Grand jury lifting veil on unsolved mob hits

Joseph "the Clown" Lombardo was at a workbench in his small Near West Side shop, where masonry saws and tools are sharpened, when 10 federal agents swarmed in. One agent waved a grand jury warrant, another carried a cotton swab. The agents dabbed the inside of Lombardo's mouth with the swab--gathering DNA--and were gone in less than two minutes.

Lombardo, a longtime Chicago Outfit leader who publicly swore off his mob ties after being released from prison in 1992, is one of more than a dozen mob bosses and associates who are subjects of a new federal probe into long-dormant mob murders, some dating as far back as three decades.

A federal grand jury is investigating at least 16 unsolved killings, making it one of the biggest law-enforcement strikes against organized crime in Chicago history. Sources close to the investigation--dubbed Operation Family Secrets--and attorneys for some of the alleged mob members say they expect the grand jury to hand up indictments as early as next month.

Convictions on this scale would be unprecedented. The Chicago Crime Commission counts 1,111 Chicago-area gangland slayings since 1919, but only 14 have ended in murder convictions and three cases were cleared when the suspected killers were murdered before being arrested, according to the commission. The crime commission is a non-profit group of civic leaders that aim to improve public safety.

Prosecutors not only have new DNA technology drawing out evidence from old cases but also have cooperating witnesses, including at least one member of the notorious 26th Street Crew, sources said. Nick Calabrese, a high-ranking crew member, spent years in a Michigan federal prison before turning informant and fingering past associates in several murders, according to sources.

Working on the tips, federal investigators have fanned out across the Chicago area, swabbing more than 30 known Outfit associates for DNA samples to try to link them to some of the area's most notorious gangland slayings.

Like the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert. Scheduled to testify against Lombardo and other Outfit members in a Teamsters pension loan fraud case, Seifert was slain by shotgun blasts by ski-masked men outside his Bensenville plastics factory as his wife and 4-year-old son watched.

Federal prosecutors hope DNA from a hair strand lifted from one of the ski masks found under a getaway car in that case could link Lombardo to the crime scene.

Though the investigation has focused heavily on the 26th Street Crew, investigators have tossed a wide net, hoping to snare members of different crews in cases ranging from the 1970 disappearance of Michael Frank "Bones" Albergo, a 220-pound organized crime muscleman, to the 1986 murder of Anthony Spilotro, the Outfit's man in Las Vegas who fell out of favor with his bosses. He and his brother, Michael Spilotro, were beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield. Dust and sand found in their lungs indicated they had been buried alive, officials said.

Besides Lombardo, other mob associates that agents are investigating include John "No Nose" DiFronzo and Jimmy Marcello, considered two of the Outfit's top-ranking bosses, a source familiar with the investigation said. "It's a pretty massive investigation from the stuff I'm hearing," said Rick Halprin, Lombardo's attorney. Halprin said Lombardo, now 75, was at a Chicago police station reporting a stolen wallet at the time of the Seifert murder.

Albergo, an alleged loan shark for the mob, was scheduled to stand trial on charges of criminal usury and conspiracy when he disappeared in September 1970. Authorities at the time speculated he may have been killed for not realizing he was making illegal loans to an undercover Chicago policeman.

In 2003, Albergo's name resurfaced when FBI agents excavated an edge of the parking lot at U.S. Cellular Field, reportedly looking for his bones, sources said. Calabrese led authorities to the site, the sources said.

Two other murders expected on the indictment are those of William Dauber and Charlotte Dauber, who were gunned down by rifle and shotgun blasts in a car chase on a rural Will County road in 1980. The couple's bodies were found sprawled across the front seat of their Oldsmobile, with three of its windows blown out and its front end crushed against a tree. William Dauber, a reputed Outfit hit man who authorities believed was responsible for more than 30 slayings, had been arrested on federal drug charges and mob leaders feared he would turn informant.

One of the more notorious slayings expected on the indictment is that of Anthony Spilotro. The Outfit's enforcer in Las Vegas, Spilotro had angered his bosses by indulging in a series of burglaries, dope deals and murders that brought unwanted federal attention.

