In his day, William A. Hanhardt was known as a Chicago Police Department detective with a knack for solving the toughest murders and a reputation for tapping sources from City Hall to the upper ranks of organized crime.
But Hanhardt, who retired in 1986 after 33 years on the police force, now has taken center stage in a federal organized crime investigation of a nationwide ring of jewel thieves and burglars–a potentially ignominious epilogue to a storied career.
The investigation, moreover, extends beyond the former commander to at least four current Chicago police officers, including one high-ranking command officer, according to law enforcement sources.
And it comes as federal and state law enforcement officials seek to confirm other ties between Chicago’s organized crime and its police department–a troubling matter for a force that has weathered much scandal recently.
Just five months ago, Supt. Matt Rodriguez was forced to retire after the embarrassing disclosure that he had maintained a friendship with Frank Milito, an Old Town restaurateur with a federal conviction for tax evasion. The trouble was compounded by the subsequent disclosure that Rodriguez had rebuffed an FBI request to help out in an investigation of Milito.
A week ago, the police department stripped Town Hall officer Pierre Zonis of his police powers as part of its investigation into whether Zonis has links to organized crime–a charge made initially by the Chicago Crime Commission.
Zonis and Milito, meanwhile, are being investigated by a group of Cook County officials and suburban police officers trying to unravel three unsolved murders that date to 1982. Those slayings are thought to have organized crime ties.
Neither man has been charged, however.
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That a police department recognized across the nation for its community policing and its efforts to become more professional still is dogged by connections to organized crime reflects just how entrenched the mob remains in Chicago.
For decades, a series of scandals and federal investigations has shown that organized crime figures and other criminal elements have been able to influence the Chicago Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies.
The investigation of Hanhardt and the others, which is being run by a federal organized crime unit, began roughly two years ago, according to sources familiar with the probe. At the time, Robert Siegel, a bank robber and jewel thief with organized crime ties, pleaded guilty in Tampa, Fla., to a series of jewelry store heists and began cooperating with the FBI.
According to several lawyers whose clients have been caught up in the investigation–in some cases, perhaps, innocently–the FBI obtained a one-year wiretap on Hanhardt’s telephone in his north suburban home Jan. 2, 1996.
Hanhardt declined comment.
The telephone of a suspected thief also was wiretapped, according to sources, and FBI agents listened to conversations through November 1997.
Last month, agents either hand-delivered or sent by registered mail letters informing about a dozen people that their conversations had been caught on the wiretaps. Some of those people, among them several police officers, were asked to sit for interviews with agents.
But whether those people are suspects or just happened to have called those numbers is unclear. Among the people who have received a letter are an assistant deputy superintendent of police; former Supt. Richard Brzeczek, now a lawyer in private practice; a police sergeant who is a Brzeczek client; and a detective from the department’s intelligence unit.
The assistant deputy superintendent, according to sources, was selling high-end watches at a discount to colleagues as recently as three weeks ago.
Brzeczek said his conversations were on the wiretaps because he and Hanhardt are longtime friends. He said their calls were all of a social nature.
He talks with the former deputy superintendent a half-dozen times a month, he added.
His client, whom he would not identify, got a hand-delivered letter from the FBI but was not notified that he is a target.
“He hasn’t been told he was a suspect,” Brzeczek said. “And I can’t see my guy involved in any kind of criminal activity.”
Brzeczek said he is somewhat baffled by the direction of the federal investigation and the flurry of wiretap notices. Lawyers for some of the other officers also say that their clients’ conversations were innocent.
Under federal law, notice must be sent to anyone whose conversation was recorded, even if nothing suggests criminal conduct.
According to sources, the federal agents are trying to determine whether Hanhardt and others helped set up robberies by providing a street crew with license plate numbers of jewelry couriers and other information.
While the federal investigation is aimed at the relationships between members of the police and organized crime in Chicago, it also is looking at a nationwide ring of accomplished thieves who robbed warehouses of expensive cameras, pulled off million-dollar jewel robberies, and committed several murders, according to interviews and records.
Members of the ring have been charged over the years with taking part in jewelry heists and bank robberies that netted some $40 million.
The investigations, according to sources, are moving forward with the help of Siegel, who is known as Bobby the Beak, and another government informant, Walter Zischke.
Siegel, according to authorities, headed a crew that at one time was run by Paul “Peanuts” Panczko, a longtime Chicago thief who is perhaps best known for turning in his brother, Joseph “Pops” Panczko, to police.
Zischke, police say, was a member of Siegel’s crew of criminals.
Siegel’s guilty plea and 19-year prison sentence came in 1994, and two years later he was working with the FBI. He also was put in a witness-protection program.
Bruce Howie, a St. Petersburg, Fla., attorney, said that he sat in on the first negotiations with federal authorities over Siegel’s cooperation.
Siegel then was his client, although that ended with his deal.
“Apparently, there were a couple of murders that he may have been involved with tangentially in a couple of mob hits,” Howie said of Siegel.
Among the murders being investigated are one in Florida that was reportedly ordered by the Chicago mob and one in Minnesota, according to court records and interviews.
Although Hanhardt was famed for his skill in clearing murder cases, he also drew the attention of the authorities–making for a colorful history. On several occasions, law enforcement authorities questioned his relationships.
In 1975, for instance, a government witness testified that Hanhardt delivered a $2,200 check to pay for electronic surveillance equipment for one of the local mob’s top wiretappers, Ronald DeAngeles.
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DeAngeles had installed the equipment in the home of Irwin S. Weiner, a bail bondsman with longtime mob ties. Weiner also was a personal friend of Hanhardt’s.
Hanhardt told federal prosecutors that he had urged Weiner to put in the telephone recording devices to keep tabs on his children.
Details of the delivery of the check came as DeAngeles and Weiner, along with Allen Dorfman, who was a consultant to a mob-run labor union, were on trial for defrauding the Teamsters pension union fund of $1.4 million.
All three were acquitted.
Years later, Dorfman was gunned down in a hotel parking lot in Lincolnwood and police discovered Hanhardt’s name in his personal telephone book.
More recently, Hanhardt bought a winter home in Florida in 1992 from a former Chicagoan who is now a Las Vegas bookmaker, according to law enforcement sources.
The bookmaker, Arnold “Dickie” Stevens, was convicted in 1985 in Louisiana of running a 13-city gambling ring that took in as much as $3 million in bets.
Stevens was an associate of Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago mobster who was killed gangland style several years in Indiana after he had moved to Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, Spilotro ran a jewelry store.