**Seems like it was just last summer when we last saw the Calabrese name in the papers. Oh, those were the days...**

SQUEEZED? | Alleged hit man told to break owner's hands: feds

January 25, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
An alleged mob hit man ordered that a Lockport tattoo shop be shut down and its owner's hands broken because the underage daughter of a mob boss had been tattooed there, according to court records.

The new revelation in the case of the reputed mob killer, Anthony Calabrese, came as Calabrese is set to go to trial next month on charges he took part in three suburban robberies.

If convicted, Calabrese, 47, could effectively spend the rest of his life in prison. He is a suspect but not charged in two more serious crimes: the 2001 Outfit murder of top mobster Anthony Chiaramonti at a Brown's Chicken & Pasta in south suburban Lyons and the 1997 attempted murder of a woman in Naperville. If Calabrese is convicted of the robbery charges, authorities want to use that leverage to get him to tell them who hired him for the murder and attempted murder.

Calabrese's attorney, Steven Hunter, has said if investigators had any solid evidence on the murder and attempted murder, prosecutors would have charged him.

The recent court filings provide the most detail yet about Calabrese's alleged connections to organized crime.

An informant has told investigators that Calabrese not only paid street tax to Outfit members but also did them various criminal favors, according to a court filing.

One favor was the July 2001 strong-arm robbery of the Metamorphous Tattoo parlor in Lockport, authorities say.

Calabrese allegedly approached one of his partners in crime, Edmond Frank, who is cooperating with the feds, and asked him about putting together a crew for criminal work.

Frank allegedly turned to his drug dealer and asked him if he was interested in a job. The drug dealer agreed and recruited a few other men who took part in the tattoo parlor robbery, authorities say. During the robbery, the tattoo parlor owner was beaten up, but his hands were not broken -- even though that was the order. The mob boss is not named in the court papers.

Calabrese would repeatedly test Frank's loyalty to him by beating him -- one instance of which the government secretly recorded, authorities say.

Calabrese also allegedly stuck a loaded handgun in Frank's mouth and asked Frank if he would go to prison for him.