General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[falco]

Vic Sheehan, a former employee of Amusements Inc., owned by Sarno co-defendant Casey Szaflarski, had testified that he had worked on poker machines for nearly two decades for the same company, though the name and his bosses had changed roughly in sync with the indictments of its owners.

To Sheehan, it seemed C&S had inherited the illegal-poker business from M&M Amusements, the company owned by James and Michael Marcello, who were convicted in 2007 in the landmark "Operation Family Secrets" case that crippled the Chicago mob.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

Court records show authorities suspect that Szaflarski, who owned Amusements Inc. of Berwyn, entered the video poker business with the help of Mickey Marcello, a member of the mob's Melrose Park street crew who pleaded guilty in the landmark Family Secrets case.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

@Villain

was the business if m&m amusements split between amusements inc (szflarski) and c&s (dublino)? both worked with sarno at some point. mid-2002 dublino started to undercut szflarski/sarno in lyons. what happened between sarno and dublino before that? thanks

[Snakes]

I don't think Sarno ever worked with Dublino but I could be mistaken.

[falco]

found this quote from solarsolano

Dublino's brother Carmine worked with Carlisi's crew I believe in the 80s. Vince and Sarno also were partners for years - I don't know if Vince is with another crew or on his own but he went to court and testified - he's also under indictment himself right now, no?

[Snakes]

found this quote from solarsolano

Dublino's brother Carmine worked with Carlisi's crew I believe in the 80s. Vince and Sarno also were partners for years - I don't know if Vince is with another crew or on his own but he went to court and testified - he's also under indictment himself right now, no?

I don't think they were partners in video poker. I seem to remember them owning some ATMs but not gambling machines.

[falco]

I don't think they were partners in video poker. I seem to remember them owning some ATMs but not gambling machines.

ok, thanks. from steve wambir:

Szaflarski apparently took over the video gambling business run by the onetime head of the Chicago mob, James Marcello, and his half-brother, Michael. Szaflarski allegedly told a government informant that he learned the video poker business from Michael Marcello.

then the statement of szaflarski's employee is probably wrong

[PolackTony]

Nice pics. You can see from their eyes that Catuara, Annerino, and Billy Dauber were all stone cold killers.

Given that Red Wemette has stated that Catuara (at least in the 70s) was a capo, how many of these guys were his soldiers? Annerino I believe was one of Catuara’s main lieutenants. Then you have Fidanzi and Ferraro. Any others that belonged to Catuara’s crew? I understand that Guzzino did, but then I assume after Catuara was hit he transferred to the Heights?

The Guzzinos (Richie, Sam and Nick) Rubino, Fidanzi, Pilotto....were always with the Heights.....thats like saying old man Joe Guzzino transferred to the Heights lol

True, especially in light of the longtime Guzzino family allegiance to the Ruberto/Emery/LaPorte crew. I don’t know where I read that Sam Guzzino was working for Catuara, but it made me wonder given his relationship to the Heights crew.

Same as with the wider Buccieri crew succession, I feel like there are still some things that we don’t fully understand about the South Suburbs/NWI mob. I often go back to think over the 1962 convo between Giancana and Joe Costello, where Costello asked if he had the right to go through his “Gobrachino” to speak with LaPorte about his liquor license beef with Fusco. My assumption, prior to reading that document, would’ve always been that LaPorte was Costello’s capodecina, but clearly he wasn’t. We still don’t know really know for sure how many actual formal capodecini were down there. At the very least we seem to have had LaPorte and his successors and Catuara (not sure when Catuara got his stripes and who he succeeded, or if his crew was created de novo). We can probably add the NWI crew for three at least. The Castellis were also of course old school Chi Heights mafiosi, like the Guzzinos, so if Joe Costello was not under LaPorte, it wouldn’t surprise me if guys like Guzzino and Fidanzi were answering to Catuara, at least for a time (always possible guys were transferred to different crews over time). Perhaps after Catuara was taken out, there was no longer any other crews in the Far South region apart from the main LaPorte/Pilotto/Tocco crew and any Catuara guys who survived after the smoke cleared were transferred.

