General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[B.]

100%, my friend. This subject would go nowhere without occasional disagreement / different POVs.

I definitely agree DiGiovanni was on friendly terms with the Roberto group. His FBI file refers to him as being associated with Al Capone via bootlegging, so like we see in other cities these guys worked together even when they came from different backgrounds. It's just that we know this association didn't always reflect formal / organizational set-up.

Another blindspot we have is how limited our info is on the size and make-up of the original Heights Family. Their first known boss was a pharmacist and politician, and what remained of the older members shows they were heavily involved in legitimate businesses and largely off the radar in later decades. We're aware of the more criminally active members but we don't know the full extent of who / what was in that Heights Family and that would help inform how the disbandment / merge with the Chicago Family played out.

For that matter, we don't know if the Heights Family inducted non-Sicilians in the area (like Chicago did) or if they were more like Rockford, Milwaukee, and Madison in that they stayed almost exclusively Sicilian.

[Antiliar]

Another aspect of this is DeRose's mention of Chicago Heights supporting the Benevento / Northside faction in the 1940s Cheese War. Nick DeJohn was part of that faction and Sam DiGiovanni was apparently a relative (paternal uncle?), so if it's true there were members in Chicago Heights supporting Benevento we could infer this was an older Sicilian element, especially given the Benevento / Northside faction appears to be heavily Sicilian. DiGiovanni would be an obvious candidate based on the relationship to DeJohn and his history as a Sicilian mafioso.

If DeRose was right about Heights members being involved, it could suggest there was a political divide in the Heights between those who supported the official leadership (i.e. the Roberto-Emery-LaPorte element) and those who favored the rebel faction (i.e. the old time Sicilians). If that's not the case and the Roberto-Emery-LaPorte group supported Benevento that would be interesting in its own right, but I think we can speculate otherwise based on what we know of these relationships and the backgrounds of members. DeRose made it a point to mention "some individuals" from Chicago Heights supporting Benevento / Northside, that's all we know for sure.

Now whether that political divide was significant enough to warrant distinct crews in the area is hard to say, but we also don't know what sort of concessions were made when the Chicago Heights Family disbanded. It's possible that Costello reporting to an unknown capodecina (not LaPorte) who may or may not be the "old time capro" (DiGiovanni?) draws from an arrangement made when the Chicago Heights Family disbanded. Everyone in the Heights associated but we have no inside info except these wiretaps to help clarify the organizational / political set-up in the Heights between the late 1920s and early 1960s, plus DeRose's reference to an element in the Heights who supported Benevento.

There's truth in what DeRose said, but we have to be really careful since he got so much wrong. In going over the other files that add to this document, DeRose said that this "situation" took place in 1954-55 when it was really between 1943 and 47. He said that The Don (Benevento) ordered Nick DeJohn to return to Chicago from San Francisco and kill Accardo and that he was supported by Neglia, the three Doms from the North Side crew, and unnamed people from the Heights and KC. DeJohn failed to keep the order to eliminate Accardo so The Don ordered his murder. Ross Prio eventually killed The Don.

The facts tell us that Neglia was killed in December 1943 - years before DeJohn moved to San Francisco. Vincent Benevento was also killed before DeJohn: Benevento in September 1946 and DeJohn in May 1947, so The Don couldn't have ordered his death. When DeJohn was killed, Chicago police said that he, Benevento and Libby Nuccio formed a "cheese syndicate," but then DeJohn started encroaching on Benevento's authority and bookmaking operations. One or two FBI docs state that DeJohn was a capo in the North Side, but they don't give Benevento that position. Benevento's power and influence came from his leadership in the "Unione Siciliana," whatever they meant by that (the Mafia or the Italo-American National Union?). I agree that Sam DiGiovanni could have been a supporter, but was he supporting Benevento or DeJohn, or both?

[B.]

DeRose def wasn't a master historian. I see his list of names as a list of who he felt belonged to a certain political faction (possibly predating the war) even though he got the timeline wrong and may have been mistaken on certain details. It's like him pointing out which of the council members were Sicilian and non-Sicilian -- he was wrong about Cerone, but it's interesting he got most of them right and felt the need to point out their ethnic backgrounds.

The only thing that could suggest Benevento was a capodecina is that DeRose says the term "caporegime" was used interchangeably with the term "Don". He calls Benevento "The Don" when he talks about him but it's not clear if he was using it in the usual sense (i.e. Don Vincenzo) or if he was referring to him as a capodecina given he says the words were interchangeable.

