tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48305260243807677182024-03-13T17:05:15.952-04:00The American Mafia - Who Was WhoA collection of brief biographies and images of organized criminals and law enforcement officers compiled by http://mafiahistory.us .Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-27003854897647065782019-03-11T17:18:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:28:14.720-04:00Balistrieri, Frank P. (1918-1993)b. Milwaukee, May 27, 1918. <br />
d. Milwaukee, Feb. 7, 1993. <br />
<br />
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Frank Peter Balistrieri was the best known of Milwaukee's Mafia bosses and the most targeted by law enforcement.<br />
<br />
Balistrieri was also the first local Mafia boss who was born in the United States. He was born in Milwaukee in 1918, the son of immigrant Mafiosi Joseph Balistrieri of the Town of Aspra near Santa Flavia, Sicily. He grew up in the city's Third Ward "Little Sicily" neighborhood around the intersection of Jefferson and Detroit Streets. (Detroit Street was later renamed St. Paul Avenue.)<br />
<br />
FBI heard conflicting reports about Balistrieri's selection as boss. Some said that Alioto had trained him for the post through years and handed him the reins in December 1961 or January 1962. Others said that Alioto went into retirement at that time opposed to the idea of Balistrieri becoming boss, preferring someone older and more experienced. (FBI heard that Alioto was angered by a Balistrieri romantic relationship outside of his marriage to Alioto's daughter.)<br />
<br />
As Balistrieri advanced in the local Mafia, he opened night clubs and gambling spots and attempted to monopolize jukeboxes and coin-operated vending machines. The success of one of his gambling ventures brought him into conflict with boss Sam Ferrara in 1952. Ferrara wanted a piece of the Balistrieri-run Ogden Social Club gambling hall. When Balistrieri resisted, Ferrara ousted him from the crime family.<br />
<br />
Balistrieri's father-in-law John Alioto, a capodecina in the Milwaukee organization, brought a protest to the leaders of the Chicago Outfit. Since the establishment of the Mafia's Commission system in the early 1930s, Chicago had been responsible for overseeing Milwaukee. Outfit bosses ruled that Ferrara exceeded his authority and ordered him to step down. The Outfit then installed Alioto as the new boss.<br />
<br />
Alioto reportedly groomed Balistrieri as his successor but seems to have had second thoughts as he retired in 1961-62. Alioto was upset by a Balistrieri romantic relationship outside of his marriage to Alioto's daughter. The break between the two men became so severe that Alioto did not attend the funeral of Balistrieri's father in 1971. <br />
<br />
As boss, Balistrieri sought to increase the crime family's wealth and influence by assessing a street tax on gambling racketeers and a number of legitimate businesses. He brought in Joseph Gurera and Buster Balestrere from Kansas City (the Balistrieris of Milwaukee and the Balestreres of Kansas City are related) to enforce that protection racket.<br />
<br />
He angered segments of his organization by elevating the newcomer Gurera to capodecina rank, as well as by doing away with the "sagia," a leadership panel used by Alioto for dispute resolution, and by acting in an autocratic manner. Balistrieri was protected against rebellion through his close relationship with Chicago Outfit leaders, particularly Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio.<br />
<br />
He could not protect himself against the U.S. government, however. In the late 1960s, he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for tax evasion. In the 1980s, his participation in extortion and Las Vegas casino skimming rackets were exposed. In 1984, he was sentenced to thirteen more years in federal prison. (His sons, Joseph P. and John J. Balistrieri, were also convicted of extortion and served time in federal prison.) During this imprisonment, Balistrieri's brother Peter stood in for him as acting boss.<br />
<br />
Frank Balistrieri was released from federal prison at Butner, North Carolina, in 1991. He died of a heart attack in 1993.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li>"Balistrieri given 13 years," <i>Oshkosh WI Northwestern, </i>May 30, 1984, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Balistrieri goes to grave denying being mob boss," <i>Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter</i>, Feb. 8, 1993, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Feds clean up union," <i>Oshkosh WI Northwestern,</i> Aug. 25, 1996, p. 15.</li>
<li>"Genealogy search," Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemeteries, cemeteries.org.</li>
<li>Joseph Balistrieri Naturalization Petition, U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Wisconsin, Vol. 111, No. 15152, certificate no. 5199880, filed May 20, 1941, approved July 17, 1941.</li>
<li>Le Grand, Alexander P., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-640, NARA no. 124-10287-10189, May 28, 1964.</li>
<li>Reed, Carlyle N., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-2105, NARA no. 124-10293-10341, Sept. 11, 1967.</li>
<li>Schmitt, Gavin, <a href="https://amzn.to/2NWOAeY" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>Milwaukee Mafia: Images of America</i></span></a>, Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.</li>
<li>Schmitt, Gavin, <a href="https://amzn.to/2NXQ5tr" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>The Milwaukee Mafia</i></span></a>, Fort Lee NJ: Barricade Books, 2014</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index, 388-18-0128, died Feb. 7, 1993.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, Wisconsin, County of Milwaukee, City of Milwaukee, Enumeration District 42.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-mi.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Milwaukee boss listing (mafiahistory.us)</span></a></li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-9660558533268532542019-03-11T15:26:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:28:51.145-04:00Balistrieri, Peter F. (1919-1997)b. Milwaukee, Sept. 12, 1919.<br />
d. Milwaukee, Aug. 16, 1997.<br />
<br />
As boss Frank Balistrieri headed off to prison for a long sentence in 1984, his brother Peter Frank Balistrieri took temporary control of crime family operations.<br />
<br />
Frank and Peter were sons of Milwaukee Mafioso Joseph Balistrieri, a native of the Town of Aspra, near Santa Flavia and Bagheria in Palermo Province, Sicily. During his brother's reign as boss, Peter served as a capodecina over a younger Milwaukee Mafia faction.<br />
<br />
Frank Balistrieri and his two sons, Joseph P. Balistrieri and John J. Balistrieri, were convicted of extortion in 1984. Frank was sentenced to thirteen years in prison and a $30,000 fine. His sons were sentenced to eight years, later reduced to five years.<br />
<br />
Peter Balistrieri presided over a period of great decline in the Milwaukee Mafia. Frank was released from prison in 1991 and died two years later. Peter died in 1997.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li>"Balistrieri given 13 years," <i>Oshkosh WI Northwestern</i>, May 30, 1984, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Balistrieri goes to grave denying being mob boss," <i>Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter</i>, Feb. 8, 1993, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Feds clean up union," <i>Oshkosh WI Northwestern</i>, Aug. 25, 1996, p. 15.</li>
<li>"Genealogy search," Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemeteries, cemeteries.org.</li>
<li>Joseph Balistrieri Naturalization Petition, U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Wisconsin, Vol. 111, No. 15152, Certificate no. 5199880, filed May 20, 1941, approved July 17, 1941. </li>
<li>Le Grand, Alexander P., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-640, NARA no. 124-10287-10189, May 28, 1964.</li>
<li>Reed, Carlyle N., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-2105, NARA no. 124-10293-10341, Sept. 11, 1967.</li>
<li>Schmitt, Gavin, <a href="https://amzn.to/2EWhw2L" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><i>Milwaukee Mafia: Images of America</i></b></span></a>, Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.</li>
<li>Schmitt, Gavin, <i><a href="https://amzn.to/2NZBayJ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>The Milwaukee Mafia</b></span></a>,</i> Fort Lee NJ: Barricade Books, 2014.</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index, 388-18-0128, died Feb. 7, 1993.<br />United States Census of 1920, Wisconsin, County of Milwaukee, City of Milwaukee, Enumeration District 42.</li>
</ul>
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-mi.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Milwaukee boss listing (mafiahistory.us)</span></a></li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-78823314396059635352019-03-11T15:02:00.001-04:002023-06-02T09:12:34.863-04:00Alioto, John (1888-1972)b. Porticello, Santa Flavia, Sicily, Aug. 25, 1888. <br />
d. Milwaukee, Aug. 27, 1972.<br />
<br />
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Alioto was the only boss of the Milwaukee Mafia to be installed by forces outside of the crime family. His reign marked the return to power of a faction originating in Santa Flavia, Sicily, after a quarter-century of diminished status.<br />
<br />
After reaching Milwaukee in the 1900s, Alioto advanced through the local Outfit and formed alliances within the Santa Flavia faction. He served time in prison in the 1930s, following convictions for forgery and larceny. He and his wife Catherine raised a large family on Van Buren Street.<br />
<br />
Two younger Mafiosi married into the Alioto family: Joseph Caminiti (a former Aiello Mafia member in Chicago who fled to Milwaukee following the unsuccessful war with Capone) married his daughter Mary; Frank Peter Balistrieri married his daughter Antonina "Nina."<br />
<br />
A pivotal moment for Alioto and the Milwaukee Mafia occurred in 1952, when then-boss Sam Ferrara quarreled with Alioto son-in-law Frank Balistrieri. The cause of the quarrel reportedly was a Ferrara effort to acquire an ownership share in Balistrieri's Ogden Social Club gambling hall. Irritated by Balistrieri's resistance, Ferrara expelled Balistrieri from the Milwaukee Mafia. This briefly fractured the Milwaukee underworld and caused the involvement of Chicago Outfit leaders, responsible for overseeing Milwaukee under the Commission system established in the early 1930s. <br />
<br />
A panel of Chicago gangsters - the FBI reported Anthony Accardo, Rocco Fischetti and Sam Giancana took part - ruled that Ferrara had abused his authority. The Chicagoans demoted Ferrara and installed John Alioto as new boss. The decision of Chicago Outfit leaders restored the power of the Milwaukee Mafia's founding Santa Flavia faction. <br />
<br />
The Alioto administration included underboss Joe Gumina and lieutenants Mike Mineo, Pasquale Migliaccio, John DiTrapani and Frank Peter Balistrieri (restored to Mafia membership following the removal of Sam Ferrara as boss). During his reign, disputes within the family were resolved by a leadership panel, called "sagia."<br />
<br />
Shortly after becoming boss, Alioto was faced with an insurrection. John DiTrapani, relative and godson of ex-boss Sam Ferrara, plotted with Frank LoGalbo and Jack Enea to take control of the crime family. The rebellion was put down with the murders of John DiTrapani and Jack Enea in 1954. Frank LoGalbo avoided a similar fate by quickly transfering out of the Milwaukee crime family and into a Chicago Outfit regime in Chicago Heights. He continued to reside in Milwaukee under Chicago protection.<br />
<br />
It appears that Joseph Caminiti became an Alioto lieutenant following the murder of DiTrapani.<br />
<br />
Alioto entered retirement around December 1961 or January 1962. Frank Balistrieri succeded him as boss. Alioto died of natural causes in 1972 at the age of 83. Following a funeral Mass at St. Rita's Church, he was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li>"Balistrieri goes to grave denying being mob boss," <i>Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter</i>, Feb. 8, 1993, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Death notices," <i>Milwaukee Sentinel</i>, Aug. 28, 1972, p. 14.</li>
<li>"Executive clemency denied 74 Badger state prisoners,"<i> Green Bay WI Press-Gazette</i>, June 30, 1936, p. 19.</li>
<li>Le Grand, Alexander P., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-640, NARA no. 124-10287-10189, May 28, 1964.</li>
<li>Reed, Carlyle N., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-2105, NARA no. 124-10293-10341, Sept. 11, 1967.</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index, 387-40-5134, Aug. 1972.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County, City of Milwaukee, Ward 3, Enumeration District 40.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1930, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County, City of Milwaukee, Ward 3, Enumeration District 26.</li>
</ul>
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-mi.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Milwaukee boss listing (mafiahistory.us)</span></a></li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-15687065821223626102019-02-17T17:16:00.000-05:002019-03-28T05:30:27.784-04:00Tropea, Orazio (1880-1926)<br />
Born Catania, Sicily, April 29, 1880.
<br />
Killed Chicago, IL, Feb. 15, 1926.
<br />
<br />
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Once a feared enforcer and collector for the Chicago Mafia led by the Genna brothers, Tropea became a key figure in an anti-Genna rebellion. He paid the ultimate price for his betrayal.
<br />
<br />
Born in 1880, Tropea left a wife and children behind in Catania, Sicily, when he traveled to the U.S. in 1909. After some time with relatives in New York City, he moved on to Buffalo, New York. He became romantically involved with Buffalo resident Helen Brown around 1916. A son Lawrence was born to the couple in 1917.
<br />
<br />
In June 1919, Tropea was among a number of U.S. Mafiosi who sent floral offerings to Buffalo boss Giuseppe DiCarlo following the death of DiCarlo's wife. Also sending flowers were <b><a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/aiello-joseph-1890-1930.html" target="_blank">Joseph Aiello</a></b> of Utica, New York (later of Chicago), John Vitale and Gaspare Milazzo of Detroit and others from across the country.
<br />
<br />
Tropea became husband to two wives when he married Brown in 1920. A short time after that, he relocated to Chicago and joined the Mafia organization commanded by the "Terrible Gennas." Helen and Lawrence accompanied him to Chicago but later returned to stay with Helen's family in Buffalo.
<br />
<br />
An application for travel papers was filed by Tropea in summer 1924. At that time, he made a number of false and questionable claims. The application stated he arrived in the U.S. in April 1920 aboard the <i>S.S. Conte Russo</i>. That date was years later than his actual arrival and involved a ship that did not sail its maiden voyage until 1922. He stated that his address was 1022 Taylor Street in Chicago. Such an address was unlikely, as 1022 Taylor was the location of the Italian-American Educational Club that served as Genna headquarters. It also appears that, despite his two wives, Tropea indicated on the application that he was single.
<br />
<br />
Two wives were not yet enough for Tropea. Around 1923-1924, he began a relationship with a Chicago teenager, Beatrice Gould. He reportedly wished to marry Beatrice, but her parents would not permit it.
<br />
<br />
There was considerable turmoil following the death of Chicago's highly regarded gangland statesman Michele Merlo in November 1924. The Genna leadership was devastated in the violence that followed. In just two months of 1925, three of the Genna brothers were killed. <b><a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/genna-angelo-1898-1925.html" target="_blank">Angelo Genna</a></b> was shot to death while at the wheel of his roadster on May 26. Mike met his end on June 13 following a chaotic shootout with other gangsters and police. Tony was fatally shot July 8 at Grand Avenue and Curtis Street, while shaking the hand of a mysterious gangland figure known as "Cavallero."
<br />
<br />
Cavallero, later identified as Antonio Spano, was a disgruntled former Genna gunman, who joined <b><a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/amatuna-samuzzo-c1899-1925.html" target="_blank">Samuzzo "Samoots" Amatuna</a></b> in an anti-Genna rebellion.
<br />
<br />
As a result of the gunfight in which Mike Genna was killed, Genna gunmen John Scalisi and <b><a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/anselmi-albert-1883-1929.html" target="_blank">Albert Anselmi</a></b> were charged with the murder of a police officer. (There was widespread suspicion that Scalisi and Anselmi were in the process of betraying their Genna bosses to side with the Chicago Heights-based forces of "Cavallero" and intended to kill Mike Genna themselves on the day a police bullet caused his death.) Orazio Tropea was assigned the task of raising money for the Scalisi-Anselmi defense fund.
<br />
<br />
He went about the job by terrorizing local Italian merchants into making large cash donations. As the case involved several trials and a couple of appeals, Tropea conducted multiple rounds of strong-arm collections for the defense fund. The oppression was so great that Sicilians in Chicago referred to Tropea as "The Scourge."
<br />
<br />
Being squeezed more than once by Tropea did not sit well with a Genna in-law, Henry Spingola. While Spingola was generous in the opening round of collections, accounts say he made a far smaller contribution later. Spingola was murdered in January 1926 after playing cards with Tropea at Amato's Restaurant on Halsted Street. It quickly became apparent that Tropea had signaled the gunmen who killed the popular and well-connected Spingola. <br />
<br />
Making matters worse for Tropea were rumors that he was keeping a good percentage of the defense fund donations for himself (preparing to fight a U.S. government effort to have him deported) and that he was secretly in league with "Cavallero."
<br />
<br />
Tropea was living comfortably under the assumed identity of "O. Trayers" at the Congress Hotel, apparently paying his bill from Scalisi-Anselmi defense moneys. He had been entertaining his girlfriend Beatrice Gould at that hotel. Press accounts said her last visit there was on February 13, 1926 - two days before Tropea's murder.
<br />
<br />
At the end, Tropea was left with few friends and numerous enemies. The people who may have wanted him dead included the Gennas and Spingolas, the family of Buffalo's Helen Brown, the family of Chicago's Beatrice Gould, his in-laws in Sicily, Chicago businessmen who had been repeatedly terrorized into providing money for what looked to be Tropea's personal slush fund and, possibly, Cavallero and other allies of Scalisi and Anselmi.
<br />
<br />
On the evening of February 15, 1926, Tropea stepped off an eastbound streetcar at South Halsted and West Taylor Streets. As he crossed Halsted, an automobile came up and stopped abruptly just before striking him. Tropea shouted at the driver. There was no spoken response. The car pulled alongside Tropea. A man with a double-barreled shotgun emerged from the vehicle, put the end of the weapon to Tropea's head and fired.
<br />
<br />
Chicago's gangland skipped the usual spectacular funeral in Tropea's case. News of his death was received with relief throughout Chicago's Sicilian communities.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>Address book
</b></i></div>
<br />
The murder exposed connections among Mafiosi across the U.S.
<br />
<br />
In Tropea's possession at the time of his death, police found $975 in cash, a large diamond ring and a book containing addresses and telephone numbers. The <i>Chicago Tribune</i> published the contents of that book. A number of the entries are discussed below:
<br />
<ul>
<li>Caterina Amara (reported as "Catherina Anara" in the newspaper) was the wife of Joe Aiello. They married in Buffalo in 1917. After spending some years in Utica, New York, Aiello moved into Chicago and eventually became boss of the local Mafia there.</li>
<li><b><a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/08/lombardo-antonino-1891-1928.html" target="_blank">Tony Lombardo</a></b> was a local businessman and president of the Mafia-linked Unione Siciliana organization. Lombardo was angry to be connected in the press with Tropea. He said Tropea had his address and phone number merely because Lombardo had once sold a restaurant to him.</li>
<li>Sam Lovullo was a member of the Mafia of Buffalo, living on Efner (the newspaper reported it as "Epnor") Street in that city.</li>
<li>Amato Mongelluzzo ran the restaurant on South Halsted Street where Henry Spingola played his last game of cards.</li>
<li>James Palese of Detroit may have been the same Palese who corresponded with his cousin Nino Sacco during Sacco's 1910s imprisonment for interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes.</li>
<li><b><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a018/f_pollaccia.html" target="_blank">Sam Pollaccia</a></b> of Brooklyn, the only New York City resident to appear in the book, was a trusted aide and close friend of Mafia boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila before giving his support to D'Aquila's rival Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. Pollaccia was the traveling companion of Brooklyn gang leader Frankie Yale during a 1924 visit to Chicago. Both men were suspected of involvement in the murder of Chicago's Dean O'Banion.</li>
<li>Giuseppe Siragusa (the newspaper interpreted the scribbled letters of his surname as "Louognino") served as boss of the Mafia in western Pennsylvania.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>After death</b></i>
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QJQCJ6X5mkw/XGnaU78XleI/AAAAAAAAKtc/lO_Wye_d7GYBx50vbDa1fhksAITmVyMqwCLcBGAs/s1600/tropeawifechild.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1143" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QJQCJ6X5mkw/XGnaU78XleI/AAAAAAAAKtc/lO_Wye_d7GYBx50vbDa1fhksAITmVyMqwCLcBGAs/s400/tropeawifechild.png" width="139" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Helen and Lawrence</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Brown family of Buffalo tried to have Tropea's remains transported to Buffalo, so he could be buried in the community where his (U.S.) wife and child resided. Helen Brown and her nine-year-old son Lawrence visited Chicago and tried in vain to persuade funeral director Michael Iarussi to have Tropea buried in Buffalo. The Browns did not have money to finance the transport and burial.
<br />
<br />
Chicago Police Captain John Stege spoke with Brown. While she and Tropea were living in separate cities, she told the police captain that Tropea visited her four times in recent months and regularly sent her money.
<br />
<br />
Stege also interviewed Beatrice Gould. He learned that Tropea and Gould recently had been living together as man and wife, that Tropea's legal wife in Sicily had died several years before (it appears that Stege was unable to confirm this) and that the gangster had a twenty-one-year-old son and an eighteen-year-old daughter in Sicily.
<br />
<br />
Orazio Tropea was buried February 20 in Chicago without ceremony or flowers. His casket was paid for with $300 of public funds. His only mourners were Beatrice Gould and her brother Donald. Beatrice wore a black veil and a mink coat Tropea gave her.
