Salvatore Maranzano (July 31, 1886 âââ‰â¬Å September 10, 1931) was an organized crime figure from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Cosa Nostra boss in the United States. He instigated the Castellammarese War to seize control of the American Mafia operations, and briefly became the Mafia's "Boss of Bosses". He was assassinated by a younger faction led by Lucky Luciano, who established a power-sharing arrangement rather than a "boss of bosses" to prevent future wars.


 




Early life




As a youngster, Maranzano had wanted to become a priest and even studied to become one, but later became associated with the Mafia in his homeland. Maranzano had a very commanding presence, and was greatly respected by his underworld peers. He had a fascination with Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire and enjoyed talking to his less-educated American Mafia counterparts about these subjects.


 




Early career




Maranzano emigrated to the United States in 1925, settling in Brooklyn. While building a legitimate business as a real estate broker, he also maintained a growing bootleg liquor business.


 




Castellammarese War




Maranzano began to invade the territory of Joe "The Boss" Masseria. Maranzano hijacked truckloads of Masseria's liquor and started taking over Masseria's speakeasies. This led to a bloody underworld battle known as the Castellammarese War. While outnumbered at the outset of the war, Maranzano and his fellow Castellamarese grew stronger as the war progressed. The war ended after one of Masseria's lieutenants, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, helped orchestrate Masseria's murder in April 1931 in return for being considered an equal to Maranzano.


 




Boss of All Bosses




Maranzano was now the most powerful gangster in New York. Two weeks after Masseria's murder, Maranzano called together several hundred Mafiosi at a banquet hall at an undisclosed location in Upstate New York. Maranzano laid out his vision of a new gangland, structured on hierarchical lines. The New York Mafia would be organized into Five Families, headed by himself, Luciano (his second-in-command), Profaci, Vincent Mangano and Thomas Gagliano. In addition, Maranzano created a special position for himself âââ‰â¬Â Boss of All Bosses.




Maranzano also laid rules for a Mafia Commission; among other things, he outlawed random killings, and he prohibited anyone in The Commission from talking about the Mafia or its activities to anyone outside, even if the outsider was just the gangster's wife. Anyone who broke any of these rules would be punished by death.[1]




To signal his dominance to the nation's other crime bosses, Maranzano called a meeting in Wappingers Falls, New York to tell Al Capone and other influential mafiosi nationwide that he was now the leader of New York Mafia operations.[1]




However, Maranzano's scheming, his arrogant treatment of his subordinates, and his fondness for comparing his organization to the Roman Empire (he attempted to model the organization after Caesar's military chain of command) did not sit well with Luciano and his ambitious friends, like Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and others.[1] Luciano came to believe that Maranzano was more power-hungry than Masseria had been.[1] Despite his advocacy for modern methods of organization, including capos overseeing crews that did the bulk of the families' work,[1] many younger mafiosi resented him as a "Mustache Pete" âââ‰â¬Â an old-school mafioso too steeped in Old World ways. For instance, he was opposed to Luciano's partnership with Jewish gangsters such as Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In fact, Luciano and his colleagues had intended all along to bide their time before getting rid of Maranzano as well.




Maranzano realized this soon enough, and began planning the murder of Luciano, Genovese, Costello and others. Maranzano did not act quickly enough, though: by the time he hired Mad Dog Coll to murder Luciano and Genovese, Luciano, aided by Meyer Lansky, had already found out about Maranzano's plans.


 




Death




Luciano arranged for Samuel "Red" Levine and three other gangsters provided by Lansky to go to Maranzano's offices on September 10, 1931, posing as police detectives. Once inside his office on the 9th floor of The Helmsley Building, they disarmed Maranzano's guards. The four men then shot and stabbed Salvatore Maranzano to death. As they fled down the stairs, they met Coll on his way upstairs for his appointment with Maranzano. They warned him that there had been a raid, and he fled too.




Following Maranzano's death, Luciano and his colleagues reorganized the Five Families and abolished the position of "capo di tutti capi." Maranzano's crime family was inherited by Joseph Bonanno and became known as the Bonanno family.




Maranzano and his wife Elisabetta (who died in 1964) are buried in Saint John's Cemetery, Queens, located in New York City, near the graves of Luciano and Genovese.


 




______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

About real MOB story and together we can build a stroy that would be our legacy to the next generation


 




if you thinks it good idea let me know

JosephBonannoeating.jpg[/attachment:2c37g86o]


 




Joseph Charles Bonanno, Sr. (January 18, 1905 âââ‰â¬Å May 11, 2002) was a Sicilian-born American mafioso who became the boss of the Bonanno crime family. He was nicknamed "Joe Bananas," a name he despised.


 




Early life




Bonanno was born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno on January 18, 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, a town on the western coast of Sicily. When he was three years old, his family moved to the United States and settled in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn for about 10 years before returning to Italy. Bonanno slipped back into the United States in 1924 by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa. By all accounts, he'd become active in the Mafia during his youth in Italy, and he fled to the United States after Benito Mussolini initiated a crackdown. Bonanno himself claimed years later that he fled because he was ardently anti-Fascist.[3] However, the former account is more likely, since several other Castellammarese mafiosi fled to the United States around the same time.




Eventually, Bonanno became involved in bootlegging activities, and soon joined a Mafia family led by another Castellammarese, Salvatore Maranzano.


 




The Castellammarese War




Almost from the beginning, Bonanno was recognized by his accomplices in Brooklyn as a man with superior organizational skills and quick instincts. He also became known to the leader of Mafia activities in New York, Joe "the Boss" Masseria. Masseria became increasingly suspicious of the growing number of Castellammarese in Brooklyn. He sensed they were gradually dissociating themselves from his overall leadership.




In 1927 violence broke out between the two rival factions that shortly developed into all-out war. This war between Masseria and Maranzano became known as the Castellammarese War. It continued for more than four years. By 1930, Maranzanoâââ‰â¢s chief aides were Bonanno (as underboss and chief of staff),




Tommy Lucchese and Joseph Magliocco. Tommy Gagliano ran another gang that supported Maranzano. The Buffalo, New York mob boss Stefano Magaddino, another Castellammarese, also supported Maranzano. Magaddino's son was Peter Magaddino, a boyhood friend of Bonanno from his student days in Palermo. Masseria had Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis, Carlo Gambino, Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello on his side.




However, a third, secret, faction soon emerged, composed of younger mafiosi on both sides disgusted with the old-world predilections of Masseria, Maranzano and other old-line mafiosi, whom they called "Mustache Petes." This group of "Young Turk" mafiosi was led by Luciano and included Costello, Genovese, Adonis, Gambino and Anastasia on the Masseria side and Profaci, Gagliano, Lucchese, Magliocco and Magaddino on the Maranzano side. Although Bonanno was more steeped in the old-school traditions of "honor," "tradition," "respect" and "dignity" than others of his generation, he saw the need to modernize and joined forces with the Young Turks.]




By 1931, momentum had shifted to Maranzano and the Castellammarese faction. They were better organized and more unified than Masseriaâââ‰â¢s men, some of whom began to defect. Luciano and Genovese urged Masseria to make peace with Maranzano, but Masseria stubbornly refused. In the end, Luciano and Genovese concluded a secret deal with Maranzano. In return for safety and equal status for Luciano in Maranzano's new organization, Luciano and Genovese murdered Masseria and ended the Castellammarese War.


 




Mob re-organization




After Masseria's death, Maranzano outlined a peace plan to all the Sicilian and Italian gang leaders in the United States. Under this plan there would be 24 gangs (to be known as âââ¬Ãâfamiliesâââ¬

Vito "Don Vito" Genovese (November 27, 1897 âââ‰â¬Å February 14, 1969) was an Italian mobster and crime boss who rose to power in America during the Castellammarese War to later become leader of the Genovese crime family. Genovese served as mentor to future mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante.


 




[align=center:1fwu58ls]150px-Vito_Genovese_NYWTS.jpg[/attachment:1fwu58ls][/align:1fwu58ls]


 




Background




Vito Genovese was born on November 27, 1887, in Rosiglino near Naples, Italy. His father was Felice Genovese and his mother Nunziata Genovese. Vito had two brothers, Michael and Carmine Genovese, who also belonged to Vito Genovose's crime family. Vito Genovese's cousin, Michael James Genovese, became boss of the Pittsburgh crime family.




Vito Genovese was a very thin man who stood at 5'7". He had a fondness for Cashmere wool coats and had bloodless eyes that always seemed to be staring[citation needed]. He and his family lived a quiet life in a house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.




According to mobster Joseph Valachi, Genovese was a murderer with his own set of rules:




"If you went to Vito and told him about some guy who was doing wrong, he would have this guy killed and then he would have you killed for telling on the guy.


 




Early Years




As a child in Italy, Genovese only completed school to the equivalent to the American fifth grade. When Genovese was 15, his family emigrated to the United States and took up residence in Little Italy, Manhattan. Genovese started his criminal career stealing merchandise from pushcart vendors and running errands for mobsters. He later collected money from people who played illegal lotteries. One of Genovese's early friends was Lucky Luciano, a founding father of the Cosa Nostra . At age 19, Genovese spent a year in prison for illegal possession of a firearm.




In the early 1920, Genovese started working for Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, the boss of a powerful Brooklyn gang. Involved in bootlegging and extortion, Genovese's main asset to Masseria was his propensity for violence. In 1930, Genovese was indicted on counterfeiting charges when police found $1 million of counterfeit U.S. currency in a Bath Beach, Brooklyn workshop.[6]




In 1930, Genovese allegedly murdered Gaetano Reina, the leader of another Brooklyn gang. Reina had been an Masseria ally, but Masseria started to suspect Reina of secretly helping his arch-rival, Brooklyn gang leader Salvatore Maranzano. Masseria decided to kill Reina. On February 26, 1930, Genovese ambushed Reina as he was leaving his mistress' house in the Bronx and shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun. Masseria then took direct control of the Reina gang.




In 1931, Genovese's first wife died of tuberculosis and he quickly announced his intention to marry Anna Petrillo, who was already married to Gerard Vernotico.


 




Castellammarese War




In early 1931, the so-called Castellammarese War broke out between Masseria and Maranzano. By April 1931, Luciano and Genovese were secretly conspiring with Maranzano to kill Masseria. On April 15, 1931, Genovese allegedly participated in Masseria's murder. Luciano had lured Masseria to a meeting at a Coney Island, Brooklyn restaurant. During their meal, Luciano excused himself to go to the restroom. As soon as Luciano was gone, Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, and Bugsy Siegel rushed into the dining room and shot Masseria to death. The war ended and Maranzano was the winner.[10] No one was ever indicted in the Masseria murder. After Masseria's murder, Maranzano reorganized all the Sicilian and Italian gangs in New York into five crime families. Luciano became one of the family bosses, with Genovese as his underboss.




In September 1931, Luciano and Genovese planned the murder of Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano had received word that Maranzano was planning to kill him and Genovese, and prepared a hit team to kill Maranzano first. On September 10, 1931, when Maranzano summoned Luciano, Genovese, and Frank Costello to a meeting at his office, they knew Maranzano would kill them there. Instead, Luciano sent the hit squad to the office, where they shot Maranzano to death.




On March 16, 1932, Gerard Vernotico was found strangled to death on a Manhattan rooftop. On March 28, 1932, Genovese married Gerard's widow, Anna.


 




Boccia murder and exile to Italy


 




In 1934, Genovese allegedly killed mobster Ferdinand Boccia. Genovese and Boccia had conspired to cheat a wealthy gambler out of $150,000 in a high-stakes card game. After the game, Boccia demanded a share of $35,000 because he had introduced the victim to Genovese. Rather than pay Boccia anything, Genovese decided to murder him. On September 19, 1934, Genovese and five associates allegedly shot and killed Boccia in a coffee shop in Brooklyn.




On June 18, 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison as a result of his conviction on pandering. With Luciano's imprisonment, Genovese became acting boss of the Luciano crime family.[15]




On November 25, 1936, Genovese became a naturalized United States citizen in New York City.[3] In 1937, fearing prosecution for the Boccia murder, Genovese fled to Italy with $750,000 cash and settled in the city of Nola near Naples. With Genovese's departure, Frank Costello became the new Luciano family acting boss with Willie Moretti as acting underboss.




Genovese prospered in Italy, becoming a prominent Mafia leader there. Genovese also ran an enormous black market operation with Calogero Vizzini, a powerful Mafia boss in Sicily.[17] After paying a $250,000 bribe to the fascist government, Genovese became a good friend of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and received Italy's highest civilian medal.




In 1943, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of Carlo Tresca, the publisher of an anarchist newspaper in New York and an enemy of Mussolini. Genovese allegedly facilitated the murder as a favor to the Italian government. On January 11, 1943, a gunman shot and killed Tresca outside his newspaper office in Manhattan.[18] The shooter was later alleged to be Carmine Galante, a member of Genovese's crime family . No one was ever charged in the Tresca murder.


 




Return to New York




When the Allies invaded Italy in September 1943, Genovese switched sides and quickly offered his services to the U.S. Army. Genovese was appointed to a position of interpreter/liaison officer in the U.S. Army headquarters in Naples and quickly became one of American Military Government of Occupied Territories' (AMGOT) most trusted employees.




In the summer of 1944 in New York, Genovese was implicated in the Boccia murder by mobster Ernest Rupolo, a former Genovese associate. Facing a murder conviction, Rupolo had decided to become a government witness.[6]




On August 27, 1944, the Military Police arrested Genovese in Italy during an investigation of his black market ring. Genovese was stealing trucks, flour, and sugar from the Army. When Agent Orange C. Dickey of the Criminal Investigation Division examined Genovese's background, he discovered that Genovese was a U.S. fugitive for the 1934 Boccia killing. The problem was nobody in the Army or the federal government was interested in Genovese.




After months of frustration, Dickey was finally able to make preparations to ship Genovese back to New York to face trial. At that point, the pressure started being applied to Dickey. Genovese offered Dickey a $250,000 bribe to release him, and then threatened Dickey after he rejected the money .[21] Dickey was also pressured through his military chain of command to release Genovese, but refused to give in.[20]




On June 2, 1945, after arriving in New York by ship the day before, Genovese was arraigned on murder charges for the 1934 Boccia killing. He pleaded not guilty. On June 10, 1946, another prosecution witness, Jerry Esposito, was found shot to death beside a road in Norwood, New Jersey. On June 10, 1946, a judge dismissed murder charges against Genovese because the state did not have corroborating evidence. In making his decision, the judge had these comments:




"I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe that if there were even a shred of corroborating evidence, you would have been condemned to the (electric) chair".


 




Pursuit of power




With his release from custody in 1946, Genovese was able to rejoin the Luciano family in New York. However, neither Costello or Moretti were willing to give power back to him; Genovese was now a capo of his former Greenwich Village Crew. However, on October 4, 1951, Moretti was assassinated by order of the Mafia Commission; the mob bosses were unhappy with his testimony during the U.S. Senate Kefauver Hearings. Costello appointed Genovese as the new underboss.[25]




In December 1952, Anna Genovese sued her husband for financial support, an unheard of action by the wife of a Cosa Nostra figure. Two years earlier, she had moved out of the family home in New Jersey.[26] In 1953, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of mobster Steven Franse. Genovese had tasked Franse with supervising Anna Genovese while her husband was hiding in Italy. Outraged over Anna's love affairs and her lawsuit against him, Genovese blamed it all on Franse. Following Genovese's orders, two hitman brutally beat Franse and then slowly strangled him.[27]




During the mid-1950s, Genovese decided to move against Costello. However, Genovese needed to also remove Costello's strong ally on the Commission; Albert Anastasia, the feared boss of the Anastasia crime family. Genovese was soon conspiring with Carlo Gambino, Anastasia's underboss, to remove both men.




In May 1957, Genovese allegedly ordered the Costello murder attempt. On May 2, as Costello was entering the lobby of his apartment building, mobster Vincent Gigante stepped out of a limosine, shot Costello once in the head, and then left the scene. Fortunately for Costello, he only suffered a superficial scalp wound.[28] However, the experience convinced Costello to retire from the family. Genovese now became boss of what we call today the Genovese crime family and promoted his longtime lieutenant, Anthony Strollo, to underboss.




In late 1957, Genovese and Gambino allegedly ordered Anastasia's murder. Genovese had heard rumors that Costello was conspiring with Anastasia to regain power. On October 25, 1957, Anastasia arrived a Manhattan hotel barber shop for a haircut and shave. As Anastasia relaxed in the barber chair, two men with their faces covered in scarves shot and killed Anastasia. Witnesses were unable to identify any of the gunmen and competing theories exist today as to their identities.[29][30]




The coup against Costello was supported by the two biggest earners in the family, Anthony Strollo and Anthony Carfano. Soon after Genovese became the godfather, he would allegedly arrange for these two caporegimes to be murdered. Genovese loyalists Philip Lombardo, Gerardo Catena and Mike Miranda would assume the top positions in the family by the early 1960s.


 




Apalachin and prison




In November 1957, immediately after the Anastasia murder Genovese called for a meeting of national Cosa Nostra leaders. Genovese wanted the Commission leads to confirm him as his family's boss along with Carlo Gambino in his family. Genovese set the meeting, known today as the Apalachin Conference, at the farm of mobster Joseph Barbara in the rural town of Apalachin, New York. However, on November 14, 1957, an inquisitive New York State Police trooper noticed the increased activity at the Barbara farm and called for reinforcements to surround it. When the attendees were alerted, they chaotically fled the location, some fleeing on foot into the woods. The police stopped Genovese as he was driving away from the farm. Genovese said he was just there for a barbecue and to discuss business with Barbara. The police let him go.[31]




On June 2, 1958, Genovese testify under supeona in the U.S. Senate McClellan Hearings on organized crime. Genovese refused to answer any questions, citing his fifth amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution 150 separate times.




On July 7, 1958, Genovese was indicted on charges of conspiring to import and sell narcotics.[32] In 1959, Genovese was convicted of selling a large quantity of heroin. On April 17, 1959, Genovese was sentenced to 15 years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.[33] Many court observers felt the chief witness, a low level criminal who claimed to have met Genovese, was lying. Years later, the witness would recant his testimony, saying that he had been released from prison in return for implicating Genovese.




Before he went to prison, Genovese created a Ruling Panel of high-level family members to supervise the family; Strollo, Catena, and Miranda, However, Genovese still retained ultimate control from prison.




In September 1959, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of mobster Anthony Carfano. Angered at the murder attempt on Costello, Carfano had skipped the Apalachin meeting in protest. In response, Genovese decided to murder him.[34] On September 25, 1959, Carfano and a female companion were found shot to death in his Cadillac automobile on a residential street in Jackson Heights, Queens.[35]




In April 1962, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of Anthony Strollo. Genovese had concluded that Strollo was part of the plot that put him in prison. On April 8, Strollo left his house to go for a walk and was never seen again. His body was never recovered.




In 1962, an alleged murder threat from Genovese propelled mobster Joseph Valachi into the public spotlight. In June 1962, Genovese supposedly accused Valachi, also imprisoned in Atlanta, of being an informer and condemned Valachi to death. In July 1962, Valachi supposedly mistook another inmate for a mob hitman and killed him. After receiving a life sentence for that murder, Valachi decided to become a government witness.[37]




On August 24, 1964, Ernest Rupolo's body was recovered from Jamaica Bay in Queens. His killers had attached two concrete blocks to his legs and tied his hands. It was widely assumed that Genovese had ordered Rupolo's murder for testifying against him in the 1944 Boccia murder trial.


