Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

[PolackTony]

In January of 1962, an illegal FBI bug in Sam Giancana's headquarters in the Armory Lounge in the western suburb of Forest Park picked up a formal audience given by Giancana to Chicago member Joe L Costello and Costello's capodecina (who *may* have been Sam DiGiovanni, though the identity of the captain, who seems to have been a primarily Italian speaking man, remains unconfirmed). The subject of the sit-down concerned issues that Costello and his cousins John and Sam Macaluso were having at the time with liquor licensing and distribution territories in the south suburbs, where Chicago member Joe Fusco and capodecina Frank LaPorte had both caused difficulties for Costello's group and were making their capodecina "look bad", with Giancana ruling in Costello's favor and promising to help him get the problems resolved.

We've discussed the transcript of this conversation at length before, as it is one of the more important documents that we have regarding Chicago LCN in this period. One point that has not been discussed is a reference that Costello made to the "Campagna boys", some group of men that Costello indicated were operating in Calumet City and who had caused some issue with Costello's liquor distribution business in the 1950s. Costello further indicated that the "Campagna boys" reported to Frank LaPorte, as he stated that they were "with Frankie" and that he had asked LaPorte to instruct the "Campagna boys" to come to Costello's group's "place" to discuss resolving the issue. Costello seems to have brought this up in order to demonstrate that he had some history of difficulties with individuals in LaPorte's crew.

In February of 1962, an FBI memo noted that a file was being opened for the investigation of Rudolph Campagna, a resident of Hammond, IN, who an informant claimed was operating several "gambling joints" at the time in Calumet City. Given the close temporal succession of this memo to the Costello-Giancana sit-down, the Feds may have asked one of their informants who the "Campagna boys" in Cal City were and received some further intel. I have yet to see any other FBI reports referring to Rudolph Campagna.

In 1985, Rudolph Anthony Campagna died in Miami, FL, of natural causes at 57 years of age. His obituary was run in both the Miami Herald and the The Times of Hammond. The latter obit noted that while Campagna had moved to FL in 1971, he was a "lifelong resident" of the Calumet region (the section of Chicagoland straddling the border between SE Cook County and Lake County, IN)and had previously operated Whitey's Tavern in Calumet City.

The claim that Rudolph Campagna was a lifelong resident of Hammond was untrue, however, as Campagna was originally from Brooklyn, where he was born on April 26th, 1928. His parents were Anthony Campagna and Donata "Nettie" Carnevale, both of whom were born in NYC. While I'm not certain of Donata's ancestral origins in Italy, I believe that her parents were mostly likely both from the province of Potenza in Basilicata.

Rudolph Campagna's father Anthony Campagna was born in 1896 to Luigi "Louis" Campagna Sr of Librizzi, Messina, and Maria Antonia Scardina of Catania. Anthony Campagna was thus an older brother of Louis Ray "Lefty" Campagna Jr, the notorious Chicago LCN member, who was born in BK in 1900 (Lefty Campagna may have, at different times, been a Chicago captain, UB, and acting boss, though we lack reliable insider sources to confirm the rank/s that he actually held).

As of the 1950 census, Rudolph Campagna was still living with his parents on Bay 8th in Bath Beach, BK. Sometime immediately thereafter he relocated to the Hammond/Cal City area, where he was apparently an affiliate of the LaPorte crew. I have seen no indication that Rudolph Campagna was a made LCN member, though given who his uncle was, there is certainly a possibility.

Whitey's Tavern predated the arrival of Rudolph Campagna, however, and was already operating by 1936. In 1942, the joint -- located on Pulaski Rd a couple of blocks west of State Line Ave -- was named by the Tribune several times in the 1940s for operating slot machines. In 1955, by which time it was presumably being run by Rudolph Campagna, an ad in the Chicago Daily News touted Whitey's as a classy spot open till 2am and specializing in aged steaks and lobster.

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I have seen it claimed before that Lefty Campagna left Brooklyn at age 15. This would seem to be true. As of the 1915 NY State census, Louis Campagna Jr was still living at home with his parents at 1004 39th St in Boro Park. In 1918, a Louis Campagna was one of several suspects charged with the shooting of a police officer near Ashland and Polk in Chicago's Taylor St community, while Louis Campagna subsequently also confessed to a Chicago bank robbery a few months later. In 1920 Louis Campagna, born in 1900 in NY, was an inmate at Pontiac State Penitentiary in downstate IL. Thus, Lefty Capagna was indeed in Chicago before the arrival of his later confederates Capone and Ricca and was presumably already involved in the criminal underworld of the Taylor St Patch.

[PolackTony]

Cavita you have a unique gift with these stories and finding out so much information - really appreciate everything you post. LaPietra and a good chunk of his crew were all Sicilian so I'm sure he fit in - I've heard wiretaps from Gary Jenkins where LaPietra is speaking Sicilian to Tony Ripe Civella - you don't often hear the Chicago guys speaking Italian or Sicilian as much as the east coast families.

There was an FBI bug in the Buccieri crew’s SAC in Cicero in the 60s, and Angelo LaPietra would definitely speak to guys in “Italian”. We also have transcripts where Giancana and others speak in “Italian” (scare quotes as these guys may have actually been speaking in Sicilian or some mixed vernacular). The problem is that the Chicago FO was lame back then and apparently didn’t have any agents who could understand Italian and didn’t bother to have these sections translated. Instead, the transcript will just read “speaks in Italian” or something similar. Which is super wack because some of the best info may have been communicated in Italian, as it’s likely that guys would code switch to make what they were saying less intelligible to potential outside ears (Judith Exener, for example, said that when she was around Giancana he would frequently speak to his men in “Sicilian”).

Yes I'm friendly with Steve Annerino Jr. whose father is all over those transcripts - he was also a fluent speaker. Ironically bc we were just talking about this - Annerino was the one who put Calabrese and Stubitch on record with Chinatown and apparently Calaberese had a major beef with him over it as 'Stevie Reno' would collect from Calabrese and Stubitch. Calabrese said on prison tapes that Steve 'thought he had the power of god' and sounds like Calaabrese was the one who got him shelved/stabbed by LaPietra. I've wondered if Sam Annerino (who I believe Calabrese killed) was related to Steve - I would never ask that question to the son myself.

I'm replying in this thread to not divert Cavita's thread on the Saladinos off on a tangent.

Steve Annoreno and Sam Annerino Jr were not related in any immediate way, though their families may have been related back in Sicily. Further, given that their families were paesani and originally from the same neighborhood, it is possible that they may have thought of each other as "cugini", in the loose way that this is often used by Italians.

The surname in both cases was originally Iannarino and is from Termini Imerese. Unsurprisingly, there were a bunch of Iannarinos who wound up settling in Chicago -- some by Grand Ave and others in Chinatown (also unsurprisingly, many were involved in the produce industry). Once in the US, the various Iannarinos began using different spellings of the surname, sometimes even in the same branch of the family, including Eannarino, Annoreno, Annerino, and Genero.

Stephen "Steve Reno" Annoreno was born in 1931 in Chicago, the youngest of three sons born to Anthony Annoreno Sr and Salvatora "Sally" Zaccone (his brothers were John Annoreno and Anthony "Tony Reno" Annoreno Jr [ ]). Anthony Annoreno Sr was born in 1902 in Baltimore to Giovanni "John Annoreno" Iannarino and Celestina Bisesi, both of Termini Imerese. The family relocated to Chicago, where they lived at Grand and Curtis (renamed Aberdeen; an infamous location in Chicago mafia history that has been previously mentioned numerous times on this thread). Giovanni worked for years as a fruit peddler. One of Anthony Annoreno's sisters, Mary Annoreno, married Geraldo "Jerry" Cerone, born in 1892 in Muro Lucano, Potenza, Jerry Cerone was an older brother of Chicago LCN members Frank and James Cerone and the longtime operator of a tavern at Grand and Oakley.