<br />
<br />
The <i>Chicago Tribune</i> noted, "What following Orazio had died with him. To have shown either sympathy or loyalty would have marked them for death also, was the word that went around."<br />
<br />
<u>Related</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ch.html" target="_blank"><b>Chicago Bosses, mafiahistory.us</b> </a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:
<br />
<ul>
<li>"Deportation or death seen as gangster fate," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 17, 1926, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Feudist's death may renew war," <i>Decatur IL Herald</i>, May 27, 1925, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Feudists slay Sicilian ally of Genna gang," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 16, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Fight to free city of thugs given impetus," <i>Belvidere Daily Republican</i>, Feb. 16, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li>"One dead in gang fight," <i>DeKalb IL Daily Chronicle</i>, Feb. 16, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Orazio the 'Scourge' buried without friends or clergy," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 21, 1926, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Rival loves weep for Orazio but his real widow is sought," <i>Chicago Daily Tribune</i>, Feb. 18, 1926, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Say man killed in Chicago son-in-law of Buffalo woman," <i>Buffalo Daily Courier</i>, Feb. 17, 1926, p. 16.</li>
<li>"Sicilian gang kills again," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 22, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Son-in-law is killed by gang in Chicago row," <i>Buffalo Morning Express</i>, Feb. 17, 1926.</li>
<li>"Trace Sicilian killers in fight for deportation," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 18, 1926, p. 3.</li>
<li>Herrick, Genevieve Forbes, "New rich rum chief slain by gunmen in car," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, May 27, 1925, p. 2.</li>
<li>Hunt, Thomas, and Michael A. Tona, <b><a href="https://amzn.to/2EeZTfc" target="_blank"><i>DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Vol. I - to 1937</i></a></b>, 2013.</li>
<li>Manifest of the <i>S.S. La Gascogne</i> arrived New York City Feb. 1, 1909.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-24914092518643250732019-02-02T06:55:00.000-05:002019-03-28T05:32:10.766-04:00Todaro, Salvatore (c1897-1929)Born Licata, Sicily, c1897.<br />
Killed Cleveland, OH, June 11, 1929.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZUVmytADFg/XFWAsNCzJuI/AAAAAAAAKro/ZU_9SzloqU4J3jvnKGmYRp8BVlYeGeU_wCLcBGAs/s1600/todaro-salvatore-cl.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="110" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZUVmytADFg/XFWAsNCzJuI/AAAAAAAAKro/ZU_9SzloqU4J3jvnKGmYRp8BVlYeGeU_wCLcBGAs/s1600/todaro-salvatore-cl.gif" /></a>
Once the top lieutenant in "Big Joe" Lonardo's Cleveland Mafia, "Black Sam" Todaro was the only non-Lonardo partner in the Lonardo Brothers Company on East Ninth Street. The other partners were Joseph and his brothers Frank and John. While the company outwardly engaged in the selling of cheese, it did far greater business supplying corn sugar and yeast to Prohibition Era moonshining operations.<br />
<br />
"Black Sam" Todaro had a falling out with the boss in the mid-1920s. During a Lonardo trip to Sicily, Todaro was left in charge of the business. Todaro reportedly mistreated a Jewish employee in the operation, and Lonardo got word of it. When Lonardo returned, he ordered underling Lorenzo Lupo to murder "Black Sam." Influential Mafioso Nicola Gentile convinced Lonardo to cancel the death sentence, but the damage to the Lonardo-Todaro relationship could not be repaired.<br />
<br />
Todaro broke away from Lonardo. With help from the numerous Porrello brothers, Todaro created a rival corn sugar operation and worked to undercut "Big Joe's" prices. <br />
<br />
In 1927, while Todaro was on his own trip to Sicily, Joseph Lonardo and his younger brother John were murdered at a Porrello-owned barbershop in Cleveland. The Lonardo family was convinced that "Black Sam" was behind the murder.<br />
<br />
Todaro became boss of the Cleveland Mafia, a development with repercussions for the entire Sicilian Mafia in the United States. Lonardo had been a loyal supporter of Mafia boss of bosses <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/daquila-salvatore-toto-1873-1928.html" target="_blank">Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila</a> and assisted D'Aquila in maintaining his national leadership role during a war with Manhattan's Giuseppe Masseria. Todaro and the Porrello brothers repositioned the Cleveland Mafia in the Masseria camp.<br />
<br />
D'Aquila was murdered in Manhattan about a year after Todaro became boss in Cleveland. Todaro then hosted a national Mafia convention in December 1928 that was likely the moment of Masseria's coronation as new boss of bosses. <br />
<br />
In the months that followed, Lonardo's widow Concetta repeatedly sought Todaro's financial assistance. It was common for her to be driven to the Todaro-Porrello headquarters and have Todaro chat with her at her car. On June 11, 1929, Concetta's eighteen-year-old son (and chauffeur) Angelo Lonardo and her twenty-two-year-old nephew Dominic Sospirato were in the car with her. As Todaro approached, the two young men shot him to death.<br />
<br />
Concetta Lonardo was tried for murder and acquitted. Angelo Lonardo and Dominic Sospirato were tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. They won a new trial on appeal and were acquitted in their second trial. <br />
<br />
Todaro's widow Carmela continued to live in the family's $10,000 home on East 126th Street. The Todaro children appear to have split their time between Cleveland and Sicily. Three children were noted at the time of "Black Sam's" murder: Joseph, 7; Mary, 6; Frank, 4. Only Mary was present in the home at the time of the 1930 U.S. Census ten months later.<br />
<br />
Dr. Giuseppe Romano, who later served as Cleveland Mafia boss, was administrator of the Todaro estate. Among other responsibilities, he saw to the sale of Salvatore Todaro's 1924 Lincoln Phaeton touring car.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCTSj8rLvds/XFWK7SFHFJI/AAAAAAAAKr0/HIVj6pHFuNc2dQv3xl-w8HVSSGsEA-ImgCLcBGAs/s1600/phaeton.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="520" height="222" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCTSj8rLvds/XFWK7SFHFJI/AAAAAAAAKr0/HIVj6pHFuNc2dQv3xl-w8HVSSGsEA-ImgCLcBGAs/s400/phaeton.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A 1924 Phaeton</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Sources:<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Cleveland City Directory 1922</i>, Cleveland: Cleveland Directory Company, 1922, p. 2539.</li>
<li><i>Cleveland City Directory 1925</i>, Cleveland: Cleveland Directory Company, 1925, p. 1833.</li>
<li>Estate of Sam Todaro, Doc. 220, No. 183151, Probate Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, June 27, 1929.</li>
<li>Gentile, Nick, <i>Vita di Capomafia</i>, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963. </li>
<li>Kenen, I.L., "Corn sugar racket has taken seven lives," <i>Cincinnati Enquirer</i>, Aug. 4, 1930.</li>
<li>Obituary Index, Ancestry.com.</li>
<li><i>Organized Crime: 25 Years After Valachi</i>, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988, p. 530.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1930, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, Cleveland City, Ward 29, Enumeration District 18-498. </li>
</ul>
See also:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-cl.html">Cleveland Crime Bosses, Mafiahistory.us.</a> </li>
</ul>
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<i><a href="https://amzn.to/2MMgIRp" target="_blank">DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Vol. I.</a></i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-2120736094035182532019-01-17T08:25:00.000-05:002019-03-28T05:33:47.259-04:00Tagliagambe, Silvio (1893-1922)Born Finali, Sicily, June 23, 1893.<br />
Killed New York, NY, May 9, 1922.<br />
<br />
Silvio Tagliagambe was part of the Brooklyn- and Bronx-based Salvatore D'Aquila Crime Family as it unwisely attempted to take control of rackets in Manhattan. Tagliagambe lost his life in the war between D'Aquila and Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria.<br />
<br />
Born in the Sicilian coastal village of Finali in the eastern reaches of Palermo province, Tagliagambe came to the United States as a youth, arriving in 1906-1907. His early residence in the U.S. was in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, home to an "old-school" Mafia faction transplanted from the area of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. During his short life, he was linked with a conservative Mafia faction.<br />
<br />
As a young adult, Tagliagambe became involved with a Manhattan gang commanded by James "Jimmy Curley" Carioggi. (Carioggi, whose surname was sometimes spelled "Carrogio," was also known as "Gold Mine Jimmy.")<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HQp0TTR0iTQ/XECASFyUjFI/AAAAAAAAKok/eY9o3ErA9GMBRSNxca2qRd3Paa3dIKOfwCLcBGAs/s1600/1914feb12p1-nytribune-tagliagambe.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HQp0TTR0iTQ/XECASFyUjFI/AAAAAAAAKok/eY9o3ErA9GMBRSNxca2qRd3Paa3dIKOfwCLcBGAs/s320/1914feb12p1-nytribune-tagliagambe.png" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">NY Tribune</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In 1913-1914, the Jimmy Curley Gang feuded with a rising Manhattan racketeer named <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/celantano-anthony.html" target="_blank">Antonio Celentano</a>. Evidence of the feud first reached the newspapers when Celentano was taken into custody for the July 16, 1913, fatal shooting of Joseph Donato of 57 Kenmare Street. A police officer from the Mulbery Street Station witnessed part of the gunfight between Celentano and Donato in a saloon near the corner of Kenmare and Mott Streets. The officer arrested Celentano, who was found to be unarmed. The officer indicated that another unseen gunman also was involved. Donato died at St. Vincent's Hospital of a bullet wound to the forehead.<br />
<br />
Seven members of the Curley Gang struck back just after midnight on February 12, 1914. Celentano was having a late supper with his wife at the Tivoli Restaurant, 341 Broome Street. Eight or nine other diners were also inside the small establishment. At about twelve-thirty, the seven gangsters entered quietly, one at a time, and positioned themselves along the restaurant walls. <br />
<br />
The seven drew firearms, as one pointed out Celentano. Gangster Antonio Santini approached Celentano, moved his handgun from his right to left hand and drew a knife with his right. Celentano responded by standing with his hands raised.<br />
<br />
The remaining gangsters proceeded to rob everyone in the establishment, including proprietor Raymond Perrette, of cash and jewelry. A diamond ring valued at $500 was taken from Mrs. Celentano. When that was finished, Santini stabbed Celentano repeatedly in the side and abdomen. Celentano fell to the floor, bleeding badly.<br />
<br />
The gangsters fled. Screams from the restaurant alerted three nearby police officers, who gave chase. The gangsters took off in different directions, some were observed tossing away handguns. The police managed to catch up with three of them: Antonio Santini, twenty, of 348 East Thirteenth Street in Manhattan; Leo Belanca, twenty, of 504 East Thirteenth Street; and Tagliagambe, then a resident of 741 Park Avenue in Brooklyn. Tagliagambe was the only one of the three found to be in possession of a revolver.<br />
<br />
Santini initially was charged with assault, as Celentano underwent treatment at St. Vincent's Hospital. Celentano was believed to be near death but miraculously recovered. (This may have been the same Antonio Celentano who was arrested in 1917 as leader of an extensive lottery racket.)<br />
<br />
Records indicate that Santini and Belanca were convicted of second degree robbery in Manhattan General Sessions Court and sentenced to serve five and a half to seven and a half years in Sing Sing. There is no such record for Tagliagambe, suggesting that he avoided serious penalty for his involvement in the Tivoli Restaurant incident.<br />
<br />
It seems likely that the Jimmy Curley Gang was affiliated with a Mafia organization in New York City. Tagliagambe, as the only known member from outside the East Village, may have served as a link between the gang and Brooklyn Mafia bosses. Such a position would have provided him with help in avoiding prosecution/conviction.<br />
<br />
Other members of the gang were not as fortunate. Police tracked down Joseph "Orlando" Lopanto and Joseph "Little Mike" Perillo, and they were charged with participating in the Tivoli holdup.<br />
<br />
Jimmy Curley, himself, did not last long after the attack against Celentano. On March 3, 1914, following a visit to his ailing mother at 200 First Avenue, the twenty-two-year-old gang leader was fatally shot in the abdomen. The shooting occurred on Twelfth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. Three men, residents of Thirteenth and Fourteenth Street, were close when the shooting occurred and helped Carioggi into a nearby store. The Rev. Francis Edwards of Grace Chapel heard the gunshots and called for police. Investigators rounded up known members of the Curley Gang and also questioned Antonio Celentano, still recovering at St. Vincent's. "I don't know anything about it," Celentano insisted. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WVSc8ljTUXk/XECAuHmod8I/AAAAAAAAKos/In7FWsSL7D4y0VRJ1H7UG674cybF0IRHQCLcBGAs/s1600/palmeri-paul.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="110" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WVSc8ljTUXk/XECAuHmod8I/AAAAAAAAKos/In7FWsSL7D4y0VRJ1H7UG674cybF0IRHQCLcBGAs/s1600/palmeri-paul.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Palmeri</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Four months after the death of Jimmy Curley, Tagliagambe served as best man in the wedding of "conservative" <a href="http://buffalomob.blogspot.com/2014/05/paul-palmeri-oct-1-1892-to-may-7-1955.html" target="_blank">Mafioso Paul Palmeri</a> and Elena Curti in New York City. (Palmeri, approximately the same age as Tagliagambe, was originally from Castellammare del Golfo. He was the younger brother of <a href="http://buffalomob.blogspot.com/2013/10/angelo-palmeri-jan-12-1878-to-dec-21.html" target="_blank">Benedetto Angelo Palmeri</a>, who became a key figure in the Mafia organization in Buffalo, New York. In the 1920s, Paul Palmeri joined his brother and former Brooklyn boss <a href="http://buffalomob.blogspot.com/2013/09/stefano-magaddino-oct-10-1891-to-july.html" target="_blank">Stefano Magaddino</a> in western New York and opened a successful funeral home business. He sided with Magaddino and Salvatore Maranzano during the Castellammarese War but later became disenchanted with the "conservative" Mafiosi. In the early 1940s, Palmeri followed Willie Moretti from Buffalo to New Jersey, and reportedly became close to New York racketeer Frank Costello. Palmeri's daughter Marie married Moretti's son Frank in 1947. Paul Palmeri died in Passaic, New Jersey, on May 7, 1955.)<br />
<br />
Tagliagambe married Francesca Vecchione in Manhattan in December of 1916. When he registered for the World War I draft the following year, he and Francesca were still living at the Park Avenue, Brooklyn, address, and he reported that he was employed as a cigarette maker in Manhattan.<br />
<br />
By the time of the 1920 U.S. Census, Tagliagambe, his wife and their son were living on Manhattan's Fourth Street in the East Village, about a half mile from the Ninth Street home of top D'Aquila enforcer Umberto Valente. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qllisp5gMI8/XECA2WxFNJI/AAAAAAAAKo0/CkKtfLUEjsQEaZ1YYR-swG9XU2zKMR9wwCLcBGAs/s1600/valente-umberto-ny.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="110" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qllisp5gMI8/XECA2WxFNJI/AAAAAAAAKo0/CkKtfLUEjsQEaZ1YYR-swG9XU2zKMR9wwCLcBGAs/s1600/valente-umberto-ny.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Valente</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/daquila-salvatore-toto-1873-1928.html" target="_blank">Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila</a> became the boss of bosses of the American Mafia around 1912, following the incarcerations of Mafia leaders <a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a029/f_morello.html" target="_blank">Giuseppe Morello</a>, the previous boss of bosses, and Ignazio Lupo on counterfeiting convictions. D'Aquila was insecure on his underworld throne. He sought to dominate the Mafia organizations previously loyal to Morello and Lupo and had Umberto Valente murder East Harlem Mafia leader Fortunato "Charles" Lomonte in 1914 in an effort to control that region. Developments during 1920 worsened D'Aquila's insecurity. In March, Morello was granted an early release from prison. Lupo was surprisingly paroled a few months later. To prevent Morello from moving to regain his position, D'Aquila initiated a quarrel with Morello loyalists and passed death sentences against Morello, Lupo and ten other men. Inexplicably, D'Aquila included his own enforcer, Valente, in the sentence. The Morello group went into hiding, some returning for a time to Sicily. Over time, D'Aquila found himself facing opposition from a new source in lower Manhattan, a gang loyal to Giuseppe Masseria. D'Aquila patched things up with Valente and sent him to eliminate Masseria. A series of shootings resulted.<br />
<br />
Early on May 8, 1922, Morello's half-brother Vincent Terranova was shot to death at 116th Street and Second Avenue. Later on that same day, gunshots were exchanged between Mafiosi near Grand and Mulberry Streets in lower Manhattan. Bystanders on the crowded sidewalks were wounded. Police captured Masseria as he was fleeing the scene. <br />
<br />
That night, Tagliagambe was brought by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital. He had serious bullet wounds received sometime earlier in the day. Though Tagliagambe would not answer police questions, it was determined that he was part of the gunfight at Grand and Mulberry. Tagliagambe succumbed to his wounds the next day.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-816Nmh8itVM/XECA9sdDA9I/AAAAAAAAKo4/zmoAIH4WjjID79ovI51k7R4W2cLo7ZFXwCLcBGAs/s1600/1922may09p1-nytribune-tagliagambe.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="250" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-816Nmh8itVM/XECA9sdDA9I/AAAAAAAAKo4/zmoAIH4WjjID79ovI51k7R4W2cLo7ZFXwCLcBGAs/s1600/1922may09p1-nytribune-tagliagambe.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">NY Tribune</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Upon Tagliagambe's death, Masseria was charged with homicide. He was free on $15,000 bail three months later when Valente made an unsuccessful attempt on his life. <br />
<br />
The war in lower Manhattan was effectively won by the Masseria faction just a few days later, when Valente was murdered at Twelfth Street and Second Avenue. Masseria's position as top Mafioso in Prohibition Era Manhattan dramatically increased his wealth and influence. D'Aquila retained his boss of bosses title until his murder in 1928.<br />
<br />
Silvio Tagliagambe's widow Frances and their son moved in with her sister Agostina and brother-in-law Louis Manzella in Brooklyn.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>: <br />
<ul>
<li>"1 dead, 2 shot, as bootleggers again fight on East Side," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Bandits hold up cafe; stab one," <i>New York Tribune</i>, Feb. 12, 1914, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Bandits shoot down eight on East Side," <i>New York Daily News</i>, Aug. 9, 1922, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Bootblack breaks up big policy ring," <i>New York Sun</i>, Feb. 16, 1917, p. 4.</li>
<li>"East Side bad man killed as shots fly," <i>New York Herald</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 16.</li>
<li>"East Side gang leader shot dead," <i>New York Tribune</i>, March 4, 1914, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Eight men shot in mysterious battle on street," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, Aug. 8, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Five passers-by fall as feudists fight in street," <i>New York Tribune</i>, May 9, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Gang ethics balk quest for slayer of 'good' gunman," <i>New York Evening World</i>, March 4, 1914, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Gang kills gunman; 2 bystanders hit," <i>New York Times</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 20.</li>
<li>"Girl, woman, 4 men shot in battle of two bootleg bands," <i>New York Times</i>, May 9, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Gunmen shoot six in East Side swarm," <i>New York Times</i>, Aug. 9, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"James Carioggi," New York City Death Index, certificate no. 7386, March 3, 1914.</li>
<li>"Man slain, two bystanders shot in bootleg feud," <i>New York Daily News</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Mystery in rum street battle near solution," <i>New York Tribune</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 16.</li>
<li>"Noted gangster killed," <i>New York Times</i>, March 4, 1914, p. 1.</li>
<li>"One killed, two shot in pistol battle," <i>Brooklyn Standard Union</i>, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.</li>
<li>"One man killed, two wounded, in gang war," <i>New York Call</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Policy kings taken in bomb squad raid," <i>New York Sun</i>, Feb. 12, 1917, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Prisoner is accused as policy ring head," <i>New York Tribune</i>, Feb. 16, 1917, p. 13.</li>
<li>"Revenge figures in daring robbery," <i>La Crosse WI Tribune</i>, Feb. 12, 1914, p. 1</li>
<li>"Silvio Tagliagambe," World War I Draft Registration Card, June 5, 1917.</li>
<li>"Unarmed; held for murder," <i>New York Sun</i>, July 17, 1913, p. 14.</li>
<li>"Valente's arrest balked by murder," <i>New York Evening World</i>, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 3.</li>
<li>Certificate and Record of Marriage #19426, City of New York Department of Health, July 27, 1914.</li>
<li>Gentile, Nick, <i>Vita di Capomafia</i>, Rome: Crescenzi Allendorf Editori, 1993, Chapter IV.</li>
<li>Manifest of the <i>S.S. Presidente Wilson</i>, arrived NYC on Jan. 18, 1922.</li>
<li>New York City Extracted Death Index, certificate no. 13878, May 9, 1922.</li>
<li>New York City Extracted Marriage Index, certificate no. 1093, Dec. 30, 1916.</li>
<li>Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, no. 64350, no. 64351, March 18, 1914.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, New York State, New York County, Ward 8, Enumeration District 623.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1930, New York State, Kings County, Brooklyn, Canarsie, Assembly District 2, Enumeration District 24-1247.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-67103122185742598752018-12-25T07:31:00.000-05:002018-12-25T07:31:27.209-05:00Calabrese, Frank (1937-2012)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Nc0vQMHOxM/XCIgm02ebOI/AAAAAAAAKmc/usLIB3ZBpMA2pE86KAeZnDRUS5GMd5vJwCLcBGAs/s1600/calabsrsm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="110" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Nc0vQMHOxM/XCIgm02ebOI/AAAAAAAAKmc/usLIB3ZBpMA2pE86KAeZnDRUS5GMd5vJwCLcBGAs/s1600/calabsrsm.png" /></a></div>
b. Chicago, IL, March 17, 1937.<br />
d. Butner, NC, Dec. 25, 2012.<br />
<br />
An administrator, loan shark and hit man for the Chicago Outfit for many years, Frank J. "Frankie Breeze" Calabrese was put permanently behind bars following the "Family Secrets" case of 2007. <br />
<br />
Calabrese was born on Chicago's West Side to James and Sophia Calabrese on March 17, 1937. His early childhood was spent on Chicago's West Erie Street.<br />
<br />
Beginning his criminal career as a teenager, Calabrese was convicted and imprisoned for possession of stolen cars in 1954. Calabrese was back in the streets and running a lucrative loan sharking enterprise by the early 1960s. In that period, he became a protege of the Chicago Outfit's South Side boss Angelo "the Hook" LaPietra. His loan sharking operation continued into the 1990s, as Calabrese grew in importance within the Outfit.<br />
<br />
On July 28, 1995, Calabrese and eight members of his underworld crew - including several relatives - were indicted for racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, mail fraud, witness tampering and impeding the IRS. Federal prosecutors said the group operated an extensive loan sharking racket in the Chicago area, using threats and violence in the course of business. Calabrese pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a long term in federal prison.<br />
<br />
Calabrese's son, Frank Jr. also pleaded guilty and went to prison in the loan sharking case. During their time in prison, Frank Jr. began cooperating with federal authorities and helped assemble evidence that was used against Calabrese and other Outfit leaders in the Family Secrets trial of 2007. Frank Jr. wore a "wire" during some prison conversations with his father.<br />
<br />
