On a large screen in a darkened courtroom Wednesday, former Chicago cop Steven Mandell could be heard chatting for hours about torture and murder.
In undercover FBI videos played for federal jurors, Mandell laughed when he described how victims often come unglued before their deaths. He mimed a blindfolded prisoner, then drew a hand across this throat to signify a killing. And he seemed to have mirth in his eyes as he made moaning sounds describing the carnage he could inflict.
“Uhhhh please…aaaaaaahhhh! It’s pitiful,” Mandell said on one secret recording made at a vacant Northwest Side storefront that prosecutors alleged Mandell had turned into a torture chamber that he jokingly referred to as “Club Med.”
Prosecutors played one recording after another Wednesday as the government’s star witness, George Michael, spent a second day on the witness stand at Mandell’s trial in connection with two alleged murder plots. The lurid charges allege the onetime death row inmate, 62, plotted to kidnap a suburban businessman, torture him until he handed over his money and real estate, then kill him and chop his body into pieces. He also allegedly plotted to kill an associate of a mob-connected strip club in order to take over the lucrative business.
The dozens of audio and video recordings made by Michael, a colorful Chicago real estate mogul and ex-banker, form the foundation of the government evidence. Michael pretended to go along with Mandell’s plans while secretly working undercover with federal authorities.
Mandell’s attorneys acknowledged to jurors at the outset of the trial that the undercover recordings would make Mandell sound “awful” but contended it was all talk to string Michael along and try to make some money off of him.
But awful may not even be strong enough for how Mandell appears in the recordings played so far for the jury. In tape after tape, he comes off like a calculating, experienced murderer who relishes violence, delights in its planning and looks forward to the game of throwing off law enforcement when they come around asking questions.
While many undercover recordings are often filled with coded language or cryptic, hard-to-follow conversations, Mandell spoke openly as he discussed kidnapping and killing Steve Campbell, a Riverside businessman who Mandell believed was flush with cash.
For hours, Mandell can be heard on the recordings going over the plan to have Michael lure Campbell to his realty office, then “arrest” Campbell while posing as a police officer with a bogus warrant that would appear to be signed by the same federal judge who presided over the Family Secrets mob trial.
Campbell – jokingly referred to by Mandell as “Soupy” after the canned soup brand – would be brought to Club Med and tortured and executed, prosecutors allege.
“How do you know Soupy will talk?” Michael asked Mandell in one video played Wednesday.