General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[SolarSolano]

Ronald "Balloon Head" DeAngelis - didn't he commit suicide?

[Antiliar]

Thanks

[PolackTony]

Ronald "Balloon Head" DeAngelis - didn't he commit suicide?

Correct, shot himself in the head in 1987. His wife stated at the time that he was suffering from terminal cancer. He was convicted the previous year on federal charges for illegal trafficking in electronic eavesdropping devices. It was thought by authorities at the time that DeAngelis was responsible for the electronics work in the Cagnoni car bombing under Schweihs, though later of course Nick Calabrese testified that the Calabrese group carried out the bombing.

[Snakes]

He was also living in Houston at the time of his death.

[PolackTony]

He was also living in Houston at the time of his death.

That’s right, I believe he moved to Houston in ‘81, though it seems he still maintained an address in Melrose Park as the news at the time reported that he shot himself in his home there.

[Snakes]

He was also living in Houston at the time of his death.

That’s right, I believe he moved to Houston in ‘81, though it seems he still maintained an address in Melrose Park as the news at the time reported that he shot himself in his home there.

I double-checked and he was living in Houston but committed suicide in MP. He had lung carcinoma.

[SolarSolano]

There was a Ron DeAngelis who was a cop in Melrose Park and recently passed away - did Ron have a son and namesake by chance?

[Ed]

Ronald "Balloon Head" DeAngelis - didn't he commit suicide?

As I recall, DeAngelis was Rocco Pranno's nephew.

[Villain]

Ronald "Balloon Head" DeAngelis - didn't he commit suicide?

As I recall, DeAngelis was Rocco Pranno's nephew.

....and also belonged to his crew which also included Eboli, Ariola, Cervone, Spangoli, DeSantis, Nitti etc.

[Antiliar]

Ronald "Balloon Head" DeAngelis - didn't he commit suicide?

As I recall, DeAngelis was Rocco Pranno's nephew.

According to a Chicago Tribune article they were related by marriage.

[PolackTony]

There was that 60s wiretap of Tommy Eboli and Miranda, where they stated that Chicago had only like 50 made guys.

Do you have a link to that or know where I can find it?

This would fit my belief that the Chicago family was more of a mid-sized family by US membership standards, but like the traditional mafia each member was essentially a leader in his own right, contributing to some of the confusion over structure given that made membership in Chicago would mean overseeing significant criminal operations. In other US families of comparable size, membership still meant leadership but more in terms of organizational representation and "honor" than control over operations and a vast network of criminal associates like Chicago.

The Jewish informant DeRose, who was knowledgeable on organizational matters, felt the family had 150 members, which sounds reasonable to me, too, but Eboli and Miranda's word would go much farther even if it was a general estimate.

As we learn more, it appears the family membership sizes didn't drop off quite as sharply as we once thought they did, exceptions aside. Some US families like St. Louis, Dallas, Tampa, and NO simply didn't induct enough members over many decades to preserve a stable membership (staying close to the Sicilian village model they came from) but I have a sense that cities like Chicago and Detroit preserved mid-sized membership numbers, though they used membership to different ends.

I’ve been trying to dig it up but haven’t been successful. I asked eboli to look into it too, so hoping that it turns up, as it’s an interesting though brief exchange. It was a passing comment in a larger bugged Tommy Ryan and Miranda (IIRC) convo in which they were griping about some current headaches. The comment about Chicago was favorable, as they clearly felt that Chicago (and actually I believe that they also mentioned Detroit in the same light) were smarter about things as they didn’t have nearly as many made guys (fewer headaches, less guys to split the pie). I believe it was also noted that Chicago and Detroit didn’t have to share their cities with other families, thus not feeling the same pressure to induct as many members (or something to this effect).

I, of course, wouldn’t take the 50 made guys as an exact number (and generally try not to make much of it when these guys reference precise numbers). But if anyone from outside the Chicago family would have knowledge of Chicago’s “books” and induction practices, it would be a guy like Eboli and other Genovese leaders.