 




Death




On February 14, 1969, Genovese died of natural causes at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. He is buried in Saint John Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.


 




In popular culture




Genovese is portrayed in the 2001 TV movie Boss of Bosses by Steven Bauer.




Genovese is portrayed in the 1972 film The Valachi Papers by Lino Ventura.


 




[align=center:1fwu58ls]genovese_vito.jpg[/attachment:1fwu58ls][/align:1fwu58ls]


 


 



<hr class="bbcode_rule" />

[align=center:uf4ivj8s]Eliot Ness[/align:uf4ivj8s]




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]220px-Eliotness.jpg[/attachment:uf4ivj8s][/align:uf4ivj8s]




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]Bureau of Prohibition




Cleveland Division of Police[/align:uf4ivj8s]




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]April 19, 1903 âââ‰â¬Å May 16, 1957[/align:uf4ivj8s]




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]Place of birth   Chicago, Illinois




Rank   Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago in 1934




Director for Public Safety for Cleveland, Ohio[/align:uf4ivj8s]




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]400px-Ness_marker.jpg[/attachment:uf4ivj8s][/align:uf4ivj8s]


 


 




Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 âââ‰â¬Å May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.


 




Early life




Eliot Ness was born April 19, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the youngest of five siblings born to Norwegian immigrants, Peter and Emma Ness. Ness attended Christian Fenger High School in Chicago. He was educated at the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, graduating in 1925 with a degree in economics. He began his career as an investigator for the Retail Credit Company of Atlanta. He was assigned to the Chicago territory, where he conducted background investigations for the purpose of credit information. He returned to the University to take a course in criminology, eventually earning a Master's Degree in the field.


 




Career




1927 - 1931




In 1926, Ness's brother-in-law, Alexander Jamie, an agent of the Bureau of Investigation (which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935), influenced Ness to enter law enforcement. He joined the U.S. Treasury Department in 1927, working with the 300-strong Bureau of Prohibition, in Chicago.




Following the election of President Herbert Hoover, U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was specifically charged with bringing down gangster Al Capone. The federal government approached the problem from two directions: income tax evasion and the Volstead Act. Ness was chosen to head the operations under the Volstead Act, targeting the illegal breweries and supply routes of Capone.




With Chicago's corrupted law-enforcement agents endemic, Ness went through the records of all Prohibition agents to create a reliable team, initially of 50, later reduced to 15 and finally to just eleven men called, "The Untouchables". Raids against illegal stills and breweries began immediately; within six months Ness claimed to have seized breweries worth over one million dollars. The main source of information for the raids was an extensive wire-tapping operation. An attempt by Capone to bribe Ness's agents was seized on by Ness for publicity, leading to the media nickname, "The Untouchables." There were a number of assassination attempts on Ness, and one close friend of his was killed.




The efforts of Ness and his team had a serious impact on Capone's operations. However, Ness had very little to do with the IRS convicting Capone with income tax evasion, which led to Capone's downfall.[5] In a number of federal grand jury cases in 1931, Capone was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and also 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act.[6] On October 17, 1931, Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison, and following a failed appeal, he began his sentence in 1932.


 




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]Nesscredentials.jpg[/attachment:uf4ivj8s][/align:uf4ivj8s]


 




1931 - 1957




Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago and in 1934 for Ohio. Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, he was assigned as an alcohol tax agent in the "Moonshine Mountains" of southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee; and, in 1934, he was transferred to Cleveland, Ohio. In December 1935, Cleveland mayor Harold Burton hired him as the city's Safety Director, which put him in charge of both the police and fire departments. He headed a campaign to clean out police corruption and to modernize the fire department.[9]


 


 




Billboard for Eliot Ness' 1947 campaign for mayor, seen in 1973




In 1938 Ness's personal life was completely transformed while his career began to have some ups and downs. He concentrated heavily on his work, which may have contributed to the divorce that year from his first wife Edna (Staley). He declared war on the mob, and his primary targets included "Big" Angelo Lonardo, "Little" Angelo Scirrca, Moe Dalitz, John Angerola, George Angersola, and Charles Pollizi. Ness was also Safety Director at the time of several grisly murders that occurred in the Cleveland area from 1935 to 1938. Unfortunately, what was otherwise a remarkably successful career in Cleveland, withered gradually. Cleveland critics targeted his divorce, his high-profile social drinking, and his conduct in a car accident, but he continued with the next Mayor, Frank Lausche.




Ness remarried in 1939, to illustrator Evaline Ness. The Nesses moved to Washington, D.C. in 1942 where he worked for the federal government, directing the battle against prostitution in communities surrounding military bases, where venereal disease was a serious problem. Later he made a number of forays into the corporate world, all of which failed from his lack of business acumen. In 1944, he left to become chairman of the Diebold Corporation, a security safe company based in Ohio. After his second divorce and third marriage, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Cleveland in 1947, after which he was expelled from Diebold. In the aftermath, Ness began drinking more heavily and spending his free time in bars telling (often exaggerated) stories of his law enforcement career. He also spent himself into debt. Ness was forced into taking various odd jobs to earn a living, including as an electronics parts wholesaler, a clerk in a bookstore, and selling frozen hamburger patties to restaurants. By 1953, he came to work for an upstart company called Guaranty Paper Corporation, which specialized in watermarking legal and official documents to prevent counterfeiting. Ness was offered a job because of his expertise in law enforcement. The company soon moved from Cleveland to the quiet rural town of Coudersport, Pennsylvania where operating costs were lower. He made a decent income from GPC and moved with his wife and adopted son into a modest rental house. Once again, he enjoyed going to local bars and regaling amazed audiences with his tales of crime fighting. He collapsed and died at his home of a massive heart attack on May 16, 1957. Collaborating with Oscar Fraley in his last years, he co-wrote the book The Untouchables, which was published a month after his death.


 




[align=center:uf4ivj8s]402px-1938_campaign_sign_on_building_at_36th_Street_and_Cedar_Avenue_Cleveland._-_NARA_-_550133.jpg[/attachment:uf4ivj8s][/align:uf4ivj8s]


 




Personal life




Ness was married to Edna Staley (1900-1988) from 1929 to 1938, illustrator Evaline Ness (1911-1986) from 1939 to 1945, and artist Elisabeth Andersen Seaver (1906-1977) from 1946 until his death. He also had an adopted son Robert (1946-1976). Ness's ashes were scattered in one of the small ponds on the grounds of Lake View Cemetery, in Cleveland.


 




Legacy




A number of television programs and feature films have been made (loosely) based on his life. Some of the best-known of these include the 1950s/1960s TV series titled The Untouchables, which starred Robert Stack as Ness and which Walter Winchell narrated, and Brian De Palma's Oscar-winning film of the same title, The Untouchables, which starred Kevin Costner as Ness and also featured Sean Connery and Robert De Niro. Tom Amandes portrayed Ness in the short-lived TV remake of The Untouchables, which ran from 1993 to 1994.[14] Ness is also the subject of a series of novels based on actual events during his tenure as Safety Director in Cleveland, and a stage play, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, by Max Allan Collins[15]. He was also portrayed in the Supernatural episode "Time After Time After Time" by Nicholas Lea.




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Team Forteress 2




http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/? ... Play_103_1

MAFIA II



 




In order to help and give members choices when they do a bad move like not making a back up file




In that section you will find individual folder witch are in the SDS file




like SDS/cars




SDS/players


 




all from the original game/ so members wont have to reinstall

[align=center:324nq5dj]Carmine_Galante.jpg[/attachment:324nq5dj][/align:324nq5dj]


 




Carmine Galante (pronounced gah-LAN-tay), also known as "Lilo" and "Cigar" (February 21, 1910 âââ‰â¬Å July 12, 1979) was a mobster and acting boss of the Bonanno crime family. Galante was rarely seen without a cigar, leading to the nickname "The Cigar" and "Lilo" (an Italian slang word for cigar).


 




Background




Camillo Carmine Galante was born on February 21, 1910, in a tenement building in the East Harlem section of Manhattan. His parents, Vincenzo "James" Galante and Vincenza Russo, had emigrated to New York City in 1906 from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, where Vincenzo was a fisherman.




Carmine Galante had two brothers, Samuel and Peter Galante, and two sisters, Josephine and Angelina Galante.  Carmine Galante married Helen Galante, by whom he had three children; Bonanno crime family reputed capo James Galante, Camilla Galante, and Angela Galante. For the last 20 years of his life, Carmine Galante actually lived with Ann Acquavella; the couple had two children together.[1]




Galante stood around 5Ãâý feet and weighed approximately 160 pounds. While in prison in 1931, doctors diagnosed Galante as having a psychopathic personality.




Galante owned the Rosina Costume Company in Brooklyn, New York and was associated with the Abco Vending Company of West New York, New Jersey.


 




Early years




At age 10, Galante was sent to reform school due to his criminal activities. He soon formed a juvenile street gang on New York's Lower East Side. By age 15, Galante had dropped out of seventh grade. As a teenager, Galante became a Mafia associate during the Prohibition era, becoming a leading enforcer by the end of the decade. During this period, Galante also worked as a fish sorter and at an artificial flower shop.[2]




On December 12, 1925, the 15 year-old Galante pleaded guilty to assault charges. On December 22, 1926, Galante was sentenced to at least two-and-a-half years in state prison.




In August 1930, Galante was arrested for the murder of police officer Walter DeCastilla during a payroll robbery. However, Galante was never indicted.[2] Also in 1930, New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Joseph Meenahan caught Galante and other gang members attempting to hijack a truck in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the ensuing gun battle, Galante wounded Meenahan and a six-year-old bystander. However, both victims survived. On February 8, 1931, after pleading guilty to attempted robbery Galante was sentenced to 12 and a half years in state prison. On May 1, 1939, Galante was released from prison on parole.




By 1940, Galante was carrying out "hits" for Vito Genovese, the official underboss of the Luciano crime family. Galante had an underworld reputation for viciousness and was suspected by the New York Police Department (NYPD) of involvment in over 80 murders.




In 1943, Galante allegedly murdered Carlo Tresca, the publisher of an anti-fascist newspaper in New York. Genovese, living in exile in Italy, offered to kill Tresca as a favor to Italian President Benito Mussolini. Genovese allegedly gave the murder contract to Galante.. On January 11, 1943, Galante allegedly shot and killed Tresca as he stepped outside his newspaper office in Manhattan, then got in a car and drove away. Although Galante was arrested as a suspect, no one was ever charged in the murder.[6] After the Tresca murder, Galante was sent back to prison on a parole violation. On December 21, 1944, Galante was released from prison.




On February 10, 1945, Galante married Helena Marulli in New York.


 




Underboss




Galante went from being chauffeur of Bonanno family boss, Joseph Bonanno, to caporegime and then underboss. He was said to have been loyal to Bonanno and often spoke of him with great admiration. They also shared a common enemy, Carlo Gambino of the Anastasia crime family.




In 1953, Bonanno sent Galante to Montreal, Quebec to supervise the family drug business there. The Bonannos were importing huge amounts of heroin by ship into Montreal and then sending it into the United States. In 1957, due to Galante's strong-arm extortion tactics, the Canadian Government deported him back to the United States.




In October 1957, Bonanno and Galante held a hotel meeting in Palermo, Sicily on plans to import heroin into the United States. Attendees included exiled boss Lucky Luciano and other American mobsters, with a Sicilian Mafia delegation led by mobster Giuseppe Genco Russo. As part of the agreement, Sicilian mobsters would come to the U.S. to distribute the narcotics. Galante brought many young men, known as Zips, from his family home of Castellammare del Golfo, Trapani, to work as bodyguards, contract killers and drug traffickers. These Sicilian criminals had Galante's total trust and confidence.




In 1958, after being indicted on drug conspiracy charges, Galante went into hiding. On June 3, 1959, New Jersey State Police officers arrested Galante after stopping his car on the Garden State Parkway close to New York City. Federal agents had recently discovered that Galante was hiding in a house on Pelican Island off the South Jersey shore. After posting $100,000 bail, he was released. [9] On May 18, 1960, Galante was indicted on a second set of narcotics charges; he surrendered voluntarily.




Galante's first narcotics trial started on November 21, 1960. From the beginning, the first trial was characterized by jurors and alternates dropping out and coercive courtroom displays by the defendants. On May 15, 1961, the judge declared a mistrial. The jury foreman had fallen down some stairs at his house and was unable to continue the trial due to injury. Galante was sentenced to 20 days in jail due to contempt of court. On July 10, 1962, after being convicted in his second narcotics trial, Galante was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.


 




Power grab




In 1964, Joseph Bonanno and his ally, Profaci crime family boss Joseph Magliocco, unsuccessfully plotted to murder three rival members of the Mafia Commission. When the plot was discovered, the Commission ordered Bonnanno to retire. Over the succeeding 10 years, Bonanno tried to install his son Salvatore Bonanno as boss while the Commission tried to run the family with a series of ineffectual bosses.




In January 1974, Galante was released from prison on parole. A few days after his release from prison, Galante allegedly ordered the bombing of the doors to the mausoleum of his enemy Frank Costello, who had died in 1973.




In November 1974, the Commission designated Philip Rastelli as the official boss of the Bonanno family. However, Rastelli was soon sent to prison and Galante seized effective control of the family. As a former underboss, Galante considered himself the rightful successor to Joseph Bonanno.




During the late 1970s, Galante allegedly organized the murders of at least eight members of the Gambino family, with whom he had an intense rivalry, in order to take over a massive drug-trafficking operation.




On March 3, 1978, Galante's parole was revoked by the United States Parole Commission and he was sent back to prison. Galante had allegedly violated parole by associating with other Bonanno mobsters. However, on February 27, 1979, a judge ruled that the government had illegally revoked Galante's parole and ordered his immediate release from prison. By this stage, Galante was bald, bespectacled and had a stooped walk.


 




Death




The New York crime families were alarmed at Galante's brazen attempt at taking over the narcotics market. Galante also refused to share any drug profits with the other families. Although Galante was aware that he had many enemies, he said, "No one will ever kill me, they wouldn't dare." Genovese crime family boss Frank Tieri began contacting Cosa Nostra leaders to build a consensus for Galante's murder, even obtaining approval from the exiled Joseph Bonanno.  In 1979, the Mafia Commission ordered Galante's execution.




On July 12, 1979, Carmine Galante was assassinated just as he finished eating lunch on an open patio at Joe and Mary's Italian-American Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Galante was dining with Leonard Coppola, a Bonanno capo, and restaurant owner/cousin Giuseppe Turano, a Bonanno soldier. Also sitting at the table were Galante's Sicilian bodyguards, Baldassare Amato and Cesare Bonventre. At 2:45 pm, three ski-masked men entered the restaurant, walked into the patio, and opened fire with shotguns and handguns. Galante, Turano, and Coppola were killed instantly. Galante's death picture showed a cigar still in his mouth. Amato and Bonventre, who did nothing to protect Galante, were left harmed. The gunmen then ran out of the restaurant.




Galante was murdered by Anthony Indelicato, Dominick Trinchera, Dominick Napolitano and Louis Giongetti. These men were hired by Alphonse Indelicato.


 




[align=center:324nq5dj]WS_Galante.jpg[/attachment:324nq5dj]


 




Aftermath




The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York refused to allow a funeral mass for Galante due to his notoriety. Galante was buried at Saint John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.




In 1984, Bonventre was found murdered in a New Jersey warehouse, allegedly to guarantee his silence in the Galante murder.  On January 13, 1987, Anthony Indelicato was sentenced to 40 years in prison, as a defendant in the Commission trial, for the Galante, Coppola, and Turano murders.[/align:324nq5dj]

[align=center:18orf7p7]Al Capone[/align:18orf7p7]


 


 




[align=center:18orf7p7]800px-AlCaponemugshotCPD.jpg[/attachment:18orf7p7][/align:18orf7p7]


 




[align=center:18orf7p7]236px-Al_Capone_Signature.svg.png[/attachment:18orf7p7][/align:18orf7p7]


 




[align=center:18orf7p7]Official mugshot




Born   January 17, 1899




Brooklyn, New York, United States




Died   January 25, 1947 (aged 48)




Palm Island, Florida, United States




Charge(s)   Tax evasion




Penalty   11 year sentence in Alcatraz




Status   Deceased




Occupation   Gangster, bootlegger, criminal, racketeer, boss of Chicago Outfit




Spouse   Mae Capone




Children   Albert Francis Capone[/align:18orf7p7]


 




Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone (January 17, 1899 âââ‰â¬Å January 25, 1947) was an Italian-American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early 1920s to 1931.




Born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City to Italian immigrants, Capone became involved with gang activity at a young age after being expelled from school at age 14. In his early twenties, he moved to Chicago to take advantage of a new opportunity to make money smuggling illegal alcoholic beverages into the city during Prohibition. He also engaged in various other criminal activities, including bribery of government figures and prostitution. Despite his illegitimate occupation, Capone became a highly visible public figure. He made donations to various charitable endeavors using the money he made from his activities, and was viewed by many to be a "modern-day Robin Hood".




Capone was publicly criticized for his supposed involvement in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven rival gang members were executed. Capone was convicted on federal charges of tax evasion, and sentenced to federal prison. His incarceration included a term at the then-new Alcatraz federal prison. In the final years of Capone's life, he suffered mental and physical deterioration due to late-stage neurosyphilis, which he had contracted in his youth. On January 25, 1947, he died from cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke.


 




Early life




Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York on January 17, 1899.[4] His parents, Gabriele (December 12, 1864 âââ‰â¬Å November 14, 1920) and Teresina Capone (December 28, 1867 âââ‰â¬Å November 29, 1952), were immigrants from Italy. His father, Gabriele, was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 16 mi (26 km) south of Naples, and his mother, Teresina, was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the Province of Salerno.




Gabriele and Teresina had nine children: Alphonse "Scarface Al" Capone, James Capone (also known as Richard Two-Gun Hart), Raffaele Capone (also known as Ralph "Bottles" Capone, who took charge of his brother's beverage industry), Salvatore "Frank" Capone, John Capone, Albert Capone, Matthew Capone, Rose Capone, and Mafalda Capone (who married John J. Maritote). The Capone family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street,[4] in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue.[4] When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.




Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face.[1] He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor.


 




Career




After his initial stint with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone received the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface" in a fight. After he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, Capone was attacked by her brother Frank Gallucio; his face was slashed three times on the left side. Yale insisted that Capone apologize to Gallucio, and later Capone hired him as a bodyguard. When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face. He said the injuries were war wounds. Capone was called "Snorky" by his closest friends.


 




Marriage and family




On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, who was Irish Catholic and who, earlier that month, had given birth to their first son, Albert Francis ("Sonny") Capone. As Capone was under the age of 21, his parents had to consent to the marriage in writing.


 




Chicago career




Capone departed New York for Chicago without his new wife and son, who joined him later. In 1923, he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood on the city's south side for USD $5,500.