Sally Zaccone was born in Chicago in 1906 to Stefano Zaccone (Steven Annoreno's namesake) and Providenza Corso, both of Termini Imerese. The Zaccones lived near Cermak and Wentworth in Chinatown. Anthony Annoreno died in an auto accident in 1931, shortly after Steven was born, leaving Sally to raise their boys as a single mother. In 1940, they were living at 25th Pl and Wentworth, the next block down from where the LaPietras grew up. Like the LaPietras, the Annorenos were Chinatown guys who later moved to Cicero.

So far as I am aware (at least at the moment), the first time that Steve Annoreno made the papers was in 1964, when a Sun-Times piece mentioned him as an associate of Rocky Infelise and Americo DiPietto, involved in "syndicate" control of bars and restaurants, many of which were burned for insurance payouts. The article noted that Annoreno had previously owned a restaurant called Mr.s Chicken in Oak Park, one of over 50 businesses in the area that had been bombed or torched in the prior 3 years. Steve Annoreno was pinched on juice loan extortion charges in 1966 and again in 1969, the latter time along with his brother Tony Annoreno and other Buccieri crew associates including Louie DeRiggi, Sam Pullia, George Vertucci, Vito and Anthony Spillone, Anthony DelGallo, Martin Bucaro, Albert Milstein, and John Kobylarz. All were found guilty of violating the 1968 Extortion and Credit Act, with Steve Annoreno sentenced to 15 years in Federal prison.

Steve Annoreno was out by 1978, however, when he moved to Ft Lauderdale and opened Reno's Hotdog Stand near the airport. Around 1990, Steve Annoreno returned to Chicagoland and died in the Chicago suburbs in 2018.

While the FBI carried Steve Annoreno on its 1968 and 1973 Chicago membership charts, the only source identifying him as such was CI Tony Amatore, who I do not believe was an LCN member himself (in fact, Amatore apparently didn't even identify himself as a member but was only designated as such by the FBI on the basis of an ID by Lou Fratto, whose own membership status is questionable). Annoreno was not identified as a Chicago LCN member on the FBI's 1985 list, so either he was not made or the Feds had no sources to identify him as a member following the switch to more rigorous procedures for member identification. My own take based on what I know of Annoreno is that he was an associate on record with Angelo LaPietra during the 1960s and I have seen no indication that I can recall at the moment that would suggest that he was made later. If he was indeed chased from the Buccieri crew by LaPietra, then I'm not sure if he was ever formally reaffiliated.

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Samuel "Sammy the Mule" Annerino Jr was born in 1943 in Chicago to Salvatore "Sam" Annerino Sr and Sam Annerino Sr was born in 1901 in KC to Antonino Iannarino and Rosa Culotta of Termini Imerese. The family may have been visiting KC when Sam Sr was born, as their other children, before and after Sam, were all born in Chicago. Antonino seems to have died when Sam Sr was a kid, and mother Rosa remarried Giuseppe Gatto of Termini Imerese -- Sam Sr later sometimes went by Sam Gatto Annerino. The family lived in the vicinity of 26th St and Wallace. In 1922, Sam's older brother Walter Annerino was arrested for an armed robbery of a Chicago pawn shop.

Sam Annerino Sr married Mary LaMantia, born in 1903 in Chicago to Giuseppe LaMantia and Rosalia Badali of Termini Imerese. Giuseppe worked as a produce peddler and the family lived in Chinatown at 23rd Pl and Princeton. Sam Sr and Mary LaMantia had three sons -- Anthony, Frank, and a *different* Sam (born in 1930), but had divorced by 1940 when Mary was living with their sons at 27th St and Union. In 1952, Anthony Annerino was living at 28th Pl and Normal when he was busted as part of a large heroin wholesaling ring which included Northsiders Jack Rizzo and Joe Anzelmo along with fellow Southsiders Joe DiCaro, Jimmy Cordovano, and Pete Gushi (DiCaro and Gushi also being of Termitano heritage).

It is unclear to me who Sam Annerino Jr's mother was. In 1944, over a year after Sam Jr's birth, his father married a 17-year-old girl from rural Vermillion County, IN, named Parolee (lol) "Pearl" Coonce. If she had borne Sam Jr out of wedlock, she would have been 15 at the time. That Sam Sr had another woman between Mary LaMantia and Pearl Coonce is suggested by the fact that in the 1950 census, he had two teenage kids living with the family also listed as his children, La Verne and Leonard Annerino -- I have no idea who their mother was, but it doesn't seem to have been Mary LaMantia. whatever the deal was, it seems like Sam Annerino Jr had some type of unwholesome upbringing. in 1950, the family lived at Pershing Rd and S Lake Park Ave in the largely black Bronzeville neighborhood on the Southside.

In 1972, Sam Annerino Jr was convicted on extortion charges. In 1973, it was reported that Sam Annerino Jr was charged along with two unnamed men with armed robbery and deviant sexual assault for some, apparently nasty, event that occurred in SW suburban Countryside. The same year, the Tribune revealed that Annerino was partnered with mob-connected "swindler" Sam Sarcinelli in managing an 8-digit portfolio of lucrative properties in the Chicago Loop and Oak Park run by the Briar Management Co. Sarcinelli, who was under indictment at the time for grand theft after chiseling assets from an insurance firm in which he owned stock, claimed that they were managing the properties for a group of "investors from New York". In 1974, Annerino -- then living in suburban Burbank -- was again busted on extortion and assault charges after he and Romeoville resident James "Hawk" Falco beat and threatened an Oak Park trucking firm executive. Annerino was sentenced to five years. In 1975, the US Attorney's Office in Chicago announced that they were probing a company selling paid television subscription services (some kind of proto-cable, apparently) for fraud. It was reported that the company, Tel-X Ltd., was headed by Sam Annerino Jr and swindling "customers" for security deposits charged for their fake services. It was also reported at this time that Annerino was challenging his 1974 conviction. He was, of course, on the street in 1977 when he was shot to death while starting his Benz in a brazen broad daylight attack in front Mirabelli's Furniture store at Cicero and 106th St in SW Suburban Oak Lawn, where Annerino was living at the time. Annerino was an associate with Chicago member Vincenzo "Jimmy" Catuara, who had run afoul of Chicago's administration, resulting in him and his men being ordered clipped. Nicholas Calabrese later stated that he, his brother Frank, Frank Saladino, Joseph "Shorty" LaMantia, and Ronnie Jarrett had initially attempted to kill Annerino without success and that the actual hit was instead carried out by Butch Petrocelli, Tony Borsellino, and Joe Scalise.

I very much suspect that Antonino Iannarino, Sam Annerino Jr's paternal grandfather, was a brother of Agostino Iannarino, the father of Giovanni "Johnny Genero" and Giuseppe "Pepe Genero" Iannarino, notorious Southside mafiosi murdered in separate incidents in the 1930s (Agostino's father was named Francesco and both Agostino and Antonino Iannarino named their firstborn sons Francesco -- further, both men settled near each other in the Chinatown neighborhood).

For anyone wondering, I was unable to find any familial links between Mary LaMantia's family and that of Joseph Lamantia Sr, father of Joseph "Shorty" LaMantia Jr. The La Mantia surname is very common in Termini Imerese and many of them settled in Chicago.

[B.]

When I looked into the Marcellos years ago, I remember the Annoreno name showing up in their family tree. You'd know for sure if I had the right Marcellos but from memory I want to say it was Sam Marcello's maternal side. This was before you were around but I was looking into random Chicago heritage as nobody had done much of it before and I was amazed to find Termini surfacing so much -- you've since torn unearthed a whole world of Termitani going back to the earliest days.

Also, on one of our Chicago episodes when I asked if the Marcellos were related to the Ammiratos, I meant Annoreno but confused the names for obvious reasons.

[PolackTony]

You have the right Marcellos and I did post about this before but it was a while back.

