Movies. Mayhem, the Mob...and All the Players in Between
A $5.5 million-dollar low interest loan from the munificent City of Chicago honchos to a private consortium or enterprising and rising entrepreneurs endeavoring to build a deluxe film center and sound stage was nipped in the bud at the 11th hour. What happened? It seems a major player in line for a piece of the action was revealed to be - of all things in the Windy City - mob-connected.
The proposed Studio Works project, a 100,000-square-foot sound stage planned for construction in the blighted Near West Side, is a limited partnership that includes several "connected" people, and heavy hitters tied to - of all people - William Hogan, Jr. Hogan and his family controlled Teamster's Local 714 , that represents many Machinery, Scrap Iron, Metal and Steel, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, Handlers, Helpers, Alloy Fabricators, Theatrical, Exposition, Convention and Trade Show Employees as well as some law enforcement officers.
Billy Hogan, Jr., who, until this past year when his term expired, reigned as Chairman of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, a 1,500 member organization with the proper City Hall scrutiny, runs 714, the Teamster Local with a big stake in the local economically powerful movie industry. Hogan has made a lifelong career our of promoting himself as a labor leader after inheriting this union local from his father and making big money by his golden touch - for himself.
Mayor Daley appointed Hogan to the high profile post of convention chairman as a political "thank you" to the conniving Teamster's Local top-gun, whose Local 714, over the years has been tainted by a hoodlum influence that the Mayor conveniently overlooks. In its sordid history, Local 714 has been of assistance to syndicate figures by adding them to the payroll at McCormick Place and as it turned out, some of these wise guys were also dealing dope for added revenue. Important trade shows were discouraged from returning to Chicago because of "high payroll" overhead and the intrusion of Teamster Local 714's personnel in the phases of efficient operation - and of course possibly fear to. Two Teamsters assigned to screw in a light bulb or carry an exhibitor's briefcase from a curbside taxicab into a massive showroom was the standing joke of the era - but unhappily, one with some ring of truth to the comedy.
The attending scandal, the 74-count federal indictment and conviction of a top Local 714 union steward named David P. Kaye on charges of labor shakedowns, undermined the credibility of the "Hogan family Local" as labor people call it.
Daye served a prison term in Florida for the attempted murder of an African-American man who refused to carry our a direct order to kill a Miami laundermat owner. At the time, before graduation to the hierarchy of the Hogan Local 714, Kaye was an organizer for the International Laundry Workers Union, an organization that according to sworn testimony hired young black men to hurl rocks at laundry trucks. When Kaye's victim refused to carry out the order he was shot five times and beaten to within an inch of his life. Miraculously he survived and his testimony put Kaye behind bars.
In 1976, Kaye was convicted on Taft-Hartley violations, and was sentenced to two years in prison by Judge Alfred Y. Kirkland who noted in this closing comments: "This was a case of unconscionable greed. He enriched himself unjustly for work he never performed. His argument of innocence which he maintains to this point insults the fair mind." Kaye was accused of raking in $191,000 as a paid "consultant" to the exhibition contractors at McCormick Place, even though he performed no actual work. The payoffs were made to preserve labor peace in the convention hall.
Now, juxtapose the comments of Judge Kirkland to what William Hogan, Sr. said. In his own words, Hogan, Sr. described Kaye as "one hell of a guy."
Lately Billy Hogan has been, according to those in the know, "bending over backwards" to maintain a good image within the film industry in Illinois. Suzy Kellet, who was the former Director of the Illinois Film Office (an appointee of Governor Jim Edgar), praised Hogan's efforts on behalf of movie makers coming into Chicago. This branch of the Governor's office functions as a liaison to the Hollywood studios and assists the filmmakers in the initial process of selecting neighborhood locales for the upcoming shoot.
"Very accommodating," is how Ms. Kellet describe the Local 714 boss and his past relations with her office. But then one would wonder why Billy wouldn't be anything else but friendly and loquacious while working with this branch of state government.
It is interesting to note, and a strange aside to this story that Ms. Kellet and Charles Geocaris, an appointee of James Sheahan, the director of the Mayor's office, and the city's liaison to Hollywood responsible for coordinating the actual logistics of the movie shoot with the Police Department and other city agencies at One North LaSalle Street, both should leave their posts at exactly the same time in October 1995.
It is rather curious that less than three months after the movie brouhaha first hit the front pages, that both Geocaris and Kellet should suddenly step down from their positions. Kellet resigned in order to accept a similar position for the State of Washington in Seattle. Geocaris explained that he wanted to get into the "creative" side of the business. Still, the timing of it seems so unusual.
