Today's Chicago mob not what it was, but it's still in business

CHICAGO -- Robberies are "scores," criminal charges "beefs" and getting sent to prison "going away" in the language of witnesses testifying at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years.

Jurors have heard testimony about a kiss like the one Michael gave his brother Fredo in "The Godfather." About mob wannabes initiated as full-fledged "made guys" by cutting their fingers and burning holy pictures in their bare hands in secret basement ceremonies. And about how those who crossed the "Chicago Outfit" sometimes ended up in the trunk of a car.

Yet with five men in their 60s and 70s as prosecutors' targets -- one of whom alternates between a cane and a wheelchair -- the testimony seems more a throwback to the days of Al Capone than it does any representation of the mob today.

Experts insist that isn't the case. Even if the Outfit isn't what it was in decades past, it isn't six feet under either, they say.

"People say, 'Look at how old these guys are on trial, it's a geriatric organization,"' said John Binder, author of "The Chicago Outfit."

"What you're seeing is just part of the organization," he said. "They're still doing gambling, they've still got some labor racketeering, they've got their hooks into some unions [and] they're still doing juice lending."

The charges against the five men include gambling and loan sharking along with 18 long-unsolved murders. While the allegations date mostly to the 1970s and 1980s, Binder notes that the mob's influence still lingers.

A few years ago, for example, plans for a casino in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont were derailed amid concerns about mob ties in the village. And in the late 1990s, one of the nation's largest unions, Laborers International, publicly launched an effort to drive organized crime from its Chicago District Council.

In fact, the trial itself has served as a reminder that it's not necessary to watch "The Untouchables" for examples of the mob's reach.

Jurors heard one of the men on trial, Frank Calabrese Sr., talking about collecting "recipes" -- code for payoffs -- in the late 1990s while he was behind bars.

"What the trial has made clear is even when they are in prison they continue to exert influence and control," said James Wagner, the head of the Chicago Crime Commission, who investigated the mob for years when he was an FBI agent.

Some say it's naive to suggest that because so many of the reputed mobsters, including those on trial, are old, that the Outfit doesn't have people ready to step in and take over for the old mobsters, referred to as "Mustache Petes."

"They're still there, there's still young guys coming up," said Jack O'Rourke, a retired FBI agent who also spent years investigating the Chicago mob. "And they're still powerful enough to kill guys."

Binder compared the mob to a major company.

"It's important in management to groom people," he said. "The Outfit is good at it; they've shown the ability to bring people up."

Still, like the men on trial, the Chicago Outfit is also showing its age, say some who have studied it.

"The Chicago mob used to be big time, and now it's just local thugs like Tony Soprano," said Gus Russo, author of a best-selling book about the Chicago mob called "The Outfit."

"There's no doubt they still have some cops on the take, some lawyers, a judge here and there and labor unions. But now they are just a local mob, now it is like Newark," he said.

Changing markets

Chicago's mob probably lost some of its power because many of the illegal activities it once made money from are now legal -- or might as well be.

In years past, for example, they might have run the numbers racket.

"Now there's the lottery," Russo said.

"They had pornography, and now that's big business," he said.

And all the illegal craps games that the mob ran in and around the city?

"That went out the window [with the riverboat casinos] because they don't have to go to warehouses to play; they can go to the boats," O'Rourke said.

That leaves betting on sports, which remains illegal in much of the country. Federal authorities are cracking down on online gambling operations, and a number of states, including Illinois, have prohibited Internet gambling.

"They've still got the sports betting," O'Rourke said. "They've controlled that forever, and it is illegal."

But even that business has changed, O'Rourke said, because they way they collect the money has gotten a bit more genteel than in the old days.

"Now with the gamblers, they don't get tough any more and extort them," he said. "Instead, they're saying, 'You can't play any more.' To the gamblers, that's worse than getting beat up."

Even with some influence on the wane, the trial suggests the mob may still have the kind of tricks for which it became famous up its sleeve.

After it was rumored he would testify at the trial, reputed mobster Anthony Zizzo vanished last August after he was seen leaving his suburban home.

Then in January, a federal deputy marshal was charged with leaking information to reputed mob boss John "No Nose" DiFronzo about the cooperation and travel plans of Nicholas Calabrese, the brother of defendant Frank Calabrese Sr., and a key government witness.

"Now they are more surreptitious than ever before, more cunning and intelligent in the way they operate," Wagner said. "They're not less dangerous or influential."