Salvatore “Sammy” Marcello, father of Jimmy Marcello, was born in 1919 in Oswego, NY, to Agostino Masiello and Antonina “Anna” Iannarino. Agostino was from Campania and I believe from the comune of Durazzano which is today in Benevento province but historically was in Caserta/Terra di Lavoro. Anna Iannarino (given as Annoreno or Eannarino in US records) was from Termini. The couple married in Oswego in 1906. Anna died in 1923 at which point Agostino took the family to Taylor St in Chicago. I mentioned previously that he lived as a boarder initially with an Angelina LaRosa from Termini after arriving in Chicago, showing that despite him being Napolitan’ he was connected to Termitano compaesano networks in America, which is likely part of the context for him moving to Chicago.

After immigrating to the US, Agostino Masiello started using the variant “Marsella” for this surname, which eventually became “Marcello”.

[NorthBuffalo]

Thanks for the background on Annoreno. He did a heavy bit in prison following the convictions of the Buccieri crew. Story goes that Steve was suspected of skimming juice profits (per Calabrese). When he came home from prison, he tried to get money back on the street by himself. Angelo had a guy walk up and stab him (non fatally on purpose) as a message. From there, he opened a chicago italian beef stand, which became quite successful.

[Eline2015]

How many Accardos were involved in outfit business?

[PolackTony]

How many Accardos were involved in outfit business?

Not sure exactly what you mean by "outfit business" -- as in, involvement with the actual organization in any formal capacity, or just some involvement in mob-connected companies or union locals, etc.

Recently, NorthBuffalo and I discussed Tony's elder brother, Leonardo "Martin" Accardo (born in 1900 in Castelvetrano), who would seem to have been the most involved with the organization itself among Tony Accardo's relatives. While the FBI never identified Martin Accardo as a member, I believe that he had some formal affiliation with the organization, possibly as an associate of his brother, at least in later years. Given that he was the older brother and in the early days was as publicly notorious as Tony, there may well be more to his story than we know. NorthBuffalo found an FBI report from the '60s that claimed that Martin Accardo was the off-the-record owner of J.P. Graziano, a longstanding deli/grocery wholesaling company, the on-the-record owners of which were the Grazianos, a Grand Ave family from Bagheria with apparent mafia connections (they lived on the same block of Grand ave where the Accardos originally lived). Here's something that I wrote at the time about Martin Accardo:

Leonardo "Martin Leo" Accardo was a pretty low-key guy and there really isn't much information about him available. He was six years older than his brother and born in Castelvetrano, though he arrived in Chicago when he was a young kid. He was called a "Capone henchman" in 1931 when he was pinched for forcing a restaurant owner in North suburban Glenview to buy booze from the "Capone gang". In 1942, he listed James Betini, longtime President of the Suburban Transit bus company, as his boss. Later investigations revealed that Martin's primary source of income was, however, operating a major sportsbook out of his club, the Circle Lounge, located at Cermak Rd And Central in Cicero. While Martin lived in Cicero at the time, he also maintained a fancy second home in Coral Gables, as revealed in 1949 by the Miami Crime Commission (hey, it sure beats Cicero). In 1951, his ex-wife claimed that Martin Accardo had bankrolled a shortlived Miami newspaper with a $100k loan (the first edition of the paper was headlined by an editorial extolling the virtues of Frank Costello lol). When Martin refused to testify before a Senate committee investigating the allegations, he was jailed for one year on contempt. In 1954, he pled guilty to tax evasion charges and did three years in Terra Haute. In 1962, he was pinched again with Frank Santucci, Vito Lombardi, and Franklin Park lounge operator Constantino di Stasio for a stolen rare coins ring. In 1963, Martin Accardo was recorded by an illegal FBI bug in Giancana's HQ at the Armory Lounge discussing Giancana and Tony Accardo's anti-narcotics stance with Chuckie English and unnamed interlocutors. Unfortunately, I've only seen a summary of this and not a transcript, which might have otherwise shed light on Martin's formal relationship to the organization. In his later years, he underwent a protracted illness and died in 1980. In 1981, the Tribune cited Federal agents as claiming that Martin Accardo had been linked to "Florida and East Coast mob activities". My hunch is that there was more to Martin Accardo than the little bits that have come to light.

As also discussed recently, the youngest Accardo brother, John Phillip "Johnny" Accardo (b. 1918 in Chicago), was the longtime projectionist at Sportsman's Park racetrack in suburban Chicagoland and a member of Local 110 of the Projectionists Union, which even by Chicago standards was a floridly mobbed-up local. Tony Accardo's eldest son, Anthony Ross Accardo (b. 1936), was also affiliated with Local 110 in the 50s, and employed by a suburban movie theater that also employed Sam Giancana's brother, Charles Giancana. In the 1960s, Anthony Ross was partnered with Nick Nitti as co-owner of the Plan-It Travel Agency (later known as the Nitti Travel Agency). Nitti was himself apparently an important associate of Chicago's leadership and another longtime Grand Ave native (totally unrelated to Frank Nitto). As I've discussed in another thread previously, Nick Nitti traveled to Italy with Tony Accardo and was very likely responsible for booking the arrangements for a Las Vegas summit that Giancana held for visiting Palermo City Mayor and Sicilian mafia member Salvo Lima in the early 60s (this event would presumably have also been attended by other American mafia leaders). I haven't seen anything that would indicate that Anthony Ross Accardo was involved in any specific criminal activities or the mafia organization itself, apart from benefitting from mob ties in his career and socializing with other outfit relatives like Jackie Cerone Jr and Tommy Eboli Jr.

Accardo's other son, Joseph Accardo (b. 1944), was known as a motorcycle-riding, Afro-sporting hippy in the 60s/70s in Old Town (which at the time was like the Haight-Ashbury of the Midwest). So far as I can recall, the only time that Joseph Accardo made the papers was when he appeared as a character witness for his father's defense in a 1971 case when the Feds tried to jam Tony Accardo up for possessing some unregistered firearms. I also noted recently that Accardo had a son, Frank (b. 1937) who seemed to have had suffered from a serious developmental disability and died as a teenager in a Downstate IL state "home" for the disabled.

Tony Accardo's brother-in-law, Tarquin "Queenie" Simonelli, who married younger sister Marie Accardo (b. 1916 in Chicago) was a Chicago LCN member. The local press for decades also claimed that Dominic Senese, Chicago member and longtime official of Teamsters Local 703, was related to Accardo, variously describing Senese as Accardo's "nephew", "cousin", or "brother-in-law", though I haven't found any evidence of an actual relation, whether by blood or marriage, between the two (Senese's family also were not Sicilian, but from Bari and Basilicata). The claim that the two were related may have stemmed from the fact that Accardo's sister Martha Accardo (b. 1914 in Chicago) married Anthony Senese, who was a motion picture operator with Local 110 of the Projectionists Union. Dominic and Anthony Senese do not seem to have been related, however (and if they were, it would probably have been distant as their fathers hailed from, respectively, the comuni of Binetto and Bitritto, Bari, which are near each other), though likely either LE or the press may have erroneously assumed that they were (both men were also from the Taylor st neighborhood, which may have further led to the perception that they were related).

Accardo sister Bessie Accardo Meiers (b. 1912 in Chicago) was identified in 1956 as a "ghost payroller" clerk (i.e., a "no-show" job on the public trough) in the office of the IL State Auditor.

One of Tony Accardo's daughters, Linda Lee Accardo (b. 1941) married Michael Palermo, son of Ercole "Joseph/Herc" Palermo, younger brother of Chicago LCN member and close Accardo friend Nick Palermo. Accardo's other daughter, Marie (b. 1940) married Ernest Kumerow, who became the President and business manager of LIUNA Local 1001. Marie Accardo's kids from her first marriage to NFL star Palmer Pyle were NFL linebacker Eric Kumerow and Marie Kumerow Bosa, wife of NFL defensive end John Bosa and mother of current NFL players Nick and Joey Bosa. Local 1001 was long a very powerful outfit-controlled Local, representing thousands of workers in the historically heavily mobbed-up City of Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation, with too many LCN connections over the decades to discuss here. As president of Local 1001, Ernie Kumerow was subpoenaed to testify at a Federal grand jury in 1992 in Chicago investigating several outfit-linked car bomb attacks, including those targeted at Lenny Patrick and Dom Senese's son Lucien Senese.

