The Rotis: A force behind 'Hired Truck,' much more

May 22, 2006

BY TIM NOVAK, ROBERT C. HERGUTH AND STEVE WARMBIR STAFF REPORTERS

For decades, one of Chicago's most powerful families dominated the city's truck-leasing operation that came to be known as the Hired Truck Program.

The name's not Daley. It's Roti -- a large family whose members have been at the crossroads of Chicago politics and organized crime for generations.

The Roti family's trucks have rolled for the city under mayor after mayor -- Richard J. Daley, Michael A. Bilandic, Jane Byrne, Harold Washington, Eugene Sawyer and Richard M. Daley.

The family's trucks were rolling for the city in 2004 when the Hired Truck Program erupted into one of the biggest scandals in Chicago history after the Chicago Sun-Times reported the Daley administration often paid for trucks that did nothing under a program that cost taxpayers $40 million a year. The stories led to the ongoing federal investigation, with criminal charges against 44 people, including two members of the Roti family. Ultimately, Mayor Daley fired every trucking company in the program, including those owned by the Rotis.

But the Roti family and its business partners were much more involved in the Hired Truck Program than has previously been revealed:

*They owned at least 17 trucking companies in the program, many of them owned by relatives, usually women, with last names other than Roti. They were among the biggest companies in the program, paid more than $5 million in 2003, at the program's peak.

*Those Roti trucks often were hired by, assigned city work by and supervised on-site by other family members who were employed by the city Department of Transportation, which used the trucks on paving projects.

*The city workers doing the paving work, and those supervising the jobs, belong to a union that for decades was under the control of the mob, including members of the Roti family, according to union investigators who forced four Roti relatives from power since 1995 because of alleged mob ties.

*Two other Roti family members -- Nick LoCoco and Bruno A. Bertucci -- were among the 26 city employees charged in the federal investigation of the Hired Truck Program.

FIRST FAMILY OF CLOUT

One family's rise, a century of power
When Bruno Roti Sr. died in 1957, 3,000 people lined the streets to pay their respects. Nearly 100 men wearing black sashes across their chests escorted the hearse through the neighborhood today known as Chinatown. They were members of an organization Roti founded -- the Society of St. Rocco di Simbario. It was a funeral fit for a cardinal. Or a mayor.

• A force behind 'Hired Truck,' much more
• Did a mob boss help elect Richard J. Daley?
• St. Rocco's journey from Simbario to Chinatown
• Club: 'We do a lot of good things'
• The Roti family in city controversies
• An introduction
• About this series
• Clout on Wheels: The Hired Truck Program

LoCoco, a retired foreman of truck drivers and reputed mob bookie, was awaiting trial when he died of head injuries from a horseback-riding accident in 2004. Three trucking-company owners convicted in the Hired Truck investigation admitted bribing LoCoco to get work with the city.

Bertucci, a retired city of Chicago forestry supervisor, pleaded guilty in February to obstructing justice. His sentencing has been delayed because he has agreed to testify for the prosecution in the current corruption trial of Mayor Daley's former patronage chief and three other former city officials.

Another Roti relative, Mary Ann Ciaravino, is also a potential witness. She has been a top official at the city Buildings Department.

In the shadow of Sox Park

The Rotis have weathered many scandals over a span of nearly a century, beginning with patriarch Bruno Roti Sr., who came to Chicago in 1909. A grocer and beer distributor, Roti Sr. hooked up with Al Capone. Organized-crime allegations have followed the Rotis through three generations, beginning with Roti Sr. and continuing with four close family members who have been identified by the FBI as mobsters -- his son, Ald. Fred B. Roti; Roti Sr.'s son-in-law, Frank "Skid" Caruso; and grandsons Bruno Caruso and Frank "Toots" Caruso.

Few Roti family members would talk with reporters about their relatives.

"The press hasn't been very kind to the family,'' said Michael F. Roti, a Loop attorney who is a great-grandson of Bruno Roti Sr. "There's 100 years of that. I don't think there's anything you can do about that."

The Rotis grew up in the shadow of Sox Park, like the Daleys did. The Daleys, a few blocks west in Bridgeport. The Rotis, a few blocks north in Chinatown. Their kids went to the same Catholic high school -- DeLa Salle Institute.

The Daleys' power base has been the 11th Ward, birthplace of five Chicago mayors; the Rotis' power base, the 1st Ward, longtime stronghold for the Chicago mob.

Those worlds merged when the city's ward boundaries were redrawn a few years back. Now, the Daleys and Rotis operate in the same ward, working side-by-side in the 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization that the Daleys have run for decades.

Daley is close friends with one Roti family member -- longtime trucking mogul Fred Bruno Barbara, a Bruno Roti Sr. grandson who was once charged, and found not guilty, in an organized-crime case.