[Antiliar]

My observation is that DeRose was good on recent events, but tended to make substantial errors recalling past events. I do appreciate his insight into the past, and he certainly gives us knowledge that we wouldn't otherwise have, but we have to recognize his limitations.

If Benevento was a caporegime I suspect it would have been with the old Grand Avenue crew (which became Elmwood Park), perhaps between Accardo and Capezio. Then again, others have had nicknames that suggested a high rank, but turns out they were only soldiers. Tony "the Chief" Bonasera was a Profaci soldier under Johnny Bathbeach Oddo. Joe "the Boss" Masseria may have been called "the Boss" before he was one. Plus why was he the only Outfit member who was known as "The Don" if it meant caporegime? Even the police knew him as "The Don." The problem is that we just don't know enough and probably never will.

[PolackTony]

As for the document, I previously read it the same way as both of you, but knowing what I know about the Heights I soon had my doubts. Then as I learned more about Joseph L. Costello those doubts increased. Although I'm open to the possibility that he was made, in good faith I have to strongly lean that he wasn't. So we may just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Agreed, of course, that these sorts of collegial debates can be very useful and productive. In that light, I’m curious as to what about Joe L Costello specifically would seem to preclude him from membership, in light of the fact that we have a wiretapped sit-down of him with Giancana where he very much “talks like a duck”. Costello was 100% Italian. As we know, his father was Vincenzo “Charlie Costello” Castelli of Càccamo and his mother, Rose Bertoglio, was born in IL to parents from Piemonte. So he was eligible for membership. Further, he worked in liquor distribution which was a heavily mobbed-up business; he wasn’t a random guy with no connection to that world. While I wouldn’t have necessarily suspected that he was a member otherwise, the wiretap transcript, at least based on my reading, strongly supports that he was.

Luzi’s work is important and I have a great deal of respect for him. I always appreciate researchers that come out of connected families and communities. But I have his book and while it contains a wealth of information on the mob in the Heights area, this is basically social and operational-level information. Luzi’s book has essentially no detail concerning the formal, organizational aspect of the mafia, and my guess upon reading it is that Luzi himself has little grasp of this level of analysis (for example, does he even mention in passing that some of these guys were made members of the mafia while others were not?). This isn’t a knock against him, it’s just what seems to me a fair assessment of the limitations of his research. If we had an equivalent of Matt Luzi for the Chinatown/Bridgeport neighborhood, we’d learn a lot of interesting stuff about the social/community and operational dynamics surrounding the mob there. But we wouldn’t learn the kind of stuff that Nicky C presented on the witness stand. We don’t have a Nicky C for the Heights, whether for an earlier or later time period, so there will be some major gaps in our understanding of the organizational aspects of the mafia there.

Something I forgot to mention is the photo on page 36 of Matt Luzi's book The Boys from Chicago Heights. The group photo taken in 1927 was to commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto. The photo includes the DiGiovanni and the Costello brothers. That photo plays an important role in my (tentative) conclusion. To me it wouldn't make sense to pull out DiGiovanni (or someone else) and make them a capo in the Heights when a capo already exists and everyone swore fealty to him. I can't rule it out as impossible, just not seeing it as likely. Anyways, that's my take. On to new things.

On a similar note, I don’t think that the famous 1927 Heights photo will tell us much of anything one way or the other about the formal organizational structure down there. I’m sure that you meant it figuratively, but even if Dom Ruberto was the dominant figure in the bootlegging rackets in the area following the elimination of Piazza, it doesn’t follow that all of these guys “swore fealty” to him. In the context of the mafia, of course, members don’t “swear fealty” to any individual, whether boss or captain, but rather to the organization as a collective whole. Rather than personal loyalty, the question is one of representation and chain of command within the mafia system. Either Ruberto represented every guy who was a member in that photo or he didn’t, and I don’t think that the photo itself provides evidence to clarify this question (any number of scenarios could be consistent with the photo). It’s worth noting also that the phrase “commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto” is from Luzi himself, in the caption for the photo. No further explanation as to what this actually entailed is given by Luzi, apart from a sentence in the main text on p. 36: “A truce was arranged in July 1927, and Roberto emerged as the boss of Chicago Heights”. While Luzi provides endnotes for some other claims in the book, he provides none here. It’s simply asserted as fact, without either supporting evidence or a clear statement that it’s Luzi’s own interpretation of events (which is fine, so long as that’s made clear). In the context of the formal mafia organization, words like “under”, “emerged”, “consolidation”, and “boss” would need to be clarified. This isn’t because I feel the need to engage in pedantry, but because group structure, affiliation, and chain of command mean very specific things in the mafia context and this is the level of analysis under consideration here, as opposed to operational control of the bootlegging racket.

