by PolackTony » Sat Mar 08, 2025 6:39 pm
On the other Chicago thread, I referenced the late 90s ouster of Chicago member Johnny Matassa from his position as President of LIUNA Local 2, when Matassa's status as a made guy was publicly revealed. As noted, former Chicago FBI agent John J O'Rourke presented an affidavit for the LIUNA Inspector General's Office that laid out the evidence for Matassa's status (this was, of course, several years before Nick Calabrese flipped and subsequently testified that he was inducted into the Chicago outfit along with Matassa in 1983).
One of the sources who O'Rourke had previously interviewed concerning Matassa was Umberto Filippi, an Italian native who had immigrated to Chicago in 1978 (I was not able to confirm Filippi's origins, but there were a number of people with that surname in Chicago from Trapani province). Filippi had been the driver and close personal assistant/confidant for Salvatore "Sal Mango" Termini, who LIUNA investigators had deemed a longtime "member of the Chicago outfit" (this doesn't necessarily mean that he was made, as the LIUNA hearings used this to denote both made guys and formally-affiliated associates). Sal Termini was an affluent businessman who acted as an important clout broker in the crooked nexus between business, City government, and organized labor in Chicago during the '70s-'90s.
Sal Termini was born in 1935 in Chicago to Domenico "Joe Mango" Termini (a native of Trabia, though his mother was originally from nearby Bagheria), and Mildred Lombardi (born in Hillsville, PA, -- near Youngstown -- to parents from Muro Lucano, Potenza). Muro Lucano was, of course, the hometown of the Cerone and Capezio families. Like Mildred Lombardi, Tony Capezio was also born in Hillsville before both families relocated to Chicago's Grand Ave around the same time; it's safe to presume that the two families were thus personally close, and likely related in some way.
Hillsville had earned a certain notoriety in the early 1900s, as the rock quarries in this largely rural area had attracted a strong concentration of immigrants from Southern Italy and with them, the presence of serious Camorra activity, serving as the HQ of Calabrian Camorra boss Rocco Racco. In this light, it's worth noting that both the Capezio and Lombardi families seem to have pulled up and left Hillsville for Chicago at the same time that authorities began targeting the Camorra in Hillsville in 1907.
By the 1930s, when Sal Termini was born, parents Domenico and Mildred had moved to Grand and Damen, where they remained for several decades, while Domenico worked as a mechanic in a confectionary factory.
By the late 60s, Sal Termini owned a nightclub on Rush St. In 1968, he pled guilty to Federal charges of aiding the interstate traffic of forged insurance securities (I haven't yet been successful in identifying Termini's co-defendants in that case). In 1970, he pled guilty to assaulting a CPD officer outside of his Rush St club.
By the early 1980s, Termini was living large as the Chairman of the Board for National Consolidated Industries, a company founded in 1971 that provided optometry and optician services at multiple Chicago sites. Termini was known for rolling around the Near Northside in his Rolls Royce and lived in fashionable Lake Point Tower, where the head office of NCI was also located (recall that Lake Point Tower -- then the tallest residential building in the world, had previously been Phil Alderisio's homebase, where he held court out of the lavish penthouse that on paper was owned by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund).
In 1983, the Chicago press began reporting that NCI was being targeted by Federal investigators for close links to organized crime. Harold Washington had defeated incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne earlier that year in the Democratic primary (Chicago's real mayoral race) and then won the general election. The incoming Washington administration had reportedly become concerned that NCI was alleged to have been employing a number of convicted felons, despite having been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to provide vision insurance services for City of Chicago employees under the prior Byrne administration (which itself was dogged by allegations of mob influence).