Calabrese was convicted of racketeering and racketeering murders in the 2007 trial. Witnesses against him included his son Frank Jr. and his brother Nick. Calabrese took the stand in his own defense, admitting to loan sharking but denying membership in the Outfit and participation in killings. <br />
<br />
The jury found him guilty of involvement in seven killings. His victims were racketeer Michael Albergo (disappeared in 1970), trucking executive Michael P. Cagnoni (car bomb 1981), informant ex-mobster William E. Dauber and his wife Charlotte Dauber (shotgunned 1980), racketeer and former union business agent John Fecarotta (shot 1986), bar owner Richard Ortiz and his friend Arthur Morawski (shotgunned 1983). The jury could not reach a decision on six other killings Calabrese was accused of taking part in.<br />
<br />
Two other Outfit leaders, James Marcello and Joseph Lombardo, along with codefendants Paul Schiro and Anthony Doyle also were convicted of racketeering conspiracy in the case. Marcello and Lombardo were convicted of racketeering murders.<br />
<br />
Calabrese was sentenced January 30, 2009, to life in prison. <br />
<br />
In early April, Calabrese and three others convicted in the "Family Secrets" case were ordered to pay more than $24 million in fines and restitution to the families of their victims. Part of Calabrese's debt was paid in March of the following year, when FBI agents executed a search warrant at the former Calabrese home in Oak Brook and discovered a secret compartment in the wall behind a framed collection of family photographs. Envelopes in the compartment were found to contain $728,000 in cash. The compartment also held one thousand pieces of jewelry (many still in store display boxes or with price tags still attached), seven firearms, twelve audio microcassettes and a collection of handwritten notes and ledgers.<br />
<br />
Frank Calabrese, Sr. died December 25, 2012, at the Federal Medical Center of Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina. He was seventy-five.<br />
<br />
Prison officials said he had been in poor health, with heart disease and other afflictions. Calabrese, himself, outlined an assortment of medical problems, including an enlarged heart, during his 2009 sentencing hearing.<br />
<br />
There were reports that Calabrese had been seriously ill for more than a year. His attorney told the Chicago Tribune that Calabrese had been taking seventeen different medications for a variety of health problems. <br />
<br />
The attorney, Joseph Lopez, recalled Calabrese as "quick-witted, smart and street-savvy." He said his client was "difficult at times because he was used to getting his way."<br />
<br />
Lopez said Calabrese's Christmas Day death felt "odd" because that day was Calabrese's favorite holiday: "He always talked about how much he loved spending Christmas with his family."<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>: <br />
<ul>
<li>Coen, Jeff, Liam Ford and Michael Higgins, "10 murders laid at feet of 3 in mob," <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-familysecrets1-verdict_websep28-story.html" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: #990000;">Chicago Tribune</span></i></a>, Sept. 28, 2007.</li>
<li>Donato, Marla, "Cicero revisits '83 double slaying," <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-04-12-0004120110-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>Chicago Tribune</i></span></a>, April 12, 2000.</li>
<li>Koziol, Ronald, and John O'Brien, "A deadly trick for mob figure," <span style="color: #990000;"><i>Chicago Tribune</i></span>, Sept. 16, 1986, p. 19.</li>
<li>O'Brien, John, and Lynn Emmerman, "Mob violence: Bullets riddle hit man, wife," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, July 3, 1980, p. 1.</li>
<li>Unger, Rudolph, and Philip Wattley, "Radio-control bomb kills suburbanite," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, June 25, 1981, p. 1.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1940, Illinois, Cook County, Chicago, Ward 28, Enumeration District 103-1767.</li>
<li>Weber, Bruce, "Frank Calabrese, 75, hit man for the mob in Chicago," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 27, 2012, p. 22.</li>
<li>"A look at 18 murders detailed in mob case," <a href="https://qconline.com/news/illinois/a-look-at-murders-detailed-in-mob-case/article_4a4cd3f6-40b1-5e37-918e-97f4f2d8d031.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>Rock Island Dispatch-Argus</i></span></a>, Sept. 11, 2007.</li>
<li>"Chicago Crime Commission calls FBI raid on Calabrese home major blow to organized crime," <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chicago-crime-commission-calls-fbi-raid-on-calabrese-home-major-blow-to-organized-crime-89351542.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Prnewswire.com</span></a>, March 28, 2010.</li>
<li>"Frank Calabrese, notorious Chicago mob hit man, dies in prison, authorities, say," <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/frank-calabrese-notorious-chicago-mob-hit-man-dies-in-prison-authorities-say/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">CBS News</span></a>, Dec. 27, 2012.</li>
<li>"Members of 'street crew' indicted Norther District of Illinois," <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/legacy/2010/10/12/usab4309.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>United States Attorneys' Bulletin</i></span></a>, September 1995, p. 304.</li>
<li>"Mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. dies in prison," <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-12-26-chi-mob-hitman-frank-calabrese-sr-dies-in-prison-20121226-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>Chicago Tribune</i></span></a>, Dec. 26, 2012. </li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-40350822303726664332018-11-28T06:39:00.003-05:002019-03-28T05:35:49.746-04:00Giannola, Salvatore (1887-1919)Born Terrasini, Sicily, June 2, 1887.<br />
Killed Detroit, MI, Oct. 2, 1919.<br />
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Sam Giannola succeeded as boss of a Detroit-area Mafia following the assassination of his <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2018/11/giannola-antonino-1878-1919.html">brother Tony</a>. Sam Giannola's brief reign included a continuation of his brother's gang wars followed by an apparent effort to establish peace. Sam was murdered nine months after Tony.<br />
<br />
During Tony's reign, Sam appeared to be the organization's most active racketeer and top enforcer. Sam was arrested in 1911 for stealing a quantity of olive oil and wine from the D&C steamship line, misrepresenting himself at the D&C warehouse as the legitimate owner of the commodities. Law enforcement found the stolen oil and wine at a Ford City grocery run by Sam and Tony. The D&C line refused to prosecute. <br />
<br />
During the 1910s, Sam ensured that the Giannolas had a monopoly on produce in the Wyandotte area by terrorizing competitors. When a fruit merchant named Cohen was stubborn about remaining in business, he found that his horse was badly burned by acid. Cohen filed charges against Sam Giannola but then suddenly disappeared. <br />
<br />
Harry Paul and Morris Harris were shot to death in 1916 after opening a competing store. Sam Giannola first agreed to buy out their business and put $200 down on a sale price of $7,000 but then failed to make required payments. The sellers confronted Giannola, insisting he pay the remaining $6,800. Soon after, Paul and Harris were found dead. Sam was arrested but soon released due to a lack of evidence against him.<br />
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Around the time of brother Tony's death in January 1919, the Giannolas appeared to be preparing to move out of the Detroit area. One report suggested they intended to open a macaroni factory in Cincinnati. But Sam remained too long after burying his brother.<br />
<br />
In February, he was nearly killed in a shooting that took the life of his brother-in-law Pasquale Danni. Sam apparently figured that rival John Vitale was behind that shooting. At the time of Danni's funeral, a drive-by shooting but numerous holes in the front of a Vitale grocery in Wyandotte. Vitale was subsequently jailed for opening on police officers investigating the incident, believing them to be Giannola gunmen. <br />
<br />
When Vitale visitors - Vito Renda, Salvatore Evola and Vitale's teenage son Joseph - showed up at county jail on February 26, they were met by two Giannola men. Renda was shot more than 20 times. Before he died, he told authorities that his killer was Sam Giannola. Evola and Joseph Vitale were wounded but recovered.<br />
<br />
In the early afternoon of October 2, Sam Giannola visited a bank at Russell Street and Monroe Avenue to cash a $200 check. As he exited the building, gunmen opened fire on him. Giannola managed to get back inside the bank but then fell dead with more than two dozen bullet wounds in his body.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-de.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Detroit Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us.</span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Salvatore Giannola Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, reg. no. 9756, Oct. 2, 1919.</li>
<li>"Arrested often fined twice, is Sam's record," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Auto bandits kill two men," <i>Lansing MI State Journal</i>, Nov. 16, 1916, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Fruit dealer arrested," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 15, 1911, p. 16.</li>
<li>"Gunmen murder 'Tony' Giannola, fuedist leader," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Jan. 4, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Men in disguise of women shoot down Italians," <i>Port Huron MI Times-Herald</i>, Nov. 16, 1916, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Murdered men suspected as German spies," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Nov. 17, 1916, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Trial of 4 for Peter Bosco murder begun," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Dec. 30, 1919, p. B1.</li>
<li>"Sam Giannola, feudist, slain; shot 28 times," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Victim of feud gasps name of Sam Giannola," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Feb. 27, 1919, p. 1</li>
<li>"Vitale, Giannola foe, builds alibi in advance," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Wyandotte murder suspect released," <i>Lansing MI State Journal</i>, Nov. 23, 1916, p. 13.</li>
<li>Murray, Riley, "Sicilian gang guns blazed in city feud," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Aug. 27, 1950, p. E8.</li>
<li>Rice, Dennis, "Salvatore Giannola," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, memorial no. 7814145, Sept. 1, 2003, accessed Nov. 24, 1018.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-89890020270658697952018-11-28T06:34:00.001-05:002019-03-28T05:37:06.344-04:00Giannola, Antonino (1878-1919)Born Terrasini, Sicily, Nov. 15, 1878.<br />
Killed Detroit, MI, Jan. 3, 1919.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QHwdLz1tPi8/W_58fyC93wI/AAAAAAAAKlU/MMV_TNq4Y0wtJh3xVkadwJbkQyRCD_c-gCLcBGAs/s1600/giannola-tony-1919.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="111" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QHwdLz1tPi8/W_58fyC93wI/AAAAAAAAKlU/MMV_TNq4Y0wtJh3xVkadwJbkQyRCD_c-gCLcBGAs/s1600/giannola-tony-1919.png" /></a></div>
Tony Giannola was an early Mafia boss in the Detroit area. He and his younger <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2018/11/giannola-salvatore-1887-1919.html">brother Salvatore "Sam"</a> built a produce monopoly in Wyandotte, extorted payments from successful Italian businessmen in Wyandotte and Detroit and engaged in a series of gang wars that eventually claimed both of their lives.<br />
<br />
First noted in Ford City in the early 1900s, Tony Giannola established a successful produce business there. He was later connected with grocery and macaroni businesses. He also built up a Mafia organization that included many of the later leaders of Detroit's underworld.<br />
<br />
Around 1910, Giannola pushed into Detroit's East Side business district, conducting Black Hand extortion rackets in that area. Local businessmen embraced rival underworld leader <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2018/11/adamo-vito-1883-1913.html">Vito Adamo</a> as their protector and organized a vigilante White Hand Society. Giannola and Adamo fought each other for years. The Giannola brothers were arrested after a September 1913 exchange of gunfire with rivals that seriously wounded a passerby. They were charged with minor offenses and released.<br />
<br />
The Giannola Gang lost some of its more powerful members when Tony Giannola and his business partner Peter Bosco parted ways. Giannola apparently believed that Bosco was cheating him. When Bosco was murdered in October 1918, Bosco lieutenant John Vitale and Bosco's entire underworld faction broke with the Giannolas.<br />
<br />
Bosco followers were believed to be behind the Jan. 3, 1919, murder of Tony Giannola. That evening, Giannola was visiting the family of a just-murdered friend. As he approached the house, a gunman emerged from a dark alley and shot him in the head and body. Police found the dead Mafia boss outside of 189 Rivard Street.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-de.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Detroit Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us. </span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Tony Giannola Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, reg. no. 205, Jan. 3, 1919.</li>
<li>"Alleged assassins sued by innocent bystander," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, May 14, 1915, p. 5.</li>
<li>"Gunmen murder 'Tony' Giannola, fuedist leader," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Jan. 4, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Murdered men suspected as German spies," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Nov. 17, 1916, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Trial of 4 for Peter Bosco murder begun," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Dec. 30, 1919, p. B1.</li>
<li>Rice, Dennis, "Antonio Giannola, Jr.," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, memorial no. 7814142, Sept. 1, 2003, accessed Nov. 24, 2018.</li>
<li>Murray, Riley, "Sicilian gang guns blazed in city feud," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Aug. 27, 1950, p. E8.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-16611967723857976232018-11-27T14:56:00.001-05:002019-03-28T05:38:38.956-04:00Adamo, Vito (1883-1913)Born Sicily, Aug. 18, 1883.<br />
Killed Detroit, MI, Nov. 24, 1913.<br />
<br />
Vito Adamo was an early Mafia leader in the Detroit business district. He and his younger brother Salvatore were killed during a war with the Giannola Gang.<br />
<br />
The Adamo birthplace is not entirely certain, though some sources indicate it was Salemi, an inland Sicilian municipality in the western Province of Trapani. (Appropriate age Adamos named Vito and Salvatore and originating in Salemi can be found in the immigration records from the early 1900s, but those Adamos were heading to Boston rather than Detroit.) The Adamo brothers likely led a small Mafia organization in Detroit in the early 1900s, when local Italian businessmen sought their protection from Black Hand extortionists.<br />
<br />
Vito Adamo became the champion of a "White Hand Society" formed to eradicate the Black Handers of the <a href="https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2018/11/giannola-antonino-1878-1919.html">Giannola Gang</a>, who were encroaching on the business district from downriver bases in Ford City and Wyandotte. <br />
<br />
Black Hander Carlo Caleca was shot and seriously wounded in August 1913. He lived long enough to accuse Vito Adamo and Filippo Buccellato of being his assailants. He succumbed to sepsis on August 8. Adamo and Buccellato were tried for murder. They were acquitted in October 1913 after Caleca's wife and a boarder at their home testified that Caleca told them he did not recognize the men who shot him.<br />
<br />
Early in November, Vito and Salvatore were arrested following the shooting of former city police detective Ferdinand Palma. Palma had been forced out of the police department in 1905 after being connected with a human trafficking ring. He became a banker and padrone (labor agent). The Adamos were released after convincing authorities that they had a friendly relationship with Palma. Some considered the shooting of Palma to be an attempt by the Giannola brothers to remove a helpful Adamo ally.<br />
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At about five o'clock in the afternoon of November 24, the Adamos finished up work as traveling peddlers of wine and liquor and left the business establishment of their partner Pietro Mirabile at Mullett (close to current Nicolet Place) and Rivard Streets. They walked along Mullett toward their home on Champlain Street (now East Lafayette).<br />
<br />
A short distance up the street, two men drew sawed-off shotguns from their coats and fired into the brothers. The gunmen fled. When police arrived, the found the Adamos in the gutter in front of 170 Mullett Street. Vito Adamo died on the way to St. Mary's Hospital. Salvatore died at the hospital a half hour later. Both were buried November 27 at Mount Olivet Cemetery.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.writersofwrongs.com/2018/11/detroit-gang-feud-claims-adamo-brothers.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Detroit gang feud claims Adamo brothers (Writers of Wrongs)</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-de.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Detroit Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us. </span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Carlo Calego Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 6327, Aug. 8, 1913.</li>
<li>Michigan Death Records, Nov. 24, 1913, Ancestry.com.</li>
<li>Salvatore Adamo Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 9030, Nov. 24, 1913.</li>
<li>Vito Adamo Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 9029, Nov. 24, 1913.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>"Dying statement may convict two," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 10, 1913, p. 8.</li>
<li>"Ten killed, six wounded; Black Hand record in Detroit in eleven months," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Two exonerated in murder case," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Oct. 14, 1913, p. 5.</li>
<li>"Two Italians, brothers, are fiend victims," <i>Port Huron MI Times-Herald</i>, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 6.</li>
<li>"Two more marked for death in blood-feud of Detroit Sicilians," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Nov. 26, 1913, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Two more slain in Detroit streets in bitter Italian feud," <i>Lansing MI State Journal</i>, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 14.</li>
<li>"Two Sicilians slain in Italian colony of Detroit; feud result," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Widow's oath is blamed for bomb deaths," <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, April 13, 1914, p. 1.</li>
<li>Rice, Dennis, "Vito Adamo," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, Memorial no. 7319067, March 31, 2003, accessed Nov. 19, 2018.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-9913606421825603172018-11-02T09:34:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:39:18.382-04:00Altamura, Thomas (1913-1967)Born New York, Nov. 3, 1913.<br />
Killed North Bay Village, FL, Oct. 31, 1967<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NS_QNmNgQ8U/W9xQeuhD6nI/AAAAAAAAKjs/aL_AJAxZql4rQDJ6hZwN_k3XMAbiztfmwCLcBGAs/s1600/altamura.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="120" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NS_QNmNgQ8U/W9xQeuhD6nI/AAAAAAAAKjs/aL_AJAxZql4rQDJ6hZwN_k3XMAbiztfmwCLcBGAs/s1600/altamura.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Altamura</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Altamura, sometimes called "the Enforcer," was a lifelong criminal who became supervisor of Gambino Crime Family loan sharking in the south Florida area. He was murdered as a result of a turf war with Anthony "Big Tony" Esperti, linked with the Bonanno Crime Family.[1]<br />
<br />
Altamura was a native of New York City, the second of nine children born to immigrant parents. His father, Vincent, from Taranto in the southern Italian mainland, worked as a tailor. His mother, Rose, was from Sicily. He grew up in the borough of Queens. His formal education ended shortly after he reached high school. He worked for a time at his father's tailor shop and briefly held truck driving and sales jobs as he moved full time into a career on the wrong side of the law.[2]<br />
<br />
His criminal record in New York dated back to 1931. As a minor, he was acquitted following an automobile theft arrest and sentenced to probation unlawful entry after the burglary of a Bronx speakeasy. He later served three long terms in Sing Sing Prison.[3] <br />
<br />
He was sentenced in Queens County in April 1932 to serve three to six years on a robbery conviction. (Then eighteen, Altamura of Corona, Queens, also known as Thomas Melba, and accomplice Peter Nastasi, nineteen, of the Bronx, were initially charged with first degree robbery, petit larceny and second degree assault after holding up the owner of a Roulston Grocery store in Corona. They pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery.) Soon after his release from that term, he was convicted of a robbery in the Bronx and sentenced to ten to twenty years.[4]<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f-zxtfw8tD8/W9xSDormIEI/AAAAAAAAKj4/zltzncwgFwcbqNIroXec9WRzgeo_GcrBwCLcBGAs/s1600/traff.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="120" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f-zxtfw8tD8/W9xSDormIEI/AAAAAAAAKj4/zltzncwgFwcbqNIroXec9WRzgeo_GcrBwCLcBGAs/s1600/traff.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Trafficante</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While on parole in the summer of 1944, he was charged with attempted robbery of a tavern in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.[5] He and two other men entered the tavern on 37th Avenue after hours. During the attempted robbery, the men became frightened and fled. Altamura reportedly dropped his wallet on the way out of the tavern.[6]<br />
<br />
In the 1960s, Altamura was involved in Gambino Crime Family loan sharking rackets in south Florida. In this period, authorities noted his ownership of Sonny's Restaurant in Miami Beach and his close working relationship with Tampa-area Mafia boss Santo Trafficante.[7]<br />
<br />
At two o'clock in the morning on October 31, 1967, fifty-three-year-old Altamura entered the Harbor Lounge, attached to the Place for Steak restaurant, on the 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village, Florida. He was immediately struck by bullets. Two .38-caliber slugs hit him in the back of the head and three others penetrated his back and his side as he turned. There were about a half dozen witnesses to the shooting in the well-lit establishment. As Altamura fell to the floor dead, his killer and a woman companion left the lounge. The woman, Audrey Fowler, girlfriend of underworld-connected former boxer Anthony "Big Tony" Esperti, left her purse behind at the bar.[8]<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOJwQNQ-Yn8/W9xSL2xSeNI/AAAAAAAAKj8/058Y7hOlZy8HhQKRe6_43MbQ2jgHhVktQCLcBGAs/s1600/esperti.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="120" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOJwQNQ-Yn8/W9xSL2xSeNI/AAAAAAAAKj8/058Y7hOlZy8HhQKRe6_43MbQ2jgHhVktQCLcBGAs/s1600/esperti.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Esperti</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Police found $800 in cash and a $10,000 cashier's check in Altamura's possession. Hours later, thirty-seven-year-old Esperti surrendered to police after hearing that he was wanted for first-degree murder. He claimed to know nothing of the Altamura killing. Esperti, originally from Brownsville, Brooklyn, was at the time free on bond awaiting his appeal of an extortion conviction.[9]<br />
<br />
Esperti was indicted in mid-January, 1968, for the Altamura murder.[10] His first trial, in Miami, resulted in a March 1968 hung jury.[11] He once again came to trial in autumn 1971, this time at Bartow, Florida. Esperti was already serving his extortion sentence in Atlanta Federal Prison.<br />
<br />
Witnesses stated that they saw Esperti shoot Altamura.[12] A prison cellmate of Esperti, Joseph Delino, testified that Esperti told him about killing Altamura. According to Delino, the two gangsters had quarreled about rackets territories and Altamura warned Esperti to stay away from the 79th Street Causeway, a busy thoroughfare connecting the city of Miami with North Bay Village. (Informant William Dara told the FBI that other Mafiosi attempted to mediate the quarrel between Altamura and Esperti. During this time, Altamura threatened to kill Esperti if he ever saw him at the 79th Street Causeway.) Esperti responded to the warning by murdering Altamura.[13] That second trial resulted in Esperti's conviction.[14]<br />
<br />
