(Joey the Clown) Lombardo Testifies

The AP reports:

Reputed mob boss Joseph (Joey the Clown) Lombardo told a jury Tuesday he once shined police officers' shoes and ran a dice game approved by a Chicago alderman but denied he committed the murder that could send him to federal prison for the rest of his life.

"On Sept. 27, 1974, did you kill Daniel Seifert?" defense attorney Rick Halprin asked the haggard-looking, 78-year-old Lombardo, who a federal marshal brought to the witness stand in a wheelchair.

"Positively, no," Lombardo said in a husky voice. He answered the same way when asked if he was "ever a capo or a member of the Chicago Outfit."

Lombardo's testimony, which included a sprinkling of the wisecracks that gave him his nickname, offered an unusual close-up of a man whose name has figured in the annals of organized crime for decades.

Lombardo recalled that as a boy in Chicago he often visited a police station and shined shoes for 50 cents.

In Chicago, it gets confusing because the Alderman can be a "made member" of the Mob.