While it's always a good thing for criminals to pay for their crimes I am a little worried when the actual killer turns rat and will presumably get a lighter sentence while the alleged lookout, whom the jury didn't find guilty of the murder, gets 20 years. I also have a problem with the "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. There's got to be a better way of doing this.

Two articles below

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090127/ap_on_re_us/mob_trial

CHICAGO – A longtime organized crime figure accused by the government of helping to murder a friend to keep him from talking was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison by a judge who called the punishment lenient.

Paul Schiro, 71, of Phoenix was the first to be sentenced among five men convicted in September 2007 at Chicago's biggest organized crime trial in decades.

"When somebody said we want you to help us kill your friend there was no evidence of hesitation," a stern U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel told Schiro.

Schiro, described by prosecutors as a career criminal, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years just seven years ago after pleading guilty to being part of a gang of jewel thieves led by the Chicago police department's former chief of detectives, William Hanhardt.

The Family Secrets trial was a major effort by the federal government to knock out some of the leaders of the Chicago Outfit, as the city's organized crime family calls itself, and bring them to justice for 18 murders that went unsolved for years.

The jury found Schiro guilty of being part of a racketeering conspiracy that included murder, gambling, loan sharking and squeezing business for "street tax."

Jurors, however, deadlocked on whether Schiro was to blame for the June 1986 murder in Arizona of Emil Vaci, the maitre d'hotel at a Phoenix restaurant. Vaci was a potential witness in an organized crime investigation, prosecutors said.

Star witness Nicholas Calabrese testified that Schiro served as a lookout while Vaci was pulled into a van, shot three times in the head and dumped in a canal.

Calabrese said he pulled the trigger himself.

Calabrese was the only witness to tie Schiro to the Vaci killing. But Zagel said that testimony was convincing enough to warrant a 20-year sentence. He called it lenient since Schiro helped in the murder of someone who had been a friend.

.............

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/man-gets-prison-time-in-mob-case.html

Convicted mob thief Paul "the Indian" Schiro was like a sleeper agent, a federal judge said today, an Outfit associate who did little but lie in wait for years before suddenly getting an order to do something horrible.

When the direction came, it was to help a team of hit men kill his good friend Emil Vaci, and Schiro coldly did as he was told.

"There was no evidence of his hesitation," U.S. District Judge James Zagel said.

Zagel sentenced Schiro today to 20 years in prison, making him the first defendant in the landmark Family Secrets mob conspiracy case to learn his fate.
A veritable who's who of the Chicago Outfit -- mob bosses James Marcello, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo and Frank Calabrese Sr. -- are scheduled to be sentenced within days.

A federal jury convicted Schiro of racketeering conspiracy in the Family Secrets trial in 2007 but was unable to unanimously agree on whether he was responsible for Vaci's murder in Arizona in 1986.

Zagel found that Schiro was involved in the killing by a preponderance of the evidence, making him eligible for the 20 years, the most he could face on the racketeering count.

Schiro told the judge he had no idea why the jury found him guilty in the conspiracy.

"I went to trial with co-defendants I never met in my life," said Schiro, 71.

Family Secrets marked Schiro's second conviction in a major Outfit case in the last decade. He was convicted in 2001 for his role in the mob-connected jewelry theft ring headed by William Hanhardt, a former Chicago police chief of detectives, and sentenced to 51/2 years in prison.

Marcello, Lombardo and Calabrese are all eligible for life terms. The jury convicted them in a conspiracy stretching back to the 1960s, linking them to numerous gangland slayings.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Markus Funk argued that it would be "utterly inappropriate" for Schiro to be sentenced to anything but the maximum. He was a career criminal and Outfit associate who helped on surveillance of Vaci.

"He knew his friend would be killed that day," Funk said.

Outfit turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, the government's star witness at the trial, said Vaci was killed to silence him from talking to a grand jury about the disappearance of a man tied to an enormous mob skimming operation at a Las Vegas casino. Calabrese testified that he pulled Vaci into a van and shot him in the head.

Schiro's lawyer, Paul Wagner, sought a sentence below the maximum, saying Schiro hoped to see his grandchildren someday. He argued that the jury didn't believe Calabrese, calling the admitted multiple murderer "the worst of the worst becoming the best friend of the government."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/mob-boss-faces-sentencing.html

Mob boss sentenced to life
January 28, 2009 5:28 PM | 14 Comments | UPDATED STORY

A Chicago Outfit boss convicted in the landmark Family Secrets trial in 2007 was sentenced to life in prison in federal court downtown this afternoon.

