Up by the Bootstraps: A story of the life and FBI career of the Author and his extraordinary battle against the American Mafia

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

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Copyright © 2023 by Sean M. McWeeney

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In accordance with my obligations as a former FBI employee pursuant to my FBI employment agreement, this book has undergone a prepublication review for the purpose of identifying prohibited disclosures, but it has not been reviewed for editorial content or accuracy. The FBI does not endorse or validate any information that I have described in this book. The opinions expressed in this book are mine and not those of the FBI or any other government agency.

FOREWORD

By

Tim McNally

Retired Assistant Director of the

Los Angeles FBI Office

This is a story about the life and times of the author, Sean McWeeney, covering a period of eight decades. It is a book that will make you smile and laugh out loud, and provides a front row seat for many heartwarming stories about Sean’s experience growing up in a tough Irish-Italian immigrant neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. This is also a book about Sean’s love of his country and strong belief that each individual can make a real difference through a life of service to others. The book is loaded with drama and intrigue from his days as a street agent with the FBI, and later as a FBI senior official charged with the task of pursuing successful investigations against the top mafia organized crime figures in New York and major cities across America.

Early Years

The McWeeney clan was a lively bunch that worked hard, played hard, and  laughed together as if there were no tomorrow. The author captivates the reader with stories ranging from the tragic accidental death of his younger  brother, Buddy, being struck by a truck, to a youthful stint as a runner collecting betting slips for a local bookmaker, and suffering the indignity of being thrown out of a Jesuit high school in his first year for fighting with another Latin student who dared hurl an insult at the McWeeney family name.

The McWeeney children were taught at a young age by their parents that success in life was not guaranteed but must be earned by self-initiative, hard work, and a good education. Sean’s mother would remind her young brood on occasion that when things in life appear bleak, the remedy required was to work harder and just pick themselves up by the bootstraps. The moral and life lessons learned as a child stuck with Sean providing him with a solid foundation for future success in life.

Pursuing His Dreams

Sean matured in his teenage years and became a standout in the classroom, a class leader, and a very good athlete. Sean shares with us his love of sports and the success he enjoyed playing basketball. Sean went on to De Paul University and was elected President of the School of Commerce in his senior year.

After completing college, Sean worked at a local newspaper and then joined the United States Navy as an Officer. After the military, he joined the FBI. Since childhood this was his dream job and he commenced on an adventure for the next 23 years, taking him across one end of America to the other.

FBI Career

Being an FBI Agent is not an ordinary job; it becomes a way of life for the Agent as well as his or her family. A sizable segment of this book deals with the author’s time and experiences as an FBI Special Agent from 1965 to 1988. The early years took him to New Orleans, Oklahoma and Providence, Rhode Island working criminal matters and gaining experience and learning the fundamentals of investigation. His next move brings him to New York City (NYC). He is assigned to a squad dedicated to working Italian organized crime, also known as, La Cosa Nostra (LCN). It’s during his time in New York that Sean makes his bones and earns a reputation as a hard charging accomplished organized crime investigator and supervisor.

The stories he shares in this book deal with the most infamous crime figures, events, and the organized crime history of New York. Sean brings to life story after story detailing times, dates, and places of gang meetings, gang murders, and gang wars. He gives us an opportunity to ride along with him and fellow FBI Agents to observe the arrest of some of the most notorious crime figures in New York history. One highlighted incident involved the arrest of Carlo Gambino, the Boss of Bosses, and the head of the Gambino Organized Crime family. Gambino was no ordinary criminal as he was the most feared crime figure in the USA and had more than 750 made members handling his illegal operations from New York to California. The arrest of Carlo Gambino generated front page news coverage around the world, commonly displaying an arrest photo of Gambino being led to the US District Courthouse by Special Agent McWeeney.

This book is better than any textbook for students of criminal justice. It shines a light on the crime families control of labor unions giving them the power to determine which companies could do business in sectors influenced and controlled by organized labor. Sean writes about the enormous power wielded by crime bosses over their members and associates who handled illegal operations such as gambling, loansharking, arson, protection rackets, illegal drugs operations, and labor racketeering that generate massive revenues for the crime family. For decades it appeared the mob or outfit faced little challenge from law enforcement but in the 1970s and further, the author describes how and why the ground shifted as the FBI and federal prosecutors waged a successful war against these criminal organizations.

