Part Two of Family Secrets Mob Trial Coming Next Spring

While jurors deliberate over the evidence in the family secrets mob murder trial, it appears act two of the saga will now unfold next spring.

CBS 2’s John “Bulldog” Drummond has learned federal prosecutors are planning an all-out blitz on another high-profile Chicago mob figure.

Frank “The German” Schweihs was severed from the family secrets trial last spring reportedly because of health reasons. He was apparently suffering from cancer. But a source says the 77 year old has made a miraculous recovery. If his health holds, he’ll be brought back to Chicago for a trial in the spring, possibly in April.

For a time, Schweihs, known as “The German” in underworld circles, led the feds on a merry chase until he was arrested in an apartment complex in Berea, Kentucky.

Schweihs, a feared mob enforcer, was convicted in 1989 for shaking down Red Wemette, an adult book store owner. Schweihs was secretly recorded on videotape boasting that no one could move in on his territory. It was an expletive-filled tirade.

“This joint has been declared for years. There’s no one has the right to come in __ and in our domain. I don’t give a __ who the __ he is. If it’s Al Capone’s brother and he comes back reincarnated, ok. This is a declared __ joint and no one has the right to come and ___ with this, ok,” Schweihs said.

Schweihs did time on the extortion charges and now faces a new variety of accusations including his alleged involvement in the murder of a government witness, Daniel Seifert. Seifert was gunned down outside his Bensenville factory in September of 1974.

Schweihs has been a suspect in a number of other high-profile slayings including the murder of Admiral Theater impresario Patsy Ricciardi. Schweihs’ name was on the lips of mob investigators when mob associate Allen Dorfman was shot to death outside a Lincolnwood hotel in January of 1983. But in those slayings, Schweihs was never charged with being involved.

In the 1970s, every time there was a gangland slaying, Schweihs’ name came up, but there was never any proof that Schweihs was involved and he never was charged.

Thanks to John "Bulldog" Drummond

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"Usurious" Request from Jury

Jurors in the Family Secrets mob conspiracy trial deliberated for a second day Wednesday without reaching a verdict, but not before complaining about the temperature in the jury room and becoming perplexed for a time over the definition of an uncommon word in the indictment.

Jurors deciding the fate of four reputed Outfit figures and a former Chicago police officer issued their first written questions to U.S. District Judge James Zagel since deliberations began Tuesday. Zagel has presided over the 10-week trial.

Jurors asked for additional fans because the room where they are deliberating was stuffy.

The jury also wanted a dictionary.

After joking about whether it would be unpatriotic to give the jury an Oxford English Dictionary, Zagel asked jurors instead to tell the court which words they wanted defined.

The jury indicated the confusion was over one word—"usurious," which appears on the second page of the indictment. The defendants are accused of charging "usurious" rates on high-interest "juice loans."

The word is defined in most dictionaries as "of or constituting usury," which is defined as the practice of lending money at excessively or illegally high interest rates.Before the court had supplied an answer, jurors told the judge that they were able to glean the definition from the indictment itself.

Thanks to Jeff Coen

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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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