Chicago Mob War – Sam Carlisi

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins and Outfit historians Camillus Robinson and Paul Whitcombe discuss Sam Carlisi, The Chicago Outfit, and the time when the government after Sam Carlisi and his crew. They operated in Western Cook and DuPage Counties throughout the 1980s. Sam Carlisi was called “Wings” and some people believe it was in his youth he was known for his unrivaled ability to elude the authorities. Others claim it was because he flew around the country to connect with other mob families and was a traveling emissary for the Outfit. James “Litte Jimmy” Marcello worked for Sam Carlisi as his chauffeur, emissary, and all-around right-hand man. Carlisi’s third in command was Anthony Zizzo. On the street, guys knew “Little Tony” Zizzo as that boss of Frank Bonavolante, the head of the crew’s gambling operations, and Anthony “Big Tony” or “Tony the Hatch” Chiaramonti, who managed the crew’s juice loan racket.
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Transcript Sam  Carlisi

Well welcome all you are Wiretappers out there we are back here in studio gangland wired. And if you’re on YouTube, you can see I have a couple of

00:07
guests that have been on here regularly and semi regularly. Cam Robinson and Paul Whitcomb from Chicago. We’re going to Chicago today, folks. So welcome cam and Paul, I really appreciate you guys coming on help and tell his story. Thanks for having us. Glad to be here.

00:26
As you know, now cams got a book out there somewhere and I’m supposed to get an interview with Frank Calabrese a Jr’s wife who is who he wrote the book with a story of being married to the Mob, shall we say in Chicago? how’s that coming along? Okay, so final edits I’ve seen the cover and we’ve turned everything in should be going to print here very soon. All the all the edits it’s written and done and they just everything is set to pop so they’re good to go. What was the final title?

01:02
Final title we went with was Chicago swan song a mob wife story. Okay. All right. Guys, this one Yeah. latest ones for that guys. And I’m gonna have an interview with him and Lisa Swan here probably about the time that comes out. So we’ll we’ll be you’ll be hearing from us on Facebook and and on the podcast here. We want to see that book get read by a lot of people don’t wait cam. Absolutely. Yeah. The more the merrier or more the merrier.

01:32
You want readers I understand being an author or podcasts or whatever you want people to to digest your work. I just want to know people are digesting my work. You know, there’s there is the money angle to it. But I think it’d be really valuable information, a real different insight into Chicago outfit. We’ve never had that before. Yeah, it is that validation is sort of seeing what what goes on is I think Paul said it best what comes home with a monster comes home for dinner. So you know, it was it was Paul’s wording in in the interview the we did the initial interview and I really think that that says it I mean, this is this is what what the family is going through, I think we sort of getting windows with Carmela soprano, or Karen Hill and we’ll be good fellows. But we really take a deep dive and it’s it’s quite a story. Yeah, or even Gerard and Karen and Deborah Gravano you know, they get caught up in that ecstasy thing down in Phoenix and and all of them caught a case behind it. So I mean, you know, the family that does crime together goes to jail together.

02:39
But families are part of it. That’s that’s one thing I find so fascinating about the mob is the families that have families first of all, that they’re engaged with and and do things with and, and care about so you know, most of your regular scumbag criminals out there, you know, to bid gangbangers and stuff on the street and drug dealers and all that. They don’t have families they don’t live that other life a regular life. And that’s what to me is so fascinating about the mob is that you had that other aspect of these guys are more than one dimensional. Right. All right. So we’re going to talk about kind of start with Sam Carlisi aka Wings Carlisi.

03:22
Now, first of all, I found two different explanations for his name wings. One said he could outrun everybody. He was like he could dies. Everybody had wings. That one was that he flew around the country because he had contacts around the country and flew around the country was like an emissary maybe for the outfit around the country. So what do you guys think on that on getting that nickname wings?

03:49
There’s no doubt that he flew all over the country passing messages. And that’s the most popular explanation for why he was called wings. He was he was also black Sam.

04:01
So either one would work. I think that the messenger theory is probably right. What do you think of Ellis? i Yeah, I think that that’s

04:12
I think that’s probably probably the case. I think that it was he was flying around mourners, and I tend to defer to you and your expertise in this. I mean, nobody knows probably see, like you you’re sitting there. But he was traveling around and that that does draw attention to that was sort of broaden the scope of his of his nickname to people around the country. And that’s the one that’s known more broadly, Chicago. He’s black sands around the country, these rings. And I believe he had some really close family connections with the Buffalo Mob back east, I believe. I mean, he was from there. And his brother was Capo of a buffalo family which then bled into Sam’s or bringing the initiation ceremony back.

