Feds right back at mob's heels after 'Family Secrets' trial, filing says

If the Chicago Outfit thought it might get a breather after the conviction of some of its top members last year, they were mistaken.

In a Tuesday court filing against an Oak Brook man, U.S. prosecutors not only alleged Samuel Volpendesto is a mob associate, but that investigators had the head of one of the mob's crews under surveillance as recently as last week.

The crew leader was not identified by name, only as "Outfit Member A" in the filing by assistant U.S. attorney T. Markus Funk, who asks U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez to hold both Volpendesto and Mark Polchan, 41, of Justice, without bond. Valdez may rule on that request at a Wednesday hearing where federal prosecutors have said they may play secretly recorded tapes to make their case.

Besides being an attempt to keep the two men behind bars, the filing is a clear message to Outfit operators that the feds are once again hot on their trail. Many mob leaders were put away in September with unanimous convictions in the "Family Secrets" trial.

In the most recent case, Volpendesto and Polchan are accused of lighting a pipe bomb outside C&S Coin Operated Amusements at 6508 W. 16th St. in Berwyn on Feb. 25, 2003. If convicted, each stands to spend a maximum of 35 years in prison.

Polchan is a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang and an associate of the mob, U.S. Attorneys allege. Volpendesto is an associate of the mob as well, they claim.

Neither man's attorney returned phone calls Tuesday, but Volpendesto has no criminal convictions, is willing to post a house worth $500,000 as bond and is a World War II veteran, his attorney said in a written plea for bail.

According to the filing, Volpendesto has been caught on tape grousing about the small amount of money he made on the bombing, but noted that Polchan made much more. The informant who recorded Volpendesto noted that Volpendesto had previously said he was always "fair" to "Outfit Member A," but that when Outfit Member A "took over," he didn't give Volpendesto much in return.

Although Volpendesto appears sweet, friendly and frail in court, he showed no hesitation in holding a suspected informant captive at gunpoint in 1990 while associates beat the man with a baseball bat, the filing said.

Polchan, the filing said, also had a hand in intimidating a witness to a shotgun slaying in Cicero, and conspired in burglaries and robberies, including some where owners were either stabbed or shot. Undercover officers spotted Outfit Member A at Polchan's pawnshop in Cicero just last week on July 29, the filing said.

Federal investigators managed to get close to Polchan by having an undercover agent introduce himself by trying to sell Polchan gold crowns still attached to human teeth, the filing noted.

Given the information Polchan and Volpendesto's slip-ups have provided federal investigators, the filing said, U.S. attorneys are requesting the two be kept in custody lest the mob grow angry with them and try to make the two "disappear."

The Outfit and the Outlaws "have a very real and direct interest in the outcome of this particular prosecution," Funk wrote.

The filing said Polchan has a network of crooked police officers he mined from time to time to try to get information on mob informants, and that several police force badges from local agencies were recovered in last week's raid on Polchan's pawnshop in Cicero.