PALS OF MOB ASSOCIATE STILL WEARING BADGES

Probe Fails To Tie Pair Of Vice Cops To Missing Million

Chicago police Tactical Unit Detective Joseph Laskero and Officer Anthony
F. Bertuca were front-line soldiers in the city's war against vice.

But while their colleagues raided the adult bookstores and peep shows
operated by mob associate Robert "Bobby" Dominic, Laskero and Bertuca
worked there providing security, according to police and FBI reports.

Then, on an October morning in 1995, the two officers and Dominic came
under internal police investigation when a drug courier claimed officers
had stolen $1 million in cash from him. No criminal or internal
administrative charges were brought, and the probe remains open.

Their case offers another example of the forbidden ties between police and
crime figures in Chicago and provides a glimpse of a mob associate who
cultivated influential police friends.

Officers Laskero and Bertuca, who are still on active police duty, declined
to comment without approval from police News Affairs. They faced no
administrative charges for potentially violating the department's Rule 47
by fraternizing with Dominic, a department spokesman said.

Listed in FBI and Chicago police reports as a crime syndicate associate who
ran pornography and gambling interests, Dominic surrounded himself with
strippers, high-rollers and loyal cops. He did not respond to Tribune
requests for comment.

In 14 arrests between 1971 and 1990, Dominic was convicted only twice, for
misdemeanor theft and obscenity, police records show. Once, in 1993, an
undercover FBI agent tailed him to a Lincoln Avenue restaurant and waited
in an unmarked surveillance car while Dominic spent part of the
mid-September afternoon with Lake County crime boss Michael W. Posner. As
the undercover agent monitored the restaurant, Dominic brought him coffee,
an FBI report shows.

When veteran Central District Officer Thomas Kulekowskis was taken aside by
FBI agents in 1992 and questioned about his relationship with Dominic, he
broke off the interview, an FBI report shows. He explained that Dominic had
clout with downtown police commanders and would have Kulekowskis
transferred out of the district if Dominic found out he had talked to the FBI.

In a recent interview, Kulekowskis said he never told those things to the
FBI, but he declined to comment further. Kulekowskis, who retired from the
Police Department in 1998, currently faces kidnapping charges in Canada.

When an FBI agent questioned Laskero in July 1992 about his relationship
with Dominic, he said they dined together frequently. Dominic, he said, had
been a pallbearer at Laskero's brother's funeral earlier that year.

Laskero told the FBI he didn't work for Dominic but that he and Bertuca
were hired to guard Dominic's bookstores by a woman he identified only as
Sally. Police records describe her as a manager who helped run some of
Dominic's businesses.

Laskero said he and Bertuca were paid monthly to check on stores, and store
employees were told to contact him at Area 4 police headquarters if they
had any problems.

Bertuca, who joined the department after a pro football career in the
1970s, acted as a bodyguard for Dominic in Las Vegas in 1990, FBI reports say.

After the FBI interview, Laskero's career continued to advance. In 1994,
police Intelligence Division Cmdr. William M. Callaghan accepted Laskero in
his unit after what he would later call an "unusual" directive from police
commanders.

Callaghan was ordered by then-Deputy Supt. George Ruckrich to "come
downtown" to interview Laskero for a job in the Intelligence Division,
court records and interviews show. Callaghan always interviewed candidates
in his office, but he reluctantly agreed to the interview, figuring Laskero
was going to be brought into intelligence with or without his approval.

Soon after Laskero arrived in the Intelligence Division, a police vice
squad detective took Callaghan aside and told him about Laskero's
association with Dominic, records and interviews show.

Callaghan raised a minor ruckus at a meeting with Ruckrich and then-1st
Deputy Chief John Townsend and got Laskero transferred to the Narcotics
Division. "Subsequent to the meeting, I was shunned by both Townsend and
Ruckrich," Callaghan wrote in a later court affidavit.

At the Narcotics Division, Laskero soon was embroiled in another probe. He
and Bertuca fell under investigation as the Internal Affairs Division
sought to determine whether officers stole $1 million from a money courier
for a cocaine ring.

The alleged robbery victim was described in an April 1996 police report as
"the single most productive confidential informant in the history of the
Chicago Police Department." He ferried cardboard boxes stuffed with cash to
Florida, the drug money's last stop before Colombia, while secretly
providing police with information that had enabled them to seize hundreds
of kilograms of cocaine.

On an October 1995 morning, the informant was scheduled to meet his contact
and pick up a cache of money. Police hoped to learn the identity of his
"money man." As usual, he briefed his Narcotics Division handler, Officer
Carlos E. Velez.

The night before the informant's meeting, Velez assembled his team using a
Narcotics Division radio frequency and Laskero overheard the radio
commands. Laskero volunteered to be included in the operation, and Velez
agreed, internal police records show.

The next morning, Velez, Laskero and the rest of the team followed the
informant to a suburban hot dog stand. The informant met his "money man"
behind the restaurant, out of sight of the surveillance officers.

When he rejoined police later, he said no cash had been transferred.

In fact, he had placed $1 million in three boxes and a plastic garbage bag
in the trunk of his car.

Velez's surveillance team left the informant, but while eating breakfast at
a restaurant, Velez was paged. "Carlos, I got busted," the informant
shouted into the phone.

He said his cash-laden car had been pulled over by three men who claimed to
be federal agents. The men, who apparently had been monitoring him, opened
the trunk and unloaded the cash into their unmarked car.

The informant later passed a polygraph test about his account of the
robbery, a police report shows.

That night, the informant studied a set of police photos and identified
Laskero's friend and former partner, Bertuca, as one of the men who had
robbed him, the reports show.

The next day, after viewing a police lineup that included Bertuca, the
informant reconsidered and said Bertuca hadn't robbed him.

One detail that stood out in Velez's memory was Laskero using his cell
phone during the surveillance, saying he had to call his family. Police
later gathered phone records that indicated Laskero was calling an apparent
"drop line"--a number registered to an alias that was disconnected soon
after the robbery.

During the evening before and the morning of the robbery, the drop line was
called from telephones linked to Bertuca and Bobby Dominic, police records
show.

As the thieves' black Chevy sped away after the robbery, the informant
wrote down the license plate number on a pack of cigarettes. Police traced
the plate to a car that had been in an auto lot across the street from a
store where Bertuca moonlighted providing security.

On the morning of the rip-off, Bertuca told his supervisors he would be in
court. He wasn't.

Records indicate the Internal Affairs Division opened a disciplinary case
against Bertuca for allegedly lying about being in court. The outcome of
that case could not be determined.

One police report on the case noted that Dominic "has allegedly used
Laskero and Bertuca in the past as 'muscle,'" yet no action was taken
against either officer for violating the police order against fraternizing
with a crime figure.

In September 1997, the Internal Affairs Division investigation was closed.
The police and FBI have an ongoing investigation into the matter. No one
has been charged in the incident, and the money has not been recovered.