Mob Boss Voluntarily Retired, Court Records Say
March 21, 1990|By Ronald Koziol and John O`Brien.
A year before his death last March, a gravely ill Joseph Ferriola voluntarily stepped down as boss of Chicago`s biggest crew of gangsters and passed most of his power to a deputy in order to avoid infighting and a disruption of gambling profits, according to a government informant.
That view of the mob, along with other disclosures, are based on government wiretaps and interviews with William ``B.J.`` Jahoda, a former bookmaker in the Ferriola crew, according to court documents and sources familiar with Jahoda`s information.
The government documents were filed in the case of three of Ferriola`s alleged lieutenants, who will be sentenced Wednesday on their guilty pleas to federal charges of gambling and failure to register as bookmakers with the Internal Revenue Service.
The disclosures by Jahoda-a prized government informant-provide a rare inside view of Ferriola`s alleged rackets in his last months.
An orderly transition was necessary, Jahoda said, so that Ferriola`s two most lucrative sports gambling operations, which handled combined bets of $40 million a year, would continue in the absence of their leader.
According to Jahoda, Ferriola relinquished power to Ernest Rocco Infelice and named himself consigliere, or counselor, over his followers. About 50 in number, it is the most formidable of the city`s five allied organized crime families, authorities say.
Infelice, 67, of River Forest, now in federal custody with seven alleged associates, is charged with conspiracy and racketeering. Trial is pending in that case, which involves 19 people and focuses on three underworld murders.
``Until the day he died, many in law enforcement thought Ferriola was still the mob`s top man,`` said an investigator privy to Jahoda`s disclosures and thousands of hours of secretly recorded mob conversations.
Authorities, lacking independent data, had believed that-for reasons of declining health and federal pressure-Ferriola`s gambling rackets were retrenching and a power struggle was inevitable.
According to the court documents, the rackets took in as much as $127 million in gross wagers over an undefined six-year period in the 1980s. Estimated profits for four of those years-1983 through 1986-were put at $4.6 million, according to the documents.
Ironically, Jahoda allegedly had been given shared control with Infelice of one of the rackets in a west-northwest suburban area. The other racket, in Chicago, was the enterprise of gamblers Dominic Cortina of Oak Brook, Donald Angelini of Elmhurst and Joseph Spadavecchio of Chicago, according to court documents.
Cortina, Angelini and Spadavecchio will be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
Jahoda and fellow informant, Ken Eto, who survived a mob hit in 1983, agreed that Cortina, Angelini and Infelice all reported to Ferriola, according to the court papers.
Ferriola died March 21, 1989, while awaiting a donor heart for a transplant.
``Jahoda was convinced`` that Cortina and Angelini were part of the Ferriola crew, ``when Angelini accompanied Infelice to Ferriola`s home upon his death to empty Ferriola`s safe,`` the papers said. The contents of the safe were not disclosed in the court documents.
The underworld ranking was pieced together by agents of the criminal investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service, working with wiretaps and debriefings of Jahoda, 47, formerly of Itasca.
Jahoda became an informant last summer and is now in the federal witness protection program. Until he defected, federal agents often were hard-pressed to estimate for tax purposes how much was bet with mob-controlled sports gambling rackets.
Sources familiar with his help say Jahoda turned over gambling records he maintained in support of claims that the operations of Cortina and Angelini, on one hand, and those of he and Infelice, on the other, each grossed $20 million a year in sports and horse bets.
The U.S. attorney`s office has petitioned for tough penalties in the case of Cortina, Angelini and Spadavecchio.
Assistant U.S. Atty. John Burley called sports gambling ``a scary thing,`` claiming that it not only ``threatens the integrity of football, basketball and baseball,`` but also creates the potential for violence in the collection of debts.
Defense lawyers, in court filings of their own, said punishment of gamblers is at odds with society`s increasing acceptance of legal and illegal wagering.
They said the government has failed to show their clients harmed anyone who couldn`t pay up, and noted revenues of $1.3 bilion and $1 billion, respectively, of the Illinois Lottery and Illinois parimutuel betting in fiscal 1988.
They also pointed out that Illinois lawmakers have approved riverboat gambling, and that ``casino gambling may soon become a reality in Gary.``
