Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

[B.]

Yeah it is looking like Cammarata was a Chicago member for a time given he was obviously already a member at 1928 Cleveland and can be directly connected to Nicola Diana and Vincenzo Cutaia. The relationship to Diana is interesting too since Cammarata attended Cleveland with two of the most important Chicago Riberesi, one of which associated with Diana until the end of his life.

With his cousin Profaci having lived in Chicago previously and some other Villabate connections Tony has found, along with the presence of Joe Priola from neighboring Ficarazzi and the close geographic and personal connections between Villabate and Bagheria, Cammarata's presence in Chicago is definitely part of larger patterns. Profaci himself could well have been a Chicago member for a few years as he was already in his mid-20s and from a clan that made virtually all of their male relatives and many of them young, Profaci's membership possibly going back to Villabate.

[PolackTony]

Yeah it is looking like Cammarata was a Chicago member for a time given he was obviously already a member at 1928 Cleveland and can be directly connected to Nicola Diana and Vincenzo Cutaia. The relationship to Diana is interesting too since Cammarata attended Cleveland with two of the most important Chicago Riberesi, one of which associated with Diana until the end of his life.

With his cousin Profaci having lived in Chicago previously and some other Villabate connections Tony has found, along with the presence of Joe Priola from neighboring Ficarazzi and the close geographic and personal connections between Villabate and Bagheria, Cammarata's presence in Chicago is definitely part of larger patterns. Profaci himself could well have been a Chicago member for a few years as he was already in his mid-20s and from a clan that made virtually all of their male relatives and many of them young, Profaci's membership possibly going back to Villabate.

Interesting that in 1950, the FBN apparently believed that Cammarata was a Chicago member, as they carried Cammarata on their list of suspected IL mafia members.

[JoelTurner]

Yeah it is looking like Cammarata was a Chicago member for a time given he was obviously already a member at 1928 Cleveland and can be directly connected to Nicola Diana and Vincenzo Cutaia. The relationship to Diana is interesting too since Cammarata attended Cleveland with two of the most important Chicago Riberesi, one of which associated with Diana until the end of his life.

With his cousin Profaci having lived in Chicago previously and some other Villabate connections Tony has found, along with the presence of Joe Priola from neighboring Ficarazzi and the close geographic and personal connections between Villabate and Bagheria, Cammarata's presence in Chicago is definitely part of larger patterns. Profaci himself could well have been a Chicago member for a few years as he was already in his mid-20s and from a clan that made virtually all of their male relatives and many of them young, Profaci's membership possibly going back to Villabate.

Interesting that in 1950, the FBN apparently believed that Cammarata was a Chicago member, as they carried Cammarata on their list of suspected IL mafia members.

That’s really interesting, Cammarata had been living in Newark for ages at that point.

I wonder if there were more incidents, like the one with Nicola Diana where he went back to Chicago and got involved in a crime, that are being overlooked.

[PolackTony]

On May 15 1928, an alcohol seller was killed at 818 Milton Ave. Identified as “Joseph Cavarith” of 733 North LaSalle St., his car was registered to Emmanuel Cammarata (470 W Chicago Ave). Frank Moretti (2015 Fremont St) was arrested.

It’s known that Cammarata, the Newark-Colombo member, previously lived in Chicago. In fact, that December at the Cleveland bust, he gave his address as 1042 N Orleans St, Chicago, IL.

Just to follow up on this, I posted some time back about the "Joseph Cavarith" murdered in 1928. Along with his vehicle being registered to Nello Cammarata, it was also reported that he had letters in the vehicle addressed to a "Cavarith" in Utica.

His actual name was Giuseppe Cavarretta and he was likely from Villabate. His 1928 death record had him as about 45 years old and born in "Palermo". The only other Giuseppe Cavarretta in Chicago who matched this description was from Vicari but was not the guy killed in 1928. The Cavarretta surname in Palermo province is strongly concentrated in Villabate, and in 1920 a Giuseppe Cavaretta from Villabate of the right age arrived in NYC bound for Brooklyn. Given the reported connection to Utica, there were also Cavarrettas in Utica from Villabate.

I think it's a strong bet that Cavarretta was, if not an older relative, at least a paesan' of Cammarata.

Frank Moretti (Jul 25 1898 - Mar 17 1952) had an extensive record.
At the time of the 1930 census, he was incarcerated, however I can’t tell if it was because of this affair or something else.

Frank Moretti and his brother Carl were both pinched in April 1928 on armed robbery charges for sticking up the offices of a coal company. Hence his incarceration in 1930. Moretti was not charged in the Cavarretta murder, which remained unsolved, as usual for Chicago gangland homicides

Yeah it is looking like Cammarata was a Chicago member for a time given he was obviously already a member at 1928 Cleveland and can be directly connected to Nicola Diana and Vincenzo Cutaia. The relationship to Diana is interesting too since Cammarata attended Cleveland with two of the most important Chicago Riberesi, one of which associated with Diana until the end of his life.

With his cousin Profaci having lived in Chicago previously and some other Villabate connections Tony has found, along with the presence of Joe Priola from neighboring Ficarazzi and the close geographic and personal connections between Villabate and Bagheria, Cammarata's presence in Chicago is definitely part of larger patterns. Profaci himself could well have been a Chicago member for a few years as he was already in his mid-20s and from a clan that made virtually all of their male relatives and many of them young, Profaci's membership possibly going back to Villabate.

Interesting that in 1950, the FBN apparently believed that Cammarata was a Chicago member, as they carried Cammarata on their list of suspected IL mafia members.

That’s really interesting, Cammarata had been living in Newark for ages at that point.

I wonder if there were more incidents, like the one with Nicola Diana where he went back to Chicago and got involved in a crime, that are being overlooked.

I'd imagine that Cammarata's involvement in his cousin's olive oil business likely gave him cover for business trips to Chicago, at least. You might recall that, as discussed below, he gave a Chicago address when he was pinched with Nicola Diana in 1940. The 1950 list that I referred to above had Cammarata as residing in West Orange but noted that he "frequents Chicago". My assumption is that he was a Profaci member, but that he maintained close ties to Chicago for years.

This was Emmanuel Cammarata :

Lombardino crew

EMANUEL ROVERE CAMMARATA
(Nellie, Nello, Manuel)
DOB: Oct 9 1903
POB: Villabate, Italy
W: Josephine Messina
Occupation: Salesman - Mamma Mia Importing Co.
Address: 13 Prospect Pl, West Orange, NJ
Previous Addressees: Chicago, IL
Death: Sep 7 1972 - Miami, Fl

-------

He was Joe Profaci's cousin

Jerry Gallicchio, Rinaldo Reino Sr. and Jr. were arrested for Cammarata’s murder. The shooter was Joseph Rodriguez who flipped.

I can't find any Chicago information for him. He got married on April 24 1928 in Newark; however he's listed as a Chicago resident in reports about the December 1928 Cleveland mafia meeting.

Nello Cammarata was arrested in Chicago in 1940 outside of Patsy LoLordo’s old social club with Nicola Diana, a paesan’ of LoLordo from Ribera and a likely Chicago member. At that time, Cammarata stated that he lived at 640 N Wabash in Chicago and was working as an olive oil salesman. That address was in a high rise in the wealthy Streeterville neighborhood near the Loop, so I suspect that Cammarata may have used it as a business address when visiting Chicago. Given that he had previously stated that he lived in Chicago at the Statler bust, I’ve wondered if Cammarata maintained a second address in Chicago for years.

Profaci himself lived in and ran a business in Chicago’s Little Sicily in the 20s before relocating to Brooklyn, so it’s unsurprising that his cousin Cammarata had ties there; there were a number of people from Villabate, and many many more from neighboring towns, who settled in Chicago.

Keeping a second home in Chicago suggests a much larger involvement in that city than I thought. I knew he (and Joe Profaci) lived there in the ‘20s.

It’s interesting that, both at his arrest in Cleveland in 1928 and this one, he was with guys from Ribera. He must have had some tie to the LoLordo group.

[PolackTony]

Credit to nash143 for sharing a "special report" used as evidence in 1950 at hearings of the Texas Crime Investigating Committee. The document, labeled "Top Confidential", is titled "The Mafia", with intel validated as of 1950, and contains a historical summary of the mafia in Sicily and the US along with lists of "mafia suspects" for a number of states. While the Committee would not name the original source of this report, it is evident to me -- given the use of the term "the Mafia" and explicit discussion of narcotics trafficking in the report -- that this was an FBN report.

