Chicago mob trial today

And so, it did. Jonathan Amarilio: One of the more spectacular murders I think was it Michael Cagnoni, a small business owner in the suburbs. His car was blown up on a Chicago highway because he was refusing to pay street tax. Markus Funk: Michael Cagnoni was in the trucking industry. He refused to pay the mob and they decided that he needed to — they were probably also a little worried he might cooperate, so they basically put a bomb in his Mercedes and it went off when it went around a clover and got within range of think of it like a garage opener that had to be pressed.

As soon as he got within range of that, it set off the bomb and the bomb blew up. He was not double-crossing anyone. Earlier that day, his wife and kid were, I think the wife was dropping the kid off at school, they could have very well gone the same route. His five-year-old son is now, give or take, my age and has never forgotten it. And as a five-year-old, he saw his father be shot and then executed. And there are many others. And like in the movies, real Frank Calabrese, Sr.

Opened the side sliding door and start shot-gunning into the car and then end up from close range killing both of them. I think, in fact, Calabrese Sr. Tell him to leave? Did Frank Sr. Did that happen? Markus Funk: Yes, it happened. As you can probably tell, after five hours, people no longer the longer want to hear from me. Jonathan Amarilio: Lopez was Frank Sr. Markus Funk: Exactly. He was his lawyer. They both like car magazines. I still remember as if it was yesterday.

They would sit there with these manila legal kind of folders and pretend to be looking at some document related to the case. Is there something funny about what I just said, Mr. Jonathan Amarilio: Put a gun in his face. Markus Funk: There was a definitely an element of that during that episode and just in general again to try to diffuse this sense that they own the courthouse, owned everything.

After I said that. Imagine a tennis match. You watch where the ball is. Your head goes back and forth. None of us heard it. And once a meeting, we meet with, get permission, and then we meet with him and learned that the jury picked that up. The audience was looking to him from the side and the rest of us were looking at the jury.

And so, that then, we had two hearings on it. I had to testify, other people had to testify. Ultimately, Judge Zagel made a factual finding that the threat did happen. Jonathan Amarilio: That raises in my mind, the question, do you still ever worry about your safety and the safety of your family? What stops them from seeking retribution? Markus Funk: Well, try to phrase this sort of carefully, maybe unusually carefully. Big picture, the mob is a business. Frank Calabrese was crazy in a way, not clinically crazy, but he really was a psychopath.

He enjoyed seeing people suffer. He was that kind of a guy. With him, we all took it more seriously. He did this huge mob case and Sicily. And so, I mean, look, I was also a brave man. I had no children. I was a single guy. But no, I mean, of course, you take it seriously.

As these things turn out, my neighbor certainly took it seriously because it ended up being splashed all over the newspaper, including the cover of the Sun Times.

And I think all of the other defendants, they may not like us prosecutors, but they know that we are, to an extent, fungible too, just like they are. The whole relationship between him and all of us actually was somewhat different than most defendants because he just was sort of a — he was a psychopath. What do you know about the current condition of the Outfit in Chicago? I mean, this trial took down a large part of their leadership. Where are they today as an organization?

Markus Funk: Well, look, I mean, there are still people out there pursuing these cases. In terms of him getting involved in mob cases. I can tell you my sense of things just based on where things stood way back when is that in terms of numbers, the Chicago mob is not what it once was.

And the reason I bring that example up is the one thing that the mob was able to do then and is still able to do now is infiltrate the higher ranks of civil society, of the judiciary, of law enforcement, of the political arena.

They have a lot of power. The mob, in my estimation, did and still does have that power. But again, it would be a great mistake to underestimate them. Jonathan Amarilio: Where did all the money go? What happens to all that money after cases like this? Markus Funk: They were playing a long game. What matters is sort of how you perform and how hard you work.

And so, in Chicago you made your way up the hierarchy in more of a meritocracy fashion. The result of that is that most of the people at the top, their kids go to law school, medical school, they go into legitimate businesses, they inherit your money.

Typically, the goal is make your money, work hard. Jennifer Byrne: And just one more question for you today, Markus. Can you tell us about how things resolved? What was the final verdict in the case? And tell us a little bit about the sentencing as well.

Mitch, as I mentioned, way, way, way too early passed away in John Scully became a judge and that left me. And so, the trial ended in By early , really January to March of , we had all of the sentencings in front of Judge Zagel.

And so, we had the sentencings for Lombardo who received life imprisonment, for Frank Calabrese, Sr. And so, those sentencings all happened kind of one after the other over the course of the weeks, again, largely between January and March of And then Nick Calabrese, ultimately, as you recall, he was the cooperator who had over a dozen murders to his name and he received 12 years, which, of course, was highly controversial within the victim group, it was highly controversial in the media, but as Judge Zagel explained, without Nick Calabrese, the case would have not been able to be made, not the way it was made.

Jonathan Amarilio: And the idea there, Markus, is you want to encourage future cooperators to come forward, because if you were to throw the book at him after the fact, then future Nick Calabreses would sit tight. And the only deal he expected was that that he would be treated, as he put it, fairly. I think given everything that he unpacked, all the information that he shared, all the intelligence that he was able to provide, I would imagine, he could have gotten quite a good deal worked out if he had counsel.

And so, it really came down to us to some extent also holding up our part of the bargain. And so, like you said, if he had received a very harsh sentence and this is something Judge Zagel emphasized, then no one would come forward. It was a sweeping victory for prosecutors. The five men were found guilty of all counts, including racketeering conspiracy, bribery, illegal gambling and tax fraud.

The fifth man, retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62, was the only one among the five not accused of taking part in at least one killing. The trial focused on the killings, ordinarily among the deepest and most closely held secrets of the mob, whose members have sworn an oath of silence. Jurors will next be tasked with determining which men were responsible for each of the 18 deaths.

He said his brother, Frank Calabrese, ran a loan sharking business and specialized in strangling victims with a rope, then cutting their throats to make certain that they were dead. The fifth man, retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62, was the only one among the five not accused of taking part in at least one killing. The trial focused on the killings, ordinarily among the deepest and most closely held secrets of the mob, whose members have sworn an oath of silence.

Jurors will next be tasked with determining which men were responsible for each of the 18 deaths. From the start, prosecutors asked the jurors to forget what they learned from "The Godfather" movies, but the testimony that followed was fit for a Hollywood script. Witnesses described former friends being blindly lured to their deaths, the relentless squeezing of a mob bookie and a pizza restaurant operator for thousands of dollars in "street tax," and clandestine rituals where the new initiated "made guys" had their fingers cut and were required to take an oath while holding burning religious pictures.

The government's star witness was Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted hit man who cooperated with the government in hopes of avoiding a death sentence.

He said his brother, Frank Calabrese, ran a loan sharking business and specialized in strangling victims with a rope, then cutting their throats to make certain that they were dead. Frank Calabrese admitted in court that he associated with mobsters, but he denied being one himself. But his alleged mob ties were never alluded to in any public filings in the embezzlement case.

In court Monday, Kennelly seemed to feign confusion when Matassa alluded that prosecutors had targeted him because of his name. When court reconvened, Matassa said he was simply referring to what he believes were decades of harassment from federal regulators during his career as a supervisor in various unions.

Matassa also spent thousands of dollars in union cash on expenses for himself, including restaurant meals, a cellphone, gas and car washes, according to records that were discussed in court Monday. Giacchetti also said Matassa has considerable health problems, including chronic heart disease, morbid obesity, diabetes and vertigo.