Video of Tony Accardo's Homes in River Forest

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Roman Catholic Priest Reputed to Assist Mobster in Hiding Violin from Federal Repossession

There are new developments in the case of a ruthless Chicago mobster, a Roman Catholic priest and a priceless violin. That unusual combination is the focus of this Intelligence Report.

Chicago Outfit boss Frank Calabrese Sr. enlisted the help of a prison chaplain to get around jailhouse security rules intended to stop him from communicating with associates on the outside. Now the Roman Catholic priest is facing federal indictment in Chicago and has been suspended by the church.

The purpose of Calabrese's mission from God wasn't to put out a murder contract, according to federal authorities; it was to retrieve an expensive violin.

"It was suppose to have been a Stradivarius violin, and at one time it was supposed to have been owned by Liberace," said ex-Calabrese lawyer Joe "The Shark" Lopez. Probably not the flamboyant Lee Liberace, because he played the piano, more likely his brother George who frequently accompanied on the violin.

It was such a million-dollar instrument that Frank "the Breeze" Calabrese somehow obtained on a trip to Las Vegas-- not that the gruff Outfit enforcer is thought to have been particularly musical, but the violin was an item of value that Calabrese did not want federal authorities to seize and apply to his $4 million forfeiture bill.

So, as Calabrese serves a life sentence in Springfield, Missouri, in solitary confinement for his role in mob murders and racketeering, he was allowed face-to-face meetings only with doctors, social workers and the prison chaplain, Catholic priest Father Eugene Klein.

According to the federal indictment, Father Klein agreed to help Calabrese retrieve the valuable violin from a secret hiding place inside a summer home that Calabrese owned in Williams Bay, Wisconsin.

But there was no unholy alliance between Father Klein and Calabrese as the feds have charged, according to Lopez, the attorney who represented Calabrese during Operation Family Secrets.

"I think Frank wasn't conning the priest, I think Frank was just asking the priest to help him," Lopez said. "I think it's kind of an unholy thing, but I'm not the federal government, and if I were I wouldn't indict the priest... I would give him a pass. He really didn't do anything wrong."

Nevertheless, the priest charged in Chicago has now been suspended by his home diocese. Winona, Minnesota, Bishop John Quinn on Friday afternoon issued a statement ordering Father Klein onto administrative leave, suspending his priestly faculties while asking that Klein be kept in prayer.

Father Klein is accused of traveling to north suburban Barrington, where he met with a friend of Frank Calabrese, a 72-year-old, former Italian restaurant owner, and wanted him to help get the violin back. It is believed that Barrington resident ended up cooperatingwith the FBI.

Attempts by the I-Team to contact the Barrington resident have been unsuccessful.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Frank Calabrese Assisted in Prison by Catholic Priest, Father Eugene Klein

A prison chaplain has been charged in an alleged scheme to help imprisoned Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese, who is serving a life sentence for 13 murders, recover a valuable violin reportedly hidden in a Wisconsin house to keep the government from selling it, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Catholic priest Eugene Klein, 62, of Springfield, Mo., was indicted late Wednesday on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and attempting to prevent seizure of Calabrese's personal property, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said.

Prosecutors said Klein ministered to Calabrese at a federal prison in Springfield, Mo., where he allegedly agreed to illegally pass messages to people outside of the prison and then participate in a scheme to recover the violin, which Calabrese claimed was a Stradivarius worth millions of dollars, from a home Calabrese once owned in Williams Bay, Wis.

A spokeswoman with the Springfield Diocese says Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Winona in Minnesota and under contract with the federal prison system as a chaplain in Springfield. She said he served as an assistant pastor within the Springfield Diocese from 2004-2005.

It was not clear whether Klein had an attorney. An arraignment date has not yet been set. Each of the two counts carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the indictment, Calabrese told Klein in March that he had hidden the violin in the house and passed notes to Klein through the food slot in his cell with questions that Klein was to ask an unnamed third person, called Individual A in the indictment, and disclosing the location of the violin.

Klein drove to Barrington, Ill., in April to meet with Individual A, who told Klein the government was selling the house as part of an attempt to recover $4.4 million in restitution that Calabrese owed to his victims' families, according to the indictment. Klein then allegedly met with Individual A and a second person, called Individual B in the indictment, to plot a way to get the violin.

