The Ruthless Rise of Mobster Joey "The Clown" Lombardo

To neighbors, Joseph Lombardo was a beloved family man and respected boys baseball coach in his West Side neighborhood -- "more liked than the priest" in the community, according to one friend.

To the feds, Lombardo is the man who had a factory owner slain in front of the man's wife and 4-year-old son.

To investigators, he's the man who knows no loyalty, signing off on the murders of three close friends.

When he appears in federal court these days, for updates on the trial starting June 19 that could put him in prison until his dying days, he's the wisecracking senior citizen. At 78, he's the oldest of a mostly geriatric bunch of mobsters in what likely will be the last great Outfit trial in Chicago history -- the Family Secrets case.

He's "the Clown," known for his quick wit. When the cops stopped him once in the 1980s, after he fled a gambling raid, he had $12,000 in cash on him and a book filled with jokes. But the wisecracks, investigators say, only mask the brutality of one of the last of the old-time Chicago mobsters.

Interviews with people who have known and investigated Lombardo, as well as a review of thousands of pages of court records and law enforcement documents, reveal the story of the ruthless rise of Lombardo in the Chicago Outfit.

"He was vicious and a killer," said retired FBI Agent Jack O'Rourke. "He was their prime enforcer."

Lombardo has denied hurting anyone. Now behind bars at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, he declined an interview request.

In court in 1983, Lombardo said: "I never ordered a killing, I never OKd a killing, and I never killed a man in my life."

His attorney, Rick Halprin, says his client has never been a mob leader. But investigators say Lombardo was a top mobster for years, thanks to his criminal versatility.

He allegedly went from busting heads and two-bit burglaries to orchestrating a bribe attempt of U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon. He was convicted in that case in the 1980s, as well as another one for skimming millions from Las Vegas casinos for the mob. He allegedly controlled millions of dollars in Teamster pension funds through his friend, insurance magnate Allen Dorfman, and was responsible for getting the skim from Las Vegas casinos to Chicago mob bosses.

As a child, Lombardo never knew such wealth, growing up poor in Depression-era Chicago, one of 11 children, the son of a printer. A graduate of Wells High School, he worked as a paperboy, plucked chickens, shined shoes, loaded boxcars at Union Station for 69 cents an hour and handled room service at the Blackstone Hotel.

He was also quite the athlete, playing on wrestling, basketball, fencing and swimming teams and even taking square-dancing lessons. He found a passion for golf and caddied for top Chicago gangster Jackie Cerone. He was also quite the gin rummy cardshark. But he didn't have to rely on cards for cash. His criminal work was apparently quite profitable, authorities said. In recent years, while Lombardo pleads poverty, his family trust benefitting his ex-wife, son and daughter has sold real estate for millions. Authorities believe the trust was set up to keep the feds from seizing assets.

Lombardo's success was punctuated by violence. He has been a suspect in numerous murders but never convicted. What's more, authorities say, he had control over the most allegedly vicious hit man around, Frank "The German" Schweihs. Schweihs is charged in the Family Secrets case with Lombardo. Schweihs would talk about doing an Outfit killing like he was taking out the garbage, court records show.

Even before Lombardo was a somebody in the Chicago Outfit, he was "the Clown."

It was 1964, and Lombardo was on trial in Chicago with other alleged loan sharks for beating a man who owed the mob money. The case was making headlines, and so was Lombardo. When police took his mug shot, he opened his mouth into a cavernous yawn to stop the cops from getting a good photo of him.

Even then, Lombardo -- then going by a variation of his birth name, Joseph Lombardi -- was referred to in the press as the Clown.

The other notable twist: Lombardo was innocent of the charge. But he was part of a clever plot to scotch the case, authorities said. When police rounded up the loan sharks, they arrested the wrong Joseph Lombardi. At the time, two Chicago gangsters had that name and looked similar. Defense attorneys for the men realized the error but kept silent to spring a trap on prosecutors, authorities said. It worked. When the victim took the stand, he could identify all the defendants as his attackers, all except the Clown.

"Talk about having your jaw drop and your case collapse," said attorney Louis B. Garippo, who prosecuted the case. Lombardo walked out a free man. His fellow mobsters walked too, after a jury acquitted them.

Lombardo's antics would be only his first of many public displays.

After he was arrested in 1980 for leading police on a chase, he left the courthouse one day, past the press corps, hidden behind a newspaper with a peephole cut out for his eyes. He was tripped up, though, as he went through the revolving door.

When Lombardo got out of prison in 1992, the FBI in Chicago began getting strange phone calls from a man identifying himself as Long John Silver. The caller would let agents know when he was going to call through newspaper ads.

