Since (supposedly) new info/theories on the Chiaramonte hit is being discussed on ANP in the comments section I thought I'd post the link to the wire an anonymous guy wore on Anthony Calabrese and Robert Cooper. Cooper was ultimately convicted of the murder. Calabrese is doing what amounts to life on something else and the feds never charged him. The CW is that Cooper was the driver and Calabrese the shooter.

Of course Fosco is now saying something different.

Unfortunately the link the Sun Times had to the actual transcript is gone, so this is the best I can find.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=5956633

Here is where anyone would be very skeptical of Fosco. He markets Magnafichi to his readers as a reformed or retired made member of the Outfit to build his audience, only to reframe him as an "alleged" suspect in a very high profile, unsolved "gangland" murder the moment they have a beef. It undermines the credibility of any legit information he releases through his blog.

We all know the story of the Chiaramonti and who was apparently involved in his murder, but I think it would be very interesting to know what Jimmy Marcello thought of his guy, the Hatch, at the time of the murder. Jim was in prison (pre-Family Secrets) at the time of the shooting, and he would be out in a couple years. Mick was representing his brother on the outside at the time. Supposedly there is surveillance footage of Jim complaining to his brother about the way in which Hatch's murder was carried out, but he was not really upset by the fact that it had happened. I find that very interesting.

Fosco's site kinda stirs things up and keeps a conversation going, but like with virtually anywhere on the Internet, you have to really just look at all of the information like it is, possibly, providing some kind of context, or one particular person's ideas about something. (Who may or may not have an agenda.) In terms of actually concretely believing everything you read on it, or most other places, it's probably not much more valuable than the guy at the end of the bar talking about his ideas about life on other planets.

Hey Johnny. I was listening to one of the sessions with Magnafichi and he said something to the effect that, "no one would criticize John in my presence." I had to refresh my memory and look at the relationship bet. Magnafichi and Cerone. It looks like he was a driver for Cerone? Don't know much more about their working together, etc. But I did find it interesting that Mr.Fosco didn't take the opportunity to express his dislike for Cerone. As a matter of fact, he (Fosco) was kinda, sorta, bragging on Cerone. Two different situations, two different positions or attitudes at different times. Odd.

Was I right in assuming that Mr. Fosco did not / does not like Cerone sr.? I believe he has also expressed a dislike for Cerone's son, who is an attorney. Maybe it depends on the day you ask him ? Who knows.

Could be "the man at the end of the bar " is a good analogy.

You are right. It seems pretty easy to instigate a debate over at American News Post. From what I read, there is a range of credibility among those who post comments. The best posters are the ones who simply ask direct questions rather than make their own claims or assert street knowledge. For example, Fosco knows little about the Chinatown crew (or at least is not forthcoming about what he does know), and for a few years, there was at least one idiot (Black Angelo) who dragged ANP way down by making all these fantastic obviously false claims like Toots Caruso bringing in his sleepers from the Five Families of New York to carry out hits throughout Bridgeport. Pure stupidity, obviously. Fosco ignored it but comments like that would attract credulous people, and these weird tangents developed in the comments. 80% of those threads are garbage. The most unsolicited information comes from Fosco when he has been provoked or attacked in some way, off the blog. He can be good to talk to in-person and (to a lesser extent) through email.

Joe also knows certain things, or has overheard certain things, that he keeps private until someone who is connected to said "things" pisses him off. I recall that mongoloid Greg Tosto setting Joe off, and Fosco subsequently going off on Tosto's uncle Rocky Infelice in the comments section, trashing Rocky, calling him unarguably the undisputed worst boss in the history of the Outfit. Although he's not very far off the mark there (Infelice was not the brightest crayon), it was clearly meant to trash the the former boss's name within the southwestern suburban communities in which the Infelice family resides. Fosco knows that community members/family members follow his site closely, and pride is very sacred with these people.

Sure, he embellishes once in a while to stir things up, but a good deal of it is stuff that he keeps pent up until you wrong him. That's what makes him such a nuisance.

Regarding Mike Mags & the Hatch hit, who knows. Mike obviously wouldn't have been upset about it, as it got him out of a pretty terrifying bind. Of course he was probably briefed, but that's likely as far as it went.

And finally regarding the Marcellos' relationship with the Hatch, the hatch was a complete psychopath/loose cannon to begin with, and had been really crossing some lines/pissing people off within the organization around that particular time period. I recall Little Jimmy ordering Michael Marcello & Frank Schweihs to pay the Hatch a visit not long before his murder, trying to talk some sense into him, and it not going well at all.

I find it interesting, as one of you said awhile back, that he's very careful about what he answers regarding Cicero. That's if he answers at all.

He consistently plays dumb. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he doesn't know much at all. He was never directly connected with any of those people. No one from down there would ever give someone like Cerone esq or Joe fosco the time of day. He also wants absolutely nothing to do with crews like the Carusos, Inendinos, Cataudellas, etc. Those are the real Outfit guys, not people you want to be revealing thing about on the internet. Bobby Dominic/magnafichi aren't going to have heavies knocking down Joe's door anytime soon lol. And guys like cerone esq/daddono III aren't real gangsters. Johnny Bananas doesn't care, although Peter might, but those guys are more likely to sic lawyers & suits on Fosco before siccing Albie/Porky types on him. Elmwood park has been finished lol, can't even really call it the Chicago Outfit anymore.

