The Disappearance of Little Tony Zizzo

You may not be familiar with the name Anthony Zizzo, or “Little Tony” as he was also known. Little Tony was a Chicago Outfit guy who may have assumed the underboss position for a short period of time.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information on the disappearance or the whereabouts of Little Tony.  Little Tony is presumed to be dead.  

He left his town home in Westmont, Illinois for a meeting on Rush Street in Chicago.  When he kissed his wife goodbye, she had no idea she would never see him again.  Little Tony drove to a restaurant in Melrose Park where he parked his Silver Jeep Cherokee and got into another car that would take him for his sitdown.

The sitdown was supposed to take place at a Rush Street restaurant where it was to be mediated by Joseph Andriacchi a well respected former underboss of the Outfit. What the FBI thinks, is Little Tony was kidnapped and murdered someplace where there were less eyes.  

The killers “disappeared” Little Tony’s body, and so far no informant has given up it’s location.

Little Tony came up in the crew of Outfit boss Sam Carlisi, along with James Marcello, who would also become boss one day.  

Little Tony and Marcello were taken down together in the early 1990’s. The indictment refers to Little Tony as a guy who handed out juice loans to gamblers and a boss.

When Marcelo was released in 2003 he took over as the boss of the Outfit.  He would not last long because he was soon swept up in the Family Secrets case.

Little Tony was not caught up in that case and some Outfit members may have felt a little uneasy with that.  He still remained underboss as well as representing Marcello’s interest on the street.

He got into a dispute with Mike Sarno, who was from the same crew but was moving up quickly over the Joker Poker trade.  Things soon were out of hand and word was sent  from Marcello to Little Tony to let it go.  He could not and he kept the fight going.

MIke Sarno decided that life would run smooth without Little Tony around.  Marcello did not put up a fight and the sitdown was arraigned.  

The disappearance of Little Tony is one of the Outfit’s last big hits, and now the FBI is looking for answers.  Someone out there knows and will someday be willing to trade on that information.

I wonder how soon it will be?  Little Tony’s wife passed away 5 years after he went missing and the rest of the parties are doing long stretches in prison.  

The Priest, The Violin and the Mobster

Frank Calabrese Sr was such a good manipulator that he was able to convince a Roman Catholic priest to help him continue his criminal activity.  If you know Frank’s background then this will come as no surprise.

Frank spent his whole life manipulating others for his own gain.  Frank brought his brother Nicholas into his juice loan business. Nicholas had served in the Navy for two years during the Vietnam conflict, and he worked as an Ironworker after he returned home.  Nicholas had then worked as a court security officer for 11 years in Maywood, Illinois. Nicholas was not afraid to hold a real job and work hard.  In the mid 1970s he also joined his brother Frank in his loan business and worked a double life.  He had no idea it was a lifetime commitment.  Frank was not above using money and threats to keep his brother in the business.   Nicholas would end up taking part in over 14 murders for the Chicago Outfit during his time working with his brother.

Frank was not content to just use his brother in the family business.  Frank would break an unwritten rule in the Chicago Outfit and bring his sons into the family business.  Frank would control every aspect of his son Frank Jr’s life as he grew up. He would alternate between using physical threats and generosity to keep Frank Jr under his control.  He would parcel out cash to Frank Jr so he could control what he did.   He would push him so far that one day Frank Jr would have to turn on his father to stop the evil cycle.

Frank Sr would be found guilty in the Family Secrets trial in Chicago that took down the administration of the Outfit. He was given a life sentence for his part in 13 murders.  Frank Sr would mouth “You are a fucking dead man” to AUSA  T.Markus Funk after he was sentenced.  This earned Frank Sr Special Administrative Measures or SAMs which meant he would have no contact with anyone but his lawyer and certain family members under strict supervision of Federal authorities.  Each year Frank Sr was given a copy of the SAMs that would be implemented and he was informed of their continuation for the year.   In March 2009 Frank was transported to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri where he would serve his life sentence.  Eugene Klein was a Roman Catholic Priest who had served the Bureau of Prisons for over 20 years.  He would provide religious services to the worst that the Federal System had to offer and Frank Calabrese Sr was one of them.   Before he started speaking to Frank Sr he was given the SAMs package on Frank Sr.  He also read about his crimes in the Electronic Posted Picture System, a database that the Bureau of Prison uses. Klein was fully aware of the crimes that Frank Sr had committed.  Klein started giving Frank Sr Communion and other religious instructions soon after he took in all the information.   Frank Sr was locked in a cell with a small slot in which Klein was able to pass material to Frank Sr.  While talking with Frank Sr Klein learned of a hidden violin that Frank Sr claimed was an 18th-century Stradivarius that was likely worth millions of dollars.  

The real story of the violin was this: it was used as collateral for a juice loan by a guy named Corky.  Before Frank Sr took it he found out it was worth around 100k.  It was actually a violin made in 1764 by Giuseppe Artalli.  Frank Sr would claim that it was once owned by Liberace.  He was able to suck Klein into his plot by putting him in touch with associates who were still on the street.

During some of the visits Frank Sr passed notes containing instructions to Klein in the religious material.  Klein then gave it to the associates on the outside and they came up with a plan.

