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In the order in which they are received, the books will be read, then reviewed, and subsequently, cited in upcoming editions of the series. We ask only that our book donors remain patient.
Thank you.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
In Today’s column: "JOSEPH 'JOEY THE CLOWN' LOMBARDO: THE 'DEAD' CORRESPONDENT AND HIS MAJOR PUBLIC/PRIVATE SPHERE."
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo's name goes back decades in mob circles. The Chicago Outfit has a street boss (i.e. "Boss") and a "Chariman of the Board." The "Boss" answers to the Chairman of the Board. Although he has disavowed any role in the mob, many in law enforcement believe Joey Lombardo, 75, is the Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Outfit.
Joey Lombardo went to prison in 1982 along with Roy Lee Williams, the Teamsters International president, for corruption in the union’s Central States Pension Fund.
Joey Lombasrdo's Alleged CYA Style of Mob Leadership
As Sam Giancana and Michael Corbitt (March 1, 2003) in Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster, characterize the mob leadership style of Joey "The Clown" Lombardo,
"In the Outfit, when you screwed up, you got planted. End of story. It wasn't like they handed you a pink slip and you went to work for another crew. You were done. That is, unless you used a tactic that was a favorite with America's corporate set, the old CYA routine-----cover your ass and blame whatever went wrong on the other guy.
That was Joey Lombardo's modus operandi, and that's what kept the son of a bitch alive and in power. Every time somebody who reported to Joey got in trouble, he just blamed that particular guy for the problem and got permission to have him whacked. Obviously. you didn't want to work for Lombardo" (p. 288).
Fugitive Joey the Clown's First Public Letter
The Operation Family Secrets indictment unsealed April 25 charged 14 mobsters and mob associates, 11 of them, including Joseph Lombardo, with racketeering conspiracy involving the murders.
Then in May, 2005, Joey the Clown sent his first letter. See: "Attorney: Reputed mobster 'Joey the Clown' gives surrender terms: Alleged Chicago mob boss seeks separate trail" at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7731283/
According to a letter made public by his attorney, Rick Halprin, and addressed to U.S. District Judge James Zagel, Joey Lombardo will surrender if he gets a separate trial on charges that he and other organized crime figures plotted at least 18 unsolved murders.
Lombardo professed his innocence. The letter asked Judge Zagel for a $50,000 recognizance bond.
It could be that the purpose of the whole thing was not to convince Judge James Zagel -- of course the Feds and Judge Zagel will not be swayed by the letter -- but to make it clear to the Chicago Outfit rank and file, including associates, that he was stilll with them and nothing had happened to him. Because the whole thing (letter incident) reeks of Joey Lombardo and should be transparent to that audience.
Fugitive Joey the Clown's Second Public Letter
Wanted since the Monday, April 25, 2005 Operation Family Secret's sweep, some observer's argue that Joseph "Joey The Clown" Lombardo is dead, i.e. that he was whacked by the long arm of the Chicago Outfit. But, the latest alleged letter, i.e. "Missing mob figure 'Joey the Clown' has written again, attorney says" (9-16-05), gives us pause. See: http://www.kwqc.com/Global/story.asp?S=3857605
Rick Halprin says Joey the Clown takes issue with John Mallul, the FBI agent's, testimony before the Illinois Gaming Board.
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo has a sociological "public sphere."
The Public Sphere - A Sociological Definition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A concept in continental philosophy and critical theory, the public sphere contrasts with the private sphere, and is the part of life in which one is interacting with others and with society at large. Much of the thought about the public sphere relates to the concept of identity and identity politics.
Heidegger claims that Dasein must balance its activities in the public sphere with its private, authentic activities, but believed ultimately that engagement in the public sphere was necessary to truly be Dasein. Hannah Arendt inverted Heidegger's claim, arguing that in fact the only true and authentic self was the self in the public sphere.
Franz Fanon discusses the way in which one's identity in the public sphere and one's identity in the private sphere can become dissonant, leading to what he calls dual consciousness. His examples deal with issues of colonialism, and the way in which a colonized subject is forced to publicly adopt a foreign culture, while privately they maintain their identity as their own culture.