Although Fosco does give this answer in response to the question, "How is Cicero making money?"

"Dirty book stores, bootleg gaming, juice loans, fencing, protection matters."

He then goes on to explain that the bookstores are actually brothels.

Yeah, as Huron said Fosco only trashes the guys like DiFronzo who are basically rich and retired now anyway and could care less about what he has to say. He hardly ever mentions any of the heavy crews in his columns.

Then Heavy D's answer to that was "wow really? Weak sauce". What kind of street rackets was he expecting? lol

I guess people still have the idea of the Outfit controlling casinos, unions, construction, big-time betting, etc.

Joe was obviously being conservative & vague. He knows what people are really after & he doesn't want to give it to them. And he shouldn't, he's in no position to. The southside people are big into drugs as well. I don't think people realize just how trashy the south/southwest suburbs, and white people that reside on the southside of Chicago, actually are. The Outfit will always have consistent business in those areas. You can bet they have large pieces of the Calumet boardwalk strip & the Indiana casinos as well. And of course prostitution has always been a Hallmark of the Cicero crew.

Almost all the Cicero made guys have legit businesses, whether it be trucking, construction companies, etc.

Horseshoe's owned by Caesars, which is a $3 billion international conglomerate.

Doubt they get a f**kin' dime.

Off topic. The original subject was more interesting.

When was the last big chicago bust ?

That will tell you what they are still into

Wasn't referring to the lake Michigan based river boat style casinos, those are all corporate owned. I was referring to a few of the smaller casinos scattered throughout central & southern Indy.

Yes, yes, and yes lol....Drive through Lyons and see how many trashy white people there are lol. They have moved into drugs as well there as no question about that. Fosco amuses me as well in that now that he is beefing with Magnafichi only NOW does he even MENTION Joey A AT ALL...I doubt he knows much about Cicero either but he is indeed careful with what he says about them....

@huronsocial

i'm sure after difronzo dies somebody in Elmwood park is gonna try to step up

and the strip in calumet city on stateline is all black nowadays

Wasn't referring to anything in Cal city.

I dunno man, the Italian population is just perishing up there. Quickly. Somebody probably will, but the recruitment pool will just continue to grow smaller, while the southwest suburban Italian American population will continue to expand. The breeding grounds are now Lombard, Westchester, Darien, Addison, even areas like oak lawn. It's very sad that the Patch & Elmwood are dead/dying, but that's the way it goes. They've been dying for over twenty years.

Since we are on the subject of recruiting pools, I did some number crunching out of sheer curiosity. This is entirely hypothetical on my part. Basically, I went to city-data.com, took the Italian population of a mob family's operating area, multiplied it by the male population's percentage, and then multiplied the resulting number by percentage of whites living below the poverty line. Not that poor = criminal, but just because it was the most readily available statistic. Here are the numbers I got:

1. Five Families (NYC): 36,195, or 7,239 per family
2. Philadelphia: 9,987
3. Patriarca (Boston and Providence): 5,744
4. The Outfit (Chicago): 4,942
5. DeCavalcante (NJ, I just used the cities which are included in the NYC metro-area: Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Edison, and Trenton): 3,360
6. Detroit Partnership: 1,165

I wish I could have found some consistent numbers as to the percentage of the white population found guilty of violent crimes, but as I said, I just went with the poverty numbers for convenience.

If you wanted too, you could use these numbers as justification for the next family to go "extinct". I may do some research on cities whose families are already defunct and see if the numbers are significantly lower than those listed above (they most certainly will be).

Just some nerdy food for thought.

The South Side people are big into drugs? The Calumet boardwalk strip? Indiana casinos? Do you have evidence for any of this?

Elmwood is not losing it's Italian feel at all, Huron. It's of course not how it was 30 years ago but it's the same for most other areas too. Still mainly Italian as well as the most Italian populated area in Illinois

I'm noticing that Chicago Outfit threads deteriorate into off-topic, splinter discussions much more rapidly than other discussions on this forum.

I'm not sure there is much to talk about re: Chiaramonte, though.

On one hand you have who the feds suspect, a confession and a wire.

On the other you have Joe Fosco who is now saying the guy he was best friends with a month ago was probably involved.

After a while some of this stuff is like talking about the JFK assassination--there are dozens of different accounts with dozens of reliable SOUNDING witnesses. You reach a point of "who the f##k knows?" pretty quickly.

One thing I do find interesting about the Calabrese case--why didn't the feds prosecute him?

There have been rumblings for years now about the feds building another large-scale RICO case against the Outfit. The popular cliche is that it will be the "sequel" to Family Secrets, encompassing current activity. Who knows? What I do know is that Outfit attorney Joe Lopez recently said, "the feds don't do anything before it's time," with regard to a question about organized crime in Chicago. My guess is that if the feds really do have something truly substantial on Anthony Calabrese, then they are going to try to parlay it into something bigger.

I would assume so as well. Though when that happens is anyone's guess. The Feds don't have unlimited resources and tend to spend the resources they do have on what the public is focused on--i.e. corrupt governors, gangs, etc. No one cares about the Outfit...I don't see them doing anything against them anytime soon.

Resources being sent from OC investigations to terror related investigations may also affect this.