'Clown' says mob talk all in jest
Lombardo claims he was only acting 'like James Cagney'



A photo titled "The Last Supper" was entered into evidence during the Family Secrets trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago. Defendant Joey "the Clown" Lombardo is standing in back on the right. Lombardo testified Wednesday about how he came to be included in the photo with mobsters Joseph Aiuppa and Tony Accardo.


By Jeff Coen | Tribune staff reporter
11:12 PM CDT, August 15, 2007

The prosecutor leaned over the lectern and stared at Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, who in turn leaned on the witness stand and stared back.

For most of three hours, the two sparred, talking over one another Wednesday at the Family Secrets trial. Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars repeatedly demanded to know if Lombardo was a leader of the Chicago Outfit who had threatened and extorted his enemies and had at least one killed.

"I never took an oath to any secret society in the world," Lombardo, 78, proclaimed in a gravelly voice.

The reputed mob boss weathered a relentless cross-examination, pleading ignorance, blaming coincidence and accusing witnesses of lying against him.

Many jurors who had taken notes throughout the landmark trial put their pens down to watch the confrontation.

In the most heated moments, Mars tried to pin Lombardo down with his own words, playing a 1979 undercover recording in which Lombardo threatened an attorney whom he believed owed money to corrupt insurance executive Allen Dorfman and the mob. "I assure you that you will never reach 73," Lombardo had warned the 72-year-old attorney on the tape.

But Lombardo insisted Wednesday that he was just acting the part of a mob enforcer to help out Dorfman. Mars asked if the role of a gangster was a good one for Lombardo.

"Like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson," answered Lombardo, naming two actors famous for playing tough guys in films.

"And Joey Lombardo," Mars responded in a mocking tone. "Boss of the Grand Avenue crew."

"That's not true," Lombardo shot back.

Mars said he wanted to know whether Lombardo meant the threat he delivered.

Lombardo said he often threatened to strangle his wife, too, but never did. Telling the attorney he wouldn't live to 73 was just part of the script, he said.

"He didn't pay, and he still lived to see 73, 74, 75," said Lombardo, one of five men on trial for a conspiracy that at its heart involves 18 long-unsolved gangland slayings.

In another undercover recording, Lombardo could be heard talking to reputed organized-crime figure Louis Eboli about a massage parlor that had opened too close to one being protected by a mob boss.

Lombardo could be heard on the tape asking Eboli whether "we" have anything to do with the business and then saying the business should move or "we'll flatten the joint."

Lombardo insisted that "we" referred to Eboli, that he never meant to include himself in the issue and that Mars wasn't reading the transcript of the conversation correctly.

"You say words that have no meaning at the time," said Lombardo, telling the jury he mixed up his words "just like the president did."

But the president doesn't have a mob crew that collects street tax, countered Mars.

"He's got a bigger crew," Lombardo answered. "You know where I'm at?"

Dressed in the same gray jacket and silver tie he wore Tuesday, Lombardo sometimes shifted in his seat or fiddled with his cane during his testimony, looking every bit like a tired old man. At other times he leaned his head back or answered questions with a grin on his face. Lombardo, a colorful reputed organized-crime figure with a penchant for wisecracks, is defending himself against the conspiracy by saying he was actually a working man who held legitimate jobs. His only connection to mobsters came from friendships with powerful men like Dorfman, he said.

Earlier Wednesday, near the end of questioning by his own lawyer, Lombardo tried to explain how he was pictured in what is known as "The Last Supper" photo, the government's Exhibit No. 1. Lombardo can be seen standing behind a table at a restaurant with mob heavyweights Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, Jackie Cerone and Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo.

Lombardo said he showed up at the restaurant by happenstance. He had dressed up to attend a wake, was invited afterward to the restaurant and bumped into the group, he testified. Lombardo said he had caddied for Cerone in his youth and met some of the others through him. He said he wished the group well and left.

Mars asked Lombardo whether he knew if any of the men in the photo were mob bosses.

"They never told me that," answered Lombardo, saying he knew them to be businessmen or "union guys."

"I was there by chance," he said. "I went there to get a sandwich."

But Mars, reminding Lombardo that in earlier testimony he had called Aiuppa the "boss" of Cicero, asked whether the jury had heard him right.

"Ask them," Lombardo said of the jury sitting a few feet to his right.

Mars also pressed Lombardo on the lone mob murder in which he has been implicated. Daniel Seifert was gunned down outside his Bensenville business in 1974 weeks before he was to testify against Lombardo for laundering money from a bad union loan. The charges were dropped against Lombardo after Seifert's murder.

"I had no idea Mr. Seifert was gonna testify against us until he got killed," Lombardo said.

"You knew Daniel Seifert had to go," said Mars, accusing Lombardo of taking a hit crew to carry out the murder. .

"I didn't have a crew," Lombardo said flatly.

Under questioning by his own attorney, Lombardo said he was reporting a stolen wallet at a police station when the killing took place. Mars questioned why Lombardo hadn't told the FBI that when he was questioned on the day of the murder.

"I don't speak to the FBI when I have a problem," he answered.

Among the witnesses Lombardo accused of lying against him was Alva Johnson Rogers, who testified early in the trial that he worked for Lombardo in the Outfit and overheard him boasting after the murder that Seifert wouldn't be testifying against anyone.

"Positively a liar," Lombardo said. "I can tell a liar when I hear it."

Before he completed his testimony, Lombardo was questioned about his decision to go on the lam after he was indicted in the Family Secrets case in 2005. Lombardo was a fugitive for nearly nine months before the FBI captured him in a Chicago suburb.

Lombardo said he had been hitting balls at a golf range near Oak Brook when he learned he had been indicted. He said he hid out in the basement of an Oak Park residence."There was a kitchen down there, a shower, a bed and a TV," he said.

Lombardo acknowledged that during that time he wrote letters to the court, asking for a new trial. He took that action, he said, because he didn't know any of the men with whom he had been charged.

Lombardo told the prosecutor he felt alone and wanted to be tried alone.

"Mr. Mars, I had 300 million people against me," he said. "I was all by myself."

Lombardo was eventually turned in by his dentist, Patrick Spilotro, after Lombardo had an abscessed tooth fixed. Spilotro is the brother of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, two mob figures whose murders are the most notorious of the case.

Patrick Spilotro wasn't truthful when he testified that Lombardo told him that his brothers were killed because people followed orders, Lombardo testified. He also said he wasn't surprised that the dentist had told authorities of his whereabouts.

"I knew he was a beefer," Lombardo said. "I knew he was gonna beef on me."

As Mars peppered Lombardo with questions about his decision to flee, he showed the reputed mob capo a photo of himself just after his arrest. In the image flashed on a courtroom screen, Lombardo has wild eyes, long waves of hair and a full beard. Lombardo acknowledged that there was "a little difference" between his appearance in the photo and now.

Mars asked Lombardo if he thought that was pretty funny.

"A little joke every once in a while isn't gonna hurt," he replied.

jcoen@tribune.com