Madison 1963

[B.]

Excellent -- the Montelepre stuff is big since it directly connects the major Bonanno-connected cheese companies in Wisconsin and Montreal and fed into the Detroit Partinico network.

[cavita]

Another possible Madison person to look into is Sam Cerro (1925-1994) who was allegedly involved in organized crime there with illegal abortions, strip clubs and around 1978-1982 was supposedly the cocaine kingpin at the time. I can't find too much on him, however.

[Patrickgold]

Another possible Madison person to look into is Sam Cerro (1925-1994) who was allegedly involved in organized crime there with illegal abortions, strip clubs and around 1978-1982 was supposedly the cocaine kingpin at the time. I can't find too much on him, however.

He owned the Geisha House in Madison which is still owned by his daughter. It’s basically a brothel. He is talked about heavily in the book “Winter of frozen dreams” by Karl Harter. I have heard rumors that he took over whatever was left but have also heard he was just an associate of the mob. And was basically only a pimp and drug dealer.

[PolackTony]

Samuel Bernard Cerro (1925-1994) seems to have been something like a one-stop shopping clearing house for Madison criminal rackets for decades. The Geisha House was definitely used as a house of prostitution, but Cerro was also busted in the 70s-80s for buying weight amounts of cocaine, supplying local cocaine distribution operations, receiving/fencing stolen merchandise, and gambling charges. Back in the 60s he was additionally pinched for an illegal abortion ring.

Gavin Schmitt doesn’t think he was ever boss of the Madison outfit and is unsure if he was ever an LCN member. Not sure what evidence has ever been made public to support Cerro being a member, apart from people alleging that he was, but what the hell do I know. Whether Cerro was ever an outfit member, he probably at least had it in his familial bloodlines. His father was Callisto “Joseph” Cerro, an earlier prominent figure in the Madison Sicilian colony who was one of the founders of an important mutual aid society in the community. While later documents in Madison stated that Joe Cerro was born in SGI, and his wife and Sam’s mother Domenica Geloso was indeed from SGI, his 1909 passenger manifest upon arriving in NYC bound for Madison states that his last residence was SGI but he was born in Isnello. Isnello is in Eastern Palermo province, an area much more closely tied to the mafia in Chicago (as well as a few members of the Genovese and Lucchese Families, such as Saro Mogavero). Either way, the Cerros were clearly tied into the significant SGI/SC network in Madison, and Sam’s maternal uncle Giuseppe Geloso was a notorious bootlegger in Madison in the 1920s who was apparently close to his paesani Paolo Corona and Tony Musso.

Gavin gives a better account than I can of Sam Cerro and his family here: https://milwaukeemafia.com/wiki/fbi-file-sam-cerro/

Photo of Sam Cerro published at the time of his death in ‘94:

[B.]

Good info. He definitely wasn't a boss as the Family officially disbanded in the early 1970s. Be good to know if he affiliated with Milwaukee like the ex-Madison members who wanted to stay active in crime. He seems like the kind of degenerate Balistrieri would like.

Also not sure what kind of continuity there would have been with Madison Family operations since his activities seem like the antithesis of what we know about Madison.

[PolackTony]

Good info. He definitely wasn't a boss as the Family officially disbanded in the early 1970s. Be good to know if he affiliated with Milwaukee like the ex-Madison members who wanted to stay active in crime. He seems like the kind of degenerate Balistrieri would like.

Also not sure what kind of continuity there would have been with Madison Family operations since his activities seem like the antithesis of what we know about Madison.

Agreed, in that he couldn’t have been boss of Madison if Madison was (as we know it was) formally disbanded. Apart from Milwaukee, given his ancestry and old Rockford-Madison connections, I’d also wonder if Cerro could’ve been linked to Rockford (though if Cavita hasn’t identified these links, maybe they weren’t there).

Agreed on his criminal profile given our picture of the Madison outfit was basically a Sicilian Chamber of Commerce by the 60s, at least. While Cerro comes across as a one-man crime wave, I’d doubt that he single handedly created criminal rackets in Madison, which makes me wonder who had been running the dirty stuff there back in the day, while the mob seems to have been running grocery stores and restaurants. Maybe there were younger guys who were kicking up for protection or were associates who ran those things while the made guys kept their noses clean. I don’t know anything about the criminal landscape in Madison, so I have no idea, but presumably Cerro didn’t come out of nowhere.

[B.]

Good point. We hear from a couple sources that Madison had little going on criminally and that's probably true overall but who knows what they had under their authority whether the leaders/members were directly involved. The two guys who chose to transfer to Milwaukee to remain "active" are an indication something was still going on.

Maniaci heard about Madison disbanding from a Rockford captain and felt he couldn't ask further questions about the arrangement -- I feel like in New York a member could have easily asked "What's happening to the other members?" without trouble but the Midwest in general was strict even among friends. I've wondered if the other ex-Madison members were assigned to Chicago because of their history and strong ties there, but Rockford is another possibility and the Rockford captain spreading the word indicates they were involved in the process. Cavita said Caputo's son had business interests in Rockford and it's a like-minded Family even closer. Cavita could weigh in on that.

