A vintage brick three-flat in the West Town neighborhood that was the home of longtime Chicago Outfit leader Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo for close to seven decades — at least, during the times that the gangster wasn’t in federal prison — sold on Feb. 25 for $600,000.
Lombardo, who died in federal prison in 2019 at age 90 after being convicted of murder in the 2007 Family Secrets trial, moved into the West Ohio Street building upon marrying wife Marion Nigro in 1951. Although Joseph and Marion Lombardo divorced in 1991, they continued to live in separate units in the building, according to a 2005 Chicago magazine article, and public records show that Marion Lombardo, who died recently, and her son, Joseph Jr., were the sellers of the three-flat.
While many other Outfit figures over the years left Chicago for suburban communities like River Forest and Oak Brook, Lombardo, who earned his nickname because of his joking demeanor, stayed in his old neighborhood and often was a visible presence outside his home. He served about 10 years in prison in the 1980s and early 1990s for bribing a U.S. senator and skimming money from Las Vegas casinos, and after his release from prison in 1992, the divorced Lombardo returned to the West Ohio Street three-flat and reportedly resided in the building’s basement unit.
In 2005, Lombardo was indicted on a charge of murder in the federal Family Secrets investigation, and he disappeared before federal agents could arrest him, later writing letters to the judge in the trial, James Zagel, proclaiming his innocence and noting that he had been following local media coverage of the trial. Lombardo was taken into custody in January 2006 outside the Elmwood Park home of a friend.
In 2007 Lombardo was convicted of the 1974 murder of a prosecution witness in an embezzlement case, Daniel Siefert, and he was sentenced to life in prison in early 2009. Lombardo served his sentence in the federal Supermax prison in Colorado.
On West Ohio, the Lombardo family’s three-flat has two three-bedroom apartments with nine-foot ceilings, along with the one-bedroom basement apartment, which has room to be expanded to two bedrooms. The back part of the basement has a 12-foot ceiling. Outside on the property is a brick, two-car garage with double garage doors.
The Lombardo family first listed the three-flat in August for $800,000, and they cut their asking price to $750,000 later that month and then in September to $725,000 and again to $700,000. In October, they reduced their asking price further, to $675,000, followed by another reduction to $665,000 in December.
Listing agent Fermin Perez told Elite Street that the three-flat “is in a great neighborhood, right across the street from a grammar school.”
“It’s in a nice, safe area with a brick, two-car garage. It’s a good building,” he said. “Rentals are hot in that market. The buyers are going to renovate it and rent it out, I believe.”
Public records do not yet identify the buyer.
The three-flat had an $11,382 property tax bill in the 2020 tax year.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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