The Chicago Tribune reports:
In March 2002, a former Cook County police officer and his wife were convicted of bilking the government by submitting billings for security work that never was performed at one of the nation's most dangerous housing complexes, the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago.
Since their convictions, James and Janice Skrzypek have waged a fight from behind bars to prove they were set up.
In their latest effort to win a new federal trial, the Skrzypeks have sued indicted private investigator Anthony Pellicano, alleging that the well-known forensics expert falsified tapes to further the government's aims.
In their lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the Skrzypeks allege that Pellicano and others, including unnamed federal agents, falsified audio recordings to make it appear that the couple knew that attempts were being made to bribe Chicago Housing Authority officials to overlook billing irregularities by the Skrzypeks' security firm.
Describing three audio tapes as the linchpin of the government's case against them, the Skrzypeks maintain the conversations involving bribery never occurred and that the incriminating tapes were manufactured.
This is the same
Anthony Pellicano who worked for Joey "the Clown" Lombardo.The Chicago Sun-Times caught the connection during the Family Secrets Trial:
A top Hollywood private investigator, Anthony Pellicano, now battling charges he illegally wiretapped enemies of the rich and famous, worked under reputed top mobster Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo three decades ago when Pellicano lived in Chicago, according to court testimony Wednesday.
Pellicano allegedly had a mob henchman, Alva Johnson Rodgers, blow up a Mount Prospect home and was upset when the man wouldn’t torch a 24-hour restaurant, according to Rodgers’ testimony in the historic Family Secrets mob trial in Chicago.
Pellicano’s mob past in Chicago has long been hinted at, but the trial on Wednesday offered the first public, detailed testimony on what Pellicano allegedly did when he was in Chicago.
Pellicano’s attorney, Steven Gruel, could not be reached Wednesday but has rejected claims that his client was mobbed up. Pellicano is currently in jail awaiting trial because he allegedly tried to hire unnamed Chicago mobsters to put out a hit on a witness against him, an allegation his attorney denies.
In court on Wednesday, Rodgers, 78, testified with a Texas twang as he described to jurors how he went from being a chronic car thief to hanging out with Chicago mobsters, after he befriended and helped Chicago mobster Marshall Caifano when they were both in prison in the early 1970s.
Rodgers said he saw Pellicano with Lombardo on several occasions.
Rodgers played handball with Pellicano a few times. Pellicano, a martial arts aficionado, got the better of Rodgers in a scuffle at a gym.
“We were going to have a tussle, and it lasted a few seconds,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers burned down a Mount Prospect home that no one was living in at the time after Pellicano paid him $5,000, Rodgers said. Everything was supposed to be off in the home, and no one was home, but a pilot light went on as Rodgers was spreading accelerant, and the home exploded. Rodgers made it out alive but suffered bad burns.
Rodgers went down to Florida to recuperate but when he returned, Lombardo asked for a meeting to chew him out.
Lombardo told Rodgers he needed Outfit permission to do such things as burn down a home, according to Rodgers’ testimony.
Lombardo also said Pellicano complained to him that Rodgers took the money but didn’t do the job.
No word yet from Hollywood liberals who've used the services of Mr.Pellicano.