Capone was recruited for Chicago by Johnny Torrio, his Five Points Gang mentor. Torrio had gone there to resolve some family problems his cousin's husband was having with the Black Hand. Torrio killed the members of the Black Hand who had given his cousin's husband problems. He saw many business opportunities in Chicago, especially bootlegging following the onset of prohibition. Chicago's location on Lake Michigan gave access to a vast inland territory, and it was well-served by railroads. Torrio took over the crime empire of James "Big Jim" Colosimo after he was murdered. Yale was a suspect but legal proceedings against him were dropped due to a lack of evidence. Capone was suspected in the murders of Colosimo and two other men. He was seeking a safe haven and a better job to provide for his new family.[14]




The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the Chicago area's long history of rigged elections, with voters threatened by thugs at polling stations. Capone's mayoral candidate won by a huge margin and weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with his puppet-mayor and knocked him down the town hall steps.[citation needed]




For Capone, the election victory was marred by the death of his younger brother Frank at the hands of the police. Capone cried at his brother's funeral and ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.




Much of Capone's family settled in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone's sister Mafalda married John J. Maritote at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the Polish Cathedral style.


 




HIS HOUSE


 




[align=center:18orf7p7]draft_lens1513294module151104537photo_1309108799Al_Capones_Home.jpg[/attachment:18orf7p7][/align:18orf7p7]


 




Capone's power grows in Cicero




The Torrio-Capone organization, as well as the Sicilian-American Genna crime family, competed with the North Side Gang of Dean O'Banion. In May 1924, O'Banion discovered that their Sieben Brewery was going to be raided by federal agents and sold his share to Torrio. After the raid, both O'Banion and Torrio were arrested.[16] Torrio's people murdered O'Banion in revenge on October 10, 1924, provoking a gang war.[17][18]




In 1925, Torrio was severely injured in an attack by the North Side Gang; he turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. During the Prohibition Era, Capone controlled large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided The Outfit with an estimated US $100 million per year in revenue. This wealth was generated through numerous illegal vice enterprises, such as gambling and prostitution; the highest revenue was generated by the sale of liquor.




His transportation network moved smuggled liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast, The Purple Gang in Detroit, who brought liquor in from Canada, with help from Belle River native Blaise Diesbourg, also known as "King Canada," and local production which came from Midwestern moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the revenues gained by his bootlegging operation, Capone increased his grip on the political and law-enforcement establishments in Chicago. He made his headquarters at Chicago's Lexington Hotel; after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, it was nicknamed "Capone's Castle".




According to one source, while Al Capone was in charge of the Chicago Outfit it has been reported that some members of organization would take the train from Chicago to Wabash County, Illinois and stay at a remote hotel called the Grand Rapids Hotel on the Wabash River next to the Grand Rapids Dam. The hotel was only in existence for nine years but many residents of the area remember seeing men who claimed to be from the Chicago Outfit at the Grand Rapids Hotel. Suspiciously, the Grand Rapids Hotel was burned down by a man with one leg who dropped a blowtorch. It is not currently known if the men who travelled to the Grand Rapids Hotel were smuggling liquor in violation of prohibition or merely vacationing.[20]




The organized corruption included the bribing of Chicago Mayor William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson, and Capone's gang operated largely free from legal intrusion. He operated casinos and speakeasies throughout the city. With his wealth, he indulged in custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa[21]), jewelry, and female companionship. He garnered media attention, to which his favorite responses were "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want," and "All I do is satisfy a public demand."[3] Capone had become a celebrity.


 


 




Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen opened in Chicago by Al Capone, 1931




His rivals retaliated for the violence of Capone's enforcement of control. North Side gangsters Hymie Weiss and Bugs Moran wanted to bring him down. More than once, Capone's car was riddled with bullets. On September 20, 1926, the North Side gang shot into Capone's entourage as he was eating lunch in the Hawthorne Hotel restaurant. A motorcade of ten vehicles, using Thompson submachine guns and shotguns riddled the outside of the Hotel and the restaurant on the first floor of the building. Capone's bodyguard, Frankie Rio, threw him to the ground at the first sound of gunfire. Several bystanders were hurt from flying glass and bullet fragments in the raid. Capone paid for the medical care of a young boy and his mother who would have lost her eyesight otherwise. This event prompted Capone to call for a truce, but negotiations fell through. The attacks were believed to have been made at Moran's direction and left Capone shaken.[citation needed]




Capone had his Cadillac fitted with bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires and a police siren. In 1932, Treasury agents working on prohibition issues seized the car; it was later used as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's limousine.




Capone placed armed bodyguards around the clock at his headquarters at the Lexington Hotel, at 22nd Street (later renamed Cermak Road) and Michigan Avenue. For his trips away from Chicago, Capone was reputed to have had several other retreats and hideouts located in:


 




Brookfield, Wisconsin




Saint Paul, Minnesota




French Lick, Indiana




Lansing, Michigan




Jacksonville, Florida




Hot Springs, Arkansas




Johnson City, Tennessee




Olean, New York




Fontana, California




Terre Haute, Indiana




Grand Haven, Michigan




Dubuque, Iowa


 




Former New York gang member Owney "The Killer" Madden retired to Hot Springs and invited his former colleagues to visit him there; this was also the place that Lucky Luciano was first arrested. As a further precaution, Capone and his entourage would often show up suddenly at one of Chicago's train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on night trains to places such as Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City, Little Rock or Hot Springs, where they would spend a week in luxury hotel suites under assumed names. In 1928, Capone bought a 14-room retreat on Palm Island, Florida close to Miami Beach.


 




Saint Valentine's Day Massacre




It is believed that Capone ordered the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. Details of the killing of the seven victims in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street (then the SMC Cartage Co.) and the extent of Capone's involvement are widely disputed. No one was ever brought to trial for the crime. The massacre was thought to be the Outfit's effort to strike back at Bugs Moran's North Side gang. They had been increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit's booze trucks, assassinating two presidents of the Outfit-controlled Unione Siciliana, and made three assassination attempts on Jack McGurn, a top enforcer of Capone.[citation needed]


 




Valentine_Day_massacre.jpg[/attachment:18orf7p7]


 


 




To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Caponeâââ‰â¢s men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse that served as a Moran headquarters. On the morning of Thursday February 14, 1929, Caponeâââ‰â¢s lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police to start a 'raid'. The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall without a struggle then signaled for accomplices with machine guns. The seven victims were machine-gunned and shot-gunned.[citation needed] Photos of the massacre victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's reputation. Federal law enforcement worked to investigate his activities.


 




Conviction and imprisonment




In 1929, the Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness began an investigation of Capone and his business, attempting to get a conviction for Prohibition violations. Frank J. Wilson investigated Capone's income tax violations, which the government decided was more likely material for a conviction. In 1931 Capone was indicted for income tax evasion and various violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition) at the Chicago Federal Building in the courtroom of Judge James Herbert Wilkerson[23]. His attorneys made a plea deal, but the presiding judge warned he might not follow the sentencing recommendation from the prosecution. Capone withdrew his plea of guilty.




His attempt to bribe and intimidate the potential jurors was discovered by Ness's men, The Untouchables . The venire (jury pool) was switched with one from another case, and Capone was stymied. Following a long trial, on October 17 the jury returned a mixed verdict, finding Capone guilty of five counts of tax evasion and failing to file tax returns[24][25] (the Volstead Act violations were dropped). The judge sentenced him to 11 years imprisonment, at the time the longest tax evasion sentence ever given, along with heavy fines, and liens were filed against his various properties.[26] His appeals of both the conviction and the sentence were denied.[27]




In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary, but he was able to obtain special privileges. Later, for a short period of time, he was transferred to the Lincoln Heights Jail. He was transferred to Alcatraz on August 11, 1934, which was newly established as a prison on an island off San Francisco.[28] The warden kept tight security and cut off Capone's contact with colleagues. His isolation and the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933, which reduced a major source of revenue, diminished his power.[citation needed]


 


 




Al Capone at Alcatraz




During his early months at Alcatraz, Capone made an enemy by showing his disregard for the prison social order when he cut in line while prisoners were waiting for a haircut. James Lucas, a Texas bank robber serving 30 years, reportedly confronted the former syndicate leader and told him to get back at the end of the line. When Capone asked if he knew who he was, Lucas reportedly grabbed a pair of the barber's scissors and, holding them to Capone's neck, answered "Yeah, I know who you are, greaseball. And if you don't get back to the end of that fucking line, I'm gonna know who you were."




Capone was admitted into the prison hospital with a minor wound and released a few days later. In addition, his health declined as the syphilis which he had contracted as a youth progressed. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California, to serve the one-year contempt of court term he was originally sentenced to serve in Chicago's Cook County jail. He was paroled on November 16, 1939, and, after having spent a short time in a hospital, returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.


 




HIS CELL




[align=center:18orf7p7]800px-Al-capone-cell.jpg[/attachment:18orf7p7][/align:18orf7p7]


 




Later years




Capone's control and interests within organized crime diminished rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight, and his physical and mental health had deteriorated under the effects of neurosyphilis. He had become incapable of resuming his gang activity. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist performed examinations and concluded that Capone then had the mental capability of a 12-year-old child. He often raved about Communists, foreigners, and Bugs Moran, whom he was convinced was plotting to kill him from his Ohio prison cell.




On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day. On January 25, 1947 Al Capone died in his home in Palm Island, Florida, surrounded by his family.


 




In popular culture


 




One of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century, Capone has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Capone's personality and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death. The stereotypical image of a mobster wearing a blue pinstriped suit and tilted fedora is based on photos of Capone. His accent, mannerisms, facial construction, physical stature, and parodies of his name have been used for numerous gangsters in comics, movies, music, and literature.


 




[align=center:18orf7p7]800px-Al_Capones_grave.jpg[/attachment:18orf7p7][/align:18orf7p7]

[align=center:o5ljznrx]Meyer Lansky




408px-Meyer_Lansky_NYWTS_1_retouched.jpg[/attachment:o5ljznrx]




Meyer Lansky in 1958




Born   Meyer Suchowljansky




July 4, 1902Grodno, Russian Empire




Died   January 15, 1983 (aged 80)Miami Beach, Florida




Cause of death   Lung cancer




Resting place   Mount Nebo Cemetery, Miami, Florida




Nationality   United States




Known for   Mob activity[/align:o5ljznrx]




________________________________________________________________________________________________




Meyer Lansky (born Meyer Suchowljansky; July 4, 1902 âââ‰â¬Å January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Russian-born, Jewish American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful people in the country.




Lansky developed a gambling empire which stretched from Saratoga, New York to Miami to Council Bluffs and Las Vegas; it is also said that he oversaw gambling concessions in Cuba. Although a member of the Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld (although the full extent of this role has been the subject of some debate).


 




Early life




Lansky was born Meyer Suchowljansky in Grodno (then in Russia, now in Belarus), to a Polish-Jewish family who experienced pogroms incited by the Russian authorities. In 1911, he emigrated to the United States through the port of Odessa with his mother and brother and joined his father, who had previously emigrated to the United States in 1909, and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York.




Lansky met Bugsy Siegel when he was a teenager. They became lifelong friends, as well as partners in the bootlegging trade, and together with Lucky Luciano, formed a lasting partnership. Lansky was instrumental in Luciano's rise to power by organizing the 1931 murder of Mafia powerhouse Salvatore Maranzano. As a youngster, Siegel saved Lansky's life several times, a fact which Lansky always appreciated. The two adroitly managed the Bug and Meyer Mob despite its reputation as one of the most violent Prohibition gangs.




Lansky was the brother of Jacob "Jake" Lansky, who in 1959 was the manager of the Nacional Hotel in Havana, Cuba.


 




Gambling operations




By 1936, Lansky had established gambling operations in Florida, New Orleans, and Cuba. These gambling operations were very successful as they were founded upon two innovations:




First, in Lansky and his connections there existed the technical expertise to effectively manage them based upon Lanskyâââ‰â¢s knowledge of the true mathematical odds of most popular wagering games.




Second, mob connections were used to ensure legal and physical security of their establishments from other crime figures, and law enforcement (through bribes).




But there was also an absolute rule of integrity concerning the games and wagers made within their establishments. Lanskyâââ‰â¢s âââ¬Ãâcarpet jointsâââ¬

Look at this a new polish police, well deseved  " data-emoticon="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20">" data-emoticon="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20">" data-emoticon="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20">" data-emoticon="" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20">  agent cole phelps

[align=center:38i4g0kd]Carlo Gambino




532px-Carlo_Gambino.jpg[/attachment:38i4g0kd]




Mugshot of Carlo Gambino




Born   Carlo Gambino August 24, 1902 Palermo, Sicily




Died   October 15, 1976 (aged 74) Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.




Cause of death   Heart attack




Resting place   Saint John's Cemetery, Queens, New York City, New York




Nationality   Sicilian, Italian, American




Citizenship   Italian




Occupation   Crime boss, Mafioso, Mobster, Rum Runner, Businessman, Racketeer




Known for   Boss of the Gambino crime family




Spouse   Catherine Castellano




Children   3 sons and 1 daughter[/align:38i4g0kd]


 




"Don" Carlo Gambino (pronounced gam-BEE-noh), (August 24, 1902 - October 15, 1976) was a Sicilian mobster, notable for being Boss of the Gambino crime family, which is still named after him. After the 1957 Apalachin Convention he unexpectedly seized control of the Commission of the American Mafia. Gambino was known for being low-key and secretive. Gambino served 22 months in prison (1938âââ‰â¬Å39), and lived to the age of 74, when he died of a heart attack in bed, "In a state of grace", according to a priest who had given him the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He had two brothers, Gaspare Gambino, who later married and was never involved with the Mafia, and Paolo Gambino who, on the other hand, had a big role in his brother's family.


 




Early life


 




Gambino was born in the town of Palermo, Sicily. He was born to a family that belonged to the Honored Society. The Honored Society was slightly more complicated than the Black Hand of America, which was often confused with the American Mafia. The Black Hand, much like the pre-1920s Mafia, was a highly disorganized version of the real European Mafia. Once Benito Mussolini chased a great deal of real mafiosi out of Italy, Italian-Americans such as Gambino benefited from the new, better-organized Mafia. Gambino began carrying out murder orders for new Mob bosses in his teens. In 1921, at the age of 19, he became a "made man", and was inducted into Cosa Nostra. He was later known as an "original". He was the brother-in-law of Sicilian Gambino crime family mobster Paul Castellano.


 




Emigration




Gambino entered the United States as an illegal immigrant on a shipping boat. He ate nothing but anchovies and wine during the month long trip, and joined his cousins, the Castellanos, in New York City. There he joined a crime family headed by Salvatore "Tata" D'Aquila, one of the larger crime families in the city. Gambino's uncle, Giuseppe Castellano, also joined the D'Aquila family around this time.




Gambino also became involved with the "Young Turks", which was a group of Americanized Italian and Jewish mobsters in New York which included Frank Costello, Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Frank Scalice, Settimo Accardi, Tommy "Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Mickey Cohen and was headed by one of the future's most powerful Mob bosses, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano. The crew became involved in robbery, thefts, and, illegal gambling, but with their new partner Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, they turned to bootlegging during Prohibition in the early 1920s.


 




The Castellammarese War




By 1926, Luciano was considered to be a powerful gangster on the rise. Luciano's immediate superior, Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria was coming into conflict with Salvatore Maranzano, a recent arrival from Palermo who was born in Castellammare del Golfo. When Maranzano arrived in New York in 1925, his access to money and manpower led him to become involved in extortion and gambling operations that directly competed with Masseria. On October 10, 1928, Joe Masseria eliminated D'Aquila, his top rival for the coveted title of "Boss of Bosses." However, Masseria still had to deal with the powerful and influential Maranzano and his Castellammarese Clan. Gambino was thrown right into the line of fire.




Masseria demanded absolute loyalty and obedience from the other criminals in his area, and killed anyone who gave him less than that on the spot. In 1930, Masseria demanded a $10,000 tribute from Maranzano's then boss, Nicola "Cola" Schiro, and supposedly got it. Schiro fled New York in fear, leaving Maranzano as the new leader. By 1931, a series of killings in New York involving Castellammarese clan members and associates caused Maranzano and his family to declare war against Joe Masseria and his allies. D'Aquila's family, now headed by Alfred Mineo, sided with Masseria. In addition to Gambino, other prominent members of this family included Luciano associates Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia and Frank Scalice. The Castellammarese clan included Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno and Stefano Magaddino, the Profaci crime family, which included Joseph Profaci and Joseph Magliocco, along with former Masseria allies the Riena family, which included Gaetano "Tom" Reina, Gaetano "Tommy" Gagliano and Gaetano Lucchese.




The Castellammarese War raged on between the Masseria and Maranzano factions for almost four years. This internal war devastated the Prohibition-era operations and street rackets that the five New York families controlled along with the Irish and Jewish crime groups. The war cut into gang profits and in some cases completely destroyed the underworld rackets of crime family members.




Several Young Turks on both sides started realizing that if the war did not stop soon, the Italian crime families could be left on the fringe of New York's criminal underworld while the Jewish and Irish crime bosses became dominant. Additionally, they felt that Masseria, Maranzano and other old-school mafiosi, whom they derisively called "Mustache Petes," were too greedy to see the riches that could be had by working with non-Italians. With this in mind, Gambino and the other Young Turks decided to end the Castellammarese War and form a national syndicate. On April 15, 1931,Masseria was gunned down at Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant in Coney Island by Luciano associates Anastasia, Adonis, Genovese and Siegel. Maranzano then named himself Boss of all Bosses. In the major reorganization of the New York Mafia that resulted, Vincent Mangano took over the Mineo family, with Anastasia as his underboss and Gambino as a capo. They kept these posts after Maranzano was gunned down himself on September 10, 1931.


 




The Commission




In 1931, after the killings of Masseria and Maranzano, Luciano created The Commission, which was supposed to avoid big conflicts like the Castellammarese War. The charter members were Luciano, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Tommy Gagliano and Mangano.




Gambino married his first cousin, Catherine Castellano, in 1932, at age 30. They raised three sons and a daughter. Gambino became a major earner in the Mangano family. His activities included loansharking, illegal gambling and protection money from area merchants. Despite this, Gambino was low-key by inclination. He lived in a modest, well-kept row house in Brooklyn. The only real evidence of vanity was his license plate on his Buick, CG1.


 




Vincent and Philip Mangano




Mangano led his family for 20 years, even though he and Anastasia never saw eye-to-eye. Mangano was displeased with Anastasia's friendship with Luciano and Frank Costello, especially since they frequently used Anastasia's services without his permission. Anastasia had been, since the 1930s, the operating head ("Lord High Executioner") of the syndicate's most notorious death squad, Murder, Inc., which was allegedly responsible for over 500 murders. Mangano and his brother, Phil, supposedly confronted Anastasia several times, in front of Gambino. Eventually, Anastasia stopped asking permission for "every little thing," further angering the Manganos.




On April 19, 1951, Philip Mangano was found murdered and Vincent Mangano himself vanished the very same day and was never found. It is widely presumed that Anastasia killed them both. Though Anastasia never admitted to having a hand in the Mangano murders, he managed to convince the heads of the other families that Vincent Mangano had been plotting to have him killed, a claim backed up by Frank Costello, the acting boss of the Luciano crime family. Anastasia was named the new boss of the family, with Gambino as his underboss. Gambino was now one of the most powerful mobsters in the business, with a crew making profit of extortion, illegal gambling, hijacking, bootlegging and murder, Shortly afterward, Gambino's cousin and brother-in-law, Paul Castellano (Giuseppe's son), took over as capo of Gambino's old crew.


