Locked-Up Mobster's Wife Sues For Divorce in Will County Court

Sixty-two years must have been just too long for the Homer Glen wife of a mobster sent to Leavenworth to wait.

Barbara Calabrese, the wife of Anthony "Tough Tony" Calabrese, filed for divorce from the mob enforcer and suspected hitman at the Joliet courthouse last week.

Barbara Calabrese, 53, gave as the grounds for divorce from her 52-year-old husband that he has a "conviction of a felony or other infamous crime," according to her petition.

Anthony Calabrese has more than one infamous crime—he was convicted of armed robberies in Morton Grove, Maywood and Lockport. Those cases landed him in Leavenworth until July 2061, according to the Bureau of Prison's website. Before that, he got seven years for a 2002 conspiracy to commit extortion case.

"He was an easy going client who the government alleged was very dangerous," said Calabrese's attorney in the conspiracy case, Joseph "Shark" Lopez.

Lopez, who also defended convicted wife-killer and former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson in a highly publicized murder trial last year, called Calabrese a "good guy."

"He's a straight shooter, this kid," said Lopez, whose client list includes an even more famous Calabrese: Frank Calabrese Sr. of the Family Secrets case.

Anthony and Frank Calabrese are not related. And while he may lack the star-power of the other Calabrese, Anthony's exploits got their share of the limelight as well. The trial for his three armed robberies gained media attention, particularly that during one of them, at Metamorphous tattoo parlor in Lockport, he had a henchman use a hammer to smash the hands of a tattoo artist.

"The 'artist,' who was co-owner of the shop, supposedly tattooed a mob boss's underage daughter, and the father was none too pleased," reads an appellate court filing.

The feds also suspect Anthony Calabrese was involved in Chicago's final—officially recognized—mob hit.

"The last known gangland murder occurred in the entryway of a west suburban restaurant," ABC7 reported in 2008. "Mobster Anthony 'The Hatchet' Chiarmonti was chased and gunned down in 2001 by an assassin who escaped in a getaway minivan."

The ABC story said investigators "believe Calabrese was paranoid that authorities would connect him to the parking lot murder of Chiaramonti two months earlier," and that he was so paranoid that he and associate Robert Cooper viciously beat a suspected rat.

"The government has alleged he was the shooter in the Anthony Chiaramonti hit, who was my former client, and the getaway vehicle was driven by another former client, Cooper," Lopez said.

Anthony Calabrese has never been charged with Chiaramonti's murder, but Lopez has a feeling he some day might.

"There's no statute of limitations on it," he said, "and the feds are like wine—they don't do anything before it's time."

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