Are the mobsters gone
from the Southland?
The influence of the mob has waned,
but experts warn not to count the Outfit
out yet
Sunday,
May 8, 2005
By Chris Hack,
Special to The Star
Nearly a century after organized
crime embraced
Chicago and
slithered south to
claim new turf,
federal officials
last month trumpeted
a historic victory.
Billed as an unprecedented strike
against the
leadership of
Chicago's organized
crime syndicate, the
Outfit, more than a
dozen alleged
leaders and
associates were
indicted, many
accused of taking
part in 18 gangland
murders between 1970
and 1986.
The charges described a
mobster-vengeful
violence often
depicted in the
movies — but made
little mention of
the notorious Outfit
crew that once ruled
the South Suburbs
from a
well-established
base in Chicago
Heights.
Authorities said that absence
illustrates a
decline in mob
membership
everywhere, as well
as the lasting
effects of a string
of crippling
prosecutions that
singled out south
suburban Outfit
leaders more than a
decade ago.
Times have changed since bootleggers
ruled. Hobbled by
the government, the
mob's Chicago
Heights crew also
has been eclipsed by
a different kind of
crime. A city that
once seemed to swing
to the script of
"The Godfather"
eventually was
saddled with a new
kind of gangster,
modeled after the
drug kingpin from
"New Jack City."
The group targeted by the feds last
month can be traced
back to Chicago's
infamous Levee
District, a muddy
patch of downtown
land rife with
brothels and shady
saloons in the late
19th century. The
rural South Suburbs
quickly became
fertile ground for
mob-run liquor
stills and, later,
automobile chop
shops.
South suburban mob bosses — while
often still
answering to people
up north —
ultimately
controlled lucrative
territory along what
would become the
Interstate 80
corridor from
northwest Indiana to
Joliet.
According to federal investigators,
the Outfit for
decades was made up
of six crews based
across the Chicago
area, including a
long-prominent group
in Chicago Heights.
But at a packed
April 25 news
conference
announcing the
indictment, FBI
special-agent-in-charge
Robert Grant said
the Outfit's crews
had been reduced to
four and declared
the mob's Chicago
Heights faction
defunct.
"When I read that in the paper, it
astounded me," said
retired IRS
investigator Robert
Fuesel, who was a
longtime member of
an anti-mob strike
force. "It's hard
for me to believe
they still don't
have six crews. At
the very least, it's
hard for me to
believe the Heights
isn't part of one of
these crews."
With the exception of a low-level mob
associate from
Willow Springs
accused of helping
Outfit higher-ups
run an illegal video
poker operation,
none of those named
in the indictment
hailed from the
South Suburbs.
Grant said the Outfit crews from
Grand Avenue and
26th Street in the
city and from
Melrose Park/Cicero
and Elmwood Park are
the remaining crews.
Lombard resident
James Marcello,
allegedly of the
Melrose Park crew,
has been fingered by
the feds as the
current leader of
the Outfit.
"It's been our position the Marcello
crew has been
running everything,"
IRS special agent
Bill Paulin said
last week.
But federal authorities, as well as
mob-watchers who
always warn against
proclaiming the
Outfit extinct, are
quick to point out
that doesn't mean
there aren't
wiseguys plying
their trade south of
95th Street.
"I think there's still a pretty
active group of
fellows down there
engaged in various
money-making
enterprises but not
in the numbers there
once were," Paulin
said. "If it's a
matter of who they
report to, they may
not have their own
crew boss — it's
been consolidated."
FBI spokesman Ross Rice, who worked
as a special agent
out of the bureau's
Tinley Park office
when a series of
high-profile federal
prosecutions
targeted south
suburban mob bosses,
said that
consolidation was
inevitable.
Aggressive racketeering prosecutions
and other factors
have contributed to
an overall decrease
in Chicago's "La
Cosa Nostra" — our
thing — as gangsters
call their chosen
way of life. Federal
agents estimate
there are now only
100 Outfit members —
and perhaps only two
dozen of those are
"made" members with
leadership positions
— active in the
Chicago area.
"The number of people across the
board has been
reduced," Rice said.
"So the number of
people you have to
lead is reduced.
There is activity
(in the South
Suburbs), it's just
not centered there
anymore."
When the mob came
Mob historians trace the origins of
the modern-day mob
in Chicago to the
late 1800s, when
James "Big Jim"
Colisimo organized
gambling, labor and
prostitution rackets
from his power base
in the city's 1st
Ward. When
Prohibition was
imposed a few
decades later, that
structure was tapped
to build a
bootlegging empire.