 




Anastasia, Genovese and Gambino




While the renamed Anastasia family made more money than ever, some other mobsters grew concerned about his temper and violent behavior. Anastasia's violent ways could be contained as long as Luciano and Frank Costello pulled the strings, but certain mobsters, most notably Vito Genovese, doubted whether it was really possible to keep Anastasia reined in. These doubts grew even louder in 1952, when Anastasia ordered the murder of a young Brooklyn tailor's assistant named Arnold Schuster, after watching Schuster talking on television about his role as primary witness in fugitive bank robber Willie Sutton's arrest. In killing Schuster, Anastasia had violated a cardinal Mafia rule against killing outsiders; as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel once quaintly put it, "We only kill each other." The murder brought unnecessary public scrutiny on Mafia business. Luciano and Costello were horrified, but they could not take action against Anastasia since Genovese was angling to take over the Luciano family as well, and they needed Anastasia to counter Genovese's growing ambition and power.




Genovese knew this as well, and in early 1957 convinced Gambino to side with him against Anastasia, Costello and Luciano. On Genovese's advice, Gambino told Anastasia that they were not making enough money from the casinos at Cuba, which belonged to Meyer Lansky. When Anastasia confronted Lansky, he was furious, and seemingly threw his support to the Genovese-Gambino alliance. Shortly afterward, Genovese moved against Costello by hiring Vincent "Chin" Gigante to assassinate him. While the attempt failed, it frightened Costello enough to ask the Commission for permission to retire, which they accepted. Genovese took over the family and renamed it the Genovese crime family.




With Costello out of the way, Genovese then moved against Anastasia. Here Gambino was convinced to give his support, by giving the order to "Joe the Blonde" Biondo, who selected Stephen Armone, Arnold "Witty" Wittenberg, and Stephen "Stevie Coogin" Grammauta to carry out the hit. They allegedly shot Anastasia on October 25, 1957, in the barbershop of the Park Sheraton Hotel (now the Park Central Hotel) in New York City. (The Anastasia murder was finally solved in 2007, 50 years later). Gambino now became the new boss of the Mangano crime family, which was renamed the Gambino crime family.


 




The Apalachin and Genovese's fall




Genovese now believed that with Costello and Anastasia out of the way and Gambino supposedly in his debt, the way was clear for him to become Boss of Bosses. However, Gambino had his own mind, and secretly aligned himself with Luciano, Costello and Lansky against Genovese. The Costello-Lansky-Luciano-Gambino alliance gained further strength after the Apalachin Conference, supposedly set up to formally crown Genovese as Boss of Bosses, ended in disaster with several prominent mafiosi being arrested. Soon afterward, Costello, Luciano and Lansky met face to face in Italy. Luciano, who was 60 years old, came up with a plan which would get rid of Genovese for good.




In 1959, Genovese was heading to Atlanta where a huge shipment of heroin was arriving. But when he arrived, Genovese was surprised by local police, the FBI and the ATF. He was convicted for selling a large quantity of heroin and was sentenced to 15 years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. With the support of Costello and Luciano, Gambino was named head of the Commission in 1962. Genovese finally realized that this was all staged from beyond, but when he heard of Gambino as the new Boss of Bosses, he couldn't understand. Gambino had kept a low profile, sneaked around and still managed to become the most powerful mob boss in the nation.




[edit]Don Carlo (1959-1976)


 




The Boss of Bosses




In the early 1960s, Gambino slowly moved against the prominent Anastasia loyalists, headed by caporegime Armand "Tommy" Rava. With Joseph Biondo as a solid underboss, Joseph Riccobono as Gambino's own consigliere, and with his top caporegimes, Aniello "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce, Paul Castellano, Carmine "The Doctor" Lombardozzi, Joseph "Joe Piney" Armone and Carmine "Wagon Wheels" Fatico, the remaining Anastasia loyalists could never make a move.




Gambino quickly expanded his rackets all over the country. New Gambino rackets were created in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Gambino also, to regain complete control of Manhattan, took over the New York Longshoremen Union, where more than 90% of all New York City's ports were controlled. It was a great time, when the money rolled in from every Gambino racket in the U.S. and worked its way up to become America's most powerful crime family. Gambino also made his own family policy: "Deal and Die." This was Gambino's message to every Gambino family member; heroin and cocaine were highly lucrative, but were dangerous, and would also attract attention. The punishment for dealing drugs, in Gambino style, was death.




In 1960s, the Gambino family had 500[1] (other sources have 700 or 800[3]) soldiers, within 30 crews making the family a $500,000,000-a-year-enterprise. In 1962, his eldest son Thomas Gambino married the daughter of rival mob boss Gaetano Lucchese, the new head of the Gagliano crime family, whom Gambino would become close to as a partner, friend and relative. More than 1,000 people, relatives, friends and "friends of ours," were present during the wedding-ceremony. It has been rumored that Gambino personally gave Lucchese $30,000 as a "welcome gift" that same day. As repayment, Lucchese cut his friend into the airport rackets that were under Lucchese control, especially at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where all unions, management, and security were controlled by Lucchese himself. It was the beginning of a perfect partnership.


 




Profaci, the Gallos and Gambino




In February 1962, the Gallo brothers kidnapped a number of prominent members of the Profaci family including underboss Joseph Magliocco and capo Joe Colombo. In return for their release, the brothers demanded changes in the way profits were divided between crews, and at first Profaci appeared to agree, following negotiations between the captors and Profaci's consigliere, Charles Locicero, but Profaci was simply biding his time before taking revenge on the Gallos. Gallo crew member Joseph "Joe Jelly" Gioelli was murdered by Profaci's men in September, and an attempt on Larry Gallo's life was interrupted by policemen in a Brooklyn bar. The brothers set about attacking Profaci's men wherever they saw them as all-out war erupted between the two factions. Plus, Gambino and Lucchese was putting pressure on the other bosses to convince Profaci of stepping down from his title and family, but on June 6, 1962, Profaci lost his battle against cancer. He was replaced as boss of the family by Joseph Magliocco, a man very much in the Profaci mould, much to the family. That's why Gambino and Lucchese gave their support to the Gallo crew, where Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, the longtime Don of the Bonanno crime family, gave his support to Magliocco and the Profacis.




[edit]Conspiracy against the Commission




With the Gallos out of the way, Magliocco was able to consolidate his position and concentrate on the business of running the family's affairs. However, Joe Bonanno hatched a plot to murder the heads of the other three families, which Magliocco decided to go along with. The assassinations went to Profaci capo, Joseph Colombo, who realized that the plot would never amount to anything, and warned Gambino about Magliocco and Bonanno's conspiracy against the Commission. Bonanno and Magliocco were called to face the judgement of the Commission. While Bonanno went into hiding, Magliocco faced up to his crimes. Understanding that he had been following Bonanno's lead, he was let off with a $50,000 fine, and forced to retire as the head of the family, being replaced by Joseph Colombo. One month later, Magliocco died of high blood pressure, but Gambino had other plans for Bonanno.


 




The Banana War (1962-1967)




After Magliocco's death, Bonanno had few allies left. Many members felt he was too power hungry, and one, a boss from Florida, Santo Trafficante, Jr., once said in anger, "He's planting flags all over the world!" Some members of his family also thought he spent too much time away from New York, and more in Canada and Tucson, where he had business interests. The Commission members decided that he no longer deserved leadership over his family and replaced him with a caporegime in his family, Gaspar DiGregorio. Bonanno, however, would not accept this result, breaking the family into two groups, the one led by DiGregorio, and the other headed by Bonanno and his son, Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno. Newspapers referred to it as "The Banana Split."




Since Bonanno refused to give up his position, the other Commission members felt it was time for drastic action.




Gambino was the one who would give the order to have Bonanno killed, but took pity on him and decided to give Bonanno one last chance to retire while he had his life. In October 1964, Bonanno was kidnapped by Buffalo crime family members, Peter and Antonino Magaddino. According to Bonanno, he was held captive in upstate New York by his cousin, Stefano "Steve the Undertaker" Magaddino. Supposedly Magaddino represented the Commission and Gambino, and told his cousin that he "took up too much space in the air", a Sicilian proverb for arrogance. After much talk, Bonanno was released and the Commission members believed he would finally retire and relinquish his power.




Eventually, DiGregorio promised a peace meeting on whatever territory Salvatore wanted. It was an ambush. DiGregorio's men opened fire with rifles and automatic weapons on Salvatore and his associates, who were armed only with pistols. The police estimated that over 500 shots were fired but remarkably, no one was hurt. The war went on for another two more years. The Commission originally thought they could win, but when Joseph Bonanno returned, their hopes were dashed. Bonanno sent out a message to his enemies, saying that for every Bonanno loyalist killed, he would retaliate by hitting a caporegime from the other side. The Bonanno loyalists were starting to see victory, but when Bonanno suffered a heart attack, he decided that he and his son would retire to Tucson, leaving his broken family to another capo, Paul Sciacca, who had replaced DiGregorio. Gambino stood as the victorious and most powerful mob boss in the US. Having the reputation of Gambino's "mercy", made him even more respectable in front of the Commission.


 




Gambino and the "cement overcoat"




Even though Cosa Nostra members show utmost respect to their superiors, there have been cases of members disrespecting and/or humiliating another made man. An especially notorious case is that of Carmine "Mimi" Scialo - a feared and respected soldier of The Colombo Family who had control over the vast area of Coney Island. When under the influence of alcohol, Scialo would become very arrogant, loud and disrespectful. One day in October 1974, Scialo was at a popular Italian restaurant, he spotted Carlo Gambino and began to harass him, insulting Gambino in front of others. Gambino stayed calm, as he always was, didn't retaliate and didn't say a word. Scialo's body was found not long after at Otto's Social Club in South Brooklyn encased in the cement floor.


 




Las Vegas, Gambino and Sinatra




Gambino was seen at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas on August 2, 1967, where he is supposed to have met Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who all are known as "The Rat Pack". They were excellent singers, and the mob, Gambino especially, lived for their music. Gambino allegedly gave each of them $10,000 after performing at the Desert Inn, while Gambino was present in the VIP-lounge. Gambino also allegedly said to Castellano: "I want a picture of me and Frankie". Sinatra of course, happily obliged and Gambino, Castellano and other mobsters got a picture with Sinatra in the middle. Sinatra would later testify about this in court, but announced that he didn't know any Carlo Gambino, but it got to a point where he had to explain why he was attending the Havana Conference in Cuba in 1946, showing up with $2,000,000 in a silver suitcase and a picture that showed Sinatra, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia and Carlo Gambino having a drink by a pool.




[edit]Lucchese's death




Lucchese led a quiet, stable life until he developed a fatal brain tumour and died at his home in Lido Beach, Long Island on July 13, 1967. His funeral at the Calvary Cemetery in Queens, was attended by over 1,000 mourners, including politicians, judges, policemen, racketeers, drug pushers, pimps, hitmen and Gambino, who allegedly arranged the whole funeral. Lucchese was succeeded as boss by Carmine "Gribbs" Tramunti, whom Gambino had picked out personally.


 




Colombo assassination




It has also been theorized that Gambino went so far as to organize the shooting of Joe Colombo, head of the Colombo crime family, on June 28, 1971. Colombo survived the shooting, but remained in a coma until his death in 1977. The other theory is that Gallo organized the attack himself. It seems that the rest of the Colombo family believed the latter theory, as Gallo was famously gunned down himself not long after. Colombo's increasing media attention was definitely not liked by the other commission members, that Lucchese withdrew support was evidenced by Capo Paul Vario rescinding his membership from the Italian-American Civil Rights League. However Gambino resorting to killing Colombo seems unlikely as there was nothing really substantial for Gambino to benefit from doing it. Gallo and his crew had already started one war against Profaci, during which time they had kidnapped Colombo, and as Colombo had allegedly carried out a number of hits during that war it seems understandable that Gallo would not like him and have designs on becoming boss himself.




However, the theory that Gallo was responsible ignores several pertinent factors. It is true that many powerful members were angry with Joe Columbo for having founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League and glorying in publicity. Gambino hated publicity, always preferring to work in the shadows and was said to have been quite upset with Columbo about this. As was his style, Gambino did not make a public show of his anger. Gallo had recently been in prison where he had formed close associations with black prisoners who could serve as muscle, a fact that was well known to Gambino. Colombo was shot at a CIAO (Congress of Italo-America Organizations which was an umbrella organization that included Colombo's Italian-American Civil Rights League) rally by a black man who was almost instantly shot and killed. If Gambino did it, or set the wheels in motion, it was a master stroke. He was rid of a publicity seeking thorn in his side and he got the Colombo family to eliminate Gallo whose propensity for disruptive violence also displeased the Don. It was also the way Gambino operated, very intelligently, very quietly but with final brutality.




The police were happy to accept the Gallo theory as was the Colombo family, but as time went on the theory that Gambino masterminded it gained a lot of currency within the "mob". Who knows what the truth is but it is dubious that Gallo would have committed suicide by using a black assassin, though it is true that "Crazy" Joey could have illogical fits of rage. Nonetheless, the true benefit was stability of the Gambino empire as the old Don faded.


 




Lucky Luciano's death




Gambino was also the only mob boss of the Five Families who attended the burial of the longtime friend and Boss of Bosses, Charles Luciano. In his later years Luciano was told not to promote or participate in a movie about his life, as it would have attracted unnecessary attention to the mob. Luciano relented until after his girlfriend died of breast cancer, and was scheduled to meet with a movie producer arriving by plane at the Naples International Airport. As fate would have it, the man who engineered the assassination of Dutch Schultz and his gang would never live to see his own name in lights. On January 26, 1962, Lucky Luciano's luck finally ran out, and he died of a heart attack at the age of 64 at Naples International Airport. He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens, 1972, more than ten years after his death because of the terms of his deportation in 1946. More than 2,000 mourners attended his funeral, where Gambino gave his own speech in memory of Lucky Luciano, his friend and companion. Now, Carlo "Don Carlo" Gambino was Boss of Bosses in name also.


 




Tommy Eboli murder




After the imprisonment of Vito "Don Vito" Genovese in 1959, Thomas "Tommy Ryan" Eboli was made acting boss and kept his position toward 1969, when Genovese died in jail. About that time, Eboli was the only one who could re-organize the Genovese crime family, but Eboli needed money to start his reign as boss, which is why he borrowed $4,000,000 from Gambino, the richest Don of New York City. The only problem was that Eboli's crew was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison, which was allegedly arranged by Gambino because he wanted his friend Frank Tieri as boss. When Gambino came to be repaid, Eboli refused and said he didn't have enough money. Under the influence of Gambino, the selection of Frank Tieri as boss of the Genovese crime family was made, subsequently after the murder of Tommy Eboli on July 16, 1972. To this day, no one has been arrested for his murder.


 




Constant surveillance




In December 1972, on Ocean Parkway, a van began to park outside Gambino's home. In that car, sat the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Mob squad, with cameras,lip-readers and audio-surveillance equipment, including microphones and wire-taps that were planted in Gambino's home. The FBI was kept on a 24-hour standby, hoping to connect Gambino to organized crime. The van was marked "Organized Crime Control Bureau".




But even though Gambino had every corner in his house recorded, he knew how to conduct business in silence. According to FBI officials, they once recorded a meeting between Gambino, Aniello "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce and Joseph Biondo, where Biondo is just to have said: "Frog legsâââ¬

[align=center:13gay3wg]Francesco Raffaele Nitto




nitti.jpg[/attachment:13gay3wg]




Born   January 27, 1886 Angri, province of Salerno, Campania, Italy




Died   March 19, 1943 (aged 57) North Riverside, Illinois, U.S.




Charge   Tax evasion




Penalty   18-month sentence




Status   Deceased




Occupation   Organized crime




Spouses   Rosa (Rose) Levitt Nitti, 1918-1928 (div.)




Anna Ronga Nitti, 1928-1938 (her death)




Ursula Suzanne "Sue" Granata Nitti, 1939-1940 (her death)




Annette Caravetta Nitti, 1942-1943 (his death)[/align:13gay3wg]


 




Francesco Raffaele Nitto (January 27, 1886 âââ‰â¬Å March 19, 1943), also known as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations. Nitti was later the front-man for the Chicago Outfit, the organized crime syndicate headed by Capone.


 




Early life and Prohibition




Nitti was born in the small town of Angri, province of Salerno, Campania, Italy.[1] He was the second child of Luigi and Rosina (Fezza) Nitto and a first cousin of Al Capone. His father died in 1888, when Frank was two years old, and within a year his mother married Francesco Dolendo. Although two children were born to the couple, neither survived âââ‰â¬Â leaving Francesco and his older sister, Giovannina, the only children.[1] Francesco Dolendo emigrated to the United States in July 1890, and the rest of the family followed in June 1893 when Nitti was 7.[1] The family settled at 113 Navy Street, Brooklyn, New York City.[1] Little Francesco attended public school and worked odd jobs after school to support the family. His 15-year-old sister married a 24-year-old man and his mother gave birth to his half-brother Raphael in 1894, and another child, Gennaro, in 1896.[1] He quit school after the seventh grade, and worked as a pinsetter, factory worker, and barber.[1] Al Capone's family lived nearby, and Nitti was friends with Capone's older brothers and their criminal gang (the Navy Street Boys).




A worsening relationship with Dolendo provoked him to leave home when he was 14 in 1900 to work in various local factories.[1] Around 1910, at the age of 24, he left Brooklyn. The next several years of his life are poorly documented, and little can be ascertained for certain. He may have worked in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn around 1911.[1] He probably moved to Chicago around 1913, working as a barber and making the acquaintance of gangsters Alex Louis Greenberg and Dean O'Banion. He married Chicagoan Rosa (Rose) Levitt in Dallas, Texas, on October 18, 1917. The couple's movements after their marriage remain uncertain. He is known to have become a partner in the Galveston crime syndicate run by "Johnny" Jack Nounes. He is reported to have stolen a large sum of money from Nounes and fellow mobster Dutch Voight, after which Nitti fled to Chicago. By 1918, Nitti had settled there at 914 South Halsted Street. Nitti quickly renewed his contacts with Greenberg and O'Banion, becoming a jewel thief, liquor smuggler, and fence. Through his liquor smuggling activities, Nitti came to the attention of Chicago crime boss Johnny "Papa Johnny" Torrio and Torrio's newly-arrived soldier, Al Capone.




Under Torrio's successor, Al Capone, Nitti's reputation soared. Nitti ran Capone's liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago. Nitti was one of Capone's top lieutenants, trusted for his leadership skills and business acumen. Capone thought so highly of Nitti that when he went to prison in 1929, he named Nitti as a member of a triumvirate that ran the mob in his place. Nitti was head of operations, with Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik as head of administration and Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo as head of enforcement. Despite his nickname ("The Enforcer"), Nitti used Mafia soldiers and others to commit violence rather than do it himself. In earlier days, Nitti had been one of Capone's trusted personal bodyguards, but as he rose in the organization, Nitti's business instinct dictated that he must personally avoid the "dirty work"âââ‰â¬Âthat was what the hitmen were paid for[citation needed].




Frank and Rose Nitti divorced in 1928, and shortly thereafter he married Anna Ronga Nitti (daughter of a mob doctor and former neighbor of the Nittis in the 1920s).[1] The couple adopted a son, Joe.


