For five years, an enduring mystery has surrounded the story of a prison chaplain who conspired with a convicted hit man for the Chicago Outfit to recover a supposedly rare 18th century Stradivarius violin said to be hidden in the mobster's vacation home.
The violin, once purportedly owned by entertainer Liberace, was likely worth millions of dollars if authentic, but it has never been found.
The FBI came up empty-handed during at least two searches of mobster Frank Calabrese Sr.'s Wisconsin lake house after the feared killer was charged in 2005 in the landmark Operation Family Secrets investigation.
His son, Frank Calabrese Jr., told the Tribune he'd heard his dad talk of a precious violin given as collateral for a juice loan decades ago, but he had never seen it himself. The only trace of it was paperwork uncovered in a 2010 raid of Calabrese's Oak Brook home that referred to a violin with a "Stradivari" label.
Now, in a court filing asking a federal judge to sentence the chaplain, Eugene Klein, to probation later this month, attorneys for the mild-mannered Roman Catholic priest have offered an intriguing new theory. The violin — if it existed at all — could very well have been stolen during a burglary at the Wisconsin home in 2004, they said, years before Klein plotted to find the hidden instrument for Calabrese.
To bolster the claim, Klein's attorneys made public for the first time a decade-old report by police in Williams Bay, Wis., that documents a break-in at the residence that had all the hallmarks of a mob-connected job.
Klein's attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, argued in the filing that federal prosecutors have overreached by putting the violin's value at $1 million, a figure that would jack up Klein's sentence.
"There is significant evidence that if the Calabrese family owned an expensive violin, it was long since gone from the Wisconsin residence before Calabrese was indicted," Durkin wrote in the filing.
Prosecutors have not yet made a public court filing saying how long a prison term Klein should be given at his April 14 sentencing in U.S. District Judge John Darrah's courtroom.
Calabrese's son, meanwhile, agreed the violin was likely not at the house by the time of his father's indictment, but not because of a burglary. In a telephone interview on Friday, the younger Calabrese said his father had grown paranoid and confused after years in prison and had likely just forgotten he'd moved the violin to another location. Calabrese was 75 when he died in prison on Christmas Day 2012.
"He had hiding spots all over the place," his son said. "It's probably still out there somewhere."
A scribbled note
Klein, 67, entered a surprise guilty plea in February 2015 on the day his trial had been set to begin. He admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he violated especially restrictive prison security measures placed on Calabrese at the federal penitentiary in Springfield, Mo., where Klein was one of the only people allowed to meet with him face-to-face.
Calabrese, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for more than a dozen mob slayings, was first placed under special administrative measures after he was allegedly seen in court mouthing, "You are a f------ dead man," at a prosecutor.
Calabrese was known to have stashed assets in secret hiding places across the country. Testimony in the Family Secrets trial revealed he'd had a fleet of vintage cars parked in an airplane hangar in rural Kane County. The year before Klein met Calabrese in prison, federal agents raided his former home in Oak Brook and discovered a cache of guns, $750,000 in cash, jewelry and loose diamonds hidden in the wall behind a family portrait.
In early March 2011, Calabrese gave Klein a handwritten note hidden in religious materials that instructed Klein to contact Calabrese's friend, Daniel Casale, a longtime restaurateur from North Barrington who grew up with Calabrese in the old Italian-American neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Calabrese told Klein to ask him about the status of the Wisconsin home, according to court records. At the time, the government had put the home up for sale, with any proceeds to be used to compensate relatives of Calabrese's murder victims.
At their next Communion visit, Calabrese passed Klein a scribbled note that included specific instructions for Klein and Casale to team up with Joseph Myles, a private investigator who had worked on Calabrese's criminal case.
Calabrese proposed that they pose as buyers and that Myles distract the real estate agent while the other two headed to an upstairs bedroom to look for "a little pull out door about 3 1/2 feet high," court records show.
"Be sure to have a little flashlight with you so you can see," Calabrese wrote. "Make a right when you go into that little pull out door. Go all the way to the wall. That is where the violin is."
