(no subject)
Apr. 28th, 2005 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birdwatcher
Правда, типичнейший мафиози? Да, и газета Чикаго Трибьюн так же подумала, поместив его фотографию на первой странице, с заголовком «Кто видел Клоуна?» и статьей про неуловимого Джузеппе "Клоуна" Ломбардо, известного чикагского гангстера, которому вчера было заочно предъявлено обвинение. А сегодня оказалось, что это Стенли Суитон, совершенно ничего не подозревающий старичок:Front-page bike photo didn't show Lombardo
By John Bebow and Jon Yates
Tribune staff reporters
Published April 28, 2005
The photo that ran on the front page of Wednesday's Chicago Tribune was, in fact, of a dapper old man.
But he wasn't Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo.
He was Stanley Swieton, 69, a soft-spoken Chicagoan who never figured he'd make the front page of the newspaper.
The photo, under a headline asking, "Have you seen this `Clown?'" was described as a picture of Lombardo, the subject of an international manhunt after he was indicted in a broad mob conspiracy Monday.
"I couldn't believe it," Swieton said Wednesday, after seeing the picture--of himself--pedaling down Grand Avenue dressed in a hat and overcoat. "I don't want anything to do with the mob."
Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski apologized for the error.
"We sincerely regret our mistake," she said. "We strive for accuracy, but when we make an error we try to correct it. We are very sorry for this mistake and apologize to Mr. Swieton."
The picture that ran Wednesday was purchased by the Tribune from a woman who said she photographed the man about a year ago as part of a class project at Columbia College.
The photographer, Val Carpenter, said she did not ask the man his name, but thought it was Lombardo after reading news accounts about his indictment Tuesday.
Lombardo, 76, was charged with racketeering conspiracy Monday.
After the identification error became known on Wednesday, Carpenter said, "I guess I'm a little surprised that there are two elderly gentlemen with really great classic style."
She added, "Now that I know who he is, I'll make him a really nice print."
On Tuesday, a Tribune reporter took a copy of the picture to Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, who said the man was Lombardo.
Halprin said Tuesday that it was "definitely" the man he represented, adding the cigar in the right hand and the style of dress were a "dead giveaway."
But on Wednesday Halprin denied that he positively identified the photo as being that of Lombardo.
The lawyer said he had told the paper that the man in the picture had the wrong kind of cigar to be Lombardo, and that his face was "too full." In Wednesday's story, the Tribune quoted Halprin observing that the pictured man's face looked slightly fuller and the cigar was larger than Lombardo typically carried but still asserting that the picture was of Lombardo.
Even on Wednesday, Halprin said: "It sure does look a whole hell of a lot like him.
"At first glance, there are certainly striking similarities," Halprin said. "I mean, how many guys of that age ride bicycles with cigars in their hands up and down Grand Avenue?"
On Tuesday, the newspaper ran a photo of businessman Frank Calabrese, a retired print company owner, after mixing up his picture with that of jailed mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. in a story about Monday's federal indictments.
Swieton, who lives with his sister near where the photo was taken, said he found out about the photo when he saw a copy of the paper on his way to a county clinic to get a blood pressure pill.
"I think it was wrong," he said Wednesday. "I think they should have gotten their story straight."
By evening, local reporters and cameramen were camped outside his door.
Swieton patiently answered reporters' questions for several minutes and twice satisfied their requests by riding his bike up and down the sidewalk for the TV cameras.
But he said he now wanted the story to simply go away.
"I just want to clear my name and go back to my life," Swieton said.
That life includes riding his one-speed, weathered, metallic-green Schwinn bicycle around Chicago.
He said he especially enjoys the 25-minute ride from his house to the lakeshore, where in warm months he fishes for perch.
"He's on that bike hour after hour after hour, seven days a week," said Swieton's sister, Joan Bonert.
Bonert said she received calls from concerned friends and family members throughout the day and that she is worried that people who see Swieton on his bike may seek to harm him.
"Yeah, mistakes do happen," she said. "But that was a ghastly one."
Вот что значит хорошо одеваться, это мне бабушка когда еще говорила.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-28 09:42 pm (UTC)