Veteran prosecutor Mitchell Mars made big dent on Outfit

CHICAGO -- Federal prosecutor Mitchell A. Mars who sent Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and other big-name mobsters to prison, has died of lung cancer, officials announced Wednesday.

Mars, 55, had been battling lung cancer since shortly after last year's Operation Family Secrets trial, officials said. The trial ended in September with the conviction of Lombardo and other top organized crime figures.

He died Tuesday night, they said.

Mars headed the organized crime unit in the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago for 15 years and won convictions against mobsters Albert Tocco and Rocky Infelice as well as Cicero town president Betty Loren-Maltese among others.

The Family Secrets trial, based on an FBI investigation of 18 long unsolved mob murders, represented a major victory for the government.

"Mitch's impact on organized crime in this city cannot be overstated," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement. He said Mars "worked extremely hard and was quite talented and sought nothing in return except the feeling that he was part of doing something good."

A Chicago native, Mars graduated from Georgetown University law center and joined the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He was appointed to work on the House panel that investigated the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations.

Mars joined the criminal division of the Justice Department in 1978 and in 1980 became a member of its organized crime strike force in Chicago.