[Patrickgold]

Not really Chicago but Milwaukee but I saw this picture on Facebook. Milwaukee member Tony Pipito with some heavyweights from the East Coast. Does anyone know if Pipito was made? You would think he would have some type of stature to be with these guys.

[PolackTony]

Not really Chicago but Milwaukee but I saw this picture on Facebook. Milwaukee member Tony Pipito with some heavyweights from the East Coast. Does anyone know if Pipito was made? You would think he would have some type of stature to be with these guys.

Not sure that Pipito was made. Neither was Ouimette, obviously, but he was a high-level associate apparently direct with Patriarca. Like a Gus Alex of Providence.

[Antiliar]

As for the document, I previously read it the same way as both of you, but knowing what I know about the Heights I soon had my doubts. Then as I learned more about Joseph L. Costello those doubts increased. Although I'm open to the possibility that he was made, in good faith I have to strongly lean that he wasn't. So we may just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Agreed, of course, that these sorts of collegial debates can be very useful and productive. In that light, I’m curious as to what about Joe L Costello specifically would seem to preclude him from membership, in light of the fact that we have a wiretapped sit-down of him with Giancana where he very much “talks like a duck”. Costello was 100% Italian. As we know, his father was Vincenzo “Charlie Costello” Castelli of Càccamo and his mother, Rose Bertoglio, was born in IL to parents from Piemonte. So he was eligible for membership. Further, he worked in liquor distribution which was a heavily mobbed-up business; he wasn’t a random guy with no connection to that world. While I wouldn’t have necessarily suspected that he was a member otherwise, the wiretap transcript, at least based on my reading, strongly supports that he was.

Luzi’s work is important and I have a great deal of respect for him. I always appreciate researchers that come out of connected families and communities. But I have his book and while it contains a wealth of information on the mob in the Heights area, this is basically social and operational-level information. Luzi’s book has essentially no detail concerning the formal, organizational aspect of the mafia, and my guess upon reading it is that Luzi himself has little grasp of this level of analysis (for example, does he even mention in passing that some of these guys were made members of the mafia while others were not?). This isn’t a knock against him, it’s just what seems to me a fair assessment of the limitations of his research. If we had an equivalent of Matt Luzi for the Chinatown/Bridgeport neighborhood, we’d learn a lot of interesting stuff about the social/community and operational dynamics surrounding the mob there. But we wouldn’t learn the kind of stuff that Nicky C presented on the witness stand. We don’t have a Nicky C for the Heights, whether for an earlier or later time period, so there will be some major gaps in our understanding of the organizational aspects of the mafia there.

Something I forgot to mention is the photo on page 36 of Matt Luzi's book The Boys from Chicago Heights. The group photo taken in 1927 was to commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto. The photo includes the DiGiovanni and the Costello brothers. That photo plays an important role in my (tentative) conclusion. To me it wouldn't make sense to pull out DiGiovanni (or someone else) and make them a capo in the Heights when a capo already exists and everyone swore fealty to him. I can't rule it out as impossible, just not seeing it as likely. Anyways, that's my take. On to new things.

On a similar note, I don’t think that the famous 1927 Heights photo will tell us much of anything one way or the other about the formal organizational structure down there. I’m sure that you meant it figuratively, but even if Dom Ruberto was the dominant figure in the bootlegging rackets in the area following the elimination of Piazza, it doesn’t follow that all of these guys “swore fealty” to him. In the context of the mafia, of course, members don’t “swear fealty” to any individual, whether boss or captain, but rather to the organization as a collective whole. Rather than personal loyalty, the question is one of representation and chain of command within the mafia system. Either Ruberto represented every guy who was a member in that photo or he didn’t, and I don’t think that the photo itself provides evidence to clarify this question (any number of scenarios could be consistent with the photo). It’s worth noting also that the phrase “commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto” is from Luzi himself, in the caption for the photo. No further explanation as to what this actually entailed is given by Luzi, apart from a sentence in the main text on p. 36: “A truce was arranged in July 1927, and Roberto emerged as the boss of Chicago Heights”. While Luzi provides endnotes for some other claims in the book, he provides none here. It’s simply asserted as fact, without either supporting evidence or a clear statement that it’s Luzi’s own interpretation of events (which is fine, so long as that’s made clear). In the context of the formal mafia organization, words like “under”, “emerged”, “consolidation”, and “boss” would need to be clarified. This isn’t because I feel the need to engage in pedantry, but because group structure, affiliation, and chain of command mean very specific things in the mafia context and this is the level of analysis under consideration here, as opposed to operational control of the bootlegging racket.

