General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[Ninored]

Was the 42s a multi-set gang like the Gangster Disciples, or was it just one gang?

[Antiliar]

Was the 42s a multi-set gang like the Gangster Disciples, or was it just one gang?

As far as we know, just one gang.

[funkster]

Tony, is that Rossi spot the old Tini Martini? Been there a few times, small place.

Nah, the River North spot where the recent quadruple shooting occurred is owned by a company called Martini Bros which is stated to be connected to Rossi.

If I recall correctly, Tini Martini was on Milwaukee in Logan Square? Never went but used to mess with some chicks that hung out there.

Sorry, i think it was called Martini Ranch maybe? You're right Tini Martini was on Milwaukee.

[funkster]

Tony, is that Rossi spot the old Tini Martini? Been there a few times, small place.

Nah, the River North spot where the recent quadruple shooting occurred is owned by a company called Martini Bros which is stated to be connected to Rossi.

If I recall correctly, Tini Martini was on Milwaukee in Logan Square? Never went but used to mess with some chicks that hung out there.

Martini Ranch use to be in the spot where the shooting occures. Good spot. Must have close 10 plus years ago.

lol yup, just said the same. It was Martini Ranch. Place was tiny though.

[SonnyC]

Pacella was one of a number of guys that the feds surveilled coming and going from the Old Neighborhood Italian American Club in the late 80s and early 90s.

That would be the original club on 26th street. He wasn't around the new club much although you could tell he was a well respected guy.

[PolackTony]

In 1958, the Feds received intel that Ross Prio had a mansion on Lake Geneva in WI, but that it was under the name of another Italian. Prio allegedly used this mansion for organizational meetings, target practice, and to harbor outfit guys who had to escape heat in Chicago. After searching through property records, they discovered that Gaetano “Black Tom” Oneglia’s widow Vittina Castelluzzo (from Ciminna) owned a mansion on Lake Geneva, and concluded that this was the Prio mansion. They noted that this time that Prio and Oneglia had business partnerships going back to the 1930s. We, of course, know that Prio and Oneglia were also paesani from Ciminna. Additionally, at the time of Gaetano’s murder in 1943, the Oneglias lived on the 6100 block of N Campbell in West Ridge, in the far Northside; in 1930, the Prios lived on this same block.

On another note, Oneglia daughter Katherine Oneglia was married to CPD detective Frank Cerone (not outfit member Skippy Cerone), who I believe was another Cerone cousin.

Another connection to WI. When Gaetano Oneglia was slain in December of 1943, the papers reported that he had previously been arrested in Milwaukee (under the alias "Joe Testa") with Dom Nuccio (alias "Joe Delano") on charges of operating a "huge" still on a farm in Menominee Falls, WI (in Waukesha County, NW of Milwaukee). The farm was owned by a Mrs. Frank Bulgrin. Oneglia and Nuccio's partners in operating the still were William Hill of Milwaukee and Julius Cicchini of Kenosha. The case wound up getting dismissed by a Federal judge in Milwaukee in 1935. Cicchini, who died of natural causes in Kenosha in 1936, was noted as a local bootlegger and still operator in Kenosha along with his son Nello Cicchini and was from Ascoli Piceno province, Marche (which had a major colony in Chicago Heights with close links to the outfit). The family of Dominick Tirabassi, who Gavin Schmitt has reported was the boss of the Kenosha OC organization in the 1960s, seems to have also been from Ascoli Piceno, as was Floyd Ventura, reputed bootlegging partner of Gaetano Vitello Jr of Chicago (nephew of former Unione Siciliana President Constantino Vitello); Ventura was shot to death in 1945 after he was pinched with Vitello on illegal liquor charges. Also worth noting that Julius Cicchini had previously lived in LaSalle County, IL, (an area that we've seen had strong suggestions of significant mafia/OC activity back in the day) around 1917.