Finally, there is the question of father Francesco "Frank "Acardo (b. ~1875 in Castelvetrano, d. 1947 in Chicago), who I have suspected had at least some of his own ties to the mafia. In a recent post in this thread, I noted a 1960s FBI bug of a conversation between Chicago member Pat Marcy and suspected Chicago member and close Accardo buddy Bennie Filicchio that suggested that Frank Accardo had some unknown criminal past in concert with Filicchio's father, Salvatore Filicicchia, though this was a vague statement and the details are unconfirmed. Frank Accardo's NW side home was hit by a bomb attack in 1929, though it is unknown if the attack was directed at him or his sons Tony and Martin.

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Also, for guys from Gibellina, Vincenzo Accardo was Gibellinese. We don’t know if he was ever made, but he was somebody, I think:

Vincenzo Accardo of Gibellina was reported in the papers as an Aiello gunman when he was arrested at the Lisciandrello's address at 826 N Milton in 1930. While he lived quietly after that, working as a painter, he seems to have been a very well-connected guy, as the witnesses on his 1931 naturalization were Sam Gerage, a clerk for the City of Chicago, and Gennaro "Jerry" Alterio, a clerk for the Cook County Board of Review from Baucina.

I've written a couple of times about Vincenzo Accardo, an unrelated Accardo who was a native of Gibellina, Trapani. Vincenzo Accardo was also part of the mafia network in Chicago, having been identified by LE as a Joe Aiello supporter in 1930 and married to Rosa Lisciandrello of Vicari/Campofelice di Fitalia, sister of Chicago LCN members Frank "Hot Dog" and Sam "Spiri" Lisciandrello. Vincenzo and Rosa's son, Joseph Accardo, born in 1927 in Chicago, seems to also have been affiliated. In 1945, a 17-year-old Joseph Accardo, apparently incarcerated on armed robbery charges, was one of a group of boys who broke out of and fled the St Charles Reformatory, a notorious youth prison in the Chicago suburbs (these Accardos were living near Huron and Hamlin at the time, in the heavily mobbed-up Italian section of Humboldt Park). Joseph Accardo was likely an associate reporting to his uncles later; in 1961, he was busted as the bartender at one of Frank and Sam Lisciandrello's prostitution operations, the Haylo Club, located at 4639 N Sheridan Rd in the Uptown neighborhood on Chicago's Northside. In 1964, Joseph Accardo was named in the papers for allegedly making threats to a guy in relation to falsifying liquor license tax documents for a Near Northside tavern run by Frank Lisciandrello.

[Eline2015]

Great, as always, Tony

[PolackTony]

In their 1968 list of Chicago LCN members, the FBI listed Anthony "Pulio" DeRose, identified as a member by CI Lou Fratto.

He was born Anthony William DeRosa in 1916 in Chicago to Pietro De Rosa and Santina Esposito, both of the Campanian comune of Acerra (at the time in Terra di Lavoro/Caserta province and today in the Metropolitan City of Napoli). The couple had married in Chicago in 1913 and settled near many of their Acerres' paesani in the Taylor St Patch. The De Rosas lived at 111 Vernon Park Pl, while father Pietro worked as a street construction laborer for the City of Chicago in what would later be called the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Given his city job and origins in Acerra, it is possible that Pietro and his wife had connections to "Diamond Joe" Esposito, though I could find no immediate kinship relation between the latter and Santina Esposito (Esposito being a common surname which, in origin, denoted a foundling or orphan).

Tony DeRosa appeared in the papers in 1950 when he was arrested as part of a burglary crew including Americo DiPietto, brothers Anthony and Joseph Ozzanto, and an older black guy named Hobert Smith, when the group were pinched at a garage near Ashland and Roosevelt wit ha stolen safe. In 1952, Tony DeRose was arrested on robbery charges and gave a statement to CPD admitting his role in a crew that would hijack and fence merchandise from trucks, leading investigators to a safe house for stolen goods in an apartment in the Lakeview neighborhood on the Northside. It was reported at this time that DeRose, like his father, had been employed as a street laborer for the City. Subsequently, DeRosa denied the charges and claimed that CPD had blindfolded and beaten a false confession from him. Charges were brought against five officers from the infamous "Scotland Yard" unit -- the organized crime intelligence detail of the CPD back in the day --- and the officers were, astoundingly, convicted by a jury, despite FBI agents having testified that when DeRose was turned over to them after his arrest by CPD he bore no marks consistent with a beating.

In 1964, Tony DeRosa was one of 7 Chicago "crime syndicate hoodlums" arrested on charges of violating election laws, as they were felons who had voted without having their voting rights returned to them by either a Presidential or Gubernatorial pardon. The others arrested included Joey Caesar DiVarco, brothers Sam and Mario DeStefano, Charles "Specs" DiCaro, Jimmy Cordovano, and Cicero bookie Mike Dakoff (all of the arrestees, excepting Dakoff, of course, were listed by the FBI in the 1960s as LCN members). After the arrests, an illegal FBI bug in the 1st Ward Democratic party office picked up a meeting that DeRosa had with LCN members Pat Marcy and John D'Arco Sr about DeRosa's defense (the case was later tossed by a Cook County judge).

In 1963, a CI told the FBI that Willie Daddono's crew had a juice loan operation running out of the Tastee Snack Shop at Cermak and Central Ave in Cicero. The guys involved in this operation were alleged to have been Tony DeRosa, Pasquale Clementi, James Tortoriello, and Frank Fratto. Another CI told the FBI in 1964 that Tony DeRosa was a "special hitman for Sam Giancana and Anthony Accardo".

In 1971, Toy DeRosa was convicted in Federal court in Miami for his part in a FL ring selling stocks stolen from an NYC brokerage firm. DeRosa's codefendants in this case were CT/FL-based Gambino member David Iacovetti, Floridian William Dentamara (his affiliation is unclear to me, as he was connected to both the Chicago and Tampa Families), and Bostonians Robert Cardillo and Phillip Waggenhein. Given the New England ties of several of the co-defendants, former Patriarca Family associate turned CW Vinnie Teresa testified in the case. DeRosa was sentenced to 12 years in the Federal system. While attempting to appeal his conviction and sentence, DeRosa was indicted later in 1971 by a Federal grand jury in Chicago for an interstate stolen securities ring where DeRosa was partnered with Colombo member Greg Scarpa and Brooklyn-based Colombo associates Gennaro Cipriano (murdered in 1972 in Brooklyn on the day of Joe Gallo's funeral) and Sal Mangiamelli (later released to the Gambinos, and afterward to the DeCavalcantes). Press accounts at the time described Tony DeRosa as a "lieutenant" of Willie Daddono. The ring allegedly involved the transfer of ~$500k in stolen bond from NYC to DeRosa, who in turn sold them clients in the Chicago area. I'm not sure what the ultimate disposition of this case was.

I'm not sure what the ultimate disposition of this latter case was (Scarpa protested to the papers before heading to the grand jury in Chicaog that Federal agents armed with shotguns had kicked in the door of his SI home when they arrested him for the charges), but, assuming that his first case wasn't overturned, DeRosa likely did some serious time in prison and may not have gotten out until the 80s. DeRosa was living in the Dunning neighborhood on the NW Side of Chicago when he died in 1988.

Though he was still alive, DeRosa was not listed as a Chicago member on the FBI's 1985 list, reflecting updated and more stringent protocols for LCN member identification. As is the case with several otherwise unconfirmed Chicago member IDs based on Lou Fratto, it could be the case that DeRosa was never made, or just that the FBI did not have sufficient intel to list him as a member in 1985.

