Read Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness Online
Authors: Dennis N. Griffin
Although Frank certainly didn’t like prison, he never thought about escape. As the time passed, he even decided that he’d try going straight when he got out. The reason for this decision wasn’t because he’d been rehabilitated, far from it. When it came to rehabilitation, Frank thought incarceration was a waste of time. If anything, prison made him tougher and angrier toward the system. And it wasn’t because he’d experienced a moral awakening, either.
The reason he was willing to turn his back on a life of crime was because of his mother. He’d been in scrape after scrape since he was a kid, which put her through hell. He’d let her down for most of his life, but she never abandoned him, never gave up on him. As she grew older, he wanted to repay her loyalty by not having her read in the paper that he’d been arrested, by not having to visit him in prison or some other detention center. The only way he could do that for her was by cleaning up his act. She deserved it and he was willing to try.
Frank was able to leave the prison from time to time in order to attend the proceedings in the federal hijacking case against him. The federal trial went no better for him than his encounters with state prosecutors, though. He was convicted and faced a maximum penalty of 10 years. On March 27, 1969, Frank appeared before Judge Hubert Will in the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, to learn his fate. Before pronouncing the sentence, Judge Will explained the rationale for the decision he was about to hand down. His comments serve to sum up Frank’s life to that point.
“I find myself considerably distressed by the length of the prior arrest record, though the convictions are not … well, there is a year in the House of Correction in 1956 when Mr. Cullotta was, I guess, seventeen, another year in the House of Correction in 1960 when he was twenty. There are arrests every year, one or more. Some years he was more prolifically arrested than others; ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65, ’66, ’67. There are other convictions, a fine in one instance. Most of them are either no disposition shown or he was released.”
As Judge Will spoke, Frank could see the writing on the wall. He was sure he’d be given another 10 years. The only thing that mattered now was whether the new sentence would run concurrent with his state time or be a consecutive term tacked on at the end. But the judge wasn’t quite ready to make his announcement. He had a few more things to say first.
“I am reluctant to say that somebody’s business or profession is crime, but that is likely the case based on his prior performance, unless something drastic happens. I look at the prior employment record and there is no verifiable gainful employment, for example. I look at the prior criminal record and it is substantial. I wonder what it takes to persuade Frank John Cullotta that the way he has lived in the past is not good for him, much less the community or society.
“Obviously, all these arrests have not done it. Even the oneyear sentences haven’t done it. I now find myself with, I think, only one alternative. It will protect the community for some considerable period of time, even if it doesn’t accomplish rehabilitation. I am going to remand Mr. Cullotta to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States for a period of ten years.”
There was no surprise there. It was the judge’s next words that would make all the difference in the world to Frank. He tensed as the judge continued.
“That sentence to run concurrently with the sentence he is now serving imposed by the Circuit Court of Boone County.”
Frank left the courtroom in much better shape than when he’d entered it. Although he had another conviction on his record, the judge’s decision to run the new sentence in conjunction with his state term meant he wouldn’t have to spend any additional time in prison. He would, however, have to serve a portion of his incarceration in a federal facility.
Frank was transported back to Stateville right after the hearing to begin serving out the rest of his sentences
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As luck would have it, a couple of Frank’s old nemeses were in the prison at the same time: none other than ex-cop Tom Durso, the Robbery Detail detective who had once used cattle prods on Frank, and his buddy Mike Gargano. They’d been convicted of killing a drug dealer they were shaking down and sentenced to a couple hundred years each. Gargano wasn’t a bad guy and Frank gave him a pass. But Durso was the same kind of asshole inside as he’d been as a cop.
The former tormentor of Chicago’s thieves never knew what hit him. As the stool crashed into Durso’s skull, he fell to the floor in a fetal position. Frank stood over his victim, taunting him. “Do you remember me, you cocksucker? Do you remember me now? This time we’re on equal terms, you piece of shit.”
Durso spent some time in the hospital, but he didn’t identify Frank as his assailant. Neither did he attempt to retaliate. If anything happened to Frank, the Blackstone Rangers would have killed him and Durso knew it.
After about a year working in the barbershop, Frank heard about an opportunity that he thought would improve his lot: An opening came up in the psychiatric ward for the criminally insane. This unit was located in the front end of the prison, out of general population. Prisoners assigned to jobs in the front were on the honor system. One black inmate and eight white inmates were assigned to work in the psych ward. They had their own TV, exercise room, and kitchen. They got better food and clothes and had a lot more freedom.
Frank met with Vince and Bushelhead and let them in on what he was considering. “I found out there’s an opening in the psychiatric ward and I’m thinking about putting in for it.”
Vince agreed. “Everybody hates the guys who work there. They call them the goon squad. If you work in the unit and go back in population, you’ll end up with a fuckin’ shiv in your back.”
“I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks of me,” Frank said. “Besides, if I get that job, I have no intention of coming back in population.”
Frank submitted for the psych-ward opening and was interviewed by a captain. After the interview the officer gave Frank his decision. “Cullotta, you’re just a wiseguy dago. If I give you that job, you’ll spend all your time plotting and scheming. The answer is no. You’re staying in population where you belong.”
If Frank was nothing else, he was resourceful. Determined to circumvent the captain, he did some research on the captain’s boss, the warden. It turned out that the warden had started his law-enforcement career as a street cop. As such, he might be susceptible to the request of another lawman. Frank sent word of his predicament to an old police-department contact: CIU boss Bill Hanhardt. The cop contacted the warden. In a short time the captain received orders to assign Frank to the psych unit.
