Judge Kicks Out Two Mob Trial Jurors

After a federal judge removed two jurors for already having made up their minds, the jury in the Family Secrets mob trial began its first full day of deliberations Tuesday but went home early without reaching a verdict.

Last week, two jurors in the case communicated to the judge that they had already made up their minds, and the judge, after consulting with attorneys in the case and holding a closed-door hearing, removed them. Special offer! Save 50% on You've got treats! 8-14 thru 9-30-07

Jurors are supposed to enter deliberations with an open mind.

On trial are reputed Chicago mob bosses James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo; reputed Outfit killer Frank Calabrese Sr., accused of 13 murders; the mob's alleged man in Phoenix, Paul "The Indian" Schiro; and retired Chicago Police officer Anthony "Twan" Doyle, accused of helping Calabrese Sr. track down a mob snitch.

Speculation centered on Schiro as presenting the most challenge for the jury.

Out of all the defendants, Schiro is the only one who wasn't caught on audio or videotape.

Also, only one witness -- Outfit killer and star government witness Nicholas Calabrese -- directly put Schiro in the one murder he's accused of: the 1986 slaying of Schiro's friend and business partner, Emil Vaci, who had the misfortune of getting called before a grand jury on a topic of interest to the Chicago mob.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Kurt Calabrese Speaks Out

All Kurt Calabrese ever wanted was a father.

Not the man -- Frank Calabrese Sr. -- who sat on the witness stand during the Family Secrets trial to face charges he killed 13 people for the mob.

Not the man who blamed his brother and his sons for conspiring to frame him for the crimes.

Not the man who denied he beat his sons and brought them into the loansharking business.

"All I wanted him to be was a dad," Kurt Calabrese said. "Why couldn't he be a dad?"

At one point from the witness stand, Frank Calabrese Sr. gestured out to Kurt, who was sitting in the gallery. "Ask him!" Calabrese Sr. said, as if Kurt Calabrese would confirm his testimony.

He would not have. Kurt Calabrese did not testify at trial and has not spoken publicly about his father or what life was like with him -- until now. But after his father made allegation after allegation from the witness stand, Kurt Calabrese is reluctantly breaking his silence in an exclusive interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

"I'm not looking for anybody to feel sorry for me," Kurt Calabrese explained. "I hope maybe they can understand it.

"I don't hate him," Kurt said of his father. "I hate what he's done, and I hate how he's treated our family. But I don't hate him, because that's not me. I'm not a hateful person."

Without the turmoil in the Calabrese family, there may never have been a Family Secrets case.

Frank Calabrese Sr.'s eldest son, Frank Jr., agreed to record his father secretly while they were both in federal prison in 1999 on a loansharking case -- a case that also landed Kurt in prison. Frank Calabrese Jr. led jurors through the recorded conversations, in which Calabrese Sr. seems to admit taking part in mob murders.

Frank Calabrese Sr.'s brother, Nicholas, also testified against him at trial, admitting to killing at least 14 people, some with Frank Sr.

On the witness stand, Frank Calabrese Sr. often had a two-word response to the allegations: "No way."

Calabrese Sr. said he never hurt anyone, unless it was to defend someone against bullies. He used diplomacy to collect his juice loans, he said. He said his brother Nicholas tried to turn his two sons against him.

Calabrese Sr. said he loved his sons so much he pleaded guilty in the loansharking case -- so Frank Jr. and Kurt could get less time in prison. But his sons betrayed him, Calabrese Sr. suggested, by agreeing with their uncle, Nicholas, to frame him for mob murders and take his money.

At one point, Frank Calabrese Sr. had Kurt Calabrese subpoenaed to testify, a move that baffled Kurt. The subpoena was withdrawn. "For him to want to get me on the stand made no sense," Kurt Calabrese said. "I wasn't going to lie. The truth wouldn't have helped my father."

Kurt Calabrese worked for his father and made stops to collect loan payments but was not involved in the violence of his father's street crew, according to testimony and law enforcement sources. "My father was very good at what he did. I don't like what he did. I don't condone what he did," Kurt said.

Kurt Calabrese pleaded guilty to a tax charge and was sentenced to two years in prison, getting out in 1999. "At the direction of my father, I did those things. Since I've come home from prison, that life is over," said Kurt Calabrese, who is now in the restaurant industry.