As noted above, the report listed Emanuelle Cammarata as a suspected member in IL, despite his NJ residence, due to his close ties to Chicago. There are some other interesting names on the list, apart from the expected guys (Ricca, Accardo, Giancana, Campagna, etc).

One was Corrado Infantino, a Taylor St guy. As of 1950, he was a tavern owner and resided at 847 W Taylor (at Peoria -- the address was demolished in the 1960s for the UIC Circle Campus project). This year he also undertook a trip to Sicily. He subsequently moved to Cicero, where he died of natural causes in 1973. Infantino was born in 1904 in Pozzallo, Ragusa, the hometown of notorious Taylor st mafioso Salvatore "Samuzzo" Amatuna, slain in 1925 in the fallout from the saga of the Genna brothers. Infantino arrived in the US via NYC in 1920, bound for relatives in Brooklyn, before shortly thereafter relocating to Chicago's Taylor St Patch. Infantino married Teresa Romano, a Taylor St girl born in 1906 in Chicago to Domenico Romano and Rosa Maria Fanelli, both of Laurenzana, Potenza, Basilicata. While I was unable to verify an exact relation as of yet, it's very likely that Rosa Fanelli was a relative of Taylor St mafioso Rocco Fanelli. Rocco Fanelli was, as I noted in this thread before, in turn a brother-in-law of fellow Taylor St guy and LCN member Frank Zizzo (and the uncle of Frank's son and later Chicago LCN member Little Tony Zizzo).

I had previously discussed Pozzallo native Giovanni Infantino, murdered on Taylor St in 1928, and his paesan' and close associate Salvatore Cataudella, grandfather of later Chicago LCN member (and alleged current Chicago UB) Sal Cataudella. Giovanni Infantino was said to have been a close associate of Diamond Joe Esposito and a "cousin" of Samuzzo Amatuna. Notably, his 1928 death record was witnessed by Corrado Infantino. I suspect that the two were brothers, though I was unable to verify this relation at the time.

In March 1928, on the heels of the murder of "Diamond Joe" Esposito in the Taylor St Patch, Giovanni Infantino, was shot to death in his apartment on the 1100 block of S Peoria, in the Taylor St Patch (at Grenshaw; long since demolished for the construction of the UIC Circle Campus). Infantino was born in 1902 in Pozzalo, Ragusa, and was said to have been a "cousin" of Samuzzo Amatuna, slain three years before (I was unable to confirm if they were actually related, but they were at the least paesani). Investigators reported to the papers that Infantino was also a friend of Esposito and had reportedly met with Esposito and others shortly before Esposito's murder. Thus, LE believed that Infantino's murder was tied to that of Esposito, and were seeking Infantino's roommate, Salvatore Cataudella, for questioning, believing that the latter was implicated. This was Sal Cataudella's grandfather noted above, also from Pozzalo. It would seem that following the murder of Infantino in 1928, Cataudella fled Chicago, with his new wife Raffaella Masciopinto, and they settled in Manhattan, where their first child together, Carmello Cataudella, was born in 1929. The Catuadellas returned to Chicago decades later, with Salvatore dying in Chicago in 1970.

While we can't infer that Corrado Infantino was a made member of Chicago LCN based solely on the 1950 report, evidently he had been identified as part of the mafia network by the FBN's sources. I have been unable to find any report of Corrado Infantino as being involved in criminal activities, though we also know that there are always some made guys with little to no active involvement in criminal racket operations. At the least, given his apparent deep familial connections to mafia activity around Taylor St, Infantino was not just some random name the FBN pulled out of a hat.

[PolackTony]

In previous posts, I've discussed Tony Accardo's close ties to a number of important Sicilian business families in Chicago, including several from Termini Imerese. Another family with such ties were the Fillichios, particularly Bennie "Foggi" Fillichio, a close personal friend of Accardo for many years and a suspected LCN member.

Bennie Fillichio was born Benedetto Biagio (Benedict Blase) Fillichio in Chicago in 1912, the 7th of ten children born to Salvatore Filicicchia and Angelina Mercurio, both natives of Termini Imerese. Salvatore arrived in Chicago in the 1890s, where he soon became a naturalized citizen, established himself as a produce vendor, and married Angelina in 1900. In the US, the Filicicchia family (Salvatore had several other relatives in Chicago) began using derivatives of the surname such as Fillichio, Felicio, or "Felish". The Fillichios settled in the Taylor St Patch, where they were presumably close to fellow Termitano produce families in the neighborhood such as the Battaglias, Tomasellis, and Tranquinas (the latter two related via marriage to later Chicago LCN members Eligio Magnafichi and John DeBiase via marriage). By 1920, Salvatore owned his own produce business and the family lived on the block of Forquer (since renamed Arthington) east of Halsted. Salvatore had taken over the grocery formerly operated by Antonino Palmisano, his paesano from Termini, who also lived on Forquer (Antonino Aplmisano's wife, Anna Mercurio, was likely a relative of Salvatore's wife Angelina). Bennie Fillichio was baptized Biagio Felicicchia in 1914 at Holy Guardian Angel Parish, with Termitano produce vendor Carlo Giunta and wife Teresa Paletta serving as his godparents.

According to later Federal investigations, Bennie Fillichio was convicted for an illegal booze operation in the 1940s. In 1947, older brother Michael "Dutch" Fillichio made the papers when he was busted for operating a handbook, while Bennie was described as a "big operator" in Westside gambling circles the next year. In 1950, at Congressional hearings on the narcotics trade, FBN agent M.L. Harney named Mike Fillichio, along with narcotics trafficker Salvatore Pisano, as one of Chicago's "major distributors" of marijuana (Mike Fillichio, who was born in 1908, died in 1975). Youngest brother Anthony "Tony" Filicchio (born 1918) was queried for his ties to outfit-connected Taylor St politician William Granata, who was brutally murdered in 1948.

In the 1940s, Bennie Fillichio was believed to have funneled proceeds from illicit alcohol and gambling into the legal liquor business, which he built into a highly successful chain of Chicagoland liquor stores under the brands Austin Liquors and Rush Liquors, along with his brother Tony and Loop outfit figure Luigi "Lou" Briatta. As of 1951, when the three refused to testify when subpoenaed for hearings on the mob-connected cigarette tax stamp scandal in Chicago (likely one of the major black eyes on Accardo's tenure as boss), the liquor chain was noted to have operated 13 stores in the city and suburbs -- in 1952, the Fillichios split their business from Briatta, who retained control of Rush (later, in 1970, Austin operated 4 stores in the city and 4 in the burbs).

One location of Austin Liquors was based in the affluent suburb of River Forest, where both Accardo and Ricca lived and where Bennie Fillichio would move in the 1940s from Taylor and Halsted. After decamping to River Forest, Fillichio lived at 830 N Lathrop, a few houses down from the Ricca/Ponzio home at 812 (both Ricca and Fillichio subsequently moved around the corner to Ashland). In 1961, the FBI seems to have believed that Accardo and Ricca had attended the funeral of Salvatore Fillichio in 1961 (some redactions in the report), while Giancana attended the 1963 wedding reception of Bennie's son Benedict "Butch" Fillichio Jr (secretary and later president of Austin Liquors) at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Notably, Bennie Fillichio had testified as a character witness for Accardo in the latter's 1960 tax evasion trial, a move which brought Fillichio considerable attention from both local and Federal LE in subsequent years.

Several FBI reports paint Bennie Fillichio as a major outfit figure, while some other pieces of intel would seem to contradict his actual clout in the organization. One source told the Feds that Fillichio had originally been slated ahead of Giancana to replace Accardo as boss. A still unknown CI in 1965 named Fillichio as a "lieutenant" in the Chicago "family" who, along with Accardo and Ricca, was one of the men dissatisfied with Giancana's leadership, leading to Mooney's ouster as boss. Another 1965 FBI source, who may have been the same informant (who seemed to have considerable knowledge of the Chicago organization, claimed that "[Fillichio] is an old-time hoodlum who is very powerful. He has always fronted for the 'family' in various enterprises and handles a great deal of money for the 'family'. He is probably as 'big' as PAUL DE LUCIA". Another source at this time referred to Fillichio as Accardo's "closest friend". Tribune articles from this period also noted that men such as Accardo, Chuckie English, Joey Aiuppa, and Johny Lardino would visit Fillichio's River Forest home for card games that allegedly served as meetings to discuss mob control over the juice racket, of which Fillichio was also said to have been one of the major investors.

