Bill Hanhardt was synonymous with thorough police work in Chicago for nearly three decades. Hanhardt and his partner Jack Hinchy led an elite burglary unit involved in the investigation of syndicate cartage theft. Members of this unit were handpicked for duty and were among the best in the department at that time; Wes Hunter, Jim Janda, Joseph Ahrens, Walter Cotter, Bill Carroll, Ed Uhlir, Harry Lance, and other fine officers unaware of the intriguing of their boss years after the unit disbanded. Hanhardt's heroics, and his sterling reputation among members of the law enforcement fraternity turned out to be mostly a sham. Public perceptions about this highly decorated official changed very quickly after a Federal indictment was handed down on October 19, 2000, charging Hanhardt and five other men with running a continuing criminal enterprise in partnership with the "Outfit." This former chief of detectives and deputy superintendent supervised a sophisticated ring of interstate thieves targeting jewelry salesmen as they traveled their assigned routes. The ring was active from the 1980s through the late 1990s. "Hanhardt's organization surpasses in duration and sophistication just about any other jewelry theft ring we've seen in Federal law enforcement," commented U.S. Attorney Scott R. Lassar. By all accounts, Hanhardt aided and abetted the Chicago mob by thwarting on-going CPD investigations into O.C. activity going back decades. In one instance it was alleged that Hanhardt leaked information about a pending federal investigation of mobsters at the home of Anthony Chiavola, a Chicago police officer and nephew of Kansas City rackets boss Nick Civella. For the past twenty-five years or so, rumors percolated on the street that this edgy, stone-faced member of the police cadre was not on the square. The "Code of Blue" held fast and the whispering campaign remained just that for a long, long time until the Federal Government took a closer look and planted a listening device in his home in 1996. So here we have a much-respected cop, idolized by the men who served under him and warmly praised by author Chuck Adamson in a recent biography about another notorious Chicago police character, the late Frank Pape, the so-called "toughest cop in America." Such an immodest sobriquet can be interpreted two ways: as a badge of shame, or as a mark of honor depending on what side of the political spectrum one chooses to walk in. To be sure, you would not have wanted to be cornered in a dark alley by either Pape or Hanhardt when they were both in the prime of life. The following is my retrospective on Bill Hanhardt and his fall from grace. I interviewed the retired cop at length in 1995 for the Illinois Police & Sheriff's News, and found him to be a man of puzzling contradiction.

There was nothing open-ended or ambiguous about Bill Hanhardt's approach to police work. He did it well, and was considered the best of a new breed of street cop coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s. Colleagues admired him for his leadership, his unflinching mental toughness and ability to turn an informant. Many of them still feel that way, even as the prison doors are about to slam shut.

So what went wrong? What dark and malevolent forces conspired to turn a once respected cop bad? Or was the corruption in him all along?

"The difference between a good thief and a good detective is just a hair," states a former robbery detective who worked with Hanhardt in the old days.

Living out his golden years in comfortable retirement in an upper-income North Shore suburb, Bill Hanhardt was certainly not crying poverty. So what made him do it? "It's the game baby. It's all about the game. And it has nothing to do with the money. It's a chess game and those guys love every minute of it," explained our seasoned traveler in the police circles.

For a period of five years Hanhardt headed the Criminal Investigations Unit (C.l.U) of the Chicago Police Department. Working side by side with Jack Hinchy, his partner of many years, and a team of hand-picked specialists drawn from the Chicago Police Department's elite burglary, robbery and homicide bureaus, Hanhardt's C.l.U. unit was regarded as the best on the street and their most famous cases were re-told in the television anthology series Crime Story, and countless articles in the "true detective" pulp magazines of that by-gone era. The fictional detective portrayed by well-known actor and former Chicago Police Officer Dennis Farina in the TV series was supposedly patterned after Hanhardt.

It's a Chess Game, After All

In the early months of 1995, I interviewed Hanhardt at his elegantly appointed home in Deerfield, a wealthy bedroom suburb straddling the North Shore, and on a second occasion at the "Bagel" restaurant in the Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie. Up to that point, I knew this imposing figure only by reputation, and through the word-of-mouth remembrances of my father-in-law, a retired Chicago Police officer who served in his burglary unit with distinction nearly forty years ago.

Bill Hanhardt was in his sixties when I met him for the first time. He had a receding hairline, a polished demeanor, and was built like an ox. Even now it is hard to imagine any underworld half-wit tangling with this guy in a street brawl.

He exuded an air of authority and a quiet self-confidence that I shall never forget. Yet there were things he said to me, catch phrases that struck me as odd coming from a highly decorated veteran of the command personnel. He said that he had known Outfit characters that were better men than some of the police officers he had worked with down through the years. He spoke of the collegiality of the job, and chance meetings with hoodlums, cartage thieves, and gangland hangers-on in restaurants and other social settings. The guy you arrested two years ago sends a drink over to your table. He extends a polite greeting to your wife and you reciprocate. If it happens enough times a relationship is likely to form. There are those police officers that eventually succumb to the seduction. ("It's a chess game and those guys love every minute of it.") Today it's a free drink, tomorrow a gold watch.