Kurt rejected the notion that his father pleaded guilty to help him. On the contrary, he said, he pleaded guilty to help his father. Kurt Calabrese said his lawyer was told by authorities at the time that if he didn't plead guilty, the negotiated pleas for his father and brother wouldn't be accepted. So he took the deal.

When he next saw his father -- who did not know of his decision -- his father pleaded with him to sign the plea agreement, Kurt recalled. "My father told me, 'If you don't take this plea, I'm gonna die in prison,' " he said.

Kurt Calabrese scoffs at his father's allegation he was involved in framing him -- along with his brother and his uncle -- in the Family Secrets case. "I wish I could tell you I was that smart," Kurt Calabrese said.

His uncle Nicholas never pitted him or Frank Jr. against his father, Kurt Calabrese said. In fact, his uncle Nicholas was more like a father to him than anyone, he said.

His uncle would at times try to stop his father from beating him, Kurt Calabrese said. In spite of his claims to the contrary, Frank Calabrese Sr. regularly beat his two oldest sons, Kurt Calabrese said. "My father said he didn't like bullies," Kurt Calabrese said. "The biggest bully I've ever known is my father."

Kurt Calabrese, who shows his emotions readily, said his father verbally abused him until he broke down. His father would punch him, throw things at him and kick him when he was down on the ground, Kurt recalled.

One trial witness told the FBI Frank Calabrese Sr. once got so mad at him he was foaming at the mouth. Kurt Calabrese remembers that face: The quivering chin, the reddening skin, the spit coming out of an enraged mouth. Then the violence.

He still sees that face in his nightmares, he said. "There were times when he hit me, and I didn't think he was going to stop," he said.

As for the tapes on which his father talks about the mob murders, Kurt Calabrese was shocked his father would ever discuss such things with anybody. But he wasn't shocked his father did them. He wonders what his father makes of the victims' families, sitting in court. "I hope when he sees these people, he knows they are there and dealing with things they shouldn't have to deal with," Kurt Calabrese said.

The trial has been hard on his family too, Kurt said. He is thankful every day for his mother, his wife and his children. The day jury selection began, a fake bomb was found at his Kenilworth home, prompting police to evacuate the area. "This is my whole family," Kurt Calabrese said of the havoc his father has created. "This didn't have to happen."

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Meet the New Boss(es)?

Robberies are "scores," criminal charges "beefs" and getting sent to prison "going away" in the language of witnesses testifying at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years.

Scheduled to begin deliberations today, jurors in the "Family Secrets" mob trial have heard testimony about a kiss like the one Michael gave his brother Fredo in "The Godfather;" about mob wannabes initiated as full-fledged "made guys" by cutting their fingers and burning holy pictures in their bare hands in secret basement ceremonies.

Testimony also has attempted to link alleged mobsters with a host of unsolved gangland murders in and around Chicago, including those of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, long known as the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas, and Spilotro's brother, Michael.

Both were found in June 1986 buried in a cornfield in Newton County, Ind.

Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, is one of five men on trial accused in a racketeering conspiracy that allegedly includes 18 long-unsolved murders, illegal gambling, loan sharking and extortion tied to the Outfit, as Chicago's organized crime family is known.

The others are reputed mob boss James Marcello, 65; convicted jewel thief Paul Schiro, 70; retired Chicago policeman Anthony Doyle, 62; and convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, the brother of prosecution witness and admitted hitman Nicholas Calabrese.

Yet with five men in their 60s and 70s as prosecutors' targets -- one of whom alternates between a cane and a wheelchair -- the testimony seems more a throwback to the days of Al Capone than it does any representation of the mob today.

Experts insist that isn't the case. Even if the Outfit isn't what it was in decades past, it isn't 6 feet under either, they say. "People say, 'Look at how old these guys are on trial, it's a geriatric organization,"' said John Binder, author of "The Chicago Outfit."

"What you're seeing is just part of the organization," he said. "They're still doing gambling, they've still got some labor racketeering, they've got their hooks into some unions (and) they're still doing juice lending."

While the allegations date mostly to the 1970s and 1980s, Binder said the mob's influence still lingers.

In fact, the trial itself has served as a reminder that it's not necessary to watch "The Untouchables" for examples of the mob's reach. "What the trial has made clear is even when they are in prison they continue to exert influence and control," said James Wagner, the leader of the Chicago Crime Commission who investigated the mob for years when he was an FBI agent.

