Balistrieri Tapes

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 1: 'Balistrieri built empire with threats, violence'
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
Frank P. Balistrieri arrives at the Federal Building in Milwaukee on April 9, 1984, to hear the verdict in his extortion trial.
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning Oct. 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

Far from power and prestige, his todays aren't like his yesterdays.

He used to have hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around. Now he rooms with another man.

Working and playing all night, he used to sleep into the afternoon. Now he is required to get up at 6 a.m. Commanding respect, he lived a life filled with people he ordered around. Now he is told when he can eat and when he can sleep.

Not long ago threats could be made, and money could be skimmed, and murders could be discussed, and crime was his business. Now he wears surplus military clothing.


Milwaukee's most famous gangster is federal prisoner No. 01877-045. At the age of 70, Frank Peter Balistrieri mops floors.

***

Nearly 25 years ago, Balistrieri declared that people must listen to him.

"Everybody knows that (or) they die," he said. "And they'll die, that's all there is to it."

He made that threat during a bugged meeting with criminal associates in an East Side office. He presided. The FBI listened.

"What I want to do is build up a bankroll for the family, for the whole family," he said.

Balistrieri, the most investigated man in state history, directed a powerful criminal organization that involved itself in gambling, extortion, stolen property and violence, according to federal officials.







Like anyone involved in big business, Balistrieri had production problems, and in a conversation with an associate he did some wishful thinking on how he could "take care of a lot of (them)": It would be nice, he said, to own a cemetery and crematorium.

The way Balistrieri operated his business caused a dispute with his father-in-law, the man who formerly operated the organization. The two of them shouted at each other as the older man pleaded for less bloodshed. That was after a meeting in which Balistrieri threatened to kill two men.

A reporter for The Milwaukee Sentinel learned of these conversations when she spent several months searching public records in Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri.

She discovered hundreds of pages of previously unreported transcripts and memos and tape recordings made during the 30 years that federal, state and local officials investigated Balistrieri, electronically eavesdropping on him, his family and associates.

This series of stories – the most extensive ever done on organized crime in Wisconsin – is based on those records.

Officials spent millions of dollars investigating Balistrieri, a complex individual who once raised money for charity and used to be invited to picnics of the Common Council: a man who commanded attention, often respectfully attending weddings and funerals in his community; a man who had the telephone numbers of many influential people, including entertainers, important public officials, politicians and prominent union leaders.

"There are a lot of people, even in law enforcement who don't realize how important Frank Balistrieri was to the mob," said Gail T. Cobb, a former FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia here.

Cunning and influential, Balistrieri had business contacts in many cities, including Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Diego; Las Vegas, Nev.; Chicago; and New York City.

Joseph (Joe Bananas) Bonanno, one of the top bosses in the American Mafia in the 1950s and early '60s, visited Balistrieri in Milwaukee and discussed a problem Balistrieri had with a member of the Bonanno orga­nization.

Referring to Bonanno, Balistrieri said, "He showed me power and I showed him respect."

Balistrieri's parents were Sicilian immigrants. His father was a cinder hauler and trucker.

Balistrieri was married in 1939, after he withdrew from classes at Marquette University. He went back to Marquette, but withdrew a second time in 1941.

He had different ideas about a career. "My idol was Al Capone when I was a kid," he said in a 1980 recording. That's a true story."

Records show that Balistrieri has been deeply involved in crime here since the 1950s, when his father-in­-law, John Alioto, was reportedly in charge.

Electronic surveillance of Balis­trieri apparently began in the early 1960s. Since then, federal agents recorded him discussing a broad vari­ety of illegal activities, including murder.

In one tape recording, he talked about hijacked furs with Felix (Milwaukee Phil) Alderisio, an enforcer for the Chicago mob. Alderisio, who is dead, was one of the top men in the rackets in Chicago.

In other recordings, Balistrieri indicated he controlled vending machines and had taken a slice of the gambling here and in Kenosha for years.

He also had hidden interests in strip joints, restaurants and bars.

He was a criminal who never carried a gun, but always carried a threat.

In 1964, he was recorded threatening to kill August Maniaci, who didn't die by threat, but by gun in 1975.

FBI agents said he also threatened to kill Sally Papia, a successful local restaurant operator who has friends in organized crime in Chicago and Milwaukee. Balistrieri threatened two employees of Papia, too, according to FBI agents and recorded conversations.

Balistrieri, who was never very successful operating restaurants, seemed to resent Papia's success, federal agents said.

During the past 40 years, Balistrieri knew most of the men who were murdered gangland style in this area, and had disagreements with some of them, according to records.

He was publicly linked in newspaper stories of the day to one of the area's most sensational gangland slayings.

In 1960, Balistrieri had an interest in a bar known as the Brass Rail. Isadore Pogrob, who weighed 370 pounds, managed it from the two bar stools on which he sat.

One night in January, according to the testimony of a police informant, Balistrieri took a phone call at one of his taverns, and then signaled to three men who were sitting at the bar by placing a forefinger beneath his left ear and drawing it across his throat. The men left.

Pogrob's body was found in a ditch in Mequon.

Judging from his conversations and the findings of investigators, Balistrieri's power and influence stretched into high places.

For example, he insisted he controlled Teamster trucking in Wiscon­sin, Cobb said.

Sometimes, after public officials sought support of the Teamsters in elections, Balistrieri was recorded discussing the candidates, and who he thought could help the family.

His associates contributed to the campaigns of numerous public officials.

Balistrieri also had close ties with some police officers and businessmen.

Nine years ago Balistrieri was recorded arranging for Las Vegas show tickets for a local police officer.

He bragged that he was notified when liquor licenses were changing hands and when some building permits were issued.

Balistrieri also claimed that he paid off police in Kenosha years ago.

In the 1960s, at one of his restaurants, Balistrieri several times feted an IRS agent who was investigating him.

Along with such evidence of his influence, records also contain numerous indications of the money his power brought him.

On a trip to Chicago, a woman traveling with Balistrieri found a grocery sack of money in the trunk of his car.

In one recorded argument over vending machine proceeds, Balistrieri threw $40,000 on the floor and told a Florida mobster that he wanted more money.

By 1980, John Balistrieri, a son of Frank, said that his family was worth $15 million and that it had interests in three restaurants and a hotel, which grossed $379,000 in one year.

Nevertheless, Balistrieri could be cheap. A small man, who patrolled his nightspots in high-priced suits purchased from the dapper side of the rack, he would order the most expensive wine but wouldn't pay the bills, leaving them to his sons.

"He never once comes across with a nickel, not even a pretzel," his son, Joseph P., complained while being recorded in 1980.

And, after federal officials found $200,000 in a safe in a raid, Frank Balistrleri’s wife, Antonina, was recorded as saying:

"I'm a little upset that he had all that .. .. I'm a little upset that I have to look at bargains and every time he gave me a $10 bill, he screams."

When agents raided the Balistrieri house, they found the following items on Mrs. Balistrieri's dresser: a prayer card, a small statue of a saint, a rosary and a police scanner.

During a later conversation that was taped, Mrs. Balistrieri talked about her loyalty, and her husband's failure to return It.

"I make him Jell-O every night," Mrs. Balistrieri said.