In 1963, however, a Sun-Times article on Chicago LCN following the Valachi hearings cited the CPD's intelligence unit (nicknamed "Scotland Yard") pegging Fillichio as being little more than a "bookie" who was "far down in the family" (a chart submitted by CPD intelligence to the Congressional hearing on LCN at that time pegged Fillichio as answering to Rocco Potenza, who the FBI recorded meeting with Fillichio in the 1960s).

This claim would seem to be belied by reports in the papers and FBI files that Fillichio attended a number of high-level meetings, including a trip to Waukesha, WI, in 1960 with Accardo, Cerone, Battaglia, Marshall Caifano, and Rocco DeStefano; a 1965 "closed door" meeting at Meo's Restaurant with Battaglia, Butch Blasi, and several other unnamed men; and a 1966 meeting with Battaglia (then acting Chicago boss) and Accardo at Accardo's home; though it is unknown if these meetings concerned the actual mafia organization or were simply business meetings.

In 1966, Bennie Fillichio attended the wake of attorney and LCN member Joseph Imburgio Bulger. The same year, a CI told the FBI that Fillichio was among the "top people in the syndicate" in Chicago, though the source also cited non-members such as Gus Alex and Joe Arnold in this group. As is often the case, without knowing the identity of FBI informants, many of whom had little inside knowledge of the actual organization, it is difficult to evaluate the credibility and extent of the FBI's intel in Chicago.

In the 1970s, Bennie Fillichio remained under the scrutiny of LE, with him and Tony Fillichio named as important figures in outfit control over the local liquor industry. In 1972, another Fillichio family company, the ABAM Building Company (also run by Bennie and Tony) was the target of a complaint by the IL AG's office for discharging untreated sewage in the north suburbs.

In 1987, the Sun-Times ran a piece examining the iconic "Meet the Hull House Kids" photo, an image of a group of 20 Italian boys from the Taylor St Patch in 1924 at social worker Jane Addams's Hull House neighborhood outreach program. A young Bennie and Tony Fillichio were among the boys in the photo, along with their likely cousin Phillip "Philly" Palmisano, brothers Anthony "Nino" and Orlando "Landi" Fosco (extended cousins of Armando and Angelo Fosco), Angelo Diorio (another Fosco relative and later a precinct captain for the 1st Ward Democratic machine), John and Pete DiCianni (relatives of Tony Centracchio), and Jerry Scalzitti (a cousin of Richard Cain's mother). Several members of the extended Fosco family were, of course, major union people, with both Peter and Angelo Fosco serving as presidents of LIUNA. In this light, it's worth noting that Carl Fillichio, son of Butch Fillichio and grandson of Bennie, rose to become DC spokesman for LIUNA in the early 90s under Angelo Fosco's leadership. Carl Fillichio subsequently worked for the Department of Labor under the Clinton administration, left to become a VP at Lehman Brothers, and then returned to government to work as senior advisor for communications at the DoL during the Obama years. Here's Carl Fillichio being interviewed in 2013 by NPR about a DoL literature program: https://www.npr.org/2013/12/29/25804885 ... rican-jobs.

In 1963, the FBI bug placed in the 1st Ward Democratic Party HQ recorded a meeting between Bennie Fillichio and Pat Marcy, in which they discussed problems with FBI and local LE pressure and political appointments. With respect to the latter, Fillichio noted that decisions on political appointments were ultimately Giancana's call, as "he's the boss", and that Fillichio was unable to hold a meeting with Giancana due to constant LE surveillance. In a particularly interesting passage, Fillichio discusses a mole in the CPD, who told him about intel that "Scotland Yard" (the CPD investigative unit) had on Fillichio, including an account of something "years ago, JOE's father and mine....". Given his longstanding personal friendship with Tony Accardo, this may be the "Joe" referred to here, pointing to longstanding connections between the two families and possible earlier ties to the mafia in the preceding generation. Another report from the same period noted another meeting between Fillichio and Marcy where they discussed Marcy's control of Richard Cain, then chief investigator for Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogilvie.

Bennie Fillichio seems to have remained actively involved in outfit circles at least into the early 90s, when he was surveilled meeting with Accardo numerous times. He died in 1997 at his home in Ft Lauderdale, while Tony Fillichio died in 2009. Though referred to as a "mob boss" by the papers, Bennie Fillichio's LCN membership remains unconfirmed. In 1965, an FBI report designated Fillichio as having a high likelihood of LCN membership. While he was listed by the FBI as a Chicago LCN member on their 1968 and 1973 lists, the only source for this was Lou Fratto, who the FBI cited as the basis for a number of questionable claims of Chicago membership. Fillichio was not listed on the 1985 FBI list of Chicago members, which reflected more stringent protocols for identifying mafia membership. In 1964, Chicago CI Teddy DeRose stated that Fillichio was not made, but enjoyed "influence" in the organization due to close ties to members such as Battaglia and Caifano. As we have seen, these were far from Fillichio's only close relationships to LCN members and if he was never made, he was at the least an important associate.

[PolackTony]

In December of 1927, Chicago boss Tony Lombardo was stopped by the cops for "loitering" in the lobby of the Hartford Building, at 8 S Dearborn in the Chicago Loop, with friends Joe Giunta and Michael Butera. The building housed the head offices of the Unione Siciliana, recently renamed the Italo-American National Union. Lombardo and Giunta, found to be in the possession of pistols and large amounts of cash, were booked on weapons charges, while Butera was booked for disorderly conduct. When interviewed by the local press about the case, Lombardo, of course, expressed bafflement that he, a successful commission merchant, would be accused of affiliation with the mafia, and denied that he needed to be in the presence of "bodyguards", which CPD had designated Giunta and Butera.

Butera was Michele Butera, born in 1891 in Siculiana, Agrigento. An architect and engineer, and former lieutenant in the Italian Army during WW1, Butera immigrated to the US in 1923, initially bound for Auburn, NY, where his father, Antonio Butera, was living. Michele soon relocated to Chicago, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1929. In 1930, he married Angelina Sciortino, born in 1913 in Rockford to Giuseppe Sciortino and Angelina Tarvanina of Siculiana -- she was the older sister of Margaret Sciortino, who later married Chicagoan Phil Priola, Rockford member and son of longtime Chicago member Giuseppe Priola (several outfit-connected figures in Rockford, such as the LaFranka brothers, also had ancestry in Siculiana, as Cavita has previously discussed). Michele Butera worked first for the IL Department of Highways as a civil engineer and later for the City of Chicago Sanitary District. Other prominent outfit-connected figures worked for the Sanitary District in this period, including President Frank Cesario aka "Frank Chsrow", a cousin of Diamond Joe Esposito's widow Angelina Cesario widow, and mobbed-up politician and suspected Chicago member Vincenzo "Jimmy" Adduci.

When Phil Bacino was naturalized in Chicago in 1931, one of the witnesses was Fillipo Cusumano (who I believe was a paesan' of Bacino from Ribera), as noted above. The other witness was a guy named Peter Lavorata, who pretty clearly was the same Peter Lavoarata living on the 1800 block of N Winchester, in the immediate vicinity of Patsy LoLordo's home and social club at North Ave and Winchester. He was born Pietro Lavorato in 1893 in Piane Crati, Cosenza province (the hometown also of Rocky Infelise's parents), and had arrived in Chicago in 1910 with his family. By 1917, they were living near Winchester and North Ave, where Peter Lavorata remained until he moved farther out in the 1950s. Lavorata was the longtime clerk of the Cook County Grand Jury and a Democratic precinct captain in the 32nd Ward for over 50 years, running for several offices and being actively involved in helping to run the campaigns of others. Lavorata and his wife, Josephine Anzalone, were noted for decades as also being highly active in Chicago's important Italian social institutions, with Lavorata a member of the Advisory Board of Villa Scalabrini, and a member of the Ferra Lodge of the IANU (the "Unione Siciliana"), UNICO, The Sons of Italy, and The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. When the FBI was looking into Bacino's background in 1966 (following the identification of him as a member when the Feds captured discussion of Bacino via their bug in Sam DeCavalcante's office), they noted that Peter Lavorata had been on the executive committee of The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, serving as a representative for the Vicari Society of Chicago. While this might seem strange for a Calabrese, Lavorata's wife was Giuseppa Anzalone Lucchese, of Vicari (her first husband was a Giuseppe Lucchese, also apparently from Vicari). Peter Lavorata died in 1977.

