer, Joseph Lopez, informed U.S. District Judge James Zagel that his client will testify in his own defense. That testimony is expected this afternoon.

Calabrese is one of five men on trial in a sweeping Outfit conspiracy that allegedly goes back decades.



The government on Monday rested its case, and the defense was expected to begin shortly with an opening statement by defendant Joey "The Clown" Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin.

Lawyers on Monday morning hashed out a schedule for the defense.

Lombardo himself is expected to testify Wednesday.

Also Wednesday, witnesses for defendant James Marcello will be called. Marcello will not testify, his lawyers said Monday.

Defendant Paul Schiro expects to call no witnesses, his attorney said.

Ralph Meczyk, the lawyer for Anthony Doyle, said he will call witnesses Thursday. His client also could take the stand, Meczyk said.

CHICAGO: Chicago's biggest mafia trial in years saw federal prosecutors rest their case and the defense begin arguing Monday, with lawyers for alleged mafia boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo calling him a common street hustler who did not murder a federal witness.

Lombardo and four other reputed members of the Chicago underworld are charged with operating the city's organized crime family — known as the Chicago Outfit — as a racketeering enterprise that included gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 long-unsolved murders.

Lombardo plans to take the witness stand in his own defense sometime this week, attorneys said.

"If you're going to sum up Joey Lombardo's early life, the word that comes to mind is not gangster, is not mobster — it's hustler," defense attorney Rick Halprin told jurors.

Lombardo's defense is based on the claim that, after serving years in prison for attempting to bribe a U.S. senator and involvement in Las Vegas casino skimming, he swore he would never take part in any further crimes.

Today in Americas
Karl Rove, key aide to Bush, to step downUrban paradise in Venezuela can't escape country's woesWhen vacationers decide to stay year-round at U.S. resorts"The light came on," Halprin said.

Among those murdered was Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, for years the mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino." He and his brother Michael were beaten and strangled in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Besides the 78-year-old Lombardo, those on trial are James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese, 69, Paul Schiro, 70, and Anthony Doyle, 62.

Defense attorneys for Calabrese and Doyle did not rule out the possibility that their clients also could testify.

Zagel said he would allow Lombardo to talk about his withdrawal from a life of crime despite grumbling from prosecutors that it amounted to letting him vouch for his own good behavior.

On cross examination, prosecutors are guaranteed to ask him why he went on the run for months after the indictment was unsealed. He was arrested after FBI agents cornered him in an alley in a Chicago suburb.

Lombardo's defense: He's a hustler, not a gangster
Lawyer says 'The Clown' ran a craps game but wasn't in the mob

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:28 PM CDT, August 13, 2007

Describing his client as "a hustler and not a gangster," lawyer Rick Halprin told jurors Monday that Joey "The Clown" Lombardo's ambition simply got him tangled up years ago with the wrong people.

Halprin made a 30-minute opening statement in the Family Secrets trial, a statement he had chosen to delay until the start of the defense case. The other lawyers gave their openings in late June at the start of the landmark trial in Chicago's Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

Lombardo was an associate of men with connections to the Chicago underworld and organized crime, Halprin said. He met ranking mobsters through those relationships and ended up in prison in the 1980s, Halprin said.

Lombardo was convicted in an attempt to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada, Halprin said, and was later convicted of skimming millions of dollars from a Las Vegas casino.

But Lombardo played a minor role, Halprin said, and didn't see a dime of any casino cash. He was caught up in the case because he spent time at labor racketeer Allen Dorfman's office, which the FBI wiretapped.

"Joey Lombardo is not, was not and never has been a capo or a made member of the Chicago Outfit," Halprin said.

Prosecutors have alleged Lombardo was a boss of the Outfit's Grand Avenue street crew, an allegation denied by Halprin. Lombardo had only one connection to that area's seedy underbelly, the lawyer said.

"He did, in fact, run the oldest, most reliable craps game on Grand Avenue," Halprin said.

Lombardo will take the stand this week and explain himself to the jury, Halprin promised jurors.

It was in prison where Lombardo had an awakening of sorts, Halprin said, and sought to remove himself from his troubled history. "He knew for the rest of his life, in the public perception, [it would be]: reputed mobster, reputed gang boss," Halprin said. "He decides to withdraw from his past life."