[cavita]

Good point. We hear from a couple sources that Madison had little going on criminally and that's probably true overall but who knows what they had under their authority whether the leaders/members were directly involved. The two guys who chose to transfer to Milwaukee to remain "active" are an indication something was still going on.

Maniaci heard about Madison disbanding from a Rockford captain and felt he couldn't ask further questions about the arrangement -- I feel like in New York a member could have easily asked "What's happening to the other members?" without trouble but the Midwest in general was strict even among friends. I've wondered if the other ex-Madison members were assigned to Chicago because of their history and strong ties there, but Rockford is another possibility and the Rockford captain spreading the word indicates they were involved in the process. Cavita said Caputo's son had business interests in Rockford and it's a like-minded Family even closer. Cavita could weigh in on that.

With Cerro being tied to Dr. Albert Ottow in the abortion business and knowing Rockford capo Charles VInce extorted Ottow into doing abortions, it is more than likely that Cerro had connections to Rockford. FBI files stated the Town and Country Motel in Rockford (owned by Phil Priola) was having abortions performed there so there was an obvious abortion ring operating in that area at the time. Given Rockford's close ties to Milwaukee and Madison, Cerro was undoubtedly utilized by Rockford and Milwaukee and I suspect when the Rockford LCN officially became involved in narcotics in 1980, Cerro may have been their connection in that city. Clearly Cerro wasn't Madison's boss as was pointed out above, but if no one knew any better and people believed that he was, that just enhanced his reputation.

[PolackTony]

Good point. We hear from a couple sources that Madison had little going on criminally and that's probably true overall but who knows what they had under their authority whether the leaders/members were directly involved. The two guys who chose to transfer to Milwaukee to remain "active" are an indication something was still going on.

Maniaci heard about Madison disbanding from a Rockford captain and felt he couldn't ask further questions about the arrangement -- I feel like in New York a member could have easily asked "What's happening to the other members?" without trouble but the Midwest in general was strict even among friends. I've wondered if the other ex-Madison members were assigned to Chicago because of their history and strong ties there, but Rockford is another possibility and the Rockford captain spreading the word indicates they were involved in the process. Cavita said Caputo's son had business interests in Rockford and it's a like-minded Family even closer. Cavita could weigh in on that.

With Cerro being tied to Dr. Albert Ottow in the abortion business and knowing Rockford capo Charles VInce extorted Ottow into doing abortions, it is more than likely that Cerro had connections to Rockford. FBI files stated the Town and Country Motel in Rockford (owned by Phil Priola) was having abortions performed there so there was an obvious abortion ring operating in that area at the time. Given Rockford's close ties to Milwaukee and Madison, Cerro was undoubtedly utilized by Rockford and Milwaukee and I suspect when the Rockford LCN officially became involved in narcotics in 1980, Cerro may have been their connection in that city. Clearly Cerro wasn't Madison's boss as was pointed out above, but if no one knew any better and people believed that he was, that just enhanced his reputation.

Agreed. First thing I thought with Cerro’s cocaine trafficking was that it could be tied to Rockford. Now we see that he had SGI ancestry and his relatives went way back to Tony Musso. Question is if he just had LCN connections in some looser sense by this point, or if he was formally on record (if not made, which of course nothing has ever surfaced suggesting that he was made, so far as I can tell) with Madison earlier and then Rockford and/or Milwaukee later.

[B.]

Wondering if Madison emphasized murder as a requirement for induction like Rockford, Milwaukee, KC, and Chicago did. Seems like they'd have a very short hitlist.

[PolackTony]

Wondering if Madison emphasized murder as a requirement for induction like Rockford, Milwaukee, KC, and Chicago did. Seems like they'd have a very short hitlist.

It’s a good question, and I don’t recall seeing Maniaci mention anything about it, but we don’t have a Madison member source, of course. Short hit list, but also a very short list of later inductees. Given the surrounding Families, I’d expect that it could have been a requirement there too, though they may have had to have played it looser with the last couple of members. Cavita has stated that the last known mafia murder in Madison seems to have been in 1932, but then we don’t even know if guys like Caputo and Aiello were made by Madison or made by Chicago and then transferred.

[cavita]

Wondering if Madison emphasized murder as a requirement for induction like Rockford, Milwaukee, KC, and Chicago did. Seems like they'd have a very short hitlist.

It’s a good question, and I don’t recall seeing Maniaci mention anything about it, but we don’t have a Madison member source, of course. Short hit list, but also a very short list of later inductees. Given the surrounding Families, I’d expect that it could have been a requirement there too, though they may have had to have played it looser with the last couple of members. Cavita has stated that the last known mafia murder in Madison seems to have been in 1932, but then we don’t even know if guys like Caputo and Aiello were made by Madison or made by Chicago and then transferred.

