Top cops took bribes, mobster testifies
By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
2:25 PM CDT, July 25, 2007
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E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: A mob informant testified at the Family Secrets trial today how former high-ranking Chicago police officers were on the take, receiving cash payments and new cars from the Outfit.

Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel—a burglar, jewel thief and mob enforcer—testified in Chicago federal court how he came up through organized crime before beginning to cooperate with the government in the mid-1990s.

Siegel, 71, said the mob at one point was paying off William A. Hanhardt, the corrupt Chicago police chief of detectives who was later convicted of operating a nationwide jewelry theft ring. Hanhardt and his partner were getting $1,000 a month from the mob, and a new car every two years, Siegel testified at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

"He told them I would be working for him, and not to bother me," Siegel testified.

Siegel, now in witness protection, was among the informants whose cooperation led to charges against Hanhardt.

Other police officers were on the take as well, Siegel testified, including an officer he said was a leader in the Police Department's vice unit in the late 1960s. Siegel said he watched mobster Angelo Volpe meet the officer, who Siegel did not name, at a restaurant and give the cop "a bag of money."

They then discussed a location that police were about to raid.

"[Volpe] told him that was OK, it wasn't one of ours," Siegel testified.

In earlier testimony today, Siegel said he had been impressed with the Outfit as a teenage thief in the 1950s.

"They made the money, and they didn't go to jail," he said, chuckling. "Most of the police were on the payroll at that time."

Siegel said in his past he burglarized "maybe 100" stores, robbed three or four banks and took part in three murders as an enforcer and collector of juice loans.

He said mobster Frank Teutonico became a father figure to him, schooling him on who was who in the mob, and who needed to be respected.

Among the names that came up, Siegel testified, were Family Secrets defendants Frank Calabrese Sr. and Joey "The Clown" Lombardo.

Siegel's testimony was expected to continue this afternoon.