Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

[PolackTony]

DeStefano, Samuel (Mad Sam) Streator, La Salle, IL Villarosa, Palermo, Sicily

Salvatore "Sam" DeStefano, Jr, was born in 1909 in Streator, in downstate LaSalle County, IL, to Salvatore Di Stefano and Rosalia Brasco, both of Villarosa, Enna. Some info online states that the DeStefanos had ancestry from Palermo, but actual documents confirm that both parents were from Villarosa, where they married in 1894 and where their first child, Giuseppina/Josephine was born in 1898 (she died in Clevalend in 1956). Salvatore entered the US in 1900 and Rosalia in 1903, bound for Mt Pleasant, PA, in the coal country outside of Pittsburgh, where the family lived initially. The family was in Illinois by 1906, when son James was born. In 1910, the family was living in Streator, where Salvatore worked as a laborer in a glass factory. Brother Mario was born in Herrin, Williamson County (near Marion and Johnston City), in 1915; in 1920, the family was living in Herrin, where Salvatore worked as a digger in the coal mines. It seems that the family relocated to Chicago in 1931 (per Rosalia's 1940 naturalization documents). Young Sam was already in Chicagoland by that time as a guest of the State of IL, as he was incarcerated in Joliet State Penitentiary in 1930. Sister Angeline (born in 1904 in Mt Pleasant, PA) was living in 1930 with her husband Lucio Casale, also of Villarosa, in Gary, IN (they later moved to Colorado Springs, where Angeline died in 1991). Mario, on the other hand, was incarcerated in the infamous Stateville Penitentiary in 1940 and 1950. The DeStefano settled in the Taylor St Patch, living on Hermitage near Polk and then on Fillmore near Loomis. In 1942, Salvatore, Sr, died in Bremen Township, in South Suburban Cook County; Rosalia died in Chicago in 1960.

After Sam, Jr, was murdered in 1973, the Tribune reported that Outfit associate Chuck Crimaldi (who wrote a book which is out of print that I haven't been able to acquire) claimed that Sam was kicking up directly to Accardo for decades from his massive juice loan operation. Crimaldi claimed that Sam DeStefano and Salvatore "Sam Lewis" Luisi pioneered the juice loan racket on Chicago's Westside in the 1950s. Crimaldi further claimed that DeStefano was not a "syndicate man", but rather was "independent", that his juice loan operation was completely separate from any "syndicate functions", and that Accardo took a cut from it not because Accardo or "syndicate" money was invested in it but because Sam had a "concession" from the Outfit to operate his juice racket (which aligns with my theory that racket operations like this were essentially "licensed" to operate by the Outfit). Crimaldi further stated that most other Outfit members, apart from Accardo and Ricca, did not care for or respect Sam Destefano, but that his "concession" to operate juice was due to the fact that he had performed many "favors" for the Outfit over the years. Additionally, Crimaldi claimed that DeStefano was close to Pat Marcy, as he had performed election work for the 1st Ward Democratic Party operations, including, allegedly, sticking up polling places and destroying ballots for opponent candidates.

Brother Mario DeStefano, who we know was a made member under the Battaglia crew, died in Oak Brook in 1973 of natural causes.

[Coloboy]

Interesting information on Mad Sam’s juice racket. If that is true and he was solely kicking up to Joe B, I can see how that would not make him a favorite amongst other members. Goes without saying he was a loose cannon, but combine that with the fact that he wasn’t even really an outfit guy, and only one person (or a few top echelon bosses) was getting financial compensation from him, I could see that leading to some tension.

I’ve read in a few places that he was initially bankrolled by Ricca when they met in prison. I wonder if his tribute to Accardo was one in the same, meaning split or shared with Ricca as part of his initial investment.

[PolackTony]

Louis "Louie Tomatoes" Marino was born in 1933 in Chicago to Pietro "Peter" Marino and Pauline Castiglia. Pietro was born in 1910 in Chicago to Luigi Marino, of Francavilla Marittima, Cosenza province, and Giuseppina Elia, also of Cosenza province (her documents just state "Cosenza", so she may be from Cosenza comune itself, or an unnamed comune in the province). In 1920, the Marinos lived on Polk near Halsted in the Taylor St Patch. It seems that young Pietro was himself already a hoodlum, as in 1920 he was in St Mary's reform school in suburban Wheeling; around this time, his mother left the family and remarried a guy in Memphis. In 1930, Luigi was living with his father near Flournoy and California. Pauline Castiglia was born in 1913 in Chicago to Antonino Castiglia and Paolina Di Paolo, both of Campofelice di Roccella, Palermo province. The Castiglias also settled by Taylor St, and in 1930 were living on Hermitage at Flournoy. In 1932, Louie Marino's parents married, and in 1940 the family was living at Grenshaw and Western; Pietro was employed by the WPA.