Early on in my LCN research I naturally assumed that made members of families had to commit murder to be accepted into their respective family and we've found this is not always the case- more often than not, but not always. With that, I then assumed any murder to gain one's "seat at the table," occurred in that prospective members' city. This may not be the case either as I've gone on in research. I have FBI files stating that Rockford member Joe Marinelli was made sometime in the 1950s with Lorenzo Buttice being his sponsor. Interestingly, another FBI file stated that a police source said Marinelli was involved in the November 1955 murder of Milwaukee organized crime figure Jack Enea. Marinelli was travelling often in Wisconsin during this time and boss Tony Musso was noted as having frequent telephonic contact with Milwaukee boss Alioto during this time as well. From this I've surmised that prospective members can commit the necessary murder at the request of another family perhaps.
I believe Madison's last LCN murder was around 1932 but that's not to say Madison guys weren't murdering people in other cities, and this would obviously make sense as out of towners, or imported guys, would be unrecognizable to a victim that was to be murdered. Food for thought I guess. Perhaps Madison guys were committing murders into the 1960s, just not in Madison.

[PolackTony]

Wondering if Madison emphasized murder as a requirement for induction like Rockford, Milwaukee, KC, and Chicago did. Seems like they'd have a very short hitlist.

It’s a good question, and I don’t recall seeing Maniaci mention anything about it, but we don’t have a Madison member source, of course. Short hit list, but also a very short list of later inductees. Given the surrounding Families, I’d expect that it could have been a requirement there too, though they may have had to have played it looser with the last couple of members. Cavita has stated that the last known mafia murder in Madison seems to have been in 1932, but then we don’t even know if guys like Caputo and Aiello were made by Madison or made by Chicago and then transferred.

Early on in my LCN research I naturally assumed that made members of families had to commit murder to be accepted into their respective family and we've found this is not always the case- more often than not, but not always. With that, I then assumed any murder to gain one's "seat at the table," occurred in that prospective members' city. This may not be the case either as I've gone on in research. I have FBI files stating that Rockford member Joe Marinelli was made sometime in the 1950s with Lorenzo Buttice being his sponsor. Interestingly, another FBI file stated that a police source said Marinelli was involved in the November 1955 murder of Milwaukee organized crime figure Jack Enea. Marinelli was travelling often in Wisconsin during this time and boss Tony Musso was noted as having frequent telephonic contact with Milwaukee boss Alioto during this time as well. From this I've surmised that prospective members can commit the necessary murder at the request of another family perhaps.
I believe Madison's last LCN murder was around 1932 but that's not to say Madison guys weren't murdering people in other cities, and this would obviously make sense as out of towners, or imported guys, would be unrecognizable to a victim that was to be murdered. Food for thought I guess. Perhaps Madison guys were committing murders into the 1960s, just not in Madison.

Very good point and this was something I was wondering as well. Especially with the smaller Families, I can definitely imagine that guys could participate in a murder for the “outfit” anywhere, as they may not have had a lot of murders locally and it was obviously all the same brotherhood.

[B.]

KC/Milwaukee member Joe Gurera had already made his bones earlier but according to a wiretap in STL the KC Family wouldn't induct him until after he did a double murder for the Family. He was a multi-generation member so it speaks volumes to me he had to prove himself through extreme violence even in a close-knit Family.

[PolackTony]

Great photos, Cav.

Given his early association with Musso, do you know if Pietro Gargano had any subsequent links to Rockford?

Gargano relocated to Waukegan/North Chicago, which also makes me wonder if he was connected to Joe the Crow Corso, who we know was connected to Waukegan.

I note that in 1947, daughter Marie Gargano married Joseph DiSalvo, son of Andrea DiSalvo.

To my knowledge and research I haven't found a connection to Rockford regarding Gargano. I did notice that Ciro Gargano of Waukegan was involved on the periphery of the Chicago Outfit and was housed in the Rockford jail in 1974 and given preferential treatment by the Sheriff's Department. There absolutely has to be a relation there.

Oh wow, thanks for this.

Ciro Gargano was the son of Pietro Gargano, born in 1928 in Madison. He was definitely connected to the Chicago mob. He was locked up when that scandal happened at the Winnebago County jail in 1974 (which was hilarious, as Gargano was reportedly getting lobster and steak dinners in jail and permitted to maintain an apartment outside of the jail) for being pinched in a Colombo/Chicago stolen stock certificate ring headed by Greg Scarpa and Tony “Poolio” DeRosa of Chicago. So the Garganos seem to definitely have maintained connections to the Chicago and Milwaukee outfits at least.

In 1964 a Milwaukee CI (presumably Maniaci) stated that Pietro Gargano was a close associate of Chicago member Little Joe Aiello, but specified that Gargano was not a mafia member.