I don't know of anything that would have precluded him from membership other than a general tendency of the Outfit not to make the sons of made members. Judging by his father's activities and associations, I'm pretty certain he was made. While Joseph L. Costello may fit the profile of a made guy, his name doesn't appear on any list of made members. It also seems to me that Fusco "pulling rank" (or something like that) over Costello's relatives the Macalusos and Costello suggests to me that they weren't made. It may also explain why LaPorte wasn't that interested in intervening, so he would be ruling in favor of an associate over a made guy.

You're right that Luzi didn't do the sort of analysis that we do here, but he does have an interest in it even if he didn't write it all down. Since the FBI began its investigations late in the game, a lot of the older, early members were skipped over and their status was never confirmed. Still, Luzi felt confident enough to name Roberto and Emery as earlier capos, and Sanfilippo and Piazza as earlier bosses. I think that's why he used the bootlegger label for the men in the 1927 photo. Were all of the men in the photo made members, or most of them or just some of them? None of us knows. But they definitely were bootleggers. I believe he thinks Roberto could have been made under Piazza or even Sanfilippo. His sources were his grandfather, an uncle who was a union leader, old newspaper articles. The union leader's father was in the photo. He also contacted relatives of Sam DiGiovanni.

Regarding Sam DiGiovanni, he believes like I do that he was an early capo under the old regime. He's seen the same FBI files and documents that we've seen. He doesn't believe there were any other capos operating in Chicago Heights outside of the Roberto-Emery-LaPorte-Pilotto succession, and he believes that whether or not Costello was made or an associate, he was under their authority.

Some of the language I used regarding the photo was either me quoting him or paraphrasing. "Swear fealty" was just me using flowery language to avoid being monotonous. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as a technical term.

[PolackTony]

As for the document, I previously read it the same way as both of you, but knowing what I know about the Heights I soon had my doubts. Then as I learned more about Joseph L. Costello those doubts increased. Although I'm open to the possibility that he was made, in good faith I have to strongly lean that he wasn't. So we may just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Agreed, of course, that these sorts of collegial debates can be very useful and productive. In that light, I’m curious as to what about Joe L Costello specifically would seem to preclude him from membership, in light of the fact that we have a wiretapped sit-down of him with Giancana where he very much “talks like a duck”. Costello was 100% Italian. As we know, his father was Vincenzo “Charlie Costello” Castelli of Càccamo and his mother, Rose Bertoglio, was born in IL to parents from Piemonte. So he was eligible for membership. Further, he worked in liquor distribution which was a heavily mobbed-up business; he wasn’t a random guy with no connection to that world. While I wouldn’t have necessarily suspected that he was a member otherwise, the wiretap transcript, at least based on my reading, strongly supports that he was.

Luzi’s work is important and I have a great deal of respect for him. I always appreciate researchers that come out of connected families and communities. But I have his book and while it contains a wealth of information on the mob in the Heights area, this is basically social and operational-level information. Luzi’s book has essentially no detail concerning the formal, organizational aspect of the mafia, and my guess upon reading it is that Luzi himself has little grasp of this level of analysis (for example, does he even mention in passing that some of these guys were made members of the mafia while others were not?). This isn’t a knock against him, it’s just what seems to me a fair assessment of the limitations of his research. If we had an equivalent of Matt Luzi for the Chinatown/Bridgeport neighborhood, we’d learn a lot of interesting stuff about the social/community and operational dynamics surrounding the mob there. But we wouldn’t learn the kind of stuff that Nicky C presented on the witness stand. We don’t have a Nicky C for the Heights, whether for an earlier or later time period, so there will be some major gaps in our understanding of the organizational aspects of the mafia there.

Something I forgot to mention is the photo on page 36 of Matt Luzi's book The Boys from Chicago Heights. The group photo taken in 1927 was to commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto. The photo includes the DiGiovanni and the Costello brothers. That photo plays an important role in my (tentative) conclusion. To me it wouldn't make sense to pull out DiGiovanni (or someone else) and make them a capo in the Heights when a capo already exists and everyone swore fealty to him. I can't rule it out as impossible, just not seeing it as likely. Anyways, that's my take. On to new things.

