Chicago mob suspects charged

CHICAGO - Fourteen reputed mob figures were charged on Monday with murders and other crimes spanning four decades, in what authorities called the most sweeping organized-crime bust in Chicago's rich gangland history.

"Today the Outfit takes a hit," US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald said, referring to the Chicago branch of the La Cosa Nostra.

Perhaps the most notorious slayings covered in Monday's indictment were of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro, who were beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986, apparently for skimming mob profits in Las Vegas. The double-murder was later depicted in the movie "Casino."

Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, 75, and brothers James and Michael Marcello, 63 and 55, respectively, were among those accused in the two killings and 16 other previously unsolved gangland slayings between 1970 and 1986.

Other charges against the 14 included beatings, extortion and illegal gambling dating back to the mid-1960s.

The indictment represented the most sweeping attack ever on organized crime in Chicago, where the legendary Al Capone once ran his empire, authorities said.

"The indictment has charged the most homicides in an organized-crime indictment and is the first indictment to charge the Outfit as a criminal enterprise," Fitzgerald said.

Many of the murder victims were members of the mob or were set to testify in court cases involving at least two of the six mob "street crews" that formerly operated in Chicago and its suburbs.

Lombardo and Frank "the German" Schweihs, an alleged mob enforcer who collected "street taxes" from businesses on Chicago's South Side, had yet to be arrested. The rest were either apprehended or were already in custody.

One defendant, Frank Saladino, 59, was found dead in a suburban Chicago hotel room, Grant said, adding no foul play was suspected in Saladino's death. He had thousands of dollars in cash and cheques with him.

Two of those charged in the nine-count indictment were former Chicago police officers who were accused of helping mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr. keep track of his crew from prison.

Besides an overarching racketeering charge, which carries a possible 20-year jail term, various defendants were charged with conducting an illegal gambling business, extortion, tax fraud, and obstructing the investigation.

Lombardo emerged from a previous prison sentence in 1992 and said he had severed his mob ties, but a federal task force in Chicago was apparently not through with him.

Working through informants' tips and using DNA saved from previous crime scenes, FBI agents and Chicago Police "cold case" squad officers tracked down clues and took DNA samples that led to the indictment, according to previously published reports on the investigation. The reports said there were still hundreds of unsolved gangland slayings in Chicago predating Capone's era in the 1920s.

- REUTERS