What do We Know about the Newark Family?

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B.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by B. »

Excellent -- thanks for the link. It's more likely than the Colombo Family at least.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by motorfab »

B. wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 3:27 pm Also Fab -- wasn't Baldassare Accardi from Salemi like the other Toronto drug traffickers? The head of the Sicilian mafia's 1920s/30s cattle rustling operation (which was island-wide) was an Accardi from Salemi as well. Could still be a connection to Settimo as he had relatives in neighboring villages and Salemi is near Vita. Accardo/Accardi is a very common name in that region of Trapani, though.

Another guy to bring up is San Jose member Anthony Scavuzzo. Born in Vita like so many of these guys and started as a mafioso in Newark, likely with the Newark Family, but he didn't move to San Jose until later in the 1940s so he must have belonged to an NYC Family in NJ before his move.

It appears there was a large Vita faction in the Newark Family which may have factored into Saverio Monaco's status as underboss.
In my notes I noted that he was from Vita, but it seems that you are too :D

Image

I will check again later to be sure, I believe that JP Charbonneau also notes it in The Canadian Connection
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by B. »

Haha, yep shouldn't have second guessed you (or myself).
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by Antiliar »

antimafia wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 3:29 pm
Antiliar wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 1:18 pmThis FBI document cites a Buffalo newspaper that claimed that Magaddino punished Accardo by not paying him.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... ch=settimo

Accardo fled to Turin, Italy, in 1955 to avoid prison. He was arrested and brought back in 1963 and sent to prison in 1964. While in Italy he allegedly directed narcotics trafficking to the United States and Canada.
The article written by Sidney Zion that was published in that Buffalo newspaper must have been syndicated -- see my post on p. 1 of this thread. I’m providing again a link to my Evernote item, which contains Zion’s article as published in the NYT:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s229/sh/ ... 4b70159a53

If Zion’s name is familiar to us, the reason may be that he is a co-author of Roy Cohn’s autobiography.
Thanks for the article.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by antimafia »

Re: Baldassare Accardo

"Benny" was indeed from Vita (b. Oct 3, 1928). A newspaper obituary for him is captured in the Evernote item to which I've linked below. He died June 17, 2014 in Newmarket, north of Toronto but still part of the GTA.

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s229/sh/ ... 49eb6442ff

See also

https://markhamfuneral.sharingmemories. ... o&sort=dod
https://markhamfuneral.sharingmemories. ... .html?s=40
https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/th ... =171393669 (same content as that in the Evernote item)

Benny's parents -- Vito and Francesca (née Adamo) -- were also born in Vita. I'm exploring whether Benny was related to the young Toronto drug trafficker Vito Adamo by marriage, the two of them being described by journalist Jean-Pierre Charbonneau in his 1975 book as henchmen, along with Salvatore Reggio, for Benedetto Zizzo and Antonio Sciortino. Given Benny's mother's maiden name, perhaps he is related to Settimo Accardi, whom B. has indicated is a cousin of Michael Adamo of the Bonanno Family.

Former American undercover agent Tom Tripodi wrote in his 1993 book about going to Toronto -- and posing as a hitman -- to locate Settimo Accardi, who was a fugitive. (Elsewhere I've read that Accardi spent some time living in Toronto.) Tripodi also wrote about Accardi having family in the city, as well as about going to a pizzeria owned by Zizzo and Benny.

Some of the Might's Greater Toronto city directories from the 1960s show that Benny co-owned two San Francisco Bakery locations in Toronto with a Salvador Simone, sometimes written as "Sam Simone" -- I suspect this Simone is related to Benny's sister Francesca (Frances). One of the locations was on Pharmacy Ave. in Scarborough -- at one time the number of Sicilian-Canadians in this east end of Toronto was significant, but even today there are still pockets. Alberto Agueci and his family were living in Scarborough when Joe Valachi was hiding in the Agueci residence. Recall that Agueci and Zizzo owned the Queen Bakery in Toronto.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Given Accardi's regular absences from the US after losing his citizenship in the 1950s, his "moving" to Sicily in 1955, and his connections to well-known Sicilian drug traffickers both in Sicily and North America, is it possible that he was shelved from his American LCN family shortly before or at some point after "leaving" the US in 1955? that he transferred to a Sicilian CN family such as the Siculiana family?