 




The Outfit under Nitti




In 1931, both 45 year-old Frank Nitti and 32 year-old Al Capone were convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison; however, Nitti received an 18-month sentence, while Capone was sent away for 11 years. Nitti was not a troublesome prisoner, but found the year-and-a-half confinement in a cell difficult because of the closed-in space. When Nitti was released in 1932, the media hailed him as the new boss of the Capone Gang.[5]




In truth, however, Nitti was only a front man. According to crime historians, "it was ludicrous" to expect people such as Tony Accardo, Jake Guzik, Murray "The Camel" Humphreys, or Paul "The Waiter" Ricca to take orders from Nitti. By all accounts, Ricca had the real power by at least 1932 and was clearly the de facto boss by 1939 even though he was technically Nitti's underboss. When Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky organized the National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s, they considered Nitti a human cypher. Lansky and Luciano dealt with Ricca, not Nitti, as the boss of the Chicago Outfit.[5]




With Nitti as the front man, the Chicago Outfit branched out from prostitution and gambling into other areas, including control of labor unions (which led to the extortion of many businesses). On December 19, 1932, a team of Chicago police, headed by Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller, raided Nitti's office in Room 554, at 221 N. LaSalle Boulevard in Chicago. Lang shot Nitti three times in the back and neck. He then shot himself (a minor flesh wound) to make the shooting look like self-defense, claiming that Nitti had shot him first. Court testimony later insisted that the murder attempt was personally ordered by newly-elected Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who supposedly wanted to eliminate the Chicago Outfit in favor of gangsters who answered to him.] Nitti survived the shooting and, in February 1933, was acquitted of attempted murder. During that same trial, Miller testified that Lang received $15,000 to kill Nitti. Another uniformed officer who was present at the shooting testified that Nitti was shot while unarmed. Harry Lang and Harry Miller were both fired from the police force and each fined US$100 for simple assault.[citation needed] Two months later, Cermak was shot and killed by Giuseppe Zangara, a Calabrian immigrant. At the time, Cermak was talking to President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Most historians believe, corroborated by Zangara's own comments and a note left behind at his room, that he intended to kill Roosevelt but missed and hit Cermak instead.




Anna Nitti died in 1938.[1] On November 8, 1939, Capone's former lawyer Edward J. O'Hare âââ‰â¬Â who had co-operated in bringing about Capone's downfall âââ‰â¬Â was shot and killed. Nitti married Ursula Sue Granata, O'Hare's fiancÃÆée, who died in 1940.[6] He married Annette Caravetta on May 14, 1942.[1]


 




Death




In 1943, many top members of the Chicago Outfit were indicted for extorting the Hollywood film industry. Among those prosecuted were Nitti, Phil D'Andrea, Louis "Little New York" Campagna, Nick Circella, Charles "Cherry Nose" Gioe, Ralph Pierce, Ricca, and John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli. The Outfit was accused of trying to extort money from some of the largest movie studios, including Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox. The studios had cooperated with The Outfit to avoid union trouble (unrest itself stirred up by the mob). At a meeting of Outfit leaders at Nitti's home, Ricca blamed Nitti for the indictments. Ricca said that since this had been Nitti's scheme and the FBI informant (Willie Bioff) one of Nitti's trusted associates, Nitti should go to prison. A severe claustrophobe as a result of his first prison term, Nitti dreaded the idea of another prison confinement. It was also rumored that he was suffering from terminal cancer at this time. For these or possibly other reasons, he ultimately decided to take his own life.[7]




The day before his scheduled grand jury appearance, Nitti had breakfast with his wife in their home at 712 Selborne Road in Riverside, Illinois. When his wife left for church, Nitti told her he planned to take a walk, then began to drink heavily. He then loaded a .32 caliber revolver, put it in his coat pocket, and walked five blocks to a local railroad yard. Two railroad workers spotted Nitti walking on the track of an oncoming train and shouted a warning. They thought the train hit him, but Nitti jumped out of the way in time. Two shots rang out. The workers thought Nitti was shooting at them, then realized he was trying to shoot himself in the head. Two bullets went through Nitti's hat. Nitti sat on the ground against a fence and, with the railroad workers watching from a distance, shot himself in the head.




Frank Nitti died on an Illinois Central railroad branch line in North Riverside, Illinois on March 19, 1943, at the age of 57. Nitti is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. Speculation has persisted regarding the interment of a suicide in a Catholic cemetery. Nitti's grave can be found left of the main Roosevelt Road entrance, about fifty feet from the gate. It is marked "Nitto". To the right of the gate is the family plot containing the grave of Al Capone, marked by a six-foot white monument stone. And straight up from the gate can be found the graves of Dion O'Banion and Hymie Weiss, both North Side Gang leaders ordered killed by Capone.


 




In popular culture




Frank Nitti has been portrayed numerous times in television and motion pictures:




by Bruce Gordon in many episodes of the original ABC television series The Untouchables, based on Eliot Ness' memoirs, which ran from 1959 to 1963.




by Harold J. Stone in the 1967 Roger Corman film The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.




by Sylvester Stallone in the 1975 film Capone.




by Billy Drago, playing a fictionalised version of Nitti in the 1987 film, The Untouchables. In the film, Nitti is thrown off a Chicago courthouse roof by Ness (Kevin Costner), an event which never happened in real life.




by Anthony LaPaglia in the 1988 biopic Nitti: The Enforcer




by Paul Regina in the 1993 TV show The Untouchables.




by Stanley Tucci in the 2002 film Road to Perdition.




by Bill Camp in the 2009 film Public Enemies.




Antero NiittymÃÆäki has used an image of Nitti on his helmet due to the similarity in name.




[align=center:13gay3wg]frank-nitti-1881-1943-chicago-gangster-everett.jpg[/attachment:13gay3wg][/align:13gay3wg]

[align=center:pxmrnpzy]Tony Accardo




TonyAccardo6.jpg[/attachment:pxmrnpzy]




Chicago Police Department mugshot of Antonino Accardo




Born   Antonino Leonardo Accardo, April 28, 1906, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.




Died   May 27, 1992 (aged 86), Chicago, Illinois, U.S.




Cause   congestive heart failure




Alias(es) "Joe Batters" or "Big Tuna"[/align:pxmrnpzy]


 




Early life




Born Antonino Leonardo Accardo (also known as Anthony Joseph Accardo) on Chicago's Near West Side, the son of Francesco Accardo, a shoemaker, and Maria Tillota Accardo. One year prior to his birth, the Accardos had emigrated to America from Castelvetrano, Sicily, in the Province of Trapani. At age 14, Accardo was expelled from school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls. He soon joined the Circus Cafe Gang, one of many street gangs in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago. These gangs served as talent pools (similar to the concept of farm teams) for the city's adult criminal organizations. In 1926, Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, one of the toughest hitmen of Outfit boss Alphonse Capone ("Big Al," "Scarface Al"), recruited Accardo into his crew in the Outfit.


 




"Rising star" on the streets




It was during Prohibition that Accardo received the "Joe Batters" nickname from Capone himself due to his skill at hitting a couple of Outfit traitors with a baseball bat at a dinner Capone held just to kill the two men. Capone was quoted as saying, "Boy, this kid's a real Joe Batters"' The Chicago newspapers eventually dubbed Accardo, "The Big Tuna," after a fishing expedition where Accardo caught a giant tuna. In later years, Accardo boasted over federal wiretaps he participated in the infamous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which, allegedly, Capone gunmen murdered seven members of the rival North Side Gang. Accardo also claimed that he was one of the gunmen who murdered Brooklyn, New York gang boss Frankie Yale, again by Capone's orders to settle a dispute. However, most experts today believe Accardo had only peripheral connections with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and none whatsoever with the Yale murder. However, on October 11, 1926, Accardo may have participated in the assassination of then Northside Chicago gang leader Hymie Weiss near the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.


 




Caporegime




In 1929, Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison for an 11-year sentence, and Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti became the new Outfit boss, after serving his own 18-month sentence for tax evasion. By this time, Accardo had established a solid record making money for the organization, so Nitti let him establish his own crew. He was also named as the Outfit's head of enforcement.




Accardo soon developed a variety of profitable rackets, including gambling, loansharking, bookmaking, extortion, and the distribution of untaxed alcohol and cigarettes. As with all caporegimes, Accardo received 5% of the crew's earnings as a so-called, "street tax." Accardo in turn paid a tax to the family boss. If a crew member were to refuse to pay a street tax (or paid less than half of the amount owed), it could mean a death sentence from The Outfit. The Accardo crew would include such future Outfit heavyweights as Gus "Gussie" Alex and Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa.


 




Personal life




In 1934, Accardo met Clarice Pordzany, a Polish-American chorus girl. They later married and had four children. In fact, Accardo had two grandsons, one of whom was Eric Kumerow, who was drafted by the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League. Unlike the majority of his colleagues, Accardo had a strong marriage and was never known to have been unfaithful to his wife. Clarice Accardo died on November 15, 2002, at age 91, of natural causes. For most of his married life, Accardo lived in River Forest, Illinois, until he started getting heat from the IRS about his apparent high lifestyle. So, he bought a ranch home on the 1400 block of North Ashland Avenue, in River Forest, and installed a vault. Accardo's official job was that of a beer salesman for a Chicago brewery.


 




Chicago Boss




In the 1940s, Accardo continued to gain power in the Outfit. As the 1940s progressed, it became evident that a number of Outfit bosses and members were going to have to face serious consequences for their parts in the extortion of the Hollywood movie industry's unions. However, because Nitti was claustrophobic, he was fearful of serving a second prison term, the first for tax evasion. So, Nitti committed suicide in 1943. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, who had been the de facto boss since Capone's imprisonment, became the boss in name as well as in fact and named Accardo as underboss. Ricca and Accardo would run the Outfit either officially or as the powers behind the throne for the next 30 years, until Ricca's death in 1972. When Ricca subsequently received a 10-year prison sentence for his part in the Hollywood scandal, Accardo became acting boss. Three years later, as a parole condition, Ricca was barred from contact with mobsters. Accardo then became boss of the Outfit. In practice, he shared power with Ricca, who remained in the background as a senior consultant.




Under Accardo's leadership in the late 1940s, the Outfit moved into slot machines and vending machines, counterfeiting cigarette and liquor tax stamps and expanded narcotics smuggling. Accardo placed slot machines in gas stations, restaurants and bars throughout the Outfit's territory. Outside of Chicago, The Outfit expanded rapidly. In Las Vegas, The Outfit took influence over gaming away from the five crime families of New York City. Accardo made sure that all the legal Las Vegas casinos used his slot machines. In Kansas and Oklahoma, Accardo took advantage of the official ban on alcohol sales to introduce bootlegged alcohol. The Outfit eventually dominated organized crime in most of the Western United States. To reduce the Outfit's exposure to legal prosecution, Accardo phased out some traditional organized crime activities, such as labor racketeering and extortion. He also converted the Outfit's brothel business into call girl services. The result of these changes was a golden era of profitability and influence for the Outfit.




By keeping a low profile and letting flashier figures such as Sam Giancana attract attention, Accardo and Ricca were able to run the Outfit much longer than Capone. Ricca once said, "Accardo had more brains for breakfast than Capone had in a lifetime."




Also in the late 1950s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had to finally admit that organized crime in America is real, because of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's embarrassment over the local law enforcement's uncovering of the 1957 Apalachin Meeting. Thus, the FBI began to employ all types of surveillance against mobsters.


 




Change of leadership




After 1957, Accardo turned over the official position as boss to long-time, money-making associate Giancana, because of "heat" from the IRS. Accardo then became the Outfit's consigliere, stepping away from the day-to-day running of the organization, but he still retained considerable power and demanded ultimate respect and won it from his men. Giancana still had to obtain the sanction of Accardo and Ricca on major business, including all assassinations.




However, this working relationship eventually broke down. Unlike Accardo, the widowed Giancana lived an ostentatious lifestyle, frequenting posh nightclubs and dating high-profile singer Phyllis McGuire. Giancana also refused to distribute some of the lavish profits from Outfit casinos in Iran and Central America to the rank-and-file members. Many in The Outfit also felt that Giancana was attracting too much attention from the FBI, who was forever "tailing" his car throughout the greater-Chicago area.




Around 1966, after spending a year in jail on federal Contempt of Court charges, Accardo and Ricca replaced Giancana with street-crew boss Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa. In June 1975, after spending most of his Outfit-exile years in Mexico and unceremoniously being booted from that country, Giancana was assassinated in the basement apartment of his home, in Oak Park, Illinois, while cooking Italian sausages and escarole.




Some conspiracy theorists, however, are divided as to whether this "hit" was sanctioned by the Outfit bosses or possibly by the U.S. government, which had subpoenaed Giancana just before he was murdered to testify on his knowledge of certain alleged government conspiracies.




Ricca died in 1972, leaving Accardo as the ultimate authority in the outfit.


 




The burglary




In 1978, while Accardo vacationed in California, burglars brazenly entered his River Forest home. Within a month, five of the suspected thieves were found strangled and with their throats cut. Prosecutors at the time believed Accardo, furious that his home had been violated, had ordered the killings.




In 2002, this theory was confirmed on the witness stand by Outfit turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, who had participated in all of the subsequent murders. The surviving assassins were all convicted in the famous, "Family Secrets Trial," and sentenced to long prison terms.


 




Death and burial




In later years, Accardo spent much of his time in Palm Springs, California, flying to Chicago to preside over Outfit "sit-downs" and mediate disputes. By this time, Accardo's personal holdings included legal investments in commercial office buildings, retail centers, lumber farms, paper factories, hotels, car dealerships, trucking companies, newspaper companies, restaurants and travel agencies.




Accardo spent his last years in Barrington Hills, Illinois living with his daughter and son-in-law.[1] On May 22, 1992, Anthony Accardo died of congestive heart failure at age 86.




Accardo was buried in Mount Carmel, in Hillside, Illinois. Despite an arrest record dating back to 1922, Accardo spent only one night in jail or avoided the inside of a cell entirely (depending on the source).


 




In popular culture




In the 1995 television movie Sugartime  about Giancana and McGuire, Accardo is portrayed by Maury Chaykin.


 




[align=center:pxmrnpzy]Tony_Accardo.jpg[/attachment:pxmrnpzy][/align:pxmrnpzy]


 




[align=center:pxmrnpzy]




<div><iframe width="459" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iaqk0jY1G8E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div> [/align:pxmrnpzy] 




"Big Tuna" Tony Accardo was Al Capone's driver and one of his muscleman. Another of his many nicknames Joe Batters came from his ability to wield a baseball bat. He got his start as a teenager running with the circus gang named after the cafe located at 1857 W. North where they hung out. Like his close confidante Paul "The Waiter" Ricca. Accardo was quickly recognized for his brains and rose fast in the Capone organization. Soon he became big Al's driver and may have had a role in the St. Valentines Day Massacre. After Capone's imprisonment for tax evasion there was a period of transition that saw Frank Nitti come out as the new boss. Accardo continued his rise in the organization.




He first ascended to the throne in the 1940's when fellow Capone cohort Paul "The Waiter" Ricca was sentenced to prison. This began a twenty year power sharing arrangement between the two men that saw the Chicago mob become one of the most powerful and entrenched in the nations history. Following Ricca's retirement Accardo became the boss and continued as such until the late 80's. Sometimes he was out in front and sometime he used Sam Giancana or others as a front.


 




In the early 1950's he moved out to River Forest and paid half a million (1950's) dollars for this huge mansion on Franklin about a block and a half away from Paul Ricca's home. Instead of adopting the quiet suburban lifestyle Accado's home became the scene of many lavish parties and soon was attracting to much heat. So he moved a little further north to this sedate ranch house we see in the second part of the video. In the basement was a huge safe and became the site of one of the most ill advised robberies of all time.




It was here in January of 1977 that a team of burglars broke into his home. Whatever they came away with couldn't have been worth it as over the next year and a half seven men would pay with their lives for there involvement.




===========================================================================================================

[align=center:35fa928p]John Gotti




John_Gotti.jpg[/attachment:35fa928p]




John "Teflon Don" Gotti




Born   October 27, 1940, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States




Died   June 10, 2002 (aged 61),Springfield, Missouri, United States




Alias(es)   Dapper Don, Teflon Don, Johnny Boy




Charge(s)   Murder, conspiracy to commit murder, loansharking, racketeering, obstruction of      




justice,   illegal gambling, tax evasion                                       Penalty                   Life in prison without parole




Spouse   Victoria DiGiorgio




Parents   John and Philomena Gotti




Children   Angel Gotti




Victoria Gotti




John A. Gotti




Frank Gotti (1968-1980)




Peter Gotti, Jr.[/align:35fa928p]


 




John Joseph Gotti, Jr (October 27, 1940 âââ‰â¬Å June 10, 2002) was an American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Gotti grew up in poverty. He and his brothers turned to a life of crime at an early age. Operating out of the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens, Gotti quickly rose in prominence, becoming one of the crime family's biggest earners and a protege of Gambino family underboss Aniello Dellacroce.




After the FBI indicted members of Gotti's crew for selling narcotics, Gotti took advantage of growing dissent over the leadership of the crime family. Fearing that his men and himself would be killed by Gambino crime family Boss Paul Castellano for selling drugs, Gotti organized the murder of Castellano in December 1985 and took over the family shortly thereafter. This left Gotti as the boss of the most powerful crime family in America, which made hundreds of millions of dollars a year from construction, hijacking, loan sharking, gambling, extortion and other criminal activities. Gotti was the most powerful crime boss during his era and became widely known for his outspoken personality and flamboyant style, which eventually helped lead to his downfall. While his peers would go out of their way to shun attention, especially from the media, Gotti was known as the "The Dapper Don" for his expensive clothes and personality in front of news cameras. He was later given the nickname "The Teflon Don" after three high-profile trials in the 1980s resulted in an acquittal (i.e. the charges wouldn't "stick").




Gotti's underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano is credited with the FBI's success in finally convicting Gotti. In 1991, Gravano agreed to turn state's evidence and testify for the prosecution against Gotti after hearing Gotti on wiretap make several disparaging remarks about Gravano and questioning his loyalty. In 1992, Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, extortion, tax evasion, and loansharking. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole and was transferred to United States Penitentiary, Marion. Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002 at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.


 




Early life


 




John Gotti was born in an Italian-American enclave in the Bronx on October 27, 1940.[1] He was the fifth of the thirteen children of John Joseph Gotti Sr. and his wife Philomena (referred to as Fannie). John was one of five brothers who would become made men in the Gambino Family; Eugene Gotti was initiated before John due to the latter's incarceration.[4] Peter Gotti was initiated under John's leadership in 1988, and Richard V. Gotti was identified as a Capo by 2002. The fifth, Vincent, was not initiated until 2002.




Gotti grew up in poverty. His father worked irregularly as a day laborer and indulged in gambling, and as an adult Gotti came to resent him for being unable to provide for his family. In school Gotti had a history of truancy and bullying other students and ultimately dropped out, while attending Franklin K. Lane High School, at the age of 16.




Gotti was involved in street gangs associated with New York mafiosi from the age of 12.[7] When he was 14, he was attempting to steal a cement mixer from a construction site when it fell, crushing his toes; this injury left him with a permanent limp.[7] After leaving school he devoted himself to working with the mafia-associated Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang, where he met and befriended fellow future Gambino mobsters Angelo Ruggiero and Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson.