LaPorte was a territorial boss who had jurisdiction over Chicago Heights, C City, Will County, Joliet, Northwest Indiana, and by the late 60s also had jurisdiction over John Roselli and also controlled a crew in AZ. This means that LaPorte probably had a capo below him who was in charge of the Chicago Heights and C City areas, obviously because he also had a non-Italian crew boss like Francis Curry in charge of Joliet and capos like Morgano or Zizzo in charge of NW Indiana.

Yeah, I’m overall pretty sympathetic to your “territorial boss” theory. I think that you’ve made a strong case for it in a number of threads and it would help to explain some of the particular structure that Chicago had in the past. We also have that 1960s-era CI that discussed the “Board of Directors”, and not all of the guys that we might assume were capodecini seemed to have had a seat on it. But I’m still undecided on this, as I don’t know if there really were those with a formal rank of capodecina who formally answered to another capodecina who actually outranked them, or if there were just some capos (as in any other family) who were bigger earners, had more influence and buttons, and were thus “first among equals”.

I recall B (I think) in the last couple of months noting that the Genovese or another family had something like a “capodecina dei capodecini” position (and I don’t recall if this was a formal rank or just a functional role). If so, this would be very interesting as it might be a parallel to your territorial boss theory.

Costello wanted for his caporegime to convince LaPorte to take some action against Fusco....

Yes. The question still remains for me whether this was because LaPorte was formally above Costello’s capodecina in the chain of command, or because LaPorte was simply a powerful capo who controlled the liquor licenses in the Chi Heights area.

Also, any guesses as to who Costello’s capodecina might’ve been?

Additionally, what was Fusco’s exact placement at this time? Was he a capo himself, or a lieutenant under Ferraro?

Cross-posting this over from the "Chop Shop Wars" thread viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7478&start=15, as it's really a major point of discussion for Chicago in general and I don't want to derail that thread.

FWIW, I don't get the impression from this convo that LaPorte explicitly outranked Costello's capodecina in any formal sense of chain of command here. Another passage from Costello read: "My GOBROGINA told me at that time, when the CAMPAGNA'S had the place. It makes me look bad, and he said, you go to FRANK [LaPorte], and tell him you'll go all the way if you have to." What I read is that LaPorte's role in this was due to his clout in the region and his control over liquor licenses. The matter came before Giancana as a dispute between crews that required intervention by the boss of the Outfit to resolve. If Costello's capodecina actually answered to LaPorte, in the vein of the territorial boss theory, I just don't see this capo as advising Costello to bring his beef to LaPorte with an ultimatum that they will take it to the top if LaPorte doesn't help Costello. As with most of these things, the actual dynamics remain opaque and the evidence could be plausibly interpreted in light of more than one theory, of course.

Another interesting thing to note is that Costello in this same convo refers to Giancana as the "Avougat", and the conversation moves into Italian at points with an unnamed third party who also speaks "broken English" with the term "Avougat" mentioned several more times. My experience with the term Avougat has only been in the context of the Commission, where at least one New York CI in the 60s distinguished an Avougat from a simple boss of a family, in that an Avougat represented other family bosses in his capacity as Commission members (in the sense of a lawyer = "Avvocato"). So the NYC bosses and Chicago were "avougat" in that they were not solely representing their own families on the Commission (unlike, say Bruno, who presumably was not an "Avougat" although he did have a Commission seat). I haven't seen Avougat used apart from this context, so it jumps out at me that this term may have been how made members in Chicago formally referred to the boss (in this case, Giancana as the "CEO" or day to day executive of the organization).

Given that so much of our historical info on Chicago came from non-made sources, a conversation like this between a made guy and the boss, touching on formal aspects of the organizational hierarchy and thus deploying terms for positions likely not used with non-made guys, is crucial to better outline the potential internal structure of the "Chicago LCN family" dynamic of the Outfit.

[Villain]

The question still remains for me whether this was because LaPorte was formally above Costello’s capodecina in the chain of command, or because LaPorte was simply a powerful capo who controlled the liquor licenses in the Chi Heights area.

Also, any guesses as to who Costello’s capodecina might’ve been?

Additionally, what was Fusco’s exact placement at this time? Was he a capo himself, or a lieutenant under Ferraro

To me the situation sounds like this....Fusco began entering areas which were not under his jurisdiction but instead they were under LaPorte. So, LaPortes guy who was involved in the same scheme was Costello, who obviously had a problem with Fuscos so-called "invasion". During those days Fusco was under Ferraro and Alex, meaning he belonged to a different faction.

