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

by Frank Calabrese

  “Listen, you wear the same khakis as me. Why don’t you get up on the dock and help us?”

  I got the Thousand-Yard Stare.

  My father had a learning disability—and is probably dyslexic. It was difficult for him to read the order sheets. Out of pride, though, he didn’t want anyone to know. At first, inmates went out of their way to help him, but soon the rest of the commissary staff grew tired of his antics. It came to a head when a female CO took him to task and my dad got back in her face. I looked over at the commotion. The guard was ready to write him up. I approached her.

  “Look, do me a favor. I know you want to send him to the hole and fire him, but let me talk to him and see if I can’t get him out of here.”

  The CO agreed to give him one chance.

  Later that night, I took him aside on the yard. “Dad, you’ve got to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You got in her face. She was going to write you up and send you to the hole. But I fixed it so you could walk in there, quit, and get your other job back, and it doesn’t go on your record.”

  My father became indignant. “I don’t need you fixin’ nothin’ for me. Got it?”

  Our relationship slid from bad to worse. Each time I gained a little distance, he closed the gap.

  His multiple personalities reared their various heads behind prison walls. He could be very likable. The guys loved the Good Dad and the Street-Smart Mobster. But the cold stare of a hit man chilled them. We were polar opposites while inmates assumed we were of similar temperament.

  Inside prison, the smallest things were magnified. During a “Movie Day” for the commissary workers, a video was brought in from the outside and shown in the backroom. Since it was only a TV hooked up to a VHS player, the guards were willing to look the other way. I invited Dad to watch Face/Off starring John Travolta.

  “Come in and watch a movie at the commissary. But don’t say nothin’ to nobody!”

  Movie Day was another perk that could turn into a political hassle among the general population. But after he hit the yard inviting his friends, one of the guards approached me. “Frankie, what the fuck?”

  I met Dad on the boccie court. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What?”

  “Who are you inviting to Movie Day? I told you to say nothing. Please, this isn’t like you. You used to know how to keep things to yourself. What’s going on?”

  After receiving his nearly ten-year sentence, my father continued to waver on his promise to pay my $150,000 fine. Whenever the subject came up, he would wave it off or change the subject. With the arguments and friction we were having, I remained convinced that my father was not going to come through.

  Life was hard on the outside for Lisa and the kids. Other than my father giving Lisa six thousand dollars—in exchange for a signed promissory note and a lien on the house—my family received no support from the Calabrese family or crew. With only her job at the commodities exchange, Lisa fell months behind on the mortgage and lost the house. When the house was sold, he collected his six thousand. After the government took its share toward my fine, Lisa was left with nothing. People assumed my dad was taking care of Lisa and the kids while I was locked up. Losing the house proved to be the last straw. Lisa filed for divorce, and she and the kids moved in with her grandmother.

  With news of the divorce, I hit rock bottom. I’d lost everything—my family, my house, my savings, and now my marriage. Yet despite the money stashed away in Chicago and the property, it was clear: my father was not going to pitch in to help.

  Once he was transferred to H-Unit while I was still in G-Unit, I enjoyed the distance. One evening I was lying in my bunk with the lights out when I suddenly opened my eyes. I was startled by a daunting figure standing in the doorway of my cell.

  “Psst. Frankie.”

  “Dad! What are doing here? You’re not supposed to be in this unit.”

  “The guy let me in. He knows me.”

  It was the final straw. I was divorced, broke, and locked up, and now my biggest nightmare was inside my unit, breaching what little privacy I had. How much worse could it get? I needed to confirm my suspicions and find out if he was active on the streets.

  I used my connections on the outside to find out what was going on. The news wasn’t good. It was terrible. Not that I was surprised, but my father was very much in business. The assurances were lies. I found out he had Ronnie Jarrett running the crew and that both Ralph Peluso and Michael Talarico were reporting to Ronnie. But what shocked me was that he had Nick Ferriola booking for him.

  I needed to make a decision. With my hopes dashed, I sat for weeks in my cell, sickened that he was lying to me. I couldn’t confront him over what I had discovered. That would only endanger the lives of those who had supplied me with the information. I knew I couldn’t trust him to do what was right or what was best for the family.

