Deadly Associates: A Story of Murder and Survival

On September 27, 1974, Chicago businessman Daniel Seifert was brutally gunned down in front of his four-year-old son and young wife. Some would call him a victim, but others would say he had it coming. At the time, Seifert was a former partner with some of the top people in the Chicago Mob. He was a [...]
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On September 27, 1974, Chicago businessman Daniel Seifert was brutally gunned down in front of his four-year-old son and young wife. Some would call him a victim, but others would say he had it coming. At the time, Seifert was a former partner with some of the top people in the Chicago Mob. He was also a key witness in a massive federal investigation into the Mob's infamous involvement with the Teamsters Central States Pension Funds and their direct ties to Las Vegas. His former business partners were the targets of that investigation, and he knew all. This knowledge put Seifert in the dangerous position of being threatened by the Chicago Mob, known on the street as the Chicago Outfit, and being threatened by the Feds with hard time for his dealings with them. In 1970s Chicago, the Mob ruled the streets. Mobsters influenced everyone from the Aldermen and Police to Streets and Sanitation. They owned and ran businesses ranging from strip clubs and underground gambling halls to the seemingly quaint pizzeria down the block. Some insiders suspect that even local area mayors and town presidents were influenced. They controlled it all. But most importantly, they had control within the Teamsters. Tens of millions of dollars streamed from fraudulent business transactions and loans from the Teamsters Union through Chicago businesses like Seifert's, only to end up being split between the pockets of the local Mob leaders and their Las Vegas hotel ventures. These loans were secured not with collateral, but through corruption, torture, extortion, and murder. On the surface, Deadly Associates is a story of how a tough, street-smart, and ambitious young man became very close to those who were directly linked to top Mob bosses such as Tony Accardo, Sam Giancana, bail-bondsman / Mob financier Irwin Weiner, and even former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. In 1978, Weiner (Daniel Seifert's primary business partner) would be called before the JFK Subcommittee hearing to testify about his known links to Jack Ruby and his suspected links to the JFK assassination. Seifert's business partners were as big as they come in Chicago's underworld and he became the linchpin for the FBI's case against the Mob. Yet this story goes beyond the violent murder of Daniel Seifert and the voyeuristically interesting life of mobsters. Below the surface, this is the multi-dimensional story of a courageous woman and her family prevailing against all odds in the wake of tragedy. In its essence, this is the much deeper story of a family's fight to survive when everything has been turned upside down and those left behind have no idea what to do, where to turn, or who they can trust. It is the story of the forgotten victims of violent crime-the surviving family members. Family members that would, years later, feel hollow vindication at the culmination of the Family Secrets Trial, the highest-profile Mob trial held in Chicago since Al Capone.