B. wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:03 pm
Niotta says Desimone was only acting in LA? Because he stepped down, or does he have intel for it? Some of these authors do great research but I'm not always sure what their understanding of the formal org is.
DeSimone is described as an interim leader in the Los Angeles Underworld pictorial, my understanding is that it means acting boss.
Not sure what source was used but he has a ton of federal documents related to the Dragnas, so it might be from there.
Roma is a good question. Certainly possible a Calabrian could have become boss in the early 1930s as that was happening around the country at that time and we know he associated closely with the Carlinos but offhand I'm not sure if anyone ever identified him as boss apart from outsider reports of him as the Colorado "mob boss" when he was killed.
Roma's ID as boss seems to mostly be from secondary accounts, it doesn't seem like members ever discussed who he was or anything like that.
The closest is probably Clyde Smaldone being interviewed in the 1990s, who said that Roma's shooting didn't "bother him" despite their previous association.
I looked into Frank Bacino some years back because of Phil Bacino of the Chicago Family. Didn't see anything that indicated a relation but even though Phil was from Ribera his heritage originally came from Burgio which as we know was intertwined with nearby Lucca Sicula and Phil also had relatives from there as well.
There was also a Frank Pacino in Colorado who was close to Chicago member (possible capodecina) Sam DiGiovanni, who initially arrived to Colorado from Palazzo Adriano. Pacino stayed in contact with DiGiovanni even later and I believe he ended up in LA. When I came across him I was wondering if it was a misspelling of Bacino but indeed his name was Pacino and he was Palazzese. Phil Bacino was coincidentally very close to DiGiovanni in Chicago Heights.
Very cool Chicago links, strangely they don't appear to have really interacted with Colorado in later years - in comparison to St. Louis and Kansas City.
Bacino's friend Joe Lolordo of the Chicago and DeCavalcante Families married a woman from Lucca Sicula in LA, surname Cascio. In your original post I noticed you found Cascios from Lucca Sicula involved with the CO Family -- I don't know of Lolordo's in-laws being in CO as they bounced between Linden NJ and LA then ended up in NYC but maybe there's a relation.
Regarding Carl Cascio, he is a pretty interesting figure. His mother was a D'Azzo but I was unable to find if she was related to Robert V. Dionisio's mother but both families were from Lucca Sicula regardless.
His WW1 draft card lists New York as his POB and his siblings were born in New Rochelle, Westchester County. He also lived and worked in Newark for a time.
Two of his brothers later lived in Los Angeles and on top of that, his home was listed in an address-book seized in a 1950 raid from a "Dragna lieutenant." I have wondered if this wasn't maybe Los Angeles member Giovanni Cascio (brother-in-law of Thomas Palermo) because of the shared last name but all I can find for the LA guy is that his POB was "Palermo, Italy."
B. wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 3:19 pm
Joe Riggio's brother-in-law was also a mafioso active in local "black hand" activity -- Alfonso "Rei". Not sure if that's the true spelling or if it may have been Raia. Riggio's other in-laws Giovanni and Calogero Mule were also active in these activities along with Vito LaRocca and brothers Gaetano and Paolo D'Anna. I'm guessing Giovanni/John and Calogero/Charles could be the same John and Carlo you said were related to the Bacinos but you never know w/ these recurring names. Something to remember with the Carlinos and D'Annas is these people are almost always close until they aren't.
I had never heard about Riggio's brother-in-law, great info.
His son-in-law Calogero/Carlo/Charles (married to Riggio's daughter Catherine) and his brother Giovanni are the same Mulés as the apparent Bacino relatives. They had changed their name to Mulay at some point and the Sylvia married to Frank Bacino also did the same, which seems to make her their sister but I haven't been able to 100% confirm that yet.
Riggio's store in Walsenburg was where many of these guys held meetings and allegedly Riggio shot a guy to death and dismembered him with an axe in the store. Everything in the late 1910s investigations pointed to Riggio as the central figure and there was also another Joe Riggio involved with these guys as a bootlegger and "black hander" in Trinidad but the leader was the Walsenburg one related to the Collettis, Carlinos, and Mules.
Accounts seem to differ here as to whether it was his store or home when it comes to the Nahra/Naher murder, though the family might've lived above it or something like that.
I was looking into this again last night and found that there was a Joseph Riggio incarcerated at Cañon City Penitentiary in September 1920, due for release in October. They don't specify his age unfortunately but they do say he was convicted of murder in Huerfano County (Walsenburg is the county seat there), so it appears that this was the suspected boss.
Previously I was always looking him up as "Joe Riggo" or "Giuseppe Riggio" and not always as "Joseph Riggio", so I didn't come across this article until now. Strangely, I can also only find newspapers talking about the murder charges being dismissed against him, his son and his wife in May 1919 but clearly the guy was eventually some doing time (2-4 years) for the Naher killing.
We know it's not the other Joe Riggio because he had done time for bootlegging in 1918 already and the "boss Riggio" had not ever been convicted of anything before the murder (at least according to newspaper accounts). Riggio being incarcerated might explain why Scaglia was the boss then.
The relation to Jim Colletti came through Riggio's wife, who was sister of Jim's father Vito Colletti. Interestingly just like the Riggios had the other surname Mortellaro, the Collettis had also used the surname Forti/Forte.
I had seen that as well and wasn't really sure what to make of it, seems like it was lost by the time the family was in the US. One of Jim's uncles, Francisco, was spelling his name as Colletta during his immigration.
Also might be worth noting that Colletti's grandmother was a D'Azzo as well.
[quote=B. post_id=280896 time=1721941414 user_id=127]
Niotta says Desimone was only acting in LA? Because he stepped down, or does he have intel for it? Some of these authors do great research but I'm not always sure what their understanding of the formal org is.
