"The Clown" Didn't Surprise the FBI
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| No this is not Javier Bardem; it is "Joey the Clown" Lombardo. |
We have always been fascinated by Chicago Outfit member Giuseppe Lombardi -- aka Joseph Patrick “Joey the Clown” Lombardo Sr. (born January 1, 1929), who is serving life in prison.
Gus Russo indicated Lombardo may have been the boss or part of a panel of bosses. However, the nice, neat and likely extensively inaccurate Wikipedia entry notes that from 1999 to 2007, "Joey the Clown" Lombardo was consiglieri. Actually, we have seen that title attached to Lombardo in many other stories.
Let's say he was a "high-ranking" member and be done with it.
The Clown came to mind thanks to a recent Gangland Wire story that offers audio of Lombardo in action, doing what mobsters do: forcing other guys to do their bidding by threatening to murder them.
As to that infamous nickname, it reportedly arose from the outlandish smile he'd plaster on his face whenever police took his mugshot, as well as humorous acts he committed (presumably when he was not killing men in front of their wives and children). According to one source (a friend of the high-ranking mobster's) Lombardo supposedly told Outfit guys to cool down the violence and killings in the early 1990s. Only six murders were attributed to the Outfit from 1990 to 1994 -- "and even that number might be exaggerated."
When Lombardo got out of prison in 1992, right amid the "peaceful" years, he hit upon a way to tell the public that he wasn't the gangster everyone thought he was (and that he indeed was).
He pulled this off by running a classified ad in the Chicago Trib:
He pulled this off by running a classified ad in the Chicago Trib:
"I am Joe Lombardo, I have been released on parole from federal prison. I never took a secret oath, with guns and daggers, pricked my finger, drew blood or burned paper to join a criminal organization. If anyone hears my name used in connection with any criminal activity, please notify the FBI, local police, and my parole officer, Ron Kumke."
Actually the stuff about his not going through the typical induction ritual is likely accurate. In Chicago guys were made by being taken out to dinner by high-ranking members of the Outfit. (However these high-ranking mobsters not once -- not once pick up a bill.)
Al Capone was a Neapolitan and supposedly he didn't go for all that Sicilian crap like they did and still do in New York.
Al Capone was a Neapolitan and supposedly he didn't go for all that Sicilian crap like they did and still do in New York.
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| This is Joey the Clown... |
Lombardo certainly made the FBI look like a bunch of clowns when he successfully evaded them in 2005. They came to arrest him but he was gone -- poof! -- on the lam.
Two years earlier agents visited Lombardo in his West Side-based machine shop armed with DNA swabbers and informed the elderly mobster that his life was in danger. Joey may have told a few jokes and did his juggling act for them. Then the Feds walked away without a care in the world. Or a thought in their head. Apparently it had not occurred to the local G-men to maybe slap a surveillance team onto the high-ranking Outfit member. When they are as old and as wealthy as Lombardo, they may choose to flee versus serving the mandatory life sentence. There's even a word for this: lamming it.
Two years earlier agents visited Lombardo in his West Side-based machine shop armed with DNA swabbers and informed the elderly mobster that his life was in danger. Joey may have told a few jokes and did his juggling act for them. Then the Feds walked away without a care in the world. Or a thought in their head. Apparently it had not occurred to the local G-men to maybe slap a surveillance team onto the high-ranking Outfit member. When they are as old and as wealthy as Lombardo, they may choose to flee versus serving the mandatory life sentence. There's even a word for this: lamming it.
So when the Feds went around arresting the guys indicted as part of Operation Family Secrets, they found that Lombardo had split.
In fact, Frank "the German" Schweihs, the most notorious Outfit hitman, also said, "F-- it," and took off.
But it wasn't, like, a big deal....
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| This is Saddam Hussein.... |
The local G-men, realizing both Lombardo and Schweihs had split, then came up with the single best excuse we've ever heard for falling asleep at the wheel.
When interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times (the article's headline: 'The Clown' wasn't fooling around) three months later, they didn't hesitate to make it known that while Lombardo and Schweihs, then ages 75 and 76, respectively, were both in the wind, ya know what?
The fact that the Feds did not physically stop the two geezer gangsters from fleeing does not mean that it surprised them. Let's get that straight from the beginning:
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, FBI Supervisory Special Agent John Mallul and Michael Maseth, the lead FBI agent in the sweeping federal mob indictment known as Operation Family Secrets, said Lombardo and alleged hit man Frank "the German" Schweihs had fled well before an indictment was unsealed April 25.
Lombardo, 76, of the Near West Side, and Schweihs, 75, of Dania, Fla., prepared for life on the lam, the agents said. The FBI believes the two are hiding separately. Before they fled, each set up a plan of where to hide, and their cat-and-mouse game has likely succeeded this long because other people are helping them out financially, the agents said.
Mallul, who heads Chicago's Organized Crime Unit, bristled at reports that Lombardo and Schweihs got away because no one was watching, saying the reputed mobsters knew for more than a year an indictment was coming and made plans accordingly....
Not 'a surprise to the FBI'
"We anticipated a problem with Joey Lombardo and Frank Schweihs [and did nothing about it]. ... This did not come as a surprise to the FBI," Mallul said. It was not a surprise. ...So what do the G-men do?
They take a page from Lombardo's book.
They took out a classified ad of their own:
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JOSEPH LOMBARDO
FRANCIS JOHN SCHWEIHSIn the end, it seems Joey may have had the last laugh.
After he was told he was imprisoned for life, according to an NBC Chicago report:
"Lombardo wasn't surprised by the verdict...."