The caller provided good info about the Outfit's hierarchy but was anxious to steer agents away from one person -- Lombardo's son, Joseph Jr., whom agents were investigating but never charged. Agents traced the calls as coming from pay phones near Lombardo's home, sources said.

The phone calls never amounted to much, and the agents never proved they were coming from Lombardo. But there was a tantalizing clue. Flip the initials for Long John: you get J and L. Short for Joseph Lombardo? Lombardo could pull that stunt, agents figured.

To get into the Chicago Outfit as a made member -- to have the full rights of membership -- a candidate must murder for the mob. Lombardo's qualifying kill was allegedly the 1965 hit of mob associate and hotel owner Manny Skar, according to court records. Lombardo allegedly shadowed Skar for two days before Skar was killed as he exited his car to enter his apartment on Lake Shore Drive.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Lombardo was on the move, wearing multiple hats for the Outfit and allegedly signing off on the murders of three close friends.

The first was in 1974 -- the slaying of businessman Daniel Seifert. Seifert ran a fiberglass business in the suburbs and was an unwitting front for Lombardo. Lombardo and Seifert were so close that Lombardo baby-sat Seifert's kids. But when the feds came calling and Seifert decided to cooperate, Lombardo decided his friend had to go, authorities charge. On Sept. 27, 1974, Seifert was gunned down outside his Bensenville factory as his wife and 4-year-old son watched. With Seifert dead, the charges against Lombardo evaporated. Lombardo is charged in connection with Seifert's murder in the Family Secrets case along with racketeering.

The next to go was insurance magnate Allen Dorfman, who went on Hawaii golf vacations with Lombardo. Lombardo was close to Dorfman, a clout-heavy insurance broker. Lombardo and Dorfman allegedly schemed to control the Teamsters' pension funds, which loaned millions to build Vegas casinos. Lombardo would allegedly muscle people for Dorfman.

In one conversation, secretly tape-recorded by the feds, Lombardo spoke to mob lawyer and casino investor Morris Schenker, who wasn't coming up with the money Dorfman believed Schenker owed the Outfit.

"Now, it's getting to the point now where you either s - - - or get off the pot," Lombardo said to Schenker, who was 72 at the time of the 1979 conversation. "If they come back and tell me to give you a message and if you want to defy it, I assure you that you will never reach 73," Lombardo said.

Schenker died of natural causes. Dorfman did not, getting gunned down in 1983 in Lincolnwood after Outfit leaders worried he'd turn stool pigeon.

Three years later, another Lombardo friend, mob killer Anthony Spilotro, was beaten to death along with his brother, Michael Spilotro. Lombardo allegedly oversaw Spilotro, who was the Outfit's man in Las Vegas. The Spilotros and Lombardo were close. Their families came over on the same boat from Italy.

In the end, though, Anthony Spilotro had to die, Outfit leaders decided. He was causing too much heat in Vegas, including taking out a contract on an FBI agent.

The Spilotro brothers were lured to a Bensenville area home on the ruse they were getting promotions. Instead, when they went down to the basement, several mobsters surrounded them and beat them to death. They were buried in an Indiana cornfield.

In recent years, Lombardo has kept a low profile. He has been seen hanging out more at the Italian restaurant La Scarola than with other mobsters.

His defense -- unique but possibly workable -- is that he has moved away from the mob life.

In short, he's retired.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Tony Soprano: Leadership Consultant

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

If you're in the waste management/strip joint/butcher racket, look to Anthony John Soprano as your guiding cannoli ... er ... light.

His story--a blueprint for how to run a crime family like a well-oiled business machine--has been airing Sundays on HBO for the past seven years and has now come down to this weekend's series finale. Fans are heading into the closer blind, with previews revealing no more than a few quick cuts of the main characters set to a resonating drum beat.

Whether Tony lives or dies, he'll be missed like no other capo.

Since The Sopranos, which Vanity Fair called ''the greatest show in television history,'' debuted in 1999, Tony Soprano--reputed mob boss of northern New Jersey, loving father, modern-day American icon and born leader--has proved that ruling with an iron fist can be quite efficient.

Nancy Davis, associate professor at the Chicago School of Business Psychology (and a Sopranos fan), says Tony's approach, while effective, leads to a power struggle within the core group and spurs an utter state of panic, or "learned helplessness," among followers.

