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The way Albert Caesar Tocco was tried and convicted of racketeering and extortion — the way his jurors remained nameless for safety's sake and the way his wife sang her heart out from the witness stand — were the stuff of Chicago mafia legend. His motto should have read "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," because this ferocious south suburban mob boss demanded a cut from every vice operator south of 95th Street. His Chicago Heights-based empire shaking down gambling and prostitution houses and chop shops stretched from Calumet City south to Kankakee, from Joliet over the Indiana border to...

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The expose came not in a rush but in slow, infuriating revelations. For more than two years, Cuyahoga County residents absorbed reports of cronyism and corruption on a scale no one imagined possible. A community that paid little attention to the mundane chores of county government learned of cash bribes, a sham election, gambling junkets to Las Vegas and Canada, sketchy tax assessments and outright thievery. On Thursday, we learned that the sordid charade is finally nearing its end. That long, loud scrape echoing across Ohio's largest county was a political machine grinding to a halt. The...

James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, a former boss in the Chicago Outfit, has been sentenced to life in prison. Marcello was convicted alongside other mob leaders in the massive Family Secrets trial in 2007. Joey "The Clown" Lombardo and Frank Calabese, Sr., were convicted in the same trial and also sentenced to life. Marcello was found responsible for the murders of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael. Tony Spilotro was known as the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas. The murders of the Spilotro brothers were the subject of the Hollywood film, "Casino." U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel...

By MIKE ROBINSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO (AP) - Fourteen reputed organized crime figures were indicted Monday on charges of plotting at least 18 murders, including the 1986 slaying of the Chicago mob's top man in Las Vegas, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, who was buried alive in an cornfield. Those indicted include Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, long known as one of the top leaders of organized crime in the Chicago area. U.S attorney spokesman Randall Samborn said authorities were looking for Lombardo. "This unprecedented indictment puts a 'hit' on the mob," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement....

Frank "Lefty'' Rosenthal was a Chicago bookie who was sent to Las Vegas by the mob and helped turned sports betting into a billion-dollar business. The manager of several well-known casinos, his life inspired the Martin Scorsese movie "Casino.'' Rosenthal, 79, died Monday after a heart attack at his Miami Beach condo. Born in 1929 in Chicago, Rosenthal got involved in illegal bookmaking and eventually connected with mobsters. His nickname stemmed from a 1961 Senate hearing on gambling and organized crime at which he invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 38 times. Throughout his testimony, he kept his left...

Chicago Outfit mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. died on Christmas Day at the age of 75 while serving a life sentence at the federal facility in Butner, NC as reported by Bridget Doyle for the Chicago Tribune: "[Federal prosecutor T. Markus] Funk said Wednesday that those hurt by Calabrese's criminal actions would likely find it hard 'to muster much regret' over his death behind bars. 'Calabrese reigned as one of the nation's most prolific and feared mob killers, only to die alone and far from home on Christmas Day,' Funk wrote in an email Wednesday. 'Whether this qualifies as poetic justice,...

A federal appeals court has affirmed the convictions for the five defendants from the so-called Family Secrets trial against the Chicago Outfit as reported by Ann Pistone and Chuck Goudie for WLS. However, Judge Diane Wood -- a liberal hack who is on President Obama's short list for the Supreme Court -- would have reversed the convictions against one-time boss James Marcello and hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. on double jeopardy grounds. In expressing her complete ignorance on how the Mafia is structured she contended that because Marcello and Calabrese previously were charged with conspiracy for their roles with subsidiary street...

Once upon a time in Chicago, a prominent Northwest Side political boss from the 36th Ward was asked about the connection between the Outfit and politics. "What does that mean, 'mob associated'?" asked then-state Sen. James A. DeLeo, D-How You Doin? "In the year 2001, is there really a mob in Chicago?" So much has happened since then, including that little trial called the Family Secrets case. Outfit bosses went to prison for life. Mysterious mob hits were solved. And political figures — including guys from the 36th Ward — cringed as their names were mentioned in testimony, though they...

