Convicted Chicago mob hit man gets life in prison

Reputed mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr., one of five men convicted at Chicago's biggest underworld trial in decades, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday by a judge who described the murders he was accused of as "unspeakable."

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel told Calabrese that his laughter during some of the trial's most grisly testimony "showed a certain callousness -- you were laughing about an impending killing."

"You are in fact guilty of appalling acts, and the fact that there may be people in the world who are worse than you doesn't excuse your actions," said Zagel, who presided over the government's landmark Operation Family Secrets trial.

"I just want to say that your crimes are unspeakable and the sentence I am about to impose on you is just," Zagel said.

The hefty 71-year-old Calabrese, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit and wearing leg irons, was held responsible by the jury for seven long unsolved mob murders. And the pre-sentence report prepared for the judge held him responsible for six more.

"The defendant slit people's throats, he shot people, he strangled people," Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Markus Funk told the judge.

Relatives of some of those killed, some of them crying, trouped to the microphone to denounce Calabrese for destroying their family lives.

"You ripped my heart out," said Peggy Cagnoni, whose husband was murdered.

Charlene Moravecek turned to Calabrese and described him as an "animal," saying her husband had been "slaughtered" and "dumped like a piece of trash."

"The reason I say slaughtered is they slit his throat," she said.

She told reporters afterward that at that point Calabrese said "God bless you." She immediately wheeled on him and her face twisted in a grimace of fury said: "Don't you mock me -- ever."

Moravecek told reporters she believes Calabrese should be put to death.

Another emotional moment came when Calabrese's son, Kurt, went to the microphone to give his own victim impact statement saying his father had beaten him as a boy.

"My father was never a father -- he acted as an enforcer to me," Kurt Calabrese said. He said his father had threatened to "bite your nose off" and make him "disappear." As he described his miserable home life, though, Calabrese broke in.

"Why don't you tell them what you did with the money you stole, Kurt?" Calabrese asked his son. At that the father and son got into a verbal duel in which each volunteered to take a lie detector test before Zagel shut it off.

"That's why I objected to this dog and pony show," Calabrese's defense attorney, Joseph Lopez, told the judge.

Calabrese, given a chance to speak, denied that he murdered any of the victims. He said he felt sorry for the relatives.

"My life is in the hands of God," he said. He said he suffers from an enlarged heart and a host of other ailments while being held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell.

"I've been fighting every day to live and it isn't enjoyable living in that hellhole for no reason," he said.

Lopez said his client could well be sent to the government's super-maximum penitentiary at Florence, Colo.

Calabrese was among five men convicted in September 2007 at the Family Secrets trial, a major multiyear effort by the federal government to strike a powerful blow at the Chicago Outfit as the city's organized crime family calls itself.

The investigation was also designed to clear 18 long unsolved mob murders dating back to the early 1970s.

Paul Schiro, 71, of Phoenix, blamed for a 1986 Arizona murder tied to the Chicago mob, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Monday. Still to be sentenced are former Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and reputed mob boss James Marcello.

The government's star witness at the Family Secrets trial was Calabrese's brother, admitted hit man Nicholas Calabrese, who said brother Frank liked to strangle his victims with ropes and slash their throats to make sure they were dead.

None of the defendants were charged with murder. They were convicted of racketeering, but the jury held Calabrese, Lombardo and Marcello responsible for various killings designed to silence witnesses and mete out mob vengeance.

Besides sentencing Calabrese to life, Zagel handed down sentences of 240 months and 60 months on additional counts and ordered him to pay more than $7 million in restitution.