Lombardo took out a newspaper ad in the early 1990s claiming that he was not a made member of the mob and asking anyone who saw him committing a crime to call his probation officer or the FBI.

He has held to a lawful lifestyle ever since, Halprin said. Jurors would not see a witness come into the courtroom during the government's rebuttal case and identify Lombardo as anything "other than older, smarter, wiser and a decent citizen," Halprin promised.

Lombardo has lived a normal life and worked in an upholstery factory, he said.

As for the killing of federal witness Daniel Seifert, which Lombardo is accused of taking part in December 1974, Halprin said his client was 20 miles away in a restaurant at the time of the killing.

Halprin, speaking in his usual loud, deep voice, waved his hands as he explained his case and promised Lombardo has a lot in common with anyone else. He has a son and a daughter and grandchildren, Halprin said.

"He also bleeds when he gets cut," the lawyer said.

Earlier Monday, attorney Joseph Lopez, who represents defendant Frank Calabrese Sr., informed U.S. District Judge James Zagel that his client also will testify in his own defense. That testimony is expected this afternoon.

Calabrese's brother and son have testified against him in the trial's highlight.

Calabrese and Lombardo are among five men on trial in a sweeping Outfit conspiracy case that centers on 18 long-unsolved mob murders.

The government rested its case today, and lawyers this morning hashed out a schedule for the defense.

Lombardo himself is expected to testify Wednesday.

However, reputed mob boss James Marcello won't testify, his lawyers said Monday.

Defendant Paul Schiro expects to call no witnesses, his attorney said.

Ralph Meczyk, the lawyer for former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, said his client also could take the stand.

jcoen@tribune.com

Mob version of "I'm a lover, not a fighter"??

Joey 'the Clown' takes center stage
Reputed mob leader Lombardo is the center of attention as he begins testifying in his own defense in a packed courtroom

By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
August 15, 2007

After stopping momentarily to flirt with the blond court reporter and swearing to tell the truth with a raspy "I do," Joey "the Clown" Lombardo lowered himself onto the witness stand with the help of a cane.

The 78-year-old with a Caesar haircut leaned toward the microphone Tuesday afternoon and took off his rounded eyeglasses, settling in to answer his lawyer's questions at the landmark Family Secrets trial.

With the revelation last week that one of the city's quirkiest reputed mob figures would take the stand in his own defense, his testimony became one of the most anticipated moments in a trial that already has earned a place in Chicago mob lore.

A long line of spectators waited for a seat in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse's largest courtroom, filled to capacity with federal judges, FBI supervisors, veteran federal prosecutors, a flock of reporters and dozens of the simply curious.

Defense attorney Rick Halprin wasted no time in getting to the heart of the charges, asking Lombardo whether he took part in killing federal witness Daniel Seifert in 1974 and whether he was a "capo" in the Chicago Outfit.

"Positively no," Lombardo responded to both questions.

Lombardo is a reputed organized-crime figure with a flair for humor and theatrics, known for once leaving a court date with a mask made of newspaper to hide his face from cameramen. Another time he took out advertisements disavowing any mob ties.

When the Family Secrets indictment came down two years ago, he vanished, writing the judge letters asking for his own trial before he was apprehended in the suburbs sporting a beard that resembled the one Saddam Hussein grew while hiding in his spider hole.

Brought to court for the first time in the case, Lombardo announced he simply had been "unavailable."

On Tuesday, he was at center stage again, telling jurors how he worked the streets as a youngster, shining shoes of police officers in his Grand Avenue neighborhood. They paid him only a nickel a shoe, he said.

"Very cheap people," said Lombardo, sending a wave of laughter through the courtroom.

"Let's not press our luck," shot back Halprin, trying to keep his client focused.

"You told me to tell the truth," countered Lombardo, drawing more laughter.

The guffaws, some from other defense lawyers in the case, brought a stern warning from U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who said he didn't see anything funny about a sweeping conspiracy case that includes the murders of 18 individuals.

Lombardo, one of five men on trial, took the stand as the best way to flesh out his defense that he was essentially an errand boy for powerful mob-connected businessmen such as Irwin Weiner and labor racketeer Allen Dorfman, who ran an insurance agency that did business with the Teamsters. He contended he has always held legitimate jobs and got caught up in criminal conduct through friends.

The jury knows about Lombardo's celebrated convictions from the 1980s for attempting to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon (D-Nev.) and for skimming millions of dollars from the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.

Lombardo set about to describe his work history, starting with shoe shining and detouring briefly to his dice game. Lombardo acknowledged he ran one, blessed by city aldermen, from 1976 until the bribery indictment.

"I didn't have time to play dice because I was on trial," he said matter of factly.

Lombardo, dressed in a conservative gray jacket and silver tie, sometimes rubbed his hands in front of him as he testified and sometimes played with his glasses. He often gave brief answers in a sing-song tone and looked toward the jury as he talked.

Lombardo said he worked a dumbwaiter at a hotel, drove trucks, built two six-flats in a small construction business and worked at a salvage warehouse.

Through his relationships with Weiner and Dorfman, Lombardo said, he met Outfit figures such as Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio and Anthony Spilotro.

Lombardo testified that Weiner also led him to International Fiberglass, where he worked with Seifert. Prosecutors contend Lombardo had Seifert killed before he could testify against Lombardo in a pension fraud case.

The business was failing when he got there, Lombardo said, telling jurors he agreed to round up out-of-work "kids" in the Grand Avenue area to help make sinks and other company products. He helped Seifert pay bills and manage the business, Lombardo said.

A host of nicknames used for Lombardo have surfaced during the trial, including "Lumpy," "Lumbo" and "Pagliacci," the Italian word for clowns. On Tuesday, Lombardo acknowledged he used another name for himself in some of his business dealings in the 1970s: Joseph Cuneo.

"Because my name, Lombardo, was always in the paper for different things," he said.

Halprin tried to take on evidence that prosecutors say points to Lombardo's involvement in Seifert's killing. But Lombardo appeared confused on one critical issue and Halprin moved to another topic.

Lombardo's fingerprint was found on the title application for a car used by the gunmen to flee from the scene of Seifert's shooting at his Bensenville business. In addition, Lombardo was identified as having often bought police scanners like the one found in the getaway vehicle.

Lombardo acknowledged buying police scanners from a local store but said he was running errands for Weiner and his bail-bonding business.

But Lombardo said he was puzzled about the fingerprint. Halprin asked how it could have been left on the title document.

"What are my prints on? On what?" he asked. "Is that document in Irv Weiner's office?"

Halprin promised to come back to the subject.

Lombardo also denied that he had attempted to bribe Sen. Cannon. He said he was recorded in Dorfman's office discussing his idea to have the senator buy a Las Vegas property that was being purchased by someone else with a large loan from a Teamsters pension fund. He got nothing out of the deal, Lombardo said, except "15 years and 5 years probation."

Earlier Tuesday, Lombardo's lawyers called a series of witnesses who testified that they saw Lombardo at work at legitimate jobs, including International Fiberglass.

Among those testifying was Johnny Lira, 56, a Golden Gloves boxing champion and a one-time lightweight title contender.

Lira said he renewed a relationship with the reputed mobster when Lombardo left prison in the early 1990s. Lombardo worked every day at a business that dealt with concrete-cutting machines, he said.

He described Lombardo as "a grease monkey" who worked on equipment in the business' warehouse on Racine Avenue until his arrest in early 2006. Assistant U.S. Atty. Markus Funk asked whether Lira knew Lombardo was a fugitive in his final months on the job. "He didn't act like a fugitive," Lira said. "He came there every day."

In his testimony, Lombardo tried to portray himself as a normal working guy who liked sports. He can "ice skate, roller skate, Rollerblade and bowl," Lombardo testified.

Prosecutors are likely to go hard after that image during their expected cross-examination on Wednesday, and there will be no chance for "the Clown" to disappear.

----------



jcoen@tribune.com

Joey 'the Clown' denies killing federal witness
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
12:52 PM CDT, August 15, 2007

Reputed mob figure Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, continuing to testify in his own defense at the landmark Family Secrets trial today, said he was having breakfast and waiting for a shop that sold garage-door remotes to open when federal witness Daniel Seifert was killed in 1974.

"I figured I'd kill some time," said Lombardo in response to questions from his attorney, Rick Halprin, at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.

Prosecutors contend Lombardo, an alleged "capo" in the Chicago Outfit, had Seifert killed before he could testify against Lombardo in a pension-fraud case.