Bill Hanhardt and Jack Hinchy were part of a younger breed of cops who advanced through the ranks in the post-Summerdale era, following the appointment of Superintendent O.W. Wilson in 1960. The scholarly Wilson, who forever changed the complexion of law enforcement in America with the publication of his ground breaking treatise on Police Administration, was brought in from the University of California to reform a department tarnished and in disrepute following the revelations that a cat burglar named Richard Morrison was stealing from North Side businesses on behalf of eight crooked cops assigned to the Summerdale district (now Foster Avenue).

"No-one Can Tell You a Thing!" Burglary Was the "Perfect Score"

Hanhardt, whose early police career was anchored by several spectacular burglary arrests he made within a year of his appointment to the force on July 13, 1953, told how younger police officers virtually had no chance under the old system that had prevailed for 100 years before Wilson came on the job. "I have to say that Summerdale [the 1960 police burglary ring] was the greatest thing to happen to the Chicago Police Department," he said. "The whole scandal was looked upon as a necessary evil that brought on change. Before Wilson, there had not been a promotional examination for eight years. We drove broken-down squad cars and we had never had the proper tools to do our jobs. O.W. truly made police work a profession in the City of Chicago. He was a God-send who surrounded himself with the smartest people in the field."

The crusty old-timers like the late Frank Pape were secure in their positions and had no use for Wilson's "college-boy" reforms. "They were of a different mind set," he adds. "They were convinced that nothing good ever happens by upsetting a system." Summerdale was the defining moment in Chicago Police history. The department made a permanent break with the past. And Wilson's ideas changed the city police administration throughout the nation.

Hanhardt worked high-profile burglary cases through much of his career and during the interview, he waxed eloquent about "the game," and how he lined up his "chess pieces." "The robbery and burglary detectives are two different police specialists," he observed. "When you investigate a robbery the victim tells you the assailant weighed in at 160 and stood 5' 9" tall. When you work a burglary case no one can tell you a thingjust the extent of their loss. We put our unit together looking for knowledgeable police officers who knew the streets and their business. Most of the guys we brought in came out of Area 5 burglarythe Shakespeare District."

"No one can tell you a thingjust the extent of their loss." I didn't think much about it at the time, but Hanhardt's prophetic words were profoundly revealing.

Chasing the Phantom: Hanhardt Bestows Praise on the "Cracker Jack " Thieves

In Chicago there were plenty of "phantoms" to chase, long before Hanhardt decided to compare notes with them for fun and profit. Burglary gangs, cartage thieves, and home invaders were organized and on the move. The names belong in a permanent "Hall of Shame" along with every crooked cop in Chicago who worked the angles and sold his self-respect for a piece of the action.

Who can forget the Panczko brothers, Chicago's comedic ''first family of thieves?" Then there was Martin "Snuffy" Garetti. "He was an outside guy who planned the big scores for the Panczko gang." Hanhardt recalled. Donny O'Brien. "Now here was a real cracker jack thief who was outstanding with locks," he said with appreciation and admiration. "O'Brien was a solo operator, but he had connections to the Chicago Outfit through "Milwaukee" Phil Alderisio."

Add to the deadly mix Guy "Lover Boy" Mendola, Joey D'Argento, Neil McCauley, Nick Guido and Frank Yonder -- a generation of "Good Fellas" Hanhardt described as the real "organized criminal," terrorized the entire metropolitan area in the early sixties.

"I don't know if we were tougher or better than today's cop," he said. "I think times might have made us appear a little tougher. When we were in our prime in the police department there was more organized criminality than there is today, and certainly far less drugs. That is probably the major reason why the complexion of crime has changed so dramatically. All the sharp thieves stepped into the junk business. The money was big time."

He failed to add that a couple of the "sharp thieves" stepped outand found a comfortable place in his own orbit.

The "H & H" Boys

The lawlessness of Chicago unintentionally thrust Hanhardt and Hinchy into the public spotlight. The police duo were the Burns & Allen, and Martin & Lewis of local policing for many years to comenot in a comedic or entertaining sense, but in those days when you thought of one you automatically thought of the other.

Their names were added to the North Side detective division, one of three geographical zones Superintendent O.W. Wilson designated as the "D's:" D-l, D-2, and D-3. Hinchy came out of the Park District detail after the unit was merged into the Chicago Police Department in 1959, but he had already received a commendation from Cook County State's Attorney John Gutknecht and Mayor Richard J. Daley for outstanding police work.

Jack Hinchy was a product of Chicago's West Side and was adept at cultivating informants. "He had terrific eyes," recalled Wes Hunter, a former member of the C.I.U. unit who rode with Hinchy. "He had the ability to spot things. A car would speed in the other direction and in an instant Jack would know if those guys were dirty. Great instincts. He had a real sense for the street."'

Hanhardt drew his first assignment in the Sheffield District, but was promoted to the Chicago Avenue detective division by Captain James Park Hackett just three months after coming into the job. Bill Hanhardt drew considerable press attention by busting a three-man burglary gang who were preying on retail merchants at the Lincoln-Belmont shopping district. Two of the burglars -- Eddie Howard and George Crane -- were former Chicago Police officers. "Nobody would arrest ex-cops in those days," Hanhardt said. "That caught Hackett's eye. We had the balls to do it."