Discussed in:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/williamdara.html">"'Willie the Tile Maker' Dara passed Mafia secrets to Feds," by Edmond Valin.</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
Notes:<br />
<ol>
<li> Doerner, Fred W. Jr., "La Cosa Nostra Miami Division," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-2110, NARA no. 124-10293-10346, Sept. 11, 1967, p. 21.</li>
<li> Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, Inmate no. 85935, received April 18, 1932; Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, Inmate no. 92799, received Dec. 11, 1936; New York State Census of 1925, Queens County, Assembly District 3, Election District 33.</li>
<li> "2 youths given Sing Sing terms on robbery pleas," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, April 16, 1932, p. 4; "Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders," <i>New York Daily News</i>, Nov. 1, 1967, p. 3. </li>
<li> Sing Sing Prison Admission Registers; "2 youths given Sing Sing terms on robbery pleas"; "Dropped wallet nets parolee as thief foiled in tavern raid," <i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>, June 19, 1944, p. 11.</li>
<li> "Tavern stickup suspect is held," <i>New York Daily News</i>, July 2, 1944, p. B3.</li>
<li> "Dropped wallet nets parolee as thief foiled in tavern raid."</li>
<li> "High exposes Miami hoods," <i>Miami News</i>, Aug. 7, 1963, p. 1; "Tampa detective describes how Trafficante tied in," <i>Tampa Tribune</i>, Oct. 16, 1963, p. 13. </li>
<li> Florida Death Index, Dade County, October 1967; U.S. Social Security Death Index, 081-20-1222, October 1967; "Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders"; Roderus, Frank, "Retrial elements bizarre," <i>Tampa Tribune</i>, Sept. 6, 1971, p. B1.</li>
<li> "Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders."</li>
<li> "Esperti indicted in killing," <i>Miami News</i>, Jan. 17, 1968, p. 3.</li>
<li> Sosin, Milt, "Esperti asks murder charge be dismissed," <i>Miami News</i>, Oct. 30, 1970, p. 5.</li>
<li> "Two testify they saw Altamura gunned down," <i>Orlando Sentinel</i>, Oct. 14, 1971, p. B1.</li>
<li> "Second Esperti trial will go to jury today," <i>Orlando Sentinel</i>, Oct. 15, 1971, p. B1; SAC Miami, "La Cosa Nostra AR-Conspiracy," FBI Airtel, file no. 92-6054-2178, NARA no. 124-10289-10186, Nov. 14, 1967, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Esperti attorney seek new trial," <i>Orlando Sentinel</i>, Nov. 9, 1971, p. 6.</li>
</ol>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-45455926366662399772018-06-30T11:17:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:39:56.735-04:00Dara, William (1905-1982)Born Sicily, July, 1905<br />
Died Kenner, LA, July, 9, 1982.<br />
<br />
A longtime member of the Bonanno Crime Family, William Dara is believed to have become an informant for the FBI later in his life.<br />
<br />
William was born in Sicily in 1905 and arrived in the United States with his mother and two younger brothers about 1910. His father Nicholas traveled to the U.S. several years earlier. The family settled on Pitkin Avenue, near Vermont Street, in the East New York section of Brooklyn, where Nicholas worked as a barber. The Daras changed addresses through the years - to New Jersey Avenue and then to Crescent Street - but always remained within the East New York neighborhood. As a young adult, William began working as a tile setter. He was known from then on as "Willie the Tile Maker."<br />
<br />
William and several of his siblings got into trouble with the law. Crime became a second career for William. His arrest record dates back at least to 1931, when he, his brother Michael and teenager John Cimino were arrested for stealing a slot machine from a candy store on Saratoga Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. (The store owner did not appear for arraignment, and the three were discharged.) William Dara and Anthony Rizzo were captured in December 1934 as they attempted to rob a tire store on Brooklyn's Lafayette Avenue near Ashland Place. Dara appears to have been well known to police by 1940, when he and some Brooklyn associates were arrested for vagrancy.<br />
<br />
He became an inducted member of the Bonanno Crime Family about 1950, serving for a time under his cousin, capodecina Mike Sabella. Dara later relocated to the Miami, Florida, area, where he ran a night club and conducted gambling rackets that were coordinated with Michael Coppola's Genovese Crime Family crew in South Florida.<br />
<br />
In the 1960s, Dara appears to have provided information to the FBI on Tampa-based Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., other members of the Trafficante organization, and members of New York-based and Chicago-based mobs with operations in South Florida. Some of the FBI's information on the "Banana War" struggle within the Bonanno Family seems to have come from Dara.<br />
<br />
Dara died in a plane crash at Kenner, Louisiana, a few days before his seventy-seventh birthday. He and his wife were taking a commercial Pan American flight to Las Vegas. All 145 people on the Boeing 727 and eight people on the ground were killed.<br />
<br />
<u>Read more</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/williamdara.html" target="_blank">"'Willie the Tile Maker' Dara passed Mafia secrets to Feds," by Edmond Valin, mafiahistory.us</a>.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Other sources</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li>New York State Census of 1925, Kings County, Assembly District 22, Ward 15, Election District 29, no. 2125 Pitkin Avenue. </li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, New York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 1416, no. 2125 Pitkin Avenue.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1930, NeW York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 24-492, no. 321 New Jersey Avenue. </li>
<li>United States Census of 1940, New York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 24-2677, no. 584 Crescent Street.</li>
<li>"3 hold-up suspects freed when victim dodges court," <i>New York Daily News</i>, Oct. 14, 1931, Brooklyn section, p. 14.</li>
<li>"Thugs escape with $1,300 in bold robbery," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, Dec. 17, 1934, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Three men were arrested...," <i>New York Times</i>, April 14, 1940, p. 24.</li>
<li>"149 killed in Orleans crash," <i>Shreveport LA Times</i>, July 10, 1982, p. 1.</li>
</ul>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-85139206813687026532018-06-29T17:00:00.001-04:002018-06-29T17:00:59.626-04:00Alex, Gus (1916-1998)Born Chicago, IL, April 1, 1916.<br />
Died Lexington, KY, July 24, 1998.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aJfnyzpWNqk/WzadqwPRGjI/AAAAAAAAKTQ/G3eFH5ct6pIWKQl7e9tVcPgSWTwkN4RCACLcBGAs/s1600/rp-alex-gus.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="110" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aJfnyzpWNqk/WzadqwPRGjI/AAAAAAAAKTQ/G3eFH5ct6pIWKQl7e9tVcPgSWTwkN4RCACLcBGAs/s1600/rp-alex-gus.gif" /></a>Gus Alex, the son of Greek immigrants, became a key figure in the Italian-dominated Chicago Outfit. He was a longtime gambling rackets boss for the Outfit and became a part of a 1970s Outfit leadership panel that included Anthony Accardo and Joseph Aiuppa.<br />
<br />
In his youth, Alex became familiar with Chicago crime figures. His father's restaurant at 26th Street and Wentworth Avenue was reportedly popular with bosses Al Capone and Frank Nitti. Early in Alex's underworld career, he is believed to have served as an Outfit hit man. He became a trusted aide to Accardo during the 1940s. <br />
<br />
He was once arrested in connection with the murder of a gambler shotgunned to death in 1947. Though the victim's deathbed statement indicated Alex was his killer, Alex was no convicted of the murder.<br />
<br />
Alex worked closely with underworld financial wizard Jake Guzik and political "fixer" Murray Humphries. In the 1950s, he rose to command rackets within Chicago's Loop. He became the Outfit's top "fixer" after Humphreys' death in 1965, commanding the "connection guys," who established and maintained underworld connections to legislators and judges.<br />
<br />
He reluctantly joined the mob's leadership group for several years in the 1970s, before retreating back to less visible roles.<br />
<br />
He was charged in December 1991 with sanctioning violent extortion schemes against legitimate business enterprises. With the assistance of turncoat racketeer Lenny Patrick, an Alex underling and supervisor of a North Side street crew, federal prosecutors won a conviction against Alex in October 1992. He was sentenced in February 1993 to fifteen years and eight months in prison and $823,000 in fines and restitution. <br />
<br />
Alex died July 24, 1998, while held in federal prison medical center at Lexington, Kentucky.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
O'Connor, Matt, "Old 'pals' face off in mob case," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Sept. 8, 1992, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-09-08/news/9203210840_1_chicago-mob-mob-case-roemer" target="_blank">chicagotribune.com</a>.<br />
O'Connor, Matt, "Gus Alex faces prison, big fines for extortion," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, Feb. 20, 1993, p. 5.<br />
O'Connor, Matt, "Patrick back in hot water," <i>Chicago Tribune,</i> April 15, 1993, Sec. 2, p. 4.<br />
O'Brien, John, "Gus Alex, 82, syndicate boss for nearly 50 years," <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, July 30, 1998, Sec. 2, p. 9, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-07-30/news/9807300162_1_chicago-mob-figure-joseph-aiuppa-mr-alex" target="_blank">chicagotribune.com</a>.<br />
"Deaths last week," <i>Chicago Tribune,</i> Aug. 2, 1998, Sec. 4, p. 8.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-86781856815137281672017-09-10T14:32:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:41:42.825-04:00McWillie, Lewis J. (1908-1986)Born Kansas City, MO, May 4, 1908.<br />
Died Las Vegas, NV, Jan. 16, 1986.<br />
<br />
Lewis McWillie's name will be forever linked with Dallas nighclub owner Jack Ruby. McWillie was a casino gambling operator who worked for notorious crime bosses and was idolized by Ruby. A 1958 Jack Ruby visit to McWillie in Havana, Cuba, and Ruby's 1963 murder of accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald connected McWillie to various Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories.<br />
<br />
McWillie was born in Missouri and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where he first became involved in gambling in the early 1930s. About 1936, he moved to Jackson and Osyka, Mississippi, and then, in 1940, to Dallas. He was known to be employed as a dealer in the Blue Bonnet Hotel in the early 1940s. He then became involved in casino-style gambling at the Top of the Hill Terrace in Arlington, Texas, and the Four Duces in Fort Worth. His administration of gambling enterprises brought him in contact with Dallas crime boss Joseph Civello. McWillie was seldom in trouble with the law. He was arrested in connection with a Dallas gambling investigation in 1949 but was quickly released.<br />
<br />
Jack Ruby and Lewis McWillie met in the late 1940s. Local officials were forcing Ruby's night club to close early, and he needed a "connection" to set things right. McWillie put Ruby in touch with Julius Schepps, and the problem was resolved. McWillie later recalled, "From then on, I could never get rid of Jack Ruby."<br />
<br />
In 1958, as American mobsters began injecting enormous amounts of cash into casino gambling in Havana, Cuba, McWillie relocated to the island nation. In Cuba, he worked at casinos backed by Tampa crime boss Santo Trafficante, underworld financier Meyer Lansky, Meyer's brother Jake Lansky, Norman Rothman, Sam and David Yaras and Dino Cellini.<br />
<br />
McWillie first served as manager of the Lansky and Rothman-controlled Tropicana nightclub casino. He held that position until May 1960. He then became pit boss at the Salon Rojo casino of the Capri hotel controlled by Trafficante. While in the casino positions, he was an employee of Cuban brothers Martin and Pedro Fox and made frequent trips to the U.S., often making Florida bank deposits for the Foxes.<br />
<br />
A number of McWillie trips from Cuba to the U.S. are documented in immigration records. Providing Dallas home addresses on Raleigh Street, Maple Terrace and Homer Street, he entered the U.S. from Cuba in October 1958; April, July and August, 1959; January, February, March, August, September (twice), October and November, 1960; and January 1961.<br />
<br />
Ruby went to visit McWillie in Havana in the summer of 1959 - McWillie sent him airline tickets and arranged hotel accommodations, reportedly hoping that Ruby would bring Dallas newspaper columnist Tony Zoppi with him. Zoppi did not make the trip. Records indicate that Ruby was in Cuba more than a month. McWillie, however, insisted that the visit was no longer than six days. "Jack Ruby was that kind of fellow that six days would be long enough to be around him," McWillie once stated. "I am sure he wasn't there a month."<br />
<br />
Ruby's Cuba stay occurred as Fidel Castro built his government, following the successful revolution against Fulgencio Batista. Santo Trafficante had been arrested and was being held at the Triscornia detention camp. McWillie reportedly visited the camp twice that summer but did not recall if Ruby went with him. McWillie recalled going to the camp to see Giuseppe DiGiorgio but also noted the presence of Trafficante, Jake Lansky and Dino Cellini. Trafficante later insisted that he never met Ruby. During Ruby's time in Cuba, Trafficante was released, and that coincidence has led some to insist that Ruby arranged the release.<br />
<br />
After returning to the U.S. in 1961, McWillie traveled by car from Miami to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, stopping in Dallas to stay overnight at Ruby's apartment. According to McWillie, that was the last in-person encounter between the two men.<br />
<br />
McWillie worked briefly as a pit boss at the Cal-Neva Lodge in Nevada in 1961 and then served as casino supervisor at the Reno, Nevada, Riverside Hotel between October 1961 and late spring or early summer of 1962. In May 1962, he married at Carson City. He later relocated to Las Vegas and took a casino supervisor post with the Thunderbird Hotel on the Strip. He worked there until the summer of 1964.<br />
<br />
In the spring of 1963, Jack Ruby reportedly purchased a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson Centennial revolver and had it shipped to McWillie in Nevada. McWillie did not accept delivery of the package. Believed to have left the U.S. after that, possibly working in a foreign gambling operation.<br />
<br />
Six months later, McWillie became a person of interest for federal law enforcement agents following Ruby's murder of Oswald. The FBI interviewed him in late November 1963 and again in June 1964. The Warren Commission, investigating the Kennedy Assassination, did not call McWillie to testify.<br />
<br />
After 1964, McWillie held positions at the Carousel Club, Binion's Horseshoe Club and the Holiday Inn Casino at Las Vegas.<br />
<br />
In the late 1970s, McWillie was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.<br />
<br />
The HSCA learned that McWillie had indeed made his own trips to the Triscornia camp while Trafficante was confined there. At the time of his testimony, McWillie said he was not certain whether Ruby had accompanied him on the trips. “I don’t recall it, but he could have,” McWillie said. “I don’t know for sure.”<br />
<br />
McWillie said he went to Triscornia primarily to visit with his friend Giuseppe DiGiorgio but also saw Dino Cellini, Jake Lansky and Trafficante: “I didn’t talk to Trafficante because I didn’t know him that well to speak to him.”<br />
<br />
McWillie died in Las Vegas on Jan. 16, 1986. He was 77 years old. His Nevada death record made him appear four years younger, by moving his birthdate from May 4, 1908, to May 4, 1912.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a001/f_ruby.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Jack Ruby's 1959 visit to Havana - Mafiahistory.us. </span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Oct. 26, 1958.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight 358, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, April 30, 1959.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, July 7, 1959.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight 358, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Aug. 24, 1959.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-800, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Jan. 12, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Feb. 1, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-998, departed Havana, arrived New York City, March 16, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, departed Havana, Flight CCA-800, arrived Miami, Florida, Aug. 10, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-800, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Sept. 2, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-800, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Sept. 13, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-810, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Oct. 5, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight PA-412, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Nov. 7, 1960.</li>
<li>Air Passenger List, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Flight CCA-804, departed Havana, arrived Miami, Florida, Jan. 2, 1961.</li>
<li>Carson City, Nevada, Marriage Index.</li>
<li>House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA Hearings), Appendix to Hearings Before the Select Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Volume IX, Staff and Consultant's Reports, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. Report may be accessed online through the History Matters website (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/contents.htm ).</li>
<li>McAdams, John, "Testimony of Lewis McWillie," Kennedy Assassination Home Page, http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo2/jfk5/mcwill.htm .</li>
<li>McAdams, John, "Testimony of Santos Trafficante," Kennedy Assassination Home Page, http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo2/jfk5/traff.htm .</li>
<li>Nevada Death Index.</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, Tennessee, Shelby County, Ward 31, Enumeration District 219. </li>
<li>"Lewis Joseph McWillie," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, March 31, 2010.</li>
<li>"One-paragraph link to Nevada included in Warren report," <i>Nevada State Journal</i>, Oct. 9, 1964, p. 2.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-35956380861977889492017-09-10T07:58:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:43:43.068-04:00Trafficante, Santo Jr. (1914-1987)Born Tampa, FL, Nov. 15, 1914.<br />
Died Houston, TX, March 17, 1987.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m9NsRf2eaag/WbUnb67GmRI/AAAAAAAAJ0Y/9LQSWOkqQckTvohb_VMXZNFlklKsSTbRQCLcBGAs/s1600/traffyng.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="110" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m9NsRf2eaag/WbUnb67GmRI/AAAAAAAAJ0Y/9LQSWOkqQckTvohb_VMXZNFlklKsSTbRQCLcBGAs/s1600/traffyng.gif" /></a></div>
Santo Trafficante, Jr., the son of an early Tampa, Florida, Mafia boss, was raised in local organized crime and became boss upon the death of his father. He is known for his close ties to New York underworld bosses and for his management of Cuban casinos, and is frequently mentioned in Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.<br />
<br />
Born in Tampa, to Santo Sr. and Maria Giuseppa (Josephine) Cacciatore Trafficante, Santo Jr. grew up in a large Italian family on North Boulevard in Tampa, just outside the traditional boundaries of the immigrant neighborhood known as Ybor City. The 1930 U.S. Census shows him at age 14 as the second of five sons. His brothers were Frank, Sam, Fano and Henry. Santo Jr. attended Hillsborough County public schools but left school in the tenth grade.<br />
<br />
By the next U.S. Census, twenty-five-year-old Santo had started his own family. He, wife Josephine Marchese Trafficante and their five-month-old daughter Mary Jo resided at 3105 Eighteenth Street in Tampa. Santo and Josephine married in April 1938. For the census, Santo reported his occupation as clerk for a retail grocery, but he was likely working with his father in underworld rackets by then. A major income source for the Tampa Mafia was a lottery-style gambling racket, known as bolita. A few years later, another daughter, Sarah, was born into the family.<br />
<br />
Following World War II, Trafficante began making trips to Havana, Cuba. He was well established with authorities there when U.S. underworld figures began funneling money into gambling facilities and narcotics smuggling rackets on the island of Cuba.<br />
<br />
The passing of underworld authority from the late Santo Sr. to Santo Jr. was not acceptable to a local Mafia faction supportive of the Italiano family. At attempt was made on Santo Jr.'s life in 1953 - a shotgun blast fired at his car succeeded only in wounding his arm.<br />
<br />
When Santo Sr. died the next year, Antonio Italiano and Dominic Ferrara reportedly went to New York Mafia bosses to complain about the succession. Trafficante business connections with New York were already strong and lucrative, however. The new Tampa boss reportedly had solid support from the Luciano-Costello (later Genovese), Lucchese and Bonanno organizations, as well as Meyer Lansky. The Italiano faction's complaint was ignored and Antonio Italiano and Dominic Ferrara were never seen again.<br />
<br />
In that year, Santo Jr. and his brother Henry were convicted of bribing a St. Petersburg detective and sentenced to five years in prison. The trial judge called the Trafficantes, "a couple of rats [who] crept out of the sewer." The conviction was later overturned, but Henry was eventually imprisoned on bribery and gambling convictions.<br />
<br />
As the Mafia invested heavily in Cuban casinos under the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista, Santo Jr. spent much of his time in an apartment in the affluent Vedado neighborhood of Havana. He reportedly managed investments of the U.S. underworld in gambling ventures and is widely believed to have organized international narcotics trafficking through the island nation.<br />
<br />
Trafficante was visiting New York City at the time of the 1957 murder of crime boss Albert Anastasia. Anastasia was believed to be trying to create a separate gambling empire for his Mafia family in Cuba. Trafficante was also noted at the Mafia convention in Apalachin, New York, later in that year.<br />
<br />
American authorities linked Trafficante with gambling at Cuba's Sans Souci nightclub, the Hotel Comodoro Casino and the Hotel Deauville Casino. He is known to have worked closely with Jake Lansky, brother of underworld financier Meyer Lansky, and with Dino Cellini.<br />
<br />
Mafia investments and the trust of underworld allies in Trafficante's management were imperiled when the Batista government was toppled. Trafficante was unable to make arrangements with the regime of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro after 1959.<br />
<br />
Trafficante and associates Jake Lansky and Dino Cellini were arrested by Cuban authorities in the late spring of 1959. Lansky and Cellini were quickly released, but Trafficante, perceived as being especially close to Batista brother-in-law Roberto Fernandez Miranda, was held at Triscornia detention facility until August. Compelled by Cuban officials to sell his interests in gambling facilities, Trafficante attempted for months to retain secret control of them. He returned to Florida in January 1960.<br />
<br />
Trafficante and other Mafia leaders worked with American intelligence agencies to plot the overthrow or assassination of Castro. Castro survived that conspiracy, and some believe he succeeded in turning it to his own advantage. Trafficante is among the underworld bosses regularly named by conspiracy theorists as an organizer of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.<br />
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Trafficante vehemently denied any involvement in the Kennedy assassination. However, statements made by Trafficante during 1962-63 seemed to predict that killing.<br />
<br />
In 1966, during a trip to New York, Trafficante was arrested along with a dozen other suspected Mafiosi at an Italian restaurant in Queens. Police dubbed the gathering, "a little Apalachin."<br />
<br />
When Tampa detective Richard Cloud was shot to death at the front door of his north Tampa home, Trafficante was suspected of involvement. Authorities hoped that imprisoned underworld figure Victor Acosta would help link the murder to Trafficante, but Acosta suddenly died in his prison cell of an overdose of tranquilizers. The death was said to be a suicide.<br />
<br />
Trafficante was called to testify before Kennedy assassination investigators in the late 1970s. At that time, he acknowledged that the CIA had approached him about deposing or killing Fidel Castro. Chicago Outfit leaders Sam Giancana and John Rosselli also had discussions with the CIA. Giancana and Rosselli were both killed in 1975.<br />
<br />
