General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[InCamelot]

Interesting I recently heard John Pudgy Matassa is far from being inactive and secretly controls a popular restaurant (which I will not name but is in grand and Ogden area) and is behind one of the biggest bookmaking operations in Chicago. Unsure of where he falls in on the Outfit chart but he is definitely towards the top.

People have been claiming for a couple of years that Pudgy is basically out of the life. I don’t know myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a still a big deal, whatever his actual position is in the organization. His in-law is obviously a very big deal in NYC.

Who is Pudgys in-law?

Danny Pagano.

[PolackTony]

Interesting I recently heard John Pudgy Matassa is far from being inactive and secretly controls a popular restaurant (which I will not name but is in grand and Ogden area) and is behind one of the biggest bookmaking operations in Chicago. Unsure of where he falls in on the Outfit chart but he is definitely towards the top.

People have been claiming for a couple of years that Pudgy is basically out of the life. I don’t know myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a still a big deal, whatever his actual position is in the organization. His in-law is obviously a very big deal in NYC.

Who is Pudgys in-law?

Danny Pagano.

[Dr031718]

Interesting I recently heard John Pudgy Matassa is far from being inactive and secretly controls a popular restaurant (which I will not name but is in grand and Ogden area) and is behind one of the biggest bookmaking operations in Chicago. Unsure of where he falls in on the Outfit chart but he is definitely towards the top.

People have been claiming for a couple of years that Pudgy is basically out of the life. I don’t know myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a still a big deal, whatever his actual position is in the organization. His in-law is obviously a very big deal in NYC.

Who is Pudgys in-law?

Danny Pagano.

Thanks guys

[PolackTony]

Interesting I recently heard John Pudgy Matassa is far from being inactive and secretly controls a popular restaurant (which I will not name but is in grand and Ogden area) and is behind one of the biggest bookmaking operations in Chicago. Unsure of where he falls in on the Outfit chart but he is definitely towards the top.

People have been claiming for a couple of years that Pudgy is basically out of the life. I don’t know myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a still a big deal, whatever his actual position is in the organization. His in-law is obviously a very big deal in NYC.

Who is Pudgys in-law?

Danny Pagano.

You know what, this seems like a good time to revisit this.

I’ve heard for years now that Pudgy Matassa is a BIL of Danny Pagano. So far as I can tell, this goes back at least over 10 years to ANP, where the poster Logic claimed that Pudgy was married to Danny Pagano’s sister. This turned out to be false, as (so far as I know) the maiden name of Pudgy’s wife Lynn is Izzo. Now, Pudgy’s sister Candace “Candy” Matassa is in fact married to a Michael Pagano, so then the assumption seems to have become “oh, so Pudgy’s sister is married to one of Danny’s brothers”. As we know that there are longstanding close ties between the Genovese and Chicago, this all seemed perfectly plausible.

Now, so far as I can see, this appears to be false. Candy Matassa and her husband Michael J Pagano live on the Far Northwest Side of Chicago. Other records for this same address show it as the residence of Michael J Pagano Jr, born 03/1951 (and from other records, Candy’s husband Michael is 72 now). This would match a Michael Pagano born ~1952 who attended Holy Cross (a now-shuttered Catholic HS in River Forest that a lot of Italian kids from the NW Side and near suburbs attended back in the day) in the late 60s. I have never seen anything stating that Danny Pagano had a brother named Michael. He had one brother that I know of James, who shot himself in the head in the 70s after a family wedding. Plus, Candy Matassa’s husband, as noted above, is apparently a Michael Jr, while Danny Pagano’s father was, of course Genovese member Joseph Pagano.

On that note, see the below 1997 obit for Michael J Pagano Sr from the Trib. He was born Michelangelo Pagano in 1924 in the comune of Ventimiglia di Sicilia, Palermo province to Francesco Pagano and Grazia Attardo (her father was named Giuseppe, which probably explains why Michelangelo went by Michael Joseph Pagano in the US). In 1950, Michael J Pagano married his first wife, Lucille Rotunno (born in 1930 in Chicago to a Potentino-Irish family), who was the mother of Michael J Pagano Jr. Thus, despite the longstanding claims, the Paganos who are Pudgy’s in-laws appear to be totally unrelated to the Genovese member Paganos (who are of Campanian ancestry and seem to have no familial ties to Chicago that I’m aware of, at least).

[InCamelot]

Wow, it appears that I stand corrected then.