But that didn't stop Balistrieri from being a womanizer.

"Well, your father, when he has a new toy, he drops the old Raggedy Ann. And then you know what? When the chips are down and he goes back to the Raggedy Ann, and he thinks the Raggedy Ann is going to be affectionate with him. That's impossible."

Balistrieri had a more benign opinion of himself.

During the investigation that concluded with Balistrieri and his two sons being sentenced to federal prison, Frank was recorded talking about a local businessman.

According to Balistrieri, the man said, "The FBI keeps coming up. They wanna pinch somebody. They keep asking me about you. I said, 'You're a wonderful guy.'"

And Balistrieri replied, "Well, I am."

Balistrieri and his sons have denied the existence of such federally labeled groups as Mafia or La Cosa Nostra.

However, recordings showed 25 years ago that at meetings attended by Balistrieri, mobster terms were used that included the designations of soldiers, caporegime chiefs and consigliere for the top adviser to the crime family.

As long ago as 1960, an FBI memo said:


"Balistrieri has been described as a lieutenant of what in some circles is known as the 'Italian organization' in Milwaukee, which group Is said to coordinate criminal work in Milwaukee and arranges for its members to be available for criminal undertakings in any place in the country …

"The Milwaukee group may be under the direct supervision of a similar group in Chicago, which is headed by Anthony Accardo, who allegedly attended meetings of the Milwaukee organization."


"It has also been alleged that Frank Peter Balistrieri’s uncle, Frank Balistrieri, is among the leadership of the 'Italian organization' in San Diego…. Another uncle, Peter Balistrieri, prior to his death in September 1958 in San Diego…was also in a leadership capacity… Another relative… known as ‘Big Jim’ Balestrere is alleged to have headed the 'Italian organization' in Kansas City.”

Frank Balistrieri was part of a big family. But it often wasn’t a happy family.

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 2: 'Family feud erupted over Balistrieri’s penchant for bloodshed'
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
Police officers mill around the car driven by August J. Maniaci. Maniaci was shot to death behind his home on North Newhall Street in 1975.
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

It was a meeting about bloodshed. Frank P. Balistrieri wanted some. His father-in-law didn't.

After Balistrieri threatened to kill at least two men, he shouted at his father-in-law, who pleaded for a more merciful solution.

"L'amazzari,” Balistrieri said in Sicilian, meaning, "l got to kill them."

The meeting was in 1964, when once again Balistrieri was upset with August J. Maniaci, a smalltime businessman, pizza cook and sometime associate of Balistrieri.


Balistrieri's threats against Maniaci, which apparently were nothing new, were made at a meeting that included some of the top advisers in Balistrieri’s organized crime family.

The meeting was conducted mostly in Sicilian.

The sometimes joking, sometimes serious, sometimes emotional, sometimes wild meeting was tape recorded by the FBI.

The meeting ended after John Alioto, the former chief of organized crime here, commented on the business style of Balistrieri, Alioto's son ­in-law and the current head of organized crime.

"I don't know why you're so anxious for blood," Alioto said.

Earlier in the meeting, speaking in Sicilian and English, Balistrieri said, "Let's talk about our soldiers. What a bunch of garbage that we've got. We really have a bunch of garbage. We have as good a family now as anywhere in the United States, but we still got garbage."







Referring to Maniaci and John Aiello, Balistrieri said, "At first, we had decided to leave them alone, as if God forgave them. To leave them alone again. For a while, they were like strangers. But, you know, I can't throw anybody out from our family. There is an order here, and I'm not going to go against that order. I can make who I want but I can't throw nobody out.

"So therefore I got to kill them .... So with these (Maniaci and Aiello) they're not worth the bullets. They're not worth a nickel worth of bullets. They are the cancer of this family in Milwaukee. They brag a lot, they tell everybody who they are…

"And yet we try to keep them in line and they're telling everybody that they're making money. And that Vince Maniaci (the brother of August Maniaci), that's a real cancer. What am I going to do with that?”

At another point, Balistrieri said, "Augie Maniaci, I don't even want to bring it up anymore, and John Aiello."

Maniaci, who was 54 then, and Aiello, who was 48, were among eight people arrested in what police called a fraudulent home improvement ring in 1961. The local and state investigation of this scheme went on for several years.

Referring to Maniaci and Aiello, Balistrieri said, "We fight one way to keep our prestige, then these two come along to tear it down. So you see, we've got to maintain the family."

Balistrieri apparently spoke Sicilian as a sign of respect to the older men at the meeting, although he sounded more comfortable speaking English. Alioto was referred to several times as zzu Vanni, or Uncle John, another sign of respect.

However, there weren't many signs of respect near the end of the meeting, when Balistrieri and Alioto, who reportedly often did not get along, shouted at each other.

During the argument, Alioto sounded emotional as he pleaded with Balistrieri in Sicilian and Balistreri replied in English.

The recording did not reveal who Balistrieri was talking about when he said, "I'm going to give him a last warning."

"Frank, listen to me, if you respect me, forget about it," Alioto said.

"But he's got to pay," an unidentified man said.

"If somebody from Chicago comes in and tells you to do it, you do it," Alioto said. 'If somebody from New York comes and tells you to do it, you do it. And there's no need to. I can handle it. I can do it."

"We been through this thing 100 times," Balistrieri said. "You think I'm going to forget it or swallow it? I don't see nothing to swallow."

"If you respect me, if you respect your father-in-law, please do me this big favor," Alioto said. "Do this for me, Frank."

"You never did a goddamn thing for me," Balistrieri said. "You make up your mind one way or the other, because I'll show you who's close and who's not close .... I just want you to mind your own business the way you're supposed to mind your own business."

"I beg you like a son," Alioto said.

Noting that he was often criticized in newspapers, Balistrieri said, "You ever come up and say, 'You need anything, you want anything?' ... It's your obligation to come to me, not me to you."

At one point, in the midst of shouts, Alioto said something about dying and Balistrieri shot back, "You're not going to die, he's going to die.”

"I don't know why you're so anxious for blood," Alioto said. "... Do it for me, do it for me.... I'm your father-in-law. You married my daughter, your kids are my grandchildren... Do something for me, show you care."

Alioto also asked Balistrieri If Balistrieri thought Alioto was garbage.

"You've been for yourself all your life," Balistrieri said. "You never did anything for me."

Balistrieri said it was time to leave.

"I hope you open up your goddamn heart because you have no heart for me," Alioto said. "Think this through and you'll realize that your father­-in-law was right."

At another meeting, at which Augie Maniaci was present, Maniaci seemed to refer to the fraud case against him.

"And you know, this is serious," Maniaci told Balistrieri. "I can get 15 years. I am charged with one count that I can get 15 years and there's seven of them. They can throw away the key if they want."

Apparently referring to another person involved in the fraud scheme, Maniaci said, "You know what I told him? ... To keep you all out. I'll take the rap for everybody. And you get out and you support my family, take care of them."

Maniaci once operated an East Side tavern with his brother, Vincent. Their father, Nunzio (Pop) Maniaci, was a widely known restaurant owner and leader in the Italian­-American community.

Maniaci's explanation of his problems apparently didn't satisfy Balistrieri.

After Maniaci left the meeting, Balistrieri said, "I'll tell you something, I am very, very disgusted."