The FBI yesterday raided the suburban Oak Brook home of Chicago Outfit killer Frank Calabrese Sr., sentenced to life in prison following his racketeering conviction involving multiple murders in the 2007 Family Secrets trial, and seized evidence which "could unlock unsolved mob mysteries" as reported by Chuck Goudie for WLS: What Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese may have hidden in his basement, hoping no one would ever find, are the family secrets yet to be revealed. * * * When they got inside, authorities came straight to the basement, where they removed some family pictures to find a false wall next...

With the national media finally interested in Illinois corruption, it's too bad they were focused on Springfield's dancing monkey show and not on what happened in a federal courtroom in Chicago on Wednesday. That wasn't a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys. His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI's historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.

CHICAGO - A federal jury found five aging men guilty Monday in a racketeering conspiracy that involved decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder aimed at rubbing out anyone who dared stand in the way of the ruthless Chicago mob. The verdicts capped an extraordinary 10-week trial that laid bare some of the inner workings of The Outfit. The prosecution's star witness was an admitted hit man who took the stand against his own brother to spell out the allegations, crime by crime. The jury heard about 18 unsolved killings, including the beating death and cornfield burial of Tony "The...

CHICAGO (AP) - Two men claim photographs in the Chicago Tribune misidentified them as high-ranking mobsters, prompting one of the men Wednesday to sue the newspaper. Retired businessman Frank Calabrese is suing the Tribune Co. for more than $1 million in damages, claiming defamation. His picture ran Tuesday as part of a package about the indictment of several mobsters - including one named Frank Calabrese Sr. - on charges of plotting at least 18 murders. "I have voice mails from people calling me who were my customers asking me what's happening. Is that you?" Calabrese, 76, was quoted as saying...

CHICAGO - It didn't take Chicago mobster Tony "The Ant" Spilotro long to realize his time was up. "Time to say a prayer," government witness Nicholas Calabrese quoted Spilotro as saying moments before his fellow mobsters beat and strangled him in a suburban Bensenville basement on a June afternoon 21 years ago. An eyewitness account of the mob hit that helped inspire the movie "Casino" emerged Wednesday as Calabrese returned to the stand at the trial of his brother Frank and four other alleged members of the Chicago Outfit. Spilotro was the model for the Joe Pesci character in the...

CHICAGO - Do you believe "The Clown" or an admitted hit man? Jurors will have to decide when they begin deliberations Tuesday in Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. They got the case Thursday night after prosecutors made a last pitch to sway them to believe the testimony of their star witness, admitted hit man Nicholas Calabrese. Defense lawyers have pegged Calabrese as "a walking piece of deception" whose testimony shouldn't be believed, even suggesting that if Calabrese says it's raining, someone ought to go outside to check. But prosecutors say it's the five men on trial who can't be...

This is one of the "family secrets" that federal authorities exposed during their covert investigation of Chicago outfit bosses. The Connie's connection is among the secrets that will be revealed during the government prosecution of five ranking hoodlums-- a secret that we can tell you about tonight. From Colissimo to Capone, Murray "the Camel" Humphreys to Sam "Momo" Giancana, "the Big Tuna" to "Little" Jimmy, for a century the backbone of Chicago organized crime has been the street tax on criminal activities such as gambling, jewel heists, prostitution and peep shows. As video from a hidden FBI camera shows, vice...

CHICAGO - It seemed like a good idea at the time. A gang of burglars decided in December 1977 to break into the home of Tony Accardo, one of the most powerful men in organized crime history, and rob his basement vault. Accardo was not amused. Six men Accardo blamed for the heist were swiftly hunted down and murdered, according to papers filed by federal prosecutors in preparation for Chicago's biggest mob trial in years, scheduled to begin Tuesday. And that's only one of the grisly tales jurors are likely to hear at the trial stemming from the FBI's "Operation...

A Columbia College student took this photo of reputed mob boss Joseph "the Clown" Lombardo-- without knowing who he was--for a school project just over a year ago. The dapper old man on the bicycle looked pretty classy, so Columbia College student Val Carpenter pulled over and asked if she could take his photograph for her class project. "He said sure, he struck a pose--he actually posed," Carpenter, 42, said Tuesday, shortly after she realized the photo she took along Grand Avenue about a year ago was apparently reputed Chicago mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo. The feds wish...