THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Oh right, I meant Salardino. Thanks for the correction. Good you could confirm John is the grandson of Giovanni and adds to the possibility he was a membership candidate. Agreed it murks things up a bit that he moved to LA but some of these guys did live/travel back and forth between locations. Julian Antista was an apparent LA member originally from Colorado, family from Geraci Siculo in eastern Palermo province.

LA member John Cascio was Corleonese so no connection to these ones. That's a good find on the address book and indicates the Cascios were tapped in while living in Los Angeles. LA isn't particularly relevant to what's known of the Agrigento network beyond Antonino Mangione and apparently Giuseppe Gentile from Siculiana being members at one time (can't think of any others) but the Colorado connection is also relevant here given Rosario Desimone married a woman with Lucca Sicula heritage in Colorado (Frank's mother) and would have been a recent transplant to LA when the Cascios showed up there. I don't recall seeing the Cascios surface in Colorado before or after Linden until Carl moved there but as Lucchesi (the paesani term for Lucca natives, to avoid confusion) they would have already been well-connected to Colorado regardless.

The father Vito Cascio ended up in NYC after LA alongside his daughter and son-in-law.

Giuseppe "Riggio" Mortellaro was also part of Calogero Parlapiano's clan, unsurprisingly. Pretty much everyone of relevance can be traced to that clan.

[quote=B. post_id=291631 time=1743790592 user_id=127]
Good link. Sounds like Carl Cascio's marriage to Calogero Parlapiano's daughter may have been a marriage between existing relatives as was common. The Cascios had an interesting trajectory bouncing between Linden (suburb of Elizabeth where many DeCav members lived), Los Angeles, and then Carl going to Colorado, obviously travelers in the Agrigento network although I don't know of any mafia involvement they had in LA beyond the LoLordo marriage taking place there. Carl's father Vito Cascio is a decent candidate for membership as an elder from Lucca Sicula whose son-in-law Joe LoLordo was an important figure and son was clearly a mafioso as well.
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Carl Cascio's name and number were in an address book seized by the LAPD from a "Dragna lieutenant" in 1950 - I used to think that this was just because he might've been a relative of John Cascio (Tommy Palermo's brother-in-law) but nowadays I wonder if he hadn't maybe been a Los Angeles member for a time, especially since there were a few transfers between those families.
[quote=B. ]
Were these Mules from Lucca Sicula? Can't recall. Note that Joe LoLordo's brother Pasquale married a Mule from Caltabellota which is near there. There are endless Mules from these various villages though so not necessarily a (direct) connection between them.
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Yes, they were from Lucca Sicula. Can't recall if it's been mentioned before but Calogero/Carl Mulé also married Giuseppe Mortellaro's daughter Catherine
[quote=B. ]
I remember you said a younger John Mulay/Mule may have been the Spinuzzi nephew he told Bomp he was proposing for membership later. Was he a direct descendant of Giovanni?
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I wasn't sure at that point if he was related but since then I looked over some census records and found that Joseph Peter Mulay was the son of Giovanni k. 1923 who is then the grandfather of the possibly proposed nephew, John G. Mulay (b. 1941/1942).

It was actually Joe Salardino who mentioned proposing a nephew to Bompensiero, not Spinuzzi - I haven't really looked in a while but John G. Mulay was the only blood nephew (via his sister Pauline) I could find back then. I'm not really too sure it even was him because he seems to have lived in Los Angeles by the 1960s and the guy Salardino talks about was operating a bar in Denver, which makes me suspect that it might not be an actual nephew and just someone he had a relationship with via OC etc.

Good link. Sounds like Carl Cascio's marriage to Calogero Parlapiano's daughter may have been a marriage between existing relatives as was common. The Cascios had an interesting trajectory bouncing between Linden (suburb of Elizabeth where many DeCav members lived), Los Angeles, and then Carl going to Colorado, obviously travelers in the Agrigento network although I don't know of any mafia involvement they had in LA beyond the LoLordo marriage taking place there. Carl's father Vito Cascio is a decent candidate for membership as an elder from Lucca Sicula whose son-in-law Joe LoLordo was an important figure and son was clearly a mafioso as well.