On a similar note, I don’t think that the famous 1927 Heights photo will tell us much of anything one way or the other about the formal organizational structure down there. I’m sure that you meant it figuratively, but even if Dom Ruberto was the dominant figure in the bootlegging rackets in the area following the elimination of Piazza, it doesn’t follow that all of these guys “swore fealty” to him. In the context of the mafia, of course, members don’t “swear fealty” to any individual, whether boss or captain, but rather to the organization as a collective whole. Rather than personal loyalty, the question is one of representation and chain of command within the mafia system. Either Ruberto represented every guy who was a member in that photo or he didn’t, and I don’t think that the photo itself provides evidence to clarify this question (any number of scenarios could be consistent with the photo). It’s worth noting also that the phrase “commemorate the consolidation of the Chicago Heights bootleggers under Dominic Roberto” is from Luzi himself, in the caption for the photo. No further explanation as to what this actually entailed is given by Luzi, apart from a sentence in the main text on p. 36: “A truce was arranged in July 1927, and Roberto emerged as the boss of Chicago Heights”. While Luzi provides endnotes for some other claims in the book, he provides none here. It’s simply asserted as fact, without either supporting evidence or a clear statement that it’s Luzi’s own interpretation of events (which is fine, so long as that’s made clear). In the context of the formal mafia organization, words like “under”, “emerged”, “consolidation”, and “boss” would need to be clarified. This isn’t because I feel the need to engage in pedantry, but because group structure, affiliation, and chain of command mean very specific things in the mafia context and this is the level of analysis under consideration here, as opposed to operational control of the bootlegging racket.

I don't know of anything that would have precluded him from membership other than a general tendency of the Outfit not to make the sons of made members. Judging by his father's activities and associations, I'm pretty certain he was made. While Joseph L. Costello may fit the profile of a made guy, his name doesn't appear on any list of made members. It also seems to me that Fusco "pulling rank" (or something like that) over Costello's relatives the Macalusos and Costello suggests to me that they weren't made. It may also explain why LaPorte wasn't that interested in intervening, so he would be ruling in favor of an associate over a made guy.

You're right that Luzi didn't do the sort of analysis that we do here, but he does have an interest in it even if he didn't write it all down. Since the FBI began its investigations late in the game, a lot of the older, early members were skipped over and their status was never confirmed. Still, Luzi felt confident enough to name Roberto and Emery as earlier capos, and Sanfilippo and Piazza as earlier bosses. I think that's why he used the bootlegger label for the men in the 1927 photo. Were all of the men in the photo made members, or most of them or just some of them? None of us knows. But they definitely were bootleggers. I believe he thinks Roberto could have been made under Piazza or even Sanfilippo. His sources were his grandfather, an uncle who was a union leader, old newspaper articles. The union leader's father was in the photo. He also contacted relatives of Sam DiGiovanni.

Regarding Sam DiGiovanni, he believes like I do that he was an early capo under the old regime. He's seen the same FBI files and documents that we've seen. He doesn't believe there were any other capos operating in Chicago Heights outside of the Roberto-Emery-LaPorte-Pilotto succession, and he believes that whether or not Costello was made or an associate, he was under their authority.

Some of the language I used regarding the photo was either me quoting him or paraphrasing. "Swear fealty" was just me using flowery language to avoid being monotonous. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as a technical term.

Thanks for the response, I always appreciate seeing how someone like you, who has been researching this topic for a long time, thinks through these questions. For Costello, while we know that making the sons of members wasn’t standard practice, we also know that it absolutely did happen in other cases and certainly doesn’t seem to have been the taboo claimed by Frankie Calabrese, Jr. I agree that Charlie Costello was very likely a member, but for me, this doesn’t rule in or rule out Joe as a member. It’s true that he wasn’t carried on the membership lists from that era, but we also can assume that those lists were neither sensitive nor specific (there were true members not listed and guys listed falsely as members). It’s reasonable to assume that there were some members like Costello, who were primarily engaged in legitimate business, and who otherwise didn’t have a high profile within criminal circles. Again, I wouldn’t assert that Costello was made, of not for the wiretap transcript. My take is that we can reasonably conclude that Costello was captured exercising the prerogatives of membership there: attempting to resolve a dispute with another member by following protocol, first going through his capodecina and then appealing to the boss to help settle the problem. While it would seem that Fusco was throwing his weight around, we know that members could and did do that to each other; the mafia as system of representation existed, to no small degree, specifically to mediate these kinds of disputes within the membership. My reading of the transcript also leads me to believe that the Macalusos were probably not made, as Costello’s references them to Giancana as his cousins (thus, if he was a made guy, it would be understood that they were “with” him).

