Anonymous Threat Results in Cancelled Mob Book Signing for Frank Calabrese Jr.

Two Chicago area book signings scheduled at Borders Books involving former Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Jr. were canceled after an anonymous threat, a Borders official said today.

“We can confirm that our Oak Brook store received a voice mail threatening violence should Mr. Calabrese’s scheduled book signings take place,” said Mary Davis, spokeswoman for Borders. “Given the controversial nature of the content of the book, we viewed this as a legitimate threat. The safety of our employees and our customers is of the utmost importance and that is why we made the decision to cancel Mr. Calabrese’s events.”

Oak Brook Police Chief Thomas Sheahan said that a male caller who disguised his voice threatened anyone responsible for the Frank Calabrese Jr. book signings. According to Sheahan, the unidentified caller said that “no rats can sign books here.”

“We take any threats seriously,” Sheahan said. “This is an ongoing investigation, and we’ll take appropriate action.”

Calabrese is a co-author of “Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family.”

Calabrese volunteered to help the FBI bring down the infamous Chinatown Crew run by his father, Frank Calabrese Sr. The son’s offer to cooperate with federal authorities led to his uncle, admitted Outfit hitman Nicholas Calabrese, becoming the FBI’s main witness in the storied trial that led to life sentences for Outfit bosses and the solving of more than a dozen mob murders.

“My publicist told me that Borders had canceled because they’re concerned about their employees and patrons,” Frank Calabrese Jr. said today. “I want people to know that this stuff still exists. There was a threat that if I did my book signing at the Oak Brook store, that patrons and employees of Borders would be harmed.

“Somebody doesn’t want people to read my book, or somebody doesn’t want me in Chicago talking about this stuff. …People get scared. Even a big corporation like Borders.”

Calabrese Jr. has recently opened up about the relationship between the Outfit and the city’s political class, and has been naming names.

Now living in another state, Calabrese Jr is in Chicago on a publicity tour. The Tuesday book signing was scheduled for the Border’s store at 1500 16th Street in Oak Brook . Wednesday’s scheduled signing was at the store at 150 North State Street in downtown Chicago. Davis said both events have been canceled.

Thanks to John Kass

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Excerpt from Frank Calabrese Jr's 'Operation Family Secrets'

I set myself up in the corner of the prison library at the Federal Correctional

Institution in Milan, Michigan, and banged out the letter to FBI Special

Agent Thomas Bourgeois on a cranky old Smith-Corona manual typewriter. My mobster father, Frank Calabrese, Sr. — who was serving time with me in FCI Milan — had taught me to be decisive. So when I typed the letter, my mind was made up.

I didn't touch the paper directly. I used my winter gloves to handle the sheet and held the envelope with a Kleenex so as not to leave any fingerprints. The moment I mailed the letter on July 27, 1998, I knew I had crossed the line. Cooperating with the FBI meant not only that I would give up my father, but that I would have to implicate my uncle Nick for the murder of a Chicago Outfit mobster named John "Big Stoop" Fecarotta. Giving up my uncle was the hardest part.

When I reread the letter one last time, I asked myself, What kind of son puts his father away for life? The Federal Bureau of Prisons had dealt me a cruel blow by sticking me in the same prison as my dad. It had become increasingly clear that his vow to "step away" from the Outfit after we both served our time was an empty promise.

"I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever," I wrote in my letter.

Due to legal and safety concerns, it was five months before Agent Thomas Bourgeois arranged a visit to meet with me at FCI Milan. He came alone in the early winter of 1998. In 1997 the FBI and Chicago federal prosecutors had convicted the Calabrese crew, netting my father, Uncle Nick, my younger brother Kurt, and me on juice loans. Bourgeois seemed confused and wanted to know what I wanted.

I'm sure Bourgeois also wondered the same thing I had: What kind of son wants to put his father away for life? Maybe he thought I was lying. Perhaps I had gotten into an argument and, like most cons, was looking to get my sentence reduced. Yet in our ensuing conversation, I told Tom that I wasn't asking for much in return.

I just didn't want to lose any of my time served, and I wanted a transfer out of FCI Milan once my mission was accomplished. By imprisoning us on racketeering charges, the Feds thought that they had broken up the notorious Calabrese South Side crew. In reality they had barely scratched the surface. I alerted Bourgeois that I was not looking to break up the mob. I had one purpose: to help the FBI keep my father locked up forever so that he could get the psychological help he needed. The FBI didn't know the half of his issues or his other crimes.

