Don Totò: Chicago rappresentante Salvatore LoVerde

[PolackTony]

A+

As a Unione founder and big time Palermitano who met a violent death it looks like this Triolo could have been a prominent early member in the 19th century. Triolo is a common name in Western Agrigento (Phil Bacino's mom was one) and Ignazio Lupo's sister-in-law was a Triolo -- I've speculated her family could be from Agrigento but also possible they were Palermitan given the Lupo relation.

Shows too the Chicago>California connection was in place early.

As a follow-up on Carmelo “Charles” Triolo. While he had previously lived in Oak Park, in the 1890s he was living in Cicero, apparently being one of the first Italians to live there (and, if he were a mafioso, he would have then been the first in a very long and storied line of Cicero mafiosi). The executors of Carmelo’s estate named by the Chicago probate court in 1910 included Stefano Malato, the likely mafia-connected Grand Ave alderman and disgraced Cook County ASA (whose office was located on Grand and Milwaukee next to Giuseppe Morici’s saloon and Calogero Caltabellotta’s barber shop, where Tony D’Andrea was said to have gotten his start in Chicago), and Carmelo’s daughter Angelina, who had married Carmelo’s Barese business partner, prominent confectioner Giacomo Allegretti.

Triolo is common all throughout both Western Sicily and Messina province, but given that all his documents stated that he was from Palermo, I think he probably was from Palermo Città. This would fit with him already having been involved in citrus wholesaling before arriving in the US. As I also noted previously, in the 1870s Triolo was initially partnered with Alessandro Ribolla, a Palermitano citrus merchant who arrived in Chicago in the 1850s.

[Ivan]

So Capone was only the "official" rapprasantante (I probably misspelled that) for like one year, right? 1931~1932?

[PolackTony]

So Capone was only the "official" rapprasantante (I probably misspelled that) for like one year, right? 1931~1932?

We don’t really know for sure whether he remained at least official for some time after he was incarcerated. He could have been taken down in late 1931 when he was sentenced, in 1932 when he was sent to Atlanta, or 1934 when he was transferred to Alcatraz. We know from Bill Bonanno that Ricca was Chicago’s Commission representative from late 1931 through 1946, but the few Chicago sources we have are conflicted as to whether Ricca was ever official boss.

[Ivan]

thanks Tony

[B.]

Brancaccio member / politician / surgeon / pentito Gioacchino Pennino said that Toto Loverde was his uncle who was sent to the US by his grandfather and knew him to have been rappresentante of Chicago who was killed during the Castellammarese War.

Pennino's grandfather Gioacchino Pennino was the boss of the Brancaccio Family and his uncle, also named Gioacchino Pennino, also became boss. Buscetta thought a brother-in-law or son-in-law of the grandfather was boss in between the two Penninos. The pentito Pennino's cousin Dr. Salvatore LoVerde was another Brancaccio member.

So yeah, Toto LoVerde came from one of the most important mafia clans in Brancaccio that produced multiple bosses there in addition to LoVerde becoming a boss in the US. His father-in-law and brother-in-law were bosses and possibly so was another in-law. This was one of the most political and professional clans in Palermo, too, producing politicians and doctors.

[B.]

Okay in 1928 the following were identified as important mafiosi most of which were in Brancaccio:

Rappresentante - Luciano Contorno
Pietro Termini
Gioacchino Pennino
Salvatore LoVerde (it says he is Pennino's son-in-law, so this is the Chicago one)
Cosimo Conti
Gaetano Amoroso
Battista Buffa
Andrea Saccone (LoVerde's mother was a Saccone/Sacconi)
Serafino Marsala
Stefano Bonta

This fits what the pentito Pennino said about his grandfather sending LoVerde to the US where he took over in Chicago. Though LoVerde came to the US in 1911, it looks like he returned to Brancaccio and was a member of the local Family into the late 1920s before then heading back to Chicago and soon becoming a power.

[B.]

It looks like Andrea Saccone was actually labeled the "capo maffia" of Santa Maria di Gesu and LoVerde the "capo maffia" of Romagnolo which is the beach area near Brancaccio.

[PolackTony]

We discussed this recently, but Luciano Contorno may likely have been related to Loverde as well, as several of LoVerde's relatives from Brancaccio who immigrated to Chicago were intermarried with Contornos.

