Patrickgold wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:10 am
Not sure if this has been posted. Good article and video about an Outfit murder in 1987. Goudie actually went to Vegas and interviewed Renato "Ray" DiSilvestro who was an Outfit police officer and later went to Vegas to represent the Outfit there. Not sure if he still active or not. The video shows the interview with DiSilvestro.
Hahaha this is great. Love the look on Ray’s face when Goudie identifies himself lol.
Ray is from Italy, as I’ve noted before, and you can definitely still hear his accent. Francesco Rocco “Frank” Milito was also himself from Teggiano, Salerno (a town with a long history in Chicago). In the ‘80, Frank Milito basically had like a gas station syndicate running with some of his Salernitan’ paesani — one of them, Giuseppe Cocozza was also murdered, so along with Merriam that’s at least two murders apparently connected to Milito. Like Merriam, the Cocozza hit was also linked to a mobbed up CPD cop (Pierre Zonis).
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:10 am
Not sure if this has been posted. Good article and video about an Outfit murder in 1987. Goudie actually went to Vegas and interviewed Renato "Ray" DiSilvestro who was an Outfit police officer and later went to Vegas to represent the Outfit there. Not sure if he still active or not. The video shows the interview with DiSilvestro.
Hahaha this is great. Love the look on Ray’s face when Goudie identifies himself lol.
Ray is from Italy, as I’ve noted before, and you can definitely still hear his accent. Francesco Rocco “Frank” Milito was also himself from Teggiano, Salerno (a town with a long history in Chicago). In the ‘80, Frank Milito basically had like a gas station syndicate running with some of his Salernitan’ paesani — one of them, Giuseppe Cocozza was also murdered, so along with Merriam that’s at least two murders apparently connected to Milito. Like Merriam, the Cocozza hit was also linked to a mobbed up CPD cop (Pierre Zonis).
Looks like DiSilvestro may be in a wheel chair because of the back of the taxi being opened but I could not tell. I know he moved to Vegas in the mid 90s but to my knowledge got into no trouble in Vegas. Interesting I believe he bought Luke’s Italian Beef for his kid who has the same name as him. Not sure which one, I think the one on Harlem Ave??
Zonis retired from CPD in 2014. I wonder what he is doing these days
Chicago Outfit figure gets four months in federal prison in Social Security fraud scheme
By Jason Meisner
Chicago Tribune
Nov 21, 2022 at 5:15 pm
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In this artist sketch, alleged mobsters Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, from left, Frank Calabrese Sr. and James Marcello sit in court on June 19, 2007, as jury selection begins in the city's biggest organized crime trial in years.
In this artist sketch, alleged mobsters Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, from left, Frank Calabrese Sr. and James Marcello sit in court on June 19, 2007, as jury selection begins in the city's biggest organized crime trial in years. (Verna Sadock/AP)
A Chicago mob figure convicted years ago in the landmark Operation Family Secrets investigation was sentenced Monday to four months in federal prison for participating in a Social Security scam by falsely claiming he’d earned wages from a series of phony or failed businesses, including Lehman Brothers and the Peanut Corporation of America.
Michael “Mickey” Marcello, 71, the half brother of imprisoned Outfit boss James Marcello, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of theft of government funds, admitting he stole nearly $23,000 in Social Security distributions between September 2017 and May 2019.
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Marcello, of west suburban Wood Dale, has been free on bond since he was quietly indicted in December 2019. His attorney, Catharine O’Daniel, argued for probation, saying Marcello was a “low-rung” participant in the scheme and that by requesting prison time, prosecutors were attempting to engage in “a re-litigation of the Family Secrets case.”
“He doesn’t engage in that conduct anymore,” O’Daniel said during the videoconference hearing. “He doesn’t talk to those people anymore, your honor.”
But U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso said that while the loss amount wasn’t as high as many fraud cases brought in Chicago, that’s only because Marcello got caught relatively quickly.
“The plan was to keep stealing the money for the rest of his life,” Alonso said.
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The judge also said that Marcello’s previous conviction for mob-related racketeering “couldn’t be much more serious,” noting Marcello’s elevated role in the mob’s Melrose Park crew and that the Social Security fraud occurred just months after his supervised release in the Family Secrets case was terminated in 2015.
“Mr. Marcello wasn’t just involved (in organized crime), he was an operations manager,” Alonso said. “He was for a time running day-to-day operations.”
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Prior to the sentence being handed down, Marcello apologized to the court, acknowledging he “made terrible choices” and asking for mercy as he nears the final phase of his life. He also asked Alonso to recognize his past for what it is. “I paid my debt to society,” he said.
