End of the Clown's Days?

The Joey "The Clown" Lombardo who testified Tuesday in his own defense was the boss of nothing, in his own mind.

Street boss, what street boss? Clown, what clown?

He was just an old man with a gray face in a gray suit with a cane, pushing 80, working his jaw, his tongue fishing some flecks of lunch out of his gums as he sat in the witness box, taking the one chance left to him in this historic Family Secrets trial of the Chicago Outfit in federal court:

To convince the jury he wasn't the Joey Lombardo of legend, but instead a humble shoeshine boy from the old neighborhood who hustled a bit for extra cash.

Lombardo said he grew up on the West Side, that his father worked at the Tribune in some unspecified capacity, and that Joe later took fencing lessons in high school, played handball, even rollerbladed in later years, ending up with a small interest in a floating craps game while running minor errands for bail bondsman and Outfit wiretapper Irwin Weiner.

Lombardo didn't kill anyone, he insisted. He wasn't the boss of anything. He wasn't a made member of the Outfit, which forms the base of the triangle that runs the town. Politicians, Lombardo said, were the real hoodlums.

"There's 50 bosses in Chicago," Lombardo said, "The 50 bosses are the 50 aldermen; without them you can't get anything done. If you want zoning, you see the alderman. If you want to run a card game, you go see the alderman. If you want a dice game, go see the alderman."

In Lombardo's mind, what does that make the boss of all the aldermen, that guy I used to call Mayor Fredo, who sits on the 5th Floor of City Hall? I couldn't ask Lombardo, since he's only talking from the witness stand.

The last time I tried speaking to Lombardo was years ago, at Bella Notte, a nice Italian restaurant on Grand Avenue, just after former Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt was indicted for running an Outfit-sanctioned jewelry-heist ring. I wanted to ask Lombardo about Hanhardt, another friend of the Outfit-connected Weiner. But before I could saunter over to Lombardo's table, he snapped his fingers, the busboys shoveled his food into containers and he walked out. The manager trotted over and said I was sadly mistaken if I thought he catered to clowns.

"Clown? Clown? What are you talking about, clown? What clown?" the manager said.

Well, wasn't that the Clown? "No, that was Mr. Irwin Goldman," the manager said, forgetting to explain why Mr. Goldman was wearing a St. Dismas medallion -- the Good Thief crucified next to Christ -- around his neck.

That was sure amusing, but Lombardo is weirdly amusing, and when he testified in court on Tuesday he got a laugh when he talked about shining shoes as a boy. Gamblers would tip him a dollar. The cops only gave him a nickel. "They were very cheap people," said Lombardo, and there was a loud chuckle in the courtroom, prompting U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel to admonish other lawyers laughing at Lombardo's wisecracks.

Rick Halprin, the seasoned criminal lawyer whose job it is to try and keep Lombardo from dying in prison, took a gamble in putting Lombardo on the stand. Halprin had no real choice, with Lombardo's fingerprint on the title application from a car used in the killing of Danny Seifert, a Lombardo partner-turned-federal witness in 1974. That fingerprint has an itch the Outfit can't scratch. It waits, still, quiet, filed, hanging over Lombardo's head.

In 1974, Seifert was killed in front of his family. Seifert was the key witness in the federal case against Lombardo. The case against him exploded the way Seifert exploded, when the shotguns came out. Halprin had to gamble the jury would see a cane in the fingers of the grandpa on the stand, not a shotgun.

The other accused Outfit bosses and soldiers on trial must be thinking that now they've got to follow him up there, too, and swear another oath, this one before God. They watched Lombardo in cold blood. There was Paul "The Indian" Schiro, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and former Chicago Police Officer Anthony Doyle, accused of warning the Outfit when the FBI began investigating the 18 formerly unsolved mob killings that are part of this landmark case.

Their eyes black, their heads framed against black leather courtroom chairs, they leaned back and watched the shoeshine boy. Their chins rested on fists, they took deep breaths, their eyes sponging up the light of the world.

Halprin: "On Sept. 27, 1974, did you kill Danny Seifert?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

Halprin: "Have you ever been a capo or a made member of the Chicago Outfit?"