Interesting to note that Bacino seems to have been connected with a Mainlander (one who was clearly plugged in with local political and social institutions) basically from his arrival in Chicago. I'd very much suspect that, given the close neighborhood proximity, Lavorata already had ties to men like LoLordo (who had his own Italian-American Social Club, of course), DeGeorge, and Nick Diana.

Notably, Michele Butera's 1929 naturalization was witnessed by NW Side political figure and Italian Society heavyweight Pietro Lavorata, along with brother George Lavorata (I've commented on the Lavoratas before, as they were also relatives by marriage of later Chicago member Rocky Infelise and were from Infelise's familial hometown of Piane Crati, Cosenza). Pietro Lavorata also witnessed Phil Bacino's naturalization. Butera and Bacino were paesani from nearby comuni in Agrigento who arrived in Chicago during the 1920s. Both were likely closely connected to Chicago boss Pasquale LoLordo, who was based in the same immediate section of the Near NW Side as the Lavoratas, and his brother Joe LoLordo, who fled Chicago following the 1929 St Valentine's Day Massacre (in which LE sources alleged that he had played a central part in, as it was revenge for his brother's murder at the hands of the Joe Aiello faction) and lived for years as a NYC-based member of the DeCavalcante Family. While the LoLordos were born in Ribera, the paternal side of their family was from Siculiana (recall also that later Chicago captain Vince Solano had ancestry from both Ribera and Siculiana and his father Vincenzo Solano Sr was likely a mafioso in Chicago, slain in 1920).

Also interesting that we can point to several prominent Agrigentini as having been in Tony Lombardo's inner circle, including Butera, the LoLordos, and Unione Siciliana/IANU President Constantino Vitello of Grotte. Lombardo was known for keeping high-status company, befitting someone of his stature in both the mafia and business worlds, and the professional Butera was no exception. I've previously noted in the thread on Toto LoVerde that Michele Butera and Angelina Sciortino's 1928 engagement party in Rockford was covered in the local papers there and attended by "a distinguished assemblage of Italian-American dignitaries from Chicago", including Constantino Vitello, Pasquale LoLordo, and Italian-language newspaper publisher and knight Giuseppe Rospi. Michele Butera was a prominent figure in the Italian social life of both Chicago and his wife's native Rockford, serving as President of the Chicago Italian Legion and head of the Chicago-based Federation of Italian World War Veterans, and as such chairing events with the Italian Consulate in Chicago.

Michele Butera died suddenly of a heart attack in Chicago in 1954. His funeral was held at San Filippo Benizi Parish in Little Sicily, though he was buried in Rockford, where his widow returned. I think that it's a good possibility that Butera was a Chicago member and may have served as a liaison between Chicago and Rockford until his death.

[B.]

Awesome. Butera was connected to the right people and places, definitely someone of great interest with those alta mafia characteristics.

With Butera's arrival to Auburn and marriage to a Sciortino, it brings to mind the Sciortinos of Auburn, at least one of which was a Buffalo member (Pasquale) and it's likely at least one other was a member as well. These Sciortinos were from Cattolica Eraclea but it isn't far from Siculiana and Nicola Gentile had Pasquale's relative Amedeo Sciortino of Auburn in his address book, having spent time in the area himself where he likely fathered an illegitimate family. The Monachinos from Realmonte (where Gentile lived for a time) were also in Auburn and it was obviously a small but significant branch of the Agrigento network. The Monachinos were also connected to the Calleas of Buffalo who came from Licata and were close to the Porrello faction of Cleveland before being murdered themselves.

[PolackTony]

1947 article in the Tribune, noting the important role that Giuseppe Catuara and his wife Filomena Scannali -- both of Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento -- played in the Societa Sant'Angelo Muxaro, based in the Bridgeport/Armour Square community. Giuseppe Catuara was a brother of Carmelo Catuara, father of Chicago member Vincenzo "Jimmy" Catuara. Leonardo Spoto was likely a relative of theirs, as Giuseppe and Carmelo's mother was Maria Angela Spoto of Sant'Angelo:

In 1932, Luigi "Lou" Fratto was busted by the Feds on stolen mail charges when he and several co-defendants were found to be in possession of letters containing securities stolen during the armed robbery of a mail carrier. In the 1960s, the FBI obtained the records from this case and noted that several people posted bond for Fratto.

Fratto's benefactors included Angelo "The House" Catuara and his wife Fannie Biondo. Angelo Catuara was born in 1893 in Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento, and arrived in Chicago in 1912, where his brother Giovanni Catuara was already living. He married Fannie Biondo, born in Chicago to grocer Antonino Biondo and Maria Giunta, both of Nicosia, Caltanissetta (today Enna province) -- brothers Giovanni and Giuseppe Catuara married Fannie's sisters (father Vincenzo Catuara also immigrated to Chicago, where he died in 1923). Given the small size of Sant'Angelo and the relative rarity of the surname, it can be assumed that these Catuaras were extended relatives of Jimmy Catuara's father Carmelo. Like Carmelo Catuara, their mother was also a Spoto. Angelo Catuara, who died in Chicago in 1980, was a barber who operated the Senator Barbershop for decades near his home at 28th and Lowe in Armour Square. It might seem odd that a Sicilian guy from Armour Square apparently had close ties to a Calabrian hoodlum from Taylor St, but we can recall that in the early 1930s, Jimmy Catuara also had close ties to Taylor St guys like Rocco Fanelli and Vincenzo BelCastro, so there may be some more substantive ties that we otherwise would not know of. Recall also that it was previously uncovered that some other relatives of Jimmy Catuara from Sant'Angelo, the Tarallos, were previously found to have been involved in mob-related activities in this period.

Further showing that Angelo Catuara's ties to Fratto were not some one-off thing, Angelo Navarra and his wife Carmella Cutrano also chipped in for Fratto's bail. Both were also natives of Sant'Angelo Muxaro and lived in the heavily Agrigentino colony in Armour Square, two blocks up from Angelo Catuara, at 26th and Lowe.

Fratto's other benefactor was Carolina Marchese, who lived at Taylor and Carpenter, where she operated a grocery store. Born in Rende, Cosenza, she was a possible relative of Diamond Joe Esposito's widow, Carmella Concetta Marchese.

[PolackTony]

In 1964-1965, the FBI noted calls made from Sam Battaglia's Free Meadows Farm in Kane County, IL, to a number in Minocqua, WI, registered to Michael "Ginko" Marchese, a resident of affluent River Forest known to have controlled a large stake of the investment in the Harlem Irving Plaza (the "HIP", as we used to call it), a shopping center built in 1956 in the Near NW Chicago suburb of Norridge, IL (the HIP was later turned into an enclosed shopping mall in the 1970s).

Michael John Marchese was born Michele Marchese in 1902 in Rende, Cosenza, Calabria, to Salvatore Marchese of Rende and Carolina Conforti of neighboring Marano Principato. The family immigrated to Chicago in 1906 and settled in the Taylor St Patch. In1920, they lived at Taylor and Racine, with father Salvatore working as a laborer for the railroads. In the above post, I noted that Taylor St grocery store owner Carolina Marchese of Rende helped to bail Lou Fratto out on Federal charges in 1932. While I was not able to establish the exact relationship, she was very likely a cousin of Salvatore Marchese, and both may have been relatives of Diamond Joe Esposito's widow (the parents of Chicago member Nick Palermo were from Rende, and later members Mike Sarno and Solly DeLaurentis also have ancestry from there, while a leading member of the "Supreme Counsel" of the Unione Siciliana under the presidency of Chicago boss Tony D'Andrea was Salvatore Monaco, a Taylor St physician from Rende and personal friend of D'Andrea).

On his WW2 draft card, Michael Marchese stated that he was employed by the Havana Beverage Co, a Westside soda company owned by Chicago LCN member Ralph Capone, and listed Havana President Anthony Dominic Calabrese as his personal contact (born in 1901 in Chicago to Abruzzesi parents, Calabrese was a fellow Taylor St guy and unrelated to Frank and Nick Calabrese).

Marchese made the papers in 1952 on tax charges when Federal investigators seized $20k in illegal booze from Marchese's Hyde Park club, the Caribbean Lounge (Havana, Caribbean...). In 1954, Westside Greek gambling figure Petro Boulahanis was badly burned in an apparent firebombing of his Austin home near Chicago Ave and Central. CPD believed this was one of a string of attacks heralding a "possible hoodlum war", and it was revealed that three of Boulahanis's brothers had recently bought stakes in Havana Beverage, of which police reported Michael Marchese as the "principal partner" with President Anthony Calabrese.

