by Sam Giancana
Finally, in concluding his murderous recollections, Nick Calabrese told the tale of the Big John Fecoratta murder, an event that would slowly morph into the catalyst for the entire Family Secrets investigation and trial. Fecoratta, who had upset his superiors with his increasingly erratic behavior and allegedly his mishandling of the Spilotro brothers burial was lured by the Calabrese brothers to a Chicago-area dentist office under the guise that they were going to bomb it.
Nick said that he was the one tagged to do the shooting because it was believed that Fecoratta, already nervous that his bosses in The Outfit were upset with him, would be too suspicious of Frank. “It was decided that I would be the one because he didn’t think it would come from me,” he told the jury.
Continuing the story, he told how when he went to shoot Fecoratta, Big John “caught the play.” The two men began fighting for control of the weapon before it discharged, wounding both—Nicky in the arm and Big John in the chest. Somehow being able to release the gun’s cylinder, Fecoratta emptied the bullets from the weapon and bolted out of the car across a busy street. Nick told how he reloaded the gun and chased after Fecoratta with the Ken Eto-attempted murder running through his head the entire time.
“My mind, my adrenaline is going,” said a slightly more animated than usual Nick Calabrese. “And he’s running and the only thing that I can think of is what happens if I don’t do this and he gets away. I’m dead.”
Finally catching up with his target, “I shot him in the head,” Calabrese said. “I shot him in the back of the head.”
Since it was a warm day and he worried he would look funny wearing the pair of gloves he had on, he took them off and tried to put them in his back pocket. “I started pulling my gloves off ’cause its September and I’ve got black gloves on and it didn’t look right,” he remembered. “So I took them off. And I thought I had put them in my pocket. I didn’t know at that time that I had dropped them.”
He wrapped up the story by telling how his universe was turned upside down in May 1999, when FBI agents came to visit him in prison where he was serving a sentence for a mid-1990s racketeering conviction and informed him they had a court order to take a DNA sample and an X-ray of the arm he was shot in during the Fecoratta hit. Calabrese said it was then he realized it was all over and unless he decided to cooperate he would either be killed or spend the rest of his life behind bars.
With four days of direct examination behind him, it was now time for the defense to cross-examine The Outfit’s snitch of the ages, Nick Calabrese. Displaying no sympathy for a man who tried at every opportunity to paint himself as a victim of his big brother’s strong-arm tactics, the attorneys for each of the co-defendants hammered him hard and with no mercy. Nick told Joe Lopez that he went along with his brother’s activities because he feared that he would be killed himself if he didn’t participate in the murders they plotted and carried out together. “I was loyal because I was afraid and I was a chicken and a coward because I didn’t walk away from it,” he said.
Thomas Breen, one of Jimmy Marcello’s lawyers, tried to punch holes in Calabrese’s testimony by pointing out that when he described the making ceremony he and Marcello underwent nearly twenty-five years earlier, he had said that a prerequisite for initiation into the mob was being of complete Italian or Sicilian descent. When confronting him with the information that his client was half-Irish, Calabrese responded by saying, “Then Jimmy Marcello lied. Sam Carlisi lied. They both lied to the boss.” Before finishing Breen scored some points for the defense team by demonstrating that Calabrese couldn’t identify a picture of Nick D’Andrea, the man he claimed to have helped beat and torture to death with Marcello in 1981.
On the stand for a total of seven days, Nick Calabrese was excused from his testimony on the afternoon of July 23. He had done more than an adequate job. Even though he was an admitted killer, he came off remorseful and as a result, in many ways, sympathetic. Experts in the local media speculated that he came off extremely credible to the jury and his time in the witness box would go a long way in the prosecution’s effort for mass convictions. With the successful testimony from first Frank Calabrese Jr, and then Nicky Breeze, the nails in the proverbial coffin were beginning to accumulate on defense row.