Louie Marino was a decorated veteran of the Korean War and seems to have kept a relatively low profile for much of his criminal career, as the first mention I see of him in the papers was in 1982, when he was indicted along with Rocky Infelise and Solly D for using "terrorist tactics" to collect on a gambling debt. In the following years, the Tribune identified Marino as Rocky's driver. In 1993, Marino was sentenced to 28 years in prison on racketeering, gambling, and tax evasion charges stemming from the Operation Good Ship Lollipop case targeting the Infelise crew. While Marino was specifically ID'd by Nick Calabrese as having been present at the Spilotro murders, he was never indicted on charges related to this, for reasons that remain unclear. Marino was released from prison in 2014 and died in 2017. In his obituary, it was noted that Louie "loved tending to his tomato and vegetable gardens and also loved smoking a good cigar while having a glass of homemade wine". While I've never dangled a dead-beat gambler from a window in the Chicago Board of Trade, at least Louie and I shared an appreciation of some of the other finer things in life.

Son Dino Marino, born in 1958, has been rumored to be a Chicago member and a driver for Solly D. I haven't been able to verify his mother's background, so I'm not even sure that Dino is 100% Italian. In 2000, Dino pled guilty to federal charges after being busted as a ghost payroller for a no-show job as an inspector for the Cicero Department of Health; reportedly, Dino's no-show salary exceeded that of both the actual director of the Cicero DOH as well as its leading physician.

It should be noted that these Marinos are entirely unrelated to Rosario Marino, a wealthy Chicago Sicilian grocery store owner who accompanied Accardo, Nick Nitti, and restauranteur Al Meo on a trip to Italy in 1973. Rosario Marino was born in 1909 in Cefalu, Palermo province. While I'm unsure of the complete itinerary of that 1973 trip, the FBI did confirm with Italian police, who were tailing the group, that they visited Naples. Meo's parents were both from Naples, and the trip could be significant in that a few years later, Antonio Spavone, then capo of a Camorra clan in urban Naples and uncle of Chicago restauranteur/singer Tony Spavone, hid out in Chicago while recovering from reconstructive surgery following a shotgun blast to the face during a clan war.

[PolackTony]

In 1935, the Tribune published an extensive list of the heads of Italian fraternal and paesani organizations in Chicago (while it has many dozens on there, it's still not comprehensive, as a good number that I know existed weren't listed). A few names worth noting:

The first name on the list was, naturally, Phil D'Andrea, "Supreme President Italo-American National Union".

A Donato Catena was President of one of several Riciglianes' fraternal organizations.

A Salvatore Evola was President of the Societa Santa Fara di Cinisi.

Tony Pinelli was President of the Club Educativo Madonna della Catena di Calascibetta.

A Tony Cerone was President of the Societa San Gerardo Majella (a Lucano society; san Gerardo Majella is the patron saint of Basilicata).

Bruno Roti was President of the Societa San Rocco di Simbario (he founded the society).

Peter Fosco was President of the Societa Santa Liberatora di Pizzone.

Vito Marzullo was President of the Societa Sant' Antonio di Senerchia.

Alfonso Rotolo was President of the Aragona Sicula Society (Cavita, this name have any connections to Rockford?).

We know that in the 60s, at least, "Little Joe" Aiello was President of the Societa San Giuseppe di Bagheria, but they weren't among the organizations listed here.

Another Societa on this list was the Societa Imera Croce Bianca, a Termitano mutual aid society (the religious society being Maria Immacolata di Termini Imerese, likely a branch of the religious confraternity of the same name in Termini itself); "Imera" is an ancient name for Termini Imerese. In 1935, the President of Imera Croce Bianca was Filippo Catalano, an immigrant from Termini who arrived in Chicago in 1904. Imera Croce Bianca was incorporated in Chicago in 1894, with one of the founders being Giuseppe LaMantia. In 1896, the President was listed as Giuseppe Domani. Interestingly, there was also an Imera Croce Bianca society in Baltimore's Little Italy, which had a significant concentration of Termitani as well; that society disbanded in 1928.