In contemporary thought, informed by the rise of postmodernism, questions about the public sphere have turned to questions about the ways in which hegemonic forces dictate what discourse is and is not allowable in the public sphere, and in turn dictate what can and can't be formulated as a part of one's identity. For example, the concept of heteronormativity is used to describe the way in which those who fall outside of the basic male/female dichotomy of gender or whose sexual preferences are other than heterosexual cannot meaningfully claim their identities, causing a disconnect between their public selves and their private selves. Lauren Berlant has gone so far as to argue that there is in fact no public discourse about sex/gender or sexuality whatsoever, leaving all sexual identity or gender identity in the realm of the private sphere, where it is, in her view, deadened and powerless.
Important contemporary thinkers about the public sphere include Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, and Eve Sedgwick.
See also public place." Note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sphere Note Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sociology_topics and John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo has a sociological "private sphere" as well.
The Private Sphere - A Sociological Definition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The private sphere is the complement or opposite of the publi sphere. Heidegger argues that it is only in the private sphere that one can be one's authentic self.
See also privacy. Note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere Note Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sociology_topics and John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
Joey the Clown's Public/Private Sphere
Elements of The Clown's public sphere include the Mass Media, e.g. cinema, cable television, radio, telephone, and printed material. But, the line between his "public" and his "private" spheres is a very thin one.
The U.S. Justice Department is supposely confidential but, this supposition is compromised by the reality that some government functionaries may be corrupt.
Organized Crime Writers/Historians are liable to cross the line between The Clown's "public" and "private" spheres.
The Underworld Grapevine is most "private" but Confidential Informants (C.I.'s) and rats of other varieties compromise the underworld grapevine.
Joey Lombardo's organized crime rivals tend to be members of ithe American Mafia and/or the "new" American mobs...
Joey the Clown's Criminal Contemporaries: A Cursory Examination
Here is a not exhaustive list list of a number of contemporaries who could have rivaled The Clown in his position as the Chicago Outfit's Chairman of the Board.
John "No Nose" Difronzo In 1997, the Chicago Crime Commission identified No Nose as the Chicago Outfit "Boss."
James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello, the Chicago Outfit "Boss," is currently in jail awaiting trial as one of Chicago's Operation Family Secrets defendants.
Albert “Caesar” Tocco, the Legendary south suburban mob boss, died Wednesday, September , 2005, at age 76, just 16 years into his 200-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and tax fraud. Tocco, whose estranged wife Betty testified he helped bury the bodies of the mob-associated Spilotro brothers in an Indiana corn field, died at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
At the height of his power, Tocco ruled all the rackets south of 95th Street.
Federal Frustration
The feds get uptight when they try but are still unable to bag a notorious, high profile fugitive. James J. "Whitey" Bulger, Francis John "Frank the German" Schweihs and Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo are notorious, high profile fugitives.
The fact that James J. "Whitey" Bulger is still at large bugs the hell out of the feds. The fact that Francis John "Frank the German" Schweihs and Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo are still at large is a bitter pill, too, that the feds have to take.
Is there a chance the Clown and the German have had plastic surgery to alter their appearances and their fingerprints? I doubt it. Unlike Whitey Bulger, no one has even raised this question about the two Chicago Outfit wiseguys yet.
In "Mafia Killer Believed Hiding In Gay Neighborhood," Michael J. Meade raised the question is Whitey Bulger living in a gay neighborhood in the United States or Canada as a woman?
Believe it or not. Edward J. Mackenzie (April 2003), in Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Irish Mob, Steerforth; 1st edition, 1586420631, characterizes James J. "Whitey" Bulger as a transvestite. Some male transvestites are gay while there are many who are heterosexual.
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo is neither gay nor transvestite. But, the FBI would not be searching for him living as a female impersonator. Maybe The Clown, is hiding from Uncle Sam each in the gay neighborhood of his choice.