Balistrieri said Maniaci had told him Maniaci was afraid of the FBI.

"A true member of the family would just keep his mouth shut," an unidentified man said.

Balistrieri then asked his consigliere (top adviser), whom he didn't name, to look into the matter involving Maniaci and Aiello and report back.


Besides the mortgage fraud case, Maniaci was the subject of another case. The case was No. 1794:

"DOB: 6/16/09. Date: 9/11/75, 8:30 a.m. Date-Time Injury: 7:20 a.m. Place Injury: Alley, to the rear of 2121 N. Newhall St.

"Immediate Cause of Death: MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS TO THE HEAD."

Two years after August Maniaci was murdered, an attempt was made on the life of his brother, Vincent. However, the dynamite attached to the engine of Vincent's automobile did not explode because the wiring was loose.


August Palmisano, who was a friend of Vincent Maniaci and who had had a heated argument with Balistrieri, was blown up in his car in 1978.

Balistrieri is serving a 13-year term in federal prison on extortion and other charges.

But not for murder. Or for talking about it.

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 5: 'Sally Papia target of Balistrieri ire, FBI agent says'
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

One of the people Frank P. Balistrieri reportedly yearned to kill was restaurant operator Sally Papia.

"He hated her," said Gail T. Cobb, an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated Balistrieri's organization.

Balistrieri, who headed organized crime here, threatened to kill Papia in the early 1970s, Cobb said.

And in 1980, Balistrieri angrily denounced Papia and two of her employees during conversations that were secretly taped by the FBI. Balistrieri threatened to have the two men dumped on her doorstep.


"Every time somebody wants to be tough, they're not around anymore," Balistrieri said.

Papia, the operator of the popular Sally's Steak House, 1028 E. Juneau Ave., is known for her association with public figures, lawyers, union leaders and gangsters.

Apparently, it was her connections with underworld figures in Chicago that shielded her from Balistrieri's wrath.

Papia had no comment when told about the contents of this story.

According to federal officials, Papia bothered Balistrieri in a number of ways:

She was a successful woman in a business in which he had never been successful.
Balistrieri was concerned that under pressure she might talk to government agents.
He didn't know ahead of time that an attempt would be made to torch a restaurant as a result of a dispute she had.






Cobb said Balistrieri's hatred of Papia apparently originated or was heightened while he was serving a prison sentence for income tax evasion in 1971 and '72.

"When he was in prison, Chicago sent up a guy to look after things while he was gone. There were some dealings. I don't know all what they were, but there were some dealings she pulled, and this other guy pulled, and he (Balistrieri) wasn't told about.

"Frank felt she should have been looking out for his interests. Frank wanted to kill her. Frank wanted a contract on her, and Chicago wouldn't let him. That was after he came out of Sandstone (federal prison)."

Frank Buccieri, a Chicago hoodlum, was frequently in Milwaukee during the time Balistrieri was in prison.

Papia had announced in 1970 that she and Buccieri were going to be married, but the wedding was called off.

Now in his late 60s, Buccieri is a roguish looking, tough man who also can be very likable.

A Chicago source said that he once saw Buccieri pay a restaurant bill for a man Buccieri didn't know when the embarrassed gentleman found he didn't have enough money with him.

"Hey, I've been there, I understand," Buccieri said.

Another time, the source said, he saw Buccieri use his fist to launch a man 20 years younger than he was. The man landed across the room.

Buccieri's brother, Fifi, a widely known Chicago loan shark, was recorded laughing about a man being hanged on a hook. That macabre discussion was quoted in the introduction to "The Exorcist," and set the tone for the horror that followed in the widely known best seller.

Balistrieri did not like the fact that Papia got involved with Frank Buccieri, Cobb said.

Cobb added, "He (Balistrieri) would sneer and comment about her in the same tone he used when referring to the FBI.”

"On two or three occasions when her name was brought up, he was very sarcastic in his appraisal of her. He forbid one of his girlfriends to go into her restaurant. He didn't want his friends patronizing her (Sally)."

Another source of friction between Balistrieri and Papia was a 1974 arson at the Northbrook Inn, then a restaurant at 9601 N. 124th St. A former employee of Papia's was a partner in the Northbrook operation.

The fire in December 1974 was started without Balistrieri's knowledge, and he was furious that no one had told him in advance.

Joseph V. Basile, one of three men convicted in the arson plot, gave this account of Balistrieri's reaction during a taped conversation:

"The old man's hysterical. Absolutely hysterical.... Frankie Bal scooped me up with a pistol. He says, 'Why did you burn the joint down without telling me?"'

Referring to Papia and the fire, Basile said, "She ain't got the clout to be doing this. It probably came through the back door with some friends of hers in Chicago, and it turns out her friends are calling Frank's and giving the ... details, and he don't like it.

"He's more concerned if people are trying to go around him."

Basile also said, "Now, they scooped me up with pistols. He (Balistrieri) says, 'I've gotta talk to you.' He says, 'I don't want to hear no (obscenity).'

"I was afraid to tell 'em .... I said, 'Well, I'm sorry I didn't tell you.'

"Every ... time I tum around I'm in the back seat of a car. I can't ... believe It," Basile added.

The fire at the Northbrook caused $7,000 damage.

It stemmed from a dispute between Papia and Kurt B. Amidzich, a former chef at Papia's restaurant. Amidzich owed Papia money, left his job with her and went into the Northbrook partnership.


An intensive investigation resulted in Papia being found guilty of extortion for threatening Amidzich.

Three of her associates – Basile, Maximillion J. Adonnis and Russell Enea – were found guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion.

Jacob J. Schlecter testified that he set fire to the Northbrook on orders from Basile. He also testified that Adonnis ordered him to take Amidzich to a garage where Adonnls and Enea could beat him. Schlecter was told by Enea to break Amidzich's wrists so he could never cook again, Schlecter said.

However, police broke up the plot.

Balistrieri's anger with Papia surfaced again in January 1980, after Papia was interviewed for a profile published in The Milwaukee Sentinel.

In a conversation taped after the article appeared, Balistrieri expressed anger with Papia and two men who worked for her.

Mentioning Jim Jennaro and Frank Trovato, whom Papia referred to as her bodyguards in the article, Balistrieri said, "I'll have to show 'em, you know, who is the tough guy.

"I told her I'd go out and drop both pimps, the pimp and the bodyguard right on the doorstep. The only reason I told her that, I'm not gonna do it right now."

In the 1970s, Jennaro was convicted of soliciting a prostitute, a charge that reportedly embarrassed him. He once worked for Balistrieri, but has managed Papia's restaurant since 1972. He is regarded as a likable man who is extremely loyal to Papia.

"He doesn't show me enough respect," Balistrieri complained.

Referring to the nine months and nine days he spent in prison on tax evasion charges in 1971-'72, Balistrieri said, "While I was in jail, Jim Jennaro screwed up, was cabareting, he was entertaining, drinking my whisky ... with his girlfriends ... chicken friends that he had over there and wheeling and dealing… Everybody thinks Jimmy's with me. ... He failed me, see?"

Jennaro had operated the Ad Lib, one of Balistrieri's downtown night clubs, from 1965 to 1972. The club booked well-known entertainers, then became a strip joint and in the early 1970s booked female impersonator dancers.

