Polchan's appeal for bond denied

I can't imagine anything happening to witnesses or family members of those who are offering cooperation. Chicago is inundated with FBI agents right now. I bet the Outfit is going to dissolve...quietly.

Do you think Polcan or Voplendesto will ever get out of prison.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: It's probably premature to answer that question because they haven't been convicted of anything yet in this latest case.

WHEN IS THE TRIAL FOR POLCAN.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: A new trial date hasn't been set.

Steve or anyone:

I know the question I'm about to ask is going to sound like a joke, but a long time ago I worked at the CBOT where there were all these different shady "connected" characters who ran books and who were always telling these crazy/scary stories about Las Vegas.

Anyway, my question is: was there any testimony during the Family Secrets trial about a member of Spilotro's crew attempting to whack one of their debtors with a bad fart? I heard this story on more than one occasion, and it was always recalled with the same grave seriousness as some of the more ghastly tales that used to circulate. I heard it maybe four or five times--always from a different guy. Always with a straight face.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: I can guarantee you if anything like that came up at trial, I would have noticed.

Perhaps it was a burp?

Steve, do you think law enforcement gets frustrated when reporters like Chuck Goudie hover around Outfit meetings and then confront guys like DiFronzo, Marcello, and Tornabene?

I mean, if these Outfit guys are under surveillance and then "iTeam" swoops down, aren't these mobsters going change their routines? Are there any rules or laws or anything that these news agencies have to adhere to?

I guess I'm imagining FBI guys crammed into a surveillance van, wearing the headphones or watching the CC-TV monitors or whatever, and recording all of this important & incriminating information. All of a sudden, Goudie, to no one's surprise, kicks the door in and starts asking questions. Of course, the gangsters leave, never to return again. Infuriated, one FBI guy rolls his eyes, accidentally spilling his coffee all over the electronic equipment. The I.T. guy buries his head in his hands, sighs, and they all go out for a drink.

Foiled again...by the iTeam.

Don't get me wrong, it's entertaining to see James Marcello or whomever being caught off-guard in their pajamas, etc. It's just that maybe it's in everyone's better interest to leave these guys to the FBI.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: I understand what you're saying, but I'd make a few points.

1) No, there are no rules or laws the media has to follow regarding this kind of stuff, but there are more responsible and less responsible ways to report on things.

2) I know Chuck Goudie promoted the piece as if it were a significant mob meeting, but I don't think that's the case. I've never heard of a mob meeting conducted at a table in the middle of a busy restaurant in the middle of the day, a restaurant where these men are known to hang out. As surveillance conscious as all those men must be now, I would be stunned if they spoke of anything of significance.

3) The FBI conducts less surveillance on such meetings than you might think.

Thanks, Steve. It's comforting to know that Chuck Goudie & Channel 7's iTeam aren't one step ahead of the Federal Government where rooting out organized crime in Chicago is concerned.

I guess it makes sense that the FBI doesn't really bother with lock-step stuff. Probably not as fruitful as developing informants, anyway. I mean, it took over twenty years to solve the Spilotro murders, but it seems to have been worth it. The government took down some heavy hitters with Nick Calabrese's cooperation.

Your post about Nick Calabrese being motiveless is fascinating. How the heck someone could get involved in that kind of thing at all is baffling enough. But murdering strangers for free at the behest of people who could just as well murder you? That just seems plain crazy. Especially for an introverted family man.

There is a lot of evil in the world.

does anyone remember anything in the news or anything about rumors of the outfit having it in for "the clown"--maybe in the late 90's early 00's? the feds trying to use that as leverage to reel him in or something? steve?

Something tells me that if Chuck G. had ever sashayed up to Frank Calabrese Sr. like that, he'd have needed a proctologist to remove the boom mic.

I was right about where Frank Calabrese was headed to. He's now in MCFP Springfield. I also believe that's Joseph Lombardo's final destination.

