Falcone brothers and Utica Mafia

[Angelo Santino]

I think you're onto something. You had me at a disadvantage the other day because I'm not as well-rounded with upstate New York (any place more than 10 miles outside of the city).

What I know of Buffalo is quite limited, it's a city I've never focused on. From what I understand in the 60's there was an internal war with the Family breaking into 3 factions and one of them involved the Falcone brothers. When I seen a list of Buffalo members they were all over the state with one or two in Pennsylvania. Compare that to Rochester's membership, who to my knowledge were entirely composed of people in and around Rochester (with several legitimate attorneys suspected of being members).

Cities like Utica and Rochester were layover cities between NYC and Chicago. I've looked into early Rochester and there's plenty of people there, but they all have affiliations elsewhere. Back in the 1910's if you killed someone in NYC or was wanted for a crime which you'll be convicted for, you left the city and hid elsewhere and Rochester seemed to attract that element. There was a Joe Vaccaro who was linked to the Gambinos and wanted for counterfeiting so he just left Midtown for Rochester and continued on with his operation from afar. It was some some real "Catch me if you can" shit staring DiCaprio. The SS even dispatched Clemente from NYC who was about to lead Vaccaro into a bust but instead the local boys in blue arrived and did some Dago busting and Vaccaro caught wind, thinking it was connected with him and then absconded to another city, all the while maintaining links to the City. There appeared to be enough elements in Rochester for a Mafia Family to be formed but there wasn't, for reasons I can't explain.

[B.]

I'd like to dig into the Bufalino family next, as they are a big part of this whole western NY discussion, too. A number of mafia members along the southwestern border seem to have been Scranton members despite being paesans and having other connections to Buffalo and other western NY cities, even a couple of guys I had assumed were Buffalo members. Most of what I know about Scranton is incidental from looking into Buffalo / Utica and Philadelphia. The FBI consistently ID'd them as the first family in Pennsylvania so I'm curious how early they had membership in NY state. By the way it looks like Anthony Guarnieri's father came from Bari, so non-Sicilian.

My understanding of Rochester, like you said the other day, is it has less of a Sicilian history than other cities in the area, but I could be wrong. Not sure what the ethnic background is for Rochester capodecina Giacomo Russolesi but I recall reading he was non-Sicilian.

Here is a thread I made a while back with a little bit of Rochester info, mostly from the 1950s / 60s:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3279&p=69675

In one of the Magaddino transcripts he is discussing some sort of dispute within the Buffalo family, seemingly from the 1920s, where the family split into two factions and the total combined is fewer than 40 members. No idea if he was just referring to members in the Buffalo / NF area or the entire family, or whether this number is even accurate, but the Buffalo family at its peak is believed to have had significantly more members than this. Seems possible that they brought in members from other areas after this, or groups from other cities weren't part of the disputing factions.

[Frank]

I'd like to dig into the Bufalino family next, as they are a big part of this whole western NY discussion, too. A number of mafia members along the southwestern border seem to have been Scranton members despite being paesans and having other connections to Buffalo and other western NY cities, even a couple of guys I had assumed were Buffalo members. Most of what I know about Scranton is incidental from looking into Buffalo / Utica and Philadelphia. The FBI consistently ID'd them as the first family in Pennsylvania so I'm curious how early they had membership in NY state. By the way it looks like Anthony Guarnieri's father came from Bari, so non-Sicilian.

My understanding of Rochester, like you said the other day, is it has less of a Sicilian history than other cities in the area, but I could be wrong. Not sure what the ethnic background is for Rochester capodecina Giacomo Russolesi but I recall reading he was non-Sicilian.

Here is a thread I made a while back with a little bit of Rochester info, mostly from the 1950s / 60s:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3279&p=69675

In one of the Magaddino transcripts he is discussing some sort of dispute within the Buffalo family, seemingly from the 1920s, where the family split into two factions and the total combined is fewer than 40 members. No idea if he was just referring to members in the Buffalo / NF area or the entire family, or whether this number is even accurate, but the Buffalo family at its peak is believed to have had significantly more members than this. Seems possible that they brought in members from other areas after this, or groups from other cities weren't part of the disputing factions.

Read something a few years ago about the Bufalino Family. Can't remember where I found it. Basically it was differrent than the historical info we have seen. Not sure of how accurate it is, but basically it had Russell Bufalino becoming boss in around 1951. Joe Barbara was said to be a Capo in the Buffalo Family. Thought it was interesting.

[Frank]

Also the Rochester Family has always been a subject of debate. Whether it was a separate family under Frank Valenti or even his brother before that as early as 1957, or was it part of Buffalo at that time period. Also the term a Family under a bigger Family has made things a little more confusing, as opposed to a Decina.

[Pogo The Clown]

They were a separate family by the early 1970s at least. That has been established.


Pogo

[Frank]

They were a separate family by the early 1970s at least. That has been established.


Pogo

Yes your right. The years before that are were it's confusing.

[B.]

