Calabrese wants his trial to be 'family affair'

July 22, 2006

BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter



Reputed Outfit killer Frank Calabrese Sr. calls the government's criminal case against him involving 13 murders a family affair.

After all, the two star witnesses at trial will be his son and brother.

That's why Frank Calabrese Sr. wants to be tried alone and not with the 11 other defendants in what's been called the most important federal prosecution of the mob in Chicago history.

"This case is really a family affair rather than a multi-defendant prosecution," Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, wrote in court papers filed Friday. The trial is set for May.

"The Calabrese Trio should be able to battle out in their own arena," Lopez wrote.

The filing makes clear that part of the Calabrese Sr. defense strategy will be, in effect, to put his own family on trial.

In the motion, Calabrese Sr. calls his son, Frank Jr., a lowlife, "a social misfit" and contends he broke into the family vacation home.

Sources familiar with the Calabrese family, though, point to the father as the malignant influence, contending he brought the same brutality he used on the streets into his family home.

The accusations from Calabrese Sr. come in sharp contrast to the expressions of love he expressed for his son just last month when Calabrese Sr. was trying to get a federal judge to set a bond so he could get out of jail.

'Strictly business'


Federal prosecutors had warned trial witnesses would be in jeopardy if Calabrese Sr. were released. But the elder Calabrese, through his attorney, expressed nothing but love and adoration for his son.

The judge kept Calabrese Sr. in jail.

On Friday, Lopez saw no contradiction between the statements of love and such phrases as lowlife.

"Love's got nothing to do with it," Lopez said. "It's business. It's strictly business in the courtroom."

Frank Calabrese Jr. is not charged in the current case but is providing key evidence for prosecutors.

He secretly recorded his father while both were in prison in 1999 on another matter in Milan, Mich., catching his father allegedly talking about mob murders and other Outfit business. The son made the recordings at risk to his life, law enforcement sources have said.

Calabrese Sr. also wants to be tried separately because he expects to come under attack from the other defendants.

"The one's family who is causing the problems is the one who gets the brunt of the finger-pointing," Lopez argued.