Jury hears tape of beating in Calabrese trial

Jurors in the trial of reputed mob killer Anthony Calabrese sat transfixed Wednesday as they heard a secret tape recording of Calabrese and his righthand man hitting and stomping a man they suspected was a snitch.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” the informant, Edmund Frank, pleads on the recording, played on the third day of Calabrese's trial.

“F--- you, punk-a-- b----,” Calabrese snarls back.

The 2002 beating, which sent Frank to the emergency room, began after he refused to tell Calabrese and his partner, Robert Cooper, what motel he was staying at.

Frank told his alleged former partners in crime that he didn't feel safe sharing that information with them.

Calabrese is charged with three armed robberies in the case prosecuted by Markus Funk and Joel Hammerman. Frank testified Wednesday that he took part in two of the robberies.

Authorities hope to convict Calabrese and use the sentence he would face — more than 50 years in prison — to tell them who allegedly hired him for a 2001 mob hit and a 1997 attempted murder of a Naperville woman. Calabrese hasn't been charged with either of those crimes.

On Wednesday, Frank testified he decided to cooperate with the feds because he was afraid Calabrese was soon going to find out he was a snitch on a drug case and would harm him.

Soon after Frank walked into Calabrese's auto detailing shop in Alsip, with the recording device going, Calabrese ordered him to lift his shirt up, apparently to check for a wire.

Eventually, Calabrese and Cooper ordered Frank to strip but still found nothing. It's unclear where the feds secreted the device.

Calabrese suggests in the recording that Frank is making stories up about him, a point underscored by Calabrese's attorney, Steven Hunter, in court Wednesday. Hunter said the main witnesses against Calabrese are lying criminals looking to cut their prison time.

The beating left Frank with migraines and ringing in his ears, he said.

And he never returned home after that, going straight into protective custody.