General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[B.]

I'm with you on that. Unfortunately this subject is a very rough science so we're all going to measure the weight of evidence in different ways.

I mean just look at the Costello transcript:

- I see Costello as a made member discussing protocol with the Family boss concerning a dispute with another member. He references his own unidentified capodecina and the need to consult with another capodecina (LaPorte) about a specific policy.

- You see Costello as an associate discussing protocol with the Family boss concerning a dispute with a member. Costello may refer to the made member he's under figuratively as a "capodecina" but this person isn't a captain and actually reports to official capodecina Frank LaPorte.

- Villain saw Costello as a member discussing protocol with the Family boss (but not the "Top Boss") concerning a dispute with another member. Costello references his own capodecina but this capodecina is formally subservient to "Territory Boss" Frank LaPorte, who is being sought out to make a ruling over the dispute as he governs over multiple captains.

We all agree Costello was in a position to consult with the Family boss about a dispute with a member and sought out Giancana to clarify the protocol for handling his situation. We also agree LaPorte was being consulted in some way about the dispute. But we all see the Chicago organization slightly differently and that influences how we measure the evidence.

My view of Chicago was heavily shaped by the Family Secrets case and I have a tendency to see the formal Chicago Family as a more disciplined and secretive group. In this case, the son of a murdered member meets with the Family boss and throws around formal mafia terminology (in a Family where that's allegedly uncommon) and expects intervention in a dispute with a made member. My POV def colors how I weigh that evidence.

What's both fun and frustrating about Chicago is we still don't have a solid concensus over how they operated. We've made massive headway though and I give you guys all the credit.

[Snakes]

Thought this was interesting, so sharing it here. From early 1990s:

[Coloboy]

Thought this was interesting, so sharing it here. From early 1990s:

Thanks for sharing. Seems on point for what we believe regarding structure. I think in this context "street crew boss" and "street boss" could be exchanged for capo (someone like Lombardo for Grand, Ross Prio for Northside etc).

It also lends credence that oftentimes what we have called the "day to day boss" or the "#1" (Aiuppa, Giancana) was frequently the guy with the most powerful crew underneath him. Although I am still of the belief that this position was essentially hand picked by a combination of Accardo/Ricca (or whoever was in that role) and whoever the "board of directors" could be at any given time. I believe this role could be also be fired if things weren't working out (Giancana).

[PolackTony]

Thought this was interesting, so sharing it here. From early 1990s:

Thanks for sharing. Seems on point for what we believe regarding structure. I think in this context "street crew boss" and "street boss" could be exchanged for capo (someone like Lombardo for Grand, Ross Prio for Northside etc).

It also lends credence that oftentimes what we have called the "day to day boss" or the "#1" (Aiuppa, Giancana) was frequently the guy with the most powerful crew underneath him. Although I am still of the belief that this position was essentially hand picked by a combination of Accardo/Ricca (or whoever was in that role) and whoever the "board of directors" could be at any given time. I believe this role could be also be fired if things weren't working out (Giancana).

Regarding the term "street boss", Nick Calabrese testified that these individuals were referred to as capos or captains within the family. Also, from Chicago SAC Ed Hegarty to Congress in 1983, where he states that the FBI had been aware for some time that the official title of what was often called "street boss" in Chicago was "capudecina" (refer to the Costello-Giancana wiretap transcript above to show that by the early 1960s the FBI had captured the formal term in use in Chicago):


So far as I can recall, the notion that the boss of the Chicago family was the head of the most powerful street crew at the time goes back to the discussions on the old ANP forum; I believe that this was the pet theory of "the Don" (if I'm not mistaken at the moment; maybe it was Black Angelo instead). For all I know, the file snippet that Snakes posted here could be the basis for that theory. I'm not personally so sure if that's how things worked; I mean, maybe it did, but then one would expect that either Buccieri or Torello would've been boss, given what seems to have been the formidable character of the Buccieri crew. Was the Aiuppa crew the most powerful crew (by whatever criteria we would like to use to measure "power") in the early 1970s? And what about Giancana himself? In Frattiano's book, we have him reporting that Roselli stated that Giancana had been direct to Accardo; he then seems to have become UB and then boss (this isn't 100% confirmed, of course). The excerpt here seems to be from an FBI summary of source intel (hopefully Snakes can give some further context?), and I'd like to know more about who the sources were and exactly what their accounts stated.