Informants & Famous Cases

The "H & H" boys possessed vital skills that made them indispensable within the sphere of the Chicago P.D. Bill Hanhardt had a particular knack for turning informants. This trait was a contributing factor in cracking some of the city's celebrated cases including the capture of the Guido-Yonder home invasion, torture gang. Hanhardt also mentioned the conviction of Silas Fletcher, a career criminal responsible for the October 1, 1972 kidnap-murder of West Suburban Hillside Police Officer Anthony Raymond.

"They had nothing to do with it! The case was worked by the Illinois Bureau of Investigations (I.B.I.)" disputes Howard Roos, former chief investigator of the Illinois Crime Commission who testified against Fletcher in Criminal Court with a hood over his head in order to prevent him from assassination at the hands of a criminal gang he was investigating at the time.

With the help of his informant, Roos located the body of Officer Raymond buried in a shallow grave in Fletcher's Rhinelander, Wisconsin farm. Raymond was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been abducted by a robbery gang after he pulled the suspect vehicle over for a routine traffic stop. The three men in the car had just knocked over a Hillside restaurant.

Raymond was handcuffed, stabbed and stuffed in an oil drum before being transported to the Wisconsin burial ground where he was interred not far from the remains of alleged victims of back alley abortionists. These were the days before legalized abortion. If something went wrong, as it often did, the doctors and their associates would crudely dispose of the female victim in this inhumane fashion.

Hanhardt, like Roos (and his careful handling of the informant on the notorious Anthony Raymond murder), was skilled at "turning" a bad guy into a "friend," according to the street-wise detectives from C.I.U. who worked directly under him during the years when the C.l.U.

A group of the same detectives who chased the criminal phantoms with Hanhardt in former years were invited over to his Deerfield residence to sit in on part one of the interview. As I drew from my prepared list of questions, I noticed that not one of them would venture an opinion unless Hanhardt pointed to them directly, with a wave of the finger. They sat respectfully around the table in rapt attention with Hanhardt at the head. He was an intimidating presence, and I realized at that moment it was all about respect and loyalty and maintaining police "omerta." Not once did anyone of these case hardened retired cops dare to interrupt their old boss, fearing that at any moment they might be censured for speaking out of turn.

"It's the most difficult thing to do in any criminal investigation," Hanhardt expounded, adding emphasis to every word. "How do you turn a guy into everything he detests? You're his natural enemy. You represent the difference between life and death. How do you turn him around to be working for you? So I posed the question to [the late] Fred Inbau who was teaching a course on interrogation at the time. I asked him how do you talk to these guys? He said to me, 'when all else fails my boy, revert to the telephone book."

Hanhardt, grim and humorless throughout the interview, chuckled at the unintentional irony.

Cultivating an informant, building a trust level with a bad guy in order to achieve a larger objective often leaves a cop vulnerable and open to attack from the media, or rival cliques within the department. Sometimes in the course of an investigation, a savvy detective has to seek "special consideration" for an Informant in order to build a case. It is commonplace in police work, but it also requires the detective to tip-toe through a political minefield when it becomes necessary to associate with unsavory characters in public places.

There must have been many "special considerations."

"You deal with these guys on the street. Occasionally you run into them in a restaurant with their families," Hanhardt says. "The name of the game is building intelligence. I used to tell my guys that unless you had paper on a particular individual, you don't fuck with him. You leave him alone."

Smear Campaigns and Police Politics: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Legendary police reporters of bygone days relied on their own informants -- the "well placed sources" within the department who favored them with information about the inner workings of the department; for example, whose on the way up, which guy is the target of an internal affairs investigation, an officer observed consorting with an outfit hoodlum at a West Side restaurant, etc. Information gleaned from a whispering campaign is only as reliable as the person who is repeating it but once it appears on the front page of the morning edition it can shatter a police career in a heartbeat.

From time to time Hanhardt said that he was a victim of such tactics; a story taken out of context, false innuendos from unnamed sources, or what he called a "smear." He didn't mince words either about the motivations of those he designated as "political cops."

"I call them the "Hitless Wonders," Hanhardt said of his departmental enemies. "These are the guys who go their entire career without making a successful pinch, but they are the first to stab you in the back and take shots for political reasons."

In those days the robbery and burglary detectives worked on a point system, building credit with every successful takedown. Extra points meant time off. Consequently there was fierce competition to accumulate points for rewards. It was not uncommon for one detective to steal credit from another, or to embarrass a rival in the court of public opinion.

He cited as one example of police rivalry, a smear campaign directed against his friend, partner and former Deputy Chief of Detectives Jack Hinchy who was one of 15 individuals named in the last will and testament of Joseph Testa, a flamboyant business figure whose sudden and violent death in 1981 was blamed on a "Young Turk" faction of the outfit. The media picked up on the story and plastered It on page one. Hanhardt blamed the "Hitless Wonders" for blowing the whole thing out of context. "Testa was not an outfit guy. He was an entrepreneurial businessman who enjoyed the company of a small circle of friends whom he included in his will. After Testa's wife died of a heart attack, he turned to Jack and a friendship developed between the two men over the years. There was nothing more to it than that. Period."

The former robbery detective who spoke to us under the condition of anonymity believes that those who were smearing Hanhardt were on to something big, years before the press and the U.S. District Attorney exposed the activities of the interstate jewelry theft ring when he was directing a crew of free-lancing Outfit thieves. "When I knew him [Hanhardt] everyone considered him a hero until about twenty-five or so years ago," he said. "Then we got word that the FBI was interested in taking him down and were looking for informants."

