by Sam Giancana
When Blitzstein got back to his home on West Vernon Avenue around 6:00 P.M., Davi and Friedman were already there, waiting for their prey in the back of the house. Entering through the front doorway with his cell phone in hand, Fat Herbie encountered Davi, equipped with a .38-caliber revolver and Friedman brandishing a .22-caliber pistol.
Before an astonished Blitzstein could utter a word, Friedman shot him in the face. Down on one knee, a bloodied Fat Herbie looked up to his assailants and asked, “Oh no, why me? ” Without a response, Friedman went to shoot him again, but his gun jammed. Showing little hesitation, Davi handed him his weapon and Friedman unloaded another shot into his target. Slumping into a nearby black leather recliner, Blitzstein was knocking on death’s door. Just as they were about to leave, Friedman finished off the job by shooting Fat Herbie in the back of the head, making certain there was no chance he would survive the attack. On their way home, Davi took Friedman’s cell phone and called Alfred Mauriello, telling him, “The party went well,” a prearranged code to let him know the job was complete. Fat Herbie was dead and all hell was about to break loose.
THE fallout from the Blitzstein murder, although slow to develop, was significant. The homicide took the situation into an entirely different stratosphere—both for law enforcement and the mob. The FBI saw it as an opportunity to deliver a final death blow to the West Coast crime syndicate, and with Operation Thin Crust already in full bloom, open yet another case against the L.A. mob, this one to be known as “Operation Button-Down.” The mafia and their associates who carried out the Blitzstein hit were forced to go into cover-their-ass mode and try to protect themselves against the possibility of unanticipated lengthy prison sentences. The result was myriad cooperating wiseguys aiding the government in the takedown of a large portion of the already-reeling Milano crime family.
From the moment Fat Herbie’s lifeless body was discovered by Joe De Luca the morning after Davi and Friedman had murdered him, things began spiraling downward. First off, the two underworld factions that organized the plan to strong-arm Blitzstein began to fight over the riches they had inherited upon his death. Only a few days after the homicide, Bobby Panaro was informed by the L.A.-based mobsters that he and his benefactors in Buffalo would be getting shut out of receiving any percentage of Blitzstein’s rackets. An incensed Panaro, who had previously negotiated a 50 percent take of Fat Herbie’s auto repair shop and a share of the more than $200,000 in street loans, was told by his superiors in Buffalo to back off. He did. Less than four months later he was indicted.
Secondly, and significantly more detrimental to the Milano crew, John Branco, who was told of the killing on the afternoon of January 7 at a lunch meeting with Pete Caruso, was immediately instructed by his handlers in the FBI to drop everything else he was doing for the government and to make ascertaining who was in on the carrying out of the murder his one and only priority. Branco was fast to get to work, and on January 30 he got Caruso to admit on tape to hiring Alfred Mauriello to farm out the job to Davi and Friedman. Three months later, he got Mauriello talking on tape about his role in the plot. By May, a twenty-five-person, 101-count indictment was levied against the Milano camp, including charges of murder against Pete Caruso, Panaro, Mauriello, Davi, Friedman, Cino, and De Luca.
The first one to turn was Joe De Luca. Being locked in jail without bond for two months didn’t sit well with De Luca, who was guilt ridden over double-crossing his business partner. So in June he went to the FBI and offered up his cooperation. Although it would take almost another two years for the case to go to trial, other turncoats would follow De Luca’s lead.
In the beginning of April 1999, just three weeks before jury selection at his trial was set to start, Alfred Mauriello pleaded guilty to one count of murder in aid of a racketeering conspiracy, and in return for a reduced sentence, agreed to testify against his alleged co-conspirators in court. One week later, Antonio Davi flipped. He pled guilty to the murder and for the promise of a twenty-year prison sentence, also agreed to testify against his co-defendants. Then on April 27, the morning opening arguments in the trial were to begin, Louie Caruso charged with racketeering, but not the Blitzstein murder specifically and was given a two and a half year prison sentence for benefiting from the burglary of Fat Herbie’s house.