So then we no longer know of the Outfit and Genovese having any direct "lines of communication".

[Ivan]

Interesting I recently heard John Pudgy Matassa is far from being inactive and secretly controls a popular restaurant (which I will not name but is in grand and Ogden area) and is behind one of the biggest bookmaking operations in Chicago. Unsure of where he falls in on the Outfit chart but he is definitely towards the top.

Scott had him as acting consigliere about a year ago, FWIW. Plausible?

[PolackTony]

Wow, it appears that I stand corrected then.

So then we no longer know of the Outfit and Genovese having any direct "lines of communication".

I thought the same of course, as it has been claimed for so long that it just became a “fact” without any evidence beyond “some guy said so”, as is so often the case with this subject. For this reason I like to revisit things we think we know periodically and ask what the basis for them are.

For known direct links as of now, with Auricchio and Cirillo dead, I’m not aware of any specifics. I can say that from what I’ve heard from a few people here that there are guys in the Bronx with connections to Chicago but I’ve only heard this in general terms and can’t be more specific for obvious reasons. Take that for what it’s worth.

[InCamelot]

Wow, it appears that I stand corrected then.

So then we no longer know of the Outfit and Genovese having any direct "lines of communication".

I thought the same of course, as it has been claimed for so long that it just became a “fact” without any evidence beyond “some guy said so”, as is so often the case with this subject. For this reason I like to revisit things we think we know periodically and ask what the basis for them are.

For known direct links as of now, with Auricchio and Cirillo dead, I’m not aware of any specifics. I can say that from what I’ve heard from a few people here that there are guys in the Bronx with connections to Chicago but I’ve only heard this in general terms and can’t be more specific for obvious reasons. Take that for what it’s worth.

On the other hand, has the Outfit developed any contemporary ties with the Gambinos as far as we can tell?

[NorthBuffalo]

Fosco cleared the Pagano thing up on the boards a while back. It was false they were related and the other Paganos that are in-laws don't seem like winners either. Fosco did say that there Matassa and Pagano of NYC know each other (and I believe they were named in several broader national LUINA investigations together and would have likely both known people like Coia). I've seen people saying they did own a restaurant together as well.

I personally think John Matassa's latest scam was quite sad and shows he was quite desperate for cash, but you guys know better. I don't think he was nearly on the level of Daniel Pagano.

https://www.americannewspost.com/susan- ... ara-candy/

[Coloboy]

Fosco cleared the Pagano thing up on the boards a while back. It was false they were related and the other Paganos that are in-laws don't seem like winners either. Fosco did say that there Matassa and Pagano of NYC know each other (and I believe they were named in several broader national LUINA investigations together and would have likely both known people like Coia). I've seen people saying they did own a restaurant together as well.

I personally think John Matassa's latest scam was quite sad and shows he was quite desperate for cash, but you guys know better. I don't think he was nearly on the level of Daniel Pagano.

https://www.americannewspost.com/susan- ... ara-candy/

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know. Meaning a lot of these guys are just career criminals and are going to take advantage whenever and wherever they can. I've known multimillionaires to be some of the cheapest SOB's around. Hard to tell.

[Patrickgold]

Fosco cleared the Pagano thing up on the boards a while back. It was false they were related and the other Paganos that are in-laws don't seem like winners either. Fosco did say that there Matassa and Pagano of NYC know each other (and I believe they were named in several broader national LUINA investigations together and would have likely both known people like Coia). I've seen people saying they did own a restaurant together as well.

I personally think John Matassa's latest scam was quite sad and shows he was quite desperate for cash, but you guys know better. I don't think he was nearly on the level of Daniel Pagano.

https://www.americannewspost.com/susan- ... ara-candy/

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know. Meaning a lot of these guys are just career criminals and are going to take advantage whenever and wherever they can. I've known multimillionaires to be some of the cheapest SOB's around. Hard to tell.

These guys get off on scamming people for money, no matter how small. Desperate? Maybe but look at Fatass Pritzker. A billionaire that risked a federal investigation by taking toilets out of his house just to save $30,000 when you have billions. The information I got about Pudgy is reliable and I was surprised myself. But also remember something about Pudgy. He is a made guy and for him not to use that to his advantage would be stupid in my opinion.

[Ivan]

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know.

