by PolackTony » Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:19 pm
newera_212 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:23 pm
SB1825 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:17 pm
newera_212 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:12 pm
PolackTony wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 2:31 pm
newera_212 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:09 pm
Antiliar wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 2:19 am
Angelo & James LaPietra
Were the LaPietra's as vicious and treacherous as rumored? The only info I've really read about them was in the Family Secrets book (the reporter's one, not the other one) - they sounded like serious, serious guys as most of the Chicago guys on that level were - but nothing extraordinary as some reports have stated. For example, I have a hard time believing that Angelo was given the nickname "the hook" because he would hang his loan victims on a meat hook.
For the Chicago guys on here...Any info on the LaPietra's ?
My understanding is that the “hook” thing was a reference to the juice racket — he’d get his hooks into you. When you were a juice client, you were “on the hook”. It’s been disputed that he even had this nickname, may have just been one of those things that LE and the press used (like “the ant” or “the big tuna”).
As the other Tony already commented, Angelo was said to have been a miserable prick. Many of these Chicago guys were very rough and often sadistic individuals. I don’t believe the LaPietras were exceptional in this regard, when you had guys like Aiuppa, Buccieri, Cerone, Daddono, Giancana, Battaglia, Alderisio, Nicoletti, Lombardo, Spilotro, Lenny Patrick, Frank Schweihs, etc.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than him hanging multiple loan customers from meat hooks lmao.
Would love to read more about the LaPietra brothers if theres any good bio/info around.
Always wondered why chicago, the high level guys were a lot more serious, treacherous, and hands on compared to anywhere else. Like in NY for example there are countless examples of soldiers and captains being personable, decent guys who are just in it for the greed and fast money. Not necessarily vicious or capable. Chicago though, yeah money is still priority number one, but it just seems a touch more serious. A lot of these guys seemed like mean old miserable bastards. I mean you had guys doing official sanctioned mob hits in Chicago in the modern era with knives and bare hands lmao. On top of hits with an insane amount of (made) people involved in carrying them out
Every wiki page of a Chicago mobster describes them as a top loanshark who tortured victims to death. Of course it’s wiki though.
But yeah, back to that... every chicago guy on wiki was a brutal, sadistic loan shark who loved to torture his victims, or a guy who controlled all the porn/smut in a certain area
There were many Outfit guys for whom this was true, of course. But Chicago wasn’t just some juice and porn syndicate. They were very much diversified and ran all sorts of blue collar and white collar rackets (from whores to horsemeat), as well as exacting street taxes from independent operators and extorting all sorts of legit business (porn just being one that was on the margins of legality, making it especially ripe for extortion). Apart from juice, they had major gambling operations (sportsbooks, card/dice games, numbers/policy/bolita), big union rackets, business racketeering, burglary and fencing, auto chop shops, armed robbery and truck/train hijacking, and some involvement in drugs (which varied over the years and by crew). They had guys whose primary responsibilities were overseeing political and judicial corruption (including made members who held influential public offices such as Fred Roti, Pat Marcy, and Vito Marzullo) and others who were mainly involved in gambling and were not particularly rough guys (Dom Cortina and Don Angelini).
Juice was just a very lucrative racket (and of course an important corollary to other rackets like gambling and business extortion), so even guys who weren’t primarily juice guys still had money on the street. And Chicago never lacked for muscle to make sure that “clients” paid up. It’s clear that many of these guys really enjoyed their work…
[quote=newera_212 post_id=205854 time=1630786989 user_id=5522]
[quote=SB1825 post_id=205853 time=1630786621 user_id=6651]
[quote=newera_212 post_id=205852 time=1630786358 user_id=5522]
[quote=PolackTony post_id=205824 time=1630704680 user_id=6658]
[quote=newera_212 post_id=205809 time=1630696147 user_id=5522]
[quote=Antiliar post_id=205769 time=1630660766 user_id=77]
Angelo & James LaPietra
[/quote]
Were the LaPietra's as vicious and treacherous as rumored? The only info I've really read about them was in the Family Secrets book (the reporter's one, not the other one) - they sounded like serious, serious guys as most of the Chicago guys on that level were - but nothing extraordinary as some reports have stated. For example, I have a hard time believing that Angelo was given the nickname "the hook" because he would hang his loan victims on a meat hook.
For the Chicago guys on here...Any info on the LaPietra's ?
[/quote]
My understanding is that the “hook” thing was a reference to the juice racket — he’d get his hooks into you. When you were a juice client, you were “on the hook”. It’s been disputed that he even had this nickname, may have just been one of those things that LE and the press used (like “the ant” or “the big tuna”).
As the other Tony already commented, Angelo was said to have been a miserable prick. Many of these Chicago guys were very rough and often sadistic individuals. I don’t believe the LaPietras were exceptional in this regard, when you had guys like Aiuppa, Buccieri, Cerone, Daddono, Giancana, Battaglia, Alderisio, Nicoletti, Lombardo, Spilotro, Lenny Patrick, Frank Schweihs, etc.
[/quote]
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than him hanging multiple loan customers from meat hooks lmao.
Would love to read more about the LaPietra brothers if theres any good bio/info around.
Always wondered why chicago, the high level guys were a lot more serious, treacherous, and hands on compared to anywhere else. Like in NY for example there are countless examples of soldiers and captains being personable, decent guys who are just in it for the greed and fast money. Not necessarily vicious or capable. Chicago though, yeah money is still priority number one, but it just seems a touch more serious. A lot of these guys seemed like mean old miserable bastards. I mean you had guys doing official sanctioned mob hits in Chicago in the modern era with knives and bare hands lmao. On top of hits with an insane amount of (made) people involved in carrying them out
[/quote]
Every wiki page of a Chicago mobster describes them as a top loanshark who tortured victims to death. Of course it’s wiki though.
[/quote]
But yeah, back to that... every chicago guy on wiki was a brutal, sadistic loan shark who loved to torture his victims, or a guy who controlled all the porn/smut in a certain area
[/quote]
There were many Outfit guys for whom this was true, of course. But Chicago wasn’t just some juice and porn syndicate. They were very much diversified and ran all sorts of blue collar and white collar rackets (from whores to horsemeat), as well as exacting street taxes from independent operators and extorting all sorts of legit business (porn just being one that was on the margins of legality, making it especially ripe for extortion). Apart from juice, they had major gambling operations (sportsbooks, card/dice games, numbers/policy/bolita), big union rackets, business racketeering, burglary and fencing, auto chop shops, armed robbery and truck/train hijacking, and some involvement in drugs (which varied over the years and by crew). They had guys whose primary responsibilities were overseeing political and judicial corruption (including made members who held influential public offices such as Fred Roti, Pat Marcy, and Vito Marzullo) and others who were mainly involved in gambling and were not particularly rough guys (Dom Cortina and Don Angelini).
Juice was just a very lucrative racket (and of course an important corollary to other rackets like gambling and business extortion), so even guys who weren’t primarily juice guys still had money on the street. And Chicago never lacked for muscle to make sure that “clients” paid up. It’s clear that many of these guys really enjoyed their work…