LAS VEGAS —  Frank Calabrese Jr. wore a wire against his father as he looked for a way out of the Chicago mob.

Now he’s selling Cameos for $15 apiece. 

The former mobster’s conversations with his father in prison helped the feds clear 18 unsolved murder cases against top-ranking members of the Chicago Outfit in 2007. He joined Cameo, an online platform where people can buy personalized video messages from celebrities, last month. There’s been one job so far: a happy birthday wish. 

“They wanted me to say a little quote about ‘Make sure you pay so-and-so the $1,000 you owe him,’” Calabrese said. “I just wanted to try it out.” 

Calabrese, 66, said he can’t afford to slow down. He shares his life story four times a day, five days a week as the only resident speaker at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. 

The museum is dedicated to the history of organized crime. It has Al Capone’s “Sweetheart” pistol and an original courtroom, which is where many of its 400,000 yearly visitors meet Calabrese. 

Calabrese’s story is a cautionary tale of a life in crime. Telling it is how he now makes a clean living.

Former Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Jr. now gets by speaking four times a day, five days a week at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Credit: Mikayla Jones

“You can change your life, but that evil doesn’t leave you. I need to always be focused on what I can never do again,” Calabrese said. “My kids and my grandson are my purpose, and they’re proud of me.” 

The Chicago Outfit has significantly shrunk in recent decades, said John Binder, a Chicago Outfit historian and University of Illinois Chicago professor. Aggressive federal investigations have knocked out bosses. Once lucrative mob businesses, like gambling, have been legalized. 

Mob informants often wind up in witness protection, and most “keep their heads down and don’t surface again,” Binder said. But as the mob retreats, a few former members like Calabrese are stepping out as a new kind of “celebrity gangster,” Binder said. 

“Frank Jr. has stayed on the straight and narrow,” Binder said.

It’s a niche — and one Calabrese isn’t likely to get whacked for.  

“The mob is still very good at doing what you might call cost-benefit analysis,” Binder said. “If you see guys like Frank in public, just turn around and walk the other way. Now, it’s not worth the trouble.” 

‘I Hustle’

Calabrese’s residency in Vegas has already been extended twice and will run at least through the end of his third year in December.

Calabrese also sells about 60 copies a day of his book, “Operation Family Secrets,” named after the federal case that sent his father, now-deceased serial hitman Frank Calabrese Sr., away for good. 

“I hustle. I get by,” Calabrese said. “I live simple now.” 

Calabrese will sign books with “welcome to the family” or “the real boss is your wife” — but what he does “is not cheesy at all,” Calabrese said. 

“I don’t wear a sweatsuit,” Calabrese said. “I get people who come up to me and they relate to certain parts of the story. They want to change their life, or they have abuse in the family. So, you know, I feel like I’m helping.” 

Mikayla Jones, a press person for the museum, said she knows Calabrese as “the epitome of a Midwestern kind person.” 

“In film we see this glamorous perception of organized crime, but Frank’s story really drives home how damaging it can be to a family unit,” Jones said. “This institution is not a roadside attraction or a Las Vegas entertainment venue.”

Former Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Jr. now gets by speaking four times a day, five days a week at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Credit: Gabe Ginsberg

‘My Dad Was A Sociopathic Killer’

Calabrese grew up making pizzas at Armand’s in suburban Elmwood Park. His father started sending him to collect on shark loans when he was a teenager. In 1997, he went to prison with his father and uncle Nick Calabrese on racketeering charges. 

Calabrese said he “never crossed that line” into killing people, but his father and uncle did. Their victims included the Spilotro brothers, whose gristly beatings were ordered by the Chicago Outfit in 1986 and famously depicted in the film “Casino.” 

But Calabrese’s father did pull him in, even though “you weren’t supposed to bring your kids into the mob life,” Calabrese said. He got hooked on cocaine, leading him to steal $700,000 in cash from his father, who Calabrese said controlled him with a tight grip and then death threats. Calabrese wrote a letter from prison offering the FBI his help. 

“My dad was a sociopathic killer,” Calabrese said. “He didn’t want me out of the life.” 

The decision to wear a wire “takes a lot of guts,” Binder said. “If things go wrong, you have a serious problem.” 

The many hours of tape Calabrese collected brought his father, Chicago Outfit bosses James “Little Jimmy” Marcello and Joey “The Clown” Lombardo into the Dirksen Federal Building for a hallmark trial in 2007 that grabbed daily headlines. Calabrese and his uncle Nick were star witnesses. 

It was the first time a made man of the Chicago Outfit was convicted of murder. Frank Calabrese Sr. died in prison in 2012, soon after his son’s memoir came out.

“Had I had it over, I would have went into the Air Force when I was young,” Calabrese said. “What I put people through, what I put my mother through, my ex-wife, my kids, my brothers, I would never want to do that again.”

Former Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Jr. now gets by speaking four times a day, five days a week at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Credit: Mikayla Jones

Starting Over

Calabrese said he “had his reasons” for passing on witness protection. He moved to Arizona with his ex-wife and kids to start over. He had a pizza place in the desert that was doing well until the demands of the trial forced him to shut down, he said.

Calabrese worked on and off at a Marriott in Scottsdale as a food and beverage manager. Multiple sclerosis limited his ability to be on his feet. Sometimes he walks with a cane. 

“My friends are all retired now,” Calabrese said. “I still got to work.” 

Calabrese started coming back to Chicago in 2017 to run tours on the mob, which ran until the COVID-19 pandemic. He was booked for speaking gigs in front of conferences and businesses. The Washington Capitals brought him into the locker room ahead of a game against the Blackhawks. 

“They loved me,” Calabrese said. “I wanted to speak to the players about the route I took. … They can make one mistake and it can change their life.” 

The first time Calabrese spoke at the Mob Museum was with an FDA agent who worked on his case. The former mobster said telling his story four times a day since hasn’t gotten old. 

“I relive it in my head while I’m telling it,” Calabrese said. “I don’t hold nothing back. It’s cathartic.” 

Calabrese wants to stay on at the museum for as long as they’ll have him. People from Chicago “know to come see me now when they’re in Vegas,” he said. 

He’s still chasing a dream to sell his book to Hollywood for the next mobster movie.

“I personally am shocked no one has made a movie about the Family Secrets case,” Binder said. “It has everything: father against son, brother against brother, murders, crime, intrigue, government investigation, wearing a wire as a danger to your own life.”

Binder offers his own walking tours on the history of Chicago Outfit and has a book on the topic sold at local Walgreens stores. He started studying the mob “because somebody’s gotta do it,” he said. The mob has faded, but the interest has not. 

“We’re fascinated by the dark side,” Binder said. “Think about most of us. We lead quiet, ordinary, law-abiding lives.” 

He now considers Calabrese a friend. 

“‘Give me five bucks and I’ll tell you a story,’” Binder said. “There’s your first lesson about organized crime.”

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