When asked by Bourgeois if I would wear a wire out on the prison yard, I promptly replied no. I would work with the FBI, but I would only give them intelligence, useful information they could use, and with the understanding that nobody would know I was cooperating, and I would not testify in open court. Outfit guys like my dad called that "dry beefing." Frank Calabrese, Sr., was one of the Outfit's most cunning criminals and had been a successful crew chief and solid earner for the Chicago mob for thirty years.

He could smell an FBI informant a mile away. If he hadn't talked about his criminal life in the past, why would he do so now?

I searched my soul to make sure I wasn't doing this out of spite or because Dad had reneged on taking care of me and Kurt financially in exchange for doing time. This couldn't be about money! After Agent Bourgeois's first interview with me at Milan, he reported back to Mitch Mars, an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Chicago Organized Crime Section. Mars wanted to know if there was enough to present the case to a grand jury and gather a bigger, more inclusive case against "the Outfit," Chicago's multitentacled organized crime syndicate, which dated back to the days of "Big Jim" Colosimo and Al Capone.

As I lay in my cell bunk, I thought about my refusal to wear a wire. Suppose I gave the Feds information, but my father got lucky and walked? I'd be screwed, Uncle Nick would be stuck on death row, and after my dad's sentence ran out he would bounce right back out on the streets to continue his juice loan business and murderous ways.

What if what I was doing was wrong? How could I live with myself? I loved my dad dearly, and I love him to this day. But I was repulsed by the violence and his controlling ways. I had to decide between doing nothing and cooperating with the Feds, two choices I hated.


I knew that if I did nothing, my father and I would have to settle our differences out on the street. One of us would end up dead, while the other would rot in prison. I would be incriminating myself, and I didn't want an immunity deal. If I needed to do more time to keep my dad locked up forever, so be it. After I sent the letter, I was determined to finish what I started. I contacted Agent Bourgeois one more time to tell him I had changed my mind. I would wear the wire after all. All the deception my father had taught me I was now going to use on him.

My father's own words would become his worst enemy.

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CRIME BEAT RADIO PROGRAM TO AIR SPECIAL TWO-PART PROGRAM: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH LEWIS KASMAN, CRIME BOSS JOHN GOTTI’S “ADOPTED SON,” AND KASMAN’S COUNSEL, JOEL M. WEISSMAN, NOTED FLORIDA LAWYER

This coming March 17th and 24th, the radio show, CRIME BEAT: ISSUES, CONTROVERSIES AND PERSONALITIES FROM THE DARKSIDE, will feature a special two-part program focusing on Lewis Kasman, John Gotti’s so-called 'Adopted Son', and his lawyer, Joel M. Weissman, one of the country’s top divorce lawyers. Kasman, at one time a millionaire garment executive, became one of the closest confidants of the late John Gotti, the notorious Gambino crime boss known as the ‘Dapper Don'. When John Gotti died in prison, Kasman brought the body home in private Lear jet, planned the funeral and gave the eulogy at Gotti’s funeral.

Lewis Kasman’s story is fascinating because he gained unprecedented power within the Gotti Mob. The Dapper Don entrusted Kasman with the authority to pay gambling debts, lawyer fees and assorted bills relating to Gambino crime family matters. After Gotti was sentenced with a life sentence in a federal penitentiary, Lewis Kasman hid millions of illicit dollars in a toy chest in his attic and later became a government witness in 1996. Feeling the heat from the Feds, Kasman agreed to wear a wire and recorded 130 tapes with top mobsters inside the Gambino ranks, as well as Gotti’s own family. The court sentenced Kasman to probation as the reward for his invaluable secret work. Kasman is credited with saving the lives of noted crime reporter Jerry Capeci and a federal worker at Springfield, Missouri.

In reflecting on the years he spent with John Gotti, Lewis Kasman told Crime Beat, “If I was to characterize my relationship with Gotti, I suppose I would say it was blind allegiance. I have many regrets.”

Weissman represented Kasman in a high profile divorce that the tabloids covered. In addition to discussing his representation of Kasman, Weisman will talk about his successful career as one of the best criminal and divorce lawyers in the United States.

