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Reputed Outfit enforcer guilty on gun charge (Chicago)

Tribune reportercontact the reporter
 
As a feared Outfit enforcer three decades ago, Mario Rainone was skilled in the art of extorting mob victims.

He was convicted of collecting juice loans from deadbeat borrowers with brutal force, threatening to kill restaurant owners who refused to pay exorbitant street taxes and throwing a grenade onto the roof of an Oak Park theater in an attempt to gain control of a percentage of the business.
       In all Rainone has spent more than 20 years in prison for racketeering, extortion and burglary. Even behind bars, though, he didn’t stop his criminal ways. In 2010 he was convicted of bribing a corrupt guard to smuggle him salami and other Italian food into a Wisconsin federal prison.
On Wednesday, a considerably older and grayer Rainone stood silently in federal court as a judge handed down what will likely be his last sentence: 15 years for being a felon in possession of a handgun.
The 59-year-old Rainone, shackled at the ankles, passed up a chance to address the judge. As court adjourned he smiled and kissed his attorney, Joseph Lopez, on the cheek. He could be eligible for release in 2028 when he would be 73.
Rainone was convicted by a federal jury last year of having a loaded Smith & Wesson .357-caliber handgun on his nightstand at his Addison home in 2009. Authorities searched the residence after Rainone and an accomplice were caught coming out of a Lincolnshire condo building with jewelry and cash stuffed in their coats.
In seeking a lengthy term, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu noted a previous judge had labeled Rainone an “urban terrorist” who had no respect for the law. Bhachu also pointed to the burglary conviction and Rainone’s salami-smuggling caper as evidence he has no intention of becoming a law-abiding citizen.
“If you give him the opportunity, he will go out and commit crime,” Bhachu told the judge. “He will hurt people. He will take their property.”
Lopez described Rainone as a loving grandfather who once ran two legitimate pizzerias and had “paid his debt to society” for his past crimes. He also argued the smuggling case “only involves Mr. Rainone’s hunger for food.”
Rainone’s colorful mob history dates to the 1980s when he was identified as an associate of legendary mob bosses Lenny Patrick and Gus Alex, whose ties to the Outfit stretched back to the days of Al Capone. According to federal court documents, Rainone became an informant for the feds in 1989 after he thought Patrick was setting him up to be killed. He was taken into witness protection, but he later refused to cooperate with authorities after an explosive device damaged his mother's porch, according to court records.

At Alex’s blockbuster trial in 1992, several business owners testified about being terrorized by Rainone, who threatened to kill them and their families – even put their heads on poles as an example – if they didn’t pay up.

Dominic Gallo, then-owner of Francesco’s Hole in the Wall in Northbrook, said he was so terrified he secretly recorded an encounter with Rainone when he came around demanding a $200,000 street tax.

When Gallo asked what would happen if he didn’t pay, Rainone replied, “Well, then you’ll all be in Mt. Carmel (Cemetery). You, your kid, your daughter-in-law, all of you,” according to the recording played in court.

Lopez told reporters outside court Wednesday that Rainone offered no cooperation after his latest arrest.

“He’s no beefer,” Lopez said. “The people he knows are either dead or in jail anyways.”

Las Vegas Mob Museum Appearance

I find the Las Vegas Mob Museum a first class destination. You can easily spend several hours there. I enjoyed my experience and am grateful they are carrying my book. If you travel to Las Vegas make time to stop at the Museum!

New post on Forgotten Stories-Al Capone’s Putter

by rogersachar
                  
In the 1920s the miniature golf craze hit America, and by 1930 there were some 40,000 courses, known variously as Lilliput Links, Tom Thumb Golf, Rinky-Dink Golf, Garden Golf and Baby Golf. There was money to be made in the “sport” and by 1930 anything that smelled potentially lucrative was sure to draw the attention of the criminal underworld.
 
Capone Mini-Golf
 
On October 1, 1930, two men from Chicago checked into a hotel in downtown Manhattan, where they were recognized by Ray Doyle, reporter for the New York Mirror as torpedoes for Al Capone.  It seemed that Capone was branching out, and his lieutenants weren’t shy about broadcasting the fact. “Al Capone has new ideas and a new fancy. He has gone into the little golf game in a big way. For several months past Al has been purchasing large blocks of stock in miniature golf construction companies.”
 
