Licata, Nicola "Nick" (1897-1974)

Born Camporeale, Sicily, Feb. 20, 1897.

Died Santa Monica, CA, Oct, 19, 1974.

Nick Licata is remembered as the boss who presided over the dramatic decline of the Los Angeles crime family.

Licata was born in Camporeale, in the Sicilian province of Palermo. He entered the U.S. through New York on Dec. 7, 1913, settling first in Detroit. He later married there. He and his wife Josephine had two children in Highland Park, Michigan. He resettled in southern California in 1929.

First a grocer and then the owner of a Burbank cafe, Licata earned notice in the underworld through the summer 1951 murders of Kansas City Mafiosi Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino. Brancato and Trombino were moving into some of the Los Angeles rackets, apparently as part of a westward push by the Kansas City crime family. In mid-August, police rounded up Jimmy and Warren Fratianno, Sam London, and Sam Lazes, while they searched for missing Fratianno associates Charles Battaglia and Angelo Polizzi. Fratianno was considered the prime suspect in the killings, but Licata provided him with an alibi.

Licata became a front man for boss Jack Dragna during the later years of Dragna's reign. He served under Frank DeSimone for a decade after Dragna's death. After DeSimone passed in August 1967, Licata took control of a deeply divided crime family. Longtime California racketeer Joseph Dippolito served as underboss.


Law enforcement authorities had learned a great deal about the L.A. family by that time, and Licata was constantly hounded by police and federal agents. He was unable to consolidate his power. A branch of the criminal organization appears to have come under the control of Jack Dragna's son shortly after Licata ascended to the boss position.

Though he had earlier convinced Kansas City mafiosi to stay out of California, boss Licata also had to deal with incursions by the Cleveland mob family.

In July 1969, Licata was called before a grand jury to answer questions about the Jan. 10, 1969, slaying of Julius Anthony Petro of Cleveland. Known for committing bank robberies and suspected of murder in Cleveland, Petro was found shot to death in a parked car at the Los Angeles International Airport. Licata refused to testify and was ordered to prison for contempt of court. The following May, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Curtis released Licata on $2,500 bail while he appealed the contempt order. Judge Curtis said he expected Licata would never answer questions on the Petro case.

With his family and his territory in disarray, Licata retained the title of boss - though probably not the power - until his death in fall of 1974. Licata died Oct. 19, 1974, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.

A Requiem Mass was celebrated for Licata Oct. 23 at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in downtown Los Angeles. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. About 150 people attended the services.

Related Links:

•  Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Dragna, Jack (1891-1956)

Born Corleone, Sicily, April 18, 1891.

Died Los Angeles, CA, Feb. 23, 1956.

Jack Ignatius Dragna was the leader of the Sicilian Mafia in southern California from the mid 1930s until the 1950s.

He was born in Corleone, Sicily, in 1891 and came to the United States with his family early in life. The family returned to Sicily in 1908, and Dragna sailed back to the U.S. for good in 1914.

He was convicted of attempted extortion in 1915. He was freed from San Quentin Prison on appeal. After Prohibition, the L.A. Mafia was slow to take advantage of legal gambling in Las Vegas, allowing eastern Mafiosi to stake claims there. The L.A. mob was happy to operate gambling ships off the California coast instead - a practice that continued from the 1920s until summer of 1939.

While Dragna maintained control over Mafia matters within his territory, he had a great deal of trouble expanding his interests. His forces proved inept at eliminating gambling competitor Mickey Cohen in the late 1940s and early 1950s (the tax man got rid of Cohen in 1951). Las Vegas - located practically in Dragna's backyard - was gobbled up by others.

A 1932 vacation in Mexico became a problem for Dragna two decades later. In 1951, immigration authorities noted that upon reentering the U.S. Dragna falsely claimed he was an American citizen. He fought deportation efforts for some time. He was being held at the Terminal Island detention center when his wife Frances died on July 23, 1953. A subsequent appeal resulted in Dragna's release on bail.

He moved into a home at 4757 Kensington Drive in San Diego and spent some of his remaining time visiting his relatives.

Dragna was found dead Feb. 23, 1956, in the Saharan Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. He checked into the hotel on Feb. 10. His death left uncertain leadership in Los Angeles. Some say Frank DeSimone immediately stepped into the boss's job. Others insist that Simone Scozzari (also known in some circles as "DeSimone") held the position.

Related Links:

•  Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

DeSimone, Frank (1909-1967)

Born Pueblo, CO, July 17, 1909.