Carmen Milano, facing a slew of racketeering charges, decided to turn government witness as well. Though he would eventually recant his cooperation, the underboss’s debriefing by the FBI yielded a great deal of information on the West Coast’s most prevalent mafia family. Pete Caruso died of a heart attack in the months leading up to the trial and Richard Friedman decided to plead guilty to being paid to commit the murder and take a promise of a twenty-five-year sentence recommendation. The only two defendants left to face the jury were Stephen Cino and Bobby Panaro, both of whom were eventually acquitted of the murder charges, but convicted on charges of racketeering. Fat Herbie’s murder would yield no convictions, merely a legacy of brutality that dated back to the rotund gangster’s days of running the street with Tony Spilotro, a decade earlier.
“After Blitzstein was killed, all of our other investigations stopped, and we completely committed all of our resources to solving the murder,” says Groman. “It really cut us out of a lot of things. There was a lot more we could have learned and gotten involved with that could have spelled the end for the L.A. mafia for good. There’s not a doubt in my mind that we would have eventually gotten to Pete Milano. The inroads were there, set up for us to take advantage of. We just never go the go-head, cause we already had enough to make a case with the Vegas crew and the higher-ups thought that was enough.”
15.
Dirty Blue
Mob Cops
Arguably the most important thing a highly functioning crime syndicate needs to survive and thrive are significant connections within law enforcement. Nobody knows this better than the Chicago Outfit, a mob franchise that has practically written the book on the subject matter. The Midwest mafia family has a deep, rich history of forging strong, intricate relationships with various area police departments and sheriff’s offices. These relationships, along with its firmly entrenched ties in local government, have always helped The Outfit maintain a steady edge on those in law enforcement trying to bring them down. Notorious mob double-agents like Richard Cain and Michael Corbett headline a long list of men who successfully played the role of both cop and crook at the same time.
Anthony Passafume grew up on the South Side of the city, home to many of the local underworld’s most vicious mobsters. It was a place where the mafia and its way of life was, well, a way of life. Raised without a father—his dad had died when he was a baby—Passafume was a bit of a problem child and spent time in an assortment of reform schools early in life. Popular on the playground for being a standout athlete and adored by the girls for his strong, athletic build and handsome face, Anthony spent his early adulthood floating by on good looks and charm. His swarthy appearance at the time elicited thoughts of a comic book superhero: dark hair, razor-sharp jaw line, bulging muscles, and all. He didn’t graduate from high school, and through his late teens and early twenties roamed the streets day and night with his friends while being supported by his mother.
Adulthood finally hit the hulking Passafume in the late 1960s when his live-in girlfriend became pregnant and he needed money to support his future family. He acquired some work with the Teamsters through his budding friendship with rising South Side mobster Frank Calabrese, a man he met via his cousin. Anthony soon went to work for the city in the Water Department and then as a street sweeper in the Streets and Sanitation Department. He hung around with guys like Calabrese and other Outfit types like Ronnie Jarrett and Aldo “Junior” Picitelli and, according to authorities, helped some of his buddies out with collections duties for their respective street operations.
Passafume changed his name to Anthony Doyle in 1975 in honor of a boyhood mentor and in the hope of being accepted to the Irish-dominated poli
ce academy. He eventually acquired the nickname “Twan.” Depending on who you ask, the moniker either spawned from a derivation of his first name, Anthony, or is a reference to a Chinese dessert dish—fried sugared dough on a stick, known as a Twan—since he originated from the city’s Chinatown district. Accepted to the police academy in 1980 after a number of years of trying, he graduated in the fall of 1981. Twan Doyle was finally a cop.
Starting his career in blue in the Twelfth District Precinct, he worked eight years as a transit officer, dressing up as a wino to nab muggers on the subway and el train. He was transferred to a gang unit and took on a number of ruthless Latino street gangs. Appearing on the outside to be the quintessential man of the badge, he discreetly continued to maintain his ties to the mafia. He visited Picitelli, who was serving time on a loan-sharking case, in prison in Indiana and was spotted dining with South Side mob capo Frank “Toots” Caruso. In the latter part of his career, Doyle was assigned to the department’s Evidence Storage Unit. Retiring with a full pension, he moved to Arizona, where he joined an auxiliary unit at his local police station.
