Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness (6 page)

Frank entered the store and asked to see the manager. He told the manager his car was parked illegally and he had to move it right away or get a ticket. When the manager and the clerks came out from behind the counter to check the parking situation, Frank pulled his gun and ordered them to the floor. He told them that no one would get hurt if they stayed still. The manager realized that something was fishy and was slow to comply. He looked at Frank and said, “You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re not a real police officer.”

Frank snarled, “It doesn’t make any difference who the fuck I am. You’d better get on the goddamn floor, stay quiet, and don’t look up.”

When all the employees were under control, Frank used a walkie-talkie to contact the work car. His assistant came in and they loaded a duffle bag. In jewelry-store robberies, the safe was always emptied first to assure making off with the most valuable stuff—the diamonds. Then, time permitting, lesser items were taken. Watches were a low priority, because they could be easily traced by their serial numbers.

After cleaning the place out, the crew took the employees into a back room and tied them up with duct tape. Then they pulled the phones out of the wall and left with a good score.

Frank knew that a criminal who committed the same type of crime in the same manner for too long was asking to get caught. He switched his modus operandi on similar jobs every so often and didn’t stay with any one particular type of larceny for a prolonged period. He was always on the lookout for different targets and techniques. Eschewing jewelry stores for a while, he set his sights on public pay phones, which took in a lot of money. The trick was to come up with a tool to open the coin boxes quickly.

Frank contacted a man with locksmithing experience and told him what he had in mind. The guy said if Frank brought him a pay phone, he’d see what he could do. Frank went out, ripped a phone off a wall, and delivered it to his colleague.

It took about ten pay phones before the problem was solved. The easiest way to get the boxes open was by punching out the locks. Frank and the lock man made a tool to put up against the cylinder. Using a five-pound sledge, they were able to knock in the lock, which released the latch holding the coin box in place.

Then Frank specially modified a work car for looting the pay phones. He installed a false gas tank and cut a hole above it in the rear floorboard. This enabled him to dump the coins through the hole in the floorboard and into the fake gas tank. The hole was then covered with a metal plate and carpeting.

To keep the phone company from learning how the coin boxes were being ripped off, thereby prompting them to improve their security, the thieves disposed of the empty boxes where they wouldn’t be recovered.

After a few months Frank’s locksmith friend developed a pick that made getting into the coin boxes even easier. But the phone company got its hands on one of the picks and changed the mechanism, so it was back to the drawing board for Frank and his crew.

By then, however, Frank decided it was time to move on to greener pastures.

From pay phones, Frank progressed to “boosting.” This twoperson operation involved theft by trickery rather than force. The first person walked into a jewelry or department store and distracted the salesperson. Meanwhile, the accomplice removed the real merchandise from the display case and replaced it with phony stuff. By not leaving the cases empty, the clerks never even realized they’d been had.

Frank boosted with a girl named Debbie, who he thought was probably the best in the world at her chosen trade. She wasn’t only attractive, she was fast. They weren’t romantically involved; their connection was all business. The pair boosted all over Chicago. Once, they even went to Florida, though it required bringing all the stolen goods back to Chicago to sell. But they had fun, and the jobs were safe, clean, and easy.

Debbie was also sharp when it came to making and managing money. She owned her own home, had a new car, and sold boosted merchandise right out of her house. She knew a lot of people and they couldn’t wait for her to get back from her trips so they could buy stolen goods at wholesale prices. She didn’t believe in giving the stuff to a fence when she could make a lot more money selling it herself.

Debbie was about eight years older than Frank and real particular about whom she worked with. He considered himself fortunate that she teamed with him. Although they were making money and the jobs weren’t particularly risky, boosting didn’t fit into Frank’s long-term plans. His goal was to become a big-shot thief, doing daring robberies and burglaries that were recognized by his peers as the work of a consummate professional. So he split with Debbie and got back into committing more serious crimes.

Though Frank and Debbie never became a couple, by this time he’d turned into something of a “thief about town.” He loved to drink and party with women, who considered him a sport in return. He also developed a fondness for nice automobiles. Of course, both required a lot of money.