In June 1972, Jennaro became manager of Sally's Steak House.

“I gave him (Jennaro) the job," Balistrieri said in the 1980 recording, an apparent reference to Jennaro being hired by Papia. "And she wouldn't have hired him until I told her, 'Hire him.' … Soon as I take my arms ... off of him, Sally'II fire him.”

"I took him off the banana truck and put him over there, and he hasn't been coming around, not even once."

Referring to Papia, Balistrieri said, "So … she comes down with another bodyguard ... and then I told 'em about it, and she says, 'Well, Jimmy Jennaro loves you…’

"'Keep your…mouth shut,' I said, 'When I get in trouble, do I call on Jimmy Jennaro?' ...

"He made all his contacts at the Ad Lib. When I was in jail he, ah, he abandoned me. No, I'm through with every, with, with everybody and I mean it, and I told my guys, too, either they go to work, no bonuses out, not after last year .... "

Balistrieri also indicated in the rambling conversation with his son, Joseph P. Balistrieri, that he was upset with Papia for hiring Trovato, who – like Jennaro – was said to be a friend of Buccieri.


As the conversation continued, Balistrieri's comments became increasingly fragmented and difficult to understand.

Near the end of the tape, Balistrieri suggested that Papia had wanted to join with him in an unspecified enterprise and that she had made some promises to an unidentified party.

"See, they either expect something from her, has promised something. Not that she would deliver, but with her big mouth, she'd implicate us."

Balistrieri apparently was still concerned about her, despite the fact that she had demonstrated a certain degree of toughness over the years.

Papia went to jail for 66 days under a work-release program on the Northbrook extortion charge, rather than talk to authorities about what she knew of the underworld.

And a few years earlier, her unflappability was documented when she was shot at while driving on an expressway here. Balistrieri was not involved in this incident.

Someone fired a shot which struck the rear door of her car. The gunshot was meant to scare her as a result of a business dispute, but she had too many associations here and in Chicago to be frightened then, she told friends.

The man who shot at her reportedly left town.

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 6: "Top mobster Bonanno visited Balistrieri to discuss problems"
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

One of the top mobsters in America had problems that included Frank P. Balistrieri, and their dispute caused such bad feelings that the two men finally met in Milwaukee to discuss it.

Balistrieri’s attitude was: "I run my town as I see fit."

In the 1960s, the sensational difficulties of crime boss Joseph Bonanno were on front pages of newspapers across the country.


Bonanno, known as Joe Bananas, was a rugged-looking, handsome New Yorker who picked up his suntans in Arizona and had an empire that reportedly had interests on several continents.

The government was after Bonanno, and so were other mobsters. Bonanno was reported kidnapped and murdered, but he showed up mysteriously after being gone for 18 months.

He came to Milwaukee in 1964 to talk to Balistrieri about a dispute between members of the two families during the turmoil before his disappearance.

But prior to that meeting, Balistrieri, head of organized crime here, met with a man identified as Pete, a soldier in the Bonanno family.

Balistrieri was upset with a relative of Pete, a member of the Bonanno family who had been causing Balistrieri problems. The dispute had gone on for nearly two years, which Balistrieri felt was disrespectful to him.







The FBI secretly taped the meeting. The dispute was the first matter of business:

Balistrieri: "First, we'll take up Mr. Bonanno's matter. Last time we were here, I was called to Chicago and told to do something with Mr. Bonanno. “

"Well, I'm both disturbed and disappointed. ... See, I represent the family here, and there's a certain dissatisfaction with your brother-in-law, and naturally in Milwaukee the family comes first and everybody else is secondary. He could be my own brother, and if he doesn't go along with the rules, if he doesn’t follow what the family dictates, then I can't help him either...”

"But your brother-in-law hasn't respected nobody ever since he’s been in Milwaukee. He’s done very well for himself. He has completely disregarded everybody, (and) anybody ... pertaining to the· family, he has been aloof from. So, naturally, we – I granted permission to give this man a warning, and Mr. Bonanno interceded ....

"And, at that time, I most courteously granted Mr. Bonanno the favor of, er, forgetting what had been started, with the understanding that I would be available to Mr. Bonanno at any place to talk again.

"Because, I mean, I never fight with Tucson, with New York…” Bonanno had homes in New York and Tucson.

Balistrieri continued: "In your brother-in-law's case, I think that maybe since he got a clearance, his attitude, er, his demeanor is even worse than it was before. He completely disregarded everybody.

"I’d be right here all night telling you things that he done, and I got quite disturbed about it. So I called Mr. DiBella. As a matter of fact, we had two or three conversations with Mr. DiBella."

[According to the FBI transcript of the meeting, Balistrieri was referring to John DiBella, who was in charge of the Grande Cheese Co. in Fond du Lac. DiBella was said to be "a very close friend" of Bonanno.]

[Bonanno’s wife, Faye, held 150 shares of stock in Grande Cheese at the time, but there was no indication if the cheese firm was at issue in the dispute. ]

[In a conversation taped after the meeting with Pete, Balistrieri said, "That cheese company in Fond du Lac ... belongs to Milwaukee, and it's under my jurisdiction."

[Officials said there was no indication that the current management of Grande Cheese was involved in organized crime.]

Balistrieri continued his talk with Pete: "I'm sure that Mr. Bonanno doesn’t want our family being mistreated here in Milwaukee.... First of all, I mean being a family matter, I’m sure Mr. Bonanno has got enough intestinal fortitude to take the message.

"He said that if Mr. Bonanno can't handle the situation, that either he or his caporegime (a boss) – it's my understanding that Bill (Bonanno's son) is his caporegime – would take the matter Into consideration and that they would give me some satisfaction.

As a result of Balistrieri's contacts with members of the Bonanno family concerning the dispute, he told Pete, "I marvel that you come here without any knowledge of what is going on. I'm completely disturbed. And I don't think that this family deserves such treatment.”

"Now, I think I was very courteous; I think I was very generous in waiting this time.... And I think that the time is getting short on people's part."

Pete thanked Balistrieri for his courtesy. He said that Bonanno had had numerous problems recently. Pete also apologized for being unable to go into details involving Pete's brother-in-law and "give you the satisfaction that you deserve."

Balistrieri: "Well, I want you to understand this now. I really am disturbed. I think I deserve better treatment than that.... I run my family as I see fit. We made that friendship with you and I."

Pete: "It was in your father-in-law’s place. I said to you that everything was straightened out and don't worry ... and we thank you. I told my brother-in-law what I had to tell him. To go in a straight line.”

“That’s all the details I can tell you because ... (someone) would say to me, 'You're not a caporegime, you’re not a consigliere (counselor), you're not a boss.' Because I'm a soldier. You know that."

Balistrieri: "Nobody is going to tell me how to run my family. I mean the reason that I might have done something and then a guy could say, ’Well, Jesus Christ!’ You know what I mean? ... That's awful dangerous.

"I think that's not right to send, er, when I make a statement and then they misbehave. Then suppose I would have taken action?"

Pete: "If I had a title I could take the responsibility. But as I am I can't settle anything."