[PolackTony]

It should be noted that Anthony "Pulio" DeRosa was totally unrelated to Chicago member Salvatore "Slicker Sam" DeRosa (shortened to just "Rosa"), whose parents were both from Ciminna, Palermo. Both were unrelated to Chicago associate Theodore "Teddy" DeRose, who was born in NYC to French Jewish parents but successfully "passed" as Italian due to his decades of close association with mafiosi in Chicago.

Further, the above were all unrelated to suspected/possible Chicago member Salvatore "Salame" DeRosa. Salvatore DeRosa was born in Chicago in 1919 to Ippolito "Paul" Di Rosa, of Borgo Partenope, a small village that today is a frazione of the city of Cosenza, Calabria, and Emilia Fezza, of the comune of Castrolibero, Cosenza (the Bastones, Ponzios, Venas, and Mike Sarno also had ancestry from Castrolibero, which was a longstanding center of activity for the Calabrian Camorra/'ndrangheta in Cosenza province). The Di Rosas lived near Hermitage and Lexington in the Taylor St patch, while father Ippolito worked as a factory laborer.

Sam DeRosa married Giovanna "Johanna Marie" Pusateri, a Taylor St girl born in 1921 in Chicago to Frank Pusateri, whose parents were from Termini Imerese (his mother was a Caruso from Termini, though I found no relation to the Chinatown Carusos), and Teresa Abbamonte, whose parents were from Potenza province, Basilicata. They had two kids: Frank DeRosa, born in 1943, and Robert, who as an adult used the Pusateri name. Sam and Johanna seemingly had a rocky relationships, as in the 1950 census she was living without him and listed as "separated". They may have gotten back together, given that when Johanna died in Melrose Park in 2005, she was still going by her married name of DeRosa.

In 1956, Sam DeRosa -- then living at California and Harrison -- was busted by CPD at a garage of a building at Oakdale and LeClaire in the NW Side Belmont Cragin neighborhood and charged with burglary, receiving stolen goods, and possessing burglary tools. Investigators had been following DeRosa for weeks as one of the principal players in what was described as a major "burglary gang". Tailing DeRosa to the garage, police discovered that it contained over $100k in pharmaceuticals recently hijacked from a Far Northside warehouse, along with other stolen goods. The Tribune noted that DeRosa had a criminal record going back to 1921. Surprisingly, it was also reported that DeRosa was an author of crime novels (apparently of the "crime doesn't pay" didactic variety), having written three books, one of which -- titled "Michael Donovan", about an eponymous hoodlum protagonist -- had been published in 1952 by an unnamed NYC publishing house (I've seen a lot of stories with these guys, but I believe this is a new one for me...).

In 1963, CI told the FBI that Sam DeRosa was running with an infamous "gang" of hoodlums who worked as burglars and thieves while also providing "muscle" and serving as "hitmen" for the "Giancana organization". Others in this group, buddies of DeRosa, were identified as Rocky Infelise, Americo DiPietto, James "Turk" Torello, James "Cowboy" Mirro, and Theodore "Skeets" Ziemba. The group was believed (rightly) to have also been involved in a string of insurance scam arsons and bombings of Chicagoland bars and restaurants, including Pedicone's in Lyons, The Guest House in Franklin Park, and The Prime Steakhouse in Stickney. In 1962, the FBI had received reports from informants that a "Salvatore DeRose" (DeRosa -- like Anthony DeRosa as well -- often used "DeRose" publicly) had been crossing the state line into Lake County, IN, on a nearly daily basis for criminal activities.

In 1967, Sam DeRosa was one of three "crime syndicate figures" busted at a farm in Tinley Park for the hijacking of a semi-trailer containing $500k worth of cigars. DeRosa -- then living at Roosevelt and Austin in Cicero -- was described as a "wire tapper and electronics bugging expert" for Fifi Buccieri, while his co-conspirators were Anthony Mazzone of Maywood and Anthony DePaolo of the NW Side, on parole at the time for burglary and said to have been "underlings of a gangland group" reporting to Willie Daddono. Carmen Trotta and Anthony LaPiana -- the same Tony LaPiana who was later moved to Michigan and inducted into the Detroit outfit -- were subsequently also charged in connection to the cigar truck hijacking. LaPiana -- then living in Lombard, IL -- was acquitted and the others convicted. DeRosa pled guilty and received a 7-year sentence.

Prior to his death in November of 1967, Iowa-based Chicago CI Luigi "Lou" Fratto identified Salvatore DeRosa as a Chicago LCN member. As with several guys that we have seen previously, Fratto was the only source for DeRosa's membership and DeRosa was not carried on the 1985 FBI list of Chicago members, which reflected updated and more stringent protocols for LCN membership identification. Thus, either DeRosa was never actually made or the Feds no longer had sufficient intel to list him as such in 1985. Salvatore DeRosa had addresses at both Roosevelt and Austin and in SW suburban Hickory Hills prior to his death in 1997.




While I'm not sure what Salvatore DeRosa was up to following his prison bid for the 1967 cigar truck robbery, his family was active in outfit circles. Frank DeRosa, son of Salvatore DeRosa and Johanna Pusateri, was an associate of Melrose Park mobsters and likely affiliated with the Battaglia crew. In February of 1967, a 30-year-old Guy Cervone, described by the Tribune as a "rising young terrorist" recently "promoted" to the head of a Melrose Park gambling operation headquartered at a social club located at 2111 Lake St., was ID'd by witnesses as having shot and killed Charles Michelotti. Michelotti was said to have been employed by Cervone in a wire room until a raid on Cervone's social club led the latter to suspect that Michelotti was cooperating with investigators. Michelotti was dragged out of a card game at DeRosa's home and killed in the middle of the night; the three men arrested as accessories seem to have been Cervone lackeys operating the card game. Guy Cervone had previously made the papers for severely being two men accused of tampering with mob-controlled pinball machines with a baseball bat, along with Sam Ariola and Louie Eboli. Cervone was said to have caught Sam Battaglia's eye due to his violent reputation.

In 1973, Frank DeRosa was arrested as part of a burglary crew based out of a Northside apartment, where police discovered ~$1 million in stolen stocks and securities and $50k in stolen goods such as minks coats and TV sets. The apartment also contained a "computerized list" of about 500 successful Chicagoland business owners (presumably serving as a list of targets for burglaries and/or extortion). The 29-year-old DeRosa was described as a Melrose Park grocery store owner who plied the burglary trade by night.

In 1990, a 28-year-old Ronald DeRosa, residing in Melrose Park, was indicted as a part of the Infelise Crew "Good Ship Lollipop" case, eventually pleading guilty to tax evasion and Federal gambling charges and receiving a 5-year probation sentence. Ronald DeRosa is the son of Frank DeRosa and grandson of Salvatore DeRosa, and was an associate of the Infelise Crew in the 1990s, tasked with placing bets and handling payments from gambling clients. Ronald DeRosa seems to have moved to New Haven, CT, in recent years.

[PolackTony]

James Anthony "Poker" DiForti was inducted into the Chicago Family in a 1988 ceremony, according to Chicago member CW Nick Calabrese's testimony during the Family Secrets trial. Per Calabrese's testimony, Frank Calabrese Sr was angered at DiForti getting his button, which he saw as hypocrisy from Chicago's admin given that he believed that DiForti's mother was not Italian. Per Nick Calabrese, one had to be of 100% Italian ancestry to qualify for membership in Chicago, and Frank Calabrese Sr was upset that their longtime associate and accomplished killer Ronnie Jarrett could not be proposed due to Jarrett's father having been non-Italian.

It's unclear to me whether or not DiForti's biological mother was in fact not Italian, however. He may have been the inverse of what seems to have occurred with Jimmy Marcello. As I've discussed previously, Marcello was raised by his father's second wife, Margaret Urbinati (sister of outfit-connected hoodlum and narcotics dealer Carlo Urbinati, who was murdered in 1968), who was of Tuscan ancestry and referred to as Jimmy Marcello's "mother" -- rather than stepmother -- in later records. Thus the fact that Marcello's birth mother was Irish American may not have been common knowledge, even in outfit circles, until the Family Secrets trial where it became a critical point raised by Marcello's defense (great strategy, but it didn't work, of course).

