“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part collection initially printed within the Milwaukee Sentinel starting October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing choose excerpts from the collection.
Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was launched from jail in 1989, after the publication of this collection. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his regulation license regardless of the advice of a court-appointed referee who mentioned his conduct had been exemplary since his launch.
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9 years in the past, microphones have been put again within the lifetime of Frank P. Balistrieri, Milwaukee’s crime boss who talked himself into jail whereas the FBI listened.
The FBI dedicated authorized burglaries to interrupt into Balistrieri’s life, however brokers have been sidetracked briefly by a cussed door at one location and a rat – an actual one – at one other spot.
Balistrieri usually dominated organized crime from a desk in Comfortable’s Restaurant, and on account of the federal government break-ins, the FBI was on the desk with him with out his data.
The set up of listening units in three key Balistrieri locations started the most important investigation within the historical past of the Milwaukee FBI workplace.
Satirically, the primary dialog heard on a secret taping machine that was being put in at one restaurant was the scream of a feminine agent who was frightened by a rat.
In flip, the scream scared the rat into smashing some glasses on prime of a bar and interrupted the heartbeats of the brokers listening to the ruckus.
A minimum of 40 brokers have been working within the early, chilly, darkish hours of a day in October 1979 in order that two of the brokers may break into Comfortable’s restaurant, positioned within the Shorecrest Lodge, 1962 N. Prospect Ave.
The work that started that evening led to the interception of seven,000 conversations, and a few of these phrases put Balistrieri in jail for 13 years.
The work on N. Prospect Ave. in these pre-dawn hours targeted on two FBI brokers – a person and a girl – who acted as in the event that they have been lovers and hugged in entrance of Comfortable’s to cowl the break-in.
Because the male FBI agent labored to open the door, the lady, who wore a receiver in her ear, stored in contact with brokers within the neighborhood, lots of whom have been parked in vans at key intersections.
The lookouts warned her about visitors and folks on the road and instructed them once they needed to cease engaged on the door and begin embracing.
Whereas ready to get the bugging units in place and begin recording Balistrieri’s conversations, “It was like ready for Christmas to come back once you have been slightly child,” FBI agent Michael DeMarco mentioned.
“We have been so equipped. We checked out this because the closest we have now ever come to success on the La Cosa Nostra in Milwaukee in 25 years.”
Their recordings of Balistrieri’s days and nights succeeded past their desires, DeMarco mentioned. However first they needed to get by means of a cussed door at Comfortable’s with out a key.
In preparation for putting the recording units, the FBI had accomplished a monthlong survey of the areas across the Shorecrest, which is owned by the Balistrieri household, and round Leonardo’s, which was previously at 1601 N. Jackson St. and was considered one of Balistrieri’s locations.
FBI brokers knew each automobile, human and canine on the road between midnight and eight a.m.
“We knew precisely when the milkman got here, when the bakery was delivered, when folks received up and walked their canine,” mentioned Fred Thorne, one other FBI agent who labored on the case. “We even knew what number of vehicles got here down the road at any given hour. We knew when the police would do common patrol.”
Throughout the nights they broke into Balistrieri’s eating places, FBI brokers have been nervous about police, who had not been knowledgeable that federal brokers have been breaking and coming into.
Some brokers listened to police radio frequencies for any stories of burglaries in progress so they might cease squads earlier than they blew aside the investigation.
One evening, Thorne was in a van with brokers who noticed a person stealing tires from a automobile. The brokers turned on their lights briefly, which frightened the thief. An agent referred to as police anonymously and gave them the thief’s license quantity.
Moreover understanding the routine of neighborhoods, brokers additionally knew Frank Balistrieri’s every day routine.
“We assumed he received up late within the day as a result of he went house so late at evening,” DeMarco mentioned. “He would exit on the road in midafternoon. Normally, he’d go to Comfortable’s, LaScalla and Leonardo’s – locations he had an curiosity In.
“At Comfortable’s he’d make 4 or 5 cellphone calls, then he’d slide over to Leonardo’s round 6 pm. and make numerous cellphone calls, perhaps have some drinks. Loads of instances he drank nonalcoholic drinks.
“About 3 times every week, round 7 or 8 p.m., he’d name his spouse at house and say, ‘Put it on. I will be house in 5 minutes,’ that means have dinner prepared. It might often be a half-hour to 1 hour after the cellphone name earlier than he’d depart no matter location he was at.
“5 minutes, it did not imply a rattling to him. Then he’d return to Comfortable’s and Leonardo’s. He stayed in locations he felt have been his area. He would go house wherever between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.”
Throughout a taped dialog, Joseph P. Balistrieri, a son, mentioned: “See, my outdated man, we’re on totally different, you understand, we’re in several … zones … , I stand up 7 o’clock within the morning. I’m going to work. I come again 6, 7 o’clock at evening. I am beat, you understand.
