Using Intel to Stop the Mob (Part 1)

Friends of ours: Al Capone, Lucky Luciano

Seventy-five years ago this December, one Special Agent B.E. Sackett penned a short article for Bureau employees on what he called "organized crime conditions in Chicago."

By 1932, organized crime in the U.S.—though a shadow of what it is today—had started to get its legs. Al Capone, who with the help of the Bureau had just landed in federal prison, had built an empire of crime in the Windy City that would continue to morph and grow. An extensive underground of hoodlums, racketeers, and gangsters had emerged in response to Prohibition and was thriving. Hundreds of rackets that used threats of violence to force businesses to ante up a percentage of their profits for "protection" existed throughout Chicago and other cities. In New York, "Lucky" Luciano had risen to power in the Mafia and was beginning to shape it into the structured, secret society of criminals that we know today.

A "valuable weapon" against these criminal rings, Agent Sackett thoughtfully stated in his article, was "accurate information"—details on the key players, their interlocking connections, their tactics and capabilities. He talked about how Chicago agents had begun building this base of knowledge, through informants and other contacts and through an extensive index of pictures and background on more than "three hundred of the notorious criminals and members of their gangs."

He didn't call it "intelligence," a concept that was still in its infancy, but that's essentially what it was. The approach was strategic, thinking about a criminal network in larger terms, gathering information and insights to take out entire criminal organizations and their support and not just select individuals, and thus preventing a litany of future crimes.

This picture of the underworld would grow in the coming years and yield significant results for the young Bureau and its partners. We would begin puncturing these networks—exposing their activities for all of law enforcement, undercutting their support structures, and tracking their most dangerous actors and elements much in the same way that we now do with terrorist cells plotting attacks on U.S. soil.

A few examples:

• In August 1933, we prepared a detailed analysis of organized criminals and the various ways law enforcement had succeeded in stopping them. We outlined more than a hundred "rackets" in Chicago that extorted money from electric sign companies, "candy jobbers," dental labs, and others. This analysis helped paint a picture of the threat for all of law enforcement.
• When John Dillinger was on the run for a violent string of bank robberies, we put pressure on the many connections he and his gang had to all levels of the underworld—precisely because we had mapped out these connections. With the extensive cooperation of many police forces, this allowed us to track his movements and ultimately generated the leads that led to his death in a shootout outside a Chicago theater in July 1934.
• We learned everything we could about the enablers of organized crime: money launderers and fences, both organized and freelance, who helped criminals hide their loot from the law; shady doctors who performed backroom plastic surgeries to help disguise mobsters and shyster lawyers who helped shield them from justice; and the corruption-backed "spas" and criminal safe havens in places like Hot Springs, Arkansas, and St. Paul, Minnesota, that mobsters used to rest, recruit comrades, and plan their next moves in relative safety.
• Working with our law enforcement partners, we started building the criminal justice support system that has enabled a coordinated, layered attack against both criminal and terrorist networks, which includes national criminal records and crime stats…cutting edge forensic science services…and extensive training for law enforcement professionals.

In Chicago and elsewhere, the fight against organized crime had just begun. And so has our story. In the next few months, we'll run a series of articles tracing how we've used intelligence to take on mobsters and even decimate entire crime families in different times and different places over the past seven decades. Stay tuned!

Thanks to the F.B.I.

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Defending Frank Calabrese Sr.

Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr.

A reader wanted to paint another side of Frank Calabrese Sr.

I know an entirely different person than the one portrayed in the papers and on the news. After my husband deserted me and my two children, I was looking for an apartment and no one wanted to rent to a single mother with small children. Everywhere, I went people had different excuses for not renting to me. I noticed a small house in Elmwood Park that was vacant and left a note in the mailbox with my number. Mr. Calabrese called me back and said he would be happy to rent the house to me and my family. I lived in that home for 18 years and in that time span he would put an envelope in the mail so Santa could buy my children gifts. If he saw them playing in the yard he would tell them to pick-up the old newspapers and he would give them $10.00. I saw his sons grow up to be fine young men and fathers and I had a great relationship with his family.