By the 1950s, Marchese had moved out of the Westside and joined figures like Accardo, Ricca, and Bennie Fillichio in River Forest (Marchese lived at Jackson and Greenfield, two blocks from Ricca and Fillicho). In 1959, Edward Juzwik, the former President of the Harlem Irving Plaza, was wounded when three gunmen opened fire on his car on the NW Side. Juzwik told investigators that he had stepped down from his role at the HIP after discovering that his partners had "connections with the crime syndicate" and that he believed that the attack was related to a Federal investigation of tax shenanigans at the shopping center. Juzwik claimed that immediately prior to the shooting, his former partner, HIP investor Michael Marchese, had told him to overstate his (Juzwik's) stake in the mall to tax investigators, which Juzwik said that he refused. Marchese -- described by the Trib as "an associate of top crime syndicate gangsters" -- told CPD that he had no idea why someone had tried to assassinate his "friend". It was also revealed that a 25-year-old Joseph "Shorty" LaMantia had been acquitted the prior year of robbing and assaulting Juzwik at the latter's NW Side office after Juzwik had stepped down as HIP President.

In 1967, Milwaukee/KC member CI Joe Gurera identified Michael Marchese as a Chicago LCN member. Marchese, however, died of a heart attack in his River Forest home soon after the FBI confirmed his membership, in March of 1968. An article in the Sun-Times described Marchese as a "millionaire mystery man who with Al Capone was a founding figure of the Chicago crime syndicate", controlling a "multimillion-dollar empire" of "lucrative legitimate business enterprises". The Sun-Times claimed that Marchese had once been a "silent partner" of Louis Campagna and a friend of Chicago associates Murray Humphreys and Sam Hunt. Similar to guys like Fillichio and Phil Ponto, Marchese's unassuming and professional demeanor helped to keep him off the public's radar, with the Sun-Times noting "[h]is conservative dress and unobtrusive manner enabled the short, stocky Marchese to operate in the top echelon of the syndicate with almost complete anonymity". The FBI had only begun to pick up on Marchese's status in the years before his death, surveilling him meeting with figures like Giancana and Accardo. Marchese was further posthumously identified as an LCN member by fellow Taylor St native Lou Fratto.

The press also noted that Marchese traveled frequently between River Forest and his summer home in the woods of Northern Wisconsin, which was the phone number the Feds had picked up contacting Battaglia. Given his ties to WI, it would make sense that Marchese was one of the Chicago members that Joe Gurera was familiar with. Northern WI also had a notable community of Calabresi, who settled in the area for work in the mining, timber, and railroad industries, and later Chicago member Rocky Infelise was born and raised there (on the other side of the state, Kenosha's Italian community is mainly composed of Calabrians from Marchese's same hometowns in Cosenza). We also know that Marchese had been closely connected to Ralph Capone, who had relocated to Iron County, WI, near Marchese's summer home in Oneida County.

[cavita]

Awesome. Butera was connected to the right people and places, definitely someone of great interest with those alta mafia characteristics.

With Butera's arrival to Auburn and marriage to a Sciortino, it brings to mind the Sciortinos of Auburn, at least one of which was a Buffalo member (Pasquale) and it's likely at least one other was a member as well. These Sciortinos were from Cattolica Eraclea but it isn't far from Siculiana and Nicola Gentile had Pasquale's relative Amedeo Sciortino of Auburn in his address book, having spent time in the area himself where he likely fathered an illegitimate family. The Monachinos from Realmonte (where Gentile lived for a time) were also in Auburn and it was obviously a small but significant branch of the Agrigento network. The Monachinos were also connected to the Calleas of Buffalo who came from Licata and were close to the Porrello faction of Cleveland before being murdered themselves.

Michele and Angelina's son was Anthony J. Butera who was born in Rockford in 1929. Anthony's claim to organized crime fame was that he was present at the illegal high stakes card game in October 2007 in which Vaughn "Curly" Fitzgerald was killed following a robbery of the game.

[PolackTony]

Ernie Severino, who testified at the Family Secrets trial about Butch Petrocelli, has said his grandfather was made...not sure i've ever seen him give a name but i have seen that he claimed he was from Taylor Street and used a social club out there as his HQ. Anyone know who he's talking about?

Probably Angelo Severino

If it was his grandfather, then I don't think it was Angie Severino as I believe that Ernie Severino is his nephew. Ernie should be Ernest Severino, Jr, son of Ernest Alexander Severino, born 1912 in Chicago. Ernest Sr (once commissioner of the Rosemont PD and IL State patrolman) was the youngest of seven brothers (including Michael Angelo "Angie" Severino) born to Francesco "Frank" Severino (born about 1865 in Palermo) and Concetta Gargaro (born about 1879 in Napoli). The family lived by Taylor and Oakley. If Ernie was right that his grandfather was made, then that is very interesting as it's possible that he was already inducted under the old Mafia. Frank Severino died in 1934, but had been involved in the large bootlegging operations in Melrose Park with his son Angie (and Frank was listed in 1918 as already running a liquor business before Prohibition):

Capture.PNG

Photo of Frank Severino:
Capture1.PNG

This is old and needs to be updated.

Francesco "Frank" Severino, as noted, was born about 1865. All of his documents state that he was from "Palermo" and he may have been from Palermo City. His wife, Concetta Gargano, was born around 1879 and died in Chicago in 1918. Some family trees claimed that she was from Napoli, but I don't think this was the case. Her mother's maiden name was apparently Scimena, which is a Sicilian surname found around Palermo, so she was likely also Palermitana. The Severinos arrived in the US sometime in the 1890s and lived in STL, where their eldest child Joseph Severino was born in 1900, before relocating to Chicago that year and settling in the Taylor St Patch. The couple seems to have been living as common law spouses, as they were formally married in Manhattan in 1905 after several of their children were already born in STL and Chicago.

Michelangelo "Moustache Angie" Severino was born in Chicago in 1906 and was the 5th of 6 sons born to Frank and Concetta. He was baptized in 1906 at Holy Guardian Angel Parish by godparents Michele Sansone and his wife Vincenza Mendola. Sansone was a tailor from Termini Imerese and clearly had a close relationship with Francesco Severino, as he baptized several of the Severino boys. Sansone's second wife was Elvira Bivona, who was from Palermo City. The Sansones moved from the city to suburban Proviso Township (which encompasses the village of Melrose Park), an area where the Severinos were active in bootlegging.

In 1920, the Severinos lived at 904 S Oakley, between Polk and Taylor. As he had in 1910, Frank Severino reported that he was employed as a salesman for a brewery. Despite Prohibition, business as a "beer salesman" must've been pretty good, as the Severino home was a nice greystone two-flat, which Frank owned (there was, clearly, a lot of money in that non-alcoholic beer...). The building is still standing:



While one brother, Michael Severino, died in early childhood, another, Arthur Severino, died in 1921 at the age of 12 when he fell 4 stories from the rooftop of a Taylor St apartment building while playing with friends (which was still a common though hazardous pastime for inner city kids in Chicago when I was young).

During the 1920s, Frank Severino, befitting a prosperous Palermitano, became the operator of a wholesale grocery business. As noted above, in 1928, Frank and son Angelo Severino surrendered themselves to the US Marshalls after it was discovered that they had delivered 200 carloads of sugar to buyers in Melrose Park, where authorities under the command of Prohibition agent Frank L. White had recently raided around 150 stills operating in the area. We can presume that the Severinos were major players in the bootlegging racket, as it was estimated that this volume of sugar could be used to produce ~500k gallons of alcohol. Francesco Severino claimed that the shipment was unrelated to bootlegging and was, rather, intended only for "home consumption".

Also in 1928, the papers reported a 22-year-old Taylor St cabdriver named Tony Severino was murdered in an apparent hit in Melrose Park by a gunman. His surname, however, was actually Soverino and he was of Calabrian parentage, and thus unrelated to the Sicilian Severinos.