  I thought about going to my counselor to get transferred so that I could wash my hands of him. I could lie about wanting to be closer to my kids or say that I didn’t feel safe at Milan anymore.

  I scrapped both options. I knew that once Dad, Uncle Nick, and I were released, the streets wouldn’t be big enough to hide on. Once released, my father would remain out of control, the crew would be revitalized, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing I could do to stop him. Somebody had to stop him; otherwise nothing would change. After some consideration, my situation boiled down to two impossible alternatives.

  Do I play this out and take it to the streets so that when we both get out, one of us ends up dead while the other rots in prison for life? Or do I contact the FBI and offer to help keep my sick, manipulative, sociopathic father in jail for life?

  I hated both options. Contacting the FBI meant not knowing exactly what was in store working with law enforcement. The FBI was convinced that it had shut the Calabrese crew down. But I knew better. I’d have to convince the Bureau otherwise. Could the FBI be trusted? Were the agents competent? Would they even believe me?

  I had two choices, neither one good: Kill my father before he killed me or reach out to the FBI.

  Knowing that I couldn’t live with myself if I killed my father, I decided to reach out to the FBI. But how? In prison, where privacy was nonexistent, I needed to be extremely careful about how and with whom I communicated. Choosing the right method was a matter of life and death.

  A phone call to the FBI was out of the question. Outgoing calls were taped and monitored. If I was going to take the plunge, not one person or entity could be trusted, no inmate or cellmate, no guard or counselor, not the warden himself. Being exposed as a beefer was equal to a death sentence.

  Dad had already received one anonymous piece of hate mail threatening him. He suspected it was from Uncle Joe, which gave me an idea. I would send the FBI a letter. This would be the safest way to move forward.

  My plan was simple: compose a one-page letter, typed, unsigned, and sanitized so that, although my name was on it, no one could positively confirm that I sent the letter. I took every precaution while typing the letter, stashing crumpled drafts in my shirt.

  Sending a letter was my only option. Prison authorities rarely, if ever, read an inmate’s outgoing mail. I was aware of the Outfit reach inside law enforcement. The letter had to be a complete secret. Whom should I send it to?

  I scoured my PSI forms and court documents for any particular FBI agents assigned to my case. One name stood out: Agent Tom Bourgeois. He had worked on the RICO case involving Matt Russo. Bourgeois was not only a supervising agent on the Organized Crime squad, but he was gung ho and seemingly untouchable. Although it was a shot in the dark, I felt that reaching out to Bourgeois was a fail-safe way to deal with my father. If my mail was intercepted, I could blame my embittered uncle Joe or the FBI, who often used disinformation campaigns to divide and conquer organized crime.

  I walked into the empty prison library early that morning to type my letter. It wasn’t in my nature to coo
perate with law enforcement. It was viewed as weak. The FBI was seen as an adversary whose resources were potentially limitless. Before now, the thought of assisting them was out of the realm of possibility. But I realized that my relationship with my dad was at a dead end.

  July 27, 1998. After a couple of horrible weeks watching him maintain his facade, I dropped the letter into the Milan prison mailbox knowing I was taking a life-altering step.

  The moment I sent it, I knew I had crossed the line. Cooperating meant I would probably have to give up Uncle Nick for his crimes, and that was agonizing.

  The final draft of my letter read in full:

  ATTN: Thomas Bourghois [sic]

  I am sending you this letter in total confidentiality. It is very important that you show or talk to nobody about this letter except who you have to. The less people that know I am contacting you the more I can and will help and be able to help you. What I am getting at is I want to help you and the GOVT. I need for you and only you to come out to MILAN FCI and we can talk face to face.

  NOBODY not even my lawyers know that I am sending you this letter, it is better that way for my safety. Hopefully we can come to an agreement when and if you choose to COME HERE. Please if you decide to come make sure very few staff at MILAN know your reason for coming because if they do they might tell my father and that would be a danger to me. The best days to come would be TUES. or WEDS. Please no recordings of any kind just bring pen and lots of paper. This is no game. I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever.

  FRANK CALABRESE JR.