It is reliably reported that Billy Hogan siphons off a percentage of jobs to non-union personal ( a no- no for a union guy), in order to keep manpower costs down and avoid the possible stigma of another 714 scandal of the McCormick Place type from exposing him to further unwanted publicity.
He cannot afford adverse press coverage at a time when his Local and other ties are under intense scrutiny from the United States Government and reform-minded people in the Teamster union hierarchy itself. Ron Carey, the reform-oriented President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has undertaken an aggressive campaign to rid the Teamsters union of corruption since his election by the members in 1991. It can be assumed that Carey will investigate any possible Teamster-linked corruption raised by he Studio Works deal. Carey has an established record of rooting out mob-influenced corruption in other Chicago Teamster locals in the Chicago Metropolitan AEA such as Local 705 and 743 where aggressive action put mob-linked figures on the run.
These issues were raised by the Chicago press in their coverage for this potentially explosive story of mob infiltration of the local movie industry. Potential is applicable word because all of the facts have not yet surfaced.
In 1993, Billy Hogan took the helm as president of Teamster's Joint Council no. 25, representing 120,000 members and affecting (conservatively) billions of dollars of their moneys in one form or another.
Since that time the fast-moving Billy has fiercely resisted efforts on the part of International Teamster's President Ron Carey to clean up the entire union's corruptive mob ties nationwide and purge various locals across the country of long-standing, questionable connections. Carey ousted Hogan from the directorship of the Convention and Trade Show Division of the Teamsters and he didn't do so without having a good reason. Hogan has declared his opposition to Carey's reform campaign by joining the ambitious James P. Hoffa, "Junior" who is leading the campaign to turn back the clock and stop reform within the union.
Hoffa the Younger, who worked for years as a well-paid attorney, was chosen to run for president by a small group of anti-reform union officials including William Hogan. Jimmy Junior and Hogan are raising money and running to oust Carey in order to assume the positions of General President and Secretary-Treasurer, the number two position in the union. They want to go back to the glory days of mob influence, corruption, and the pillaging of pension funds - a time when rank-and-file members lived in fear of speaking up at unions meetings.
In a letter sent by Billy Hogan to U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, one of the nation's most virulent union-busting politicians, he strongly urged Gramm to eliminate the federal oversight investigation into Teamster shenanigans, and indicated his eagerness to travel forthwith to Washington, D.C. to discuss the matter further.
"I strongly believe this is an issue worth looking into," Hogan writes in his December 1994 correspondence to Gramm. "Your initial comments pertaining to this matter are encouraging to me and other concerned officers and members of subordinate bodies whose only interest is to return our Teamsters union back to its members." Gramm, a Texan, is not exactly the working guy's compadre.
In recent months "Hoffa the Younger" has received valuable advertising by puffing O'Brien's Restaurant on Wells Street in Chicago via lavish fullpage pictorial ads appearing in the Sun Times. O'Briens is where many of Chicago's in crowd like to be noticed, gather. Billy Hogan paved the way.
The full page picture is an insidious, but highly effective way of keeping the Hoffa name prominent before the Chicago metropolitan area rank-and-file membership, portraying this attorney as a man of the people during the crucial juncture when the Teamster's union stands at an important crossroads in its brutal history. The outcome of the election for International President could bode good or evil for millions of working men and women.
Associates of "Junior" Hoffa's allies including some former disciples of Lyndon LaRouche, the right-wing political hate monger, convicted and imprisoned for fraud back in the 1980s, are responsible for an ugly smear campaign launched against Ron Carey by some journalist within the national media. The three member Independent Review Board, an entity of the federal courts, found the accusations of Carey's alleged mob ties to be "empty and baseless." The charges were raised for self-serving purposed by the Hoffa clique, which Billy Hogan is an integral part of.
Over the years, the Hogan family-led Teamster Local has been the target of various probes searching for the organized crime links of those in control. And despite feverish denials by Screen Magazine, and other film industry insiders anxious to downplay the negative fallout of government and news media sources alleging that there has been a continuous pattern of racketeering activity in Chicago's movie industry the allegations refuse to disappear. The story of the mob and Illinois movie making had its origins in California, where it was first reported that independent service suppliers were being strong-armed by outfit muscle in the Chicago area. Historically the wise guys have always found the movie industry ripe for an extorted buck or two - especially by the Chicago mob.