Balistrieri: "The family comes first, Pete... I mean since he left here the last time he just don't give a good god damn for nobody. He conducts himself even worse than what he has done before. His attitude hasn't changed. He's not bigger than us. We're not going to permit that. I'm sure Mr. Bonanno doesn't want that to happen in my town.

"I was willing to go to meet him (Bonanno). I was willing to abide my time. I’m sorry now, l did waste this much time. I think it’s a sign of disrespect that when I give a message, that I have no answer. Now I’m sure if there was one of us that wasn't looking for friendship then I would have taken different action.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is the end. ... I run my town as I see fit. That’s it. I don’t mean to be stern. I don't mean to give any ultimatums. But this thing has been going on too long without any satisfaction. I bent over backward to be nice, and I think I have been disrespected.”

Pete: "Frank, for me I can't take this sort of thing up because it's not up to me, you know what I mean?"

Balistrieri and Pete argued over who was in charge, who was the caporegime, the captain, the "head pants," as Pete called him.

Balistrieri: "As far as me hanging and waiting for Mr. Joe Bonanno to get ready to talk to me, I don't think I'm too receptive to that."

Another man ln the room said: "I think you should wait for Mr. Bonanno, Frank."

Balistrieri: "I got troubles. Nobody has more troubles than I have. I feel very disturbed .... I'll tell you something, Pete. Your brother-in-law is in trouble over here!

"These messages aren't carried out the way they're supposed to do. I mean, that's pretty dangerous."

Pete: "I'm 61 years old. If I'd worry about these dangers I'd go and drown myself. I got my superiors. I can’t go over their heads .... "

After Pete left the meeting, Balistrieri said that if Bonanno came to talk to him he would refer him to a meeting with Chicago mobsters.

However, at a later meeting that was also tape recorded, Balistrieri reported that Bonanno had stopped in Milwaukee to see him.


Mentioning that Bonanno was at "Angelo's house," Balistrieri said: "He made no gesture to talk to me. He just kept on talking and then it got late.”

"We went in like a little room and Mr. Bonanno talked for at least 20 minutes. He told us everything, but what we wanted to talk about. After he spoke 20 minutes, Mr. Bonanno said 'I never use the word tired, but I'm tired from speaking so long.'


"I said, 'You’ve been speaking for four hours and now that I wanted to say something, you're tired.' ... I said, 'I'm not satisfied.'

"'Well,' he says, 'I'm tired. I’d like to postpone this thing until another time.’ ... He don't want to talk about it. I gotta go back to Chicago and tell them what happened, see? When I go back and tell Chicago what happened they don't like it too much."


[Bonanno eventually was removed from the national commission of the Mafia as a result of his independent attitude, according to federal officials. Sam Giancana, who was on the commission, was the mob boss in Chicago and Balistrieri's boss.]

Referring to Bonanno Balistrieri said, "Under the circumstances he didn't fool me, nor was I impressed by him. However, the respect that you pay a boss and the courtesy. I gave it to him .... "

"He showed me power, and I showed him respect."

Meeting adjourned; further meetings at the call of the chair.

***


Read the next selected excerpt: The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 8: "Microphones gave FBI a chair at Balistrieri's table"

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 8: "Microphones gave FBI a chair at Balistrieri's table"
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
Snug's bar in the Shorecrest Hotel at 1962 N. Prospect Ave.
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

Nine years ago, microphones were put back in the life of Frank P. Balistrieri, Milwaukee's crime boss who talked himself into prison while the FBI listened.

The FBI committed legal burglaries to break into Balistrieri's life, but agents were sidetracked briefly by a stubborn door at one location and a rat - a real one - at another spot.

Balistrieri often ruled organized crime from a table in Snug's Restaurant, and as a result of the government break-ins, the FBI was at the table with him without his knowledge.


The installation of listening devices in three key Balistrieri places began the biggest investigation in the history of the Milwaukee FBI office.

Ironically, the first conversation heard on a secret taping device that was being installed at one restaurant was the scream of a female agent who was frightened by a rat.

In turn, the scream scared the rat into smashing some glasses on top of a bar and interrupted the heartbeats of the agents listening to the ruckus.

At least 40 agents were working in the early, chilly, dark hours of a day in October 1979 so that two of the agents could break into Snug's restaurant, located in the Shorecrest Hotel, 1962 N. Prospect Ave.

The work that began that night led to the interception of 7,000 conversations, and some of these words put Balistrieri in prison for 13 years.







The work on N. Prospect Ave. in those pre-dawn hours focused on two FBI agents - a man and a woman - who acted as if they were lovers and hugged in front of Snug's to cover the break-in.

As the male FBI agent worked to open the door, the woman, who wore a receiver in her ear, kept in touch with agents in the neighborhood, many of whom were parked in vans at key intersections.

The lookouts warned her about traffic and people on the street and told them when they had to stop working on the door and start embracing.

While waiting to get the bugging devices in place and start recording Balistrieri's conversations, "It was like waiting for Christmas to come when you were a little kid," FBI agent Michael DeMarco said.

"We were so geared up. We looked at this as the closest we have ever come to success on the La Cosa Nostra in Milwaukee in 25 years."

Their recordings of Balistrieri's days and nights succeeded beyond their dreams, DeMarco said. But first they had to get through a stubborn door at Snug's without a key.

In preparation for placing the recording devices, the FBI had done a monthlong survey of the areas around the Shorecrest, which is owned by the Balistrieri family, and around Leonardo's, which was formerly at 1601 N. Jackson St. and was one of Balistrieri's places.

FBI agents knew every car, human and dog on the street between midnight and 8 a.m.

"We knew exactly when the milkman came, when the bakery was delivered, when people got up and walked their dog," said Fred Thorne, another FBI agent who worked on the case. "We even knew how many cars came down the street at any given hour. We knew when the police would do regular patrol."

During the nights they broke into Balistrieri's restaurants, FBI agents were worried about police, who had not been informed that federal agents were breaking and entering.

Some agents listened to police radio frequencies for any reports of burglaries in progress so they could stop squads before they blew apart the investigation.

One night, Thorne was in a van with agents who spotted a man stealing tires from a car. The agents turned on their lights briefly, which frightened the thief. An agent called police anonymously and gave them the thief's license number.

Besides knowing the routine of neighborhoods, agents also knew Frank Balistrieri's daily routine.

"We assumed he got up late in the day because he went home so late at night," DeMarco said. "He would go out on the street in midafternoon. Usually, he'd go to Snug's, LaScalla and Leonardo's – places he had an interest In.

"At Snug's he'd make four or five phone calls, then he'd slide over to Leonardo's around 6 pm. and make a lot of phone calls, maybe have some drinks. A lot of times he drank non­alcoholic beverages.

"About three times a week, around 7 or 8 p.m., he'd call his wife at home and say, 'Put it on. I'll be home in five minutes,' meaning have dinner ready. It would usually be a half-hour to one hour after the phone call before he'd leave whatever location he was at.

"Five minutes, it didn't mean a damn to him. Then he'd go back to Snug's and Leonardo's. He stayed in places he felt were his domain. He would go home anywhere between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m."

During a taped conversation, Joseph P. Balistrieri, a son, said: "See, my old man, we're on different, you know, we're in different … zones … , I get up 7 o'clock in the morning. I go to work. I come back 6, 7 o'clock at night. I'm beat, you know.