Lombardo said when he returned to his car after breakfast that morning, he found that his wallet had been taken from the glove compartment, so he went back to the restaurant where two uniformed police officers were having breakfast.

He said he then followed them to a police station and made a report.

Lombardo's testimony, which began Tuesday, is one of the most anticipated moments in a trial that already has earned a place in Chicago mob lore.

Known for his flair for humor and theatrics, Lombardo once left a court date with a mask made of newspaper to hide his face from cameramen. Another time he took out advertisements disavowing mob ties.

This morning, Lombardo also answered questions about his conviction in the 1980s for skimming millions of dollars from the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas. He said he was just involved in setting up meetings between some of the players in the case.

Halprin asked if Lombardo made any money himself.

"Well, I have to tell the truth, I'm under oath," he said. "Not a red penny."

Halprin also asked Lombardo how he came to be included in a photograph known as "The Last Supper," with mobsters Joseph Aiuppa and Tony Accardo.

Lombardo peered through his glasses at a screen on the witness stand and identified himself standing in the back of the picture in a suit.

He said he was dressed for a wake, was invited to the restaurant afterward, and happened upon the group eating.

Halprin asked him to identify men in the photo one by one.

"The fat guy there?" Lombardo said at one point. "That's Turk Torello."

Lombardo said he had met some of the men through Jackie Cerone, an old friend he caddied for. He said he wished the group well and left.

Halprin asked if he ever made any money illegally with Accardo, a legendary reputed Chicago mob boss.

"Positively no," Lombardo said, seemingly stifling a laugh. "Not a red penny."

jcoen@tribune.com

'Clown' says mob talk all in jest
Lombardo claims he was only acting 'like James Cagney'



A photo titled "The Last Supper" was entered into evidence during the Family Secrets trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago. Defendant Joey "the Clown" Lombardo is standing in back on the right. Lombardo testified Wednesday about how he came to be included in the photo with mobsters Joseph Aiuppa and Tony Accardo.


By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
11:12 PM CDT, August 15, 2007

The prosecutor leaned over the lectern and stared at Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, who in turn leaned on the witness stand and stared back.

For most of three hours, the two sparred, talking over one another Wednesday at the Family Secrets trial. Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars repeatedly demanded to know if Lombardo was a leader of the Chicago Outfit who had threatened and extorted his enemies and had at least one killed.

"I never took an oath to any secret society in the world," Lombardo, 78, proclaimed in a gravelly voice.

The reputed mob boss weathered a relentless cross-examination, pleading ignorance, blaming coincidence and accusing witnesses of lying against him.

Many jurors who had taken notes throughout the landmark trial put their pens down to watch the confrontation.

In the most heated moments, Mars tried to pin Lombardo down with his own words, playing a 1979 undercover recording in which Lombardo threatened an attorney whom he believed owed money to corrupt insurance executive Allen Dorfman and the mob. "I assure you that you will never reach 73," Lombardo had warned the 72-year-old attorney on the tape.

But Lombardo insisted Wednesday that he was just acting the part of a mob enforcer to help out Dorfman. Mars asked if the role of a gangster was a good one for Lombardo.

"Like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson," answered Lombardo, naming two actors famous for playing tough guys in films.

"And Joey Lombardo," Mars responded in a mocking tone. "Boss of the Grand Avenue crew."

"That's not true," Lombardo shot back.

Mars said he wanted to know whether Lombardo meant the threat he delivered.

Lombardo said he often threatened to strangle his wife, too, but never did. Telling the attorney he wouldn't live to 73 was just part of the script, he said.

"He didn't pay, and he still lived to see 73, 74, 75," said Lombardo, one of five men on trial for a conspiracy that at its heart involves 18 long-unsolved gangland slayings.

In another undercover recording, Lombardo could be heard talking to reputed organized-crime figure Louis Eboli about a massage parlor that had opened too close to one being protected by a mob boss.

Lombardo could be heard on the tape asking Eboli whether "we" have anything to do with the business and then saying the business should move or "we'll flatten the joint."

Lombardo insisted that "we" referred to Eboli, that he never meant to include himself in the issue and that Mars wasn't reading the transcript of the conversation correctly.

"You say words that have no meaning at the time," said Lombardo, telling the jury he mixed up his words "just like the president did."

But the president doesn't have a mob crew that collects street tax, countered Mars.