Gotti met his future wife, Victoria DiGiorgio, in 1958.[10] The couple had their first child, a daughter named Angel, in 1961,[10][11] and were married on March 6, 1962.[12] They would have four more children, another daughter (Victoria) and three sons (John, Frank and Peter). Gotti attempted to work legitimately in 1962 as a presser in a coat factory and as an assistant truck driver. However, he could not stay crime free and by 1966 had been jailed twice.




Gambino crime family


 




Associate




Gotti's criminal career began when he joined Carmine Fatico's crew, which was part of what became known as the Gambino family after the murder of Albert Anastasia.[13] Together with his brother Gene and Ruggiero, Gotti carried out truck hijackings at Idlewild Airport (subsequently renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport). During this time, Gotti befriended fellow mob hijacker and future Bonanno family boss Joseph Massino and was given the nicknames "Black John" and "Crazy Horse."




In February 1968, United Airlines employees identified Gotti as the man who had signed for stolen merchandise; the FBI arrested him for the United hijacking soon after. Two months later, while out on bail, Gotti was arrested a third time for hijackingâââ‰â¬Âthis time for stealing a load of cigarettes worth $50,000, on the New Jersey Turnpike. Later that year, Gotti pleaded guilty to the Northwest Airlines hijacking and was sentenced to three years at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Prosecutors dropped the charges for the cigarette hijacking. Gotti also pleaded guilty to the United hijacking and spent less than three years at Lewisburg.




Gotti and Ruggiero were paroled in 1972 and returned to their old crew at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, still working under caporegime Carmine Fatico. Gotti was transferred to management of the Bergin crew's illegal gambling, where he proved himself to be an effective enforcer.[16] Fatico was indicted on loansharking charges in 1972 and made Gotti, still not yet a made man in the Mafia, the acting capo of the Bergin Crew, reporting to Carlo Gambino and his underboss, Aniello Dellacroce.[17]




In 1973, after Carlo Gambino's nephew Emanuel Gambino was kidnapped and murdered, John Gotti was assigned to the hit team alongside Ruggiero and Ralph Galione for the main suspect, Irish-American gangster James McBratney.[12] The team botched their attempt to abduct McBratney at a Staten Island bar, and Galione shot McBratney dead when his accomplices managed to restrain him. Identified by eyewitnesses and a police Bergin insider, Gotti was arrested for the killing in June 1974.[18] With the help of attorney Roy Cohn, however, he was able to strike a plea bargain and received a four-year sentence for attempted manslaughter for his part in the hit.[4]




After his death Gotti was also identified by Joseph Massino as the killer of Vito Borelli, a Gambino associate killed in 1975 for insulting Paul Castellano.[19][20]




Captain




This section requires expansion.




Gotti was released in July 1977 after two years imprisonment. He was subsequently initiated into the Gambino family, now under the command of Paul Castellano, and immediately promoted to replace Fatico as Capo of the Bergin crew.[4] He and his crew reported directly to Dellacroce as part of the concessions given by Castellano to keep Dellacroce as underboss,[21] and Gotti was regarded as Dellacroce's protege.[22]




Under Gotti, the Bergin crew were the biggest earners of Dellacroce's crews.[4] Besides his cut of his subordinates' earnings, Gotti ran his own loan sharking operation and held a no-show job as a plumbing supply salesman. Unconfirmed allegations by FBI informants in the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club claimed Gotti also financed drug deals.[22][24]




Gotti would try to keep most of his family uninvolved with his life of crime, with the exception of his son John Angelo Gotti, commonly known as John Gotti Jr., who by 1982 was a mob associate.[25]




On March 18, 1980, Gotti's youngest son, 12-year-old Frank Gotti, was run over and killed on a family friend's minibike by John Favara, a neighbor. While Frank's death was ruled an accident, Favara subsequently received death threats and, when he visited the Gottis to apologize, was attacked by Victoria Gotti with a baseball bat. On July 28, 1980, he was abducted and disappeared, presumed murdered. While the Gottis were on vacation in Florida at the time, John Gotti is still presumed to have ordered the killing, an allegation considered probable by John Jr. while denied by his daughter Victoria.




In his last two years as the Bergin Capo Gotti was indicted on two occasions, with both cases coming to trial after his ascension to Gambino Boss. In September 1984 Gotti was in an altercation with refrigerator mechanic Romual Piecyk, and was subsequently charged with assault and robbery.[30][31] In 1985 he was indicted alongside Dellacroce and several Bergin crew members in a racketeering case by Assistant US Attorney Diane Giacalone. The indictment also revealed that Gotti's friend "Willie Boy" Johnson, one of his co-defendants, had been an FBI informant.[32]




Taking over the Gambino family




Gotti rapidly became dissatisfied with Paul Castellano's leadership, considering the new boss too isolated and greedy.




In August 1983 Ruggiero and Gene Gotti were arrested for dealing heroin, based primarily on recordings from a bug in Ruggiero's house. Castellano, who had banned made men from his family from dealing drugs under threat of death, demanded transcripts of the tapes,[35][37] and when Ruggiero refused he threatened to demote Gotti.




In 1984 Castellano was arrested and indicted in a RICO case for the crimes of Gambino hitman Roy DeMeo's crew.[39][40] The following year he received a second indictment for his role in the American Mafia's Commission.[38] Facing life imprisonment for either case, Castellano arranged for John Gotti to serve as an acting boss alongside Thomas Bilotti, Castellano's favorite capo, and Thomas Gambino in his absence.Gotti, meanwhile, began conspiring with fellow disgruntled Gambino family members Sammy Gravano, Frank DeCicco, Robert DiBernardo and Joseph Armone (collectively dubbed "the Fist" by themselves) to overthrow Castellano, insisting despite the boss' inaction that Castellano would eventually try to kill him.




After Dellacroce died of cancer on December 2, 1985, Castellano revised his succession plan: appointing Bilotti as underboss to Thomas Gambino as the sole acting boss, while making plans to break up Gotti's crew. Infuriated by this, and Castellano's refusal to attend Dellacroce's wake,[44][45] Gotti resolved to kill his boss.




DeCicco tipped Gotti off that he would be having a meeting with Castellano and several other Gambino mobsters at Sparks Steak House on December 16, 1985, and Gotti chose to take the opportunity. The evening of the meeting, when the boss and underboss arrived, they were ambushed and shot dead by assassins under Gotti's command.[47] Gotti watched the hit from his car with Gravano.




Gotti was proclaimed the new boss of the Gambino family at the meeting of the family's capos on December 30, 1985.[49] He appointed his co-conspirator DeCicco as the new underboss while retaining Castellano's consigliere Joseph N. Gallo.




Gambino boss


 




This section requires expansion.




Identified as both Paul Castellano's likely murderer and his successor, John Gotti rose to fame throughout 1986.




In the book Underboss, Gravano estimated that Gotti had an annual income of not less than $5 million during his years as boss, and more likely between 10 and 12 million.[54]




To protect himself legally Gotti banned members of the Gambino family from accepting plea bargains that acknowledged the existence of the organization.[55]


 




"The Teflon Don"




Gotti's newfound fame had at least one positive effect; upon the revelation of his attacker's occupation, and amid reports of intimidation by the Gambinos, Romual Piecyk decided not to testify against Gotti, and when the trial commenced in March 1986 he testified he was unable to remember who attacked him. The case was promptly dismissed, with the New York Daily News summarizing the proceedings with the headline "I Forgotti!"




On April 13, 1986, underboss DeCicco was killed when his car was bombed following a visit to Castellano loyalist James Failla. The bombing was carried out by Lucchese capos Victor Amuso and Anthony Casso, under orders of bosses Anthony Corallo and Vincent Gigante, to avenge Castellano and Bilotti by killing their successors; Gotti also planned to visit Failla that day but canceled, and the bomb was detonated after a soldier who rode with DeCicco was mistaken for the boss. The use of bombs, banned by the American Mafia, cleared Gigante of suspicion from Gotti.




Following the bombing Judge Eugene Nickerson, presiding over Gotti's racketeering trial, rescheduled to avoid a jury tainted by the resulting publicity while Giacalone had Gotti's bail revoked due to evidence of intimidation in the Piecyk case.[59][60] From jail, Gotti ordered the murder of Robert DiBernardo by Sammy Gravano; both DiBernardo and Ruggiero had been vying to succeed DeCicco until Ruggiero accused DiBernardo of challenging Gotti's leadership.[61] When Ruggiero, also under indictment, had his bail revoked for his abrasive behavior in preliminary hearings, a frustrated Gotti instead promoted Joseph Armone to underboss.




Jury selection for the racketeering case began again in August 1986,[63] with John Gotti standing trial alongside Gene Gotti, "Willie Boy" Johnson (who, despite being exposed as an informant, refused to turn state's evidence[64]), Leonard DiMaria, Tony Rampino, Nicholas Corozzo and John Carneglia.[65] At this point, the Gambinos were able to compromise the case when George Pape, a friend of Westies boss Bosko Radonjich, was empaneled; through Radonjich Pape contacted Gravano and agreed to sell his vote on the jury for $60,000.




In the trial's opening statements on September 25, Gotti's defense attorney Bruce Cutler denied the existence of the Gambino Crime Family and framed the government's entire effort as a personal vendetta.[67] His main defense strategy during the prosecution was to attack the credibility of Giacalone's witnesses by discussing their crimes committed before their turning states'.[68] In Gotti's defense Cutler called bank robber Matthew Traynor, a would-be prosecution witness dropped for unreliability, who testified that Giacalone offered him drugs and her panties as a masturbation aid in exchange for his testimony; Traynor's allegations would be dismissed by Judge Nickerson as "wholly unbelievable" after the trial, and he was subsequently convicted of perjury.




Despite Cutler's defense, according to mob writers Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain, when the jury's deliberations began a majority were in favor of convicting Gotti. Pape, however, held out in Gotti's favor until the rest of the jury began to fear their own safety was compromised,[66] and on March 13, 1987, they acquitted Gotti and his codefendents of all charges.[65] Five years later Pape was convicted of obstruction of justice for his part in the fix.[70]




In the face of previous Mafia convictions, particularly the success of the Commission trial, Gotti's acquittal was a major upset that further added to his reputation. The American media dubbed Gotti "The Teflon Don" in reference to the failure of any charges to "stick."


 




Reorganization




While Gotti himself had escaped conviction, his associates were not so lucky. The other two men in the Gambino administration, underboss Armone and consigliere Gallo, had been indicted on racketeering charges in 1986 and were both convicted in December 1987.[73] The heroin trial of Gotti's former fellow Bergin crewmembers Ruggiero and Gene Gotti also commenced in June of that year.




Prior to their convictions, Gotti allowed Gallo to retire and promoted Sammy Gravano in his place while slating Frank Locascio to serve as acting underboss in the event of Armone's imprisonment.[75] The Gambinos also worked to compromise the heroin trial's jury, resulting in two mistrials.[76] When the terminally ill Ruggiero was severed and released in 1989, Gotti refused to contact him, blaming him for the Gambino's misfortunes. According to Gravano, Gotti also considered murdering Ruggiero and when he finally died "I literally had to drag him to the funeral."




Beginning in January 1988 Gotti, against Gravano's advice, required his capos to meet with him at the Ravenite Social Club once a week.[79] Regarded by Gene Gotti as an unnecessary vanity-inspired risk, and by FBI Gambino squad leader Bruce Mouw as antithematic to the "secret society"[81], this move allowed FBI surveillance to record and identify much of the Gambino hierarchy. The FBI also bugged the Ravenite, but failed to produce any high-quality incriminating recordings.




1988 also saw Gotti, Gigante and the new Lucchese boss Victor Amuso attending the first Commission meeting since the Commission trial.[82] In 1986, future Lucchese underboss Anthony Casso had been injured in an unauthorized hit by Gambino capo Mickey Paradiso. The following year, the FBI warned Gotti they had recorded Genovese consigliere Louis Manna discussing another hit on John and Gene Gotti. To avoid a war, the leaders of the three families met, denied knowledge of their violence against one another, and agreed to "communicate better."[84] The bosses also agreed to allow Colombo acting boss Victor Orena to join the Commission, but Gigante, wary of giving Gotti a majority by admitting another ally, blocked the reentry of the Bonannos' and Joseph Massino.




Gotti was nevertheless able to take control of the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family in 1988. According to the DeCavalcante capo-turned-informant Anthony Rotondo, Gotti attended his father's wake with numerous other Gambino mobsters in a "show of force" and forced boss John Riggi to agree to run his family on the Gambino's behalf.[85] The DeCavalcantes remained in the Gambino's sphere of influence until John Gotti's imprisonment.[86]




Gotti's son John Gotti Jr. was initiated into the Gambino family on Christmas Eve 1988.[87] According to fellow mobster Michael DiLeonardo, initiated in the same night, Gravano held the ceremony to keep Gotti from being accused of nepotism. John Jr. was promptly promoted to capo.[25]




Assault acquittal




This section requires expansion.




On the evening of January 23, 1989 John Gotti was arrested outside the Ravenite and charged with ordering the 1986 assault of union official John O'Connor.[88] O'Connor, a leader in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Local 608 who was later convicted of racketeering himself,[89] was believed to have ordered an attack on a Gambino-associated restaurant that had snubbed the union and was subsequently shot and wounded by the Westies.[88] To link Gotti to the case, state prosecutors had a recording of Gotti discussing O'Connor and announcing his intention to "Bust him up," and the testimony of Westies gangster James McElroy.




Gotti was released on $100,000 bail.


 




1992 conviction


 




On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and New York City detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club, arresting Gotti, Gravano and Frank Locascio.[92] Gotti was charged, in this new racketeering case, with five murders (Castellano and Bilotti, Robert DiBernardo, Liborio Milito and Louis Dibono,) conspiracy to murder Gaetano "Corky" Vastola, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion.[93][94] Based on tapes from FBI bugs played at pretrial hearings the Gambino administration was denied bail and attorneys Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel were both disqualified from defending Gotti after determining they had worked as "in-house counsel" for the Gambino organization.[95][96] Gotti subsequently hired Albert Krieger, a Miami attorney who had worked with Joseph Bonanno, to replace Cutler.[97][98]




The tapes also created a rift between Gotti and Gravano, showing the Gambino boss describing his newly-appointed underboss as too greedy and attempting to frame Gravano as the main force behind the murders of DiBernardo, Milito and Dibono.[99][100] Gotti's attempt at reconciliation failed,[101] leaving Gravano disillusioned with the mob and doubtful on his chances of winning the newest case without Shargel, his former attorney.[102][103] Gravano ultimately opted to turn state's evidence, formally agreeing to testify on November 13, 1991.[104]




Gotti and Locascio were tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York before United States District Judge I. Leo Glasser. Jury selection began in January 1992, with the empaneled jury being kept anonymous and, for the first time in a Brooklyn Federal case, fully sequestered during the trial due to Gotti's reputation for jury tampering.[105][106] The trial commenced with the prosecution's opening statements on February 12;[107][108] prosecutors Andrew Maloney and John Gleeson began their case by playing tapes showing Gotti discussing Gambino family business, including murders he approved, and confirming the animosity between Gotti and Castellano to establish the former's motive to kill his boss. After calling an eyewitness of the Sparks hit who identified Gotti associate John Carneglia as one of the men who shot Bilotti they then brought Gravano to testify on March 2.




On the stand Gravano confirmed Gotti's place in the structure of the Gambino family and described in detail the conspiracy to assassinate Castellano and gave a full description of the hit and its aftermath.[113] Krieger, and Locasio's attorney Anthony Cardinale, proved unable to shake Gravano during cross-examination.[114][115] After additional testimony and tapes the government rested its case on March 24.[116]




Five of Krieger and Cardinale's intended six witnesses were ruled irrelevant or extraneous, leaving only Gotti's tax attorney Murray Appleman to testify on his behalf. The defense also attempted unsuccessfully to have a mistrial declared based on Maloney's closing remarks. Gotti himself became increasingly hostile during the trial,[120] and at one point Glasser threatened to remove him from the courtroom.[116][121] Among other outbursts, Gotti called Gravano a junkie while his attorneys sought to discuss Gravano's past steroid use,[122][123] and he equated the dismissal of a juror to the fixing of the 1919 World Series.[106][118]




On April 2, 1992, after only 14 hours of deliberation, the jury found Gotti guilty on all charges of the indictment (Locasio was found guilty on all but one.)[124][125] On June 23, 1992, Glasser sentenced both defendants to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and a $250,000 fine.




Incarceration and death


 


 




Last photo of John Gotti, taken by the Bureau of Prisons on October 17, 2001.




Gotti was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois. He spent the majority of his sentence in effective solitary confinement, only allowed out of his cell for one hour a day.[1][127] His final appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994.




While in prison, Gotti offered at least $40,000 to the Aryan Brotherhood to kill Walter Johnson, a black inmate who had assaulted him. The Aryan Brotherhood accepted Gotti's offer. The prison guards surmised that Johnson was in danger and transferred him to another prison.[129] Gotti is also believed to have hired the Brotherhood for another aborted hit on Frank Locascio after learning the disgruntled acting consigliere sought to kill him.




220px-Image-Bureau_of_Prisons_image_-_John_Gotti.jpg[/attachment:35fa928p]


 


 




Photo of John Gotti after he was assaulted in prison


 




GottiPrison.jpg[/attachment:35fa928p]


 




Despite his imprisonment, and pressure from the Commission to stand down, Gotti is believed to have held on to his position as Gambino boss with his brother Peter and his son John A. Gotti Jr. relaying orders on his behalf. By 1998, when he was indicted on racketeering, John Gotti Jr. was believed to be the acting boss of the family. Against his father's wishes, John Jr. pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years and five months imprisonment in 1999. He maintains he has since left the Gambino family. Peter Gotti subsequently became acting boss, albeit with no respect from the rest of the family.




John Jr.'s indictment brought further stress to John Gotti's marriage. Victoria DiGiorgio Gotti, up to that point unaware of her son's involvement in the mob, blamed her husband for ruining her son's life and threatened to leave him unless he allowed John Jr. to leave the mob.[10]




In 1998 Gotti was diagnosed with throat cancer and sent to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri for surgery.While the tumor was removed, the cancer was discovered to have returned two years later and Gotti was transferred back to Springfield, where he would spend the remainder of his life.




Gotti's condition rapidly declined, and he died on June 10, 2002 at the age of 61.[1][140] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced that Gotti's family would not be permitted to have a Mass of Christian Burial but allowed it after the burial.[141]




Gotti's funeral was held in a nonchurch facility.[141] After the funeral, an estimated 300 onlookers followed the procession, which passed Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, to the gravesite. John Gotti's body was interred in a crypt next to his son Frank Gotti. Gotti's brother Peter was unable to attend owing to his incarceration. In an apparent repudiation of Gotti's leadership and legacy, the other New York families sent no representatives to the funeral.[142]




Peter Gotti is believed to have formally succeeded his brother as Gambino boss.[143]




Portrayal in popular media


 




Getting Gotti - 1994 CBS TV movie, portrayed by Anthony John Denison.[144]




Gotti - 1996 HBO TV movie adapted from Gotti: Rise and Fall, portrayed by Armand Assante.[145]




Witness to the Mob - 1998 NBC miniseries, portrayed by Tom Sizemore.[146]




Boss of Bosses - 2001 TNT TV movie adapted from the book of the same name, portrayed by Sonny Marinelli.




