Leone sheds federal cover
Love for his children cited
Post-Tribune (IN)
December 14, 1991
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Anthony Leone stunned a federal courtroom Friday, announcing he was dropping out of the federal witness protection program three weeks before the sentencing of six crime syndicate members he helped convict.
Crown Point attorney David Braatz said Leone's love for his children led to his decision to shed his protective cover and expose himself to the crime bosses for whom he once worked and helped convict.
Braatz said Leone will be with his children this Christmas for the first time in four years.
"Good luck, Mr. Leone," U.S. District Judge James T. Moody said as Leone walked out of the courtroom to sign the papers to gain his freedom.
Leone, 51, of rural Valparaiso, was a key government witness in the August prosecution of Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo and five other gamblers and members of the crime syndicate. They will be sentenced in early January.
Leone entered the witness protection program in June 1989, about 18 months before Palermo and the others were indicted. Leone was charged in the same indictment, which centered on the crime syndicate's collection of a street tax from Northwest Indiana gamblers.
Braatz told the court,"My client wishes to come back to this area. He has a deep affection for his two sons, especially his handicapped child."
Leone was in court Friday for sentencing under terms of a plea agreement stemming from his cooperation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Thill told Judge Moody that Leone cooperated against "some of the most dangerous people a co-defendant can testify against."
Moody may have tipped his hand as to the sentences he will impose next month on Palermo, Nicholas "Jumbo" Guzzino of Chicago Heights, Ill.; Bernard ''Snooky" Morgano, of Valparaiso; Sam Nuzzo Jr. of Merrillville; Sam ''Frog" Glorioso of Gary; and Peter "Cadillac Pete" Petros, formerly of Gary.
Before sentencing Leone to three years on probation, Moody said he was being lenient only because of Leone's cooperation.
"Otherwise he would go to jail for a real long time," Moody said.
As one of the conditions of probation, Moody told Leone he wouldn't be allowed to reside in Porter County, the home of his former wife and two children. The couple were divorced while he was in the witness protection program. Leone has visitation rights.
The December 1990 racketeering and gambling indictment was the second time Leone has been charged.
He was convicted in February 1989 of running an illegal lottery in Gary. He served about four months in prison before he began cooperating with the FBI and entered the witness protection program.
Prior to that, in October 1987, Thill said Leone met with the FBI in a motel in Remington and began cooperating with the federal investigation into the crime syndicate.
"He got some bad advice from a co-defendant and stopped cooperating," Thill said. "At a very serious risk to himself, he decided to cooperate again."
Leone and others launched the illegal lottery in 1984 while working at USS Gary Works. Leone was laid off about the same time - three months short of 20 years, which would have qualified him for a full pension.
Leone told FBI special agent James Cziperle he left the lottery operation in February 1986 and went to work for Morgano enforcing the street tax on gambling operations.
Leone told authorities Morgano told him he took over organized crime's Northwest Indiana gambling operation when former boss Frank Zizzo died in the late 1970s, Cziperle said.
Leone got his start with Morgano making pizzas at the former Pete and Snook's restaurant, 4875 Broadway, Gary.
Leone said he knew Morgano's father, Tommy Morgano, who died in Sicily after being deported in 1963. Bernard Morgano, the former Northwest Indiana crime boss, left the country to avoid a prison term.
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