[/quote]
DeSimone is described as an interim leader in the Los Angeles Underworld pictorial, my understanding is that it means acting boss.
Not sure what source was used but he has a ton of federal documents related to the Dragnas, so it might be from there.
[quote]
Roma is a good question. Certainly possible a Calabrian could have become boss in the early 1930s as that was happening around the country at that time and we know he associated closely with the Carlinos but offhand I'm not sure if anyone ever identified him as boss apart from outsider reports of him as the Colorado "mob boss" when he was killed.
[/quote]
Roma's ID as boss seems to mostly be from secondary accounts, it doesn't seem like members ever discussed who he was or anything like that.
The closest is probably Clyde Smaldone being interviewed in the 1990s, who said that Roma's shooting didn't "bother him" despite their previous association.
[quote]
I looked into Frank Bacino some years back because of Phil Bacino of the Chicago Family. Didn't see anything that indicated a relation but even though Phil was from Ribera his heritage originally came from Burgio which as we know was intertwined with nearby Lucca Sicula and Phil also had relatives from there as well.
There was also a Frank Pacino in Colorado who was close to Chicago member (possible capodecina) Sam DiGiovanni, who initially arrived to Colorado from Palazzo Adriano. Pacino stayed in contact with DiGiovanni even later and I believe he ended up in LA. When I came across him I was wondering if it was a misspelling of Bacino but indeed his name was Pacino and he was Palazzese. Phil Bacino was coincidentally very close to DiGiovanni in Chicago Heights.
[/quote]
Very cool Chicago links, strangely they don't appear to have really interacted with Colorado in later years - in comparison to St. Louis and Kansas City.
[quote]
Bacino's friend Joe Lolordo of the Chicago and DeCavalcante Families married a woman from Lucca Sicula in LA, surname Cascio. In your original post I noticed you found Cascios from Lucca Sicula involved with the CO Family -- I don't know of Lolordo's in-laws being in CO as they bounced between Linden NJ and LA then ended up in NYC but maybe there's a relation.
[/quote]
Regarding Carl Cascio, he is a pretty interesting figure. His mother was a D'Azzo but I was unable to find if she was related to Robert V. Dionisio's mother but both families were from Lucca Sicula regardless.
His WW1 draft card lists New York as his POB and his siblings were born in New Rochelle, Westchester County. He also lived and worked in Newark for a time.
Two of his brothers later lived in Los Angeles and on top of that, his home was listed in an address-book seized in a 1950 raid from a "Dragna lieutenant." I have wondered if this wasn't maybe Los Angeles member Giovanni Cascio (brother-in-law of Thomas Palermo) because of the shared last name but all I can find for the LA guy is that his POB was "Palermo, Italy."
[quote=B. post_id=280897 time=1721945945 user_id=127]
Joe Riggio's brother-in-law was also a mafioso active in local "black hand" activity -- Alfonso "Rei". Not sure if that's the true spelling or if it may have been Raia. Riggio's other in-laws Giovanni and Calogero Mule were also active in these activities along with Vito LaRocca and brothers Gaetano and Paolo D'Anna. I'm guessing Giovanni/John and Calogero/Charles could be the same John and Carlo you said were related to the Bacinos but you never know w/ these recurring names. Something to remember with the Carlinos and D'Annas is these people are almost always close until they aren't.
[/quote]
I had never heard about Riggio's brother-in-law, great info.
His son-in-law Calogero/Carlo/Charles (married to Riggio's daughter Catherine) and his brother Giovanni are the same Mulés as the apparent Bacino relatives. They had changed their name to Mulay at some point and the Sylvia married to Frank Bacino also did the same, which seems to make her their sister but I haven't been able to 100% confirm that yet.
[quote]
Riggio's store in Walsenburg was where many of these guys held meetings and allegedly Riggio shot a guy to death and dismembered him with an axe in the store. Everything in the late 1910s investigations pointed to Riggio as the central figure and there was also another Joe Riggio involved with these guys as a bootlegger and "black hander" in Trinidad but the leader was the Walsenburg one related to the Collettis, Carlinos, and Mules.
[/quote]
Accounts seem to differ here as to whether it was his store or home when it comes to the Nahra/Naher murder, though the family might've lived above it or something like that.
I was looking into this again last night and found that there was a Joseph Riggio incarcerated at Cañon City Penitentiary in September 1920, due for release in October. They don't specify his age unfortunately but they do say he was convicted of murder in Huerfano County (Walsenburg is the county seat there), so it appears that this was the suspected boss.
Previously I was always looking him up as "Joe Riggo" or "Giuseppe Riggio" and not always as "Joseph Riggio", so I didn't come across this article until now. Strangely, I can also only find newspapers talking about the murder charges being dismissed against him, his son and his wife in May 1919 but clearly the guy was eventually some doing time (2-4 years) for the Naher killing.
We know it's not the other Joe Riggio because he had done time for bootlegging in 1918 already and the "boss Riggio" had not ever been convicted of anything before the murder (at least according to newspaper accounts). Riggio being incarcerated might explain why Scaglia was the boss then.
[quote]
The relation to Jim Colletti came through Riggio's wife, who was sister of Jim's father Vito Colletti. Interestingly just like the Riggios had the other surname Mortellaro, the Collettis had also used the surname Forti/Forte.
[/quote]
I had seen that as well and wasn't really sure what to make of it, seems like it was lost by the time the family was in the US. One of Jim's uncles, Francisco, was spelling his name as Colletta during his immigration.
Also might be worth noting that Colletti's grandmother was a D'Azzo as well.