FAMILY SECRETS
Of the Murderous Kind
10/01/07
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Chicago mobsters planted a bomb in the car of Michael Cagnoni, killing him, in 1981. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice |
It all started with a letter sent to our
Chicago office in 1998: the son of a Windy
City mobster wanted to help us collect enough
evidence to have his gangster father put
away for life. The letter spawned a seven-year
investigation that culminated in a federal
courtroom in September with guilty verdicts.
We dubbed it “Operation Family
Secrets,” and it’s
one of our most successful organized crime
investigations ever. The
indictment
named 14 defendants and included 18 previously
unsolved murders.
The man who approached our Chicago office
with an unprecedented offer to help was at
the time serving a prison sentence with his
father, Frank Calabrese Sr. The son agreed
to wear a wire during conversations with
his father as they talked about the family
business.
That family business was the Chicago
Outfit, a criminal enterprise
operating out of the city for more than
four decades. The Outfit had an organized
structure and chain of command with “crews” that
were assigned specific geographic territories
around Chicago.
What kind of business was it? Typical
mob stuff: loan sharking, extortion, and
gambling, to name just a few. And, of course,
murder. Calabrese Sr. talked to his son about
three murders he was connected to, with our
tape recorders catching all the details.
Thanks to the recordings, our agents got
court permission to tape other conversations
between Calabrese Sr. and certain visitors.
The mobster liked to talk and apparently
didn’t mind conducting business from
prison.
Soon, our agents had collected enough information—and
corroborated it with evidence—to build
an iron-clad case against the senior Calabrese
for the 1986 murder of mobster John Fecarotta
in Chicago. The evidence also clearly implicated
Calabrese’s brother, Nicholas W. Calabrese.
Faced with the overwhelming evidence, Nicholas
decided he wanted to cooperate, too. He started
spilling more family secrets. A lot of them,
in fact, including details about 18 previously
unsolved mob hits.
Eventually, seven agents worked the Family
Secrets case. Everything our agents learned—through
the different wire taps, through our own
surveillance, and statements from cooperating
witnesses—had to be checked out and
verified, a process that literally took years
to accomplish.
Agents pored over thousands of documents—including
old police reports, financial statements,
property records, and even seized gambling
receipts. “We were checking material
that went all the back to the ‘70s,” said
Special Agent John Mallul, our Organized
Crime Squad supervisor in Chicago and one
of the original agents to work on the case.
All the evidence was handed over to a federal
grand jury that in April 2005 returned a
43-page indictment. The list of those charged
read like a “Who’s Who” in
the Chicago mob.
The trial for five men—Calabrese
Sr., James Marcello, Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo,
Paul “The Indian” Schiro, and
Anthony “Twan” Doyle—started
in June and ended August 30. The government
called more than 125 witnesses and presented
more than 200 pieces of evidence, including
dozens of photos. All five were found guilty
of racketeering and related crimes September
10.
Of the remaining defendants in the indictment,
two died prior to trial (Frank Saladino and
Michael Ricci), six pled guilty, and one
(Frank “The German” Schweihs)
was too ill to stand trial.
“This was an exceptional case,” Mallul
said. “We haven’t had an individual
cooperate like this, and give us this kind
of detailed information, before. It helped
us take out three crew bosses and the acting
head of the Chicago Outfit.”
Resources:
-
U.S. Attorney’s
Office Family Secret Documents
-
FBI Organized Crime website
