Luigi Mucerino was driving back from a weekend in Lake Geneva in August 2016 when a “tough guy” he knew from the west suburban Italian social clubs showed up at his Bloomingdale home late at night, pounding on the windows and doors and terrifying his wife and two young daughters.
The man, Giocchiano “Jack” Galione, told Mucerino over the phone they needed to talk, Mucerino told a federal jury Tuesday. They met at the Dapper’s West restaurant in nearby Addison and Galione drove him to his home a few blocks away, where they made brief small talk in the garage.
But before Mucerino could ask what it was all about, something slammed into his eye, knocking him unconscious, Mucerino testified. When he woke up, he was on the ground, his face broken and bloody, and Galione was standing over him with a towel.
“I got cold-cocked,” Mucerino, 39, told the jury in a matter-of-fact tone. He said Galione never told him why he’d hit him, offering instead a well-worn line from mobster movies that it “was just business.”
Federal prosecutors alleged the assault, which broke Mucerino’s nose and fractured several bones in his face, was the result of an attempt to collect on a $10,000 juice loan Mucerino had taken out with Galione’s associate, Gene “Gino” Cassano.
In opening statements Tuesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan said Cassano was furious that Mucerino had failed to pay back the street loan, which was offered with no paperwork at exorbitant interest rates, so he “decided to take things into his own hands” and sent his “violent henchman” over to collect.
“There was no other reason for Galione, a stranger with violent reputation, to show up at his house that night,” Hogan said.
Attorneys for the defendants, meanwhile, told the jury they’re not denying Galione roughed up Mucerino that night. But they said the victim and key witnesses have changed their stories repeatedly and have so many credibility problems it’s impossible to determine the motive for the assault, which is an element prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Mr. Cassano did not send anyone, hire anyone to go there,” Cassano’s attorney, Todd Pugh, said in his opening statement. “Gene had nothing to do with what occurred in that garage.”
One key witnesses who prosecutors say will link Cassano’s juice loan to the assault was actually indicted by the U.S. attorney’s office ahead of trial on charges of Social Security fraud, attorney Christopher Parente, who represents Galione, said in his opening remarks to the jury.
Another witness — a known fentanyl dealer who operates an illegal gambling hall — had been cut off as a paid source by the government when he suddenly remembered fresh details about the case, including how Galione had allegedly “walked” him through how the assault of Mucerino occurred, Parente said.
Mucerino in particular was painted by the defense as an admitted drug trafficker, degenerate gambler and marijuana abuser, who acknowledged feeding a series of half-truths and outright lies to police and later to the FBI about the loan to throw them off the case.
“How many liars does it take to get to a single truth?” Parente said. “I don’t know — the government has set the over-under at about five.”
Cassano, 55, and Galione, 47, both of Addison, are charged in an indictment in 2021 with conspiring to collect a debt by extortionate means, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Galione is also charged with using violence to collect a debt.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman is expected to last about a week.
While the case is limited to the one incident involving Mucerino, federal court records show it’s tied to a wider investigation of the Chicago Outfit, including gambling and prostitution rackets allegedly being run by the mob’s notorious Elmwood Park crew.
A court filing in a related case last year revealed that Cassano and others were captured on FBI wiretaps talking about an offshore sportsbook that they were allegedly running.
Currently, Cassano is president of Games Gone Wild, a Norridge-based company that leases sweepstakes machines to area businesses, records show. The machines resemble video poker kiosks, but since they can be played for free, they are not considered gambling devices. Critics contend the unregulated devices are designed to skirt the law and have been known to have links to organized crime.
In his testimony Tuesday, Mucerino admitted that he only reported the attack by Galione to the Addison police at his wife’s insistence, and that he initially lied and said he owed Galione a gambling debt. The assault charges filed against Galione in state court were later dropped because Mucerino refused to cooperate.
When FBI agents confronted him at a suburban Starbucks in April 2018, Mucerino said he again tried to “downplay the situation” by saying he owed a small gambling debt but didn’t know why Galione had hit him.
Mucerino said the agents who conducted the interview “were very interested” in Cassano.
“Did you want to talk about him?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Franzblau asked.
“No,” Mucerino said. “I thought if I downplayed the situation that it would end there.”
Later, the FBI served Mucerino with a subpoena and threatened him with jail if he didn’t comply. He eventually was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.
On cross-examination, attorney Damon Cheronis, who also represents Galione, pressed Mucerino on his marijuana trafficking, which he said involved using money borrowed from Cassano to purchase hundreds of pounds of drugs from California suppliers and smuggling it back to Chicago in semi-trucks.
Cheronis accused Mucerino of withholding details about the operation, which earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars over many years, until a recent interview with agents.
Cheronis asked Mucerino if agents told him he had to forfeit any of those illegal proceeds or even inquired who his suppliers were.
“No,” Mucerino said.
“Who were your suppliers? What are their names?” Cheronis asked.
“I don’t know,” Mucerino said.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
