More Family Secret Murders

The milestone mob case has solved many more Chicago Outfit killings than first thought. When the curtain went up on Operation Family Secrets, authorities said the plot involved 18 old gangland murders. But 18 is just the number of killings that were part of the court case.

The I-Team has learned that federal authorities consider as many as 40 mob murders now solved because of their investigation.

The mob's hit parade has been rolling since 1919 with corpses in cars and alleys; on street corners, sidewalks and alleyways; even in back yards and barber chairs. And in almost 90 years of keeping the stats, just a few Outfit murders have ever been solved.

"Whenever we had an organized crime homicide in Area 4, they were some of the hardest cases to work because even their own family members wouldn't talk to you," said Steve Peterson, Chicago police.

When you're a contract killer for La Cosa Nostra, or the LCN, part of the deal is, you don't get caught.

"This is the first investigation that I can recall where so many murders are charged...it goes to the heart of the LCN and that is a bunch of murderous thugs," said Robert Grant, FBI.

One man was *the* most murderous of the thugs: Nick Calabrese, mob hitman-turned-government informant.

During the summer-long trial, Calabrese admitted that he personally took part in more than a dozen gangland killings. But the I-Team has learned that during months of interviews with Chicago FBI agents, Nick Calabrese identified the Outfit triggermen in many additional murders that were never revealed in court.

"About 20 or so that Nick Calabrese provided information on," said John Scully, Family Secrets prosecutor. "I haven't looked at it in a while, but there are a number of murders beyond the ones that he testified about. Again, that he was not involved in, but through conversations with other mobsters."

Retired federal prosecutor Scully revealed the information during a recent interview about the Family Secrets case. While Scully declined to provide details, the I-Team has learned that the case of one mob murder victim is atop those cleared by Calabrese.

Manny Skar, a mob gambling functionary was mysteriously shot dead in 1965 as he emerged from his car near the garage of this Lake Shore Drive apartment house where he and his wife lived. Skar was about to snitch on the Outfit.

According to FBI interview reports, known as 302's, Nick Calabrese told agents that the hit man who rubbed out Skar was none other than Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo.
Mob investigators believe it was Lombardo's first hit, carried out as a requirement of The Clown's induction into the outfit.

Skar's murder and the numerous other "bonus killings" cleared by Nick Calabrese, will be used by prosecutors at the upcoming sentencing of Lombardo, Nick's brother Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese and "Little Jimmy" Marcello.

"At some point, if they haven't done it already, the FBI will be advising the police departments that have an interest in those murders now that this case is done," said Scully.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice confirms that the bureau is providing local authorities with details of the old mob murders, but he says in some cases, informant Nick Calabrese didn't even know the name of the victim.

However, from court records and law enforcement sources, these are among the secret murders also believed cleared by Calabrese:

-Sam Annerino, 1971. A top south suburban enforcer, taken out by masked gunmen in the middle of an Oak Lawn street.

-Anthony Reitinger, 1975. Mob bookie, gunned down in Mama Luna's restaurant on the Northwest Side.

-Tony Borsellino, 1979. A mob assassin shot five times in the back of the head and dumped in a Frankfort farm field.

-Sam Guzzino, 1981. Outfit bodyguard found mangled in a southwest suburban ditch.

-Ronnie Jarrett, 1999. South Side mob lieutenant ambushed on his Bridgeport doorstep.

Besides Nick Calabrese lifting the veil of secrecy on as many as 20 additional Outfit murders, he has also disclosed details of a number of botched gangland shootings, where the target survived.

Defense lawyers declined to comment on Calabrese' additional statements, saying that his FBI records are still under a court-protective order.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Mafia Maiden Coming

Mafia Maiden is the story of a young chicago girl, who goes on to become the first female Made member of the notorious Chicago Outfit. Mafia Maiden was created by Jeffrey Barnes the founder of Dark Matter Comics, the story is told in upcoming comic book series and the first issue is expected to hit shelves in March of 2008.

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"The Sopranos" are Moving in on "Chicago"

Aida Turturro and Vincent Pastore, two of the more prominent supporting players on "The Sopranos," will join the cast of the long-running Broadway musical revival on Nov. 19, producer Barry Weissler announced Tuesday.