04:59
into Chicago. I think that was the influence of his brother and and the LCN in the East Coast. That led him to ask a Opus permission to do that in Chicago and late 70s and early 80s. Interesting. Yeah. Because

05:14
Chicago the outfit was dark by a guy from Naples, Al Capone. And so they didn’t have the Sicilian Mafia traditions and, and didn’t do the making ceremony and until I didn’t realize exactly it was and it was somewhere around Aiuppa, who was Carlisi must have been had Sicilian roots, too. Right. Oh, interesting. Well, I’m glad to know that I never really looked into that. I knew that there was a time when they started doing that.So, you know, currently see had been a driver for Aiuppa. Is that correct? He started even lower than that. Bill Romer said that the first time we ran into SAM Carlisi, he was parking cars at one of our youth clubs in Cicero. There was literally nobody and he worked his way up from from the very bottom. But he was also related with a lot of other mobsters in Chicago and I have a photograph of Carlisi from about 1962 with Joe Andriachi drinking together and so very early on Carlisi was heavily involved with Joey Aiuppa and the Cicero regime and that’s how he got his start. He followed Joey up and by the 70s Aiuppaa’s driver died and Carlisi took over that’s how he’s made all the contacts connected with the political contacts and became essentially a new bus right hand man. Right that driver that’s a pretty important position for the reasons that you said Paul, that you get to meet the political contacts you get to meet the contacts with other crews that you maybe work with. You’re not in this little silo just doing your own little gambling operation your own little loan sharking operation or burger crew or whatever. You’re there next to the man to meet other people. So when it comes time to move on up, you’re ready to move on up because you got the copntacts. And he was doing it at the height of outfit powers is the the early 70s through the 1986 the straw man convictions, Carly’s he was right there. And this is at a time when outfit power was unbelievable. They had all the skin from Las Vegas, the union’s the he was at the real height of things to do observe how it was done from the very top and of course, the Cardo was right there as well. Still giving advice. So they still have the links of all the way back to the beginning.

07:46
So I up goes to jail for a long time out of this straw man cases as they’re known and the government called him the straw man cases. So straw man two I think was in Chicago, we end debit and he goes to jail for a long time. So that leaves garlicy in the catbird seat I guess to move on in. Yeah, and the interesting thing about it is at the time the press and the government all thought it was Joe ferriola, who was the man and curlies he was operating pretty quietly in the background. He was very very close to a Aiuppa and it was Carlisi that became the boss very hola was still extremely influential and they’re both Cicero guys. Carlisi was more Melrose Park faction, but they were both pretty close. And Ferriola never had the good health of the strength to really challenge anything there. So by 89 Ferriola was dead.

08:45
And Carlisi was standing alone. It wasn’t until then, though, that authorities even really had a photograph of Carlisi a lot of the crime charts of the 70s you’ll see a blank spot you just didn’t know he was which is surprising because even as late as early as 1967, you have reports of Sam Carlisi being arrested in Cicero related to gambling. And at that time, he was going by the name of Drago, which is pretty interesting. But the name wings had not come out yet at least in the press. And which also leads me to believe it didn’t come from him being real fast because I don’t know. You know, I knew Carlisi see a little bit he wasn’t exactly the svelte runner type

09:38
you know, and that’s Chicago. They like that you have a guy that everybody knows it’s been out there Joe Ferriola, who’s that name was on the tips of the government’s tongue. And here you got it. Sam Carlisi in the background quietly doing things in taking actions and being in charge of stuff. But you got the government focused on Joe Ferriola.

10:00
because you’re not saying I’ve been part of that you only have so many resources. It’s so whoever comes up to the top bubbles up the top you go after him. And so which is way Chicago has always operated you know, got jet Sam Giancana getting all the heat out fried or, or later on guy Hoopa was pretty well known and Tony Accardo was way back in the back and Paul Ricca just, you know, said, Hey, you know, do this and do that and given their okay to a lot of stuff. So that’s Chicago, and all the way back to Frank Nitti. Yeah. Yeah. Paul Rico, kind of he refined that with Frank Miller. He didn’t know he was to me. He’s like the first guy that did that. Stayed in the background. It was powerful. While Nettie was out there and everybody knew Nitti. Yeah, you see Nitti in the press. But then if you look closely into the background, you’ll see booking photographs of not Nitti.

10:53
But Ricca getting arrested with Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Yeah, you know, and that’s, that’s where the real power is.

