General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[NorthBuffalo]

So the first guy in the photo is actually Frank Obrachta of the PK Crew. I was confused as I was told 'Melrose Park' but now told he grew up at 2222 Grand Avenue near Koroluk, who he's been indicted with several times. Former C-Note and the whole deal - I wouldn't mess with these guys and may go back and delete this photo

Anyone recognize the second photo?

[NorthBuffalo]

Two additional mystery Chicago guys. The first guy is a Melrose Park guy who is a well-known burglar. The older man was affiliated with the Cicero crew and source is not sure he's still alive. The names aren't shared with me - one guy said one goes by 'Frankie' but that doesn't narrow it down obviously.

Let me know if anyone can identify either photo.

I can’t name either guy, but your comment “melrose park guy” got me thinking…

When the whole rift between Zizzo and Sarno was going on, there were multiple references to Zizzo‘s crew, the former crew of Marcello. We have to assume that both Marcello and Zizzo had a decent stable of soldiers underneath them in that crew. Where are those guys? Who are they?

Most info indicates that they were folded into Cicero, but can anybody identify one person that would’ve been affiliated with that crew?

I’m sure some of you are familiar with the fact that a few months after the zizzo hit in 2006, there was speculation that the drive-by murder of a civilian, Gerry Dahmer , was possiblly a case of horrible mistaken identity, with the intended target actually being Sal Cautadella . If that was the case, clearly there were some guys who were loyal to the Marcello/Zizzo faction who carried that out.

I mentioned this previously but had read somewhere that Vince Dublino was Zizzo's driver prior to him getting killed. That was from a Gary Jenkins podcast I believe. I will also note that Casey Szaflarski, Frank Caruso and others have all been mentioned heavily within the Sarno world - you wonder what involvement the old 26th street guys had during the Zizzo hit.

[Coloboy]

I would venture to say there were multiple people/crews involved in the Zizzo thing. It was pulled off seamlessly, so that has to take several folks coordinating I would guess. I’m sure you’ve read that law enforcement was interested in Andriacchi, Vena, and Porky Pordyla as all being possibly involved. I would think Difronzo would have had knowledge or given his sign off.

[Coloboy]

I would highly encourage anyone who is bored to revisit some of the old ANP threads. There are dozens of names throughout those threads that Fosco identifies as being part of the outfit, including some he specifically names as made, who I've never seen discussed anywhere else. Most of them are EP guys, and not all of them were elderly at the time either.

As always, I think that even today, there's more going on than most know.

[PolackTony]

Has this article been talked about before? A lot of these names are still around.

15 INDICTED IN DU PAGE GAMBLING
By Chicago Tribune
January 28, 1988 at 8:00 PM EST
Fifteen people have been indicted in Du Page County on gambling and related charges stemming from a four-month investigation of bookmaking in the western suburbs, Du Page County State`s Atty. James E. Ryan said Thursday.
Investigators seized $225,000 in betting slips from one individual and also seized his 1988 Lincoln Town Car, his portable cellular telephone and $8,700 in cash, Ryan said. Others arrested include a husband and wife team accused of running a ”wire room,” a bet-taking operation, in their Naperville home.
Most of the betting involved football games during recent months, Ryan said. The indictments were returned in regular weekly meetings of the Du Page County grand jury on Jan. 13, 20 and 27, but they were kept secret until Thursday. More indictments may be returned, Ryan said.
Investigators arrested one man who also was arrested a year ago in a similar series of raids on gambling wire rooms in Cook and Du Page Counties. Sixteen people were arrested in last year`s raids, and 11 of them have been convicted, Ryan said. Charges are still pending in Cook County against the man who was arrested a second time.