OVER the next few days a parade of former gangsters took the stand to detail life in The Outfit. Richard “Richie the Rat” Mara, a former South Side crew member, spoke of accompanying Frank Calabrese’s henchmen on collections for his sports betting and loan-sharking operations and watching Frankie Breeze and Ronnie Jarrett deliver a beating with a baseball bat to an underworld associate who was giving out juice loans without the proper permission. Robert “Bobby the Beak” Siegel, a one-time Outfit thief, recalled delivering payments of bribe money on behalf of the crime syndicate to Chicago policemen and how he had received phone calls from John Mendell and Bernard Ryan, both suspected of taking part in the burglary at Tony Accardo’s residence, and told that they had been requested by Jarrett and John Di Fronzo to aid in score opportunities that turned out to be suspected setups before their respective deaths.
Ernest “Ernie the Oven” Severino, who owned a crematory and a gun shop and once paid a street tax to Butchie Petrocelli, testified that he held weapons and money for Petrocelli, and when he was killed he was called to a meeting and told by Gerry Scarpelli that his commitment to The Outfit remained. Richard Cleary, another former Outfit thief, told of visiting Paul Schiro in prison and breaking the news to him that Nick Calabrese had begun cooperating with the FBI. When he asked Schiro if his flipping could end up doing him any harm, he responded, “Yes, he could put me away forever.”
Michael Spilotro’s widow, Ann, and daughter were each called to the stand on August 1. Ann testified that she met with Joey Lombardo, Tony Spilotro’s direct superior in the months he was released from prison in 1992 and was told by him that if he was free man when her husband and brother-in-law were murdered, he would have stopped it. Spilotro’s daughter Michelle testified that a man she knew as “Jim” called her house on the day her father was killed and that she was later able to identify that voice as Jimmy Marcello through an FBI audio line-up of different voices speaking the same line of dialogue.
Keeping with a Spilotro family theme, the prosecution then called Pasquale “Pat” Spilotro, Tony and Michael’s brother, to the stand. Speaking about his over two-decade obsession of bringing his brothers’ killers to justice, Spilotro talked about keeping up good relations with their suspected murderers in order to help the FBI build a case against them. In fact, he did a lot of their dental work, maintaining a facade of forgiveness and understanding while trying to delicately probe for information at any time possible. He testified to one conversation with Joey Lombardo regarding his brothers’ slaying where he was told, “Doc, when you get an order, you follow it or you go too.”
Spilotro admitted to turning in Lombardo when the godfather was a fugitive by alerting the FBI to a meeting he had set up with The Clown to treat an abscess in his tooth and helping the feds track down Frank Schweihs when he went on the run by tracing The German’s family members’ cell phone calls to him in his Kentucky hiding place.
The prosecution wrapped up its case by bringing an IRS agent to the stand to testify that the Marcello brothers’ video poker machine business had failed to pay at least half of its income taxes over the previous decade. They then played more audio surveillance tapes of the Marcellos’ talking in a prison visiting room and discussing the problems that would arise if Nick Calabrese had indeed turned witness for the government. The Marcello brothers also talked about Calabrese’s “baby-sitter,” a term the FBI believed referred to a U.S. federal marshall who was passing information to The Outfit regarding Nicky Breeze’s whereabouts. On August 8, the prosecution rested, opening the door for the defense to present its case and the trial to reach its crescendo. Soon thereafter, both Joey Lombardo and Frank Calabrese Sr., in almost unprecedented moves for a Chicago mob case, would hit the st
and to testify on the their own behalf. With well more than half of the historical trial already completed, the fun was just starting to begin.
ROLLED to the front of the witness box in a wheelchair by a federal marshall, Joey Lombardo took the stand with a half-smile across his face and a stack of his trademark clever quips in his back pocket. The Clown, taking the time to flirt with the pretty court reporter as he settled into his chair, seemed genuinely excited to have the chance to address the jury in person and tell his side of the story.