Capone-MG
 
“Our observations showed a huge profit in the operation of the business,” Capone’s lieutenant continued, “It is more profitable than rum running. It was also keep us away from all police and Grand Jury investigations, which are a nuisance to us and waste of time to all concerned.”
 
It helped too that Capone enjoyed the game. According to Capone’s henchman, “Al has gone nut about this miniature golf. When he and I were traveling between New York, Miami and Chicago in recent months, we went in for twosomes a lot. I beat him at it. But he is fast becoming a star.”
 
Alas, before he could become a miniature golf impresario, Capone went off to jail, and emerged from Alcatraz nearly a decade later as a broken man.

Hoffa, mafia legends could be on LV’s Mount Rushmore


By JOHN L. SMITH
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Las Vegas, a city made famous by infamous men, has no statue honoring one of the most important figures in its history: Teamsters union titan James Riddle Hoffa.

Do you think it should?

If Las Vegas can take pride in being home of the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, then we certainly ought to have room in our hearts for the characters who helped make us what we are today. Not only do Benny Siegel and Moe Dalitz deserve statues in the town square, but room should be set aside for Jimmy Hoffa, too.

Wednesday marks the 39th anniversary of Hoffa’s disappearance from the parking lot of a restaurant in suburban Detroit. Murdered by his mob associates, his body was never recovered.

Back when banks wouldn’t loan a nickel to build a casino, and the thought of gaming companies trading on Wall Street was an unimaginable fantasy, the growth of Las Vegas was fueled in large part by loans from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. A couple hundred million dollars helped give the Strip a skyline, and Hoffa was partly responsible for that growth.

“Because Hoffa built up the Teamsters, and because he made the deal to bring in Allen Dorfman, the pension fund became a bank for Las Vegas and underwrote a significant amount of its growth,” UNLV History professor Michael Green says. “Not just on the Strip, but with Sunrise Hospital and other developments.”

Teamsters loans were notorious because they were influenced by associates of organized crime, and Hoffa was their man. But what’s bad for America has often been good for Las Vegas.
Who might we ask about honoring Hoffa?

Perhaps we should start with Paul Laxalt, our esteemed and respected former governor and U.S. senator. Laxalt went to bat on Hoffa’s behalf, writing a letter in 1971 to President Richard Nixon calling for a pardon for the convicted labor racketeer. Even at that early date Hoffa’s ties to the underworld were understood. That reputation was largely ignored inside Nevada, where Teamsters pension fund official Dorfman facilitated loans to casinos up and down the Strip.

The letter was nothing short of jaw-dropping, but hardly made a ripple of news in Nevada. In part, Laxalt wrote to the President, “Hoffa and Dorfman and their activities have been aboveboard at all times, and they have made a material contribution to the state.”

Dorfman in 1972 was convicted of accepting kickbacks to arrange a pension fund loan, and he was convicted again in 1982 for conspiring to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada. Laxalt admitted he wrote the letter defending Hoffa at the request of Dorfman, who wouldn’t need a letter vouching for his character because he was murdered in 1982 by the Chicago Outfit.

Or maybe the family of legendary casino conjurer Jay Sarno could lend perspective. Sarno was the visionary behind the creation of Caesars Palace and Circus Circus, but it can be argued that neither place would have left the drawing board without mobbed-up Teamsters funding.

“It might have happened anyway, but you can honestly ask the question, ‘Would there have been a Caesars Palace and a Circus Circus without those Teamsters loans?’ ” Green says.

Investigative journalist and “Hoffa Wars” author Dan Moldea understands that what happens in Las Vegas can be hard to explain to outsiders.

“You have a guy like Moe Dalitz, who in Cleveland and the Midwest was viewed as a ruthless organized crime figure, but when he comes to Las Vegas he’s seen as a respectable citizen,” Moldea says. “… Hoffa was not unlike that.”

Is it possible for a place built by notorious men and means to rise from its boomtown dysfunction and inferiority issues without acknowledging — and even celebrating — its decidedly flawed founding fathers?

I don’t think so.

In time, that might be a saving grace of the Mob Museum: It might allow us to look at a part of ourselves without the rosy-tinted revisionism of the great Las Vegas casino propaganda machine.
So how about a statue in honor of Jimmy Hoffa?

Now, if we can only get a Teamsters loan to fund it.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. E-mail him at jsmith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.