This man is not heartless, he has a soft spot for kids. Over the years I remember seeing him with his boys and they were happy. I think things changed when he remarried and started a new family. There is always a certain amount of jealousy when it happens. I've learned that know matter how much you do for your family it is never enough. I pray for this family daily and I just felt I had to send this to let someone know that there are two sides to every story.

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America's Most Wanted and The Chicago Syndicate Search for Jessie Marie Davis

America's Most Wanted and The Chicago Syndicate have partnered on AMW's upcoming episodes for Fox.

Jessie Marie Davis: This week, AMW is joining the search for the missing Ohio woman Jessie Marie Davis. Jessie is due to give birth to a baby girl on July 3rd and was reported missing on June 15th. Equusearch, a private, nonprofit search group from Texas , who has helped in other high profile cases recently joined the effort.

Mad Hatter: Attempting to rob his 17th bank, the New Jersey Mad Hatter got a red face. Much to his surprise, a teller slipped a dye pack in with the stolen cash, and when he tried to flee, it exploded. Cops say they’re hot on his tail. This week, hopefully we can put an end to his run.

Mikhail Drachev: This week we’ll recap the capture of suspected killer Mikhail Drachev. Cops say after fleeing to Canada , Drachev settled down with a new love interest. But before long, his new girlfriend spotted him on AMW.COM. A few phone calls later, Drachev was in custody as AMW’s 933rd direct-result.

Emanuel Carlos Veiga: Florida cops say that accused child rapist Emanuel Carlos Veiga cut off his tracking device and hit the road. He may be traveling with his girlfriend, Janaina Borges.

Dontay Brannon: Cops say due to a clerical error, accused killer Dontay Brannon walked right out of prison. Now police say they think he’s hiding out in New Jersey.

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Blood and Gore Highlight Opening Statements at Family Secrets Mob Trial

Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Paul Schiro, Anthony Doyle, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Nicholas Calabrese, Michael "Hambone" Albergo
Friends of mine: William Hanhardt

Chicago's biggest mob trial in years started Thursday with a prosecutor urging the jury to forget what they know about movie mobsters and see the now-elderly defendants for who they are: men who "committed brutal crimes on behalf of the Chicago Outfit."

"This is not The Sopranos. This is not The Godfather. These are real people, very corrupt and without honor," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Scully told the jury.

As Scully described a blood-drenched litany of murders, he showed the jury large photos of the victims. He talked about Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie Casino. Spilotro and his brother were allegedly lured into a basement and beaten to death, then buried in an Indiana cornfield.

The men on trial — reputed mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, Paul Schiro, 69, and former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62 — are accused in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders. All have pleaded not guilty.

An anonymous jury is hearing the case, with the jurors being identified only by court-issued numbers to protect their identities.

"Four of the five defendants in this room committed brutal crimes on behalf of the Chicago Outfit," Scully told the jury in his opening statement. The fifth, Doyle, protected them, he said.

Scully described Calabrese as a violent loan shark who strangled witnesses with a rope and cut their throats to make sure they were dead.

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez painted a different picture for the jury, describing Calabrese as a much-maligned, deeply religious man "who believes in peace" and loved his family. He ripped into Calabrese's son, Frank Jr., who is expected to be a key witness for the government against his father.

"He's going to say, 'My father is a rotten S.O.B., my father never loved me' — none of this is true," Lopez said. He said the jurors would see letters between the father and son "expressing love for one another."

"You're going to hear that Frank did slap his son around on numerous occasions," Lopez said. But he said that was only because the youngster was robbing the neighbors of their jewelry and taking cocaine.

He said Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, also expected to be a key witness, once stole a rifle with a silencer from Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, where it had been used to shoot birds that congregated on the scoreboard.

