The Everything Mafia Book (26 page)

Newark, New Jersey

When most people think of the New Jersey Mafia,
The Sopranos
comes to mind. There was a New Jersey crime family long before Tony Soprano and his cronies hit the small screen. The first don was Stefano “Steve” Badami. He was succeeded by “Big Phil” Amari, who reigned for over twenty years. He was replaced by Nicholas “Nick” Delmore. Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante, known as “Sam the Plumber,” took over after that, and the crime family became known by his name.

The New Jersey crime family is believed to be the basis for the hit HBO series The Sopranos. During the investigation that led to the 1999 indictment of the DeCavalcantes, agents listened into mobsters comparing characters on the show to real mobsters they knew.

Considered a “farm” team by the larger crime families, the DeCaval-cantes stayed under the radar for decades. They were involved in the ever-popular union infiltration as well as those old mob standbys of gambling and loansharking before the conviction of boss Giovanni “John the Eagle” Riggi in the early ’90s. Following his conviction the remaining hierarchy was swept up in a massive indictment in 1999. They are still active, though their numbers are diminished. The current boss is said to run his operations from the Peterstown section of Elizabeth, the last vestige of a thriving ethnic neighborhood.

The Rust Belt Mafia

The decaying steel towns and old industrial centers of the Great Lakes region were the perfect settings for Mafia families. Though at one time the gangsters were attracted to the area due to its thriving union-based economy, as the jobs left, the mob simply took advantage of the situation. The Mafia families in these cities may have been small potatoes, but they brought in big money.

Rochester, New York

Rochester, a small city in upstate New York, was under the thumb of the Buffalo crime family for over forty years. It broke away in the 1960s courtesy of the ambitious Valenti brothers, Frank and Stanley. As in all Mafia breakups, the parting of ways was not an amicable one. Through the 1970s and early 1980s a war for control of the family led to a series of murders, indictments, and the complete implosion of the crime family. Though there have been a few members released from prison in recent years, the family is no longer functioning.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Stefano Monastero was the first Mafia boss of Pittsburgh. He was whacked, as was his successor, Giuseppe Siragusa. The longest running boss of the family was John Sebastian LaRocca. LaRocca didn’t have the deep political connections that other mob bosses enjoyed. But his family controlled gambling, narcotics, loansharking, and extortion. The Pittsburgh family was even involved in the pre-Castro Cuban casinos. Like many Mafia families in smaller American cities, the once powerful family has contracted to a much smaller organization. While they still run some rackets, their ranks are dwindling. The last official boss, Michael Genovese, died on October 31, 2006, at the age of eighty-seven.

Detroit, Michigan

The Motor City is home to a small but tightly knit Mafia family that’s still thriving. Gaspare Milazzo established the Detroit family in 1921. He was retired in a shower of bullets in a hostile takeover by a rival named Gaetano Gianolla in 1930. Gianolla remained in charge until 1944. Joe Vitale took over and had a twenty-year run as boss. He was followed by Joseph Zerilli and later by Jack Tocco. Tocco often picketed city hall with the audacious charge that the persecution of the Mafia was based on anti-Italian prejudice. The hierarchy of the Detroit Mafia was ravaged by a series of indictments and convictions in the late 1990s. Despite the efforts of law enforcement, the family remains active, with Jack Tocco still reigning.

Jack Tocco

Courtesy of AP Images/Richard Sheinwald

Mafia boss Jack Tocco, seventy-two, of Grosse Pointe Park, MI, enters his automobile after he was found guilty on two racketeering counts and one extortion count. He was found innocent of ten related extortion charges in U.S. District Court in Detroit April 29, 1998.

Cleveland, Ohio

The Cleveland Mafia was originally led by Joseph “Big Joe” Lonardo. His adversaries were the Porellos. While waiting for the Porellos to arrive at a summit to smooth over their differences, Lonardo was killed. The Porel-los were succeeded by Frank Milano. Milano fled Cleveland in the 1940s and was replaced by John Scalish. During Scalish’s thirty-year run as boss, he failed to make many new members, and the family’s numbers began to dwindle. And a car bombing war with Irish mobster Danny Greene brought a lot of law enforcement heat on the small family. After a series of setbacks and bosses, John “Peanuts” Tronolone, owner of a travel agency, took over the Cleveland mob, but he opted to lead the remnants of the family from sunny Florida. The last recognized boss of a much-diminished Cleveland mob was Joseph “Joe Loose” Iacobacci, though it is not known if he is still in charge.