"He comes, he gets up in the afternoon. He's all talced and shaved and ready for an argument at 7 o'clock. My tongue is hanging out. You know then my father's got a nice, you know, he's got a nice way of opening. Ah, you know he doesn't want to say, 'Sit down, I wanna talk to you.' He says, 'You (obscenity) guys, you think you know everything.'"

One thing Frank Balistrieri didn't know was that his tirades were being taped. Eventually, the lock on Snug's gave up, but it didn't happen that first night.

"He (the male agent) worked on the lock from about 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. and gave up," DeMarco said. "He couldn't get in."

Agents broke into Snug's three days later, and they also got into Leonardo's.

At Leonardo's, agents "were getting ready to leave when the female agent saw a big rat on the bar," DeMarco said. "The rat was chewing on cherries you put in cocktails. The woman shrieked, the rat jumped and knocked four glasses off the bar.”

"Our nerves shattered like the glasses."

But agents said the tense work was worth it because the recordings sent Balistrieri to prison on charges of illegally skimming money from Las Vegas casinos, extortion and gambling.

His sons, John and Joseph, were acquitted of the skimming charges, but were sent to prison for extortion.

The agents taped Balistrieri bragging, "I'm surrounded with a battery of brains, with lawyers, accountants and ... I infiltrate the ... legitimate business."

In addition to Snug's and Leonardo's, agents also bugged an office in the Shorecrest.

"The monitoring of the calls took place on the seventh floor of the federal building in the FBI offices," DeMarco said. 'They had two rooms. One where the calls were monitored and another workroom…

"There were long tables all around the room. Seven places to listen to the reel-to-reel tapes and 14 machines running. While the calls were being monitored there was simultaneous surveillance going on at the outside locations."

Legally, agents were not allowed to listen to any conversations Irrelevant to the evidence they were seeking, as authorized by a judge.

The agents had to establish the relevance of a conversation quickly and decide whether or not to listen to it, knowing that if they made the wrong decision, the tape would not be useable in court.

Eventually, as a result of investigations in several cities, at least six top mob bosses were convicted, and prosecutors here and in Kansas City unscrambled pieces of the nationwide puzzle of crime.

By November 1979, DeMarco said, meetings were being held in different cities to discuss the results of wiretap investigations here and in other parts of the country.

"While we're doing this, we're continuing to get bombarded with numerous pieces of information everyday," DeMarco said. "We have wiretaps going, the other offices are sending us information, our informants are telling us things and all of this had to be collated, and we had to get all this new information to the level of the monitoring agents so they knew what they were listening to. We finally realized we had the chance before us to once and for all knock out a portion of the skimming in Las Vegas."

Officials said the Milwaukee wiretap investigation began in 1979, after DeMarco and Geir Magnesen, another FBI agent, determined that the office had enough intelligence on Balistrieri's organization to ask a judge for wiretap permission. It took five months before the paperwork was ready and permission was granted.

When Balistrieri's places were raided in March 1980, agents interrupted a gambling operation on E. Brady St. that resulted in them accepting basketball bets while they searched the home.


So that agents could surprise Salvatore Librizzi, a Balistrieri associate, a female agent stopped her car in the middle of the street, and raised the hood. When Librizzi answered her knock at the door, she said she was having car trouble and, of course, Librizzi immediately had cop trouble.

Agents stormed in and gathered gambling evidence, while DeMarco answered the phone and took bets on basketball games.


"It was very funny," DeMarco said. "They gave me the bets. I read them back to them. I asked them if that was right."

When callers asked who he was, "I used my first name, Mike, and I used a made-up Italian last name."

Agents who monitored those conversations with listening devices wrote down Mike's assumed name phonetically. They wrote Mike Foolaroundo. During the investigation, agents also learned that a mob courier would be bringing Las Vegas skim money to Chicago by way of Milwaukee, DeMarco said.


"They (FBI agents) surveilled him from Chicago to Las Vegas and back to Milwaukee where he rented a car and drove to Chicago," DeMarco said. "It was a Saturday morning and here was this nondescript white-­haired guy, 55 to 60 years old, coming down the escalator with this big oversized coat down to his knees ... "We knew the money was stuffed inside the lining of the coat."

Agents didn't stop him because stopping him might have stopped their investigation of Balistrieri. But DeMarco remembered him, because the man had so much money stuffed in his coat that he looked like someone.

He looked like BoBo the clown.

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 9: "Undercover agent was target for Balistrieri's hit men"
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

An undercover FBI agent who intruded in the business of Frank P. Balistrieri nearly lost his life as part of the transaction.

And mobsters laughed about how close Gail T. Cobb came to being killed.

Referring to his attempt to establish a working relationship with Balistrieri, who headed organized crime here, Cobb said, "Had I known it would have gone as far as it did, I wouldn't have taken the job."

While he was undercover in Milwaukee, an associate of Balistrieri was dynamited to death and Balistrieri decided to kill Cobb, Cobb said.


In June 1978, when Cobb was trying to become a mobster in the vending machine business here, August S. Palmisano, 50, was murdered by explosion.

"It got my attention," Cobb said.

Palmisano was killed when he started his car, which was hooked to explosives. Cobb had met Palmisano briefly, but recalled no conversation with him.

"I knew it was unrelated to me," Cobb said of the bombing.

However, Cobb told Benjamin (Lefty) Ruggiero that he was concerned that people were being blown up. Ruggiero told him not to worry, Cobb said.

Nothing would happen to Cobb because Cobb was "with them," Ruggiero said, meaning the New York mob family to which Ruggiero belonged.







While undercover, Cobb depended on Ruggiero, a friendly, easygoing, likable man who told Cobb he had murdered his daughter's husband.

One thing was wrong with Ruggiero's reasoning that Cobb was safe: Balistrieri initially did not know that Cobb, who was trying to set up a vending machine business here, had the protection of the New York mob, Cobb said.

Three men were assigned to kill Cobb and they followed him around, but Balistrieri called them off when he found out Cobb was approved by the New York mob, Cobb said.

As a result of Cobb's undercover work and recorded conversations obtained by the FBI office here, Balistrieri and his attorney sons, Joseph and John, were convicted and sent to prison on charges relating to extortion in the vending machine business.

Cobb wasn't the first undercover agent whom Ruggiero had inadvertently befriended. A member of the Bonanno mob in New York City, Ruggiero had previously made friends with agent, Joe Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno family. Pistone introduced Ruggiero to Cobb, indicating Cobb could be trusted.

"I told him (Ruggiero) I was opening a vending business in Milwaukee and he says, 'Who's sponsoring you?' " Cobb said. "I said, 'Nobody's sponsoring me.' He said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Either they'll throw you out of there, or they'll kill you.'"

After checking with his New York bosses, Ruggiero was authorized to help Cobb get permission from Balistrieri to open a vending machine business in Milwaukee. The New York mob wanted a cut of the profits, Cobb said.

An introduction to Balistrieri was arranged through a Mafia family in Rockford, Ill., Cobb said. While waiting for the arrangements to be finalized, Cobb said, he and Ruggiero were told to stay at a Milwaukee area hotel and wait for a phone call.