Ryan said the operation was undertaken by investigators from his office, the Illinois Department of State Police organized-crime unit, the Du Page County sheriff`s office and Police Departments from Chicago, Elmhurst, Bensenville, Lisle, Naperville, Addison and Villa Park.
At a Thursday morning news conference in Ryan`s Wheaton office, he and and several police chiefs praised the cooperative nature of the investigation. ”We were able to undertake a coordinated effort involving state, county and local police, and we did it without turf battles,” said Du Page County Sheriff Richard P. Doria. ”People worked together on this. That`s a concept that gets mostly lip service.”
Doria, Ryan and Robert Johnson, director of the state police intelligence division, said organized crime probably is involved in Du Page County gambling, though they declined to say whether any of the defendants arrested in the latest set of raids are linked to Chicago-area mobsters.
”Gambling is a major source of income to persons in organized crime,”

said Assistant State`s Atty. John Kinsella, who coordinated the investigation. ”Organized crime oversees the operation, allows persons to engage in bookmaking, enforces collections and takes a portion of the proceeds.”
”If the population and the money is there, then organized crime will step in to provide services that people want,” Doria said.
One defendant, Dominic J. Basso, 49, of 8234 N. Oleander Ave., Niles, was stopped by police in Wood Dale and arrested while driving away from a meeting with two other alleged gamblers on Jan. 7. Ryan said Basso oversees several wire room operations where bets are taken by telephone, but he declined to specify their locations.
Police with a search warrant confiscated Basso`s 1988 Lincoln, $225,000 in alleged betting slips, a portable cellular telephone, a quantity of water- soluable paper and $8,700 in cash. Basso is charged with syndicated gambling and conspiracy.

Also charged are the two men who met with Basso on Jan. 7: James F. Digiulio, 36, of 4N210 5th Ave., Addison, who has not been arrested, and Nick Nitti, 43, of 901 Beau Dr., Des Plaines, arrested in his car in Bensenville after the meeting.
The others charged are:
– Michael Raguso, 30, of 1800 Huntington Blvd., Hoffman Estates, arrested on Dec. 15 at 28 Park Ave., Addison, where wire room and parlay card operations were allegedly underway. He is charged with syndicated gambling and conspiracy. Raguso was arrested in last year`s raids and was charged in Cook County with syndicated gambling. That charge is still pending, Ryan said.
– Robert M. Kennedy, 31, of 2N168 Michigan Ave., Villa Park, and Thomas Pickert, of 402 S. Michigan Ave., Villa Park, charged with syndicated gambling. They allegedly conspired with Raguso to take parlay card bets.
– Gary Lofgren, 36, of 1110 Hampton Harbor, Schaumburg, and Alan Dutton, 37, of 7134 W. North Ave., Elmwood Park, both charged with conspiracy to commit gambling, conspiracy to keep a gambling place and obstructing justice. They were arrested at an alleged wire room at 420 Walnut Ave., Itasca, and allegedly destroyed evidence by dumping betting slips on water-soluable paper into containers of water when police entered the house.
– Keith Kinnaman, 60, of 21W609 Thorndale Ave., Medinah, charged with conspiracy to commit gambling and conspiracy to keep a gambling place. He allegedly rented the 420 Walnut St. house where the alleged wire room was operated.
– Anthony Levato, 35, of 417 Delles Rd., Wheaton, charged with syndicated gambling and keeping of a gambling place. He was arrested at home where he was allegedly running a wire room.
– Kenneth Brissa, 47, and Catherine Brissa, 46, of 314 Eastland Ct., Naperville, charged with syndicated gambling and keeping a gambling place. They were arrested in their home, where they allegedly were running a wire room.
– Gregory Zieche, 102 E. Briar Lane, Geneva, charged with conspiracy to commit gambling and keeping a gambling place. He allegedly was taking parlay card bets in the Lombard Lanes bowling alley, 19W445 Roosevelt Rd., Lombard.
– Lawrence Van Meter, 30, of 147 D. Brewster Ct., Bloomingdale, and Homer D. Atkinson, 323 E. Wilson Ave., Lombard, charged with gambling. They allegedly sold bets on parlay cards.
Suspects not yet arrested are Digiulio, Kinnaman, Van Meter and Atkinson, Ryan said. The others have been released on bonds ranging from $3,000 to $50,000

I don't believe that this specific case has been discussed here on the board before. Good find. Dom Basso, of course, died back in 2001 and *may* have been a made guy. If not, at least an important associate.

