Deputy marshal pleads not guilty

[Pedro56]

February 1, 2007
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter

Almost 24 years ago to the day Wednesday, crooked Chicago cop Thomas Ambrose was sentenced to 20 years in prison for shaking down drug dealers by U.S. District Judge John Grady.

On Wednesday, the cop's son, federal Deputy Marshal John Ambrose, in a random twist of fate, faced the same federal judge on his own charges.

Dad died in prison

John Ambrose, 38, pleaded not guilty to charges that he leaked information about a key government witness in the upcoming Family Secrets mob trial involving 18 unsolved mob murders.

The information about witness Nick Calabrese eventually wound up in the hands of top Chicago mobster James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, who was in prison at the time and desperate to learn if Calabrese was cooperating against him.

Calabrese, who the feds say confessed to 16 mob murders, is cooperating against Marcello and Calabrese's own brother, brutal loan shark and alleged mob killer Frank Calabrese, who is in prison awaiting trial.

Ambrose's attorney, Frank Lipuma, had no comment on Grady's hearing the case. Ambrose will fight the charges at trial.

Ambrose is said to think that his father wasn't treated fairly throughout the criminal justice process.

Former Chicago Police Officer Thomas Ambrose was one of the infamous Marquette 10 cops who took bribes from heroin dealers to allow their empires to run. Thomas Ambrose later died in prison.

swarmbir@suntimes.com

[Pedro56]

The Marquette Ten were Marquette district CPD officers convicted in 1982 of taking bribes from drug dealers.

The affair is recounted in some detail in the book "Greylord: Justice, Chicago Style," by James Tuohy and Rob Warden, published by Putnam in 1989. According to the authors, the Marquette Ten were innocent victims of an over-zealous attempt by U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to snare crooked cops and judges. The cops were convicted on the testimony of felons who were offered breaks for their cooperation, and the attempt to flip the indicted cops to get them to give up crooked judges yielded nothing. The authors say this was because there was nothing to yield; the cops were innocent.