Ex-cop who worked for mob faces 15-20 years

A former Chicago police officer accused of joining forces with the mob and collecting loan shark debts and extortion payments could be sentenced to as much as two decades in federal prison when he comes before a judge.

Anthony Doyle, 64, was among five alleged mob bosses and associates convicted of racketeering at the landmark Operation Family Secrets trial.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who presided over Chicago's biggest mob trial in decades, is due to impose the sentence on Thursday.

Prosecutors describe Doyle as a "sleeper agent" for the mob who, defying police rules, visited convicted loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr. in prison and fed him inside police information about a major murder investigation.

It was part of an effort by Calabrese to thwart the investigation, they say.

Even before that, Doyle doubled as a collector of "street tax" payments Calabrese charged to businesses and extortion "juice loan" debts, according to federal investigators.

Unlike three of his four co-defendants including Calabrese, however, Doyle has not been held responsible for any of the 18 mob murders outlined in the indictment.

But prosecutors do have secretly made tapes of the husky, broad-shouldered Doyle sitting in a prison visiting room discussing mob business with Calabrese.

Defense attorneys say the already jailed Doyle has suffered enough and should be sentenced to no more than time served — in other words, released immediately.

Prosecutors dismiss that request as "without merit." They asked the judge to sentence him at a level higher than the federal sentencing guideline range, something that could send him to jail for 15 to 18 years or perhaps as much as 20.

Doyle is the last of the trial defendants to be sentenced. Still to be sentenced, though, is Nicholas Calabrese, Frank's brother, an admitted mob hit man who became the government's star witness in hopes of avoiding a death penalty.