So it is quite possible that Costello expected from LaPorte (south suburban and nw Indiana rep) to solve the problem either through Alex or Ferraro. Obviously LaPorte didnt have the ear for the problem and so Costellos next solution was to force his caporegime to talk to LaPorte regarding that same thing. Who knows, maybe Costellos caporegime was very close with LaPorte and also ignored the problem....

We can see that Costello already went straight to the boss and not the underboss, possibly because of the previous situation, meaning Fusco was with the underboss because both belonged to the South Side faction.

Regarding the question on who might've been Costellos capo at the time....well the convo occurred in 1962 which i believe was a little bit early for Catuara to take such position and so my guess would be either Joe Guzzino or John Roberto, although the latter one began spending more time with his deported brother in Italy. If it was Guzzino, then it might explain Costellos problem with both of his bosses.

According to one 1965 convo between Alderisio and Frank Luzi (LaPorte assistant and blood relative), Alderisio stated that Luzis associate Catuara and his close associates were not good and were "eating everything" and Alderisio used Catuara, Rubino and Fidanzi as examples. This also might relate to the LaPorte-Costello situation, meaning Costellos boss didnt care much about his underlings while his pockets were constantly full. Luzi and Alderisio also mentioned Palermo as their mutual friend from the C City area. Previously or in 1964 we can see a business connection between Alderisio and Catuara which means that Alderisio knew what was he talking about.

So it is possible that by 1965 Catuara was one of LaPortes capos around C City and the Heights, with Zizzo in Indiana and Curry in Joliet and Will County. Guzzino died around the same time, same as John Roberto i think. In addition, im not sure if Curry also oversaw LaPortes AZ crew but i know that his close associate Armand D'Andrea did.

As for Fuscos status in the Outfit....my guess is that he possibly received some higher stature during the 1940s when the Fischettis allegedly took control. We have evidences that Fusco controlled his own small crew at the time and continued like that until the early or mid 50s.

Later he probably had that "Ralph Capone" stature, meaning by the early 60s Fusco probably still held respect among the rest of the membership as a former capo or something like that. We cannot see Giancana badmouthing Fusco and we also can see that whenever Fusco had a problem, he took it straight to Ferraro and Alex and usually it went his way.

[Coloboy]

I’ve kind of always assumed the “Board of Directors “that was referred to was essentially comprised of the official top level bosses (top boss/boss/underboss), Plus anyone who held an official “advisor “ or “senior advisor” title, which I believe at times included non-Italians like Jake Guzik, Gus Alex, and Humphries. In later years those advisor positions would belong to people like Lombardo, Tornabene, and Andriacchi.

It sure does seem similar to a large corporation, where a Board of Directors will hire and fire a CEO who runs the daily operations. And over everything you have the top boss, or chairman of the board, such as Ricca, Accardo, or DiFronzo.

My read on it anyway.

[Villain]

I’ve kind of always assumed the “Board of Directors “that was referred to was essentially comprised of the official top level bosses (top boss/boss/underboss), Plus anyone who held an official “advisor “ or “senior advisor” title, which I believe at times included non-Italians like Jake Guzik, Gus Alex, and Humphries. In later years those advisor positions would belong to people like Lombardo, Tornabene, and Andriacchi.

It sure does seem similar to a large corporation, where a Board of Directors will hire and fire a CEO who runs the daily operations. And over everything you have the top boss, or chairman of the board, such as Ricca, Accardo, or DiFronzo.

My read on it anyway.

Back in the old days usually there were also 4 representatives....like for example Prio, Alderisio, LaPorte and Alex....Prio was often labelled as member of the board of directors...

[Villain]

The question still remains for me whether this was because LaPorte was formally above Costello’s capodecina in the chain of command, or because LaPorte was simply a powerful capo who controlled the liquor licenses in the Chi Heights area.

Also, any guesses as to who Costello’s capodecina might’ve been?

Additionally, what was Fusco’s exact placement at this time? Was he a capo himself, or a lieutenant under Ferraro

To me the situation sounds like this....Fusco began entering areas which were not under his jurisdiction but instead they were under LaPorte. So, LaPortes guy who was involved in the same scheme was Costello, who obviously had a problem with Fuscos so-called "invasion". During those days Fusco was under Ferraro and Alex, meaning he belonged to a different faction.