I agree with your points on the nature or weight of membership in families outside of NYC, and the deeper continuities with the Sicilian model (where each made member served as a “boss” in his own right to his network of partners, workers, “vassals”, and clientele) I think are a very important part of the historical context. Especially when it comes to Chicago, the knee jerk reaction from many observers over the years has been to read every point of difference that they had vis-a-vis NYC practices as the product of “Americanization”, further evidence that the Outfit wasn’t really the “mafia”, and other fundamental misattributions derived from huge gaps in understanding. On some things, they may very well have been more “traditional” than people realize, and NYC of course had its own unique conditions that led to particular adaptations and innovations.

Though always evolving and open to new evidence and convincing arguments, my general picture of membership in Chicago is that made members were “shareholders” entitled to a cut of the family proceeds, as well as “franchisees” partnered with their capos (or in some cases direct with admin members) and tasked with overseeing specific rackets or territories (i.e. the “ward boss” model). This I think was both a legacy of older mafia practices as well as the Chicago political boss/aldermen/committeemen system of patronage, power, and prestige. I don’t see these distinct potential threads as mutually exclusive at all, however, and my own theoretic proclivity is to assume that specific older practices of the Onorata Societa (themselves formed of course in a context of OC imbrication with political patronage machines in Sicily) were reinforced, selected for, and adapted within the unique sociological and historical conditions of Chicago, and the particular ways that Italian immigrants were assimilated into existing modes of power and status.

In turn, guys who were not made but who were considered “Outfit guys” — members of a crew belonging to a made guy — were “employees” or workers for the made guy (serving as “crew boss”) a la franchisee and shareholder of the “company”. Thus they were paid by their crew boss/made guy, and not entitled to a share of the company proceeds. The LE term “LCN associate” I don’t think is granular enough to really get at what it meant at the local level to be an “Outfit guy” who worked for or belonged to the company. And, of course, it also doesn’t disaggregate these workers from the high level “associates”, many of whom were not made only because they weren’t Italian, who served as vital business partners, investors, and influential “consultants” to the “board of directors” of the company.

While I wouldn’t make too much of it, I recall one interesting interview with Frank Culotta where he stated that he didn’t remember people really using the term “made guy” (of course we know the term was very much used in Chicago), but that guys in the street referred to made guys as “bosses” or “mustaches” (the latter to me likely referencing an older model of status and authority derived from some notion of the “old world” mafia). While not an account of a made member, this is still useful as a potential example of how inducted membership was viewed by lower level workers on the street.

So, on one level, the “Outfit” was structured vis-a-vis the broader “Chicago Crime Syndicate” as a quasi-corporate model — also borrowing from the Chicago machine politics model from Mayor, aldermen, committeemen, down to block precinct captains and poll workers etc — while it was also structured internally (in respect to its formally inducted membership and top leadership strata) as the Chicago family/borgata of the American mafia. Both facets or faces of the “Outfit” have to be accounted for to understand it as an institution and historical phenomenon.

[Snakes]

There was that 60s wiretap of Tommy Eboli and Miranda, where they stated that Chicago had only like 50 made guys.

Do you have a link to that or know where I can find it?

This would fit my belief that the Chicago family was more of a mid-sized family by US membership standards, but like the traditional mafia each member was essentially a leader in his own right, contributing to some of the confusion over structure given that made membership in Chicago would mean overseeing significant criminal operations. In other US families of comparable size, membership still meant leadership but more in terms of organizational representation and "honor" than control over operations and a vast network of criminal associates like Chicago.

The Jewish informant DeRose, who was knowledgeable on organizational matters, felt the family had 150 members, which sounds reasonable to me, too, but Eboli and Miranda's word would go much farther even if it was a general estimate.

As we learn more, it appears the family membership sizes didn't drop off quite as sharply as we once thought they did, exceptions aside. Some US families like St. Louis, Dallas, Tampa, and NO simply didn't induct enough members over many decades to preserve a stable membership (staying close to the Sicilian village model they came from) but I have a sense that cities like Chicago and Detroit preserved mid-sized membership numbers, though they used membership to different ends.