I do wonder about James Marcello. His Federal Bureau of Prisons status reads:

JAMES J MARCELLO 99076-012 65-White-M UNKNOWN CHICAGO MCC

Every other defendant, besides Anthony Doyle, has their release dates already entered, including Lombardo. But not James Marcello.

I know his brother, Michael Marcello, is cooperating in that case against the U.S. Marshall.

I wonder if James Marcello is cooperating, too, on a more broader case targeting the Outfit.

If John DiFronzo is a big of a target as everyone thinks he is, having two witnesses point to him in court and both testifying that he helped kill the Spilotro brothers is better than one witness. But they would also need at least one new crime or criminal conspiracy within the past five years to make a RICO case, which maybe Marcello can also provide if he was really the acting boss of the Chicago mob while he was briefly on the street between 2003 and 2005.

I guess I could see Marcello rolling over. It always struck me as weird that he was really interested in DiFronzo's status--as far as an impending indictment--on those Milan Michigan tapes (prior to FS). Maybe his philosophy is something as simple as an "if I'm going down he's going down" kinda thing.

...maybe they're all going down.

Steve Warmbir,

Do you have any idea what James Marcello meant when he was caught on tape saying something like "he's the only one with brains but he's definitely NO hero," in regard to Joe Lombardo?

Was there a beef or something?

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: I don't know what he is specifically referring to. I recall there was court testimony that Lombardo felt that some of the younger guys in the Outfit were trying to put him on the shelf, but I can't tie anything specific into what Marcello was saying.

right

I should have put up the Federal Bureau of Prisons status of Frank Calabrese and Joseph Lombardo to compare to James Marcello's status. Both read "LIFE" in the Release Date column while Marcello's reads "UNKNOWN."

FRANK J CALABRESE 49955-079 72-White-M LIFE SPRINGFIELD USMCFP

JOSEPH LOMBARDO 89305-024 80-White-M LIFE CHICAGO MCC

i lay 1000 to one that james marcello wouldnt flip even knowing that more inictments would mean the death penalty before they killed him he'd tell them all to go f themselves

I went through Channel 7's I-Team archives and watched Outfit-oriented videos. Geez, Marco D'Amico's CCC photo is surprising. He looks like a friggin' high school AV-Poindexter--not a not a feared racketeer.

That Volpendesto guy looks like an old, stoned hippie or something--he's how I pictured Zaphod Beeblebrox the first time I read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Hard to imagine him orchestrating the bombing of a business or baseball-batting guys head in.

How come there are no photos available of Polchan?

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: When the feds arrest someone, they don't release a mug shot, like other law enforcement agencies.

And right now, he's at the MCC, so we can't shoot a photo of him.

Would anybody agree that the Outfit is more a Chicago thing than an Italian thing?

No I Would not agree with that statement, the Majority of it`s members are mostly Italian.

I see what you're saying about it being more Chicago than Italian.

Granted, it's top group of guys are of Italian heritage. But, if you consider the Outfit & Capone's organization to be the same thing, some of the heaviest hitters & indispensable, go-to guys over the years have NOT been Italian: J. Guzik (Polish), M. Humphreys (Welsh), G. Alex (Greek), et al. Plus--depending on how much stock you put into Michael Corbitt's memoir--a Jewish guy named something like Lardner was the Outfit's invisible man who was as efficacious as Meyer Lansky out east.

I've only ever heard of a single, one-off account of an Outfit initiation consisting of the burning of holy cards, guns, daggers, and blood oaths. I thought that Ricca, Accardo, Giancana and their successors considered that to be kids' stuff. What's more, it does not make participants/members more loyal. Just look at the NY LCN organizations. You can't turn around without tripping over a big bad mafioso who is cooperating with the government.

I've always thought that part of the Outfit's successes and resiliency was due to the fact that it avoids pageantry & ritualism and stays diversified in its personnel. It definitely does not have its roots in Sicilian culture the way other mafia organizations do. They don't import "zips" or contact their satellite crew in the old country when they need some outside help. It's a business not a "family"--whatever that's even supposed to mean.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a Chicago thing...more than not, anyway.