Sean’s talents did not go unnoticed and earned him the respect of his peers, admiration of federal prosecutors, and the attention of FBI leadership in Washington DC. In 1979, he was selected as the Chief of the Organized Crime Section.

No one was better suited and prepared to take on this assignment. As the saying goes, every successful war effort needs the right General to establish the battle plan and inspire the troops. In this situation, FBI HQ tapped McWeeney to lead the FBI’s strategy to disrupt and dismantle the major organized crime families. Organized crime investigations were given priority and almost 1,700 Agents across America would be involved and failure was not an option.

Sean personally recruited his own team. He brought into Washington DC the most talented and accomplished field agents and supervisors to wage the battle. His team worked seamlessly with field supervisors to manage targeted cases against the major crime families. McWeeney’s crew cleared the bureaucratic hurdles by quickly turning requests for the use of pen registers, wiretaps, informant payments, and undercover activities required to bring about a successful result.

McWeeney’s tenure as head of the Organized Crime Section was a period of great success and major accomplishments. The La Cosa Nostra (LCN) bosses, capos, foot soldiers, and crime associates were being successfully prosecuted and convicted in numerous major cities in America. The trial dramas played out at federal courthouses across America were front page news and worldwide media coverage unraveled the mystique of the crime families and greatly diminished the notion that that these crime groups were untouchable.

Sean McWeeney was in charge of the Organized Crime Section for six years, and that period is memorable in terms of his energy and passion for the job and most importantly will be viewed favorably for the exceptional results during his time as Chief.

Life After The Bureau

After 27 years of public service with the Navy and FBI, Sean McWeeney moved to the private sector in late 1988. He was the founder and CEO of Corporate Risk International (CRI). The firm began in the early 1990s and became one of the premier due diligence, investigative firms in the nation. Over 20 years, CRI developed a list of gold star clients from New York’s financial community and gained a global reputation for successfully handling international kidnapping matters. McWeeney’s business practices were built upon doing the right thing whatever the circumstances and without compromise when it came to personal and corporate integrity.

Final Thoughts

I have known Sean McWeeney and his family for 43 years. I had the privilege of being assigned to work in the Organized Crime Section as a supervisor in the early 1980s. Sean was a no-nonsense leader on a mission. He never wavered with his mandate to all agents that the end game was to takedown the leadership of these criminal enterprises. I can say without hesitation that his strong leadership as Chief of the Organized Crime Section led the way for the FBI field offices great success against the top organized crime figures across America in the late 70s and 80s.

The book is far more than just another FBI story or how one succeeds in building a business and making money. The Sean McWeeney story is about the importance of family and the personal strength acquired from those who precede you. It is no accident why Sean McWeeney has accomplished much and has made a real difference in the life of so many. This book is about a personal calling to serve others for the purpose of achieving a greater good for the society we share. It is a grand story about his life with family covering four generations and his remarkable experiences during an enviable professional life. There are few who actually live their childhood dreams, but I know that Sean McWeeney not only lived his dreams but exceeded his expectations in so many ways.

The Beginning

This is the story of my life. I am now in my 80s and have been told by family members and friends since I was in my 60s to write a book about the life I have lived as a kid growing up in the rough and tough, immigrant-dominated West Side of Chicago, and a career in the FBI where I worked against the top Mafia gangsters of the 1970s and 1980s, to a highly successful international corporation I founded, built up, and eventually sold to a private equity fund in NYC.

I was part of a large and rowdy Irish Family of eight children, all first-generation Americans. I raised a wonderful family of five successful children and 14 beautiful grandchildren. I look back frequently on the life I had and often think about it.

My story is one where I feel I have been fortunate to have achieved what I did over the years, at the same time realizing that the luck I have had was only possible through hard work and displaying a constant determination to get the job done. Let’s begin.

I was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 10, 1938, the third child of Tom and Lil McWeeney. My parents were born in Ireland and became proud American citizens shortly after marrying. I had two older brothers, Patrick (called PJ) and Jim, three younger brothers, Tom (called Buddy), one year younger than me, Dan, and Kevin, and two sisters, Maureen and Thomasina, the baby! Eight children total, all proud First Generation Americans!