After they waited about a week, a meeting was held at Snug's, 1962 N. Prospect Ave., a restaurant owned by Balistrieri's son, Joseph.

Cobb, who used the name Tony Conte in his undercover role, recalled how the meeting opened: "After about a minute - it felt like half an hour - Lefty was told to introduce his friend (Cobb)."

Balistrieri "was sitting directly across the table and we were about to shake hands, when Lefty says, 'Tony Conte.' And Frank brings his hand back.

"'Tony Conte?' he says. 'We've been looking for you all week.' He said, 'We were going to hit you. You've got the white Cadillac, an apartment in Greenfield, a store office out on Farwell.... ' He knew the whole thing."

Cobb was going to be killed because he was intruding in one of Balistrieri's businesses without permission, Cobb said. Balistrieri had been in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., because he didn't want to be in Milwaukee when Cobb was killed, Cobb said.

"What happened, I guess, they just told Frank, 'You have got to come back, these (New York) people are still waiting,'" Cobb said.

"He didn't realize that the Tony Conte he was going to kill was the Tony Conte involved with the New York people. If I hadn't been in the hotel, I think I would have been whacked," Cobb said.

Cobb thought it was an ironic coincidence that the men Balistrieri allegedly asked to kill him had trailed him to a meeting with Balistrieri, Cobb said. Balistrieri waved the hit men away, Cobb said.

Later, when Cobb was in his car with some hoodlums from Rockford, he was told how lucky he was that he wasn't killed.

"They're tying up Milwaukee, Rockford, Chicago, New Jersey and the New York mob," Cobb said. "Tying it together in a conspiracy. They're talking about the fact that he (Balistrieri) was going to kill me."

The mobsters were laughing and having a good, incriminating time that didn't send them to prison, because a tape recorder in Cobb's car malfunctioned, Cobb said.

At a hotel here, Ruggiero's wife and a friend talked about Cobb nearly getting killed.

"Louise, Lefty's wife, was a nice Italian girl, non-Mafia background whose family disowned her when she married Lefty," Cobb said. "But she was not sympathetic to the mob.

"Mary Elena (Louise's friend) was raised with the mob .... There were several members of her family that were captains and bosses in New York.

"I came in and they said, 'Tony, what happened?' And I said, 'If Lefty wants you to know, he'll tell you.' So he came in and they said, 'Lefty, what happened?'

"He started laughing. He said, 'They were going to kill him. If he wasn't here with us, he'd be dead now.'

"And Louise was upset and said, 'You're all animals. You were going to kill him and not even warn him or anything.' She went in the room and slammed the door and Lefty's laughing at her.

"Mary Elena said, 'Louise is right. They should have warned him first. They shouldn't hit him without warning him. If they warn him and then he doesn't do it, then they should hit him.'"

Mary Elena was for proper procedure.

Tall, slender, rugged-looking, frequently talking in street slang, Cobb sometimes seemed to enjoy acting as a hoodlum. But being forced to contemplate his own death wasn't one of those times.

At their first meeting, Cobb heard Balistrieri refer to Palmisano and say, "He called me a name to my face. Now they can't find his skin."


An FBI informant said that he heard Palmisano and Balistrieri arguing about Balistrieri hiring a relative Palmisano had wanted to hire.

Balistrieri told Palmisano he would "make chopped meat of you" and "write your name in blood," the informant said.

Cobb mentioned another threat that was made when Frank Balistrieri; his brother, Peter; Steve DiSalvo, a close associate; Ruggiero; and Cobb were at the Peppercorn restaurant, which was operated by John Fazio.

"Steve took John in the back and threatened him," Cobb said. "See, Frank had been wanting a piece of the Peppercorn and John wouldn't give it to him. So he (DiSalvo) took him in the back and said, 'You know what happened to your brother.'"

Louis Fazio, a former associate of Balistrieri who had served nearly dozen years in prison for a gangland slaying, was shot to death outside his home in 1972.

"Five times .38," Balistrieri once said during a conversation in which he laughingly described to another undercover agent the multiple gun­shot wounds that killed Louis Fazio.

His body was found next to his car in which a bright red ribbon was tied around the rear-view mirror. Some Sicilians wear red or tie red cloth to objects in their homes and cars to keep evil away.

The ribbon hadn't helped.

Not knowing DiSalvo had just threatened John Fazio at the Peppercorn, Cobb inadvertently added to the threat.

"John comes walking up to me and just to make conversation – his son is tending bar – and I said, 'John, you've got a nice kid there. You ought to take care of him, watch out for him, make sure nothing happens to him.' "

Cobb said Fazio looked as if "he died. So now John is thinking I am saying I'm going to kill your kid."

Unfortunately, it was a threat that the Fazios lived with for a while.

During the vending company negotiations, Cobb met with Joseph and John Balistrieri, who drew up an option that would permit them to purchase 50% of his company at some future date, Cobb said.

Joseph Balistrieri told Cobb not to put the agreement in a safety deposit box but use a more convenient depository, which Joseph suggested could be a pipe in Cobb's basement, Cobb said.

The contract was designed to hide their father's interest in the company and to allow them to take over in the future, Cobb said.

"Joe was into it up to his butt,” Cobb said. "So was John. Joe was… too much splash, too much social, too much concerned about his personality, very egotistical, very well liked.”

"See, ordinarily he would have taken Frank's spot, but he isn't built that way, so John is going to be next in line. John is Frank Balistrieri over exact. John was always in the back seat. Joe was always the one out in front, but Joe made sure John was asked, 'Is this OK.' Joe wrote out the contracts, but he had to run them by John."

Frank Balistrieri, who had a big ego, enjoyed the possibility of doing business with a New York family, Cobb said.

"One of the things that used to gripe the hell out of Balistrieri," Cobb said, "was the fact he felt himself a czar of Las Vegas and he couldn't even go to Las Vegas," where for years he had had business deals in which he received skim money.

"There's a law in Las Vegas which they enforce. If you go to Las Vegas and you're a convicted felon you have to report to the police and say, 'I'm here.' As a result, the mob says, 'You guys with convictions will not go to Las Vegas.'"

Balistrieri, who had served time for tax evasion, was so upset with the Las Vegas law that "smoke would come out of his ears," Cobb said. Occasionally, Balistrieri would use an assumed name and go to Las Vegas, Cobb said.

Cobb had problems with cops, as well as robbers.

When Cobb was fingerprinted for a vending machine license under the name of Tony Conte, he forgot that he had been fingerprinted years ago after applying for a job under his real name.

Cobb was called into the police department and a vice squad officer asked him to explain why there were two sets of the same fingerprints – one for Tony Conte and the other for Gail T. Cobb.

“I'm thinking, ‘I'm going to blow the whole thing now,'" Cobb said. "I spent probably 20 minutes saying, 'I don't know who Gail Cobb is, I don't know what you're trying to pull here, I don't know what's going on.' And he's not buying It."

Finally, Cobb asked to see Police Chief Harold A. Breier. Cobb explained the situation to Breier and Breier assured him that everything would remain confidential, Cobb said. Breier put the two sets of fingerprints in a safe in his office.

With his secret locked up, Cobb returned to his mobster job, which was sometimes highly unsettling.

