Reputed mob crew member not hot on firefighter career

written by Sun-Times Staff posted: 12/20/2015, 06:30pm

 

Reputed Cicero street crew member Paul Carparelli wants a federal judge to give him a break when he is sentenced Monday for extorting money from debtors because he once served as a suburban firefighter.

Federal prosecutors, though, say Carparelli isn’t exactly firefighter-of-the-year material, according to a transcript of a secretly recorded conversation. He wasn’t keen on running into houses on fire for the

few years he worked in west suburban Bloomingdale.

“I said for twenty-eight grand a year, I’ll drive you, and you guys wanna go fight the fire, I’ll go get the donuts,” Carparelli is quoted as saying in a transcript of a phone conversation he had with one of his goons in March 2012. Carparelli, 48, wasn’t high on helping people.“It just wasn’t the job for me, you know. You gotta help them f—— people,” Carparelli said

Nor was he crazy about helping the elderly, who would call in the middle of the night with health problems and disrupt his sleep at the fire station, according to the transcript. “So the fire response is always pickin’ up them old f—in’ f—ers that are croakin’ in the nursing home. You know what I mean?” he asks.

“The lady, oh, I’m havin’ chest pains, I’m havin’ chest pains. She says I’ve been havin’ chest pains since 6:30, 7:00, you know, at night. I looked at her, I said lady, it’s 2:00 in the morning. You wait until 2:00 in the morning and call us, why didn’t you call us at 7:00, you woke everybody up,” Carparelli said, according to the transcript. “She looked at me and got hot,” he adds, laughing.

In May, Carparelli pleaded guilty to his key role in a series of extortion conspiracies around Chicago as well as in Las Vegas, the East Coast and one in Wisconsin that caused the debtor to urinate in his pants and hand over a Ford Mustang because he feared Carparelli’s henchmen.

Carparelli wants probation. A single parent, he says he needs to be out to take care of his teenage son. Federal prosecutors want the judge to sentence him to more than 11 years behind bars.

The feds say he’s a key associate of organized crime figures in Chicago, while his attorney contends Carparelli is nothing more than a big-talking wannabe wise guy.

Contributing: Jon Seidel