Phil Brennan
Friday, March 30, 2001

The astonishing fact that a mob boss has been running a lucrative abortuary was revealed in a little-noticed paragraph in a Department of Justice press release issued in May 1999. In a listing of defendants arrested on May 3, 1999, one Anthony Centracchio, 62, was described as "allegedly the leader or boss of the Eboli-Centracchio criminal enterprise. The indictment also identifies him as the owner and operator of A.C.T. Medical Center, 5714 West Division Street, Chicago …"

What the release does not reveal is the fact that A.C.T. Medical Center is an abortion clinic. That fact did not become public until the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story in February that revealed the true nature of the so-called medical center.

"A hidden FBI camera not only caught reputed West Side mob boss Anthony Centracchio handling wads of alleged bribe money," Sun-Times reporter Steve Warmbir revealed, "it also captured the 71-year-old man in another compromising position – having sex with an employee at his abortion clinic office, court documents show."

"On one occasion, April 2, 1994, the CCTV equipment recorded Centracchio engaging in sexual activity with a woman who was part of the clinic's administrative staff," a defense motion in the case reads.

"The same camera that captured Centracchio in the abortion clinic office also showed him counting 'street tax' payments and discussing bribes to public officials. Those details and others have recently come to light in previously unavailable court documents in the federal government's racketeering case against Centracchio and three others, including Stone Park Mayor Robert Natale. He stands accused of taking payoffs to protect video gambling in his town."

In a Feb. 22 interview with an FBI spokesman in the bureau's Chicago office, NewsMax.com asked the agent, "Does your organized crime unit have any indication that the Mafia is involved in the abortion business?"

"I can't comment on that," said Special Agent Ross Rice, refusing to deny or confirm any mob involvement in the billion-dollar abortion industry.

While denying any specific knowledge of widespread mob involvement in the abortion racket, a former New York detective with extensive knowledge of organized crime told NewsMax.com that he wouldn't be surprised.

"They were running chiropractic offices," he recalled. "It gave them an opportunity to tap into medical insurance fraud. As far as abortion goes, most of the old-line mob bosses would have steered clear of any involvement. But the younger members probably wouldn't have any scruples about [aborting the unborn]."

The ex-cop's opinion was bolstered by an official close to the Centracchio case.

"Abortion clinics don't really have any history with organized crime," the official told World magazine. "It's kind of like drugs: The older bosses considered it a nasty business. The Mafia wouldn't necessarily have approved of the abortion clinic."

Centracchio doesn't appear to have had any such scruples.

The current issue of World magazine has an in-depth story on the Centracchio case and the abortion clinic. The introduction states: "As his trial gets under way, World looks at the structure of a largely cash-based industry that is both profitable and politically protected. If it happened in Chicago, why not elsewhere?"

The huge profits reaped by the abortion industry, now bolstered by the sale of baby parts, would make running abortion clinics an attractive enterprise for organized crime, one former abortion clinic operator told World.

"It's a cash cow," Carol Everett said of her former profession. "Because of the so-called right to privacy, it's completely shrouded in secrecy. It's never been regulated; there's no accountability."

Everett, who left the abortion industry after six years and 35,000 abortions, is now a pro-life activist. She told World that she kept two sets of books to hide her profits from the IRS. She also revealed that most patients pay cash, a feature very attractive to the mob.

And those mostly nontaxed profits are enormous. According to World, depending on the stage of the pregnancy the cost of abortions can run from $350 to $8,000. Clinic owners can gross about $250,000 a month in unreported, untraceable cash.

According to World, the FBI, which pored over Centracchio's clinic's financial records, suspect him of Medicaid fraud – of applying for "Medicaid reimbursement for a patient's foot surgery, for instance, when he had in fact provided an abortion for which he'd already been paid in cash." (Medicaid does not reimburse for abortions except in rare cases.)

Most of the federal government's evidence in the Centracchio case is now sealed. When he comes to trial, the full extent of any widespread mob involvement in the grisly abortion mill business may come to light.