Lawyer alleges mob-tie affidavit on him is a fake

A well-known Loop attorney has alleged that an affidavit accusing him of having ties to organized crime is a forgery and was not signed by a former FBI agent as his legal opponents claimed. Michael Ficaro of Ungaretti & Harris made the allegation this week as part of a libel suit he filed in August against three Chicago lawyers and a businessman who he says used the affidavit to falsely discredit him. The affidavit--purportedly signed by former FBI agent Francis Marrocco--said a four-year FBI investigation had revealed that Ficaro had relationships with members of organized crime.

Ficaro's lawyer, Robert Clifford, said Tuesday that the affidavit was concocted to try to pressure Ficaro to settle a lawsuit in which his clients were seeking $15 million from the businessman, Nicholas Betzold. "One or more of the [libel case] defendants forged the signature of an ex-FBI agent to a fictitious, created, false and untrue affidavit," Clifford said in a statement. "The affidavit was intended to extort Ficaro and his law firm into settling."

Named as defendants in the case are attorneys Larry Levin, David Missner and William Choslovsky, all of Chicago, and Betzold. Martin O'Hara, an attorney for Missner and Choslovsky, said Wednesday that Ficaro had raised the forgery claim only after his clients filed a motion to dismiss his original complaint. "We're going to investigate these new issues," O'Hara said. "But we don't believe there's any merit" to them.

Ficaro is a former assistant Illinois attorney general and former lawyer for Emerald Casino, a gambling firm that had hoped to build a casino in Rosemont.

The dispute stemmed from an arbitration proceeding in which Betzold was battling with three partners for control of an investment company. Ficaro represented the three partners. The arbitrator ruled in favor of Ficaro's clients in April 2004, clearing the way for an award that could have approached $15 million, Ficaro said. But Betzold filed for bankruptcy. In August 2004, Betzold's attorneys filed documents in Bankruptcy Court alleging Ficaro had ties to organized crime and had improperly influenced the arbitration proceeding.

The filings were accompanied by affidavits from Marrocco and Robert Cooley, a former mob lawyer who became an undercover informant for the FBI.

In the court filing Tuesday, Ficaro alleged that Marrocco had spoken to Levin and gave a short statement about Ficaro. But Marrocco "refused to sign an affidavit [and] never did sign an affidavit," Ficaro said in filings. Marrocco could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Thanks to Michael Higgins

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Badfella Henry Hill

Henry Hill, the former mobster immortalized in "Goodfellas," was sentenced Monday to 180 days in jail for threatening his wife and another man last summer. The judge ordered the sentence to be served concurrently with a six-month term Hill is already serving for attempted methamphetamine possession. Hill pleaded no contest to making terroristic threats.

Hill, portrayed by Ray Liotta in the 1990 mob movie, was also given credit for time served after Hill's wife and the other victim wrote letters on his behalf. The victims told the judge they didn't want Hill to receive additional jail time. Hill, 62, will complete both the sentences Dec. 29.

Police say Hill threatened his wife with a knife on July 8 at a hotel, then followed her after she left and threatened the man who had been waiting for her. Hill told The Associated Press last week that this current jail sentence had given him a chance to sober up, and now he has another chance to live a "normal life."

Hill sought refuge in the witness protection program after agreeing to testify against his former New York mob bosses. He has since left the program and lives in North Platte with his wife, who is from the area.

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Victim's sister wants mob hit man to rot in prison

Friends of ours: Harry Aleman, William "Butch" Petrocelli

Betty Romo won't be able to attend today's parole hearing for Harry Aleman, the mob hit man convicted of killing her brother. But if anybody at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board is curious about her opinion, this pretty well sums it up: "We just hope he stays where he's at and rots there." I have every confidence the Prisoner Review Board will come to the same determination, but you can never take these things for granted.

Three years ago, when Aleman first came up for parole, a state prison official was somehow persuaded to testify on Aleman's behalf, calling him a model prisoner who would pose no danger if released. One board member even voted in favor of parole. A grand jury has been poking into the matter, but no charges have been filed.

Aleman was, after all, originally acquitted of this crime, the 1972 murder of Teamsters official William Logan, only to be retried and convicted in a second trial in 1997 on the strength of testimony that Cook County Judge Frank Wilson had been bribed to fix the original case.

Romo, now 70 and living in the western suburbs, testified at both trials and attended every hearing. She said her late brother was never afraid of Aleman, despite his fearsome reputation, and she's obviously cut from the same cloth. "Listen, if he could get money to somebody, they would," she said, meaning he'd bribe his way out if he could.

Romo is not really concerned that will happen, although she was more than a little suspicious that Aleman was angling to rehabilitate his public image with an eye toward parole when he granted an exclusive interview in September to the Sun-Times' Robert Herguth. Herguth turned the interview into a two-part series, "Through the Eyes of a Hit Man," which I found to be great reading. It's not every day you get a sit-down with the guy believed to be one of the Chicago mob's most prolific hit men of the past half-century, even if he wasn't exactly spilling any family secrets.

For Romo, though, reading Aleman's continued denials along with his thoughts on everything from prison life to Jesus Christ -- only days before the anniversary of her brother's murder -- was another painful cut. "Look at what he's done to our family, all these years of stress," she said. "I'm the only one left. He tormented my family for 33 years. This has been torture. He's still doing it. How? Because he's alive, and his mouth keeps going."

"My dad died of a broken heart 14 years later," Romo said, also blaming the crime for health problems that claimed the lives of a sister and another brother.

"These have been bad, bad years for us," said Romo, who heard the gunshots the night of the murder from the second-floor apartment she shared with her brother. She raced to the street where he lay dying.

"He was still alive. He mumbled something. His keys fell. I held his head. I said, 'I'm not getting up. I don't want his head on the ground.' It was like in the movies."

In his interview with Herguth, Aleman attributed the murder to a man he referred to as his "partner," William "Butch" Petrocelli, also a mob hit man who was killed in 1980. Romo isn't buying it. "When you come from the old neighborhood, people tell you things," she said, referring to the old Italian neighborhood on the West Side, where she and her brother were raised.

Their father, also a Teamsters official, was Irish, their mother Italian. A cousin married one of the Giancanas, Romo observed pointedly. People tell you things. "[Aleman] didn't get an OK to kill my brother," she said. "We found out."

'At the second trial, Romo suggested a bitter custody dispute between Logan and his ex-wife was a possible motive in the killing. Aleman is a cousin of the ex-wife. But another witness had testified the motive was a dispute involving the Cicero trucking company where Logan worked. "This killing was personal, not business," Romo insisted, saying her brother was not involved in anything criminal.

A young mechanic, Bob Lowe, witnessed the murder and identified Aleman as the killer. Tribune reporters Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan wrote a book about Logan's murder titled, Everybody Pays, with Lowe as a central character. Romo always thought there should be a book with her brother as the central character. She has picked out a title, Tonight Brings No Tomorrow.

Aleman is serving a 100- to 300-year sentence at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, which given his eligibility for parole, was obviously a sentence devised before truth-in-sentencing laws. Aleman, 66, deserves to spend the rest of his tomorrows just like he'll spend tonight.

Thanks to Mark Brown

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Fact or Fiction?

Many years ago, while standing next to a bullet-riddled, blood-splattered car on Diversey Avenue in Chicago, a homicide detective peered into the carnage of a mob hit, then looked around quickly to make sure no one else with a badge was within earshot.

"Look, I know this is supposed to be against the law and all of that," he said. "But you do have to admire professionalism when you see it."

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