Presently, two major studios have quite plainly been saying that they would not come back to the Windy City because of wide-spread theft of equipment from the lots, implying that some of the local personnel might have had a hand in the crimes. The disappearance of electric cable, communications equipment, radios, and assorted movie paraphernalia is a chronic, discouraging, and costly nuisance. It all sounds so familiar.
To repair the negative damage already done to his hand in the fiasco and to curtail future adversity, Hogan and a delegation of leaders from several other union involved in the local Chicago movie business flew to California. It seems they wanted to provide personal assurances to the powers that be at the Warner Brothers and Walt Disney studios that any culpable parties would be expelled from the unions, and prosecuted if necessary. Such remains to be seen. But of course would anyone expect them to say anything else? Only if they're naive. Just review the history of the movie industry and its relationship with the "wise guys" here in the Windy City.
"We know of many bad business practices which exist in every other industry as well - but none that even remotely resembles a mob connection," retorts Ruth L, Ratny of Screen Magazine, an industry trade publication catering to those involved in the local movie business.
Is her head in the clouds or is Ms. Ratny simply overlooking the obvious in order to assuage a skittish industry that could pull the plug on Chicago at any time, and move their production companies to Pittsburgh, Denver, Toronto, or a half-dozen other cities lining up the business?
When a movie studio sets up in town, Hogan designates three of this most trusted and key guys - "transportation coordinators" they're called - to meet with the film company to establish the logistics of the shoot, provide equipment to the production company, and decide which Teamster working people will be hired for the prized jobs.
Inevitably one of the Hogan's point guys the movie people will come face to face with is Richard "Dickie" DeAngelo, a Local 714 "transportation captain" since 1983 and an ex-Chicago cop who was discharged from the department on March 16, 1965 after he was convicted of official misconduct by Criminal Court Judge Thomas H. Fitzgerald for accepting a $20 to clear a traffic ticket bribe form a West Side man.
In his testimony before the court-appointed independent review board established to oversee anti- corruption efforts in the Teamster's union in July of last year, DeAngelo put an entirely different spin on the events leading to his leaving the CPD.
Q - How long did you serve on the Chicago force?
A - Five years.
Q - Were you honorably separated from the department?
A - I packed it in because I was making more money at the bars.
Q - All right. Was it an honorable discharge is probably the question I wanted to ask you. Was it honorable?
A - It wasn't honorable, it was just, you don't get discharged. You just quit. You're discharged when ---
Q - What I mean is the equivalent ---
A - Yes.
Q - ...you left?
A - Yes.
Q - When you ---
A - Under good circumstances.
DeAngelo and another police officer were observed by officers from the Internal Investigations Division (IID) accepting two $10 bills dusted with a fluorescent powder from one Rudy J. Havel who picked the two patrolmen out of a lineup the following day.
Just about a year later Dickie DeAngelo was involved in a fatal shooting outside the Bisto-A-Go-Go Club at 7055 Higgins Ave. It made his reputation as a tough guy and someone to be feared and heard form in the future. The circumstances surrounding the killing are still nebulous to this day but it's easy to read between the lines.
Piecing together the events of this night, the facts show the pizzeria cook Larry Stubitsch was pronounced dead at Resurrection Hospital four hors after the two gunshot blast tore into his mid- section. DeAngelo, who was amending to the affairs of the nightclub at the time, told Area 5 homicide detectives that he was confronted by four armed robbers as he was sweeping out the place. The whole melee spilled out onto the sidewalk before the fatal shots were fire, cutting down Stubitsch. The police never did locate the murder weapon. An unusual occurrence. No money had been taken from the registers and the investigators were hard pressed to reconstruct the sequence of events. Dickie's version of the story appears contrived.
DeAngelo was charged with keeping a disorderly house and employing minors as a last recourse, but the case was thrown out by Magistrate Earl Neal at the East Chicago Avenue Police Court when it came up for a hearing a week later.
Just who is this Dickie DeAngelo, deposed during a high-level Teamster probe? He drifted into Teamster circles in 1978, and rose to a key position the movie business part of the action several years later. He was arrested in 1984 by detectives from the 25th District in Chicago, but the IR record was expunged. Of greater concern to the Teamster Independent Review Board investigating mob ties for the U.S. District Court, were his alleged ties to local mob figures. DeAngelo said that Marco D'Amico and Salvatore DeLaurentis used to stop by one of the taverns he owned from time to time, but he only knew Rocco Infelise, Jackie Cerone, and the other big time players from what he had read in the newspapers. Philip "Philly Beans" Tolomeo, whose career as a juice loan extortionist (now in the witness protection program), was a nightly habitue of the Bistro-A-Go-Go, and some sources believe that he might have had a piece of the joint at one time.