It appears that the departmental cadre was evenly divided between two opposing campsthose who recognized Hanhardt for the thief he was, but refused to violate the sacred trust (the tiresome refrain of an oath-bound brotherhood dictating that you never rat-out a brother officer no matter how terrible the circumstances) and go publicand those who took a different view and saw him as the last of a fearless breed.

In Chicago unfortunately, there are very few whistle-blowers possessing the courage of their convictions. It is far easier to milk the system or just turn a blind eye to the corruption and ride it out until retirement.

Frank Pape, the hard-nosed former police captain whose exploits inspired the creation of the fictional TV detective Frank Ballinger in the 1950s series M-Squad, and who personally killed nine felons in the line of duty, got to know both men at the tail end of his 40-year career when he hired them to work on his Arlington Park security detail. They were perfectly cast in his own snarling "don't-gimme-no-bullshit" image. "These guys had such a good reputation," Pape gushed. "They were two of the best men the department produced. I would put them up against anybody."

The Guido-Yonder Gang

Hinchy and Hanhardt were heirs apparent to the Frank Pape legacy (which probably isn't saying very much when you consider Pape's surly reputation). But at the time the C.l.U. was formed in 1963, the pair had already earned praise for the kind of gritty police work that made Pape the walking poster boy for Guns & Ammo Magazine back in the early 1950s. The C.I.U. had just taken out the Guido-Yonder home invasion gang responsible for 17 robberies in the city and suburbs that netted about $200,000 in stolen loot. More than 200 detectives were assigned to grapple with what was then a new crime techniquethe invasion of private residences by heavily armed bandits.

In several instances the robbers gained entrance to the victim's homes with a front or rear door key, and seemed to know in advance just what to look for once inside the dwelling. Other times they would simply ring the front door bell, posing as deliverymen for a local florist, with bouquets in hand. The robbers were sadistic animals who rousted their intended victims from their beds commencing a night of mayhem. Sometimes they would pose as deliverymen, ring the bell, then shove a pistol in the face of the person answering the door. One of the wealthy victims who fell prey to the torture gang was prominent Loop attorney Harry X. Cole, who was bound, gagged and robbed with other family members in his upscale Glencoe home.

Federal and local law enforcement were stymied over what to do next. "We had no idea," Hanhardt related. "They knew no boundaries. We're working the North Side of Chicago. Then we get a report of home invasions in North Suburban Highland Park, then Glencoe. We surmised that at least two groups were active because the modus operandi was different."

This is when Hanhardt put his skills at cultivating informants to the test. "We made the arrest of three guys up at Area 5 who had been preying on businesses and lumber yards," he explained. "We talked to one of them and said: 'listen, maybe we can get you some consideration to lessen the blow." At five o'clock one morning Sergeant Hanhardt received word from the lockup keeper that the guy wanted to talk about home invasions. "So he says to me, 'I don't know if I can name more than one guy, but I know he's the key man because he works in a beauty salon where they are getting the keys and information to gain easy entrance to the houses where these prominent women are living."

The Chicago burglary detectives traced the lead to the KayDen Beauty Shop on Diversey Parkway, where 24-year-old Frank Yonder worked as a hair stylist. Yonder, and his criminal associate Nicholas Guido, who had served five years for the robbery of the Proviso State Bank in Maywood, worked out a fool-proof scam with Leo Johnson, 22, who was employed as a car hiker at the beauty shop. While the wealthy female patrons were having their hair primped by Yonder, accomplice Leo Johnson was duplicating their house keys out in the parking lot.

Under the direction of Lieutenant Mike Spiotto, Hanhardt laid a trap for the bandits at the Chicago residence of Herbert Freed. For several days during the elaborate stakeout the same car was observed aimlessly circling the block. Through intelligence information the detectives learned that the Guido and Yonder gang intended to invade the Freed household the evening of April 27, 1962. "We had kept a close eye on the potential victims, trailed them to their homes, and warned other police to watch their homes."

The family was sequestered in the basement, while Hanhardt, armed with a sub-machine-gun, guarded the front door. Detective Harry Lance cradled a shotgun while a third member of the unit. Joseph Ahrens, stood off to the side with a pistol. Across the street, sequestered and out of the view of passers-by, four other Chicago Police Officers watched and waited. "Police officers! Stay where you are!" came the order.

A firefight erupted after one of the home invaders, disguised as a home deliveryman, carrying a potted palm to the residence, turned and ran. Their guns started blazing the instant they heard the police directive. "One of them fired at me point blank," Hanhardt recalled. "I don't know how he missed. Then he turned and ran. I chased him a block before I brought him down."

Hanhardt discarded the machine gun in his foot pursuit of Andrew Chervanek. Bullets from his service revolver dropped the gunman in his tracks a block away from the Freed residence. Meanwhile, the other bandit, identified as Pierre Mager, retreated to the rented car, driven by Kenneth Daniels. The driver attempted to flee from the crime scene but smashed his vehicle into a fire hydrant. Police bullets shattered the windshield and tore into Daniels who was killed instantly. Mager, who had served time for auto theft, and was wanted in Florida on fraud charges, cowered and was taken into custody.

