Antiliar wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 12:36 pm
Mike was adamant that Marco wasn't made when he talked to him in the early 2000s. One reason, if I recall correctly, was that Joe A didn't want him to be made. Apparently something happened or he just didn't like him. By that point Marco didn't care since he was doing well. He didn't need to get made.
Marco got out of prison in 2005 so it would have had to be after that. Also, Scott B is pretty adamant that Marco at one point was the consigliere if there ever was that position which he claims there was. If he was, then he would have had to been made.
Also would add that the Outfit does make people later in life. Jimmy I would have had to have been in his 50s or 60s if he was ever made. Solly D was also made late.
Can't rule out that Marco wasn't made later. Michael said Joey A was holding him down and as far as he knew that was it. It was over. Plus in Chicago what the FBI called the consigliere was the chairman of the board (the Consiglio). If that position was or still around it might have been DiFronzo and Joey A, not Marco. Marco wouldn't have jumped over them. He could have been DiFronzo's *personal* consigliere, but I don't see evidence for Outfit consigliere.
Antiliar wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 12:36 pm
Mike was adamant that Marco wasn't made when he talked to him in the early 2000s. One reason, if I recall correctly, was that Joe A didn't want him to be made. Apparently something happened or he just didn't like him. By that point Marco didn't care since he was doing well. He didn't need to get made.
Marco got out of prison in 2005 so it would have had to be after that. Also, Scott B is pretty adamant that Marco at one point was the consigliere if there ever was that position which he claims there was. If he was, then he would have had to been made.
Also would add that the Outfit does make people later in life. Jimmy I would have had to have been in his 50s or 60s if he was ever made. Solly D was also made late.
Not trying to be argumentative, but Marco was pushing 70 when he was out. DeLaurentis was in his early 50s and Inendino probably his late 40s. That's a big difference.
It’s a plausible argument that he got made once he was out of prison. From what I've read, he made everyone a ton of money but was also a bit of a wild card before that prison stint. Didn’t he supposedly bite a cops finger off or some shit? And beat the hell out of a guy on rush street? Those are the kind of things that would give the outfit reason not to make someone.
He used to do business with reputed mob figures. Now, he’s licensed by the Illinois Gaming Board.
Jeffrey Bertucci testified in 2010 to illegally paying out winnings from video gaming machines installed in his Cicero diner and splitting his take with the mob’s so-called video poker king. In 2019, gambling regulators gave him a license to legally operate video gaming devices.
By Robert Herguth and Tim Novak May 12, 2023, 5:30am
Lemont resident Jeffrey Bertucci admitted in federal court in 2010 that he’d obtained video gaming devices for his Cicero diner from an amusement company linked to one of the most feared figures in the Chicago mob, James Marcello.
Bertucci also testified that he’d gotten other gambling machines from a different operator, Casey Szaflarski, who has been portrayed by federal authorities as the mob’s video poker king.
And Bertucci admitted he’d paid winnings to gamblers playing those devices — which at the time was illegal to do in Illinois — and shared profits with Szaflarski in a 70/30 split.
Granted immunity in exchange for his testimony against Szaflarski — in a case that also resulted in the convictions of the mob’s reputed Cicero street boss, Michael “The Large Guy” Sarno, and pawnshop owner Mark Polchan, who was a high-ranking member of the notorious Outlaws Motorcycle Club — Bertucci was asked by a prosecutor: “Why is it that you only paid out people that you knew?”
Bertucci responded, “Because it was illegal, and I didn’t want to get caught.”
Bertucci still runs the same Cicero diner, a franchise of the Steak N Egger chain that’s owned by the politically connected Carr family. And he has video gaming devices in that establishment that make payouts.
But now he does that legally. He’s licensed by the Illinois Gaming Board, and the government gets a cut.
The gaming board, which reports to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, has licensed Bertucci’s Firebird Enterprises, Inc., to legally operate video gambling machines at the diner since 2019, state records show.
Since then, the records show, six gambling devices at that Steak N Egger at 5647 W. Ogden Ave. took in a total of more than $4.3 million in bets, roughly $317,000 of that considered “net terminal income” that’s split between the establishment and the gaming company providing the machines.
During that time, the state has gotten more than $90,000 in taxes from that operation, and the town of Cicero has gotten nearly $16,000.
Casey Szaflarski leaving the Dirksen Federal Building in 2010.