Worth noting that when Domani was listed as the President of Imera Croce Bianca in 1896, the President of the Unione Siciliana at that time was listed as "G. Mirabella". In 1907-1908 Mirabella was still listed as the Unione President and founding leader of the "White Hand" society. I believe this was the wealthy "commission merchant" Giuseppe Mirabella who was born in 1853 in Termini and arrived in Chicago around 1891; he died in 1925 in Oak Park. Given his prominent place for years in the Unione, I think it's worth considering him as a suspected mafia member and possible leader. One of his sons, Salvatore "Frank" Mirabella (born 1884 in Termini), married Rosamond Libonati, sister of notoriously Outfit-connected politican Roland Libonati. I haven't been able to confirm whether these Mirabellas were related to the Giacomo Mirabella, who, at 65 years old, was accused of being a bootlegger in Chinatown who murdered a guy over a disupted wine transaction in 1924 (there were a good number of Termitani in Chinatown, but there were also Mirabellas from Nicosia in Chicago).

The vital role of the Termitani in Chicago's Sicilian-Italian community during this period is also highlighted by the Trinacria Society (Societa di Mutuo Soccorso Trinacria Fratellanza Siciliana); like the Unione, a pan-Sicilian society, which counted ~800 members in Chicago in the 1900s. The Trinacria Society was founded in 1893 under President Vincenzo Formusa. I've mentioned Formusa here before as he was a wealthy businessman from a leading family in Termini who was a highly infuential person in Chicago (he also was likely a relative of later Outfit member/possible capo Johnny Forumsa). One of the secretaries of the Trinacria Society was a "J. LaMantia", which may have been the same Giuseppe LaMantia who founded the Imera Croce Bianca.

[PolackTony]

Vito Dominic Spillone was born in Chicago in 1936, the youngest of ten children of Francesco "Frank" Spillone and Angelica Belfiore, of Ceglie de Campo, Bari. The Spillones arrived in Chicago in the 1920s and settled in the Taylor St Patch, at Taylor and Peoria. By 1940, the Spillones had moved farther west, where they owned a home on Polk just west of Kedzie, in the Homan Square neighborhood. At the time, Frank Spillone stated that he was working as a driver for a bakery, and gave the name of his employer as "Nunzio Ventrilla" (Ventrella is a common Bares' surname and in the 1970s Bares' immigrant Mario Ventrella started Il Giardino bakery, currently located on Harlem Ave).

Vito had a long criminal career. His first appearance in the papers was in 1953, when he was 16, for robbing a jewelry store in Englewood with a crew of other teenagers after cutting a hole through the roof (the "Hole in the Roof" gang, apparently). In 1958, Vito, then living at Latrobe and Bloomingdale in the Galewood neighborhood, was identified as a suspect in an attempted kidnapping and raid on the mansion of a wealthy family in Northbrook.
In 1970, Vito and older brother Tony Spillone were convicted for working in a major Buccieri crew juice loan operation under Steve Annoreno (the ring included Annoreno's brother Tony Reno and Sam Pullia, among others). Vito Spillone, then living in Elmwood Park, and Martin Bucaro were named as Annoreno's "lieutenants" in this operation, and Vito was sentenced to 12 years in 1971. I'm not sure what happened wit hthat sentence, as Vito relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1976 when he opened a food distribution business, Angie's Wholesale Groceries (which is still operating today) in South El Monte. In 1984, Vito was charged with extortion and racketeering for operating a major juice loan ring out of Angie's warehouse, and was convicted on these charges in 1985. Papers reporting on Vito's operations stated that he had been tasked by Tony Spilotro and the Chicago admin to rebuild LCN rackets in LA following LA boss Dominic Brooklier's legal trouble in 1978. One of Vito's primary enforcers was John C. Abel, stated to have been a founding member of the Aryan Brotherhood and one of the members of the AB's national "Commission" (Abel seems to have originally been from Chicago and previously incarcerated at the Federal MDC there). While some accounts stated that Spillone answered to Spilotro, other accounts stated that Spillone actually answered to Palm Springs-based Frank "The Horse" Buccieri, who the Las Vegas Review-Journal claimed was named in 1981 by FBI affidavits as slated to take over Chicago operations in the Western states from Spilotro.

Vito was sentenced to 10 years in 1986. It's unclear to me how much time Spillone wound up serving from this case. He challenged the case on appeal on the grounds of improper use of wiretaps, but I don't know if the conviction was overturned. Vito Spillone died in 2015 in Whitteir, CA, following a stroke.

