Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr.
A former Chicago police officer charged with conspiring with organized crime to commit 18 murders has died, his attorney said. Michael Ricci, 76, of Streamwood had been in a coma since undergoing heart surgery in November, said attorney John Meyer. Ricci died last week when his family chose to remove him from life support, Meyer said Monday.
Ricci was among 14 people charged with various crimes in an April 2005 indictment federal officials at the time described as the most far reaching they'd obtained against the Chicago mob. He and another retired police officer were accused of informing alleged mob figure Frank Calabrese Sr., also charged in the indictment, about possible mob members who helped federal investigators.
Ricci had pleaded not guilty and said at the time of the indictment that he had known Calabrese "as a person" since 1964. Meyer said Monday that a tape recording FBI officials made of a conversation between Ricci and Calabrese while Ricci visited Calabrese in federal prison proved only that the two men were good friends. "It's unfortunate that he had to die with this cloud hanging over his head," Meyer said. "Especially since he had a very winnable case."
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Bloom is Off Whitey's Rose
Friends of ours: James "Whitey" Bulger, Kevin Weeks, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi
Probably no one should be surprised that federal authorities would mark the anniversary of Whitey Bulger's disappearance in such a low-key fashion last week. There were no press conferences, no dramatic announcements or updates, just a three-paragraph release assuring the world that the FBI and other agencies remain on the case.
Bulger's former criminal protege, Kevin Weeks, theorized to the Globe's Shelley Murphy that Boston's most legendary mobster has been marooned in Europe since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which is probably as valid a theory as we're likely to hear. Weeks, after all, was the mobster's surrogate son.
There's something anticlimactic about these anniversaries, these nonupdates to one of the most dramatic tales in the city's recent history. If there's one thing James J. Bulger never was in his presence, it was monotonous. Yet that is exactly what he has become in his extended absence.
One thing has changed in his decade-plus on the lam: His cult of personality, the blood-soaked romance of his exploits, has utterly collapsed. Few kid themselves anymore that Bulger kept the drugs out of South Boston, or kept its streets safe with his unique brand of do-it-yourself justice. As that image has receded, as the keepers of the flame have faded away and 19 murder indictments are what's left of his legacy, Bulger has come to be seen for what he really is. If he's returned to Boston, it'll be as a serial killer - that's if there's a return at all, which has to be considered less likely than it was a decade ago.
Meanwhile, his exile has taken police on a wild ride from California to Chicago to Uruguay to New Zealand.
I've always been amused by the story of his brief, early-exile stay in Louisiana, where he befriended his neighbors and bought one couple a washing machine before his instincts told him it was time to move on. Just think: For him the ultimate disguise was as a nice guy.
As some predicted at the time of his last vanishing act, Bulger's everyman appearance has proved to be a nightmare for investigators. He has been sighted everywhere, and nowhere. On nearly every continent someone has thought they may have seen him, one dead end after another.
Coincidentally or not, his time in flight has been difficult for many of those close to him. His equally famous brother, William M. Bulger, has left politics and been driven from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts. Another brother, Jackie, is embroiled in a long fight to have his $65,000-a-year state pension restored after his convictions for perjury and obstruction of justice. Former FBI agent John Connolly is serving time on a racketeering conviction, and has been indicted for murder. Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi is serving a life sentence and cooperating with the authorities. Weeks, who served five years in prison, is writing a book. When Whitey Bulger went down, a lot of people went with him.
Pity the poor investigators, chasing a man who has been hiding from the police for decades. If there is anyone who knows where and how to hide, it's him.
But that sympathy has to pale next to the suffering of the survivors of his many alleged victims. For them, anniversary is probably too cheery a word to describe these annual reminders of law enforcement futility.
Catching Whitey still matters, of course. Now that the world knows how he manipulated the FBI to facilitate his felonious career, and how thoroughly certain officials sold out their public trust on his behalf, we need the public accounting that only a trial can bring. And there's the more personal accounting, too. His victims -- the survivors of his victims are, themselves, victims -- deserve the day they can face him in court.
Not much is left in Boston of the mob culture that made Whitey Bulger possible. The whole notion has become an anachronism. One of the few remaining pieces is the search for Bulger. His capture will be its epilogue, and it can't come soon enough
Thanks to Adrian Walker
Probably no one should be surprised that federal authorities would mark the anniversary of Whitey Bulger's disappearance in such a low-key fashion last week. There were no press conferences, no dramatic announcements or updates, just a three-paragraph release assuring the world that the FBI and other agencies remain on the case.
