Yes this looks like an area I need investigate further and I think I may have assumed a Chicago connection because there was a meeting in Chicago over this but there was also a New York connection- this 1977 article went on to say how the local police had information that Rockford adult bookstores were linked to the New York mafia families. Police investigators had known since 1970 that local peek-show machines were purchased from the New York mafia families. They went on to say that the distribution of pornographic magazines in the city was traced to Reuben Sterman of Cleveland, Ohio and he was described as an associate of Joe Colombo, who headed the Colombo family of New York.PolackTony wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:24 pmThanks for posting. This wouldn't be the Joe Lombardi who was with EP, as he was incarcerated at the time. Does it say elsewhere that the Lombardi referenced here was a Chicago guy or affiliated with Chicago LCN? There were, of course, a number of Sicilian Lombardos in Rockford who sometimes spelled their surname "Lombardi" in documents, so I'm wondering if he was in fact a Rockford guy?cavita wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2024 8:45 pmRockford police provided this history of adult bookstore ownership in Rockford which was connected to the Rockford LCN: Jacob “Bucky” Seibert owned the porno stores from the mid-1960s until 1969 when R.J. Sales Co., Inc. took over. That company was owned by Claude “Junior” Ridens and Joseph Lombardi. Ridens and Lombardi added a partner and other corporate names while they owned the stores here, and the firms opened a Rockford warehouse which was raided by the police in December 1973. In 1973 all of the Ridens and Lombardi corporations were dissolved and the operations were taken over by International Amusements Limited, Inc., a Canadian corporation which Steve Baker was listed as the president. International Amusements was listed as being operated out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa but Baker was down as being from Ontario, Canada. Baker was also listed as the general manager of Cinematic-Vending Corp., which handled distribution and sales of films and projectors. Reuben Sterman, who was born in Canada, was associated with Cinematic. Eagle Books, Inc. took over operations in Rockford in 1975. Listed as president, secretary, treasurer and director of Eagle Books was James Forester, who listed his address as 322 E. State Street, the same address as the Adult Book and Cinema. Rockford police had said they traced Forester to a southern Indiana adult bookstore where he was only a clerk. Forester had apparently told Rockford police he was paid for the use of his name on the corporation records.PolackTony wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2024 7:28 pmNot that I recall ATM. He was incarcerated into 1976, at the earliest, also. If you post some of the info about the guy you're thinking of, maybe we can see if it's the same person.cavita wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2024 7:19 pmSo was this Lombardi ever involved in the porn industry for the Outfit in the 1970s as far as you know?PolackTony wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2024 7:15 pmYes, so far as I know he remained an associate with the EP crew. Joseph Lombardi, Jr, was born in 1936 in Chicago and he was a paesan' of Willie Messino. His parents were Giuseppe Lombardi of Acerra and Rosa Renello, born in Chicago to Acerresi parents. Joe Lombard, also like Messino, grew up in the Taylor St neighborhood and it's safe to assume that their families all knew each other.
In December of 1963, Gagliano crew juice loan client Joe Weisphal ran to the cops after he was beaten and terrorized into signing over checks to pay off part of his delinquent juice loan that he owed to Willie Messino's loansharking operation. Messino, Al Sarno, Chris Cardi (another Acerrese and Messino's relative, of course), Patsy Di Costanzo, and Johnny DeFronzo were charged with extortion and assault in the case. Notably, Joe *Lombardo* (who was, of course, Barese and totally unrelated to the other guy, though "The Clown's" actual surname was also Lombardi, originally) was also picked up and charged when investigators confused him for the other Joe (in court, Weisphal failed to recognize Lombardo as the Joe Lombardi that he had accused of taking part in his terrorizing). All of these men wound up getting acquitted on all charges, though the case caused something of an uproar in the local press as LE discovered multiple attempts to bribe jurors in the case.
This case brought a lot of heat down on the Cerone/Gagliano crew and on the juice racket in Chicago more broadly, which became much harder to operate in the 1960s/70s due to increasing pressure from Federal and local LE. Another black eye for Messino came a few years later in 1965, when he and associates Joe Lombardi, Jr, George Bravos, and Sandor Caravallo were charged with crimes including kidnapping and aggravated assault for the confinement and brutal beating of three Greek brothers, businessmen in the NW burbs who were in default on their juice loans to Messino's operation. Messino was famously apprehended after initially escaping authorities during a wild shootout with IL state LE agents under the command of IL Crime Commission head Charles Siragusa. In 1967, Messino, Lombardi, and Bravos were convicted and given stiff sentences, which were upheld on appeal in 1967. I'm not sure when Lombardi was released from this case, as he was given 5-to-20 years and his parole was denied in 1975.
Apart from working as a juice collector for his paesan' Messino (I think it's safe to assume that for most of his mob career, at least, Lombardi would have been an associate on record with Messino), he was also involved in burglary and armed robbery per FBI intel, and was also named as being involved in the bolita (PR numbers) racket in the 1970s (although, it's possible that Lombardi was again conflated with Joe Lombardo for the latter allegations, as he was incarcerated at the time).
He was living in SW suburban Bridgeview when he died in 2013. Interestingly, he -- or his relatives -- seem to have retained some kind of clout even in his later years, in that a 2021 Sun-Times article discussed how the mobbed Cook County Assessor's office under Joe Berrios had continued to grant tax breaks on the property for several years after Lombardi had passed.
Same.
It was also reported that the two main Rockford adult book stores took in between $50,000 to $150,000 a year from the 25-cent peep shows alone and that estimate may have been on the low side. Under the arrangement, the New York mafia families get back 50 percent of the money brought in on the films shown in Rockford with the other 50 percent going to the stores’ owners, Eagle Books, Inc., a Delaware Corporation. The two stores in question were the Adult Book and Cinema Store at 322 E. State Street and the Book Mart II Adult Book Store at 623 7th Street. By 1979, the names of the bookstores had changed to International Amusements, but they were still in the business of selling “adult” books.
Police said the New York connection began in 1969 when a former bookstore owner in Rockford met with representatives of the New York mafia in Chicago and purchased movie machines. Local police said they were told by the FBI that agents have followed trucks which collect the proceeds from the coin-operated, peep-show machines, traveling from Rockford to Madison and Milwaukee. A man who had identified himself as the manager of the Adult Book and Cinema Store declined to talk about the police claims and he refused to tell a reporter who owned the store, where the profits went and what his name was. All he stated was, “I better not say anything.” The Rockford police stated that persons in Rockford also receive a percentage of the profits but they have not been able to confirm it.