Michael Ricci was fifteen years older than Doyle and had well over a decade more of duty for the Chicago Police Department. He started as a beat cop and worked his way up to homicide detective. From early on in his career in law enforcement, Ricci was suspected of being a little too close to the members of The Outfit he was supposedly being paid to arrest. He is alleged to have co-owned a hot dog stand with West Side crime boss, John Di Fronzo, and a topless bar with Frank Calabrese. On various occasions he was seen in the presence of local mob pillars Sam Giancana, Fifi Bucceri, and Angelo La Pietra. In the 1960s, he became a confidant of Frank Sinatra. During the Chairmen of the Board’s frequent trips into the Windy City, Ricci would often act as Sinatra’s bodyguard and chauffer, flanking Ol’ Blue Eyes as he hit the nightclubs on Rush Street and feasted on the signature ribs at the Twin Anchors, a bar and grill that was one of his favorite area watering holes.
Ricci is also alleged to have developed into the Calabrese crew’s mole at Chicago Police Department, facilitating bribes to vice unit personnel in exchange for tipoffs on raids and investigations. Leaving the force in the 1990s, Ricci, also known as “Mooney,” went to work for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, but continued to provide Frank Calabrese with inside information via his contacts all the way up until the Family Secrets indictment in 2005.
Well aware of the other’s reputation, Twan Doyle and Michael Ricci, didn’t personally cross paths until Frank Calabrese was sent to prison on his first racketeering bust in 1997. Needing help maintaining his interests on the outside, Frankie Breeze is alleged to have used people like Doyle, Ricci, and Outfit wunderkind Nick Ferriola, son of the late mob don Joe Ferriola, to act as his conduit to the street. Sometimes Doyle and Ricci rode together to the Milan, Michigan, federal prison to visit with the jailed rackets boss.
At the behest of Calabrese, Ricci asked Doyle to use his post in the evidence lockup to find out if the FBI had removed the bloody glove found at the scene of the John Fecoratta murder for further analysis. The answer came back affirmative. With the investigation into Fecoratta’s murder reopened, Ricci provided status reports on the inquiry via intelligence he gleaned from interoffice memos and meetings between various law enforcement agencies. Federal prosecutors also alleged that both Doyle and Ricci made collections on behalf of Frankie Breeze’s loan-sharking operation. Indicted alongside each other and Calabrese in the 2005 Family Secrets case, their names are now forever linked in infamy on the city’s lengthy and storied résumé of dirty cops. Doyle would make it to trial in 2007, but Ricci wouldn’t, dying due to complications from a heart surgery.
Demonstrating just how deeply embedded the tentacles of The Outfit stretch into high level law enforcement, more allegations surfaced before the Family Secrets case made it to trial. Highly decorated U.S. Marshall John Ambrose was suspected of passing information to the mob regarding Nick Calabrese’s holding location. Ambrose, whose father was a disgraced former cop and mob associate, was alleged to have passed details on Calabrese’s whereabouts and personal security schedule to a friend who then passed it on to Outfit lieutenants John “Pudgy” Matassa and Big Mickey Marcello. Time and time again, the cycle of corruption proves never ending.
“It’s highly disconcerting when you find out that the same people who are supposed to be on your side in the fight against the mob are aiding and abetting your adversaries,” says FBI agent Ross Rice. “Sometimes you don’t know who to trust and that hurts the overall objective, which is to nail these guys and put them in jail. What the cops did in the Family Secrets case severely undermined the investigation and compromised key intelligence. It could have unraveled the whole thing, and that’s scary. The corruption of certain members of law enforcement has always been an issue, and it will always be an issue. Sadly, its the dark side of human nature. But you just keep doing your job the right way and have faith that justice will prevail in the end.”
