State prosecutors have scored their first conviction stemming from the "Operation Delco Nostra" organized-crime investigation that led to 17 arrests last summer and exposed an alleged plot to attack Philadelphia mobster Martin "Marty" Angelina.
Daniel Diedrich, a former supervisor in the Delaware County Domestic Relations Department, pleaded guilty yesterday in Media to one count of bookmaking. He was sentenced to two years' probation and fined $1,000.
Diedrich, 34, of Clifton Heights, was a low-level member of the sophisticated bookmaking, gambling and loan-sharking organization that authorities say was run by Nicholas "Nicky the Hat" Cimino between 2002 and 2007.
"He was not in a management position. He was a worker," said Chief Deputy Attorney General Erik Olsen.
Olsen said there was no evidence that Diedrich had engaged in any illegal activity while working in the county courthouse.
The other defendants, including reputed Philly mob associate Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, are scheduled for a hearing in Delaware County court in March on charges that include gambling, bookmaking, criminal conspiracy and corrupt organizations.
Monacello, 42, of South Philadelphia, who authorities say answers to jailed former consigliere George Borgesi, is also charged in Philadelphia with soliciting aggravated assault. According to a grand-jury presentment, Monacello tried to hire someone to have Angelina - allegedly a "made" member of the mob - beaten so badly he'd be hospitalized.
Monacello's preliminary hearing on that charge is set for next week.
Borgesi, imprisoned in West Virginia, was convicted in 2001 during a 14-week racketeering trial along with former Philadelphia crime boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino.
Thanks to William Bender
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Feds Keeping an Eye on Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio
Ever since Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, reputed mob boss of the Patriarca Crime Family, took the reigns from Boston's Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme in 1996, he's been able to avoid significant legal troubles from law enforcement. But, that stretch may be coming to an end.
Manocchio, 80, is not charged with any crime at this time. However, the Target 12 Investigators have learned within the last several months, FBI agents served a search warrant on Manocchio. Investigators reportedly found a small amount of cash in Manocchio's possession. Cash, investigators said, they could trace as tribute money; which is money paid up to a mob boss.
According to Target 12 sources, Manocchio immediately began shopping around for an attorney. However, it is unclear who, if anyone, he's retained.
Sources on Federal Hill - the Providence neighborhood out of which Manocchio runs the crime family - said they haven't seen Manocchio since the feds moved in, leaving many to wonder if he went on the run. However, law enforcement sources said Manocchio often travels during the winter, and they are not concerned about his absence at this point in time.
Although the FBI won't comment if Manocchio is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, it's no secret agents are keeping an eye on him.
In fact, shortly after arriving in Providence to head up the FBI's Organized Crime Unit for New England, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey Sallet approached Manocchio on Federal Hill in 2007, introduced himself and let him know he was watching.
Thanks to Target 12
Manocchio, 80, is not charged with any crime at this time. However, the Target 12 Investigators have learned within the last several months, FBI agents served a search warrant on Manocchio. Investigators reportedly found a small amount of cash in Manocchio's possession. Cash, investigators said, they could trace as tribute money; which is money paid up to a mob boss.
According to Target 12 sources, Manocchio immediately began shopping around for an attorney. However, it is unclear who, if anyone, he's retained.
Sources on Federal Hill - the Providence neighborhood out of which Manocchio runs the crime family - said they haven't seen Manocchio since the feds moved in, leaving many to wonder if he went on the run. However, law enforcement sources said Manocchio often travels during the winter, and they are not concerned about his absence at this point in time.
Although the FBI won't comment if Manocchio is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, it's no secret agents are keeping an eye on him.
In fact, shortly after arriving in Providence to head up the FBI's Organized Crime Unit for New England, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey Sallet approached Manocchio on Federal Hill in 2007, introduced himself and let him know he was watching.
Thanks to Target 12
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Courtroom Outbursts Don't Prevent Life Sentence for Reputed Mob Crew Boss Frank Calabrese Sr.
With the national media finally interested in Illinois corruption, it's too bad they were focused on Springfield's dancing monkey show and not on what happened in a federal courtroom in Chicago on Wednesday.
That wasn't a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys.
His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI's historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.