In June 1986, the Spilotro brothers made national headlines when a farmer discovered their bodies in the Indiana cornfield. The pair had been badly beaten and stripped to their underwear before being buried alive. (The scene would be reproduced in the 1995 film "Casino.") Three months later, John Fecarotta, a longtime muscleman for the 26th Street Crew, was shot to death in a doorway of a bingo hall on West Belmont Avenue. Informants said he was killed for botching the burials of the Spilotro brothers, according to court documents.

Such violent tasks--beatings, murders, torture and disappearances--many times fell to the 26th Street Crew, believed by federal authorities to be the Outfit's enforcement arm and expected to bear the brunt of the upcoming indictment.

The crew's strong ties to Outfit leaders and its violent reputation made it the top choice of mob bosses for carrying out killings, said Robert Whisman, an FBI agent who investigated the 26th Street Crew from 1984 to 1993.

"When [Outfit bosses] needed someone killed, they called people they trusted," said Whisman, now an agent with the FBI's Kansas City office. "They needed people who couldn't talk on them because they had already killed people. There were several people from the 26th Street Crew who had killed people. They were the logical choice."

Led by street captains such as Angelo "the Hook" LaPietra and John "Johnny Apes" Monteleone, the 26th Street Crew--one of six street crews that investigators say operate as part of the Chicago Outfit--prowled a territory south of the Eisenhower Expressway that included Chinatown's gambling dens and South Side auto chop shops.

The 26th Street Crew--also known as the "Chinatown Crew" or "South Side Crew"--emerged in the 1950s and flourished through the '60s and '70s, collecting a cut of revenues from the area's storage and trucking companies, railroad depots, junkyards and chop shops, or auto yards that dismantle stolen cars. Crew bosses reported to and delivered a percentage of all revenue to Chicago's head mob boss at the time.

Truck hijackings and cartage thefts were common, said Vincent Inserra, who headed the organized crime squad of the Chicago FBI office from the early 1960s to the mid-'70s. "They were known for bombings," he said. "Not necessarily to kill people. But if they wanted to put fear into the hearts of people, that would do it."

Gambling made the 26th Street Crew big money and established it as a vital spoke in the Outfit wheel, according to court documents and federal agents. Headed by Frank "Skids" Caruso from the late 1950s through the 1970s, the crew set up illegal backroom betting parlors to take wagers on everything from horse races to Chicago Bears games and doled out "juice loans," where money is lent at extortionate rates.

If a gambler couldn't cover his loss, the crew would offer him a juice loan to pay it back, said Jack O'Rourke, a former FBI agent who monitored the 26th Street Crew for more than 10 years. If he fell behind on juice payments, it meant baseball-bat beatings, torture or death, O'Rourke said.

The 26th Street Crew was also responsible for Chinatown, located just blocks north on Wentworth Avenue. Using Asian liaisons such as Joe Wing and Ken Eto and their own enforcers, the crew collected a cut of the action from the illegal Fan Tan and Maj Jong games operating behind the neighborhood's storefronts.

When Asian heroin flooded Chicago's Chinatown in the 1970s and '80s, the crew took a piece of profits as well, charging dealers and helping to enforce payments without dealing directly in the drugs, court records show.

Under LaPietra, the crew's boss in the 1980s, the epicenter for the crew became the Old Neighborhood Italian-American Club, at its former location of 26th Street and Princeton Avenue. Crew bosses and enforcers dropping off payments would enter under the "Members Only" sign over the door and discuss dealings or join illicit crap games in the back room.

LaPietra's nickname, "the Hook," came from his reputation for hanging enemies from meat hooks while torturing them to death. Standing just 5-foot, 5-inches with thick glasses and heavy-lidded eyes, LaPietra was beloved in his neighborhood. He invested in community projects and held a block party every summer. But behind the cheery benevolence simmered a world of violence, and the mob hit no one harder than its own.

When mob bosses suspected that William "Butch" Petrocelli, an up-and-coming mob thug, had skimmed collection money and shaken down a group of robbers without permission, they resolved to teach him a lesson, court documents say. According to a federal informant, Petrocelli was called to a meeting in December 1980, questioned, tortured and murdered. His body was found three months later wrapped in a sleeping bag in the backseat of his car on a Southwest Side street. His face had been charred with an acetylene torch. Later, according to court documents, an informant told agents the 26th Street Crew had been involved and LaPietra had done the actual killing.

Chicago went without an apparent Outfit hit for at least five years in the late 1990s, until Ronald Jarrett, a reputed lieutenant in the South Side Crew and friend of Nick Calabrese, was shot as he walked to his car in front of his Bridgeport home on Dec. 23, 1999. He died about a month later.