11:03
So hey, Carlisi. He moves on up. And and he now he’s got other crews that are doing things for him. He did some stuff with Lenny Patrick. And I know Paul, you know a lot about Lenny Patrick crew, which was a really powerful crew at the time. And so talk a little bit about what, what Carlisi got into and who was he doing it with? There’s lots of names in here. I know. For you know, this is still during the Golden Age of the outfit when when the power was enormous. And they still held the first Ward and they still held the context in the police department. And they still own Cicero. So Carly’s running then outfitted it full strength. That of course was soon with the end of car LISI. It started to dismantle and that’s probably a discussion for later but he was doing everything the outfit was doing loan sharking, gambling all these things that are now taken over by the government or by private industry. We got payday loans and we didn’t have casinos and video poker and bars and all these things even marijuana now in Illinois is legal say on your phone. Yes.

12:17
For the government squeezed the mov out of all these

12:21
ran at all and, and he ran it,

12:24
if suppose supposedly in cooperation with an Elmwood Park Capo by the name of Johnny defronzo, who was very close to Accardo. Now of course, Accardo is getting to be old at this time he’s in there isn’t into his 80s he’s got lung cancer, which he survived heart trouble, be spending most of his time in Palm Springs, California, and there are a condo out there, the outfit haven of the West. And so Carlisi is running things with an iron fist. He doesn’t consult with defronzo He doesn’t inform defronzo He essentially ignores defronzo and does things on his own. Accardo is eventually pulled in from from Palm Springs to sit down with defronzo and Carlisi. And there are surveillance photographs of this meeting. And they come out of a restaurant. I’m sure you’ve seen them. DeFronzo opens the door for a carto who looks bent over and hold and weak. And Carlisi drives them from this restaurant. I can’t remember who was Carol Stream I think it was in. Yeah, yeah. And

13:34
Carlisi was so bullheaded that he even ordered to hit on one of the Accardo’s closest friends, which would have been unheard of in the outfit. But I think that tells us a little bit about, you know, the myth that the Tony Accardo was the final word on everything till the day he died. I don’t think that’s really the reality of it.

13:57
That even though he was greatly respected, and given some deference till the day he died, he was not running things on a day to day basis by any means.

14:08
Sam Carlisi was and that’s in my mind proven by the attempted murder of Dominic Sinise, who was very close to a cartel.

14:19
John defronzo was not consulted about that or notified as he certainly would have tried to put a stop to it because defronzo was Elmwood Park. He was a Accardo’s man would have done something about it would have tried to get somebody to stop it. And it didn’t happen and and the rift between defronzo and Carlisi, he got so deep. When defronzo’s brother Joey got popped for trying to go marijuana in the western suburbs and Inverness. He got caught with this farcical attempt at a marijuana farm. They never produced an ounce of smokeable marijuana. But they took over a guy’s a juice little debtors house and made it into a garage

15:00
Oh, and defronzo was arrested, they outfit was embarrassed, or at least he issued a death warrant for Joey defronzo This is his underboss his son. Wow. And John defronzo pretended to go along with it. But he actually hid Joey in Florida in the home of another person who we all know and

15:27
survived he managed to get out from under it until current lease he was indicted and went to federal prison. So that’s how deep the rift was there at the top of the outfit in why consider the final days of the outfit?

15:41
Yeah, really, that was written about that. Jimmy Marcello was was car laces under boss and of course he’ll move on up and be part of the family secrets operation and I guess maybe even considered the bosses it by that time later on in his career. So again, he comes out of this Cicero base crew so it’s it all comes back to Cicero, it seems to be like, every time you turn somebody over, it comes back to Cicero. I was looking at some of these. This Anthony Zizo was was part of that crew also was his third and Commander and had had a crew working and they had all these loan sharking go on. And they were pretty slick. They, you know, they’d have gambling that had a gambling operation going. And then the gamblers would get in and then they turned them over to the loan sharks and loan sharks would pay off their gambling debts and and then they would, you know, they would then be able to get the loan shark money out of them. I mean, they were making money coming and going. That crew of car Laceys was with Lenny Patrick, too. And they they made a lot of money like that. Well, yeah. And let me Patrick, of course, was it was in Rogers Park, and he essentially ran that neighborhood for the outfit and that’s what makes the outfit so interesting, Gary, as you know, we talked about Sicilians and Neapolitans, but Lenny Patrick was Jewish Jewish, and he had run the Lawndale neighborhood in the 40s and 50s. But the Jewish population migrated largely to Rogers park in the 60s 50s and 60s and Lindy Patrick got permission to go with him. And even though he was Jewish, he was a couple and all but name. Right. Very powerful, very influential guy.