On a somewhat related note (considering nomenclature, POV of an informant, and their status within the outfit), here's an excerpt from James "Dukie" Basile's 1996 testimony to the US Senate's Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary:





Basile, who, so far as we know, was an associate and never made, describes himself as a "loyal member of the outfit for 38 years". Who knows to what degree his account was shaped by his close engagement with the FBI and prosecutors over the years. But still, I think it's an interesting potential window into how what we would call an "LCN associate" of the Chicago family viewed himself: as a "member". I suspect that if he had been cross-examined on the stand, and asked if he was "made", he would've made a clear distinction between his own status and the made guys. One of the issues that I try to attend to is the problem of insider-vs-outsider speech in encounters between mob affiliates and LE. What LE, and by extension, us, consider a "member" -- i.e., an inducted member of cosa nostra -- may not be how some of these guys on the street in Chicago would've understood or used the term "member". They may have seen themselves, (what we would call) "associates" working under made guys and captains in the Chicago family, as "members", in that they "belonged" to a crew of the family, even though they weren't made guys and weren't what we would refer to as "members", following the FBI usage of "associate" vs "member". I believe this could potentially have factored into some of the earlier intel that we have from CIs in the 1960s, for example, where we have accounts that state that there was no known ceremony or ritual involved with "membership" in Chicago; a guy was just told "you're in" by the man he reported to, and/or was "put on" the family "payroll". What exactly was being asked of informants? How exactly did they understand the terms the FBI used to query them, and was there anything lost in translation?

[Angelo Santino]

Interesting conversation and everyone can provide background as to their reasoning. I'm just getting caught up after a 2 month break from Mafia nerding but looking at this argument, I mean, would this be questioned so thoroughly if this Costello wiretap was in Philadelphia or Tampa? I looked at the discussions and words used and that has all the makings that describe a member.

We broke down Chicago in our phone discussions and the largest distinction between that and other families is that they had associate crews with leader succession rather than one offs like we see in NY with Watts, Burke or McIntosh. And that difference might not be so different as Detroit and New England might have had similar arrangements with local non-Itals.

[Coloboy]

So far as I can recall, the notion that the boss of the Chicago family was the head of the most powerful street crew at the time goes back to the discussions on the old ANP forum; I believe that this was the pet theory of "the Don" (if I'm not mistaken at the moment; maybe it was Black Angelo instead). For all I know, the file snippet that Snakes posted here could be the basis for that theory. I'm not personally so sure if that's how things worked; I mean, maybe it did, but then one would expect that either Buccieri or Torello would've been boss, given what seems to have been the formidable character of the Buccieri crew. Was the Aiuppa crew the most powerful crew (by whatever criteria we would like to use to measure "power") in the early 1970s? And what about Giancana himself? In Frattiano's book, we have him reporting that Roselli stated that Giancana had been direct to Accardo; he then seems to have become UB and then boss (this isn't 100% confirmed, of course). The excerpt here seems to be from an FBI summary of source intel (hopefully Snakes can give some further context?), and I'd like to know more about who the sources were and exactly what their accounts stated.


[/quote]





Agreed on that going back to ANP. However, I think you are correct in that the boss need not necessarily be the guy with the most "powerful" crew, whatever that means. We have enough examples to dispute that for sure.

[B.]

Interesting conversation and everyone can provide background as to their reasoning. I'm just getting caught up after a 2 month break from Mafia nerding but looking at this argument, I mean, would this be questioned so thoroughly if this Costello wiretap was in Philadelphia or Tampa? I looked at the discussions and words used and that has all the makings that describe a member.

Tony made a similar point a while back about the Chicago council, that if we had as many references to another Family using a board / committee / council for administration as we do with Chicago we wouldn't hesitate to say they had a formal council. Not that anyone was pushing back on the council idea -- I think we all agree they had something along those lines -- but I think the mythos around Chicago being fundamentally different from other mafia Families causes us to use a different standard for them than we otherwise would/should.

One of the biggest differences I see in Chicago is not only the non-Italian associates having a very high operational position, but also the use of "crew bosses" or "avugad". These are technically soldiers who are given more operational authority under a capodecina and while other Families have guys like this, in Chicago for whatever reason they had specific terms for them. My take is this position was not a formal rank in the Chicago Family but an operational role, though obviously it can be blurry and nobody (to my knowledge) has broken down exactly how the made members viewed this role. There are equivalents to this even in NYC but you wouldn't hear them called lieutenants / crew bosses / avugad, they would just be regarded as influential made members who have been granted a certain amount of operational authority by their captain.

^ It's also not far off from an acting captain. We know in other cities captains will appoint an acting captain to represent them even when the official is still on the street. The excerpt Snakes posted that mentions this role could just as well be an acting captain in another city but we don't see it referred to that way in Chicago even though the function is similar. The use of "avugad" to seemingly refer to this shows it was nonetheless seen as a representative.

[Snakes]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the snippet. I just think that it was a trend for a few bosses, but I'm not sure why the FBI wrote it as if it was a rule. Just found it interesting.

[PolackTony]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the snippet. I just think that it was a trend for a few bosses, but I'm not sure why the FBI wrote it as if it was a rule. Just found it interesting.

