Frank Maltese
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank J. "Baldy" Maltese (1930- 1993) was a Cicero, Illinois town official who was involved in bookmaking in Chicago's West Side and had ties with the Chicago Outfit.
An associate of mobsters Ernest "Rocco" Infelice and Michael Spano, Sr., Maltese was involved in large scale insurance fraud in Cicero for over three decades while serving as the Town Assessor and later the Town President. On November 25, 1984, Maltese and Cicero police officer Daniel Wolff pleaded guilty to running a bingo game without a license; both men received sentences of two years of court supervision. Maltese was later suspected of using his office and telephone lines to communicate with mobster Joseph Ferriola to place illegal bets.
In December 1986, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service identified Maltese as a major figure in an illegal gambling ring being operated out of the Cicero town hall. On December 3, 1986, the US Justice Department's Organized Crime Task Force seized gambling records and cash amounting to $100,000 from the town hall. Maltese was also investigated for making a $1 million low interest loan to Paul Spano, an associate of Farriola who operated a storage company. Although he and then Town President Henry Klosak approched the First National Bank of Cicero to finance the loan, the later were able to secure a loan from the city Economic Development Commission earmarked for commercial development within Cicero.
In 1993, Maltese pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges. Before he could start serving his sentence, Frank Maltese died tht same year from liver cancer. Maltese's wife, Betty Loren-Maltese, succeeded Maltese as Town President after his death. In 2001, she and nine others were charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
