When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down [Hardcover]

Robert Cooley (Author), Hillel Levin (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2004

Bob Cooley was the Chicago Mafia’s fixer of court cases. During the 1970s and ‘80s, Cooley bribed judges, juries, and cops to keep his Mob clients out of jail. Paid handsomely for his services, he lived fast and enjoyed the protection of the men he served. Yet, by the end of the ‘90s, without a pending conviction, he became the star witness in nine federal trials that took down the most powerful Mafia family in the history of organized crime. When Corruption Was King is the story of a Mob lawyer turned mole with a million-dollar contract on his head who went back and forth between sin and sainthood—a turbulent youth, a stint on Chicago’s police force, law school, and then the inner sanctum of Chicago’s wiseguys. He dined with Mob bosses and shared “last suppers” with friends before their gangland executions. In a startling act of conscience, Cooley walked into the office of the U.S. Organized Crime Strike Force and agreed to wear a wire on the very same Mafia overlords who had made him a player. This book, including eight pages of memorable photographs, reveals the personal story behind the federal government’s most successful Mafia investigation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this true-crime memoir, former Chicago mob attorney Cooley engagingly recounts his role in sparking Operation Gambat, a sweeping federal corruption probe into Chicago's political and judicial arenas. Operation Gambat succeeded in documenting the extensive ties between the mob and local government, thanks largely to Cooley's cooperation and courage. The author doesn't spare himself in recounting his descent into the world of crime, despite his loving family and policeman father; and his transformation from fixer and operator into avenging angel is plausibly rendered. Cooley does a nice job of taking the reader inside an undercover investigation, with its glitches, ego clashes and inevitable setbacks. Although his extensive involvement in graft makes Cooley less than fully sympathetic, his risk-taking to expose the crooked system goes a long way toward redeeming him. While the writing is more workmanlike than memorable, this is a nice counterpart to Gus Russo's The Windy City Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America, and Cooley's achievements deserve the wide acclaim this book should garner. Fans of Serpico, Prince of the City and The Informant, as well as those of Scott Turow's fiction, will enjoy this unfamiliar story.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Fans of insider Mob books should thrill to this account (midwifed by veteran writer and magazine editor Levin) of a guy who wore a wire against the Chicago Outfit and lived (in greatly reduced circumstances in the Witness Protection Program and in constant danger) to tell the tale. Cooley was a lawyer who "got bent." In Chicago, that means a lawyer who sells out by defending the hit men and functionaries of the Mob, while greasing the wheels for them with Mob-connected politicians and police. Cooley begins the story with autobiography, from his upbringing through his slide into Mob lawyering to his walk into the Organized Crime Strike Force office in 1986 with an offer to wear a wire against the mobsters he represented for years. The book also offers a revealing analysis of how the Mob was able to gain a stranglehold over Chicago's government, court system, and police. And it takes a revealing peek into Mob rituals, like the "last suppers" held on the eve of a mobster's execution. And it's a thriller, as readers accompany Cooley on sweat-raising stings and meets. The result of Cooley's return to values was his becoming a star witness in nine federal trials that crippled the Chicago Outfit. Levin's notes at book's end offer more details from various sources on Cooley's assertions. A mesmerizing treatise on organized crime. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786713305
• ISBN-13: 978-0786713301
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Chicago corruption: a deep look, but could have been better, October 8, 2004

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down (Hardcover)

Every Chicagoan knows they live in a cesspool of corruption. It's been that way for more than a century and will probably never change. Robert Cooley is obviously a brave man. He put his life at risk to expose corruption. Though he was once part of that corruption, he ultimately saw that the evil needed to be fought.

That said, the book is disappointing. The writing style is flat and there is far too much focus on Cooley's childhood and personal life. Opportunities are missed time and time again to bring the corrosive effects of political and judicial corruption into sharper relief. Excursions into the impact of mob murders, fixed court cases and the like would have been welcome. Particularly for people who don't live in Chicago, the impact of Cooley's bravery on the people of the city may be lost.

That said, Cooley's book is still worthwhile for demonstrating how a few dishonorable men can steal the life and wealth of a great city.

Jerry

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So Chicago, February 19, 2006

By 

Celtia (Waukegan, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down (Paperback)

I'm a mob afficiandado and live close to Chicago, so this book drew my attention the moment I found out about it. If you want to know the way Chicago works (still works, by the way) this book will tell you. Bob Cooley was a mob lawyer who got in over his head and saved himself by ratting on the Outfit. The evidence he gave the feds sent a lot of made men previously untouchable to prison. Frankly, I don't like Cooley at all. He rode the mob gravy train until it was about ready to run him over, then jumped off and let it wreck. I think most mob lawyers are worse than mobsters, because the lawyers dishonor their sworn oath to uphold the law by ignoring their clients' known crimes. But Cooley, slime though he may be, has fascinating information to give about the Outfit, and Hillel Levin does a terrific job of presenting it. The writing is dynamic and Levin puts his reader into every mob hotspot and Chicago wiseguy hangout in a way that makes that reader feel as if he's there, and brings along plenty of Windy City politicians and judges for the sleazy ride (many of whom are still lining their pockets with crminals' money). Spellbinding reading, with lots of great photographs. This is not just a Chicago mob book; it's a book for anybody who finds the underworld an interesting place.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Chicago Works, June 11, 2006

By 

sosider822 (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down (Paperback)

This book brings you through the life of lawyor Bob Cooley and how he got involved in the Chicago 'Outfit'. Coming from Chicago myself I was engulfed in the stories he told of his childhood and even his adult life partying and living the dream life in downtown Chicago. Coming from a working class family Cooley still managed to attend Catholic high school and college. Working his way through law school as a cop he learned a lot of the ways the police worked. It was when he became a lawyor that he really got involved in fixing cases for the mob and gambling heavily. Soon enough he was in too deep to find any other way out but the feds. The stories Cooley experienced in his adult life were truly remarkable and definitely worth reading. From martial arts experts to hanging out with Sinatra at famous clubs, Cooley really lived an amazing life during most of his adulthood.