Joseph Patrick Lombardo (born Giuseppe Lombardi; Lombardo, a high school dropout, at some point changed the final letter of his last name. He joined the Outfit in the 1950s.
Early career
Lombardo began his Outfit career as a jewel thief and as a juice-loan collector. Later Weiner would post bail for Lombardo's underlings.
Bribery and skimming convictions
On December 15, 1982, Lombardo was convicted, along with Teamsters Union President Roy Williams and insurance executive Allen Dorfman, with bribery of Nevada Democratic State Senator Howard Cannon in order to get a trucking deregulation bill blocked. In 1986, Lombardo was convicted of skimming over $2 million in proceeds in several Strip casinos (including the Stardust Resort & Casino), and was sentenced to another 10 years in prison.
Indictment, fugitive, and Family Secrets trial
In 2003, Chicago newspapers began reporting that federal investigators were looking into solving old mob murders. In 2003, the FBI swabbed Lombardo for DNA. Federal authorities also notified Lombardo during the probe that his life might be in danger. On April 25, 2005, Lombardo was indicted along with 13 other defendants as part of the federal government's Operation Family Secrets investigation, which lifted the veil on 18 killings since the 1970s that federal investigators had attributed to the Outfit. Lombardo was indicted for his role in at least one murder, as well as for running a racket based on illegal gambling, loan sharking, and murder. As federal agents rounded up the 14 defendants on April 25, 2005, they realized that Lombardo had disappeared, having become a fugitive after they issued a federal arrest warrant. In response, Halprin quipped of his still-at-large client's newspaper-reading habit: "I doubt that he has a home subscription."
The FBI then offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Lombardo's capture. On January 13, 2006, after over eight months at large, a bearded, unkempt Lombardo, was captured by FBI agents outside the Elmwood Park, Illinois home of his longtime friend Dominic Calarco. Federal agents had been tipped off to Lombardo's whereabouts after Lombardo had visited dead Outfit mobster Tony Spilotro's dentist brother, Patrick Spilotro, for an abscessed tooth. He was carrying $3,000 at the time of the arrest. At his arraignment, Lombardo pleaded "not guilty". He also revealed that he had atherosclerosis and had not seen a doctor while he was at large because "I was – what do they call it? I was unavailable", prompting laughter in the courtroom.
During the trial, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mitchell Mars, T. Markus Funk, and John Scully, Lombardo took the stand in his own defense, denying any involvement in the September, 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, claiming to have been at a police station at the time of the slaying, reporting the disappearance of his wallet. Federal prosecutors, however, noted Lombardo's fingerprint on the title application for a car used in the murder of Seifert. In addition, prosecutors pointed out that employees of an electronics store identified Lombardo as the purchaser of a police scanner used in Seifert's murder. Seifert was murdered in Bensenville, Illinois on September 27, 1974, execution style, and federal prosecutors say it was committed in front of Seifert's wife, who was holding her young son in her arms.
Conviction and sentencing
On September 10, 2007, Lombardo was convicted of racketeering, extortion, loan sharking and murder. On September 27, 2007, the same jury found Lombardo guilty of the 1974 Seifert murder.
On February 2, 2009, Zagel sentenced Lombardo, seated in a wheelchair, to life in prison for the convictions. Lombardo had continually professed his innocence, telling the court, "Now I suppose the court is going to send me to a life in prison for something I did not do." He also said he was sorry for the suffering of the Seifert family but added, "I did not kill Danny Seifert."
Prison and death
In September 2006, while in federal lockup at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, Lombardo had a heart attack and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was diagnosed as having had a minor heart attack; he was put into an operating room where he underwent surgery, to have a stent installed—his fourth stent procedure. It was also reported he suffered from throat cancer and that his gallbladder had been removed.
He served his sentence at the ADX Florence supermax prison, where he died on October 19, 2019, at the age of 90.
Personal life
Lombardo earned the nickname "The Clown" from his joking demeanor and for his various antics, including grinning wide for mug shots and for departing a 1981 court appearance at the federal courts building in Chicago holding a Chicago Sun-Times newspaper in front of his face with a hole cut out so he could see. In 2005, Halprin spoke to the Chicago Tribune about his client's nickname, saying "[T]hat's a name he doesn't relish, and neither do I. The guy I know is not a clown."
Lombardo married Marion Nigro in a Catholic ceremony in 1951.
Prosecutors said Marion Lombardo appeared to have sold three parcels in Florida held by the MJJ Trust for more than $4.5 million in 2003. They said there is a May 1992 dissolution of marriage record but that it appears the Lombardos lived together until the latest indictment. They said two warranty deeds recording the sale of the Florida property referred to Marion Lombardo as "a married woman". Lombardo's lawyer had stated that the assets had been placed in an "irrevocable trust" for Lombardo's family.