The older boys, PJ, Jim, and Buddy, my sister, Maureen, and I all grew up on the West Side of Chicago, a rough and tumble area populated by European immigrants in the main from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Bohemia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and other European Nations. The neighborhoods of the West Side were vibrant melting pots of immigrant parents speaking in their native tongues, incredible ethnic restaurants, particularly the Italian pizzerias and Jewish delicatessens, with every couple blocks containing a Catholic Church and the occasional Synagogue.

Every Catholic Church community had a Catholic grammar school, first to eighth grade, with nun teachers in their religious habits. The Catholic schools were noted for their emphasis on English, grammar, math, Western European history, penmanship, spelling, and geography. No critical race theory or other woke subjects allowed! Discipline was strictly enforced, with the usual outcome for any bad actors being a sharp whack across their knuckles by the ever observant nuns.

It was the most incredible place in the world to grow up in—there was so much that was always going on. We learned at an early age that you could not succeed in life without working hard, and when something would happen that pulled you down a little, you had to have grit and a determination about yourself to get back on your feet and move forward again. My mother, who was the heart of our home, said it best: When things are looking bleak in your life, you have to push forward to get back on track. She said it to us children all the time: if I brought home a report card that had a grade that she felt was not up to my capabilities, she would tell me to work harder, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, an old 1800s phrase that meant, when said, that to improve one’s complex situation in life, the person had to work hard and display self-determination to succeed without any help from anyone else. It was a slogan we all took to heart, and I lived by it my entire life.

Odd jobs were plentiful, not paying much, but enough for my brothers and me, as we didn’t get any money from our parents, not with eight children to raise. The area we grew up in was a breeding ground for those bent toward a criminal life. Still, equally beneficial to those of us who sought the traditional way of life in America, we were receiving a world-class education in the basics from the nuns. They always pointed us in a direction that we would be better off living a disciplined life, including believing in having some religion in our lives, treating girls with respect, and working hard at whatever you were doing, no matter how menial the task.

They encouraged sports, particularly baseball, football, and basketball, and we played all of them. The good nuns that taught us always pushed us to adjust our goals in life, whatever they were, to point ourselves on the road to absolute success in life. They vigorously discouraged negative thoughts and plans. I bought into all of that, and along with lots of good luck, I believe I accomplished much of what the good nuns would have wished for me in my life.

Our immediate neighborhoods on the West Side where we lived, first on Kedzie Avenue and later on Fillmore Street, had strong presences of Mafia activity, so I understood their leanings, social life, and families early in my life, which I believe held me in great stead in my chosen career as an FBI Agent, principally engaged in investigating them. My work against the Mafia for almost 25 years in the Bureau was the highlight of my professional life. Let’s go there!

Alphonse Alley Boy Persico

At the beginning of January 1973, I led a group of FBI Agents from my New York City squad in the execution of an arrest warrant for Alphonse Alley Boy Persico, who was the Acting Boss of the Colombo Mafia Family, one of five such groups in the NYC area, the others being the Gambino Family, which was the largest and most prominent Mafia group in the USA, the Genovese Family, the Lucchese Family, and the Bonanno Family. The Gambino Family was led by Carlo Gambino, who was known as the Boss of Bosses and was Mario Puzo’s model for the Marlon Brando role in the Academy Award-winning movie trilogy, The Godfather. More on Mr. Gambino later!

The arrest occurred at approximately five a.m. at the country home of Alley Boy, in Saugerties, NY, with the arrest team involving several senior Agents and myself, and several other Agents that were assigned to neutralize the expected bodyguards that were protecting Persico. It was a dangerous period for mobsters, as at the time, there was an internal battle going on between the Persico faction and the Crazy Joe Gallo group, who were responsible for the shooting death of Joe Colombo, the titular head of the Colombo Family at Columbus Circle in NYC in late 1972.

The FBI protection team was sent in first and quickly took out the two Mafia bodyguards, who were in a vehicle sleeping at the head of a road leading to the home—we held them in temporary custody.

The arrest team then went to the home, looked into the kitchen area through a half glass doorway, and saw what we presumed to be Persico’s wife sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. A gentle knock on the window caught her attention, and I mouthed the word FBI and showed her my FBI credentials. She surprisingly quickly opened the door and let us in. I told her we had a warrant for her husband, and she said he was getting dressed in the bedroom. I noted two very young boys coming into the kitchen and hugging their mom around the waist as we moved to the bedroom.

