General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[PolackTony]

Fellas I need a springboard for future research: I am trying to look into the rumored hits after Zizzo. Was inspired by Antiliar's superb posts relating what his source told him. This is what I have:

Tony Catalano
Norberto Velez
Mike DeFillipis
Bobby English (don't steal a truck from that "break every fucking bone in your body" guy's crew, kids)

Are there others? I'm even looking for hits that are tangentially Outfit; i.e., killings that are part of the miasma of violence around the Outfit but weren't necessarily "hits" ordered to further organized crime purposes, hits that are collateral damage of these guys being violent in general. Outfit equivalents of Tommy killing Spider.

I can vaguely remember some others. A bartender and a girl that was with him? Mandell killing someone? Some black gangbanger very recently? Argh can't remember and can't find with search.

Good Scott overview of the first three here for those who have a GR account: https://gangsterreport.com/to-live-die- ... e-sources/

I think there was one Chucky Russell talked about on a wire that they left in the South Side in a black neighborhood, with the thought that they wouldn't be suspected.

That guy was killed in 2016 and Chuckie Russell showed an undercover ATF agent posing as an arms dealer the guy’s drivers license, adding “he’s deceased” (Russell did this to indicate to the “seller” why he wanted the arms he thought he was purchasing).

[funkster]

That one always interested me, Chuckie Russell didnt seem like the type to be a bullshitter.

[Ivan]

Discussed previously here:

viewtopic.php?p=180325#p180325

Thanks a lot man! This is great. I searched quite a bit but this thread either didn't come up for some reason or I overlooked it when it did.

Bobby English isn't listed... is this list it missing any others that might have come to light since then?

[PolackTony]

Discussed previously here:

viewtopic.php?p=180325#p180325

Thanks a lot man! This is great. I searched quite a bit but this thread either didn't come up for some reason or I overlooked it when it did.

Bobby English isn't listed... is this list it missing any others that might have come to light since then?

So far as I recall, the English kid was the only one not discussed there. I believe you’ve seen already where we discussed him though in this thread here previously.

[PolackTony]

That one always interested me, Chuckie Russell didnt seem like the type to be a bullshitter.

I mean, he had the drivers license of a murder victim in an unsolved case on him. Gonna assume that he didn’t find it randomly on the sidewalk. We can also assume that at his age, this wasn’t Chuckie’s first time on the merry-go-round. Now whether this murder or any others that he might have committed were technically mob hits, as in ordered by the admin of the organization, is another question. But Chuckie isn’t around to say even if he wanted to. Either way, Chicago in recent years definitely had guys who were more than capable of heavy work.

[funkster]

He was muscling the guy who owed pete difronzo money, wasn't he?

[Ivan]

Now whether this murder or any others that he might have committed were technically mob hits, as in ordered by the admin of the organization, is another question.

I've always considered this distinction to be somewhat academic. If you get killed by a mobster, to me it's a mob hit, whether the administration OK'd it or not. The unsanctioned hits still usually have to do with organized crime business being performed by a mobster, or the ego of a mobster being wounded in a way that is inseparable from his status and self-regard as a mobster, or a mobster killing someone because he regards himself as a mobster and killing people is what thinks mobsters naturally do when crossed, etc. etc.

So to my way of thinking, the aforementioned murder of Spider by Tommy DeSimone was a mob hit, irrespective of whether it was an Official Mob Hit formally sanctioned by the Commission in its capacity as the ruling body of La Cosa Nostra (Italian for "this thing of ours") or whatever.

That's just me though. (I do cheerfully and cordially admit that sanctioned vs. unsanctioned is an important distinction among mobsters themselves and don't intend to downplay it. I just see unsanctioned hits often get described as "Not mob related" and... yeah they kind of are actually.)

[PolackTony]

Now whether this murder or any others that he might have committed were technically mob hits, as in ordered by the admin of the organization, is another question.

I've always considered this distinction to be somewhat academic. If you get killed by a mobster, to me it's a mob hit, whether the administration OK'd it or not. The unsanctioned hits still usually have to do with organized crime business being performed by a mobster, or the ego of a mobster being wounded in a way that is inseparable from his status and self-regard as a mobster, or a mobster killing someone because he regards himself as a mobster and killing people is what thinks mobsters naturally do when crossed, etc. etc.

So to my way of thinking, the aforementioned murder of Spider by Tommy DeSimone was a mob hit, irrespective of whether it was an Official Mob Hit formally sanctioned by the Commission in its capacity as the ruling body of La Cosa Nostra (Italian for "this thing of ours") or whatever.

That's just me though. (I do cheerfully and cordially admit that sanctioned vs. unsanctioned is an important distinction among mobsters themselves and don't intend to downplay it. I just see unsanctioned hits often get described as "Not mob related" and... yeah they kind of are actually.)

I wouldn’t say that a murder that was unsanctioned by the organization is ipso facto “non-mob related”, though that’s a fuzzy category (note that I didn’t use “mob related” myself in the above, for this reason). You have unsanctioned murders that happen within the mafia itself, of course, and you wouldn’t consider a guy whacking a boss without sanction “non-mob related”. Reasonably, however, not every act of violence committed by a mafia affiliate merits being considered “mob related” in any meaningful way. For example, a guy beating his wife to death in a fit of rage, apart from specific cases where the organization ordered him to carry out an honor killing, which has occurred.