Meeting in April 2011 to discuss the plot, the three believed that the violin once belonged to Liberace and could fetch millions of dollars on the black market. Citing a program he had "seen on the Discovery Channel," Casale estimated its value at $26 million, according to the court records.
Using Myles' cellphone, Klein called the real estate agent, who told him a buyer was scheduled to purchase the home the next day. Klein returned to Missouri, where he was confronted by FBI.
Neither Casale nor Myles was charged with any wrongdoing. When contacted by a Tribune reporter in February 2015, both declined to comment on the alleged plot. Records show Casale died of a heart attack at 76 in April 2015, two months after Klein pleaded guilty.
A black hat and pry bar
According to the Williams Bay police report, Calabrese's wife had summoned police in April 2004 to report a possible break-in, but no evidence had been found that any entry had been gained to the home.
A month later, however, she returned to the house with a key to the basement tool room. There, she discovered a large piece of fiberglass insulation had been pulled from the walls and ceiling. Along the west wall of the room, a hole had been cut in peg board, and the cinder block wall behind it had been broken out, exposing the hidden room, the police report said.
A black hat, found on top of an empty box, had sawdust on it, leading police to believe it had been worn by the burglar, according to the report. Also left behind was a 36-inch steel pry bar with the price tag still attached, the report said.
The violin, once purportedly owned by entertainer Liberace, was likely worth millions of dollars if authentic, but it has never been found.
His son, Frank Calabrese Jr., told the Tribune he'd heard his dad talk of a precious violin given as collateral for a juice loan decades ago, but he had never seen it himself. The only trace of it was paperwork uncovered in a 2010 raid of Calabrese's Oak Brook home that referred to a violin with a "Stradivari" label.
Now, in a court filing asking a federal judge to sentence the chaplain, Eugene Klein, to probation later this month, attorneys for the mild-mannered Roman Catholic priest have offered an intriguing new theory. The violin — if it existed at all — could very well have been stolen during a burglary at the Wisconsin home in 2004, they said, years before Klein plotted to find the hidden instrument for Calabrese.
To bolster the claim, Klein's attorneys made public for the first time a decade-old report by police in Williams Bay, Wis., that documents a break-in at the residence that had all the hallmarks of a mob-connected job.
Klein's attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, argued in the filing that federal prosecutors have overreached by putting the violin's value at $1 million, a figure that would jack up Klein's sentence.
"There is significant evidence that if the Calabrese family owned an expensive violin, it was long since gone from the Wisconsin residence before Calabrese was indicted," Durkin wrote in the filing.
Prosecutors have not yet made a public court filing saying how long a prison term Klein should be given at his April 14 sentencing in U.S. District Judge John Darrah's courtroom.
Calabrese's son, meanwhile, agreed the violin was likely not at the house by the time of his father's indictment, but not because of a burglary. In a telephone interview on Friday, the younger Calabrese said his father had grown paranoid and confused after years in prison and had likely just forgotten he'd moved the violin to another location. Calabrese was 75 when he died in prison on Christmas Day 2012.
"He had hiding spots all over the place," his son said. "It's probably still out there somewhere."
A scribbled note
Klein, 67, entered a surprise guilty plea in February 2015 on the day his trial had been set to begin. He admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he violated especially restrictive prison security measures placed on Calabrese at the federal penitentiary in Springfield, Mo., where Klein was one of the only people allowed to meet with him face-to-face.
Calabrese, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for more than a dozen mob slayings, was first placed under special administrative measures after he was allegedly seen in court mouthing, "You are a f------ dead man," at a prosecutor.
Calabrese was known to have stashed assets in secret hiding places across the country. Testimony in the Family Secrets trial revealed he'd had a fleet of vintage cars parked in an airplane hangar in rural Kane County. The year before Klein met Calabrese in prison, federal agents raided his former home in Oak Brook and discovered a cache of guns, $750,000 in cash, jewelry and loose diamonds hidden in the wall behind a family portrait.
In early March 2011, Calabrese gave Klein a handwritten note hidden in religious materials that instructed Klein to contact Calabrese's friend, Daniel Casale, a longtime restaurateur from North Barrington who grew up with Calabrese in the old Italian-American neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Calabrese told Klein to ask him about the status of the Wisconsin home, according to court records. At the time, the government had put the home up for sale, with any proceeds to be used to compensate relatives of Calabrese's murder victims.
