THE BLACK HAND FORUM

by **NorthBuffalo** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:43 pm

Oliver was raised in family secrets during Nick Calabrese testimony about the 'wild bunch' crew. So presumably, Caliendo is under Petrucelli and Aleman who were all from Taylor Street. Petrucelli gets killed, Aleman gets locked up and then Caliendo is just folded under Infelise who was kind of taking over from Ferriola, correct? I imagine his relative working in the same enterprises would have had a lot of information through Vito Caliendo.

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:26 pm

Snakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:21 pm Bobby Salerno was there when Oliver was killed. Scalise, Scarpelli, Mike Sarno, and Sal Cataudella were also there. It was never established who killed Oliver, but Scalise knew of a remote field where they could bury the body. According to Scarpelli, Petrocelli had ordered the store to be trashed but that a civilian had killed Oliver, the latter being a fib he told to Rocky Infelise to cover for the group. Butch and Rocky were Ferriola's top two guys at the time and of course Butch was later killed, while Rocky went on to be made and eventually inherit the crew.

Yes, IIRC correctly Scarpelli talked about this in his 302? He discussed a number of murders there though there were a lot of redactions. It was reported in the press however in 1989 (Oliver was killed in 1979, but his body wasn’t discovered until 1988, perhaps based on Scarpelli’s info). I don’t remember it being brought up during Family Secrets.

by **Snakes** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:21 pm

Bobby Salerno was there when Oliver was killed. Scalise, Scarpelli, Mike Sarno, and Sal Cataudella were also there. It was never established who killed Oliver, but Scalise knew of a remote field where they could bury the body. According to Scarpelli, Petrocelli had ordered the store to be trashed but that a civilian had killed Oliver, the latter being a fib he told to Rocky Infelise to cover for the group. Butch and Rocky were Ferriola's top two guys at the time and of course Butch was later killed, while Rocky went on to be made and eventually inherit the crew.

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:21 pm

NorthBuffalo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:04 pm Fratto says that Vito Caliendo was very close with Butch Petrocelli and came up under him. There was a murder discussed in Family Secrets that involved Robert Oliveri was related to Vito Caliendo who owned porno stores that competed with Oliveri. Petrocelli sent guys to spook him and they ended up killing him - there was a major issue with 'Robery Salerno' who owned Oliveri.

They are not related to another Caliendo family in Melrose Park who appeared to have run that local police department (Charlie and Tony Caliendo).

Right, Oliveri was operating a porn shop in Elk Grove Village that was in competition with one of Caliendo’s shops.

The other Caliendos that you’re talking about may be more distantly related to these Caliendos, as Vito Caliendo’s father Francesco Caliendo was from San Vitaliano and they were from the neighboring town of Scisciano (also the hometown of the Ebolis and Ariolas; Francesco arrived in the US in a shop with a bunch of people from Scisciano including some Ariolas. There are some older posts here on the forum discussing Antonio Caliendo from Scisciano, who owned a farm in Melrose Park in the 1920s that was used as a bomb making workshop and meeting place for a network of Napoletan’bootleggers that included Guido DiChiaro; I’ve long suspected that this was a Camorra group in Melrose Park that got absorbed into the outfit. As Patrick noted above, there are a lot of Caliendos in Chicago but all of the ones that I’ve seen go back to Scisciano/San Vitaliano.

by **NorthBuffalo** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:04 pm

Fratto says that Vito Caliendo was very close with Butch Petrocelli and came up under him. There was a murder discussed in Family Secrets that involved Robert Oliveri was related to Vito Caliendo who owned porno stores that competed with Oliveri. Petrocelli sent guys to spook him and they ended up killing him - there was a major issue with 'Robery Salerno' who owned Oliveri.

They are not related to another Caliendo family in Melrose Park who appeared to have run that local police department (Charlie and Tony Caliendo).

