Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family

by Frank Calabrese

  Back under my father’s thumb, I was the walking dead. I wanted to run away from it all. I was numb; I didn’t care about anything. I toted a gun everywhere I went. Living in constant fear of my father, I anticipated the worst. I would park blocks away from my house to give the appearance I wasn’t home.

  One night I was walking home, drinking a can of beer. I saw this big guy, a neighbor, working on his car with the garage door open. I finished my beer and threw the can on his lawn. “Hey,” he said to me, “ain’t you gonna pick up that beer can?”

  I turned around and slowly pulled the gun out of my pocket, knowing the rule: If I pulled it all the way out, I had to use it. As I moved toward him, he froze and got scared. “Fuck you,” I said, and I turned and walked away. Then I caught myself. “What am I doing?” I walked back over, and he was looking at me with his eyes wide open. “I’m sorry, sir, for throwing the beer can. I’m sorry for yelling at you, and I’ll pick it up.” I couldn’t believe what was going through my head. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  Although I routinely parked my car blocks from home, one evening, in a hurry, I slipped, leaving my car in the driveway. At about ten o’clock, the doorbell rang. Peering out the upstairs window, I saw my father’s white Bronco. Telling Lisa to stay with the kids, I walked past a window to get to my bedroom, where I kept my 9 mm Beretta. I needed to be more safe than sorry, not knowing if my dad would try to force his way into the house. I lay low as he rang the doorbell repeatedly, then walked back to his car. In the past, I would have jumped out the back window and run. Watching from the darkness, I could see the fury in my father’s steps. Hiding from my father had worked before, but as the saying goes, I could run but I couldn’t hide. My father drove away.

  To steer clear of my father, I immersed myself in work at the restaurant (a public place where my father couldn’t attack me). Arriving early and leaving late, I hunkered down as my father turned up the heat. He would show up each day to bark out orders and keep tabs on me. He got angry when he found out that I had given my mother a job at La Luce.

  I put her in the restaurant in the daytime, and she loved it. But my father made her quit so he could collect the money I was paying her. He was checking on me and would call at all hours. One day my ma told him I was out running errands. That night he called me at home.

  “What’s going on, Son? How’s the restaurant doing? Why don’t you come and meet me so’s we can talk?”

  The tone of voice that I heard was that of the loving father. After being paid back some, maybe he’d gotten over my stealing his money.

  As I pulled up to my father’s car, my dad motioned me over. “Park your car and take a ride with me.”

  I got into my father’s car and we drove until he parked a few blocks away from one of the work garages in Elmwood Park. As my father and I walked into the work garage gangway, a feeling of dread ran through me.

  Oh my God, is he setting me up? That can’t be. He’s the good dad now.

  As I opened the door of the garage and walked in first, my father turned the lights on and slammed the door behind him.

  Suddenly I saw the Thousand-Yard Stare. Holy shit, I’m dead. My father grabbed me by the throat.

  “You motherfucker, you lied to me. Where were you? After you took my money, you still don’t listen to me. I seen you that fucking night, standing in the hallway of your house not answering the door. Nobody does that to me!”

  He reached for a gun, a .38 snub-nosed revolver, encased in a black dress sock. (The crew kept guns in thin socks to eliminate fingerprints.) With one hand he grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward him, and with the other he stuck the gun in my face against my cheek.

  “This is only getting worse. I’d rather have you dead than disobey me.”

  I asked myself, How am I going to get out of this? He’s going to kill me. I started crying and begged him to please help me, saying that I was a bad person.

  “You’re right, you are a bad person,” was my father’s response. As I tried to hug my father, once again, to his pleasure, I became the wallowing subservient son.

  At least he didn’t shoot me. On the ride back, he punched me in the face. I was numb; I couldn’t defend myself. They just kept on coming, punch after punch, to the point where I welcomed the pain. I was thinking that at any moment he would change his mind, pull over the truck, and kill me. But he didn’t. Once I walked away, I knew that from that day forward I could never trust my father again.