Frank thought nothing of using his ill-gotten gains to support a lavish lifestyle. It seemed to him that was what life was all about. For example, he bought a new car two or three times a year; sometimes he had four. He can’t explain his affinity for cars, but he learned that having nice wheels made the guys jealous and attracted the girls.

Frank also tended to be generous with his money. He took care of his family financially. His mother wouldn’t take cash from him outright. She knew how Frank made his living and didn’t want that kind of money. To get around her attitude, Frank invested for her. He had her house refurbished, making it into a beautiful home.

In addition, he felt that if somebody was down, he should help them get back up again. He discovered he had to be careful when offering money to a proud man who was down on his luck or it could cause resentment. He made an effort to make people comfortable when accepting money from him.

The ladies actually enjoyed his company; it wasn’t just because he spent a lot of money that they wanted to be around him. They found him to be understanding, easy to talk to, and not just after what he could get from them.

He also had another motive for bumming around with women: Frank knew that hanging out with the guys usually meant getting in a fight in one of the saloons, having his face messed up and his clothes ruined.

Some Outfit guys resented his popularity with the ladies, though. One night he got into a fight with a guy named Joey over a girl. Her name was Judy and she later married future Outfit boss Joe Ferriola.

Joey and another guy owned a disco lounge in the suburbs. Frank pulled in there one night and drew a few funny looks from the bartender and regulars when he walked into the lounge. He was sitting at the bar when Joey asked him to step outside to talk. When they got outdoors, Joey wanted to know why Frank had said this, that, and the other thing about him to Judy. Frank didn’t know what Joey was talking about. And then Joey threw a punch. Frank threw him to the ground, with Joey’s head bouncing off a car bumper as he went down. Frank got on top of him, but two of Joey’s Outfit pals grabbed Frank; the three of them worked him over pretty good. When they let Frank go, he went to his car and drove home, but he was so angry, he was homicidal.

After washing up, Frank took a gun and drove back to the lounge to kill Joey, but his target had already left. The matter was over for that night, but Frank was far from ready to forget about it. He talked to Judy and learned that it had actually been a friend of his who’d made the comments Joey found offensive, but Joey wrongfully assumed they’d come from Frank. That explanation did little to calm Frank’s anger, though.

About three days later and still enraged, Frank was driving down the street when a car with Joe “Gags” Gagliano in it pulled him over. Gags was one of the Outfit bosses and had heard about what happened at the disco. Fearing there might be more trouble, he wanted to talk to Frank.

Gags said, “Frankie, Joey was way out of line the other night. He knows he was wrong, so why don’t you just forget about it. Okay?”

“Fuck him! I want a piece of that bastard, just him and me. If his buddies want in, I’ll take ’em all on one at a time.”

“It’s all straightened out. Joey will never talk to you again or even look at you. I don’t want for there to be any more problems. Let it go,” Gags said.

The next day Frank saw Tony. “You know, I’m thinking about whacking Joey, that cocksucker,” Frank said.

“I wouldn’t do that, Frankie,” Tony said. “Shit like that can start a fuckin’ war. Know what I mean?”

“Are you telling me I’ve gotta live with the idea that I took a beating from Joey and his guys and didn’t do anything about it?”

“Look, Frankie, you were asked nice to leave this thing alone. You don’t want to offend anybody by ignoring that and going after Joey anyway. That could be bad news. Things might change someday, but for now I’d let it go if I was you.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “It’s over.”

Tony Spilotro had given his friend good advice. Those who violated mob protocols were often subject to sanctions, including death. This was a fact that would hit Frank very close to home in the not-too-distant future.

Frank saw his ex-wife Ann around town from time to time, but rarely spoke to her, not even to inquire about their daughter Angela. Frank wanted to see his daughter, but Ann wasn’t interested.