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 7:36 pm

Snakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 6:38 pm
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:57 pm I think you found him Tony. Look at his nose and it’s the same guy. Same type of nose. Now I’m really curious to know who he ratted on. I’ll have to dig into this
Vito Caliendo has a release date of "unknown" and "not in BP custody," which sometimes indicates the guy cooperated, but if it was Anthony that cooperated, maybe something else happened to Vito. Anthony doesn't have anything at all in the BOP database.

Vito Caliendo appealed his conviction but the appeal was denied in 1990. The ruling noted that Tony Caliendo had withdrawn his appeal, but doesn’t mention anything concerning cooperating witnesses in this case (it does, however, state that Vito’s brother Philip Anthony Caliendo, Tony Caliendo’s father, was also involved in running the prostitution fronts; he died in 1990). Vito died in February of 1991, which could be why his BOP release date is “unknown”, I’d think?

Agree that it’s odd that nothing comes up for Tony Caliendo in rhe BOP locator. I tried looking him up under his first and middle name.

by **Snakes** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 6:38 pm

Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:57 pm I think you found him Tony. Look at his nose and it’s the same guy. Same type of nose. Now I’m really curious to know who he ratted on. I’ll have to dig into this

Vito Caliendo has a release date of "unknown" and "not in BP custody," which sometimes indicates the guy cooperated, but if it was Anthony that cooperated, maybe something else happened to Vito. Anthony doesn't have anything at all in the BOP database.

by **Patrickgold** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:57 pm

I think you found him Tony. Look at his nose and it’s the same guy. Same type of nose. Now I’m really curious to know who he ratted on. I’ll have to dig into this

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:05 pm

Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 3:40 pm
PolackTony wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:16 pm
NorthBuffalo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2024 8:24 am Was this common knowledge among the Chicago posters? Kind of insane this guy was living out in the open through the 1990s as I know the Outfit has killed multiple people since that timeframe and I have to assume this guy maintains ties to his family members.

Anyone know if he's still alive? This is an old article I found that at least confirms WITSEC and OC in Chicago so I have to believe this is real.
There’s a lot of missing context here and it isn’t clear to me how big of a deal this was.

In 1987, a prostitution ring running out of a number of suburban Chicago spas was busted by the Feds. The ring apparently was run by Vito Caliendo (then 55, he died in 1991), a outfit associate presumably with the Ferriola/Infelise crew (the Caliendos were originally from Taylor St and later moved out to Melrose Park). This was one of the cases that resulted from Operation Safebet, a DOJ investigation of Chicagoland prostitution operations with ties to OC. In 1988, Vito Caliendo was convicted along with his nephew, Anthony Phillip Caliendo (then 40 yo), and Sal Cataudella (then 34 yo), along with some other prostitution operators or pimps. Anthony Caliendo was running a spa called Plato’s in Chicago Heights that was being used as a prostitution front. I’m not aware of any relation between Cataudella and the Caliendos myself and if it exists it’s presumably via marriage.

It was never reported in the Chicago papers that Anthony Caliendo testified in this case (just that he was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to 6 years), or any others. Maybe Snakes or Patrick are aware of something that I’m not. The articles that you posted don’t actually “confirm” that this guy who said his name was Angelo Phillip Custino was really Anthony Caliendo or that Anthony Caliendo was in WITSEC. He may have indeed been, but what the articles report is that some guy named Bud Elder who was “Custino’s” business partner alleged that “Custino” was really Tony Caliendo and that “Custino” allegedly confided this to him, after he was sued by the “Custinos” following a falling out. I’d like more to go on that the word of some guy named Bud Elder in OKC with an axe to grind. The reporters who wrote the articles just report that the Caliendo thing was a claim made by Elder, they don’t confirm it or claim there was any substance to it and there are no LE sources confirming it. Maybe Elder made up the allegation to slander “Custino”. Maybe “Custino” in fact told him this, either because it was true, or he made it up because he was a hustler and wanted to intimidate or impress a local like Elder. I can say that there are records for a “Phil A Custino”, in his 70s today, with prior addresses in IL, OK, FL, and CA. If he is really Tony Caliendo, I don’t see that these articles prove it.