Charges detail mob crew's brazenness

By Jason Meisner, Tribune reporter
July 26, 2014
The Outfit-connected crew had planned the raid on the cartel stash house carefully, using a street gang member who tipped them to a 40-kilogram shipment of cocaine from Mexico that would be warehoused on Chicago's Southeast Side before being cut up for distribution on the street, authorities say.
But what crew leaders didn't know was that the nondescript gray frame house on the 13400 block of South Brandon Avenue was a setup. The cocaine had been planted by law enforcement officials, who wired the home with video and audio surveillance equipment before giving their informant the go-ahead to set the sting in motion.
As an FBI spy plane monitored the Hegewisch neighborhood from the air late July 16, a team of Chicago police and federal agents on the ground watched as reputed Outfit soldiers Robert Panozzo and Paul Koroluk, posing as law enforcement, kicked in the door and grabbed the stacks of narcotics. When agents swooped in and made the arrest, Koroluk still had a police star dangling from his neck, authorities said.
The dramatic sting was the culmination of a monthslong investigation and led to sweeping racketeering and drug charges unveiled in Cook County criminal court last week against Panozzo, Koroluk and three other alleged crew members. The charges alleged an array of crimes going back to at least 2007, from home invasions and armed robberies to burglaries, arson, insurance fraud and prostitution.
Authorities said the crew — which, according to previous court testimony, has ties to reputed Grand Avenue mob boss Albert "Little Guy" Vena — robbed cartel stash houses of drugs and cash with a remarkable mix of sophistication and brazen violence, tracking drug dealers with GPS devices and wearing stolen police badges and body armor during the raids.
They had Chicago gang members providing tips and acting as lookouts and used a battery service business in their Near West Side neighborhood as a meeting place to divide up the loot, according to the charges. When an associate was nabbed for a home invasion, the crew plotted to kill the key witness before he could testify and even put the Cook County judge overseeing the case under surveillance, according to authorities.
Authorities say Panozzo, 54, and Koroluk, 55, have also been prolific burglars, using country club membership lists, tips from insurance brokers and other intelligence to identify the high-end homes before they hit them, then fencing stolen merchandise through Wabash Avenue jewelers and other professionals on the take.
A search warrant affidavit filed in the case stated that the crew has "surreptitious and unauthorized links (with) certain employees of state and local government, as well as insurance agents, jewelers, currency exchanges, banks, and business owners."
Joseph Ways Sr., the former second-in-command at the Chicago division of the FBI who now is executive director of the Chicago Crime Commission, said the case shows the mob is still "alive and well" despite recent high-profile prosecutions that decimated much of the Outfit's key leadership.
Ways said that while the Panozzo-Koroluk crew allegedly used many traditional mob schemes, it is also accused of a particularly bold and risky tactic: stealing drugs that originate from powerful drug cartels.
"That's a new twist," Ways said. "To go in and rip off a stash house, depending on where it's at in the supply line … if you get too close and the wrong people find out, it could be very hazardous to your health."
Authorities said the investigation into the crew began in October, when the would-be hit man informed police of the plot to kill a state witness who was about to testify against Panozzo's associate.
While the charges identify the associate only as "Individual H," numerous sources have confirmed to the Tribune that he is Jeff Hollinghead, 48, a former union truck driver who spent several years running an auto glass store in Las Vegas. After returning to Chicago about six years ago, he teamed up with Panozzo, whose base of operation was in Hollinghead's old neighborhood.
In October 2009, Hollinghead and three others were charged with kidnapping a wheelchair-bound gang member from his South Side home and holding him for ransom. The man's family called police, who set up a sting with the ransom money, court records show. Hollinghead was arrested by Chicago police and FBI agents as he opened a garbage can in a Bridgeport alley that had been marked with an "X" and removed what he thought was the ransom payment.
When he was arrested, Hollinghead first told authorities he was just looking for a place to relieve himself. Later he told an elaborate story of how he was approached by a man on the street who ordered him at gunpoint to retrieve the bag for him or Hollinghead's wife would be killed, court records show.
According to the search warrant affidavit, police investigating the Panozzo-Koroluk crew got a huge break when Hollinghead began cooperating last November, shortly before he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charges and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Hollinghead laid out the details of the crew's operation, including how Panozzo used connections with the Spanish Cobras and Latin Dragons street gangs for tips on drug suppliers and the location of stash houses, according to the charges. Police said Hollinghead told them that the crew's technical operations wizard, Maher "Max" Abuhabsah — who was also charged with racketeering — ordered GPS tracking devices from a Skokie surveillance store and put them on the cars of their targets so he could track their movements through his smartphone.