Some say it's naive to suggest that because so many of the reputed mobsters, including those on trial, are old, that the Outfit doesn't have people ready to step in and take over.

Binder compared the mob to a major company. "It's important in management to groom people," he said. "The Outfit is good at it; they've shown the ability to bring people up."

In addition to the murders of the Spilotro brothers, the "Family Secrets" mob trial included details about three other unsolved murders -- those of William and Charlotte Dauber and Nicholas D'Andrea.

Forty-five-year-old William "Billy" Dauber, 45, and his wife, Charlotte, were shot to death on the rural Monee-Manhattan Road in Will County as they were driving from a court hearing in Joliet to their home in Monee. Dauber, leader of the mob's stolen auto ring in the southern suburbs and Northwest Indiana, was himself a mob assassin.
The Daubers' 1980 Oldsmobile was riddled with bullets on the morning of July 2, 1980, by killers who used a high-powered rifle and shotgun while riding in a stolen van found abandoned and burned two miles from the murder site.

The body of the then-49-year-old D'Andrea, of Chicago Heights, was discovered Sept. 13, 1981, in the trunk of his burned out Mercedes-Benz two miles east of Crete.
His son Richard was arrested and his brother Mario, 42, of Chicago Heights, was killed by federal agents during an undercover drug buy in October 1981 after Mario D'Andrea pulled a gun when an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration officer identified himself.

Speculation at the time was that Nicholas D'Andrea was killed in connection with the attempted assassination of south suburban mob boss Alfred Pilotto, who was shot while playing golf with his brother, Henry, in July 1981. Henry Pilotto was at the time the police chief in Chicago Heights. Both Pilottos survived the shooting attempt.

Thanks to Don Babwin

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After Two Plus Months of Testimony, Jury Begins Deliberations Today

Deliberations are set to get under way Tuesday morning in the Family Secrets trial, as jurors begin to sift through more than two months of testimony on whether the five defendants played roles in a conspiracy to further the goals of the Chicago Outfit.

Before leaving the courtroom in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse last week for the Labor Day weekend, jurors determined they would work from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily as they try to reach a verdict.

Federal prosecutors contend that reputed Outfit figures James Marcello, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr. and Paul "the Indian" Schiro as well as former Chicago Police Officer Anthony "Twan" Doyle should be convicted in a racketeering conspiracy spanning four decades.

All are charged in Count 1, the racketeering conspiracy charge, which takes up 18 pages of the indictment and alleges that an enterprise known as the Outfit collected street tax, operated illegal gambling businesses, made juice loans, obstructed justice and protected itself with violence and murder.

During the trial, Marcello and Lombardo were accused of being mob bosses, while Calabrese, accused in 13 of the 18 slayings in the case, was alleged to have been a leader of the mob's 26th Street, or Chinatown, crew.

Much of the case could depend on how jurors view the testimony of the government's key witness, Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, whose accusations implicated each defendant. Prosecutors urged jurors to believe the account of a man they described as an Outfit soldier who admitted to taking part in 14 murders.

Defense lawyers urged the panel to reject Nicholas Calabrese's testimony, calling him a liar and a killer who invented information against their clients in a bid to one day win his freedom. Much of his testimony detailed murders he allegedly committed with his brother.

Jurors also heard hours of secretly made recordings of four of the five defendants allegedly discussing Outfit business.

A pool of 17 jurors -- nine women and eight men -- heard the closing arguments last week.. But two of them are expected to be dismissed after having given the court a note indicating they had made up their minds already about the case, a no-no for jurors.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel ordered that the identities of the jurors be kept secret even from the lawyers and prosecutors, who know them only by number. Court officials have not yet disclosed which 12 jurors will be involved in the deliberations and which are alternates.

If jurors convict the men of racketeering conspiracy, their deliberations would not be over. At that point, lawyers would make another round of arguments, and the jury would then decide which defendant can be held accountable for which murder in the case.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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Rat Pack' Party Girl Will Confront Former Cop/Mafia Hit Man in Court

Janie McCormick, of Vadnais Heights, will finally get the chance to throw the book at the former New York hero cop turned Mafia hit man who allegedly bamboozled her out of $45,000 of her life savings.