A jury convicted Frank Calabrese Sr. and other Chicago mob bosses in a conspiracy stretching back to the 1960s, linking them to numerous gangland slayings.

Speaking to Calabrese during sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel told him, "Your crimes are unspeakable."

Last April, a federal judge denied a new trial for Calabrese, saying he didn't find that an alleged threat by Calabrese against a prosecutor tainted jurors.

Calabrese allegedly was seen mouthing: "You are a [expletive] dead man."

Some defense lawyers argued that the alleged threat could have prejudiced the juror who saw it. The juror apparently discussed it in deliberations and later reported it to prosecutors.

But a judge heard from the juror in a closed-door hearing and ruled that jurors are permitted to observe defendants in court.

-- Jeff Coen

Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo has recieved a life sentence.

And now so did James Marcello.

Amazing how the feds couldn't indict DiFronzo or Andriacchi, those two are biggest fish in Chicago. Marcello was a front for DiFronzo since the mid 90s and the Clown was semi-retired though he still had some influence within the Outfit. This whole "Family Secrets" trial took a whopping TWO made guys off the street and third guy, Zizzo, was clipped for flapping his gums too much. Yet the feds are walking around like they took down the whole Outfit, gimme a break.

As long as they can slap a "Boss" title on a guy and say they took him down...

I think there is another round of "Glory Days" coming up with the feds focused on terrorism and taking down front men and slapping themselves on the back...

I could literally go through every post on BDuff and tell you how he's full of it, but this will probably be the last one because I have got better things to do with my time.

No one knows why Tony Zizzo disappeared back in 2006. It's almost a certainty that he was murdered and it's almost a certainty that his Outfit friends killed him. But there has never been any information as to why he disappeared. Nothing at all.

There has been a total of three newspaper articles devoted to his disappearance and one television news station report on it, all with either the Zizzo family or law-enforcement agencies (one suburban Chicago police department and the Chicago FBI Division) looking for information about the disappearance. The Chicago FBI even issued a press release (click here http://chicago.fbi.gov/pressrel/2007/apr09_07.htm) about his disappearance looking for information.

So, for BDuff to say Zizzo was "clipped for flapping his gums too much" is just more of his imagination at work.

Unless his body is found and there is an arrest made in the case, we will probably never know why he disappeared and was likely killed. Least of all does BDuff know the reason for it.

[quote=NoName][/quote]

I'd suggest attacking the statements instead of the poster in future posts.

There have been hints around the windy city that the feds are currently working on "Operation Family Secrets Part 2". Word has it that Outfit turncoat, Nick Calabrese, will be testifying in future trials. The feds want to nail alleged current Outfit boss, John "No Nose" Di Fronzo, in the worst way. This is a big story here in Chi-Town. The Outfit boys are VERY powerful in the midwest and have been meeting to strategize how to handle the upcoming indictments. I wouldn't be surprised if they revert to their old ways and we start seeing some bodies found in trunks on the 10 o'clock news...Chuck Goudie and John Drummond may soon be very busy reporters? The judge gave Nick Calabrese a light sentence in return for his cooperation with authorities hoping to send a message to other "Outfitters" that want to cooperate as well. Look out, because The Outfit boys have ways of sending their own messages. Chicago's Mob is often over looked by the national media because of the distance from the big apple but we in Illinois all know how bad these guys are and what they are capable of doing. It seems Chicago's Mob news is not deemed as newsworthy because there are no "Gottis" out here.

I saw a segment on the news where No Nose meets some people at a restaurant each week and the reporter tried asking him questions and he just played it off like he was a regular guy and they had the wrong idea about everything. He tried to be very polite when he was leaving too.

It's the exact thing he should have done but it makes a better story if he'd be flashy and acknowledge he's a gangster and all that crap Gotti did.

No Nose is more of a gangster then the Dapper Don ever was.

Marcello, Lombardo, and Calabrese were all big fish in the Outfit. There is no way to minimize that. But did it cripple the Outfit? No.

I agree with all the responses. New York could learn a lot of lessons from The Outfit. The last Outfit member/boss to act "flashy", like Gotti, was found in his basement shot to death...(Sam Giancana). The Chicago Outfit is infamous for "masking" who the real boss is/was and holding it's members accountable to a "low key" lifestyle. I saw that news clip, Longneck, you are correct - Di Fronzo appeared to be a regular guy just coming out of a restaurant. Cool as a cucumber. No Nose knew exactly who was quizzing him and what he was after. No Nose gave him nothing.