Friends or ours: Murph the Surf and Anthony Accardo
As a longtime Chicago investigative reporter, Sandy Smith used to drop in on mob weddings and peek at the names on the gift cards to figure out family connections. At one event, Smith was in the lobby checking out the wise guys when a couple of toughs started roughing up his photographer.
"He grabbed the camera away from the thug and walked out of the building," said his wife, Lynda. "And he threw it in the back seat of a car driven by two FBI agent friends of his. Then he walked back in the building and got the photographer, who was shaking in his boots. Never would work with Sandy again."
Mr. Smith, 85, died of pneumonia Tuesday, Nov. 22, in Missoula, Mont. He had had Alzheimer's disease for years.
His 58-year career included stints at the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times and at Time, Life and other magazines, along with television journalism. He wrote fearlessly about murderers, racketeering and men with monikers such as "Murph the Surf" and Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo.
In a 1971 editor's note, Time stated that the "towering, jovial Smith has exposed much of organized crime's invisible empire, and in the process has become one of the best-known crime reporters in the nation." Mr. Smith had an uncanny ability to discern the threads that tied disparate data together, said Seymour Hersh, a New Yorker writer and former New York Times reporter.
In May 1973, Hersh wrote a story that the Times played as a major scoop: The Nixon White House had been wiretapping journalists and administration officials. But then someone clipped and sent him a paragraph from Time that Mr. Smith had written months earlier on the same topic. Hersh and others at the Times had missed the short piece.
"Time ran it as a, `We don't want to hurt the Nixon administration but we gotta keep this ... reporter happy,'" Hersh said. "They just buried the story. But he had it first. He was an amazing reporter. Everybody said he was too close to the FBI. He was close to the FBI, but he was not a patsy."
Mr. Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, and his family moved to Chicago when he was an infant. He attended Todd School in Woodstock at the same time as Orson Welles. There Mr. Smith met his first wife, Bette, whom he later divorced. Mr. Smith attended Northwestern University, and a Sandy Smith is recorded as having received his bachelor's degree in 1941. He worked at the Tribune from 1942 to 1962, apart from two years when he tried raising dogs professionally.
While at the Sun-Times, he met his second wife, Lynda. They got married in 1965. After he left for New York in 1967 to work for Life magazine, his pregnant wife returned to Chicago because she wanted her longtime obstetrician to deliver the baby. Two weeks after the birth, Mr. Smith phoned her from New York, telling her to run to her parents' place down the street--now! Two gangsters had moved into the hotel, apparently intending to menace her. "I stuck a .38 in my waistband in front and put another .38 in my back waistband," his wife said. "I picked up my infant daughter, and I ran down the street. Had my mother change all the locks on the door."
In the late 1960s, Smith wrote a story for Fortune listing the top 50 mobsters in the country, said George Lardner, a retired Washington Post reporter. "Afterward, they kept getting letters from the gangsters: `How come I'm No. 11? How come this guy got ahead of me?'" Lardner said. Historical and I have no doubt true.
The Smiths moved to Montana in 1992.Other survivors include three daughters, Pamela Conklin, Candace Andersen and Priscilla; three sons, Roderick, Roger and Casey; and three grandchildren. Services have been held.
Thanks to Russell Working
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Top 10 Lists
Top Ten Articles in The Mob Magazine
Top Ten Signs You're Watching A Bad Organized Crime Show
Top 10 Surprises in The Sopranos Series Finale
Top 10 Signs That You are Watching a Bad Mafia Movie
Top 10 Ways to Make the Godfather More Appealing to Teenagers
Top 10 Signs Your Neighbor is in the Mafia
Top 10 Signs a Mafia Boss is Nuts
Top 10 Mob Euphemisms for Killing a Guy
Top 10 Hilarious April Fool's Day Pranks in the Mafia
Top 10 Ways Mafia Can Improve Its Image
Top Ten Signs You're Watching A Bad Organized Crime Show
Top 10 Surprises in The Sopranos Series Finale
Top 10 Signs That You are Watching a Bad Mafia Movie
Top 10 Ways to Make the Godfather More Appealing to Teenagers
Top 10 Signs Your Neighbor is in the Mafia
Top 10 Signs a Mafia Boss is Nuts
Top 10 Mob Euphemisms for Killing a Guy
Top 10 Hilarious April Fool's Day Pranks in the Mafia
Top 10 Ways Mafia Can Improve Its Image
Overheard: Classic
The San Diego City Council decided to drop its official nickname, America's Finest City. It's because the mayor just resigned, the pension fund is a billion dollars short, the FBI is investigating City Hall, and two councilmen and the U.S. congressman were convicted of bribery. They've decided to go with Little Chicago.
Attorneys Get Richer, Judge Orders New Trial for Gotti
Friends of ours: Junior Gotti, John Gotti
A judge on Friday rejected John A. "Junior" Gotti's request to be acquitted of a racketeering charge, clearing the way for a new trial. A jury deadlocked on the charge at trial in September, and U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin declared a mistrial and freed Gotti, 41, on $7 million bond. Scheindlin said Friday that the government was entitled to a new trial, which is scheduled for February 13. Gotti's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he would appeal.
