[3][1][4] In the 1970s, Calabrese and two partners operated a restaurant and lounge in Hoffman Estates, Illinois for a couple of years, and also worked for a private detective agency.
[6] On July 28, 1995, the federal government indicted Nicholas Calabrese and nine other organized crime figures with using threats, violence and intimidation to enforce the loan sharking racket from 1978 until 1992.
On August 27, 1997, Calabrese, who at that time was residing in Norridge, Illinois, was sentenced by United States District Judge James F. Holderman to 70 months in federal prison.
FBI agents also had spread out across the country with search warrants, collecting DNA evidence, hair cuttings and oral swabs from many reputed Chicago Outfit members.
[8] On April 25, 2005, federal prosecutors indicted 12 Chicago Outfit figures—including Calabrese—and two former police officers on charges of murder, illegal gambling, and loan sharking.
[9] After various plea agreements and the deaths of two defendants, ultimately five other defendants—Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Paul Schiro and Anthony Doyle—went to trial.
[5] While on the stand, Calabrese stated that his association with the Chicago Outfit dated to May 1970, and that he began cooperating with the government in January 2002, after federal investigators confronted him with a bloody glove containing his DNA that he had inadvertently dropped at the scene of the Fecarotta slaying.
At Marcello's sentencing hearing in February 2009; Patrick Spilotro, brother of Michael and Anthony, gave a victim impact statement in which he stated he had personally encouraged Calabrese to begin cooperating with the government.