Lolordo, Pasqualino (1885-1929)

Born Ribera, Sicily, June 28, 1887.

Died Chicago, IL, Jan. 8, 1929.


Lolordo was one of the unfortunate leaders of the Chicago Unione Siciliana of the late Prohibition Era. He stepped to the Unione presidency upon the death of Antonio Lombardo in September of 1928.

Lolordo's place of birth appears to have been Ribera, Sicily. The date of his birth was June 28, though the year is recorded differently in public records. A 1917 World War I draft registration shows his birth year as 1887. Lolordo's Cook County, Illinois, death certificate states that he was born in 1885. The later year seems the more reliable of the two. Lolordo entered the U.S. about 1907 and initially settled in New York City. He married Lena Mule. After serving time in a New York prison before Prohibition, he migrated westward to Chicago, where he became a successful merchant.

Police initially suspected Pasqualino's brother Joseph Lolordo - a Lombardo bodyguard - of performing the 1928 assassination of Lombardo. Newspapers noted that Joseph Lolordo and Al Capone had the same attorney at that time.

Pasqualino Lolordo's dreams of becoming a second Mike Merlo - and, in fact, his dreams of anything at all - stopped abruptly on Jan. 8, 1929. On that day, he was assassinated by visitors to his home. It is believed that the killing was ordered by the Aiello Mafia clan.

After Pasqualino's death, his wife Lena returned to New York City and lived with in-laws there.

Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta, who had begun a Sicilian revolt within the Capone organization, bravely took over the Unione presidency. But he wouldn't survive to see the summer.