Alleged mobster signs do-not-resuscitate order

Alleged mobster Frank "The German" Schweihs says he does not want to be resuscitated if the illness he is suffering from threatens to take his life while he remains imprisoned, a federal judge said Monday.

Schweihs, 78, has signed a do-not-resuscitate order and presented it to officials at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he is being held pending a planned Oct. 28 trial, U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said.

Zagel said Schweihs may have to be moved to another federal prison because a do-not-resuscitate order signed by a prisoner is not honored unless the inmate is in one of the Bureau of Prisons Medical facilities.

Schweihs went on the run three years ago when prosecutors unveiled their sweeping Operation Family Secrets indictment against the top echelon of the Chicago mob.

He was missing for eight months before FBI agents swooped down on his hideaway nestled deep in the Kentucky hills.

Then he missed the Family Secrets trial due to a battle with cancer.

Federal prosecutors now say Schweihs is healthy enough to face trial.

Schweihs is accused of a June 1986 murder in Arizona and squeezing "street tax" payments out of a suburban strip joint and an Indiana pornography shop by threatening the owners with violence.

He's also accused of going on the run to avoid prosecution.

Defense attorney Ellen R. Domph asked Zagel on Monday to order the Metropolitan Correctional Center to allow Schweihs to get some fresh air and sunlight. She said he has been locked up without being in the outside world for the last 17 months.

But Zagel said he would need a more extensive presentation before issuing such an order.

The Family Secrets trial ended in September with the conviction of five alleged mobsters in a racketeering conspiracy involving decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder.