Suburban Mob Boss Sentenced
Chicago Tribune
March 27, 1992
articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-03-27/news/9201280320_1_sentenced-mob-district-judge-james-moody"_sentenced-mob-district-judge-james-moody
Dominick Palermo, a veteran official of the Laborers International Union and reputed boss of organized crime in Chicago`s southern suburbs, was sentenced Thursday to 32 years and 3 months in prison for extorting protection money from bookmakers in northwest Indiana.
The 74-year-old Palermo, a former resident of Orland Park, also was fined $250,000 by U.S. District Judge James Moody in Hammond.
Walking with the aid of a cane, Palermo displayed no emotion as the sentence was read and he said nothing. He smiled to a crowd of about 50 friends and family members, kissed his wife, Betty, goodbye, and left the courtroom in the custody of U.S. marshals.
Defense attorney Kevin Milner predicted that Palmero will die in prison.
``Mr. Palermo is never going to be out again,`` Milner said. ``Not alive, anyway. Never a free man.``
Two other convicted mob figures also were sentenced to prison by Moody for their part in the shakedown scheme, the existence of which was documented by the FBI with the assistance of Hammond police detectives and the Indiana State Police.
Nick Guzzino, 50, of Chicago Heights, a mob underboss and Laborers Union field representative, was sentenced to 39 years and 6 months in prison and fined $185,000.
Bernard Morgano, 55, of Valparaiso, Ind., a nephew of deported gangster Gaitano Morgano, received a term of 16 years and 3 months behind bars, along with a $177,000 fine.
All three were convicted by a federal jury last August.
Only Morgano spoke in his own behalf Thursday, telling Moody that the chief witness against him and the others, turncoat mobster Tony Leone, gave perjured testimony to avoid prison.
``He is a snake,`` Morgano said of Leone. ``He lied on that stand.``
Then, in a reference to a request for leniency by his defense lawyer, Dick James, Morgano exclaimed, ``I do not ask for mercy. I ask for justice.``
Palermo and the others had been found guilty of using threats of bodily harm and arson to collect thousands of dollars in ``street taxes`` from bookmakers and vendors of gambling paraphernalia. Eleven victims testified that they paid rather than risk harm to themselves, their families or their businesses.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Thill had asked Moody to impose substantial penalties as ``a message to underworld characters,`` and the judge complied. Moody said that in one instance, the mob sent its own message by shooting out the windows of a bookmaking business.
Thill`s boss, U.S. Atty. John Hoehner, said the sentences are the message that will be remembered.
``Organized crime in all insidious forms,`` Hoehner said, ``is not welcome in the Northern District of Indiana.``
Lawyers for Palermo and the others bitterly attacked Leone as a liar and the government for a ``double standard`` in not fully prosecuting Leone for his admitted crimes as a member of the Palermo-Guzzino street crew.
``Tony Leone is a walking, talking symbol of corruption,`` Guzzino`s lawyer, Ronald Menaker, said.
Prosecution evidence in the case, presented by Thill, went beyond Leone`s testimony to include the playing of 200 taped conversations. Many of the tapes were made secretly at the Taste of Italy restaurant in Calumet City.
On the tapes, Palermo and the others could be heard discussing the collection of street taxes and plans to bribe police officers in Indiana.
In one tape played to show Palermo`s and Guzzino`s command of the extortion racket, Morgano was overheard telling a confederate, ``OK. But we are going to have to check it out with Chicago first.`` Thill said that was a reference to the Chicago mob and Palermo`s part in it.
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