In January of 1929 Frank Severino's eldest son, Joe Severino, was arrested in a sweep of still operators in Melrose Park, consequent to the 1928 MP still raids. Authorities claimed that Joe Severino was partnered with notorious Melrose Park gangster Joe Montana as the principal operator of stills in the village (Montana has been covered in previous posts). An LE source had quoted Severino as claiming that Severino and Montana would "take care of the agents later", and the defendants were believed to have wielded such power in Melrose Park that local authorities were reported to have been afraid to hold them in jail there, requesting that they instead be held in Chicago. Joe Severino wound up pleading guilty to bootlegging conspiracy charges and received only a $500 fine for his sentence. Joe Severino was married to Agnesa Bivona, who was from Palermo and possibly a relative of the Elvira Bivona married to Severino familial friend and cumpari Michele Sansone.

Frank Severino died in 1934 of natural causes when he was in his 70s. As noted above, his grandson Ernie Severino Jr has claimed that Frank Severino was a made guy, though his membership has never been confirmed by later member sources. In the 1920s, Frank Severino had remarried Carmella Bianco, a Taylor St girl ~40 years his junior, who was born in Tunisia to Sicilian parents from Santo Stefano Quisquina, Agrigento, and Siracusa (given her ancestry from SSQ, it's unsurprising that her family had entered the US at Tampa, where her father had relatives).

By 1930, Angelo Severino was living in Berwyn and reported that he worked as a salesman for his father's wholesale grocery business. He had married Josephine Tramutolo, born in Denver to parents from Potenza -- the Tramutolos had relocated from CO to Taylor and Ashland.

In 1940, Angelo Severino was arrested along with Chicago LCN member Ned Bakes for operating an illegal still on a farm in rural Ogden County, IL, south of Rockford. As discussed before, Ned Bakes was a Taylor St guy of Termitano parentage, whose father "Charles Bakes" Sbacchi was murdered in a gangland slaying and appears to have been closely connected to Diamond Joe Esposito. In this light, recall also that Angelo Severino's godfather, Michele Sansone, was from Termini.

Additionally, in 1940 Angelo Severino reported that he was employed by Meadowmoor Dairies, a notoriously mobbed-up Near Westside milk company then headed by attorney and 25th Ward Democratic Committeeman William Parrillo, a local Taylor St political boss with outfit ties. Meadowmoor had made the local press a number of times in the 1930s and 1940s for its role in the violent takeover of the Chicagoland dairy industry by organized crime figures with ties to the mafia, a move reputed to have been spearheaded by Chicago LCN associate Murray Humphreys. After being allegedly taken over by gangsters in 1932 following a bombing at the company, the non-unionized Meadowmoor destabilized the Chicago milk market and broke the back of the milk dealers' association in the 1930s by severely undercutting the price of home milk deliveries offered by unionized companies, one of the means of coercion (along with firebombings and other violent attacks, of course) that mob-connected figures deployed to gain control over both dairy supply companies and the milk drivers union in this period. By 1950, Angelo Severino was back living in the city, at Fillmore and Western, while employed as a supervisor by Meadowmoor.

In the 1940s, elder brother Joe Severino was employed by a liquor store at Taylor and Halsted, which may have been one of the stores operated by Bennie Fillichio and Lou Briatta. The last time that Joe Severino made the papers was in 1952, when he was arrested and held for questioning by CPD along with a group of "hoodlums" attending the Davey-Graziano fight, including John and Matt Capone, Jeff Manno, Joe Contorno, Sam Cesario, Albert Tomasello, and union bigshot Eco Coli. Joe Severino died in 1978 in Melrose Park.

During Accardo's tenure as boss, a major scandal erupted over the use of fake tax stamps for cigarettes sold and supplied by outfit-controlled businesses in Chicagoland (as I've noted before, this was a major black eye for Accardo, as the market in tax-free tobacco was alleged to have been a huge moneymaker for a lot of connected guys in Chicago during this period). In 1954, investigations into vending machines controlled by LCN associate Eddie "Big Head" Vogel through which cigarettes bearing counterfeit stamps were sold to the public revealed that one of Vogel's primary suppliers was the Elmwood Park Tobacco Co, which was owned by Frank Severino and described by LE as a "100 percent syndicate operation". The Trib referred to Frank Severino as the "son of Joe 'Submarino' Severino, a Capone-era bootlegger". This was correct, as Frank Paul Severino was the eldest child of Joe Severino and Agnes Bivona, born in 1921. Frank Paul Severino stayed out of the papers following the tax stamp scandal and died in 1995 in NV.

Another son of Joe Severino was Joseph Severino Jr, born in 1931. He married Helen Palermo, daughter of John Palermo, brother of LCN member and close Accardo buddy Nick Palermo. In 1967, Helen Severino was listed as one of the officers of Mayo Plumbing of Melrose Park, described by LE as a "hoodlum controlled" business (her uncle Nick, of course, owned a lucrative Melrose Park plumbing company).

In 1961, Angelo Severino was arrested along with Larry Pettit in a bust of a Lakeview wireroom located at Barry and Paulina. The wireroom's operator was alleged to have been Gerald Murray, a Northside bookie who had been severely beaten in an attack the prior year by men armed with clubs, which CPD attributed to a "hoodlum takeover" of Murray's wireroom. By this time, Angelo Severino was living in the Irving Park section of the NW Side, at Christiana and Irving Park Rd.

In 1965, the FBI composed a report on the "juice racket" in Chicagoland, the product of investigations by a Chicago DOJ/FBI task force focused specifically on the major shylocking operations affiliated with Chicago LCN. The report claimed that capo Fiore Buccieri had three juice businesses operating under him: one headed by Angelo LaPietra, another by Angelo Severino, and the third by Frank Buccieri. While LaPietra's operation was based out of Buccieri's S.A.C. Club in Cicero, Severino's operation operated both out of Cicero and from a club at Roosevelt and Blue Island in the Taylor St Patch (the building no longer stands but was across the street from St Ignatius HS). It was reported at this time that Joe Rossi, Frank "The Calico Kid" Teutonica, Angelo Petitti, Tony Monaco, and Tony Ozzanto worked as collectors for Severino's juice operation. As we have already seen, Angelo Pettiti's brother Larry was connected to Severino as well and may have overseen some gambling interests for Severino at the time.

In 1963, an FBI bug, apparently placed in the S.A.C. Club, had picked up Angelo LaPietra holding an apparent sit down with an individual surmised to be Angelo Severino (the latter was addressed as "Ange/Angie" but was not LaPietra, though the thread is at times hard to follow as him, LaPietra, and possibly a third individual are all referred to as "Angie" during the conversation) over a "beef" that had ensued when an unidentified guy referred to as "Bert" had attempted to extort someone without first notifying LaPietra, who presumably had some jurisdiction involved (it's unclear who "Bert" was -- though one of Angelo Severino's brothers was named Albert, he died in 1953). The target had "run" (dodged payment) and his attorney had contacted Phil Alderisio for help in the matter, who apparently contacted LaPietra to resolve the issue, while "Bert" had gone to Severino for backing. Whatever problem had occurred, it was apparently serious enough that LaPietra was incensed that it was being brought to him after the fact and noted that "if I were to have done something like that I'd be in the (obscene) trunk". LaPietra repeatedly refers to his own group and, presumably, the group represented by Severino as distinct groups ("us" vs "youse"), though much of the detail is, of course, hard to glean from the transcript (The same transcript also captures a humorous exchange between LaPietra and associates Louie DeRiggi and Steve Annoreno, where they jocularly reminisce about a time when they "went hunting" and "cut [a guy] in half" with a "machine gun". Definitely a fun bunch of guys).

In the 1968 and 1973 Chicago lists, the FBI carried Angelo Severino as a Chicago LCN member, but he had only been identified by CI Lou Fratto (who, as has been discussed, made a number of questionable identifications of Chicago members). The 1985 list, reflecting a more stringent protocol for member identification, did not list Severino, which could mean that he was not a member, or simply that the FBI did not have the means to identify him as such at that time. That Severino was alleged to have headed a juice operation for the Buccieri crew could be consistent with him being a member, as LaPietra was, or with simply being a respected associate. Recall that Frank Buccieri was also said to have headed a juice operation under the Buccieri crew at the time, but was also only identified as of 1968 and 1973 as a member by Lou Fratto and was not identified as a member in 1985 (to my knowledge, Frank Buccieri's LCN membership was never officially confirmed). Similarly, the 1963 transcript could be consistent with Severino being a member who was on equal standing with an irate LaPietra during a tense sit down, or with an associate being berated by LaPietra. As such, Angelo Severino should be considered a suspected/possible member, whose status remains insufficiently confirmed.

Angelo Severino was living in DesPlaines when he died in 1995.