Turturro, who portrayed Janice Soprano (Tony Soprano's tough-minded sister), on the HBO TV series, will play Matron "Mama" Morton in the Kander and Ebb musical. Pastore will play Amos Hart, the hen-pecked husband of chorine Roxie Hart in the show. The actor appeared as Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero on "The Sopranos," which end its cable television run in June.

"It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun," Pastore said in a telephone interview.

The actor said the "Chicago" producers reached out to him several years ago, but he was doing more work in Hollywood at the time. "Since then, I have come back to New York and bought a house in the Bronx," Pastore said. "I think it will be a nice job for me to stay in New York and do some theater."

Pastore hasn't sung or danced on stage since the beginning of his career when he did community theater. "It looks like a tough schedule, but I will get used to it," he said. "This is my first Broadway experience."

Asked what kind of preparation he was undergoing, Pastore said, "I'm sleeping a lot. I'm trying to get my body adjusted to performing at night. I'm sleeping later and staying up later.

"I'm in love with the play. I've seen it again a few times and I'm anxious to do this. And I'm working with some great people," said Pastore, who will begin rehearsals in early November.

Both Pastore and Turturro will appear in "Chicago" through Jan. 13. The musical, which is approaching its 11th year on Broadway, is playing at the Ambassador Theatre. The show currently features Adriane Lenox as Matron "Mama" Morton and Rob Bartlett as Amos Hart.

Thanks to Michael Kuchwara

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Preying on a Mobster's Paranoia

Chicago Outfit assassin Frank Calabrese Sr. was stewing in prison in 1999, trying to figure who was ratting him out for crimes worse than the loan-sharking that had landed him there.

First on his list of prime suspects was fellow mobster James DiForti. Calabrese Sr. couldn't stop gabbing about how DiForti could hurt him.

Calabrese Sr. covered every angle with his son, Frank Jr., who was locked up with him in federal prison in Milan, Mich. He quizzed two crooked cop friends for intelligence on DiForti, who was out on the street.

Calabrese Sr. -- so paranoid other mobsters made fun of him for always talking in code -- had not one but three nicknames for DiForti: "Poker," because DiForti liked to play poker; "Tires," because DiForti once had a tire store; and "rota," Italian for tires.

There was only one error in Calabrese Sr.'s thinking.

DiForti wasn't the snitch. FBI agents, preying on his paranoia, had played a mind game on him. And while Calabrese Sr. focused on DiForti, he missed the informant right under his nose -- his son, Frank Jr., who was secretly recording his father.

The mind game served two purposes. Calabrese Sr.'s focus on DiForti kept him talking about misdeeds -- much of it being recorded. And it kept the real informant safe from his father's suspicion. Agents had little doubt Calabrese Sr. would have had his son killed.

The FBI mind game is the untold story of the Family Secrets investigation, pieced together through court records and an exclusive interview with one of the key agents involved at the start of the case, Kevin Blair.

In an interview last week, Blair, now an FBI supervisor in Southern California, downplayed his own role and praised the work of fellow agents. But as one of the early agents on the case, Blair came up with the name for the investigation, Family Secrets.

Without the turmoil within the Calabrese family, the case would never have been made. Frank Calabrese Jr. also testified against his father at trial. Frank Calabrese Sr.'s brother, Nick, cooperated and told jurors how he and his brother killed for the mob.

Family Secrets began when Frank Calabrese Jr. wrote a letter in 1998 to the FBI, telling them he wanted to cooperate. "I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever," he wrote.

Frank Calabrese Sr. wanted to restart the Calabrese mob crew when he got out and wanted his son, who was going to released sooner, to pave the way. "It scared Frank Jr., and he realized he didn't want his father to ever get out again," Blair said.

After the FBI got the letter from Calabrese Jr., Blair was sent out to talk to him. The two men had a history. He had arrested Calabrese Jr. in 1995 on the very case that landed him in prison with his father. The arrest had gone smoothly, and Blair believes that set the tone for the FBI's further relationship with Frank Calabrese Jr., who was part of his father's crew but wasn't involved in the violence.