"He's got a bigger crew," Lombardo answered. "You know where I'm at?"

Dressed in the same gray jacket and silver tie he wore Tuesday, Lombardo sometimes shifted in his seat or fiddled with his cane during his testimony, looking every bit like a tired old man. At other times he leaned his head back or answered questions with a grin on his face. Lombardo, a colorful reputed organized-crime figure with a penchant for wisecracks, is defending himself against the conspiracy by saying he was actually a working man who held legitimate jobs. His only connection to mobsters came from friendships with powerful men like Dorfman, he said.

Earlier Wednesday, near the end of questioning by his own lawyer, Lombardo tried to explain how he was pictured in what is known as "The Last Supper" photo, the government's Exhibit No. 1. Lombardo can be seen standing behind a table at a restaurant with mob heavyweights Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, Jackie Cerone and Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo.

Lombardo said he showed up at the restaurant by happenstance. He had dressed up to attend a wake, was invited afterward to the restaurant and bumped into the group, he testified. Lombardo said he had caddied for Cerone in his youth and met some of the others through him. He said he wished the group well and left.

Mars asked Lombardo whether he knew if any of the men in the photo were mob bosses.

"They never told me that," answered Lombardo, saying he knew them to be businessmen or "union guys."

"I was there by chance," he said. "I went there to get a sandwich."

But Mars, reminding Lombardo that in earlier testimony he had called Aiuppa the "boss" of Cicero, asked whether the jury had heard him right.

"Ask them," Lombardo said of the jury sitting a few feet to his right.

Mars also pressed Lombardo on the lone mob murder in which he has been implicated. Daniel Seifert was gunned down outside his Bensenville business in 1974 weeks before he was to testify against Lombardo for laundering money from a bad union loan. The charges were dropped against Lombardo after Seifert's murder.

"I had no idea Mr. Seifert was gonna testify against us until he got killed," Lombardo said.

"You knew Daniel Seifert had to go," said Mars, accusing Lombardo of taking a hit crew to carry out the murder. .

"I didn't have a crew," Lombardo said flatly.

Under questioning by his own attorney, Lombardo said he was reporting a stolen wallet at a police station when the killing took place. Mars questioned why Lombardo hadn't told the FBI that when he was questioned on the day of the murder.

"I don't speak to the FBI when I have a problem," he answered.

Among the witnesses Lombardo accused of lying against him was Alva Johnson Rogers, who testified early in the trial that he worked for Lombardo in the Outfit and overheard him boasting after the murder that Seifert wouldn't be testifying against anyone.

"Positively a liar," Lombardo said. "I can tell a liar when I hear it."

Before he completed his testimony, Lombardo was questioned about his decision to go on the lam after he was indicted in the Family Secrets case in 2005. Lombardo was a fugitive for nearly nine months before the FBI captured him in a Chicago suburb.

Lombardo said he had been hitting balls at a golf range near Oak Brook when he learned he had been indicted. He said he hid out in the basement of an Oak Park residence."There was a kitchen down there, a shower, a bed and a TV," he said.

Lombardo acknowledged that during that time he wrote letters to the court, asking for a new trial. He took that action, he said, because he didn't know any of the men with whom he had been charged.

Lombardo told the prosecutor he felt alone and wanted to be tried alone.

"Mr. Mars, I had 300 million people against me," he said. "I was all by myself."

Lombardo was eventually turned in by his dentist, Patrick Spilotro, after Lombardo had an abscessed tooth fixed. Spilotro is the brother of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, two mob figures whose murders are the most notorious of the case.

Patrick Spilotro wasn't truthful when he testified that Lombardo told him that his brothers were killed because people followed orders, Lombardo testified. He also said he wasn't surprised that the dentist had told authorities of his whereabouts.

"I knew he was a beefer," Lombardo said. "I knew he was gonna beef on me."

As Mars peppered Lombardo with questions about his decision to flee, he showed the reputed mob capo a photo of himself just after his arrest. In the image flashed on a courtroom screen, Lombardo has wild eyes, long waves of hair and a full beard. Lombardo acknowledged that there was "a little difference" between his appearance in the photo and now.

Mars asked Lombardo if he thought that was pretty funny.

"A little joke every once in a while isn't gonna hurt," he replied.

jcoen@tribune.com

Great read,thanks for posting it.