17:23
I remember him very well. And he was that look of a caged animal. He was in his early 70s At the time, but he single handedly wiped out the top echelon of the of the outfit

17:37
that he was he testified in this car Lacey. That Rico case they did with Carl Lacey and his cruisers though and

17:47
this cheer Monty and all those guys did Lenny Packard is to find that okay. He started with Gus Alex, and testified against Gus Alex. And that was a fascinating trial. I got to sit next to Antoinette Jian Khanna and listen to her comments. Well, Patrick was just fine. You know, the mafia princess. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

18:09
You really had some colorful thoughts about about Lenny Patrick. He did.

18:18
But yeah, he took down Gus Alex, which was the connection guy. And then moved on to Carly’s C. Marcelo chair monta Zizzo and the whole Cicero crew.

18:31
Here, here’s one of the I wrote down some of these quotes that came out in that trial if there was a gambler named Anthony Pate, who had failed to make good on a gambling debt $50,000 gambling debt. And the guy that sent after him said, you know, not God’s not even gonna help you. And then later on, they threatened to beat him. Instead they beat his head until it’s their turn so black and blue that he they think he had hair.

18:58
Yeah, they were they were masters of that there is another pretty interesting little

19:04
Oh, they told a guy that

19:09
that he better come back in a week with the payment. What he didn’t come back then they caught him again and they put a wire around his neck and they choked him and that the mess him up and he said he took a dump on his pants. He was so scared. And then he got away and he avoided him for a couple of years. And then a couple years later, they tried to collect it again and ended up burning his car. I mean, these guys were they were old school.

19:35
Collection enforcers, weren’t they? Oh, boy.

19:40
Tony, the hatch cheer monta

19:44
are have a lot of these. These recorded intimidations he put a guy on a hot griddle.

19:50
When he stabbed the guy in the face with a fork. One guy was wearing a wire and you can hear him saying don’t choke me. Don’t choke me. You know the FBI is listening while this guy’s getting work.

20:00
Over.

20:02
And of course the hatch wound up falling in this, this war for power after Cicero kind of disintegrates a little bit. He

20:11
said he could discipline his son by treating him like a stranger. Beat him beat him like wow

20:19
guys real cold workday

20:21
not not in port in person when I saw these guys day in and day out. Carly’s see especially was very Genteel. Very friendly. Every morning it was always Good morning.

20:36
How’s your evening you know, and everything was fine and very friendly guy Marcelo.

20:42
Little more scary. But Tony the hatch, tell you what he would, he would turn your heart to ice just looking at that guy.

20:51
Wow.

20:53
Remember the story about wanting to kill?

20:59
No, I’ll take that back. Oh, yeah. Jeeps, Daddiano. No, wants to kill Jeeps Daddiano, you know, that we remember that story. What was the story that that was something to do with Lenny Patrick. That was that that took an unusual twist with the guy they set out that Marielle can’t put right No, they I believe. Well, Jeeps daddiano was a was a elderly mobster that they were afraid was going to cooperate here. But he had a case out there. Carlisi was reported as saying, you know, if that Jeeps talks, a lot of people are gonna get hurt, including me. Yeah. And so he gave the order to Marcelo and Marcelo dispatched Mario Rainone. And Rainone’s job was just to get the door open, you know, and get in there and take care of the dino and on the way, he noticed he was being followed by two outfit guys, one of whom was Willie the beast. Massino.

21:57
One of the most feared

22:00
enforcers in outfit history. And renowned figured, hey, you know what, they’re getting a twofer here. They’re going to I’m going to kill the dino and they’re going to kill me to erase any connections back to the top. So Ray known, flipped, at least temporarily. Yeah. And flipped again. But in the course of flipping, he gets Lenny Patrick. Okay. Let’s see. Patrick then flips and gets Gus Alex on a wire. That Northwestern Memorial Hospital in the corridor there where they would meet. Got some incriminating conversations on Gus, Alex Lenny Patrick them unclipped

22:42
they indict him on all these things. He’s 72 years old. He knows that if he doesn’t do something, he’ll die in prison. And Lenny Patrick then on flipped again. And it all started with the attempt to kill poor Jeeps.

22:56
Wow. Yeah. And we did that campaign. I did a podcast on that the year of the informant, the year of the stool pigeon, I think was 1989. All these guys flipped grade that year flipped over and flipped back and then flipped over. It was a banner year for the GE as they call them.