Thanks also for the insight on Luzi. I don’t know him personally so my assessment of his limitations is based entirely on the book. I’m glad to know that he’s aware of some of these things and that he takes an active interest in them. We know that not all of the men in the 1927 photo were made; one of them, at least, Bill Willis, wasn’t even Italian (I’m not sure about Tony Sibolis, who I think could’ve been Lithuanian). I agree that there’s a good chance that Dom Ruberto and probably Emery, at least, we’re already made into the Heights family. This raises some interesting questions into the actual nature of the conflict with Piazza and what resulted from the 1927 “peace treaty”. If Ruberto indeed had already been a member in the Piazza family, then the war in the Heights was an internal struggle for control of the family, rather than a mafia vs non-mafia war (and thus akin to the Capone-Aiello conflict, writ small and a bit earlier). I assumed that you used “swear fealty” metaphorically, and wasn’t trying to read in anything more to it than that. But I brought it up to underscore the need to really think through exactly what happened in Chicago Heights in 1927. It’s fully possible that after Piazza and his loyalists were killed, Ruberto was elected boss of the family. Presumably, this was short lived as the family was then merged into Chicago. But, assuming that the family had, say, at least two decine (as you said, good chance that DiGiovanni had been capo of one), then how did that translate into crew structure when the Heights was merged with Chicago? Were any and all crews in that family simply collapsed into one new Chicago crew (which is what I had assumed previously)?

If Joe Costello was a member, as I believe he was, than we still have to deal with the fact that the transcript, as written (and I’m assuming here that the transcription was accurate), clearly states that LaPorte and Costello’s capodecina were not the same person. Did Costello belong to another South suburbs-based crew, perhaps derived from the crew that DiGiovanni may have headed under Piazza? I think it’s possible, though I don’t know it to have been the case. Alternatively, he was assigned to another crew that we are already aware existed, though I have no idea which it may have been, as his circle seems to have been all based around the Heights area. That a member could be assigned to a crew based nowhere near his own area of residence or business is, of course, underscored by the fact that guys like LoGalbo and Roselli were assigned to LaPorte (these were special cases of transfers from other families, but still, it was possible).

[B.]

It's clear to me Costello reported to a different capodecina other than LaPorte. Me, Tony, the FBI, and even Villain came to that conclusion (though Villain thought it meant LaPorte was "territory boss" over Costello's captain). The language and nature of the conversation heavily suggests Costello was made. Comparing it to other recordings of Chicago members, this Family didn't speak openly about formal organizational matters unless it was necessary (i.e. Prio and one of his members whispering about "avugad"), so Costello dropping terms like capodecina and avugad in this conversation with the Family boss and clarifying protocol are very strong signs of membership. This debate has shown it takes more elaborate speculation to counter this interpretation than it does to simply take the conversation as it is.

Where things become more vague is who Costello's capodecina was, whether it was another captain in the Heights as the FBI suspected, or if he was assigned to another known captain in a different area. Given what we know about Costello, a second-generation "sleeper" involved primarily in legitimate business with a long history in the Heights, it would be very interesting if he was assigned to someone not located in the Heights and would raise new questions about how and why the Chicago Family assigned people to certain crews.

There's still Bompensiero's information too, which was told to him by LaPorte, that LaPorte decina members Pilotto, "Tootsie", and "Jimmy" went to Accardo, Ricca, and Giancana requesting a transfer out of LaPorte's "decina" (the term Bomp used). Would they have been assigned to a captain outside of the Heights, or was there another Heights crew they could have joined? They clearly felt there was an option of some kind aside from LaPorte. This should be considered alongside the Joe Costello / Giancana conversation.

[B.]

^ If the "Jimmy" who requested to transfer out of LaPorte's crew was Catuara, this could play into Wemette's info about Catuara being captain of a different crew in the 1970s. If Wemette is right there's still no way to know if there was continuity between Catuara's crew and Costello's captain (DiGiovanni or not), but it is yet another indication that the Heights wasn't politically / organizationally one-dimensional.

Part of this too is sheer practicality. We have no idea how big the Chicago Heights Family was when it disbanded. The bare minimum of 10 members? 20 or 30? No reason to think they were massive but if they brought in non-Sicilians they would have been large for a single Chicago Family crew. All of this could influence whether or not multiple Chicago Family decinas were formed in the Heights when the Family there disbanded.