That both Oneglia and Prio had strong connections to WI is, of course, also indicated by their key involvement in Grande Cheese. Oneglia, at the time of his death, was reported as a major shareholder of Grande, with Fred Romano as the official President and Prio as General Manager. Prio was no newcomer to the dairy industry, as he had previously been the head of the Uptown Chicago Dairy Co (misleadingly named, as it was located on Harrison on the Westside) and a suspect in the firebombing of a rival Chicago dairy company in the 1930s.

Some other tidbits from the papers following Oneglia's barber shop execution.

• While he was first reported as a "minor" hoodlum, investigators were soon telling the press that Oneglia was "the reputed Northside boss of the Capone-Nitti gang", alleged to have been the Northside overlord of gambling, vice, illegal booze, and labor union corruption activities. It was reported that Oneglia's son-in-law Henry "Happy" Vazzano was a business agent for the Hod Carriers Union (LIUNA) and that Oneglia had been using his union ties to secure jobs as recompense to bookmakers who had been forced out of business by LE pressure. Henry Vazzano, who married Oneglia's daughter Margaret, was born in Chicago in 1911 to Giuseppe Vazzano and Rosaria Corrao of Ventimiglia di Sicilia, which directly neighbors Ciminna (recall that Giuseppe LaSpisa had been the head of Chicago's Ventimiglia Society when he was murdered, reputedly on orders of Michele Merlo in retaliation for having been behind the murder of boss Tony D'Andrea). Henry Vazzano was later busted in a Northside gambling raid in 1951 with Thomas Oneglia Jr.

• Police were receiving intel that Oneglia's killing was linked to a broader contest for control of gambling activities in Chicago following the suicide of Frank Nitti, tensions that they believed may have been linked to the 1943 murders of Danny Stanton and Westside Jewish operator Benjamin "Zuckie the Bookie" Zuckerman, as well as Edward "Big English" Ross, an English-born Northside gambler and jewel thief found shot to death in his apartment soon after the Oneglia murder. As more gangland murders occurred in 1944 (most sensationally, the brutally murdered and tortured corpses of D'Angelo and Vitale), police began to suspect that the war within the underworld was beginning to approach the levels of outrageous violence characteristic of the Capone era. Another high-profile incident that occurred during early 1944, which investigators suspected may have been linked in some way to the string of murders, was the kidnapping and release of Jake Guzik. Given the connections to the Grande Cheese Co, police also, naturally, suspected that Oneglia's murder may have been related to the "black cheese market", opining that the violence associated with mob control over Chicago's dairy industry in the 1930s may have bubbled up again. Worth noting also that when the Benevento events happened in 1945-46, investigators stated at that time that they had sources claiming that Benevento and DeJohn had been engaged in a battle with Accardo's group for control of gambling territories; they also believed that D'Angelo and Vitale had been loyalists to the Accardo faction who were murdered by Benevento and his men, which would fit their suspicions in 1944 that D'Angelo had been one of the gunmen in the Oneglia hit. Who knows if this was anywhere near the truth, but we still have little idea of exactly how the factional lines broke down in this conflict, who was with who, and who actually killed who.

[Tonyd621]

The black cheese market is cutthroat.

[Eline2015]

About heights. I think, that after Piazza was killed, Sam Costello became a rappresentante of Heights family before they was absorbed by Chicago in 31

[PolackTony]

1962 CI stating that the Buccieri crew’s territory included a large chunk of the Near Westside as well as another territory farther West (presumably spanning the City and Cicero). From Tony Pine’s file.



Interesting that the informant didn’t think that Buccieri’s territory encompassed Taylor St. An associate of the Lucchese Family who worked closely with Chicago guys from the Cicero crew in the late 1990s told me that he understood their crew at that time to be called the “Taylor St Cicero” crew, which is how he refers to them (he also said that they answered at that time to “Big Mike”, obviously Spano).

[Antiliar]

About heights. I think, that after Piazza was killed, Sam Costello became a rappresentante of Heights family before they was absorbed by Chicago in 31

Why do you think that?

[Eline2015]

About heights. I think, that after Piazza was killed, Sam Costello became a rappresentante of Heights family before they was absorbed by Chicago in 31

Why do you think that?