  July 1995. As a result of the FBI’s investigation into Matt Russo and M&R Auto and Detail, on the day the statute of limitations was due to expire (on the final infraction), the grand jury handed down a RICO indictment against members of the Calabrese crew. RICO is a federal law that provides for extended penalties for acts performed by an ongoing criminal enterprise. The RICO’s “predicate acts” committed by the Calabrese “organization” included high-interest juice loans, extortion in the form of street taxes on businesses, and illegal gambling.

  Looking back, it was weird getting arrested. The phone rang at 6:00 a.m. It was Agent Kevin Blair speaking in a calm, low voice, informing me, “This is the FBI and we have the house surrounded.”

  Blair’s call took me by surprise. Keeping the grand jury indictments sealed allows the FBI and other law enforcement agencies time to serve warrants and make arrests before a suspect can flee the jurisdiction. The question remained, What was I being busted for?

  I wondered if it was the stuff I was doing with my father or if it was about my selling cocaine. Was it the FBI and the DEA? If it was about the drugs, I had a big problem because my dad didn’t know I was dealing and using. If it was about my father’s stuff, well, at least I wasn’t getting the rest of the crew in trouble by attracting the FBI.

  With the house surrounded, both the FBI and I wanted the apprehension process to be as simple and painless as possible. I managed to stay calm. Blair’s instructions were succinct. Come downstairs and accept the arrest warrant. I was cooperative and cautioned Blair that once I came down the stairs he was going to see me open a closet door and turn the alarm off on the front security gate. No gunfire. No resistance. As I calmly opened the front door, the agents refrained from storming the house. Lisa, dressed in her nightgown, was frightened and upset but maintained her composure. (According to FBI agents, it’s the spouses who can be the most abusive during a mob arrest.)

  While everyone kept their cool, Blair and the agents asked me if I needed to put on any clothes. Did I need to brush my teeth? Did I have any firearms in the house? After informing the officers about a skeet shooting shotgun and the Beretta 9 mm pistol in the bedroom, I led the agents upstairs, and asked, “Can you do me a big favor? Both of my children are sleeping in their bedrooms. Can we please be quiet? They’re little kids. I don’t want them startled.”

  Accompanied by two agents, I entered my bedroom and surrendered the two firearms. An agent stood outside the bathroom while I dressed and brushed my teeth. Once I finished I turned to the agent.

  “What’s the arrest for?”

  “Old stuff … RICO violations.”

  I felt a wave of relief. No mention of any recent drug dealing. Once downstairs I grabbed a sweatshirt while a distraught Lisa stood at the front door.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Call my father and tell him—”

  “No,” interjected an agent. “We’ve got your father.”

  “All right, then call Kurt and—”

  The agent shook his head. “We’ve got your brother, too.”

  “You know what, Lisa? Why don’t you just wait for me to call?”

  I didn’t bother bringing up Uncle Nick. An early riser, he had already stepped out for his morning coffee. His wife, Noreen, let in the agents, and they searched Nick’s three-flat from top to bottom, including the crawl spaces. He later turned himself in on advice of counsel.

  As the agents walked me outside, they placed me in cuffs before putting me in the backseat of the
car. Toward the end of the twenty-five-minute drive downtown to the federal building, I chuckled as we passed another government sedan with my dad sitting in the backseat. I gave him a nod. We hadn’t spoken in months.

  Before taking the crew members to the marshal’s lockup, they put me in a holding cell. What followed was a parade of family and crew being led in by agents. Next to arrive was my dad. Although we were estranged, I wanted him to know that I was concerned about him. We exchanged pleasantries. I asked how he was feeling. Was he okay?

  This was another time when I thought our relationship could change. Maybe this arrest will mellow my father and wake him up. He’ll see his sons standing up for him, while at the same time he’ll have our backs. We’ll stand together and get through this. He probably feels god-awful and responsible that Kurt and I are mixed up in this.

  Next Kurt was escorted into the holding cell. He was tossed, his hair and clothes disheveled.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “Didn’t they drag you out of the house?” Kurt asked.