Joel Weissman will appear on the Crime Beat radio program March 17th from 9-10 p.m. EST, while Lewis Kasman’s appearance is scheduled for March 24th from 9-10 p.m. EST. Listeners can access the program by going to www.artistfirst.com, clicking on the “Live Weekly Show Schedule” and then clicking on the “Crime Beat” link. See also artistfirst.com/crimebeat.

CRIME BEAT is hosted by award-winning crime writer Ron Chepesiuk (ronchepesiuk.com) and broadcast journalist and freelance writer Willie Hryb. Ronald Herd 11, the popular Internet radio host and regular listener of Crime Beat, said Crime Beat “sounds like an organized crime greatest hits collection...I am loving it!

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Former State Sen. James DeLeo Tied to Chicago Outfit According to Frank Calabrese Jr.

In the Family Secrets Trial, the late prosecutor Mitchell Mars told jurors the Chicago Outfit could not exist without the help of another Chicago institution -- politics. Now, the former gangster who brought down the mob is talking about the intersection of politics and the outfit.

FOX Chicago's Dane Placko sat down with Frank Calabrese Junior, who says the Outfit knew how to get political clout.

"I went out there and tried to corrupt people. With girls, drugs, whatever. I was a bad person. I ain't like that no more," Calabrese Junior said.

Former ganster Frank Calabrese Junior, now living in Phoenix, is spilling mob secrets in his new book, Operation Family Secrets. It's the story of his wrenching decision to cooperate with the government and put his father, Frank Calabrese Senior, and other mob leaders behind bars for life.

Calabrese Junior said his father taught him how to capitalize on politicians' weaknesses. His father showed him early on how the Outfit would seek out and compromise politicians at City Hall and in Springfield with women, gambling or drugs.

According to Calabrese, it was important to "make them want you to protect them. Find out their weaknesses. Find out their vices. And that's what I did."

Calabrese says his dad always told him to avoid being seen in public with politicians. But there was one exception. "He wanted me to strike up friendships with a lot of politicians, and I did. I'll give you an example. Jimmy DeLeo," Frank Junior said.

Former State Sen. James DeLeo resigned his seat after 18 years last summer.

Frank Jr. said his dad told him to get close to DeLeo, and he got close enough that they vacationed and partied together in Florida.

DeLeo has not been reachable for comment.

"Ralph was the go-to guy between us and Jimmy DeLeo," Calabrese added, referring to Ralph Peluso, a top bookmaker and enforcer in the Calabrese crew. He was mentioned more than a dozen times in the Family Secrets trial, and was even scheduled to testify on behalf of the government. Peluso backed out at the last minute.

Months later, Peluso got a management job with the Illinois Department of Transportation. Peluso was fired in August after FOX Chicago News began asking how someone with an Outfit background got that job.

Calabrese said Peluso had long been his family's connection to the northwest side's powerful 36th Ward Democratic Organization. FOX Chicago News was unable to find Peluso for comment.

"I knew Ralph was close with the 36th Ward. Everybody in the 36th Ward. So it didn't shock me when he got a job like that. But it's funny because they waited right till after the trial to put him in that spot," Calabrese said. But getting jobs was never a problem for the Outfit, Calabrese said, especially jobs on the public payroll. He himself worked for Chicago's water department for several years and even used his expertise to fish a gun out of a sewer that had been used by his Uncle Nick during a hit.

While the Chicago mob was badly damaged by the Family Secrets convictions, Calabrese says lawmakers in Springfield just handed gangsters a get out of jail free card with the expansion of video gambling. "I mean, I laughed when I seen that. I mean, really. Why? I could go back there and show you how fast I could get in the middle of it," he said.

Lawmakers approved putting tens of thousand of video poker machines in bars, restaurants and truck stops as part of a $31 billion public works bill. That bill is tied up in the courts, but if it goes through, former FBI organized crime director Tom Bourgeois said it could be the jackpot the Outfit needs to re-organize. "You're just providing an avenue for organized crime to re-root itself and find ways to become more powerful. It's just too easy to do that and of course, the legislation provides opportunity for very little oversight," Bourgeois said.

Calabrese says he's already heard some of his old friends from Chicago are lining up for a "video poker payday."