At their next Communion visit, Calabrese passed Klein a scribbled note that included specific instructions for Klein and Casale to team up with Joseph Myles, a private investigator who had worked on Calabrese's criminal case.
Calabrese proposed that they pose as buyers and that Myles distract the real estate agent while the other two headed to an upstairs bedroom to look for "a little pull out door about 3 1/2 feet high," court records show.
"Be sure to have a little flashlight with you so you can see," Calabrese wrote. "Make a right when you go into that little pull out door. Go all the way to the wall. That is where the violin is."
Meeting in April 2011 to discuss the plot, the three believed that the violin once belonged to Liberace and could fetch millions of dollars on the black market. Citing a program he had "seen on the Discovery Channel," Casale estimated its value at $26 million, according to the court records.
Using Myles' cellphone, Klein called the real estate agent, who told him a buyer was scheduled to purchase the home the next day. Klein returned to Missouri, where he was confronted by FBI.
Neither Casale nor Myles was charged with any wrongdoing. When contacted by a Tribune reporter in February 2015, both declined to comment on the alleged plot. Records show Casale died of a heart attack at 76 in April 2015, two months after Klein pleaded guilty.
A black hat and pry bar
According to the Williams Bay police report, Calabrese's wife had summoned police in April 2004 to report a possible break-in, but no evidence had been found that any entry had been gained to the home.
A month later, however, she returned to the house with a key to the basement tool room. There, she discovered a large piece of fiberglass insulation had been pulled from the walls and ceiling. Along the west wall of the room, a hole had been cut in peg board, and the cinder block wall behind it had been broken out, exposing the hidden room, the police report said.
A black hat, found on top of an empty box, had sawdust on it, leading police to believe it had been worn by the burglar, according to the report. Also left behind was a 36-inch steel pry bar with the price tag still attached, the report said.
Records show that four years earlier, police had also been called to the home for a reported break-in attempt. Calabrese's wife had told police in June 2000 that she'd come up to the house to discover the telephone lines had been cut, according to a Williams Bay police report obtained by the Tribune in an open records request.
When she checked the outside of the house, the wife noticed "pry marks on the basement door," the report said. The officer, however, noted in the report that the pry marks looked old, and no evidence could be found of a break-in.
Calabrese's longtime criminal defense attorney, Joseph Lopez, told the Tribune last week that the mobster had blamed the Wisconsin break-ins as well as other thefts of his assets on his son, Frank Jr., whose decision to reach out to the FBI and cooperate against his father got the ball rolling on the Family Secrets probe.
In fact, one of the main elements of Calabrese's defense during his trial was that the testimony of his son and his brother, Nicholas Calabrese, whose cooperation with authorities broke the case wide open, was part of a conspiracy to keep him behind bars while they stole his hard-earned money.
When Calabrese took the witness stand in August 2007, Lopez tried to question him about the purported thefts, but U.S. District Judge James Zagel cut the testimony short, records show.
"They stole $2 million from me," Calabrese testified, according to a transcript. When prosecutors loudly objected, Calabrese's voice rose to a shout. "How am I supposed to defend myself?" he said.
After the judge sent the jury out of the room, Lopez told the judge the questions went directly to his argument that Calabrese's brother and son wanted him to remain in prison so he wouldn't come after them looking to get paid back.
"And in what way would he come after them?" Zagel asked.
"Well, I guess he would try to get them to sell their property, give him quitclaim deeds to get his money back," Lopez said.
"Right," Zagel said, skeptically.
"He wouldn't kill them, that's not what I'm saying," Lopez quickly added.
Knock-off Stradivarius violins
When the sensational charges against Klein were announced in 2011, Frank Calabrese Jr. told the Tribune the FBI had asked him if he knew of the violin's whereabouts.
"I was told if I did have it and tried to sell it, there would be a problem," Calabrese said at the time. "I told them I don't have it."
In his interview last week with the Tribune, Calabrese called the allegations that he was involved in the Wisconsin break-in lies. He said his father had several hiding spots in the house, including one in the garage, but by 2004 it was likely everything had been moved to other locations.