Klein allegedly called the real estate agent posing as a potential buyer, with the plan that one person would distract the agent while Klein and the other person looked for the violin.

Prosecutors say the government has since searched the Wisconsin residence but found no violin. They also say that during a March 2010 search of Calabrese's home in Oak Brook, Ill., a suburb west of Chicago, they found a certificate for a violin made in 1764 by Giuseppe Antonio Artalli, not Antonius Stradivarius.

It was during that same search that federal agents found loaded guns, nearly $730,000 in cash and tape recordings that officials said could contain "criminal conversations" hidden in a basement wall behind a large family portrait. The stash also included jewelry, recording devices and handwritten notes.

Agents also found about $26,000 in bundled cash in a locked desk drawer in the bedroom of his wife, Diane, according to court documents.

Calabrese, 74, was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 after being convicted with several other reputed members of the Chicago Outfit in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders that had gone unsolved for decades; Calabrese himself was found responsible for 13 mob murders.

Calabrese's brother, Nicholas Calabrese, was the government's star witness. He testified that his brother carried out mob hits, sometimes strangling his victims with a rope and then slashing their throats to make sure they were dead. Two victims were killed in a darkened Cicero restaurant while the Frank Sinatra record of "Strangers in the Night" was playing on the jukebox, he said.

Thanks to Forbes

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Closure of OTB Parlors in New York City Boom for the Mob at the Belmont Stakes

Looking for a sure thing at Saturday's 143rd running of the Belmont Stakes?

Bet on organized crime and illegal bookies to win, place and show a bigger profit at the first Belmont since Off Track Betting shuttered its 54 New York City betting parlors in December.

"Where there is money to be made, the mob is most certainly there," one veteran Bonanno family soldier said of the chance to cash in on the Triple Crown race. "They were taking bets when OTB was operating," he continued. "And I'd bet — no pun intended — that they have been taking bets on this race for weeks now."

There's a lot of money to be made: NYC OTB handled nearly $2.4 million in Belmont bets last year — a lucrative one-day windfall. A good portion of those wagers will wind up as illegal action.

Gamblers "are going to go with a bookmaker, sure," said Arnie Wexler, former head of the New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling. "Not all these people are going to run to the track."

A city rackets prosecutor agreed: "This has got to increase business for organized crime-controlled horse parlors."

Mob gambling rings offer other short-term benefits — no taxes taken out of your winnings, credit terms available. The latter inevitably leads to a long-term problem: loan-sharking.

"It's the constant circle of the mob," said ex-FBI undercover Jack Garcia, who spent three years inside the Gambino family. "They keep on ticking like Timex."

Last month's bust of a Staten Island sports betting operation showed how much gambling money is out there. Officials said the ring handled $100,000 a week in wagers, including bets on horse racing.

Its reputed boss even bragged that his operation, in contrast with New York's politicians, would have saved OTB from becoming the only local bookie bathing in red ink.

Jerry Stentella "was confident of his ability to run OTB well" after the success of his storefront betting parlor, prosecutors said.

He might be right.

The Bonanno soldier recalls a mob buddy pulling in about $10,000 a week from an offshore gambling operation — "and he wasn't nearly as big as most."

Garcia said the Belmont betting pool offers too great an opportunity for the mob to ignore.

"The mob is all about making money," Garcia said. "If there's an opportunity there, they'll be there like white on rice. So if you want to put some money down on the Belmont, who do you see? It's Joey Pots and Pans! He'll take that bet for you."

Thanks to Larry McShane

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Chicago Mob Resurgence to Accompany Casinos in Chicago?

The way Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sees it, thousands of craps players and slot machine pullers would flock to his cash-strapped city if it gets into the gambling business. It's a safe bet a seedier element will be right behind them.

This is Chicago, after all, where the shadow of Al Capone still looms, federal corruption trials appear like television reruns, and the remnants of the mob are sure to try for a piece of the action.

Illinois lawmakers voted this week to allow legal gambling for the first time in Chicago. Backers envision a new casino and video poker machines across the nation's third-largest city, from its two international airports to corner bars. It's part of an ambitious statewide expansion of gambling lawmakers have sent to Gov. Pat Quinn.

None of it sits well with the Chicago Crime Commission, whose public enemies list once included Scarface and other gangsters who based their bootlegging and other criminal enterprises out of Chicago. "If the gaming legislation that passed becomes law, political corruption and crime syndicate infiltration will follow," said J.R. Davis, president and chairman of the 92-year-old nonprofit organization that studies and promotes crime prevention in the city.



At least one former mobster agrees: Millions of dollars would be too enticing for the corrupt and the criminal. "It's a lifeline that whatever outfit guys are left are going to use," said Frank Calabrese Jr., who wore an FBI wiretap to help convict his mobster father and later wrote a book about it. "As an outfit guy ... I am going to get a piece of something somewhere."

Lobbying by Emanuel, Chicago's first new mayor in two decades, is credited for facilitating the plan's approval. But neither he nor lawmakers who sponsored the legislation are talking specifics about how the city would thwart Davis' prediction.

Emanuel said this week that there would be a "blue ribbon group" appointed if Quinn signs the legislation into law. Quinn has opposed an ambitious expansion of gambling in the state but supports the idea of a casino in Chicago, which is facing a budget shortfall of between $500 million and $700 million. Proponents say gambling will mean the state will collect $1.6 billion in upfront fees to those who what to set up shop in Illinois and then another $500 million a year. Emanuel said the casino also would keep gamblers and their money from crossing the state line to casinos in Indiana. "We lose $20 million, around, a month to Hammond, Ind.," he said.

A leading proponent, Chicago Democratic Rep. Lou Lang, said there have been "zero scandals" with the state's existing casinos. Lang argued that if the mob tried to move in, regulators would clamp down, like they did a few years ago when the state nixed a planned casino in suburban Rosemont after getting word investors may have had mob ties. "To automatically link casinos with organized crime when there is no hint of that in Illinois to date ... is a stretch," said Lang, who has worked for years to expand gambling in Illinois. But this is Chicago, where Capone based his bootlegging empire during Prohibition and Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo ran the show after that with, according to one estimate, 10,000 gambling spots. Chicago was Sam Giancana's base of operations until his mob career ended in 1975 when he was gunned down as he fried up sausages at home. So notorious is the city's history of organized crime that tour guides offer specific routes to show off mob bosses' former hangouts.

While the outfit is a shadow of its former self, it's still here, and it has an interest in gambling.

Just last year, reputed mobster Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno was convicted of orchestrating the 2003 bombing of the suburban Chicago office of a rival video gaming company. The bombing, federal prosecutors said, was designed as a message to the company to stop horning in on a lucrative mob business.

Gambling expert William Thompson of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas said the mob would have a tough time gaining a foothold in Chicago casinos because investors wouldn't shell out millions of dollars if there were even a hint of organized crime involvement. "They're wary of having criminal elements involved where they might lose their (gaming) license," he said.

Regulation could be pricey, with some predicting it could cost millions to fund the small army that would be needed to monitor casinos, bars, restaurants, race tracks and other locations where thousands of slot and video poker machines could be set up.

"The way the Illinois Gaming Board operates, where people are able to gamble, we have agents present," board spokesman Gene O'Shea said.

Still, Thompson believes mobsters would be lurking around the edges — many, many edges since the legislation calls for tripling the number of gaming tables, slot and video poker machines in Illinois to more than 39,000, including 4,000 in Chicago. "The mob is going to come in on the side, run the loan shark businesses, have the prostitutes," he said, adding that a loan shark could be someone sitting at a corner table or the bartender, pulling money out of the till. "There's no way to police it."

Even a weakened mob is strong enough to take advantage of a whole new revenue stream, said Gus Russo, author of a book about the Chicago mob called "The Outfit." The mob's history has been one of turning what people want — be it alcohol or gambling, drugs or prostitutes — into money.

"They're like cockroaches. If they see a scam they will be a part of it," Russo said. "And if they're not a part of it, it will be the first time in history."

Thanks to Don Babwin

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