The Clown's Toothache

Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo

It started with a toothache.

That's the testimony of a key government witness at the trial of five alleged Chicago mob figures.

Patrick Spilotro is a dentist and the brother of two men allegedly murdered by the Chicago Outfit. He told jurors how he provided information to the FBI for more than two decades in a bid to catch his brothers' killers.

He says he served as a dentist to defendant Joseph Lombardo.

While a fugitive in 2006, Lombardo visited Spilotro to have a painful abscess treated. And Spilotro says he tipped off the FBI, who nabbed Lombardo on a return trip.

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