Family Affair_Greed, Treachery, and Betrayal in the Chicago Mafia

by Sam Giancana

  FRANK JR.: ...Are they gonna make sure that you got no problem with that, if they had to go to that extreme, because they don’t want a problem with you? That’s your brother.

  FRANK SR.: Frank, with all due respect, how I feel about that....No, I would, that, that, in fact if something did happen, I will send my blessing.

  He talked about the future—what he wanted his son to do when he got released from prison:FRANK SR.:What I’d like to see here done, is maybe when you get on the street, talk to the big guy about this guy getting his fucking legs broken.

  FRANK JR.: I’ll do that

  FRANK SR.: Because he didn’t do it once, he did it twice

  FRANK JR.: Yeah, right.

  FRANK SR.: ...But the thing is, he put his fucking hands on the kids once after being told don’t do it again. He went back a second time. So, he deserves what he gets.

  He talked about his initiation into the mafia and being made:FRANK SR.:Their fingers got cut and everybody puts the fingers together and all the blood is running down. Then they take pictures, put them in your hand and burn them

  FRANK JR.: Pictures of?

  FRANK SR.: Holy pictures

  FRANK JR.: Oh

  FRANK SR.: You stand there like this.

  There are the holy pictures. And they look at you and see if you budge while the pictures are burning. They wait till they’re getting down to the skin. Then they take them out of there.

  FRANK JR.: What happens if you budge?

  FRANK SR.:Then it shows your fear That you have fear. You stand there like that with your hand cupped like that. Then they say okay. Then you take them and go like this....One guy at a time. You don’t see two up there. One guy, when one guy’s on it, the other guy’s sitting somewhere else. In the same place, but in a different room. There’s a panel like that, about nine guys.

  FRANK JR.: Ah, I thought, I always thought it was just in the movies

  FRANK SR.: Very, very close, very close, very close. And the guy that’s the second guy in charge is the guy that talks to you. Everybody else is the capos.

  FRANK JR.: They just sit there?

  FRANK SR.: They’re watching you

  FRANK JR.: And what do you got to do... the guy that brought you in, he’s there with you, too?

  FRANK SR.: The guys that brought you in there is a capo. He’s sitting at the table too.

  He talked about mob politics, which people and crews in The Outfit wielded the most power, made the most money, and treated their men the best: FRANK SR.: Okay, he was even commenting about it. That the Bull [Angelo La Pietra], that he won’t give us nothing. We ask for this and he won’t give us that. It was fucking him by fucking us. Because we were loyal to him and we were getting fucked.

  FRANK JR.: Yeah

  FRANK SR.: I’ll give you a for instance. Look what Johnny [John “No Nose” Di Fronzo] did for every one of his guys.

  He got them all legitimate businesses.

  He made it a point for them all to get legit. Every time we wanted to open a legitimate business, he [La Pietra] would talk us out of it. Okay, Johnny out of everybody, Johnny was the smartest.... Johnny thought in all directions.

  FRANK JR.: Oh

  FRANK SR.: ...Joey [Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo] and Johnny are partners

  FRANK JR.: Right, right

  FRANK SR.: See, anything that went on between them, they always got a piece of it.

  FRANK JR.: What do you think he’s worth?

  FRANK SR.: Joey? Oh, Johnny’s worth more.

  FRANK JR.: Oh, really?

  FRANK SR.: Oh, without a doubt. Johnny, just in assets, Johnny’s got to be worth about 25 million dollars. Just in assets that we know of.

  FRANK JR.: Wow!

  FRANK SR.: Frankie, he has two car dealerships too....He’s got that, ah, he owns, I hate to tell you how many buildings he owns on Grand Avenue and in River Grove over there....

  FRANK JR.: ...Johnny don’t do nothing right now, he just..

  FRANK SR.: Huh?

  FRANK JR.: Kinda stays to himself now

  FRANK SR.: Yeah, he stepped down, Frank.

  ...See Joey’s got the spot now.

  FRANK JR.:Yeah, I remember you saying that

  FRANK SR.: But there’s a lot of friction. You got South Side guys and the friction in the group. Its all one system, but you have friction.

  FRANK JR.: With the groups?

  FRANK SR.: You have, you’re getting Johnny, Johnny’s guys, Joey’s not getting along with, ah, not with our Johnny Apes [John Montelone], but with the old man. What the fuck’s his name? Al [Alphonse

  “Al the Pizza Man” Tornebene], Al. I don’t think you ever met him. He’s from, ah....

  FRANK JR.: Far south?

  FRANK SR.: Not far south...he had a pizza joint there for years. He’s a sleeper, nobody knew who he was. I knew he was... he used to work in the pizza joint and he’s the boss....[Y]ou see years ago, you got head and legs broken for that. Its gotten looser and looser

  FRANK JR.: Hmm, real loose, especially around Elmwood Park. Anybody does whatever they want

  FRANK SR.: I’m gonna tell you something, uh, the best crew you got down there

  is still Chinatown. The best crew. I’m talking about men.