Jim DiGiulio is an interesting guy. Remained a notable gambling operator in the years after this case. We've discussed briefly a 2002 gambling bust where DiGiulio got pinched with Billy DiDomenico, Natale Saraceno, and some other guys. You posted about it most recently a few months back:

Interesting gambling article from early 2000s. Most of these guys are still alive.

8 charged in mob gambling operation
By Chicago Tribune
February 22, 2002 at 7:00 PM CT
A

reputed mob-connected bookmaker and seven others have been indicted on charges of operating a sophisticated sports-betting business in the Chicago area through most of the 1990s, federal authorities said Friday.
William J. DiDomenico, once a reputed member of mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice’s street crew, is accused of co-managing the bookmaking business.
In fall 1997, two members of the gambling ring met four times in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside to discuss the illegal business, the charges alleged.
One of them, Ronald H. Antos, was secretly cooperating with law enforcement and often taped the conversations, according to a source. Antos wasn’t charged in the indictment, but he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

On Friday morning FBI agents arrested DiDomenico, 59, of Bloomingdale; Nicholas A. Malizzio, 48, of Chicago; Natale A. Saraceno, 56, of Bartlett; and Anthony R. Orlando, 67, of Glendale Heights. Dimitrios Fotopoulos, 53, formerly of Libertyville, was arrested in Asheville, N.C., where he lives. They all were released on bond.
Three other suspects–James F. DiGiulio, 50, of Park Ridge, described by authorities as a co-manager with DiDomenico; Phillip Coleman, 48, of Villa Park; and Gerald L. Lenza, 63, of Palos Park–are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court next week

James Frank DiGiulio was born in 1951 in Chicago to Vito DiGiulio, a native of Triggiano, Bari, who emigrated to Chicago in 1947, and Rose Guerra, born in Chicago to parents from Triggiano; the DiGiulios lived on Ohio St in the Grand Ave Patch before later moving out to the burbs. Triggiano was also the hometown of the De Fronzos, Nittis, and Spilotros (father's side), so it's interesting to note that one of Basso and DiGiulio's co-defendants in the 1988 gambling case was Nick Nitti Jr. Jim DiGiulio's wife is Carla Nicoletti, daughter and eldest child of Chicago member Chuckie Nicoletti. Carla's mother was Rose Tinaglia, born in Chicago to parents from Alessandria Della Rocca, Agrigento; she grew up at Ohio and Leavitt in the Grand Ave Patch (the block east of where the Andriacchi/Spina/Nigro family lived), before later moving to Division and Central Park in Humboldt Park. Carla Nicoletti owns a beauty salon in Park Ridge and one of her cousins is Michael Tinaglia, a Park Ridge attorney and former alderman and mayoral candidate in the City of Park Ridge. I believe another cousin is James Tinaglia, former Trustee of the Village Board of Arlington Heights. Clearly, a family with a lot of clout in the NW burbs. Jim DiGiulio is also a one-time employee of Armanetti Liquours, which was founded at its Grand and Western flagship location by Antonino Paterno. I've discussed Paterno before, as he was one of a number of successful Sicilian-born businessmen in Chicago who were close personal friends of Tony Accardo; in the late 1970s, FBI reports disclosed that Italian authorities were investigating Paterno's ties to Sicilian mafia interests in the wine industry (which they evidently also believed may have been related to Accardo and Nick Nitti Sr's trip to Italy at that time).

