Bob Cooley Outfit Fixer Part 2

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In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins sits down with Bob Cooley, the once–well-connected Chicago lawyer who lived at the center of the city’s most notorious corruption machine. After years out of the public eye, Cooley recently resurfaced to revisit his explosive memoir, When Corruption Was King—and this conversation offers a rare, firsthand look at how organized crime, politics, and the court system intersected in Chicago for decades.

Cooley traces his journey from growing up in a police family to serving as a Chicago police officer and ultimately becoming a criminal defense attorney whose real job was quietly fixing cases for the Chicago Outfit. His deep understanding of the judicial system made him indispensable to mob-connected power brokers like Pat Marcy, a political fixer with direct access to judges, prosecutors, and court clerks.

Inside the Chicago Corruption Machine
Cooley explains how verdicts were bought, cases were steered, and justice was manipulated—what insiders called the “Chicago Method.” He describes his relationships with key figures in organized crime, including gambling bosses like Marco D’Amico and violent enforcers such as Harry Aleman and Tony Spilotro, painting a chilling picture of life inside a world where loyalty was enforced by fear.   As his role deepened, so did the psychological toll. Cooley recounts living under constant threat, including a contract placed on his life after he refused to betray a fellow associate—an event that forced him to confront the cost of the life he was leading.

Turning Point: Becoming a Federal Witness
The episode covers Cooley’s pivotal decision in 1986 to cooperate with federal authorities, a move that helped dismantle powerful corruption networks through FBI Operation Gambat. Cooley breaks down how political connections—not just street-level violence—allowed the Outfit to operate with near-total impunity for so long.   Along the way, Cooley reflects on the moral reckoning that led him to turn on the system that had enriched and protected him, framing his story as one not just of crime and betrayal, but of reckoning and redemption.

What Listeners Will Hear
How Bob Cooley became the Outfit’s go-to case fixer
The role of Pat Marcy and political corruption in Chicago courts
Firsthand stories involving Marco D’Amico, Harry Aleman, and Tony Spilotro
The emotional and psychological strain of living among violent criminals
The decision to cooperate and the impact of Operation Gambat
Why Cooley believes Chicago’s corruption endured for generations

Why This Episode Matters
Bob Cooley is one of the few people who saw the Chicago Outfit from inside the courtroom and the back rooms of power. His story reveals how deeply organized crime embedded itself into the institutions meant to uphold the law—and what it cost those who tried to escape it.   This episode sets the stage for a deeper follow-up conversation, where Gary and Cooley will continue unpacking the most dangerous and revealing moments of his life.

Resources   Book: When Corruption Was King by Bob Cooley

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0:03 Prelude to Bob Cooley’s Story

1:57 Bob Cooley’s Background

5:24 The Chicago Outfit Connection

8:24 The Turning Point

15:20 The Rise of a Mob Lawyer

23:54 A Life of Crime and Consequences

26:03 The Incident at the Police Station

50:27 The Count and His Influence

1:19:51 The Murder of a Friend

1:35:26 Contracts and Betrayal

1:40:36 Conclusion and Future Stories

Transcript

[0:00] Well, hey guys, this is a little prelude to my next story. Bob Cooley was a Chicago lawyer and an outfit associate who had been in, who has been in hiding for many years. I contacted him about six or seven years ago when I first started a podcast, I was able to get a phone number on him and, and got him on the phone. He was, I think it was out in the desert in Las Vegas area at the time. And at the time he was trying to sell his book when corruption was king to a movie producer And he really didn’t want to overexpose himself, and they didn’t really want him to do anything. And eventually, COVID hit, and the movie production was canceled. And it was just all over. There were several movie productions were canceled during COVID, if I remember right. A couple people who I have interviewed and had a movie deal going. Well, Bob recently remembered me, and he contacted me. He just called me out of the clear blue, and he wanted to revive his book and his story. He’s been, you know, way out of the limelight for a long time. And so I thought, well, I always wanted to interview this guy because he’s got a real insider’s knowledge to Chicago Outfit, the one that very few people have.

 

[1:08] You know, here’s what he knows about. And he provides valuable insight into the inner workings of the Outfit. And I don’t mean, you know, scheming up how to kill people and how to do robberies and burglars and all that. But the Chicago court system and Chicago politics, that’s a, that’s a, the, the mob, a mafia family can’t exist unless they have connections into the political system and especially the court system. Otherwise, what good are they? You know, I mean, they, they just take your money where they give you back. They can’t protect you from anybody.

 

[1:42] So I need to give you a little more of the backstory before we go on to the actual interview with Bob, because he kind of rambles a little bit and goes off and comes back and drops

 

[1:54] names that we don’t have time to go into explanation. So here’s a little bit of what he talked about. He went from being, as I said before, Chicago Outfit’s trusted fixer in the court system, and he eventually became the government star witness against them. He’s born, he’s about my age. He was born in 1943. He was an Irish-American police family and came from the Chicago South side. He was a cop himself for a short period of time, but he was going to law school while he was a policeman. And once he started practicing law, he moved right into criminal law and into first ward politics and the judicial world downtown.

 

[2:36] And that’s where the outfit and the old democratic machine intersected. He was in a restaurant called Counselor’s Row, which was right down. Bob had an office downtown. Well, he’s inside that system, and he uses his insider’s knowledge to fix cases. Once an outfit started noticing him that he could fix a case if he wanted to, he immediately became connected to the first ward power broker and outfit political conduit, a guy named Pat Marcy. Pat Marcy knew all the judges He knew all the court clerks And all the police officers And Bob was getting to know him too During this time But Bob was a guy who was out in He was a lawyer And he was working inside the court system Marcy was just a downtown fixer.

 

[3:22] But Bob got to where he could guarantee acquittals or light sentences for whoever came to him with the right amount of money, whether it be a mobster or a bookmaker or a juice loan guy or a crap politician, whoever it was, Bob could fix the case.

 

[3:36] One of the main guys tied to his work he was kind of attached to a crew everybody’s owned by somebody he was attached to the Elmwood Park crew and Marco D’Amico who was under John DeFranco and I can’t remember who was before DeFranco, was kind of his boss and he was a gambling boss and Bob was a huge gambler I mean a huge gambler and Bob will help fix cases for some notorious people Really, one of the most important stories that we’ll go into in the second episode of this is Harry the Hook Aleman. And he also helped fix the case for Tony Spolatro and several others. He’s always paid him in cash. And he lived large. As you’ll see, he lived large. And he moved comfortably between mobsters and politicians and judges. And he was one of the insiders back in the 70s, 60s or 70s mainly. He was an insider. But by the 80s, he’s burned out. He’s disgusted with himself. He sees some things that he doesn’t like. They put a contract out on him once because he wouldn’t give somebody up as an informant, and he tipped one of his clients off that he was going to come out that he was an informant, and the guy was able to escape, I believe. Well, I have to go back and listen to my own story.

 

[4:53] Finally in 1986 he walked unannounced they didn’t have a case on him and he walked unannounced in the U.S. Courthouse and offered himself up to take down this whole Pat Marcy and the whole mobster political clique in Chicago and he wore a wire for FBI an operation called Operation Gambat which is a gambling attorney because he was a huge gambler

 

[5:17] huge huge gambler and they did a sweeping probe and indicted tons of people over this. So let’s go ahead and listen to Robert Cooley.

 

[5:31] Uh, he, he, like I said, he’s a little bit rambling and a little bit hard to follow sometimes, but some of these names and, and, uh, and in the first episode, we’ll really talk about his history and, uh, where he came from and how he came up. He’ll mention somebody called the count and I’ll do that whole count story and a whole nother thing. So when he talks about the count, just disregard that it’ll be a short or something. And I got to tell that count story. It’s an interesting story. Uh, he, he gets involved with the only own, uh, association, uh, and, uh, and the, uh, Chinese Tong gang in, uh, Chicago and Chicago’s Chinatown. Uh, some of the other people he’ll talk about are Marco D’Amico, as I said, and D’Amico’s top aide, Rick Glantini, uh, another, uh, connected guy and worked for the city of Chicago is Robert Abinati. He was a truck driver.

 

[6:25] He was also related to D’Amico and D’Amico’s cousin, former Chicago police officer Ricky Borelli. Those are some of the names that he’ll mention in this. So let’s settle back and listen to Bob Cooley. Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. And, you know, we we deal with the mob here once a week, sometimes twice a week on the podcast. And I have a special guest that hadn’t been heard from for a while. And, you know, to be honest, guys, I’ve kind of gotten away from the outfit. I’ve been doing a lot of New York stuff and Springfield, Massachusetts and all around the country. And I kind of got away from Chicago. And we’re going back to Chicago today. And I’m honored that Bob Cooley got hold of me. Now, you may not know who Bob Cooley was, but Bob Cooley was a guy. He was a mob lawyer in Chicago, and he really probably, he heard him as much as anybody’s ever heard him, and he did it all of his own accord. He was more like an undercover agent that just wasn’t officially designated an FBI agent rather than an informant. But anyhow, welcome, Bob.