The Jarrett slaying, which sources said will be part of the indictment, could implicate a number of high-ranking mob associates because of the enemies Jarrett had earned within the Outfit. Known as one of the syndicate's more vicious thugs, Jarrett had a penchant for assaulting police officers and for luring women away from men at bars, O'Rourke said.

Around the time he was shot, Jarrett had been clashing with other Outfit members, including top leaders of the 26th Street Crew, he said. "Everyone hated him," O'Rourke said. "When he was killed, we had more suspects than we could count."

In recent years, investigators say the crew has been headed by Frank "Toots" Caruso (Skid Caruso's son and a nephew of the late Ald. Fred Roti, who was convicted of federal racketeering and extortion charges in 1993) and Frank Calabrese and Nick Calabrese, according to federal sources.

Caruso, his brother Bruno and other Outfit members had also infiltrated the Laborers unions in Chicago and its district council that controlled a billion-dollar union pension fund, according to testimony at federally monitored union hearings. After prompting from federal prosecutors and reformers in the union, union leaders removed them from their locals.

As its leaders have lost their previous jobs in unions and government, law enforcement officials said the 26th Street Crew today has become a lot less visible--though still operative--organization.

LaPietra died in 1999 of natural causes after serving 11 years in a federal prison for skimming money from a Las Vegas casino.

Yeong Shun Video and DVDs now occupies the storefront of the former Old Neighborhood Italian-American Club. New riverboat casinos have stolen a lot of the bookies' business and the last-known gangland murder occurred in November 2001, when Anthony "the Hatch" Chiaramonti, a 26th Street associate, was shot outside Brown's Chicken & Pasta in Lyons.

Enforcement officials said much of the Outfit, including the 26th Street Crew, have become more sophisticated, investing in legitimate businesses and curbing their violent impulses. But some habits--threatening competitors, leaning on customers, pulling political connections--still linger, officials said. "The minute things get tough, when business starts slipping," said one longtime Outfit investigator, "they go back to their old ways."

Thanks to Rick Jervis, Liam Ford, Ray Gibson and Art Barnum

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Mob Ties Run throughout City Truck Program

When the FBI was trying to bring down the mob's 26th Street crew two decades ago, it was investigating men such as Chicago Alderman Fred Roti, his nephew, trucking magnate Fred Barbara, and Mickey "Gorilla" Gurgone, a city worker and noted safecracker.

Today, many of those men or their families are linked to trucking firms that get a big cut of a $40 million annual City of Chicago program where nothing goes out to bid. Business is done with a handshake, without any contracts.

Nick "The Stick" LoCoco was arrested in 1986 on a gambling charge which was later thrown out. At the time of his arrest, he was a city foreman overseeing truck drivers. He rose to be the city's official point man in the Transportation Department for the Hired Truck Program. Indeed, nearly one out of every 10 trucking firms in the city's Hired Truck Program is either owned by alleged mobsters or Outfit associates or by family members, often women, of reputed mob figures, the Sun-Times found.

Robert Cooley, a former mob attorney who cooperated with federal authorities to destroy the Outfit, has told authorities that organized crime in the 1970s and 1980s controlled what is now called the Hired Truck Program. The late Alderman Roti, a made member of the mob, had influence over the program, Cooley has said.

The trucking companies often operate out of the owners' homes, and several lease a single dump truck to the city along with a driver. The firms are paid typically $40 an hour and up.

Trucking companies wanting work in the program for the city's transportation department had to deal with city employee Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a reputed juice collector and bookie. Mayor Daley's administration put LoCoco in charge of hiring trucks for the no-bid program from 1994 until July 2002 when LoCoco retired.

When the Sun-Times told Daley's budget director, William Abolt, about its findings about the truck program and the mob, he said he was not at all surprised. Abolt is responsible for the Hired Truck Program. "It's something you find in trucking," he said. "I can't say that I'm shocked that you found connections to organized crime in the trucking industry."

"You need better standards for people coming in. There was far too much informality, far too much discretion, as to not enough things written down, how do people get in, how do they get kicked out, how they get put on probation," Abolt said, vowing reform.