Were these Mules from Lucca Sicula? Can't recall. Note that Joe LoLordo's brother Pasquale married a Mule from Caltabellota which is near there. There are endless Mules from these various villages though so not necessarily a (direct) connection between them.

I remember you said a younger John Mulay/Mule may have been the Spinuzzi nephew he told Bomp he was proposing for membership later. Was he a direct descendant of Giovanni?

[quote=B. post_id=289580 time=1739300585 user_id=127]
Good discovery. Spinuzzi's relatively early entry into the Family and the involvement of this uncle in underworld activity would def lend itself to the possibility that he was a member as well.
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Was looking at some old newspaper clippings again now and saw that a Josephine Parlapiano was arrested for perjury in connection to the April 1935 witness intimidation investigations into Santo Spinuzzi. Her mother-in-law had been arrested on Prohibition violation charges and she testified that "she did not know her."

She was born Josephine Mulay, the daughter of murdered Colorado member Giovanni Mulè (John Mulay). She married a Carl Parlapiano (1860-1942), son of Pietro Antonio Parlapiano and Jennie Desaro. Pietro Antonio's mother was a Caterina Cascio from Lucca Sicula and he was a relative of the more famous Calogero Parlapiano - Pietro's grandfather, Giuseppe Parlapiano and Calogero's grandfather Vito were brothers per FamilySearch trees.

Good discovery. Spinuzzi's relatively early entry into the Family and the involvement of this uncle in underworld activity would def lend itself to the possibility that he was a member as well.

I was looking into Joseph “Scotty” Spinuzzi and came across some interesting information about what seems to his paternal uncle, Santo Giuseppe Spinuzzi aka Sam.

[b]Santo Spinuzzi (nee Spinuzza); [/b]
DOB: 03/19/1862 (Alia, Palermo)
DOD: 08/04/1946 (Pueblo)

He has children born in Louisiana, so probably entry through New Orleans.

I first came across a Santo Spinuzzi when looking into an FBN-listed alias for Scotty, “Joe Marco.” A March 1935 arrest here as Giuseppe Marco, matches with the FBN who cite a previous arrest for receiving stolen property:
[attachment=2]joe spinuzzi 1935 arrest.jpg[/attachment]


While not identified as Scotty’s uncle in the reporting, Santo Giuseppe can be fairly reliably identified as someone involved in crime via a September 1930 bootlegging indictment:
[attachment=1]spinuzzi 1930 dry raid.jpg[/attachment]


Mary Spinuzzi is likely Maria Antonina Leone (apparently also from Alia), wife of Santo. The Louis Spinuzzi is probably their son of the same name (02/15/1912-12/29/1985). S. Spinuzzi would probably then be Santo.

Following the March 1935 bust, that Santo Spinuzzi is indicted for witness intimidation in late April and is then described as a “wealthy beer baron” in Pueblo. No age is given in the article.

Of further interest are two 1928 articles concerning a murder attempt against Salvatore D’Anna and apparent plots also targeting a Sam Spinuzzi. This person is described as a D’Anna cousin (refuted by Spinuzzi in a subsequent article) and the operator of a plumbing shop in Pueblo. In September 1931, there is an article about the incorporation of a plumbing business with a Sam, Josephine & Tony Spinuzzi:
[attachment=0]spinuzzi plumbing.jpg[/attachment]


Scotty’s brother Anthony “Turk” later operated a plumbing company that employed family boss Vincenzo Colletti in the 1950s. While unconfirmed, the Tony Spinuzzi from 1931 may then be Turk and Josephine Spinuzzi may be his mother, Giuseppina DiGioia aka Josephine DeJoy.

Overall, it seems likely that this Sam/Santo Spinuzzi is identical to Santo Giuseppe.

We learn later from Bompensiero that Scotty Spinuzzi is inducted around 1936, possibly alongside Charles Blanda whose family also hails from Alia, Palermo. Notably, unlike Blanda, Tom Incerto, the Smaldones etc. etc., Scotty isn’t discernibly involved in the Carlino-D’Anna disputes or violence with Joseph Roma.

Perhaps his uncle was someone of prominent standing in Pueblo and this connection then helps to facilitate membership as the family calms down after Roma’s murder?