From Tom Blickman's The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba:

When Lucky Luciano was extradited to Italy in 1946 he once again teamed up with [Nick] Gentile in
organizing drug routes to the US. Gentile had very good connections with well-known drug traffickers
on Sicily, which he may have organized himself. His son was married to the daughter of Pietro Davì,
one of the leading figures in the illegal tobacco and drug trade in Palermo in the 1950s. (27)

Several intertwining Sicilian networks were running heroin to the US. They had the same source –
suppliers from the Corsican underworld in Marseilles with their high quality laboratories – and the
same destination: the North American consumer market. After the War the US expelled dozens of
Italo-American Mafiosi besides Luciano. These so-called 'undesirables' became the inter-oceanic link,
and stimulated the metamorphosis of the Sicilian Mafia from a backward rural power-system into a
modern protection and smuggling industry.

One of the protagonists was Giovanni Mira, a Palermo based drug trafficker, but born in Siculiana.
Mira knew Gentile, and he was spotted by the police with Carmelo Caruana in Milan, where they
probably met their Corsican heroin supplier. Both were linked to the so-called Caneba-network, which
smuggled heroin to the US through Canada from 1951 until 1960 when the police disrupted this
route. Mira was sending suitcases with tens of kilos of heroin to a certain Settimo Accardo in Canada.
Another plot, according to Interpol, was to hide heroin in cans of anchovies. In 1960, Mira together
with other high-rollers in the trade – Pietro Davì, Rosario Mancino (one of Luciano's lieutenants in
Palermo) and Angelo La Barbera (a nephew of Davì) – traveled to Mexico and Canada to explore
new drug routes .(28) [<----footnote number]

...

(28) Some of the intertwining networks were identified. The Squadra di Salemi for instance, a network
which got its name from the town Salemi in the province Trapani where most of the traffickers came
from. Or the Caneba network, named after its principal protagonists: the brothers Ugo and Salvatore
Caneba. Information about these networks and Giovanni Mira is in: Comando generale della Guardia
di Finanza, "Rapporto relativo agli episodi di contrabbando di tabacchi e di stupefacenti, interessanti
direttamente o indirettamente la Sicilia, nel periodo dal 1955 al 1963". (In: Documentazione allegate
alla relazione conclusiva della Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in
Sicilia, VIII Legislatura, Doc. XXIII n.1/VIII, Camera dei deputati: Roma 1980); and Nucleo Centrale
Polizia Tributaria della Guardia di Finanza, "Rapporto Penale di Denunzia a carico di Caneba
Salvatore ed altri 42", 6 June 1961. (In: Documentazione allegate alla relazione conclusiva della
Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia, VIII Legislatura, Doc. XXIII
n.1/XV, Camera dei deputati: Roma 1982.)

Mira and Caruana were spotted in 1958, their supplier was Antoine Cordoliani. Settimo 'Big Sam'
Accardo was the subject of numerous investigations in the US between 1930 and 1956, among
others on narcotics charges. He remigrated to Sicily in 1955, jumping a $75.000 bail; in 1960 he was
in Toronto. (See: Rapporto Guardia di Finanza, p.220\245; Caneba+42, p.128; Jean-Pierre
Charbonneau, "La filière canadienne", Les éditions de l'homme: Montreal\Brussels 1975, p.142.)

Accardo was in contact with the Montreal Cotroni Family, under which guise the Cuntrera-Caruana
clan worked at the time. Accardo was also linked to yet another Siculiana-born trafficker Giuseppe
Indelicato, who was arrested in February 1956 with three pounds of heroin in New York. (See:
Bono+159, p.201). The anchovy plot consisted of the smuggling of eight kilo's of heroin a month,
according to Interpol. Accardo was the consignee. (See: Rapporto Guardia di Finanza, p.293;
Pantaleone, pp.79-80.) See also note 54.

...

