Overheard: Early and Often

Senate Democrats killed a bill on Thursday to repeal the inheritance tax. It smacks of ingratitude. You would think Democrats would support the repeal of estate taxes when you consider how many dead people vote for them in Chicago alone.

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Wild Wild West Justice in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a juice town, some Las Vegas attorneys openly concede. Financial contributions "get you juice with a judge — an 'in,' " Ian Christopherson, a lawyer in Las Vegas for 18 years, said in an interview. "If you have juice, you get different treatment. This is not a quid pro quo town like, say, Chicago. This town is a juice town."

How did the Chicago Mob get involved in this Stacked Judicial Deck and How Do Some Nevada Judges Stay Under the Radar?

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The Badge Still Shines

Friends of ours: Al Capone
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Steven Caracappa

The shock and disappointment over the two New York detectives who sold their homicidal services to the Mafia is no more than a lot of hooey.

Louis Eppolito and Steve Caracappa - the two convicted "mob cops" - do not represent the NYPD, they represent that special community of criminals who submit to greed and corruption.

I recently read about the gang wars of Chicago in the 1920s. I was surprised by what Al Capone said of a city prosecutor who had been accidentally killed by mob assassins as he was leaving a speakeasy. Why would he have had the man killed, Capone asked. He went on to say that he had paid the prosecutor a pile of money and had gotten his money's worth. The deceased prosecutor was highly regarded for having sent a number of gangland soldiers to the electric chair. The public of Chicago, tired of the mob wars, had great faith in him only to find out that their man had been another Capone employee tattooed by the greasy stains of graft.

Gangsters are always on the lookout for their own double agents. These have to be people ready to accept pay for revealing information about police investigations and, if full of enough ice and moxie, who also will kill.

Sometimes, the degree of corruption is extremely large and the willingness to abuse power seems unlimited. In fact, when I arrived in New York from the spiritual dust bowl of Los Angeles 30 years ago, it was easy to do or see many things. Some cops could be bribed out of giving a citation for a traffic offense. Or some cops were seen being too chummy on Bleecker St. during the holiday season when their rounds included picking up gifts from mob-owned joints. Oh, yeah.

But there is also the hard, irrefutable fact that crime has been reduced steadily over the past 11 years and the effect on communities such as Harlem has been remarkable. Harlem has now moved out of the slum category to become a full member of the real estate boom, which guarantees refurbishing. Neighborhoods which cab drivers used to avoid for fear of being robbed or wounded or killed are now traveled to with a feeling of veritable impunity. Compared with the reigns of terror that urban street gangs impose across the country, the thug variations of groups like the Crips remain largely low-key in our town.

Does that mean that New York is really heaven in disguise? Far from it. New York is still the capital of overwork that makes long distance sprinters of all of us. We all move far too fast for the lengths that we have to travel, but we travel those miles with a feeling of safety that makes New York the most comfortable and fulfilling version of soul and pressure in urban America. The people and their spirit are largely responsible for making this city feel that way.

But the underpaid army of professional urban soldiers and protectors we know as the New York Police Department cannot be accused of failing to hold up its end because two of them were mob hit men. The overwhelming bulk of the force sustains the fundamental identity of the job, which is this: Law enforcement is one of the three noblest of professions dedicated to community service, equal in importance to education and medicine.

We know that determined criminals can come from any class, ethnic group, religion, gender or profession.

Still, for all that it suffers, the New York Police Department is the sort of light always willing to fight the darkness.

Thanks to Stanley Crouch

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Mob's Eto Dies Long After Surviving Hit

Friends of ours: Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto , Ernest Rocco Infelice, John Gattuso, Jasper Campise

A noted Chicago mob figure who ran gambling operations for the Outfit, survived a botched hit and turned government informant and witness has died after a long stint in the federal witness-protection program, a federal official confirmed.

Ken Eto turned on the mob after he survived being shot in the head in a Northwest Side parking lot in 1983 and went on to testify against mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice in 1991. After a news report Wednesday on WLS-TV Ch. 7 that said Eto died in Atlanta in 2004 in his 80s, federal officials in Chicago said they had been aware of his death, which had not been reported by the media before Wednesday.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro, who for years headed the U.S. Justice Department's Chicago Organized Crime Strike Force, said Wednesday that he knew of Eto's death, but he did not know when he had died.

Eto, known as "Tokyo Joe," survived three gunshots in the head in February 1983 in an attempted assassination that came after he was convicted of a gambling charge and the mob feared he would become a turncoat.

Former FBI agent Jack O'Rourke said Wednesday that Eto was a gambling expert who for decades ran games and books for the mob's North Side crew. Eto learned gambling in the service while riding a troop train to Alaska during World War II. After returning to Chicago, he took up with the mob and handled not only their games and books, but also paid bribes to police, O'Rourke said.

In 1983, the mob turned on Eto and ordered him killed.

Inside a car parked along Harlem Avenue on the North Side, two men fired three shots into Eto's skull. The men, whom Eto later identified to federal agents as mob soldiers John Gattuso and Jasper Campise, then left him for dead, O'Rourke said. But Eto didn't die, and after awaking from unconsciousness, dragged himself to a nearby pharmacy, where he called 911, O'Rourke said.

FBI agents and then-Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeremy Margolis rushed to the hospital where Eto was taken, O'Rourke said. During his recovery, Eto agreed to "flip" for the feds, O'Rourke said. "He really had nowhere else to go," O'Rourke said

Eto not only fingered Gattuso, a Cook County sheriff's officer, and Campise, as the gunmen, but he also provided intelligence about mob activity to the FBI. O'Rourke said he learned that soon after the shooting, the mob planned to murder Gattuso and Campise. O'Rourke said he and then-U.S. Atty. Dan Webb tried to persuade the men to cooperate with the government, but they refused.

On July 14, 1983, their bodies were found in the trunk of car in Naperville. Eto, meanwhile, was placed in the witness-protection program, O'Rourke said.

In 1989, Eto testified against a state legislator implicated in the Operation Greylord investigation. Eto was 72 when he testified in 1991, telling the court he had spent 40 years in the Chicago Outfit.

"I've never seen a witness like him," Shapiro said. "Completely unflappable."

Thanks to Jeff Coen, Rudolph Bush and Matt O'Connor

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