In this light, Termini's lavish lifestyle and past as a "securities swindler" came to the attention of the press. As did the mob connections of NCI Chief Executive Charles Greller, a convicted thief and insurance fraudster identified by investigators as a close associate and "errand boy" for Chicago LCN figure Lou Rosanova. In 1973, Greller had been surveilled accompanying Rosanova at a Palm Springs meeting with Tony Accardo and Tony Spilotro. Federal investigators believed that NIC was an important cog in broader plans involving Chicago and other LCN Families in the 1970s to obtain health, dental, and vision insurance contracts from labor unions for mobbed-up companies in return for kickbacks. NCI executive vice president Don Ross had previously been tied to Chicago LCN member Giuseppe "Joey Glimco" Primavera, while convicted gambler Angelo Kokas had also served as an employee of NIC and was cited as the conduit who acquired the contract for NCI to provide vision services to LCN associate Allen Dorfman's company, Amalgamated Insurance Agency Services (Dorfman had, of course, been murdered in a suburban parking lot earlier in 1983). Kokas -- who investigators said answered directly to Termini via one of the several shell/front companies set up around NCI to complicate their paper trails -- had also been convicted of perjury for having lied in Federal court in 1970 to protect Jack Cerone; Cerone and Dorfman had both been surveilled frequenting NCI's offices (recall also that the Cerones were paesani of Termini's mother and we can presume that their families had long been close to each other on Grand Ave).
Despite the above coming to light, no indictments were ever brought against anyone at NCI and the company managed to retain its cushy contract with the City of Chicago. It was later revealed that NCI, and/or Termini-controlled spinoff companies such as Health Marketing, Inc., had also secured contracts to provide health and vision services to locals affiliated with LIUNA and the IBT.
Sal Termini died of cancer in 1994, at which point his personal lackey Umberto Filippi returned to Italy, where he was interviewed on multiple occasions by John O'Rourke. Filippi indicated that Termini was "highly involved with the Chicago Outfit" and a close personal friend of Johnny Matassa and his cousin, Tommy Matassa. Filippis related that he had accompanied Termini on many occasions over the years preceding Termini's death to the NCI offices, where Termini would write checks from NCI's business accounts, have them cashed by company employees, and then relay the cash as kickbacks to the Matassas, as well as to outfit-affiliated labor leader John Serpico, then head of the Central States Joint Board, a Chicagoland amalgam of locals representing tens of thousands of manufacturing workers.
It seems clear that Sal Termini was an important outfit associate, possibly "with" Cerone and then subsequently "with" the Solano/Matassa crew.
On the other Chicago thread, I referenced the late 90s ouster of Chicago member Johnny Matassa from his position as President of LIUNA Local 2, when Matassa's status as a made guy was publicly revealed. As noted, former Chicago FBI agent John J O'Rourke presented an affidavit for the LIUNA Inspector General's Office that laid out the evidence for Matassa's status (this was, of course, several years before Nick Calabrese flipped and subsequently testified that he was inducted into the Chicago outfit along with Matassa in 1983).
One of the sources who O'Rourke had previously interviewed concerning Matassa was Umberto Filippi, an Italian native who had immigrated to Chicago in 1978 (I was not able to confirm Filippi's origins, but there were a number of people with that surname in Chicago from Trapani province). Filippi had been the driver and close personal assistant/confidant for Salvatore "Sal Mango" Termini, who LIUNA investigators had deemed a longtime "member of the Chicago outfit" (this doesn't necessarily mean that he was made, as the LIUNA hearings used this to denote both made guys and formally-affiliated associates). Sal Termini was an affluent businessman who acted as an important clout broker in the crooked nexus between business, City government, and organized labor in Chicago during the '70s-'90s.
Sal Termini was born in 1935 in Chicago to Domenico "Joe Mango" Termini (a native of Trabia, though his mother was originally from nearby Bagheria), and Mildred Lombardi (born in Hillsville, PA, -- near Youngstown -- to parents from Muro Lucano, Potenza). Muro Lucano was, of course, the hometown of the Cerone and Capezio families. Like Mildred Lombardi, Tony Capezio was also born in Hillsville before both families relocated to Chicago's Grand Ave around the same time; it's safe to presume that the two families were thus personally close, and likely related in some way.
Hillsville had earned a certain notoriety in the early 1900s, as the rock quarries in this largely rural area had attracted a strong concentration of immigrants from Southern Italy and with them, the presence of serious Camorra activity, serving as the HQ of Calabrian Camorra boss Rocco Racco. In this light, it's worth noting that both the Capezio and Lombardi families seem to have pulled up and left Hillsville for Chicago at the same time that authorities began targeting the Camorra in Hillsville in 1907.