"It's math 101, okay? I'm not gonna go in there and put my name on a license and buy a bar and ask for three machines. I'm coming to you who's totally legit and say you're gonna buy the machines from this guy, and this is what you'e gonna pay him and that guy's gonna help me in some way," he said.

Thanks to Dane Placko

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"Kill the Irishman" Movie Chronicles the Mob in Cleveland, AKA Bomb City USA

A quick rundown of well-known Mafia cities brings to mind places like New York, Chicago and Las Vegas. But Cleveland? Fuhgeddaboutit …But there was a time — back in the 1970s — when the Ohio city was a raging mobster battleground. And when it came time to take out a rival, locals did more than bring a gun to a knife fight; they came on big and loud with all manner of explosives, earning Cleveland the moniker Bomb City, USA.

At the center of it all was not an Italian but a charismatic Irish American, Danny Greene, who spent part of his childhood in an orphanage, grew up to be a dockworker, rose to union boss and went head to head with the Mafia for control of the city's underworld economy of gambling, racketeering and loan-sharking. His story is chronicled in the new film "Kill the Irishman," starring Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio, which opens Friday.

"Cleveland would not be on your typical organized crime radar," said Rick Porrello, author of the book on which the film is based and now chief of police in the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, where Greene was killed in 1977 by a car bomb. "But there were some pretty heavy hitters in the Midwest."

"That was a huge draw to me, that it was a mob story very powerfully and very conspicuously not set in Bensonhurst or Little Italy," said Jonathan Hensleigh, director and co-writer of "Kill the Irishman."

Stevenson, also in the upcoming "Thor" and "The Three Musketeers," takes on the title role. Needing to cast actors who could stand up to the 6-foot-4 Stevenson, Hensleigh half-jokingly referred to "Kill the Irishman" as "a movie of big men." Among the supporting players are Kilmer as a cop, Walken as rival mobster Alex "Shondor" Birns and D'Onofrio as Greene ally John Nardi.

Linda Cardellini and Laura Ramsey play Greene's wife and mistress, respectively, and the supporting cast is littered with character actors familiar from mob movies and TV shows such as "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos."

The project got its start when Tommy Reid, a producer on the film, was attending Ohio State University in the mid-'90s. The New Jersey native heard stories from his college buddies about the rough streets of Cleveland but didn't believe them at first. After Reid landed in Los Angeles, a friend sent him a news story about Porrello's book and Reid optioned it even before it was published in 1998. (Reid also directed a documentary, "Danny Greene: The Rise and Fall of the Irishman," slated to be included on the DVD of "Kill the Irishman.")

Hensleigh, who previously directed "The Punisher" and worked as a screenwriter on movies such as "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" and "Armageddon," said Greene's story "was the classic cliché of life being stranger than fiction." After finishing Porrello's book, he recalled, "I said, 'I just have to do this.'"

Greene exhibited a bravado and media savvy that made him irresistible as a movie character. After Greene survived a bombing that essentially leveled his house, he put two mobile homes on the empty lot, one to live in and one to work in. He would then sit on a bench out front, essentially daring anyone to come and get him.

"As screenwriters, we're constantly asked to take characters who are actually quite despicable in real life and make them attractive," Hensleigh said. "But Danny Greene really was. He actually did put orphans through school and would buy 50 turkeys for the poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It doesn't get any better than this as a dramatist."

Though all involved would have preferred to film in Cleveland, the movie was ultimately shot in Detroit because of Michigan tax breaks. Said Hensleigh: "If we were to try to film in one city where we could replicate 1970s Cleveland, it would be Detroit."

"The landscape is part of the story," said Stevenson. "It was a slice of Americana, very particular. Without romanticizing it, this was among the last flurries of larger-than-life criminals walking the streets. The cars never got bigger, the mustaches, the lapels never got bigger."

As Hensleigh researched Greene, the sheer volume of newspaper articles and archival news footage he discovered made him realize the Irishman was, for locals at least, already verging on modern folklore. His film may just finally bring this regional antihero to a broader audience.

"For the folks who grew up around here, they all are very aware of it," said Clint O'Connor, film critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "What struck me was why wasn't this movie made 30 years ago? It's great stuff, there's so much in this whole saga. I think part of it is the whole Cleveland thing. If it had happened in New York or Vegas or Chicago, Martin Scorsese would have already made the definitive film."

Thanks to Mark Olsen

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