In 1986, Trafficante was unsuccessfully tried by federal prosecutors for racketeering and conspiracy. The following year, he was to be tried on a 1981 indictment charging him with taking kickbacks from the International Laborers Union dental and eye health care plans. He died, following a triple-bypass operation at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, before he could stand trial.<br />
<br />
See also:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a001/f_ruby.html"><span style="color: #990000;">"Jack Ruby's 1959 visit to Havana" - Mafiahistory.us</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ta.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Tampa Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us</span></a> </li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Air Passenger Manifest, Pan American World Airways, NC-34948, departed Havana, Cuba, arrived Miami, Florida, July 25, 1946.</li>
<li>Air Passenger Manifest, Pan American Airways, NC-45375, departed Havana, Cuba, arrived Miami, Florida, June 17, 1948.</li>
<li>Arrival-Departure Record, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Miami, Florida, Jan. 27, 1960.</li>
<li>Florida State Census of 1935, Hillsborough County, Precinct 17.</li>
<li>Florida State Census of 1945, Hillsborough County, Precinct 22.</li>
<li>SAC Miami, "Santo Trafficante, Jr.," FBI airtel, file no. 92-2781-104, June 17, 1959.</li>
<li>Santo Trafficante, Jr., World War II draft registration card, 1942.</li>
<li>"Santo Trafficante, Jr.," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, June 11, 2010.</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1930, Florida, Hillsborough County, Ward 6, Election Precinct 17, Enumeration District 29-48.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1940, Florida, Hillsborough County, Ward 9, Precinct 17, Enumeration District 70-73.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>"Trafficante gets order," <i>New York Times</i>, April 15, 1967, p. 16.</li>
<li>"Underworld figure refuses to talk before a House assassination panel," <i>New York Times</i>, March 17, 1977, p. 23.</li>
<li>Harris, Kathryn, "Santo Trafficante Jr." A Tampa son who made the bigtime with the bad guys," <i>St. Petersburg Times</i>, April 27, 1977, p. 53.</li>
<li>"16 indicted over union fund use," <i>New York Times</i>, June 5, 1981.</li>
<li>"15 deny racketeering charges," <i>New York Times</i>, June 20, 1981.</li>
<li>"Judge declares mistrial in Florida crime case," <i>New York Times</i>, July 10, 1986.</li>
<li>Leusner, Jim, and Tom Scherberger, "Florida's reputed don, Santo Trafficante, dies," <i>Orlando Sentinel</i>, March 19, 1987, p. 1.</li>
<li>Roy, Roger, "He never spent a night in U.S. jail," <i>Orlando Sentinel</i>, March 19, 1987, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Santo Trafficante, reputed Mafia chief, dies at 72," <i>New York Times</i>, March 19, 1987.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-34415215322619010212017-02-05T06:29:00.000-05:002017-02-05T06:29:15.115-05:00Bilotti, Thomas (1940-1985)Born Staten Island, NY, March 23, 1940.<br />
Killed Manhattan, NY, Dec. 16, 1985.<br />
<br />
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An intensely loyal lieutenant of Gambino Crime Family boss <a href="http://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/castellano-paul-1915-1985.html">Paul "Big Paul" Castellano</a>, Thomas Bilotti was murdered Dec. 16, 1985, along with Castellano in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.<br />
<br />
Bilotti was born to Anthony and Lillian Rosso Bilotti in Staten Island in 1940. He was raised in Staten Island and was a resident there early in 1970, when he received his first serious notice from the police and the press.<br />
<br />
Thirty-year-old Bilotti, resident of 33 Kensington Avenue, Staten Island, was arrested with Thomas Papanier, 25, of Villa Avenue, Staten Island, after a shooting in Jamesburg, New Jersey. African-American teenager Emory Parks of Sheridan Street suffered superficial injuries when he was struck in the back of his head by bird-shot pellets. Bilotti and Papanier were arrested as they ran from the scene of the shooting and were observed discarding firearms.<br />
<br />
It was a time of significant racial tension in the Jamesburg area, after riots at the local high school. Police from Spotswood and Monroe Township were on alert, permitting the quick arrest of Bilotti and Papanier. While police believed the two men were responsible for the injuries to Emory Parks, they were initially charged with carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a pistol without a permit and failing to secure a permit to purchase a pistol. A Middlesex County grand jury indicted the duo only for illegal possession of concealed weapons.<br />
<br />
Bilotti became a fierce enforcer for Paul Castellano and the Gambino-Castellano faction of the crime family. He was understandably unpopular with a lingering faction that had been forced from power with Albert Anastasia's 1957 assassination. It appears that the Anastasia wing supported boss <a href="http://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/gambino-carlo-1902-1976.html">Carlo Gambino</a> with the understanding that one of their own would succeed Gambino. Their hopes were dashed when Paul Castellano took over the crime family following the 1976 death of his brother-in-law Gambino. Peace within the family was preserved as <a href="http://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/dellacroce-aniello-1914-1985.html">Aniello Dellacroce</a>, leader of the opposition and an underworld powerhouse in Manhattan, was selected as Castellano's underboss. Dellacroce kept his followers loyal to the Castellano regime for nine years.<br />
<br />
During that time, Bilotti served as Castellano's primary driver, bodyguard and most trusted lieutenant. In 1980, Castellano build a palatial mansion for himself at 177 Benedict Road atop Todt Hill in Staten Island. Bilotti moved into a less ostentatious home just a few minutes away. Bilotti worked closely with Salvatore Barbato in providing security for Castellano and his estate. Bilotti and Castellano both regularly vacationed at Pompano Beach, Florida.<br />
<br />
Dellacroce's death on Dec. 2, 1985, was followed by two major Castellano missteps. The crime family boss did not attend Dellacroce's funeral, a decision viewed as profoundly disrespectful. And he quickly and unilaterally elevated his aide Bilotti to the position of underboss. Castellano was getting on in years and faced a number of serious federal charges. Dellacroce followers, then led by <a href="http://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/05/gotti-john-j-1940-2002.html">John J. Gotti</a>, understood that either death or prison would soon remove the boss. But Bilotti's presence as heir apparent would shut their faction out of the crime family leadership for yet another generation.<br />
<br />
Castellano had lost much of his underworld prestige as the long-term bugging of his home office by the FBI had recently been revealed. Bilotti was still widely feared but many saw him as lacking in leadership qualities. Gotti found extensive support for his plan to remove both men from administration of the crime family. He appears to have arranged with Salvatore Gravano and Frank DeCicco for the Dec. 16 hit outside of Sparks.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bilotti's life ended Dec. 16, 1985,<br />on New York's 46th Street</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At about 5:30 p.m., Castellano's black Lincoln, with Bilotti driving, stopped in a no parking zone on 46th Street in front of the restaurant. As Bilotti and Castellano emerged from opposite sides of the car, three men in trenchcoats quickly approached on foot and opened fire at close range with semiautomatic pistols. Both targets were hit repeatedly in their heads and torsos. Castellano collapsed on the sidewalk behind the open passenger-side car door. Bilotti sprawled into the street. The gunmen jogged away on 46th Street, climbing into a waiting getaway car at Second Avenue.<br />
<br />
With boss and underboss eliminated, John Gotti seized for himself the top spot in the Gambino Crime Family and selected Frank DeCicco as his second in command. Bilotti and Castellano were buried in Moravian Cemetery at New Dorp, Staten Island.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources:</u><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Dileva, Anthony V., "La Cosa Nostra: The Historical Sicilian Mafia's Influence on American Organized Crime," Project Report in partial fulfillment of requirements for Master of Science degree, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2006, p. 81-85.</li>
<li>Michael DiLeonardo testimony, United States of America v. John A. Gotti, Jr., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Feb. 22, 2006.</li>
<li>O'Brien, Joseph F., and Andris Kurins, <i>Boss of Bosses</i>, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.</li>
<li>Social Security Applications and Claims Index, Oct. 1958.</li>
<li>Social Security Death Index.</li>
<li>"Thomas Bilotti," Find A Grave, <a href="https://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Bilotti&GSfn=Thomas&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=5907&df=all&" target="_blank">findagrave.com</a>, July 17, 1999.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>McCarthy, George, "Jamesburg youth shot, two held," <i>Asbury Park (NJ) Press</i>, April 29, 1970, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Jamesburg quiet after outbreaks," <i>Asbury Park (NJ) Press</i>, April 30, 1970, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Jury to get case of duo in shooting," <i>Asbury Park (NJ) Press</i>, May 20, 1970, p. 18.</li>
<li>"Two indicted as result of shooting," <i>Asbury Park (NJ) Press</i>, June 1, 1970, p. 10.</li>
<li>Blumenthal, Ralph, "Aniello Dellacroce dies at 71; reputed crime-group figure," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 4, 1985.</li>
<li>McFadden, Robert D., "Organized crime chief shot dead stepping from car on E. 46th St.," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 17, 1985.</li>
<li>Raab, Selwyn, "Authorities now say a slain Mafia aide was a major target," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 27, 1985.</li>
<li>"Charges stick to 'Teflon Don,'" <i>Columbus (IN) Republic</i>, April 3, 1992, p. 2.</li>
<li>Magnuson, Ed, "Hitting the Mafia," <i>TIME</i>, June 24, 2001.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-19051469800542911462017-01-21T07:33:00.000-05:002019-03-28T05:46:50.281-04:00Conti, Gregorio (1874-1919)Born Comitini, Sicily, March 17, 1874.<br />
Killed Pittsburgh, PA, Sept. 24, 1919.<br />
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Downtown Pittsburgh's earliest documented Mafia boss, Gregorio Conti was a duplicitous underworld leader and an unscrupulous businessman. His treachery appears to have been repaid through his assassination at the dawn of the U.S. Prohibition Era.<br />
<br />
Conti's native town of Comitini was engaged in sulfur mining and in the farming of grapes, olives and citrus at the time of his birth to Giacomo and Gesua Terrana Conti. Gregorio Conti may have learned about wines and distilled spirits as a young man in Sicily. He appears to have run his own business before deciding to follow his brother - Dr. Gaetano Conti - across the Atlantic.<br />
<br />
Gregorio Conti sailed from Palermo on Sept. 17, 1907, and arrived in New York harbor on Oct. 3. He left behind in Sicily his wife and their two young children. He was accompanied on the voyage by fellow Comitinesi Giuseppe Cusumano and Vincenzo Terrana. Cusumano was a nephew of Conti and a trained chemist. Terrana, a surgeon, appears to have been a relative of Conti's mother. All three continued on from New York to Pittsburgh, meeting up with Dr. Gaetano Conti at 29 Chatham Street in the heart of the city's central Hill District. (Dr. Conti maintained the same office until his death in 1927.)<br />
<br />
Gaetano already was a man of some importance in the community, serving as physician for the Italian consulate at Pittsburgh. In 1909, Dr. Conti was involved in a criminal investigation of the consulate after his signature was found on phony papers documenting the physical incapacitation of Italian immigrants seeking to avoid military service in their native country. Dr. Conti and Vice Consul Natali reported that seals, stamps and other materials of the consul's office had been stolen by a short-term office worker and used to generate the fraudulent documents, which were then sold. One of several suspects in the case accused Dr. Conti of being behind the racket, saying he paid the doctor $70 for a certificate of incapacitation.<br />
<br />
Gregorio Conti was naturalized a citizen of the U.S. early in 1913. Later in the year, his wife and their children sailed from Sicily to join him in Pittsburgh. Conti had opened a business, Pittsburgh Wine & Liquors, at 801 Wylie Avenue, a couple doors down from his brother's offices. The Conti family resided in an apartment above the business. Giuseppe Cusumano worked for his uncle.<br />
<br />
Conti seems to have attained a leadership position in downtown Pittsburgh's Sicilian underworld organization at about the time that the city's most successful produce merchant, Salvatore "Banana King" Catanzaro was seriously hurt in a stabbing incident. Conti may have assumed leadership of an organization formerly run by Catanzaro. (As Catanzaro recovered in spring 1914, Pittsburgh produce merchants threw him a large party. The guests included a number of names linked with Sicilian organized crime in the region.)<br />
<br />
Western Pennsylvania of that period was home to a large number of small Neapolitan, Calabrian and Sicilian criminal organizations. The Sicilian Mafia units were linked through a loose regional network.<br />
<br />
Nick Gentile, whose memoirs recounted many events in early U.S. Mafia history, joined Conti in Pittsburgh in 1915. By then, Conti was well established as boss of the Hill District Mafia and was already rubbing many the wrong way. Gentile noted that Conti frequently picked fights with Cusumano (a problem Gentile resolved by sponsoring Cusumano as a Mafioso, entitled to respect), increased his profits by selling fraudulently labeled liquor and secretly cooperated in Neapolitan Camorra extortion of Sicilian residents.<br />
<br />
Gentile claims that he initiated a personal war against the once-dominant Camorra that resulted in its complete capitulation to the Sicilian Mafia. By about 1917, Neapolitan and Calabrian gangs had been incorporated into a regional Mafia-dominated network.<br />
<br />
In the spring of 1918, Gentile and grocery business partners Samuel DiBella and Orazio Leone (Leone and DiBella were likely related) were convicted of conspiring to defraud their suppliers out of $22,000 in produce. The men filed a legal appeal. Conti pressured successful fruit merchant J.C. Catalano to provide $4,000 bail for Gentile's release. Once out of prison, Gentile left the country to return to Sicily, and Catalano's bail was forfeited. The merchant demanded that Conti personally compensate him for the loss or acquire repayment through Gentile. Conti stalled for time.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KmmptVBCTVA/WINPQ9J57pI/AAAAAAAAHuE/Tp4CKaptyoQpNEZGRgEvQyeKdv6xxxejwCLcB/s1600/1916jun18p11-pittsburghPost-Catalano-pic.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KmmptVBCTVA/WINPQ9J57pI/AAAAAAAAHuE/Tp4CKaptyoQpNEZGRgEvQyeKdv6xxxejwCLcB/s400/1916jun18p11-pittsburghPost-Catalano-pic.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>J.C. Catalano (left) is photographed with other Pittsburgh<br />produce merchants in 1916. (Pittsburgh Gazette Times).</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The following year, the Wartime Prohibition Act (too late to provide any Great War benefit but intended to remain in effect through demobilization) made the sale, manufacture and transport of alcoholic beverages illegal. That closed Conti's legitimate business. Any continued sale of alcohol would have exposed Conti to enforcement by Justice Department and its Bureau of Investigation.<br />
<br />
In September, Conti suddenly decided that he, his family and his fortune would return to Sicily. This decision coincided with rumors that he recently had earned $5,500 by convincing some Italian purchasers from New Castle, PA, that 110 cases of bottled river water was actually 110 cases of whiskey.<br />
<br />
Conti and his wife obtained passports on Sept. 12, 1919, stating that they needed to return to Italy immediately to settle Giovanna's family estate. They prepared to travel by train to New York City on Sept. 25 and then take a steamer to Italy in early October.<br />
<br />
On the eve of their departure from Pittsburgh, Gregorio Conti was shot four times through the back while sitting in his automobile, at Twenty-first and Smallman Streets, with J.C. Catalano, J.C.'s cousin Philip Catalano and Orazio Leone. Conti was alive but unconscious when police arrived. He was dead upon arrival at St. Francis Hospital. The official cause of death was "shock and hemorrhage due to gunshot wounds through heart (murder)."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzuyS6e4XUg/WINPpC4-prI/AAAAAAAAHuM/kOVquUBpg_gA-bBamFVR7WDUXelnop7ygCLcB/s1600/conti-killed.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzuyS6e4XUg/WINPpC4-prI/AAAAAAAAHuM/kOVquUBpg_gA-bBamFVR7WDUXelnop7ygCLcB/s400/conti-killed.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Pittsburgh Press, Sept. 24, 1919.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Catalanos and Leone were apprehended. They admitted they were with Conti but claimed that a small man unknown to them jumped on the vehicle's runningboard, shot Conti and ran off before they could react to prevent it or detain the shooter. Police investigated the claim, though Captain of Detectives Clyde Edeburn doubted that anyone outside of the automobile could have shot Conti through the back of the driver's seat. Edeburn also noted that the murder weapon was recovered and turned out to be a pistol that required time-consuming manual cocking before each shot could be fired.<br />
<br />
Conti's immediate successor as underworld boss of downtown Pittsburgh is unknown. Salvatore Calderone, an Apollo-based Mafia elder statesman and head man of the regional Mafia network, probably played a role in managing the organization. The next documented Mafia boss in Pittsburgh was Stefano Monastero.<br />
<br />
Link:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.writersofwrongs.com/2017/01/tried-to-take-money-and-run.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"Tried to 'take the money and run'" - Writers of Wrongs - 21 Jan 2017</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-pi.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Pittsburgh Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us.</span></a> </li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<u>Sources: </u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Certificate of Death, Allegheny County Pennsylvania, file no. 88497, registered no. 7570, filed Sept. 26, 1919.</li>
<li>Declaration of Intention, no. 13546, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Oct. 15, 1910.</li>
<li>Declaration of Intention, no. 13547, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Oct. 15, 1910.</li>
<li>Gentile, Nick, with Felice Chilante, <i>Vita di Capomafia</i>, Rome: Crescenzi Allendorf, 1993, p. 51-54, 56-57, 62-67.</li>
<li>Naturalization Petition, no 7775, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Nov. 6, 1912.</li>
<li>Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Argentina</i>, departed Palermo on June 14, arrived New York City on June 28, 1911.</li>
<li>Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Canada</i>, departed Palermo on Nov. 5, 1913, arrived New York on Nov. 17, 1913.</li>
<li>Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Carpathia</i>, departed Palermo on Sept. 17, 1907, arrived New York City on Oct. 3, 1907.</li>
<li>Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Ivernia</i>, departed Palermo on April 24, 1912, arrived New York on May 9, 1912.</li>
<li>Passport application, no. 117780, U.S. District Court at Pittsburgh PA, Sept. 12, 1919.</li>
<li>Passport application, no. 117781, U.S. District Court at Pittsburgh, PA, Sept. 12, 1919.</li>
<li>Pennsylvania Wills and Probate Records, Allegheny County, Ancestry.com.</li>
<li>United States Census of 1920, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County, Ward 8, Enumeration District 444.</li>
<li>World War I draft registration card, serial no. 3830, order no. A663, stamped 37-1-21C, Pittsburgh, PA, Sept. 12, 1918.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>"Fruit dealer gets damages," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, May 5, 1911, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Gigantic fraud practiced upon Italian consul," <i>San Francisco Call</i>, Aug. 15, 1909, p. 25.</li>
<li>"Italian graft arrests," <i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, Aug. 18, 1909, p. 3.</li>
<li>"Many attend banquet; all banana merchants," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, May 8, 1914, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Indictments," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Post</i>, Jan. 11, 1917, p. 12.</li>
<li>"Court news," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Post</i>, May 24, 1918, p. 14.</li>
<li>"Men are convicted for $22,000 fraud," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, May 27, 1918, p. 7.</li>
<li>"Court news," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Post</i>, Sept. 6, 1918, p. 13.</li>
<li>"Police take three suspects in Conti murder," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, Sept. 26, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Nation goes dry under wartime act," <i>New York Times</i>, July 1, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Murdered in Auto," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Sept. 24, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Italian is shot to death at Pittsburgh," <i>Harrisburg PA Evening News</i>, Sept. 24, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Wine merchant foully killed," <i>Wilkes Barre Times Leader,</i> Sept. 25, 1919, p. 18.</li>
<li>"Three held in Conti murder case," <i>Pittsburgh Post</i>, Sept. 26, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Police weave strong web about Italians held in murder case," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Sept. 26, 1919, p. 34.</li>
<li>"Police take three suspects in Conti murder," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, Sept. 26, 1919, p. 1.</li>
<li>"Bail refused accused trio in Conti case," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, Sept. 27, 1919.</li>
<li>"Conti murderer now known to detectives," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Sept. 27, 1919, p. 10.</li>
<li>"Conti murder suspects held for coroner," <i>Pittsburgh Post</i>, Sept. 28, 1919, p. 12.</li>
<li>"Police still lack clue in Conti case," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, Sept. 30, 1919, p. 9.</li>
<li>"Three men jailed in murder case," <i>Pittsburgh Post</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 2.</li>
<li>"Three accused as accessory in Conti case," <i>Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 12.</li>
<li>"3 murder suspects held without bail," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Oct. 3, 1919, p. 29.</li>
<li>"Murder suspects are released on bail," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Oct. 5, 1919, p. 10.</li>
<li>"In Pennsylvania," <i>Indiana PA Patriot</i>, Oct. 11, 1919, p. 4.</li>
<li>"Dr. Gaetano Conti," <i>Pittsburgh Press</i>, Oct. 26, 1927, p. 8.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-87326703369671212182016-10-16T11:21:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:48:48.708-04:00Racco, Rocco (1868-1909)b. Grotteria, Calabria, Italy, 1868<br />
d. (hanging) New Castle, PA, Oct. 26, 1909<br />
<br />
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Rocco Racco served for a time as leader of a Calabrian criminal organization in the area of Hillsville, PA. The testimony of rival gangsters helped to convict Racco of killing a state law enforcement officer, and Racco was executed in 1909.<br />
<br />
Racco, born to Giuseppe and Maria Camisi Racco in Grotteria, Italy, arrived in the United States in the summer of 1899. At the time, he had relatives and friends in New York City and upstate and western New York. He initially traveled to Albany and then moved on to western New York. Within a short time, he was settled in the mining community of Hillsville, PA. Italian immigrants in the area generally worked in limestone mines that served Pittsburgh's steel industry. Racco did some work as a miner, opened a store near what was known as the Peanut Quarry, invested in an insurance company and engaged in a variety of extortion.<br />
<br />
The men of the region were victimized by a primitive criminal racket, closely resembling a pyramid scheme, in which they were compelled on penalty of death to become members of a Calabrian "Black Hand Society." Membership money flowed upward toward the leader, who retired after a time, turning the lucrative post over to his successor. The society in Hillsville was said to be linked with similar organizations in major U.S. cities. As leader of the local society, Racco set membership dues, targeted new victims and passed death sentences.<br />
<br />