I think viewing this through the racket lens (i.e. consolidation of bootlegging activites) is misleading and when member sources come forward they almost always show how limited that view is in terms of formal inner-workings. Not that it isn't relevant, it's just one piece of these relationships and it doesn't perfectly correspond to the organizational set-up.

[cavita]

Went through Phil Priola's files that Gavin shared and they're some of the best on there, most of them showing Maniaci's deep knowledge of that Family.

August 1964 "big meeting" in Chicago involving Chicago, Rockford, and San Francisco Families:


Musso wanted Priola to become boss but his recent move from Chicago turned members off and the Aragona members supported one of their own paesans for boss instead. Jim DeGeorge backed Priola as Rockford boss. Also interesting Maniaci felt Calo transferred to a Sicilian Family


Confirmation of Santo Virruso's membership in the Chicago Family:


Priola's induction:


Like Kansas City and Chicago Families, murder played a big role in induction:



Priola was suspected of gathering support from the zips -- in the Chicago zip thread I mentioned Priola was involved with Pietro Alfano:


"15 to 20" made members in Las Vegas from different Families, with a Pueblo capodecina wanting to organize them as a Family:


Chicago unable to control internal Rockford Family matters:


Reference to Joe Priola being an "old timer" with the Chicago Family and his 100th birthday attended by Milwaukee and Madison members:



Chicago member Joe Priola was a professional musician and member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra:


Phil Priola's baptismal godparents in Chicago:


Joe Maggio made for "special" reasons and Buscemi likely to bring Rockford closer to Chicago


Ex-Chicago member Sam Oliveri's activity in Rockford. In the second excerpt it shows he was receptive to the FBI and potentially willing to give historic info:

The 1964 meeting with San Fran was supposed to take place at Sam Battaglia’s farm out in Pingree Grove, a little town in Kane County west of Elgin (roughly in the middle of Chicago and Rockford), according to a conversation with the Balistrieris that Maniaci told the FBI about. The Feds believed that this was related to the Commission appointing Bonanno’s replacement, and set up surveillance on the farm. During the period in question, however, the only out-of-state vehicle seen on the premises belonged to Tony Panzica’s brother, Dominick, who had been living in Milwaukee for some time (Tony Panzica was himself an associate of the Battaglia crew who frequented Battaglia’s farm; this intel led me to wonder if Dominick Panzica was working as a driver for the Balistrieris).

The Priola-DeGeorge connection makes perfect sense, and is interesting in that it gives us a glimpse into the local politics between Chicago and Rockford. While Chicago was Rockford’s avugad, and obviously a far more powerful family, Rockford was subordinate to them only in the sense of representation on the Commission. As with Milwaukee before Balistrieri, Chicago wasn’t simply able to impose its will on Rockford or appoint their rappresentante. If Chicago were what many assume they were — simply a gang or “crime syndicate” — then presumably they’d have had no compunction about muscling in on Rockford or taking out their leadership and replacing them with puppets or the like. But Chicago was, of course, a mafia family and played by the rules of mafia politics; even when it attempted to meddle in smaller families’ internal affairs, these were still autonomous families and Chicago treated them as such. Rockford obviously had a healthy and well-warranted suspicion of Chicago attempts to dominate or control them, hence distrusting a guy as close to Chicago as Priola with control of the family.

Interesting that Maniaci claimed that Virruso was from Casteldaccia. From what we have documented on him, he was from Pietraperzia (which had many people in Chicago and an active paesani society there for decades), apparently by way of Àlcamo. Now, Casteldaccia is interesting because there absolutely are Virrusos in Casteldaccia and some of them were also in Chicago. If Virruso had ties to Casteldaccia, that could’ve placed him within the “Chicago Triangle” network, with the mafia in Casteldaccia closely intertwined with that of Bagheria, Ficarazzi (the Priolas), and Villabate.

The Vegas/Pueblo stuff is news to me and very interesting. Nothing to add there, apart from noting that, yet again, there are many things that happened that we just don’t know about.

