In Martin Scorsese’s classic crime film Casino, actor Joe Pesci plays a vicious mob enforcer and hitman in Las Vegas who reports to the “bosses back home,” as Pesci’s character describes them in the film’s voice-over narration.
The bosses are portrayed in
the film as a group of elderly and infirm men who hang around eating, playing
cards and collecting money from their criminal underlings.
Pesci’s character, based on a
very real gangster named Anthony Spilotro (seen in the above photo), is brutally murdered, along with his
brother Michael, in a mid-west cornfield in the film. Their murder, along with
several other murders, were ordered by the bosses back home.
"Back home" is Chicago, home of the criminal organization known as the “Outfit.”
"Back home" is Chicago, home of the criminal organization known as the “Outfit.”
Family Secrets: The Case That
Crippled the Chicago Mob covers the Spilotro murders and much more in this
revealing look at organized crime. The book, written by Chicago Tribune
reporter Jeff Coen, covers the trial of the Outfit bosses in 2007.
“The scale of the case was
unprecedented, for the first time naming the Chicago Outfit itself as a
criminal enterprise under federal anti-racketeer laws and alleging a conspiracy
that was born with Al Capone and flourished from the 1960s forward,” Coen wrote
in his book. “The case included fourteen defendants, eighteen murders, and
decades of bookmaking, loan sharking, extortion and violence.”
The investigation of the
Outfit began in 1998 when the FBI received a letter from Frank Calabrese Jr.,
son of one of the Outfit’s most violent bosses, Frank Calabrese Sr (seen in the above photo).
Due to a sour relationship
with his father, the son told the FBI that he was willing to wear a wire and gather
evidence against his father while they were incarcerated together. The father
enjoyed explaining how the Outfit worked to his son. He also allowed his son to
observe how he conducted business from the prison yard.
The FBI was later able to turn
Nicholas Calabrese, a hitman for his brother Frank Calabrese Sr., into the key
witness against the Outfit bosses.
The FBI called the seven-year
investigation “Operation Family Secrets.” According to the FBI, the list of those
charged read like a “Who’s Who” of the Chicago mob.
After several mobsters
pleaded guilty, the remaining five defendants were Frank Calabrese Sr., James “Jimmy
Light” Marcello, the reputed boss of the outfit, Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, a
tough, old school mob boss, Anthony “Twan” Doyle, a former Chicago police
officer accused of leaking information to Frank Calabrese Sr., and Paul “the
Indian” Schiro, an outfit enforcer.
In September of 2007 the jury
convicted the five men on broad conspiracy charges.
Jeff Coen does a fine job
covering the trial and he offers vivid descriptions of the defendants, the
witnesses and the victims. He also offers a good portrait of the defense
attorneys and the prosecutors, who were as colorful as the gangsters.
Reading this book makes you
feel as if you are sitting in the courtroom. This is a very good true crime
book.
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