Kinkade testifies in 'street tax' trial
Says he paid 'Cadillac Pete'
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 25, 1991
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Reginald Kinkade has been paying ever since he got into the video poker business in the early 1980s.
He paid off the police.
He paid when the crime syndicate demanded a piece of his take.
He made a down payment on a piece of freedom in U.S. District Court Wednesday during the trial of six reputed gamblers and members of the crime syndicate. The charges stem from collection of a "street tax" from Northwest Indiana gambling operations.
Kinkade, owner of Variety Amusement Co. of East Chicago, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last fall following his racketeering conviction for bribing Lake County Sheriff Rudy Bartolomei. He hasn't served a day. He has a sentence reduction hearing following this trial.
Kinkade also paid himself. Handsomely. He made as much as $1.7 million a year through the 130 video poker machines he had in area taverns, restaurants and fraternal lodges.
For a two-year period, beginning in the fall of 1984, Kinkade said he paid $2,500 monthly to Peter "Cadillac Pete" Petros.
"Why did you pay?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Thill asked Kinkade.
"I felt they would burn the shop or hurt an employee," Kinkade said. ''He indicated he was with the mob in Chicago."
Most of the testimony Wednesday focused on Petros, whom Kinkade and other witnesses described as a bag man for the crime syndicate.
Petros, 56, formerly of Gary and now of Cicero, Ill., is being tried with Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, 73, of Orland Park, Ill.; Nicholas "Jumbo" Guzzino, 49, of Chicago Heights, Ill.; Bernard "Snooky" Morgano, 54, of Valparaiso; Sam "Frog" Glorioso, 48, of Gary; and Sam Nuzzo Jr., 45, of Merrillville.
The FBI seized records of Kinkade's payments to Petros from a safe in the basement of Kinkade's home. The payment entry said, "Hoods."
Before he started the payments to Petros, Kinkade said he met Northwest Indiana street boss Frank Zizzo in the men's room at John's Restaurant in Calumet City, Ill.
"I asked if Pete was his guy," Kinkade said. "He said 'yes.' He told me he didn't like him very much but that's who they sent him."
Kinkade said Petros told him sometime in 1986 that Zizzo had died.
"Did he indicate who had taken over for Zizzo?" Thill asked.
"Yes, Snooky (Morgano)," Kinkade said, adding that Petros told him Morgano had a well-equipped van, including police scanners.
Kinkade, upon questioning by Dyer attorney Richard F. James, representing Morgano, said he has neither met nor talked to Morgano.
Defense attorney John M. McGrath, representing Petros, asked Kinkade why he went to the government after being sentenced.
"Besides what I was convicted for, there was a lot more out there," Kinkade said. "I didn't want to be tried again."
"You bribed a number of law enforcement officials," McGrath said.
"There were a few," Kinkade said.
"Was it closer to 10 than it was to two?" McGrath asked.
"It was between two and 10," Kinkade said.
McGrath suggested to Kinkade that he was using Petros to get rid of his competitors in the video poker business, rather than making payoffs.
"No, that's not true," Kinkade said.
McGrath also asked, "Weren't you getting $1,000 a week per machine?"
"I don't think I was getting that much," said Kinkade, who earlier stated he got about $250 a week per machine. He said the tavern owner got a like amount per machine.
Timothy Janowsky, who cooperated with the FBI for several years by wearing a body recorder testified. Janowsky owns Geno's Vending in Ross Township.
On a tape of a conversation between Janowsky, Kinkade and Petros, Janowsky said he was paying $1,300 monthly in protection money to Bartolomei, former Lake County Police Chief Michael Mokol and retired detective Donald Midkiff.
Janowsky told Petros he would pay him $3,000 a month if Petros would see to it that he didn't have to pay the county police any longer.
"What if Rudy comes down on me?" Janowsky asked Petros.
"They ain't gonna come down on you," Petros said.
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