The Mafia Encyclopedia (21 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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Page 52
in expenses, this meant the actual expenditure for police non-interference came to $216,000.
It is true that sometimes only a single cop or official is offered a bribe if he is in a special position to offer the mob a special service, such as obtaining confidential information or even the names of informers. In Cleveland in the late 1970s an FBI file clerk and her husband, an automobile salesman, were sentenced to five years in prison for selling information to the local Mafia crime family. However, far more common is blanket bribery in which all or most cops in a particular precinct are cut in on a piece of the action. It is not a case of a few rotten apples in a good barrel.
For years Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo, the crime boss of Boston and underboss of the New England family headed by Raymond Patriarca, handled the police fix for the entire group. According to informer Vinnie Teresa, he claimed he could control 300 of Boston's 360-odd detectives. Teresa also stated, "In Providence, Patriarca had half the city on his payroll." From January to May 1981 the FBI maintained a court-approved electronic eavesdropping system at Angiulo's shabby Boston office in the North End. After 850 hours of recorded conversations, 40 Boston police officers were transferred because their names were mentioned on the tapes.
Former FBI agent Neil J. Welch has stated, "Cop cases are never just one cotyit's the captain, the lieutenant, the inspector, the sergeants, the whole pad, as they say in New York."
Special bribery involves special payoffs. If a valued mafioso or syndicate figure is up for possible probation or parole, heavy bribes are offered. In one case a bribe of $100,000 had to be returned by a high-ranking public official because a parole for a major crime figure had to be called off when a newspaper raised too much of a stink.
Bribes are made in an amount commensurate with the value received and there are many low echelon figures who get no more than $25 a month. And bribery costs rise and fall from time to time, depending on how much public tolerance compared to public pressure is exerted in a given area. "Heat" does not cripple organized crime but merely raises the tab.
In CaponelandChicagothe tab for many years was quite low because no one seemed capable of stopping corruption. Thus in one of his more loquacious moments, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzikhe was so dubbed because his thumb became so greasy from the huge amount of graft money he passed outcould sneer about judges in his domain: "You buy a judge by weight, like iron in a junkyard. A justice of the peace or a magistrate can be had for a five-dollar bill. In municipal court he will cost you ten. In the circuit or superior courts he wants fifteen. The state appellate court or the state supreme court is on a par with the federal courts. By the time a judge reaches such courts he is middleaged, thick around the middle, fat between the ears. He's heavy. You can't buy a federal judge for less than a twenty-dollar bill."
One must temper Guzik's classic words by allowing for several decades of inflation. And quite possibly he was exaggerating the monies he was able to save for the mob, though the record shows he paid out substantial sums. For years Guzik spent many nights a week seated at the same table at St. Hubert's Old English Grill and Chop House, 316 South Federal Street, in the Loop, there to be visited by district police captains and the sergeants who collected their graft for them, and by the various bagmen for various politicians.
It is perhaps touching that Guzik died of a heart attack at his post at 6:17
P.M.
, February 21, 1956, while dining at St. Hubert's on a simple meal of broiled lamb chops and a glass of moselle. Equally touching were the comments of Rabbi Noah Ganze at Guzik's orthodox Jewish funeral. The rabbi called the deceased "a fine husband who was good to his children. Jacob Guzik never lost faith in his God. Hundreds benefited by his kindness and generosity. His charities were performed quietly."
A Chicago journalist added the comment: "Some of the police captains and politicians who were among these hundreds who benefited from Jake's generosity looked at the ceiling."
Bridge of Sighs: American version
They came from the poverty of Italy to the teeming ghetto of lower New York, in hope of escaping the grimness of life in Italy, a grimness typified for many by the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. The bridge, over which the convicted and condemned were led, directly connected the ducal palace and the state prison.
Many were trapped into a new life of crime, America's standard offer for all "huddled masses" squeezed into crowded criminal breeding areas. Inevitably the exposed bridge at the old Tombs prison in lower New York was dubbed the new Bridge of Sighs. Unfortunately this added to the public conception that most criminals were Italian and led later to further misunderstanding of the organized mobs' multi-ethnicity.
Broadway Mob: Prohibition racketeers
There probably was no more important Prohibition gang in New York than the Broadway Mob. Its power and its unique assemblage of criminals helped to forge in the early 1930s the national crime syndicate that remains the basis of organized crime today.