The book in this case is "Breaking My Silence,'' the title of McCormick's soon to be self-published memoir of her life as a childhood sex abuse victim and former Las Vegas "Rat Pack'' party girl during the 1960s and early '70s. The tale was supposed to first be a script that convicted rogue cop Louis Eppolito reportedly pledged to write himself and turn into a movie.

McCormick, whose encounter with the corrupt former cop before his federal racketeering trial was the subject of a 2005 column, was informed last week by federal authorities that they want her to testify against Eppolito at his federal tax-evasion trial.

The timing couldn't be better for McCormick. The book should be out shortly after the trial starts Sept. 24. "I want to look at that rat fink face to face,'' says McCormick, now a 66-year-old great-grandmother living the suburban life. "If I have the book in my hands, I just might throw it at him."

Eppolito, 57, and his former New York Police Department detective partner, Stephen Caracappa, were convicted last year of federal racketeering conspiracy charges for setting up or carrying out at least eight mob-directed slayings while they wore the badge.

The charges shocked even a city long accustomed to cyclical and high-profile police corruption scandals. The two men were sentenced to life prison terms. But a judge tossed aside the convictions a month later on the grounds that the five-year statute of limitations on racketeering had expired. The two men remain in custody pending appeal.

Before the New York trial, Eppolito and his wife were indicted in Las Vegas - where the two rogue cops relocated after their retirements - on charges the couple avoided paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in income taxes. The couple has denied wrongdoing.

The undeclared income came mostly from Eppolito's work selling movie scripts to Hollywood as well as his appearances as a character actor. Eppolito played bit roles in notable Hollywood films, including the classic mob flick "Goodfellas'' and Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway.''

Receipts of the $45,000 McCormick allegedly paid Eppolito for the busted movie deal are part of the evidence federal prosecutors are expected to present at trial.

McCormick, who borrowed against a house-cleaning service she operated in the White Bear Lake area, Dust Busters of Minnesota, was forced to declare bankruptcy and set aside her quest to tell her story. The alleged scam nearly derailed the quest and also her desire to raise awareness about prostitution and sexual exploitation.

Surprisingly, Eppolito is barely a footnote in the book, which is told in a gritty and blunt style. It's a name-dropper sure to raise eyebrows, if not some controversy.

McCormick discloses in the book how a stepfather molested her. In dialogue-rich narrative, she also chronicles how that abuse, which stretched from when she was a toddler to adolescent years, paved the road to prostitution.

That journey ultimately led her to become, as she describes it, a member of the elite "Queen Bee'' club of casino call girls working Sin City.

She was dubbed "Baby Jane'' by the hotel casino pit bosses who matched her with high rollers, and most of McCormick's clients "were show business personalities or millionaires good for the hotel business,'' she writes in the book.

She describes liaisons with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Vic Damone and comedians Joe E. Lewis and Jerry Lewis, whom she describes in the book as "one of the nicest men I ever met.''

She also relates how legendary golfer Sam Snead recruited her one time to keep rival Arnold Palmer up all night before the morning of a major Vegas tournament. Snead ended up winning it. McCormick recalls she got an expensive chinchilla jacket for her work.

She also details a traumatic abortion, an abusive "house pimp'' and shoddy silicone breast implants that led to a double mastectomy later in life.

Media communications and libel law attorney Mark Anfinson, hired by McCormick to vet the book, calls it "powerful and compelling stuff.''

"I'm very surprised that a publishing house has not picked this up,'' Anfinson said. "When you review copy for invasion-of-privacy concerns, you want to remain detached. But it was exceedingly hard to do with (the book) because it was so moving. It has a ring of authenticity as you go through it.''

McCormick hopes the book will give her some credibility as she tries to persuade legislators to enact tougher laws and enforcement directed at the demand side of the sex trade - the "johns.'' She believes, as others do, that American law enforcement has mostly given the customer a pass. She cites Sweden and Norway as countries that do a better job of going after the men who drive the trade.

She's dead right. As she writes in her book about the Rat Pack stars and other well-heeled Las Vegas clientele: "I often thought about how these men passed us working girls around like dessert trays ... I also wondered, after spending thousands of dollars on some dames, [how] these guys could go back to their wives and kids, hold up their heads, and look at themselves in the mirror.''

Thanks to Ruben Rosario

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