Reputed mobster's son recalls growing up in the family business

By MIKE ROBINSON
AP Legal Affairs Writer
Published July 3, 2007, 6:39 PM CDT
CHICAGO -- The eldest son of reputed mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr. on Tuesday told a jury a nightmarish story of how loan sharking, extortion, beatings and even a firebombing all were just part of the family business.

Frank Calabrese Jr., 47, took the stand as one of the government's two star witnesses at the trial of his father and four other men charged with running the Chicago Outfit for decades as a racketeering conspiracy.

Tapes he secretly made of conversations with his father while the two men were in prison together are expected to be a highlight of the trial.

On the first day of his expected weeklong testimony, however, the younger Calabrese mainly focused on the agony of life with a mob father.

"He pulled out a gun and stuck it in my face and told me, 'I'd rather have you dead than disobey me,"' Calabrese said, telling of a session in an Elmwood Park garage where the father kept cars with bogus titles.

"I started crying, I started hugging and kissing him," the son said.

Calabrese admitted he had angered his father by stealing $600,000 to $800,000 in cash from him, investing $200,000 of it in a restaurant and squandering the rest on vacations and his cocaine addiction.

"I blew all the money, I spent it wildly," he admitted.

He said he was initiated into the world of organized crime as a teen. His father had him and his uncle, Nicholas Calabrese, collect $3,000 to $5,000 in quarters from peep shows at an adult bookstores and skim $300 a week before turning in the rest to a man he knew only as Vito.

When Vito started putting dabs of colored paint on the quarters to test for skimming, he came in for a slapping around from the elder Calabrese, the witness testified. He said his father told him Vito also was paying him $1,800 a month in "street tax" to keep doing business.

Street tax is a mob expression for extortion payments, much the same as the old-fashioned protection money mobsters forced businesses to pay.

Convicted bookie Joel Glickman was held in contempt and jailed by U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel on Monday after being granted immunity from prosecution and still refusing to say if he paid street tax to Calabrese.

Glickman remained in federal custody Tuesday night.

The younger Calabrese testified that his father once took him to a garage owned by a business associate "who had not met his obligations to us." Once they arrived, the son said, his father gave him a box stuffed with newspapers and soaked in a mixture of gasoline and kerosene.

He testified that on instructions from his father he leaned the box against the garage and inserted a lighted flare. They then drove away.

The younger Calabrese said his father later told him he had returned to the site and that "the fire department was there -- it was a success."

Eventually, he said, his father had him keeping records involving the money the mob took in through gambling, loan sharking and extortion. But in 1997, both men were among several members of the 26th Street or Chinatown crew imprisoned for loan sharking.

It was while they were in a federal prison in Milan, Mich., that the son agreed to cooperate with law enforcement officials and make tapes of things his father said while the two of them strolled the prison yard.

Among other things, the father allegedly told the son which members of the Chicago Outfit were "made guys" and who was responsible for a number of long-unsolved mob murders, including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro.

Spilotro, once known as the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas, inspired the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino." He and his brother, Michael, were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.

After court, Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez told reporters he could not comment on why the younger man turned against his father but said the motive would become obvious on cross examination.

Lopez did say his client was "happy to see his son -- he hasn't seen him in a long time."

Asked how the elder Calabrese felt about the role his son, who now manages a deli carryout in Arizona, is playing at the trial, Lopez said: "It's very difficult for any parent to see his child testify against him."

The government's other star witness is expected to be Frank Calabrese Sr.'s brother, Nicholas, who has pleaded guilty, admitted his role in the murder of a fellow mobster, and agreed to testify in exchange for a break when he is sentenced.