John J. Flood, the President of the Combined Counties Police Association was one of several Chicago Crime Commission members who were to question Billy Hogan about the serious allegations of shakedowns and widespread theft in the movie industry. Hogan agreed to appear before Commission members for whatever his own self-serving reasons were, and to possibly apply damage control in the wake of these potentially explosive revelations of improprieties in Chicago's movie business.
Also present for this meeting was Lee Flosi, a highly credentialed former FBI agent who headed field operations in Southern Europe, the Middle Ease, and Africa at one point during his illustrious career, then later as the Supervisor of the Chicago Organized Crime Task Force and Coordinator of the Chicago Division's Organized Crime Program. Mr. Flosi's presence did not seem to bother Hogan. However, John J. Flood is familiar with Billy's background and that did. The Local 714 boss turned tail and ran after being apprised that Flood was to be one of his interrogators. Hogan refused to make a presentation and be queried - instead, exiting the Crime Commission in a huff.
William Galioto and his son Salvatore owned Movies in Motion, Inc., a local Chicago-area production company that rented vehicles and provided transportation for Hollywood film companies shooting on local highways and byways in the Windy City.
Jimmy Hogan was a principal investor with Movies in Motion. No direct competition always keeps things rolling along at a fast clip. A monopoly - possibly.
Their company receive city permits dating back to 1976, Movies in Motion enjoyed a virtual lock on this business until it was dissolved on September 1, 1995.
William Galioto is another ex-Chicago cop with mob ties. He is the brother-in-law of James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello, a former chauffeur for Sam "Wings" Carlisi. Up until the moment he went off to prison, Marcell was one of the up and coming outfit bosses on the West and Southwest Sides until the Feds turned up the heat. James Marcello is currently serving a 12-year sentence for racketeering and tax fraud but he'll be back as a big player.
William Galioto was indicted in DuPage county back in 1993 for running a gambling operation. The indictment was dismissed a year later, but on the application for the low-interest city loan to finance Studio Works, Galioto answered "no" to the question of whether or not he had been indicted or convicted of a felony in the last 10 years. He has also been accused by federal prosecutors of failing file federal income tax returns dating back to 1986.
Over the years, Salvatore "Sam" Galioto has been spotted in the company of prominent organized crime figures including Michael Marcello and Edward Tinari from Deerfield Beach, Florida. Recently, Salvatore Galioto and several other parties were named as defendants in two civil lawsuits: one for nonpayment of legal fees to Attorney Rodney C. Slutsky, and another for defaulting on a loan granted by the First Colonial Bank of Rosemont.
Another name that bubbles to the surface in the movie business is that of John Credidio, owner of Chicago Studio Rentals. Back in 1984, Credidio attempted to expand the business at a site presently occupied by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studio with the financial backing of city hall aficionado Morgan F. Murphy, a former Democratic Congressman from the Second District and a partner in the Loop law firm of Murphy & Boyle.
During the planning stages Rocco Infelise and his (then) boss and mentor, the late Joseph Ferriola, an admitted "close friend" of John Credidio, were observed coming and going form the building, which sparked a public inquiry that eventually forced Credidio to withdraw his name from a deal earmarking a $3.5 million Federal Economic Development Grant to fund the expansion. The grant money sailed through the approval process once Credidio was severed from the project although he would have all believe that he was just another legitimate businessman.
Credidio's IR record lists an arrest for theft from interstate shipment in June 1972 and another one in August 1973. He was sentenced to 18 months at Sandstone, Minnesota, a federal detention center for possession of an interstate shipment. In 1983 former Lieutenant Governor Neil Hartigan presented a chart of organized crime figures to a Senate panel investigating organized crime. John Credidio's name was included on that listing, but in the intervening years he has managed to stay out of trouble and is considered to be a mover and a shaker in Chicago's movie industry action. Credidio has polished his image and is seeking the respect of those within the profession according to industry insiders.
As the former State's Attorney of Cook County, you would think that Richie Daley would have an idea as to who is who, or if he doesn't, he might have tried asking those under this thumb and in the know within the Chicago Police Department.
Supposedly in the dark, and unaware of these deep and pervasive mob ties, Mayor Daley brought the United Studio proposal before the City Council on May 17th after the LaSalle National Bank and the Prime Group - developers of the downtown RR Donnelley building - signed off on the deal which would have provided a 3.4% interest loan to the United Studio Center. Not a bad interest rate for an aspiring business trying to stand on its two feet. The City Council Finance Committee approved the loan on June 8th. Then the bubble burst. Movies in Motion and Studio Works became big news.