So it is quite possible that Costello expected from LaPorte (south suburban and nw Indiana rep) to solve the problem either through Alex or Ferraro. Obviously LaPorte didnt have the ear for the problem and so Costellos next solution was to force his caporegime to talk to LaPorte regarding that same thing. Who knows, maybe Costellos caporegime was very close with LaPorte and also ignored the problem....

We can see that Costello already went straight to the boss and not the underboss, possibly because of the previous situation, meaning Fusco was with the underboss because both belonged to the South Side faction.

Regarding the question on who might've been Costellos capo at the time....well the convo occurred in 1962 which i believe was a little bit early for Catuara to take such position and so my guess would be either Joe Guzzino or John Roberto, although the latter one began spending more time with his deported brother in Italy. If it was Guzzino, then it might explain Costellos problem with both of his bosses.

According to one 1965 convo between Alderisio and Frank Luzi (LaPorte assistant and blood relative), Alderisio stated that Luzis associate Catuara and his close associates were not good and were "eating everything" and Alderisio used Catuara, Rubino and Fidanzi as examples. This also might relate to the LaPorte-Costello situation, meaning Costellos boss didnt care much about his underlings while his pockets were constantly full. Luzi and Alderisio also mentioned Palermo as their mutual friend from the C City area. Previously or in 1964 we can see a business connection between Alderisio and Catuara which means that Alderisio knew what was he talking about.

So it is possible that by 1965 Catuara was one of LaPortes capos around C City and the Heights, with Zizzo in Indiana and Curry in Joliet and Will County. Guzzino died around the same time, same as John Roberto i think. In addition, im not sure if Curry also oversaw LaPortes AZ crew but i know that his close associate Armand D'Andrea did.

As for Fuscos status in the Outfit....my guess is that he possibly received some higher stature during the 1940s when the Fischettis allegedly took control. We have evidences that Fusco controlled his own small crew at the time and continued like that until the early or mid 50s.

Later he probably had that "Ralph Capone" stature, meaning by the early 60s Fusco probably still held respect among the rest of the membership as a former capo or something like that. We cannot see Giancana badmouthing Fusco and we also can see that whenever Fusco had a problem, he took it straight to Ferraro and Alex and usually it went his way.

In addition, according to Luzi, during those days LaPorte was still travelling to Italy while doing favors for the deported Dom Roberto. So what was Robertos stature at the time? Ammirato, John Roberto, Guzzino, LaPorte, Pilotto....all constantly travelled to Italy and met with Dom Roberto....thats a lot of action for one old or former capo who was deported since the 1930s....

[Villain]

One example on how the territorial boss system works...like i previously said, Costello probably expected for LaPorte to talk to Alex and Ferraro and so heres an example of a guy who allegedly didnt follow protocol and how Luzi was introduced....



And few other examples...

[PolackTony]

Thinking of the unnamed Italian-speaking individual in the Costello/Mooney convo, it could of course be any number of guys. I do wonder if it was Catuara, however, as Wemette noted to me that Catuara spoke imperfect English with a heavy Italian accent.

[Villain]

In the Campagnas case...Costellos capo told him to go first to LaPorte and to tell him that he (Costello) will go to the boss if Frank doesnt do anything about it...and so he did...

[PolackTony]

In the Campagnas case...Costellos capo told him to go first to LaPorte and to tell him that he (Costello) will go to the boss if Frank doesnt do anything about it...and so he did...

Yep, this was the passage that I was quoting from of course. LaPorte was living in Cali at the time and thus was not in Chicago to intervene on Costello's behalf with Fusco. The reason why I still am on the fence is that I don't see how what was actually stated in this conversation necessarily entails that LaPorte outranked whoever Costello's capodecina was, in the formal sense of a chain of command that would be implied by the territorial boss theory. To me all of this could just as well be consistent with LaPorte's input being necessary because he had tons of political clout in the "Region" and controlled liquor licensing. In other words, to me, this doesn't prove that LaPorte was Costello's boss's boss, rather than both being formal equals (even if LaPorte was "first among equals", just in terms of the sort of de facto power he wielded) and both answering as capos to Giancana. I know that you draw on lots of different lines of reasoning to support your theory, my point being that this convo isn't sufficient to make a closed case.

