Balistrieri Tapes, Part 12: 'Balistrieri convictions left void in local Mafia, FBI agents say'
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning Oct. 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series. This is the final excerpt.
Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.
***
The lifestyle of Frank P. Balistrieri gave him a stage on which he played the leading part, but he never noticed the curtain falling.
For nearly 30 years, Balistrieri’s name was mentioned in reports of threats and intimidation and mob deaths, investigations of gambling and extortion and other crimes, and in hundreds of news stories that gave him an incredible notoriety. Yet, he didn't see the end coming.
One person did.
Antonina Balistrieri, one of the few who stuck with him through his tumultuous life since the 1930s, warned him that the end was approaching. Married to him for 49 years, she was recorded by the FBI as saying:
"They're laying the groundwork to hang you, Frank, and you don't know your enemy. You keep thinking I'm your enemy. You keep thinking the other ones are your friends and your friends are going to hang you."
She also said, "Frank, you're gonna get hung by your nails, Frank. Giving confidence to people you don't know nothing about."
Two people in whom he confided were undercover FBI agents. With the help of tape recordings and agents from FBI offices here and elsewhere, Balistrieri was caught, convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison for extortion and other crimes.
Balistrieri is 70 years old, and his mandatory release date from prison is 1992. Many of the people left in the Mafia here are aged or in prison, and the status of the local mob has been questioned.
"Our biggest power used to be our secrecy. But now it's not that way anymore because if one talks, the FBI tells everybody,” Balistrieri said, referring to coverage of him and his associates in the media.
An Italian-American whose father's parents were immigrants, Michael DeMarco has worked in organized crime for 20 years, has lived In New York City, Chicago and Milwaukee, knows the Mafia well, and studied the Sicilian language.
Like most Italian-Americans, DeMarco, 46, is not a criminal. He is one of dozens of FBI agents who helped make a big dent in organized crime here. The dent occurred with the loss of Balistrieri's leadership.
Although Balistrieri is in prison, the Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra, “is not gone by any means," DeMarco said. "It's been dented, but not destroyed."
During a recording taped by the FBI in 1980, John Balistrieri, son of Frank and Antonina, spoke to his mother, who was worried about legal problems:
"Mom, mother, let me tell you something, this is our life. This was the life of your great-great-grandfather… Your father, this is our life. I don't worry about it. This is our life."
Many of Frank Balistrieri's businesses are in shambles and both of his imprisoned sons, John and Joseph, have denounced their father as a lying, evil man.
The FBI tape recordings of Frank Balistrieri, who was such a force in this community, showed that he was difficult to have as an enemy, became difficult to have as a friend, difficult to have as an employer, and even difficult to have as a father. His two sons ripped him apart publicly.
And in a recorded conversation in 1980, John said, "People don't want to work for him.
"Well, I'm not gonna tell him that," Mrs. Balistrieri said.
"Because he treats them (employees) that way," John said. "And the people who show him loyalty he doesn't give 'em any.”
"That loyalty thing, bull ... ," Frank Balistrieri said in another taped conversation.
Speaking about the status of organized crime here, DeMarco said, "The Mafia or La Cosa Nostra is at a very low ebb, based on its obvious lack of leadership. That does not mean it will not swing back again when forceful individuals take leadership roles in the future.
"Basically, the LCN is money-oriented. If the LCN from Kansas City or Chicago saw a financial reason to come to Milwaukee, I do not believe they would hesitate to do so."
DeMarco, who was accompanied by an agent for a while because of threats during the investigation, said, "Since the 1950s, the Milwaukee La Cosa Nostra family has been subservient to the Chicago family. Furthermore, the Milwaukee family has close ties to the LCN family in Kansas City. The Milwaukee family has, in the past, imported people from Kansas City to assist them.
"Both factors lend credence to the ... theory that Chicago or other LCN figures could fill the void In Milwaukee."
William N. Ouseley, a former FBI agent and expert on Midwest organized crime families, is not positive that families from other cities would move in here.
"You cannot talk about La Cosa Nostra as a whole,” he said. "You've got to go to every city. There isn't any one magic that says this one thing happens to La Cosa Nostra all at the same time. These are independent groups.