Casey Szaflarski leaving the Dirksen Federal Building in 2010.Sun-Times file
One of the gaming board’s key jobs is to protect the integrity of legal gambling in Illinois by weeding out unsuitable license-holders and applicants, for reasons including ties to organized crime — which has long considered illegal gambling its domain and in recent years has tried to capitalize on legalized gambling as well.
Asked how Bertucci ended up getting permission to be involved in legal gambling given his admissions, gaming board spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaufman says: “The allegations you have raised are serious, and the Illinois Gaming Board is looking into them. Please note that Mr. Bertucci submitted a video gaming license application for Firebird Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a Steak N Egger-Racine on June 28, 2018, and received licensure on Jan. 30, 2019 — all before” Marcus Fruchter, the current gaming board administrator, “or any current board member began their service” for the agency.
Illinois Gaming Board administrator Marcus Fruchter.
Illinois Gaming Board administrator Marcus Fruchter.Victor Hilitski / Sun-Times
The gaming board “does not comment on pending, potential or active investigations or matters that are confidential under . . . the Illinois Gambling Act,” Kaufman says. “We will provide additional information when we are able to do so.”
Casinos have been allowed in Illinois for more than 30 years, but legislation legalizing video gaming didn’t come until 2009. Since it began in 2012, video gaming has mushroomed.
At the time Bertucci was granted a state gaming license, Agostino Lorenzini was the agency’s acting administrator. Lorenzini, an attorney who’s now a senior adviser with the agency, says he doesn’t recall Bertucci’s company or the vote by gaming board members to license it.
The Steak N Egger chain — which is run by McCook Mayor Terry Carr and his father, also named Terry Carr, who’s a Willow Springs village trustee — has had Bertucci as a franchise-holder for two locations for decades — the one in Cicero and one in Chicago at 1174 W. Cermak Rd. that doesn’t have video gaming, though, according to Bertucci’s 2010 testimony, it used to.
Terry Carr when he was sworn in as acting mayor of McCook in 2020.
Terry Carr when he was sworn in as acting mayor of McCook in 2020.Mark Brown / Sun-Times
Video gaming is legal statewide, but municipalities are allowed to decide whether they want it in their communities. The city Chicago has so far opted against it, though that could change under incoming Mayor Brandon Johnson. The mayor-elect also is inheriting a plan to bring Chicago its first casino, which will need gaming board licensing.
Four other Steak N Eggers owned by the Carrs are licensed by the gaming board to offer video gaming, as is their recently opened Lucky Cindy’s in Bridgeview, records show.
Of Bertucci, Carr says, “He does not own the Steak N Egger name . . . He’s a franchise-holder. You own an apartment building, and you rent to someone; they’re in charge of what’s in the apartment.”
Carr, grandson of the late Cook County Commissioner Allan Carr, says he doesn’t share in any of the gaming profits from the Cicero location.
“I’d be the happiest man if you told me we’re splitting profits,” he says with a laugh. “He pays us rent for the restaurant, that’s it. I don’t run day-to-day operations there.”
A transcript of Jeffrey Bertucci’s testimony under a grant of immunity at a 2010 mob trial.
A transcript of Jeffrey Bertucci’s testimony under a grant of immunity at a 2010 mob trial.U.S. District Court
Firebird gets its gambling devices from Accel Entertainment, whose lobbyists include a firm run by Michael Kasper, a longtime top aide to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan under whose tenure video gaming was legalized.
The Carrs use Accel for their Steak N Egger in McCook, records show.
For their other locations, they use machines from Gold Rush Gaming, run by businessman Rick Heidner, whose other companies own properties that are home to some of the Carrs’ restaurants, records show.
Rick Heidner in 2019.
Rick Heidner in 2019.Sun-Times file
Heidner faced problems with the gaming board several years ago, when Fruchter moved to revoke his company’s gaming license, saying he had offered a $5 million “illegal inducement” to the owner of a gambling parlor that planned to remove Heidner’s machines.
Heidner settled with the state agency, kept his license and dismissed the accusations as part of a “smear campaign” by a competitor.
One of Heidner’s other competitors is a gaming company run by Chicago zoning lawyer James J. Banks, who previously has been in business with people with reputed mob ties and who initially was denied a gambling license by the gaming board. It later reversed course and granted him one.
Banks is a founder of Belmont Bank & Trust, which, records show, holds the mortgage on a Heidner property that’s occupied by Lucky Cindy’s.
Bertucci’s 2010 testimony came in a racketeering conspiracy case that led to convictions of Sarno, Polchan and Szaflarski.