  06738–424 inmate #

  UNIT G-Right

  FCI MILAN MICHIGAN

  Months passed. I received no response. I kept my guard up just in case the letter had been intercepted. One day a CO called me aside and whispered to me, “SIS called and they want you to come over right away.” The Special Investigative Service office housed the prison police force.

  I feigned surprise. The request had to be about the letter. The SIS chief ushered me into a small windowless room with a table and a few chairs. A few minutes later FBI Agent Tom Bourgeois walked in and sat down.

  Bourgeois had his doubts about me and decided to put me to the test. There were legal issues and a lot of questions. Did my attorney know about my sending the letter? What were my intentions in writing the letter, and what did I want in return? Was I unhappy doing my time? Had my father and I had a falling-out?

  Was I willing to wear a wire?

  I said no to the wire because I felt my father was way too smart and careful. He wouldn’t talk about any of his activities with the Outfit and the crew, or if he did and if he “caught the play,” he would kill me like he would kill anybody else who betrayed him.

  But after a couple of weeks of reflection, I changed my mind. I felt I had to wear a wire after all.

  After a second FBI interview with Agent Bourgeois and another agent, Scott Brooks, I agreed to wear the wire. Then Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitch Mars asked to speak with me. In November 1998, Bourgeois returned to FCI Milan with Mars for a third FBI meeting. After a short meeting, both were satisfied that I would go the distance.

  When Agent Bourgeois returned to FCI Milan for a fourth time in January 1999 with fellow agents Kevin Blair and Mike Hartnett, I “gave” the FBI the 1986 John Fecarotta hit. I detailed the planning my father, my uncle, and I had done before the hit and conceded that Uncle Nick was involved. I admitted to Hartnett that I had retrieved the gun from the sewer.

  The first meetings with “Tyler,” my new code name, were fruitful. The facts about Fecarotta’s death passed muster with Mitch Mars and the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As Tyler, I could provide the Feds with any possible communications or street crew activity going on between Dad and the outside world.

  In January 1999, Agent Michael Maseth was assigned to my case, which centered on my pledge to testify against my father. I took one look at the boyish Maseth and shook my head. This guy looked much too young to be an FBI agent. Had I made the right decision? Was the Bureau taking this operation seriously enough? In February, I alerted Maseth that crooked cop Michael Ricci and another policeman named Anthony Doyle were going to visit my father in FCI Milan to discuss what was going on with some evidence. As a result Mike and the squad obtained a wiretap order from a judge and went fishing for information.

  With new light cast on the death of Fecarotta and with me implicating my father and uncle, the FBI went to work. It was time for the Bureau to reopen the case and retrieve a golden piece of evidence stored in the Chicago PD evidence locker for thirteen years: the bloody gloves worn and dropped by Uncle Nick. The handing over of a piece of the bloody gloves to the Feds for DNA testing became of particular interest to a couple of Outfit moles (and personal friends of my dad). Retired cop Mike Ricci had moved over to the Cook County Sheriff’s office from the Chicago Police Department to become head of the Home Monitoring unit. Anthony “Twan” Doyle, a veteran CPD officer, worked in the evidence room and had computer access to information about the Feds’ interest in the gloves.

  Once the FBI was alerted through me and other sources that the mob was aware of the bloody gloves, a plan was hatched. Young Agent Maseth would act as a decoy to exploit any mob leaks that might have developed among Ricci, Doyle, and my father regarding the Fecarotta murder.

  It was common knowledge among the feds that Deputy Ricci “was kinky” and cozy with the mob, and especially with my father. The two had been partners in a hot-dog stand, and Ricci didn’t care who knew about it. So Agent Mike reached out to Ricci, who manned the administrative post with the Sheriff’s Department.

  Mike visited Ricci at the Sheriff’s office in April 1999 posing as a naive rookie and brought along female agent Tracy Balinao, who looked just as youthful. Mike pulled out a picture of Jimmy DiForti and handed it to Ricci. At the time, DiForti was out on bond and was supposed to be on home monitoring, but due to an administrative snarl, he wasn’t.

  “This guy is a mobster,” Maseth told Ricci, “and he’s out on $2.5 million bond. Why isn’t he on home monitoring?”