Page 53
Officially, the Broadway Mob was run by Joe Adonis, but Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello were the brains of the operation. Behind the gang was Broadway millionaire gambler and criminal mastermind, Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein also brought in the Bug and Meyer Mob, run by Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, to provide protection for the gang's convoys of bootleg liquor. Since Lansky had worked with Luciano previously and each trusted the other, it was easy to see why Adonis and Costello thought it an even better idea to make Lansky and Siegel partnersindeed, it would certainly be cheaper. Lansky and Siegel had to be paid a lot for protection; it was well known they were not above engaging in hijacking if the returns were better.
The new multi-ethnic Broadway Mob soon dominated bootlegging in New York, offering top-quality nondiluted whiskey to all the most renowned speakeasiesthe Silver Slipper, Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club, Jack White's, Jack and Charlie's "21" Club and others. Even if all the liquor was not "right off the boat" as claimed but produced in Waxey Gordon's Philadelphia distilleries, it was still far superior to the rotgut offered by most bootlegging gangs. Under Rothstein's tutelage, the Broadway Mob bought interests in a number of leading speakeasies, which in turn, gave the gangsters a vested interest in making sure the liquor they dispensed was top grade. These speakeasy and nightclub investments were the first these mobsters made in Manhattan and, in time, gave them ownership of some prime Manhattan real estate, a situation said to be unchanged today among the New York crime families.
See also:
Adonis, Joe; Rothstein, Arnold
.
Bronfman, Samuel (18911971): Liquor manufacturer and underworld supplier
No encyclopedic study of the American Mafia would be complete without mention of the likes of Samuel Bronfman and Lewis Rosentiel. Both became in later life important figures in the legalized liquor industry, even philanthropists in the United States. During Prohibition they can be said to have put the dollar sign in organized crime in America.
The Bronfman family, having fled the pogroms of eastern Europe, settled in Canada, where they proceeded to amass a great fortune in the liquor business, the bulk of which came from peddling booze to bootleggers who brought it into the United States. While it may be said that the leader of the family, Sam Bronfman, was doing nothing illegal since the manufacture of whiskey was legal in Canada, he was nevertheless in a dangerous business. His brother-in-law, Paul Matoff, was gunned down in 1922 in Saskatchewan in a battle between two bootlegging gangs.
Most of Bronfman's business was conducted through such crime figures as Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, the Purple Gang in Detroit and Moe Dalitz in Cleveland. So much booze was run across Lake Erieprimarily to the Dalitz organizationthat it was called "the Jewish lake."
If later on Rosentiel and his company, Schenley, were to deny ever having any doings with the underworld, Bronfman was a bit more forthcoming, although he frequently changed the subject when the name of his close friend Meyer Lansky came up.
Bronfman once declared in an interview in
Fortune
magazine: "We loaded a carload of goods, got our cash, and shipped it. We shipped a lot of goods. I never went to the other side of the border to count the empty Seagram's bottles."
The Bronfman Connection entered the United States through a variety of sources, by border-running trucks all the way from New York State to Montana, in ships that docked on both the East and West Coasts, by speedboats darting across the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes waterways.
With the end of Prohibition, a financial dispute broke out between the United States and Canada. The U.S. Treasury Department claimed that Canadian distillers like Bronfman owed $60 million in excise and customs taxes on alcohol shipments. Finally U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. issued an ultimatum that importation of all Canadian goods would be halted until the bill was paid. Eventually Canada agreed to settle for five cents on the dollar or $3 million. Sam Bronfman sportingly put up half that sum.
Some of the underworld bootlegging kings, like Waxey Gordon, ended up broke after Prohibition. The same could not be said about Sam Bronfman. The American public had drunk his product for 14 years illegally and drank even more when booze became legal again.
See also:
Bootlegging
.
Brooklier, Dominic (19141984): Los Angeles crime boss
Dominic Brooklier was one of a long line of Los Angeles crime bosses who contributed to the demeaning characterization of the crime family as "the Mickey Mouse Mafia." Under Brooklier the L.A. family was big in porno and various forms of extortion, but failed to take over the bookmaking racket in southern California. In a long criminal arrest record dating back to the 1930s, he had been convicted of armed robbery, larceny, interstate transportation of forged documents and racketeering.