“He comes, he will get up within the afternoon. He is all talced and shaved and prepared for an argument at 7 o’clock. My tongue is hanging out. You recognize then my father’s received a pleasant, you understand, he is received a pleasant means of opening. Ah, you understand he does not wish to say, ‘Sit down, I wanna discuss to you.’ He says, ‘You (obscenity) guys, you suppose you understand every thing.'”
One factor Frank Balistrieri did not know was that his tirades have been being taped. Finally, the lock on Comfortable’s gave up, however it did not occur that first evening.
“He (the male agent) labored on the lock from about 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. and gave up,” DeMarco mentioned. “He could not get in.”
Brokers broke into Comfortable’s three days later, and so they additionally received into Leonardo’s.
At Leonardo’s, brokers “have been on the brink of depart when the feminine agent noticed a giant rat on the bar,” DeMarco mentioned. “The rat was chewing on cherries you set in cocktails. The lady shrieked, the rat jumped and knocked 4 glasses off the bar.”
“Our nerves shattered just like the glasses.”
However brokers mentioned the tense work was value it as a result of the recordings despatched Balistrieri to jail on prices of illegally skimming cash from Las Vegas casinos, extortion and playing.
His sons, John and Joseph, have been acquitted of the skimming prices, however have been despatched to jail for extortion.
The brokers taped Balistrieri bragging, “I am surrounded with a battery of brains, with legal professionals, accountants and … I infiltrate the … authentic enterprise.”
Along with Comfortable’s and Leonardo’s, brokers additionally bugged an workplace within the Shorecrest.
“The monitoring of the calls befell on the seventh flooring of the federal constructing within the FBI workplaces,” DeMarco mentioned. ‘They’d two rooms. One the place the calls have been monitored and one other workroom…
“There have been lengthy tables throughout the room. Seven locations to hearken to the reel-to-reel tapes and 14 machines operating. Whereas the calls have been being monitored there was simultaneous surveillance occurring on the outdoors places.”
Legally, brokers weren’t allowed to hearken to any conversations Irrelevant to the proof they have been searching for, as licensed by a decide.
The brokers needed to set up the relevance of a dialog rapidly and determine whether or not or to not hearken to it, understanding that in the event that they made the flawed determination, the tape wouldn’t be useable in court docket.
Finally, on account of investigations in a number of cities, at the least six prime mob bosses have been convicted, and prosecutors right here and in Kansas Metropolis unscrambled items of the nationwide puzzle of crime.
By November 1979, DeMarco mentioned, conferences have been being held in several cities to debate the outcomes of wiretap investigations right here and in different components of the nation.
“Whereas we’re doing this, we’re persevering with to get bombarded with quite a few items of data on a regular basis,” DeMarco mentioned. “Now we have wiretaps going, the opposite workplaces are sending us data, our informants are telling us issues and all of this needed to be collated, and we needed to get all this new data to the extent of the monitoring brokers so that they knew what they have been listening to. We lastly realized we had the prospect earlier than us to as soon as and for all knock out a portion of the skimming in Las Vegas.”
Officers mentioned the Milwaukee wiretap investigation started in 1979, after DeMarco and Geir Magnesen, one other FBI agent, decided that the workplace had sufficient intelligence on Balistrieri’s group to ask a decide for wiretap permission. It took 5 months earlier than the paperwork was prepared and permission was granted.
When Balistrieri’s locations have been raided in March 1980, brokers interrupted a playing operation on E. Brady St. that resulted in them accepting basketball bets whereas they searched the house.
In order that brokers may shock Salvatore Librizzi, a Balistrieri affiliate, a feminine agent stopped her automobile in the midst of the road, and raised the hood. When Librizzi answered her knock on the door, she mentioned she was having automobile hassle and, after all, Librizzi instantly had cop hassle.
Brokers stormed in and gathered playing proof, whereas DeMarco answered the cellphone and took bets on basketball video games.
“It was very humorous,” DeMarco mentioned. “They gave me the bets. I learn them again to them. I requested them if that was proper.”
When callers requested who he was, “I used my first title, Mike, and I used a made-up Italian final title.”
Brokers who monitored these conversations with listening units wrote down Mike’s assumed title phonetically. They wrote Mike Foolaroundo. Throughout the investigation, brokers additionally discovered {that a} mob courier could be bringing Las Vegas skim cash to Chicago by means of Milwaukee, DeMarco mentioned.
“They (FBI brokers) surveilled him from Chicago to Las Vegas and again to Milwaukee the place he rented a automobile and drove to Chicago,” DeMarco mentioned. “It was a Saturday morning and right here was this nondescript white-haired man, 55 to 60 years outdated, coming down the escalator with this large outsized coat all the way down to his knees … “We knew the cash was stuffed inside the liner of the coat.”
Brokers did not cease him as a result of stopping him might need stopped their investigation of Balistrieri. However DeMarco remembered him, as a result of the person had a lot cash stuffed in his coat that he appeared like somebody.
He appeared like BoBo the clown.
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Learn the following chosen excerpt: The Balistrieri Tapes, Half 9: “Secret agent was goal for Balistrieri’s hit males”
