How a Mafia turncoat broke the omerta and landed the Chicago mob in court

The U.K. Independent reports:

Joey "The Clown" Lombardo looked perfectly at ease, gesturing and chatting with his lawyers. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he fingered his prison-issue wheelchair and joked about the new suit of clothes he would get to wear in court.

"Do I get a haircut too?" he asked with a goombah smile that would not have been out of place in The Sopranos and drew hoots of laughter from his entourage.

But for a felon's jumpsuit and the manacled wheelchair, Lombardo could have been passing the time of day time in his local Starbucks on Chicago's Grand Avenue.

Dating back to the days of Bugsy Siegel, who brought gambling to Las Vegas, and Al Capone, who flourished during prohibition, Chicago is a city dripping in Mafia lore. Robert Kennedy apparently suspected Cuban- and Italian-American Mafia bosses from Chicago of working for the CIA and having a hand in the assassination of his brother after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Two months after he announced he would reopen the assassination case, Robert Kennedy himself lay dead on the floor of the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel.

The Clown.