Agreed. This is why I’d be keen to know what specific sources they based this claim on, and what exactly those sources said themselves.

[Snakes]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the snippet. I just think that it was a trend for a few bosses, but I'm not sure why the FBI wrote it as if it was a rule. Just found it interesting.

Agreed. This is why I’d be keen to know what specific sources they based this claim on, and what exactly those sources said themselves.

At that point, the most recent made cooperator that we know of was Scarpelli, who clearly noted that there was a boss and crews with bosses, although I don't think he referred to them as capos. He didn't know who was underboss either, but guessed that it was "probably" Ferriola.

I mention all that to say that I'm not sure they even really knew the nuts and bolts of the organization by 1993, even with Scarpelli's somewhat vague description of the LCN side of things.

[Coloboy]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the snippet. I just think that it was a trend for a few bosses, but I'm not sure why the FBI wrote it as if it was a rule. Just found it interesting.

Agreed. This is why I’d be keen to know what specific sources they based this claim on, and what exactly those sources said themselves.

At that point, the most recent made cooperator that we know of was Scarpelli, who clearly noted that there was a boss and crews with bosses, although I don't think he referred to them as capos. He didn't know who was underboss either, but guessed that it was "probably" Ferriola.

I mention all that to say that I'm not sure they even really knew the nuts and bolts of the organization by 1993, even with Scarpelli's somewhat vague description of the LCN side of things.

Agreed on the feds being unclear on most high level things between say 1986-Mid 1990's. I've ready as many available docs as I can from that period, and I'm sure some of you have read even more. At various times they have Ferriola, Carlisi, Difronzo, Lombardo, Andriacchi, and others mentioned as "running the organization".

a 1989 report describes Difronzo as having taken over "day to day" operations of the outifit and making most decisions, etc. I attribute all the confusion to both the actual organizational chaos that was indeed occurring due to so many indictment and deaths, and also to the much more focused and concerted effort during this period by the outfit to take things underground and away from the public eye. This is the same time period where we begin to see a drastic drop in murders and a more conservative organization in general. It is also the time period where most agree there was a re-structuring of crews, I.E bringing the northside under Grand Ave and bringing the Heights under 26th.

This period is the of the most interest to me for a few reasons. It involves people that were around until very recently, it marks a drastic shift in the organization's business model, and it is the beginning of the evolution of the outfit to whatever we believe it is today. It is one of the reasons that I have always theorized that Difronzo had an outsized role in shaping the outfit during this time. His general outlook as a 'businessman" first with a desire to avoid the spotlight fits in with what the outfit became during this time. All speculation, but I have to think if someone like Lombardo or Ferriola had ultimate say during this period things might have been a bit different.

[Snakes]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the snippet. I just think that it was a trend for a few bosses, but I'm not sure why the FBI wrote it as if it was a rule. Just found it interesting.

Agreed. This is why I’d be keen to know what specific sources they based this claim on, and what exactly those sources said themselves.

At that point, the most recent made cooperator that we know of was Scarpelli, who clearly noted that there was a boss and crews with bosses, although I don't think he referred to them as capos. He didn't know who was underboss either, but guessed that it was "probably" Ferriola.

I mention all that to say that I'm not sure they even really knew the nuts and bolts of the organization by 1993, even with Scarpelli's somewhat vague description of the LCN side of things.

Agreed on the feds being unclear on most high level things between say 1986-Mid 1990's. I've ready as many available docs as I can from that period, and I'm sure some of you have read even more. At various times they have Ferriola, Carlisi, Difronzo, Lombardo, Andriacchi, and others mentioned as "running the organization".

a 1989 report describes Difronzo as having taken over "day to day" operations of the outifit and making most decisions, etc. I attribute all the confusion to both the actual organizational chaos that was indeed occurring due to so many indictment and deaths, and also to the much more focused and concerted effort during this period by the outfit to take things underground and away from the public eye. This is the same time period where we begin to see a drastic drop in murders and a more conservative organization in general. It is also the time period where most agree there was a re-structuring of crews, I.E bringing the northside under Grand Ave and bringing the Heights under 26th.

This period is the of the most interest to me for a few reasons. It involves people that were around until very recently, it marks a drastic shift in the organization's business model, and it is the beginning of the evolution of the outfit to whatever we believe it is today. It is one of the reasons that I have always theorized that Difronzo had an outsized role in shaping the outfit during this time. His general outlook as a 'businessman" first with a desire to avoid the spotlight fits in with what the outfit became during this time. All speculation, but I have to think if someone like Lombardo or Ferriola had ultimate say during this period things might have been a bit different.