That "Last Supper" photo is something else.

This is like reciting the songs in order from a favorite record album...

It's Sicily Restaurant at Harlem and Diversey from the mid-1970's (yes...my neighborhood...and I took a girl friend to that restaurant on a date around the same time). Standing in the back are Jack Cerone(l) and Joey "Just Stopped to Say Hello" Lombardo(r). Seated in the back row are (l to r) Joey Aiuppa, Dominick DiBella, Vince Solano, and Al Pilotto. Seated in the front are Tony Accardo, Joe Amato, Joe DiVarco, and Jimmy Torello.

This photo was found in the home of one of the group...can't remember who. Mr. DiBella had cancer and this was his "retirement" party. He died a few months later, hence the "Last Supper" caption often attached to this photograph. It's unknown exactly who took the photograph -- restaurant staff or another un-named "guest" at the party.

Lombardo asserts that he knew them as union guys...which was true...Solano and Pilotto were at the top of the chart in two of the Chicago Locals of the Laborers Union.

...don't make me link to a web site regarding organized crime and the Laborers Union in Chicago...

tony b.

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

The real-life mobsters who need Dr Melfi’s help

The only thing missing from the full-dress Mob trial now under way in Chicago is the shrink. Real-life boss Frank Calabrese Senior, 70, may wish he had taken a leaf from Tony Soprano's television story and hired his own version of Dr Jennifer Melfi (right) - because it is child abuse and personal betrayals that are behind his downfall.

Calabrese, boss of the Chicago Outfit bequeathed by Al Capone, is on trial with four of his capos on multiple charges of racketeering and murder. They are white-haired, stony-faced old men. One comes to court in a wheelchair.

Now facing them from the witness box is the prosecution's star informer - Frank Calabrese Junior, the boss's son and the latest mobster to abandon the sacred oath of omerta.

Junior, 47, has been dishing details of life in the Outfit, confirming once and for all that the only difference
between Mob fiction and reality is the presence of cameras in the first, and actual blood in the second.

'Under-bosses', Junior has explained to the court, are equivalent to 'vice presidents of companies'; 'work cars' are untraceable cars used for crimes; 'juice loans' are high-interest street loans known to fans of The Sopranos as 'Shys' after Shylock.

Junior has also described how Uzi machineguns, shotguns and rifles were hidden behind walls in his grandmother's house. He has confided Mob rules: "Your Outfit family came before your blood family; it also came before God."

And: "You weren't supposed to steal without permission." Of course, those of us who've learnt our mob lore from The Sopranos already knew that: Brendan, speed-crazed friend of 'Christuffa' Moltisanti, got whacked for exactly that, when he
hijacked a load of Italian suits.

The novelty in the Calabrese trial comes in the relationship between father and son.

In the real-life Gambino family of New York, John Gotti Junior took over from jailed 'Dapper Don' Gotti, and was later heard on a surveillance tape complaining: "If it wasn't for my father, I would have walked away many, many years ago." He never found the courage.

In the New Jersey mob family the Boiardos, on whose story The Sopranos was modeled, the grandson did manage to go legit: The First Post told recently how Dr Richard A Boiardo went to college and became an orthopaedic surgeon.

Tony Soprano gave up on his feckless son AJ as inadequate for the job, but fretted over his family legacy of 'putrid genes'.

Calabrese father and son were in jail together in 2000 for Shylocking
when, according to Junior, they agreed that they would 'step back' from the business when they got out - 'step back' because the rule is that you cannot actually retire once that oath is taken.

Senior (pictured left in 1983) reneged, however, and Junior ratted to the Feds. But why? Junior had already served his time and so didn't need a deal to avoid a draconian sentence, the usual incentive.

The answer is hatred and revenge. The FBI believes Junior is a victim of child abuse who couldn't take it anymore, and that Senior handled his family the same way as his business: brutally. He repeatedly hit Junior for the slightest offence, and would later pull a gun on him and threaten to kill him.

A few good therapy sessions on supportive parenting and empathy might have made all the difference. But it is too late now.


http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?storyID=7716

Judge threatens defendant with contempt at mob trial
August 20, 2007 - A federal judge warned Monday that he would hold alleged Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese in contempt of court if he continued to try to testify about evidence already ruled inadmissible at his racketeering conspiracy trial.

