Reputed Cicero Outfit boss Big Mike Sarno sat at the last defense table in federal court, farthest from the federal jury, wearing black.
I couldn’t help thinking of a XXXL Paul Sorvino in “Goodfellas.” Yet even with the extra flesh, you could sometimes see a thin line of smile on his face.
It appeared sporadically, as the parade of human ferrets and crooked cops took the witness stand in his federal racketeering trial.
Who knows what’s on a man’s mind as he’s facing years in federal prison?
Though he’s known to federal investigators as the mob’s man, prosecutors can’t call him an Outfit boss. U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman ruled early on that he didn’t want to prejudice Sarno’s fellow defendants.
Like Casey Szaflarski, the Outfit’s reputed video poker king. His competitors had the misfortune of having their Berwyn offices blown up in 2003.
Szaflarski is an in-law to reputed Outfit street boss Frank “Toots” Caruso, of Chinatown. Szaflarski’s daughter, Brittany, married Caruso’s son Frank Jr., the same Jr. who made headlines years ago by mercilessly beating that African-American boy, Lenard Clark, into a coma.
Szaflarski was on house arrest this past summer, but the judge allowed him to attend the wedding, as long as he and Toots didn’t speak to each other.
The happy young couple received many wedding gifts, but according to their online gift registry at Bloomingdale’s, they’re still shy a few things. Like fluffy bath towels and a $9.95 Oxo “Good Grips” apple divider, just the thing for making tasty apple pies and scrumptious tarts.
You’d think some federal investigators would have the decency to cough up 10 bucks, so Toots’ daughter-in-law can make her dad’s friends some nice pies.
In one undercover tape of a phone call played for jurors early on, Sarno friend David Kantowski mentions he’s sitting with a guy they know.
Kantowski: Mike, how are you doing?
Sarno: How you doin’, buddy?
Kantowski: Good, I’m sitting here with, ah, Frank Caruso, um, —
Sarno: Ooh. Oh you, oh boy.
Angry, Sarno hangs up, only to later explain on another phone — also tapped by the feds — that Kantowski’s mentioning Toots’ name over the phone was a bad idea.
“I know I’m paranoid, but I got good reason to be,” Sarno said.
Another defendant is Mark Polchan, alleged fence of stolen merchandise. Polchan is a member of the notorious Outlaws motorcycle gang. He wore his Outlaws T-shirt while running Goldberg’s — his Cicero pawnshop — in the undercover tape played for the jury on Friday.
Undercover agent Louis Valoze testified Friday that the first time he met Polchan, he sold the Outlaw some gold for $250 in cash. It wasn’t coins. It was teeth.
“There were 15 crowns,” the agent testified. “Some had partial teeth still in them.”
So without hearing mention of the Outfit, the jury just looked across the courtroom, to Sarno sitting there at the back table, in those black sweaters, resting his chin on a beefy right hand.
And what did they see? Sarno definitely didn’t look like a host of “Antiques Roadshow.” He looked more like a tough guy from Cicero.
Last week’s testimony involved former crooked Berwyn cop James Formato, a bull-necked fellow with a black goatee and a forehead that looked like it held a thick iron plate under the skin.
“You weren’t just a police officer by day and a burglar by night, were you?” asked Assistant U.S. Atty. Tinos Diamantatos.
“No,” said Formato.
“In fact, you were a police officer and a burglar, day and night, isn’t that correct?” Diamantatos asked.
“Yes.”
That’s because the former Berwyn cop would often check on the well-being of senior citizens and others in his town as part of his official duties, while casing their homes for valuables. Then later, he testified, he and other burglars would visit the homes at night.
It seems no accident that Formato wound up with the boys. His biological father was the late James Tortoriello, Chicago mobster, and his grandfather was James Tortoriello Sr., Chicago mobster, prostitution and gambling boss.
Grandpa was a beefy fellow — also with a face of iron plates — and reportedly an iron fist.
Called “Mugsy,” he once reportedly knocked out a cow with a single punch to win a bet. But he argued with his Chicago colleagues over the size of his cut from the family business. So he retired to Florida.
The elder Tortoriello, or Grandpa Mugsy as some may have never thought of calling him, didn’t spend his golden years in Florida waiting for the early-bird dinner special and the extra Jell-O.
Instead, the old guy stayed active, arrested numerous times for punching motorists, extorting strip clubs for protection money, weapons charges and so on.
Sadly, grandpa’s retirement ended abruptly in 1984. His body was found in a warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, with multiple small-caliber bullet wounds in the head.
Sarno’s trial is expected to wrap up sometime this week. If he’s convicted, federal courthouse chatter suggests he’ll do his time and keep his mouth shut, so friends on the outside can enjoy their freedom.
It sure would be nice if Toots Caruso would humbly stop by Sarno’s going-away party to bring the Large Guy a big slice of his daughter-in-law’s homemade apple pie.
That would put a smile on Big Mike’s face, wouldn’t it?