Hollinghead told police that while he was free on bond and awaiting trial, he and Panozzo had discussed arranging the murder of the victim in his case, but the victim had gone into hiding and no one could find him, according to the affidavit. Meanwhile, another informant said Abuhabsah had found the victim's brother's address through Internet research, the affidavit alleged.
Then, last July, Hollinghead's lawyer called him to a meeting at a Caribou Coffee on Maxwell and Halsted streets, according to the affidavit. At the meeting, the attorney slid a computerized printout of the victim's name and address across the table.
"Give this to Bob, he knows what to do with it," the attorney allegedly told Hollinghead, according to the court documents. "This is your only problem."
The charges refer to the attorney only as "Individual K," but court records show Hollinghead was represented at the time by longtime criminal defense attorney Joseph Lopez.
Lopez told the Tribune he did meet Hollinghead at the coffee shop but gave him only a copy of his investigator's report, which included a routine public records search that had only outdated addresses for the victim. Lopez said the meeting was part of the normal course of preparing for trial.
"We were trying to locate and interview the victim as part of trial preparations, just like we always do," Lopez said.
A review of court records in Hollinghead's case suggests that eliminating the victim would not have helped him beat the charges. The victim never identified Hollinghead in a lineup, and the main witnesses against him were FBI agents and Chicago police officers who were monitoring the ransom drop site and watched as Hollinghead reached into the garbage can and took the bag, records show.
Raised in the old Italian-American enclave known as "the Patch" on the Near West Side, Panozzo and Koroluk have criminal histories that stretch back decades, court records show.
In 2006 they were both sentenced to seven years in prison for a string of burglaries targeting tony north suburban homes that netted millions in jewelry and other luxury items. Police at the time described the burglars as some of the most sophisticated they'd run across, from the disabling of state-of-the-art alarm systems to the cutting of phone lines before entering the properties. It wasn't until Koroluk slipped up and left footprints in the snow leading to his car that police were able to crack the case.
According to court records, Panozzo got his start as a juice loan collector under former Grand Avenue boss Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, who was convicted in the landmark Family Secrets trial. Recently, Panozzo was operating a house of prostitution masquerading as a massage parlor in the 800 block of West Superior Street, according to the racketeering charges.
No one answered the door when a Tribune reporter visited the alleged brothel last week. Employees of the hair salon next door said they had been suspicious of the place for months, sometimes spotting beautiful young women dressed in skimpy lingerie escorting men into the building in broad daylight.
The racketeering charges also allege that Panozzo has a history of violence. According to the affidavit in the case, Panozzo has often bragged to associates that he threw an elderly woman down three flights of stairs to her death in 1987 after tricking her into signing over ownership rights to her three-flat in the 2300 block of West Ohio Street.
Public records show that the woman, Lydia Minneci, 77, signed a quitclaim deed to her home in October 1987 to a man named Steven Brantner, who at the time lived with Panozzo a few blocks away on West Erie Street. Minneci was killed shortly after she signed the papers, though no one was ever arrested, records show.
Four years later, Brantner was also killed, records show. According to the affidavit, Panozzo drove Brantner to the hospital, where he died of bullet wounds. No one was ever charged with his slaying.
As authorities were ramping up their investigation into Panozzo's crew earlier this year, his name surfaced in the sensational trial of former Chicago cop Steve Mandell, who was convicted in February of plotting to kidnap, murder and dismember a local businessman flush with cash.
According to trial testimony, Panozzo had introduced Mandell to real estate mogul George Michael during a July 2012 lunch at La Scarola restaurant on West Grand Avenue. At the table was Vena — the reputed Outfit boss who replaced Lombardo after he went to prison — and several other alleged mobsters, according to testimony. Michael, who unbeknownst to his dining companions was an FBI informant, recorded the meeting on a hidden wire, but the recording was never played at Mandell's trial.
Ways, of the Chicago Crime Commission, said it's difficult to tell whether the charges against the Panozzo-Koroluk crew signify a wider investigation of mob activity. With all the recent attention on Chicago's rampant gun violence, organized crime has faded from headlines. But that doesn't mean it's gone away, he said.
"That's the joy of law enforcement," Ways said. "Even if they decide to lay low for a while, you know they'll be back."
jmeisner@tribune.com
Twitter @jmetr22b