To me a “hit” specifically denotes a murder that is ordered or contracted out against a specific target. Killing a guy because he happened to annoy or insult you at that moment wouldn’t be a “hit”, though it could be “mob related” in some very general sense (say, a guy disrespects you and this is a challenge to your status/face). Guys who are affiliated with the mafia of course at times also engage in criminal or other activity that has little to no relationship to their status as LCN affiliates or to the organization as such. When Greg Scarpa was hired by the FBI to kidnap and assault a Klansman in MS in the 60s, if Scarpa had killed the guy, would that be a “mob hit”? If Barney Bellomo takes his grandkid to the Bronx Zoo, is that a mob related zoo visit?

We don’t know what Chuckie Russell was doing exactly, and as I noted, we don’t know if this or other murders that he may have committed were sanctioned by the organization. This is important to know. There’s no lack of nuts out there who kill people for whatever reason and we’d like to have an idea as to whether the organization itself today still sanctions murders, under what circumstances, what protocol might surround it, etc. Historically, at least, in Chicago a captain could approve the murder of a non-member. What would be the protocol today?

[Ivan]

We don’t know what Chuckie Russell was doing exactly, and as I noted, we don’t know if this or other murders that he may have committed were sanctioned by the organization.

Speaking of whom, what's the story on this guy? I know nothing about him other than he may have killed a guy for the Outfit and disguised it as a street gang killing. Can't find much on his background in search.

[PolackTony]

We don’t know what Chuckie Russell was doing exactly, and as I noted, we don’t know if this or other murders that he may have committed were sanctioned by the organization.

Speaking of whom, what's the story on this guy? I know nothing about him other than he may have killed a guy for the Outfit and disguised it as a street gang killing. Can't find much on his background in search.

Alleged to have been an associate of the Grand Ave crew under Albie Vena. I believe that he had been a C-Note, like Vena. He did a lot of time in the joint. He was convicted of murder in 73, when he was in his early 20s. After being released he was convicted on rape charges in 1992 and sentenced to 35 years (he was also charged with attempted murder in that case but acquitted on that charge). He was released on parole in 2011 and after seems to have led a “crew” of armed robbers and burglars. Home invasions, allegedly torturing guys. Typical Grand Ave fun and games.

In 2016, at age 67, he was recorded by an undercover ATF agent who posed as an arms dealer, during a straw purchase of a number of guns including an Uzi and an AK-47. He was recorded bragging about his outfit affiliation, his experience in pulling “thousands” of heists, and the murder of the black dude noted above. He told the agent that he was plotting to rob a wealthy lawyer that he was staking out for $750k in a home invasion and that he would force victims to comply by putting a blowtorch to their feet:

“The fun for me is the score[.] That's how I get my adrenaline."

“If he doesn't open it, we're gonna make him open it. They always open for me, believe me. I bring my butane torch, put it on the bottom of their feet, they open it."

It will be a great Christmas, I'm telling you. You're going to love this[.] Nothing gets my juices flowing like putting a gun to someone's head, taking their stuff and making it mine."

He was of course arrested after this, at which point he was found with an illegal weapon in his home. In 2018, he wound up pleading guilty for the latter charge, but was found to have Stage 4 prostate cancer. Because of his poor health he couldn’t be sentenced and was released to live with his girlfriend, Patricia Spilotro, a niece of Tony and Mike Spilotro. Chuckie Russell died in 2019.

[funkster]

Was he the guy collecting for Pete Difronzo or was it someone else? I forget. The guy in the photo with Pete fishing as i recall? A lot of this stuff gets hazy after awhile lol

[PolackTony]

Was he the guy collecting for Pete Difronzo or was it someone else? I forget. The guy in the photo with Pete fishing as i recall? A lot of this stuff gets hazy after awhile lol

That was Mickey Davis you’re thinking of. He was an associate of Pete DiFronzo and was sent to collect on a debt from RJ Serpico in MP. Davis then reached out to Gigi Rovito to have someone throw a “fucking thorough beating” on Serpico. Gigi got Paulie Cap, who of course got Georgie Brown, who was cooperating with the Feds.

Davis was probably another former street gang guy, like many of them now. He grew up in Logan Square as a tough guy so I suspect he was with the Palmer Square or Lawndale Gaylords, though I don’t know that for a fact.

[NorthBuffalo]

Is this guy connected to the Outfit? I see he was convicted of the same robbery that this Bobby English (the father I guess?) was convicted of.
https://www.arlingtoncardinal.com/2022/ ... g-company/

[SonnyBlackstein]

Im like a herion addict.
I hate doing this but cant help myself.
Burnstein on the Outfit.
Mike Sarno made 2 dozen guys between 05-10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kC2vWIaQs4
Its ok, I hate me too.

[Snakes]

Im like a herion addict.
I hate doing this but cant help myself.
Burnstein on the Outfit.
Mike Sarno made 2 dozen guys between 05-10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kC2vWIaQs4
Its ok, I hate me too.

This was rumored years before Burnstein said anything about it