23:16
Yeah, they really did. did really well. You had you had run own and Patrick and Gerald Scarpelli.

23:24
But it you know, it turned out okay for Renault, and he’s now a free man.

23:29
Back in Cicero and he’s on the straight and narrow as far as everybody knows he’s left the life behind him. A and, of course Scarpelli it didn’t turn out so well for him.

23:42
He hung himself in the MCC

23:45
in the bathroom. Somehow he did it with his hands tied behind his back. I haven’t figured out how he did that. One of those Yeah, it’s another one of those hotly debated outfit outfit. Topics it’s been coming up on on online recently. It’s

24:00
always always go down as a mystery, whether he how he was able to hang himself with his arms or multiple opportunities for people to assist him sort of sort of getting the Kevorkian treatment

24:16
including Frank the Germans Scheiwhs. I’m gonna say that’s what Red Wemette said that Frank the German slice was was in the mccc at the SEI or MCC at the same time.

24:28
It’s kind of like the

24:30
canary could sing but couldn’t fly story

24:37
I just interviewed the guy that wrote the book about a relisted it’s pretty interesting story. He was an interesting guy. So now it’s 1992. And most car leases crew have,

24:53
you know, gotten indicted and you know, they’re kind of all in disarray. The government goes after you know, whoever rises to the top. Once again, these guys are

24:59
risen to the top. The government goes after them. And they’ve been indicted. And Zizzo. And a

25:07
lot of them did their time, I guess. And you know, but through the appeal process and are back out and then operate and then now there’s some kind of a raising up against Carlisi, is that what you’re saying? They

25:23
go ahead. Carlisi’s will it? Yeah. And will you what? What happened? Because I think you you’d be more familiar with, with the demise of Carlisi, maybe the order they get that I know charmante got out in 98.

25:40
But Carly, she died was it 96 or 97, whole New Year’s Day 1997. He was. He’s having congestive heart failure, okay. And the medical treatment he received was they grabbed him and physically drag him to a golf cart to take him to the medical unit. And it was so traumatic. He had a massive heart attack and died in the golf cart. So he never came out.

26:08
What was this? What was his sentence? How old was he?

26:12
Was that a RICO drone? It was yeah, it was a RICO case.

26:17
You know what I have to check my notes on what exactly? His sentence was actually vacated, as was his convention. Right? Because the appeal was still pending when he died. So the government just vacated the conviction. Yeah.

26:31
And which, you know, that’s a compassionate thing to do for the family. But with Carly See, gone off the street. There you had John defronzo, who was the titular head of the the outfit from 90 to 93. When Carly sees it now, some people will say Carly’s he ran things until he died in early 97. But defronzo was the guy on the street. Yeah, sort of a sort of a trifecta almost in a way. Yeah. Because you had, what year did

27:06
the Bardo got out, but he was sort of a non non entity using diny

27:11
was in the early 90s. And you had Joe the builder,

27:15
who was out too.

27:18
And sort of the top of that the top of that Trifecta would have been

27:22
Johnny bananas. defronzo. So you have these three powerhouses as I started, I’ve always sort of seen it. Johnny, the final word would have been de France.

27:33
Out of these, these three sympathies, three sort of elders are running things is kind of how I

27:39
was my sort of is the way I always thought the outfit except under Khaleesi was was kind of it was it was they disperse power in a way so that if one went down, they wouldn’t cripple the entire organization and probably see what the more traditional sort of leadership roles that that led them that right, Paul, are you you see?

28:00
No, I think you’re absolutely right. And

28:03
you also have in there, Willie Massino. Yeah, was part time underboss.

28:10
Under

28:12
car LISI for Kansas City matters, because he had relatives in Kansas City, and Massino. And Lombardo actually had a conversation when Carly’s he went down. Lombardo suggested Willie Messina want to take it from defronzo

28:29
and Massino. By this time, you know, he was around in the 40s, the 50s and 60s 70s. He’s tired, he’s done prison time. He’s got grandchildren that he loved very much. And he said, There’s no way that he’s going to do that. And he spent his final years taking his kids grandkids to School watching them play baseball, and they let John defronzo run the outfit.

28:55
Interesting. So where does Jimmy Marcelo fit into this? He’s like an up and comer during this time, because he’s gonna move on up. Marcel was born 40 years too late, honestly, he, he really and Marcelo been born well, maybe 30 years after he should have a real real ice cold guy who really came about use up an old school mobster with that icy stare. And I really think that he was more old school than a lot of the guys that that he sort of came up with. And I think that if he if he had been around in the in the, the 50s, instead of born in the 40s, he would have been

29:37
he he was very successful, obviously, but I think that he just would have fit in in that era a little bit better and the law enforcement probably wouldn’t have

29:46
been as successful in getting with with a lot of things they do. I think that he would have been successful in another era and really fit in in an earlier time was read him.