The warning followed a flare-up of emotion on the part of Calabrese, a convicted loan shark who is one of five alleged members of the Chicago mob on trial in the Operation Family Secrets case.
"I will not allow you to introduce evidence that is inadmissible," U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel told Calabrese in his second day on the witness stand. Zagel told Calabrese to stop trying to introduce evidence that "you personally think should be introduced" even though it already had been ruled out.

"You will not question my rulings in the presence of the jury," Zagel said. He said he would hold Calabrese in contempt it if happened again.

Earlier, Calabrese had blurted out a claim concerning an alleged robbery in which he had been the victim. When prosecutors objected -- evidence concerning the robbery had been ruled inadmissible -- Calabrese became upset.

"Your Honor, how am I going to defend myself?" Calabrese asked Zagel.

At that, Zagel sent the jury out of the courtroom, admonished Calabrese and warned Calabrese's defense attorney, Joseph Lopez, against "your client's intention to get into evidence material that I'm quite sure you told him he could not get into evidence."

Calabrese, 70, is accused by federal prosecutors and witnesses of doubling as a mob hit man when not operating a loan sharking business. His brother, Nicholas, testified earlier that Frank Calabrese on a number of occasions strangled victims with ropes then cut their throats to make sure they were dead.

Also on trial are Joseph (Joey the Clown) Lombardo, 78, James Marcello, 65, Paul Schiro, 70, and Anthony Doyle, 62. They are accused of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that involved extortion, gambling, loan sharking and 18 long unsolved murders.

On Thursday, Frank Calabrese testified that he knew many people involved in organized crime, hung out with them and did business with them but did not belong to the mob.

He denied ever committing any of the murders alleged in the indictment produced by an FBI investigation known as Operation Family Secrets.

I missed this last week...

Juror dismissed from Family Secrets trial
By Chuck Goudie

August 15, 2007 (CHICAGO) - In a surprising development in Chicago's Family Secrets mob trial, late Wednesday afternoon, one of the jurors was dismissed by the judge. This comes on the second day of testimony from reputed mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo.

Lombardo is one of five defendants being tried for racketeering charges that are linked to 18 murders.
The juror was there Wednesday morning hearing Joey Lombardo's testimony, but her chair was empty after lunch. There was no explanation, or even acknowledgement, from the judge and many people in court didn't even notice that there was one less juror. But late Wednesday afternoon, the I-Team confirmed that the woman was allowed to remove herself from the jury because of some personal situation that came up.

Lawyers representing the five accused outfit members were told very little about the jurors mysterious departure, and they declined to speak after court ended for the day.

After sitting in the jury box for about eight weeks, the middle-aged woman apparently notified Judge James Zagel Wednesday that she could no longer hear evidence in the case.

Although the juror was dismissed from the Operation Family Secrets trial, the first thing said on the record was this statement provided to the I-Team by Judge Zagel:

"The juror asked to be excused for personal reasons which, on a prior occasion, she had mentioned might impose too great a burden on her," the judge said. "Today she indicated that this eventuality had occurred and, in response to her request i excused her. In order to preserve the privacy of the juror I give no further details of her personal reasons."

Even that development could not overshadow Wednesday's performance by Joey Lombardo. During a spirited three hours of cross-examination, the 78-year old mobster known as "the Clown," proved that he could be a serious actor as well. In answer to rapid-fire questioning by assistant US Attorney Mitchell Mars, Lombardo reduced the government's case to a concoction of lies by informants, one-time friends and federal agents and to a series of coincidences, mistakes and misspeaking. Lombardo claims that he merely ran a dice game and made a few good investments financed by his friend, Alan Dorfman, who was later gunned down in a suburban parking lot.

As for Lombardo's appearance in a famous photo, known as "the mob's last supper," Lombardo told the jury that he happened to have dropped by the restaurant for a sandwich and ran into nine men who happened to be Chicago's leading outfit bosses.

Lombardo did admit to trying to shake down a St. Louis attorney in 1979, and that he threatened to murder him, a conversation captured on an FBI undercover tape:

"If they make a decision and they tell me to come back and bring you a message to pay, you can fight the system if you wanna, but I'll tell you one thing. You say you're 72, and you defy it...I assure you that you will never reach 73."

Lombardo told the jury that he didn't really mean the lawyer would died before his next birthday, that he was just play acting, following a script like Jimmy Cagney, who was known for playing mobsters in the movies.