A couple of observations based on the files and court records we have available:

1. Ferriola was initially identified as boss of the Outfit during this time period. This information was later refuted by Gerald Scarpelli who, when interviewed by the FBI, identified Sam Carlisi as Joseph Aiuppa's "successor." Leonard Patrick also testified to this effect.

2. I don't have any reports stating this specifically, but around 1989 or 1990, newspaper articles mentioned that John DiFronzo began to assume a more active role in running the Outfit, as Carlisi had purchased a residence in Florida and was spending most of his time there.

3. In 1992, Carlisi was arrested and imprisoned. DiFronzo became de facto boss at this point (despite being under indictment himself). Carlisi was not actually sentenced until March 1996, more than three years after he was initially indicted (being held with bail for that time).

4. DiFronzo was convicted and sentenced to prison in 1993 (overturned on appeal after one year). Files exist with information that Joseph Andriacchi became boss of the Outfit at this time.

5. There is a gap between DiFronzo's release from prison and about 1997. It is assumed that DiFronzo resumed his duties as boss after his release from prison, but later abdicated his position. At this point, John Monteleone assumed the mantle of boss.

6. Monteleone died in 2001 and was succeeded by Al Tornabene.

7. Tornabene is presumably only acting as boss until James Marcello's release from prison in 2003. Later articles refer to Marcellos as the "reputed" boss of the Outfit. Although I cannot find any official FBI or court documentation proclaiming him as such, it is my impression that the news articles cite federal records as the source for their information.

8. DiFronzo seems to have still held some sort of position of influence after 1997, although the day-to-day affairs were managed by those named above.

[Coloboy]

Solid timeline Snakes, and it seems in line with everything we know.

Lombardo is still a big question mark in there for me after his release. an Advisor or Consigliere role is what is most often assumed and would make sense.

[PolackTony]

We don't have a thread for Milwaukee; for comparative purposes considering the topic, it makes sense to post here anyway.

In 1963, Maniaci told the Feds that there was no oath or ritual involved in being made into the Milwaukee outfit; rather, a guy was made at an informal party. Interestingly, Maniaci also claimed that one had to be of Sicilian descent to hold a leadership position within the family. When MPD revealed after the Valachi hearings aired that they had possession of intel stating that the traditional mafia induction ceremony was done in Milwaukee, Maniaci denied this to the FBI, telling them that he was not aware that this was practiced there and that he had undergone no ritual initiation when he was made.






Unlike some of the earlier Chicago CIs (who may have used "membership" to refer to associates who belonged to outfit crews), there is no question here that Maniaci is referring to being made into cosa nostra. So, either he was being deceptive, or so far as he knew, Milwaukee not only didn't do the blood-and-fire, they didn't even do a formal oath (such as Teddy DeRose stated was done in Chicago, or that the DeCavs were doing in the 70s).

[B.]

Never noticed that about Maniaci's induction. They'd be another one of the traditional Sicilian style Families who stopped using the ceremony.

---

Was looking something up and saw that early KC boss Paolo DiGiovanni lived in Chicago before he went to Kansas City.

- Paolo DiGiovanni's 1906 naturalization in Chicago was witnessed by Giuseppe DiGeorge and Nick Buccola. DiGiovanni arrived to the US in 1900 with an Alfonso DiGiorgi from Burgio. DiGiovanni was arriving to New Orleans while DiGiorgi was going to NYC -- seems likely DiGiorgi is connected to DiGiovanni's friend "DiGeorge" in Chicago. DiGiovanni's Family in KC had important people from Burgio, like Ferrantelli who Nick Gentile talked about.

- DiGiovanni was still in Chicago through 1913, when a daughter was born. He was in Kansas City by 1917. He was at or around 40 years old when he left Chicago and quickly became KC boss so I think we can safely say DiGiovanni was an early Chicago member. This also makes two members that left Chicago and quickly became Missouri bosses -- DiGiovanni of KC and Pasquale Miceli of St. Louis. Miceli was from Burgio so he was likely no stranger to DiGiovanni.

- DiGiovanni's hometown Chiusa Sclafani forms a triangle with Burgio and Palazzo Adriano. There's documentation showing Paolo DiGiovanni was well-acquainted with guys from Burgio in Sicily, Chicago, and Kansas City. It seems equally likely he'd have known mafiosi from Palazzo Adriano -- the DiGiovannis / DeJohns of Chicago come to mind. Hard to imagine these two mafia clans named DiGiovanni from neighboring villages weren't familiar with one another in the midwest, assuming there's not a relation somewhere.

- DeRose said along with Nick DeJohn being part of the rebel faction in the Cheese War, the rebels had support from Chicago Heights and Kansas City. Sam DiGiovanni seems like a likely participant in the Heights but you have to wonder who in Kansas City may have been involved. With the KC DiGiovannis having history with Chicago that's one possible connection.