Initially, Chicago was divided into
territories ruled by
different factions
formed along ethnic
lines. A powerful
gang run by mobster
John Torrio — and
later, his partner
Al Capone —
controlled the South
Side and the South
Suburbs.
When booze became illegal, Chicago
Heights sprouted
liquor-making
stills. A
once-remote outpost,
the Heights became a
quick ride from the
crowded city with
the popularity of
the automobile. By
most accounts,
Capone's gang took
over the extensive
bootlegging
operation there in
1926.
Although he came to rule citywide and
eventually made west
suburban Cicero
headquarters, Capone
always will be
linked to Chicago
Heights. He hid
there while on the
run from Chicago
police for murder
and came back to
visit often; a
popular story has
him handing out wads
of cash at a 1931
baptism reception.
Capone's connection to Chicago
Heights and the
massive bootlegging
operation that
thrived there wove
mob lawlessness into
the city's identity.
An extensive account by local
historian Dominic
Candeloro of a mass
1890s immigration of
Italians — who
primarily came from
a half-dozen towns
in Italy and settled
together in various
Chicago Heights
neighborhoods
according to their
old hometowns —
noted that some
observers suggested
Prohibition helped
bring prosperity to
the growing city.
Workers were needed
to build, operate
and maintain the
illegal stills, and
the new industry
probably helped
create a wealth that
outlived the booze
ban.
"Former and surviving bootleggers
made nest eggs for
legitimate
businesses or to
send their children
to college and into
the professions,"
Candeloro wrote.
But the mobsters and bootleggers also
fostered negative
ethnic stereotypes
that persisted as
new generations of
Italian immigrants
rose from
working-class jobs
to become, by the
1980s, the city's
political leaders.
Chicago Heights
Mayor Anthony DeLuca
said that as an
Italian-American,
he's upset with the
recent hubbub over
the new mob
indictments.
"They're beating up on these
78-year-old former
mobsters, or current
mobsters, or
whatever they're
calling them, for
whatever they were
doing 40 or 50 years
ago," DeLuca said.
"The feds are
probably just doing
their job ...
(mobsters) need to
be brought to
justice. But it's
the media — they
tend to
sensationalize it,
and it puts a very
bad mark on us."
Decline of
Southland mob
After Capone was out of the picture,
one of his top
henchmen, Frankie
LaPorte, took
responsibility for
the south suburban
territory. Later, a
young LaPorte driver
named Alfred Pilotto
would assume control
of the area.
Pilotto ruled for years as the Outfit
profited from
rampant vice on
Calumet City's "Sin
Strip," a
world-renowned
collection of
brothels and
gambling dens. The
South Suburbs and
still-rural Will
County also became
the region's hub for
mob-controlled chop
shops.
Even before Bloom Township resident
Albert Tocco took
over the area's
Outfit activities,
it was rumored that
downtown Outfit
bosses wanted more
control of the south
suburban rackets.
And with a string of
federal prosecutions
looming, the local
mobsters started
killing each other
off.
William Dauber, a one-time hit man
who reportedly
angered Tocco by
starting a freelance
string of chop
shops, was killed
along with his wife
in a sensational
daylight attack in
Will County. A year
later, Pilotto was
shot several times
in an assassination
attempt on the
eighth hole at
Linconshire Golf
Club in Crete. He
survived.
A wiseguy implicated in the botched
hit on Pilotto,
Nicholas D'Andrea,
was found beaten to
death in a car in
Chicago Heights not
long afterward. And
Samuel Guzzino,
Pilotto's bodyguard
at the golf course
that day, turned up
dead in a ditch near
Beecher.
In 1982, Pilotto was convicted of
federal racketeering
charges and
sentenced to 20
years in prison;
after being
released, he died in
1999 in his Chicago
Heights home. Eight
years later, Tocco
was convicted and
sentenced to 200
years in prison.
After Tocco's downfall, understudy
Dominick "Tootsie"
Palermo briefly took
over the south
suburban rackets.
But Palermo was
quickly indicted in
1992 by the feds in
Hammond, Ind., and
sentenced to 32
years in prison; he
died last month,
four months before
he was eligible for
parole.
"That crew was pretty much decimated
by federal
prosecutions —
Tocco, Palermo,
Pilotto," the FBI's
Rice said. "And
there were also all
the prosecutions of
the public officials
who helped them
operate."
The two-pronged attack may have
spelled the end of
the South Suburbs'
nearly autonomous
mob. According to an
often-cited 1997
report by the
Chicago Crime
Commission, mobster
Johnny "Apes"
Monteleone of
Chinatown at that
time ruled over a
consolidated
syndicate empire
that encompassed
everything south of
the Eisenhower
Expressway.