  Maseth and Balinao were sent to play dumb. They didn’t care about DiForti. Their mission was to “tickle the wire” to see whether or not Ricci would tip off my father about any pending investigations, especially the reopened Fecarotta case and the gloves. Mike noticed on Ricci’s office wall a picture about the notorious Scheussler-Peterson murders, a case resurrected from 1955, when three young boys were found dead and molested in a ditch. Through the toil of detectives like Ricci, the case was reopened, and the killer was arrested and convicted in 1995.

  “You know what’s interesting?” Mike said, pointing to the framed photo. “With today’s technology, we can actually go back thirty years to solve cases using DNA. In fact, we’re working on a couple of cases that go back years.”

  Ricci nodded with interest.

  Two days later, Maseth phoned Ricci again, prodding him further. “Listen, Mike, can you do me a favor? Forget I was at your office talking about Jimmy DiForti. After I got back and told my bosses about our meeting, I got my ass chewed out. Forget I was there.”

  The ambush was set. Would Ricci and Doyle take the bait and reach out to my father?

  As the case, now code-named Operation Family Secrets, gained traction in January and February of 1999, I gave Agents Mike Hartnett and Kevin Blair the urgent news that my father would be visited by Mike Ricci and Twan Doyle in a week. Maseth flew up to Milan and combed through tapes of my father’s incoming calls. Armed with the Milan daily phone logs, Maseth listened to countless monitored prison phone calls on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder.

  Scanning through the tapes, he located a conversation between Mike Ricci and my dad confirming their visit for February 19, only a few days away.

  Agents Mike Maseth and Mike Hartnett, whom I had nicknamed “the Two Mikes,” knew that Ricci was in deep with my father. As for Anthony Doyle, had Twan gained access to the bloody glove befo
re CPD officer Laurie Lewis sent it off to the FBI OC1 squad, chances are he would have destroyed it. Out on the street, Frank “Toots” Caruso, Johnny Apes, and Ronnie Jarrett were put on red alert to help find the mole.

  Little Jimmy Marcello was holed up in FCI Pekin along with Uncle Nick and his cellmate, Harry Aleman. Marcello was serving a twelve-year stretch for juice loans and ordering the firebombing of an Oak Park movie theater in a union dispute. Originally serving as a driver and emissary for bosses Joey Aiuppa and Sam “Wings” Carlisi, Marcello had reached the upper echelon of the Outfit. Calling the shots while incarcerated in Pekin, Marcello regularly communicated in code with his half brother Mickey Marcello. Word was out that the bloody gloves and the reopened Fecarotta case posed a tremendous problem, and the Outfit needed to know who was supplying the Feds with highly incriminating information.

  The Two Mikes needed to get the wire up in the Milan visiting lounge pronto if they were going to tape the upcoming visit to my father. Here was their chance to catch two crooked cops leaking valuable information to a key Outfit figure. There wasn’t a minute to waste. Instead of the necessary three weeks of prep work it would ordinarily take, Hartnett and Maseth had three days to appear before a federal court judge in Detroit, seek probable cause (PC), and line up the proper Title III Wiretap Intercept affidavits to roll tape and video the upcoming meeting.

  With Maseth’s growing knowledge of DiForti and the Fecarotta case and his criminal law background, he was named administrative agent for Operation Family Secrets. It was now his responsibility to take care of the technical details securing the wiretap at Milan. While Hartnett wrote and swore out the necessary affidavits in Detroit, Maseth made sure the paperwork between the courts and the Bureau was “administratively pure.”

  On Friday, February 19, 1999, the day of the Ricci and Doyle visit, permission for the wire had still not been granted. That morning, as Doyle and Ricci made their way up to Milan by automobile (a five-hour, 250-mile drive from Chicago), a federal court judge still hadn’t given Hartnett and Maseth’s wiretap the green light. The clock was ticking, with Hartnett stuck in the judge’s Detroit chambers finalizing the Title III order. The delay left Maseth wringing his hands on the Milan prison grounds, where the warden held off any further action until they had permission. A holding cell next to the visitors’ lounge was already set up for surveillance. With permission, Maseth would only have to slip into the adjoining room to monitor the video and sound of my father’s noontime visit.