Nicholas Calabrese - Family Secrets Investigation and Conviction

Family Secrets Investigation and Conviction

On February 21, 2003, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass broke the story that Calabrese was talking to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and noted that Calabrese had disappeared from the federal prison in Milan, Michigan, and that Calabrese's federal prison records had disappeared altogether, leading Kass to believe that Calabrese had entered the United States Federal Witness Protection Program. FBI agents also had spread out across the country with search warrants, collecting DNA evidence, hair cuttings and oral swabs from many reputed Chicago Outfit members.

On April 25, 2005, federal prosecutors indicted 12 Chicago Outfit figures—including Calabrese—and two former police officers on charges of murder, illegal gambling and loan sharking. Dubbed, "Operation Family Secrets," the probe that led up to the indictments had relied heavily on Calabrese's cooperation. Newspapers reported that Calabrese had been confronted with DNA evidence implicating him in the 1986 mob hit of mob enforcer John Fecarotta, prompting Calabrese to cooperate with law enforcement in the probe.

After various plea agreements and the deaths of two defendants, ultimately five other defendants -- Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese, Sr., Paul Schiro and Anthony Doyle—went to trial. Calabrese formally entered a plea of guilty to murder and racketeering on May 18, 2007. On July 16, 2007, Nicholas Calabrese took the witness stand and admitted to committing murders with Marcello, Schiro and his brother Frank Calabrese, Sr. Nicholas Calabrese admitted to having committed a total of 14 murders, and as part of his deal for cooperating, federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute him for any of the 14 murders, thus sparing him the sentence of life in prison that he could have received had he been convicted of even one murder. Prosecutors also agreed to recommend a sentence of less than life in prison.

While on the stand, Calabrese stated that his association with the Chicago Outfit dated to May 1970, and that he began cooperating with the government in January 2002, after federal investigators confronted him with a bloody glove containing his DNA that he had inadvertently dropped at the scene of the Fecarotta slaying. Calabrese also acknowledged that he had been joined in the Fecarotta murder by his brother Frank Calabrese, Sr., and now-deceased mobster John Monteleone.

Calabrese also provided details on the infamous slayings of Chicago Outfit member Anthony Spilotro and Outfit associate Michael Spilotro, in 1986, in which Calabrese said he was one of a large number of mobsters who participated. The murders were depicted—with some details changed—in the 1995 movie Casino.

Calabrese admitted that he initially had lied to the FBI after he began cooperating, initially concealing Marcello's role in the Spilotros' killing because Marcello had been paying Calabrese's wife $4,000 a month while Calabrese was in prison.

In 2007, Lombardo, Marcello, Schiro and Frank Calabrese, Sr., all were convicted on murder and racketeering charges, while Doyle was convicted on racketeering charges. In February 2009, Lombardo, Marcello and Frank Calabrese, Sr. all were sentenced to life in prison. During Marcello's sentencing hearing on February 5, 2009, Dr. Patrick Spilotro, an oral surgeon who is the brother of the murdered Spilotro brothers, told the courtroom during his victim impact statement that he had encouraged Nicholas Calabrese to begin cooperating with the government.