Gotti - upcoming film, to be portrayed by John Travolta.[148]

In 2011 46 investigative journalist were kill in duty around the world


 




here in canada i know 2 that they try to kill


 




1 by the mafia the second by the hell angel

[align=center:zujhh542]I knew there were someting suspicious about you !




someone with a police name in a mafia zone




you just drop your business card at the Mona Lisa




specialagent.jpg[/attachment:zujhh542][/align:zujhh542]

[align=center:32epqdt7] [/align:32epqdt7]

[align=center:323a80is]




<div><iframe width="459" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K5nojuR0btk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div> [/align:323a80is]

[align=center:1ca8o8ee]Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravano




Gravano.jpg[/attachment:1ca8o8ee]


 




Born   March 12, 1945 (age 66)Brooklyn, New York, US




Ethnicity   Italian-American[/align:1ca8o8ee]




=========================================================================================================




Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano (born March 12, 1945) is a former underboss of the Gambino crime family. He is known as the man who helped bring down John Gotti, the family's boss, by agreeing to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant and turn state's evidence.




Originally a mobster for the Colombo crime family, and later for the Brooklyn faction of the Gambinos, he participated in a conspiracy within the family to murder Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Gravano played a key role in planning and executing Castellano's murder; other conspirators included John Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, Frank DeCicco, and Joseph Armone. The conspiracy would elevate Gravano's position in the family to underboss under Gotti, a position he held at the time he turned informer. At the time, he was the highest ranking member of the Five Families to break his blood oath, and to this day is one of the highest-ranking members of organized crime to turn informer. His testimony drew a wave of Cosa Nostra members to become informants.




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Childhood and early life


 




Salvatore Gravano was born in 1945 to Giorlando (Gerry) and Caterina (Kay) Gravano. He was the youngest of three children, and the only boy. They lived in Bensonhurst, a largely Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. Early on, one of his relatives remarked that he looked like his uncle Sammy. From that point on, he was called "Sammy" instead of "Salvatore" or "Sal."




Gravano did poorly in school due to an undiagnosed case of dyslexia. During his childhood, the condition was not well understood by the medical community of the time, and his problems in school were dismissed as "being a slow learner." He was held back on two occasions. At first, this made him a target of jokes at school, but those ended after he assaulted several of his tormentors. He continued to assert his physical presence through violence as he grew up, and his parents were forced to sign him out of school when he was 16 years old.




He began stealing when he was only 7 or 8 and would take two cupcakes from a corner store in Bensonhurst every day on his way to school. Sammy sobbed when he was caught stealing from his corner shop at the age of 8 and was let off with a firm warning by the shopkeeper. However, by the time he was 13, he had joined the Rampers, a prominent gang in the area.




His father ran a small dress factory and could sustain a good standard of living for the family. When he saw Sammy drifting in the wrong direction, he tried all possible methods of discipline, including forcing him to attend Mass with him.[1]




Gravano was drafted into the United States Army in 1964. While an enlisted soldier, he mainly worked as a mess hall cook. He rose to the rank of corporal and was granted an honorable discharge after two years. Gravano was not deployed to the Vietnam War.




Gravano married Debra Scibetta in 1971; they had two children. His daughter, Karen Gravano, is now on the VH1 series, Mob Wives. Later in his mob career, he was ordered to help arrange the murder of his brother-in-law, Nicholas Scibetta.[3] He is also the brother-in-law of Gambino crime family capo Edward Garafola and Mario Garafola.[1] He was a childhood friend of Colombo crime family associate Gerard Pappa.[1]


 




Colombo associate


 




The Mafia had been in Bensonhurst for a long time; several "wiseguys" hung around a bar that Sammy and his father frequently walked by. On one occasion, they helped Sammy recover a stolen bicycle, and one of them was so impressed by Sammy's fighting ability that he nicknamed Sammy "the Bull." The nickname stuck.




Despite his father's attempts to dissuade him, Sammy, like many of his Ramper colleagues, drifted into the Mafia. He first became associated with the "Honored Society" in 1968 through Tommy Spero, whose uncle, Shorty, was an associate of the Colombo crime family under its future boss, Carmine "the Snake" Persico.[4] Gravano was initially involved in petty crimes, as he almost always had been, such as larceny, hijacking, and armed robbery.[1] He quickly moved up the ranks and into racketeering, loansharking, and running a lucrative poker game in the back room of an after-hours club, of which he was part-owner.




Gravano became a particular favorite of family boss Joe Colombo, who used Gravano to picket the FBI as part of his Italian-American Civil Rights League initiative. Gravano's rise was so precipitous that it was generally understood that he would be among the first to become made when the Mafia's membership books were reopened (they had been closed since 1957).




In 1970, he committed his first murderâââ‰â¬Âthat of Joseph Colucci, a fellow Spero associate with whose wife Tommy Spero was having an affair. Colucci reportedly was planning to kill Gravano and both Speros in response. Gravano described the experience thusly:




As that Beatles song played, I became a killer. Joe Colucci was going to die. I was going to kill him because he was plotting to kill me. I felt the rage inside me.... Everything went in slow motion. I could almost feel the bullet leaving the gun and entering his skull. It was strange. I didn't hear the first shot. I didn't see any blood. His head didn't seem to move.... I felt like I was a million miles away, like this was all a dream.




Gravano's murder of Colucci won him the respect and approval of Persico.[2] Gravano went on to serve as a mentor and father figure to Colucci's son, Jack Colucci, who would become involved in the construction industry and act as a Gambino family associate.


 




Made man


 




Sometime in the early 1970s, Ralph Spero, brother of Shorty, became jealous of Gravano's status as a rising star in the family, fearing he would be made before his own son, Tommy. Shorty Spero thus granted Gravano his official release from the Colombos after confirming the Gambino crime family would take him in.[2]




With the Gambinos, Gravano became an associate of longtime capo Salvatore "Toddo" Aurello. Aurello quickly took a liking to Sammy, who already had an education in mob life through Persico, and Aurello became Sammy's mob mentor.[2] Around this time, Gravano took a construction job and claims to have considered going legit.[1] A former associate, however, falsely claimed to the New York District Attorney's Office that Gravano and another associate were responsible for a double murder from 1969. Indictments were issued and Gravano, in need of money to pay his legal bills, quit his construction job and went on a self-described "robbing rampage" for a year and a half.[1] One week into the trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss the charges, but Gravano considered the experience to be formative, sealing his future in a life of crime:




That pinch changed my whole life. I never, ever stopped a second from there on in. I was like a madman. Never stopped stealing. Never stopped robbing. I was obsessed.




Gravano's robbery spree impressed Aurello, who proposed him for membership in the Gambino family. In 1976, the Mafia's membership books were finally reopened and Gravano was one of the first to be sworn in.[2]


 




Gambino soldier




Family loyalty put to the test




Gravano's loyalty to his dueling families was put to the test in 1978, when the erratic behavior of his brother-in-law, Nicholas Scibetta, attracted the attention of Gambino leadership. Scibetta, the brother of Gravano's wife, had developed an alcohol problem and soon started using cocaine. A series of altercations with mob associates followed, one of which ended with Scibetta's having his adversary arrested, earning Scibetta a reputation as a stool pigeon. Scibetta sealed his fate when he insulted the daughter of Georgie DeCicco, uncle of Gambino member Frank DeCicco.[2] Hearing the news, Gravano gave his brother-in-law a beating in an attempt to forestall worse punishment. The elder DeCicco, however, was incensed and took the matter to boss Paul Castellano, who ordered a hit on Scibetta.




The order was given to Frank DeCicco, who was told not to inform Gravano. DeCicco gave the contract to Loborio "Louie" Milito and Josephy "Stymie" D'Angelo, Sr., two associates on Gravano's crew. After consultation, the three agreed it was wrong not to tell Gravano. DeCicco went to Castellano and persuaded him to give permission to inform Gravano, but Castellano also authorized DeCicco to kill Gravano if he opposed the murder. According to Gravano, he was initially livid at the news and threatened to kill Castellano, but DeCicco eventually convinced him opposition would be futile and Gravano acquiesced to the murder.




The only part of Scibetta's body ever recovered was one of his hands, and he was declared legally dead in 1985. How Scibetta was killed, as well as the exact extent of Gravano's involvement, remains unknown.




Around this time, Gravano opened an afterhours club in Bensonhurst. The bar was the scene of a violent altercation one night, involving a rowdy biker gang intent on ransacking the establishment, which may have served as inspiration for a similar scene in the 1993 film A Bronx Tale. A melee ensued, in which Gravano broke his ankle and the bikers were chased off. Gravano then went to Castellano and received permission to murder the leader of the gang. Along with Milito, Gravano hunted down the leader, wounding him and killing another member of the gang.[2] Castellano was flabbergasted when he learned the crutch-ridden Gravano personally took part in the hit.[2]




[edit]Construction magnate




Like his predecessor Carlo Gambino, Castellano favored emphasizing more sophisticated schemes involving construction, trucking, and garbage disposal over traditional street-level activities such as loansharking, gambling, and hijackings.[2] Castellano had a particular interest in the construction business.[1] Gravano began to change his boss' cowboy image of him when he entered into the plumbing and drywall business with his brother-in-law, Edward Garafola. As Gravano's involvement in construction increased, he became closer and closer to Castellano, eventually penetrating Castellano's inner circle and becoming a regular at his Todt Hill, Staten Island mansion.




Gravano quickly acquired tremendous clout in the construction and trucking industries. The Aurello crew supervised the Gambino family's control over Teamsters Local 282, which had jurisdiction over building materials to all construction sites in the city. The Mafia's control over the city's construction industry was so absolute that it had effective veto power over all major construction projects in the city. For all practical purposes, no concrete could be poured for any project worth more than $2 million without Mafia approval.




After Aurello's death, the crew was controlled by Frank DeCicco, and Gravano was made the point-man in the all-powerful Teamsters Local 282 rackets, working closely with successive union bosses John Cody and Robert Sasso (both of whom would be sent to prison for labor racketeering). Gravano installed Louis "Big Lou" Vallario, Frank Fappiano, and Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo as his day-to-day soldiers in the construction rackets.




Gravano's construction and other business interests soon earned him a reputation as a "good earner" within the Gambino organization and made him a multi-millionaire, enabling him to build a large estate for his family in rural Ocean County, New Jersey.[1] Flush with cash, he also invested in trotters to race at the Meadowlands Racetrack and started operating a popular discotheque, The Plaza Suite, in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn. Gravano reportedly made $4,000-a-week from the Plaza Suite alone. Gravano also used the club as his construction headquarters.




Gravano further ingratiated himself to Castellano when he interceded in a civil war that had erupted within the Philadelphia crime family. In March 1980, longtime Philadelphia boss, Angelo Bruno, was assassinated by his consigliere, Antonio Caponigro, without authorization from The Commission. The Commission summoned Caponigro to New York, where it sentenced him to death for his transgression. After Caponigro was tortured and killed, Philip Testa was installed as boss and Nicky Scarfo as consigliere. The Commission subsequently placed contracts on Caponigro's co-conspirators, including John "Johnny Keys" Simone, who also happened to be Bruno's cousin. The Simone contract was given to Gravano.




After befriending Simone through a series of meetings, Gravano, with the assistance of Milito and D'Angelo, abducted Simone from Yardley Golf Club in Yardley, Pennsylvania (in suburban Trenton, New Jersey) and drove him to a wooded area in Staten Island. Gravano then granted Simone's requests to die with his shoes off, in fulfillment of a promise he had made to his wife, and at the hands of a made man. After Gravano removed Simone's shoes, Milito shot Simone in the back of the head, killing him.[1] Gravano would later express admiration for Simone as a "man's man," remarking favorably on the calmness with which he accepted his fate. Gravano earned praise from Castellano for the killing.


 




Frank Fiala murder




By the early 1980s, the Plaza Suite was a thriving establishment.[5] Patrons often had to wait in line for up to an hour before being admitted and the club featured high-profile live acts such as Chubby Checker and the Four Tops.




In 1982, Frank Fiala, a wealthy businessman and drug trafficker, paid Gravano $40,000 to rent the Plaza Suite for a birthday party he was throwing himself. Two days after the party, Gravano accepted a $1,000,000 offer from Fiala to buy the establishment, which Gravano had only valued at $200,000.[2] The deal was structured to include $100,000 cash as a down payment, $650,000 in gold bullion under the table, and a $250,000 payment at the closing.[1]




Before the transaction was completed, Fiala began to act as if he had already purchased the club. He brought people in to begin remodeling the place and he hired his own bouncers. All of this irritated Gravano, but the last straw came when Fiala moved into Sammy's private office and began breaking through an office wall. Gravano, enraged, stormed into the office followed by Garafola. Fiala was standing behind Gravano's desk. He sat down in Sammy's chair, smirking at the two men.




"What do you think you're doing?" Gravano growled. "This doesn't belong to you till the closing. Get the hell out of here." Fiala reached into a desk drawer, removed an Uzi and aimed it at the two. Ordering the pair to sit down, the brazen, yet foolish, Fiala stated, "You fucking grease-balls, you do things my way." The second Gravano realized he was not going to be shot he began to plot Fiala's demise.[citation needed]




Upon leaving, Gravano called Garafola and set up an ambush outside the club, involving Garafola, Milito, D'Angelo, Nicholas Mormando, and Michael DeBatt in the plan.[1] Later that night, Gravano confronted Fiala on the street as he exited the Plaza Suite amongst a group of people, asking, "Hey, Frank, how you doing?"[5] As Fiala turned around, surprised to see Gravano, Milito came up behind him and shot him in the head.[1] Milito stood over the body and fired a shot into each of Fiala's eyes as Fiala's entourage and the crowd of people on the street dispersed, screaming.[1] Gravano then walked up to Fiala's corpse and spat on it.[1]




Although Gravano believed the entire neighborhood knew he was responsible for the murder, he was never charged for the crime: Gravano had made a $5,000 payoff to the lead homicide detective, Louis Eppolito, to ensure the investigation yielded no leads.[5]




While Gravano was able to evade criminal charges, he had incurred Castellano's wrath over the unsanctioned killing. Gravano attempted to lie low for nearly three weeks afterwards, during which time he called his crew together and made the decision to kill the boss if necessary.[2] Gravano and Milito were then summoned to a meeting with Castellano at a Manhattan restaurant. Castellano had been given the details of what Fiala had done, but he was still livid that Gravano had not come to him for permission to kill Fiala first. Gravano, however, was spared execution when he convinced Castellano that the reason he had kept him in the dark was to protect the boss in case something went wrong with the hit.[2]




Fiala's murder posed one final problem for Gravano in the form of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The high publicity generated by the incident triggered an IRS investigation into Gravano and Fiala's deal for the sale of the Plaza Suite and Gravano was subsequently charged with tax evasion. Gravano was represented by Gerald Shargel and acquitted at trial.[2]




Gravano's relief at being acquitted was tempered by news close friend, D'Angelo, had been killed by a Colombo family associate celebrating his having been proposed for membership. The killer was then murdered, himself, on orders from the Colombo family.[2]


 




Aligning with Gotti




In the aftermath of the Fiala murder, Gravano continued to focus on his construction business, branching out into the lucrative concrete paving industry. New York City's cement industry was controlled by four of the Five Families, which made millions of dollars by manipulating bids and steering contracts.




Gravano eventually became embroiled in a dispute with business partner Louie DiBono, who was also a member of another Gambino crew.[1] A sit-down with Castellano was held, at which an irate Gravano accused DiBono of withholding $200,000 in payments for subcontracts and threatened to kill him right then and there. Gambino underboss Neil Dellacroce intervened on Gravano's behalf and Castellano decreed that the matter would be settled by the two men's ending their business partnership, though Gravano's standing with the boss slipped as a result of the incident. Dellacroce, however, was rising star John Gotti's mentor, and when word got back to him that Dellacroce had supported Gravano, Gotti was impressed.[2]




During this time, the FBI had intensified its efforts against the Gambino family, and in August 1983, three members of Gotti's crew âââ‰â¬Å Angelo Ruggiero, John Carneglia, and Gene Gotti âââ‰â¬Å were indicted for heroin trafficking. Castellano was against anyone in the Family dealing narcotics. Castellano was going to have Gene Gotti and Ruggiero killed if it turned out they had dealt heroin. He asked for tape transcripts of Ruggiero's conversations and was stalled for as long as they could stall him. Eventually, one of the reasons for Gotti's killing Castellano was to save his brother and Ruggiero. The FBI had bugged Ruggiero's house and telephone, and Castellano decided he needed copies of the tapes to justify his impending move to Dellacroce and the family's other capos. Castellano demanded that Dellacroce obtain them from Ruggiero (whose attorney had obtained them through normal court procedures), but Dellacroce stalled.




When Castellano was indicted for both his connection to Roy DeMeo's stolen car ring and as part of the Mafia Commission Trial, he learned his own house had been bugged on the basis of evidence from the Ruggiero tapes and he became livid.[2] In June 1985, he again demanded that Dellacroce get him the tapes.[6] Both Dellacroce and Gotti tried to convince Ruggiero to comply if Castellano explained beforehand how he intended to use the tapes, but Ruggiero refused, fearing he would endanger good friends.




Three months later, Gravano was approached by Robert DiBernardo, a fellow Gambino member acting as an intermediary for Gotti. DiBernardo informed him that Gotti and Ruggiero wanted to meet with him in Queens.[2] Gravano arrived to find only Ruggiero was present. Ruggiero informed Gravano that he and Gotti were planning to murder Castellano and asked for Gravano's support.[2] Gravano was initially noncommittal, wanting to confer first with Frank DeCicco. In conversation with DeCicco, both men voiced concern that Castellano would designate his nephew, Thomas Gambino, acting boss and his driver, Thomas Bilotti, underboss in the event he was convicted and sent to prison.[1] Neither man appealed to Gravano or DeCicco as leadership material, and they ultimately decided to support the hit on Castellano.[1]


 




Whacking the boss




Gravano's first choice to become boss after Castellano's murder was Frank DeCicco, but DeCicco felt John Gotti's ego was too big to take a subservient role. DeCicco argued that Gotti's boldness, intelligence, and charisma made him well-suited to be "a good boss" and he convinced Gravano to give Gotti a chance. DeCicco and Gravano, however, also made a secret pact to kill Gotti and take over the family as boss and underboss, respectively, if they were unhappy with Gotti's leadership after one year.




The conspirators' first order of business was meeting with other Gambino members, most of whom were disaffected under Castellano, and gaining their support for the hit. Gotti and Ruggiero then sought and obtained the approval of the Colombo and Bonanno families, while DeCicco secured the backing of the Luccheses. The conspirators decided not to approach the Genovese family due to boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante's long-standing friendship with Castellano.[1] With Neil Dellacroce's death on December 2, the final constraint on a move by Gotti or Castellano against the other was removed. Gotti, enraged that Castellano chose not to attend his mentor's wake, wasted little time in striking.




Not suspecting the plot against him, Castellano invited DeCicco to a meeting on December 16, 1985 with fellow capos Thomas Gambino, James Failla, and Danny Marino at Sparks Steak House in Manhattan. The conspirators considered the restaurant a prime location for the hit because the area would be packed with bustling crowds of holiday shoppers, making it easier for the assassins to blend in and escape.[4] The plans for the assassination were finalized on December 15, and the next afternoon, the conspirators met for a final time on the Lower East Side. At Gotti's suggestion, the shooters wore long white trench coats and black fur Russian hats, which Gravano considered a "brilliant" idea.