Sorry, not Sam, Charlie Costello, who was described as a "Leader" of other brothers. I know, that in Heights Costellos and Zarantes were dominant groups within sicilians in Heights, but Charlie seems like man of big power and respect among sicilians and calabrians with close ties to Capone

[B.]

Wish we knew if they voted to disband like Birmingham and Madison or if they were forced to like Newark. The violence lends itself to the latter.

Possible too some of the guys in the area were already made with Chicago. Capone being a remote Genovese member in Chicago opens up all kinds of possibilities with the local groups. All of the Heights guys closely associated but that doesn't tell us what was going on formally.

Since Gary may have existed as late as 1935 we can't be sure there wasn't a temporary boss after Piazza given the lack of inside sources. Worth considering.

[funkster]

1962 CI stating that the Buccieri crew’s territory included a large chunk of the Near Westside as well as another territory farther West (presumably spanning the City and Cicero). From Tony Pine’s file.



Interesting that the informant didn’t think that Buccieri’s territory encompassed Taylor St. An associate of the Lucchese Family who worked closely with Chicago guys from the Cicero crew in the late 1990s told me that he understood their crew at that time to be called the “Taylor St Cicero” crew, which is how he refers to them (he also said that they answered at that time to “Big Mike”, obviously Spano).

Well that's new. Does he know more recent stuff about them?

[Snakes]

1962 CI stating that the Buccieri crew’s territory included a large chunk of the Near Westside as well as another territory farther West (presumably spanning the City and Cicero). From Tony Pine’s file.



Interesting that the informant didn’t think that Buccieri’s territory encompassed Taylor St. An associate of the Lucchese Family who worked closely with Chicago guys from the Cicero crew in the late 1990s told me that he understood their crew at that time to be called the “Taylor St Cicero” crew, which is how he refers to them (he also said that they answered at that time to “Big Mike”, obviously Spano).

Well that's new. Does he know more recent stuff about them?

The Ferriola/Infelise crew (of which Spano eventually inherited the remnants) was also at times referred to as the Taylor Street crew. This probably came about because Taylor Street was the geographic origin of the crew. Over time, the geographic influence of the crew changed and moved further west, eventually encompassing Cicero and many other far western suburbs, as well as Lake and McHenry Counties. As we also now know, the geographic influence of the crews was fluid, and other districts and neighborhoods changed hands upon death, imprisonment, or loss of power and influence among members. Although we have a general understanding of crews and their "home base" neighborhoods, there is still a lot that we don't know about who ran what at what time and who they reported to, as well as the extent of "shared" territory.

[PolackTony]

1962 CI stating that the Buccieri crew’s territory included a large chunk of the Near Westside as well as another territory farther West (presumably spanning the City and Cicero). From Tony Pine’s file.



Interesting that the informant didn’t think that Buccieri’s territory encompassed Taylor St. An associate of the Lucchese Family who worked closely with Chicago guys from the Cicero crew in the late 1990s told me that he understood their crew at that time to be called the “Taylor St Cicero” crew, which is how he refers to them (he also said that they answered at that time to “Big Mike”, obviously Spano).

Well that's new. Does he know more recent stuff about them?

Not sure. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to talk with him about it again. He spent a lot of time in Chicago in the 90s and said that he was not the only New York guy working there with Chicago guys. Says that NYC and Chicago guys today still know each other at the national level and have contacts with each other (not just the Genovese but all the NYC Families, per this source). He also opined that at least in the “late 90s to the early 2000s”, Chicago had as much or “more respect” within LCN “than New York” (his words), due to the fact that (up until that point) Chicago didn’t have any members who flipped and that the made guys were extremely secretive (“they only deal with their own people and no one else”, whereas NYC guys tend to be too out in the open and deal with too many people) and heavily invested in legit businesses. He likened Chicago to the Genovese Family in the above ways, and claimed that they were seen as having an equivalent status within LCN.

I can also tell you that the guys he knew with “Taylor St Cicero” were people that either I had never heard of or that none of us would’ve thought were anyone. Other stuff that he told me as well that I can’t share. I’ll say that there was a lot of stuff going on that none of us know about (something to always keep in mind with this subject).