From top Chicago detective to master jewel thief

CHICAGO -- The jewelry salesman was ready for the thieves this time. He set out on a trip with $58,000 in luxury watches in the trunk of his Lincoln. He wanted to be followed.

From his suburban Chicago home, he headed into Indiana as two cars -- a Buick Century and an Olds Cutlass -- trailed him 50 miles, all the way to the parking lot of a place called the Spa restaurant.

When the salesman went inside, one of the thieves pounced -- opening the trunk of the Lincoln with a key and lifting out two jewelry cases. Then he sped away.

This wasn't the first time the salesman had been targeted. Twelve years earlier, $310,000 in Baume & Mercier watches were snatched from his car -- by some of the same thieves watching him this day.

But this time, the salesman was the bait. FBI agents in a van were videotaping the scene. And those watches lifted from the trunk? They were provided by the feds.

Among the thieves in Porter, Ind., that October day in 1996 was a lookout, a silver-haired man with an extraordinary resume for a criminal: He once was a deputy superintendent of the Chicago police.

Legendary career

As a cop, he had worked closely with the FBI, piling up commendations, including one from J. Edgar Hoover. He had a such a legendary police career that Hollywood modeled a hard-boiled TV character after him.

But on this day, William Hanhardt, a man who once commanded hundreds of police officers, was doing something far different:

He was running a multimillion-dollar jewel theft ring.

There was a time when Hanhardt was known as a cop's cop.

In the 1960s, he chased a vicious ring of home invaders down the street, his bravado making a front-page splash. A newspaper photo shows the young cop proudly holding a tommy gun.

"He was a real hard-core guy -- a guy who was really feared," says veteran private eye Ernie Rizzo.

Hanhardt waged war on burglary rings and cartage thieves who made off with televisions, cigarettes, anything that could be lifted off a trailer.

"He had no peers in terms of his police career," says Chuck Adamson, a former Chicago cop who wrote for the TV show "Crime Story" and a longtime Hanhardt friend.

In his heyday, Hanhardt headed the Central Investigations Unit, a hand-picked team that targeted, among others, jewel thieves.

Over the decades, Hanhardt was rewarded with powerful posts: commander of the burglary section, chief of detectives, and one of a handful of deputy superintendents. He retired in 1986 as a captain.

As his 33-year career ended, Hanhardt became a consultant to "Crime Story," a film-noir TV series about an elite team of Chicago detectives that takes on the mob.

Adamson says there was a lot of Hanhardt in the show's hero, Lt. Mike Torello, a hard-living, make-his-own-rules guy played by actor Dennis Farina, a former Chicago cop himself.

The show seemed a case of art imitating life: There were stories about cartage heists, home invaders -- even a jewel theft from a car trunk.

'Live for the moment'

Hanhardt has not spoken publicly since being charged, but in a 1995 interview with Richard Lindberg, author of several books on Chicago police and crime, he offered his perspective on life as a cop:

"You knew that you're going to get screwed over eventually, so you went into the game with that thought in mind ... You got a wife. You got kids. So you got to think about the future, right? But I never liked thinking about the future. I liked to live for the moment."

The FBI pursued Hanhardt with dogged detective work, wiretapping his home phone.

The feds also obtained copies from an informant of index cards with information on jewelers used by Hanhardt and others to conduct surveillance.

Hanhardt's doom may have been sealed by 1999 when a member of the ring was in a nasty divorce that involved a bank safe deposit box. It contained uncut diamonds and jewels -- plus phone bugs and car tracing beepers.

Word of the stash spilled out. And the FBI swooped in with subpoenas.

In the fall of 2000, Hanhardt and five other men -- including the one involved in the divorce -- were charged with operating a nationwide theft ring that stalked jewelry salespeople and stole more than $5 million in gems and watches.

One heist occurred near the end of Hanhardt's career, the others after he retired.

Snatching platinum and diamonds, watches, earrings and bracelets -- most never recovered -- the thieves had successful scores in Arizona, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

Federal officials say the group stalked more than 100 jewelry salespeople handling more than $40 million in merchandise over 15 years.

Last October, a day before Hanhardt was to plead guilty to transporting stolen property across state lines and racketeering conspiracy charges, he overdosed on pain pills in an apparent suicide attempt.

'Because of the rush'

About a week later, he entered his plea.

William Hanhardt is set to be sentenced April 29, facing up to 25 years in prison, though attorneys have suggested federal guidelines could make it closer to 12 years. That could be a life sentence for Hanhardt, who at 73, has survived a bout with cancer and has other health problems.

In his plea, Hanhardt admitted to few specifics but acknowledged participating in some thefts. Four co-defendants, some with lengthy mob associations, also have pleaded guilty and all but one identified him as the ringleader.

It is an ignominious ending to a once-celebrated career.

And Lindberg, the author, has a theory about why it happened:

"I think he did it because of the rush," he says. "People working inside the system believe that they're outside the rules of the game."