When Michael "Mickey" Marcello visited his half-brother, Chicago mob boss James Marcello, in prison in 2003, the men talked about the possibility that Michael Marcello would get locked up too.
Michael Marcello told his brother he wasn't worried.
"What are they going to do, give me two f------ years?" he asked, in a secret recording the FBI made of the visit.
Michael Marcello was off -- by more than 6 years, he learned Tuesday.
Michael Marcello, 57, received 8 1/2 years in prison, just moments after he wiped away tears while hearing his son and stepson tell the judge how much they loved him. He's the first to be sentenced in the Family Secrets mob case.
Michael Marcello ran a lucrative video poker machine operation in the western suburbs and carried out his half-brother's orders while James Marcello was in prison, authorities say.
"Jimmy is the kind of guy who puts targets of the backs of people," the late federal prosecutor Mitch Mars said of James Marcello in 2005.
"Mickey is dangerous because he communicates Jimmy's wishes."
James Marcello was convicted at trial in September in the Family Secrets case. Michael Marcello pleaded guilty in June but did not cooperate against his brother.
Federal prosecutor T. Markus Funk conceded that Michael Marcello was not the worst of the worst Outfit members, but noted the comparison is relative.
"When you're talking about the Chicago Outfit, you're talking about a pretty grim and evil bunch," Funk said.
Michael Marcello, who worked for the Chicago Sun-Times as a truck driver from 1986 to 1995, apologized for his crimes and said he had nobody to blame but himself.
"I embarrassed myself and my family," he said.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel sentenced him to nearly the maximum under the advisory sentencing guidelines.
Zagel suggested that Michael Marcello was maybe "too good of a brother" to James Marcello.
"I think the lesson that you can derive from this . . . is that even when you talk about friends and family, limits have to be drawn," Zagel said.