29:57
It’s really interesting. You say that because judges Eagles

30:00
said the same thing to him essentially saying you have abilities that your co defendants do not have.

30:07
And it’s I regret very much that you use them in the way that you did. But you will pay for your crimes and he recognized exactly what you did come Ellis. And then Marcela was a was a person of unique talent. Interesting. He, yeah, he is. So they come out one by one. charmante. And then you get Zizzo out. This is Father ray in the area. I live in Northwest Indiana, and then finally in

30:34
Israel came out in 2001. And he sends me took over Cicero when

30:41
big like, Spanner went down when the the Cicero town president, Becky Lauren Altice went down. It was a big corruption trial in Cicero. And the then kappo of the Cicero group was a guy named Big Mike expanded. And he went down. You know, that’s, that’s another that’s another show idea. But basically, the kappo of Cicero went to prison in in early 2003, January 2003. And ostensibly control of Cicero was to be given to Zizzo until Marcel Okay, meant, okay, and you said span? No, I think he meant Sardo. Right. No, I meant span out spans. There. Was this my expando?

31:27
I stand corrected there. Yeah, he was, you know, he was a low key guy and

31:35
but at the same time to speak to your point, you did have Mike Sarno consolidating power. Yeah. And he was in the same rackets as the Marcelo brothers in Zizzo. And

31:48
charmante. Who, who was

31:51
these dead by this point, Chairman Zizzo, came out in October 24 2001. And Tony to hatch, who was the muscle for their group was murdered on November 24, of 2000. So it was it was just the domino fell immediately. And the Sarno crew was responsible for that hit, they saw that if this if this other crew grew in power if their muscle came out, and they immediately started consolidating. So they recognize that competition immediately the fat makes article and you did a good show on

32:30
like sorting.

32:31
So there was a lot of butting heads and a lot of a lot of upheaval going on in Cicero at the time under this kappo

32:41
Like, spanned out. Okay, all right, I stand corrected on that.

32:48
So my head’s got a dizzy doubt. Yeah, it’s, it’s, this is where it really starts, where you really start getting a lot of names as guys come out of prison.

32:58
And a lot of this maelstrom starts going on

33:02
because the another leader of the outfit that just died.

33:09
This is

33:12
Johnny aids Montell, Yellin, died of cancer in 2001. And then you get just pell mell with a bunch of outdid guys in Cicero, and all over start killing each other and start fighting about who’s going to take over it’s, you know, there was a vacuum of power left in his absence. And that was the catalyst for a lot of his conflict over the next several years, especially after the family secrets trial took out a whole rather crew album. That was that was another dominant sounding later. And keep in mind that at the very top, you’ve got John defronzo, who was making so much money legitimately.

33:52
He wanted nothing to do with the risks of being outfit boss, he benched his whole Elmwood Park crew, as a matter of fact, Willie Pacino, I think he had two foreclosures filed against different homes that he owned and there was hard times for the Elmwood Park crew. So there’s really not a strong hand at the top for the outfit. And that’s what allowed this kind of inner Nicene fighting that Camilla was talking about. To break out. It’s almost as if the outfit became more of a unrelated group of several crews, rather than the unified group that it had been all these years. Yeah, this this really speaks to Paul’s point and an apology and a point that he’s made several times that the outfit crumbled after car leasing went away. He was the last leader of the outfit. You’ve got defronzo who came in afterwards, the fronds had moved to decentralized leadership. He was making so much legitimate money as Paul said he didn’t want the street rackets so we broke up his guru Alma bark

35:00
stability and make money in kicked off the leadership to this Gianni aids monitor Leone who died in 2001 de France so more or less washed his hands of everything except to being an advisory role. You’ve got the boss of Cicero going away in the early 2000s. And without that clear leadership that Carly’s she provided that iron hand leadership of these men or sociopaths and killers and racketeers, each crew begins to crumble in its own way. You see a murderer in

35:40
Chinatown through you see this, as Paul said this insanity nor in Cicero, you see a general breakdown of of all sorts of things going on in multiple crews in the outfit.