Bulger's former criminal protege, Kevin Weeks, theorized to the Globe's Shelley Murphy that Boston's most legendary mobster has been marooned in Europe since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which is probably as valid a theory as we're likely to hear. Weeks, after all, was the mobster's surrogate son.
There's something anticlimactic about these anniversaries, these nonupdates to one of the most dramatic tales in the city's recent history. If there's one thing James J. Bulger never was in his presence, it was monotonous. Yet that is exactly what he has become in his extended absence.
One thing has changed in his decade-plus on the lam: His cult of personality, the blood-soaked romance of his exploits, has utterly collapsed. Few kid themselves anymore that Bulger kept the drugs out of South Boston, or kept its streets safe with his unique brand of do-it-yourself justice. As that image has receded, as the keepers of the flame have faded away and 19 murder indictments are what's left of his legacy, Bulger has come to be seen for what he really is. If he's returned to Boston, it'll be as a serial killer - that's if there's a return at all, which has to be considered less likely than it was a decade ago.
Meanwhile, his exile has taken police on a wild ride from California to Chicago to Uruguay to New Zealand.
I've always been amused by the story of his brief, early-exile stay in Louisiana, where he befriended his neighbors and bought one couple a washing machine before his instincts told him it was time to move on. Just think: For him the ultimate disguise was as a nice guy.
As some predicted at the time of his last vanishing act, Bulger's everyman appearance has proved to be a nightmare for investigators. He has been sighted everywhere, and nowhere. On nearly every continent someone has thought they may have seen him, one dead end after another.
Coincidentally or not, his time in flight has been difficult for many of those close to him. His equally famous brother, William M. Bulger, has left politics and been driven from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts. Another brother, Jackie, is embroiled in a long fight to have his $65,000-a-year state pension restored after his convictions for perjury and obstruction of justice. Former FBI agent John Connolly is serving time on a racketeering conviction, and has been indicted for murder. Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi is serving a life sentence and cooperating with the authorities. Weeks, who served five years in prison, is writing a book. When Whitey Bulger went down, a lot of people went with him.
Pity the poor investigators, chasing a man who has been hiding from the police for decades. If there is anyone who knows where and how to hide, it's him.
But that sympathy has to pale next to the suffering of the survivors of his many alleged victims. For them, anniversary is probably too cheery a word to describe these annual reminders of law enforcement futility.
Catching Whitey still matters, of course. Now that the world knows how he manipulated the FBI to facilitate his felonious career, and how thoroughly certain officials sold out their public trust on his behalf, we need the public accounting that only a trial can bring. And there's the more personal accounting, too. His victims -- the survivors of his victims are, themselves, victims -- deserve the day they can face him in court.
Not much is left in Boston of the mob culture that made Whitey Bulger possible. The whole notion has become an anachronism. One of the few remaining pieces is the search for Bulger. His capture will be its epilogue, and it can't come soon enough
Thanks to Adrian Walker
Loren-Maltese Conviction Will Not be Thrown Out by Court
Friends of ours: Al Capone, Michael Spano Sr.,
Friends of mine: Betty Loren-Maltese, Emil Schullo
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal of the racketeering conviction of former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, who is already scheduled to be resentenced later this month. Loren-Maltese is serving an eight-year prison term after she and her co-defendants were convicted of using a bogus insurance company to bilk Cicero taxpayers out of more than $10 million from 1992 to 1996. The high court, without comment, refused to consider Loren-Maltese's appeal of her 2002 conviction.
Amy Adelson, an attorney for Loren-Maltese, said she thought the Supreme Court would have taken the case to resolve differences in how lower courts have interpreted the "honest services" statute under which Loren-Maltese was convicted. "Obviously the Supreme Court takes very few of the cases presented to it," Adelson said. "We're not surprised, but we are disappointed."
Loren-Maltese is scheduled to be resentenced Jan. 23. A federal appeals court ruled in September that a federal judge made an error during the sentencing phase.
Randy Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, said the office would have no comment on the Supreme Court's decision. Prosecutors have spent years investigating the small, blue-collar suburb just outside the Chicago city limits that has been known as a haven for corruption since the 1920s, when Al Capone made it the hub of his bootlegging empire.
Among the others convicted with Loren-Maltese were alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr. and Emil Schullo, one-time head of the Cicero police department. Last September, an appeals court ruled that Loren-Maltese and five others convicted in 2002 of corruption should be resentenced.
A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that U.S. District Judge John F. Grady, who presided over the three-month trial, made an error in imposing the sentences. The opinion said that after Grady calculated the amount of the loss at $10.6 million he wrongly rounded the number down to below $10 million.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, the greater the loss, the harsher the sentence. Grady's decision cut 10 months or more off the sentences. Grady said he rounded the number down by $600,001 because it was merely an estimate and could be unreliable. But the appeals court said unless Grady thought the estimate biased, he had no basis for rounding down or rounding up.