Dominic James Basso was born in Chicago in 1938 and is an outlier in terms of ancestry, in that his family was from Veneto in Northern Italy. The Bassos, however, lived on the 2300 block of Ohio, so Dom Basso grew up on the block west of the Andriacchis, et al (this was also the block where Chicago member Phil Bacino, a native of Ribera, Agrigento, lived when he first moved to Chicago in the 1920s). Dom Basso's wife, Domenica "Diane" Cascarano, who grew up in Humboldt Park, was born in Chicago to a family from Valenzano, Bari, and Ventimiglia, Palermo, a prototypically Chitalian Sicilian/Bares' mix. Her maternal grandfather was Vincenzo Manno, a native of Ventimiglia who worked at the Little Sicily bank owned by his brother, Filippo Manno. Filippo Manno was likely connected to the mafia. In 1915, after his partner committed suicide as authorities closed n on them, Filippo Manno was charged with embezzlement and defrauding investors and was represented by mobbed-up attorney Bernie Barassa, later the President of the IANU/"Unione Siciliana". Following the collapse of their shady bank, Vincenzo Manno returned to Ventimiglia, where he *may have been* murdered in 1924. Filippo Manno later operated a prominent Northside real estate brokerage.

Michael Raguso may have been the same guy who, in 1990, was charged with theft after embezzling $300k in funds from a coffee wholesaling company for which he worked as a salesman.

[Patrickgold]

Has this article been talked about before? A lot of these names are still around.

15 INDICTED IN DU PAGE GAMBLING
By Chicago Tribune
January 28, 1988 at 8:00 PM EST
Fifteen people have been indicted in Du Page County on gambling and related charges stemming from a four-month investigation of bookmaking in the western suburbs, Du Page County State`s Atty. James E. Ryan said Thursday.
Investigators seized $225,000 in betting slips from one individual and also seized his 1988 Lincoln Town Car, his portable cellular telephone and $8,700 in cash, Ryan said. Others arrested include a husband and wife team accused of running a ”wire room,” a bet-taking operation, in their Naperville home.
Most of the betting involved football games during recent months, Ryan said. The indictments were returned in regular weekly meetings of the Du Page County grand jury on Jan. 13, 20 and 27, but they were kept secret until Thursday. More indictments may be returned, Ryan said.
Investigators arrested one man who also was arrested a year ago in a similar series of raids on gambling wire rooms in Cook and Du Page Counties. Sixteen people were arrested in last year`s raids, and 11 of them have been convicted, Ryan said. Charges are still pending in Cook County against the man who was arrested a second time.

Ryan said the operation was undertaken by investigators from his office, the Illinois Department of State Police organized-crime unit, the Du Page County sheriff`s office and Police Departments from Chicago, Elmhurst, Bensenville, Lisle, Naperville, Addison and Villa Park.
At a Thursday morning news conference in Ryan`s Wheaton office, he and and several police chiefs praised the cooperative nature of the investigation. ”We were able to undertake a coordinated effort involving state, county and local police, and we did it without turf battles,” said Du Page County Sheriff Richard P. Doria. ”People worked together on this. That`s a concept that gets mostly lip service.”
Doria, Ryan and Robert Johnson, director of the state police intelligence division, said organized crime probably is involved in Du Page County gambling, though they declined to say whether any of the defendants arrested in the latest set of raids are linked to Chicago-area mobsters.
”Gambling is a major source of income to persons in organized crime,”

said Assistant State`s Atty. John Kinsella, who coordinated the investigation. ”Organized crime oversees the operation, allows persons to engage in bookmaking, enforces collections and takes a portion of the proceeds.”
”If the population and the money is there, then organized crime will step in to provide services that people want,” Doria said.
One defendant, Dominic J. Basso, 49, of 8234 N. Oleander Ave., Niles, was stopped by police in Wood Dale and arrested while driving away from a meeting with two other alleged gamblers on Jan. 7. Ryan said Basso oversees several wire room operations where bets are taken by telephone, but he declined to specify their locations.
Police with a search warrant confiscated Basso`s 1988 Lincoln, $225,000 in alleged betting slips, a portable cellular telephone, a quantity of water- soluable paper and $8,700 in cash. Basso is charged with syndicated gambling and conspiracy.

