Five guilty of Chicago mob murders

A jury today found five ageing men guilty of a racketeering conspiracy that involved decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder aimed at killing anyone who dared stand in the way of the ruthless Chicago mob.

The verdicts ended an extraordinary 10-week trial that laid bare some of the inner workings of what is known as The Outfit.

The prosecution’s star witness was an admitted hit man who took the stand against his own brother to spell out the allegations, crime by crime.

The jury heard about 18 killings, including the beating death and cornfield burial of Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, the mob’s man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pesci’s character in the 1995 movie Casino.

The jury deliberated for less than 20 hours before announcing the verdicts.

It was a sweeping victory for prosecutors. The jury found all five men guilty of a racketeering conspiracy that included the 18 unsolved murders, as well as other counts of bribery, illegal gambling and tax fraud.

Alleged mob boss James Marcello, 65, alleged mob capo Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, 78, convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese, 70, and convicted jewel thief Paul Schiro, 70, could now face up to life in prison. The fifth man, retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62, was the only one among the five not accused of carrying out at least one of the killings.

The trial focused on the series of murders, ordinarily among the deepest and most closely held secrets of the mob, whose members have sworn an oath of silence.

Evidence included clandestine rituals where the new initiated “made guys” had their fingers cut and were required to take an oath while holding burning religious pictures.

The government’s star witness was Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted hit man who cooperated with the government in hopes of avoiding a death sentence. He said his brother, Frank Calabrese, ran a loan sharking business and specialised in strangling victims with a rope, then cutting their throats to make certain that they were dead.

Frank Calabrese admitted in court that he associated with mobsters, but he denied being one himself.

Yet his brother described a 1983 killing in which the two blasted away on a suburban Chicago street, killing two.

“In my mind, I knew I had to do this because if I didn’t, my brother would have flattened me,” Nicholas Calabrese testified. “I would have been left there.”

In Spilotro’s case, witnesses told the court that mob higher ups were enraged at him for making side deals with the potential to attract police investigators. It seemed he was also having a love affair with another mobster’s wife.

Frank Calebrese’s lawyer, Joseph Lopez, had urged jurors not to trust his client’s brother.

“He would shoot you in the head over cold ravioli,” Lopez declared.

Lombardo also took the stand and admitted running what his lawyer, Rick Halprin, called “the oldest and most reliable floating crap game on Grand Avenue”. But he denied committing murder or being part of mob.

Lombardo is probably the best known defendant. After being charged, he went on the run for eight months before finally being cornered by an FBI organised crime squad in an alley outside Chicago.

True to his nickname, “The Clown” later answered a judge who wanted to know why he had not seen a doctor lately: “I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was – what do they call it? – I was unavailable.”

Doyle, the retired officer, was accused of leaking inside police information to the mob. During the trial, he dismissed tapes that the FBI made of him as he spoke with Calabrese in the visitors room of a prison.

Prosecutor said it was mob code talk. Doyle said he could not understand what Calabrese was telling him and considered it “mind-boggling gibberish”.