A reporter from WBBM News Radio assigned to cover the historic ground-breaking ceremonies observed some of the instantly recognizable "dignitaries" of wise guy origin and became suspicious. Alerted to the presence of outfit characters, 14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke took note and refused to move it from the Finance Committee to the full City Council for a vote. Burke then relayed his concerns to Mayor Richard Daley and undoubtedly the political consequences as well. The astute Burke is much sharper than Daley on such matters. When the LaSalle Bank and the Prime Group pulled out, the project was dead in the water leaving the faltering Daley administration to assess the damages and lick its wounds - wounds that were now being milked by the major news media. "The bottom line is that we both apparently got taken for a ride," Gary Skoein, vice-president of the Prime Group told the Chicago Tribune.
Where were the background checks? Police Superintendent Matt Rodriquez, who was a Sergeant in the Organized Crime Intelligence Division earlier in his career has not been heard from on this matter. Was he even called? In their haste to break ground for a new public works project they believed would benefit the West Side, Daley and his minions by design or oversight - were very careless to say the least. Or have they reached the point of arrogance where they believe they can do what they want whenever they damn well please?
The Mayor's public naivete, and apparent unconcern regarding organized crime's deep and historic penetration of the local film industry is troubling, and raises larger questions. "I'm not the FBI," Daley snorted to the press. "We have a restriction on spying you know. I'm not passing the ball. We will look at it and correct it." However, as Cook County State's Attorney for nearly eight years, Daley had freer access to criminal intelligence files than the average FBI field agent. Richie Daley, more than most office holders in the political limelight, was in a position to find who was who in organized crime.
He should have known better, but then maybe he didn't want to know. How else can one account for Daley's ties to John Serpico, recently ousted from his post as the head of the grievance committee f the Laborer's International Union of North America, and the Mayor's appointee to lead the Illinois Regional Port Authority? Despite a firm admonishment from the Chicago Crime Commission that Serpico was close friends with the late mob boss Vince Solano and other hoodlums, Daley disregarded the storm warnings and appointed Serpico to the post anyway.
The Mayor warmly embraces Eddie Hanley, President of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HEREIU) whose mob ties in Atlantic City and Chicago are well- documented. Hanley's Local was chartered in Cicero by Joey Aiuppa. A federal consent decree bars Hanley from operating in Atlantic City after his ties to the Nicky Scarfo crime family of Philadelphia were revealed. More recently, the union was forced to come to terms with its mob-tainted past by agreeing to a Justice Department consent decree placing HEREIU under the close watch and supervision of a three-member board for an 18-month period. Hanley's union was named as one of the four most corrupt labor unions in the U.S. by a presidential commission. The Teamsters, the Laborer's International (represented locally by Serpico), and the Longshoreman's Association were the other three cited by the Commission.
The fact that Daley continued to do business with Serpico and Hanley - who routinely deal with known organized crime figures on much higher levels than the Galiotos is mystifying.
Certainly Daley must have been aware of the mob's historic and brazen attempt to shake down the Hollywood motion picture industry. In the 1940s Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti assigned a former pimp named Willie Bioff to enforce the edicts of mob-backed George Browne, who became president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Operators.
Bioff muscled his way into Hollywood where he extorted millions for the Chicago Syndicate after threatening the movie moguls that he would close down every theater from New York to California through assorted acts of violence and intimidation. Bioff and Browne were eventually convicted of extortion and racketeering. After ratting on his former pals in return for a reduced 10-year sentence, Willie bought a home in Phoenix, Arizona following his release from prison. The mob retaliated. He was killed by a bomb that had been connected to the starter of his pick-up truck on November 4, 1955.
In more recent times, the outfit and its associates who run legitimate businesses continue to profit from their associations with Hollywood production companies who have come to the Windy City in order to avoid the costly overhead of shooting movies on location in New York City and Los Angeles, where the theft problem is said to be acute.
When the present spotlight of controversy dies down, and the offending parties are sifted from the ownership and management of Studio Works, the building of the sound stage will probably go through. It's possible that the city might even be sued for breach of contract by the injured parties. After considerable legal wrangling the matter will probably be settled out of court by the high- powered, finagling attorneys. The West Side will be home to a movie studio. Chicago will recover its share of the film business and everyone will be happy. Where will that leave the outfit? Lurking in the background as usual...because that is the natural order of things with so much money involved.