Mobster is painted as bungling
Friends say Glorioso owed gambling debts
Post-Tribune (IN)
August 8, 1991
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Sam "Frog" Glorioso is a mobster, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
Glorioso and five others are on trial here on federal gambling and racketeering charges.
Jurors, however, after the past three days of listening to clandestine recordings of phone calls and face-to-face conversations about Glorioso, have heard ample evidence that the bulging Gary steelworker may be something less than an arch criminal.
According to his associates, his attorney and even one of his alleged victims, Glorioso, 48, bug-eyed with black, horned-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, is at worst a reluctant mobster and at best is little more than an anxious-to-please buffoon with costly bad habits like overeating, picking slow horses and buying too many rounds of drinks.
Wednesday's testimony of Franklin Burton, an admitted Gary bookie for the past 30 years who became a government witness with a grant of immunity from prosecution, centered on Glorioso.
The government alleges Glorioso attempted to extort money from Burton in 1986, thus Glorioso became a co-conspirator in an interstate protection racket headed by co-defendant Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, 73, of Orland Park, Ill.
Palermo is one of the top bosses in the Chicago crime syndicate, whose turf includes the South Chicago suburbs and Northwest Indiana, according to the government.
Also on trial are Nicholas "Jumbo" Guzzino, 49, of Chicago Heights, Ill., allegedly Palermo's top lieutenant; Sam Nuzzo Jr., 45, of Merrillville; Peter "Cadillac Pete" Petros, 56, formerly of Gary, now of Cicero, Ill., and Bernard "Snooky" Morgano of Valparaiso.
Morgano also is the reputed Northwest Indiana street boss.
Jurors Monday and Tuesday heard numerous recorded conversations between Morgano and Glorioso, who have known each other since childhood.
Between discussions of their failed diets jurors also heard Morgano repeatedly goad Glorioso to make telephone calls and visits.
In tapes of other calls between Morgano and his lieutenant, Anthony Leone, 49, of Porter Township, Morgano derided Glorioso for his chronic failure to carry out assignments.
Finally, frustrated, Morgano and Leone agreed to cut Glorioso out of further dealings, according to the tapes.
Burton had an equally low opinion of Glorioso, the man the mob sent to Burton to collect $1,000 a month in protection money, according to the tapes.
Burton painted a less-than-menacing picture of Glorioso, a crane operator at Gary Sheet and Tin Mill and a steelworker for 29 years.
Burton testified he had accepted bets from Glorioso for at least 10 years before his alleged 1986 extortion attempt. Glorioso was even "bookin' in the mill with me a little bit," Burton said.
Glorioso's attorney, Robert Truitt of Valparaiso, described his client during cross examination as "just a big clown."
"He's not a violent man?" Truitt said, his inflection making it a question.
"No," Burton said. "I wasn't afraid of Sam."
"Would you say he was a compulsive gambler?"
"Yes, he gambled quite a lot," Burton said. "I saw him at the track quite a bit."
Burton, in a taped conversation with Nuzzo at Hydad's Lounge in Merrillville, said he didn't want to pay protection money to Glorioso, fearing he would squander it on bets.
Nuzzo, however, said Glorioso wouldn't blow the protection money because, ''he knows the problem he'd have. He'd have a real bad one."
On paying protection, Nuzzo didn't put a strong arm to Burton, either.
"Ah, I mean you do it anyway you want," Nuzzo said. "My personal opinion is you handle it with discretion ... personally, I would take care of it ...."
Under Truitt's questioning, Burton testified he knew some area bookies dealt harshly with gamblers like Glorioso who didn't pay. Truitt attempted to portray his client as being squeezed by Morgano to do his bidding because of his gambling debts.
On one Burton tape, Glorioso apologized to his bookie for hitting Burton up for protection money.
"I owe money," Glorioso told Burton. "I owe 'em some favors, so I can't say no."
In a further effort to discredit Burton, Truitt and Gary lawyer Scott King, representing Nuzzo, and Chicago lawyer Kevin Milner, representing Palermo, burrowed in on Burton's deal with the government - a grant of immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony.
Burton told jurors from the time he started working for the FBI in October 1986 until he retired in 1990 and moved to Florida, that his betting window remained open at 39th and Broadway.
"Was the FBI aware that you were engaged in this business?" King asked.
"They knew about it," Burton said.
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