Worth noting that Mike Sarno's current lawyer, John Chwarzynski, Jr, is Vito Spillone's grandson, the son of Vito's daughter Laura Spillone Chwarzynski. Another grandson, Sam Chwarzynski, was a three-time champion defensive back for the UPenn football team and currently runs a bitcoin mining/blockchain company in Chicago.

[Antiliar]

Great write-up, Tony

[Snakes]

Vito Dominic Spillone was born in Chicago in 1936, the youngest of ten children of Francesco "Frank" Spillone and Angelica Belfiore, of Ceglie de Campo, Bari. The Spillones arrived in Chicago in the 1920s and settled in the Taylor St Patch, at Taylor and Peoria. By 1940, the Spillones had moved farther west, where they owned a home on Polk just west of Kedzie, in the Homan Square neighborhood. At the time, Frank Spillone stated that he was working as a driver for a bakery, and gave the name of his employer as "Nunzio Ventrilla" (Ventrella is a common Bares' surname and in the 1970s Bares' immigrant Mario Ventrella started Il Giardino bakery, currently located on Harlem Ave).

Vito had a long criminal career. His first appearance in the papers was in 1953, when he was 16, for robbing a jewelry store in Englewood with a crew of other teenagers after cutting a hole through the roof (the "Hole in the Roof" gang, apparently). In 1958, Vito, then living at Latrobe and Bloomingdale in the Galewood neighborhood, was identified as a suspect in an attempted kidnapping and raid on the mansion of a wealthy family in Northbrook.
In 1970, Vito and older brother Tony Spillone were convicted for working in a major Buccieri crew juice loan operation under Steve Annoreno (the ring included Annoreno's brother Tony Reno and Sam Pullia, among others). Vito Spillone, then living in Elmwood Park, and Martin Bucaro were named as Annoreno's "lieutenants" in this operation, and Vito was sentenced to 12 years in 1971. I'm not sure what happened wit hthat sentence, as Vito relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1976 when he opened a food distribution business, Angie's Wholesale Groceries (which is still operating today) in South El Monte. In 1984, Vito was charged with extortion and racketeering for operating a major juice loan ring out of Angie's warehouse, and was convicted on these charges in 1985. Papers reporting on Vito's operations stated that he had been tasked by Tony Spilotro and the Chicago admin to rebuild LCN rackets in LA following LA boss Dominic Brooklier's legal trouble in 1978. One of Vito's primary enforcers was John C. Abel, stated to have been a founding member of the Aryan Brotherhood and one of the members of the AB's national "Commission" (Abel seems to have originally been from Chicago and previously incarcerated at the Federal MDC there). While some accounts stated that Spillone answered to Spilotro, other accounts stated that Spillone actually answered to Palm Springs-based Frank "The Horse" Buccieri, who the Las Vegas Review-Journal claimed was named in 1981 by FBI affidavits as slated to take over Chicago operations in the Western states from Spilotro.

Vito was sentenced to 10 years in 1986. It's unclear to me how much time Spillone wound up serving from this case. He challenged the case on appeal on the grounds of improper use of wiretaps, but I don't know if the conviction was overturned. Vito Spillone died in 2015 in Whitteir, CA, following a stroke.

Worth noting that Mike Sarno's current lawyer, John Chwarzynski, Jr, is Vito Spillone's grandson, the son of Vito's daughter Laura Spillone Chwarzynski. Another grandson, Sam Chwarzynski, was a three-time champion defensive back for the UPenn football team and currently runs a bitcoin mining/blockchain company in Chicago.

According to BOP, Spillone was released from prison in 1995, so he definitely did some time for this.

[PolackTony]

Vito Dominic Spillone was born in Chicago in 1936, the youngest of ten children of Francesco "Frank" Spillone and Angelica Belfiore, of Ceglie de Campo, Bari. The Spillones arrived in Chicago in the 1920s and settled in the Taylor St Patch, at Taylor and Peoria. By 1940, the Spillones had moved farther west, where they owned a home on Polk just west of Kedzie, in the Homan Square neighborhood. At the time, Frank Spillone stated that he was working as a driver for a bakery, and gave the name of his employer as "Nunzio Ventrilla" (Ventrella is a common Bares' surname and in the 1970s Bares' immigrant Mario Ventrella started Il Giardino bakery, currently located on Harlem Ave).