  FRANK JR.: Yeah, I know

  FRANK SR.:The, uh, the money makers though are Elmwood Park

  He talked about dirty police officers, his two moles in the Chicago police department, Anthony “Twan” Doyle and Michael “Mooney” Ricci, who fed him information regarding on going law enforcement investigations:FRANK JR.: Oh, I thought it was Twan [Doyle] who told Mike [Ricci]

  FRANK SR.: No, Twan is going to find out when the stuff went missing

  FRANK JR.: Oh, okay. So all right, so its Mike, so this way nobody says anything

  FRANK SR.: Right, Mike’s been doing this for years now

  FRANK JR.: So he’s going, so, he’ll keep in touch with you?

  FRANK SR.: Yeah, he’s coming again in April

  FRANK JR.: ‘Cause he’s coming like once every month

  FRANK SR.: He’s coming in April again.

  In fact, he’s coming with Twan. In the meantime, if something comes up that’s important, he’ll be here before then

  He talked about who he thought was being disloyal, his belief that his former running mate and convicted murderer, James “Jimmy Poker” Di Forti, was talking to the FBI:FRANK SR.: See what happened here, when Jimmy come out, a week later they pulled all his stuff from the case...that’s when they gave him bond and he went on home monitoring....Now, the two g men, Mike [Ricci] gives ’em a guy. They take the guy near his office and they call over and he’s not on [home monitoring]. He says, yeah, I don’t understand, he’s supposed to be on home monitoring, why isn’t he?

  FRANK JR.: Mike said this?

  FRANK SR.: No the g guy

  FRANK JR.: Oh, okay

  FRANK SR.: Okay. Now this is, follow this

  FRANK JR.: I am, I’m listening

  FRANK SR.: All right, so now the guy comes back the next day and tells Mike, listen disregard what I was telling you. I got my ass eaten out by my supervisor. And he says, my supervisor told me that, ah, I shouldn’t be sticking my nose in it because there’s something here that doesn’t concern me. I go to Mike, I says, this is god, god’s working with us. He’s showing you what’s going on here, that this Jimmy Di Forti is cooperating.... So, now he tells me, he says, it sounds to me Frank, as if its one hundred percent that this guy’s working with the g.

  [Ironically, Jimmy Di Forti was not cooperating with the government.]

  FRANK JR.: Mike said this?

  FRANK SR.: Why wasn’t he at, because he wasn’t on the monitoring. His name never came up and it was supposed to

  He talked about the infamous Spilotro brothers’ murders:FRANK SR.: Frank, he [Tony Spilotro] was stealing like crazy. He was doing things like crazy. He was also involved with drugs from what I understand....Yeah, Michael was a good kid. H
e was good.

  Tony ruined him. Tony, he had him believing that he was the boss....That’s the last spot you ever want to try to say you want....So, the old man [Joseph “Joey Doves” Aiuppa] was going away remember?

  FRANK JR.: Joey?

  FRANK SR.: Joey Aiuppa was going away. Ange [Angelo La Pietra] was going away. A lot of them were going away and he [Tony Spilotro] knew they were going away and he wanted the spot....Joey Aiuppa had a meeting before they all went away to jail and he told them he wanted him [Tony Spilotro] knocked down. I don’t care how you do it. Get him. I want him out.

  FRANK JR.: So, Johnny was the one that set it all up?

  FRANK SR.: Johnny went to [Sam “Wings”] Carlisi to open the door and he says, he’ll bite. To make his brother without him there it ain’t gonna work. So, they got an old house with Carlisi and you know who was there? There was almost fifteen guys there.

  FRANK JR.: Why so many guys?

  FRANK SR.: Because they thought they were being made when they walked in

  May 21, 1999

  FRANK SR.: That was just like Tony Spilotro when he [Joey Aiuppa] found out about that he was fucking that guys wife. That is a no, no. That is a no, no....

  FRANK JR.: Right

  FRANK SR.: Now, that’s a no, no. That’s a friend and that’s a commandment. He, right then, a nail went into his coffin. Right then, that was one nail. The first, the thing that opened up the Pandora’s box was when he found out that he had made some accusations that fuck those people in Chicago, I’m gonna be the new guy.

  He talked about previous murders he played a part in:Feb 14, 1999

  FRANK JR.: ‘Cause, that’s when he was trying to tell me how dangerous the tall guy was. Ya know, he said he was the one who was with you that time with...

  FRANK SR.: The farmer [William Dauber]

  FRANK JR.: Yeah, and his wife.

  FRANK SR.: Yeah

  FRANK JR.: And they were trying to make you look like a bad guy too, because he was saying the wife was innocent....

  FRANK SR.: Wait, wait, wait a minute. I want to show you right there. I want to show you right there.

  FRANK JR.: What?