It goes without saying that I'm bringing this up to play Devil's "avougat", as debate on these things can only serve to clarify our arguments and contribute to a better understanding of what will remain a somewhat murky and opaque topic.

[PolackTony]

The question still remains for me whether this was because LaPorte was formally above Costello’s capodecina in the chain of command, or because LaPorte was simply a powerful capo who controlled the liquor licenses in the Chi Heights area.

Also, any guesses as to who Costello’s capodecina might’ve been?

Additionally, what was Fusco’s exact placement at this time? Was he a capo himself, or a lieutenant under Ferraro

To me the situation sounds like this....Fusco began entering areas which were not under his jurisdiction but instead they were under LaPorte. So, LaPortes guy who was involved in the same scheme was Costello, who obviously had a problem with Fuscos so-called "invasion". During those days Fusco was under Ferraro and Alex, meaning he belonged to a different faction.

So it is quite possible that Costello expected from LaPorte (south suburban and nw Indiana rep) to solve the problem either through Alex or Ferraro. Obviously LaPorte didnt have the ear for the problem and so Costellos next solution was to force his caporegime to talk to LaPorte regarding that same thing. Who knows, maybe Costellos caporegime was very close with LaPorte and also ignored the problem....

We can see that Costello already went straight to the boss and not the underboss, possibly because of the previous situation, meaning Fusco was with the underboss because both belonged to the South Side faction.

Regarding the question on who might've been Costellos capo at the time....well the convo occurred in 1962 which i believe was a little bit early for Catuara to take such position and so my guess would be either Joe Guzzino or John Roberto, although the latter one began spending more time with his deported brother in Italy. If it was Guzzino, then it might explain Costellos problem with both of his bosses.

According to one 1965 convo between Alderisio and Frank Luzi (LaPorte assistant and blood relative), Alderisio stated that Luzis associate Catuara and his close associates were not good and were "eating everything" and Alderisio used Catuara, Rubino and Fidanzi as examples. This also might relate to the LaPorte-Costello situation, meaning Costellos boss didnt care much about his underlings while his pockets were constantly full. Luzi and Alderisio also mentioned Palermo as their mutual friend from the C City area. Previously or in 1964 we can see a business connection between Alderisio and Catuara which means that Alderisio knew what was he talking about.

So it is possible that by 1965 Catuara was one of LaPortes capos around C City and the Heights, with Zizzo in Indiana and Curry in Joliet and Will County. Guzzino died around the same time, same as John Roberto i think. In addition, im not sure if Curry also oversaw LaPortes AZ crew but i know that his close associate Armand D'Andrea did.

As for Fuscos status in the Outfit....my guess is that he possibly received some higher stature during the 1940s when the Fischettis allegedly took control. We have evidences that Fusco controlled his own small crew at the time and continued like that until the early or mid 50s.

Later he probably had that "Ralph Capone" stature, meaning by the early 60s Fusco probably still held respect among the rest of the membership as a former capo or something like that. We cannot see Giancana badmouthing Fusco and we also can see that whenever Fusco had a problem, he took it straight to Ferraro and Alex and usually it went his way.

In addition, according to Luzi, during those days LaPorte was still travelling to Italy while doing favors for the deported Dom Roberto. So what was Robertos stature at the time? Ammirato, John Roberto, Guzzino, LaPorte, Pilotto....all constantly travelled to Italy and met with Dom Roberto....thats a lot of action for one old or former capo who was deported since the 1930s....

I agree. I think that the South Suburban faction of the Outfit (as with the Northside) has gotten short shrift and there's still plenty we don't really know and understand about them. An important area that hasn't really been grappled with enough centers on their connections to Italy and (the likely associated networks of) narcotics trafficking. There's that one pic that Matt Luzi had of the Heights bosses hanging out with their "amici" in Calabria. My personal suspicion is that the Ruberto/Emery/LaPorte group had close ties to what became the infamous 'Ndrangheta clans of the Simbario/Nicastro area. The local "Picciotteria" was already well-established there by the late 19th century and included a clan boss by the name of Antonio Ruberto.