Calabrese, 71, wore a wrinkled orange jumpsuit, with old man glasses attached to his head with a thick felt strap. Yet when he'd raise his paws you could see they were once powerful enough to strangle a man until his eyes popped out. Or stab him to death. Or beat him to death. Or pull a trigger. Or set off a bomb and more.
One of the victims was Paul Haggerty, who was 27 in 1976 when the Calabrese crew picked him up to question him about missing jewels. Haggerty was handcuffed, his eyes and mouth taped shut and tortured. Frank strangled him with a rope. They cut his throat and dumped him in the trunk.
On Wednesday, Haggerty's widow, Charlene Moravecek, confronted Calabrese as a parade of victim families told their stories to U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.
"God bless you!" Calabrese told Moravecek. She rounded on him, shouting, "Don't you mock me! Don't! Your honor, I don't want to hear from him."
Calabrese's own son, Kurt—a convicted Outfit loan shark—appeared before Zagel as a victim, saying his father beat him, belittled him, threatened to bite the nose off his face and kill him. "He was more an enforcer than a father," Kurt said, turning to Frank. "And I want you to apologize for what you did to me and my brother."
Frank shouted that his sons and his hit man brother Nick, who turned federal witness, had betrayed him with lies. "You better apologize for the lies you are telling, that's what you better do!" Frank bellowed, the old man gone now, the Chinatown strangler rampant. "Tell them about the money you stole, the million dollars [cash] you stole from me and the $110,000 that didn't belong to you!" Frank Calabrese said, of mob cash he'd stashed away before going to prison in the 1990s. "If I was such a bad dad, why didn't I do anything to you then? You were treated like a king!"
Kurt stalked out of the courtroom, and I followed him down the hall, where he was leaning against a wall, emotional. "That's the last time I'm ever going to see my father," Kurt told me. "I just wanted him to apologize."
What about the missing $1 million? Did you take it? "No," Kurt said. "All I wanted was an apology. But you see how he was. He still thinks he's the boss."
Frank Calabrese finally got his say, insisting he never killed or beat anyone, that he helped Connie's Pizza, not merely charged them street tax, and that his juice loans were more user-friendly than payday loans. "I'm not no big shot," he said. "I'm not nothing but another human being." He added that his brother Nick was a coward. "Which is why I called him Alfredo, from ' The Godfather,' " speaking of the fictional Corleone who betrayed his own brother.
Zagel gave Frank Calabrese life in prison, saying he'd never seen a case in which two sons and a brother testified against a father. "Perhaps you didn't have a loving family," Zagel said. "Your crimes are unspeakable."
During the Family Secrets trial, the connection between Chicago politics and the Outfit came up often. In one bit of testimony in 2007, Mayor Richard Daley's friend Fred Bruno Barbara, the trucking boss and Rush Street investor, was identified by Nick Calabrese as a willing driver for mob boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra on bombing runs.
Daley got so angry when asked about Barbara that he turned purple and shrieked. The governor of Illinois could have called him "cuckoo."
For generations, the Outfit has formed the base of the iron triangle that runs things, and no understanding of politics in Illinois is complete without them.
Sentencing of other bosses continues on Monday. The dancing monkey show in Springfield will be over by then, but if the national media wants to understand Chicago, they should show up in federal court to see how the apes behave.
Thanks to John Kass
That wasn't a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys.
His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI's historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.
Calabrese, 71, wore a wrinkled orange jumpsuit, with old man glasses attached to his head with a thick felt strap. Yet when he'd raise his paws you could see they were once powerful enough to strangle a man until his eyes popped out. Or stab him to death. Or beat him to death. Or pull a trigger. Or set off a bomb and more.
One of the victims was Paul Haggerty, who was 27 in 1976 when the Calabrese crew picked him up to question him about missing jewels. Haggerty was handcuffed, his eyes and mouth taped shut and tortured. Frank strangled him with a rope. They cut his throat and dumped him in the trunk.
On Wednesday, Haggerty's widow, Charlene Moravecek, confronted Calabrese as a parade of victim families told their stories to U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.
"God bless you!" Calabrese told Moravecek. She rounded on him, shouting, "Don't you mock me! Don't! Your honor, I don't want to hear from him."