Generally what's going on with the "pathetic" rackets we see from time to time from even high-ranking guys is that they are just one revenue stream of many that these guys are constantly setting up simultaneously to hedge toward having a steady income as the revenue streams are ephemeral and can get cut off easily. Some of them are big, some of them are small, but they all add up; however, some of the small ones examined in isolation often look ridiculously lame when other revenue streams (that we often don't even know about) are not noted alongside them. So you'll get people on the boards being like "They only extorted five hundred bucks a month from that one place? You can make that in a week at McDonalds! The once might Cosa Nostra has fallen!" but there's usually more to the big picture than that. (And the five hundred bucks extorted probably takes less than an hour of actual "work" to "earn".) Often they'll get caught for one of the small scams but none of the big ones going at the same time and it makes them look even worse. ("They're going to jail for THAT?!")

[PolackTony]

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know.

Generally what's going on with the "pathetic" rackets we see from time to time from even high-ranking guys is that they are just one revenue stream of many that these guys are constantly setting up simultaneously to hedge toward having a steady income as the revenue streams are ephemeral and can get cut off easily. Some of them are big, some of them are small, but they all add up; however, some of the small ones examined in isolation often look ridiculously lame when other revenue streams (that we often don't even know about) are not noted alongside them. So you'll get people on the boards being like "They only extorted five hundred bucks a month from that one place? You can make that in a week at McDonalds! The once might Cosa Nostra has fallen!" but there's usually more to the big picture than that. (And the five hundred bucks extorted probably takes less than an hour of actual "work" to "earn".) Often they'll get caught for one of the small scams but none of the big ones going at the same time and it makes them look even worse. ("They're going to jail for THAT?!")

Well put.

[Snakes]

Fosco cleared the Pagano thing up on the boards a while back. It was false they were related and the other Paganos that are in-laws don't seem like winners either. Fosco did say that there Matassa and Pagano of NYC know each other (and I believe they were named in several broader national LUINA investigations together and would have likely both known people like Coia). I've seen people saying they did own a restaurant together as well.

I personally think John Matassa's latest scam was quite sad and shows he was quite desperate for cash, but you guys know better. I don't think he was nearly on the level of Daniel Pagano.

https://www.americannewspost.com/susan- ... ara-candy/

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know. Meaning a lot of these guys are just career criminals and are going to take advantage whenever and wherever they can. I've known multimillionaires to be some of the cheapest SOB's around. Hard to tell.

These guys get off on scamming people for money, no matter how small. Desperate? Maybe but look at Fatass Pritzker. A billionaire that risked a federal investigation by taking toilets out of his house just to save $30,000 when you have billions. The information I got about Pudgy is reliable and I was surprised myself. But also remember something about Pudgy. He is a made guy and for him not to use that to his advantage would be stupid in my opinion.

Remember how everyone laughed on ANP and elsewhere when it came out that Sarno was in a position of authority in the Outfit? Turns out he was feared and respected. He did time for the Outfit (even before the 2010 conviction) and had a reputation for violence. Now, Matassa seemingly wasn't a violent guy and only did a year in lockup, but I think the point still stands that made guys are treated differently and carry a lot of weight as long as the organization lets them.

[Coloboy]

Fosco cleared the Pagano thing up on the boards a while back. It was false they were related and the other Paganos that are in-laws don't seem like winners either. Fosco did say that there Matassa and Pagano of NYC know each other (and I believe they were named in several broader national LUINA investigations together and would have likely both known people like Coia). I've seen people saying they did own a restaurant together as well.

I personally think John Matassa's latest scam was quite sad and shows he was quite desperate for cash, but you guys know better. I don't think he was nearly on the level of Daniel Pagano.

https://www.americannewspost.com/susan- ... ara-candy/

I tend to agree on the desperate nature of his last arrest/scam. It did reek of someone not doing great financially. However, you never know. Meaning a lot of these guys are just career criminals and are going to take advantage whenever and wherever they can. I've known multimillionaires to be some of the cheapest SOB's around. Hard to tell.

These guys get off on scamming people for money, no matter how small. Desperate? Maybe but look at Fatass Pritzker. A billionaire that risked a federal investigation by taking toilets out of his house just to save $30,000 when you have billions. The information I got about Pudgy is reliable and I was surprised myself. But also remember something about Pudgy. He is a made guy and for him not to use that to his advantage would be stupid in my opinion.

Agreed. Also, he's been a pretty high ranking guy for a long time, including documented meetings with Cerone and Aiuppa in the early 80's. He was a also a key liason between John Ambrose and the outfit around the family secrets time. He's got a lot of history.