A rebellious faction in the Hillsville Black Hand Society rose up against Racco early in 1906. A quarry workers strike split the underworld organization, with Racco and his loyalists siding with employers and rebels siding with striking workers. Racco quickly found himself facing charges of violating the underworld code by sleeping with another society member's wife, an offense punishable by death. A panel of Black Hand leaders from New York City, Buffalo and elsewhere was assembled to sit in judgment on the Hillsville boss. Racco was saved from the death penalty but removed from his leadership post.<br />
<br />
In the same period, State Game Warden Seely Houk became terribly unpopular with the men of Hillsville's Italian colony as he strictly enforced hunting and fishing laws. In the summer of 1905, Houk was himself arrested for mistreating an Italian boy who violated the law by fishing on Sunday. Houk was convicted of assault and battery but managed to postpone sentencing.<br />
<br />
Luigi Ritorto, a clerk employed in Racco's store, went hunting for ground hogs in February 1906. Ritorto borrowed Racco's shotgun and "Paolo," a light-colored hunting dog that was the favorite of the several dogs owned by Racco. Game Warden Houk spotted Ritorto as he entered a wooded area near the Peanut Quarry. As he noticed Houk, Ritorto ran into the woods. The dog, Paolo, ran toward the game warden. Houk pulled the trigger on his shotgun, and the dog was killed. When Racco learned of the incident, he openly swore to kill Houk. While possibly overcome by emotion at the loss of his favorite dog, Racco also may have been hoping to improve his standing in the colony by squaring off with the hated Houk and perhaps return to leadership of the Black Hand Society.<br />
<br />
Early in March, 1906, Houk disappeared. Shortly after that, Rocco Racco's brother-in-law Vincenzo Murdocca left Hillsville and sailed back to his Italian homeland. In April, when Houk failed to appear at his sentencing hearing for the assault and battery of the boy who dared to fish on a Sunday, authorities went looking for the game warden.<br />
<br />
Houk's remains were discovered in the muddy banks of the Mahoning River where railroad tracks passed a wooded area of Hillsville. The man's chest had been hit with a load of shot. Another apparent close-range shotgun blast had struck Houk in the head, tearing away the lower portion of his face.<br />
<br />
The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners set a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Houk's killers. Private citizens pooled resources to call in the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Several Pinkerton men, including the accomplished Francis P. Dimaio, went undercover in Hillsville to gain information on the Houk killing and the Black Hand Society.<br />
<br />
In September 1906, Racco and his wife were convicted of stealing a sum of money. Though not yet named as a suspect in the Houk murder, Racco was known to be a former Black Hand Society leader and was widely believed to have taken part in the recent slaying of local resident William Duff. After convincing local friends to contribute $2,000 bail, Racco was released pending appeal and promptly disappeared. Detectives located him in mid-October in New York City, where he was preparing to board a steamship for Italy. His appeal was denied and, in January, he began serving a sentence of a year in prison.<br />
<br />
Just one week later, much of the leadership of the Black Hand Society in the region was arrested. This seems due in large part to information obtained by Pinkerton agent Dimaio. The current boss of the society, Joe Bagnato managed to escape to Italy with an estimated $30,000 just as the arrests were made. Several other Black Hand leaders were convicted of blackmailing, assault, robbery and other offenses.<br />
<br />
Racco's prison sentence had almost expired when a local judge had him brought to New Castle, Pennsylvania, to face additional Black Hand robbery charges. In May, 1908, Racco was charged with conspiring with Vincenzo Murdocca in the murder of Seely Houk. Agent Dimaio met repeated with Racco in an effort to have him confess to his involvement and implicate Murdocca. Racco refused to cooperate: "I will not speak. I will go to the gallows a brave man."<br />
<br />
Racco adhered to the underworld code of silence even when other Black Hand Society members testified against him in court. On Sept. 19, 1908, Racco was convicted of first-degree murder. The local press reported that he was in good humor when he received the news. A legal appeal was defeated in March of 1909, and Racco was formally sentenced to die by hanging. Still, Dimaio attempted to obtain Racco's cooperation against the escaped Murdocca, but still Racco refused. A final appeal, financed by contributions from the Italian community, was brought to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. The governor granted a stay of execution until Oct. 26, so the appeal could be processed.<br />
<br />
On the eve of his execution, Racco informed the press that he would make a statement the next morning as the noose was placed around his neck. The local press wondered if he would reveal the workings of the Black Hand Society or his accomplice in the Houk killing. At 10 o'clock on Oct. 26, Racco offered only a denial of any role in the killing: "Gentleman, I did not see Seely Houk killed. I did not see any one kill him, and I have no suspicion of any person. I pardon everybody and expect to go to Jesus right now. Goodbye."<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a031/f_calabrian.html"><span style="color: #990000;">"Just how organized was Calabrian crime?" - Mafiahistory.us</span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> "Black Hand Society (Seeley Houk Murder) - Hillsville PA," Lawrence County Memoirs, lawrencecountymemoirs.com, May 2014, accessed May 4, 2015.</li>
<li> Commonwealth vs. Rocco Racco, Court of Oyer & Terminer, Lawrence County, PA, No. I, June Term, 1908. (Thanks to Margaret Janco.)</li>
<li> Horan, James D., <i>The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty that Made History</i>, New York: Bonanza Books, 1967.</li>
<li> Horan, James D., and Howard Swiggett, <i>The Pinkerton Story</i>, London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1952.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of S.S. Tartar Prince, departed Naples on June 23, 1899, arrived New York City on July 9, 1899.</li>
<li> Roco Racco death certificate, no. 94896, filed Oct. 27, 1909, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Bureau of Vital Statistics.</li>
<li> Seely Houk Murder and the Black Hand Investigation, Box 117, Folders 1, 3, 4, 5, Criminal Case Files, 1861-1962, Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, Library of Congress Manuscript Division.</li>
<li> Warren, Louis S., "The Hunter's Game," <i>New York Times</i>: Books, nytimes.com, 1997, accessed May 4, 2015.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> "Hillsville Italians found insurance co.," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Feb. 10, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Charter notice," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Feb. 19, 1906, p. 2. </li>
<li> "Charter notice,"<i> New Castle PA Herald</i>, Feb. 26, 1906, p. 7.</li>
<li> "Big reward out for murderers," <i>Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette</i>, April 26, 1906, p. 4.</li>
<li> "Corpse of game warden lies on river's bottom," <i>Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette</i>, April 27, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Finding of body explains a mystery," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Post</i>, April 27, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "True bills found against twenty-six by the grand jury," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 6, 1906, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Duff murder trial begins," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 8, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Assassin may be captured," <i>New Castle Pa Herald</i>, Aug. 29, 1906, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Grand jury cases for coming term," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Sept. 1, 1906, p. 12.</li>
<li> "Law's heavy hand," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Sept. 14, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco in custody," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Sept. 15, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Friend of murderer of 'Squire Wm. Duff now behind the bars," <i>New Castle PA News</i>, Oct. 17, 1906, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco wants trial," <i>New Castle PA News</i>, Nov. 28, 1906, p. 5.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco case is before court," <i>New Castle PA News</i>, Dec. 5, 1906, p. 16.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco refused new trial yesterday; opinions handed down," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Feb. 26, 1907, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Judge Porter has secrets of dreaded Black Hand society," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 5, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Five leaders of 'Black Hand' are taken by police," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 11, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Five Black Hand men jailed at New Castle," <i>Pittsburgh Post</i>, March 11, 1907, p. 5.</li>
<li> "Black Hand suspects get hearing last night; will be tried in June," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 15, 1907, p. 16.</li>
<li> "Five alleged leaders of Black Hand society," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 20, 1907, p. 1</li>
<li> "Black Hand men indicted by grand bury," <i>New Castle PA News</i>, June 12, 1907, p. 7.</li>
<li> "Father-in-law of Rocco Racco behind the bars," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, July 16, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Blackmail charged vs. Black Hand men," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 17, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Italians are found guilty by the jury," <i>New Castle PA News</i>, June 19, 1907, p. 2.</li>
<li> "In gloom of state prison, Racca and pals of Black Hand Society may find time to repent of crimes," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 22, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Wilkinson gets L. Luccisano his release," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, July 17, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Houk's slayer may be caught," <i>New Castle PA Herald,</i> Oct. 15, 1907, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Real king of Black Hand in this county is now in jail here," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Dec. 30, 1907, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Calaute confesses he was with those who killed Houk,"<i> New Castle PA Heral</i>d, Jan. 11, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Jim Brown lands his man safe in jail," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Jan. 23, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Murderer Calute out," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, Jan. 27, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "News of nearby towns," <i>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i>, May 28, 1908, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco isn't guilty," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, May 29, 1908, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Three pen prisoners are here to testify," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 3, 1908, p. 8.</li>
<li> "24 true bills by grand jury," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 5, 1908, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Duff murder trial begins," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 8, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco's trial may be continued," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 8, 1908, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Calaute proves a bad witness today," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 10, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "'Not on your life,' says Joe Calaute when asked if he were a married man,"<i> New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 10, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Two lawyers named as counsel for Racco,"<i> New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 10, 1908, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Sanati's letters to Racco are read," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, June 11, 1908, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Racco in good humor," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Pos</i>t, Sept. 21, 1908, p. 8.</li>
<li> "'It's just as I expected' is Rocco's comment," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 2, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco to be hanged," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 9, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Rocco Racco receiving aid of Black Hand?" <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 18, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Racco appeals from sentence," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, March 24, 1909, p. 10.</li>
<li> Brown, James H., "James Brown tells facts about Mafia," <i>New Castle PA Herald</i>, April 17, 1909, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Respite is granted," <i>Harrisburg PA Telegraph</i>, Sept. 17, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Black Hand leader faces death calmly," <i>Pittsburgh Daily Post</i>, Oct. 26, 1909, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Hanged at New Castle," <i>Washington D.C. Evening Star</i>, Oct. 27, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> Obituary, <i>Butler PA Citizen</i>, Oct. 27, 1909, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Denied guilt as he swung," <i>Montour PA American</i>, Oct. 28, 1909, p. 1.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-26098844075842747232016-09-20T13:00:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:51:47.903-04:00Campagna, Louis (1900-1955)b. Brooklyn, NY, June 27, 1900.<br />
d. Miami, FL, May 30, 1955.<br />
<br />
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A close associate of Al Capone, Louis "Little New York" Campagna is believed to have briefly served as boss of the Chicago Outfit in the post-Capone era.<br />
<br />
Like Capone, Campagna was born in Brooklyn, New York, and relocated to Chicago. He became a trusted aide and bodyguard to Capone.<br />
<br />
Following Capone's imprisonment for tax evasion, Campagna became the top lieutenant for Frank Nitti. Nitti, Campagna and several other leaders of the Chicago Outfit were indicted in 1943 by a federal grand jury in New York for using their control of a screen and stage employees union to extort a million dollars from movie company executives. Just hours after the indictment, Nitti committed suicide. Campagna appears to have served as the Outfit's top man until the extortion case resulted in his conviction.<br />
<br />
Anthony Accardo and Paul Ricca later emerged as the leading figures in the Outfit.<br />
<br />
Campagna connections were credited with arranging for a more convenient prison term for Outfit leaders, having them moved from distant Atlanta Federal Prison, to more accessible Leavenworth, Kansas, and arranging for a quick parole in 1947.<br />
<br />
Campagna maintained a home in Berwyn, Illinois, just west of Cicero, and also had a palatial estate in Benton Harbor, Michigan.<br />
<br />
In spring of 1955, Campagna and his wife vacationed in the Bahamas. The returned to the U.S. by plane on May 16, landing in Miami. Two weeks later, Campagna went on a fishing trip in the waters off Miami. He reportedly suffered a heart attack on the fishing boat. He was pronounced dead at Miami.<br />
<br />
Campagna's Benton Harbor estate was purchased several months later by the Seventh Day Adventist Church for use as a sanatorium.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ch.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Chicago Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us</span></a></li>
</ul>
<u><br /></u>
<u>Sources:</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Cook County Illinois Birth Certificates Index.</li>
<li> Florida Death Index.</li>
<li> New York City Birth Records</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of aircraft N1080M, Chalk's Airline, departed Bimini, Bahamas, arrived Miami, Fl., 5:25 p.m., May 16, 1955.</li>
<li> Roberts, S.A. John W. Jr., "La Cosa Nostra, Chicago Division," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-677, NARA no. 124-10287-10243, July 16, 1964, p. 5.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1930, Illinois, Cook County, City of Berwyn, Enumeration District 16-1988.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1940, Illinois, Cook County, City of Berwyn, Ward 3, Enumeration District 16-15.</li>
<li> Yost, Newton E., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-683, NARA no. 124-10208-10406, July 22, 1964, p. 18.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> "Capone 'enforcer' shot by detective," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 20, 1932, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Gang leader Nitti kills himself in Chicago after indictment here," <i>New York Times</i>, March 20, 1943, p. 30.</li>
<li> "Louis Campagna, notorious Capone gangster, dies," <i>St. Louis Post-Dispatch</i>, May 31, 1955, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Adventists buy estate of gangster," <i>Dixon IL Evening Telegraph,</i> Aug. 26, 1955, p. 6.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-12127807350545861562016-09-20T12:09:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:51:19.863-04:00Battaglia, Salvatore (1908-1973)b. Illinois, Nov. 4, 1908.<br />
d. Chicago, IL, Sept. 7, 1973.<br />
<br />
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Known as "Sam" or "Teets," Battaglia was an important figure in the post-Capone Chicago Outfit and appears to have served as a short-term acting boss of the organization.<br />
<br />
Battaglia first earned notice in October 1930, when he was involved in holding up the wife of Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson. Mrs. Thompson was driven home by a police officer. As she reached her apartment building and stepped from the automobile, gunmen relieved her of an estimated $15,500 in jewelry.<br />
<br />
In the late 1950s, Battaglia was again in the news for refusing to answer questions put to him by the U.S. Senate's McClellan Committee. In August, 1958, he was one of thirteen men cited by a unanimous Senate for contempt of Congress.<br />
<br />
Battaglia was a top lieutenant in the regime of Sam Giancana in the early 1960s. When Giancana was imprisoned for contempt of court in 1965 and departed the U.S. for Mexico the following year, Battaglia served as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit.<br />
<br />
By 1966, Battaglia faced his own problems with law enforcement. He was convicted in spring 1967 of extorting money from a construction company. "Teets" claimed he was framed. He was sentenced to 15 years.<br />
<br />
In prison, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was paroled in late August 1973 from the medical center for federal prisoners at Springfield, Missouri. Eleven days later, he died.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ch.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Chicago Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us</span></a> </li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-18566168954142004382016-09-17T10:15:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:53:18.379-04:00Morelli, Frank (1896-1965)b. Providence, RI, Feb. 21, 1896.<br />
d. Providence, RI, Aug. 10, 1965.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E37eKBdnrpg/V91ODKtQiOI/AAAAAAAAHVs/_NUSQZAQcFYJBYJpV53vD7HZgD2ryKJ4gCLcB/s1600/morelli-frank-ri.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E37eKBdnrpg/V91ODKtQiOI/AAAAAAAAHVs/_NUSQZAQcFYJBYJpV53vD7HZgD2ryKJ4gCLcB/s1600/morelli-frank-ri.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Butsey, c. 1920.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Frank "Butsey" Morelli was an early leader of Italian organized crime in Rhode Island, mentoring a number of later Mafiosi, including Raymond Patriarca and Henry Tameleo. Morelli and some of his brothers long have been suspected of involvement in the April 1920 South Braintree, Massachusetts, robbery-murders for which Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in August 1927.<br />
<br />
Historians attempting to pinpoint Morelli's birth and death dates have been misled by statements made by former New England mobster Vincent Teresa in his autobiographical book, My Life in the Mafia. Teresa indicated that Morelli was born in Brooklyn and moved with his family to Rhode Island around the time of World War I. Teresa stated that Morelli was nearing a death from cancer a few years after the conclusion of the Kefauver Committee hearings in 1951. Efforts to correct these errors have been hindered by the fact that Frank Morelli had a different name at the time of his birth.<br />
<br />
Morelli was born Adolfo Molarelli to parents Gennaro "John" and Filomena "Fanny" Caruolo Molarelli in Providence in 1896. He was the last of five boys born to the couple. <br />
<br />
The Molarelli family had spent about five years in New York, and one of Frank's brothers (Ferdinand "Fred") was born there before the clan relocated to Rhode Island. The Molarelli family, originally from Italy (probably the area of Foggia), moved to southern France following the birth of their first son in February 1881. This son was called "Stazio," generally a nickname for Anastasio, Eustacio and similar names, but became "Joe" when the family reached the U.S. Two more boys - Nicolo "Mike" and Pasquale "Patsy" - were born in France.<br />
<br />
The family name gradually changed in Rhode Island from Molarelli to Morelli. Frank appears to have discarded his given name of Adolfo in the 1930s, as Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany.<br />
<br />
The Morelli boys grew up in a congested North End Italian neighborhood along Ledge Street, Charles Street and Marietta Street (much of the area population is of Italian descent today). Joe Morelli became leader of a burglary gang that included his brothers and a number of other young men from the neighborhood, including Joseph "Gyp the Blood" Imondi, Anthony Mancini and Albert "Bibba" Barone. <br />
<br />
Gennaro's death in 1918 coincided with the start of his sons' trouble with the law. Joe, Fred and Patsy were arrested for stealing shipments of shoes from freight trains in 1919. The reported holdup of a payroll truck resulted in additional arrests the same year. Mike Morelli left Providence about this time to become a resident of New Bedford, Massachusetts.<br />
<br />
Filomena Morelli appears to have been placed in the city-run Dexter Asylum by 1920. The asylum cared for elderly, poor and mentally ill residents.<br />
<br />
Fred Morelli and Bibba Barone reportedly were behind bars in April of 1920, but other members of the gang were free on bail pending trial, when shoe factory paymaster Frederick Parmenter and guard Alessandro Berardelli were shot to death in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Some authorities believed the Morelli gang to be responsible, but law enforcement eventually focused its attention on two other men - Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti - linked with a violent gang of political radicals responsible for a series of bombings.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y0WD_OuT_4k/V91ORsITMEI/AAAAAAAAHVw/36xP3onWQ6873NEGzSUQQsUNVgby2a52wCLcB/s1600/morelli-joseph-ne.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y0WD_OuT_4k/V91ORsITMEI/AAAAAAAAHVw/36xP3onWQ6873NEGzSUQQsUNVgby2a52wCLcB/s1600/morelli-joseph-ne.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Joe Morelli</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Because the Morelli gang was charged with robbing railroad cars, they faced trial in federal court. Joe, Frank, Fred and Patsy Morelli and Bibba Barone were convicted in June 1920. All were sent to Atlanta Federal Prison. Gang leader Joe Morelli received the longest sentence, 12 years. Much of the rest of his life was spent in federal prisons due to several other convictions. He died of cancer in August 1950, after penning his memoirs.<br />
<br />
Prison correspondence revealed that Frank Morelli had connections in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Troy, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Jersey City, New Jersey; Montreal, Canada; and Havana, Cuba. Morelli was released from Atlanta in February of 1924, as Prohibition Era bootleggers were organizing into cartels. <br />
<br />
While establishing himself as leader of the Providence underworld, Morelli was involved in some violent incidents. Just months after his release, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. In the following year, he was the victim of a stabbing. In 1931, authorities suspected but could not prove that Morelli was involved in the house-bombing of a Providence gambling racketeer. Morelli soon became known as leader of gambling rackets in the region and moved himself and his wife into a new home at 315 Mount Pleasant Avenue in western Providence.<br />
<br />