The Daley administration is no stranger to embarrassing brushes with the Outfit. Last year, two members of the Duff family were indicted on charges they set up false minority- and women-owned firms to get $100 million worth of work. Family members have alleged ties to organized crime and are longtime political supporters of the mayor.

In 1995, the Daley administration backtracked on a $5.5 million loan to an allegedly mobbed-up deal for a movie studio project on the West Side.

Here are snapshots of some of the men with links to firms in the Hired Truck Program and the Outfit.

MICHAEL ‘THE GORILLA’ GURGONE: Gurgone drove a truck for Streets and Sanitation while moonlighting as a top-notch safecracker, authorities say. For more than 25 years, Michael "The Gorilla" Gurgone drove a truck for Streets and Sanitation while moonlighting as a top-notch safecracker, authorities say.

Gurgone, 67, of the South Side, has a history of arrests but only one significant conviction for a botched $600,000 heist at Balmoral Race Track in 1983.

Gurgone and another man were sitting outside in a vehicle, keeping a lookout for the cops, while their partners were inside, subduing the security guards. But the heist fell apart when a fresh shift of security guards arrived, and the burglars fled.

The men got busted years later when Duke Basile and Paul "Peanuts" Panczko, two men involved in the case, wound up squealing to federal agents. Gurgone was eventually convicted. Gurgone got seven years for the botched burglary, the first time he was convicted. It was a stiffer-than-normal sentence because the federal judge determined that Gurgone had spent much of his life as a burglar.

Gurgone is the brother-in-law of Carmen Schadt Gurgone, the president of Schadt's Trucking, which is in the Hired Truck Program.

Records show Schadt's was set up with the help of a man named Michael Gurgone who lived in the South Side Mount Greenwood neighborhood. It's the same address as the convicted burglar named Michael Gurgone, who has alleged ties to the mob, according to federal authorities. But Gurgone, the burglar, insisted in an interview he was not the Gurgone who helped create Schadt's. "I don't know nothing about it," the burglar said.

Carmen Schadt said in a written response that her company was created with the help of her nephew, Michael Gurgone, a CPA. He is the burglar's son and namesake.

The city paid Schadt's Inc. $396,562 for the first 10 months of 2003 in the Hired Truck Program, records show.

Schadt's is among many firms the city has designated as both a disadvantaged business and female-owned. The city certified Schadt's as a disadvantaged business because it is owned by a woman and it makes less than $17 million annually. So whenever the city hires trucks from Schadt's, it helps the Daley administration meet its goals to set aside business for disadvantaged and female-owned firms.

Schadt's leases eight trucks from Michael Tadin, whose firms make more money than any other in the Hired Truck Program. Tadin is a longtime political supporter of the mayor and grew up in the same neighborhood. Schadt's pays Tadin 88 percent of what those trucks gross, state records show. Schadt's and Tadin say those trucks are not used in the city Hired Truck Program.

After Michael Gurgone got out of jail for the botched Balmoral burglary, he got a job as a truck driver with Tadin's Marina Cartage, police records show. Gurgone said he still works for Tadin.

Out of Schadt's came another female-owned firm owned by a Gurgone, Rhonda Vasquez-Gurgone. She created her company, STR Enterprises, in August 2001, while she was a dispatcher for Schadt's. The growth of her business has been remarkable.

In 2001, when her business started, she made $3,000 from private business, records show. The next year, STR took in a total of $438,949, including about $117,000 from the Hired Truck Program. STR got into the program that year. Last year, the city paid STR $132,875 during the first 10 months, according to the most recent figures.

JAMES INENDINO: Jimmy Inendino’s JMS Trucking firm was approved for the program seven months after he was convicted of ripping off the Town of Cicero in a kickback scheme. Another Outfit figure, once described as a whiz at stealing stuff off trucks, owns a trucking firm that got into the Hired Truck Program.

James "Jimmy I" Inendino has been linked to planning at least one murder and threatening to kill debtors who are behind in their juice loan payments. But his most recent criminal conviction would seem to make him an unusual candidate for the program.

In March 2002, Inendino was convicted with the reputed Cicero mob boss and the town's crooked police chief in a kickback scheme to rip off the town. Inendino is now serving 6 1/2 years behind bars.

While he was awaiting trial, federal prosecutors tried to revoke his bond when they alleged he bribed a city building inspector, with $1,000 tucked inside a Chicago Sun-Times, for occupancy permits for town homes Inendino was building in Little Italy.

