In Detroit, mob is down but is it out?

By John Carpenter and Special to the Tribune
Chicago Tribune
•
March 02, 2003

DETROIT — Keith Corbett and Joe Finnigan were too smart to say it. Sitting in a conference room 23 floors above the river that Al Capone's bootleg whiskey once crossed from Canada on its way to Chicago, they have been around gangsters too long to believe their recent spate of convictions has wiped out the Detroit mob.

But Corbett, chief of the U.S. attorney's Detroit Organized Crime Strike Force, and Finnigan, supervisory agent for the FBI's Organized Crime Squad here, couldn't help but smile just a bit during a recent interview as they described the damage that's been done to "The Outfit."

They are certainly in a wounded condition," Corbett said.

Sending a handful of mob leaders up the river may seem like no big deal, but it is in Detroit, where La Cosa Nostra has operated quietly and lucratively since Prohibition.

Prosecutors are wrapping up almost seven years of hearings, trials and appeals since a sweeping indictment of the Detroit mob was handed down in 1996. Organized-crime bosses who had seemed untouchable are now either in prison, at home waiting for appeals to end or their prison terms to start, or out of prison and looking over their shoulders.

For the first time in more than 80 years the Detroit mob is in disarray.

Detroit, like Chicago, had bloody battles among bootleggers. But since Joe Zerilli emerged as the boss of bosses in the 1920s, prosecutors say, organized crime has stayed in the same family and under the control of just two people: Zerilli and, since 1979, Jack Tocco.

The family generally stuck to time-tested and relatively low-profile profit centers such as gambling, extortion and numbers rackets. Unlike the headline-grabbing John Gotti, Detroit mobsters shunned the limelight, living in quiet, affluent suburbs, hiding behind conventional businesses and avoiding attention, Corbett said.

Bumps along the way

Along the way they survived flurries of scrutiny. Congressional hearings in the early 1960s told the world that Zerilli ran the Detroit mob, and that the Detroit mob ran the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. And former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa vanished in 1975 while waiting in a Detroit restaurant parking lot on his way to a meeting with Detroit mob captain Anthony Giacalone.

Giacalone, who died two years ago at age 82 while awaiting trial, parlayed the publicity surrounding his role in the case into a lucrative extortion racket, telling wealthy targets that they'd better pay or risk having "what happened to Hoffa" happen to them, Corbett said.

Above all else, the Detroit mobsters liked to keep things quiet, and to keep their circle tight. That philosophy stood them well for decades, but may have been their downfall, as frustrated young soldiers champed resentfully at the bit, becoming reckless in the process.

Trouble started in the early 1990s with a fat gangster who grew up not on the tough streets of Detroit but on the gracious lawns of suburban Grosse Pointe.

"Those old guys grew up on the streets and knew the rules of the streets," Corbett said. "When they got rich and moved to Grosse Pointe, that's where their kids grew up. That was a problem for them."

Still, Nove Tocco, cousin of Jack Tocco and grandson of former boss Zerilli, was a good earner, aggressively collecting mob protection money and scouting for new sources of income, according to Corbett.

Like corporate peons everywhere, though, he apparently spent much of his idle time whining about his bosses. As he and partner Paul Corrado drove around Detroit and its suburbs, listening to oldies music in what seemed like one new Lincoln Continental after another, they railed at what they saw as a bunch of timid old men hiding out in suburban mansions while they--Nove Tocco and Corrado--took all the risks.

FBI was listening

Tocco and Corrado talked in great detail about their day-to-day dealings and, more important, about their dealings with mob leaders. The two gangsters worried at one point that their car might be bugged, observing that it probably would be a good idea to have the car swept for listening devices.

They didn't.

It was.

Starting in 1991 and continuing for more than a year, FBI agents listened to everything that was said in Tocco's car. This was no mean feat, Finnigan said, adding that the mobile bug required that agents follow the car in order to listen in.

What the FBI learned was that Tocco and Corrado were carrying out an expansion policy, prosecutors said. They would seek out bookmakers and numbers operators -- numbers games are privately run, illegal lotteries -- and shake them down. Detroit's large Arab community, which has been around for generations but swelled with refugees in the 1980s, was fertile ground.

Payments by sports bookies and other criminals are the bedrock of organized crime, which may offer protection as well as collection services in return for weekly payoffs. Bookies and other criminals, who obviously can't turn to the police for help, usually pay willingly.

Those hesitant to "sign up" were threatened with violence, as one FBI tape of Nove Tocco, describing his sales pitch to prospective partners, illustrated. "The reason you pay is because this is an Italian town and you're in a controlled business. If you don't pay, close the . . . down," Tocco was heard saying on tape.

But even though they were expanding the business, Tocco and Corrado were not simply allowed to wander around roughing people up and shaking people down.

Detroit mob leaders feared attracting heat, Corbett said. A sit-down was ordered in late spring 1991 with Tocco, Corrado, Jack Tocco and underboss Anthony Zerilli, as well as other leaders.

Security was tight for the sit-down, Corbett said.

The FBI wasn't able to monitor conversation in the meeting. Fortunately for the agents, Nove Tocco and Corrado walked straight back to their car afterward and discussed the whole thing: Permission for the expansion had been granted, but only under strict control of the bosses. Once again, Finnigan said, the two soldiers were frustrated.

By the time the eavesdropping ended in late 1992, FBI agents had enough to arrest Tocco and Corrado, as well as other small players. They were after the leadership, however, and used the tapes as a stepping stone to work their way up the chain of command. Often, Finnigan said, they would use small-timers snared in the wiretaps, encouraging them to cooperate as leverage in their own cases. By early 1996 the case against the Detroit mob had been made, and indictments were handed down.

Cousin vs. cousin

As the trials unfolded, perhaps the most compelling case involved Nove Tocco sitting in the same courtroom as his cousin and boss Jack Tocco, while prosecutors played tapes of the former ridiculing the latter.

Jack Tocco was convicted on one count and initially sentenced to a year and a day. Nove Tocco got 20 years and went to prison seething that he had taken such a blow for the organization, Corbett said. Ultimately he contacted prosecutors and, in early 2000, officially became the first member of the Detroit mob to turn state's evidence. Before heading into the witness protection program he testified at a resentencing hearing for Jack Tocco, who was sentenced to 34 months, though that sentence is pending on an appeal.

Anthony Zerilli, the last case that went to trial, was sentenced to 71 months, and reported to federal prison in February. Corrado was convicted and sentenced to 110 months in prison.

Finnigan and Corbett said they are now waiting to see whether the organization can revive itself.

"If we sit back and do nothing, our experience has shown that they will get their act together again," Corbett said.