Marcello was one of the first defendants to plead guilty in the Family Secrets investigation, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that as a member of the Melrose Park crew, he passed information to his incarcerated brother James, who at the time was the reputed head of the Chicago Outfit.
He also acknowledged relaying payments of $4,000 a month to mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese in a bid to buy his silence. Calabrese later became the star witness for the prosecution during the trial that ended with the convictions of some of the Outfit’s top echelon, including James Marcello.
At Mickey Marcello’s sentencing hearing in 2008, prosecutors said he’d been in organized crime for almost a decade and had evaded more than $1 million in taxes.
“He is not the worst of the bunch, but when you’re talking about the Chicago Outfit, this is a pretty grim and evil bunch,” then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Markus Funk said at the time.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel sentenced Marcello to 8 ½ years in prison.
In 2009, Marcello testified in the federal trial of John Ambrose, a deputy U.S. marshal accused of leaking information about Calabrese’s cooperation to a family friend with alleged mob links, knowing the sensitive information would end up in the Outfit’s hands.
Secret FBI recordings made in the waiting room of a Michigan prison in 2003 had captured the Marcello brothers anxiously discussing whether Calabrese had flipped.
Marcello testified that he learned of Calabrese’s cooperation with law enforcement from reputed mob figure John “Pudgy” Matassa Jr.
Ambrose was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.
James Marcello, 78, is serving life in prison at a maximum-security facility in Colorado.
Court records show Michael Marcello was released from prison in September 2012 and served three years of supervised release. In early 2016, just months after having his supervised release terminated, Marcello was brought into the Social Security scheme by his longtime friend Walter Paredes, of Rosemont, who was recruiting people on behalf of imprisoned serial con man George Ruth, court records show.
According to Marcello’s plea agreement, he agreed to provide his Social Security information to Ruth, who submitted the fraudulent work history on his behalf. Marcello then lied repeatedly about his employment to his regional Social Security Administration office, according to the plea.
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Among the companies Marcello claimed to have worked for was the Peanut Corporation of America, a peanut-processing business that collapsed amid one of the largest lethal foodborne contamination scandals in U.S. history.
Marcello also claimed to have worked for Lehman Brothers, the American global financial services firm whose collapse in 2008 helped trigger a global financial crisis.
In court Monday, O’Daniel said the scheme was unsophisticated and “pitifully easy for the government to unravel,” particularly because Ruth used the same contact information for each of the companies he fraudulently cited as previous employers.
“This was low-rung, late-coming conduct,” she said. “Nothing that my client did required any sophistication. He gave his Social Security number and then he lied and said he worked some places when he didn’t.”
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Niranjan Emani noted that Marcello, who’d claimed to have learned his lesson when facing sentencing in the Family Secrets case, instead just “found a new way to steal.”
“He saw the ability to make a quick, cheap, easy buck and he went with it,” Emani said
funkster wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 4:32 am
Sounds similar to what pudge was doing.
Yes it does and it would make sense maybe they both got involved in this scam from the same sources considering it was Pudge that told him about Calabrese cooperation with law enforcement so two are obviously close.
Tonyd621 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:25 am
"It says Marcello testified against Ambrose..." isnt that considering flipping?
2009, Marcello testified in the federal trial of John Ambrose,
Ehh, I don't think anyone cared since Ambrose was just a crooked LE. If it prevented Marcello from getting time for contempt, it was probably approved.
Also have to wonder if guys like Marcello and Matassa went to these scams because their traditional sources of money were all dried up and their allies were all dead or in prison. Even though neither one of these guys had a violent reputation, they are still probably crooks at heart.
Tonyd621 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:25 am
"It says Marcello testified against Ambrose..." isnt that considering flipping?
2009, Marcello testified in the federal trial of John Ambrose,
Ehh, I don't think anyone cared since Ambrose was just a crooked LE. If it prevented Marcello from getting time for contempt, it was probably approved.
Also have to wonder if guys like Marcello and Matassa went to these scams because their traditional sources of money were all dried up and their allies were all dead or in prison. Even though neither one of these guys had a violent reputation, they are still probably crooks at heart.
It seemed everyone was in on the same scam. How long was Matassa doing it before he got caught compared to Marcello?
Tonyd621 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:25 am
"It says Marcello testified against Ambrose..." isnt that considering flipping?
