The "Other" Calabrese

He was just convicted in a string of armed robberies, but federal authorities now suspect him of committing several more serious crimes.

He's known as "The *Other* Calabrese."

This is the story of Anthony Calabrese, who carries the same last name as one of Chicago's most notorious mob families.

Anthony is not even related to the bloodthirsty Calabreses, who made news last summer during the operation Family Secrets mob murder trial. But Anthony Calabrese is in the same line of work as his infamous namesakes.

There have been 1,100 mob hits in Chicago since the Roaring Twenties. The last known gangland murder occurred in the entryway of a west suburban restaurant. Mobster Anthony "The Hatchet" Chiarmonti was chased and gunned down in 2001 by an assassin who escaped in a getaway minivan. Two months later, at Tony C's Auto Shop in Alsip, business owner Anthony "Tony C" Calabrese convened a meeting.

**Strip off your clothes," barked a twitchy Calabrese, concerned one of his underlings had turned on him and was wearing a hidden FBI tape recorder, which he was. But they never found it.

"You know to keep your mouth shut. I mean, you understand what'll happen?" asked Calabrese.

"Tony, do I look like I wanna be dead?" answered the associate.

Calabrese threatened to kill the associate if he went to the feds. Investigators believe Calabrese was paranoid that authorities would connect him to the parking lot murder of Chiaramonti two months earlier. At one point, Calabrese and one of his henchmen pounced on the suspected rat.

The tape was played last week by federal prosecutors, who had charged Calabrese in a series of suburban stick-ups. Calabrese's accomplice during the recorded attack, Robert Cooper, testified that it was a "stomping" with "steel-toe boots." Cooper helped convict Calabrese of armed robberies in Morton Grove, Maywood and Lockport. Judge Amy St. Eve allowed the violent tape to be played over Calabrese's objections.

Calabrese's lawyer admits the tape wasn't pretty and did-in the hoodlum in the eyes of the jury.

Cooper has also admitted to police that he was Calabrese's partner in the murder of Tony The Hatch. Cooper is now serving time for driving the getaway vehicle. Calabrese has never been charged with the Chiaramonti hit, although authorities are said to be building a murder case against him. At age 47, he faces a minimum 50 years behind bars just for the stick-ups.

Calabrese's lawyer says that amounts to a life sentence.

Federal agents hope such a bleak existence behind bars might entice Calabrese to cooperate and give up the names of top Chicago Outfit bosses who arranged Chiarmonti's murder.

Mob experts say Calabrese has reported to James "Jimmy I" Inendino. The I stands for ice-pick, which Mr. Inendino has been known to use for eye examinations. "Jimmy I" is considered a leader in the mob's 26th Street crew, a rigid organization where hoodlums like Calabrese are bred to go down with the ship.

Calabrese's lawyer says that Anthony believes he was brought into the world as a man and will go out as a man.

As meticulous as Anthony Calabrese was running his criminal ventures, and as paranoid as he was that someone might turn on him, Calabrese somehow missed the tape recorder that probably did him in. He even strip searched the guy, desperate to find a recorder. It was there somewhere, rolling and recording, even as Calabrese punched and stomped his way to mob infamy.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Mob Ties to Hired Truck Scandal

Friends of ours: James "Jimmy I" Inendino and Nick "The Stick" LoCocco

A trucking company owner from Lockport was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program. U.S. District Judge John Grady said Salvador Alvarez's decision to pay city employee John "Quarters" Boyle a bribe to join the program and later cover it up was a textbook case of "a decent man participating in a very evil enterprise." But probation, suggested by Alvarez's attorney Russell Green, would be too mild a punishment for the crimes, Grady said.

Although Grady was sorry for the toll that imprisonment would take on Alvarez, he said he needed to set an example for the community and deter others who might be tempted to walk down the same path. "The matter of official corruption, bribery and shakedowns is an endemic problem. The Hired Truck Program was a disgrace to the City of Chicago and to everyone who knew about the dishonest way it was conducted," Grady said. "The public needs to know that paying bribes and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes is conduct that will lead to serious punishment."

Alvarez, the owner of Sarch Hauling Ltd., also was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Before he was sentenced, Alvarez, 54, tearfully recalled how he immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1969, earned his GED and worked hard to make a living. Alvarez apologized to city residents, the government and his family, who joined him in court on what he said was a very "black" day. "I did something here that was very wrong," Alvarez said in a wavering voice. "It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake I'll never make again."

Boyle, the politically connected former city employee at the center of the Hired Truck probe, told Alvarez he needed to pay $30,000 up front to get into the program and $2,000 per truck per season and an additional $1,000 per truck as a bonus every Christmas, according to Alvarez's plea deal with prosecutors, which calls for his cooperation in the investigation. Boyle, who also pleaded guilty, took $4,000 in shakedown money from Alvarez for a trip to Acapulco, Mexico.

There was no discussion of Sarch's ties to reputed mobsters during Wednesday's hearing. The company leased garage space for its trucks from mob loan shark James Inendino, who was recommended to Alvarez by Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a mob bookie and city employee who also was charged in the Hired Truck investigation. LoCoco died in an accident before going to trial. Sarch also bought a truck from Mayor Daley ally John Cannatello, who also has pleaded guilty to paying bribes for Hired Truck business.

Thanks to Rummana Hussain

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