 

[7:37] Hello. Nice meeting you. Nice to meet you. And I’ve talked to you before. And you were busy before a few years ago. And you were getting ready to make some movies and stuff. And then COVID hit and a lot of that fell through. And that happened to several people I’ve talked to. You got a lot in common with me. I was a Kansas City policeman. And I ended up becoming a lawyer after I left the police department. And you were a Chicago copper. And then you left the police department a little bit earlier than I did and became a lawyer. And, and Bob, you’re from a Chicago police family, if I remember right. Is that correct? Oh, police, absolute police background, the whole family. Yes. Yeah. Your grandfather, your grandfather was killed in the line of duty. Is that right?

 

[8:25] Both of my grandfathers were killed in the line of duty. Wow. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I eventually did what I did. I was very, very close with my dad. Yeah, and your dad was a copper.

 

[8:38] He was a policeman, yeah. And in fact, you use that term. I, for many, many years, wouldn’t use that word. It just aggravated me when people would use the word copper. To me, it would show disrespect. Oh, really? I said to us in Kansas City, that’s what we call each other, you know, among coppers. Oh, I know. I know. But I know. But, you know, I just, for whatever reason, one of the things that aggravated me the most, in fact, when I was being cross-examined by this piece of shit, Eddie Jensen, the one I wrote about in my book that was, you know, getting a lot of people killed and whatever. And he made some comment about my father. and I got furious and I had to, you know, my father was unbelievably honest as a policeman.

 

[9:29] Everybody loved him because they didn’t have to share, uh, you know, but he was a detective. He had been written up many times in true and magazines and these magazines for making arrests. He was involved in the cartage detail. He was involved in all kinds of other things, but honest as the day is long. And, and, um, but, uh, again, the, uh, my father’s father was, uh, was a policeman and he was killed by a member of the Capone gang. And, uh, and when he was killed, after he was killed.

 

[10:05] The, uh, well, after he got shot, he got shot during a robbery after he got shot, he was in the hospital for a while. And then he went, then he went back home. He went back home to his, uh, you know, to his house, uh, cause he had seven kids. He had a big family too. And, uh, stayed with his, you know, with his wife and, and, and eventually died. And when he died they had a very mediocre funeral for him. They had a bigger, much bigger funeral when Al Capone’s brother died. But during that time when I was a kid when I was about 13, 12, 13 years old, I worked among other places at a grocery store where I delivered to my grandmother. My grandmother lived in South Park which later became Mark Luther King Drive. She lived a very, very meager life because she basically had nothing.

 

[11:09] What they gave them for the, at that time, what they gave them for the police department was a portion of the husband’s salary when they died, whatever. It was never a big deal like it is now, you know, like it is now when policemen get killed in the line of duty. and I’m thinking at the same time I’m thinking down the road, You know, about certain things from my past did come back to affect me.

 

[11:38] Doing what I was doing, when I got involved, and I got involved absolutely with all these different people. My father hated these people. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t realize how much. I didn’t realize much when I was growing, you know, when I was growing up and whatever. And even when I was practicing law and when I opened up Pratt-Mose, I would have my father and mother come along with other people. And the place was all full of mobsters. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, a lot of Capone’s whole crew. A lot of the gunmen were still alive. In fact, the ones that ran the first award were all gunmen from Capone’s mob. And never said a word, never said a word about it. You know, he met my partner, Johnny Diaco, who was part of the mob, the senator, and whatever colitis could be. My dad, when my dad was dying.

 

[12:38] When my dad was dying, he had what they didn’t call it, but it had to be Alzheimer’s because my dad was a unbelievably, he was a big, strong man, but he was never a fighter, sweet as could be to anybody and everybody. When he started getting bad, he started being mean to my mother and doing certain things. So we finally had to put him into a nursing home. When I went to see him in the nursing, and I had a close relationship with my dad because he saved my life many times when I was a kid. I was involved with stolen cars at school. I should have been thrown out of school. It was Mount Carmel, but he had been a Carmelite, almost a Carmelite priest.

 

[13:25] And whatever, and that’s what kept me from being kicked out of school at Marquette when they were going to throw me out there because I was, again, involved in a lot of fights, and I also had an apartment that we had across the hall from the shorter hall where I was supposed to stay when I was a freshman, and we were throwing huge parties, and they wanted to throw me out of school. My dad came, my dad came and instead of throwing me out, they let me resign and whatever he had done so much, you know, for me. Yeah.

 

[14:00] Now when I, when I meet, when I meet him up in the hospital, I, I came in the first time and it was about maybe 25 miles outside, you know, from where my office was downtown. And when I went in to see him, they had him strapped in a bed because apparently when he initially had two people in the room and when somebody would come in to try to talk to him and whatever, he would be nasty. And one time he punched one of the nurses who was, you know, because he was going in the bed and they wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t let him take him out. You know, I was furious and I had to go, I had to go through all that. And now, just before he died, it was about two or three days before he died, he didn’t recognize anybody except me. Didn’t recognize my mother. Didn’t recognize anybody. Yet when I would come into the room, son, that’s what he always called me, son, when I would come in. So he knew who I basically was. And he would even say, son, don’t let him do this to me when he had to go through or they took out something and he had to wear one. Of those, you know, those decatheters or whatever. Oh, yeah.

 

[15:15] Just before he died, he said to me, he said, son, he said, those are the people that killed my father. He said, and his case was fixed. After, I had never known that. In fact, his father, Star, was there at 11th and State, and I would see it when everyone went in there. Star was up there on the board as if there’s a policeman or a policeman killed in the line of duty. When he told me that it really and I talked to my brother who knew all about all that that’s what happened, the gunman killed him on 22nd street when that happened the case went to trial and he was found not guilty apparently the case was fixed I tell you what talk about poetic justice there your grandson is now in that system of fixing cases. I can’t even imagine what you must have felt like when you learned that at that point in your life. Man, that would be a grief. That would be tough. That’s what eventually made me one day decide that I had to do something to put an end to all that was going on there.

 

[16:25] I’m curious, what neighborhood did you grow up in? Neighborhood identity is pretty strong in Chicago. So what neighborhood do you claim? I grew up in the hood. First place I grew up, my first place when I was born, I was at 7428 South Vernon. Which is the south side, southeast side of the city. I was there until I was in sixth grade. That was St. Columbanus Parish. When I was in sixth grade, we had to move because that’s when they were doing all the blockbusting there in Chicago. That’s when the blacks were coming in. And when the blacks were coming in, and I truly recall, We’ve talked about this many times elsewhere. I remember knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell all hours of the day and night. A black family just moved in down the street. You’ve got to sell now. If you don’t, the values will all go down. And we would not move. My father’s philosophy, we wouldn’t move until somebody got killed in the area. Because he couldn’t afford it. He had nine kids. he’s an honest policeman making less than $5,000 a year.

 

[17:45] Working two, three jobs so we could all survive when he finished up, When he finished up with, when we finally moved, we finally moved, he went to 7646 South Langley. That was, again, further south, further south, and the area was all white at that time.

 

[18:09] We were there for like four years, and about maybe two or three years, and then the blacks started moving in again. The first one moved in, and it was the same pattern all over again. Yeah, same story in Kansas City and every other major city in the United States. They did that blockbusting and those real estate developers. Oh, yeah, blockbusters. They would call and tell you that the values wouldn’t go down. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20.

 

[18:49] As soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing and I became a policeman. During the riots, I had an excuse not to go. They thought I was working. I was in the bar meeting my pals before I went to work. That’s why I couldn’t go to school at that time. But anyhow, I took some time off. I took some time off to, you know, to study, uh, because, you know, I had all C’s in one D in my first, in my first semester. And if you didn’t have a B, if you didn’t have a C average, you couldn’t, you kicked out of school at the end of a quarter. This is law school. You’re going to law school while you’re still an active policeman. Oh yeah, sure. That’s okay. So you work full time and went to law school. You worked full-time and went to law school at the same time. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20, as soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing, and I became a policeman. Yeah, yeah. But anyhow, I went to confession that night.

 

[20:10] And when I went to confession, there was a girl, one of the few white people in the neighborhood, there was a girl who had gone before me into the confessional. And I knew the priest. I knew him because I used to go gambling with him. I knew the priest there at St. Felicis who heard the confessions. And this is the first time I had gone to confession with him even though I knew him.

