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Summary
Summary
Operation Family Secrets is the chilling true story of how the son of the most violent mobster in Chicago made the unprecedented decision to work with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to incriminate his own father and to help bring down the last great American crime syndicate--the one-hundred-year-old Chicago Outfit.
The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also "made" members of another close-knit family: the outfit.
In Operation Family Secrets Frank Calabrese, Jr., tells the turbulent tale of a family dominated by a violent patriarch who breaks a longstanding unwritten outfit code and "brings the street into his home" by enlisting two of his sons into the outfit's 26th Street/Chinatown crew. Frank Jr. reveals for the first time the outfit's "made" ceremony and describes being put to work alongside his father and uncle in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion, and plotting the slaying of a fellow gangster, while they commit the bombing murder of a trucking executive, the gangland execution of two mobsters whose burial in an Indiana cornfield was reenacted in Martin Scorsese's blockbuster film Casino, and numerous other hits.
The Calabrese Crew's colossal earnings and extreme ruthlessness make them both a dreaded criminal gang and the object of an intense FBi inquiry. Eventually Frank Jr., his father, and Uncle Nick are convicted on racketeering violations, and "Junior" and "Senior" are sent to the same federal penitentiary in Michigan. Upon arrival, Frank Jr. makes a life-changing decision: to go straight rather than agree to his father's plans to resume crew activities after serving his sentence. But he needs to keep his father behind bars in order to regain control of his life and save his family. Frank Jr. makes a secret deal with prosecutors, and for six months--unmonitored and unprotected--he wears a wire as his father recounts decades of hideous crimes. Frank Jr.'s cooperation with the FBi for virtually no monetary gain or special privileges helps create the government's "operation Family Secrets" campaign against the Chicago outfit. The case reopens eighteen unsolved murders and also implicates twelve La Cosa Nostra soldiers and two outfit bosses. it becomes one of the largest organized crime cases in U.S. history.
Operation Family Secrets intimately portrays how organized crime rots a family from the inside out while detailing Frank Jr.'s deadly prison-yard mission, the FBI's landmark investigation, and the U.S. attorney's office's daring prosecution of america's most dangerous criminal organization.
Author Notes
Frank Calabrese, Jr., lived in his native Chicago for thirty-nine years. Mentored by his father and brought into the Chicago outfit at age eighteen, he now resides in Arizona with his ex-wife and two children.
Keith and Kent Zimmerman have coauthored many New York Times and London Times bestselling books.
Paul Pompian, who has produced more than fifty motion pictures and television productions, was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago and came by his interest in the outfit naturally.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
While in prison with his father, Frank Calabrese Sr., on racketeering charges, Frank Jr, a former member of the Chicago crime syndicate known as the Outfit, offered to help the FBI keep his father in prison for life ("so that he could get the psychological help he needed" is his questionable explanation) by testifying against him. Now in the federal witness protection program and living in an undisclosed location, Frank Jr. gives an insider's view of the Outfit and how he helped expose its crimes. Wearing a wire in the prison yard in 1999, he recorded his father implicating himself in several murders, detailing shotguns and shells ("Big big bearings. So them will fuckin' tear half your body apart"). The sessions were not without danger; one day his father asked to see a new tattoo on his back and reached for the sweatshirt concealing the recorder. Those tapes enabled the FBI to solve dozens of murders and send top mobsters to prison, while giving Frank Sr. multiple life sentences. This suspenseful account, punctuated with riveting excerpts from the tapes, reads like a thriller. (Mar. 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The inside story of a notable organized-crime prosecution, in which a son turned on his ferocious father.For decades, organized crime in Chicagothe so-called "Outfit"remained a feared and mysterious cabal. In 2007, prosecutors scored a huge coup in the "Family Secrets" trial, sentencing several key mobsters to long sentences for racketeering and numerous old murders. Improbably, the process began when imprisoned Outfit member Frank Calabrese Jr. contacted the FBI, wishing to cooperate in order to prevent his also-jailed father's return to his crooked ways: "I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever." Both Calabreses had pled guilty to federal racketeering charges in 1997, having run a successful "juice loan" business for years. Amazingly, the younger Calabrese recorded conversations with his father in prison, and the surveillance provided the core of the prosecution's case.The book offers a startling narrative of Outfit mayhemthe Calabrese crew was involved in a long string of killings, some notorious, like that of Tony Spilotro (fictionalized in Martin Scorsese'sCasino). Calabrese Jr. particularly regrets the involvement of his uncle, Nick, a quiet Vietnam veteran who became ensnared in his brother's business, ultimately transforming into a hit man (Nick also turned state's witness and testified). The author still seems bewildered by his father's ability to be simultaneously a loving patriarch, a ruthless Outfit boss and a cold-blooded killer. As with most mob memoirs, Calabrese Jr. performs exculpatory gymnastics in order to blur the extent of the narrator's criminal involvement, and the writing is workmanlike, if wry at times. Still, this is an undeniably engaging tale, capturing the nitty-gritty of daily life in the "crews" of the Outfit.A useful and readable addition to Mob Lit.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1. Family Secrets I set myself up in the corner of the prison library at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan, and banged out the letter to FBI Special Agent Thomas Bourgeois on a cranky old SmithCorona manual typewriter. My mobster father, Frank Calabrese, Sr.