Las Vegas-Judge: Police, topless club must work out differences


web1_CLUB-PARADISE-JUN16-14-005.jpg
Club Paradise on Paradise Road in Las Vegas on Monday, June 16, 2014. The club was was temporarily closed on June 6, 2014 so law enforcement could execute a search warrant. (Justin Yurkanin/Las Vegas Review-Journal

By JEFF GERMAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
A district judge ordered Las Vegas police and the closed Club Paradise on Wednesday to work out differences that will let the longtime topless club obtain readable copies of key computer evidence seized in a June 6 raid.

The evidence includes business and customer records on hard drives the club needs to reopen, according to club lawyers Dominic Gentile and Vincent Savarese.

Club Paradise, operating for two decades in the shadow of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on Paradise Road, was one of the busiest and longest-running strip clubs in Las Vegas until it shut down 47 days ago. It went dark after police and IRS agents executed search warrants looking for evidence of credit card fraud by a handful of dancers and managers.

This kind of crime is not common in the lucrative topless club business here, according to people close to the Club Paradise investigation.

Gentile told District Judge James Bixler on Wednesday that the nightclub, which he believes is not a target of the investigation, has lost a total of $645,600 since the police raid. That’s roughly $13,700 a day.

Some employees have been forced to seek unemployment compensation, but the club doesn’t have its employment records to substantiate their claims with the state, Gentile said.
Attorney Kathleen Bliss, who represents the Metropolitan Police Department, said the department has turned over copies of the confiscated hard drives to Club Paradise, but Gentile argued there was no retrievable data on the copies.

“All I need is to be able to get the data back in a form that would permit the club to reopen,” Gentile said.

Bixler ordered the two sides to arrange a meeting of their information technology experts to figure out a way to retrieve the data on the hard drives and report back to him Aug. 13.

Gentile said he was told detectives have not submitted a case for prosecution to the district attorney’s office, but employees were given letters indicating they were grand jury targets.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith first reported in June that police and IRS agents were investigating the credit card fraud allegations involving the dancers. Customers were alleged to have been overcharged thousands of dollars and some may have been drugged in the credit scheme, Smith wrote.

Gentile and Savarese said in court papers they learned from employees interviewed by police that the investigation was focusing on two to three dancers, who were independent contractors, and three male managers who resigned a week before police showed up at the club. The managers stepped down rather than take polygraphs about a $50,000 theft from a safe at the club, the lawyers said.
Police executed a broad search warrant at Club Paradise on June 6 that sought records of dealings with seven customers who may have been affected. Most of these customers were from out of town and several were regarded as very wealthy.

Those close to the investigation said customers angry about credit card overcharges reported the irregularities to law enforcement authorities.

The search warrant also sought an array of business records, bank statements, credit card accounts, drugs and drug paraphernalia, computers and cell phones and other personal property belonging to 21 dancers and employees.

No records of Club Paradise owner Geralyn Cecola and her key employee, husband Sam Cecola, both of Chicago, were sought by police, according to the search warrant. Sam Cecola, who owns adult businesses in Chicago, has a 1997 tax conviction.

Police also obtained a second search warrant by telephone during the raid to seize $100,000 they found in a safe. Gentile and Savarese contended in their court papers that the money was unlawfully taken and are trying to get it back.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Find him on Twitter: @JGermanRJ

At a Table with the Turk

Jim Padar posted: "  Billy Gee was a lower echelon mobster with an impossible last name, hence, Billy Gee. He was also a wise guy, smart ass, which did little to impress the police with whom he occasionally came in contact. I was a baby homicide detective when I first"
 

New post on On Being A Cop

 