Szaflarski was Bertucci’s video gaming contact for a time, providing machines and splitting the profits, records show.
Bertucci also got gaming machines for a time from M & M Amusement, which corporate records said was headed by Michael “Mickey” Marcello, a reputed Chicago mob figure, but which was overseen by his mob boss-brother James Marcello, according to records that federal authorities made public.
Michael Marcello recently was released from federal prison after being convicted of trying to inflate his Social Security benefits. James Marcello is serving a life sentence after being convicted in the landmark mob-busting racketeering case Operation Family Secrets.
James Marcello in 1992.
James Marcello in 1992.Sun-Times file
Reached through officials at the Colorado prison where he’s serving his sentence, James Marcello declined to comment.
Mile Konjevic, who was another prosecution witness at the trial of Sarno and his co-defendants, testified that he illegally paid winners from video gaming machines installed at his gas station in McCook.
After video gaming was legalized years later, Konjevic’s company tried to get licensed, but the gaming board rejected the application.
Coloboy wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 4:37 pm
It’s a plausible argument that he got made once he was out of prison. From what I've read, he made everyone a ton of money but was also a bit of a wild card before that prison stint. Didn’t he supposedly bite a cops finger off or some shit? And beat the hell out of a guy on rush street? Those are the kind of things that would give the outfit reason not to make someone.
Yes, and those incidents were apparently downstream of him being shitfaced drunk. Supposedly, Marco didn’t get his button before he got sent away on the GambAt stuff because Aiuppa did not like his drinking and public antics.
"Hey, hey, hey — this is America, baby! Survival of the fittest.”
As funkster noted, this is the same document that we’re already actively discussing.
What hasn’t been noted yet is that Scott is apparently saying he’s a member? I haven’t seen this yet and don’t know what Scott has written about him.
Of course, he’d have to be Italian to be a member. I do think he actually might be Italian if I have the right guy (born in 1984, went to HS in Bensenville, more recently lived in Wood Dale; according to his 2019 gambling indictment, Frontier also goes by the aliases “Ira Goldberg”, “Brian Seagal”, and “Mike Sullivan”). I believe that “Frontier” was changed from Frontiera and that his family was from Catanzaro province, Calabria.
"Hey, hey, hey — this is America, baby! Survival of the fittest.”
Ivan wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 10:54 pm
Scott isn't saying he's made, he just calls him a "member of the Elmwood Park crew", whose immediate superior is Eugene Cassano.
Scott does refer to Gagliano as a "soldier" FWIW.
Yeah, according to the FBI affidavits, Frontier was working under Gino Cassano.
"Hey, hey, hey — this is America, baby! Survival of the fittest.”
Ivan wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 10:54 pm
Scott isn't saying he's made, he just calls him a "member of the Elmwood Park crew", whose immediate superior is Eugene Cassano.
Scott does refer to Gagliano as a "soldier" FWIW.
Yeah, according to the FBI affidavits, Frontier was working under Gino Cassano.
I've never heard of Cassano being made, either, of course he doesn't have to be made to be Frontier(a)'s superior.
Snakes wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 12:11 pm
I think Frank saying Shorty isn't even made is pretty close to confirmation of his status that you can get. The context makes it pretty clear that he wasn't made.
Just being seen around made guys and having perceived status in the organization isn't enough. Schweihs was seen around high ranking guys, but we know he wasn't made. Additionally, Nick was a guy you'd never guess was made before he took the stand.
Perhaps, but it could have been just Frank talking big to his son. I can't say for sure, but I believe there was somewhat of a rivalry there.
I agree with just being around isn't enough, but it does play into perception. Schweihs wasn't Italian so know that he wouldn't be made. Nick was pretty unassuming and I agree he didn't fit the typical mold.
As funkster noted, this is the same document that we’re already actively discussing.
What hasn’t been noted yet is that Scott is apparently saying he’s a member? I haven’t seen this yet and don’t know what Scott has written about him.
Of course, he’d have to be Italian to be a member. I do think he actually might be Italian if I have the right guy (born in 1984, went to HS in Bensenville, more recently lived in Wood Dale; according to his 2019 gambling indictment, Frontier also goes by the aliases “Ira Goldberg”, “Brian Seagal”, and “Mike Sullivan”). I believe that “Frontier” was changed from Frontiera and that his family was from Catanzaro province, Calabria.
Frontier's father was Dominic "Mims" Frontier per the guys on GangstersBB and Reddit who have been talking about this last week - he is Italian.