At the Jan. 23 resentencing, Adelson said defense attorneys will be asking for a reduction in Loren-Maltese's sentence. In court papers, they have argued Loren-Maltese should be reunited with her young daughter - currently being cared for by Loren-Maltese's elderly mother - and say that after nearly three years in prison, she's a changed woman.
Adelson said defense attorneys will also argue that the sentence involved an upward departure from guidelines, resulting in a "quite severe" sentence. Federal prosecutors, however, want to extend Loren-Maltese's sentence by three years to more than 11 years. In court papers, they noted Grady said at the original sentencing he considered putting Loren-Maltese away for longer.
Friends of mine: Betty Loren-Maltese, Emil Schullo
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal of the racketeering conviction of former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, who is already scheduled to be resentenced later this month. Loren-Maltese is serving an eight-year prison term after she and her co-defendants were convicted of using a bogus insurance company to bilk Cicero taxpayers out of more than $10 million from 1992 to 1996. The high court, without comment, refused to consider Loren-Maltese's appeal of her 2002 conviction.
Amy Adelson, an attorney for Loren-Maltese, said she thought the Supreme Court would have taken the case to resolve differences in how lower courts have interpreted the "honest services" statute under which Loren-Maltese was convicted. "Obviously the Supreme Court takes very few of the cases presented to it," Adelson said. "We're not surprised, but we are disappointed."
Loren-Maltese is scheduled to be resentenced Jan. 23. A federal appeals court ruled in September that a federal judge made an error during the sentencing phase.
Randy Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, said the office would have no comment on the Supreme Court's decision. Prosecutors have spent years investigating the small, blue-collar suburb just outside the Chicago city limits that has been known as a haven for corruption since the 1920s, when Al Capone made it the hub of his bootlegging empire.
Among the others convicted with Loren-Maltese were alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr. and Emil Schullo, one-time head of the Cicero police department. Last September, an appeals court ruled that Loren-Maltese and five others convicted in 2002 of corruption should be resentenced.
A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that U.S. District Judge John F. Grady, who presided over the three-month trial, made an error in imposing the sentences. The opinion said that after Grady calculated the amount of the loss at $10.6 million he wrongly rounded the number down to below $10 million.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, the greater the loss, the harsher the sentence. Grady's decision cut 10 months or more off the sentences. Grady said he rounded the number down by $600,001 because it was merely an estimate and could be unreliable. But the appeals court said unless Grady thought the estimate biased, he had no basis for rounding down or rounding up.
At the Jan. 23 resentencing, Adelson said defense attorneys will be asking for a reduction in Loren-Maltese's sentence. In court papers, they have argued Loren-Maltese should be reunited with her young daughter - currently being cared for by Loren-Maltese's elderly mother - and say that after nearly three years in prison, she's a changed woman.
Adelson said defense attorneys will also argue that the sentence involved an upward departure from guidelines, resulting in a "quite severe" sentence. Federal prosecutors, however, want to extend Loren-Maltese's sentence by three years to more than 11 years. In court papers, they noted Grady said at the original sentencing he considered putting Loren-Maltese away for longer.
Kennedy, Mafia, CIA, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda....
For those interested in the JFK conspiracy, there is more information at Kennedy, conspiracy in Hamburg
Former G-Man to be Sued in '92 Mob Hit
Friends of ours: Gregory Scarpa Sr., Colombo Crime Family, Nicholas Grancio
A former FBI agent helped set up the 1992 shotgun murder of a Brooklyn mobster, a federal civil suit to be filed today by the gangster's widow charges, the Daily News has learned. The agent, Lindley DeVecchio, pulled a surveillance team shortly before the rubout of Nicholas Grancio as a favor to Mafia capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. - DeVecchio's secret informant, the suit contends.
News of the lawsuit came as The News reported that a Brooklyn grand jury is probing DeVecchio in the mob slaying and other alleged criminal dealings with Scarpa, an infamous Colombo crime family figure who died behind bars in 1994.
DeVecchio, found yesterday at his Florida home in an exclusive gated community, said, "I have nothing to say, I retired 10 years ago and everything that needed to be said is already on the record." "Anything you want to get, get from my lawyer. There's a lot I would love to say, but I just won't," said the former agent, appearing flustered in a T-shirt and jeans in his doorway.
