In April 1985, both Fecarotta and John Serpico, international vice president of the Laborers International Union of North America and President of Local 8, were called to testify before a Grand Jury probing organized crime infiltration of the unions. - Testimony of John Serpico before Presidential Organized Crime Commission in 1985

In 2001, Serpico, then former head of the Chicago-based Central States Joint Board, was convicted of running a kickback scheme that turned union funds into lucrative personal loans. Asst. U.S. Atty. David Glockner said Serpico and Busillo engaged in a 12-year scheme trading their control over union pension, benefit, and other funds to obtain some $5 million in loans for personal business ventures. From 1978-90, the two obtained seventeen loans from eight banks that received substantial union deposits, in some cases just days after the banks made the loans.

John Serpico made hundreds of thousands of dollars in union campaign contributions to former governors James R. Thompson and Jim Edgar as well as George Ryan, the Governor at the time of Serpico's conviction, and Mayor Daley. He was a Laborers' International official until he was ousted because of alleged mob ties.

Matthias Lydon, Serpico's lead attorney, worked for the law firm of Winston & Strawn, of which former Governor James Thompson was Chairman, until he stepped down in 2006.

Testimony of John Serpico regarding John Fecarotta

 

MR. RYAN: Let's talk about your particular union, sir. Do you know John Fecarotta?

 

MR. SERPICO: Yes, I do.

 

MR. RYAN: Tell me how you know Mr. Fecarotta.

 

MR. SERPICO: '74 or '75, I don't know exactly my-organizing director, who at the time was Henry Harrison, came and recommended him for an organizing position.

 

MR. RYAN: And did you look at his qualifications?

 

MR. SERPICO: None of the people I hire have any qualifications. They come from shops, they come; from -- and we teach them.

 

MR. RYAN: Did Mr. Fecarotta to submit a resume?

 

MR. SERPICO: No, he didn't.

 

MR. RYAN: Did you know or did you find out subsequent to Mr. Fecarotta being hired what he had done prior to the time he came to the union?

 

MR. SERPICO: No, I didn't. .Hr. Harrison just told me that he thought he would have been a good man to hire.

 

MR. RYAN: what were Mr. Fecarotta's union duties?

 

MR. SERPICO: It was to go out and find jobs that were not organized and turn them into Mr. Harrison who then would assign an organizing team to conclude, an organization campaign.

 

MR. RYAN: 1974 was when he was hired?

 

MR. SERPICO: -I believe so.

 

MR. RYAN: He may well have been a business agent or an organizer of --

 

MR. SERPICO: I don't know exactly. It was around that time.

 

MR. RYAN: At the time that these photographs were taken?

 

MR. SERPICO: I truly couldn't tell you. 

 

MR. RYAN: What companies were organized as a result of Mr. Fecarotta's efforts on behalf of the Central States Joint Board?

 

MR. SERPICO: I didn't have those records and I -- he never reported to me. He reported to the organizing director. And Mr. Harrison would be the one that would be able to tell you that.

 

MR. RYAN: But you can't remember sitting there today, any single tip or company that Mr. Fecarotta was involved in organizing?

 

MR. SERPICO: NO.

 

MR. RYAN: Did Mr. Fecarotta receive a union car and compensation for his work?

 

MR. SERPICO: Mr. Harrison came to me and told me what a good job he was doing; that he brought in two tips that resulted in members and that he thought that we should give him a car. And we had an extra car which was about two years old that we gave Mr. Fecarotta.

 

MR. RYAN: What were the two shops that were organized as a result of the tips from Mr. Fecarotta?

 

MR. SERPICO: I just told you I don't know.

 

MR. RYAN: Do you recall any other specific contribution of John Fecarotta in the six or seven-odd years that he was a union business agent and organizer? Other than those two tips, can you recall anything that he did for you?

 

MR. SERPICO: You would have to ask the people that he was -- that were in charge of it.

 

MR. RYAN: You ran the union, did you not, sir?

 

MR. SERPICO: I do. I run it with department heads. I do not -- the union is too big for me to be involved in every phase of the organization. And I have department heads that run each department.

 

MR. RYAN: Sir, do the surveillance photographs, particularly Photographs 2, 3 and 4, cause you any concern that there might have been an infiltration of organized crime that you were not aware of at the time?

 

MR. SERPICO: Sir, what photographs are you talking about? 

 

MR. RYAN: Mould you look at the photographs, Mr. Cantazaro entering the Kleen--Aire Sanitation Company, Mr. Aiuppa and Mr. Fecarotta, and the picture of Mr.Torello and Mr. Fecarotta, and the testimony of the Chicago Police Department officer a minute ago. Does this create any new concern for whether organized crime was trying to influence or dominate your union at this time?