35:57
Under Park crew, guys, guys who are really powerful having a hard time making ends meet. And it’s this vacuum of power that is left by going back to Carly’s season rest, and it really just took a couple of years to build that tension to build. It all really exploded in the early 2000s. And one of the Carly’s sea crew came out of prison to try and reestablish that dominance. You’ve got they’re being picked off one by one people recognize their power, like silos recognize their power and don’t want them to reestablish. So would that be who killed this Anthony Zizzo he he went down he was one of the last ones to go down really out of this deal or that we’d say that they don’t know what happened to him. They hit his body. A Lucara Blanca I think they call that and Sicily. Will you ever find the body?

36:50
That’s right, right.

36:54
Yeah, that’s exactly what happened is with with Zizzo. His protection was Marcello from the top and Giamatti from below. The Marcela was still in prison until 2003. And they took out Giormanti which by the way, was done by another Calabrese, totally unrelated to the Calabrese. We’re so used to talking about that was that other Calabrese? Yeah, Tony, Tony. Tony. Yeah. Is he still around? Whatever happened to oh, he died died in prison. Okay. He appealed to President Trump for release in total Yeah. Now and died in prison.

37:36
He did. So that’s why you ceases Oh, disappearing? Is his production was gone. Yeah. Yeah. So last of the old school, it seemed like, in a lot of ways, you know what Sarno did? When he took over the Cicero street crew. And in 2001, he formed a very close alliance with the outlaw street gang, motorcycle gang, tackle gang. Yeah. And Mark Polchan, and he ran his heavy stuff through Polchan and Polchans associates. And of course, they all wound up getting indicted for that.

38:14
pipe bombs and intimidation and they had a theft. They stole like $12 million worth of jewelry and a host of burglaries, jewelry stores and private residences all over the Chicago area and one of getting indicted for all of it and they fenced it all through Polchan’s Goldberg jewelers.

38:34
So it was a different era. You know, we’ve outfitted used motorcycle gangs for all kinds of things over the years, but this close alliance just goes to show that the power that they used to wield died with Carlisi. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I had that ATF agent Lew Valose. And, and he infiltrated Polchan and his little operation based on the bombing of the Hispanic guy that wouldn’t let them put their video poker Sarno’s video poker proceeds into his store, and he wouldn’t give up but he was not giving into him even after they bombed him. And then he ended up testifying against Sarno. And how they had an ATF agent infiltrated into that operation. I mean, it was it was full of holes, they had all those peckerwoods as we call it down here, Kansas City

39:31
is close to him and all the people involved in that bombing. They were mainly peckerwoods and, and people he didn’t know anything about and it was Sarno. I guess, they just lost so much power. There was not anybody that would would be part of you know, any mafia types. Anybody would practice any American be loyal, and he didn’t engender any loyalty because they all ended up testifying against him.

40:00
seem to be live. Yeah.

40:03
Frank Calabrese predicted. He said oh you know the Christmas tree it will get narrower and narrower and then it will hold it blast the Christmas tree and don’t stand up Calibri seat and his his constantly speaking code. But one of those recorded conversations he said that the Christmas tree it’ll get so thin it’s just it there’s been a never hold will never stand up an E. l very patient. I mean, he was exactly right. It didn’t.

40:32
And so things just completely fragmented there. That’s not to say there’s not some powerful operators out there now. But it’s not now what it was in the in the early 90s. Early late 80s. What is there just one big crew now or is there two crews?

40:52
Or two? Yeah. But I don’t know that the two might have much to do with each other.

40:58
No consolidation. I just saw an interview that solid de la rentas. He’s like, is not able to Bob. Yeah, it seems like he was talking

41:10
to their pizza operator. So he was supposed to be the next boss or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to keep up with it. But I saw him an interview with him and he’s like some kind of a businessman talking.

41:24
Yeah, that’s I remember that interview. That’s really interesting. That’s the one where he says a, you know, if Gamblin we’re legally be members of the Chamber of Commerce.

41:35
Yeah, as you said, Paul, everything that they made their money off of is now taken over and licensed by the government in some manner, now fitted gamblers.

41:48
I first started practicing law, I did consumer protection. And I and this was kind of earlier in the days of the payday lending and it was crazy. I mean, these poor old gals, they’d always have some kind of a job. They’re always a single mom that had sometimes a government job of clerk’s job or something or some kind of a regular job. And they’d gone in because they needed to be a little, you know, little tied them over for something. And then they refinance that refinance. They charged him a finder’s fee each time and that is the rate was about 500% But 107% And we looked at the statues and of course they opened it up for small loans any rate they wanted to charge and and it was just like they were in servitude basically to the payday loan companies the rest of their lives. It was just it was crazy. Well, that’s just how Jews work. Yeah, exactly how Jews work.

