I don't know what RJ said. But the only thing that Valachi said about Chicago was the claim that they paid members who had been involved in narcotics to get out of that racket around the time that he said that the Commission decreed its "ban" on narcotics in the late 50s.funkster wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 11:21 am Funny this is coming up, in a recent live RJ brought this up with DiLeonardo asking if NY had something similar (obvious no), and claims that it was in Valachi's testimony that this was done in Chicago. I haven't studied Valachi's testimony closely, so no idea if he actually said that but find it hard to believe if he did that he was correct.
And this is pretty much the only thing that Valachi said about Chicago, at all. That he had heard that their members who had previously been involved in drugs were paid as recompense to get out of that racket, and that later some were found to still have been involved and were killed.
My read is that the exact sum of $200-$250 on a weekly stipend part of this claim is probably an embellishment (telephone game between guys in the Genovese Family telling each other stuff like "oh, in Chicago they're paying guys to get out of dope, they should do the same here for us"). Note that Valachi states that he was told by someone who he clearly felt was knowledgeable that Chicago was using some income from extortion to replace the lost earnings for the members who had been involved in narcotics. This is probably the kernel of truth, that guys who had been into dope were given rights to some street tax revenues as a way of making up for their lost earning potential from narcotics (rather than, say, the Chicago outfit having had accountants and a payroll that was apportioning weekly stipends indefinitely to members, or whatever someone might have tried to baselessly claim about this at some point in past discussions).
Valachi himself had basically no ties to Chicago, though, obviously, there were guys in his Family whom he knew who did.
- He was aware that his friend Sebastiano "Buster" Domingo had fled Chicago and joined up with Maranzano in NYC.
- He knew that Joe Aiello was Maranzano's man in Chicago and kicking up large sums of money to Maranzano until the Capone faction killed Aiello.
- Luciano had wanted Valachi to testify before the first Commission meeting in 1931 in Chicago to present the evidence that Maranzano was justifiably murdered for plotting to kill guys -- Valachi said that he asked to not go and that Bobby Doyle Santuccio went in his stead.
- He was aware that Chicago had one Family, unlike NYC, and estimated that they had around 150 members. He had no clue what territories outside of Chicago itself they might have controlled. Despite repeated questioning along these lines by the Senators at the 1963 hearings, Valachi affirmed that not only did he have no idea about such things, he had theretofore never even heard of places like Omaha and Des Moines ("Where is that, Senator?")
- He had once passed through Chicago on his way to Hot Springs, AR, but said that he made no contacts with LCN affiliates in Chicago as he had no such contacts.
- Vito Genovese had wanted to hold the 1957 national meeting in Chicago, while Magaddino successfully argued for it to be held in Appalachin. Genovese thus blamed Magaddino for the meeting having been raided, as he believed that this would not have occurred had it been held in Chicago.
- He admitted to having met two of the Fischetti brothers, whom he also stated that he knew to have been LCN members. These seem to have been the only Chicago members that he had been introduced to. He noted that while he thought he had met a guy named "Tony Accardo" while incarcerated in Atlanta, he did not believe this was the Chicago member, as the guy whom he recalled meeting did not resemble photos that he had been shown of JB Accardo (and we, of course, know that Accardo was never incarcerated anyway).
