Mob Hit Man Harry Aleman Dies In Prison

By Anna Deem in News on May 16, 2010 5:45PM

On Saturday, Chicago mob hit man, Harry Aleman, died of a terminal illness in a Downstate correctional center. He was 71. Aleman was serving a 100-to-300-year sentence for the 1972 murder of a Teamsters member. Sharyn Elman, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, confirmed that Aleman died at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, while in the prison infirmary at Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg. "There was no foul play," she said to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Aleman had quite a history as one of Chicago's most well known mob associates. Over the course of his life, he was suspected in 20 or more murders, but only convicted of the one that landed him in jail: the murder of union steward William Logan. Aleman was convicted in 1997. While in prison, investigators gave Aleman a chance to be an informant, but were never able to convince him. "The government wants everybody to be a stool pigeon...and I'm never going to become a stool pigeon," he told a reporter. Aleman also remained in contact with his now late wife and her four children while in prison.