In Friday's slightly off-beat Intelligence Report, ABC 7 Chuck Goudie comes up with three perfect presents for the mob-watchers on your gift list.
Frank Calabrese Sr. won't be on the streets ever again after being convicted of more than a dozen Outfit killings during the Family Secrets prosecution a few years ago.
That case was made possible when Calabrese's son Frank Jr. and brother Nick decided to cooperate with the FBI, with Junior helping to make some jailhouse recordings.
Now, Frank Jr., an ex-con himself, has co-authored a 288-page book named for the case. It promises to explain how a mobster's son and the FBI brought down Chicago's murderous crime family. The $25 book is on pre-order for March delivery.
An FBI spokesman told the I-Team Friday, "several of the agents who worked on the case, both current and retired, met with the writers and provided them with some background info. They were later asked to read sections of the book which contained info they provided, checking for accuracy."
But the spokesman said most of the book came from the court file or Calabrese Junior and the FBI, and the agents were not paid.
A perfect gift for the very naughty would be the actual house used in the original Godfather film. In New York's Staten Island, the eight-bedroom home with a swimming pool is now on the market for $2.9 million.
Finally, there was a hunting and fishing camp on the auction block Friday. The Kleinschmidt Brothers' Duck Hunting Lodge is advertised as a once-popular hangout for hoodlums with the "Chicago mob converging on the camp as a place to get away and hunt." Al Capone, Bugs Moran and other Chicago gangsters frequently retreated to central Arkansas in the 1920s and 30s. If only if the 360-acres could talk, the auction site claimed.
The property had no comment and neither did the auctioneer, declining to say who bought the old Outfit hunting ground or the amount that was paid.