(54) 54. Sterling (1990), p.238-239; and Tripodi's memoirs, Tom Tripodi & Joseph P. DeSario,
"Crusade. Undercover Against the Mafia & KGB", Brassey's: McLean (Virginia) 1993. Curiously
enough Tripodi was on the same trail 20 years before, when he worked undercover for the Federal
Bureau of Narcotics. Disguised as a contract killer, he had to track Settimo Accardo in Toronto, who
had jumped bail. Accardo's family in New Jersey was well taken care off, investigations showed: their
money arrived through a intricate network of banks in Sicily and Venezuela! Tripodi's operation had to
be aborted to protect a far more important investigation. (See: Tripodi, p.50-55).

The 'more important investigation' centered on pizzeria owner Benedetto Zizzo, part of the 'Squadra
di Salemi' heroin network. Benedetto's brother Salvatore Zizzo, Mafia boss of Salemi, was in contact
with Giovanni Mira and Leonardo Caruana. (See: 'Ucciso fuori dal suo regno', L'Ora (Palermo), 3
September 1981).

With the benefit of hindsight, you can say Tripodi's operation was part of the 'more important
investigation'. Or you could say that Tripodi was on and off on the same investigation for more then
20 years. See note 28.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by motorfab »

A+ antimafia, thanks for the infos !

And on a personal note nice find on Cordoliani who supplied Carmelo Caruana & Mira. Charbonneau mentionned in his Book that Cordoliani also supplied Papalia/the Aguecis/Indelicato & Zizzo with an heroin made by Jo Césari alias "Mr 98%" nicknamed like that for the purity of his heroin
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by B. »

Outstanding work Antimafia. The Adamo connection definitely stands out.

Here is another Accardi angle I wonder about:

Image

Curious if Accardi and Mangano had a baptismal relationship via children or if they were simply "compari" in a close social sense. Connection to a powerful Gambino leader brings to mind his brother Joe Accardi arriving to the US with Accursio Dimino.

Image

^ The guy from Giarre (Catania) might not be connected but the Vincenzo Baldassano was from Sciacca like Dimino and is listed as Dimino's brother-in-law.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by B. »

Since we're talking about Vita and the Accardis were very likely connected to the Vita Family, here's an earlier post about an early pentito from the Vita/Calatafimi Family. No idea if he's related to Newark/San Jose member Anthony Scavuzzo who also came from Vita.
Vito Scavuzzo was a pentito inducted into the Vita Family by the early 1930s. He said Vita and Calatafimi were one Family at that time under boss Vito Musso and it was called the "Rosignolo" Family because the region used to be the Rosignolo fiefdom (we see this trend around Sicily of Families using historic names for districts / regions / villages). Bonanno member Vincenzo Morsellino was from Calatafimi and was a cousin of Newark/Lucchese member Settimo Accardi and Bonanno member Michael Adamo, both from Vita, so there was interrelation between mafiosi from Calatafimi / Vita along with Scavuzzo ID'ing these villages as one Family.

Scavuzzo also ID'd Michele Agosta as the boss of Santa Ninfa and said he was very close to "Rosignolo" boss Vito Musso. Musso was also close to the Family in Montelepre (John DiBella, Giuseppe Saputo, and Phil Candella's hometown) and identified Montelepre figures with surnames that would later be linked to Salvatore Giuliano's bandit group (Giuliano himself was related to Montelepre mafia leaders), including the father of Giuliano's top aide Gaspare Pisciotta (who along with Buscetta ID'd Giuliano as a made member). He ID'd a Candela as one of the Montelepre names, suggesting a link to Phil Candella.

No question the Trapani (and Palermo border) network we see later in the Bonanno Family and rest of the US was well-established in Sicily. These relationships weren't coincidental or new.

What's interesting to me is how Calatafimi / Vita were once one Family called "Rosignolo" but appear to have split later according to the mandamento map and even belong to different mandamenti. Sort of like Castelvetrano disbanding due to Fascist pressure in the 1930s according to Allegra, then obviously regrouping and becoming the most powerful Family in the region in recent decades.

The Calatafimi / Vita situation also shows that Families splitting (i.e. Lucchese/Genovese and Gambino/Colombo) isn't exclusive to the early US. I know you've found similar evidence of this happening in Palermo.

