Mobster 'Didn't get away with it again'
'A REALLY GOOD FEELING' FOR VICTIMS' FAMILIES | Jury convicts aging crew of mobsters on all counts, will now decide if men are responsible for 18 unsolved murders
September 11, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR, CHRIS FUSCO, FRANK MAIN, ABDON PALLASCH AND LISA DONOVAN Staff Reporters
The Chicago Outfit got whacked.
The bloody past of the mob came roaring back Monday to engulf an aging crew of gangsters: top mobsters Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, along with reputed Outfit hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. and the mob's man in Phoenix, Paul Schiro.
All four men were convicted in federal court of racketeering conspiracy and could face life in prison after a 10-week trial in which prosecutors drew back the veil on the secret history of the Chicago mob with hundreds of pieces of evidence, including surveillance photographs and audio and videotapes of several defendants.
A fifth man, crooked retired Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Doyle, 62, was ordered held without bond after he too was convicted of racketeering for helping the Outfit track down an informant. Doyle is not accused of any of the murders.
The men on trial showed little reaction as the verdicts were read in a packed courtroom in Chicago after the jury of seven women and five men deliberated less than 20 hours to reach a decision.
Marcello, 65, scoffed as one of his guilty verdicts was read.
Calabrese Sr., 70, accused of 13 Outfit hits, hid behind a manila folder that his attorney Joseph R. Lopez put up to shield his face.
Lombardo, at 78 the oldest defendant, found no humor in the jury's decision, cocking his head to the left as the first verdict against him was read, then to the right.
Family members of the murder victims packed a row and a half in the courtroom and praised the jury's decision on the racketeering charges.
"It's a really good feeling to know that [Lombardo] was convicted this time around, that he didn't get away with it again," said Nicholas Seifert, a son of Daniel Seifert, who was gunned down in 1974 after Seifert decided to testify against Lombardo in a federal criminal trial.
Lombardo walked because Seifert was the main witness against him. When Seifert died, so did the case against Lombardo.
Friends and family members of the mobsters shook their heads or teared up at the outcome.
James Marcello's son, James Jr., wiped his eyes after the verdict and declined to comment.
One longtime friend of Doyle, Lombardo and Marcello, Rocco LaMantia, the son of the late mobster Joseph "Shorty" LaMantia, blasted the jury's decision.
"I personally don't think the jury was intelligent enough to decipher all the evidence the government put on," LaMantia said. "It's another slap in the face to Italians who are 'alleged' gangsters, and I emphasize 'alleged.' "
While Lombardo may have been the headline defendant, the case resulted from the turmoil within the family of Frank Calabrese Sr., who had not one but two family members testify against him -- unheard of in a mob case.
Outfit killer Nicholas Calabrese, a star government witness, told jurors how he and his brother Frank Sr. did mob hits together.
Frank Calabrese Sr.'s son, Frank Jr., secretly recorded his father when they were both in prison in 1999, and jurors heard Frank Calabrese Sr. speak in often horrifying detail of seven Outfit murders.
"Frank Calabrese was convicted on his own big mouth," LaMantia said.