Lombardo: "Positively, no."

The old man pushed that second "positively, no" too quickly past his choppers, the delivery was rushed, so it fell in front of the jury with a thunk, like a car trunk slamming shut in a lonely parking lot.

There wasn't anything amusing about it.

It wasn't funny, like a clown.

It was desperate, an old man holding his cane, seeing the end of days.

Thanks to John Kass

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Lombardo Claims Alibi for Murder

Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo

Reputed mob boss Joey “The Clown" Lombardo told a packed courtroom Wednesday that he had an alibi for the morning a federal witness was executed by ski-masked gunmen: He was in a Chicago police station miles away complaining that someone had stolen his wallet.

Curiosity seekers jammed U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel's court for a second day, eager to see the now-frail, gravel-voiced 78-year-old who has been tied for years to the top echelons of the mob. Also Wednesday, a juror was dismissed for personal reasons.

Delivered to the witness stand in a wheel chair by a federal marshal, Lombardo gripped his cane as he testified, and at times seemed slightly absent minded as he was questioned by chief defense attorney Rick Halprin.

As CBS 2’s John “Bulldog” Drummond reports, most significant charges against Lombardo stem from the September 1974 of Daniel Seifert, a government witness. Seifert was gunned down outside of his Bensenville factory.

Seifert's widow, Emma, testified earlier in the trial that she believes Lombardo was one of the gunmen.

Lombardo, however, testified that he got up early on that September morning and went out to buy an electric garage door opener. He said the store was closed and he stopped at a pancake house for some breakfast. Returning to his car, he found that his glove compartment had been opened and his wallet taken from it, Lombardo testified.

Lombardo said he returned to the restaurant and told his story to two police officers who were having breakfast there. He said they took him to the Shakespeare Avenue stationhouse on Chicago's North Side, where he filled out a complaint about his stolen wallet.

Emerging from the station afterward, he was surprised, he said. "Then I got the news about Danny Seifert," he testified.

Immediately on taking the stand Tuesday, Lombardo denied that he had anything to do with the Seifert murder.

Sources say the district commander at Shakespeare was later convicted of masterminding a stolen jewelry ring.

On Tuesday Lombardo denied killing Seifert and Wednesday his lawyer asked Lombardo, “What was your relationship with Daniel Seifert?” Lombardo replied, “Very friendly.”

Lombardo explained to the court why he was in the famous “last supper” picture where a number of mob heavyweights had gathered in 1976 to pay tribute to a dying colleague. Lombardo said he had just happened to stop at the restaurant for ice cream when, by chance, he joined the group.

The topic of his 1986 conviction was skimming money from Las Vegas casinos. When Halprin asked Lombardo if he’d ever received any skim money he answered, ”I have to tell the truth. I’m under oath. Not a red penny.”

“The Clown” became a fugitive in April 2005 when he was indicted in the Family Secrets case, but he testified that when he was on the lam for 9 months, he never left Illinois.

Halprin asked him if he believed he committed a federal crime, to which Lombardo replied “Absolutely not.”

Lombardo has admitted that he was a "hustler" who ran a floating crap game and associated with numerous members of the Chicago Outfit, as the city's organized crime family calls itself. But he denies that he has ever been a full-fledged mobster.

Lombardo is one of five alleged mob members on trial, charged with a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders. Prosecutors say he is responsible for the shooting of Seifert, who was a witness against him in a federal investigation.

After his 1992 release from prison, Lombardo took out an ad in the Chicago Tribune, denying that he had ever taken part in the secret ceremonies by which mob members are initiated as "made guys." The ad invited anyone hearing of criminal activity on his part to call the FBI. But Lombardo did acknowledge on the witness stand Wednesday that he once posed as a mobster to pressure a St. Louis lawyer to pay old debts he owed to Allen Dorfman, the Chicago insurance man who ran the mammoth Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

The fund was riddled with corruption in the era when it was operated by Dorfman, who himself was gunned down in gangland fashion shortly after he and Lombardo were convicted in the 1986 bribery conspiracy case.

