Reputed mobster suspected brother was helping feds
By Liam Ford
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 10, 2007
Reputed mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr. suspected his brother was cooperating with federal authorities and could bring down the entire Chicago Outfit, according to videotapes played today in federal court in Chicago.
In videotapes recorded secretly in 1999 while Calabrese was in federal prison in Milan, Mich., Calabrese used Italian slang and off-color code words to describe how his brother Nicholas Calabrese might be cracking under pressure from federal investigators.
The grainy black-and-white tapes show Frank Calabrese and two associates sitting in a visiting room in the prison, as children screech in the background and other prisoners and visitors move in and out of the video camera's frame.
Calabrese had learned from one of the men on the tape, co-defendant Anthony Doyle, at the time a Chicago Police officer working in the evidence section, that a bloody glove his brother had left at the scene of the killing of mobster John Fecoratta was being examined by federal investigators.
On the tapes, Calabrese, Doyle and Michael Ricci, another former police officer, talked about who might be working with federal investigators. The tapes were introduced by stipulation of all the attorneys in the case.
In court today, Frank Calabrese Jr., one of the government's star witnesses in the case against his father and five others, explained what some of the code his father used in the conversations meant.
In several of the conversations, Calabrese Sr. refers to a "sister" who might become a "whore" or a "prostitute."
"The one sister could hurt the whole family," Calabrese Sr. says on the videotape.
He was actually talking about his brother, the younger Calabrese told the jury today.
"If my uncle decides to cooperate, it could be a problem, and nobody seems to see this," Calabrese Jr. said.
In another conversation, Calabrese Sr. said that he worked hard to help Nicholas Calabrese over the years, and brought him into the Outfit only after Nicholas Calabrese asked.
"If my uncle didn't want to be involved in murder . . . he should have told him . . . he just wanted to be told," Calabrese Jr. said.
At the same time, Nicholas Calabrese suspected that his brother was suspicious of him, according to Calabrese Jr.
Nicholas Calabrese is also expected to testify for the government, implicating his brother in as many as 13 murders.
The cooperation of the elder Calabrese's brother and son led to the code name for the federal investigation, Operation Family Secrets.
Reputed mob figures Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello and Paul "the Indian" Schiro are also defendants in the case. At the heart of the prosecution are 18 long-unsolved murders.
lford@tribune.com