 

[20:36] And I wanted to get some help from the big guy upstairs. And anyhow, when I leave, I leave about maybe 10 minutes later, and she had been saying her grace, you know, when I left. And when I walked out, I saw she was right across the street from my house, and there’s an alley right there. And she was a bit away from it, and there were about maybe 13, 14, 15 kids. when I say kids, they were anywhere from the age of probably about 15, 16 to about 18, 19. And they’re dragging her. They’re trying to drag her into the alley. And when I see that, when I see that, I head over there. When I get over there, I have my gun out. I have the gun out. And, you know, what the hell is going on? And, you know, and I told her, I told her her car was parked over there. I told her, you know, get out of here. And I’ve got my gun. I’ve got my gun in my hand. And I don’t know what I’m going to do now in terms of doing anything because I’m not going to shoot them. They’re standing there looking at me. And after a little while, I hear sirens going on.

 

[22:00] The Barton family lived across the street in an apartment building, and they saw what was going on. They saw me out there. It was about probably about seven o’clock at night. It was early at night and they put a call in 10-1 and call in 10-1. Assist the officer. Is that a assist the officer? It’s 1031. Police been in trouble. Yeah. And the squad’s from everywhere. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So you can hear, you can hear them coming. And now one of them says to me, and I know they’re pretty close. One of them says to me, you know, put away your gun and we’ll see how tough you are. And I did.

 

[22:42] Because you know they’re close. And I’m busy fighting with a couple of them. And they start running and I grab onto two of them. I’m holding onto them. I could only hold two. I couldn’t hold anymore. And the next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital about four days later. Wow. What had happened was they pushed me. Somebody, there was another one behind who pushed me right in front of a squad car coming down the street. Oh, shit. Yeah, man. And the car ran completely over me. They pulled me off from under the, just under the back wheels, I was told were right next to, were onto me, blood all over the place. Everybody thought I was dead. Right. Because my brothers, my one brother who was a police kid that, you know, heard all the noise and the family came in. I tried to prostrate my house and they all thought I was dead. But anyhow, I wake up in the hospital about three days later. When I wake up in the hospital, I’m like.

 

[23:54] Every bone of my body was broken. I’m up there like a mummy. And the mayor came to see me. All kinds of people came to see me. They made me into an even bigger star in my neighborhood. The Count lives down the street and is seeing all this stuff about me and whatever. Jumping quickly to another thing, which got me furious. Willie Grimes was the cop that was driving this quad. He was a racist. We had some blacks in the job. He was a total racist. When my brother and when some others were doing their best to try to find these people, he was protecting them. Some of them, if they caught, he was protecting them.

 

[24:48] I was off the job for like nine months when I came back to work. I never came to the hospital to see me. I mean, everybody came. Every day, my hospital went. Because one of the nurses that I was dating, in fact, she was one of those killed. That’s when Richard Speck wound up killing her and some of the others at the same time. It was at the South Chicago Hospital. Holy darn. What they did for me, I had buckets in my womb with ice. We were bringing beer and pizzas and whatever. Every day was like a party in there. When I finally came back to work, it was 11 o’clock at night. I worked out in South Chicago, and I’m sitting in the parking lot, and the media is there. The media, they had all kinds of cameras there. Robert Cooley’s coming back to work after like nine months. They wouldn’t let me go back.

 

[25:51] I’m walking by the squads. And Willie was a big guy. He was probably about 220, a big one of these big muscle builders and all that nonsense.

 

[26:04] He’s sitting in the first car. The cars are all lined up because when we would change, when we would change at like 11 30 uh you know the cars would all be waiting we jumped into the cars and off we go as i’m walking by the car i hear aren’t you afraid to walk in front of my car.

 

[26:26] I look over and he had a distinctive voice i walk over to the car and i reach in and i start punching them, and I’m trying to drag them out of the car. The cameras, the cameras are, you know, they’re all basically inside. They’re all inside. You know, as you walk in there, they’re all inside there. When I do, I eventually walk up there. But the other police came, and they dragged me. They dragged me away, and they brought me in, and whatever. We got transferred out the next day out of the district. And the first policeman I meet is Rick, Rick Dorelli, who’s connected with, who’s a monster. He’s connected with them. And, and he’s the one who told me, he said to me, you know, we played cards and he realized I was a gambler, but I had never dealt with bookmakers. And he said, he says, yeah, you want to make some money? You want to make some easy money? Well, yeah, sure. You know, uh, you know, and thinking that’s, you know, working security or something like that, like I had done back in Chicago, you know, like I had done on the south side. And he said, I want you to make some bets for me with somebody who said.

 

[27:43] And I remember him using the term. He said, I want you to be my face. He said, and I want you to make some bets for me. He said, and he said, and if you, if you’ll do it, I’ll give you a hundred dollars a week just to make the bets for me. And then, you know, and then meet with these people and pay these people off. And I said, sure. You know, I said, you know, why? He says, because I can’t play with these. people he said i’m connected with him he said and i’m not allowed to gamble myself he said but he told me he said i’ve got a couple people i take bets from i’ve got my own side deal going so i want you to do it i want you to do it and i’ll give i’ll give you to them as a customer, and you’re gonna be a customer and he’s and he tells people now that i got this other police He’s in law school. He comes from a real wealthy family, and he’s looking for a place to bet. He’s in Gambia. He’s looking for a place to bet.

 

[28:47] So I call this number, and I talk to this guy. He gives me a number. When you bet, you call, and you do this, and you do that. And I’m going to get $100 at the end of the week. Now, I’m making $5,200 a year, and they’re taking money out of my chest. I’m going to double my salary. I’m going to double my salary immediately. Why wouldn’t you do it? That’s fantastic money at the time. So I start doing it. And the first week I’m doing it, it was baseball season.

 

[29:19] And I’m making these bets. He’s betting $500 a game on a number of games. And he’s winning some, he’s losing some. But now, when I’m checking my numbers with the guy there, he owes, at the end of the week, he owes $3,500.

 

[29:38] And now, it’s getting bigger and bigger, he’s losing. I’m getting worried. What have I got myself into? Yeah, because it’s not him losing, it’s you losing to the bookie. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking, holy, holy, Christopher, I’m thinking. But, you know, I’ve already jumped off the building. So anyhow. I’d be thinking, you better come up with a jack, dude. It’s time to pay up, man. Anyhow, so when I come to work the next day, I’m supposed to meet this guy at one of the clubs out there in the western suburbs.

 

[30:21] I’m supposed to meet the bookmaker out there. And Ricky meets me that morning, and he gives me the money. It’s like $3,400, and here’s $100 for you. Bingo. That’s great. So, okay. When I go to make the payment to him, it’s a nightclub, and I got some money in my pocket. Somebody, one of the guys, some guy walks up. I’m sitting at the bar and, you know, I hear you’re a copper. I said, pardon me? He says, I hear you’re a copper. He was a big guy. Yeah. I hear you’re a copper. Because at that time, I still only weighed maybe like, well, maybe 60, 65 pounds. I mean, I was in fantastic shape, but I wasn’t real big. And I said, I’m a policeman. I don’t like policemen. I said, go fuck yourself. or something like that. And before he could do anything, I labeled him. That was my first of about a half a dozen fights in those different bars out there.

 

[31:32] And the fights only lasted a few minutes because I would knock the person down. And if the person was real big, at times I’d get on top and just keep pounding before they could do anything. So I started with a reputation with those people at that time now as I’m, going through my world with these people oh no let’s stay with that one area now after the second week he loses again, this time not as much but he loses again and I’m thinking wow, He’s betting, and I’m contacted by a couple of people there. Yeah. Because these are all bookmakers there, and they see me paying off. So I’m going to be, listen, if you want another place to play, and I say, well, yeah. So my thought is, with baseball, it’s a game where you’re laying a price, laying 160, laying 170, laying 180. So if you lose $500, if you lose, you pay $850, and if you win, you only get $500.

 

[32:52] I’ve got a couple of people now, and they’ve got different lines. And what I can do now is I check with their lines. I check with Ricky’s guy and see what his line is. And I start moving his money elsewhere where I’ve got a 30, 40, sometimes 50 cent difference in the price. So I’d set it up where no matter what, I’m going to make some money, No matter what happens, I’ll make some money. But what I’m also doing is I’m making my own bets in there that will be covered. And as I start early winning, maybe for that week I win maybe $1,000, $1,500. And then as I meet other people and I’m making payments, within about four or five months, I’ve got 10 different bookmakers I’m dealing with. Who I’m dealing with. And it’s become like a business. I’m getting all the business from him, 500 a game, whatever. And I’ve got other people that are betting, you know, are betting big, who are betting through me. And I’m making all kinds of money at that time.

 

[34:14] But anyhow, now I mentioned a number of people, A number of people are, I’ve been with a number of people that got killed after dinner. One of the first ones was Tony Borsellino, a bookmaker. Tony was connected with the Northside people, with DeVarco, the one they called DeVarco. And we had gone to a we had gone to a I knew he was a hit man, we had gone to a basketball game over at DePaul because he had become a good friend of mine he liked hanging with me, because I was because at that time now I’m representing the main madams in Chicago too and they loved being around me they liked going wherever I was going to go so I always had all kinds of We left the ladies around. And we went to the basketball game. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant, a steakhouse on Chicago Avenue.