Thanks to John Drummond

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Joey the Clown Becomes Court Ringmaster

Friends of ours: Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio, Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Irwin Weiner, Allen Dorfman

After stopping momentarily to flirt with the blond court reporter and swearing to tell the truth with a raspy "I do," Joey "the Clown" Lombardo lowered himself onto the witness stand with the help of a cane.

The 78-year-old with a Caesar haircut leaned toward the microphone Tuesday afternoon and took off his rounded eyeglasses, settling in to answer his lawyer's questions at the landmark Family Secrets trial.

With the revelation last week that one of the city's quirkiest reputed mob figures would take the stand in his own defense, his testimony became one of the most anticipated moments in a trial that already has earned a place in Chicago mob lore.

A long line of spectators waited for a seat in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse's largest courtroom, filled to capacity with federal judges, FBI supervisors, veteran federal prosecutors, a flock of reporters and dozens of the simply curious.

Defense attorney Rick Halprin wasted no time in getting to the heart of the charges, asking Lombardo whether he took part in killing federal witness Daniel Seifert in 1974 and whether he was a "capo" in the Chicago Outfit.

"Positively no," Lombardo responded to both questions.

Lombardo is a reputed organized-crime figure with a flair for humor and theatrics, known for once leaving a court date with a mask made of newspaper to hide his face from cameramen. Another time he took out advertisements disavowing any mob ties.

When the Family Secrets indictment came down two years ago, he vanished, writing the judge letters asking for his own trial before he was apprehended in the suburbs sporting a beard that resembled the one Saddam Hussein grew while hiding in his spider hole. Brought to court for the first time in the case, Lombardo announced he simply had been "unavailable."

On Tuesday, he was at center stage again, telling jurors how he worked the streets as a youngster, shining shoes of police officers in his Grand Avenue neighborhood. They paid him only a nickel a shoe, he said.

"Very cheap people," said Lombardo, sending a wave of laughter through the courtroom.

"Let's not press our luck," shot back Halprin, trying to keep his client focused.

"You told me to tell the truth," countered Lombardo, drawing more laughter.

The guffaws, some from other defense lawyers in the case, brought a stern warning from U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who said he didn't see anything funny about a sweeping conspiracy case that includes the murders of 18 individuals.

Lombardo, one of five men on trial, took the stand as the best way to flesh out his defense that he was essentially an errand boy for powerful mob-connected businessmen such as Irwin Weiner and labor racketeer Allen Dorfman, who ran an insurance agency that did business with the Teamsters. He contended he has always held legitimate jobs and got caught up in criminal conduct through friends.

The jury knows about Lombardo's celebrated convictions from the 1980s for attempting to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon (D-Nev.) and for skimming millions of dollars from the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.

Lombardo set about to describe his work history, starting with shoe shining and detouring briefly to his dice game. Lombardo acknowledged he ran one, blessed by city aldermen, from 1976 until the bribery indictment. "I didn't have time to play dice because I was on trial," he said matter of factly.

Lombardo, dressed in a conservative gray jacket and silver tie, sometimes rubbed his hands in front of him as he testified and sometimes played with his glasses. He often gave brief answers in a sing-song tone and looked toward the jury as he talked.

Lombardo said he worked a dumbwaiter at a hotel, drove trucks, built two six-flats in a small construction business and worked at a salvage warehouse.

Through his relationships with Weiner and Dorfman, Lombardo said, he met Outfit figures such as Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio and Anthony Spilotro.

Lombardo testified that Weiner also led him to International Fiberglass, where he worked with Seifert. Prosecutors contend Lombardo had Seifert killed before he could testify against Lombardo in a pension fraud case.

The business was failing when he got there, Lombardo said, telling jurors he agreed to round up out-of-work "kids" in the Grand Avenue area to help make sinks and other company products. He helped Seifert pay bills and manage the business, Lombardo said.

A host of nicknames used for Lombardo have surfaced during the trial, including "Lumpy," "Lumbo" and "Pagliacci," the Italian word for clowns. On Tuesday, Lombardo acknowledged he used another name for himself in some of his business dealings in the 1970s: Joseph Cuneo. "Because my name, Lombardo, was always in the paper for different things," he said.

