A federal prosecutor Tuesday promised jurors a rare, behind-the scenes look at a Cicero-style kickback scheme as the town’s former police chief and two reputed mob figures went on trial on theft and bribery charges.
“It’s a world where everybody gets a cut,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars.
But attorneys for Emil Schullo, formerly Cicero’s public safety director, as well as Michael A. Spano Sr. and James Inendino denied any kickbacks or wrongdoing.
Charges allege that, in return for a 10 percent kickback, Schullo steered a $75,000 contract to a private investigative firm secretly controlled by Spano, reputed head of the mob in Cicero.
The contract was to investigate whether three Cicero police officers were living outside town in violation of a residency requirement.
On Tuesday prosecutors began playing secretly recorded tapes of the late Sam Rovetuso, a private detective with a criminal background who worked undercover for the IRS and FBI in the case.
“Perhaps the best evidence is the words the defendants spoke themselves,” Mars told jurors of Rovetuso’s undercover recordings. Mars said the defendants, unaware Rovetuso was working with the government, accepted him as “a partner in crime.”
In one key taped conversation in November 1995, Rovetuso explained to Schullo how the chief’s “end”–a reference to his kickback–was covered in a bill to the town in a charge for equipment, Mars said in opening statements.
Schullo paused to examine the document and then said, “OK,” according to Mars.
Later, Schullo complained to Spano that Rovetuso was talking “a little too freely about the arrangement,” Mars said.
Inendino then sat Rovetuso down and told him not to talk “so freely with the chief even though, as Mr. Inendino puts it he’s [Schullo] a member of the club,” Mars said.
Schullo’s lawyer, Edmund Wanderling, denied that Schullo took “one plug nickel” in kickbacks and said the evidence against his client was “almost nonexistent.” In hundreds of undercover tapes, Schullo was recorded only four times, Wanderling said.
Wanderling said Schullo’s response of “OK” in the one conversation highlighted by prosecutors came to an “eight-part question” from Rovetuso.
Inendino’s lawyer, Raymond J. Smith, alleged that Schullo didn’t know of Rovetuso’s felony convictions when he was hired to do the investigative work.
But the government did when it enlisted Rovetuso in the undercover work, Smith said. “He’s their partner, not ours,” he said.
Smith alleged that Rovetuso, with the help of his government handlers, tried to “engineer the defendants into committing a crime.”
As an example, Smith said Rovetuso proposed the investigative work be done at only $40 an hour, well below the going rate.
Schullo jumped at such a good deal, Smith contended.
In reality, Rovetuso was planning to later jack the rate up to $55 an hour to make it appear they were inflating the bills to allow for the kickbacks to Schullo, Smith maintained.
Spano’s attorney, Alexander Salerno, told jurors that the work on the contract was “a good, solid investigation.”
He also warned jurors that some of Rovetuso’s comments in taped conversations “are subject to interpretation.”
The first government witness, William Paulin, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation division, testified that Rovetuso agreed to work undercover for the government in July 1995 because of a juice-loan debt of $145,000 to Inendino.
Rovetuso was being charged 2 percent interest a week, or more than 100 percent annually, Paulin said.
Over the next three years, the government paid Rovetuso about $69,000 for his assistance as well as undercover loan payments to Inendino, Paulin said.