As a result, "they can't function without the support of the boss," Davis says. ''They need to be led. They need to be puppeteered." But the minute a gunshot wound to Tony's gut forced him into a coma in Part 1 of Season 6, his underlings were more concerned with who would be a fitting successor rather than with their boss's health; hence the power struggle. Silvio--Tony's loyal but limited henchman--ultimately takes the reins as acting boss. Davis predicts Tony will fall.

Jennifer Thompson, an assistant professor and Davis' colleague at the Chicago School of Business Psychology, says Tony's method of leadership has much to do with class distinction. Thompson says the closest comparison to this type of leadership is in a blue-collar work environment where brute force can win the boss's respect.

"It's not appropriate, but it's understandable [in Tony's case] and effective," Thompson says.

She cites an episode in Part 1 of Season 6, when Tony, post-coma, bludgeoned his massive bodyguard though he was unprovoked, emphasizing he was still the alpha in the room and proving he was still capable of dominance, despite recent proof that he is, in fact, fallible.

Wharton School professor Michael Useem says Tony's authoritative style works because lives are at stake. He made the comparison to a Marine commander, who gets his soldiers to comply by the judicious use of force because any procedural snafu could prove more costly than cash-filled envelopes.

"Tony Soprano has it half-right in business," Useem says. "When you get away from those circumstances, then autocratic control tends to be a non-starter. As a decision-maker, you do want people working for you who don't see it your way because they may see an opportunity you're not looking at."

It's hardly in Tony's nature to be that democratic, but everything is behind him now as his men stand firm in his corner at the crucial 11th hour.

How many CEOs wish they could say the same?

Thanks to Matthew Kirdahy

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The Sopranos Transformed the Gangster Movie Genre

And so it ends.

No more weekly ride with Tony Soprano from the Lincoln Tunnel past smoke-belching factories to his McMansion in suburban New Jersey.

No more Bada Bing Club. No more sit-downs. No more visits from the feds. No more revelations in Dr. Melfi’s office. No more fights with Carmela or worries about AJ and Meadow.

No more heartache, no more guilt.

No more beatings. No more shootings. No more dismemberments.

No more struggle for Tony, a crime boss trapped in an old-school gang, to find a place in the 21st century.

The HBO broadcast of the final episode of “The Sopranos” will mark the end of an era. The weekly Mafia soap opera with R-rated sex, grotesque violence and an indie-film sensibility became a true showbiz phenomenon after its premiere in 1999.

The reason seems clear enough now: Nobody had ever seen gangsters depicted this way — as complicated people with quirky (if monstrous) personalities who found modern life as baffling as the rest of us.

“The Sopranos” occupies a unique place in gangster cinema. Just as specific eras were dominated by individual stars and directors, the gold standard today is James Gandolfini, his co-stars and writer-director-creator David Chase. Gandolfini’s complex performance as a mobster who sees a shrink has defined the Italian-American mobster in popular imagination for the foreseeable future. But the history of gangster movies shows us another reason for the popularity of “The Sopranos”: an unabated public fascination with the underworld.

Specific films in the 1930s stunned audiences with their cruelty and characters who were as charismatic as they were horrifying — James Cagney in “The Public Enemy,” Edward G. Robinson in “Little Caesa,” Paul Muni in “Scarface (Universal Cinema Classics).”

Those films set the tone for more than three decades. As late as the mid-’60s the majority of gangster movies were shot in black-and-white.

Robinson would age well, demonstrating a skill for playing sociopaths well into middle age. So would his contemporary Humphrey Bogart. These films, shot at traditional studios, placed the audience at a comfortable distance from the blood-curdling events on screen with their carefully crafted artificiality.

City streets clearly were on back lots or soundstages. Gangsters talked tough but kept it clean for the censors. There was plenty of shooting but hardly a trace of blood.

These same values fueled “The Untouchables,” a 1959-63 TV series set in Chicago in the ’20s. The success of “The Untouchables,” in turn, inspired Roger Corman’s “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre,” a floodlit, back-lot feature memorable for its good cast, lurid violence and color photography.

Corman didn’t know it, but his film, released in the summer of 1967, would be the last of its kind.

Barely six weeks later a very different kind of crime movie, “Bonnie and Clyde,” hit American screens.

“Bonnie and Clyde” set a new standard for realism. Director Arthur Penn shot on Texas locations. Only a handful of shots used soundstages. The dialogue had an improvised feel. He used non-actors in small roles.

He shot through filters that gave the movie a vivid, dust-blown quality, as if we were peering through a window into the past. And the sickening violence culminated with the famous slow-motion ballet of death as Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by a posse on a dusty back road.

There was no going back.

Five years later came the “Gone With the Wind” of gangster films — “The Godfather,” Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece that attracted a mass audience like no gangster movie ever had.