Halprin tried to take on evidence that prosecutors say points to Lombardo's involvement in Seifert's killing. But Lombardo appeared confused on one critical issue and Halprin moved to another topic.

Lombardo's fingerprint was found on the title application for a car used by the gunmen to flee from the scene of Seifert's shooting at his Bensenville business. In addition, Lombardo was identified as having often bought police scanners like the one found in the getaway vehicle.

Lombardo acknowledged buying police scanners from a local store but said he was running errands for Weiner and his bail-bonding business. But Lombardo said he was puzzled about the fingerprint. Halprin asked how it could have been left on the title document.

"What are my prints on? On what?" he asked. "Is that document in Irv Weiner's office?"

Halprin promised to come back to the subject.

Lombardo also denied that he had attempted to bribe Sen. Cannon. He said he was recorded in Dorfman's office discussing his idea to have the senator buy a Las Vegas property that was being purchased by someone else with a large loan from a Teamsters pension fund. He got nothing out of the deal, Lombardo said, except "15 years and 5 years probation."

Earlier Tuesday, Lombardo's lawyers called a series of witnesses who testified that they saw Lombardo at work at legitimate jobs, including International Fiberglass.

Among those testifying was Johnny Lira, 56, a Golden Gloves boxing champion and a one-time lightweight title contender. Lira said he renewed a relationship with the reputed mobster when Lombardo left prison in the early 1990s. Lombardo worked every day at a business that dealt with concrete-cutting machines, he said.

He described Lombardo as "a grease monkey" who worked on equipment in the business' warehouse on Racine Avenue until his arrest in early 2006. Assistant U.S. Atty. Markus Funk asked whether Lira knew Lombardo was a fugitive in his final months on the job. "He didn't act like a fugitive," Lira said. "He came there every day."

In his testimony, Lombardo tried to portray himself as a normal working guy who liked sports. He can "ice skate, roller skate, Rollerblade and bowl," Lombardo testified.

Prosecutors are likely to go hard after that image during their expected cross-examination on Wednesday, and there will be no chance for "the Clown" to disappear.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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Spilotro Brothers Leave Court

Friends of ours: Anthony Spilotro
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro

Reputed mobster Anthony Spilotro, left, and his brother, Michael, leave the federal building in Chicago after a bond hearing in this June 17, 1986 photo. Anthony Spilotro was known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas and inspired the Joe Pesci character in the movie casino. He and his brother were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in June 1986.

On Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007, a forensic pathologist who did autopsies on the Spilotros, testified at the trial in Chicago of five men charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders. He said there was no evidence that the two men were buried alive.

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Cop Stories About The Chicago Outfit

Jim Jack and I are watching the world's biggest mob trial from a back bench, where he can whisper to me while pointing to this thug and that one.

All these decaying Chicago Outfit guys, they look like uncles and grandpas now. But Jack knew a few of them when they just looked mean. They hide it better now.

Jack, 79, was a Chicago cop. He got on the force in 1955, made detective a year later, and worked the old Gale Street District on the Northwest Side -- last stop before the suburbs. He and his longtime partner, Frank Czech, knew all the hinky joints and liked to poke their heads in.

Jack points across the courtroom to a balding fellow slumped in a chair. That's Frank Calabrese Sr., alleged hit man in love with his work.

Jack tells me about the first time he met Calabrese. It was 1958 and he and Czech were cruising around, looking for a suspect in a shooting. They stopped at a mob-connected joint called The Nest, in the 3800 block of North Central.

"It was like 2 o'clockish in the morning, a swinging place, Tony Smith playing on stage," Jack says. "And me and my partner walk in and it was jammed. I was lucky I had my feet on the floor. I take two steps to the bar and there's a space between two guys. I'm bothering nobody, just sticking my head in there to look down at the end of the bar."

One of the two guys swiveled on his stool, as Jack recalls, and offered a traditional Chicago greeting: "What the f--- you lookin' at?" Jack replied, "Nothing much."