I'd like to dig into the Bufalino family next, as they are a big part of this whole western NY discussion, too. A number of mafia members along the southwestern border seem to have been Scranton members despite being paesans and having other connections to Buffalo and other western NY cities, even a couple of guys I had assumed were Buffalo members. Most of what I know about Scranton is incidental from looking into Buffalo / Utica and Philadelphia. The FBI consistently ID'd them as the first family in Pennsylvania so I'm curious how early they had membership in NY state. By the way it looks like Anthony Guarnieri's father came from Bari, so non-Sicilian.

My understanding of Rochester, like you said the other day, is it has less of a Sicilian history than other cities in the area, but I could be wrong. Not sure what the ethnic background is for Rochester capodecina Giacomo Russolesi but I recall reading he was non-Sicilian.

Here is a thread I made a while back with a little bit of Rochester info, mostly from the 1950s / 60s:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3279&p=69675

In one of the Magaddino transcripts he is discussing some sort of dispute within the Buffalo family, seemingly from the 1920s, where the family split into two factions and the total combined is fewer than 40 members. No idea if he was just referring to members in the Buffalo / NF area or the entire family, or whether this number is even accurate, but the Buffalo family at its peak is believed to have had significantly more members than this. Seems possible that they brought in members from other areas after this, or groups from other cities weren't part of the disputing factions.

Read something a few years ago about the Bufalino Family. Can't remember where I found it. Basically it was differrent than the historical info we have seen. Not sure of how accurate it is, but basically it had Russell Bufalino becoming boss in around 1951. Joe Barbara was said to be a Capo in the Buffalo Family. Thought it was interesting.

That's something I'd like to dig into more. The Buffalo family had many Castellammaresi members but it looks like there were a couple of Castellammaresi in the Bufalino family as well. A lot of the available info on guys from this general region comes from the 1950s/60s when many of them were already quite old and in some cases marginally involved in criminal activities so hard to get a full view of their connections and activities back when they were more active. Fortunately the Utica crew had a lot going on and some of the old line members were still in orbit.

[B.]

Here's a question:

Has any information come out about Buffalo family inductions pre-1970s? It's likely that everyone I listed as a confirmed Utica member was inducted before the early 1960s (when the books were temporarily closed due to Valachi even outside of NYC), with many of them likely being members for much longer than that. I'm curious though if anyone has ever come across info about Buffalo inductions.

I mentioned in the original post how Rosario Mancuso was born and raised in Buffalo (one of the only Utica members who seems to have lived there). Well there is one transcript where Magaddino claims to have known Mancuso since the early 1930s. So Mancuso's formal connection to the Buffalo family would seem to go back to his time living there.

[Pogo The Clown]

Compare that to Rochester's membership, who to my knowledge were entirely composed of people in and around Rochester (with several legitimate attorneys suspected of being members).

They also had a college professor as a member.


Pogo

[baldo]

Any more details on that pogo? These smaller families always seemed to operate differently. Like they were a group of businessmen who were somehow connected to one another and almost lived a sort of double life as criminals as well. Not sure if I’m explaining myself clearly.

[Pogo The Clown]

Not much. One of the Rochester informants talked about his induction in 1972 and that one of the members present was a local college professor. No name was given from what I saw. Forgot if the informant was Joseph “Spike” Lanovara or Angelo Monachino. They were both made in the same ceremony and both later flipped.


Pogo

[B.]

Any more details on that pogo? These smaller families always seemed to operate differently. Like they were a group of businessmen who were somehow connected to one another and almost lived a sort of double life as criminals as well. Not sure if I’m explaining myself clearly.

The smaller families, especially the ones who stayed primarily Sicilian, followed the same model as the Sicilian families, where members weren't inducted for being "gangsters" but for the advantage they would give the organization (and/or their kinship ties to other members). The early Sicilian informant Melchiorre Allegra was a physician who was brought in specifically because he was a doctor and there are a significant number of other doctors, politicians, even priests in Sicilian mafia history. This died out eventually in the US but even in NYC circa 1960s you had guys like Mario Tagiliagambe who was a practicing doctor as well as a made member of the Bonanno family; there are likely many more earlier names we'll never confirm as members who lived otherwise "legitimate" lives in respectable fields. Currently the Canadian politician Alfonso Gagliano is a made member of the Bonanno family, though aside from some small political scandals he doesn't seem to have been involved in any mafia-related activities. He was probably brought in because he comes from a neighboring village to Cattolica Eraclea where the Montreal crew leadership was from at the time and could give them advantages, plus maybe some other connections to his paesani in the the Caruana-Cuntrera clan -- even though this is a modern example it's exactly the way things were done in Sicilian towns. The original model of the mafia seems to be based on dominating as many fields as possible, whether criminal or not. Of course corruption is a thread running through everything, "legit" or not.

[B.]

If someone can find where Joseph Leone or his parents came from, let me know. He was likely a made member in Albany who was a bootlegger early on but seems to have been primarily legitimate in later years; very close to soldier Sylvester Battaglia from Termini Imerese. Their wives were also close, being part of the same women's club(s).

[baldo]

B, thanks! You worded it perfectly:

“The smaller families, especially the ones who stayed primarily Sicilian, followed the same model as the Sicilian families, where members weren't inducted for being "gangsters" but for the advantage they would give the organization (and/or their kinship ties to other members)”

[Pogo The Clown]

The Bonannos also had a least one member who was a priest.


Pogo