As Frank immersed himself in the rackets, brother Patsy appears to have taken over control of the robbery gang.<br />
<br />
The post-Castellammarese War Mafia reorganization recognized Rhode Island as a territory of the New England crime family. At the time, the organization was dominated by bosses from the Boston area, but Morelli remained the recognized leader in Providence.<br />
<br />
At the conclusion of Prohibition, Mafiosi invested in gambling rackets and sought to expand their territories to tourist areas in Florida. Morelli participated in these endeavors. He was arrested on suspicion in Miami Beach, Florida, in the fall of 1936. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Butsey, c.1947</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A decade later, as Raymond Patriarca returned to Providence after a term in Massachusetts' Charlestown State Prison, Morelli began turning control of the rackets over to Patriarca. Patriarca soon would rise to command the regional crime family. Around 1947, Morelli is believed to have retired from the day-to-day racket operations, but that year saw him involved twice with big-name mobsters.<br />
<br />
In early February 1947, he traveled to Havana, Cuba, with New York-based Mafiosi Philip Lombardo and Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno. The trip was made during Charles "Lucky" Luciano's brief stay in Havana. In early November, authorities suspected Morelli of providing a hideout for the wife and father-in-law of New York Mafioso "Trigger Mike" Coppola. The two were wanted as material witnesses to the 1946 murder of East Harlem politician Joseph Scottoriggio.<br />
<br />
Law enforcement investigations of gambling in the Providence area in the 1950s continued to turn up evidence of Morelli involvement, though Morelli was by then under treatment for cancer of his jaw and throat. Mobster Vincent Teresa later recalled that Morelli had surgery to remove a portion of his jaw.<br />
<br />
Through the early 1960s, the FBI considered Morelli to be one of the decision-makers in the New England regional Mafia.<br />
<br />
Morelli died in 1965 at the age of 69, following a return of his cancer. No notice of his death was published in the press. He was quickly and quietly buried at St. Ann's Cemetery in Cranston, Rhode Island.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ne.html"><span style="color: #990000;">New England Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us </span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources </u><br />
Documents and books:
<br />
<ul>
<li> Air Passenger Manifest of Pan American NC-88893, trip no. 424, departed Havana, Cuba, arrived Miami, Florida, on Feb. 9, 1947.</li>
<li> Certificate of Death, Rhode Island State Archives, Town or City no. 2146, State File no. 6127, Aug. 10, 1965. </li>
<li> Ehrmann, Herbert B., <i>The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang</i>, New York: The Vanguard Press, 1933.</li>
<li> Frank Morelli prisoner file, no. 11332, Atlanta Federal Prison, National Archives and Records Administration.</li>
<li> Joseph Morelli prisoner file, no. 11330, Atlanta Federal Prison, National Archives and Records Administration.</li>
<li> Kehoe, S.A. John F. Jr., "The criminal commission, et al, Boston Field Division," FBI report BS 92-6054-136, Dec. 21, 1962, p. 3.</li>
<li> Morelli, Joseph, "Introduceing the Most Famous Case in the World: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang," Small Manuscript Collection, Harvard Law School Library.</li>
<li> New York City birth records, certificate no. 10569, March 1, 1894.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Suevia</i>, arrived New York City on June 1, 1891.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1934</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1934, p. 664.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1937</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1937, p. 798.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1938</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1938, p. 798.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1941</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1941, p. 530.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1942</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1942, p. 566.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1943</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1943, p. 562.</li>
<li><i> Polk's Providence City Directory, Vol. 1945</i>, Providence: R.L. Polk & Co., 1945, p. 480.</li>
<li> Rhode Island Birth Records, Feb. 21, 1896.</li>
<li> Rhode Island death records, Feb. 7, 1918.</li>
<li> Rhode Island State Census of 1915, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 3, Congressional District 3, Representative District 5, Enumeration District 267.</li>
<li> Rhode Island State Census of 1935, Providence, no. 351191.</li>
<li> Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 035-24-4165, Sep. 7, 1965.</li>
<li> Teresa, Vincent, with Thomas C. Renner, <i>My Life in the Mafia</i>, Garden City NY: Doubleday & Company, 1973.</li>
<li><i> The Providence Directory</i>, Providence: Sampson & Murdock Company, 1905, p. 507.</li>
<li><i> The Providence Directory</i>, Providence: Sampson & Murdock Company, 1918, p. 548.</li>
<li><i> The Providence House Directory</i>, Providence: Sampson, Murdock & Co., 1896, p. 471.</li>
<li><i> The Providence House Directory and Family Address Book, No. 8, 1899</i>, Providence RI: Sampson, Murdock, & Co., 1899, p. 330, 571.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1900, Rhode Island, Providence County, Ward 3, Enumeration District 30.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1910, Rhode Island, Providence County, Ward 3, Enumeration District 180.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1920, Rhode Island, Providence County, Ward 2, Enumeration District 188.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1940, Rhode Island, Providence County, Ward 5, Enumeration District 80.</li>
<li> World War I draft registration card, No. 429, Ward 3, Precinct 6, Providence RI.</li>
<li> World War I draft registration card, No. 432, Ward 3, Precinct 6, Providence RI.</li>
<li> World War I draft registration card, No. 2983, No. 563, Boston MA, June 4, 1917.</li>
<li> World War II draft registration card, serial no. U-1116.</li>
</ul>
Periodicals (by date):
<br />
<ul>
<li> "Joseph Morelli takes stand in own defense," <i>Boston Globe</i>, May 21, 1920, p. 12.</li>
<li> "Sacco-Vanzetti motion heard," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Sept. 13, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Madeiros' confession read in court today," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Sept. 14, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Morelli denies he did So. Braintree shooting," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Sept. 15, 1926, p. 32.</li>
<li> "Says make of murder car has significance," <i>Boston Daily Globe</i>, Sept. 16, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Concludes argument against new Sacco trial," <i>Boston Daily Globe</i>, Sept. 17, 1926, p. 16.</li>
<li> "Sacco, Vanzetti denied new trial," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Oct. 24, 1926, p. B1.</li>
<li> "New trial denied to Sacco, Vanzetti; appeal to be made," <i>New York Times</i>, Oct. 24, 1926, p. 1.</li>
<li> Frankfurter, Felix, "The portentous case of Sacco and Vanzetti," <i>St. Louis MO Post-Dispatch</i> (originally published in <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>), April 13, 1927, p. 23.</li>
<li> "Report of Governor's Advisory Committee in Sacco-Vanzetti Case," <i>North Adams MA Transcript</i>, Aug. 8, 1927, p. 16.</li>
<li> "Morelli gang under arrest," <i>Boston Globe,</i> April 25, 1928, p. 11.</li>
<li> "Joseph Morelli takes poor debtor's oath," <i>Boston Daily Globe</i>, Sept. 26, 1928, p. 12.</li>
<li> "War on gang in Providence," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Dec. 10, 1931, p. 12.</li>
<li> Keegan, William J., and Jay Nelson Tuck, "Scottoriggio perjury indictments awaited as one jury ends probe," <i>New York Post,</i> Nov. 6, 1947, p. 5.</li>
<li> "Nationally backed three-city gambling ring thrives in New England," <i>Detroit Free Press</i> (originally published in <i>Providence Journal-Bulletin</i>), May 4, 1950, p. 4.</li>
<li> "Phones removed after 'booking' charged by paper," <i>Berkshire (Pittsfield MA) Eagle</i>, May 4, 1950, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Sacco case figure dies," <i>New York Times</i>, Aug. 28, 1950, p. 11.</li>
<li> Murphy, Jeremiah V., "Underworld chief? 'Prove it,' he says," <i>Boston Globe</i>, Feb. 26, 1967, p. 13.</li>
<li> "Patriarca is released in $25,000 bail; arrested for first time in 20 years," <i>Nashua NH Telegraph</i>, June 22, 1967, p. 20.</li>
<li> Krupa, Gregg, "Patriarca," <i>Providence Journal,</i> Sept. 6, 1987, p. Mag-6.</li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-10617812039218900162016-08-24T09:26:00.000-04:002019-03-28T05:55:55.021-04:00Messina, Gaspare (1879-1957)Born Salemi, Sicily, Aug. 7, 1879.<br />
Died June 15, 1957.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Messina</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Gaspare Messina was one of just two men known to have served as temporary boss of bosses of the American Mafia. He is also distinguished among Mafia leaders by his lack of arrests and apparent competence as a legitimate businessman.<br />
<br />
Messina was born August 7, 1879, to Luciano and Gasparina Clemente Messina in the inland western Sicilian town of Salemi, province of Trapani. (The name of Gaspare's father was initially assumed to be Salvatore - the name later given to Gaspare's first-born son. Family historians have since indicated that Gaspare's father was actually Luciano. Breaking with Sicilian tradition, Gaspare's second son was given the name Luciano.) Gaspare moved to the United States when he was twenty-six, shortly after his marriage to Francesca Riggio, twenty-five. The couple sailed from Palermo on Nov. 10, 1905, aboard the <i>S.S. Citta di Napoli</i> and arrived in New York City on Nov. 25. They went to meet Messina's cousin, Francesco Accardi, at 715 Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn.<br />
<br />
The Messinas settled in Brooklyn for a time, where Gaspare ran a bakery. They resided at 143 Throop Street, near Flushing Avenue, with two of Francesca's siblings at the time of the 1910 U.S. Census. They remained in the borough through the births of two sons, Salvatore Joseph on Jan. 1, 1911, and Luciano on Jan. 31, 1913. In 1915, the family relocated to Boston. Son Vito Anthony was born in that city on April 27, 1915. Daughter Gasparina Francesca was born there about two years later, on May 4, 1917. The family home was located at 330 North Street, in an Italian immigrant community close to the North End Boston wharves. Almost immediately upon his arrival, Messina was recognized as an underworld authority in his new city, suggesting he was backed by important people.<br />
<br />
Mafioso Nick Gentile noted in his memoirs that reigning boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila inserted loyal men into Mafia organizations around the country as spies. It is possible that Messina's move to Boston was initiated by D'Aquila. Law enforcement learned by 1919 that Messina was regarded as "rappresentante" of the Boston Mafia. The term "rappresentante" has become synonymous with "boss," but it may have held a different meaning at the time. The Italian word translates to "representative," which does not suggest "boss." The position may have been related to regional and national councils of Mafiosi, as discussed by Gentile. If so, we are left to wonder whether Messina was a representative from the Boston area to a greater council or a representative from a council seeking to impose order on the Boston-area underworld.<br />
<br />
Messina initially ran a bakery business across the street from his Boston home. With the arrival of the Prohibition Era, he launched a wholesale grocery at the North End's 28 1/2 Prince Street, across from the massive St. Leonard's Roman Catholic Church. His partners in that business were Paolo Pagnotta and Frank Cucchiara.<br />
<br />
Pagnotta quickly disappeared from the partnership following an unfortunate arrest-related appearance in the local newspapers. On Feb. 17, 1925, Boston Police investigated a report of a gunshot-damaged automobile at the Court Garage on Arlington Street. Two officers waited at the garage for the vehicle owner to show up. After a short time, they encountered and arrested Pagnotta, 50, of 462 Saratoga Street; Filippo Arrigo, 47, of 119 Hemenway Street; Jerry Longobardi, 35, of Fleet Street; and Frank Ferra, 28, of Fleet Street. None of the men could adequately explain the damage to the car. Pagnotta and Arrigo said they were not even present when the damage occurred. Longobardi claimed that occupants of a passing vehicle shot at them without provocation. Longobardi and Ferra were found to have handguns. They were charged with carrying concealed weapons. (Pagnotta may have been related to Rocco Pagnotta of East Boston. Rocco was a suspect in the murder of Francesco Mondello in the summer of 1908. Rocco died in October of 1926.)<br />
<br />
Cucchiara, who like Messina was originally from Salemi, continued on in the wholesale business for some time. He later became owner of a cheese company in the North End. Police suspected Cucchiara of involvement in gangland murders late in 1931, and Cucchiara would later be identified as the only New England Mafioso known to have been in attendance at the 1957 convention in Apalachin, New York. (In January of 1976, Cucchiara, then seventy-nine, and his sixty-nine-year-old wife were found dead of gunshot wounds in their Belmont, MA, apartment. Cucchiara's wound appeared to be self-inflicted.)<br />
<br />
The wholesale food business apparently paid well. In August 1924, Gaspare Messina took a trip to Italy. He returned Dec. 2 aboard the <i>S.S. Patria</i> with four hundred dollars in his pockets. (With him on this return voyage was Antonino Passannanti, who years earlier had been suspected of involvement in the assassination of New York Police Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino.) The following year, the Messinas moved across the Charles River to a home at 49 Pennsylvania Avenue in Somerville. By the summer of 1927, Messina also had another address. He had a New York City home at 346 East 21st Street. It was while living at that address that he filed his petition for citizenship with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 4, 1930.<br />
<br />
The move out of Boston to Somerville coincided with a move by boss of bosses D'Aquila from Brooklyn, New York, to the Bronx. D'Aquila had been waging a losing war against Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria and his Morello-Terranova allies since the early 1920s, and his Bronx move had the look of a retreat. In Boston, Messina had shown some independence from D'Aquila during the period, as he treated warmly visiting anti-D'Aquila Mafioso Nick Gentile. Messina's independence may have won him admiration and a measure of security. Shortly after Messina's return to New York, on Oct. 10, 1928, D'Aquila was shot to death on a Manhattan street less than half a mile from the Messina residence.<br />
<br />
War again erupted for the Sicilian underworld society in 1930, as Castellammarese Mafiosi across the country joined with former D'Aquila followers to oppose the rule of new boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria. As Mafia leaders struggled to find a diplomatic solution to the trouble, Masseria stepped down from his post and Gaspare Messina was selected temporary boss of bosses - apparently in recognition of his even-handedness. Messina organized a large convention at Boston in December 1930 but was unable to resolve the difficulties. The Castellammarese War concluded with Masseria's assassination on April 15, 1931.<br />
<br />
As Prohibition drew to a close, Messina set aside his apparently lucrative food wholesaling business and became president of Neptune Oil Corporation, based at T Wharf in Boston. The Messina family returned to its Somerville home.<br />
<br />
Messina's wife Francesca died June 22, 1947, in Somerville. Years later, the seventy-three-year-old former Mafia boss traveled back to Sicily for a visit of several months. He sailed from New York on Aug. 9, 1952, aboard the <i>S.S. Conte Biancamino</i>. He returned on the <i>S.S. Saturnia</i> on Dec. 10. (A family historian has suggested that this trip was made not by the subject but by another man with the same name. We note for the record that the traveler had the same name, same age and same U.S. hometown as the subject.)<br />
<br />
Messina died in Somerville five months before the ill-fated Apalachin convention.<br />
<br />
<u>See also</u>:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-ne.html"><span style="color: #990000;">New England Crime Bosses - Mafiahistory.us</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://mafiahistory.us/maf-b-bb.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Boss of Bosses - Mafiahistory.us. </span></a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Sources:</u><br />
<ul>
<li> Boston City Directory, 1919, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1941, 1942.</li>
<li> Certificate of Arrival, 2-39510, March 7, 1930, Bureau of Naturalization.</li>
<li> Declaration of Intention, filed U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, Sept. 15, 1916.</li>
<li> Flynn, James P., "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report no. 92-914-58, NARA no. 124-10337-10014, July 1, 1963.</li>
<li> List of In-Bound Passengers, <i>S.S. Saturnia,</i> departed Palermo on Nov. 29, 1952, arrived New York City on Dec. 10, 1952.</li>
<li> List of Outward-Bound Passengers, <i>S.S. Conte Bianamano,</i> departed New York City on Aug. 9, 1952, bound for Palermo, Sicily.</li>
<li> Massachusetts Vital Records, Index to Deaths 1946-1950 Kettles-Mulvehill, Volume 109, Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Health.</li>
<li> Massachusetts Vital Records, Index to Deaths 1956-1960 Kimel-Morandis, Volume 121, Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Health.</li>
<li>Messina, Michael, Letter to Thomas Hunt, Oct. 21, 2017.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Citta di Napoli</i> arrived New York City Nov. 25, 1905.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Patria </i>departed Palermo on Nov. 20, 1924, arrived New York City on Dec. 2, 1924.</li>
<li> Petition for Citizenship, no. 167233, filed U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York on April 4, 1930.</li>
<li> SAC Boston, "La Cosa Nostra AR-Conspiracy," FBI Memorandum, file no. 92-6054-2516, NARA no. 124-10302-10009, Feb. 19, 1969.</li>
<li> Somerville MA City Directory, 1927, 1939.</li>
<li> Somerville City Directory, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929-1930, 1934, 1940.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1910, New York State, Kings County, Ward 21, Enumeration District 504.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1920, Massachusetts, Suffolk County, City of Boston, Precinct 1, Ward 5.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1930, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, City of Somerville, Ward 1, Enumeration District 9-410.</li>
<li> World War I Draft Registration, Sept. 12, 1918, Boston, MA.</li>
<li> World War II Draft Registration, serial no. U-728.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> "Seize four in garage on Arlington St," <i>Boston Daily Globe</i>, Feb. 17, 1925, p. 14.</li>
<li> "Three slay man in street and flee," <i>New York Times</i>, Oct. 11, 1928.</li>
<li> "Racket chief slain by gangster gunfire," <i>New York Times</i>, April 16, 1931, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Police mystified in slaying of 'Boss,'" <i>New York Times</i>, April 17, 1931, p. 17.</li>
<li> Bonanno, Joseph, with Sergio Lalli, <i>A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno</i>, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983</li>
<li> Gentile, Nick, <i>Vita di Capomafia</i>, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963.</li>
<li> Valachi, Joseph, The Real Thing - Second Government: The Expose and Inside Doings of Cosa Nostra, unpublished manuscript, Joseph Valachi Personal Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 1964.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-64208750786706532002016-03-30T12:00:00.000-04:002016-03-30T12:00:54.259-04:00LePore, Vincenzo (1899-1931)Born Abruzzo region, Italy, 1899.<br />
Killed Bronx NY, Sept. 10, 1931.<br />
<br />
Vincenzo "Jimmy Marino" LePore was one of a small number of Salvatore Maranzano loyalists murdered following Maranzano's Sept. 10, 1931, assassination. His killing helped to give life to the "Night of Sicilian Vespers" legend in the U.S. Mafia.<br />
<br />
Vincenzo LePore was the third child (second son) born to Alphonse and Crescenza D'Altri LePore, residents of the Abruzzo region of Italy. In the early 1900s, the family emigrated from Italy to the U.S. Six-year-old Vincenzo crossed the Atlantic in October of 1905 with his mother, his grandmother Filomena Fadrianni D'Altri, his brothers Raffaele and Ettore, and his sisters Filomena, Carmela and Giovanna. The family settled initially on Carmine Street in Manhattan, but soon moved to Washington Avenue in the Bronx.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>New York Times</i></td></tr>
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The Great Depression appears not to have severely impacted Vincenzo LePore's finances. The 1930 U.S. Census found the 31-year-old living with his wife, three children and his wife's uncle in a $6,000 home he owned on Barker Avenue in the Bronx. At the time, LePore is believed to have been a Mafioso associated with the organization run by Salvatore Maranzano. He soon moved his family into a large apartment at 1518 St. Peter's Avenue in the Bronx.<br />
<br />
The Castellammarese War was under way in New York City at that time, and the Sicilian-Italian underworld was in a state of chaos. LePore was reputed to be a "muscle man" and racketeer in the Bronx, where the murders of several important Mafia leaders left organization hierarchies in shambles.<br />
<br />
LePore may have been connected with a bootlegging scheme to create palatable whiskey by steeping shavings from the inside of old liquor barrels in alcohol. Newspaper accounts from June 1930 name a "John Lepore" as one of the 136 individuals and businesses accused of participating in that racket. Vincenzo LePore was known to be engaged in bootlegging, and the local press called him "the boss of the grape racket around the Webster Avenue yards of the New York Central Railroad." This was a reference to the sale of grape concentrate - known as "wine bricks" - used in winemaking.<br />
<br />
Just two hours after Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in his Manhattan offices, Vincenzo LePore was gunned down in the Bronx. (Other Maranzano supporters were murdered in New Jersey and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Additional Mafiosi were targeted in the Bronx. Years later, the deaths - greatly magnified in number - became the basis for a legendary "Purge" orchestrated by Charlie Luciano. There is no evidence to link Luciano to the killings and every reason to believe that individual Mafiosi took advantage of the elimination of Maranzano to act against rivals who had been supported by Maranzano.)<br />
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LePore had taken his two young daughters - ages 4 and 6 - to have their hair cut. He picked them up at his mother-in-law's home, 540 East 187th Street, and drove them to an Arthur Avenue barbershop. LePore was standing in the shop's doorway, complaining about the late summer heat, when he was struck in the head and chest by six bullets. He died at the scene. Some witnesses stated that LePore was shot by gunmen passing by in an automobile. Others said an auto stopped nearby, a gunmen emerged, walked up to LePore and shot him, and then returned to the auto.<br />
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When police went to LePore's home, they discovered a revolver, a rifle and a single-barreled shotgun, all loaded, in the apartment.<br />
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LePore was buried at St. Raymond's Old Cemetery in the Bronx. His surviving family moved from St. Peter's Avenue. By 1935, they resided in a Bathgate Avenue apartment.<br />
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<u>Sources:</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Molloy, James T., "Crime conditions in the New York Division," FBI report, file no. 62-9-34-811, NARA record no. 124-10348-10069, Nov. 27, 1963, p. 4.</li>
<li> Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, U.S. Senate, 88th Congress, 1st Session, Part 1, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968, p. 232-233.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of <i>S.S. Citta di Napoli,</i> departed Naples on Sept. 21, 1905, arrived New York on Oct. 6, 1905.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1910, New York State, New York County, Ward 9, Enumeration District 134.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1920, New York State, Bronx County, Assembly District 7, Enumeration District 407.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1930, New York State, Bronx County, Assembly District 6, Enumeration District 3-506.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1940, New York State, Bronx County, Assembly District 7, Enumeration District 3-1126.</li>