2009, Marcello testified in the federal trial of John Ambrose,
Ehh, I don't think anyone cared since Ambrose was just a crooked LE. If it prevented Marcello from getting time for contempt, it was probably approved.
Also have to wonder if guys like Marcello and Matassa went to these scams because their traditional sources of money were all dried up and their allies were all dead or in prison. Even though neither one of these guys had a violent reputation, they are still probably crooks at heart.
It seemed everyone was in on the same scam. How long was Matassa doing it before he got caught compared to Marcello?
His was slightly different, if I remember correctly:
JOHN A. MATASSA JR. served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Independent Union of Amalgamated Workers Local 711, a labor organization with members in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. In February 2013, Matassa placed his spouse on the Local 711 payroll, even though she had no intended role or job function, while lowering his own salary, the indictment states. In his capacity as Secretary-Treasurer, Matassa personally signed his spouse’s paychecks, and caused them to be deposited into a bank account jointly controlled by the couple, according to the indictment. Two months later, Matassa applied for early retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration’s Old-Age Insurance program, listing his reduced salary amount in the application, according to the indictment. The Social Security Administration approved the application, and Matassa began receiving Social Security benefits, the indictment states.
Matassa's crime seems pretty innocuous honestly. Low level stuff. Surprising that warrants a prison sentence. Maybe due to his previous convictions?
Either way, by the nature of these crimes, I think it's safe to assume both men did not have a strong standing in the outfit or a lot of illegal racket money coming their way.
Coloboy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:00 pm
Matassa's crime seems pretty innocuous honestly. Low level stuff. Surprising that warrants a prison sentence. Maybe due to his previous convictions?
Either way, by the nature of these crimes, I think it's safe to assume both men did not have a strong standing in the outfit or a lot of illegal racket money coming their way.
He had a clean record prior to that. He was indicted in a RICO case back in 1983 but was acquitted. He was expelled from a union and relayed information from John Ambrose to Michael Marcello, but neither one of those are actual crimes, per se.
Coloboy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:00 pm
Matassa's crime seems pretty innocuous honestly. Low level stuff. Surprising that warrants a prison sentence. Maybe due to his previous convictions?
Either way, by the nature of these crimes, I think it's safe to assume both men did not have a strong standing in the outfit or a lot of illegal racket money coming their way.
I can see that being the case with Mickey, he always seemed to be much lower rung, but Pudge is kind of surprising since he always seemed to be a moneymaker. Though it did seem Pudge was dislike amongst a certain segment of guys.
My read of Mickey has been that he was an associate direct with his brother and once Jimmy Lights went away Mickey lost his rabbi and became a nobody.
With Matassa, who knows if he’s been a big deal anytime recently. IIRC, Antiliar’s Cicero source stated that Pudgy isn’t anyone today. Maybe that’s the case, or maybe that source can really only be expected to have insight on Cicero guys. I dunno. It remains a question for me. Could be that Pudgy lost influence or has little respect with the guys who have been running things; for all we know, he could even have been shelved. The reputed made guys identified by that source, for me at least, went to show that we really have little idea who is who with Chicago today. Some of the guys we think are someone may not be important anymore, and there are almost certainly guys we have no clue about who are somebody.
Regarding Pudgy being disliked, we know that he was resented by guys like Marco and Bobby A for getting made before them. Don’t know if there’s more evidence than that to it.
"Hey, hey, hey — this is America, baby! Survival of the fittest.”
I've always felt that post family secrets there was a general shift of outfit power away from the north side old guard, primarily Difronzo, Andriacchi, and Lombardo, and towards the south and and southwest crews, primarily Cicero. It's very possible someone like Matassa, who via verified reports from the 80's, could be confrontational, could have fallen out of favor with the new leaders.
Also agreed 100% that we don't have even a remotely good idea of who is who these days. As PolackTony pointed out in his previous post, there are guys who are important that we have never heard of from both past and present.
On a somewhat related note, I was listening to an episode that Gary Jenkins did on his “Gangland Wire” podcast with this guy who goes by “Jim Cosenza”. He does some YouTube stuff on Chicago and apparently attended a number of outfit trials. He was talking about attending Sarno’s trial. “Cosenza” noted that Sam Volpendesto was caught on tape complaining that the Cicero guys weren’t giving him a big enough cut and that he had also been asked to work for the “Northside”.
Anyone ever seen a transcript of this or trial exhibits for the Sarno trial? I’d like to know exactly what Volpendesto said, how he phrased it verbatim.
"Hey, hey, hey — this is America, baby! Survival of the fittest.”