"Historically and traditionally other cities have not moved in to take over other cities. Why is it that Kansas City has taken a severe blow and yet we still have a sizable amount of activity, as opposed to Denver which has taken a severe blow and they got nothing, or St. Louis which seems to be falling apart and maybe Milwaukee?"
Referring to heads of some organized crime families who involve their children in crime, Ouseley said, "They see it the same as bringing your kids into the shoe business. This is what life is all about. We're right and they're wrong.
"If you go to the different cities and you check the offspring of some of these people, you see some of everything. Some have been in it. In some cases, their father didn't want them to be in it. Others think it's the only way of life and they believe in it, because La Cosa Nostra does have certain conditions and some of the old-timers don't see anything evil."
Frank Balistrieri obviously doesn't think of himself as evil. This was just his business, operated in the way some respected, Sicilian men have operated similar businesses in this country back to the 19th century.
He reportedly took over from his wife's father, who took over from somebody else. But, like them, Frank Balistrieri wasn't an ogre you could spot on the street. He was recorded threatening to kill people, but he dressed like a businessman on his way to an important lunch.
Talking about buying ice cream for his employees, Balistrieri was recorded as saying, "But nobody'd ever believe a gang boss would do this."
DeMarco, who is proud of his Italian heritage, said, "I think the Italian Sicilian community in general is affronted when they read or see on TV the results of Mafia action whether it's in the United States or in Italy.
"It's a minuscule percentage of the people with Italian heritage who create a bad image for that vast majority of honest, hard-working people," he said. "The Italian heritage is so full of so excellent people, especially in the arts, that it is an affront that a small group of people who belong to a secret society can have an adverse effect on a much larger population."
Asked if Frank Balistrieri were still active in decisions in the community here, DeMarco said, "Our indication based on the review of prison records shows that there is very little contact between Frank Balistrieri and friends in Milwaukee. Frank, from my perception, is somewhat ostracized by the community in Milwaukee and particularly by his sons Joseph and John."
DeMarco also said the future of the Mafia in Milwaukee would partially depend on 30 to 50 second and third-generation Sicilian-Americans whose families have been involved in organized crime in the past. If they go one way, the Mafia could come back; if they go another way, the Mafia's future here would be in trouble.
Frank Balistrieri's sons were much more visible in the community, especially Joseph, who often was regarded as the most intelligent person in any room he was in. He was flash and wit, and when he tore his father apart in a letter to a judge, it sounded like an assault put to poetry.
After graduating from law school in 1965, Joseph sold life insurance and promoted rock 'n' roll bands until he could get his law practice going. His first law office was in his parents' home. In 1966, he opened his own office, and his brother joined him in 1973.
"I never wanted John to become a lawyer," Joseph testified. "John was always interested in business … I am a lawyer who happens to be in business. My brother John is actually a businessman who happens to be a lawyer."
His father referred a number of cases to him, Joseph testified.
"My father's record is 100%, I never got paid a cent," he said.
After he had been out of law school five years, Joseph assumed the mortgage on his parents' home, and a short time later purchased the Shorecrest Hotel for about $1 million, he testified.
His brother, John, has told prison officials that he intends to live at the Shorecrest and be "self-employed as a management investor for his brother and himself" when he is released.
Although the FBI doesn't believe it, Joseph, 48, and John, 40, have maintained they were the innocent victims of their father. The brothers are expected to be released from federal prisons in the next few months, after having served about three years for extortion.
And federal and state officials have expressed hope that the community remains quieter without Frank Balistrieri.
Whether the days of organized crime return will be up to the people Frank Balistrieri left behind.
In a letter to a judge in 1987 Balistrieri wrote, "I have one consolation. Hell cannot be any worse for me. But I will never know, for when I am judged by the judge of judges, the worst sentence I can get is purgatory."
***
Read the first selected excerpt: The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 1: "Balistrieri built empire with threats, violence"
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Balistrieri Tapes, Part 12: 'Balistrieri convictions left void in local Mafia, FBI agents say'