Just wondering how you decide which comments get posted and which ones do not.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS:

The vast majority of comments get posted.

They may not get posted immediately because I have to individually approve each one. And I tend to the blog on my own time, much of the time, so you may post a comment something on Saturday, and I may not post it until I check the blog Sunday night, as is the case here. Or to be more precise, early Monday morning.

So to all those folks who send the same comments four or five times in a row because they don't see them posted immediately, now you know why they aren't posted immediately.

I see everything you send, so you can save yourself the trouble and post only once.

Sometimes, you might ask a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll take the time to research an answer and post it when I've got an answer.

I like giving full, complete and accurate answers, and that takes time. It takes even more time with so many cutbacks here at the newspaper.

Other times, a reader might ask a question such as: "Is John Smith in the mob?"

The answer might be"no," or "no, there's no evidence for that." But it's not exactly fair to post a question asking if John Smith is in the mob, if there's no evidence to the contrary. So those questions don't get posted.

Also, I don't post blog items that have a lot of obscenities in them, which some of them do, unfortunately, or that are libelous.

That pretty much covers it.

Now James Marcello is at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. Still nothing added to his release date, which is highly unusual (the online Federal Bureau of Prisons records are updated daily). His brother is also back at the MCC in Chicago, presumably being prepared by prosecutors for his planned testimony against John Ambrose.

JAMES J MARCELLO 99076-012 65-White-M UNKNOWN OKLAHOMA CITY FTC

FTC Oklahoma City
The Federal Transfer Center (FTC) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is an administrative facility housing male and female holdover offenders.

The reason the outfit seems to be more of a Chicago thing is because their is a difference between the "Mafia" and the "Mob", actually their are many but I'm only going to post the main difference.

The Mafia aka: La Cosa Nostra began in Sicily, Italy, and membership is strictly limited to native Sicilians, while the Mob is not restricted to Sicilian bloodlines, which is why notable non-Sicilian gangsters can be considered mobsters, but not members of the official Italian Mafia.

There are other issues that separate the two but it would be too large to post in a comment.

That was sort of the point that I was making. The Outfit has never been steeped in Sicilian culture or any kind of tradition, really--except for Chicago culture. I think Accardo & Giancana were the only major members that were of Sicilian heritage, but neither were born over there. They were WAY more a product of the Patch and its surrounding West-side neighborhoods than anything else.

Also, I'd say that the "Mob" (capital "M") doesn't really refer to any organization in particular. So to compare the Mafia to "the Mob" isn't any kind of comparison at all. That would be like comparing apples to fruit, in general.

Also, the NY Mafia organizations don't really have the Sicilian bloodline-thing as a criterion for membership anymore and haven't for a while. If they did, guys like Gotti wouldn't have been members.

Anyway, while all the Chicago bosses and some of the rank-and-file Outfit guys have Italian surnames--the Italian thing itself seems to be more or less incidental.

It's funny: In the news and in all these gov't documents pertaining to the Outfit, they use cliche Mafia language to refer to guys' positions--e.g., "made, "capo," "consigliere," etc.--but I don't know that this is the language the actual guys, themselves, use. I think the news agencies use it for the sake of sensationalism because that's what people (like me) who watch TV (Sopranos, Godfather movies, etc.) are familiar with.

Do you know if this type of language is included in the actual Outfit lexicon, Steve?

Anyway, writing all that gave me headache, and I feel like an idiot having wasted my time discussing some of the finer points of our local terrorist organization. But I'll submit it anyway. And, of course, I'd like an answer to my question if anyone has any insight.

Thanks.

Steve, Here`s a question,How can the Feds Legally Confiscate,Lombardo`s Money, When he hid it all in Living Trusts?