This did not put an end to the Guido and Yonder gang. Fearing that their criminal associates might betray them to the police, two accomplices were murdered. Leo Johnson was found dead as a result of a bullet wound to the brain on May 31, 1962. Herbert Kwate was pulled out of a ravine north of Carpentersville on June 18th.

Then they skipped town leaving Guido's wife Patricia behind to answer questions and take the pinch. The woman was arrested in her back yard as she dug up a sugar can containing stolen jewelry and the house keys of intended robbery victims. Her hoodlum husband, and his pal Frankie Yonder were finally apprehended in Michigan by a state trooper who spotted the pair driving on the wrong side of a highway near Ypsilanti. Guido accused his wife of masterminding the home invasions. Pushed into a corner, Pat Guido decided to turn state's evidence. Guido and Yonder were eventually convicted and sentenced to 60-100 years in prison. Hanhardt and Hinchy were among seven detectives who received departmental commendations for their work on this case.

There is an interesting footnote to this story. Nick Guido was granted parole and is reportedly still alive and living in Las Vegas. Frankie Yonder was paroled in 1979. He returned to Chicago where he opened a barbershop at 314 S. Dearborn Street in the shadow of the Dirksen Federal Building. Among his clientele are high-ranking law enforcement officials and witnesses in the federal protection program who are brought in and cleaned up before their court appearance.

Cartage Theft

A dangerous threat to society was abated for the moment, just as a new one was emerging. There had been 72 tractor-trailer loads of merchandise stolen from Chicago area freight yards in 1963. "Cartage theft was a major money producer in the early 1960s," Hanhardt explained. "A package of razor blades was a $1.00. A case was $1,000. Imagine the black market value of a whole trailer truckload of razor blades, Papermate pens, or golf balls, or whatever."

A pair of bolt cutters, the serial number of the trailer, and an inside connection with the yard boss was usually all that a gang of skilled cartage thieves required to pull off a successful job. Security was non-existent at the freight yards. The merchandise was ripe for the taking. The players were well known to Cook County law enforcement. Putting an end to their escapades was another matter. The "Peanuts" Panczko burglary and robbery gang had engineered numerous jewelry heists over the years, but by the time Hanhardt and Hinchy were assigned to investigate, the gang had refined the technique and moved past the nickel and dime stuff, graduating to the big time world of bank robbing and lucrative cartage theft.

In 1964, Paul Panczko's gang was responsible for the daring daylight robbery of the Sears, Roebuck store at the Golf Mill Shopping Center in Niles. The robbery netted the gang $52,000 in cash and checks, but it claimed the life of a 26-year-old furniture salesman who was shot through the head when he attempted to tackle one of the fleeing bandits. The Niles P.D., the Cook County Police Department, and the Chicago Police Department Intelligence Unit pooled their resources and worked the case for weeks. The results of the investigation were presented to the F.B.I.

"We really thought they were going to make a case. We pegged the guys who were in on the job: Mike LaJoy; Pat Shang was the driver, Joey D'Argento and Paul "Peanuts" Panczko," Hanhardt explained. "But after they all agreed to become government informants the Bureau decided not to compromise them and contaminate the witnesses so they did nothing. But a case like this goes way beyond the issue of protecting informants. You have to clear up the murder, plain and simple," Hanhardt adds.

Guy "Lover Boy" Mendola was a clever and vicious thief who hooked up with the Panczko gang in many of their capers. Mendola was an important outfit "conduit" to Stone Park rackets boss Rocco Pranno, and though he stood only five-foot-four-inches tall, he was every inch the tough-guy hood portrayed in the movie Good Fellas. The aforementioned Pat Schang, Mike LaJoy, Joey D'Argento, former Alcatraz inmate Richard Kay, Emil Croverdi, and Gerald Tomaszek were other seasoned professionals aligned to the group. Their criminal skills were brought into play in just about every major truck hijacking, warehouse job, or cartage heist that went down in Northern Illinois during the time they traveled together.

In many respects these same men undoubtedly provided Hanhardt with on the job training and rich insights into the inner workings of the criminal mind.

"They would go right to the outfit guys with the score," Hanhardt said. "The outfit had all the connections to legitimate businesses and could dispose of merchandise quickly and efficiently. Before the goods were taken they knew where they were going to bring it and what they could get for it. You don't take 40,000 pounds of cigarettes without first having a buyer."

The five Chicagoland L. Waner stores, offering wholesale goods to inner city residents at affordable prices, accepted the stolen loot. "It was a great outlet for cigarettes and booze," he explained. "There were two L. Waner stores on the South Side and two on the North Side. The merchandise got there through the outfit guys."

Paul Panczko and the other crews never limited themselves to one kind a criminal activity, as Hanhardt learned in the streets. "A thief is a thief. These are the same guys, who, if they received information on a warehouse they would go in and heist the joint while it was open -- like they did to the Papermate Pen Company. With the exception of the specialists who could open sophisticated safes or compromise alarm systems, they would go to wherever they could find the money."

The formation of the C.l.U. was the first coordinated response to the rash of cartage thefts. Hanhardt was put in charge of C.I.U. and given full authority to hand-pick his men by Chief of Detectives Otto B. Kreuzer, a college educated police veteran who helped crack the abduction-murder of 7-year-old Suzanne Degnan while still a patrolman in 1946. Kreuzer suggested the idea of a C.l.U. unit to O.W. Wilson who authorized him to proceed.

