Mob-trial tapes promise new, improved Outfit

By Liam Ford
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 12, 2007, 3:48 PM CDT
As federal investigators turned up the heat in the Operation Family Secrets case, Frank Calabrese Sr. told his son that the Outfit as outsiders knew it would fall like an old Christmas tree, and a stronger, secret one would grow in its place.

In a videotaped conversation played in court Thursday, Calabrese Sr. told Frank Calabrese Jr. that people who believe that Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Joe "The Builder" Andriacchi and others were leaders of the Chicago crime syndicate were wrong. Once Calabrese Jr. got out of prison, Calabrese Sr. told his son that he would tell him the truth.

Calabrese Jr. got out of prison in 1999, and Calabrese Sr., who thought his son was set to rejoin him as an active member of the Outfit, told him that they could be part of a better, stronger crime syndicate. Too many members of the Chicago mob were being too public about their roles, even bragging incorrectly that they were Outfit leaders, Calabrese Sr. said in one videotaped conversation in the prison visiting room.

But with a few "good guys," a stronger Outfit would be built, Frank Sr. said.

"It's not going to be the Christmas tree … it used to be," he said. "It's going to be a smaller Christmas tree that's going to have the loyalty that was once there."

Calabrese Sr. also told his son that he no longer was angry that his friend Ronnie Jarrett was killed, because federal investigators had been following him and planned to use him as the centerpiece of a racketeering indictment against Outfit leaders. Jarrett, who worked in criminal rackets with Calabrese Sr., had been lying to Calabrese and using cocaine, which the Calabrese thought investigators would use against Jarrett.

"Everything happens for the best," Calabrese Sr. told his son.

The playing of dozens of videos made in the visiting room of a Milan, Mich., federal prison where both Calabreses were imprisoned -- and of audio recordings Calabrese Jr. used a wired set of headphones to make -- ended Thursday.

Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joe Lopez, questioned the son about why he began cooperating with the FBI, about his stealing large amounts of cash from his father, about his drug use and about his relationship with his family.

Calabrese Jr. admitted that his father had always hated drugs and told him to stay off them. Calabrese Jr. said that after he felt his father reneged on a promise to retire from the mob, "I wanted to see him locked up."