--who was serving time with me in FCI Milan--had taught me to be decisive. So when I typed the letter, my mind was made up. I didn't touch the paper directly. I used my winter gloves to handle the sheet and held the envelope with a Kleenex so as not to leave any fi ngerprints. The moment I mailed the letter on July 27, 1998, I knew I had crossed the line. Cooperating with the FBI meant not only that I would give up my father, but that I would have to implicate my uncle Nick for the murder of a Chicago Outfi t mobster named John "Big Stoop" Fecarotta. Giving up my uncle was the hardest part. When I reread the letter one last time, I asked myself, What kind of son puts his father away for life? The Federal Bureau of Prisons had dealt me a cruel blow by sticking me in the same prison as my dad. It had become increasingly clear that his vow to "step away" from the Outfit after we both served our time was an empty promise. "I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever," I wrote in my letter. Due to legal and safety concerns, it was five months before Agent Thomas Bourgeois arranged a visit to meet with me at FCI Milan. He came alone in the early winter of 1998. In 1997 the FBI and Chicago federal prosecutors had convicted the Calabrese crew, netting my father, Uncle Nick, my younger brother Kurt, and me on juice loans. Bourgeois seemed confused and wanted to know what I wanted. I'm sure Bourgeois also wondered the same thing I had: What kind of son wants to put his father away for life? Maybe he thought I was lying. Perhaps I had gotten into an argument and, like most cons, was looking to get my sentence reduced. Yet in our ensuing conversation, I told Tom that I wasn't asking for much in return. I just didn't want to lose any of my time served, and I wanted a transfer out of FCI Milan once my mission was accomplished. By imprisoning us on racketeering charges, the Feds thought that they had broken up the notorious Calabrese South Side crew. In reality they had barely scratched the surface. I alerted Bourgeois that I was not looking to break up the mob. I had one purpose: to help the FBI keep my father locked up forever so that he could get the psychological help he needed. The FBI didn't know the half of his issues or his other crimes. When asked by Bourgeois if I would wear a wire out on the prison yard, I promptly replied no. I would work with the FBI, but I would only give them intelligence, useful information they could use, and with the understanding that nobody would know I was cooperating, and I would not testify in open court. Outfit guys like my dad called that "dry beefing." Frank Calabrese, Sr., was one of the Outfit's most cunning criminals and had been a successful crew chief and solid earner for the Chicago mob for thirty years. He could smell an FBI informant a mile away. If he hadn't talked about his criminal life in the past, why would he do so now? I searched my soul to make sure I wasn't doing this out of spite or because Dad had reneged on taking care of me and Kurt financially in exchange for doing time. This couldn't be about money! After Agent Bourgeois's first interview with me at Milan, he reported back to Mitch Mars, an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Chicago Organized Crime Section. Mars wanted to know if there was enough to present the case to a grand jury and gather a bigger, more inclusive case against "the Outfit," Chicago's multitentacled organized crime syndicate, which dated back to the days of "Big Jim" Colosimo and Al Capone. As I lay in my cell bunk, I thought about my refusal to wear a wire. Suppose I gave the Feds information, but my father got lucky and walked? I'd be screwed, Uncle Nick would be stuck on death row, and after my dad's sentence ran out he would bounce right back out on the streets to continue his juice loan business and murderous ways. What if what I was doing was wrong? How could I live with myself? I loved my dad dearly, and I love him to this day. But I was repulsed by the violence and his controlling ways. I had to decide between doing nothing and cooperating with the Feds, two choices I hated. I knew that if I did nothing, my father and I would have to settle our differences out on the street. One of us would end up dead, while the other would rot in prison. I would be incriminating myself, and I didn't want an immunity deal. If I needed to do more time to keep my dad locked up forever, so be it. After I sent the letter, I was determined to finish what I started. I contacted Agent Bourgeois one more time to tell him I had changed my mind. I would wear the wire after all. All the deception my father had taught me I was now going to use on him. My father's own words would become his worst enemy. Excerpted from Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family by Frank Calabrese, Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman, Paul Pompian, Frank Calabrese All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters | p. vii |
1 Family Secrets | p. 1 |
2 The Patch, and Grand and Ogden | p. 5 |
3 Who Wouldn't Love a Guy Like That? | p. 17 |
4 Like Father, Like Son? | p. 24 |
5 Fast with His Hands | p. 29 |
6 The Art of Blending In | p. 37 |
7 Outfit Reign of Terror | p. 46 |
8 Frankie & Johnny's | p. 56 |
9 A White Flash and a Burst of Heat | p. 64 |
10 Keep Thinks in the Family | p. 70 |
11 Philly Beans | p. 75 |
12 The Boys Out West | p. 80 |
13 Killing of the Zhivagos | p. 87 |
14 Oh No, Not You! | p. 97 |
15 How Bad Could It Be? | p. 103 |
16 Scared Cow | p. 109 |
17 Set Up for a Fall | p. 114 |
18 Florida | p. 122 |
19 I Took the Money | p. 126 |
20 The Thousand-Yard Stare | p. 132 |
21 Busted | p. 141 |
22 College with Guns | p. 152 |
23 The MCC | p. 159 |
24 A Chance to Step Up | p. 164 |
25 Two Choices, Neither One Good | p. 169 |
26 The Moment I Sent It... | p. 176 |
27 Scarpe Grande | p. 182 |
28 The Wire | p. 187 |
29 My Father's Executioner | p. 199 |
30 Three Secret Lives | p. 208 |
31 The Changing Streets | p. 216 |
32 A Royal Pain in the...Back | p. 224 |
33 Pandora's Box | p. 231 |
34 Life on the Squad | p. 237 |
35 The Terrible Towel | p. 243 |
36 What Happened to My Father? | p. 252 |
37 The Trial Stage | p. 260 |
38 Broken Code | p. 267 |
39 The Road to Justice | p. 284 |
40 I Keep Thinking This Is a Dream | p. 290 |
41 The Umbrella Effect | p. 304 |
Epilogue: Behind the Picture Frame | p. 313 |
Acknowledgments | p. 321 |