As I noted previously, younger brother Ernest Severino Sr was a longtime patrolman for the IL PD who later became police commissioner of the mobbed-up suburban town of Rosemont. He also worked as a police lieutenant for the IL Commerce Commission, tasked with overseeing the trucking industry (lol). As revealed in the Family Secrets trial, suburban trucking firm owner Robert Cagnoni -- murdered by the Calabrese brothers in a 1981 car bombing -- would hand over street tax payments to the outfit while meeting with men at a Rosemont hotel, so one wonders if Ernest Severino Sr's Rosemont PD and trucking industry ties had any relevance there. Son Ernest "Butch" Severino Jr, born in 1947, testified during Family Secrets as to his ties to Butch Petrocelli, Gerry Scarpelli and Duke Basile. Ernie Jr co-owned a Franklin Park gun store and testified that as such, he funneled ~100 firearms to Petrocelli during the course of their association. Ernie Jr is, however, a mortician by profession, previously working as a funeral director at Salerno's Galewood Chapels, where many outfit-related people have had their services. Today he heads Severino Family Funeral Directors, based in Melrose Park.

[Snakes]

I did once see a file that broke the Buccieri crew down and had Severino as a crew boss along with Angelo and Frank Buccieri. Torello and Ferriola were listed under Fiore Buccieri but above the crews. Angelo looked to have had the strongest crew with his brother James, Monteleone, Annoreno, Lou DeRiggi. Outside of Frank Teutonico, I wasn't familiar with any of Severino's guys

[PolackTony]

I did once see a file that broke the Buccieri crew down and had Severino as a crew boss along with Angelo and Frank Buccieri. Torello and Ferriola were listed under Fiore Buccieri but above the crews. Angelo looked to have had the strongest crew with his brother James, Monteleone, Annoreno, Lou DeRiggi. Outside of Frank Teutonico, I wasn't familiar with any of Severino's guys

Yup, that’s the same ‘65 report that I saw. Torello and Ferriola were listed as “lieutenants” under Fifi while Angelo LaPietra, Severino, and Frank Buccieri were denoted as operating juice businesses under Buccieri. There’s little info to go on for Angelo Severino, and this specific report is limited in that it was specifically about the juice racket and is mainly focused on the operations of juice businesses.

Note that one of the guys that the Feds said worked as a juice collector for Severino was Angelo Petitt, while Larry Petitt was pinched with Severino for a Northside gambling operation in ‘61. Possible that Larry Petitt was working for Severino at this time, but it’s also possible that they were partnered in the gambling thing. Though Larry wound up with the EP crew at least in later years, the Petittis were from Taylor St so it makes sense they may have initially been with the Buccieri crew.

[cavita]

Ernie Severino, who testified at the Family Secrets trial about Butch Petrocelli, has said his grandfather was made...not sure i've ever seen him give a name but i have seen that he claimed he was from Taylor Street and used a social club out there as his HQ. Anyone know who he's talking about?

Probably Angelo Severino

If it was his grandfather, then I don't think it was Angie Severino as I believe that Ernie Severino is his nephew. Ernie should be Ernest Severino, Jr, son of Ernest Alexander Severino, born 1912 in Chicago. Ernest Sr (once commissioner of the Rosemont PD and IL State patrolman) was the youngest of seven brothers (including Michael Angelo "Angie" Severino) born to Francesco "Frank" Severino (born about 1865 in Palermo) and Concetta Gargaro (born about 1879 in Napoli). The family lived by Taylor and Oakley. If Ernie was right that his grandfather was made, then that is very interesting as it's possible that he was already inducted under the old Mafia. Frank Severino died in 1934, but had been involved in the large bootlegging operations in Melrose Park with his son Angie (and Frank was listed in 1918 as already running a liquor business before Prohibition):

Capture.PNG

Photo of Frank Severino:
Capture1.PNG

This is old and needs to be updated.

Francesco "Frank" Severino, as noted, was born about 1865. All of his documents state that he was from "Palermo" and he may have been from Palermo City. His wife, Concetta Gargano, was born around 1879 and died in Chicago in 1918. Some family trees claimed that she was from Napoli, but I don't think this was the case. Her mother's maiden name was apparently Scimena, which is a Sicilian surname found around Palermo, so she was likely also Palermitana. The Severinos arrived in the US sometime in the 1890s and lived in STL, where their eldest child Joseph Severino was born in 1900, before relocating to Chicago that year and settling in the Taylor St Patch. The couple seems to have been living as common law spouses, as they were formally married in Manhattan in 1905 after several of their children were already born in STL and Chicago.

Michelangelo "Moustache Angie" Severino was born in Chicago in 1906 and was the 5th of 6 sons born to Frank and Concetta. He was baptized in 1906 at Holy Guardian Angel Parish by godparents Michele Sansone and his wife Vincenza Mendola. Sansone was a tailor from Termini Imerese and clearly had a close relationship with Francesco Severino, as he baptized several of the Severino boys. Sansone's second wife was Elvira Bivona, who was from Palermo City. The Sansones moved from the city to suburban Proviso Township (which encompasses the village of Melrose Park), an area where the Severinos were active in bootlegging.

In 1920, the Severinos lived at 904 S Oakley, between Polk and Taylor. As he had in 1910, Frank Severino reported that he was employed as a salesman for a brewery. Despite Prohibition, business as a "beer salesman" must've been pretty good, as the Severino home was a nice greystone two-flat, which Frank owned (there was, clearly, a lot of money in that non-alcoholic beer...). The building is still standing:



While one brother, Michael Severino, died in early childhood, another, Arthur Severino, died in 1921 at the age of 12 when he fell 4 stories from the rooftop of a Taylor St apartment building while playing with friends (which was still a common though hazardous pastime for inner city kids in Chicago when I was young).

During the 1920s, Frank Severino, befitting a prosperous Palermitano, became the operator of a wholesale grocery business. As noted above, in 1928, Frank and son Angelo Severino surrendered themselves to the US Marshalls after it was discovered that they had delivered 200 carloads of sugar to buyers in Melrose Park, where authorities under the command of Prohibition agent Frank L. White had recently raided around 150 stills operating in the area. We can presume that the Severinos were major players in the bootlegging racket, as it was estimated that this volume of sugar could be used to produce ~500k gallons of alcohol. Francesco Severino claimed that the shipment was unrelated to bootlegging and was, rather, intended only for "home consumption".

Also in 1928, the papers reported a 22-year-old Taylor St cabdriver named Tony Severino was murdered in an apparent hit in Melrose Park by a gunman. His surname, however, was actually Soverino and he was of Calabrian parentage, and thus unrelated to the Sicilian Severinos.

In January of 1929 Frank Severino's eldest son, Joe Severino, was arrested in a sweep of still operators in Melrose Park, consequent to the 1928 MP still raids. Authorities claimed that Joe Severino was partnered with notorious Melrose Park gangster Joe Montana as the principal operator of stills in the village (Montana has been covered in previous posts). An LE source had quoted Severino as claiming that Severino and Montana would "take care of the agents later", and the defendants were believed to have wielded such power in Melrose Park that local authorities were reported to have been afraid to hold them in jail there, requesting that they instead be held in Chicago. Joe Severino wound up pleading guilty to bootlegging conspiracy charges and received only a $500 fine for his sentence. Joe Severino was married to Agnesa Bivona, who was from Palermo and possibly a relative of the Elvira Bivona married to Severino familial friend and cumpari Michele Sansone.

Frank Severino died in 1934 of natural causes when he was in his 70s. As noted above, his grandson Ernie Severino Jr has claimed that Frank Severino was a made guy, though his membership has never been confirmed by later member sources. In the 1920s, Frank Severino had remarried Carmella Bianco, a Taylor St girl ~40 years his junior, who was born in Tunisia to Sicilian parents from Santo Stefano Quisquina, Agrigento, and Siracusa (given her ancestry from SSQ, it's unsurprising that her family had entered the US at Tampa, where her father had relatives).

By 1930, Angelo Severino was living in Berwyn and reported that he worked as a salesman for his father's wholesale grocery business. He had married Josephine Tramutolo, born in Denver to parents from Potenza -- the Tramutolos had relocated from CO to Taylor and Ashland.

In 1940, Angelo Severino was arrested along with Chicago LCN member Ned Bakes for operating an illegal still on a farm in rural Ogden County, IL, south of Rockford. As discussed before, Ned Bakes was a Taylor St guy of Termitano parentage, whose father "Charles Bakes" Sbacchi was murdered in a gangland slaying and appears to have been closely connected to Diamond Joe Esposito. In this light, recall also that Angelo Severino's godfather, Michele Sansone, was from Termini.