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: You can't hide assets and expect to keep them from the government. If the government can make a case that the steps any of the mobsters from Family Secrets took were to prevent the government from seizing their assets in the event of a conviction, then the government can take them. That said, these types of cases seem to languish for years, with few results.

how come you never see reporters interviewing latino, or black or asian suspected hoodlums ? why not? apparently according to everyone they are all standing on corners selling crack. just go interview them, no gotta mess whith the italians, all i ever heard is that mr difronzo was a stand up guy, sure he probably screwed up in life, who didn't? he served time leave him be, if he does a little bookmaking on the side i could care less, the italians have to cause the other ethnic groups arent smart enough. they just deal in dope.

Steve,

Since the judge initally denied the gov't a longer time to supercede Polchan's and Volpendesto's and gave them a trial date of April 13th, why did the judge change it the next day? If this has been going on approx. 6 years already, how much longer do the FBI have since those two have been locked up and denied bond without a trial date since last July! no other arrests have been made although all along the prosecutors keep saying they are going to make more arrests and supercede.why haven't they done it? I mean really then we wonder where all of our money goes, jails/prisons overpopulated, no money for the death penality, and here our gov't just keeps paying for what???status herrings? What entitles a speedy trial? You either have the evidence or not is the way I see it. I personally think the prosecutors esp. M.F. wants another "family secret trial" and is just dying regardless if he has to swindle his words and facts to twist the judge and public to try to get one.

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: I'm not clear why the judge changed his mind, but nevertheless, he did. The prosecutors haven't said why the grand jury hasn't issued a superceding indictment including more defendants, but it hasn't. I think the judge is interested in handling the case in one trial, rather than dealing with it piecemeal in separate trials. I understand your fairness argument about the two defendants already behind bars. That said, I don't think this is going to be another Family Secrets trial, and I don't think anyone involved in the case is under that impression.

Steve,
Haven't heard much lately and I know today is a day that there will prob. be more news out. What do you think is really going on here with the seven indictments? Out of what you have seen and heard in the court room throughout all of your experiences is your belief in our justice system and the FBI the same as it was when you first started observing how they work?
I personally use to believe in our system until recently. I am disapointed in the belief that we practice innocence until proven guilty, because I am not seeing it. I see the Feds using their "techniques" basically of intrapment to try to get what they want.
Let me ask you this: If you were looking at a lifetime of charges, would you tell the FBI anything you knew they wanted to hear, EVEN IF IT WASNT TRUE just to get a better deal for yourself? When that happens you don't get the truth, you get the FBI truth which basically anything they think but can't prove by themselves using good sources...just convicts already .....

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: I don't think there's anything particularly mysterious going on with these indictments.

I think you've got the government looking to put away some folks it believes took part in bombing a business or being part of a jewelry theft ring or both. One of those defendants is allegedly a high-ranking Chicago Outfit member.

If the case goes to trial, I think you're going to see that the government has some of the folks charged on tape.

Now, you can't judge the case until you hear the evidence. But I generally think that the argument that most witnesses will tell the FBI or federal prosecutors what they want to hear, truth be damned, is faulty.

I've rarely seen a witness put on the stand, and their testimony alone resulted in the conviction of someone. The government backs it up with documentary evidence, evidence from tapes, other witnesses, etc.

That's not to say that the feds have never pushed someone to testify a certain way or to assign someone more culpability than they should have. We've all seen rare instances of that happening nationally, but the problem with doing that is it's a great way to have a case collapse, publicly. And that's the last thing the feds want.

And to state an obvious point, the vast majority of people in federal law enforcement are honest people who want to make honest cases.

why do they keep trying to link the outlaws to the bombing when polchan if he did it was not an outlaws at that time

STEVE WARMBIR RESPONDS: Polchan was in the Outlaws at the time of the bombing, the government allges.

This has been bothering me for the longest time. The pictures of the tattoos and trinkets and so called weapons, ha! If it really was a live grenade more would have come out of that wouldn't it have? A slinky is a trinket, and so is an antique grenade used for an ash tray.....a trinket. Most of the pictures I see displayed are a joke! I would be embarassed to display pictures of antique bayonettes and knives.....Gee, what's next....watch out antique stores, and boutiques, their coming after you next.