42:44
I suppose there’s still some business men out there that might need an extra big loan, not a small loan and go to the fuselage loan lender although I don’t know if he even does that anymore. Oh, yeah, as a matter of fact, I I heard a real interesting story about someone coming to Gus Alex for a quarter million dollars and it turned out that he this guy was one of Clintons officials in the White House.

43:12
So you know, they still do it and they needed a big amount of money and they want to keep it quiet. Where are they going to get it? That’s true. Certain governor who established his hotel Empire by through teamsters loans in the US it was Father established his his hotel his $3 billion hotel empire through teamsters loans yeah it was just I was just reading the police that’s That sounds vaguely like a gangster business plan shocking shocking

43:46
to Governor

43:53
which outfit related state that is

43:57
but there’s only one

44:00
which wealthiest governor in the country of course then there’s the other scam which I had a client get into this is the advanced fee scam Hey, we can get you that loan. We know you barely qualify for it and you’re really hurting for money but we can get you that loan just give us $2,500 up front we’ve got I talked to these guys and they were slick we’ve got four or five different banks that leave a name off some kind of esoteric kind of lending institution we’ve got them like they’re ready to go but but you know we got to get $2,500 up front like come on dude. I finally I said I made a bad I said okay, you get me a letter on letterhead from one of those banks or you give me a contact person to call and talk to about who got this loan and how that worked with you guys and boy this guy got mad finally, I think he just hung up on me

44:57
it’s there’s always another

44:59
Am I out there in there? You bet. There’s always somebody and there still is illegal gambling even though it’s perfectly legal even on your phone. They’re just guys that yeah, whatever reason. They need a bookmaker. It’s not like it used to be but even in Vegas, you got illegal books going on. They’re still to this day. Yeah, somebody that can’t get credit and they can you know, they got friends and they like to go into bar and make a bet with a guy that they look him in the eye and and bookmakers. Historically they don’t ask for any money upfront, right, just settle up when it’s done. And so it’s there’s a certain glamour to that I know a guy that probably is still doing that. I haven’t talked to him for a while since Kansas got legalized. But I bet he’s still doing that. You know, he just liked that life. Yeah, older, older, older people too. Don’t know how to get in on the phone. I mean, they My mother has her own problems with the phone. I think she you know, if she were a gambling woman, I think it’d be easier to just call the bookie down the street.

46:06
All right, guys, this has been fun examination of the latter days, I always say of the Chicago outfit, there’s more to this story. I mean, there’s a lot more names and everything in there, but kind of gave me a pretty good overview of the latter days of the old outfit when they were so powerful. They had the team shirts they had then through the Teamsters, as I was like to say, you can now own politicians, because the teamsters can give them big donations, you know, they won’t

46:40
take a donation, Nick Civella, Joey Aiuppa or Tony Accardo, they’re not going to do it. But they’ll take one from the teamsters union. And you know, there’s there’s the hook right there. Right? Is our teachers pension fund, like you guys mentioned, you don’t need the loan shark the money or you need to have the money you can just arrange for the money to come by the teachers pension fund and oh, by the way, you got to kick me back a little bit of money for doing this and so it’s they’ve lost all that. And especially the politicians the political end of it, that’s what when you guys agree that’s the that was the death knell. Oh, yeah. The mob throughout the whole United States as they started losing any influence and over politicians, and then by extension, the court systems. That’s what killed Chicago, Las Vegas, Alex and Carly. See that was cut them off at the knees. Yep.

47:35
All right. Well, thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate y’all doing this. And you guys out there. Don’t forget I ride a motorcycle. And if you see motorcycle, give him some room.

47:47
Look for us. If you have a problem with PTSD, and you’ve been a member in the service, or you have a friend or relative and they’ve been in the service, there’s a really good hotline. If you go to the VAs website, you’ll find that hotline. So thanks a lot, Paul and Cabalists. I really appreciate you guys coming on the show. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely.

 

5 thoughts on “Chicago Mob War – Sam Carlisi”

  1. If I am not mistaken it seemed Sam Wings had an admirer in Agent Bill Roemer. I seem to recall Roemer in an interview almost expressing hope that Sam would rise to the top and restore order.

  2. Bill Roemer had an almost real life admiration and experience with Sam Wings as the fictional Agent Harris had for Tony Soprano

  3. I worked for his sons daughter ans they ruin my life after all I did too them rise their kids shame on u all mafia family hope karma gets u all

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