Appeals court upholds Chicago Family Secrets mob convictions
Federal Bureau of Investigation mugshot of Frank Calabrese, Sr.The prison door is staying slammed shut on the five mobsters convicted in the historic Operation Family Secrets prosecution.A federal appellate court on Tuesday upheld the convictions of Chicago Outfit boss James “Little Jimmy” Marcello, top mobster Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, prolific mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr., mob associate Paul “The Indian” Schiro and former crooked Chicago cop Anthony Doyle.
The convictions in 2007 laid 18 murders on the doorstep of the Outfit and rendered a serious blow to organized crime in Chicago.
In a 2-1 decision, the appellate court rejected the most serious legal argument brought up on appeal — made by attorneys for Marcello and Calabrese Sr. — that the two men were essentially convicted of participating in the same criminal conspiracy twice. The attorneys argued that since both had previously been convicted for crimes in their respective street crews, then put on trial in Family Secrets for crimes committed for the entire organization known as Outfit, they faced double jeopardy.
The majority opinion, written by U.S. Federal Appellate Judge Richard Posner, found a distinction between crimes on behalf for a particular street crew and ones done for the Outfit as a whole.
Calabrese and Marcello “conspired to commit murder, as members of the Outfit, not as members of street crews,” Posner wrote.
“The Outfit is more than the sum of its street crews,” he wrote.
In her dissent, U.S. Federal Appellate Judge Diane Wood wrote she would reverse the convictions of Calabrese Sr. and Marcello.
“The street crews were the mob’s hand, the Outfit its head. There is no way to divide the two,” Wood wrote.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/12249052-418/appeals-court-upholds-family-secrets-mob-convictions.html
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