"Otto was a study in psychology," recalled Wes Hunter. "He would interview all of the men coming in and would touch you, grab your knee, look you straight in the eye and try to intimidate you. Otto was the first guy I ever met who utilized body language."

C.l.U. started with only eight members and two supervisors. "Imagine 10 guys working in an area of over seven million people. That was Bill's mandate," Hunter added. "The most we ever had was 17 men." This was a dedicated response team that worked without furloughs, overtime pay, or the normal job perks younger police officers have come to take for granted.

Rationalizations

In an unguarded moment of self-appraisal, Hanhardt revealed an insight into his character and an all-too-familiar jagged-edged, world-weary, cynical cop refrain.

"You knew that you're going to get screwed over eventually, so you went into the game with that thought in mind and you weren't surprised when it happened," Hanhardt rationalized. "You got a wife. You got kids. So you got to think about the future, right? But I never liked thinking about the future. I liked to live for the moment."

The C.l.U. lived on the edge. "I'll say it againif you're worried about the reaction, you never take the action," Hanhardt adds. "Today the department preaches a sense of caution and fear among the guys. Everything is scrutinized from every angle. The shootings," his voice trails off, "these guys know it and its had an effect."

Outfit Capers

In the next few months the C.l.U. targeted the cartage theft gangs. "John Di Fronzo's Grand Avenue crew was good," Hanhardt recalled. "They did all the big scores and were top notch money guys. Through the walls and into the vaults. Not only Di Fronzo. Joey Lombardo was a rootin-tootin' sonofabitch. Some guys know him as "the Clown." Art Petacque of the Sun-Tlmes gave him that nickname. We called him by his street name, Lumpy."

Lombardo was a fast-moving up-and-comer in those days. "Joey and DiFronzo, and the other guys in that crew who understood that high status in the outfit was linked to their ability to make money. They would become made guys if they desired....and they desired."

Today Lombardo and DiFronzo sit atop the outfit hierarchy (by present indications), though the Chicago Crime Commission and the Chicago P.D. intelligence division are not 100% certain because of the low profile organized crime assumed in the 1990s. Thirty years ago, the two Outfit leaders were hard-working cartage thieves at a time when truck hijackings were still a tremendous source of revenue. Today, you hardly ever hear of it.

"A lot of the guys we used to work on went into the dope business because it's more lucrative," he said. "It is the downfall of organized crime as we see it today because the old code of "Omerta" does not apply to these young Turks who not only deal in itbut they also snort it."

The burglary crews that roamed Chicago in the old days were cunning, dangerous criminals. "We gave Jerry Scalise one of his first arrests,' Hanhardt said. "He was responsible for a lot of action. Master of disguises. Heavy drama. Scalise used hair dye and wigs, and carried along vials of dog urine to throw off the scent of a watchdog." Scalise, who was arrested and imprisoned in England for the theft of the Marlborough Diamond some years back, was responsible for many of the big time scores that went down in Chicago

"He had a withered hand. In order to conceal his handicap, he used a prosthetic arm equipped with a sleeve and a zipper. The fingers could be flexed to hold a gun."

Dick Cain and Sheldon Teller: Discredited Cops and Partners in Crime

Guy Mendola Jr. was one of the major criminals the C.l.U. hunted, but whose death they could not account for. Multiple shotgun blasts fired from a passing automobile instantly killed Mendola as he parked his car inside his Stone Park garage August 31, 1964. At the time of his murder he was free on bond on a federal warrant charging unlawful flight to avoid burglary prosecution.

The outfit subscribed to the time-honored adage "silence is golden."

Everyone who was acquainted with Mendola in those days has a theory about who was responsible. Word had it that the former Panczko associate had been feeding information to the l.R.S. about gambling operations and cartage thefts in northern Illinois two months before an assassin cornered him in his Stone Park garage. Others believed that Mendola had a falling out with "Peanuts" Panczko. While members of the crew blew their shares of the swag on high living, Mendola hoarded his end of the take. His refusal to contribute to the legal defense of fellow thieves caught in the act supposedly angered Paul Panczko and the gang.

Some observers speculate that the most compelling suspect was the late Richard B. Cain, chief investigator for the Cook County Sheriffs Police. Mendola had a hand in the failed attempt by the drug thieves who looted the Louis Zahn warehouse of $250,000 in pharmaceuticals. Acting on behalf of the thieves, Mendola tried to sell the drugs to the investigators for $25,000. Then, purportedly, an anonymous tipster told Cain that a portion of the loot was stored at the Caravelle Motel in Rosemont -- an outfit-fronted business once owned by Sam Giancana, but later sold to Rosemont Village President Donald Stephens. "The tipster was someone in the burglary gang," Cain told press sources.

Guy Mendola?

The recovery of the stolen drugs was a set-up, engineered by Cain with Mendola's help. Dick Cain, the enigmatic former Chicago vice detective with dubious connections and strong outfit ties, was sentenced to one to three years for conspiracy to obstruct justice and for lying to a grand Jury investigating the Zahn heist.

Cain, described by Hanhardt as "no big-time policeman," blazed a trail of corruption and infamy through the Chicago Police Department and into the Cook County Sheriffs Police during the 1960s.