Page 54
Brooklier was originally part of the Mickey Cohen gambling operation in California but defected to the forces of mafioso Jack Dragna and took part in the war against his former mentor. His chief claim to fame as a hit man in that struggle was attempting to shotgun Cohen as he came out of a restaurant. Just as Brooklier, accompanied by another gunman, squeezed the trigger, Cohen noticed a tiny scratch on the fender of his new Cadillac and bent down to inspect it, thereby avoiding a fatal hit.
Over the years Brooklier formed a love-hate relationship with Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno. Brooklier was a faithful follower of Los Angeles Nick Licata and when he died in 1974, Brooklier was named to replace him. When he himself was sent to prison for a couple of years, Brooklier named Fratianno as acting boss. Quickly, the ambitious Frantianno appeared to be making a pitch that would allow him to keep control of the family. Brooklier was ailing and the Weasel figured there was an even chance he might not live to complete his prison term.
Brooklier did survive and took over again, edging out the Weasel. He was suspicious of Fratianno on more than one count, not only that he coveted the boss position, but also that he might actually be an informer. Indeed, Fratianno was already giving limited cooperation to the FBI while at the same time trying to carve out a power position for himself in the Mafia. Brooklier eventually put out a contract on Fratianno but was unable to see it through. He had to ask the Chicago crime family for assistance, another sign that he headed an outfit that could not even discipline its own straying membersan open invitation to the greedy Chicago group to move even more heavily into California.
Fratianno avoided assassination by going all the way as an informer and joining the federal witness protection program. The Weasel supplied information on Brooklier's successful order to have another informer eliminated, San Diego mobster Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero, who was shot to death in a telephone booth in February 1977. Brooklier was the man who was at the other end of the line holding Bomp in conversation until the gunners got there. However, Brooklier was acquitted of conspiracy in that murder.
He was convicted along with several other L.A. crime figuresincluding Louis Tom Dragna, Jack LoCicero, Mike Rizzitello and Sam Sciortinoon racketeering and conspiracy charges involving extortion of bookmakers and pornography dealers. Brooklier got five years and died of a heart attack at the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Tucson in July 1984.
Brothers, Leo Vincent (18991951): Alleged murderer of Jake Lingle
Investigations following the murder of
Chicago Tribune
reporter-legman Jake Lingle on June 9, 1930, revealed the cozy relationship the Capone underworld and other gangs had with members of the press. Lingle was no ordinary newsman, but a major criminal go-between for Al Capone (and other Chicago gangs) and Police Commissioner William F. Russell and others in the political structure.
Although he ostensibly earned only $65 a week, an annual income of at least $60,000 was traced to Linglethat was only what could be definitely established. He had a big chauffeur-driven car, owned a home in the city and a summer home in the country, played the stock market (partly in a $100,000 joint brokerage account with Commissioner Russell), bet heavily at the races (sometimes wagering $1,000 on a single race) and maintained a lavish suite of rooms at one of Chicago's most expensive hotels. Through his police connections Lingle fixed it for gambling joints and speakeasies to operate and was spoken of in knowledgeable underworld circles as the "unofficial chief of police." He himself bragged to friends that he "fixed the price of beer in Chicago."
Lingle was shot by an unknown gunman near a subway entrance to the Washington Park racetrack train. The killer escaped as Lingle crumpled to the ground, dead with a bullet in his head. Lingle's murder shocked the city and the whole country and there were large black headlines, front-page editorials and messages of condolence from newspapers around the country. Rewards totaling more than $55,000 were offered for information that led to the apprehension and conviction of the killer.
Lingle was given a lavish funeral, but shortly thereafter indignation began to give way to suspicion. Why had Lingle been murdered? As details of his high-living were unearthed, suspicion festered. The public learned Lingle was an intimate friend of Capone; he had visited Capone's estate in Florida on a number of occasions and he was the proud owner of a diamond-studded belt buckle given him by the notorious gang lord. Then there were reports of a falling out between Capone and the newsman. Lingle, it developed, was making protection deals with Capone's hated counterparts in the Bugs Moran Gang, and the newsman-fixer was not delivering on deals with Big Al. Capone was heard to state, "Jake is going to get his."
Meanwhile an embarrassed Colonel Robert McCormick and the
Chicago Tribune
waged a running battle with other newspapers concerning the Lingle scandal. McCormick's newspaper ran an exposé series

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