The slaying of Grancio - a rival of Scarpa - took place at the height of a mob war between factions of the Colombo crime family. At Scarpa's request, DeVecchio called off surveillance by two NYPD detectives on Jan. 7, 1992, so Scarpa, with two associates, could move in for the drive-by shooting, the suit contends.
The lawsuit will be filed in Brooklyn Federal Court by attorney David Schoen on behalf of widow Maria Grancio. Schoen also filed notice that the FBI and the Justice Department will be also be sued.
Meanwhile, a grand jury convened by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is investigating Grancio's killing and DeVecchio's long, complicated relationship with Scarpa.
One of two NYPD detectives involved in the surveillance, Joseph Simone, now retired, was extensively debriefed yesterday by a prosecutor and investigators from the DA's office, sources said. Simone has previously testified that he got called off the surveillance duty, calling it "very unusual." He and other law enforcement agents also reported his suspicions that DeVecchio was working for Scarpa.
Simone testified that he got the "call off" from DeVecchio's subordinate at the time, FBI agent Christopher Favo, who was acting on DeVecchio's orders. Favo was also named as a defendant in the suit, which sites a "corrupt relationship between an informant [Scarpa] and his FBI handler [DeVecchio] as part of a campaign of corruption and concealment." Favo did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
DeVecchio's attorney, Douglas Grover, has dismissed the DA's investigation as "nonsense," noting DeVecchio has not been prosecuted despite a previous two-year FBI probe into the agent's dealings with Scarpa. But the DA's office has developed new information on the matter and decided to begin the grand jury probe, sources said.
"Since the murder, DeVecchio, Favo and others lied about the matter and have misled on this subject and other incidents of gross misconduct repeatedly," the Grancio suit says. "They have taken other steps to conceal the true factors of the Grancio murder and that campaign of lying and coverup continues today."
Thanks to Jose Martinez and William Sherman with Nancie L. Katz
A former FBI agent helped set up the 1992 shotgun murder of a Brooklyn mobster, a federal civil suit to be filed today by the gangster's widow charges, the Daily News has learned. The agent, Lindley DeVecchio, pulled a surveillance team shortly before the rubout of Nicholas Grancio as a favor to Mafia capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. - DeVecchio's secret informant, the suit contends.
News of the lawsuit came as The News reported that a Brooklyn grand jury is probing DeVecchio in the mob slaying and other alleged criminal dealings with Scarpa, an infamous Colombo crime family figure who died behind bars in 1994.
DeVecchio, found yesterday at his Florida home in an exclusive gated community, said, "I have nothing to say, I retired 10 years ago and everything that needed to be said is already on the record." "Anything you want to get, get from my lawyer. There's a lot I would love to say, but I just won't," said the former agent, appearing flustered in a T-shirt and jeans in his doorway.
The slaying of Grancio - a rival of Scarpa - took place at the height of a mob war between factions of the Colombo crime family. At Scarpa's request, DeVecchio called off surveillance by two NYPD detectives on Jan. 7, 1992, so Scarpa, with two associates, could move in for the drive-by shooting, the suit contends.
The lawsuit will be filed in Brooklyn Federal Court by attorney David Schoen on behalf of widow Maria Grancio. Schoen also filed notice that the FBI and the Justice Department will be also be sued.
Meanwhile, a grand jury convened by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is investigating Grancio's killing and DeVecchio's long, complicated relationship with Scarpa.
One of two NYPD detectives involved in the surveillance, Joseph Simone, now retired, was extensively debriefed yesterday by a prosecutor and investigators from the DA's office, sources said. Simone has previously testified that he got called off the surveillance duty, calling it "very unusual." He and other law enforcement agents also reported his suspicions that DeVecchio was working for Scarpa.
Simone testified that he got the "call off" from DeVecchio's subordinate at the time, FBI agent Christopher Favo, who was acting on DeVecchio's orders. Favo was also named as a defendant in the suit, which sites a "corrupt relationship between an informant [Scarpa] and his FBI handler [DeVecchio] as part of a campaign of corruption and concealment." Favo did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
DeVecchio's attorney, Douglas Grover, has dismissed the DA's investigation as "nonsense," noting DeVecchio has not been prosecuted despite a previous two-year FBI probe into the agent's dealings with Scarpa. But the DA's office has developed new information on the matter and decided to begin the grand jury probe, sources said.
"Since the murder, DeVecchio, Favo and others lied about the matter and have misled on this subject and other incidents of gross misconduct repeatedly," the Grancio suit says. "They have taken other steps to conceal the true factors of the Grancio murder and that campaign of lying and coverup continues today."
Thanks to Jose Martinez and William Sherman with Nancie L. Katz
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