The Detroit crime family’s specialty was labor racketeering, since Motor City was a big union town. Its most infamous son, Jimmy Hoffa, was president of the Teamsters Union and had known mob connections. Detroit Mafiosi reportedly arranged for Hoffa’s permanent disappearance.

Midwest Families

The families across the Great Plains were as varied as they come. St. Louis was a city rocked by a bombing war between mob factions, while Springfield’s boss rarely raised his voice. The mile-high gangsters in Denver were local celebrities, while Madison’s mob boss was virtually unknown. Unlike the good-natured Midwest temperament and folksy ways, the Mafia out West was just as dangerous as back East.

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City was a town that was raucous in its own right before the Mafia arrived. Scarface DiGiovanni arrived from Sicily in 1912. Like many Sicilian gangsters he left the old country with a price on his head. DiGiovanni and his gang made a bundle of money and terrorized the town during Prohibition. They preyed on their own, as was often the case. It was the law-abiding Italians and Sicilians who suffered before the gangs grew powerful enough to menace the general population. Anthony “Fat Tony” Gizzo was a major early Mafia power in the city. After his death and the death of his predecessor Charles Binaggio, the Kansas City mob fell under the control of Nick Civella. Nick brought the family immense power and wealth, and law enforcement scrutiny. He was indicted for skimming casinos. Nick died before he went to trial. His brother Tony Ripes reportedly took over the reigns and, though he has since died, the small crime family is still active.

Most of the Midwest Mafia families were under the thumb of the Chicago Outfit. The Outfit represented their interests at Commission meetings and often partnered with the smaller families in criminal operations.

Springfield, Illinois

The city of Springfield, capital of Illinois and one-time residence of Abraham Lincoln, never registered a big blip on the national crime scene. But the cozy town of 100,000 had its own homegrown Mafia family under the leadership of Frank Zito, who ran the family for decades before his death by natural causes in 1974. Zito was active in jukeboxes and vending machines, and he operated a number of bars. He was referred to by a newspaper reporter as one of the most dangerous mobsters in the state of Illinois. But his neighbors, of course, described him as a quiet man who kept to himself.

Madison, Wisconsin

This may seem an improbable locale for a Mafia family, but the FBI says one existed there, and its don was a man named Carlo Caputo. Caputo and the alleged Mafia family are like Bigfoot sightings. People swore it was out there, but it was not an “in your face” family like the boys in New York and Chicago.

The shadowy Caputo is alleged to have had ties to the Chicago and Milwaukee mobs, but less is known about him than his more famous associates. Caputo came to Madison in 1940. He was successful in real estate and ran restaurants, bars, and liquor stores. Caputo did thirty days in prison for income tax evasion and continued to expand his seemingly above-board businesses. When an associate of Caputo’s named Joseph Aiello died a natural death, the FBI probed into his affairs and determined that the men were a two-man operation, the smallest Mafia family in history. Caputo died in 1993 at the age of ninety and went to his grave denying the government’s charges. When asked to comment on the don’s death, however, a local businessman said, “This is one man I don’t want to discuss.”

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Milwaukee Mafia family began as a subsidiary of the Chicago organization. The first don was Vito Guardalabene. Guardalabene was followed by his son Peter. When the Commission was formed, they determined that Milwaukee would remain an extension of Chicago. Frank Balistrieri took over the family and led it until his death in 1993. The Milwaukee and Kansas City mobs, with the help of the corrupt Teamsters Union, got in on the Las Vegas casino boom in the 1970s. Unbeknownst to the hard-working rank and file of the Teamsters, their pension fund funded the Stardust Hotel and other casinos. And the mob made plenty of money “skimming” off the top in the casino counting rooms before it was reported to the IRS. After Balistr-ieri’s death, his sons reportedly took over, but the family has faded from the underworld scene.