In summary, LoVerde first immigrated to Chicago, where a number of his relatives had settled around Ohio and Aberdeen in the Grand Ave Patch, when he was 17. He gave his address in Palermo at this time on Via Corso dei Mille, the thoroughfare between the neighboring Brancaccio and Romagnolo districts. It's unclear how long he remained in Chicago, but at some point he returned to Palermo and became an important leader in the mafia in the Brancaccio/Santa Maria di Gesu area, noted by Mori in 1928 as a "capomafia" of the Romagnolo district (whether this was a separate Family or a decina or faction under Brancaccio at the time is unclear). Apart from his in-laws being important leaders in the local mafia, a possible relative of his mother was boss of SMG and another likely relative was listed as the rappresentante of Brancaccio. He also had several LoVerde relatives in Chicago's Grand Ave neighborhood involved in murders during the 1920s, including the cousins that I noted previously who were suspected of having assassinated a CPD officer investigating "syndicate" activities. At some point during the late 1920s, he returns to Chicago. The pentito Gioacchino Pennino recalls that his grandfather "sent" LoVerde to Chicago. Given the timing, during the Fascist assault on the mafia, LoVerde may have been escaping justice, hence his use of the false identity of "Augustus LaVerde" on his documents in Chicago. Pennino also recounts that Antonino "Nene" Passannante (who may have been the Bonanno member) and the father of Pennino's friend and colleague Giovanni Lo Iacono were sent to Chicago by the Partinico mafia to "organize abroad against the [Fascist] regime".

We know that Nick Gentile claimed that LoVerde and Pittsburgh's Siragusa were murdered following Maranzano's death in retaliation for hving secretly colluded with the latter (Gentile, again, served on the "peace commission" tasked with arbitrating the conflict with these two and painted himself as having been the only one who remained faithful to its objectives of impartiality, while the others were beholden to Maranzano, in conversation with Paul Ricca.

Interestingly, however, Pennino addresses this. Pennino said that he befriended Toto Catalano shortly after he had returned to Sicily, where Catalano had set himself up selling Persian rugs in the Adduara district of Palermo. Pennino claimed that Catalano told him of "Nick the Traitor", and how Gentile had, by "reporting falsehoods, caused the murder of my uncle Salvatore Lo Verde [...] during the mafia war [...] between Massaria [sic] and Maranzano". As a reminder, we know that Catalano himself had connections to Chicago, where his paesan' Ross Prio had been a powerful capodecina.

Unfortunately, we only have access to Pennino's book, which is out of print, via Google Books, which only gives a small preview of it and a later page likely containing important information about LoVerde is not accessible.

[B.]

While it seems unexpected for Toto Catalano to be gossiping about Nicola Gentile and the murder of a Chicago boss in 1931, this adds to the likelihood that he was related to the Chicago member Domenico Catalano from Ciminna who was friends with Gentile and involved with the issue between Paolo Torino and D'Andrea. Torino was from Ciminna also. Domenico was alive for a long time after LoVerde was killed so he would have been well-aware of what took place.

For these guys with lineages in Sicily I'm sure these big names and events were ever-relevant given the many threads connecting them.

[B.]

Also the text says that the Stefano Bontà on the above list is the grandfather of well-known Santa Maria di Gesu boss Stefano Bontate. So Bontà appears to be another variation of the Bontate/Bontade name. We know Stefano's father Francesco Paolo was a boss there as well.

Amazing that LoVerde was a peer of these guys.

Pennino testified that his cousin Dr. Salvatore LoVerde was consigliere di provincia. He appears to be referring to "legitimate" political office, not the mafia provincial rank (pentiti have testified that the mafia provincial structure includes the capo di provincia, sottocapo di provincia, and consigliere di provincia).

Looking at the 1928 list again, I think all of the names may have been considered leaders/bosses and Contorno could have been a higher-level regional leader.

LoVerde held mafia meetings at a glass factory in Romagnolo and controlled hiring there.

[B.]

Just to clarify about Catalano, Pennino seems to be referring not to the Bonanno leader Toto Catalano but his cousin Salvatore who was called "Sacha" (though he calls him Toto here). Later he says he met with Catalano and his brother Onofrio. Onofrio was Sacha's brother and the boss of Ciminna at one point.

[PolackTony]

Just to clarify about Catalano, Pennino seems to be referring not to the Bonanno leader Toto Catalano but his cousin Salvatore who was called "Sacha" (though he calls him Toto here). Later he says he met with Catalano and his brother Onofrio. Onofrio was Sacha's brother and the boss of Ciminna at one point.

I was wondering. The timeline wasn’t clear to me but it wouldn’t make sense that this would’ve occured after Sal Catalano was released from prison, as Pennino had flipped years before that.

When/where in the US did the other Salvatore Catalano lived?

[B.]

The cousin lived in NYC and was made in Ciminna but closely associated with the Gambino Family. He was close to Carlo Gambino and Buscetta. He and Onofrio attended the Bono wedding, as did their cousin Toto.

Sacha Catalano is in the back left and Onofrio is sitting in the center:

[motorfab]

Salvatore Catalano moved to the US after the police repression due to the Ciaculli Massacre, so after 1963. I think I read somewhere it was in 1965 or 1967. Not sure for Saca (the cousin), but it's probably the same timeline

[CabriniGreen]

Salvatore Catalano moved to the US after the police repression due to the Ciaculli Massacre, so after 1963. I think I read somewhere it was in 1965 or 1967. Not sure for Saca (the cousin), but it's probably the same timeline

I think it 64.

But some of the guys like PolakTony disagree. He says it was part of natural immigration patterns, or the second immigration wave or something.


I don't really agree, but I'm not a researcher, I don't see the point in arguing.