Federal agents have pinned decades of gangland killings on Chicago-area mobsters, charging a dozen organized crime figures and two former police officers with running an outfit based on illegal gambling, loan sharking, and murder, reports the Chicago Tribune. In a city where mob hits are rarely solved, prosecutors charged La Cosa Nostra bosses and “made” members alike in connection with 18 murders dating to 1970.
The killings were some of Chicago’s most notorious, including the 1986 beating deaths of Anthony and Michael Spilotro, whose bodies were found in a shallow grave in an Indiana field. Agents arrested many career mobsters on Monday. They were still searching for two of those charged, including Joey “The Clown” Lombardo, 75, once the reputed boss of Chicago’s mob. A key break came after Nicholas Calabrese was confronted with DNA evidence that allegedly implicated him in one homicide. Calabrese then agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and fingered his brother and others in many of the killings, the Tribune reported.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0504260183apr26,1,6180808.story?coll=chi-news-hed