Sheldon Teller, a member of the C.l.U. unit for a short period of time was one of Cain's partners in Chicago. "He was a very sharp capable guy who was promoted out of the unit."

Teller kissed his career good-bye when he began dealing heroin on the side with his wife Leah. Hanhardt vividly remembered his last meeting with Teller. "Sheldon did not have his police star with him when he got arrested. The courts later released him on a $50,000 bond," Hanhardt said. "I met him in a restaurant one afternoon and said Sheldon, may l have your star? He looked at me and threw it across the table. Teller was the son of a rabbi. That was the hard thing for me to understand how he could have been involved in this kind of activity." Sergeant Teller was sentenced to five, 18-year prison terms.

It was around this time that State's Attorney Daniel P. Ward launched his investigation into Cain's dealings with Guy Mendola.

Mike LaJoy (Willie Daddano's nephew), and Joey D'Argento, two other long-time criminal foes of the C.l.U., provided the damaging testimony that helped send Dick Cain away. The two bank robbers who knocked over the Franklin Park Savings had their sentences reduced to time served.

Did Cain kill Mendola in order to save himself from a grand jury indictment? Mendola had failed a polygraph test administered by Cain on behalf of Willie "Potatoes" Daddano who was interested in learning the identity of the informant. Daddano was the boss of the crew and the outfit contact the Panczko gang delivered the goods after every big score.

"Mendola could have gotten it for a lot of reasons," Hanhardt theorized. "He was at war with the Panczkos. He might have been making it with the wife of some outfit hood." There were a lot of motives, but no suspects. The case was never solved and the true circumstances remained a mystery after Cain was hit in December 1973. The killing has long been attributed to Joey Lombardo.

Joe Di Drives the Fox Out of the Hen House

The complexion of the C.l.U. began to change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when, according to Hanhardt: "We began getting less qualified menpolitical cops who were assigned to us by City Hall. That was when the decline set in. If you have 18 guys giving you 14 hours a day, then all of a sudden you find 25 men in the unit working five hours a day, it has a bad effect."

Every Hanhardt enemy he described fell into that hated classification of a "political cop."

Hanhardt was moved out of the Detective Division and given the command of the Shakespeare District by (then) Superintendent James Rochford. At the time it was a move that caught many by surprise. "C.I.U. went into the intelligence division for a couple of years," said Hanhardt. "That was the politics of the police department and the straw that broke the camel's back. Here's the problem. In the Chicago Police Department, I don't ever remember a superintendent with detective division experience. They come from the traffic division or Intelligence. And there in lies your problems."

Superintendent Fred Rice formally dissolved the C.I.U. unit in 1985, claiming it had "outlived its usefulness." Maybe it had, but others strongly disagreed. Patrick Healy, who was then serving as the Director of the Chicago Crime Commission challenged the decision. "I hate to see a unit like that go down," Healy said "A great amount of personal savvy is involved. These detectives carry a lot of that knowledge around in their heads and they have informants working for them."

In the 1970s, Jack Hinchy served as the director of the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Group (M.E.G.), a narcotics investigations agency until state funding dried up. He returned to Chicago shortly afterward as Deputy Chief of Detectives before retiring in 1985 to start a private detective business. Years later a debilitating stroke took away his speech.

Bill Hanhardt left the Shakespeare District in 1979 to accept a promotion to Deputy Chief of Detectives from Superintendent Richard Brzeczek. Mayor Jane Byrne later told reporters that, "The only thing I ever heard about him was good things."

In 1983 just as Byrne was preparing to exit City Hall following her unsuccessful re-election bid, Hanhardt's name turned up in Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto's little black book of phone numbers and addresses. Eto was a gambling kingpin operating illegal bolita games all over the city under the direction of mob overseer and labor extortionist Vince Solano.

Eto turned informant that year after a botched attempt on his life in the parking lot of the Montclair movie theater. Of course this wasn't the first time Hanhardt's name surfaced in the private files of mobbed-up people. His name was found in Allen Dorfman's little black book shortly after Dorfman was gunned down outside the Lincolnwood Hyatt Hotel on January 20, 1983. Dorfman was the owner of Amalgamated Insurance Agency, a firm handling millions of dollars of Teamster union money. At the time of his death, Dorfman was convicted for his role in the Central States Pension fund/casino "skimming" case and facing serious jail time.

Three years later, Hanhardt appeared as a friendly witness for Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago mob's greedy little point man in Las Vegas who was on trial for running his "Hole-in-the-Wall" jewelry burglary ring out in the desert. Hanhardt took the stand to invalidate the testimony of wise guy Frank Cullotta, who had agreed to become a Federal witness against Spilotro. Hanhardt's appearance on behalf of the defendant stunned many observers, but was probably not so surprising among those in the know back in Chicago.

Mayor "One Term" Byrne and Acting Superintendent Sam Nolan advanced him to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of the Bureau of Inspectional Services, only to seem him demoted to traffic chief by Acting Superintendent Joe DiLeonardi in a move that in Hanhardt's opinion, had politics written all over it, but in hindsight was probably done to fumigate the stench emanating out of the mobbed-up First Ward.