Despite that highly publicized background, Inendino's firm, JMS Trucking, got into the Hired Truck Program in November 2002, after he had been convicted. That's despite city rules that can ban from the program people who have been convicted of bribery or other crimes involving the government. City records show Inendino operated the business out of his Darien home. JMS has taken in about $3,200 from the Hired Truck Program. The city just started using JMS last year, after Inendino was convicted.

Inendino, a convicted loan shark, has a history of threatening to hurt people. When one debtor didn't pay up $250, Inendino, who has been investigated by the FBI and IRS, warned that the man "will never ride a . . . horse the rest of his life."

When another man failed to make his payment, Inendino told a colleague to tell the man "he doesn't owe anything, because when I see him, and I am going to see him, I'm going to break his f------ head."

One of Inendino's friends is Harry Aleman, the infamous hit man who was sentenced to 100 to 300 years in prison for a murder in which he was originally acquitted because the Outfit bribed the judge in the case, authorities said.

Aleman, Inendino and another partner in crime, Louis Almeida, planned the murder of a fourth associate, Robert William Harder, but the hit didn't go through because they couldn't find him, according to a federal judge's ruling.

Another Inendino friend, Greg Paloian, a convicted bookmaker, also found a sideline in the Hired Truck Program, with his firm Ruff Edge Inc.

Like Inendino, Paloian ran a small trucking company out of his home in Elmwood Park. The money came at a good time for Paloian. He was indicted in January 2001 on bookmaking charges, the same year the city began hiring about five trucks from him. That year, the city paid Paloian about $182,800.

In March 2002, Paloian pleaded guilty in the case and later was sentenced to nearly 3-1/2 years in prison in July in an IRS case. His company was paid nearly $181,500 by the city in 2002. The city stopped using Paloian's trucks after he went to prison.

ROBERT COOLEY AND FRED ROTI: Robert Cooley, a onetime mob attorney, maintains that the late Alderman Fred Roti, a made member of the mob, had influence over the Hired Truck Program. Family members of the late Chicago Ald. Fred Roti have one of the most extensive networks of trucking firms in the program.

Roti was convicted of extortion and racketeering and was called a "made member" of the mob by the FBI. He was also accused of packing the city's Streets and Sanitation Department with mob members and associates. He died in 1999 after serving a four-year prison sentence.

Roti's family members are linked to six companies in the Hired Truck Program, two of them certified as female-owned firms.

One nephew, Frank Roti, has three family members who each have trucking companies in the program. In turn, all three companies lease trucks from a firm owned by Frank Roti, city records show.

One of those three companies, Miffy Trucking, is owned by his daughter, Mary. There are no state or city records showing that Miffy owns any trucks. The firm leases its fleet from FMR Leasing, the firm owned by Mary's father. The city has certified Miffy as both a female-owned business and a disadvantaged business. Miffy, which was created in 1996, is one of the top firms in the Hired Truck Program, making $447,058 for the first 10 months in 2003, city records show.

Together, the Frank Roti family firms were paid about $1.4 million in 2002, trailing only Tadin's companies as the top earners in the program.

Another nephew of the late alderman, businessman Fred Barbara, has a father, wife and mother-in-law with firms in the Hired Truck Program.

Fred Barbara, 56, once owned a huge trucking firm that did business with the city, but he sold it several years ago. His wife, Lisa Humbert, owns Karen's Kartage, a firm she started in 1986 when she was Fred Barbara's secretary at his trucking company. The city paid Karen's Kartage more than $520,000 in 2002.

Fred Barbara says his brother now runs Karen's Kartage, not his wife, and it's no longer certified as a female-owned firm.

Fred Barbara's mother-in-law, Geraldine Humbert, owns a small trucking company that has been in the Hired Truck Program since 1999. She has hired out one truck and driver to the city for $38,720 during the first 10 months of the year.

Fred Barbara's father, Anthony, has one truck in the program.

Fred Barbara owned his trucking company when he was arrested on loansharking charges in 1982 along with Joseph "Shorty'' Lamantia, then a reputed top aide to mob boss Angelo "The Hook'' LaPietra. Also arrested were LaMantia's adopted son, Aldo Piscitelli Jr., and Barbara's cousin, Frank Caruso, another Roti nephew. Caruso's father was the reputed mob boss of Chinatown; his son Frank was convicted in the beating of Lenard Clark, a black teen who was riding his bike through Bridgeport.