Also charged are the two men who met with Basso on Jan. 7: James F. Digiulio, 36, of 4N210 5th Ave., Addison, who has not been arrested, and Nick Nitti, 43, of 901 Beau Dr., Des Plaines, arrested in his car in Bensenville after the meeting.
The others charged are:
– Michael Raguso, 30, of 1800 Huntington Blvd., Hoffman Estates, arrested on Dec. 15 at 28 Park Ave., Addison, where wire room and parlay card operations were allegedly underway. He is charged with syndicated gambling and conspiracy. Raguso was arrested in last year`s raids and was charged in Cook County with syndicated gambling. That charge is still pending, Ryan said.
– Robert M. Kennedy, 31, of 2N168 Michigan Ave., Villa Park, and Thomas Pickert, of 402 S. Michigan Ave., Villa Park, charged with syndicated gambling. They allegedly conspired with Raguso to take parlay card bets.
– Gary Lofgren, 36, of 1110 Hampton Harbor, Schaumburg, and Alan Dutton, 37, of 7134 W. North Ave., Elmwood Park, both charged with conspiracy to commit gambling, conspiracy to keep a gambling place and obstructing justice. They were arrested at an alleged wire room at 420 Walnut Ave., Itasca, and allegedly destroyed evidence by dumping betting slips on water-soluable paper into containers of water when police entered the house.
– Keith Kinnaman, 60, of 21W609 Thorndale Ave., Medinah, charged with conspiracy to commit gambling and conspiracy to keep a gambling place. He allegedly rented the 420 Walnut St. house where the alleged wire room was operated.
– Anthony Levato, 35, of 417 Delles Rd., Wheaton, charged with syndicated gambling and keeping of a gambling place. He was arrested at home where he was allegedly running a wire room.
– Kenneth Brissa, 47, and Catherine Brissa, 46, of 314 Eastland Ct., Naperville, charged with syndicated gambling and keeping a gambling place. They were arrested in their home, where they allegedly were running a wire room.
– Gregory Zieche, 102 E. Briar Lane, Geneva, charged with conspiracy to commit gambling and keeping a gambling place. He allegedly was taking parlay card bets in the Lombard Lanes bowling alley, 19W445 Roosevelt Rd., Lombard.
– Lawrence Van Meter, 30, of 147 D. Brewster Ct., Bloomingdale, and Homer D. Atkinson, 323 E. Wilson Ave., Lombard, charged with gambling. They allegedly sold bets on parlay cards.
Suspects not yet arrested are Digiulio, Kinnaman, Van Meter and Atkinson, Ryan said. The others have been released on bonds ranging from $3,000 to $50,000

I don't believe that this specific case has been discussed here on the board before. Good find. Dom Basso, of course, died back in 2001 and *may* have been a made guy. If not, at least an important associate.

Jim DiGiulio is an interesting guy. Remained a notable gambling operator in the years after this case. We've discussed briefly a 2002 gambling bust where DiGiulio got pinched with Billy DiDomenico, Natale Saraceno, and some other guys. You posted about it most recently a few months back:

Interesting gambling article from early 2000s. Most of these guys are still alive.

8 charged in mob gambling operation
By Chicago Tribune
February 22, 2002 at 7:00 PM CT
A

reputed mob-connected bookmaker and seven others have been indicted on charges of operating a sophisticated sports-betting business in the Chicago area through most of the 1990s, federal authorities said Friday.
William J. DiDomenico, once a reputed member of mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice’s street crew, is accused of co-managing the bookmaking business.
In fall 1997, two members of the gambling ring met four times in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside to discuss the illegal business, the charges alleged.
One of them, Ronald H. Antos, was secretly cooperating with law enforcement and often taped the conversations, according to a source. Antos wasn’t charged in the indictment, but he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

On Friday morning FBI agents arrested DiDomenico, 59, of Bloomingdale; Nicholas A. Malizzio, 48, of Chicago; Natale A. Saraceno, 56, of Bartlett; and Anthony R. Orlando, 67, of Glendale Heights. Dimitrios Fotopoulos, 53, formerly of Libertyville, was arrested in Asheville, N.C., where he lives. They all were released on bond.
Three other suspects–James F. DiGiulio, 50, of Park Ridge, described by authorities as a co-manager with DiDomenico; Phillip Coleman, 48, of Villa Park; and Gerald L. Lenza, 63, of Palos Park–are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court next week