Rick Halperin wasted little time getting to the heart of the matter. “On September 27, 1974 did you murder Daniel Seifert?” he asked. “Positively, no,” responded an assured and gravely toned Lombardo. “Have you ever been a capo or member of the Chicago Outfit?” Halperin continued. “Positively, no,” answered Lombardo once again. His alibi for the time period in which Seifert was gunned down: He was having breakfast at an area pancake house before realizing he had had his wallet stolen from his car and heading to a police station to fill out a stolen property report.
When you think about it, The Clown’s math may be a little off. Lombardo claims to have left the police station between 9:30 and 10:00 A.M. Seifert’s murder went down at 8:30 A.M., twenty miles away from the police station. It would have been reasonable to assume that he could have been at the murder scene and still had enough time to travel to and eat breakfast at the pancake house and still make it out of the police station between 9:30 and 10:00.
Reflecting back almost whimsically, Lombardo, sometimes leaning forward to rest his chin on the handle of his cane, told the story of his youth. He told of growing up on the city’s West Side and selling newspapers and shining shoes as a young boy to try to make some pocket change. He spoke specifically of shining shoes outside his local police station for a group of officers that were in his own words, “Very cheap people.” When instructed by Halperin to not press his luck, he shot back, “You told me to tell the truth and nothing but the truth,” to a smattering of laughs from the gallery.
After discussing his early life and business ventures, Lombardo spoke of graduating to running a dice game and running errands for a number of mobsters and several high-level mob associates. In order to run his dice game, he was forced to get the permission of his local alderman. “You can’t get anything done without your alderman . . . you want a dice game, you go see your alderman,” he said.
Lombardo described meeting Danny Seifert through his relationship with Irwin Weiner, a top-tier mob associate and bail bondsman whom he said he often ran errands for and with whom Seifert was partners in a fiberglass company. It was through his friendship with Weiner, he explained, that he was spotted purchasing the police scanner found in the getaway car used in the Seifert murder. He bought it as a favor to Weiner. “He told me to pick stuff up and I picked it up,” he said.
Sometimes, Lombardo seemed to ramble. Talking about his penchant for athletics, he said, “I do a lot of sports. I wrestled in high school. I played basketball for high school. I took fencing for a year in high school. And I can do other sports too. I can ice skate, roller skate, rollerblade, bowl. I play golf, handball, racquetball.”
Closing out Halperin’s direct examination, Lombardo explained that the threats he made on the tapes previously played for the jury were simple bravado, trying to act like a gangster, not actually being one. Now it was time for the prosecution to get its chance to face off against The Clown.
The downside of testifying in your own defense is that when you’re done relaying your own take on the events at hand, the prosecutor has the opportunity to undermine your story. Mitch Mars was about to have himself a field day. Lombardo’s jovial wit and constant clowning around played well in bits, like the times he would throw out slick, humorous remarks from his chair at the defense table in response to some of the daily monotony of the lengthy trial. However, over two full days on the stand, it grew tiresome and came off disingenuous. Like a jaguar stalking its prey, Mars pounced on the opening Lombardo’s failing shtick left him.
Responding to the claim that The Clown was only playing the role of a gangster in his recorded threats, Mars challenged him, “That was a good role for you to play, wasn’t it Mr. Lombardo? ” he said.
“Yeah, like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson,” The Clown retorted.
“And Joe Lombardo, member of The Outfit? ” Mars shot back.
“No,” said Lombardo
“Capo of the Grand Avenue crew? ” the relentless prosecutor continued.
“That’s not true, sir,” answered a resolute Lombardo.
When Mars tried to press Lombardo on a portion of a recorded statement where he used the term we when discussing what to do in retribution against an area business not paying tribute to The Outfit, Lombardo tried to back away from what he said. “Just like the president said, he doesn’t always choose the right words.”
Often throughout his cross-examination, the ace wiseguy seemed to get rattled, annoyed with having to explain himself.
“Can’t you read?” he remarked to Mars at one point bothered by the prosecutor’s interpretation of a transcript at issue.