The Violin was hidden in a summer house near Williams Bay, Wisconsin that was being sold by the Government to satisfy the judgement they had against him.  They had already found 800k in cash and another 300k in diamonds hidden in another house.  Klein and his confederates would pose as buyers shopping for a house and one of them would distract the real estate agent while the others would recover the Violin.  The main problem is that Frank Sr may have been losing his mind, because the Violin and everything else had been moved long before.  The other problem was the house had already been sold.  The FBI soon found out about the plot but they never recovered the violin.  The Bureau of Prisons changed the rules when it came to Frank Sr after this last incident.  Nobody was allowed to deal with Frank Sr alone, they had to work in pairs because he was so manipulative.  They did arrest Klein and charged both him and Frank Sr.  Frank Sr would die on December 25, 2012 escaping those charges.  Klein would fight the case until the second of week of February 2015 when he would change his plea to guilty.

One of my mentors, a dirty cop, used to say all you have to do is plant the greed seed and you can get anyone to do anything.  Another guy, Jerry Zimmerman, used to tell me that I had to find out what somebody needed or wanted, what was missing in their life, and then fill it - that is how you turn someone.  Why did Klein disgrace himself? Only Klein can tell us that.  Where is the violin now?  Someone out there is taking violin lessons I am sure.

Inside The Outfit: Frank Calabrese Jr part 1

The mafia in Chicago was once known as the Capone Organization by Law Enforcement because they had no idea how the mafia worked. Known as the Outfit by those on the street it was a highly successful Criminal Empire. The man who led the Outfit into the new age was Anthony Arcardo also known as Joe Batters. He ruled with an iron fist, yet he never spent one night in jail.  He may also have been responsible for the decline of the Outfit. So what was it like in an Outfit Crew? Read on...

Family Life in the Chicago Outfit.

Recently Frank Calabrese Jr and I were talking about the life and he said one thing that rang true for me also.  He said at one point in his life he bought into the life fully, he was a true believer. That is how I felt and also so many of my friends who have since left the life.

Frank Jr.’s story starts when he was in 3rd grade and his family moved to Elmwood Park into what was known as the Compound. It was a three story home and the family lived on the top two stories.  The basement was a family room that they referred to as the Garden Department because it was just below ground level.  A couple of years later they would add a huge addition to the house with more rooms and a professional gym and sauna.

Frank's father was Frank Calabrese Sr AKA “Frankie The Breeze” a Capo in the Chicago Outfit.  He had worked his way up from associate to made guy under Angelo J. "The Hook" LaPietra the boss of the Outfit’s Chinatown crew.  Frankie would later lead this crew and he knew how to make cash.

Frank Jr and his brothers were raised to be tight lipped about his family.  One day he came home from school and he asked his father what he should say that he did for a living.  Frank Sr told him to say he was an Operating Engineer.  What his father really did was make Juice Loans.  These were loans that required no credit checks and no collateral except yourself.  He was a Shylocks’ Shylock and he would make everything from a knockdown loan (Principle and Interest) to an interest only loan at 2.5 percent a week.  I personally think people are better off with a juice loan than a payday loan or a title loan because these local lenders would work with you if you fell behind.

Frank Sr also ran a huge sportsbook and during the Arcardo years Chicago Bookmakers were organized into one huge book.  This was highly effective because they had a lock on the lines and the players.  Frank Sr schooled Frank Jr on how to basically rate a player’s credit.  They would look at the player, what they did for work and then decide how much they could play a week.  The main reason was so nobody got in over their head because it could turn out real bad if a wife got scared and ran to the FBI.  If a player did not pay there were no threats, they would just cut him off and there was no place he could bet.  He had his name out there and no Outfit book would deal with him. Frank Sr would eventually drop the bookmaking and just collect a fee of 1000 dollars a week from every bookmaker.  This was a lot less work and he didn't have to deal with politics or numbers of the liars and cheats that ran the books.  It was a flat fee and it got rid of the drama and bullshit.

The Outfit was not the type of Family that encouraged the sons of made guys to join.  Most of the guys in the Outfit made sure their sons went on to bigger and better things.  This was not what Frank Sr had in mind for Frank Jr. Frank Sr started to see some of himself in Frank Jr so he started off having him do little things and showing him what the life was about.  He learned how to make the loans and how the interest rate worked.  He would do the books for the juice loans and Sports Books.

Then Frank Sr got his hooks into a porn guy who owned 8 adult bookstores with booths to watch a loop.  These were huge money makers, bringing in all quarters.  The skim on these booths are huge. Frank Jr would go and collect the quarters from the machines.  This would average about 4,000 a week and he would set aside 1800.00 for the Outfit. Frank Sr did not want to put a dime back into the business and he was so hard on the guy who owned them that the guy fled in terror.  He probably could have had a bunch of stores if he just was a little nice, but nice was not in Frank Sr’s makeup.  Frank Jr would order more loops for the booths and his father would get pissed that he wasted any money “investing”. He would also get pissed when the stores were down and not hitting the numbers he expected.

This is when Frank Jr stepped up and threw himself into the life full force.

Frank Sr’s crew was one of the two crews that did all the hits for the Chicago family.  They had even killed the Spilatro brothers in a scene made famous in the movie Casino.  Another series of killings they took part in, was killing some of the burglers that hit Anthony Arcardo’s house.  These burglars were tortured and their faces were blowtorched.  They had been warned to give everything back and refused to listen, and that was their punishment.  This was the crew that Frank Jr was about to join.  Now that you know a bit of the background, next week stay tuned for more on Frank Jr’s experience growing up gangster.

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