Gotti is charged with ordering a botched 1992 attempt to abduct Curtis Sliwa, a radio show host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against Gotti's father, the late mob boss John Gotti. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his work on the radio.
A judge on Friday rejected John A. "Junior" Gotti's request to be acquitted of a racketeering charge, clearing the way for a new trial. A jury deadlocked on the charge at trial in September, and U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin declared a mistrial and freed Gotti, 41, on $7 million bond. Scheindlin said Friday that the government was entitled to a new trial, which is scheduled for February 13. Gotti's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he would appeal.Gotti is charged with ordering a botched 1992 attempt to abduct Curtis Sliwa, a radio show host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against Gotti's father, the late mob boss John Gotti. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his work on the radio.
Mob Ties to Hired Truck Scandal
Friends of ours: James "Jimmy I" Inendino and Nick "The Stick" LoCocco
A trucking company owner from Lockport was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program. U.S. District Judge John Grady said Salvador Alvarez's decision to pay city employee John "Quarters" Boyle a bribe to join the program and later cover it up was a textbook case of "a decent man participating in a very evil enterprise." But probation, suggested by Alvarez's attorney Russell Green, would be too mild a punishment for the crimes, Grady said.
Although Grady was sorry for the toll that imprisonment would take on Alvarez, he said he needed to set an example for the community and deter others who might be tempted to walk down the same path. "The matter of official corruption, bribery and shakedowns is an endemic problem. The Hired Truck Program was a disgrace to the City of Chicago and to everyone who knew about the dishonest way it was conducted," Grady said. "The public needs to know that paying bribes and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes is conduct that will lead to serious punishment."
Alvarez, the owner of Sarch Hauling Ltd., also was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Before he was sentenced, Alvarez, 54, tearfully recalled how he immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1969, earned his GED and worked hard to make a living. Alvarez apologized to city residents, the government and his family, who joined him in court on what he said was a very "black" day. "I did something here that was very wrong," Alvarez said in a wavering voice. "It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake I'll never make again."
Boyle, the politically connected former city employee at the center of the Hired Truck probe, told Alvarez he needed to pay $30,000 up front to get into the program and $2,000 per truck per season and an additional $1,000 per truck as a bonus every Christmas, according to Alvarez's plea deal with prosecutors, which calls for his cooperation in the investigation. Boyle, who also pleaded guilty, took $4,000 in shakedown money from Alvarez for a trip to Acapulco, Mexico.
There was no discussion of Sarch's ties to reputed mobsters during Wednesday's hearing. The company leased garage space for its trucks from mob loan shark James Inendino, who was recommended to Alvarez by Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a mob bookie and city employee who also was charged in the Hired Truck investigation. LoCoco died in an accident before going to trial. Sarch also bought a truck from Mayor Daley ally John Cannatello, who also has pleaded guilty to paying bribes for Hired Truck business.
Thanks to Rummana Hussain
A trucking company owner from Lockport was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program. U.S. District Judge John Grady said Salvador Alvarez's decision to pay city employee John "Quarters" Boyle a bribe to join the program and later cover it up was a textbook case of "a decent man participating in a very evil enterprise." But probation, suggested by Alvarez's attorney Russell Green, would be too mild a punishment for the crimes, Grady said.
Although Grady was sorry for the toll that imprisonment would take on Alvarez, he said he needed to set an example for the community and deter others who might be tempted to walk down the same path. "The matter of official corruption, bribery and shakedowns is an endemic problem. The Hired Truck Program was a disgrace to the City of Chicago and to everyone who knew about the dishonest way it was conducted," Grady said. "The public needs to know that paying bribes and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes is conduct that will lead to serious punishment."
Alvarez, the owner of Sarch Hauling Ltd., also was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Before he was sentenced, Alvarez, 54, tearfully recalled how he immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1969, earned his GED and worked hard to make a living. Alvarez apologized to city residents, the government and his family, who joined him in court on what he said was a very "black" day. "I did something here that was very wrong," Alvarez said in a wavering voice. "It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake I'll never make again."
Boyle, the politically connected former city employee at the center of the Hired Truck probe, told Alvarez he needed to pay $30,000 up front to get into the program and $2,000 per truck per season and an additional $1,000 per truck as a bonus every Christmas, according to Alvarez's plea deal with prosecutors, which calls for his cooperation in the investigation. Boyle, who also pleaded guilty, took $4,000 in shakedown money from Alvarez for a trip to Acapulco, Mexico.
There was no discussion of Sarch's ties to reputed mobsters during Wednesday's hearing. The company leased garage space for its trucks from mob loan shark James Inendino, who was recommended to Alvarez by Nick "The Stick" LoCoco, a mob bookie and city employee who also was charged in the Hired Truck investigation. LoCoco died in an accident before going to trial. Sarch also bought a truck from Mayor Daley ally John Cannatello, who also has pleaded guilty to paying bribes for Hired Truck business.
Thanks to Rummana Hussain
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