“Sir, are you having trouble understanding me?” he barked another time, to which Mars quipped, “At times, I am, Mr. Lombardo, I must admit.”
Stepping down from the stand on the afternoon of August 16, Lombardo’s time in the witness box was far from a triumph. Some speculated that it would turn out to be his downfall. Rick Halperin was by far the standout star of the defense team. He did an exceptional job of dissecting and poking holes in the testimony of each witness against his client. The government’s physical evidence against Lombardo was virtually nonexistent. If Lombardo would have stayed off the stand, all the jury would have would be what the prosecution presented, which in relating to the mafia clown prince, was thin. Instead, Lombardo wanted the spotlight. Maybe it was vanity. Maybe it was him thinking he was smarter than the lawyers attempting to take him down. Trying to portray himself as a deer in the woods, as opposed to a gangster who simply didn’t participate in murder, didn’t help matters and eventually aided him in losing the jury’s sympathy. Either way, it wasn’t a success. He crashed and burned. And he had only himself to blame.
Next up: Frankie Breeze. In the moments directly after Joey Lombardo left the stand, Frank Calabrese took it. Sporting a gray-speckled goatee that he had grown over the course of the trial, the rotund yet still well-built seventy-year-old man hit the witness box with his trademark indignant grin and a boxful of stories to tell. Some were relevant. Some weren’t. He would drift from one to another with near-seamless transitions, acting like a mischievous child thinking he could talk his way out of the heap of trouble he had carelessly got himself into. While there were certain distinct points throughout his testimony that Joey the Clown rambled on too long, Frankie Breeze did it over his entire time on the stand. And the tall tales he was rambling on about were not remotely believable. He was like that obnoxious relative at the dinner table who made no sense, was full of crap, and just wouldn’t shut up. In the end, Calabrese testimony made Lombardo’s look like the picture of honesty. There was no longer the veneer of his smooth-talking lawyer to hide behind. This was Frankie Breeze raw and uncut. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said enthusiastically as he settled into the witness box, bubbling with excitement for his chance to reveal his take on this whole thing.
Besides denying each of the murders he was charged with during Lopez’s initial questioning, Calabrese theorized that he was so busy stacking cash, he would have no time to participate in the mass killings he was implicated in taking part in. “My earning spoke for itself,” he told Lopez, explaining that in the underworld there were hitters and earners and that he was the latter. “I made millions, how would I have the time [to murder]? ”
Although Calabrese admitted to at one point during his life running a loan-sharking business alongside former South Side mob
capo, Angelo La Pietra, he denied ever being part of La Pietra’s crew or ever reporting to him as his boss. “He never controlled me,” he said. “Many people feared him, many people couldn’t look him in the eye. I never had that problem.”
According to Calabrese, the prosecutors had cut a deal with the wrong man. He was quick to finger his brother Nick as the real mafia capo, comparing him to a famous movie character. “My brother was like Alfredo from The Godfather,” he told the court, misnaming actor John Cazale’s famous Fredo Corleone character from the epic film. “If he wasn’t running things and screwing things up, he wasn’t happy.”
Explaining the recordings made of him in prison that heard him copping to murders and telling of his Outfit initiation ceremony to his son, he claimed, “I was just humoring him.”
When things were going his way, Frankie Breeze was upbeat, gregarious, and relatively tame. However, when they weren’t, when he wasn’t able to control the story, things turned bitter, biting, and downright nasty. It didn’t play well in court and lent credence to the government’s contention that he was a rage-filled, murderous lunatic.
For example, in one instance while was trying to tell the jury how his son Frank Jr. wanted to keep him behind prison walls as a means to steal his money, he was cut off by a prosecutor’s objection and the judge’s ruling that he could not testify to things that he couldn’t prove as fact. An incensed Calabrese ignored Judge Zagel’s instructions and continued speaking. “But they took it from me,” he said, his growing aggravation apparent in his facial expression.