Fred Barbara and the others were accused of trying to collect a $20,000 juice loan from an undercover FBI agent posing as a commodities broker. Barbara and his co-defendants were acquitted.

Barbara said those allegations are more than 20 years old and are "old news." "Show me my connection to organized crime. Did I turn the corner? You show me anything in the last 24 years that reflects to that nature," Barbara said.

Carl Galione, an associate of LaPietra's former bodyguard and driver, Ronald Jarrett, owns one company in the Hired Truck Program, while his daughter owns another. Both companies share common addresses on Chicago's Southwest Side and in Downers Grove.

Galione's company, CPS Trucking, started leasing trucks to the city in 2001. The following year, his daughter's company entered the Hired Truck Program.

Galione and Jarrett were indicted on charges of rape and kidnapping in 1980, but a Cook County judge found them not guilty.

Galione, 54, spent six months in a federal prison in 1997 after he pleaded guilty to income tax evasion.

Galione said he was a childhood friend of Jarrett's but that they went their separate ways. When asked if he had any ties to organized crime, Galione laughed and said: "I've got ties to my shoes."

Other companies owned by relatives of organized crime figures also provide trucks to the city:

*Andrich Trucking is owned by Donald Andrich, also known as Donald Andriacchi. He is a nephew of Joseph "Joe the Builder" Andriacchi, who authorities say is a reputed top crime boss. The city has done business with Andrich Trucking for decades.

*Chica Trucking is owned by Patricia Cortez, sister-in-law of Chris Spina, a former city worker once fired for chauffeuring reputed mob boss Joseph "the Clown'' Lombardo on city time. Spina later got his job back. Cortez started hiring out trucks to the city water department in November 2002.

The city paid Greg Paloian about $182,800 for trucks in 2001, the same year he was indicted on bookmaking charges.

Thanks to STEVE WARMBIR AND TIM NOVAK

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Former FBI Agent Arrested in Mob Hit

A former FBI agent who handled high-ranking mob informants was arrested Thursday and charged with murder for allegedly helping to set up a 1981 mob hit on an Oklahoma businessman.

H. Paul Rico, 78, was arrested at his home near Miami in the slaying of 55-year-old Roger Wheeler, who was shot in the head at a Tulsa, Okla., country club after a round of golf.

Rico's arrest was the latest turn in a long-running scandal over the cozy relationship between the Boston FBI and its underworld informants. Last year, a former FBI agent was convicted of protecting gangsters, including James “Whitey” Bulger, who is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.

Investigators said Wheeler's slaying was linked to his purchase of World Jai Alai and his suspicion that money was being skimmed from the Florida company. At the time, Rico was retired from the FBI and was the head of security for World Jai Alai.

Investigators said Rico provided John Martorano, a hit man for Boston's Winter Hill Gang, with information on Wheeler's schedule so he could be killed. Martorano admitted pulling the trigger and is awaiting sentencing.

The New York Times reported that Rico asked Martorano to carry out the hit because gang members believed Wheeler had learned $1 million a year was being skimmed from the jai alai operation.

Rico “flat-out categorically denies this,” said his attorney, William Cagney III. “He never assisted the Winter Hill Gang in trying to get inside information so they could ... do away with people.”

Rico was jailed in Florida. Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the Boston FBI, declined to comment. Rico spent 24 years with the FBI, specializing in organized crime cases in Boston in the 1960s and '70s. He cultivated mobster Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi and others as informants.

Bulger, the boss of the Winter Hill Gang, Flemmi and Martorano were all charged in Wheeler's murder in 2001 by Oklahoma prosecutors. District Attorney Tim Harris of Tulsa has said he planned to seek the death penalty against Bulger and Flemmi.

Prosecutors in Florida followed with an indictment charging all three in the 1982 slaying of World Jai Alai executive John “Jack” Callahan in Miami. Investigators said they believe Callahan was killed to keep him from telling authorities about links between World Jai Alai and the mob.

A congressional panel is investigating the Boston FBI office's ties to its mob informants, including Bulger, who fled in 1995 after being tipped off by then-agent John J. Connolly Jr. that he was about to be indicted on federal racketeering charges.

