AP News, August 15th, 2007
Reputed mob boss Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo told a jury Tuesday that he once shined police officers' shoes and ran a dice game, but he denied committing a murder that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
"On Sept. 27, 1974, did you kill Daniel Seifert?" defense attorney Rick Halprin asked the haggard-looking, 78-year-old Lombardo, whom a federal marshal had taken to the witness stand in a wheelchair.
"Positively, no," Lombardo said in a husky voice.
He answered the same way when asked whether he was "ever a capo or a member of the Chicago Outfit," as the city's mob family calls itself.
Witnesses have described Lombardo as the boss, or capo, of the Chicago Outfit's Grand Avenue street crew _ an allegation he denies. He is one of five suspected mob members charged with a racketeering conspiracy that includes gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 killings that went unsolved for decades until the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation.
Also on trial are James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese Sr., 69, Paul Schiro, 70, and Anthony Doyle, 62.
The indictment alleges Lombardo is responsible for the murder of Seifert, a Bensenville businessman who was about to testify against him in a mob-related case. Seifert was shot and killed by a ski-masked gunman outside his office.
Lombardo's testimony included a sprinkling of the wisecracks that gave him his nickname. He recalled that as a boy in Chicago he often visited a police station and shined shoes for 50 cents.
"They were very cheap people," Lombardo said offhandedly.
"Let's not press our luck," Halprin said. The exchange drew a laugh from spectators and an immediate warning from U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel that there was nothing funny about the case.
Lombardo testified that after being a shoeshine boy he turned to running a floating craps game sanctioned by a Chicago alderman.
"You can't get anything done without your alderman," Lombardo said. "You want to get a zoning change, you go see your alderman. You want a dice game, you go see your alderman."
Lombardo said he grew up to hold legitimate jobs but also ran errands for bail bondsman and businessman Irwin Weiner, who befriended him and helped finance lucrative real estate deals. He said he came to know Seifert because Weiner and Seifert co-owned International Fiberglass Co. and helped him get a job there.
Lombardo acknowledged that he made purchases at a radio equipment store that prosecutors say was the source of a police scanner found in a getaway car following Seifert's death. But he said it was Weiner _ who died years ago _ who wanted the equipment.
"Yes, I made pickups there for him," Lombardo said. "He told me to pick up stuff for him, and I picked it up."
Lombardo went to federal prison in 1982 for conspiring to bribe then-U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., and a second mob-related case involving Las Vegas casino skimming.