 

[35:26] Gee, why can’t I think of a name right now? We went to a steakhouse, and we had dinner. And when we finished up, it came over there. And when we finished up, I’d been there probably half a dozen times with him. And he was there with his girlfriend. We had dinner and about, I’d say it was maybe 10, 30, 11 o’clock, he says, you know, Bob, can you do me a favor? What’s that? Can you drop her off? He said, I have to go meet some friends. I have to go meet some friends of ours. And, you know, okay, sure, Tony, not a problem. And, you know, I took her home.

 

[36:09] The next day I wake up, Tony Barcellino was found dead. They killed him. He was found with some bullets in the back of his head. They killed him. Holy Christopher. And that’s my first—I found that I had been killed before that. But, you know, wow, that was—, prior to that, when I was betting, there was i paid off a bookmaker a guy named uh ritten shirt, rittenger yeah john rittenger yeah yeah yeah he was a personal friend yeah was he a personal friend of yours yeah they offed him too well i in fact i he i was paying him i met him to pay him I owed him around $4,500, and I met him at Greco’s at my restaurant he wanted to meet me out there because he wanted to talk to me about something else he had a problem some kind of a problem I can’t remember what that was.

 

[37:19] But he wanted to meet me at the restaurant so I met him at Greco’s, And I paid him the money. We talked for a while. And then he says, you know, I got to go. I got to go meet somebody. I got to go meet somebody else. I got to go straight now with somebody else. And he said, I’ll give you a call. He said, I’ll give you a call later. He said, because, you know, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. He says, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. I said, okay, sure. He goes to a pizza place. Up there in the Taylor Street area. That’s where he met Butchie and Harry. In fact, at the time, I knew both of them. Yeah, guys, that’s Butch Petrucelli and Harry Alem and a couple of really well-known mob outfit hitmen. Yeah, and they’re the ones that kill them. I’m thinking afterwards, I mean, But, you know, I wish I hadn’t, I wish I hadn’t, you know, I wish I could save him. I just gave him. Man, you’re cold, man.

 

[38:34] You could have walked with that money. That’s what I’m saying. So now, another situation. Let me cut in here a minute, guys. As I remember this Reitlinger hit, Joe Ferriola was a crew boss, and he was trying to line up all the bookies, as he called it. He wanted to line them up like Al Capone lined up all the speaks, that all the bookies had to fall in line and kick something into the outfit, and Reitlinger wouldn’t do it. He refused to do it no matter. They kept coming to him and asking him his way. I understand that. Is that what you remember? I knew him very well. Yeah. He was not the boss. Oh, the Ferriola? Yeah, he wasn’t the boss, but he was kind of the, he had a crew. He was the boss of the Cicero crew. Right. I saw Joe all the time at the racetrack. In fact, I’m the one who, I’m the one, by the time when I started wearing a wire, I was bringing undercover agents over. I was responsible for all that family secret stuff that happened down the road. Oh, really? You set the stage for all that? I’m the one who put them all in jail. All of them.

 

[39:52] So anyhow, we’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves. Reitlinger’s been killed. Joe Borelli or Ricky Borelli’s been killed. These guys are dropping around you, and you’re getting drawn into it deeper and deeper, it sounds to me like. Now, is this when you – what happens? How do you get drawn into this Chicago outfit even more and more as a bookie? Were you kicking up, too? Well, it started, it started, so many things happened that it just fell into place. It started, like I say, with building a reputation like I had. But the final situation in terms of with all the mobsters thinking that I’m not just a tough guy, I’m a bad guy.

 

[40:35] When I get a call, when Joey Cosella, Joey Cosella was a big, tough Italian kid. And he was involved heavily in bookmaking, and we became real close friends. Joey and I became real close friends. He raised Dobermans, and he’s the one who had the lion over at the car dealership. I get a call from Joey. He says, you’ve got to come over. I said, what’s up? He says, some guys came in, and they’re going to kill the count. They want to kill the count. And I said, And I said, what? This is before the Pewter thing. I said, what do you mean? And so I drive over there, and he says, Sammy Annarino and Pete Cucci. And Pete Cucci came in here, and they came in with shotguns, and they were going to kill them. I said, this was Chicago at the time. It’s hard to believe, but this was Chicago. And I said, who are they? I didn’t know who they were. I said, who are they? I mean, I didn’t know them by name. It turns out I did know them, but I didn’t know them by name. They were people that were always in Greco’s, and everybody in Greco knew me because I’m the owner.

 

[41:49] But anyhow, so I get a hold of Marco, and I said, Marco, and I told him what happened. I said, these guys, a couple of guys come in there looking for the talent. That are going to kill him because apparently he extorted somebody out of his business. And I said, who were they with? And he said, they were with Jimmy the bomber. They were with Jimmy Couture.

 

[42:15] I said, oh, they’re for legit then? I said, yeah. I said, can you call? I said, call Jimmy. I knew who he was. He was at the restaurant all the time. He was at Threatfuls all the time with a lot of these other people. And I met him, but I had no interest in him. He didn’t seem like a very friendly sort of anyone. I could care less about him. I represented a lot of guys that worked for him, that were involved with problems, but never really had a conversation with him other than I.

 

[42:53] I’m the owner. So I met with him. I wrote about that in the book. I met with them and got that straightened out where the count’s going to pay $25,000 and you’ll get a contract to the… He ripped off some guy out of a parlor, one of those massage parlors, not massage parlor, but one of those adult bookstores that were big money deals. Oh, yeah. So when I go to meet these guys, I’m told, go meet them and straighten this thing out. So I took Colin with me over to a motel right down the street from the racetrack, right down from the racetrack, and I met with him. I met with Pete Gucci. He was the boss of, you know, this sort of loop. When I get finished talking with him, I come back, and here’s the count and Sammy, and Sammy’s picking a fork with his finger and saying, you know, I rip out eyes with these.

 

[43:56] And the count says, I rip out eyes with these. And I said, what the fuck is going on here? I said, Pete, I said, you know, get him the fuck out of here. And you all at the count said, what’s the matter with you? You know, these guys are going to kill him. And now the moment I get involved in it, he knows he’s not going to have a problem. You know, he’s pulling this nonsense.

 

[44:23] So anyhow, this is how I meet Pete Gucci and Sammy Annarino. After a while, I stopped hanging around with the count because he was starting to go off the deep end. Yeah. Yeah.

 

[44:39] And we were at a party, a bear party with, I remember Willie Holman was there, and they were mostly black, the black guys up there on the south side. And I had just met this girl a day or two before, and the count says, you know, let’s go up to a party, a bear’s party up there on Lakeshore Drive. If we go up there, we go to this party, it’s going to be about maybe 35, 40 people in there, one or two whites, other than the players. And other than that, we’re the only white people there. When we walk into the place, there’s a couple of guys out there with shotguns. It was in a motel. And you walk through like an area where you go in there, and there’s a couple of guys standing there with shotguns. We go in and we go upstairs and, hey, how are you? And we’re talking with people. And I go in one room. I’m in one room.

 

[45:45] There were two rooms there. I’m in one room with a bunch of people and, you know, just talking and having a good old time. And the count was in the second room. And I hear Spade. He always called me Spade. Spade, Spade, you know. And I go in there, and he’s talking with Willie Holman. I remember it was one of them. He was the tackle, I think, with the Bears and a couple of others. And this whole room, all these black guys. And he goes, that’s Spade Cooley. He says, him and I will take on every one of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re in a room, and he goes, that’s what he says. You know, him and I will take it on every one of you. And Willie did that. He calmed down. He’s telling him, calmed down. What the fuck? It was about a week or so after this. And because I had been out with the county, he’s calling me two or three times a week to go out. And we’re going, a lot of times it was these areas in the south side with a lot of blood. He liked being around Blacks.

 

[47:00] That’s when I met Gail Sayers, and I met some of these others through him. But a lot of the parties and stuff were in the South Side out there, mostly Blacks and all. But we had gone someplace for dinner, and we’re heading back home. We’re heading back to my place, and we’re in his car. He had a brown Cadillac convertible. On the side of it, it had these, you know, the Count Dante press. And he always ran around. He ran around most of the time in these goofy, you know, these goofy outfits with capes and things like that. I’m driving and when we’re talking and I’m like distracted looking at him. And I’m waiting at a stoplight over there right off of Chicago Avenue. And as we’re there.

 

[47:48] I barely touched the car in front of us, you know, as I’m drifting a little bit and barely touch it. There were four guys in the car and, you know, and the one guy jumps out first, one guy jumps out first and then second one, and they start screaming. And when the count gets out, the guy starts calling you, you faggot or something like that, you know, whatever. And as the other one gets out, I get out of the car. And the next thing I know, they jump back in the car, and they run through a red light, and they disappear. Somebody must have recognized them. One of the other people there must have realized who this is that they’re about to get into a little battle with. In fact, they ran the red light. They just ran the red light and disappeared. They come, no, no, no, no, no. And we go off to my apartment and I’m here with this girl, another girl I had just met a day or so before, because I was constantly meeting new people, uh, running around and, uh, we’re sitting on the couch. I’m sitting in the couch next to her and the count, the count was over there. And he suddenly says to her, he says, he says, this is one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. He said, and he says, tell her how tough you are. Tell her how tough you are.

 

[49:10] I said, you know, I said, you know, you know, and he says, tell them how tough you are. And I said, John, you know, and he walks over, And he makes a motion like this towards me. And he barely touched my chin. But I thought he broke it. He then steps back and he goes, I got to cut this hand off. He says, you saved my life. He said, you saved my life. He said, the only two friends I’ve had in the world were my father and you. He says, I wasn’t even that crazy about my mother. That’s when I said then he goes and he stands and I’m looking at it now he stands up against the window I looked up on the 29th floor, he stands by the window he says get your gun he says and I want you to aim it at me, and say now before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet, I’ll stop the bullet this guy was nuts and I said I said, what?

 

[50:28] He says, before you pull the trigger.

 

[50:36] Tell me before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet. He wanted me to shoot him. He stopped the bullet. When I got him out of there, Now when he’s calling me, I’m busy. I’m busy. Once in a while, I’d meet him someplace. No more driving or whatever. That was smart. I hadn’t seen him in probably five or six months. And this is, again, after the situation when I had met with Anna Randall and Gooch and the others. I’m up in my office and I get a I get a call from the county, and he said and I hadn’t probably seen him even maybe in a month or two at all and he said, can I come over and talk to you and I was playing cards in fact I had card games up in my office and, we called him Commissioner.

 

[51:41] O’Malley Ray O’Malley, he was the head of the police department at night. On midnights, he got there at 4 to 12. He started at 4 to 12 until midnights. He was the head of them. He was the commissioner. He was in charge of the whole department. He used to play cards up in my office. We had big card games up in my office. And when he’d come up there, we’d have the blue goose parked out in front. We’d have his bodyguard sitting out there by my door. When he was playing in the games. This went on for a couple of years.

 

[52:15] I was at the office, but, you know, I’m at the office playing cards.

 

[52:20] And I had a, it was a big suite. We had, you know, my office was a big office in this suite. We had about six other, you know, big, big suites in there. And so he comes over, he comes over to meet with me. And so I figure he’s in trouble. He’s arrested. He says, I’ve got a situation going. He says, well, you can get a million dollars. And he said, but if I tell you what it is, he says, and you’re in, he said, you got to be in. I’ll tell you what it is. I said, John, if I need money, I said, you get $2 million, then you can loan me if you want, but I don’t want to know what it is. I said, I just don’t want to know what it is.

 

[52:59] It was about a week or two later. It was a pure later, basically. It was a pure later caper. Yeah, guys, this was like the huge, huge. And the one he set it up with was Pete Gucci, the guy that was going to kill him. That was the one who set it up. I knew that. I thought I remembered that name from somewhere. I don’t remember. They ended up getting popped, but everybody got caught, and most of the money got returned. No, no. No bit that the outfit kept, I understand, if I remember right. What was the deal on that? There was more to it than that. Just before that happened, I go up, and Jerry Workman was another lawyer. Actually, he was attorney up in the office, post-rending bank. When I’m going up into the office, I see Pete Gucci there. This is probably a week or so after the situation with the count. Or maybe even a little bit longer than that. I said, Pete, what are you doing? I said, what are you doing here? Jerry Workston’s my lawyer. Oh, okay.

 

[53:55] Okay. He said, I didn’t know you were off here. I said, yeah. I said, Jerry’s a good friend of mine. Okay. And as I’m walking away, he says, you tell your friend the count to stop calling me at two, three in the morning. He says, I got a wife and kids and whatever. And I said to him, I said, Pete, you got no business dealing. I don’t know what it is. I said, but you guys got no business dealing involved in anything. You got no business being involved with him. And I walked away. I see him and I see him as he’s leaving. I see him as he’s leaving and say goodbye to him. Jerry was going to be playing cards.

 

[54:39] It was card night too. Jerry was going to be playing cards in my office because the people would come in usually about 9 o’clock, 9.30 is when the game would usually start. I talked with Jerry. He had been in there for a while. He was arrested a day or two later. The fbi comes in there because he had stashed about 35 000 in jerry’s couch oh really that was his bond money he got that was his bond money if he got to get bailed out to get him bailed out that was his bond money that was there that’s how bizarre so i got involved in so many situations like this but anyhow anyhow now sammy uh, So it’s about maybe a week or two later after this, when I’m in the car driving, I hear they robbed a purulator. The purulator was about a block and a half from my last police station. It was right down the street from the 18th district. That was the place that they robbed. And not long after that, word came out that supposedly a million dollars was dropped off in front of Jimmy the bomber, in front of his place. With Jimmy the bomber, both Sammy Ann Arino and Pete Gucci were under him. They were gunmen from his group. Now I get a call from, I get a count was never, you never heard the count’s name mentioned in there with anybody.

 

[56:07] The guy from Boston, you know, who they indicated, you know, came in to set it up. The count knew him from Boston. The count had some schools in Boston. And this was one of his students. And that’s how he knew this guy from Boston that got caught trying to take a, trying to leave the country with, you know, with a couple thousand, a couple million dollars of the money. Yeah, I read that. It was going down to the Caribbean somewhere and they caught him. And Sammy Ann Arino didn’t get involved in that. He wasn’t involved in that because I think he was back in the prison at the time.

 

[56:44] Now, when he’s out of prison, probably no more than about maybe three or four months after all that toilet stuff had died down, I get a call from Sam, and he wants me to represent him because he was arrested. What happened was he was shot in a car. He was in a car, and he had gotten shot. And when they shot him, he kicked out the window and somehow fought the guys off. When they found him there in the car and in his trunk, they found a hit kit. They said it was a hit kit. How could they know? It was a box that had core form in it, a ski mask, a ski mask, a gun, a gun with tape wrapped around it and the rest of it. Yeah. And he’s an extra time. Mask and tape or little bits of rope and shit like that. I’d say no. So he was charged with it, and he was charged with it in his case, and he had a case coming up. I met him the first time I met him. He came by my office, and he said, you know, and I said, no, that’s not a problem. And he says, but I’ve got to use Eddie Jensen, too.

 

[57:52] And I said, I said, what do you mean? I said, you don’t need Eddie. And he says, I was told I have to use him. Jimmy Couture, his boy, he said, I have to use him. I know why, because Eddie lets these mobsters know whenever anybody’s an informant, or if he’s mad at somebody, he can tell him he’s an informant, they get killed. And so I said, you know, that piece of shit. I said, you know, I want nothing to do with him. I had some interesting run-ins with him before, and I said, I want nothing to do with that worthless piece of shit. You know, he’s a jagoff. And I said, you know, I says, no. He said, please. I said, no. I said, Sammy, you know, you don’t need me. He knows the judge like I know the judge, Sardini. I said, you know, you’re not going to have a problem in there. I get a call from him again, maybe four or five days after that. He’s out of my restaurant and he says, Bob, please. He said, You know, he says, please, can I meet you? He says, I got a problem. I go out to the meeting. And so I thought, there’s something new. I want you to represent me. I want you to represent me, you know, on the case. And I says, did you get rid of that fence? He says, no, I have to use him. But I says, look, I’m not going to, I want, no, Sammy, no, I’m not going to do it. He leaves the restaurant. He gets about a mile and a half away. He gets shotgunned and he gets killed. In fact, I read about that a couple of days ago.

 

[59:22] I know it’s bullshit. They said he was leaving the restaurant. It was Marabelli’s. It was Marabelli’s Furniture Store. They said he was leaving the furniture store. What they did was they stopped traffic out there. They had people on the one side of the street, the other side of the street, and they followed, they chased him. When he got out of his car and was going to the furniture store, They blasted him with shotguns. They made sure he was killed this time. After that happened, it’s about maybe three or four days after that, I’m up in my office and I get a call. All right, when I come out, I always parked in front of City Hall. That was my parking spot. Mike and CM saved my spot. I parked there, or I parked in the bus stop, or in the mayor’s spot. Those were my spots. They saved it for me. I mean, that was it, for three, four, five years. That’s how it was. I didn’t want to wait in line in the parking lot. So my car is parked right in front of the parking lot. And as I go to get in my car, just fast, fast, so walking, because he was at 134 right down the street from my office and he parks like everybody else in the parking lot so he can wait 20 minutes to get his car.

 

[1:00:40] And, and, and Bob, Bob, and, you know, and when I meet up with him, I’m both standing and we’re both standing right there in front of the, in front of the, uh, the parking lot. And he was a big guy. He weighed probably about 280, 290, maybe more. You know, mushy, mushy type, not in good shape at all. In fact, he walked with a gimp or whatever. And he says, you better be careful, he says. Jimmy Couture is furious. He heard what you’ve been saying about me.

 

[1:01:17] You’ve been saying about me. and something’s liable to happen. And I went reserved. I grabbed him, and I threw him up on the wall, and I says, you motherfuckers. I said, my friends are killing your friends.

 

[1:01:34] I said, my friends, because he represented a number of these groups, but I’m with the most powerful group of all. And when I say I’m with him, I’m with him day and night, not like him just as their lawyer. Most of them hated him, too, because most of them knew what he was doing. Yeah most of these and most of these guys hated him and i said you know but i and and i just like you’re kissing his pants and i don’t know if he crapped in his pants too and uh you know because i just turned around i left that same night jimmy katura winds up getting six in the back of the head maybe three miles from where that took place yeah he was uh some kind of trouble been going on for a while. He was a guy who was like in that cop shop racket, and he had been killing some people involved with that. He was kind of like out away from the main crew closer to downtown, is my understanding. Like, you were in who were you in? Who was I talking about? Jimmy Couture? Jimmy Couture, yeah. He was no, Jimmy Couture was Jimmy Couture, in fact, all these killers, we’ll try and stay with this a little bit first. Jimmy Couture was a boss and he had probably about maybe a dozen, maybe more in his crew and, He didn’t get the message, I’m sure.

 

[1:03:01] Eddie Jensen firmly believes, obviously, because it’s the same day and same night when I tell him that my friends are killing your friends.

 

[1:03:14] He’s telling everybody that I had him kill, I’m sure. Yeah, yeah. Because it was about another few days after that when I’m out in Evanston going to a courthouse. And there you had to park down the street because there was no parking lot. Here I hear Eddie, you know, stay. I’m going to say Bob, Bob. And when he gets up, he says, Bob, he says, when I told you, I think you misunderstood. When I told you it was Jimmy Cattrone. it was it was jimmy katron was a lawyer that you know worked in out of his office close friend of mine too he was a good friend of mine it was jimmy it was jimmy katron that you know not because he obviously thought he believed so he’s got all these mobsters too bosses and all the rest thinking that i was involved in that when i when i wasn’t uh when i was when i wasn’t actually But it’s so amazing, Gary. And that’s one of a dozen stories of the same sort. I met unbelievable people. I mean, we’re talking about in New Orleans. We’re talking about in Boston. Now, if you were to say, who were you with? Always somebody’s with somebody. Were you with any particular crew or any particular crew.

 

[1:04:41] Buzz, were you totally independent?

 

[1:04:46] Everybody knew me to be with the Elmwood Park crew. And that was Jackie Cerrone before Michael, I mean, before Johnny DeFranco. That was Jackie Cerrone. Okay. That was Giancana. That was Mo Giancana. Mo was moving at the clubhouse all the time. That was the major people.

 

[1:05:13] And where was their clubhouse? What did they call their clubhouse? Was that the Survivors Clubhouse, or what was the name of their operation? Every group had one, sometimes more clubhouses. Right. That was where they would have card games in there. They’d have all kinds of other things going. the place was full of like in Marcos I call it Marcos but it was actually Jackie Sharon’s when I first got involved Jackie Sharon was the boss who became a good friend of mine, Jackie Sharon was the boss and Johnny DeFranco was, right under him and then a number of others as we go down, our group alone we had.

 

[1:06:04] Minimum, I’d say, a thousand or more people in our group alone. And who knows how many others, because we had control of the sheriff’s office, of the police department, of the sheriff, of the attorney general. We had control of all that through the elections. We controlled all that. So you had 1,000 people. You’re talking about all these different people who we would maybe call associates. It would be in and out of our club all the time. Okay. Yeah. We’re talking a number of policemen, a number of policemen, a number of different politicians of all sorts that we had. I knew dozens of people with no-show jobs there. We had control of all the departments, streets and sanitation, of absolutely urbanizing. We controlled all the way up to the Supreme Court. What about the first ward, Pat Marcy, and the first ward now? Was your crew and Jackie Cerrone’s crew, did that fall into the first ward, or were they totally there? How did that relate, the Pat Marcy and the politicians? And I found out all this over a period of time.

 

[1:07:28] Everything had changed right about the time I first got involved with these people. All these people you’ve read about, no one knows they were still alive. I met just about all of them when I got connected over there with the first word. A lot of the, we were talking about the gunmen themselves. All the Jackie not just Jackie but I’m talking about Milwaukee Phil Milwaukee Phil and all the rest of them they were over there at Councilors Row all the time because when they were to meet Pat Marcy, what they had there in the first war and, It just so happened, when I started in my office, it was with Alan Ackerman, who was at 100 North, where all their offices were upstairs. The first ward office was upstairs.

 

[1:08:22] And below the office, two floors below, I found out on this when I got involved with them, we had an office. looked like it was a vacant office because the windows were all blackened out. That’s where he had all the meetings with people. When Arcado or Yupa, anybody else, any of the other people came in, this is where he met them. When the people from out of town came in, we’re talking about when, what do you think?

 

[1:08:58] But when Alpha, when Fitzgerald, when all these people would come in, this is where they would have their meetings. Or these are the ones who would be out with us on these casino rides. When these people came in, this is where they would do the real talking because we’d go to different restaurants that weren’t bugged. If this office was checked every day, the one that they had down below, and nobody, nobody, their office was, I think it was on the 28th floor, the first ward office. You had the first ward office, and right next to it, you had the insurance office when everybody had to buy their insurance. Obviously at upper rates big office connected to the first ward office when the back there’s a door that goes right into into theirs but the people were told you never get off or you get off you get off at the office floor but then you you walk you you get off it and i’m sorry you get off it at the.

 

[1:10:11] You don’t get off at the first ward office you get off at one of the other offices one of the other offices or the other floors and when you come in there, then you’ll be taken someplace else after that a double shop that’s where they would go and in fact when I had to talk to Petter Cary messages or whatever people like Marco couldn’t talk to Marcy.

 

[1:10:41] Only a few people could. Only people at the very top level could. Marco, he was a major boss. He could not talk to Marco. If he needed, you know, whatever. Marco D’Amico. Marco was, you had, Marco was the one right under Johnny DeFonza. Yeah. Marco’s the one that was in charge. He was the one who was in charge of all the gambling. Not just in Chicago, but around all those areas in Cook County. We had not just Chicago. They were also the ones that were in charge of all the street tax, collecting all the street tax. That’s where the big, big money was also. Everybody paid. What happened was in the 70s, right as I got involved with these people, that’s why I’m sure that’s why Jimmy the Bomber got killed. And I know that’s why they killed Moe. I know that’s why they killed him. I know who killed him. A lot of people know who killed him. It was his bodyguard. He’s going to kill them. The whole system had changed. It changed during the time when Giancana was off in Mexico. I knew Giancana from when I was still a policeman, and I was connected with those mob people. When he was there in the Cook County Jail, I’m the one who brought in the policeman to bring him his sandwiches. He had to think just like me about beef and sausage sandwiches from his favorite place. So I could bring the policemen. That’s when I first met them.

 

[1:12:10] I had contacts there in the county jail to bring anybody I wanted in there at any time. That was to help some of the other people. When they’d be in there, they weren’t supposed to have visitors. These guys didn’t get the message. The whole system changed. And what happened now was when they started collecting street tax, they were collecting street tax not just from the bookmakers, from the chop shop guys. From the dealers, the mob. They were collecting street tax from the street gangs. Blackie Pasoli was the one that they reported to from the— What do you call it? Black B-Stone Rangers? Black B-Stone Rangers? With Jeff Ford. Jeff Ford, yeah. Blackie Pasoli was the one that these guys had to come to.

 

[1:13:01] But the money was unbelievable. You did anything, you paid a street tax. That’s why they started killing the people like they did to give them a message. But the way the thing changed, and I had all this on tape for the FBI, and they never followed up on it because that’s when Fitzgerald became the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, and that’s when Anton LaLukas started collecting millions of dollars from the mob. Now it was a new deal. When you grab somebody, he belonged to you. He belonged to this group that I know of. Like actually five major groups. You had the Cicero group. Joe Ferriero was in Rocky. And Rocky and Felice. Rocky and Felice was his great guys. Rocky and Felice was actually doing a lot more on the upstop on the streets than he was. You had that group there. You had the Chinatown group. You had the Chinatown group. You had Lombardo. You had Joey Lombardo, who actually lived over there, and everybody thought he had the crew. But actually, he had his crew went all the way out there to Indiana.