Vito had a long criminal career. His first appearance in the papers was in 1953, when he was 16, for robbing a jewelry store in Englewood with a crew of other teenagers after cutting a hole through the roof (the "Hole in the Roof" gang, apparently). In 1958, Vito, then living at Latrobe and Bloomingdale in the Galewood neighborhood, was identified as a suspect in an attempted kidnapping and raid on the mansion of a wealthy family in Northbrook.
In 1970, Vito and older brother Tony Spillone were convicted for working in a major Buccieri crew juice loan operation under Steve Annoreno (the ring included Annoreno's brother Tony Reno and Sam Pullia, among others). Vito Spillone, then living in Elmwood Park, and Martin Bucaro were named as Annoreno's "lieutenants" in this operation, and Vito was sentenced to 12 years in 1971. I'm not sure what happened wit hthat sentence, as Vito relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1976 when he opened a food distribution business, Angie's Wholesale Groceries (which is still operating today) in South El Monte. In 1984, Vito was charged with extortion and racketeering for operating a major juice loan ring out of Angie's warehouse, and was convicted on these charges in 1985. Papers reporting on Vito's operations stated that he had been tasked by Tony Spilotro and the Chicago admin to rebuild LCN rackets in LA following LA boss Dominic Brooklier's legal trouble in 1978. One of Vito's primary enforcers was John C. Abel, stated to have been a founding member of the Aryan Brotherhood and one of the members of the AB's national "Commission" (Abel seems to have originally been from Chicago and previously incarcerated at the Federal MDC there). While some accounts stated that Spillone answered to Spilotro, other accounts stated that Spillone actually answered to Palm Springs-based Frank "The Horse" Buccieri, who the Las Vegas Review-Journal claimed was named in 1981 by FBI affidavits as slated to take over Chicago operations in the Western states from Spilotro.

Vito was sentenced to 10 years in 1986. It's unclear to me how much time Spillone wound up serving from this case. He challenged the case on appeal on the grounds of improper use of wiretaps, but I don't know if the conviction was overturned. Vito Spillone died in 2015 in Whitteir, CA, following a stroke.

Worth noting that Mike Sarno's current lawyer, John Chwarzynski, Jr, is Vito Spillone's grandson, the son of Vito's daughter Laura Spillone Chwarzynski. Another grandson, Sam Chwarzynski, was a three-time champion defensive back for the UPenn football team and currently runs a bitcoin mining/blockchain company in Chicago.

According to BOP, Spillone was released from prison in 1995, so he definitely did some time for this.

Thanks for confirming. Presumably, his wife Linda Spillone was running Angie's Foods in his absence, as she is listed as the head of the company today.

[PolackTony]

From the "Associates" thread:

In terms of personal “associates” who are friends/partners with a high-ranking member, we can look at the example of Tony Accardo’s trip to Italy in 1973. Accardo was accompanied by personal friends who were also successful businessmen in Chicago: Nick Nitti (who owned the travel agency, along with Accardo’s son, that presumably booked the arrangements for this trip), restauranteur Al Meo, and wealthy grocery store owner Rosario Marino (originally from Cefalu). Their wives all came along, we can assume that a major element here was purely social. They may have also did some business in Italy, but it’s not like these guys went there to set up narcotics or contraband trafficking rings or something; most likely, they may have met with some people who were interested in having some Ital-American business people invest in local ventures or the like. The FBI seemed to think so, as following the trip, they interviewed wealthy Chicago wine importer Antonino Paternò (from Vizzini, Catania) afterwards concerning his connections to Accardo and allegations from Italian police that Paternò’s wine suppliers in Tuscany and Sicily were controlled by the mafia (the Feds stated that Paternò at the time was the largest wine importer in the US); Italian LE had informed the FBI that Accardo’s itinerary had included Tuscany, so maybe he visited one of those suppliers.

Antonino Paternò's wine and liquor store (the retail end of his major wine import and wholesaling business) was located at Grand and Western (which is also where fellow Accardo buddy Rosario Marino's grocery business was located); after Paternò left the business to his partner, Michele Di Carlo, it was renamed DiCarlo's Armanetti Wine and Liquors (we used to use their parking lot for our basketball court when I was a kid). Michele Di Carlo was born in 1920 in Santa Ninfa, Trapani. After earning a degree at the University of Naples, Di Carlo emigrated to Chicago in 1947, where Di Carlo began working for Paternò. DiCarlo wound up opening 3 other Armanetti locations in the suburbs.

