Jeweler left holding bag after diamonds stolen
He was gone only seconds, ducking into the station to pay for the gas, but that was long enough for a thief to unlock the car door and drive away with nearly $200,000 in diamonds.
The thief, Charles "Chuckie" Miller, a former City of Chicago Streets and Sanitation employee with alleged Outfit ties, was caught, put on trial, convicted and dispatched to prison. He served about four years and was released in 1997.
While Miller paid for his crime with prison time, he's done almost nothing to pay back Katz, despite indications that he's doing pretty well for himself. Miller never returned the stolen diamonds--investigators have no idea where they went--and he's paying restitution to Katz at a pathetically slow pace.
Miller sends Katz $100 a month, care of the state of Wisconsin. After the state takes its fee, Katz gets $95.23.
"My great-grandchildren would be collecting at that rate," said Katz, who is 75. "It made it very tough, and it's still a tough row to hoe."
Tell that to Steve Katz.
After Miller robbed him, Katz said, he had to take out big loans and, to this day, remains "in deep debt."
Katz had insurance, but it didn't cover the theft because he had left the jewels in the car unattended.
The court ordered Miller to pay back Katz, but Miller pleaded poverty. So Miller wound up paying $100 a month.
Records obtained by the Sun-Times, however, tell a different story about Miller's finances.
Since 1998, Miller has collected more than $200,000 in workers compensation claims. In the last job where he collected a workers compensation claim, he was being paid $974 a week.
At one point after being sprung from prison, Miller had a Lexus registered in his name. He's also been seen driving a Chevrolet Blazer.
And while he doesn't appear to have many other assets in his name, he does have access to a checking account.
It's drawn on a firm, Miller & Miller L.L.P., set up by two of his family members, records show.
Miller has used the account to pay bills and to pay himself.
"I had no idea that he had these assets," said Katz, who has hired a lawyer to help him get his money from Miller more quickly.
For decades, Outfit-connected thieves have done good business in robbing traveling jewelry salesmen. Crews of thieves would creep after a mark for weeks or months, learn his habits and figure just the right moment to pounce.
Often, they struck in small towns where the police departments weren't used to investigating such thefts.
Katz confessed he never knew he was being followed by Miller, or by a second man who was never charged. Other salesmen say they were robbed so smoothly they never knew what hit them--until hours later when they discovered their gems were missing.
Many robberies were so slick that the salesmen themselves were often the first suspects--for faking the robberies.
Among the smoothest of the mobbed-up jewelry theft crews was the one led by William Hanhardt, once Chicago's deputy superintendent of police. Hanhardt, who was sentenced in May to nearly 16 years in prison, and his crew stole more than $5 million in diamonds and gems from jewelry salesmen.
As for Miller, he was a police suspect in a string of robberies dating to the early 1980s, although he was never charged.
A woman spotted Miller hunched down on the ground. Perhaps, she thought, he had lost his dog.
"Sir," she asked, "do you have a problem?"
"No," Miller replied, "I just dropped something, and I'm picking it up."
Miller slipped on black gloves, ran in a crouch toward the gas station, jumped into Katz's 1990 Acura, and slipped a key in the ignition--a duplicate key he apparently had obtained while tracking Katz.
Miller sped off while Katz' eyes grew wide.
"I jumped at the cashier, 'Call the cops, call the cops,'" Katz said. "That was in the day before cell phones."
Sharp detective work by the small Fond du Lac police department helped nail Miller.
The cops learned the Katz theft matched the way Miller operated, so they obtained a mug shot of Miller and showed it to witnesses.
Part of Miller's defense, led by legendary Chicago attorney Edward Genson, was that Miller was at work at his city job at the time of the theft.
In fact, at least a couple of Miller's co-workers swore in affidavits they saw Miller at work, said Fond du Lac District Attorney Thomas L. Storm.
This would have been a terrific defense had the co-workers themselves been at work that day. Miller and others eventually lost their city jobs after an investigation by the city's inspector general's office.
Miller tried to ditch his debt to Katz by filing for bankruptcy in 1998. He failed.
Katz has received monthly payments from Miller for about four years, except for a few missed payments.
"It's tough when you're only driving a Lexus," Katz said wryly.
And just the other day, Katz got more bad news. Miller now claims to have a permanent disability.
He says he can't pay Katz another dime.