Scully described Marcello as one of the top leaders of the Chicago Outfit. He said Lombardo was the boss of the mob's Grand Avenue crew. Schiro was jailed five years ago for taking part in a jewel theft ring led by the Chicago police department's one-time chief of detectives, William Hanhardt.

Doyle, the retired Chicago police officer, also worked as a loan shark under Calabrese, according to federal prosecutors. He is the one defendant in the case not directly accused of murdering anyone. But Scully said that he aided and abetted the others in their work.

Scully was graphic in describing the killings, but it was Lopez who offered the juiciest details.

He recounted how FBI agents, acting on an informant's tip, tore up concrete in a parking lot near U.S. Cellular Field, home of the White Sox, looking for the last remains of murdered loan shark Michael Albergo. He said they found "thousands of bones" under the parking lot. But DNA testing couldn't tie any of the bones to Albergo, Lopez said, repeatedly referring to the victim by his mob nickname of "Hambone."

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Former Chicago Cop Reflects on Mob's Heyday

Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr., John Fecarotta
Friends of mine: Philip Tolomeo

A Chicago police detective walked into The Nest, an old Outfit nightclub, looking for a shooting suspect.

The cop found his suspect -- he just hadn't been accused yet of committing any murders.

It was March of 1958 on the city's Northwest Side, and the lounge was packed to hear singer Tony Smith and his band play some trendy new rock 'n' roll dance music.

Working the midnight shift, Detective James Jack, who now lives in Palatine, and his partner Frank Czech walked in around 2 a.m. looking for a guy they knew hung at the joint. Jack, as he tells it, stepped between two guys to look up and down the bar.

One of the guys next to him swiveled around in his chair and asked him, "What the [expletive] are you looking at?"

"Nothing much," Jack answered.

With that, the guy punched Jack square in the mouth, sending him reeling against the wall. His attacker had a few inches and pounds on Jack, but the detective, a former Gold Gloves boxer, recovered and grabbed the man in a head lock.

Another guy jumped Jack's partner, but the big detective threw him aside like a doll. A police officer who happened to be standing down the bar came to help, they identified themselves as police, and together they wrestled the two hotheads outside and into a police car -- the Tony Smith band playing without skipping a note.

The perpetrator turned out to be none other than Frank Calabrese Sr., then 20. At the time, he was on parole for auto theft.

As they drove to the police station, Jack recalls, Calabrese kept saying, "I didn't know you were a cop."

"I said if I were a normal person, you and your cronies would have killed me and laughed all the way home," Jack said. "He was an animal."

As it turned out, Calabrese was not wanted in the shooting Jack was investigating, and the detective never recalls Calabrese being convicted for punching him. Federal investigators, Jack said, were more interested in bigger cases than a bar fight.

Calabrese's attorney, Joseph Lopez, noted his client was only 20 and "just getting started," but suspected there must be more to the story, saying his client treated police with respect. "I find that hard to believe," Lopez said. "He's not a bully. Something else must've happened."

In recent years, Calabrese has been in prison after pleading guilty to taking part in a long-running juice loan extortion scheme. Now, Calabrese is ready to stand trial on charges of murder and racketeering with 13 other alleged members of the Chicago Syndicate.

Calabrese was far from Jack's only run-in with the mob. His first police partner was Philip Tolomeo, who used to make Jack wait in the car while he met with cronies at a mob hangout, before leaving the force, joining witness protection and getting convicted with Calabrese.

Ironically, Jack also once arrested one of the victims of an alleged Calabrese hit. Jack arrested John Fecarotta for sticking a gun in the mouth of a parking attendant at O'Hare International Airport in 1965. Fecarotta was found shot dead in an alley in 1986.

Jack has long since retired from the force, but he plans to attend the mob trial, which will be presided over by Judge James Zagel, who once worked with Jack on the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Council 25 years ago. Jack says he wants to see some of his old combatants.

"I want to see how they act now, compared to how feisty they were in their younger days, when they didn't care who they got involved in altercations with," he said. "Let the jury throw the dice, and let justice prevail."

Thanks to Robert McCoppin

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