This is what I had previously written in a different thread about the DiFortis:

I've been looking into Jimmy "Poker" Di Forti, and his background is still murky to me. He was James Anthony Di Forti, apparently born in 1944 in Chicago (died in 2000), though I can't find a birth record for him. His father was James Vincent Di Forti, born in 1913 in Chicago. Per later obituaries, Poker Di Forti's mother was a woman from MO named Grace Beach. But, she only married James Vincent Di Forti in 1949. Either she bore Poker out of wedlock, or she was not his birth mother. Now, James Vincent Di Forti was himself a hoodlum who caught some robbery charges in 1935; in 1940, he was incarcerated in Pontiac. On his WW2 draft card, he was back out of the can and living at 63rd and Kilpatrick, on the SW Side. But, the 1940 census for him at Pontiac states that he was already married, so whoever that woman was (haven't found a record yet) may have been Poker's mother.

James Vincent's birth record states that his mother was Rosa Mangano and his father was also named James Vincent Di Forti; both are stated as from "Palermo". I cannot find any records for a Vincenzo/James/Vincent Di Forti in Chicago to match his father; or any Di Forti, for that matter. Now, as it turns out, the family moved to NYC. In September 1931, "grape racketeer" Vincent Genova was shot to death in his apartment on St Marks Pl in Manhattan -- it was stated that he was a "big distributor", who had sold a "lucrative" restaurant business the year before. It was hypothesized that Genova was murdered due to territorial rivalries with other racketeers. The NY Daily News noted that his wife was named Rose and that they had five children. Based on obituaries and documents, I can confirm that these were James Vincent Di Forti (the son) and his 4 younger siblings, the latter of whom all used the Genova surname. Now, maybe James Vincent had a different birth father; but, again, I haven't been able to find any document for a "Di Forti" in Chicago.

Now, a few days after Vincent Genova was murdered, the local papers in the Wilkes-Barre/Pittston area reported that local police were informed by NY that Vincent Genova was the same guy as a "James Cattalino", who had been arrested earlier in 1931 in Plymouth, PA, following an attempted attack on him by three men in a car (which was later found to contain pistols and a sawed-off shotgun). "Cattalino" was arrested with a "James Zannetti" at the home of a "Paul Nochnilla". "Cattalino" and "Zannetti" were alleged by LE to have both been members of the "Capone gang" in Chicago, who had recently relocated to Plymouth after being chased from Chicago at the hands of "gunmen". "Cattalino" was released from jail on the condition that he leave Luzerne County; it was also reported that "Cattalino" was known to use several aliases. I think it's very likely then that "James Vincent Di Forti, Sr" was the same guy. Since Cattalino/Genova/Di Forti reportedly had fled Chicago to the Pittston area for refuge, it's worth noting that some Ancestry.com family trees have "Vincenza Genova" and wife "Rosa Manganaro" as James Vincent Di Forti's (the son) parents, both born in San Cataldo, Caltanissetta, which had a major settlement in the Pittston area. I'm not 100% sure if it's true, as I'd need to personally make sure that the documents line up for them. But the link to Luzerne County (which the Ancestry trees don't reflect or record) makes it seem like it's not just made up or erroneous. Genova is definitely a surname in San Cataldo, also.

Either way, the "Vincent Genova" killed in 1931 was buried in Mt Carmel Cemetery in suburban Chicago, so the guy was definitely from Chicago. In 1940, widow Rosa was living in Chicago, at the same 63rd & Kilpatrick address that James Vincent Di Forti (son) was living at after he was released from Pontiac; this was also the former address listed for "Vincenzo Genova" on his 1931 NYC death record (the record also gives his mother's name as Maria "Vutera", which was probably Butera; Butera is also well-documented in San Cataldo, though present in many other areas in Sicily).

This family is pretty fascinating and looks to have likely been a multigenerational mafia-connected family going from Sicily to the US.

To confirm, the parents of James Vincent DiForti, who was the father of Chicago LCN member James Anthony "Poker" DiForti, were Vincenzo Arnone, aka "Vincent Genova", and Rosa Manganaro (not *Mangano*), both of San Cataldo, Caltanissetta, which I was able to confirm via vital documents from the comune of San Cataldo. They were married in San Cataldo on April 29th, 1911. Vincenzo Arnone was born in 1881 in San Cataldo to Vincenzo Arnone and Raimonda Mangione, both of San Cataldo. Rosa was born in San Cataldo in 1892 to Bartolo Manganaro and Maria Arnone. Given the shared Arnone surname, Vincenzo and Rosa were likely relatives of some sort, as from what I know Arnone is not a *super* common surname in San Cataldo. Unfortunately, the birth records in the 1910s and 1920s for San Cataldo are not digitized and thus I remain unable to confirm the exact birth years and names of their children born in Sicily. Worth noting that the Arnone surname in later decades appears in the mafia in the area around San Cataldo, including another Vincenzo Arnone, former boss of the Family based in neighboring Serradifalco (this Vincenzo Arnone, said to have been a close friend of famed Mussomeli boss Giuseppe Genco Russo, also had significant business interests in San Cataldo).

Vincenzo Arnone's birth record in San Cataldo, 1881:



The earliest that I can place the Arnone family in the US is in 1926. In 1930, they were living, under the assumed name "Gardineli", in a home at 6344 S Kilpatrick on the SW Side of Chicago that would remain associated with the family for decades. Vincenzo Arnone told the census taker that he was a restaurant proprietor named "Ouricetto [sic] Gardineli" who had arrived in the US in 1902, while his wife was "Rosa Gardineli", who was claimed to have arrived in the US in 1911. They stated that their 4 kids were all born in Illinois: "Mary" (b. ~1915), "Sam", (b. ~1922) "Benny" (b. ~1925) and "Adeline" (b. ~1926). Further, they told the census taker that they also had a "nephew" named "Vincent Gardineli" living with them, who they claimed was 16 years old and also born in IL. This was clearly their eldest son, who in later decades went by James Vincent DiForti. "Mr. Gardineli" stated that he was literate in Italian and also spoke English, indicating that he had likely come from a respectable class background in Sicily.

It is clear from later documents that almost none of the info the "Gardineli" family told the census was true. Their 4 elder children seem to have been born in Sicily and I can find no passenger manifests or other evidence supporting that either parent had been living in the US for decades prior to 1930. I very strongly suspect that Vincenzo Arnone was a mafioso in San Cataldo and that he and his family had entered the US illegally under false names sometime during the Fascist Party assault on the Sicilian mafia under Prefect Cesare Mori in the 1920s.

As I noted above, Vincenzo Arnone was living in Manhattan in 1931, where he had recently arrived, under the name "Vincent Genova" when he was shot to death, allegedly by competitors in the wholesale grape market business. Note that the NYC papers had stated that "Genova" had sold a "lucrative restaurant business" the year before, while "Mr Gardineli" in Chicago had told the census in 1930 that he was a restaurant owner.

Also recall that Arnone had been reported to have been living under the name "John Cattalino" [sic] in Plymouth, PA (near Pittston/Scranton) when he evaded an attempt on his life by shotgun-wielding assailants. Papers there had reported that "Cattalino" and a buddy going by the alias of "James Zanetti" had been former "members" of the "Capone gang" in Chicago, but had been forced to flee that city by "gunmen".

From my research, Vincenzo Arnone had an apparent relative -- likely either a brother or a cousin -- named Luciano Arnone who had immigrated in 1911 to Luzerne County, before later returning to San Cataldo. Luciano Arnone's relatives who remained in PA were noted as important members of the San Cataldo Society in the Pittston/Scranton area. Given the significant colony of Sancataldesi in the Pittston area, it is unsurprising that Arnone would have fled to PA to escape the raging mafia conflict in Chicago in 1930-31.