Interesting to note that the partner and successor of one of Accardo's personal associates was an immigrant from Santa Ninfa, given Accardo's ancestry from Castelvetrano. In 1945, before emigrating to the US, Di Carlo married his wife Caroline Funai in Barga, Lucca, Toscana, a major wine-producing area. She was born in Chicago to parents from Tuscany, so Di Carlo clearly already had some ties to Chicago; his 1947 passenger manifest states that his uncle Vincenzo Di Carlo was already living in Chicago. An FBI file called Paternò the largest wine importer in the US in the early 70s, and he specifically had close links to wine producers in Tuscany and Sicily which Italian police had informed the FBI had ties to the mafia (Paternò was the sole US importer of a brand called "Sicilian Gold"). This intel, as noted above, was relayed to the FBI in the context of Accardo's 1973 trip to Italy, which included a visit to Tuscany. Apparently, one of the facilities that Paternò himself owned in Tuscany was raided several months afterward by Italian police, who believed that Paternò was linked to Sicilian "mafia members" who had been exiled from Sicily to the mainland by the authorities (we all know how that genius plan of internal exile for mafiosi turned out).

[Antiliar]

Interesting that Victor Spilotro's daughter Maria married the son of Paul Richard DeLucia, AKA Paul Ricca Jr.

CT 1997Jan1 Victor Spilotro obit - Delucia Ricca.jpg

St Lucie News Tribune 2019Apr10 Paul Richard DeLucia obit - Spilotro.jpg

[PolackTony]

Interesting that Victor Spilotro's daughter Maria married the son of Paul Richard DeLucia, AKA Paul Ricca Jr.

CT 1997Jan1 Victor Spilotro obit - Delucia Ricca.jpg

St Lucie News Tribune 2019Apr10 Paul Richard DeLucia obit - Spilotro.jpg

Great find. Again, goes to show how these people often intermarry within the network for generations.

[B.]

Yeah, great discovery and surprising that isn't more well-known.

[PolackTony]

On the theme of Outfit-associated intermarriages, confirmed that Jimmy Boy Cozzo's daughter Cathy Cozzo in fact married John Nitti (son of Nick Nitti, who assumed ownership of the Nitti Travel Agency from his father). On the Subject of John Nitti, in 1990 he was the object of scrutiny in the scandals surrounding Triton College and one of its corrupt directors, James DeMillio. Triton and DeMillio were scrutinized for handing out shady sweetheart contracts to companies with alleged mob ties, including Advanced Sales, Inc., run by Jimmy Sarno and John Nitti (the Nitti Travel Agency also received contracts to book trips for Triton, naturally).

[Antiliar]

I notice the Amato name there. Wonder if there's a relationship to Black Joe.

[PolackTony]

I notice the Amato name there. Wonder if there's a relationship to Black Joe.

I'm not aware of any link.

Jimmy's wife Tonina Amato (who died in 2007 just months before Jimmy) was the daughter of Grand Ave associate Phl Amato (infamous for the incident in the late '70s where his crew of guys allegedly drove a car full of Federal narcotics agents conducting surveillance in the neighborhood onto the curb near Grand Ave and Damen and then beat them at gunpoint). I have Phil Amato's parents as Francesco D'Amato of Villafrati, Palermo, and Caterina Nuccio, of Cefalà Diana, Palermo (Charlie Gioe's mother was a D'Amato, and possibly from nearby Marineo, so maybe there was a connection there). Phil's wife, Sylvia Ventura, was born in KC (KA, not MO) to Vincenzo Ventura and Vita Alongi of Càccamo; the family subsequently moved to Chicago.

It took me a bit to finally confirm Black Joe Amato's ancestry, but I was able to find some documents that confirm it. He was born 1908 in Chicago to Giacomo "John/Jacob" Amato and Vincenza "Jennie" Mulè, both from Sambuca. At the time of his birth, the family lived on Gault Ct in Little Sicily, but by ~1917, they were already living out in Berwyn; Giacomo worked as a hod carrier at the old Speedway Park racetrack in nearby Broadview.

Interesting to have verified another Chicago member with ancestry from Sambuca. No document that I found verified either of Amato's parents' parents, but I wonder if his family had any connection to the "Michael Armato" [sic] who was indicted with Calogero Montalbano in the 1905 murder of Biaggio Raia. Likely that "Armato" was actually an Amato from Sambuca, of course, and Black Joe's family was living in Little Sicily at that time. As Amato was later in charge of rackets in McHenry County, I also wonder if he had any connections with the Sambucesi who were with the Rockford Outfit.