Cicero, IL Cicero cops were right about FBI bugs

OFF THE WIRE
BY: STEVE WARMBIR
Source: suntimes.com
Three Cicero police officers, including two sergeants, were caught on secret recordings that the FBI made of a reputed high-ranking Outlaw motorcycle gang member as he talked to various people about figuring out if he was under federal surveillance.
The revelation came as prosecutors played the recordings as part of the last day of evidence on Wednesday in their case against reputed Cicero mob boss Michael Sarno, his associate, alleged Outlaw gang member Mark Polchan and three other men.
Two police officers, one from the Berwyn Police Department, the other from Cicero, have already pleaded guilty in the case. Former Cicero police officer Dino Vitalo admitted to helping Polchan run vehicle license plates seen in the area to find out if they were linked to federal agents. Former Berwyn police officer James Formato pleaded guilty to taking part in a burglary ring with some of the defendants.
The three Cicero cops on the FBI bug — the two sergeants, Karl Berger and David Ciancio, and the officer, Andrew Tomko — have not been charged. In years past, town officials have lauded the men for their police work.
Berger is heard on tape, in a conversation in March 2007 in Polchan’s Cicero pawnshop, apparently trying to access a federal database to see if any federal agencies were working an investigation in the area. Berger now is suspended without pay in an unrelated incident for an alleged physical assault, and the town is seeking to fire him.
Ciancio talks on another recording in March 2007 at length with Polchan about possible federal surveillance, according to the government transcript.
Tomko is listed as a speaker in one of the transcripts, but his part of the conversation was not introduced as evidence, so it isn’t known what he said.
Town officials were unaware that the three officers were taped and will look into the matter, a town spokesman said Thursday. None of the officers could be reached for comment.
Ciancio was featured in the October 2007 Cicero town news letter. He wrote that the most difficult thing working for the town was Cicero’s portrayal in the media.
“It aggravates me when we are portrayed as being corrupt or dishonest because of the town’s past,” Ciancio said.