"The FBI did complete sweeps of that place. There was nothing there," he said.
Wherever the violin is, Durkin, Klein's lawyer, has said there were conflicting reports over its origins and whether it was an authentic 18th century Stradivarius as claimed by Calabrese.
The government's own records of what was seized in the Oak Brook raid indicate the instrument may have been made by Giuseppe Antonio Artalli, not Antonius Stradivarius, which would vastly decrease its worth, according to Durkin. Other Calabrese family records referred to a violin from the 1930s that was valued at about $70,000, he said.
After Klein pleaded guilty, Durkin said he received an unsolicited phone call from Jonathan Warren, chairman of the Liberace Foundation for the Creative and Performing Arts, whose collection includes several violins owned by Liberace and his brother, George, according to the defense filing.
"Each violin happened to be a 'knock off' or counterfeit Stradivarius worth only $300 or $400," the filing said.
Warren is willing to testify at Klein's sentencing hearing that Liberace never owned an authentic Stradivarius, according to the filing.
"It's kind of like looking for unicorns," Durkin told reporters last year. "How do you value a unicorn? I'm not quite sure."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
Twitter @jmetr22b
When she checked the outside of the house, the wife noticed "pry marks on the basement door," the report said. The officer, however, noted in the report that the pry marks looked old, and no evidence could be found of a break-in.
In fact, one of the main elements of Calabrese's defense during his trial was that the testimony of his son and his brother, Nicholas Calabrese, whose cooperation with authorities broke the case wide open, was part of a conspiracy to keep him behind bars while they stole his hard-earned money.
When Calabrese took the witness stand in August 2007, Lopez tried to question him about the purported thefts, but U.S. District Judge James Zagel cut the testimony short, records show.
"They stole $2 million from me," Calabrese testified, according to a transcript. When prosecutors loudly objected, Calabrese's voice rose to a shout. "How am I supposed to defend myself?" he said.
After the judge sent the jury out of the room, Lopez told the judge the questions went directly to his argument that Calabrese's brother and son wanted him to remain in prison so he wouldn't come after them looking to get paid back.
"And in what way would he come after them?" Zagel asked.
"Well, I guess he would try to get them to sell their property, give him quitclaim deeds to get his money back," Lopez said.
"Right," Zagel said, skeptically.
"He wouldn't kill them, that's not what I'm saying," Lopez quickly added.
Knock-off Stradivarius violins
When the sensational charges against Klein were announced in 2011, Frank Calabrese Jr. told the Tribune the FBI had asked him if he knew of the violin's whereabouts.
"I was told if I did have it and tried to sell it, there would be a problem," Calabrese said at the time. "I told them I don't have it."
In his interview last week with the Tribune, Calabrese called the allegations that he was involved in the Wisconsin break-in lies. He said his father had several hiding spots in the house, including one in the garage, but by 2004 it was likely everything had been moved to other locations.
"The FBI did complete sweeps of that place. There was nothing there," he said.
Wherever the violin is, Durkin, Klein's lawyer, has said there were conflicting reports over its origins and whether it was an authentic 18th century Stradivarius as claimed by Calabrese.
The government's own records of what was seized in the Oak Brook raid indicate the instrument may have been made by Giuseppe Antonio Artalli, not Antonius Stradivarius, which would vastly decrease its worth, according to Durkin. Other Calabrese family records referred to a violin from the 1930s that was valued at about $70,000, he said.
After Klein pleaded guilty, Durkin said he received an unsolicited phone call from Jonathan Warren, chairman of the Liberace Foundation for the Creative and Performing Arts, whose collection includes several violins owned by Liberace and his brother, George, according to the defense filing.
"Each violin happened to be a 'knock off' or counterfeit Stradivarius worth only $300 or $400," the filing said.
Warren is willing to testify at Klein's sentencing hearing that Liberace never owned an authentic Stradivarius, according to the filing.
"It's kind of like looking for unicorns," Durkin told reporters last year. "How do you value a unicorn? I'm not quite sure."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
Twitter @jmetr22b