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Guilty Verdicts Announced For 3 Mobsters

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Sep 27, 2007 11:56 pm US/Central

Guilty Verdicts Announced For 3 Mobsters

10 Murders Linked To Defendants In "Family Secrets" Trial

CBS 2's John Drummond and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
CHICAGO (CBS) ― A federal jury blamed three aging mobsters for 10 murders Thursday, after an extraordinary trial that included a parade of colorful witnesses who exposed the seedy inner workings of organized crime in Chicago.

The partial verdict means life in prison for three top bosses of the Chicago Outfit. The jury's decision in the Family Secrets case found the mobsters guilty of 10 gangland slayings.

But as CBS 2's John "Bulldog" Drummond reports, jurors deadlocked on eight other killings.

"It does have a huge impact on the Outfit symbolically obviously the Outfit knows were just not going away," said federal prosecutor Mitch Mars.

Joey "The Clown'" Lombardo was found guilty of murder. The 78-year-old was convicted in connection with the 1974 slaying of government witness Daniel Seifert.

Sixty-five year-old James "The Little Guy" Marcello was charged with three murders, but was only convicted of two: the slayings of brothers Tony and Michael Spilotro. The jury was deadlocked on the death of Nicholas D'Andrea.

Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese was charged with 13 murders but convicted of only seven, including the heinous murders of William and Charlotte Dauber. During the trial, he denied being a mob member and said he did not kill anyone.


Paul "The Indian" Schiro was convicted earlier of racketeering conspiracy but the 70-year-old Arizona resident skated on the murder of Emil Vaci.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel polled individual jurors, and all said further deliberations would not help them come to a unanimous decision on the deadlocked counts.

The same jury convicted five men on Sept. 10 of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that involved illegal gambling, loan sharking, extortion and a wave of mob murders going back almost four decades.

The jury then considered whether four of the five men were individually responsible for specific murders -- the prerequisite for toughening their sentences to life.

Those convicted of racketeering conspiracy were Marcello, 65, Calabrese, 70, Lombardo, 78, Schiro, 70, and retired police officer Anthony Doyle, 62.

All but Doyle were accused in the indictment of having committed specific murders. Doyle is not accused of direct involvement in a murder.

For some of the victims' families there was a measure of closure.

"Today was the anniversary of my dad's death so it was very sweet for us," said Joe Seifert, Daniel Seifert's son.

For Bob D'Andrea there was bitterness that his father's brutal slaying went unpunished.

"It's a travesty I waited 26 years to hear this; it's unbelievable," said Bob D'Andrea. "I can't even describe it in words."

"You got the last of the Mohicans," said Frank Calabrese's attorney Joe Lopez. "These guys are on their death beds. Instead of going to shady acres retirement home they'll be going to a federal prison."

Thursday evening's verdicts are not the death knell for the Outfit. Robert Grant, the head of the FBI office in Chicago, said there are 28 made members and 100 mob soldiers and four crews operating in the Chicago area.

The only thing left for the government to do is seize the mobsters' assets, from a home in Lake Geneva, Wis., to a west suburban video poker empire.

The Family Secrets trial is the biggest organized crime case in Chicago in many years. The defendants were convicted of operating the Chicago Outfit as a racketeering enterprise.

They allegedly squeezed "street tax," similar to protection money, out of businesses, ran sports bookmaking and video poker businesses as well as engaged in loan sharking. And they allegedly killed many of those who might have spilled their secrets to the government.

The oldest murder listed in the indictment, that of Michael "Hambone" Albergo, himself a loan shark, goes back to 1970.

Jurors heard from attorneys on both sides on whether the four defendants accused of murder should get life sentences.

The jury heard a litany of grisly murders performed by outfit enforcers, a Chicago version of Murder Incorporated.

Prosecutor Mitch Mars charged "murder is a staple of the Outfit… a tool… to eliminate witnesses."

Many of the murders were carried out because mobsters were afraid the victims would cooperate with the federal government in its efforts to crack down on organized crime, prosecutors told the jury during closing arguments.

The government's star witness, Nicholas Calabrese, brother of Frank Calabrese Sr., testified that he helped kill Michael Spilotro while other mobsters murdered Tony Spilotro in the basement of a suburban home. He testified that Marcello lured the Spilotros to their death.

But Marcello defense attorney Thomas Breen appealed to jurors to disregard the testimony of Nicholas Calabrese, saying he was an admitted hit man who would say anything to get a deal from prosecutors that would keep him from the execution chamber.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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