  FRANK SR.: He knows nothing about that... its all what he read. He has no idea of no conception. But you want me to tell you about an innocent guy. Tell him about half and half in Cicero. Shooting the man next to the guy who had nothing to do with nothing. That he was involved with...and now you’ll say, well wait a minute. He just said about my father being, ah, being with the innocent one over there. And yet this woman, but he didn’t think about what this other guy, who had nothing to do with this other guy at all completely. An innocent Polish guy who worked everyday from eight to five.

  March 13, 1999

  FRANK SR.:Then he hit him [John Fecoratta] in the head. That’s when he hit him in the head, the second time. He hit him once in the body and he’s holding his pistol, ’cause the more I thought about this, I remember that he had to cut his glove off.

  FRANK JR.: ‘Cause of the bullet he did?

  FRANK SR.: I’m 99 percent sure

  FRANK JR.: What did he do with them?

  FRANK SR.: I think we got rid of it

  FRANK JR.: Really?

  FRANK SR.: Yeah. Or I think he might of thrown it into a sewer. If he did, it was when he threw his jacket away....Okay? And he’s turning, and he’s turning and, he’s fighting ’em with that hand. That’s what...

  FRANK JR.: See, I couldn’t understand last time you said that. I thought he probably just went like this and then ya know, was holding him

  FRANK SR.: Instead of him stepping out of the car like he was supposed to, he stepped out of the car as you’re stepping of the car...and then turn.

  He’s gonna pull forward, then you shoot, like that.

  FRANK JR.: Do you think, any chance he mighta taken one of the gloves off on the car anywhere and touched the car?

  FRANK SR.: No, because there’s too much excitement going on.

  May 21, 1999

  FRANK SR.: But it was the fall of that year [1970] he [Nick Calabrese] did one of those with me, which was an okayed one.

  FRANK JR.: Oh

  FRANK SR.: Okay, he did one with me. But where we put that person, its no longer there. It’s gone. They had dug up there and made a parking lot.

  FRANK JR.: Oh, okay.

  FRANK SR.: Okay, when we did it, a building was going up there. And the person went down pretty and we put lime, lime that eats in there, and it was there for a long, long, long time....So, there was no clothes on the person. We stripped him. So, so that’s the one he [Nick Calabrese] could go back to and say, it’s in that spot.

  FRANK JR.: ...I mean he claimed he knew about the Dauber one, but...

  FRANK SR.: Don’t even mention that name

  FRANK JR.: Dauber?

  FRANK SR.: Yeah

  FRANK JR.: I don’t, the wife one?

  FRANK SR.: How could he not?

  FRANK JR.: I know Dad, but he made it sound like you told ’em

  FRANK SR.: Yeah, well he made it sound like I purposely went after the wife

  FRANK JR.: Yeah, I know

  FRANK SR.: I mean, Frank, I wasn’t even in that vehicle. I was in the look out vehicle.

  The FBI had hit pay dirt. They could not have asked for more. Operation Family Secrets was off and running.

  Throughout the next few years, numerous more inquiries were made by the FBI of Nick Calabrese, requesting his cooperation in building its case against The Outfit in exchange for not charging him with the John Fecoratta murder. Staying true to the oath of allegiance he had pledged to the mafia almost two decades earlier, he continually refused. After hearing scuttlebutt that Nicky Breeze was being squeezed by the feds and fearing his cooperation would implicate him in the Spilotro brothers murder, Jimmy Marcello began sending Calabrese’s wife $4,000 a month as payment for keeping quiet. It was another incentive to stay loyal.

  In one last-ditch effort to persuade him to switch sides, sometime in early 2001, the FBI sent a team of agents back up to Pekin to see him and play a portion of the tape recordings made by his nephew of his brother Frank. Specifically, the portions that demonstrated Frank Sr.’s indifference to and potential sanctioning of his murder. It took a while, but a little over twelve months later, Nick Calabrese was singing a different tune. And, as it turned out, it was a tune that was music to the government’s ears.

  “We’d been trying to flip Nicky for a real long time, I’m talking several months,” recalls Bourgeois. “He was a tough nut to crack, but I think common sense finally made him come around. He knew that either we were going to get him, make him stay in jail the rest of his life or put him down for good with the lethal injection needle, or The Outfit was going to have him killed. Once they found out about the investigation we were putting together, he was a goner. And believe me, when you’re sitting behind bars, in a lot of ways its a lot easier for the mob to get to you than it is when you’re on the street. So, he really didn’t have many options at this point. I think the final straw came when we played him the tapes of his brother giving his blessing if he was to ever have a murder contract issued on his life. There was no place left for him to turn. His brother, no matter how much he hated him, had always been his sanctuary, his ultimate protection. Now that was gone. It didn’t happen quickly. Nicky had a long time to think about what he was going to do. In my opinion, he probably would have flipped even if his brother wouldn’t have been caught on tape saying that stuff. Nonetheless, Nicky told his wife to reach out to us. When she did, the Family Secrets investigation went into overdrive. We went out there to the prison, got him, debriefed him, and the rest was history.”