Calabrese's own son, Kurt—a convicted Outfit loan shark—appeared before Zagel as a victim, saying his father beat him, belittled him, threatened to bite the nose off his face and kill him. "He was more an enforcer than a father," Kurt said, turning to Frank. "And I want you to apologize for what you did to me and my brother."
Frank shouted that his sons and his hit man brother Nick, who turned federal witness, had betrayed him with lies. "You better apologize for the lies you are telling, that's what you better do!" Frank bellowed, the old man gone now, the Chinatown strangler rampant. "Tell them about the money you stole, the million dollars [cash] you stole from me and the $110,000 that didn't belong to you!" Frank Calabrese said, of mob cash he'd stashed away before going to prison in the 1990s. "If I was such a bad dad, why didn't I do anything to you then? You were treated like a king!"
Kurt stalked out of the courtroom, and I followed him down the hall, where he was leaning against a wall, emotional. "That's the last time I'm ever going to see my father," Kurt told me. "I just wanted him to apologize."
What about the missing $1 million? Did you take it? "No," Kurt said. "All I wanted was an apology. But you see how he was. He still thinks he's the boss."
Frank Calabrese finally got his say, insisting he never killed or beat anyone, that he helped Connie's Pizza, not merely charged them street tax, and that his juice loans were more user-friendly than payday loans. "I'm not no big shot," he said. "I'm not nothing but another human being." He added that his brother Nick was a coward. "Which is why I called him Alfredo, from ' The Godfather,' " speaking of the fictional Corleone who betrayed his own brother.
Zagel gave Frank Calabrese life in prison, saying he'd never seen a case in which two sons and a brother testified against a father. "Perhaps you didn't have a loving family," Zagel said. "Your crimes are unspeakable."
During the Family Secrets trial, the connection between Chicago politics and the Outfit came up often. In one bit of testimony in 2007, Mayor Richard Daley's friend Fred Bruno Barbara, the trucking boss and Rush Street investor, was identified by Nick Calabrese as a willing driver for mob boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra on bombing runs.
Daley got so angry when asked about Barbara that he turned purple and shrieked. The governor of Illinois could have called him "cuckoo."
For generations, the Outfit has formed the base of the iron triangle that runs things, and no understanding of politics in Illinois is complete without them.
Sentencing of other bosses continues on Monday. The dancing monkey show in Springfield will be over by then, but if the national media wants to understand Chicago, they should show up in federal court to see how the apes behave.
Thanks to John Kass
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Reputed Mob Boss, Frank Calabrese Sr., Sentenced to Life in Prison
A Chicago Outfit boss convicted in the landmark Family Secrets trial in 2007 was sentenced to life in prison in federal court downtown this afternoon.
A jury convicted Frank Calabrese Sr. and other Chicago mob bosses in a conspiracy stretching back to the 1960s, linking them to numerous gangland slayings.
Speaking to Calabrese during sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel told him, "Your crimes are unspeakable."
Last April, a federal judge denied a new trial for Calabrese, saying he didn't find that an alleged threat by Calabrese against a prosecutor tainted jurors.
Calabrese allegedly was seen mouthing: "You are a [expletive] dead man."
Some defense lawyers argued that the alleged threat could have prejudiced the juror who saw it. The juror apparently discussed it in deliberations and later reported it to prosecutors. But a judge heard from the juror in a closed-door hearing and ruled that jurors are permitted to observe defendants in court.
Thanks to Jeff Coen
A jury convicted Frank Calabrese Sr. and other Chicago mob bosses in a conspiracy stretching back to the 1960s, linking them to numerous gangland slayings.
Speaking to Calabrese during sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel told him, "Your crimes are unspeakable."
Last April, a federal judge denied a new trial for Calabrese, saying he didn't find that an alleged threat by Calabrese against a prosecutor tainted jurors.
Calabrese allegedly was seen mouthing: "You are a [expletive] dead man."
Some defense lawyers argued that the alleged threat could have prejudiced the juror who saw it. The juror apparently discussed it in deliberations and later reported it to prosecutors. But a judge heard from the juror in a closed-door hearing and ruled that jurors are permitted to observe defendants in court.
Thanks to Jeff Coen
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