I confronted Persico in the bedroom, and two of my Agents immediately grabbed him, told him to finish dressing, after which they began to handcuff him. I told the Agents not to cuff him as his kids were in the kitchen. Persico mouthed a thank you in my direction.

We put Persico in the back seat of a Bureau car, and I sat in the back with him. I introduced myself as Sean McWeeney, Supervisor of the squad looking at your Family. He smiled and said, Why are you looking at us? We don’t do anything wrong. He added, Thanks for not cuffing me inside my house. By the way, one of my sons is named Sean. I responded, How did that happen? and he said, My wife is Irish! Not a big surprise, as there have to be thousands of matches in the USA involving Irish and Italians, as they grew up in the same neighborhoods and seem to be attracted romantically to each other. We exchanged some small talk and took him to our office on 69th Street in NYC for booking.

Fast forward a week or so to January 10, 1973. A front-page story appeared in every newspaper in NYC reporting that two diamond‐studded crowns and other jewels, insured for over $100,000, were stolen from the Regina Pacis Votive Marian Shrine at St. Rosalia’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn. The caper was pulled off by two ‘dopers’, who used a ladder to climb up and remove the crowns that adorned a canvas of the Blessed Mother and the Baby Jesus. The crowns of jewels were collected by contributions of rubies, sapphires, and diamonds by wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers of those men in their individual sphere serving overseas during WWII. The effort by the female parishioners was done as a prayer for the safe return of their loved ones from the War and was a featured story in all the NYC newspapers when the crowns were first displayed in the Church.

Shortly after the theft, I was told by a couple of Agents on the Squad that one of the Squad’s informants knew that the Colombo Family was given the jewels to fence through their contacts. We put our heads together, and I said that I believed I had developed a relationship of mutual respect with Persico during the arrest in Saugerties. We crafted a plan around that perception for me to call Persico and ask for a meeting about the jewels.

I telephoned Alley Boy and, referring to his given name, Alphonse, asked if he would meet me about a crucial matter to the FBI. He immediately protested that he did nothing involving the FBI, but after some cajoling by me, I pursuaded him to meet me in a park in Brooklyn.

It was a freezing day in NYC, which required me to wear my blue wool topcoat over my suit, heavy gloves, and an ascot flat cap. Our group, made up of a driver, two very tall and well-built FBI Agents, and myself, pulled up to the park’s Eastside near a central concrete walk lane leading into the garden. Alley Boy arrived soon after in a chauffeured black Cadillac on the Westside of the park and had two bodyguards with him.

I began the dance by walking alone toward the middle of the park, with Alley Boy also quickly following from the opposite side. We met in the middle, greeted each other, and sat on a nearby bench—the whole thing being watched closely by my Agents and his bodyguards. One agent later said the entire scenario, the dance, played out like a movie!

I told Alley Boy that the FBI was highly interested in recovering the stolen jewels, and he seemed to know what gems I was talking about, saying profusely that he had nothing to do with the theft. I reassured him that I knew he was not involved, but maybe if he heard something, anything, he could call me. He kept mumbling, I know nothing, I know nothing, reminding me of the popular TV show Hogans Heroes, where the actor playing the German soldier, Sgt. Schulz, when asked about a problem, would repeat the same mantra.

I emphasized that the head of the NYC FBI Office, John Malone, was a devout Catholic and a personal friend of Cardinal Terrance Cooke, leader of the Catholic Church in New York, who was very upset about the theft. We left with a handshake and Alley Boy telling me again that he knew nothing, but if he heard anything, he would call me.

The following morning, a Saturday, the switchboard operator at the FBI’s New York Office called my home in New Jersey and told me that a gruff-speaking man was holding on the phone and asking to talk to me. I told her to put him through, and the stern speaker, with a heavy Italian accent and with no salutation or introduction, said quickly: Mr. McWeeney, the package you want is in the Eastside Air Terminal, locker 112, and immediately hung up.

After hearing this, I called Bill Quinn and Bernie Welch, the two Agents from the squad who accompanied me when I met with Persico and told them to contact the Port Authority and see what we needed to do to open the locker. Later, after alerting the bosses at the FBI of developments, I headed to the Eastside Air Terminal.