Makes you wonder too if other Families were defined earlier on by historic fiefdoms and then split. I don't know when the Rosignolo fiefdom was dissolved but it could tell us the Family formed there when it was in place.
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by nash143 »

Have just seen this in a file. ‘S’ is ‘Sam,’ supposedly DeCavalcante. Is this accurate?
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Re: Settimo Accardi

Post by B. »

Always been confused by that as well. It's from the DeCavalcante tapes and definitely a reference to Settimo Accardi given the stamps.

The DeCavalcantes were Palermitani so I don't know where the relation would come in but it's clear the Accardis were well-connected in Sicily.
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What do We Know about the Newark Family?

Post by JoelTurner »

The Newark family comes in other discussions but is still pretty confusing. I'm making this post to share what I know and organize the information that's readily available; I think that a clear timeline and membership list is the best way to go about this.

Newark Timeline:

April 19 1910- 24-year old Gaspare D’Amico immigrates to the US

? 1925- 38-year old Vincenzo Troia enters the US illegally. Presumably lives in Illinois/Wisconsin, he had been a boss in Sicily.

March 15 1927- 38-year old Stefano Badami immigrates to the US with Salvatore Pennino who’s Tom Gagliano’s BIL.

December 5 1928- Salvatore Lombardino(37), Andrew Lombardino(24), and Emmanuele Cammarata(25) attend the Cleveland Mafia conference. Cammarata was Joseph Profaci’s cousin.

———————-

Around 1930-31, the Newark Family fought the Richie Boiardo gang.

November 26 1930- Boiardo is shot but survives. Who shot him is unclear.

February 4~March 11 1931- The Maranzano-Gagliano group sends men to help the Newark Family.

Steve Ranelli shoots Boiardo but he doesn’t get injured.

Boiardo is said to have chased Salvatore Lombardino and John Misuraca “back to New York City where they belong”. The Pizzolato brothers were said have been a part of this group.

April 15 1931- Troia attends a meeting at Lucky Luciano’s residence.

Early May 1931- Badami is identified as boss with Sam Monaco as underboss.

September 10 1931- Sam Monaco and Luigi Russo go missing. This was the same day that Salvatore Maranzano was killed.

September 13 1931- The bodies of Monaco and Russo are found with signs of torture.

Last mention of Badami as boss. From this point, Gaspare D’Amico appears to be the boss.

———————-

May 22 1932- Tom Gagliano is sentenced to 15 months in prison.

May 2 1933- Salvatore Pennino is found dead. I couldn't find if his death was natural or not.

———————-

May 3 1934- Vincenzo Troia is arrested and released in Rockford, IL. He gives his address as 365 N. 7th St., Newark, New Jersey.

August 22 1935- Troia, his son Joseph, and his bodyguard Frank Longo are killed at a candy store serving as a lottery office.

Also in Anthony Cangelosi’s store were Nicholas Calliachi, Charles Barraco, Jerome Bevinetto, and Antonio Sunsara. A police tip also named Leonardo Cippoli.

February 22 1937- John Misuraca, Andrew Lombardino and a 3rd man attempt to kill Gaspare but kill his father Domenico instead. This was done on behalf of Joe Profaci.

At this point, the family appears to break up with members joining other families.

———————-

March 31 1955- Stefano Badami is stabbed 40 times. Frank Monaco is arrested near the scene with a knife and tells the police that his brother, Sam Monaco, was in business with Badami at the time of his murder in 1931. This takes places at Vito Oddi’s restaurant.

August 5 1955- Sam Accardi is arrested for narcotics charges with Aniello Santagata, Frank Di Gregorio, Christoforo Robino, Charles Lacascia, Giacento Mannarino, Dominick Sabella, Frank Giampaoli, Ugo Giampaoli, Angelo Buia, and Matildo Buia.

———————-

Former Newark Members:

Anthony Riela- Bonanno

Antonio Paterno- Mangano

Pietro Campisi- Costello
- Carmine Battaglia
- Paul Lombardino

Salvatore Lombardino- Profaci
- Andrew Lombardino
- Emmanuele Cammarata
- Salvatore Cammarata
- John Misuraca
- Salvatore Canella
- Angelo Speciale?

Ben Pizzolato- Gagliano
- Settimo Accardo(Maybe Genov.)
- Joseph Accardo
- Joseph Abate
- Anthony Dolasco
- Benjamin Pizzolato
- Leonardo Pizzolato
- Vito Pizzolato
- Michael Russo
- Stefano Badami
- Frank Monaco?