The inmates housed in the psych ward included those who had committed heinous crimes—like chopping people up—and other crazies. The child molesters were in there for their own protection; they would probably be killed if they were in the general population. One of the things the inmates assigned to work in the ward were responsible for was suicide prevention; there were four hangings while Frank was there. They also gave out medications and, when necessary, went into the cells in general population to restrain inmates who were acting up and remove them to the ward. That’s where the name goon squad came from.
It wasn’t uncommon for the patients to rip their sinks off the walls and their toilets from the floor. They also urinated and defecated all over their cells. On those occasions the goon squad went into action. Carrying shields to protect themselves from thrown excrement or other material, they rolled in on the culprit. The offender was often beaten, sometimes severely. The guards didn’t seem to care. For the most part they were afraid of the crazies, and didn’t really give a damn what happened to baby rapers and other sub-human prisoners. Working in the psych unit wasn’t for the fainthearted, but Frank was up to it and thought it was a good job overall.
The last time Frank saw Sam DeStefano was while he was on the goon squad. He’d never cared for Mad Sam, so he didn’t go out of his way for him when he showed up in the psych ward to have some work done on the veins in his legs. He noticed one thing, though: Sam wasn’t the same tough guy inside that he was on the street. Without his weapons or gang, he’d lost his swagger. But Sam wasn’t the only one. That happened to a lot of guys when they got inside those walls.
The assignment also gave Frank the opening to cement his relationship with the Blackstone Rangers. Gang members came in for treatment from time to time and Frank always took good care of them while they were there. When they got back in population, they in turn took care of his friends. It was a one-hand-washes-theother situation.
Another advantage was that Frank liked most of his inmate coworkers, one of whom was Lawrence Neumann. Neumann was doing a 100-year-plus sentence for a triple murder in a Chicago tavern. In Illinois, no matter what his sentence, the convict appeared before the Illinois Parole Board in eleven years. At that time, Neumann had four more years to go before his parole hearing. The two men became friends and later joined forces in Las Vegas.
While Frank was working in the psych unit, an inmate phone room opened in the front end of the prison. All inmates were subsequently allowed to make one personal phone call a week. In addition to correctional staff, the phone room required inmate workers. Vince had already transferred from the main barbershop to the psych-unit barbershop. His duties were limited to cutting hair, so he wasn’t part of the hated goon squad. At Frank’s recommendation he applied for and got a clerk’s position in the phone room.
This new job was a position of power for Vince. He was responsible for scheduling the phone calls and could make sure his friends got more than one call per week. Other inmates who wanted extra phone time had to pay Vince for that privilege. Some of the prisoners had cash, which Vince gladly accepted. But the most common method of payment was cigarettes, which could be smoked or bartered for other items.
Frank and Vince also cultivated a relationship with one of the guards assigned to the phone room. They had him visit their friends or relatives while off duty and pick up money and items of clothing or food that they wanted brought into the prison. The guard was compensated in cash, for both his courier services and for the contraband.
In 1972, Frank was paroled by the state, but was transferred to the medium-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, to serve that portion of his sentence. The difference between the two facilities was like night and day. Federal prisoners got to use regular silverware during their meals, instead of the one big spoon he’d had to eat with at Stateville. And they had plastic plates rather than metal. He even got to sit at a regular table in the dining hall instead of the long metal jobs in the state facility.
When a new prisoner arrived at Terre Haute, he was initially housed in a reception area for processing. From there he was assigned to a dormitory. After that, with good conduct, he could earn his way into a cell and the privacy it afforded. But Frank knew the inmate who was in charge of housing assignments, so he was able to skip the dormitory and go directly from processing to his own cell.
The goal of any inmate was to get transferred from the main prison to the work farm. This was a minimum-security area, where the prisoner could work outdoors and enjoy even better food and accommodations.
After six months, Frank was assigned to the farm and worked in the fields baling hay. It was a good deal, except for one guard who seemed to enjoy harassing the inmates. He was a little guy, but nitpicking seemed to make him feel like a big man.
Frank came up with a plan to bring attention to the inmates’ displeasure with the guard without anyone having to come forward to file a formal complaint. He arranged for a can of black spray paint to be smuggled in from the outside. One night, he snuck out the window of his room and painted a list of grievances against the guard on the outer wall of a trailer in the yard used as an office. When his work was discovered the next morning, all hell broke loose and an investigation was launched. Authorities were unable to identify the author of the message, but the problem guard was transferred to another facility.
Frank’s next step toward freedom came about 18 months after his transfer to the farm. His parole hearing was coming up and if things went well, he’d go from the prison to a halfway house, then back on the streets. Naturally, he was anxious to have his hearing and learn the results. But the formal notification wouldn’t be generated right away. That meant he’d have to sweat it out until the paperwork was finished and delivered to him. Or did it? Frank figured that rather than spend the time waiting to receive word of the decision, it would be best to listen in on the deliberations that went on after the hearing ended. So he decided to bug the hearing room.
Each administrative area of the prison had an inmate janitor assigned to it. Frank arranged for a radio transmitter to be smuggled in by a visitor. The center of a book was hollowed out, with the transmitter concealed in the empty space. The book was given to the janitor, who placed it on a bookshelf in the hearing room. Although the farm was too far away to pick up the signal, Frank’s cohorts in the cell house 50 feet away from the hearing room received the transmission over their FM radio. A couple of hours after the hearing, Frank knew he had made parole.
While in the halfway house, Frank temporarily became involved with his second wife, Marie, again. He wasn’t allowed to have a car at the time, but Marie was a manager at a large Ford dealership and she let him use a brand new Thunderbird that was registered in her name. They had another falling out, however, and Marie wanted the car back. Frank made a proposal to her: the Thunderbird for the $10,000 ring she took with her when they first split up. Both were satisfied with the agreement.