Monteleone died in
2001.
A new breed of
criminals
The decline of the Chicago Heights
mob faction also may
have coincided with
the gradual
disappearance of
Outfit chop shops.
Frank Scafidi of the
National Insurance
Crime Bureau, which
tracks car-related
crime, said La Cosa
Nostra elements
appear to have bowed
out of the chop-shop
business.
"There's definitely been a reduction
in the old wiseguys
running the chop
shops," Scafidi
said. "They've been
replaced by other
groups — take your
pick which one."
While organized auto theft-related
crime is still
prevalent, it's a
racket that's been
overtaken primarily
by smaller, more
specialized groups,
including Eastern
European gangs, in
some parts of the
country, Scafidi
said. Anti-theft
devices on newer
cars have meant that
thieves have become
more sophisticated,
and manufacturers'
special markings on
car parts have
helped reduce
chopping.
And while Scafidi said there's still
no shortage of
unscrupulous
mechanics creating a
market for cheap
parts stripped from
stolen cars, it's
more common now for
vehicles —
especially
foreign-made ones —
to be stolen here
and smuggled intact
into Mexico or even
shipped by container
overseas.
In Chicago Heights during recent
years, any Outfit
doings likely have
been overshadowed by
a different kind of
organized crime. For
Mayor DeLuca, the
1980s-era mob hits
and malfeasance
revisited in last
month's indictment
are ancient history.
"I can't speak to what happened when
I was playing
Chicago Heights
Little League
baseball as a small
fry," DeLuca said.
"But I can tell you
there's a lot of
other kinds of crime
here now, whether
you call it
organized crime or
not."
Chicago Heights wasn't spared during
the nationwide
spread of crack
cocaine in the late
1980s. With the help
of several corrupt
police officers,
kingpin Otis Moore
perfected
large-scale drug
dealing at open-air
markets near housing
projects on the
city's East Side.
After Moore was convicted and sent to
federal prison, the
drug-dealing vacuum
was filled by
another group busted
by the feds in 2003.
That organization,
run by a
well-defined
hierarchy of
employees, operated
around the clock
across from an
elementary school at
Fifth Avenue and
Claude Court,
pulling in $20,000 a
day.
Its leader, Troy Lawrence, of
Hammond, blatantly
fashioned himself
after the Nino Brown
character from the
movie "New Jack
City" — and even
bragged he was more
powerful than the
fictional kingpin
was in the film.
Lawrence, who was
convicted and is
scheduled to be
sentenced next
month, went by the
nickname "Nino," and
had his moniker
memorialized on a
platinum medallion
and a car license
plate.
"We have our drugs still," Chicago
Heights Police Chief
Anthony Murphy said.
"Anytime you have a
big (federal)
prosecution there's
going to be a
drop-off, but
they're not going
away.
"We have no crime here we can
attribute to
organized crime," he
added.
DeLuca, who was elected in 2003,
suggested federal
resources would have
been better spent
combating modern-day
crime epidemics in
his city.
"The last two years, I've seen no
indication of any
crime taking place
here other than the
sale of illegal
substances and gang
activity," DeLuca
said. "What are they
doing about that?"
But Fuesel, the former IRS agent who
also served as
director of the
Chicago Crime
Commission, and
other federal
officials warn
against brushing off
the mob's resiliency
and ability to
exploit new rackets.
"The more things change, the more
they stay the same,"
Fuesel said. "The
Outfit adapts."
Authorities believe the mob's revenue
now primarily comes
from sports
bookmaking and
illegal video poker
machines placed in
taverns. Although
Cook County
sheriff's police
routinely raid
suburban bars that
pay winners, last
month's indictment
alleged a mob-owned
Cicero business
quickly resupplied
them.
State regulators, promising to be
extra vigilant
against mob elements
becoming involved in
Illinois' casino
business, have
stalled for years
plans to build the
state's 10th state
casino in Rosemont.
Some experts have
said that nationwide
moves to legalize
casino gambling,
which Illinois did
more than a decade
ago, have
contributed to the
mob's decline — but
Fuesel isn't so
sure.
"The state may have actually helped
them as far as
gambling goes,"
Fuesel contended.
"Because when you
win with the mob,
you win tax-free."
And even some customers of
state-sanctioned
casinos may need to
seek out mob members
for the age-old help
of juice loans —
cash advances with
exorbitant interest
rates given to
desperate debtors
banks won't trust.
"Anywhere there's a cash business,
they can infiltrate
and control it,"
Fuesel said. "And
they're out there.
There are guys all
over dying to get
into the Outfit." |