Feds tie accused mobsters to hits

June 3, 2005

BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter

The feds on Thursday pinned a Bensenville mob murder on one of the most wanted men in Chicago, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo.

But the mobster with the most blood on his hands, according to the new charges, is Frank Calabrese Sr., a notorious loan shark who the feds now say took part with others in 13 murders and one attempted murder.

"I'm surprised," Joseph Lopez, an attorney for Calabrese Sr., said Thursday. "It doesn't say my client's the shooter, that's all I can tell you."

Frank's brother, Nick Calabrese, 62 -- a made member of the mob who's cooperating with investigators and who has confessed to being involved in 15 hits -- was tied Thursday to one murder: John Fecarotta in 1986.

The new charges were added to a federal indictment handed down in April covering 18 outfit murders since the 1970s. They fill in details that were left out of the original indictment, namely which mobster allegedly took part in which hit. The new indictment provides no other details about the murders, does not name a triggerman and in each of the 18 murders says more than one person was involved.

The April indictment was hailed as the most significant racketeering charges ever against the Chicago Outfit.

The Outfit itself was charged as a criminal enterprise and about half of the 13 charged were accused of 18 murders.

The new charges tie six of the defendants to specific murders. If convicted in at least one murder, that could mean up to life in prison, instead of up to 20 years.

Lombardo and Frank Schweihs, who is also on the lam, are accused in the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert in Bensenville.

Alleged day-to-day mob boss James Marcello is accused in two murders and one attempted murder. That includes the brutal beating deaths of Anthony and Michael Spilotro in 1986, which were made famous in the movie "Casino." At his detention hearing, prosecutors portrayed Marcello as a dangerous mobster, and a judge denied his bond.