 

[1:14:12] The whole south side, the south side area, all the way south out to Indiana. That was him. That was his group. And then you had the other major group with Caesar, Caesar DeBarco. DeBarco. That was the, what do you call it, the Rush Street crew, Going all the way out to the interesting, how I met him the first time, DeMarco, how it went out to the, uh.

 

[1:14:42] Onto the city limits. Okay. When they grab, when somebody, when you grab somebody doing something, this became a huge business. When you grab somebody doing something, he belonged to you. Yeah. Yeah. And he paid you so much for whatever he’s doing. When I say he belonged to you, he was the person that paid you for whatever he’s doing. And you would pay a different amount depending on what you’re doing. As a bookmaker, as whatever. You paid them street tax and you paid or you died. I mean, that was the name of the game. So did you pay? Did you pay? Who did you have to pay? How did it work for you personally? You were making books. I was probably the only one that I know of that never paid them anything until I’m wearing a wire for the feds, and I wanted to show them what was being done and how it was being done.

 

[1:15:48] When I did what I did in the very beginning, these people had no idea. You know, they just knew that was a huge gamble and all the rest of it. But again, I was such an integral part of it. You know, they never even suggested, you know, they never thought in terms of, and they never realized how much I’m actually making. I was making huge sums of money. If they’d have known, if they would have known, they would have been after a piece of it, wouldn’t they? Oh, going how they are, sure. Yeah. Same as when Pat Marcy wanted me to fix that case, this is how they are with money. When Phant Marcy wanted me to fix that, the Chinese case, the only own case, which got me involved with their whole world. I became the lawyer for the only own.

 

[1:16:36] I was their lawyer in this country. I talked about that a little bit in the book. He wanted me to charge them $25,000 for that murder case. He said, see if you can get $25,000. And he says, and when you meet him, don’t tell him you’re connected with us. You know, don’t tell them you’re connected with us or whatever, because I guess they’re paying huge street tax, you know, for the gambling they’re doing there. Yeah, yeah. And I said, okay. And when I met with Wilson, you know, I just said, you know, thinking to myself, why not? This is shortly after they were going to whack me.

 

[1:17:17] So I was more than happy to get involved doing something like this. This is after they put a contract on me because I wouldn’t tell them about an informant. An informant, yeah. Let’s finish the own Leong. It’s like a Tong society, and they had all the gambling in Chinatown lined up. One of them committed a murder, and you’re going to represent one of their members of their organization, correct? Well, not one. I represented all four of them. There’s four of them. That was Lenny Chow and the other three that killed one of the other Chinese kids. But he asked me to try to get $25,000 from him. And when I met with Wilson Moy, who was the chairman there, I told him, And I said, well, I said, how much will you charge? And I said, well, I’ll tell you if you want. I said, if you want a jury trial, I said, that would be $25,000. I said, and if you want a bench trial, that would be $100,000. Yeah, and the bench trial is the ticket.

 

[1:18:32] I was unbelievably cautious. I never talk to strangers. That’s why these people love me so much and all the rest of them. I never talk to strangers. I call anybody a stranger I don’t know for 20 years and whatever. When I meet somebody, I don’t care what I’m told about them. I don’t say it. My attitude wasn’t as I taught these guys, and they forgot when I turned on them. You never discuss something you did before. always assuming you talk to somebody you’re talking into a wire and assuming you have no problem listening to it while you’re in a jury trial I said anytime somebody tries to talk to you about something what do you mean? I said say you robbed a bank with somebody afterwards for whatever reason he says remember that bank that we robbed I said the way you respond to him is what are you talking about, the bank I robbed. I would never do something. Are you trying to set me up?

 

[1:19:41] That’s exactly what I did with Bill Swano. He tried to clean up on the case with the judge.

 

[1:19:48] Back to only own. So did they give you the 25 or the 100? Because with the 100, you could pick the judge and pretty much guarantee a non-guilty. No, but see, what I’m saying is when I’m talking to him, When I’m talking to him, I want to talk to him in a way that it’s not going to be a problem for me down the road. So I just said to him, I’m friendly with a lot of people. And I think because I’m their friend, a lot of people give me every break in the world, I said.

 

[1:20:28] I did not say to him, I need the money for the judge. or anything else, and I did not say the case was fixed, but now when I go tell Penn, you know, I gave him a fee of $100,000 of $100,000, You know, I said, how much do you need? You know, what do I get now? And he says, you know, how about $5,000 or $10,000? And I said, what do you mean $5,000 or $10,000? This was after they were going to whack me. And so I said, I’m not bad. I said, you know, I should get at least like $25,000. And that’s exactly what I did get. But you were wearing a wire at that time on Pat, right? What’s that? You were wearing a wire on Pat at that time. Oh, no. That was four or five years before. Okay. So let’s get to that. Let’s get to that. We kind of know how it works now and who’s with who. Let’s get to that. You say they tried to kill you once. Let’s follow up on that a little bit. That they put a hit out on you at one time. What happened there? When Nick the Salesman, when Nick Balances, when they went to extort him, he was paying street tax.

 

[1:21:56] He was paying the street tax. And he was paying the Marco’s group, the Elmwood Park group. And he was paying. He had a card room where they had poker games and in other games and blackjack and the rest of it. He also was a bookmaker. He was making book. So he was paying for one. He was paying for the other. And now they found out he was booking at the racetracks. They had guys at the racetrack that were booking and they had to pay for that. So now they were going to give him and they gave him a third tax. The ones that went over to see him, Donnie, Frank Bernal, Donnie Scalise, and Nicola Annis. These were all good friends of mine, and I represented all three of them in the past.

 

[1:22:54] When they went to collect the money, he’s complaining, I got to pay for this and pay for that. How come I got to pay some more? And he was complaining about it. And they just said, you’ve got to pay. and he goes from what Nick told me afterwards, you know, he kept complaining and they just said, we’ll be back on such and such a day and we want the extra money now. It’s not going to be whatever it was. I don’t know what the exact numbers were. Yeah. But they will charge sometimes up to $25,000 with people, you know, for one thing. We’re not talking about nickels and dime stuff. We’re talking big B money. And so anyhow, when they go to see them and collect them, they don’t know it. He’s wearing a wire.

 

[1:23:46] And the FBI are listening in on this. And so a period of time afterwards, they get indicted. And Nick Philanesis, he goes into witness protection. They get indicted. And Marco had told me a number of times, Nobody wears a wire on us and lives to talk about it because I had talked about some other things. I’m too worried about these people or whatever. And he had said it many times. He had told me that. Frank Ranallo wanted me to represent him after he got indicted. And I told him no, because Nick Bolanis was told he had to use Eddie Jensen.

 

[1:24:36] And I wasn’t, I wouldn’t get any of their business. I didn’t want any of their business. When I represent, when I got one, I got a burglary case early in my career, before I started getting all the gambling from Marco. And it was a burglary case. And he told me, if you find out now that, you know, your informant, there’s an informant, you let us know. And I said, no, Mark, I’m not going to do that. What do you mean you’re not? I had already gotten the case. They had given me the case. I filed my parents and whatever and met the guy. I says, no, I don’t do that. And then he said, well, then you’re not going to get any more of our business. And I said, then fine. I don’t want that business then. It’s not a problem. I said, but I’m not going to do that. It’s just not going to happen. This is when I first got involved, you know, when I first got involved with those people, you know, as a lawyer. At this stage now, Jackie Cerrone’s kid, who was also a good friend of mine, he was representing the third one. So I told him, no, I’m not going to represent you. He starts bugging me. And Frank was a real close friend. In fact, Frank was the one I sent over when I thought maybe when Ricky Barley owed me that $50,000, I thought maybe rather than pay me, he’d kill me. That’s exactly what it was.

 

[1:26:02] So anyhow, I told Frank no, but he kept bugging me and kept bugging me. I get a call from Marco. He wanted me to meet him for dinner over at Billy’s. Billy’s is a restaurant that was right above Faces, one of the biggest nightclubs in the city. When I go to meet him, Jensen’s there. And I told him I wouldn’t because Jensen was involved representing Donnie Scalise. Donnie, too. Donnie, like, begged me, please, you know, Frank wants you, Frank wants you. And I says, no, I don’t, I’m not going to do it. And he said, you know, and Jensen was representing him. And, uh, in fact, you know, a number of times he, I just said, no. So when I meet Marco at Billy’s and when I walk in there, when I walk into the restaurant, there’s Jensen sitting at the table with him and with Donnie and a couple other people. And I walk in, and when I walk in and I see Jensen sitting there, I turn around and start to walk out. And Jensen, you know, Bob, Bob, you know, please, Bob, you know.