BILL Hanhardt was one of the most decorated police officers to ever walk the streets for the Chicago Police Department. Known for his bold and brash attitude and unmatched skill and savvy as an investigator, he built a reputation for himself the size of Wrigley Field. Blessed with a photographic memory, the West Side-born and -bred Hanhardt knew every major criminal in the city like he knew the back of his hand. Lavished with praise over a career that spanned from 1953 through 1986, he headed the elite Crime Investigation Unit, leading the war against the city’s best thieves and cargo-hijackers; at one point, he held the prestigious posts of deputy superintendent, chief of detectives, and commander of the burglary unit.
Racking up countless numbers of high-profile arrests while working the beat, his exploits eventually caught the eye of Hollywood. Chicago-born director/producer Michael Mann used Hanhardt as an on-set consultant and inspiration for lead characters in both Crime Story, Mann’s TV follow-up to mega-hit Miami Vice, and Heat, his epic crime motion picture starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Bill Hanhardt was a legend and he knew it.
Despite all of that, Hanhardt was constantly dogged with rumors of inappropriate and illicit behavior and accused of being a much darker individual than the one shown through his squeaky clean media image. After close to five decades dodging innuendo, the label finally stuck. The rumors, the myths, were true. In 2002, he pled guilty to masterminding a multistate jewelry theft ring that lasted for at least twelve years and used his contacts with the police department. The first theft that was part of the indictment that he pled guilty to occurred in 1984, two years before his retirement from the force. The term dirty cop and the name Bill Hanhardt were now officially synonymous.
As early as his first few years as a beat cop, Hanhardt was allegedly shaking down all the bookies, burglars, and loan sharks he could find. Former Outfit associate, Robert “Bobby the Beak” Siegel, would testify in court that in the 1960s, his boss, South Side numbers kingpin and mob chief “Little Angie” Volpe, was giving Hanhardt over $1,000 a month cash in protection pay, plus several new cars a year. There were allegations of him tipping off some of his more favored criminals about pending investigations in exchange for envelopes stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The Outfit both loved and loathed Bill Hanhardt at the same time.
Heading toward retirement from the force in the early 1980s, Hanhardt started thinking about life after his days in blue, and contacted James “Jimmy Legs” D’Antonio, who he did business with on the street. A veteran thief and shakedown artist, D’Antonio was a top lieutenant to Grand Avenue capo Joey Lombardo, often acting as The Clown’s personal driver and bodyguard.
Already running a profitable theft ring dating back at least ten years—pulling jewelry heists and fur shipment hijackings with a steady crew of able henchmen—Jimmy Legs cut Hanhardt in for a piece of the action. After turning in his badge in 1986, Hanhardt went full time into a life of crime. He immediately replaced D’Antonio as head of the well-established burglary cr
ew and started to craft a legend for himself as a gangster that rivaled his reputation as a cop. Jimmy Legs, who left his day-to-day role in the crew to help fill the shoes of the imprisoned Lombardo, helped out when and where he could, but Hanhardt was the boss and he oversaw a crew that included D’Antonio protégé Joseph “Skinny Joe” Basinski, Hanhardt right-hand man William “Cherry Nose Billy” Brown, Gaetano “Guy” Altobello, Salvatore “Little Sam” De Stefano (nephew of Outfit wildman Mad Sam De Stefano), Robert Paul, and Paulie Schiro (who was residing in Phoenix holding things down for the boys in Chicago).
Using his pull as a former cop to gain access to information on potential victims’ businesses and vehicles through police department computer database searches, the robbery gang focused on targeting traveling jewelry salesmen, who dealt in high volume and high cash. They were meticulous in their movements, keeping flawless surveillance records and scamming their way into a variety of manufacturers’ auto codes and master keys—and sophisticated in their work, using coded language and complicated hand signals, the best possible robbery tools, and an array of disguises and identities to thwart possible detection. With Hanhardt calling the shots from his home in the posh North Shore suburb of Deerfield and only occasionally going on scores himself, and Skinny Joe Basinski quarterbacking things on the street, the newly restructured band of thieves were off and running.