Detective for loan shark worked both sides of fence

March 15, 2002

STEVE WARMBIR STAFF REPORTER

Convicted loan shark James Inendino, apparently worried about federal investigators, was having his car swept for listening devices by his friend, private investigator Sam Rovetuso.

The only problem for Inendino was that Rovetuso himself was secretly wired up to record the conversation.

"You're clean," Rovetuso tells Inendino after the sweep in a July 1996 conversation that was played for a federal jury Thursday in the fourth day of the fraud trial against Inendino, alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr., and former Cicero police chief Emil Schullo.

The bug-detecting device Rovetuso was using was on loan from the government, IRS Special Agent William Paulin testified Thursday.

Federal prosecutors have been playing hours of the secret recordings to show the jury how Spano and Inendino were allegedly part of a scheme to rip off the town of Cicero over a $75,000 job to check whether three police officers were breaking the rules by living outside the town. Rovetuso oversaw the job.

Schullo allegedly got kickbacks for steering the job to a detective agency controlled by Spano.

Rovetuso won't be testifying at trial; he died from leukemia in 1999.