During Connolly's trial, prosecutors said Bulger and Flemmi were left untouched by law enforcement for decades because they were informing for the FBI on the New England Mafia, which is separate from the Winter Hill Gang. Connolly is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

In 2001, Rico testified about another case before a congressional committee. He denied that he and his partner helped framed an innocent man for a 1965 gangland slaying, but acknowledged that Joseph Salvati wrongly spent 30 years in prison for the crime.

Republican Rep. Christopher Shays accused Rico of feeling no remorse for his role in the conviction of four innocent men in that case. Rico replied, “What do you want, tears?"

Salvati's lawyer, Victor Garo, predicted that Rico's arrest will split the Boston FBI scandal wide open, exposing more government wrongdoing in Boston and Washington. "He was the inside man of the Boston office of the FBI in dealing with informants like Steve Flemmi and others,” Garo said. “I would imagine that right now many people are concerned about what he knows and what he will say. ... He knows about all the skeletons in the closet.”

Wheeler's son said he was pleased with Rico's arrest. “It's something I've wanted for years,” said Larry Wheeler, who said he believes Rico played a role in his father's murder.

The ongoing scandal has also damaged the career of one of the state's most legendary politicians, former state Senate president William Bulger, who is the brother of Whitey Bulger. Bulger resigned as president of the University of Massachusetts in August, following months of mounting pressure over his role in the federal investigation of his fugitive brother.

The departure came just two months after UMass trustees expressed confidence in Bulger even as a storm of protest swirled around him and his testimony before a congressional committee investigating the FBI's ties to its mob informants.

He testified under immunity before the panel in June about brother Whitey. While admitting he had spoken to his brother once since he fled, Bulger said he has no idea of his whereabouts and said there is little he could have done to steer him from a life of crime. William Bulger also said he thought the FBI investigators were trying to get his brother killed when they leaked to the media the fact that Whitey Bulger had been an informant.

Bulger's critics said his testimony was evasive and questioned how he could be so ignorant of his brother's criminal activities.

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Organized Crime and "Joe's Barbecue"

Forty-six years ago today (11/14/1957), an unusual group gathered at the rural estate of a soft drink bottler in Appalachin, a small town just west of Binghamton, New York. Mr. Joseph Barbara was supposedly hosting a "soft drink convention" that day.

Sergeant Edgar Croswell of the New York State Police was intensely interested in the gathering. He'd observed suspected criminals at the house before and was suspicious. With smoke rising from Barbara's grill, Croswell and Trooper Vincent Vasisko openly began to take down the license plate numbers of luxury cars jammed in the driveway.

Suddenly Barbara’s guests noticed…and panicked. Some fled to the woods; others dashed for their cars. Sergeant Croswell ordered an immediate roadblock and soon had detained 62 guests in order to check their identification; among them, Joseph Bonanano, Russell Bufalino, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, Antonio Magaddino, Joseph Profaci, John Scalish, and Santos Traficante.

A veritable Who’s Who of what we now call the "Mob," the "Mafia," or "La Cosa Nostra."

Croswell’s important detective work exploded nationally. Concerns had been expressed that a secret network of connected criminal enterprises existed. But many, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, had disagreed. They said crime was a serious problem, but there was no evidence that a conspiratorial web linked racketeers across the country.

Now there was evidence. Hoover got to work, ordering his field executives to develop maximum information on crime bosses in their areas of jurisdiction. This "Top Hoodlum Program" produced a wealth of information about organized crime activities. In a 1960 Letter to All Law Enforcement Officials, Hoover wryly commented: "If we must, let us learn a lesson from the barons of the underworld who have shown that cooperative crime is profitable – cooperative law enforcement can be twice as effective."

But the Bureau needed legislative tools to get past the small time crooks and connect them with those barons. Congress powerfully delivered, with illegal gambling laws that unlocked mafia financial networks and with laws like the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968 and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970. Soon, major cases like UNIRAC, BRILAB, and Pizza Connection led to the prosecution and jailing of top crime lords across the country. Then, in 1987, Judge Richard Owen of the Southern District of New York, sentenced the top leadership of five New York City "families" to 100 years each in prison for working together as a single enterprise. The "Commission Case" effectively broke the stranglehold of traditional organized crime in the U.S.

Today new organized crime syndicates operate on a global stage, and the FBI is working effectively with its international partners to dismantle them, piece by piece.

Thanks to the FBI

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