"Evidently he took offense to that, because first thing I know he whacked me right in the mouth," Jack tells me now. "Later on, when he's under arrest, he says he's sorry -- he didn't know we were cops. Like if I were a regular patron, it's OK to do a tattoo on my face."

I look across the courtroom again at Calabrese. He still looks like somebody's uncle. But I wonder if he's wondering what the f--- I'm looking at.

James A. Jack has been attending the Family Secrets mob trial at the Dirksen Federal Building since it began June 21. He's thinking of writing a book about his cop days, and the trial fits in.

Jack already has written one award-winning book, Three Boys Missing: The Tragedy That Exposed the Pedophilia Underworld, just published by HPH Publishing. The book is Jack's account of his dogged police work in the days immediately after one of Chicago's most notorious crimes, the 1955 Peterson-Schuessler triple murders.

Jack didn't solve that crime. Decades would pass, in fact, before an aging pedophile would be convicted of the murders and tossed in prison. But in the course of working on the case, Jack and his partner rooted out two or three other sex offenders, and they discovered something that was almost like a secret in the more innocent 1950s -- pedophilia is frightfully common.

That's what happens when you're a cop: You learn the world is a darker place than most people know.

I ask Jack for another story, another tale from those jolly formative years. He tells me about his first partner as a detective, a cop who dressed in Gucci on a Florsheim salary.

"Phil Tolomeo -- the Outfit put him in there," Jack tells me. "The first month I was working with him, I didn't even know. I was new and just married.

"We're working midnights and he's driving, and he stops at a place on Harlem called Meo's," Jack continues. "He says, 'Wait here, I'll be right back,' and he goes in and it's like 45 minutes, then an hour. He comes out and I say, 'Jesus, where the hell you been?' He says, 'Oh, I just went to see a few guys.'"

Jack didn't like Tolomeo's Gucci shoes. He didn't like that Meo was the last three letters in Tolomeo. He didn't like what he had heard when he started asking around -- that Meo's was a favorite mob hangout.

"They're all in there, every day and every night -- Tony Accardo, Aiuppa, Cerone, Murray the Camel," Jack says. "I'm not Charlie Chan, but I'm beginning to figure it out."

The last straw came the third or fourth night Tolomeo left Jack waiting outside Meo's. All of a sudden, as Jack sat there in the dark, flashbulbs began popping in the weeds from a vacant lot across the street. Somebody was taking pictures.

Back at the police station, Jack finally had a talk with Sgt. George Murphy, the supervisor of detectives. "Sarg, what's going on?" he said. "I'm gonna get myself fired."

Murphy nodded and clued Jack in. Yeah, he said, that was probably the FBI taking surveillance pictures from the weeds. And he already knew all about Tolomeo.

"Somebody had to be his partner, Jim," Murphy said, "and you're new and we didn't think you'd get in trouble with him."

"Get me off," Jack said.

The next month, Jack had a new partner, Frank Czech. And 35 years after that, long after leaving the police force, Phil "Philly Beans" Tolomeo -- who was, indeed, related to the owner of Meo's -- entered the federal witness protection program. He explained to the FBI exactly how Frank Calabrese's extortion racket worked.

Jack wasn't a Chicago cop for long. He left the police force in 1968 and became head of national security for Toys R Us. He had a family to support, and he was tired of moonlighting to make ends meet. One good-paying job made more sense than two or three poor paying jobs. Not bad for an ex-boxer from the West Side who grew up in an orphanage. But before turning in his badge, Jack gathered enough great cop stories for a lifetime.

Like the story about getting into a huge bar fight with Tony Spilotro, the vicious mob boss of Las Vegas who wound up dead in an Indiana cornfield.

Jack's story about Spilotro is a long one, starting in 1961 and ending in 1963. It's also a good one, involving a nightclub singer, a pretty girl and a grudge that wouldn't go away. But in the space I've got left here, I could never do it justice.

"You really should write that book," I tell Jack, whispering to him at the Family Secrets trial.

Up on the witness stand, a forensic pathologist is describing how Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael were beaten to death with nothing but fists, knees and feet.

"I just might," Jack says. "It was something."

Thanks to Tom McNamee

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