According to published reports filed by the late Art Petacque of the Sun-Times, "Joe Di drew up an "enemies list," of top police officials he allegedly construed as a threat to his winning permanent appointment from Byrne. Petacque (who phoned in his stories to his re-write man, and probably never penned a legitimate line of copy during his entire career) should have read between the lines. There was much more to the content of that list than the attempt to further the ambitions of one man to attain promotion at the expense of another. The late James Riordan (shot to death in a Marina City restaurant in 1981) and Bill Hanhardt were some of the prominent names included on the list.

Maybe in the case of DiLeonardi, it all boiled down to an honest police official looking out for the integrity of the entire department and the reputation of the city's crime-fighting apparatus. DiLeonardi long recognized the corrupting power of the First Ward, and its pervasive ties to the Chicago Police Department echelon and wanted to do something about it. In 1999, Joe DiLeonardi retired from his post as U.S. Marshal in Chicago, rounding out his law enforcement career. In a published quote appearing in John Kass' Tribune column of August 26, 1999, DiLeonardi candidly discussed the Outfit's penetration of the Chicago P.D. during the long gray years of organized crime ascendance.

"There were police officers who were organized crime guys with badges. They were hit men. There were guys who at scenes of Outfit murders told the victims to keep quiet. Did that bother me? It just tore my guts out. I mean, whose side are you on?"

Hanhardt called it a career on March 26,1986. "There was no major score from 1963 up to the time we left that we did not know about," he said in closing. "Everybody thought that their generation was the smartest and toughest. I'm sure the police officers today have the same knowledge and toughness. The lessening of standards is in society in general."

Bitter, bitter irony.

Epilogue: Jailing "the Phantom"

In retirement, former Detective Chief Hanhardt personally directed the activities of a sophisticated jewelry theft ring from his Deerfield residence. He often called upon active-duty Chicago Police officers to search departmental databases to gather information on potential victims. A private investigator was summoned to obtain additional facts from credit bureaus to further the aims of the ring.

That was the hard thing for me to understand how he could have been involved in this kind of activity." (Hanhardt on Sheldon Teller).

Also charged with Hanhardt in the Federal grand jury indictment accusing him of racketeering and interstate transportation of stolen property, were Joseph "Skinny" Basinski, the second in command who identified the initial targets; suspected mob hit man Paul Schiro of Scottsdale, Arizona, who surveilled the jewelry trade shows, store owners and salesmen; Sam, DeStefano, 46-year-old son of Mario DeStefano and a nephew of the late syndicate muscle man "Mad Sam" DeStefano; and Guy Altobello, a Wheaton, Illinois jewelry store worker who tipped off the ring about the movements of salesmen coming in and out of his establishment. Two others also named in the indictment; James D'Antonio, who maintained the inventory of burglary tools, and Robert Paul of Apache Junction, Arizona who conducted surveillance of jewelry stores out in the desert, both died before the case went before a judge.

D'Antonio's collection of hardware tools included lock picks, "slim jims," smoke grenades, disguises, cutting dies, wrenches, taser, bullet proof vests, key code books, listening devices, key blanks, hotel keys, and handy instruction manuals. Detailed notebooks containing information about the salesmen including their family members and private residences were maintained with meticulous accuracy.

Members of the ring routinely followed the jewelry salesmen on their appointed rounds. At an opportune moment (usually when the salesman parked his car and went into a coffee shop or restaurant for a quick bite), the thieves would jimmy open the trunk and run off with the sample case. The theft of 180 Baume & Mercier watches from a location in Glendale, Wisconsin on October 8, 1984, netted the gang an inventory of stolen goods valued at $310,000.

In Monterey, California on October 13, 1986, a Rolex watch salesman lost approximately $500,000 of inventory. More victims were targeted in Dallas, Texas; Mankato, Minnesota; Phoenix, Arizona; Englewood, Ohio; Los Angeles, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; and various locations in Illinois and Indiana.

The ring is believed responsible for the aggregate theft of $5 million dollars worth of jewelry and precious stones across seven states.

"This indictment effectively dismantles a prolific jewelry theft ring that operated with virtual impunity, directed by a corrupt law enforcement official," commented Kathleen McChesney, Special-Agent-in-Charge of the FBI's Chicago Field Division office.

Meanwhile police sachems and city officials circled the wagons in an effort to guard their political turf from further attack. "I'm only accountable for what happened from February 18, 1998 up until this date," Superintendent Terry Hilliard reminded the media. "What happened prior to me with other superintendents and other bosses, I don't know anything about it. I never knew the man, never worked for him, have never met him. Simple as that."

Mayor Richard M. Daley, one who never minces words when feeling threatened, was even more to the point. "It was under Brzeczek. Ask him."

Hear no evil. See no evil. No evil shall ever be spoken into a press conference microphone.

On October 26, 2001, William Hanhardt entered a guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle, Sr., after Schiro and Basinski reached a plea agreement with Federal prosecutors. We can only conjecture what private thoughts raced through the mind of this enigmatic ex-cop who brought shame and disgrace to his profession, the City of Chicago and to his family.

Hours before he was scheduled to plead guilty in Federal court, Hanhardt attempted suicide by drug overdose. "Hanhardt's alleged suicide attempt appears to be the act of a desperate man," wrote Judge Norgle.

Failing to end his life, the story played out to a pathetic end, as knowledgeable observers wondered if this was the end of police corruption trials or only the beginning?