  Kurt turned to Dad and asked him the same question.

  “No,” we replied in unison, shrugging.

  “They let me change, brush my teeth, and get ready. Why?” I said.

  “You let them into the house?” Kurt asked.

  “That’s what you do when they hand you a warrant for your arrest.”

  Kurt turned to our father. “Did you let them into the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kurt looked perplexed. “Didn’t you tell us to not let anybody into the house?”

  When the FBI came to Kurt’s front door, he refused to let them in. His wife was in her nightgown, screaming from the window, “Get the hell out of here. Leave my husband alone. He’s got nuthin’ to do with nuthin’.”

  Once Kurt opened the front door, he was bum-rushed by the agents and dragged into the middle of the street, placed on his stomach, and handcuffed.

  My father and I burst into laughter. “Now you’re a tough guy, huh?”

  The Calabrese RICO arrests turned into a reunion. After me, Dad, and Kurt came Philip “Pete” Fiore, one of the crew’s primary collectors. Then Uncle Nick. Even the guy doing the fingerprinting was jovial.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” one agent told Kurt. “I just heard from your lawyer.”

  “Yeah? What’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘The good news is, don’t worry about a thing. He’s going to get you out. But the bad news is it might take ten years.”

  Once Kurt and I were fingerprinted and photographed, the photographer pulled out a book filled with signed mug shots. He asked Kurt, “Do you think your father will sign this?”

  “I wouldn’t ask him,” Kurt cautioned. “He’ll never do anything like that.”

  Back at the holding cell, I took ribbing about my pink, green, and yellow Zodiac shoes.

  When my dad returned, the photographer came by the cell. “Hey, Frank, thank you!”

  “No problem.”

  “What did you do?” Kurt asked him.

  “The guy asked me to sign something for him.”

  I laughed at the look on my brother’s face and the thought of Dad signing some copper’s scrapbook filled with autographed mug shots. While he and Fiore whispered to each other, they kept an eye on the overhead security camera. I rolled up the sweatshirt I’d brought along, tucked it under my head, and took a nap. The crew and I would spend less than a day in jail.

  Back in Elmwood Park, Lisa and Angela exchanged frantic phone calls. Angela had spoken to Diane, who suggested they come to her house in Oak Brook to discuss the next step. Diane seemed calm, asking if Lisa had called “our” lawyer.

  “I didn’t know we had one,” was her rookie response.

  After the arraignment, the mug shot photographer from the cop shop warned me that there were reporters outside the federal building. “I’m gonna make sure you guys get out the back door.”

  Once the marshals ushered us out the back door, we were immediately spotted. As the photographers and reporters gathered, I proposed we split up and run for it. I remember running through one of the nearby hotels. It was funny. My dad, Uncle Nick, and Kurt ran up a set of stairs, and I slowed down like I was going to talk to the press, but as soon as they caught up, I started running again until I saw my dad, Nick, and Kurt coming down a set of stairs ahead of me. I tried to get the press to follow me while everybody else could escape. At one point, we all bumped into one another like the Keystone Kops. We dashed through a few rooms and lost the pack of reporters chasing us. I saw my father that night on the news running in his Bermuda shorts.

  Considering it was my first major arrest, it was surprisingly not too painful—until I overheard a conversation in the next room that gave me pause. One of the agents asked my father, “Why don’t you help your kids?”

  “My boys can take care of themselves,” he responded coldly.

  That bothered me. So much for standing together.

  Before appearing in front of the magistrate at the arraignment, Agent Blair sat me down.

  “Look, Frankie, you’ve got to make sure nobody gets hurt.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You guys better not hurt anybody.”

  “We’re not gonna hurt anybody,” I assured Agent Blair, and added, “By the way, do you think I can get my guns back? They’re not illegal.”

  “You’ve got bigger worries,” Agent Blair replied.