I’ve been trying to dig it up but haven’t been successful. I asked eboli to look into it too, so hoping that it turns up, as it’s an interesting though brief exchange. It was a passing comment in a larger bugged Tommy Ryan and Miranda (IIRC) convo in which they were griping about some current headaches. The comment about Chicago was favorable, as they clearly felt that Chicago (and actually I believe that they also mentioned Detroit in the same light) were smarter about things as they didn’t have nearly as many made guys (fewer headaches, less guys to split the pie). I believe it was also noted that Chicago and Detroit didn’t have to share their cities with other families, thus not feeling the same pressure to induct as many members (or something to this effect).

I, of course, wouldn’t take the 50 made guys as an exact number (and generally try not to make much of it when these guys reference precise numbers). But if anyone from outside the Chicago family would have knowledge of Chicago’s “books” and induction practices, it would be a guy like Eboli and other Genovese leaders.

I agree with your points on the nature or weight of membership in families outside of NYC, and the deeper continuities with the Sicilian model (where each made member served as a “boss” in his own right to his network of partners, workers, “vassals”, and clientele) I think are a very important part of the historical context. Especially when it comes to Chicago, the knee jerk reaction from many observers over the years has been to read every point of difference that they had vis-a-vis NYC practices as the product of “Americanization”, further evidence that the Outfit wasn’t really the “mafia”, and other fundamental misattributions derived from huge gaps in understanding. On some things, they may very well have been more “traditional” than people realize, and NYC of course had its own unique conditions that led to particular adaptations and innovations.

Though always evolving and open to new evidence and convincing arguments, my general picture of membership in Chicago is that made members were “shareholders” entitled to a cut of the family proceeds, as well as “franchisees” partnered with their capos (or in some cases direct with admin members) and tasked with overseeing specific rackets or territories (i.e. the “ward boss” model). This I think was both a legacy of older mafia practices as well as the Chicago political boss/aldermen/committeemen system of patronage, power, and prestige. I don’t see these distinct potential threads as mutually exclusive at all, however, and my own theoretic proclivity is to assume that specific older practices of the Onorata Societa (themselves formed of course in a context of OC imbrication with political patronage machines in Sicily) were reinforced, selected for, and adapted within the unique sociological and historical conditions of Chicago, and the particular ways that Italian immigrants were assimilated into existing modes of power and status.

In turn, guys who were not made but who were considered “Outfit guys” — members of a crew belonging to a made guy — were “employees” or workers for the made guy (serving as “crew boss”) a la franchisee and shareholder of the “company”. Thus they were paid by their crew boss/made guy, and not entitled to a share of the company proceeds. The LE term “LCN associate” I don’t think is granular enough to really get at what it meant at the local level to be an “Outfit guy” who worked for or belonged to the company. And, of course, it also doesn’t disaggregate these workers from the high level “associates”, many of whom were not made only because they weren’t Italian, who served as vital business partners, investors, and influential “consultants” to the “board of directors” of the company.

While I wouldn’t make too much of it, I recall one interesting interview with Frank Culotta where he stated that he didn’t remember people really using the term “made guy” (of course we know the term was very much used in Chicago), but that guys in the street referred to made guys as “bosses” or “mustaches” (the latter to me likely referencing an older model of status and authority derived from some notion of the “old world” mafia). While not an account of a made member, this is still useful as a potential example of how inducted membership was viewed by lower level workers on the street.

So, on one level, the “Outfit” was structured vis-a-vis the broader “Chicago Crime Syndicate” as a quasi-corporate model — also borrowing from the Chicago machine politics model from Mayor, aldermen, committeemen, down to block precinct captains and poll workers etc — while it was also structured internally (in respect to its formally inducted membership and top leadership strata) as the Chicago family/borgata of the American mafia. Both facets or faces of the “Outfit” have to be accounted for to understand it as an institution and historical phenomenon.

Well, we already know there were guys on that 150 member list who were either not made or not made until much later. Rocky Infelise is one off the top of my head. This was made back in the 1960s, when LCN member identification requirements were not as stringent as they would be by the mid-80s.

[Coloboy]

Have you guys checked out the "coffee with cullotta" videos on youtube? I just got around to them this week. At the very least he's a pretty damn funny and entertaining guy. Like your grouchy ass uncle.

He definitely gets confused on crew structure sometimes I.E who worked for who, but there is also some great knowledge and stories on there about Spilotro, John Difronzo, Louie Eboli, Willie Messino, Cerone, Accardo, Aiuppa, and many others.

