Four years ago, Gary Shapiro, Chicago`s top organized crime prosecutor, stood before a convention of investigative reporters and candidly admitted that he wasn`t even sure who ran the mob here.
”I right now could not tell you who the boss of the Chicago family is,” Shapiro said then.
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”I have an idea. But I can`t prove it. I can`t even come close to proving it.”
But that was before William Jahoda turned government informant and agreed to strap on a microphone to pick up the conspiracies of his alleged gambling cohorts, including Ernest Rocco Infelice, reputed ruler of casinos and crap games from the North Shore to the Wisconsin line.
And it was before government agents sneaked into Counsellors Row restaurant, across the street from City Hall, and jammed a video camera into the woodwork of a booth that was the daily gathering spot for some of Chicago`s most influential politicians.
Today, with the help of extensive wiretaps and an unprecedented network of mob insiders, federal prosecutors are bringing to a head three
investigations they say will combine to expose organized crime`s control over vice and its influence in law enforcement, courthouses and the city halls of Chicago and its suburbs.
One case, known within the government as the ”Commission” investigation because it focuses on organized crime`s hierarchy, is expected to result in indictments of the bosses of Chicago`s five dominant ”street crews,”
government sources said. This inquiry is still in the secret grand jury stage. A second, featuring tapes of politicians made at Counsellors Row, is also before a grand jury, but has been made public because of the discovery of the restaurant taping equipment and the spectacle of government agents pulling hundreds of court cases and liquor license applications in Chicago and the suburbs. The subjects of that inquiry include 1st Ward Ald. Fred Roti and John D`Arco, Democratic committeeman of that ward, as well as judges and bureaucrats connected to the rich and powerful political organization that includes the Loop.
The third, with Jahoda as a star witness, focuses on a single, well-organized, violent gambling crew allegedly dominated by Infelice. That case made headlines Friday with the revelation that Infelice was tape-recorded boasting that former Cook County Undersheriff James Dvorak, Cook County Republican chairman and a business partner and close adviser to Sheriff James O`Grady, took regular payoffs to protect gambling.
Dvorak has denied the allegation and has called on government prosecutors to say whether they believe Infelice`s boasts, which came out during a pretrial hearing in Infelice`s case.
Through the weekend, prosecutors declined comment on the Infelice investigation as well as the other two inquiries.
But a review of available court records in the Infelice case, the first to result in an indictment, and a broad range of interviews with other sources, including defense lawyers, portray the three investigations as among the most ambitious attempts ever to destroy an organized crime group at its roots.
”Our goal is to dismantle the mob,” James McKenzie, head of the FBI`s Chicago office, said last week. ”I can`t predict when, but we are on the right track.”
It is hard to tell which of the three investigations began first. Even top government officials are unsure because different investigators worked each case and sometimes were reluctant to share information so that they could protect informants.
But when Infelice and 19 others were indicted last week, officials said the investigation that led up to it began eight years ago, and that it picked up steam in June 1989, when Jahoda, fearing that he was on the outs with fellow gamblers, became a government informant.
Though last week`s publicity focused on the startling allegations about Dvorak, the 102-page Infelice indictment provides an unusually detailed look at what federal officials say is the biggest of the ”street crews” that make up the Chicago mob.
The indictment portrays Infelice as commander of a highly structured unit that included top-level ”assistants” and ”supervisors” who gave out orders to crew members involved in murder, extortion, loan-sharking and gambling.
During a drive in a government-owned Cadillac, alleged crew member Salvatore DeLaurentis told Jahoda that New York mobsters may have more manpower, but they are too violent. ”We respect each other`s crews,” he was allegedly recorded saying. ”But they don`t respect each other`s families. There are not shoot-em-ups in Chicago.”
By DeLaurentis` account, the best way for a crew leader to solidify power and pass it on to the next generation is to have his son marry the daughter of another top mobster. ”That makes him (the groom) stronger,” he said.
In addition to descriptions of almost weekly shakedowns by crew members, the indictment charged that Infelice wanted to bribe public officials in Wisconsin, that his Lake County gambling operation was protected by an unidentified police official there, and that he looked for surrogates to conceal a financial interest in a major real estate project in west suburban Addison.
The investigation focusing on organized crime ties of 1st Ward politicians began in the middle 1980s, when attorney Robert Cooley, a Roti associate, called on disbelieving government officials and said he wanted to work with them. Cooley reportedly had accumulated heavy gambling debts and feared for his life.
Cooley made the approach while attorneys for the now-defunct Organized Crime Strike Force were gathering evidence that would ultimately lead to the Infelice indictment.
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Cooley`s role has previously been publicized. But sources familiar with that case now say he was undercover far longer than the three years that had been reported.
”A lot of people are going to be stunned when they find out how long Cooley was wearing a wire,” said one government source.