Committing to the new realism, Coppola employed an almost sociological approach to Italian-American rituals. The festivals, weddings, family dinners and crowded streets had a lived-in feel. The violence seemed spontaneous and un-choreographed.

He got a defining performance from Marlon Brando, who was willing to transform himself utterly to play Don Corleone. Brando became the gangster of the ’70s.

More than that, “The Godfather” gave us an epic, multigenerational view of the Mafia. It was a grand family saga that allowed us to sympathize with people willing to use violence to accrue power. Michael Corleone’s dilemma, one we see echoed in “The Sopranos,” was whether to resist joining the “family business” and become a respectable member of the upper middle class or to surrender to family ties too strong to break.

“The Sopranos” shows the influence of Martin Scorsese’s gangster films — “Mean Streets,” “GoodFellas,” “Casino” — but we can trace its lineage directly to “The Godfather.” Just as the first and second “Godfather” films created a collective tragedy — Michael Corleone, the initially reluctant don, becomes so dehumanized that he ultimately orders the murder of his own brother — Tony Soprano is a man who cannot afford to acknowledge his sins.

Indeed, much of the show’s tension and humor stem from its depiction of mobsters trying to emulate middle-class normalcy. They shop at Home Depot. They see therapists. They cruise eBay. They watch cable television. They have traditional Sunday family dinners and try to get their kids into good schools. But no matter how hard they try, they can’t make the clothes fit.

In one episode this season, Tony tells Dr. Melfi that he sees himself as a “good guy,” but by any objective standard he’s really a thug who can knock your teeth out on impulse.

And we should recognize the show’s dramatic roots. It juxtaposes comedy and horror. It gives us a central character struggling with his conscience and haunted by unsettling dreams. It shows us people unable to escape their fate. And it specializes in irony-drenched plotting. All of that adds up to one word: Shakespearean.

But ultimately, what sustains our eagerness for “The Sopranos” is Tony. It’s his unique combination of neuroses, denial and capacity for violence that keeps us glued. James Gandolfini has given us a performance for the ages.

And in Tony we find a cautionary tale. A compartmentalized life can take you only so far. Create a web of secrets so intricate that nobody — your wife, your kids, your friends, your shrink — knows who you really are, and you’re unlikely to meet a tidy end.

Thanks to Robert Trussell

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When it Comes to the Chicago Mob: Who's the Boss?

Friends of ours: Al "Pizza Man" Tornabene, John "No Nose" DiFronzo, James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Michael Marcello, Anthony "Little Tony" Zizzo, Frank Calabrese Sr., Nick Calabrese

Who will be the new Tony Soprano of the Chicago mob?

With so many mob leaders on trial or dead, the Chicago Outfit is in disarray, law enforcement sources say.

It could be the "Pizza Man" acting as caretaker.

Or "No Nose" could still be pulling the strings, some Outfit watchers believe.

The "Pizza Man" is Al Tornabene, the 84-year-old former owner of a suburban pizza parlor. He has kept an extremely low profile for a reputed mob leader and has never been arrested by the FBI. Recently, his name has come up in conversations the FBI secretly recorded in prison between reputed top Chicago mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and his younger brother, Michael Marcello.

Tornabene has been seen eating in Rush Street restaurants with another top reputed mobster, Anthony "Little Tony" Zizzo, who was last seen leaving his Westmont home in August last year and hasn't been heard from since. Zizzo was responsible for overseeing one of the Outfit's most lucrative enterprises, the illegal video poker machines in bars throughout Chicago.

Tornabene has long been a mob leader, authorities say. In 1983, for instance, he presided over a ceremony at which several mobsters were inducted into full membership rights of the Outfit, court records show. Among the men who were made were Zizzo, reputed mob hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. and his brother, Nick Calabrese, who has admitted in a plea agreement with the feds that he killed at least 14 people for the Chicago Outfit. He is cooperating with the FBI.

"No Nose" is the much better known John DiFronzo, who is in his late 70s and has long been reputed to be a respected elder of the Chicago Outfit. DiFronzo is known for his business acumen and wide range of investments, including car dealerships. Some mob watchers think DiFronzo has long been rivals with James Marcello and is not overly upset over his arrest.

Tornabene hung up during a phone call Friday when asked if he was running the Outfit.

DiFronzo could not be reached for comment.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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The Final Sopranos Episode Ever

This week, Dr. Melfi has cut her ties, Silvio's in a coma, and Bobby has been derailed - now, there is no more hiding. Don't miss The Final Episode of the groundbreaking series The Sopranos, Sunday at 8pm, Central Time.

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