"When we arrested Frank Jr., it was one of those very polite, very professional things," Blair said. "We treated him like a gentleman. He treated us like gentlemen."

The tone of the arrest was designed to put Calabrese Jr. in the frame of mind to cooperate. "He knew we were treating him differently than his father was," Blair said.

Frank Calabrese Jr. got his father to talk about the murder of John Fecarotta and other slayings while he secretly recorded him. It was beyond the FBI's best hopes. "I just have to rate this guy as the best informant I've ever come across," Blair said.

Calabrese Jr. "did it with extreme risk, inside the walls of a prison. He did it with the ultimate sincerity, to make sure a bad man stayed in prison," Blair said.

The FBI also had two informants who fed false information into the Cicero crew to have them believe the FBI had an informant within the mob.

One informant, who court records show is the late private investigator Sam Rovetuso, went to Cicero mob chief Michael Spano Sr. and said an FBI agent had approached him, wanting to talk. Rovetuso said he referred the agent to his attorney, who sent Rovetuso a letter with a list of topics the FBI wanted to discuss. Rovetuso, who was wired up, showed Spano Sr. the letter.

The whole story was a lie, right down to fake attorney stationery the FBI created. The idea was to get Spano Sr. talking and worried there was a snitch within his crew, given the FBI's interest in certain topics.

A second informant also told mobsters the FBI had an Outfit snitch. This informant had credibility within the Cicero crew, because the informant had been passing along true intelligence on law enforcement activity for years.

The Outfit came to believe the FBI's informant was reputed mobster James DiForti. DiForti was charged in 1997 with murder but had not gone to trial for two years -- a delay that stoked the suspicions of many mobsters.

The suspicions made their way to Frank Calabrese Sr. who clearly became obsessed with DiForti. Calabrese Sr. became so obsessed that agents eventually went to warn DiForti his life could be in danger and asked if he would cooperate. DiForti declined, shutting the door in the agents' faces.

He would die of natural causes in 2000.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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The Complete Public Enemy Almanac

THE COMPLETE PUBLIC ENEMY ALMANAC - New Facts and Features On the People, Places, and Events of the Gangster and Outlaw Era: 1920-1940

If American crime had a golden age, it was between 1920 and 1940—the roller-coaster years when a rural nation became urbanized and the nineteenth century finally gave way to the twentieth. The same forces that reshaped society also changed the face of crime, and soon the Progressive movement that battled urban decay led to the unintended consequences of increased police and political corruption, drunkenness transformed from a working-class vice to a middle-class rebellion, and organized crime established nationally.

The Completely Public Enemy Almanac is the ultimate reference book for the gangster era, with many unique features:

* A highly original and revisionist history of the period, covering the entire nation
* A unique, unmatched collection of gangster and outlaw biographies
* Hundreds of illustrations and period photographs
* A full, first-ever crime chronology of the period
* Dozens of short features on everything from the shift from local to federalized law enforcement to the history of body armor and goofy schemes to deal with "motorized bandits"
* The origins and meanings of such terms as the "one-way ride," "X marks the spot," "the real McCoy," "G-Man," "Public Enemy," and many more
* Innovative lists, including the Chicago Crime Commission's "body count" of gang-style murders during the period
* New light on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre , the Kansas City Massacre, the deliberate killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, the mysterious death of Baby Face Nelson, and other events
* An exhaustive bibliography (including numerous short reviews) of every true-crime book published about gangsters and outlaws of the twenties and thirties

Meticulously documented, lavishly detailed, exhaustively researched, and written with an eye for the truths that have remained largely hidden, The Complete Public Enemy Almanac provides a reliable source of information about the violent and lawless era of the twenties and thirties.

WILLIAM HELMER, a former senior editor at Playboy, is the author of The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar and is coauthor of Dillinger: The Untold Story Expanded Edition, Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy, and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone. He lives in Boerne, Texas.

RICK MATTIX, an expert on the criminal gangs of the twenties and thirties, is a prominent researcher and consultant to authors and television documentaries. The coauthor of Thompson, the American legend: The first submachine gun and Dillinger: The Untold Story Expanded Edition, and author of numerous magazine and journal articles, he lives in Bussey, Iowa.

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