B. wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:13 am
PolackTony wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 4:53 pm
Glad that JD is continuing to look into Midwest guys.
Whenever I think that the FBI had really poor intel about Chicago back in the day, all I need to do is look at what they had for STL and Chicago was almost a goldmine by comparison. For example, on the 1967 member list that JD cites here, out of 12 identified members of the STL "outfit", 9 -- including both Anthony and Joe Giardano -- were only identified as such by bug, while two others were ID'd by Milwaukee member Augie Maniaci and another by an unknown Detroit source. Obviously by this time STL was already a small and declining Family in terms of formal membership, but the Feds had very little insight into them.
2018 thread with a lot of St. Louis info. We've learned more since then and a few things have been corrected or put in better context, but I do feel the FBI had a pretty good read on their status in the 1960s, they just couldn't confirm membership for elderly members. And like Chicago we learn more from one Bomp visit than through most other sources combined.
https://theblackhand.club/forum/viewtop ... =29&t=4109
1968
Boss - Tony Giardano
Underboss - John Vitale
Consigliere - John Ferrara
Capodecina - James Giammanco
Soldiers:
Vince Biondo
Frank Bommarito
Ralph Caleca
Joseph Cammarata
?-Vincenzo Chiappetta
Anthony DiMartino
Vincent Filippello
Anthony Giammanco
Joseph Giardano
Anthony Miceli
John Mirabella
Frank Pisciotta
John Vitale
Size: 22 according to Tony Giardano
Identified: 16 or 17
Youngest member said by Giardano to be James Giammanco who was 48. Average age according to Giardano was 62 or 63.
The FBI was very aware of Giardano and Vitale's activities but most of the Family was inactive and even the few that were "active" were marginally involved in crime if at all.
Looks like they had a consiglio but not sure it still existed under Giardano.
Since the old thread too it's become more obvious the Chicago member Joe LNU who served as a liaison to St. Louis in Cicero was Aiuppa. The Inserro brothers hung out at the same hotel controlled by Aiuppa which Giardano and Bomp met Joe LNU in. The Inserros were originally from St. Louis and the nickname "the Saint" evolved from the nickname "Little St. Louis".
Thanks for the link to the 2018 thread, you did a great job of summarizing and discussing the 1960s FBI intel on STL there, of course.
As I noted, the 1967 list that JD used in his entry on Joe Giardano carried most of the ID’d members there based solely on a bug. The FBI had installed a microphone somewhere in STL in 1963 that captured conversations between Giardano and other men and served as one of their primary sources of intel on the Family (coded as “SL T-1” on the 1967 report). The CI who gave much of the info that you discussed in that thread — the “council table” in Miceli’s funeral home, the Palermitano origin of most of the Family by this time, the prestige of the men from Favarotta as compared to the Cinisesi and Partinicesi — was actually a source from the Detroit office (DE 1176-PC, coded as “SL T-2” in the 1967 report), not the STL office. While the Feds did have a couple of CIs from the STL office, these sources apparently gave little info and most of the STL info thus came from the bug and the Detroit guy, with a bit from Lou Fratto, Maniaci, and Joe Gurera as well. As you note, we then get some very important insight and confirmation from Bomp in 1968. As with Chicago, much of the organizational intel we get with STL in this period actually comes from sources affiliated with other Families.
Would be very interesting to confirm who the Detroit source could’ve been, especially given his account of the men from Favarotta. Whoever he was, he seemingly did not identify himself as a member of the “outfit” (his term) in either Detroit or STL. The only STL member that the FBI used him as a source for on the 1967 was Giammanco (he also referred to Giammanco as a liaison between Detroit and STL). Unsurprisingly, the Detroit source claimed that Giardano’s power and authority was derived from Detroit (Zerilli), while Lou Fratto (who also claimed that the only men of importance in the “outfit” in STL were the Giardano brothers and Vitale, claiming that the others were all “small guys”) instead claimed that Giardano’s power and authority was derived from Chicago (Giancana) (Fratto was coded as “SL T-9” in the 1967 report).
I know that in the 2018 thread Pogo brought up the allegation that John Vitale may have been a CI. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but if he was a CI used in the 1967 sources, he presumably gave little info. There were a couple other STL CIs developed by 1968, but I haven’t yet seen that any of them were identified as members.