James Frank DiGiulio was born in 1951 in Chicago to Vito DiGiulio, a native of Triggiano, Bari, who emigrated to Chicago in 1947, and Rose Guerra, born in Chicago to parents from Triggiano; the DiGiulios lived on Ohio St in the Grand Ave Patch before later moving out to the burbs. Triggiano was also the hometown of the De Fronzos, Nittis, and Spilotros (father's side), so it's interesting to note that one of Basso and DiGiulio's co-defendants in the 1988 gambling case was Nick Nitti Jr. Jim DiGiulio's wife is Carla Nicoletti, daughter and eldest child of Chicago member Chuckie Nicoletti. Carla's mother was Rose Tinaglia, born in Chicago to parents from Alessandria Della Rocca, Agrigento; she grew up at Ohio and Leavitt in the Grand Ave Patch (the block east of where the Andriacchi/Spina/Nigro family lived), before later moving to Division and Central Park in Humboldt Park. Carla Nicoletti owns a beauty salon in Park Ridge and one of her cousins is Michael Tinaglia, a Park Ridge attorney and former alderman and mayoral candidate in the City of Park Ridge. I believe another cousin is James Tinaglia, former Trustee of the Village Board of Arlington Heights. Clearly, a family with a lot of clout in the NW burbs. Jim DiGiulio is also a one-time employee of Armanetti Liquours, which was founded at its Grand and Western flagship location by Antonino Paterno. I've discussed Paterno before, as he was one of a number of successful Sicilian-born businessmen in Chicago who were close personal friends of Tony Accardo; in the late 1970s, FBI reports disclosed that Italian authorities were investigating Paterno's ties to Sicilian mafia interests in the wine industry (which they evidently also believed may have been related to Accardo and Nick Nitti Sr's trip to Italy at that time).

Dominic James Basso was born in Chicago in 1938 and is an outlier in terms of ancestry, in that his family was from Veneto in Northern Italy. The Bassos, however, lived on the 2300 block of Ohio, so Dom Basso grew up on the block west of the Andriacchis, et al (this was also the block where Chicago member Phil Bacino, a native of Ribera, Agrigento, lived when he first moved to Chicago in the 1920s). Dom Basso's wife, Domenica "Diane" Cascarano, who grew up in Humboldt Park, was born in Chicago to a family from Valenzano, Bari, and Ventimiglia, Palermo, a prototypically Chitalian Sicilian/Bares' mix. Her maternal grandfather was Vincenzo Manno, a native of Ventimiglia who worked at the Little Sicily bank owned by his brother, Filippo Manno. Filippo Manno was likely connected to the mafia. In 1915, after his partner committed suicide as authorities closed n on them, Filippo Manno was charged with embezzlement and defrauding investors and was represented by mobbed-up attorney Bernie Barassa, later the President of the IANU/"Unione Siciliana". Following the collapse of their shady bank, Vincenzo Manno returned to Ventimiglia, where he *may have been* murdered in 1924. Filippo Manno later operated a prominent Northside real estate brokerage.

Michael Raguso may have been the same guy who, in 1990, was charged with theft after embezzling $300k in funds from a coffee wholesaling company for which he worked as a salesman.

Good write up Tony. Not a lot is known about DiGuilio but from what I have been told, he is supposedly a force on the street and very well respected.

Billy D is still around and very close to Solly D and the LoBues and can be seen in their presence often. He is also possibly made from my sources.

Dimitrios Fotopoulos was meeting with DiFronzo and D’Amico at a place in Hillside all the way until they died. Not sure if he is still involved in Pole Katz.

[Snakes]

Billy D was also busted for bookmaking in 2002. He ended up serving a couple more years for that. He worked at Celozzi before he was indicted in that case, which is prominent as being long extorted by Tony Centracchio for first the Spilotros and then James Marcello.