Chicago Outfit Figure Will Get Four Months In Federal Prison In Social Security Fraud Scheme

A Chicago mob figure convicted years ago within the landmark Operation Household Secrets investigation was sentenced Monday to four months in federal prison for taking part in a Social Security rip-off by falsely claiming he’d earned wages from a collection of phony or failed businesses, including Lehman Brothers and the Peanut Company of America.


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Michael “Mickey” Marcello, 71, the half brother of imprisoned Outfit boss James Marcello, pleaded guilty earlier this yr to 1 rely of theft of government funds, admitting he stole almost $23,000 in Social Security distributions between September 2017 and should 2019.

Marcello, of west suburban Wood Dale, has been free on bond since he was quietly indicted in December 2019. His attorney, Catharine O’Daniel, argued for probation, saying Marcello was a “low-rung” participant in the scheme and that by requesting prison time, prosecutors had been making an attempt to have interaction in “a re-litigation of the Household Secrets and techniques case.”

“He doesn’t engage in that conduct anymore,” O’Daniel mentioned in the course of the videoconference hearing. “He doesn’t talk to these individuals anymore, your honor.”

However U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso mentioned that while the loss amount wasn’t as excessive as many fraud circumstances brought in Chicago, that’s solely as a result of Marcello got caught relatively shortly.


“The plan was to maintain stealing the cash for the rest of his life,” Alonso said.
The judge additionally said that Marcello’s earlier conviction for mob-related racketeering “couldn’t be way more serious,” noting Marcello’s elevated position within the mob’s Melrose Park crew and that the Social Safety fraud occurred simply months after his supervised release in the Household Secrets case was terminated in 2015.

“Mr. Marcello wasn’t just concerned (in organized crime), he was an operations manager,” Alonso said. “He was for a time running day-to-day operations.”

Previous to the sentence being handed down, Marcello apologized to the court docket, acknowledging he “made terrible choices” and asking for mercy as he nears the ultimate phase of his life. He also requested Alonso to acknowledge his previous for what it is. “I paid my debt to society,” he stated.

Marcello was certainly one of the first defendants to plead guilty within the Family Secrets investigation, admitting in a plea settlement with prosecutors that as a member of the Melrose Park crew, he passed data to his incarcerated brother James, who at the time was the reputed head of the Chicago Outfit.

He additionally acknowledged relaying funds of $4,000 a month to mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese in a bid to purchase his silence. Calabrese later turned the star witness for the prosecution through the trial that ended with the convictions of among the Outfit’s top echelon, together with James Marcello.

At Mickey Marcello’s sentencing hearing in 2008, prosecutors stated he’d been in organized crime for nearly a decade and had evaded greater than $1 million in taxes.

“He isn't the worst of the bunch, but when you’re speaking about the Chicago Outfit, this is a reasonably grim and evil bunch,” then-Assistant U.S. Legal professional Markus Funk mentioned on the time.


U.S. District Decide James Zagel sentenced Marcello to eight ½ years in prison.
In 2009, Marcello testified in the federal trial of John Ambrose, a deputy U.S. marshal accused of leaking information about Calabrese’s cooperation to a family pal with alleged mob links, understanding the delicate info would end up in the Outfit’s palms.

Secret FBI recordings made within the waiting room of a Michigan prison in 2003 had captured the Marcello brothers anxiously discussing whether or not Calabrese had flipped.

Marcello testified that he learned of Calabrese’s cooperation with regulation enforcement from reputed mob figure John “Pudgy” Matassa Jr.


Ambrose was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.
James Marcello, 78, is serving life in prison at a most-security facility in Colorado.

Courtroom data present Michael Marcello was launched from prison in September 2012 and served three years of supervised release. In early 2016, just months after having his supervised launch terminated, Marcello was brought into the Social Security scheme by his longtime pal Walter Paredes, of Rosemont, who was recruiting folks on behalf of imprisoned serial con man George Ruth, court docket information show.

In accordance with Marcello’s plea agreement, he agreed to offer his Social Security info to Ruth, who submitted the fraudulent work historical past on his behalf. Marcello then lied repeatedly about his employment to his regional Social Security Administration workplace, in keeping with the plea.

Among the companies Marcello claimed to have labored for was the Peanut Corporation of America, a peanut-processing enterprise that collapsed amid one in every of the most important lethal foodborne contamination scandals in U.S. history.

Marcello also claimed to have labored for Lehman Brothers, the American world monetary companies firm whose collapse in 2008 helped trigger a global financial crisis.

In court Monday, O’Daniel stated the scheme was unsophisticated and “pitifully easy for the government to unravel,” notably as a result of Ruth used the same contact information for each of the companies he fraudulently cited as previous employers.

“This was low-rung, late-coming conduct,” she said. “Nothing that my client did required any sophistication. He gave his Social Safety quantity after which he lied and said he labored some places when he didn’t.”

But  Fraud Check Swizerland . Lawyer Niranjan Emani noted that Marcello, who’d claimed to have realized his lesson when dealing with sentencing in the Household Secrets case, as a substitute just “found a brand new method to steal.”


“He noticed the power to make a quick, low-cost, simple buck and he went with it,” Emani stated.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com


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