Before there was Al Pacino in Scarface Ray Liotta in Goodfellas or Johnny Depp in Blow there was John Cappas. Fresh out of his Catholic high school, he had dozens of young South Siders working for him. The work: distributing the cocaine he'd brought in from Florida, using MAC-10 guns to intimidate customers and foes alike.
At 21, three years after Cappas graduated from Marist High School, he was a cocaine kingpin on the Southwest Side and in the suburbs. As he pulled together his drug enterprise in the late 1980s, the Oak Lawn man's appetites and attitude grew larger than life. Cappas says, his operation netted him $25,000 a week lived in a Lockport mansion, had a speedboat, a Playboy model for a girlfriend, and a Harley. He spent holidays at exclusive resorts and every weekend rolled up at clubs in stretch limos.
Cappas' brazen behavior caught up with him when two Chicago cops' kids said to owe him money for cocaine took their own lives with their fathers' service revolvers and one of his dealers getting stopped for a traffic violation in Palos Heights. Cappas arrived and offered the cop, Michael Zaglifa, $333 cash to drop the matter. Zaglifa arrested Cappas and searched his car, finding an illegal weapon and a notebook with phone numbers and details of his operation.
"I'll always remember my dad telling me, 'You're going to jail soon,' but I told him, 'I'm a first-time offender. I'll be out in a few years." Cappas wisecracked his way through his trial, spat at an FBI agent, yelled, "I have a black belt!" at the judge, and got 45 years. "America is at war with itself," U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras told him. "You're part of the enemy."
Cappas was never charged in connection with the deaths of Christopher Mandel and Michael Riordan, a judge said he had "at least in two instances caused death." Under federal guidelines, he was eligible for a low to medium correctional facility, but Cappas upset enough important people that he was sent to prison with the worst of the worst in Lewisburg, Pa. "People say I should have done more time, but how would you like it if, for 15 years, every time you picked up the phone, the person at the other end was crying? Soon after his release, Cappas got a job selling cars for Bob Watson Chevrolet in Harvey and made enough to buy a condo. "I make a good six-figure income, I can look myself in the mirror and go to sleep at night knowing I didn't steal it, that I earned an honest buck."
SOURCE SUN TIMES