For the sake of argument, however, let’s assume that Bud Elder was right and “Custino” was really Tony Caliendo living in OKC under an assumed identity in WITSEC. Who did he testify against? Any made guys or important associates, or just prostitution people? Was anyone in Chicago aware that he was living in OKC, which is not exactly a place with strong ties to Chicago? Given that his cooperation was evidently not important enough to be reported in the papers, did anyone care about him enough to use ties to corrupt LE to track him down? If they did, was he worth assassinating in the 90s, with LE force coming down like a hammer on Chicago during this time? Where they going to blow him into pieces like they did Louie Bombacino (who, as a reminder, testified against Jackie Cerone and was killed in a car bomb in Tempe, an area with strong Chicago ties, in the 70s after ignoring FBI warnings that he needed to leave AZ because his life was in danger)? Unless he did serious damage to guys who mattered, Tony Caliendo, even if he was a rat, is not going to be comparable to Nick Calabrese, for obvious reasons.

I believe that this is the son Angelo Custino mentioned in the article, born in 1991 in OKC.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2584426/

There is a Chicago guy named Anthony Caliendo who seems to be a huckster and B movie actor based in FL. He is not “Custino’s” kid though, at least not the one in the article you posted, who was born in 1991.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycaliendo1
I’ll be honest, never really heard of the guy. Considering he got the most time in the case it, I guess he could have flipped after he got the time but who did he testify against? Maybe he testified against something unrelated to the outfit and then went into the witness pp. Victor Spilotro got caught up in that case and only got 6 months. There are a lot of Caliendo’s in Chicago and this guy just doesn’t ring a bell to me. I can look into it though. Who knows, he might have told Elder guy he was in the witsec and it was a lie. Very hard to verify unlesss the government verifies which they won’t

I believe that Vito Caliendo got the longest sentence in this case at 7 years (also believe that Vic Spilotro was involved in a different ring that was targeted by the same Operation Safebet). Tony Caliendo was given 6 years, but I can confirm from the papers that he was operating a restaurant in OKC as of 1992 at the latest. If he had been released early on parole, then presumably the terms of his parole would not have allowed him to move out of state, but who knows, maybe his sentence got overturned or something. If he was ratting out anyone of importance in LCN, or had flipped in the 1988 case, I would think it would've been reported at the time.

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:02 pm

Snakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:13 pm I think the Caliendo place was in the Heights or southern Cook Co., but belonged to Ferriola.

Right. Note that the Caliendos were originally from Taylor St, so their affiliation with the Ferriola crew would make sense. Vito Caliendo's ring was running prostitution out of "spas" in not just The Heights and Dixmoor in the South Burbs, but also Lyons and Elk Grove Village in the Western Burbs. At the time of their arrests in 1987, Vito Caliendo was living up in Deer Park on the Lake County line, while Tony Caliendo had addresses near Randolph and Michigan in the Loop as well as in Palos Hills in the SW Burbs.

by **PolackTony** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:53 pm

Let's leave aside the question of whether Tony Caliendo ever ratted out anyone important (which, if so, I'd think we would have known as it presumably would've been reported in the Chicago press, which at the time still had a very active mob beat and otherwise covered the Operation Safebet bust and trial). For now, we can see if other evidence supports Bud Elder's allegations (reportedly based on "Custino's" own statements to Elder in confidence).

Apart from Elder, it was reported several times before the 2012 stuff that "Phil Custino" was a former Chicagoan who opened a Chicago-style Italian restaurant in OKC in the early 90s, so that much isn't in doubt. He would clearly correspond to this Phillip Angelo Custino here, as this is the only person with that name with any records in OKC (or anywhere else, for that matter):

"Custino" is a very uncommon surname, doesn't exist with that spelling in Italy, and there are no records for anybody in Chicagoland named "Custino". In other words, it sounds made up to me. The only other record for a "Phil A Custino" that I could find (apart from mentions in the OKC papers) was for a 1992 marriage in Reno to a Kathy Gillings. Note in the above that "Phillip Angelo Custino" was born March 1947, presumably in Chicago.

Anthony Phillip Caliendo was born Phillip Anthony Caliendo Jr in Chicago on March 13, 1947, to Phillip Anthony Caliendo Sr and Glenda Gentile, both from the Taylor St neighborhood, and the Caliendos lived around 1950 at Claremont and Roosevelt. In 1976, Anthony Caliendo stated that he was living in Pulaski County, KY when he married a Kentucky-born woman named Robert Thornsberry in Buchanan, VA (this was his 2nd wife).

Here's a yearbook photo for a 16-year-old Anthony "Tony" Caliendo in 1963 at Foreman HS on the NW Side of Chicago (I believe this was Anthony Phillip Caliendo, as the family did move to the NW Side from Taylor St):

Given the same birth year and month, the name "Phillip", and the fact that there are no records at all for anyone named "Phillip Angelo Custino" prior to 1992 that I could find, I do think it's a very good chance that "Phil Custino" indeed is Tony Caliendo. Notice above also that over the years, "Custino" has had addresses in Palm Beach County, FL. In 1997, a guy named Anthony Phillip Caliendo married a woman named Barbara Kauts in Palm Beach County; he stated on the marriage license that he was born March 12 1948 in "New York" (a year and a day off from Tony Caliendo). NorthBuffalo posted above that "Custino" has a shady son in FL that goes by Anthony Caliendo. I posted a link to a hustlerish Chicago guy named Anthony Caliendo. He lives in DelRay Beach, which is also where "Custino's" most recent address is. One of the Caliendo businesses in Caliendo Foods, an Italian import outfit in DelRay. From their website, I can confirm that this Anthony Caliendo is indeed Tony Caliendo's son from his first marriage (Tony Caliendo's grandfather was Francesco Caliendo from San Vitaliano, just outside of Napoli):

Now, as to whether Tony Caliendo ratted out anyone of any importance in LCN, that's another question.

by **Snakes** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:13 pm

I think the Caliendo place was in the Heights or southern Cook Co., but belonged to Ferriola.

by **Patrickgold** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 3:57 pm

Also it sounds like he is a Chicago heights guy considering his massage place was there. I wonder if one of the Chicago Heights experts know anything about him

by **Patrickgold** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 3:40 pm

PolackTony wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:16 pm
NorthBuffalo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2024 8:24 am Was this common knowledge among the Chicago posters? Kind of insane this guy was living out in the open through the 1990s as I know the Outfit has killed multiple people since that timeframe and I have to assume this guy maintains ties to his family members.

Anyone know if he's still alive? This is an old article I found that at least confirms WITSEC and OC in Chicago so I have to believe this is real.
There’s a lot of missing context here and it isn’t clear to me how big of a deal this was.

In 1987, a prostitution ring running out of a number of suburban Chicago spas was busted by the Feds. The ring apparently was run by Vito Caliendo (then 55, he died in 1991), a outfit associate presumably with the Ferriola/Infelise crew (the Caliendos were originally from Taylor St and later moved out to Melrose Park). This was one of the cases that resulted from Operation Safebet, a DOJ investigation of Chicagoland prostitution operations with ties to OC. In 1988, Vito Caliendo was convicted along with his nephew, Anthony Phillip Caliendo (then 40 yo), and Sal Cataudella (then 34 yo), along with some other prostitution operators or pimps. Anthony Caliendo was running a spa called Plato’s in Chicago Heights that was being used as a prostitution front. I’m not aware of any relation between Cataudella and the Caliendos myself and if it exists it’s presumably via marriage.