The "James Zanetti" arrested with Arnone in 1931 in Plymouth was an alias of his brother-in-law, Vincenzo "James Vincent" Manganaro, who was born in 1898 in San Cataldo. I'm not sure exactly when Vincenzo Manganaro entered the US but it was likely also around 1926 (during the height of Mori's crackdown on the mafia), when he married Filomena "Fanny" Inglimo in Chicago. A native of Casteltermini, Agrigento, Filomena Inglimo lived in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood on the Near Southside. Following the 1931 incident in Plymouth, PA, Vincenzo Manganaro lived in Endicott/Broome County, NY, and Bergen County, NJ (which could be significant given that Genovese member and fellow San Cataldo native Angelo LaPadura was based in Bergen County), before returning to Chicago. He died in Chicago in 1962:



The timing of Vincenzo Arnone's murder in NYC is interesting, as he was slain in September of 1931, two weeks after the murder of Salvatore Maranzano. My tentative and speculative *guess* is that Arnone and his brother-in-law Vincenzo Manganaro were mafiosi who fled San Cataldo during Mori's offensive and settled in Chicago. During the outbreak of the 1930-31 conflict in Chicago, they likely had sided with the Aiello faction, leading to their having to flee the city when the Capone faction gained the upper hand in the war (hence the claim that the two were chased out of Chicago by gunmen). They naturally would've sought refuge with paesani in PA, but a hit team attempted to murder Arnone there and he was forced to flee again. He and his family may have secured protection from the Maranzano faction in NYC (we know that Aiello himself had received protection from the Maranzano group and was given refuge in Buffalo, but was killed after defying his patrons and returning to Chicago). After Maranzano was killed, Arnone would then have been left without protection and finally finished off by those who wanted his head. While the true story may have been more complicated than this, if I had to bet, I'd bet that the broad parameters of my hypothesis are in the ballpark of what happened.

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In 1940, the surviving Arnones were back in Chicago and living in their home on S Kilpatrick under the name "Genova". Widow Rosa Manganaro did not remarry and died in Chicago in 1943. Her children continued playing funny little games with their names and legal documents, as they were clearly brought to the US illegally and thus had to stabilize their immigration status without running the risk of deportation if they were exposed. Eldest son Vincenzo, as noted, went by "James Vincent DiForti", while his mother was called "Rose DiForti Genova" in some obituaries. As far as I can tell, no one in their family was actually named Di Forti. However, the Di Forti surname is very much present in San Cataldo, as is the surname Genova, which is likely how the family acquired these as aliases (e.g., a Di Forti marriage was the next entry in the 1911 marriage records in San Cataldo following the marriage of Vincenzo Arnone Sr and Rosa Manganaro). James Vincent DiForti's younger siblings all continued to use Genova as their surname for the rest of their lives.

Sister Mary Rose Genova (presumably born Rosa Arnone in San Cataldo) was stated to have been born in IL in the 1930 and 1940 censuses but in 1950, she said that she was born in Italy. She was naturalized in Chicago in 1974, at which time she was living in SW suburban Oak Lawn. In 1935, Mary Genova married Charles DiNaso, an immigrant from the comune of Alcama li Fusi in Messina province. DiNaso, however, entered the US illegally in late 1925 bound for Milwaukee, claiming that he was a guy named John Puccio, born in 1910 in Madison, WI. On his WW2 draft card, Dinaso maintained the false identity of John Puccio, while living near 62nd and Knox on Chicago's SW Side. The couple moved to Scottsdale, AZ, in later life, where they both died.

Brother Samuel Bartholomew Genova (presumably born Bartolo Arnone in San Cataldo, named after his maternal grandfather, as is traditional for the second-born son of a family) had the same story. Stated in his youth to have been born in IL, he was naturalized as a US citizen in 1974, stating at that time that he was born in "Palermo" in 1921. He had moved to West suburban Downers Grove by that time, where he died in 1983.

Brother Benny Vincent Genova (presumably born Benedetto Arnone in San Cataldo) was naturalized in Chicago in 1944, claiming that he had only arrived in the US the prior year at San Ysidro, CA. He had, however, been living continuously in the US since at least 1930. He later married Rose Giallo of Endicott, NY, and spent the rest of his life in Broome County, NY, where he died in 2008.

Youngest sister Mary Adeline Genova was born May 1926 in Chicago, per her later records, which corresponds to a Maria Genova born at that time in Chicago (the contemporaneous birth record lists no parents, which is unusual for Cook County records). Likely, she was born soon after her family had arrived in the US from Sicily. She later married Benedetto "Benny" Mammina Jr, who was born in 1925 in Benton Harbor, MI (an area with strong mafia connections to Chicago in that period) to parents from Monreale who had relocated to Berrien County, MI, from Chicago. By 1940 they had moved back to Chicago and lived near the Genovas on the SW Side. Father Benedetto Mammina Sr operated a multistate trucking company which his son Benny Jr later ran. Benny and Adeline Mammina wound up moving from Chicago to WI, and from there to GA and FL (as always, and given sufficient time, all roads eventually lead to either FL or AZ). The couple served as the witnesses for Adeline's brother Sam's 1974 naturalization.

In 1974, the tribune published the obituary of Antonino "Tony" Perrotta, a longtime Bridgeport resident who was referred to in the obituary as an "uncle" of James Vincent DiForti and his siblings. I was unable to find any evidence of a blood or marriage relation between them, however, so it's likely that Perrotta was a close friend of their family designated "zio" in the way that Italians often do for fictive kinship relations. On his 1953 naturalization papers, Perrotta claimed that he was born in "Palermo" in 1886, where he married his wife Giuseppina Di Maio in 1913. He stated that he had arrived in the US in 1929 via "motorboat" at Detroit. I've seen a very large number of citizenship documents by this point and that's a new one for me. Of course, there is no record for his actual entry, which would make sense given that he evidently entered the US illegally from Canada. Giuseppina di Maio did enter the US later in 1929 via the Detroit border crossing. In October of 1928, she had arrived in Canada bound for Hamilton, ON, where Antonino Perrotta had apparently arrived earlier that year, with their two young children. Notably, she seems to have been living in the Guadagna neighborhood in Palermo City before emigrating. I can't help but wonder if it was a coincidence that their arrival in Chicago (where the Perrottas appeared in the 1930 census) seems to have closely coincided with the rise of Salvatore LoVerde to official boss of Chicago, as LoVerde had previously been boss of the neighboring Brancaccio neighborhood in Palermo City. LoVerde had presumably himself fled Prefect Mori's crackdown to the US, and, again -- given the timing in the late 1920s and illegal entry to the US -- I would strongly suspect that Antonino Perrotta was also a fleeing mafioso (I would guess either from Palermo City or Trabia, given the surname, which was originally Pirotta).



Tony Perrotta's naturalization was witnessed by Casteltermini native Vincenzo "James" Inglimo, brother-in-law of Vincenzo Manganaro's wife Filomena Inglimo. James Inglimo was the longtime chief grain inspector for the IL Department of Agriculture, a deputy Cook County assessor (a heavyweight clout position, as the Cook County Assessor's office -- which, of course, had decades-long mob ties -- is responsible for assessing Cook County property values and property tax liability), and Democratic Party precinct captain in the 6th and 9th Wards on the Southside. Perrotta's other naturalization witness was Maria Morici, nee Amato, a Bridgeport resident and native of Palermo City. Her father, confectionary worker Antonino Amato of Palermo, was an apparent mafioso in Little Sicily who was shot and killed by an assailant in August of 1928 at Cambridge and Hobbie. Her husband was Joseph Morici Scafidi, who was born in Chicago to produce distributor Salvatore "Sam Skoffield" Morici and Rosa Chirchillo, both of Altavilla Milicia. Salvatore Morici was a brother of Gioacchino "Jack Skoffield" Morici, a Little Sicily mafioso who relocated to Madison, WI, and was described as a "big man" in the early Sicilian colony in Madison when he was shot and killed in 1916. That these Moricis seem to have used Scafidi as a second surname (hence the anglicized "Skoffield" as an alias) might indicate relations to the several mafia-connected Scafidi families from Altavilla in Chicago.