When we opened the locker, the crowns of jewels were there, and their bright shine lit up the immediate area. We gingerly picked them up and took them to the FBI Office, and the FBI public relations guys displayed them on a piece of black velvet, highlighting further their brilliant beauty. The media was called, and they arrived in droves! The NYCPD also showed up and looked unhappy that the FBI beat them to the punch, recovering the jewels before they did. I remember a beaming John Malone, the head of the FBI Office, coming up to me, putting his arm around my shoulder, and saying, Sean, everyone loves a winner, and today you’re a winner. He later that day delivered the jewels personally to Cardinal Cooke, which I am sure he was very proud to do.

Shortly after, to authenticate Malone’s compliment to me, I was called to FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, to brief the Director (Clarence Kelly at the time) and the Executive Board about the case. I recalled the entire Board, the Director and Mark Felt, the Executive Director, who was the famous Deep Throat in the Watergate investigation, busting out in laughter when I told them the delight Malone took in the case, and that he insisted on personally delivering the jewels to Cardinal Cooke. They obviously had a fondness for him and knew of his strong Catholic faith.

To show how one big case can elevate your status in the Bureau, shortly after the Director briefing, I was promoted to FBI Headquarters! More Mafia action later! Back to my family and growing up in Chicago.

Where it all started!

The McWeeney family was founded in Ireland over 100 years ago. Thomas McWeeney, our father, was born in KeshCarrigan, County Leitrim, Ireland in 1907, and his wife, my mother, Elizabeth Flynn McWeeney, was born in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland.

KeshCarrigan, where my father was born, is a village in County Leitrim, Ireland. KeshCarrigan is an Irish word meaning Kesh, or causeway, near the little rock. It is situated on the Shannon-Erne Waterway and under Sheebeg, an ancient pagan burial site that overlooks Lough [Lake] Scur, a freshwater lake to the north and KeshCarrigan Lough is a freshwater lake to the south. County Leitrim, a county in the Republic of Ireland, is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Border Region next to Northern Ireland, and it was known as a hotbed for IRA activity when my dad lived there. The family had a long history, apparently, with the IRA. My Dad once confided that he was a runner for the IRA when he was a young boy in Leitrim. The IRA in those early days was more acceptable in Irish Society than they are today.

Leitrim has a hilly and mountainous landscape in its Northwest region and is relatively flat in the Southeast, and has the shortest length of coastline of any Irish County that touches the sea.

My dad, at the age of 19, left his family in County Leitrim and traveled south to Cobh, County Cork, Ireland, where he boarded a ship to America. An older man, Mr. Costello, who owns the farm one has to walk through to get to where my dad grew up, told me on a visit I made to Ireland that he remembered when he was a young boy seeing my dad and his friends going to each home in the area before he left Ireland for the United States. The now 86-year-old man, who had a local reputation as a flirt with the local ladies, said my dad and his friends drank, played music, and danced, and then they would say a prayer and go on to the next house in the area, noting the homes were several miles apart.

Costello told me that after partying, the group, which included my dad, his close friend, the Floyd boy, and another young man from the area, got on a bus that stopped on the road below the edge of the farm. It took them to Carrick-on-Shannon, where they caught another bus to Dublin, and from there, they went on to Cobh in County Cork, where they took the SS Celtic to the United States. Costello got very emotional when he talked about my dad leaving Ireland for America.

When my dad left Ireland, he knew he would not soon come back to the country of his birth, and probably never see his mom and dad again, or his brothers or sister, or any of his childhood friends, and never again would he roam the beautiful fields and hills near his family’s home. He arrived in New York City on October 19, 1926. Once in America, he made his way to Bristol, Connecticut, and a short stay with an aunt. From Connecticut, he traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, where he stayed with relatives of whom we know nothing. He later made his way to Chicago to find work.

Once in Chicago, he first worked for the Chicago Transit Authority, known as the CTA, as a conductor, and later at a Sears Roebuck Department store as a clerk in one of their warehouses.

While in Chicago, my dad met my mom, Elizabeth Cecilia Flynn (in adulthood, always called Lil, as she ardently admired the Actress, Lillian Gish). She was born on April 16, 1907, in Tralee, County Kerry, the daughter of Jeremiah Flynn and Bridie Browne. She lived the first couple of years in government-provided