At a Table with the Turk

by Jim Padar
 
Billy Gee was a lower echelon mobster with an impossible last name, hence, Billy Gee. He was also a wise guy, smart ass, which did little to impress the police with whom he occasionally came in contact. I was a baby homicide detective when I first ran across him in an interrogation room on the second floor of Maxwell Street Homicide. I was teamed with a seasoned detective in sort of an informal training program. I forget exactly why we were questioning him, but there is a nice way and a smart ass way to tell us nothing. Billy Gee chose the latter. At the end of the interview, Billy had a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
“Just one more thing Billy,” said my partner as he rummaged through some papers. He pulled out a city map printed on legal paper, depicting the six detective areas in the city.
“See here Billy? Right now you’re in Area Four. I want you to carry this map with you at all times, you understand?”
Billy looked quizzically at the map, his smirk replaced by a puzzled expression.
“Ya see, when you get wacked, and you will get wacked, ask them to dump your body anywhere outside Area Four because we don’t want to waste time on your sorry ass murder investigation.”
Billy left our offices with a more serious demeanor, almost as if we had personally put a hit out on him.
A little over a month later, my partner and I were staring into the trunk of an abandoned auto in an industrial area on Chicago’s west side. The victim’s hands were tied behind his back, his throat had been slit and there appeared to be a single bullet wound in the back of his head.
“Is that Billy Gee?” exclaimed my partner as he leaned into the trunk for a closer look.
“It kinda’ looks like him,” I said. “But it’s hard to be positive.” A slit throat and a bullet in the head have a tendency to distort most peoples natural appearance.
“You guys know him?” asked the mobile crime lab guys as they checked his pockets for any identification.
“It might be Billy Gee,” I replied. “Check his pockets for an Area Map.”
“He probably forgot to carry it,” said my partner. “He got dumped here.”
“There’s nothing in his pockets,” reported the crime lab. “You got the rest of his last name?”
“Yeah, back at the office, we’ll call you with the correct spelling and his date of birth. If it’s him, we were just talking to him a few weeks ago. If you can lift some prints from him, he’s the most likely suspect.”
“You mean victim,” I said.
“Same difference,” replied my partner with a grin.
Several hours later the crime lab personnel confirmed that Billy Gee was in fact our victim.
Most mob hits in Chicago are not easily cleared. We might be able to develop information on who wanted the victim killed and why, but to build a case against a specific individual was a long shot, no pun intended. Years down the road some people might be willing to talk, but for the immediate future we most likely had a case that was headed for the filing cabinet with other mysteries.
When we arrived at the office on the second full day into the investigation we were greeted by members of our intelligence unit bearing a folder full of 8 X 10 surveillance photos of none other than Billy Gee parking on the driveway of an upscale home, entering the house and then returning to his car some twenty minutes later. The dates indicated this was almost a daily occurrence.
The homicide commander, my partner and I poured over the pictures.
“Where is this?” I asked. “Whose house is it?”
“Woodridge,” said one of the intelligence detectives. “It’s Jimmy the Turk’s house.”
“You’ll have to interview him,” said our commander.
“Boss, he’s a top level guy, he’s not going to tell us anything,” said my partner.
“You’re probably right,” said the lieutenant. “But we’ve got the pictures and we can’t ignore them. We have to interview him and file a report.”
The intelligence detectives gave us Jimmy the Turk’s private unlisted number.
“He’ll be more likely to pay attention to you if you call him on this number.”
“Is this the line you’ve got tapped?” I inquired kiddingly. They didn’t take kindly to my remark. This would be a high stakes cat and mouse game; one that we were almost guaranteed to lose, but we had to go through the motions.
We emptied the office of spectators and my partner called Jimmy with the boss and me listening on extensions.
My partner stated his name and identified himself as a homicide detective. The reaction from Jimmy the Turk was absolute silence.
“Jimmy, we need to talk with you,” he continued.
“I don’t talk to cops,” replied Jimmy.
“Well, we’re going to talk with you.” my partner said in a very calm but authoritative voice. “We can come out to your place, it won’t take very long.”
“I don’t like cops in my house.”
“Well then come down to the station, we can talk here.”
“I don’t like police stations.”
“Well, Jimmy, we are going to talk to you. Do you understand?” My partner was using the same calm, authoritative tone, never raising his voice. There was a long moment of silence at Jimmy’s end.
“Where’s your office?” he finally answered.
“It’s the Maxwell Street Station, on Maxwell just two blocks west of Halsted.”