By the 1930s, when Sal Termini was born, parents Domenico and Mildred had moved to Grand and Damen, where they remained for several decades, while Domenico worked as a mechanic in a confectionary factory.
By the late 60s, Sal Termini owned a nightclub on Rush St. In 1968, he pled guilty to Federal charges of aiding the interstate traffic of forged insurance securities (I haven't yet been successful in identifying Termini's co-defendants in that case). In 1970, he pled guilty to assaulting a CPD officer outside of his Rush St club.
By the early 1980s, Termini was living large as the Chairman of the Board for National Consolidated Industries, a company founded in 1971 that provided optometry and optician services at multiple Chicago sites. Termini was known for rolling around the Near Northside in his Rolls Royce and lived in fashionable Lake Point Tower, where the head office of NCI was also located (recall that Lake Point Tower -- then the tallest residential building in the world, had previously been Phil Alderisio's homebase, where he held court out of the lavish penthouse that on paper was owned by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund).
In 1983, the Chicago press began reporting that NCI was being targeted by Federal investigators for close links to organized crime. Harold Washington had defeated incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne earlier that year in the Democratic primary (Chicago's real mayoral race) and then won the general election. The incoming Washington administration had reportedly become concerned that NCI was alleged to have been employing a number of convicted felons, despite having been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to provide vision insurance services for City of Chicago employees under the prior Byrne administration (which itself was dogged by allegations of mob influence).
In this light, Termini's lavish lifestyle and past as a "securities swindler" came to the attention of the press. As did the mob connections of NCI Chief Executive Charles Greller, a convicted thief and insurance fraudster identified by investigators as a close associate and "errand boy" for Chicago LCN figure Lou Rosanova. In 1973, Greller had been surveilled accompanying Rosanova at a Palm Springs meeting with Tony Accardo and Tony Spilotro. Federal investigators believed that NIC was an important cog in broader plans involving Chicago and other LCN Families in the 1970s to obtain health, dental, and vision insurance contracts from labor unions for mobbed-up companies in return for kickbacks. NCI executive vice president Don Ross had previously been tied to Chicago LCN member Giuseppe "Joey Glimco" Primavera, while convicted gambler Angelo Kokas had also served as an employee of NIC and was cited as the conduit who acquired the contract for NCI to provide vision services to LCN associate Allen Dorfman's company, Amalgamated Insurance Agency Services (Dorfman had, of course, been murdered in a suburban parking lot earlier in 1983). Kokas -- who investigators said answered directly to Termini via one of the several shell/front companies set up around NCI to complicate their paper trails -- had also been convicted of perjury for having lied in Federal court in 1970 to protect Jack Cerone; Cerone and Dorfman had both been surveilled frequenting NCI's offices (recall also that the Cerones were paesani of Termini's mother and we can presume that their families had long been close to each other on Grand Ave).
Despite the above coming to light, no indictments were ever brought against anyone at NCI and the company managed to retain its cushy contract with the City of Chicago. It was later revealed that NCI, and/or Termini-controlled spinoff companies such as Health Marketing, Inc., had also secured contracts to provide health and vision services to locals affiliated with LIUNA and the IBT.
Sal Termini died of cancer in 1994, at which point his personal lackey Umberto Filippi returned to Italy, where he was interviewed on multiple occasions by John O'Rourke. Filippi indicated that Termini was "highly involved with the Chicago Outfit" and a close personal friend of Johnny Matassa and his cousin, Tommy Matassa. Filippis related that he had accompanied Termini on many occasions over the years preceding Termini's death to the NCI offices, where Termini would write checks from NCI's business accounts, have them cashed by company employees, and then relay the cash as kickbacks to the Matassas, as well as to outfit-affiliated labor leader John Serpico, then head of the Central States Joint Board, a Chicagoland amalgam of locals representing tens of thousands of manufacturing workers.
It seems clear that Sal Termini was an important outfit associate, possibly "with" Cerone and then subsequently "with" the Solano/Matassa crew.