  It had taken five years for the FBI to nail the Calabrese crew, because the FBI takes its time gathering information … as long as the law allows. The Bureau is in no hurry to make an arrest unless an operation is immediately endangering the general public. Otherwise, FBI Organized Crime squads take as much time as they need, whether it’s months or years. Federal prosecutors prefer to walk into a courtroom with nothing less than a slam-dunk case.

  The 1995 Calabrese RICO case had its inherent weaknesses, especially the charges against Kurt. There was the possibility that Matt Russo might not come across as the most credible witness. In a pretrial victory, the judge ruled that the Calabreses couldn’t be referred to as “the Calabrese Street Crew,” insinuating the group’s association with the Outfit.

  After the arrests, the Calabrese RICO case didn’t attract much publicity in Chicago’s newspapers. Had we contested the case and fought, Kurt might have skated, especially if my dad and uncle had pleaded guilty, with one of the conditions being Kurt’s severance. Instead, the crew, led by the intimidating Frank senior, decided to plead out and let Kurt fend for himself. The entire process—the bust, bail, plea-bargaining, and final sentencing—would last two years.

  By the Fourth of July holiday in 1997, I had conceded that I needed to speed up the process so that I could begin serving my sentence and get on with life. Rather than postpone the inevitable with various delays, it was time to face the music, make a deal, and go inside. I needed to free myself from the clutches of cocaine and my father. Using drugs, I figured, was the surest way to have my bail revoked, so my strategy was to test positive for cocaine and ask for drug treatment. Blowing off a meeting with my presentencing investigation officer, after which I’d “pee dirty,” would seal my fate. I hoped that would convince the G to send me off for eighteen months of drug treatment, which would be credited toward my sentence. This would be done on the QT, without anybody finding out. I would make my escape from my father while doing my time. But convincing the government of my drug addiction would take some doing. After I intentionally missed my presentencing meeting, the government was still skeptical. Not everyone who asked got shipped off for drug treatment.

  On the night of July 3, I was in Elmwood Park at the annual street festival and feast, manning a booth and frying calamari with Danny Alberga. Lisa, the kids, and a few friends were with Danny and me. The calamari was selling briskly.

  Suddenly from out of nowhere I felt a vise grip on my left wrist. Startled, I looked over to find it was my dad
with his cold deadly stare. As I tried to pull away, he squeezed my wrist tighter, then leaned in and whispered, “I got two guys trained on you. Don’t try to run. Come with me. I just wanna talk to you.”

  With Lisa and Danny looking on in disbelief, I scanned the crowd in search of two shooters. Would he gun me down in public? Rather than call his bluff and possibly endanger my friends and children, I relented. “Let go of my wrist so I can put down the fry basket. Then we can talk.”

  As we walked toward the parking lot, I scanned the crowd again for any gunmen, and realized there were probably none. We found a remote spot near the lot to sit down and talk.

  “What the hell is going on with you, Frankie?” my father asked. “I got a call from your presentencing officer. She told me you missed your appointment and she couldn’t get hold of you. She’s concerned. I told her I’d find you and bring you in right away.”

  Knowing that I would soon be going to jail, I decided it was time to confess.

  “Dad, the reason I’m playing around with the PSI officer is so I can get a court date and have my bail status revoked and start doing my time. That way after going to the MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center], I can enter a drug program and get eighteen months off my sentence. In two weeks I’m going to court, and they’re gonna lock me up.”

  I gazed into his puzzled face. I could see the wheels turning. With me in jail, he would lose control of his son. I had known since we began butting heads that he worried that one day I might turn on him. I knew more than enough about my father to put him away for life. But that wasn’t my intention.

  “I’m gonna be straight with you. I’ve been selling and doing cocaine for a while … but on my kids, it’s over. That’s why I need to start my sentence. I need to get away and get clean.”

  My father’s face froze in disbelief and anger. My cocaine confession took him completely by surprise.

  The morning I left to go to court to stand in front of the judge for violating my bond, I knew two things: One, I would never do cocaine again. Two, Dad was not going to contribute a dime toward my defense, and we would have to sell the house. I was on my own financially.