 

MR. SERPICO: No.

 

MR. RYAN: It certainly indicates that Mr. Fecarotta and Mr. Cantazaro were friends or, at a minimum, acquaintances?

 

MR. SERPICO: I don't know.

 

MR. RYAN: You heard the testimony they went to the Kleen-Aire Sanitation Company and were inside for awhile together?

 

MR. SERPICO: Yes.

 

MR. RYAN: So they knew one another at that time?

 

MR. SERPICO: I don't know.

Anthony Spilotro asks Fecarotta and other Mobsters for a "Final Moment with God"

According to testimony from Nick Calabrese, in the months before the Anthony Spilotro and his brother, Michael, were slain, a team of mob killers traveled to Las Vegas in hopes of killing the brothers there. The hit men tracked the brothers' movements, following Anthony Spilotro to his lawyer's office, located near the federal building in Las Vegas, and to the cul-de-sac on which his home was located.

At first, the plan was to use explosives or a silencer-equipped Uzi submachine gun, but those attempts never panned out. Instead, Calabrese said, the Spilotro brothers were lured back to Chicago under the ruse that they would be promoted—Michael into the mob's inner circle as a "made" member and Anthony as a "capo" or captain.

Calabrese said he was told by mob hit man John Fecarotta that Anthony Spilotro had been targeted for having an affair with the wife of a Chicago bookmaker. Spilotro was also rumored to be involved in moving drugs with a motorcycle gang, he said

On June 14, 1986, Jim Marcello drove the Spilotro brothers to a Bensenville subdivision, turning left before reaching Irving Park Road. They stopped at a home with the garage door up. They entered and were greeted by a group of top mob leaders—John "Bananas" DiFronzo, Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Joe Ferriola.

Earlier, when Nick Calabrese and John Fecarotta arrived, Carlisi commented about Calabrese's tan from his Phoenix foray and made a passing remark about how much money Fecarotta had burned through while in Las Vegas.

Fecarotta dashed into a bathroom, perhaps fearful the bosses had it in for him, Calabrese said.

"He come out, he was pale," Calabrese said. "I figured he thinks this is for him."

But it turned out Fecarotta wasn't yet a marked man. He would be killed three months later for botching the Spilotros' burial (He didn't dig the graves deep enough, and the bodies were found within days of the murders).

Joining the others in the basement were mob figures Louis "The Mooch" Eboli and Louis Marino as well as three individuals Calabrese did not recognize.

All of them were wearing gloves, he said. It was only 30 minutes before the Spilotros arrived upstairs.

"I said, 'How you doing Mike?' because I knew him," Calabrese said.

Then Michael Spilotro took a few steps toward Marino and the others.

"I dove and grabbed his legs," he said. "I noticed right away that Louis the Mooch had a rope around his neck."

It was then, Calabrese said, that he heard Anthony Spilotro behind him, asking for a final moment with God.

Calabrese didn't know if Anthony was able to get out a prayer before he was beaten to death.

DEA Raids Amphetamine Ring

September 11, 1974

In 1974 the DEA raided a Mexican based manufacuting warehouse and dozens of suspects involved in smuggling 3 billion "pep pills", with a street value of $1.6 Billion, into the united states in one year.

Indictments returned by federal grand juries in 10 U.S. cities were opened at 12:01 a.m. EDT, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said. They named 125 suspects — most described as middleclass and in their 20s. By 4 a.m. EDT, 97 persons had been arrested in the United States and 25 in Mexico.

Among those arrested was John Fecarotta.

Fecarotta, the drug smuggler, was 24 years old in 1974. Since Fecarotta, the mobster, was 56 when he was murdered by Nicholas Calabrese in 1986, the two Fecarottas cannot be the same man. But, were they related?

John Fecarotta, the drug smuggler, lived in Riverside, IL.

 

John Fecarotta, the mobster, lived at 268 Gage Road in Riverside, IL.

A DEA spokesman said the operation was the largest ever undertaken by federal drug agents, and a crushing blow to illegal amphetamine traffic. He said the DEA would go to trial with "evidence exceeding 10 million tablets," all of it seized before the Tuesday midnight push by U.S. and Mexican authorities.

Eight Mexicans were arrested September 9 in Tijuana, Mexico City and Guadalajara, a DEA official in San Diego said, describing them as suspected financiers, chemicals importers, machine operators and smugglers.

Among the key indictments noted by federal narcotics sources were those for two Latin Americans and a U.S. citizen in San Diego.

They are accused of importing "mini-bennies" from Mexico — small white tablets with a cross on them — and routing them to Milwaukee for distribution to Chicago and Denver, an official said. Washington officials said the 10 cities were the sites of indictments and arraignments — "the conspiracies are centered in those cities."