That changed in 1965 when Ann came looking for Frank. She was having problems with her new husband and needed money. They met at the Colony House Restaurant on Grand and Harlem. Ann brought along Angela. Confronting a daughter who was now nearly eight years old, one he hadn’t seen since in over seven years, made for an uncomfortable encounter for Frank. Before the meeting ended, he gave Ann $2,000, hoping she’d spend some of it on Angela.

After that get-together, Ann and Angela dropped out of sight and Frank didn’t see them again until 1975. During the intervening nine years, Ann went through three husbands. She told Frank she thought it was time their daughter, now almost 17, got to know her real father. He spent one whole day with Angela. They went through a photo album she’d kept over the years, then he took her for a ride and bought her some clothes, spending about $1,600 on her. It was a fun day.

Angela told Frank she’d learned how to drive, but didn’t have a car. A few days later he bought her a Volkswagen. When he went to look her up about a week later, she and Ann were gone.

While Frank made sure to stay independent of the Outfit, his pal Tony Spilotro was determined to become part of it. Spilotro not only worked as a thief for Outfit-connected crews, he also began to develop his reputation as an enforcer when he went to work for a loanshark and mob associate named “Mad Sam” DeStefano.

DeStefano was known to friend and foe as being completely insane. While dealing with his enemies, his depravity knew no bounds. Mad Sam preferred to use an ice pick on his victims, but wasn’t above knifing, shooting, or incinerating them, depending on his mood. Although he was unstable, the bosses kept him around because he was a good earner. In addition to being an accomplished torturer and killer, Sam reputedly had another talent: He could spot young up-and-comers who shared his proclivity for brutality. DeStefano apparently liked what he saw in Tony Spilotro and recruited him to help collect money from delinquent borrowers and assist in other enforcement matters. In that capacity, Tony was allegedly involved in the 1961 murder of a man named William “Action” Jackson.

Jackson, part of Mad Sam’s loansharking operation, apparently became greedy. Sam thought Jackson was skimming money and wanted to make an example of him. It’s believed that Spilotro and tough guy Chuckie Grimaldi, who later turned government witness, were part of the team Sam assigned to the task. According to sources familiar with the case, Jackson was taken prisoner by DeStefano’s men and tortured for two days.

Jackson, who weighed more than 300 pounds, was stripped naked and hung on a meat hook. He was beaten and stabbed with ice picks. Strips of his skin were peeled off with a razor. And a blowtorch was used on his genitals. The inquisition ended when Jackson’s heart finally gave out. Presumably, the grisly discovery of his mutilated body sent a clear message to anyone else considering stealing from Mad Sam.

Frank Cullotta first met Sam DeStefano in the North Avenue Steak House. He and Tony Spilotro were sitting at the bar when Sam came over. He must have been drunk, because he was ranting and raving about future Outfit underboss Jackie Cerone—who was later convicted for skimming money from Las Vegas casinos—and picking on everyone in the place. Frank found Sam to be an obnoxious blowhard and told Tony they had to leave. He couldn’t stand being around him.

In 1963, Mad Sam got into a dispute with Leo Foreman, a realestate broker and one of his collectors. Not long after, Spilotro and Chuck Grimaldi reportedly lured Foreman to the home of Mario DeStefano, Sam’s brother, in Cicero. The two beat Foreman, then dragged him into the cellar where Mad Sam was waiting. Skipping an exchange of pleasantries, Sam got right down to business. He took a hammer to Foreman’s knees, head, groin, and ribs. Next came twenty ice-pick thrusts, followed by a bullet to the head. The realtor’s battered body was later found in the trunk of an abandoned car.

So, by the early 1960s, Tony Spilotro—only in his mid-20s and recently married to Milwaukee-born Nancy Stuart—had risen from school bully to a made man in the powerful Chicago Outfit. His reputation as a ruthless enforcer was in place and some of his best years were still ahead.

Tony tried to convince Frank that he should go to work for the Outfit. He said he was making all kinds of money muscling Jews, loansharking, sports betting, and running book joints. In fact, to help convince him, Tony recruited Frank for a big jewelry score he was lining up.