Apparently he hated Joey Andriacchi and had a fight with him once, but wasn't' allowed to retaliate.

Says Aiuppa ordered hits like he was ordering a sandwich. When Cullotta was invited to speak with him once at a meeting (by spilotro) , he opted not to out of fear that if he knew anything about the topic at hand he was more likely to be killed if something went sideways. Can't argue with that.

Also interesting that Spilotro is always labeled as this blood thirsty killer. Reality seems that he was pretty much just a tough outfit guy who was willing to commit murder when absolutely needed. I don't think he took pleasure in it like a Mad Sam.

[Snakes]

Have you guys checked out the "coffee with cullotta" videos on youtube? I just got around to them this week. At the very least he's a pretty damn funny and entertaining guy. Like your grouchy ass uncle.

He definitely gets confused on crew structure sometimes I.E who worked for who, but there is also some great knowledge and stories on there about Spilotro, John Difronzo, Louie Eboli, Willie Messino, Cerone, Accardo, Aiuppa, and many others.

Apparently he hated Joey Andriacchi and had a fight with him once, but wasn't' allowed to retaliate.

Says Aiuppa ordered hits like he was ordering a sandwich. When Cullotta was invited to speak with him once at a meeting (by spilotro) , he opted not to out of fear that if he knew anything about the topic at hand he was more likely to be killed if something went sideways. Can't argue with that.

Also interesting that Spilotro is always labeled as this blood thirsty killer. Reality seems that he was pretty much just a tough outfit guy who was willing to commit murder when absolutely needed. I don't think he took pleasure in it like a Mad Sam.

Cullotta also tells a story in his book about Louie Eboli accusing him of roughing Louie's stepson up. They got into an altercation and Frank got physical. Louie ran into him later on at a cookout where a bunch of Outfit guys were and they got into it again, only this time Joey Lombardo was there and told Frank that he couldn't fight back. Louie basically beat his ass and even hit him with a brick. I think Louie originally wanted to kill Frank but Lombardo asked Louie if he was satisfied and it was dropped.

[PolackTony]

Have you guys checked out the "coffee with cullotta" videos on youtube? I just got around to them this week. At the very least he's a pretty damn funny and entertaining guy. Like your grouchy ass uncle.

He definitely gets confused on crew structure sometimes I.E who worked for who, but there is also some great knowledge and stories on there about Spilotro, John Difronzo, Louie Eboli, Willie Messino, Cerone, Accardo, Aiuppa, and many others.

Apparently he hated Joey Andriacchi and had a fight with him once, but wasn't' allowed to retaliate.

Says Aiuppa ordered hits like he was ordering a sandwich. When Cullotta was invited to speak with him once at a meeting (by spilotro) , he opted not to out of fear that if he knew anything about the topic at hand he was more likely to be killed if something went sideways. Can't argue with that.

Also interesting that Spilotro is always labeled as this blood thirsty killer. Reality seems that he was pretty much just a tough outfit guy who was willing to commit murder when absolutely needed. I don't think he took pleasure in it like a Mad Sam.

Cullotta also tells a story in his book about getting into an altercation with Louie Eboli where he struck him. Eboli beefed to Lombardo and was wanting to kill Cullotta but Lombardo told him that he would have to settle for just beating Cullotta's ass in retaliation. If I remember the story correctly.

Yeah, I remember the story going that way as well. I’m not sure whether Eboli was made at that point. I doubt that they would have let Culotta put his hands on him and live to tell about it if so. Although I suppose ultimately it was Joey’s call and he may have decided Eboli had it coming.

Culotta was always going to tell his side of the story for posterity, but I don’t doubt that he was a tough SOB and I’m sure resented that made guys could throw their weight around when he felt he could whip their ass man to man.

I recall Culotta saying that Joey O would have a ham sandwich whacked. I wouldn’t want to be at a meeting like that with Aiuppa if I were a nobody either, could easily wind up trunk music for any little thing.

In spite of the corny trappings of the “Coffee with Culotta” thing, I enjoyed watching Frank. Old school Chicago goomba accent that reminds me of my youth. They don’t make em like that anymore.