Joe Priola having played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra puts him with the various other professional-type mafia members that we’ve seen with other families over the years. Goes to show that Chicago was no different in this; for me, at least, also goes to further demonstrate that we can’t make assumptions about some of these lower key, old school Sicilians in Chicago. Only because of Maniaci do we even know that Joe Priola was a member and still an active part of the mafia social network at such an advanced age (who knows how with it he would’ve still been at that age, but he wasn’t some forgotten relic discarded in the dustbin of ancient history after the Capone guys took over the family, which tells us a lot, I think). In all likelihood, there were other guys like this who we don’t have a member CI source confirming. The guys that we do know about were criminally active, guys running major criminal rackets, with their names in the papers. This is a major bias in our data; even when we can’t change the nature of the documented evidence that we have, we need to keep that in mind and remind ourselves that not all of the Chicago mafia was legible in that sort of way. Every casual mob enthusiast and their mother knows who Sam fuckin DeStefano was, and he wasn’t even a member. But Priola had guys traveling from other families to pay respect to him as an elder on his birthday, and no one knows who Joe Priola was.

Imagine if Olivieri actually informed to the Feds; imagine what a guy like that could’ve told them about the history of the Chicago family. As you’ve said before, B, one name, one sentence in a document that one of us uncovers could completely flip our understanding of things. Things that we know or suspect could be further confirmed or fleshed out; or, with someone like Olivieri, he could possibly have overturned our assumptions of the history of Chicago. Same with Rockford. Our picture of the origins of that family and its early history is very murky and Olivieri could have provided info there that we would otherwise never have suspected.

Even though Oliveri was listed as a Rockford LCN member I believe that after he moved to Rockford in 1932 and muscled in on Antonio Gasparini's funeral home business, that he basically "retired." There is nothing I can find that Oliveri did anything illegally after moving to Rockford. Perhaps an agreement was made that he would be set up in business and not have anything further to do with LCN matters or perhaps money was laundered through the funeral home. Either way, I think he was inactive since 1932.

[Antiliar]

It's clear to me Costello reported to a different capodecina other than LaPorte. Me, Tony, the FBI, and even Villain came to that conclusion (though Villain thought it meant LaPorte was "territory boss" over Costello's captain). The language and nature of the conversation heavily suggests Costello was made. Comparing it to other recordings of Chicago members, this Family didn't speak openly about formal organizational matters unless it was necessary (i.e. Prio and one of his members whispering about "avugad"), so Costello dropping terms like capodecina and avugad in this conversation with the Family boss and clarifying protocol are very strong signs of membership. This debate has shown it takes more elaborate speculation to counter this interpretation than it does to simply take the conversation as it is.

In isolation the text may appear to lead you guys to that conclusion, but to me the larger context says otherwise. I don't think it's fair to assert that I'm engaging in "more elaborate speculation" to counter your interpretation. From another POV it could be seen as elaborate speculation to assert that there was this mystery capo based on a single transcript that could be interpreted in more than one way. Matt and I discussed this and independently reached the same conclusion after a careful examination of the facts, facts that go beyond this single document. He reached out to others in his extended family as well as relatives of other members in concert with contemporary articles and FBI files to conclude that Costello was a "high-ranking associate" who reported to a lieutenant in charge of liquor distribution. Since Costello's father and uncle were probably made, and since he married the daughter of Jimmy Emery, and was generally associated with Outfit people all of his life, he naturally learned some of the vocabulary. Ted DeRose, who didn't have Costello's connections, knew who sponsored people into the Outfit, which is normally considered inside information. At any rate, I think we've each made our respective cases and will have to agree to disagree (without being disagreeable). Let's leave this well-beaten horse to die a peaceful death.

[B.]

By elaborate speculation I was referring to your argument that he meant capodecina figuratively to refer to someone who didn't hold that rank, or that "gabrochino" (ph) was a reference to an unknown term that isn't capodecina, as well as the idea that the 1927 photo tells us about the organizational set-up in Chicago Heights. You know I have nothing but respect for you and mean nothing personal -- I simply felt those arguments don't pass the stress test and require more elaborate logic than what's written in the transcripts. I would invite anyone to challenge me on the same grounds.

I'm only interested in exploring possibilities based on info that hasn't been properly explained or contextualized. I think Luzi's anecdotal information is valuable but I also don't know how knowledgeable it would be when it comes to the historic inner-workings of a secret society (especially one as disciplined as Chicago).

Just to clarify too, my replies aren't intended to keep the argument going but to simply explore the discussion more because I feel it's been overlooked and to some degree too readily dismissed. This is just how I approach the subject.

[Antiliar]

As a general rule, I bring possibilities of varying degrees of likelihood when considering uncertain events, positions, etc. When I bring them up it doesn't mean I give them equal weight. You might say it's the philosopher in me. I do this because sometimes remote possibilities turn out to be true, so I believe we should at least consider them and rule them out (if we can) based on known facts and sound reasoning.