Bill Feather’s site also listed early Elizabeth figures as a part of this family, but I don’t think that’s correct. Also, there are several individuals who operated in the same circles but whose membership is unknown or I’ve simply never heard of them:

Aniello Santagata

Matildo Buia

Angelo Buia

Albert Barrasso- Probably DeCav.

Vincent DeLava- No clue who this is

Peter Giallombardo- No clue who this is

———————————

Please add whatever information you have relating to Newark. I’m pretty curious about the men who were with Troia when he got killed. I couldn't find much information on them and I know that there are great researchers here.
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Re: What do We Know about the Newark Family?

Post by Antiliar »

Just a few points to add:

- Obviously I understand that this is mostly speculative. Only Badami, Monaco and D'Amico have been confirmed as Newark borgata members, so some that we think could have been members may not have been.

- Anthony Riela was with Troia. Troia was his uncle and they both came from San Giuseppe Jato, then Illinois. Gentile tells us that Troia tried to take over the Newark Family, but his chronology is off. We don't know which Family they were members of in Illinois since most date the formation of the Springfield and Rockford Families in the 1930s, and we don't know if they transferred their membership to Newark after moving there.

- I get the impression from reading their files that Misuraca, Cammarata and Lombardino may have always been Profaci Family members. So it could go either way for me. The information is just not clear.

- Bill Bonanno in his posthumous book "The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno" wrote some things on Newark that are confused, but there might be a few grains of truth in them. He wrote that it was formed later than other Families, which makes sense considering when Badami arrived. Of course we don't know if maybe D'Amico was an earlier boss who for unknown reasons stepped down, then retook the throne after Badami was killed. There are other cases where an earlier boss became boss again later, like Tony Accardo. He wrote that Newark later went to Elizabeth, which appears to be false. He wrote that Salvatore D'Aquila was the leader of the Newark group, then after he was killed it went under Al Mineo and then absorbed into the Masseria group. We know that D'Aquila was the head of what is now the Gambino Family, but it's possible that Newark was a puppet of his.

- Elsewhere he wrote that before the Castellammarese War, Joe Masseria created a Family loyal to him in Newark. After Masseria was killed the Newark leaders resisted Luciano and Maranzano, so they ordered the Family to be broken up. Around 1934/35 the Family was disbanded, and members were given the option of joining any of the five New York Families. Most did, but some chose Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
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Re: What do We Know about the Newark Family?

Post by JoelTurner »

Antiliar wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 12:33 pm - I get the impression from reading their files that Misuraca, Cammarata and Lombardino may have always been Profaci Family members. So it could go either way for me. The information is just not clear.
What makes you think this? Informant NK-T6 says that Misuraca and Lombardino were Profaci members and that they had been in the same group as the Pizzolato bros who were confirmed Lucchese members. How else could they have been in the same group, which clashed with Richie Boiardo?
Antiliar wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 12:33 pm He wrote that it was formed later than other Families, which makes sense considering when Badami arrived.
I think that's too late a date of formation. Several suspected members like Antonio Paterno- 1911, Pietro Campisi-1899, and Salvatore Lombardino- 1907 had been in the US for years. One interpretation could be that the other families were formed in the 1800s while Newark was formed in the 1900s.
Antiliar wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 12:33 pm He wrote that Salvatore D'Aquila was the leader of the Newark group, then after he was killed it went under Al Mineo and then absorbed into the Masseria group. We know that D'Aquila was the head of what is now the Gambino Family, but it's possible that Newark was a puppet of his.
Mineo was killed on Novemeber 5th 1931 and Valachi was sent to help the Newark family immediately after February 4th 1931. Hypothetically, they could have split from what is now the Gambino Family; Badami becomes boss with help from Maranzano/Gagliano. We know that, by Feb 1931, Newark was an independent family that was not aligned with Masseria.
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Re: What do We Know about the Newark Family?

Post by Eld »

Valachi identified Sam Accardi as a Newark member.
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Re: What do We Know about the Newark Family?

Post by Antiliar »

Eld wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:44 pm Valachi identified Sam Accardi as a Newark member.
Good find
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