Additionally, in 1940 Angelo Severino reported that he was employed by Meadowmoor Dairies, a notoriously mobbed-up Near Westside milk company then headed by attorney and 25th Ward Democratic Committeeman William Parrillo, a local Taylor St political boss with outfit ties. Meadowmoor had made the local press a number of times in the 1930s and 1940s for its role in the violent takeover of the Chicagoland dairy industry by organized crime figures with ties to the mafia, a move reputed to have been spearheaded by Chicago LCN associate Murray Humphreys. After being allegedly taken over by gangsters in 1932 following a bombing at the company, the non-unionized Meadowmoor destabilized the Chicago milk market and broke the back of the milk dealers' association in the 1930s by severely undercutting the price of home milk deliveries offered by unionized companies, one of the means of coercion (along with firebombings and other violent attacks, of course) that mob-connected figures deployed to gain control over both dairy supply companies and the milk drivers union in this period. By 1950, Angelo Severino was back living in the city, at Fillmore and Western, while employed as a supervisor by Meadowmoor.

In the 1940s, elder brother Joe Severino was employed by a liquor store at Taylor and Halsted, which may have been one of the stores operated by Bennie Fillichio and Lou Briatta. The last time that Joe Severino made the papers was in 1952, when he was arrested and held for questioning by CPD along with a group of "hoodlums" attending the Davey-Graziano fight, including John and Matt Capone, Jeff Manno, Joe Contorno, Sam Cesario, Albert Tomasello, and union bigshot Eco Coli. Joe Severino died in 1978 in Melrose Park.

During Accardo's tenure as boss, a major scandal erupted over the use of fake tax stamps for cigarettes sold and supplied by outfit-controlled businesses in Chicagoland (as I've noted before, this was a major black eye for Accardo, as the market in tax-free tobacco was alleged to have been a huge moneymaker for a lot of connected guys in Chicago during this period). In 1954, investigations into vending machines controlled by LCN associate Eddie "Big Head" Vogel through which cigarettes bearing counterfeit stamps were sold to the public revealed that one of Vogel's primary suppliers was the Elmwood Park Tobacco Co, which was owned by Frank Severino and described by LE as a "100 percent syndicate operation". The Trib referred to Frank Severino as the "son of Joe 'Submarino' Severino, a Capone-era bootlegger". This was correct, as Frank Paul Severino was the eldest child of Joe Severino and Agnes Bivona, born in 1921. Frank Paul Severino stayed out of the papers following the tax stamp scandal and died in 1995 in NV.

Another son of Joe Severino was Joseph Severino Jr, born in 1931. He married Helen Palermo, daughter of John Palermo, brother of LCN member and close Accardo buddy Nick Palermo. In 1967, Helen Severino was listed as one of the officers of Mayo Plumbing of Melrose Park, described by LE as a "hoodlum controlled" business (her uncle Nick, of course, owned a lucrative Melrose Park plumbing company).

In 1961, Angelo Severino was arrested along with Larry Pettit in a bust of a Lakeview wireroom located at Barry and Paulina. The wireroom's operator was alleged to have been Gerald Murray, a Northside bookie who had been severely beaten in an attack the prior year by men armed with clubs, which CPD attributed to a "hoodlum takeover" of Murray's wireroom. By this time, Angelo Severino was living in the Irving Park section of the NW Side, at Christiana and Irving Park Rd.

In 1965, the FBI composed a report on the "juice racket" in Chicagoland, the product of investigations by a Chicago DOJ/FBI task force focused specifically on the major shylocking operations affiliated with Chicago LCN. The report claimed that capo Fiore Buccieri had three juice businesses operating under him: one headed by Angelo LaPietra, another by Angelo Severino, and the third by Frank Buccieri. While LaPietra's operation was based out of Buccieri's S.A.C. Club in Cicero, Severino's operation operated both out of Cicero and from a club at Roosevelt and Blue Island in the Taylor St Patch (the building no longer stands but was across the street from St Ignatius HS). It was reported at this time that Joe Rossi, Frank "The Calico Kid" Teutonica, Angelo Petitti, Tony Monaco, and Tony Ozzanto worked as collectors for Severino's juice operation. As we have already seen, Angelo Pettiti's brother Larry was connected to Severino as well and may have overseen some gambling interests for Severino at the time.

In 1963, an FBI bug, apparently placed in the S.A.C. Club, had picked up Angelo LaPietra holding an apparent sit down with an individual surmised to be Angelo Severino (the latter was addressed as "Ange/Angie" but was not LaPietra, though the thread is at times hard to follow as him, LaPietra, and possibly a third individual are all referred to as "Angie" during the conversation) over a "beef" that had ensued when an unidentified guy referred to as "Bert" had attempted to extort someone without first notifying LaPietra, who presumably had some jurisdiction involved (it's unclear who "Bert" was -- though one of Angelo Severino's brothers was named Albert, he died in 1953). The target had "run" (dodged payment) and his attorney had contacted Phil Alderisio for help in the matter, who apparently contacted LaPietra to resolve the issue, while "Bert" had gone to Severino for backing. Whatever problem had occurred, it was apparently serious enough that LaPietra was incensed that it was being brought to him after the fact and noted that "if I were to have done something like that I'd be in the (obscene) trunk". LaPietra repeatedly refers to his own group and, presumably, the group represented by Severino as distinct groups ("us" vs "youse"), though much of the detail is, of course, hard to glean from the transcript (The same transcript also captures a humorous exchange between LaPietra and associates Louie DeRiggi and Steve Annoreno, where they jocularly reminisce about a time when they "went hunting" and "cut [a guy] in half" with a "machine gun". Definitely a fun bunch of guys).

In the 1968 and 1973 Chicago lists, the FBI carried Angelo Severino as a Chicago LCN member, but he had only been identified by CI Lou Fratto (who, as has been discussed, made a number of questionable identifications of Chicago members). The 1985 list, reflecting a more stringent protocol for member identification, did not list Severino, which could mean that he was not a member, or simply that the FBI did not have the means to identify him as such at that time. That Severino was alleged to have headed a juice operation for the Buccieri crew could be consistent with him being a member, as LaPietra was, or with simply being a respected associate. Recall that Frank Buccieri was also said to have headed a juice operation under the Buccieri crew at the time, but was also only identified as of 1968 and 1973 as a member by Lou Fratto and was not identified as a member in 1985 (to my knowledge, Frank Buccieri's LCN membership was never officially confirmed). Similarly, the 1963 transcript could be consistent with Severino being a member who was on equal standing with an irate LaPietra during a tense sit down, or with an associate being berated by LaPietra. As such, Angelo Severino should be considered a suspected/possible member, whose status remains insufficiently confirmed.

Angelo Severino was living in DesPlaines when he died in 1995.

As I noted previously, younger brother Ernest Severino Sr was a longtime patrolman for the IL PD who later became police commissioner of the mobbed-up suburban town of Rosemont. He also worked as a police lieutenant for the IL Commerce Commission, tasked with overseeing the trucking industry (lol). As revealed in the Family Secrets trial, suburban trucking firm owner Robert Cagnoni -- murdered by the Calabrese brothers in a 1981 car bombing -- would hand over street tax payments to the outfit while meeting with men at a Rosemont hotel, so one wonders if Ernest Severino Sr's Rosemont PD and trucking industry ties had any relevance there. Son Ernest "Butch" Severino Jr, born in 1947, testified during Family Secrets as to his ties to Butch Petrocelli, Gerry Scarpelli and Duke Basile. Ernie Jr co-owned a Franklin Park gun store and testified that as such, he funneled ~100 firearms to Petrocelli during the course of their association. Ernie Jr is, however, a mortician by profession, previously working as a funeral director at Salerno's Galewood Chapels, where many outfit-related people have had their services. Today he heads Severino Family Funeral Directors, based in Melrose Park.

Yeah I read up on that Severino 1940 booze bust in Ogle County, Illinois and it appears it may have started at least two years earlier. On March 2, 1938 shortly before dawn, Severino and 20 year old Elmer Larson were injured when the car they were driving went off the road near Sillman Valley, Illinois and both men were treated at a Rockford hospital. It is most likely the operation was started by this time or at the very least the men were scouting out farms to operate the illegal still on. Severino was listed as living at 1220 South Marengo Avenue in Forest Park and Larson at 4303 West Wilcox Street in Chicago.