The New Mobs
As Robert J. Kelly, The Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States: From Capone's Chicago to the New Urban Underworld, (2000), Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, p. tells us,
"La Cosa Nostra is considered to be the epitome of traditional organized crime in the United States. But it is by no means the only organized criminal association that law enforcement is concerned with. New ethnic gangs----Chinese, Russian, African, Latin American, and Jamaican----as well as American outlaw motorcycle gangs have come into prominence.
Tomorrow's gangsters will not be just mafiosi but Chinese, Mexican, Russian, Caribbean, and African. More than today, organized crime will be a broader threat from a host of different nationalities and regions. It is also likely that no one group will be as powerful or dominating as La Cosa Nostra. However, because of new racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, law enforcement will face new crime challenges.
In addition, there is always the possibility that new, emerging criminal groups will join forces. Imagine La Cosa Nostra crime family members purchasing heroin and cocaine from Chinese, Nigerian, and Columbian suppliers and distributing it in partnership with Puerto Rican and Dominican street gangs. Russian mobsters have been accomplices of Mafia members in fuel-tax scams, and Sicilian mafiosi have operated gambling establishments in the United States with Albanians and Cubans. Asian organized crime may be destined to become an amalgam of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean groups" (p. xiii).
Confidential Informants (C.I.'s) and Other Varieties of 'Mob Rat'
Nick Calabrese allegedly secretly recorded his brother, Frank, talking about the mob's involvement in the slayings that are being investigated in Operation Family Secrets.
Is Joey the Clown Still Living?
Maybe it would be to Joey the Clown's advantage if members of hipublic sphere thought that he is dead. The Clown's major public sphere is the U. S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), U.S.A.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is an agency of the Department of the Treasury which administers and enforces U.S. internal revenue laws. The Internal Revenue Service checks tax returns, collects tax payments, and issues refunds. In the United States, internal revenue amounts to approximately 95 percent of the total revenue of the federal government.
History of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), U.S.A.
Early in United States history, internal revenue accounted for only a small part of the total government revenue. Today, almost all federal income is derived from internal revenue. Over 90 percent of this revenue comes from income and payroll taxes. Much of the remainder comes from excise taxes levied on alcohol, gasoline, and tobacco and from estate and gift taxes.
In the early days, the U.S. federal government depended mainly on customs duties and internal revenue remained roughly the same until after the American Civil War ended in 1865. Since then, the importance of customs duties have greatly decreased.
The U.S. government began to seek a new tax with which to increase its revenue about the time of the U.S. Civil War. In 1862 an income tax was levied. It was continued for about 10 years. In 1894, a second income tax was levied but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in 1913, allowed Congress to levy income taxes without the former U.S. constitutional restrictions.
In 1791, the first excise tax on distilled spirits was levied. The tax caused the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was unsuccessful. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was lead by farmers in Pennsylvania. However, taxes on alcoholic beverages brought little revenue until the 1933 repeal of prohibition. These taxes now constitute about 1 percent of all internal revenue.
No of The Clown's predecessors as the leader of the organization that became known as the Chicago Outfit was Al Capone. The federal government brought Al Capone down by proscuting him for income tax evasion.
When we remember Al Capone's income tax evasion conviction it is easy to understand why the IRS is Joey Lombardo's major public/private sphere.
Al Capone, The Income Tax Evader
As Robert J. Kelly (April 30, 2000) tells us in the Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States: From Capone's Chicago to the New Urban Underworld, Greenwood Press, 0313306532, "A tax evasion case against Capone was begun in 1929. By October 1931 he was convicted of income tax evasion and faced a sentence of 11 years. Within a year, appeals were exhausted, and in 1932, Capone enterred the federal prison in Atlanta. He was transferred to the newly constructed Alcatraz facility in 1934,..." ( p. 54).
In His Second Public Letter, Who is Joey the Clown's Intended Audience?
Iin both his first and second public letters, The Clown's "intended audience" are his criminal confederates in the Chicago Outfit. These men, as a collective, constitute The Clown's "private sphere."
The main message of both public letters is a private one: "The Clown has not and will not flip. The Clown is still in charge."