Lombardo also said he had an alibi. In Wednesday night's I-Team report at 10 p.m., we'll take you inside the Lombardo file, unmasking the clown.

A mobster's 'Judas kiss'
FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL | Calabrese rips brother, son who testified against him

August 21, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
It was Christmas Eve 1996, and reputed Outfit hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. was seeing his brother Nicholas out the door after breaking out the Napoleon brandy, when his brother made an unusual request.

"He walks to the door and says, 'Can I kiss you on the lips?' " Calabrese Sr. recounted to jurors in the Family Secrets trial Monday.

"He kissed me on the lips," Calabrese Sr. said.


In testimony like something out of “The Godfather,” (left) Frank Calabrese Sr. (right) on Monday compared his brother to Fredo, the bungling brother from the Mafia classic.

Only later, Calabrese Sr. testified, would he realize "the kiss he gave for Christmas was a Judas kiss."
That night would be the last one when Calabrese Sr. would hear his brother talk at length -- until Nicholas Calabrese, now a confessed Outfit killer, took the stand in the Family Secrets trial to bury his brother and tell jurors how they murdered people together for the mob.

Calabrese Sr., on trial for allegedly killing 13 people for the Chicago mob, struck back against his family on Monday after first hearing his brother, Nicholas, and then his son, Frank Jr., testify against him.

Frank Calabrese Jr. told jurors how he secretly recorded his father while they were both in prison. Then jurors heard those recordings of Frank Calabrese Sr. apparently describing in detail various mob murders.

On Monday, in his first full day of testimony, Frank Calabrese Sr. tried to counter his family's testimony and explain his own recorded words.

Calabrese Sr., accused of being a mob crew leader, said his brother Nicholas was really in charge and compared him to the weak brother, Fredo, in the 1972 mob movie "The Godfather."

Except Calabrese Sr., in one example of many verbal slips throughout the trial, used the name "Alfredo."

"My brother was like Alfredo in 'The Godfather,' " Calabrese Sr. testified. "If he wasn't running things and screwing things up, he wasn't happy."

Weak though Nicholas Calabrese may be, he still turned Calabrese Sr.'s two eldest sons, Frank Jr. and Kurt, against him, Calabrese Sr. testified.

Calabrese Sr. accused his oldest son, Frank Jr., of repeatedly leading him into conversations while they were both in prison to make him sound like a murderous gangster.

"He can make Jesus look like the devil on the cross," Calabrese Sr. said.

On one secret recording, Calabrese Sr. describes how top mobsters inducted him into the Chicago Outfit as a full member, how his finger was cut, how a holy card was burned in his hand.

On the stand, Calabrese Sr. scoffed at the notion that he was a made member.

So how did he know the ritual?

"The Valachi Papers," Calabrese said, referring to the 1968 memoir by gangster Joseph Valachi. "I seen that in the book."

In another recording, Calabrese Sr. tells his son that he stripped the clothes off a man he had just killed.


Trouble controlling temper
"I told him that to humor him," Calabrese Sr. explained.
Other times, Calabrese Sr. said, he just lied to scare his son out of mob life.

Calabrese Sr. blames his family for conspiring to keep him in prison, so they could steal his money.

"Joe, I love my kids and my brother . . . it's just that they gotta grow up," Calabrese Sr. told his lawyer, Joseph R. Lopez.

Calabrese Sr. has strived to appear even-tempered, but his anger flared earlier in the day when the judge refused to let him detail how his family stole from him.

Calabrese Sr. snapped after the judge upheld another prosecution objection to his testimony.

The judge declined to let Calabrese Sr. testify about matters he couldn't prove and threatened him with contempt.

"Your honor, how am I supposed to defend myself?" Calabrese Sr. said, his jaw clenched, his lower lip quivering with rage, the face of the kindly grandfather long gone.


"My brother was like Alfredo in 'The Godfather.' If he wasn't running things and screwing things up, he wasn't happy."

FAMILY SECRETS TRIAL
On Monday: Reputed Outfit killer and mob crew leader Frank Calabrese Sr. took the stand to blast his brother and son for testifying against him, and denied he ever hurt anybody.

Expected today: Prosecutors will grill Calabrese Sr., who has already shown a temper during his testimony.