Gotti and Gravano arrived at the restaurant shortly before 5 o'clock and, after circling the block, parked their car across the intersection and within view of the entrance.[1] Around 5:30, Gravano spotted Castellano's Lincoln Town Car stopped at a nearby intersection and, via walkie talkie, alerted the team of hitmen stationed outside the restaurant of Castellano's approach.[7] Castellano's driver, Thomas Bilotti, pulled the car up directly in front of the entrance. As Castellano and Bilotti exited the Lincoln, the roughly half dozen shooters moved in and opened fire, killing both men in a barrage of bullets.[7] As the hat-and-trench-coat-adorned men slipped away into the night, Gotti calmly drove the car past the front of the restaurant to get a look at the scene.[2] Looking down at Bilotti's body from the passenger window, Gravano remarked, "He's gone."[7]




[edit]Co-underboss and consigliere


 




The new regime




After Castellano's death, a meeting of the Gambino family's capos was held, at which Frank DeCicco nominated Gotti to be the new boss. Gotti's nomination met with no opposition and he was installed as don. Gotti, in turn, selected DeCicco as his underboss and elevated Gravano to capo after Toddo Aurello announced his desire to step down.




Gotti was recognized as the Gambino family's boss and a member of The Commission by each of the other Five Families, including the Genovese family, whose approval for the hit on Castellano had been deliberately bypassed by Gotti and his co-conspirators. The Genovese family, however, was still upset that Gotti had proceeded without the full sanctioning of The Commission and cryptically announced that a Mafia rule had been broken, for which somebody would have to pay if and when The Commission, which was in disarray at the time due to the Mafia Commission Trial, met again.[1] Gravano and DeCicco had been hiding out in safe houses, but they took the other families' full recognition of Gotti as an indication that it was safe to resurface.[1]




The Genoveses made good on their veiled threat in April 1986, when DeCicco was killed by a car bomb outside of Castellano's former social club in Bensonhurst, then operated by Gambino capo James Failla. Gravano was at the club at the time and was blown off his feet by the blast.[1] Gravano attempted to pull DeCicco from the wreckage but realized it was no use when he saw various body parts scattered about.[1]




The attack was orchestrated by Genovese boss Vincent Gigante, with the backing of Lucchese leaders Vittorio "Vic" Amuso and Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.[8] The bomb was intended to kill both DeCicco and Gotti, who was supposed to be at the club for a meeting with Gravano and DeCicco.[8] Gotti, however, couldn't make the meeting and rescheduled for later that evening at the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan.[8] Failla and fellow capo Daniel Marino were two of Castellano's closest associates before his death and both men were in on Gigante's plot.[8] In exchange for a promise to be designated co-leaders of the Gambino family after the assassinations, Failla and Marino provided intelligence and tipped off the plotters to the planned meeting in Bensonhurst. The plotters reportedly used a car bomb for the attack in order to divert suspicion.[9] The method had its intended effect, as Gotti and Gravano considered and dismissed the possibility that Gigante was behind the plot, reasoning, "[H]e wouldn't use... bombs."[9]




With DeCicco dead, the Gambinos were left without an underboss. Gotti chose to fill the vacancy by naming Angelo Ruggiero and Gravano co-underbosses.


 




"Nicky Cowboy" murder




The first person on Gravano's hit list after Castellano's murder was Nicholas "Nicky Cowboy" Mormando, a former member of his crew.[1] Mormando had become addicted to crack cocaine and was suspected by Gravano of getting friend and fellow crew member Michael DeBatt addicted to the drug. According to Gravano, Mormando started to act "like a renegade... berserk."[1] The final straw came when Mormando announced he no longer wanted to be in the crew and planned to start his own gang. Gravano decided he "couldn't take a chance" because Mormando "knew too much" and he got permission from Gotti to kill Mormando.[1]




Gravano arranged to have Mormando murdered on his way to a meeting at Gravano's Bensonhurst restaurant, Tali's.[1] After assuring Mormando of his safety, Gravano told him to pick up Joseph Paruta on his way. Paruta got in the backseat of the car and shot Mormando twice in the back of the head.[1] Mormando's corpse was then disposed of in a vacant lot, where it was discovered the next day.[1]


 




Consigliere


 


 




FBI surveillance photograph of Gravano, Gotti, Amuso and Casso




Gotti was imprisoned in May 1986 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York while awaiting trial on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges. He was forced to rely heavily on Gravano, Angelo Ruggiero, and Joseph "Piney" Armone to manage the family's day-to-day affairs while he called the major shots from his jail cell.




In June, Gravano was approached by Ruggiero and, supposedly at Gotti's behest, given orders to murder capo Robert DiBernardo for making negative remarks about Gotti's leadership.[1] Gravano was friendly with DiBernardo and tried to get the murder called off until he had a chance to speak with Gotti after his trial. Ruggiero claimed to have met again with Gotti and told Gravano that the boss wanted DiBernardo killed right away.[1] Gravano arranged a meeting with DiBernardo where Joe Paruta, a member of Gravano's crew, shot DiBernardo twice in the back of the head as the underboss watched. Gravano later learned that Ruggiero was $250,000 in debt to DiBernardo and realized Ruggiero may have fabricated the orders from Gotti or simply lied to Gotti about what DiBernardo was accused of saying in order to erase the debt and improve his own standing in the family.[1] In any event, DiBernardo's death proved profitable for Gravano, as he took over the deceased man's control of Teamsters Local 282.




Gotti's trial ultimately ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury and the boss was freed from jail. Gravano's specific position within the family varied during 1986 and 1987. He started out as co-underboss with Ruggiero and later was shifted to co-consigliere with Armone.[2] When Joseph N. Gallo and Armone were convicted on racketeering charges in 1987, Gotti turned to Gravano to help fill the void, promoting him to official consigliere and making Frank Locascio acting underboss.[1] By this time, Gravano was regarded as a "rising force" in the construction industry and often mingled with executives from major construction firms and union officials at his popular Bensonhurst restaurant, Tali's.[1]




Gravano's success was not without a downside. First, his quick rise up the Gambino hierarchy attracted the attention of the FBI, and he was soon placed under surveillance. Second, he started to sense some jealousy from Gotti over the profitability of his legitimate business interests.[2] Nevertheless, Gravano claimed to be kicking up over $2 million each year to Gotti out of his union activities alone.[2]


 




More murders


 




FBI surveillance photograph of Gravano, Louis Saccenti, Thomas Carbonaro and John Gammerano




Michael DeBatt, the son of a late friend of Gravano's, had also become addicted to crack cocaine. DeBatt's wife came to Gravano pleading for help. She told Gravano that DeBatt stayed up at night with a gun claiming "they were coming to get him." Gravano had taken DeBatt under his wing after the elder DeBatt's death, as he had done with Joey D' Angelo. Gravano responded to DeBatt's wife's cries for help by having DeBatt shot to death at Tally's, Gravano's bar. The shooters emptied the cash register and left DeBatt in the bar to make it look like a robbery.




Not long after this, Gravano became the family's consigliere and his old crew was taken over by Louis "Big Lou" Vallario. Louie Milito, Gravano's old buddy from his childhood days with the Rampers, was not pleased with this decision. Milito made the mistake of telling other crew members that it was he who should have been given the top spot in Gravano's crew after Gravano's promotion, and not Vallario. Gravano claimed in his book Underboss that before the Castellano hit, Milito had become much closer to Castellano and Bilotti. Castellano had informed Milito that Gravano should have been killed after the unsanctioned murder of Frank Fiala as well as after Gravano threatened fellow made man Louie DiBono. With John Gotti and the Bergin crew in hot water with the indictment of Angelo Ruggerio on heroin distribution charges, Milito feared Gravano and his crew could be in danger of being killed along with Gotti, once Neil Dellacroce died. Milito, according to Gravano, severed business ties with Gravano and started a loanshark operation with Tommy Bilotti. When Castellano and Bilotti were murdered, Milito was in prison. Upon his release, Gravano claims Gotti wanted Milito killed. Gravano claims he stood up for Milito and stopped the murder from happening. After he was read the riot act, Milito returned to Gravano's crew, only to badmouth his old friend's choice of Vallario as captain after Gravano's promotion. Milito was called to a meeting to discuss the murder of a Gambino associate. Gene Gotti, John Carneglia, Louie Valario and Arnold Squitieri were present at the meeting, as was Gravano. While Milito was drinking some espresso, Carneglia shot him to death. Milito's body has never been found.




Milito's wife Lynda claims in her book Mafia Wife that when Louie Milito did not come home or call, she went to see Gravano at his home.[10] Lynda said Gravano gave her $5,000 and cut all ties to her. Linda also wrote that a friend saw Gravano driving Louie Milito's Lincoln and was able to identify it by damage done to the car before Louie Milito went missing. Lynda Milito would cry foul in her book after Gravano testified he had not been the shooter in Louie Milito's murder; she said that a Gambino family member later informed her Gravano had shot and killed Louie Milito, contrary to what Gravano had told the FBI. Gravano, however, claims in his book Underboss that after Milito was killed, he finished the construction work Milito was having done on his home and continued to support Lynda Milito and her family.




Despite Gravano's rise in status to consigliere, Gotti continued to use Gravano for the task of murder. In May 1988, Gravano and Robert Bisaccia, a New Jersey crime family soldier, murdered Francessco Oliverri for beating a Gambino family crew member to death. Bisaccia shot Oliverri to death while Gravano waited in a stolen get-away car. After Oliverri, John Gotti had finally got around to taking care of Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson. Johnson had been a childhood friend of Gotti's and a longtime crew member while Gotti was captain of the Bergin crew. However, at Gotti's RICO trial, Diane Giacalone, the head prosecutor, revealed that Johnson had been an informant for the FBI for years. Johnson refused to testify for the prosecution. In Underboss Gravano claims that Gotti met with Johnson during the trial and informed Johnson that as long as he never testified against Gotti, he and his family would not be harmed. Johnson would never be allowed to participate in mob matters again, however. Johnson asked Gotti to swear on his dead son, Frank Gotti, who had been killed in a tragic accident years ago. Gotti swore. Now Gotti was having second thoughts. "John discussed how it should go, using me to bounce off ideas about the best way to do it. That was my only involvement," Gravano explained. Johnson was shot while walking to his car to go to work in front of his house in May 1988. In 1990, Gravano was involved in two murders, the first of which was Eddie Garofalo, a demolition contractor who made the mistake of running afoul of the Gambinos. On August 9, 1990, Garofalo was shot to death in front of his home as arranged by Gravano.




The last murder to involve Gravano was the murder of Louie DiBono, the made man Gravano had threatened to kill earlier. Gravano described the reasons for the murder in Underboss:




"He was still robbing the family and I asked for permission to take him out. But John had a meeting with DiBono, and DiBono told John that he had a billion dollars of drywall work that was coming out of the World Trade Center. John bit, hook, line and sinker, and refused my request. John said he would handle DiBono personally and become his partner. But DiBono was up to his old tricks double-dealing. He had obviously been bullshitting John. So when John called Louie in for meetings to discuss their new partnership, DiBono didn't show up. John was humiliated. This meant an automatic death penalty. John gave the contract to DiBono's captain, Pat Conte. Conte botched an ideal opportunity to kill DiBono. Then, as Gotti grew increasingly impatient, Conte explained that the problem now was trying to corner DiBono again. Whenever a meeting with him was arranged, DiBono never appeared. It was a joke, what was going on. I couldn't help laughing to myself. I told John why didn't Pat simplify everything. Just call Louie up and tell him to hang himself. Ten months went by. John looks like an asshole. He was too embarrassed even to ask me for help."




A construction associate of Gravano's unknowingly informed Gravano of DiBono's activities. Gravano informed Gotti and DiBono's body was found in his car in the parking lot of the World Trade Center in October 1990. Gravano's intentions for this murder would be called into question as it was suspected Gravano might have had different reasons for wanting DiBono dead due to his jealousy over DiBono's drywall business.




With Gotti's permission, Gravano set up the murders of Tommy Spero and several other Gambino associates. Eventually, Gotti would name Gravano his underboss, and move LoCascio to consigliere. When Gotti was tried for racketeering and assault charges in the winter of 1986âââ‰â¬Å87, Gravano paid a juror to vote not guilty regardless of the evidence. It was this trial that allowed Gotti to make his reputation as "the Teflon Don."


 




Turning informer


 




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Eventually, Gravano and several other members of the Gambino family became disenchanted with Gotti's lust for the media and high profile antics, feeling they brought too much heat. Several members of the family informed Gravano that Gotti's high profile and large gatherings of mob members at the Ravenite Social Club were constant targets for the FBI and that the media attention put a large spotlight on the Gambinos. Many members of the family, according to Gravano, complained to him about Gotti's use of Gravano in murders despite Gravano's position as underboss of the family. Gotti had been going in and out of the courtroom like it was a revolving door. He was first tried for assaulting a refrigerator repair man over a parking space. Through witness intimidation, he was acquitted. Gravano had paid a juror in Gotti's second trial to vote in favor of an acquittal allowing Gotti to beat the RICO charges lodged against him. Gotti's third trial on state assault charges ended the same way. Gotti's ego began to bother Gravano as well as several other members of the family. Gotti was first known as the "Dapper Don" in the press for his Brioni suits and hand-painted ties as well as his well-combed hair and quick wit with reporters. Gotti required Gravano and Gambino consigliere Frank LoCascio to be at the Ravenite social club five days a week and all of his captains to make an appearance once a week. When Gravano warned Gotti about the negative attention from reporters as well as the constant surveillance from the FBI, Gotti instructed Gravano not to worry about it as Gotti knew what he was doing.




After being acquitted of the shooting of union official John O'Connor, Gotti received word from a mole that indictments were coming down for Gotti, Gravano, LoCascio, and captain Thomas Gambino. Gotti ordered Gravano to go on the lam to avoid arrest so that if Gotti was arrested, Gravano could run the family while on the run himself. Gravano hid out in various places on the east coast for two weeks before being ordered to return for a meeting at the Ravenite Social club in Little Italy. On the night of the meeting, Gotti, Gravano, and LoCascio were arrested by the FBI. In court proceedings Gravano heard FBI tapes of conversations in which Gotti disparaged him for being too greedy and "creating a family within a family." Gotti also discussed several murders in which Gravano was involved and worded it to sound like Gravano was a greedy "mad dog" killer. Gotti was heard on tapes questioning why everyone who went partners with Gravano kept winding up dead, with Gravano always having an excuse why they needed to be killed. Gravano also would make money every time a partner was killed.




Gravano had been consulting a hypnotist named Halpern to deal with fears he had, and Gotti's lawyers wanted to call Halpern as a witness, but the judge refused. Gravano had told Halpern he was deathly afraid of going to prison. Gotti informed Gravano he would not be allowed to converse with his lawyers unless Gotti was present. Gravano claimed Gotti's defense to consist of Gotti's lawyers portraying Gotti as a peace-loving boss falling all over himself to restrain the kill-crazy Gravano, resulting in a conviction for Gravano and an acquittal for Gotti.




In 1991 Gravano famously turned state's evidence and testified against Gotti in exchange for a reduced sentence. John Gotti received a sentence of life imprisonment. Gravano, who confessed to taking part in nineteen murders, was convicted of a token racketeering charge and sentenced to only 5 years. As part of Gravano's cooperation agreement, he would never be forced to testify against his former crew, which included Louis Vallario, Michael DiLeonardo, Frank Fappiano, Edward Garafola, Thomas Carbonaro, Joseph DeAngelo and many other career criminals and wiseguys.


 




Later life


 


 


 




Mugshot of Gravano in prison




Gravano was released early and then entered the U.S. federal Witness Protection Program, but he left it in 1995 and relocated to Arizona. Gravano began living very openly in Scottsdale, giving interviews to magazines and appearing in an interview with Diane Sawyer. He appeared on live TV after having had plastic surgery to hide his appearance from the mob. In one interview with Howard Blum, Gravano boasted:




"They send a hit team down, I'll kill them. They better not miss, because even if they get me, there will still be a lot of body bags going back to New York. I'm not afraid. I don't have it in me. I'm too detached maybe. If it happens, fuck it. A bullet in the head is pretty quick. You go like that! It's better than cancer. I'm not meeting you in Montana on some fuckin' farm. I'm not sitting here like some jerk-off with a phony beard. I'll tell you something else: I'm a fuckin' pro. If someone comes to my house, I got a few little surprises for them. Even if they win, there might be surprises."




Gravano wrote a book called Underboss with author Peter Maas, which became the target of the families of his victims, who filed a $25 million dollar lawsuit against him for damages. Gravano even hired a publicist, despite the fact Gravano complained often about the publicity-seeking Gotti. During an interview Gravano gave to the Arizona Republic, Gravano claimed federal agents he had met after turning state's evidence had become his personal friends and stopped by his home when on vacation. By 1998, however he had resumed his life of crime and partnered with a local youth gang known as the "Devil Dogs" after his son became friends with the gang's 23-year-old leader Michael Papa. Gravano started a major ecstasy trafficking organization, selling over 25,000 tablets a week.




By February 2000, Sammy had re-engaged in criminal activity and he was convicted of possession and distribution of MDMA in October 2002. He is currently serving a 19-year sentence from Arizona courts at ADX Florence, an out-of-state prison. His son was also imprisoned for nine years for his role in the drug ring. His wife and daughter (Karen Gravano) were also charged but were not imprisoned. Ironically, Gravano's downfall was due to informers among his own associates.




On February 24, 2003, New Jersey state prosecutors announced they would pursue murder charges against Gravano for allegedly ordering the hit by notorious killer Richard Kuklinski on decorated NYPD detective Peter Calabro on the night of March 14, 1980.[11] The charges were later dropped however, when Kuklinski, the star witness, died of a heart attack in prison before he could testify. Kuklinski's claims have been highly questioned as Gravano himself was an accomplished hitman and would therefore have no reason to hire Kuklinski to kill someone his crew was perfectly capable of killing. On top of this Kuklinski has also claimed responsibility for over 200 murders including Paul Castellano, Carmine Galante, Roy DeMeo, and Jimmy Hoffa, making his claims highly unbelievable. Federal inmates who served time with Gravano, however, say the mob turncoat privately admitted to his role in the 1980 killing of a New York cop. Inmates claimed Gravano bragged about killing many more than 19 people. Linda Milito claimed in her book Mafia Wife she had heard Gravano had smothered an elderly woman to death during a robbery gone wrong and that she was informed by Gravano's former crew members that Gravano had shot her husband Louie Milito twice in the back of the head and once under the chin, contradicting Gravano's former statements that he had simply been standing by the night Milito was shot. John Gotti's lawyers brought accusations that Gravano had been involved in the murders of two other individuals not disclosed to the FBI. However, these accusations were never proven. If proved that Gravano lied about how many people he killed, appeals by people he helped put in prison could follow.




Since Gravano's imprisonment on drug charges he has been diagnosed with Graves' disease,[12] a thyroid disorder which causes fatigue, weight loss with increased appetite, and hair loss. Gravano appeared at his drug trial missing hair on his head and eyebrows and appeared to have lost a good amount of weight. In Phillip Carlo's book Confessions of a Mafia Boss, based on the life of Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso; who is housed in the same Colorado Supermax facility as Gravano, claims that Gravano only ventures out of his cell to get food and that Casso has only seen him in the mess hall a couple of times.