Chicago mobster indicted for defrauding Social Security
A Chicago mobster once sent to prison as a result of
the FBI’s landmark Family Secrets case has been indicted for stealing
$44,000 in Social Security funds, court records show.
Michael Marcello, 68, of Wood Dale, allegedly once helped
run the Chicago mob while his older brother, James Marcello, was in
prison. He also took the witness stand in 2009 in the trial of Deputy
U.S. Marshal John Ambrose, who was charged with leaking details about
the Family Secrets investigation to the mob.
Now, he faces a one-page indictment alleging that he
stole $44,623 from the Social Security Administration between September
2017 and May 2019. The document offers no further details.
His lawyer did not return a call seeking comment.
Marcello, the half-brother of Chicago mob boss James
Marcello, was sentenced in March 2008 to 8 ½ years in prison— the first
to be sentenced in the Family Secrets case. He once ran a lucrative
video poker machine operation in the western suburbs and carried out his
half-brother’s orders while James Marcello was in prison, authorities
have said. He admitted his role in the mob in a 2007 plea agreement.
He also worked for the Chicago Sun-Times as a truck driver from 1986 to 1995.
In April 2009, Michael Marcello took the witness stand in
the trial of Ambrose, who leaked key details to the mob about Nicholas
Calabrese, the hitman who became a crucial government witness in the
Family Secrets case.
Marcello testified that John “Pudgy” Matassa had funneled
sensitive information to him — information he thought Matassa had
obtained from a former Chicago cop and family friend of Ambrose.
Just this year, Matassa admitted to an embezzlement
scheme stemming from his job as the secretary-treasurer of the
Independent Union of Amalgamated Workers Local 711. U.S. District Judge
Matthew Kennelly gave him six months in prison.
But before the judge sentenced him, Matassa complained
that, “the only reason I’m standing here today is because my name is
John Matassa.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/12/17/21026922/michael-marcello-chicago-mob-indicted-stealing-social-security-money
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