 

[1:27:10] And he comes over and he says, you know, can I talk to you? He says, you know, Frank wants you. He said, Frank wants you. He said, if you’ll do it, he said, my office will do all the work. He said, I’ll tell my secretary, I’ll tell my secretary, it’s the same as me, you can, you know, if you want to get any paperwork or whatever, but let’s bury the hatchet, he said, and let bygones be bygones. And, uh, and whatever. And this, I’m pretty sure was, this was after the incident with, you know, with, uh, where, where he, I, he threatened me and whatever. And, uh, so I said, all right. Anyhow, now I’m representing, I’m representing Frank. And we’re having our meetings all the time up in Eddie Johnson’s office and so forth. And we’re getting ready. And we’re preparing for trial. And at the same time, I’m doing obviously a lot of other gambling stuff. And I’m meeting Marco every week over there at the club to collect my money.

 

[1:28:24] I’m funny, I start our court hearing. Marco calls me. And he says, I want you to come to the club. I’ll meet you at the club. And when I meet him at the club, we take a walk around the block. And he says, you don’t have to worry anymore about the case. And I said, why is that? He says, because we’re going to kill him. And I said, Mark, I said, you know, why do you want to do that? I said, it’s going to hurt the case. I said, because he’s already testified before the grand jury, and I can’t cross-examine him and whatever. You don’t tell us how to run our business. And he says, he’s never raised his voice to me before. And he says, nobody wears a wire in us and lives to talk about it. And he’s in witness protection. But he’s in witness protection. I’m not thinking, you know, I’m hoping he’s just talking through his nose. And anyhow, we finish the talk and we get back and we go back into the club. And I collect the money and I go about my business.

 

[1:29:47] And I’m with Johnny DiArco. I’m pretty sure it was the same night. I’m with Johnny DiArco. So we double-dated and we went to a movie over on Michigan Avenue. And when we come out, I hear on the radio, somebody was just assassinated. And whatever. It was Nick Valensis. Holy Christopher. You know. Oh, wow. And whatever. I knew we were powerful. Even at that stage, I didn’t realize how powerful in certain sense we ran witness protection. When I say we, I mean, Marcy and company had obviously contacts in all of that. I knew also already we had contacts with the whole federal system in terms of people get, we could get people any penitentiary we wanted. When I became partners with Johnny, I was introduced to a number of judges up there, federal judges. He’s my law partner. I mean, they had everything. So, eligible, so be it. I get a call from Frank. The FBI wants to interrogate him. Where do we do it? In the Homewood Park Police Station.

 

[1:31:09] But when we own the Homewood Park, the police chief is a good friend of mine. Yeah. In every way with them. And so now when I’m in court, when I’m in court for one of the hearings, we go in there, we finish up court, and I get a call after I go back into my office from the U.S. Attorney, and he says, you know, I want to talk to you about something. And when I go in to see him, he tells me it’s going to come out in court tomorrow that Frank was an informant. Frank Rinella was an informant with us. The moment he tells me that, Frank’s a dead man. It’s Jackson that is involved in the case. I go over to Frank. I know where Frank lives. I go over to his house. He puts him in the little apartment. I tell him, I said, when I come in there, I said, Frank, there’s going to be a problem. I said, hey, it’s going to come out in court tomorrow that you were an informant. He’s standing there looking at me. he doesn’t say a word he walks over to he had a it was an old place years ago the refrigerator was there like in the living room and he opens the refrigerator opens the top part in the freezer he had a gun he actually had two guns in there yeah he took out he took out equally oh he said to me, are you carrying a weapon? And I said, no.

 

[1:32:39] Because the only place I didn’t was in federal court. Yeah, a big part. I was worried about it because nobody would ever throw to me.

 

[1:32:49] Anyhow, so he takes out the gun. He had a little thing with some ammunition in it. And he gets his hand, he gets his coat. We start walking out. He said, you’re going to walk out in front of me in case this is a trap, he said. Yeah. And he said, you’re going to have a problem. He said, you’re going to have a problem. And he gets in his car and he drives off. Yeah. I’m standing out there with this little gun in my hand and some bullets in my other hand and watching them drive away. Yeah. And I figured, I’ll have a problem, but we’ll get over it. And they’ll get over it. I’m out that night. When I come back, I get a call, one of the things I was doing, to make money. I mean, because it was like extra $500, I could get people out of PlayStation right away. I could get them. I had friends up there at the main station. And so when I went in there, they would process them right away and make sure we got, and I had a judge I could call.

 

[1:34:00] The night judge there left, but I had his home number and I could call and he would settle bonds. We could get out rather than sit in jail all night. I get a call from somebody, and Marco always called me when it was to go somewhere, I mean, to go get somebody. And actually, I wasn’t doing it by now. At this stage, I’ve got other people, a couple of lawyers that work for me that I would usually send myself and give them a couple hundred. They were pleased they should be to do that.

 

[1:34:34] So somebody calls me, and he says, I just got arrested. He said, I was told by Marco to call you, and if you can meet me, I’ve got the money for you to get my friend out of the jail who was just arrested. Something was wrong here. Nobody ever said, I’ll meet you. I had a time to give you the money. They knew I always had thousands in my pockets. So I just said, look. I said, I’m home right now. I said, I’m getting ready to go to bed. I got a girl over here. About 20 minutes later, I get another call from one of my good friends, another mobster. And he said, Bobby, he said, you know, they put a contract on you. And I said, oh, really? Really?

 

[1:35:21] And he said, yeah. He says, and you can’t ever tell anybody. I said, don’t be silly. I said, I never would. When I was with these people, like I told you, money to me meant nothing. I had dozens of these guys that I gave money to all the time. I did all kinds of things for them. These guys loved me, a lot of them. So anyhow, the next thing I go to court, and when I go to court.

 

[1:35:51] There’s nobody here. The judge says, I’ve got the room is full of people. But I’m with people because it was the easier case. And the judge says, where’s your client? And I said, yeah, I don’t know, judge. I said, I don’t know. And he said, you know, well, and he said something really interesting. He said to me, were you paid yet by your client? And I said, I said, no. I said, not fully. And he says, well, if you want, he said, you, You write out a request, and I’ll make sure we get that paid. I never sold that before, but whatever. I left town that afternoon. I flew out to California, moved in with a friend of mine, a florist. And now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to get this thing straightened out once and for all. I’m coming back. So I did come back, and I got a hold of a friend of mine. Ronnie came in. Ronnie was a builder. And he had a building company and a big guy, a real big guy. And I said, you know, Ronnie, I got to go meet some people. I said, I want you to take a ride with me. Now, I don’t tell him anything about what’s going on. Oh, man.

 

[1:37:10] He knows me as the other person. And so I knew where they went and had dinner on this particular day. I think it was a Wednesday. And I knew every one state. Every Wednesday, they went to this one restaurant on Harlem, and it’s a restaurant or a window right in front of it, and there’s a bus stop, and Marco would always be at the big table right in the middle with about half a dozen of his guys. I knew that’s where it would be. And so I have Ronnie sitting, and Ronnie always carried weapons, too. I put on two. I put on my two in case I needed them. he’s sitting in the car he doesn’t know he’s sitting in the car and he’s maybe, 10, 15 feet, you know, from the window. And he’s looking, watching me as I walk in there. And these guys are, when they see me, all of them, their eyes all bit pop open. And I walk in there and I just point in motion to Marco. I said, and I pointed to the bathroom.

 

[1:38:23] And we go in there. And I said, Marco, I said, I left, but I’m back. I says, and I’m back to stay. I says, if I see anybody around me, I said, I’ll fucking kill them. I says, and if I thought I had a problem with you, I’d fucking kill you too. I said, I don’t want a problem. I knew Margot would never physically fuck with me. I knew these guys wouldn’t have guns because they’re in there, and I know they never care under those circumstances.

 

[1:38:56] And he said, well, mother, you never get any more business from us. And I said, Mark, look, I don’t want a problem. I said, I don’t want a problem. I said, but I’m telling you right now, you know, I’m here to stay. I said, I didn’t do a thing to hurt you people. I said, Frank wasn’t going to hurt you people. He was your friend as well as mine. He was your close friend. he was dealing with them with narcotics people he i said even if i said years before he was an informant uh he was giving him information on i could never gave him information on you people whatever i said and i said if i see anybody else by me i said you know i’ll film them I said, now, what I did too, I went back the next day. I went back the next day, and I saw John DeArco Sr., because.

 

[1:40:02] I believe, as others have said, they can’t do it without permission and all the rest of it with the top people. And I told him, I said, John, I want to break away from our partnership with Johnny. I want to break away from our partnership. Okay, guys, that’s enough Bob Cooley for today. I’ve got much more in the second episode. I’ll play that next week. It’s been most enlightening for me to listen to this guy talk.

 

[1:40:36] And I appreciate y’all listening in. And be sure to come back next week. Thanks, guys.