It was never reported in the Chicago papers that Anthony Caliendo testified in this case (just that he was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to 6 years), or any others. Maybe Snakes or Patrick are aware of something that I’m not. The articles that you posted don’t actually “confirm” that this guy who said his name was Angelo Phillip Custino was really Anthony Caliendo or that Anthony Caliendo was in WITSEC. He may have indeed been, but what the articles report is that some guy named Bud Elder who was “Custino’s” business partner alleged that “Custino” was really Tony Caliendo and that “Custino” allegedly confided this to him, after he was sued by the “Custinos” following a falling out. I’d like more to go on that the word of some guy named Bud Elder in OKC with an axe to grind. The reporters who wrote the articles just report that the Caliendo thing was a claim made by Elder, they don’t confirm it or claim there was any substance to it and there are no LE sources confirming it. Maybe Elder made up the allegation to slander “Custino”. Maybe “Custino” in fact told him this, either because it was true, or he made it up because he was a hustler and wanted to intimidate or impress a local like Elder. I can say that there are records for a “Phil A Custino”, in his 70s today, with prior addresses in IL, OK, FL, and CA. If he is really Tony Caliendo, I don’t see that these articles prove it.

For the sake of argument, however, let’s assume that Bud Elder was right and “Custino” was really Tony Caliendo living in OKC under an assumed identity in WITSEC. Who did he testify against? Any made guys or important associates, or just prostitution people? Was anyone in Chicago aware that he was living in OKC, which is not exactly a place with strong ties to Chicago? Given that his cooperation was evidently not important enough to be reported in the papers, did anyone care about him enough to use ties to corrupt LE to track him down? If they did, was he worth assassinating in the 90s, with LE force coming down like a hammer on Chicago during this time? Where they going to blow him into pieces like they did Louie Bombacino (who, as a reminder, testified against Jackie Cerone and was killed in a car bomb in Tempe, an area with strong Chicago ties, in the 70s after ignoring FBI warnings that he needed to leave AZ because his life was in danger)? Unless he did serious damage to guys who mattered, Tony Caliendo, even if he was a rat, is not going to be comparable to Nick Calabrese, for obvious reasons.

I believe that this is the son Angelo Custino mentioned in the article, born in 1991 in OKC.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2584426/

There is a Chicago guy named Anthony Caliendo who seems to be a huckster and B movie actor based in FL. He is not “Custino’s” kid though, at least not the one in the article you posted, who was born in 1991.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycaliendo1

I’ll be honest, never really heard of the guy. Considering he got the most time in the case it, I guess he could have flipped after he got the time but who did he testify against? Maybe he testified against something unrelated to the outfit and then went into the witness pp. Victor Spilotro got caught up in that case and only got 6 months. There are a lot of Caliendo’s in Chicago and this guy just doesn’t ring a bell to me. I can look into it though. Who knows, he might have told Elder guy he was in the witsec and it was a lie. Very hard to verify unlesss the government verifies which they won’t

by **NorthBuffalo** » Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:19 pm

Thanks for responding on this - I am under the impression that its probably impossible to prove one way or another - however, this is quite a coincidence - if you really google things you find message boards and such from years ago where people talk about Custino being Caliendo and his family being in the program and disappearing in the middle of the night then coming back weeks later. I think in the early 1990s in the Gotti era that these pimps in Chicago would be random guys to kind of gravitate to or misidentify or use names of - this was probably not a national case that Oklahoma people would be reading about (they were reading about Gotti) so I doubt they would just make it up out of thin air.

Any photos exist of Vito Caliendo? There is a photo of this Custino in the newspaper articles about his restaurant.

Its a really wild story if its true. Maybe I just tipped off some of the boys who never bothered to read the papers in Oklahoma

THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Post a reply

Expand view Topic review: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City

Re: Outfit Snitch Living in Oklahoma City