Former Chicago Cop Admits to Disgracing Badge while Moonlighting for the Mob

In the Operation Family Secrets mob trial today, a Chicago Police officer admitted that he had a year's-long relationship with top ranking members of the Chicago outfit.

Former Chicago cop Anthony Doyle is one of the five men charged with outfit crimes in Operation Family Secrets. While many Chicago Police officers moonlight to supplement their city salaries, federal prosecutors say Doyle's side job was with the outfit as a loan shark and an informant, that he gave mob bosses inside police department information about evidence in a gangland murder.

Former Chicago policeman Anthony Doyle arrived for court knowing that today's cross-examination by federal prosecutors would be out to make him look like a "chumbalone." That is an Italian slang word for idiot, or dummy, and on the witness stand this afternoon was the word that Doyle himself used to describe his motivation for the tough-guy conversations he was recorded having with Chicago outfit bosses.

The jury has seen and heard the FBI surveillance tapes of Officer Doyle meeting with mob rackets boss Frank Calabrese Senior while Calabrese was serving time for extortion at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.

Prosecutors say that Officer Doyle provided Calabrese information about police evidence in the 1986 mob hit on John Fecarota, a killing carried out by Calabrese's brother Nick. At the time, Officer Doyle was working in the police evidence section.

Doyle today said his conversations with Calabrese during prison visits were: "mind-boggling gibberish. I don't know what's being talked about."

Then he claimed that he was just giving Calabrese "lip service...I don't want to look like a chumbalone," said Doyle, who is of Italian heritage but changed his last name to the Irish Doyle when he took the police exam.

Doyle tried to explain why he visited a mob boss in prison when police rules prohibit such contacts with felons.

"You knew Frank Calabrese Senior was an outfit boss. Didn't you?" asked prosecutor T. Marcus Funk.

"No sir," replied Doyle. "I knew him as a loan shark and bookmaker for the Chicago outfit."

Then later in the day, Funk asked him: "You knew that Mr. Calabrese was an outfit man when you visited him in prison, didn't you?"

Doyle, backed into a corner, admitted "Yes, sir" he knew the obvious.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie