The Shark Attacks: Analysis of Family Secrets Mob Trial for 6/27

Attorney Joseph "The Shark" Lopez, who is representing Frank Calabrese Sr. in the Chicago Family Secrets Mob Trial, has agreed to provide us with updates on his observations and thoughts regarding the various court proceedings.

Today, Shark responds to the testimony of porn shop owner, William "Red" Wemette, Alva Rogers, and Jim Wagner

"What a day in court! Red Wemette as usual was a classic. Alva Rodgers, forgetaboutit! Lombardo's lawyer flattened him out. What a character. He used run the G&O at Grand and Ogden, I think it was on the southwest corner where Timo is now. There was a strip mall, it was kitty corner to the bike shop that is now a restaurant called Twisted Spoke. It was back in the day as they would say.

Rodgers is 78 and looks the part of grandpa with a mean streak. He went to the West Coast to tell someone to join the association. Not clear what that means, but he went by car. The jury is paying close attention to everything happening. The ex-FBI agent (James Wagner, now president of the Chicago Crime Commission) was kind of boring. It's clear he makes a lot more in the private sector than he did as government employee. Some people love the public service. He clearly did (as) he was on the force for a long time.

Back to Alva, get the transcript, Halprin was great as usual. He hammered away but in the end it was unclear why Alva was here. It had nothing to do with the charges.

Finally, Red (Wemette) admitted the IRS was on him. Alva said the same. Red admitted he lied under oath. Tomorrow is another day. At least we got Marcus Funk up there today, he added a new dimension to the prosecution team with his young blood and he is quite a sailor." - Shark

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Lombardo Feels Like Sadaam

Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, John “No Nose” DiFronzo, Alphonse “Pizza Al” Tornabene

He has one of the most famous names in Chicago. It ranks right up there with Daley, Sandburg, Oprah and Susie Snowflake. I’m talking about Joe Padula. Some brave people call him “Lumpy.”

His real name is Joe Lombardo. You probably know him as “Joey the Clown,” currently standing trial in federal court in Chicago as the highest-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit.

For more than 50 years, Joey “the Clown” Lombardo has had the most prominent moniker in a fraternity where everybody knows your nickname.

As you know, most clowns don’t talk much. They’re more into pantomime, sight gags and slapstick.

Joe Lombardo’s actions have always spoken louder than his words. Like when the feds say he gave the nod to Outfit hit men to kill people, including witnesses set to testify against him. Or when, the feds say, he had a guy killed in front of his wife and 4-year-old son. Or when he bribed and extorted people, skimmed from Las Vegas casinos, and stole from labor unions.

He’s never really talked much. There was the newspaper he once used as a facemask, complete with cutaway eyeholes, to hide from reporters after a court appearance.

Lombardo’s favorite pose for police mug shots was with his mouth stretched wide open, as if at the dentist, disfiguring his facial features.

Now 78, Lombardo must be going soft on the pratfalls and practical jokes. As he sat in court last week, he wanted to talk about serious things. With me.

Our conversation took place during a break while the lawyers were out of the room. A few deputy U.S. Marshals stood nearby to make sure the Clown didn’t try to escape in his wheelchair or use his cane as a ball bat.

He was talking with a deputy about how people in all types of jobs are replaceable. Even his job, Lombardo said, whatever that may be. And then the Clown looked squarely at me and said, “If reporters are killed, they’re replaceable too.”

What a jokester.

He muttered something about cockroaches and mosquitoes.

“I watched you when you were reporting in Iraq,” he then told me, referring to TV stories I filed from the Middle East last year. He said he watched on a big screen TV.

That means he was watching TV news in his final days of freedom. After being a federal fugitive for nine months, Lombardo was nabbed on Jan. 13, 2006, in Elmwood Park, a few days after I left Baghdad. “I feel like Saddam sitting here,” he told me. “I know what he felt must’ve felt like.”

Like Saddam, Lombardo was sporting a full, fluffy beard when he was arrested after hiding out. And like Saddam, who was hanged for the execution-murders of 148 people, Lombardo could effectively face a death sentence. At his age, if convicted, his sentence will ensure he will never again see freedom and will die in prison.

“You were right,” he told me. “When you were over there in Iraq. It’s all about the First Amendment. Freedom of Speech.”

“Do you know who should be here in this courtroom?” Lombardo asked me.

Without waiting for my answer, he provided his own. “Bush and Cheney,” he said.

“What would you charge them with?” I asked the man charged in a case that includes 18 gangland murders.

Lombardo thought for a moment and answered “murder.”

“Look at all those people who have been killed or injured,” he said, citing the thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

And then he said Bush and Cheney are like two bank robbers. If one shoots and kills a teller, the other is still liable for murder. Just like Bush and Cheney, he said.

Lombardo was about 15 feet away from me. He was sitting at the defense table, but another of the five defendants was seated between us. Jimmy Marcello, a Lombardo underboss, stared straight ahead as our words passed in front of him.

Marcello, or “Little Jimmy,” never said a word or acknowledged the conversation. Maybe Marcello, 65, was just deferring to his elder.

My tête-à-tête with Lombardo ended with a final shot from the Clown.

“They still don’t have the guy, do they?” he asked, implying that there was some mega-mobster out there still calling the shots.

“Who is the guy that they don’t have?” I asked Lombardo, thinking he was about to drop the name of John “No Nose” DiFronzo or Alphonse “Pizza Al” Tornabene. But Joe Lombardo was still thinking globally. “They still don’t have the guy, Osama bin Laden.”

But they have the Clown. And that’s no joke.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Prosecution Portraying Lombardo as Top Level Mobster

Friends of ours: Joseph Aiuppa, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Alan Dorfman

Chicago’s top mob boss Joseph Aiuppa wasn’t happy.

He was at a meeting in a suburban restaurant in April 1979 with another reputed top mobster, Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, and Alan Dorfman, an insurance executive who was the middleman between the mob and the Teamsters pension fund.

Aiuppa was jamming his finger and hands into the table to accentuate his points, according to retired FBI Agent Art Pfizenmayer, who testified today on the meeting he did surveillance on. “Dorfman kind of sat there with his hands in his lap,” Pfizenmayer said.

Pfizenmayer was sitting at the bar and could only hear a few snatches of conversation over the tinkle of glasses as the bartender cleaned up from the lunch crowd and the piped-in music.

Pfizenmayer’s testimony was part of the prosecution’s effort to establish that Lombardo was a mobster involved in the very top level of mob communications. Lombardo is charged with four other men as part of the historic Family Secrets mob case in federal court in Chicago.

Dorfman would later be killed in 1983 after he was convicted with Lombardo of conspiring to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon. Federal authorities have said Aiuppa approved Dorfman’s murder.

Earlier in the day at trial, former Old Town porn shop owner William “Red” Wemette underwent vigorous questioning by Lombardo’s attorney, Rick Halprin.

Wemette had earlier testified that he paid street tax payments to men he believed were Lombardo’s underlings. But under questioning by Halprin, Wemette testified he had never personally given Lombardo a dime.

Wemette also admitted he signed a false affidavit in the 1970s with IRS agents in which he described payments he made to an alleged Lombardo associate as being part of a business deal, rather than street tax payments.

Wemette, though, testified he had a separate, secret source relationship with the FBI, to whom he told the truth about the street tax payments.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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All American Mafioso: The Johnny Roselli

Friends of ours, Johnny Rosselli, Al Capone

Big news this week when the CIA released several internal reports known as the "family jewels". The plethora or reports brought out additional confirmation the Mob was hired by the CIA to kill Castro. Cheri Rohn, who co-wrote Thief! The Gutsy, True Story of an Ex-Con Artistwith Slick Hanner reminded me that this CIA material was spelled out in detail in the 1991 book, All American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli. It was written by Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker. Proving it is a small world, Ed Becker was the literay agent for Thief.

In All-American Mafioso, Rosselli, brought to this country from Italy as a child, was a key figure in organized crime for decades until he was murdered in 1976. Los Angeles freelance journalist Rappleye and private eye Becker trace the rise of this gangster who began his career working for Al Capone, moved to Hollywood at a time when the mob was making inroads into the film industry, switched his residence to Las Vegas when the first Cosa Nostra-financed casinos were built, and played a major role in the CIA's abortive attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. The book draws a deeply depressing picture of American life with its contention that many important figures in business and politics are beholden to the Mafia, including John Kennedy, who, the authors suggest, was killed by the mob.

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Mobster's Visit Meets with Gunfire

Friends of ours: John Agathos Sr., Genovese Crime Family

A police officer fired a shot at a man who tried to ram a cop while making his getaway after shooting the front door of a residence where a reputed mob figure was visiting family, officials said.

Bernard Yanotta, 65, of Meadow Lane , made his first court appearance yesterday on three counts of aggravated assault and weapons offenses on charges that he shot at the home of Helene Agathos-Schoendorf, officials said. Police also alleged he tried to ram Sgt. Thomas Borrelli with his Ford Explorer and pointed a pistol at him, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.

Neighbors and law enforcement sources say reputed Genovese crime family associate John Agathos Sr. was at the home at the time of the shooting. The bullet lodged in the front door and no one was injured, DeFazio said. Officials say there is no reason to believe Agathos was the target, saying only that the motive of the shooting was related to a dispute over money, officials said.

When Yanotta's Explorer collided with the police vehicle, Borrelli got out of his cruiser and fired a round at Yanotta's car as he drove with gun in hand, DeFazio said, adding that Yanotta was not hit. Yanotta was then arrested by other officers, DeFazio said.

Emmett Thompson, a neighbor who has lived across from the Agathos home since 1967, said he took a look when he heard the ruckus on the night of the shooting. "I looked out the window and saw a lot of police cars," Thompson said yesterday. "The father (John Agathos Sr.) came out of the house in a robe, then got in the car and drove away." Thompson said he's known the Agathos family for years. "I know Helene a long time, watched her grow up."

Yanotta, a first-time offender, appeared in court via video link from Hudson County jail in Kearny . When asked if he had any questions, Yanotta said: "I was just hoping to have the bail reduced. I've been a good citizen all my life." But Nieto said the charges were too serious.

According to a report to Congress by the Office of the Inspector General in 1996, Agathos was removed and banned for life from membership in the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International Union Local 69 in Secaucus, where he served as president.

The report stated that "Local 69 President, John Agathos Sr., and fund administrator, John Agathos Jr., were associated with the Genovese "la cosa nostra" family." It was "also determined that John Agathos Sr. embezzled approximately $150,000 from the Local."

John Agathos Sr. was in the news again in 2005 when union official David Feeback was convicted of stealing money from the local. Assistant U.S. Attorney Grady O'Malley told The Star-Ledger at the time that Feeback was brought into the local by "alleged mob associate John N. Agathos."

Numerous attempts to reach Agathos-Schoendorf by phone yesterday were unsuccessful. Secaucus police would not confirm or deny the shooting even happened, despite the fact one of their officers had fired his gun.

Thanks to Michaelangelo Conte

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