“I know the place,” snapped Jimmy in an annoyed tone of voice. “You know Barney’s?”
“Barney’s Market Club at Randolph and Halsted? Yeah we know it.”
“Meet me there for dinner tomorrow night at seven.”
My partner looked expectantly at the lieutenant and he nodded.
“My partner and I will be there,” he responded on the phone and suddenly the conversation was over.
“You’re going to dinner,” exclaimed the boss with a big grin on his face.
Barney's Market Club
Barney's Market Club
Barney’s was an upscale eatery frequented by elected officials, businessmen, mobsters and occasionally cops. As a newly married father with two toddlers at home, I had never been there.
Our commander made notifications to our downtown command staff as well as the Intelligence Division and the Internal Affairs Division. If any of them happened to spot us having dinner with Jimmy the Turk they would know why.
The next evening my partner and I headed for Barney’s in an old unmarked beat up Dodge sedan. We avoided the VIP spaces at the Randolph Street side and instead parked on a side street nearby. The 8 X 10 photographs were tucked under my arm in a plain brown envelope.
“You gotta a credit card that will cover this? I asked my partner as we approached Barney’s.
“I do,” he replied. “But I’ll guarantee you Jimmy will pick up the tab. To Jimmy, it’s a matter of saving face and impressing us.”
“Saving face?” I inquired.
“Yeah, saving face. Remember, he’s number two or three man in the mob and he’s having dinner with us lowly cops. He wants to show anyone in the vicinity that he runs it—maybe even make them think he owns us. So order what you want kid, it will be the best meal you’ll have all month and it’s all on Jimmy.”
We entered the restaurant and the maître d’ greeted us before we took two steps inside.
“Yes sir Senator! Do you have reservations?”
Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune reporter wrote about Barney’s and the “Yes sir, Senator!” greeting a few years back:
“It was long assumed that its familiar slogan was born of the patronage of politicians. Though many elected officials (as well as mobsters, businessmen, cops and others on their way to and from events at the Chicago Stadium) were known to drop in, it was owner Barney Kessel's inability to remember anybody's name that gave birth to the slogan that eventually emblazoned menus, matchbooks and the prominent sign that hung high from the building. He called almost everybody ‘Senator.’"
“We’re joining Jimmy for dinner,” said my partner as he glanced around the room and spotted Jimmy the Turk sitting at a round table near the back of the dining room. He was flanked by two associates and two empty chairs awaited us.
“Yes sir, Senator,” said the maître d’ without batting an eye as he guided us back to Jimmy’s table.
Jimmy introduced his companions simply as Anthony and Vincent. We would learn later that Anthony’s mob nickname was “The Bull” and Vincent was called “Pug,” but only because sinus and adenoid problems made him sound like the dog of that breed.
The waiter placed menus in front of us and we made our selections without regard to cost. Salads were served and my partner began to slide the photos out of the plain envelope and Jimmy held his hand up.
“We don’t discuss business while we’re eating.”
We engaged in polite but totally meaningless chi-chat. When the entrée dishes were cleared, the envelope again came out but once again Jimmy held his hand up.
“We don’t discuss business before dessert.”
I was beginning to think that we might actually “talk business” at some point. “Dessert” for Jimmy and his pals consisted of giant snifters of Grand Marnier and Cuban cigars. We took a pass on the brandy but each of us lit up a cigar. Turned out the cigar probably gave me more of a buzz than the Grand Marnier would have.
The photos came out one last time—it was show time. We passed them across to Jimmy and his friends looked over his shoulder as he carefully examined the pictures.
“Billy visited you daily, Jimmy. What’s your connection?”
“I never saw this man before in my life,” said Jimmy.
“You ever see this guy?” he asked Anthony and Pug.
They shook their heads in unison.
“I’m really sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“Jimmy, this guy came to your house almost every day. These are only a few of the pictures.”
“Yeah well, you guys can do funny things with pictures, I know that. I’m really sorry I can’t help you.”
Jimmy the Turk stood and shook our hands indicating the meeting was over. He did indeed pick up the check. Like I said earlier, there is a nice way and a smart ass way to tell us nothing. Jimmy chose the nice way. He was not the type of person you would expect to find in the trunk of a car, but he did meet an early demise—he died several years after our dinner, at the age of forty-nine, peacefully at Northwestern Memorial Hospital of cancer.
To the best of my knowledge Billy Gee’s murder was never cleared. His file probably still languishes in some file cabinet marked “Not Cleared.”
I never lost any sleep over it…
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