Died Los Angeles, CA, Aug. 4, 1967.

Frank DeSimone, an attorney residing in Downey, CA, became the Los Angeles Mafia boss after the 1957 death of Jack Dragna. His reign marked the beginning of a long decline for the crime family later referred to in the press as "the Mickey Mouse Mafia."

DeSimone was born in Pueblo, CO, to merchant Rosario DeSimone and his wife Rosalia. DiSimone's father was born in the farming community of Salaparuto, Sicily, far inland in the western province of Trapani. He entered the U.S. through New York in March 1905. He married Rosalia, who was an immigrant from Lucca Sicula, Sicily, in the province of Agrigento. Rosalia apparently had two children in a previous relationship in New Orleans before moving to Colorado in the mid-1900s. Frank DeSimone was the oldest of four children born to Rosario and Rosalia in Pueblo before the family's fall 1920 relocation to Downey, California, where Rosario returned to a farming life.

DeSimone interrupted his early law practice to enlist in the Army in 1942.

One of DeSimone's earliest acts as crime boss was attendance at the ill-fated 1957 Mafia convention in Apalachin, NY. Los Angeles Mafioso Simone Scozzari, with whom DeSimone is often confused, also attended that convention. Both men were included among the attendees convicted of obstructing justice by refusing to reveal the purpose of the Apalachin meeting. The convictions were later overturned.

DeSimone died of natural causes on Aug. 4, 1967, leaving the Los Angeles Family to Nicolo Licata.

In September 1973, federal investigators unearthed links between the late Frank DeSimone and the management of the United States National Bank in southern California. The New York Times noted that the bank was run by multimillionaire C. Arnholt Smith, a close personal friend of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

Related Links:

•  Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Brooklier, Dominic (1914-1984)

Born 1914.

Died Tucson, AZ, July 18, 1984.

Brooklier, also known by the names Dominick Bruccoleri and Jimmy Regace, became a member of the Dragna Mafia Family in southern California in the mid-1940s. It appears that he rose to command the crime family, though much of his term as boss was spent under the withering scrutiny of law enforcement.

Early in his underworld career, he was responsible for at least one failed attempt on the life of Dragna rival Mickey Cohen.

Upon the death of Nick Licata in 1974, Brucceleri rose to lead the L.A. Mob. It appears that he became wise to the betrayal of informant Frank Bompensiero, leader of the Sicilian underworld in San Diego, and ordered Bompensiero executed. The order was not carried out until several years later.

Brucceleri spent much of his term as Family boss in prison. He was convicted of various crimes, including armed robbery, larceny and interstate transportation of forged documents. In 1975, he was jailed for extorting money from gamblers and dealers of pornography.

Late in 1980, he and codefendants Samuel Orlando Sciortino and Louis Tom Dragna were acquitted of the 1977 Bompensiero murder. However, they were convicted of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy charges. Also convicted in the same case were Jack LoCicero and Michael Rizzitello.
Brooklier was sentenced to four years in federal prison. He remained free as he pursued legal appeals.

He began his prison term on Aug. 27, 1983. Though originally ordered to serve his sentence in Minnesota, his southern California family convinced the court to order his transfer to Arizona for health reasons.

Brooklier died in the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Tucson, AZ, on July 18, 1984.

Related Links:

•  Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Bompensiero, Frank (1905-1977)

Born Milwaukee, WI, Sept. 29, 1905.

Killed San Diego, CA, Feb. 10, 1977.

Bompensiero, known as "Bomp" or "the Bomp," was a key member of the west coast Dragna crime family, a San Diego mob chief and a government informant.

Born in the U.S. midwest, Bompensiero became a California Mafia enforcer in his twenties. By 1950, he was responsible for at least one failed attempt on the life of west coast gambling czar Mickey Cohen.

Jack Dragna put Bompensiero in charge of the San Diego region around 1950. Five years later, law enforcement officials succeeded in putting Bomp behind bars for bribery. He served a five-year term.

In the mid-60s, Bompensiero avoided additional prison time by becoming an informant for the FBI. He fed information to federal agents for more than a decade. During much of that time, the Los Angeles Family grew suspicious of Bompensiero.

On Feb. 10, 1975, Bompensiero was shot to death at a telephone booth.

Links:

• American Mafia biography of Frank Bompensiero.
•  "40 years ago: Mafia executes SoCal informant" (Writers of Wrongs - 10 Feb 2017)