<li> "La Cosa Nostra," FBI report no. 92-6054-740, NARA record no. 124-10205-10471, Aug. 21, 1964, p. 75.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Maas, Peter, <i>The Valachi Papers</i>, New York: Putnam, 1968, p. 116.</li>
<li> Perlmutter, Emanuel, "Informer tells more," <i>New York Times</i>, Oct. 3, 1963, p. 1.</li>
<li> Valachi, Joseph, The Real Thing, Second Government: The Expose and Inside Doings of Cosa Nostra, unpublished manuscript, 1964, Joseph Valachi Personal Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, p. 365-366.</li>
<li> "Rum shavings ring pays $14,800 fines," <i>New York Times,</i> June 5, 1930, p. 12.</li>
<li> "Baccus bottle case last in rum chip drive," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, June 5, 1930, p. 3.</li>
<li> "Silent on killing, 6 witnesses seized," <i>New York Times</i>, Sept. 11, 1931, p. 2.</li>
<li> "Four witnesses indicted," <i>New York Times</i>, Sept. 12, 1931, p. 4.</li>
<li> "James Le Pore," Find A Grave, findagrave.com (accessed March 25, 2016).</li>
</ul>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-90606216924453229522016-03-06T12:42:00.000-05:002016-03-06T18:09:07.970-05:00Alo, Vincent (1904-2001)Born New York City, May 26, 1904.<br />
Died Florida, March 9, 2001.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Vincent Alo</i></td></tr>
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Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo was a key figure in the post-Prohibition Genovese Crime Family and a liaison between the Sicilian-Italian Mafia and the organization of Meyer Lansky. His career was the inspiration for a number of fictional underworld characters, most notably "Johnny Ola" of The Godfather Part II movie.<br />
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Alo was born in 1904 in East Harlem to Salvatore and Giulia (or Julia) Scalzo Alo, immigrants from Cosenza, Italy. Salvatore worked as a tailor in a clothing factory. Vincent Alo had an older sister, Elizabeth, and two younger brothers, Frank and Joseph. (Two other sisters show up in census records for 1905 and 1910, but they are missing from later censuses, suggesting they did not live long into childhood.) In the early 1910s, the Alo family moved to Hoffman Street near Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.<br />
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Alo left school and went to work as a clerk for a Wall Street company after just a single year of high school. Reportedly frustrated by the clerical work, in the early 1920s Alo began participating in robberies.<br />
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In October of 1923, he was caught by police following a jewelry store robbery. He was charged with second degree robbery and possession of a firearm. A conviction the following month resulted in a sentence of five to twelve years in prison. Inside Great Meadow State Prison in Washington County, New York, Alo did further work as a clerk.<br />
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Following his release, "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo became connected with Mafiosi engaged in rackets in the Bronx. This apparently provided him a measure of protection from prosecution. Alo was arrested in March 1932, once again for robbery and firearm possession, but managed to be discharged the following day. During the 1930s, he and his underworld colleagues were affiliated with the organization run by Charlie Luciano. Alo was believed to be among the leaders of a policy (lottery) ring operating in Bronx and Westchester Counties of New York in the mid-1930s.<br />
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In this period, Alo and his associates established gambling operations in eastern Florida. The FBI noted that Alo was one of the partners in the Plantation Casino in Broward County, Florida, in 1936. Other partners included Julian "Potatoes" Kaufman, Giuseppe "Joe Adonis" Doto and Jake Lansky, brother of Meyer Lansky. Alo rented a home on Dewey Street in Hollywood, Florida, which became his winter racket headquarters.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Meyer Lansky</i></td></tr>
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Alo took a bride in August 1936. His wife, Florence Rose Gelinas Miller, was previously married and was the mother of two sons. Alo, his new wife and two stepsons, lived together on Holland Avenue in the Bronx and Dewey Street in Hollywood, Florida. While in Florida, Alo developed a love of the sport of golf.<br />
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The FBI learned that Alo became a partner in The Farm casino in Broward County by late 1939 and that in that winter he hosted a gathering at his Florida home attended by organizers from the International Longshoremen's Association in New York.<br />
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In the next decade, the FBI was told that "Jimmy Blue Eyes" had become a top Harlem lieutenant in the crime family then commanded by Frank Costello. Alo's home addresses changed. In New York, he moved into an apartment building at 315 Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In Florida, he moved to 1228 Monroe Avenue near Hollywood Lakes and Hollywood Beach.<br />
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His Florida business interests expanded to include a partnership with Meyer and Jake Lansky in the Club Greenacres casino in Hollywood; a seven-and-a-half percent interest in the Colonial Inn casino in Hollywood; and a share of the Ha-Ha Club in Hallandale. Alo was believed to be a stand-in for Joe Adonis in Florida. The Colonial Inn was a substantial underworld endeavor, involving Meyer and Jake Lansky, Frank Costello friend Frank Erickson, Joe Adonis and Richard Melvin. Alo was also alleged to be a partner with Frank Erickson in a horse race bookmaking racket operated out of the Hollywood Beach Hotel. Alo was one of a number of underworld figures who frequently visited the Wofford Hotel in Miami Beach. Other regular guests were Adonis, Costello, the Lanskys, Clevelanders George "King" Angersola and Alfred "Big Al" Polizzi, New Jersey racketeers Abner "Longie" Zwillman and Guarino "Willie Moore" Moretti, Youngstown Ohio gambling boss Joseph DiCarlo, and Detroit gambler William "Lefty Clark" Bischoff.<br />
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The FBI was told that the Ha-Ha Club in Hallandale was "a night club which catered to sex perverts." Later in the 1940s, perhaps after Alo ended his financial relationship with it, the club was targeted by local law enforcement. County officials shut the business down in 1947, stating that "its cast is composed of men who impersonate women and that its performances are conducted in a suggestive, indecent and obscene manner." The ownership of the Ha-Ha Club at that time was said to be Federal Amusement Company and Charles "Babe" Baker. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the closing of the club for conducting "lewd, indecent or nasty" performances and noted "the lawful evidence presents a dirty picture."<br />
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In the post-World War II years, Alo worked alongside Meyer Lansky in setting up gambling operations in Havana, Cuba. Alo was noted in immigration records returning with his wife from a brief trip to Cuba in April of 1946.<br />
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Alo was arrested for vagrancy by New York Police in August 1947. The vagrancy charge was baseless but it allowed the police to question Alo about his underworld relationships and about the Jan. 8 murder of waterfront labor leader Anthony Hintz. Alo admitted knowing Frank Costello, Joe Adonis and Meyer Lansky. When presented with a list of names of suspects in the Hintz murder, Alo admitted not only knowing them but also seeing them in Florida shortly before the murder was committed. He claimed not to have any awareness of the murder plot, telling investigators, "If they wanted to kill someone, that's their business."<br />
<br />
Federal agents determined that Alo was part of an "Eastern Criminal Syndicate," including Costello, Erickson, Adonis and the Lanskys, that in 1949 operated the plush Hallandale Beach casino known as Club Boheme. The same group was said to have run the Club Greenacres and the recently closed Colonial Inn. In May of 1950, records seized from the New York City offices of Frank Erickson defined his business relationships with alleged Syndicate members, as well as Mert Wertheimer and others in Broward County, Florida.<br />
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The discovery was made just in advance of hearings before the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee. In July, Daniel P. Sullivan, operating director of the Crime Commission of Greater Miami, testified before the Kefauver panel. He detailed the underworld gambling operations in Broward, Palm Beach and Dade Counties. According to Sullivan, the Colonial Inn gambling partnership included the Lanskys, Alo, Adonis, Erickson, Bert Briggs, Claude Litteral and Samuel L. Bratt. Originally, the group included Detroit gamblers led by Mert Wertheimer, Reubin Mathews and Danny Sullivan, but the Detroit interest was bought out by New Yorkers after 1946.<br />
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Following Kefauver hearings into Florida gambling rackets, Florida Governor Fuller Warren became involved in the fight against the rackets. Warren removed a local sheriff for accepting bribes and ordered an investigation of law enforcement corruption at Daytona Beach. Grand juries were formed to investigate the Florida rackets. These issued indictments against Alo, the Lanskys, Bischoff, Litteral, Bratt, George Sadlow, Frank Shireman and others for their roles in the running of Colonial Inn, Club Greenacres and Club Boheme.<br />
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On Sept. 16, 1950, Alo and nine other accused gambling racketeers appeared in criminal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They all entered guilty pleas to the gambling charges. They were sentenced to pay cash fines. Alo, Bischoff, Louis Oliver and T.E. Alexander were fined $1,000 each. Jake and Meyer Lansky, Bratt and Sadlow were fined $2,000 each. Litteral and Shireman were fined $3,000 each.<br />
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New York Police began a harassment campaign against known hoodlums in 1957. Alo was rounded up with more than 150 other reputed racketeers. Most were charged with vagrancy. Alo was held for questioning for several days. It probably was not a coincidence that Alo afterward began spending much more of his time in Florida. He gave up his Riverside Drive apartment, but maintained a presence in Manhattan by renting rooms at 19 West 55th Street.<br />
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FBI reports in 1958 suggested that Jake Lansky represented the financial interests of "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo and Meyer Lansky in the operation of the gambling casino at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba. Those interests, along with other investments by American racketeers in Cuban gambling enterprises, were lost following the Castro revolution. The hotel-casinos of the Havana area were nationalized by Castro in 1960.<br />
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A police raid in September 1963 turned up records of a Bronx loan shark racket apparently financed by Vincent Alo. Bronx District Attorney Isidore Dollinger brought evidence to a grand jury that Alo, a top lieutenant of crime boss Vito Genovese, backed the enterprise. According to Dollinger, the racketeers lent an estimated $4 million a year, preying on indebted gamblers and charging interest rates as high as 156 percent. Alo's brother Frank, a Bronx resident, was called to testify before the grand jury. Frank Alo refused to make any statement, citing Fifth Amendment protections.<br />
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Sixty-one-year-old Vincent Alo was himself called before a federal grand jury in December of 1965. Officials identified Alo as a top figure in Harlem and Bronx gambling rackets and said he also had influence in waterfront and garment center rackets.<br />
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A year later, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles, California, investigated a fall 1965 gathering of mobsters in southern California. The meeting coincided with the Major League Baseball World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins. Attendees included Vincent Alo and Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno of the Genovese Crime Family, Miami Beach bookmaker Ruby Lazarus, and Jerome Zarowitz and Elliott Paul Price, gambling operators for Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.<br />
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Alo was believed to be part of another meeting of racketeers in 1969. That meeting reportedly occurred in Miami Beach, Florida. The meeting was said to have included Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo, Paul "the Waiter" Ricca, John "Jackie the Lackey" Cerone and Dominic "the Angel" Angelini of Chicago; Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Vincent Alo and Anthony "Tony Goebels" Ricci of New York. Officials surmised that fourteen Kansas City mobsters, arrested as they arrived in Miami a month earlier, were also to be part of the meeting. There was some speculation that Chicago racketeer Sam "Momo" Giancana, in self-imposed exile after serving a year in prison for contempt, was also to be present.<br />
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Though Alo was constantly under law enforcement scrutiny, he had avoided prison time since the jewelry store robbery sentence of his youth. The authorities began to catch up with Alo as he moved toward retirement. In October 1969, a federal grand jury in New York indicted "Jimmy Blue Eyes" for obstructing justice by giving false and evasive answers in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. SEC previously questioned him about Mafia influence in the Tel-A-Sign advertising company.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'Johnny Ola'</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Alo was convicted in September 1970 of two counts of giving false and evasive answers to the SEC. On Oct. 27, the sixty-six-year-old was sentenced to serve five years in Atlanta Federal Prison. He served three years of that sentence before being released. A year after he got out of federal prison, The Godfather Part II appeared in theaters. The character of "Johnny Ola" (played by Dominic Chianese), Italian aide to Havana's Jewish gambling czar Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), paralleled Alo's earlier career.<br />
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"Jimmy Blue Eyes" was in his seventies when he next came to the attention of law enforcement. He was described in 1978 as a capodecina under Frank "Funzi" Tieri in the Genovese Crime Family. The Pennsylvania Crime Commission noted Alo's connection with Miami Beach attorney Alvin I. Malnik, who happened to own two resort hotels in the Pocono Mountains and who also happened to be a close friend of Meyer Lansky. According to the crime commission, Malnik once sent Alo to represent him in business negotiations. The commission stated that the Pocono resorts were home to money laundering, gambling, prostitution and other rackets.<br />
<br />
Alo's old friend Meyer Lansky died at Miami Beach, Florida, early in 1983. Alo's wife Florence died in Las Vegas in April 1990. "Jimmy Blue Eyes" lived quietly another eleven years, dying in Florida in March 2001.<br />
<br />
<u>Sources:</u><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Arrest record of Vincent Alo, New York City Police Department, Feb. 24, 1951.</li>
<li> Daniel P. Sullivan testimony, Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce - Part 1, Florida, Hearings Before a Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, 81st Congress, 2nd Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, p. 152-174.</li>
<li> Federal Amusement Company, a Florida corporation, and Charles (Babe) Baker, v. State of Florida, upon the relation of Frank Tuppen, appeal from the Circuit Court for Broward County, Supreme Court of Florida Division A, Oct. 3, 1947.</li>
<li> Nevada Death index, April 8, 1990.</li>
<li> New York City Birth Index, Certificate no. 23392, May 26, 1904.</li>
<li> New York City Marriage Index, certificate no. 1907, June 6, 1902.</li>
<li> New York City Marriage Index, Certificate no. 24281, Aug. 26, 1936.</li>
<li> New York State Census of 1905, County of New York, Assembly District 33, Election District 10.</li>
<li> New York State Census of 1915, Bronx County, Assembly District 34, Election District 68, Block 4.</li>
<li> New York State Census of 1925, Washington County, Town of Fort Ann, Assembly District 1, Election District 1.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of S.S. Britannia, arrived New York City on June 25, 1894.</li>
<li> Passenger manifest of S.S Monarch, departed Hamilton, Bermuda, on Aug. 9, 1939, arrived Miami, Florida, on Aug. 11, 1939.</li>
<li> SAC Miami, "Criminal Intelligence Program," FBI memorandum, MM 92-515, Sept. 5, 1963, p. 1</li>
<li> Salvatore Alo Declaration of Intention, Supreme Court of New York at Bronx, No. 106279, April 21, 1931.</li>
<li> Social Security Death Index.</li>
<li> U.S. Census of 1910, New York State, New York County, Ward 12, Enumeration District 295.</li>
<li> U.S. Census of 1920, New York State, Bronx County, Assembly District 7, Enumeration District 395.</li>
<li> U.S. Census of 1930, State of New York, Nassau County, Hempstead Town, Seaford Village, Enumeration District 30-132.</li>
<li> U.S. Census of 1940, State of Florida, Broward County, Hollywood City, Enumeration District 6-41.</li>
<li> Vincent Alo fingerprint record, Federal Bureau of Investigation, May 28, 1971.</li>
<li> "Vincent Alo," FBI memo, March 28, 1952, p. 1- 6.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Carr, Charlie, <i>New York Police Files on the Mafia</i>, Hosehead Productions, 2012, p. 388.</li>
<li> Janson, Donald, "Crime figures found involved in Poconos," <i>New York Times</i>, April 17, 1978, p. 1.</li>
<li> Lansky, Meyer II, "The Real Johnny Ola: Vincent 'Jimmy Blue Eyes' Alo," The Blog, huffingtonpost.com, Dec. 15, 2014, updated Feb. 13, 2015, accessed March 1, 2016.</li>
<li> Whitney, Craig R., "Realty man denies he knew of employe's alleged link to Mafia," <i>New York Times</i>, Jan. 24, 1970, p. 14.</li>
<li> "3 balk at inquiry on loan-shark case," <i>New York Times</i>, Oct. 24, 1963, p. 18.</li>
<li> "Alo, reputed Mafia figure, faces jail in S.E.C. case," <i>New York Times</i>, Sept. 29, 1970, p. 48.</li>
<li> "Fem impersonators irk Florida court," <i>The Billboard</i>, Oct. 18, 1947, p. 38.</li>
<li> "Florida crime drive is suddenly speeded," <i>New York Times</i>, Aug. 25, 1950, p. 40.</li>
<li> "Miami Beach secret Mafia meet probed," <i>Cumberland MD Evening Times</i>, April 8, 1969, p. 1.</li>
<li> "Police jail 155 hoodlums in New York," <i>Troy NY Time</i>s, June 15, 1957, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Reputed Mafia man indicted after an S.E.C. investigation," <i>New York Times</i>, Oct. 28, 1969, p. 16.</li>
<li> "Senate group hearings on crime open here tomorrow," <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagl</i>e, March 11, 1951, p. 2.</li>
<li> "U.S. jury on coast said to investigate gamblers' meeting," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 18, 1966, p. 71.</li>
<li> "U.S. jury hears Mafia figure," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 4, 1965, p. 28.</li>
<li> "Vincent 'Jimmy Blue Eyes' Alo," Find A Grave, findagrave.com, accessed March 2, 2015.</li>
</ul>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4830526024380767718.post-21450453374297714792016-01-12T09:40:00.000-05:002019-03-28T05:57:08.068-04:00Carey, Arthur (1866-1952) - New York PDBorn New York City, July 1866.<br />
Died New York City, Dec. 13, 1952.<br />
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Arthur A. Carey was a second-generation police officer who served for almost forty years on the New York Police Department and led the department's Homicide Bureau for eighteen years.<br />
<br />
He reportedly was born on Staten Island in July 1866 (a birth year of 1865 is sometimes seen) into the already large family of Henry and Elizabeth Carey. Henry, born about 1824, was an immigrant from Ireland; Elizabeth, born about 1830, was a native New Yorker. Arthur was raised in an Irish neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan.<br />
<br />
Henry had died by the time of the 1880 federal census. With several children already off on their own, Elizabeth then was raising Arthur and three other siblings in an apartment on Christopher Street in Manhattan.<br />
<br />
Arthur joined the police force on March 1, 1889. He learned his craft under Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes and Captain George W. McClusky. He was made a detective in 1892.<br />
<br />
He took a bride, Lucy, in 1895. They eventually had seven children together. The family lived at first at 124 West 115th Street in Manhattan, but subsequently moved north to the Bronx. They lived in a number of locations in that borough, including an apartment on Nelson Avenue near Boscobel, within the Highbridge neighborhood, and a private home at 2792 Bainbridge Avenue, just northwest of Fordham University and the New York Botanical Garden.<br />
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Around the turn-of-the-century, Arthur's police work focused almost exclusively on homicide cases. He participated in the investigation of the 1903 barrel murder case and in the related arrest of the dangerous Tomasso "the Ox" Petto.<br />
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Carey was promoted to lieutenant in 1906 and captain the following year. He assumed temporary leadership of homicide detectives in 1908. Carey was moved out to command a Brooklyn precinct between 1910 and 1914 but then returned to the Homicide Bureau.<br />
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As a "murder man," Carey was regularly called upon to investigate the most horrific of crimes. He was a leader in the investigation of the 1920 Wall Street terrorist bombing that claimed dozens of lives. In 1921, he worked on a case in which the upper half of a woman, who had been beaten and strangled to death, turned up in a sewer excavation at Long Island City. He also worked on a number of gangland murders, including the Barrel Murder, the 1921 killing of Joseph "Joe Pep" Viserti and the 1928 killing of Arnold Rothstein.<br />
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He reached the rank of deputy inspector in 1926. Late in 1928, Police Commissioner Grover A. Whalen forced him into retirement, as the centralized detective system was dismantled.<br />
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He briefly continued his work as a sleuth for the Westchester County district attorney. In this period, Arthur, his wife and three of their children, lived on Seminary Avenue in Yonkers.<br />
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Carey's autobiographical <i>Memoirs of a Murder Man</i> was released in 1930. The book focuses on Carey's detective work in homicide cases and features a chapter on the Morello Mafia's infamous 1903 Barrel Murder. (<a href="https://mafiahistory.us/a030/f_carey.html" target="_blank">Read this chapter on our website</a>.)<br />
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By 1935, Arthur and Lucy were in retirement, living a 321 Bedford Park Boulevard in the Bronx, quite close to their former Bainbridge Avenue home.<br />
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Carey died Dec. 13, 1952, at his Bronx residence. He was 86 years old. His two oldest sons, Donald and Arthur Jr., had followed him into the New York Police Department. They were serving as detectives at the time of his death.<br />
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<u>Sources:</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> New York State Census of 1915.</li>
<li> New York State Census of 1925.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1870.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1880.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1900. </li>
<li> United States Census of 1930.</li>
<li> United States Census of 1940.</li>
<li> Anderson, Isaac, "A murder man blows the gaff on crime," <i>New York Times</i>, July 6, 1930, p. Book Review 13.</li>
<li> Carey, Arthur A., with Howard McLellan, <i>Memoirs of a Murder Man</i>, Garden City NY: Doubelday, Doran and Company, 1930.</li>
<li> "Arthur Carey, 87, ex-inspector, dies," <i>New York Times</i>, Dec. 14, 1952, p. 90.</li>
<li> "Detectives say they hope to find driver of horse," <i>New York Evening World</i>, Sept. 27, 1920, p. 8.</li>
<li> "Half of slain woman's body found in pool," <i>New York Tribune</i>, Oct. 23, 1921, p. 8.</li>
<li> "'Joe Pep,' ruler of Little Italy in Harlem, slain," <i>New York Tribune</i>, Oct. 14, 1921, p. 1.</li>
</ul>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright © 2023, Thomas P. Hunt (<a target="_top" href="http://mafiahistory.us">mafiahistory.us</a>)</div>Thomas Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562045051995673935noreply@blogger.com