As we can see from the above, apart from the Arnone/Genova/Di Forti family's own, apparently shady, arrival in the US in the 1920s, they were also closely associated with several people who seem to have left Sicily under similar circumstances.

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As noted in the above-quoted post from a couple of years back, Vincenzo Arnone Jr/Vincent Genova/James Vincent DiForti was convicted in 1935 on home invasion and armed robbery charges and sentenced to 1-year to life in the IL prison system. In 1940 he was incarcerated in Pontiac, though he was released sometime in the early 1940s. In 1942, he obtained a, presumably falsified, birth record stating that he had been born in Chicago in 1913 (he would have been far from the only person who obtained falsified records as, for decades, Cook County offices of the IL State Department of Records were infiltrated by mob associates, to the point that one office was later described as being "like Apalachin", in that it was always full of mobsters hanging around). After leaving prison, James Vincent DiForti owned and operated the Hawthorne Service Station, a gas station located near Cermak and Cicero Ave in Cicero, by the old Capone headquarters at the Hawthorne Hotel (in later years renamed the Towne Hotel and controlled by Joe Aiuppa). In 1945, DiForti was named for using stolen WW2 ration stamps at his business, leading to an unsuccessful attempt to shutter the gas station. In later decades, son James Anthony "Poker" DiForti would take over the business, hence Frank Calabrese Sr referring to the younger DiForti by the code name "ruote" (Italian for "wheels") on the prison recordings that Frank Calabrese Jr captured of his father.

Different records state that James Anthony DiForti was born in either July of 1944 or September of 1943. I have yet to verify Poker DiForti's birth record, even after looking under his father's possible aliases. While census records show that DiForti Sr was married as of 1940, he divorced his first wife at some time in the 1940s and remarried Gloria "Goldie" Rickey in 1949 in Chicago. She was born in rural MO to parents from Downstate IL and had been married twice previously in Chicago, to men named Beach and Goles, before marrying DiForti Sr. In 1950, the DiFortis were living at the Genova family home at 63rd and Kilpatrick. Living with them were DiForti Jr and his sister Rosalie DiForti, who was born in 1947, also before DiForti Sr remarried. Presumably, these were both DiForti Sr's children from a previous relationship, though I still do not know who their mother was. Later in 1950, Gloria Rickey DiForti gave birth to John DiForti, who seems to have been the only one of DiForti Sr's children of whom she was the biological mother. The DiFortis later moved to La Grange Park and Downers Grove in the West burbs. While DiForti Sr and Gloria subsequently divorced, Gloria's 1990 obituary stated that DiForti Jr was her "son", though he seems to have rather been a stepson that she raised when he was a young kid:



James Vincent DiForti died in 1991 in Pompano Beach, FL.

In the 1970s, Poker DiForti was residing in Berwyn and later moved to Cicero, where he was living in the 1990s. During this time, DiForti was Secretary-Treasurer of LIUNA Local 5, a longtime outfit-controlled local based in Chicago Heights, representing over 1000 construction workers. In 1997, DiForti was charged with the 1988 murder of William Bentham, after an FBI confidential informant identified DiForti as Bentham's killer and a subsequent DNA test confirmed that DiForti's genetic profile was consistent with an individual who had left a blood trail at the scene of the Bentham murder (it was later revealed that at the time of his arrest, DiForti was also a target in a Federal probe of LIUNA officials with mob ties). Bentham was found shot to death in the office of his lumber yard, located in the Canaryville neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, in February of 1988. Allegedly, Bentham was indebted on a major juice loan and had threatened to run to LE to talk about DiForti's connections to organized crime. Forced to step down from his position at Local 5, DiForti was represented by Alex Salerno, the son of suspected Chicago member Bobby Salerno, and posted a $500k bond. Salerno was able to get DiForti a clearance on his bond to travel to IN and WI, ostensibly to conduct activities related to DiForti's racehorse business. In 1988, however, DiForti's bond was revoked and he was put back under custody after it was found that he had traveled to Las Vegas without permission as well, almost costing Salerno his law license. Poker DiForti was still awaiting trial on murder charges when he died of cancer in July of 2000. CPD investigators believed that DiForti was the captain of the Cicero crew prior to his death and that he was succeeded in this position by Mike Spano Sr.

[Antiliar]

This has to be your most detailed and longest write-up yet. It's a story full of twists and turns. I haven't dug into his background myself so I took Calabrese's opinion at face value. Very informative. The Arnone killing in NYC as part of the Maranzano War following his possible role as an Aiello supporter hypothesis makes sense. The final part about DiForti heading the Cicero crew is something I missed or haven't seen. At any rate, magnificent job.

[B.]

Deeper it goes, even with many later members. The assumption for many years was that Chicago members, especially after a certain point, were more or less "random" criminals recruited on the street but this thread and other posts prove again and again that even later on many of these guys had relatives -- some of them immediate -- who were heavily involved early on and likely even members. Nobody would otherwise assume DiForti came from an affluent Sicilian family where the patriarch was a successful restaurant owner and grape dealer who fled Sicily under an assumed name during the Mori crackdown and was killed in NYC shortly after Maranzano, after surviving an attempt in the Pittston area too.

Very possible DiForti's grandfather had ties to the Genovese or Lucchese Families. Like you hit on, the former had his paesan Lapadura in NJ (who had ties to paesan in other cities) but also other connections to Caltanissetta outlined elsewhere plus Frank Livorsi who was from Nicosia but his kids intermarried with the Melis of Detroit, who were Sancataldese and once lived in the Pittston/Scranton area, as well as John Ormento. Ormento's boss the previous year was Pinzolo who came from neighboring Sferradifalco and arrived to Pittston. Ormento was connected to Chicago through drug trafficking at least.

Caltanissetta is kind of a mystery in terms of paesan dynamics in NYC. You also had Bonasera and Oddo of the Colombos, and Bonasera's Vallelunga paesan / marital relative Lorenzo Lupo lived in Brooklyn before moving to Buffalo and Cleveland where he quickly became a captain -- he was likely a member in NYC but impossible to know if he was with the Colombos like Bonasera.

Safe to assume the grandfather was killed in connection with the Chicago war and it's a good theory that Maranzano's death may have made him vulnerable in some way regardless of which NYC group he was associating with. There's good probability there were other mafiosi from that part of Caltanissetta in NYC who were simply older or otherwise off our radar, that cluster of towns being an absolute mafia hotbed.

[Snakes]

Great work, Tony

[B.]

Others who fled Chicago for New York around the time of the Castellammarese War:

- Buster Domingo, joined the Bonannos. Unknown if made already in Benton Harbor / Chicago but he was already made by the time of the Mineo/Ferrigno murders. We can presume his Castellammarese clan were seen as part of the broader Aiello faction given Aiello was one of the original leaders of the national "Castellammarese" faction at the start of the war and Domingo was connected to Aiello's allies in NYC.

- Salvatore Oliveri, may have joined and was at least under the protection of the Lucchese Family. His first cousin married Tom Reina and Sam's uncle and male first cousin (Reina's in-laws) were suspected Lucchese members. Oliveri was also a distant cousin of Tom Gagliano through the latter's mother, an Oliveri. Easy to conclude Oliveri was under the protection of the Maranzano-Gagliano group who had been allied with Aiello in Chicago.

Others from the Aiello group fled to Milwaukee seeking protection and a few of them stayed permanently.

Would seem likely DiForti's grandfather was also part of this faction as Tony said. As far as we know, Pittston was also in Maranzano's orbit -- he visited there with Schiro before the war kicked off and there was a strong Castellammarese element in Endicott and near Pittston. Certainly not an area we associate with Masseria's faction.