conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'Family Affair'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Family Affair
  The ever-shifting plot line of this mafia-infused soap opera culminates in a massive federal racketeering indictment, an enormous government legal effort aptly named "Operation Family Secrets," that charged fourteen defendants, several of whom were members of the current Chicago crime family administration, with eighteen previously unsolved gangland homicides. The indictment, which was announced in April 2005, went to trial in the summer of 2007. It was the FBI's biggest strike against the American mafia since the early 1980s.
  Something was amiss. Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, a forty-eight-year-old wiseguy of the most lethal variety, had a well-honed gut instinct and things just didn't feel right to him. It was a beautiful early summer afternoon in Chicago, and most residents of the sprawling Midwest metropolis were out in droves enjoying the gorgeous, sun-drenched day. Nicknamed The Ant due to his diminutive size, Tony Spilotro should have been doing the same. However, despite spending the first half of his day surrounded by family and friends at his younger brother Michael's suburban Oak Park residence, Spilotro was visibly unhappy, acting outwardly nervous, fidgety, and ill at ease. It was understandable. He had a great deal on his mind. In a few hours, he and his brother had an important meeting to attend—a top-secret mob gathering to be exact. He had attended and participated in this type of event many times, but something about this one seemed different. Something about this situation felt off. Tony began to suspect he was in grave danger and that if he went to the meeting there was a good chance that he would not be coming back alive.
  Called back to Chicago from his headquarters in Nevada for what he was told was going be a formal mob initiation ceremony for his brother and protégé, Michael, as well as an official promotion for himself to the status of caporegime (capo), a much valued leadership position within any mafia crime family, Spilotro should have been sitting on top of the world. But he wasn't. In actuality, he was as far away from the top of the world as possible. And everything wasn't what it seemed.
  As a result of a series of high-profile arrests in the early 1980s, Tony had been skating on thin ice with his superiors in the mob for quite a while. His increasingly insubordinate behavior and headline-garnering antics while running things in Las Vegas had earned him a great deal of enemies in Chicago, specifically several members of the recently elected crime family administration.
  In the minds of a lot of people in the mob, the move was a long time coming. The city of Las Vegas, once a gangster's paradise virtually free from the law-enforcement hassles encountered by wiseguys on the East Coast and Midwest, had become a magnet for police busts. A series of indictments and convictions of several mob administrations across the country, stemming from activity in Las Vegas, had put a number of powerful mafia dons behind bars. Many in the nation's underworld blamed Spilotro. At that point, even Aiuppa, once an ardent supporter of Spilotro, was fed up and signed off on the murder contract
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me another paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When Joe Ferriola, an avid anti-Spilotro advocate, took Aiuppa's place as boss at the start of 1986, the table was all set for The Ant's downfall. Ferriola, also known as "Joe Nagal," "Joey the Chinaman," or "Joey Spoons," is alleged to have tasked his protégé, John Di Fronzo, with the job of making arrangements for and setting up the heavily anticipated hit.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'In other posttrial news, former U'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In other posttrial news, former U.S. Marshall, John Ambrose, the son of a once-disgraced Chicago cop, imprisoned for his participation in a major department scandal involving shaking down drug dealers, was indicted, put on trial, and eventually in the spring of 2009 convicted of acting as a mole for the mob. Using a one-time associate of his father's, William Guide—a man who once shared a cell with John Di Fronzo when they were both incarcerated years before—as an intermediary, Ambrose passed sensitive intelligence, primarily concerning where the government was housing star witness Nick Calabrese before his testimony in the Family Secrets trial, to the highest levels of The Outfit's leadership. Shockingly Mickey Marcello, in the midst of serving his eight-year sentence in the Family Secrets case, agreed to cooperate with the FBI and testify against Ambrose regarding his firsthand knowledge of the former U.S. Marshall's divulging top secret government information to the upper echelons of the Chicago mafia. According to Marcello, Ambrose passed intelligence regarding Nick Calabrese's whereabouts from Guide to Pudgy Matassa, who then passed it on to him to deliver to his imprisoned brother.
  In 2008, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, already reeling from the loss of Mitch Mars, was forced to trim its organized crime division—a unit that once housed close to a dozen wiseguy-hungry lawyers—to an all-time low of two attorneys actively pursuing cases against The Outfit. And Chicago is not the only office of federal prosecutors undergoing downsizing and restructuring. Other mob-heavy cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Philadelphia, and the state of New Jersey, have all had their offices affected by having their resources against organized crime severely diminished. Moves like this show all too clearly that when times are tight everyone, even the government, feels the pinch,
  Midwest mega-don Tony Accardo has been dead for almost twenty years and little has changed in the criminal empire he helped build and maintain for well over a half century. The rackets are pretty much the same, and the money still churns in at a consistent and hardy rate. As always, a decade into the new millennium, gambling, loan sharking, and street tax are the meat and potatoes of the operation. The Outfit's sway in the labor unions has decreased, yet its presence in the local drug, porn, and stolen car market have stayed firm. An ability to access the highest levels of the government remains an asset and continues to provide a decided advantage to the syndicate, as shown by the 2002 conviction of Cicero Mayor Betty Loren-Maltese for conspiring with Outfit member Michael "Big Mike" Spano and others to illegally funnel cash away from the city and into their collective pockets. Unlike the government that is effected by the changing economic fortunes of our country, the mafia is not. Time has shown that crime, in one of its only true virtues, is recession-proof.
  Despite the budget cuts and plundering of its resources, the U.S. Attorney's Office remains diligent in its effort to combat the mob in Chicago. Down, but certainly not out, the government's attack against The Outfit scored its first blow of the post-Family Secrets era in August of 2008 when Outfit associates Sam "Sammy the Blaster" Voldepresto and Mark Polchan were indicted on charges of a mafia-related bombing. According to federal prosecutors, Voldepresto, an eighty-three-year-old alleged mob explosives expert, and Polchan, a member of The Outlaws, the leading biker gang in the area, were ordered by Outfit lieutenant Michael "Fat Mikey" Sarno to bomb one of the crime family's competitors in the local video poker machine business.
  As the Outfit looks forward to the future, at least long term, things look bright. Even if the current administration is swept up in a second indictment resulting from the Family Secrets investigation, there exists a rock-solid new generation of mob players, groomed by John Di Fronzo and company, ready to step in and fill the void. A recent developing trend of intra-marriage between Outfit members' families has boded well for syndicate stability. The Chicago mafia's infrastructure, expertly designed by Tony Accardo, has been built for the long haul, and as of today it looks as if there is no slowing down for this mega freight train of a criminal organization anytime soon. For the Outfit, it is business as usual. Now and forever.