Patrickgold wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 7:28 am
funkster wrote: ↑Sat May 13, 2023 2:11 pm
I've looked up the Dungeon's owner in the past, I dont recall the guys name but the City of Chicago's records show he lives in....wait for it...Elmwood Park. Also, wasn't Cassano busted a few years back for extortion? Another "not outfit linked" bust that appears to be linked.
So the place that Nesbit worked out of was at 2452 W Augusta. The Dungeon which I believe is owned by a relative of Jimmy I is at 1627 W Grand Ave so different place but in the same area.
As a personal tangent, the block where Nesbitt's operation was based, at least until gentrification blew up, would have been a very unlikely place for a high-end, luxury "kink dungeon" lol. All summer, you would be bowled over by the stench that blanketed that block from the festering poultry slaughterhouse behind the gas station. The area was also totally overrun by enormous rats that could be mistaken for alley cats, due to the poultry place. Not exactly a glamorous location, until pretty recently. My first ever arrest, when I was 12, was in the alley immediately behind Nesbitt's address.
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Interesting to note that prostitution in the West Town area seems to have been a pretty markedly mobbed-up racket in recent years. We have confirmation that the Nesbitt thing was linked to Gary Gags now, and we also know that Panozzo was involved in prostitution in the neighborhood. On top of that, the Grand Ave "dungeon" possibly owned by an Inendino, and all of the years of talk about Bobby D and the SRO above La Scarola/Richard's. And these could be all linked to multiple crews (Cicero, Grand Ave, EP), though as others have noted, we really don't know what the structure is at this point. Grand Ave and EP may have both remained as extant crews, or could have been folded into each other and are today sub-"crews" of the same formal LCN decina. Either scenario is possible, unless and until more information emerges.
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Also worth noting again here that Chicago, at least through the 80s and 90s, had close ties to Italian OC. The EP crew, I believe, was at the center of some of this (and there is history there, with Accardo having apparent ties to the Sicilian mafia that were being investigated by Italian LE in the 70s, and the connections between the Cerones and Spavones). Much of the "Second Wave" of Sicilian/Italian immigration was concentrated in their territory, of course, and DiFronzo himself was born in Bari, presumably retaining connections to relatives back home (which could certainly be part of the context for why Pugliese OC leader and fugitive Aldo Cardellicchio was hiding out at the Harlem Ave Cafe Cappuccino location). Al Mitria is from Salerno province, which also had a network of peasani in the 1980s who were involved in some murders and other nasty stuff in Chicago (i.e., the case with corrupt CPD Pierre Zonis). The Cassanos, on the other hand, are also from Bari (I believe from Grumo Appula, specifically). If the EP crew does still exist, it would be expected that its current membership would today also reflect guys from those immigrant networks, having been integrated for decades now with the older Ital-American community.
Another question I've had is what role, if any, LaBalestra has played in recent years. I've seen people online try to claim that he is, alternatively, affiliated with either Cicero or Elmwood Park. Given that he is Pugliese and based in the Addison area, my inclination has been to assume that he is affiliated with EP. As Cavita and I recently discussed in this thread, we have some reason to believe that the Santino Colella (also from Bari) DuPage drug ring in 2008 was working for LaBalestra. But is LaBalestra a member or associate of Chicago LCN? Did he remain formally affiliated with Pugliese OC while partnered with Chicago guys? I'd guess that he is at least formally an associate, whatever other ties he may have or have had, but we have very little info to go on with him.
As a reminder, there were also indications that Al Mitria was involved with narcotics:
PolackTony wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 3:57 pm
For years, Al Mitria was rumored to be involved in burglaries and fencing of stolen merchandise at the old Maxwell St Market (I probably bought something off of him at some point, lol). In 2001, Mitria was busted with Charles Parilli in a massive stolen goods ring. Police told the Tribune that at the time it was one of the largest recoveries of stolen goods in Chicago history (computers, appliances, toys, clothing, firearms, etc.); it took a team of 60 investigators 3 days to transport and catalog the loot, which was estimated at $2 million dollars in value and burglarized from freight train yards. Mitria and Parilli were called "alleged organized crime figures" at the time, with CPD intelligence commander of the Organized Crime Division John Guarnieri referring to Mitria as
"an Elmwood Park mob crew boss". Along with the swag, it would seem that these two were involved in narcotics, as Parilli was busted at one of their storage sites with cocaine, marijuana, and $20k in a suitcase.
While we can't take Guarnieri's claim that Mitria was a "boss" at face value, it could be an indication that he was made already by this time and in charge of a sub-"crew" of associates.