For example, Ruggiero once warned Cobb that Balistrieri might order Cobb to kill someone before he would be accepted in the Milwaukee mob.

"Don't you worry about it," friendly old Ruggiero said. According to Cobb, Ruggiero said he would do the killing and give Cobb the credit.

That's the world in which Cobb worked: Palmisano dead, Louis Fazio dead, Auggie Maniaci dead, and his brother, Vincent, lucky to be alive.

In 1977, two years after Auggie was murdered, an attempt was made on the life of Vincent, whom Balistrieri also didn't like. However, loose wiring prevented dynamite from exploding in his car.

When a cop asked Vincent if he knew who attached dynamite to his car, he shrugged. "Kids," he said.

***

[Patrickgold]

The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 11: "Lure of casino funds outweighed hatred"
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
A 1961 photo shows Frank Rosenthal at a witness table before the Senate Investigations Subcommittee in Washington during a probe of organized gambling. Rosenthal was portrayed by Robert De Niro in the 1995 film "Casino."
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning Oct. 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

Two big-city crime bosses put aside their hatred of each other so they could steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in a scheme that involved several crime families, death threats and a hoodlum referred to as the "crazy man."

Although they didn't trust each other, Milwaukee's Frank P. Balistrieri and Kansas City's Nick Civella joined forces and went after fortunes skimmed from Las Vegas casinos.

William Ouseley, a former FBI agent and an expert on organized crime families in the Midwest, said, "They had an intense dislike for each other."


Civella couldn't be picked out of a room full of ordinary-looking people. He was balding, wore thick glasses, never swaggered, wasn't natty, didn't like ties.

Balistrieri always looked freshly scrubbed and barbered, his hair slicked back. Dapper in his evening suit and tie, Balistrieri had a cold-looking paleness; a federal official who shook hands with him said it was similar to touching a dead fish.

Balistrieri, who had many friends, spent his nights going from bar to restaurant to girlfriend, while Civella kept the lowest profile he could.

"Frank Balistrieri wanted people to know who he was," Ouseley said. "Nick was the other way."

So this man who was behind the scenes in his city and this other man who was out front in his worked together to fleece Las Vegas.







The Civella-Balistrieri rift, which officials said went back decades, was set aside in 1974 when the two men realized how easily they could skim money.

Balistrieri and Civella controlled key Teamsters Union pension fund trustees who voted to give priority funding on certain Las Vegas projects, Ouseley said.

Balistrieri needed the trustee votes that Civella controlled in order to get a $62.7 million loan approved so that Allen Glick, a Las Vegas business­man, could purchase several Las Vegas hotels. Balistrieri wanted to start receiving skim money from casinos at Glick's hotels.

Civella agreed to cooperate, but needed votes controlled by the Cleveland organized crime family to get the loan approved, records showed. Eventually, the three families became involved in the scheme, as well as the Chicago outfit, which ended up mediating disputes between the other three.

"Talk about your soap opera," Ouseley said.

And Ouseley is an expert on Mafia soap operas. He once spent four hours with his ear jammed against a metal door frame as he listened to a Kansas City mob meeting which came through the frame loud and clear.

Several months after the teamsters' loan was granted, Balistrieri told Glick that he would have to make Frank Rosenthal an executive in one of Glick's hotels. A loud, sometimes obnoxious man, Rosenthal was occasionally called the "crazy man."

Then Rosenthal, an associate of the Chicago crime syndicate, told Glick that if he interfered, he would not continue breathing the air he had become accustomed to in Las Vegas.

In March 1975, Glick was ordered by Rosenthal to come to Kansas City immediately or "we are going to come and get you." Met at the airport by Rosenthal and Carl DeLuna, one of Civella's associates, Glick said he was told they were going to see someone "more powerful than Frank Balistrieri." That was Civella.

"It was like a parlor suite," Glick said of the meeting in court testimony. "The room was very dark. There were two chairs set up in the middle of the room and behind one of the chairs was a light, somewhat like ... stories you would hear about someone interrogating a prisoner in a police room ....

"He (Civella) said, 'You don't know me, but it would be my choice that you would never leave this room alive. However, because of the circumstances, if you listen, you may.'

"He said he wanted to inform me of a couple of facts, because it was apparent that Mr. Balistrieri, Mr. Frank Balistrieri, did not get the message to me that the reason that I was given the loan by the Central States Pension Fund was his. (Civella's) doing and without him and the others, the loan would have never come forward ....

"I am sitting in a room with a light shining in my eyes with someone that is telling me if I don't listen, I am not going to get out alive. He wants to know my understanding with Mr. Frank Balistrieri. I said, 'The only understanding that I have is that on a businesslike basis I would have an arrangement with the two attorneys, his sons.' He said, 'Well, that is not the case .... I don't think I believe Mr. Frank Balistrieri anyhow.'"

Civella then told Glick that Glick owed him $1.2 million and that he was not to interfere with Rosenthal.

"With that he (Civella) said, 'Get out,"' Glick said. He directed Mr. DeLuna, again in graphic terms, to get in his car and go up to Milwaukee and yank Mr. Balistrieri out of bed and bring him back."

In a subsequent conversation Glick had with Balistrieri, Balistrieri appeared upset and advised Glick not to attend any future meetings with Civella.

"It's out of my hands," Balistrieri said.

As different as they were, officials said, Civella and Balistrieri had ties going back to the 1940s. Once, long ago, shots were fired at Civella as he sat in a car, federal officials said. Civella blamed a faction of the Kansas City mob controlled by the late "Big Jim " Balestrere, reportedly a relative of Balistrieri's.

"This may have been where his rift and distrust of Frank Balistrieri began," one veteran FBI agent said.

In the 1960s, the agent said, Buster Balestrere, a relative of Big Jim, came to Milwaukee to help Balistrieri with some business problems.

Two men were slain during this period, and no one was charged.

"Civella would never have reached outside of his own organization for a hit," the agent said. "He would have seen that as a sign of weakness."

While Glick was in Chicago "attending a meeting with the Central States Pension fund... Mr. Balistrieri contacted me," Glick said.

"We went up to a particular floor and on that floor into a suite ... And when he opened the door Mr. Civella was sitting in the hotel room .... He told me ... that his preference was he would rather see me dead than alive, but out of necessity for him and his associates he was instructed to keep me alive. He informed me that Mr. Rosenthal would be granted permission to return to the hotel shortly as an employee."

The Nevada Gaming Commission had removed Rosenthal as an employee of Glick because of Rosenthal's underworld connections. However, Rosenthal won reinstatement through the courts.

If Glick didn't agree to take Rosenthal back, Civella said Glick wouldn't leave Chicago alive.

In 1976, Glick hired a private detective agency to watch Rosenthal. Six months later, Balistrieri came to Las Vegas and told Glick he would die if he continued to have someone watch Rosenthal.

"Mr. Balistrieri was somewhat nervous when I walked in," Glick testified. "He said this is a difficult trip to make and it was something he didn't want to do, but something he was asked to do because he knew me well."

The detectives Glick hired "reported to Tony Spilotro," a mobster who represented mob interests In Las Vegas. Spilotro also was a friend of Rosenthal.

According to Glick, Balistrieri said, "'I am here to tell you that I don't know if I can prevent something happening to you, but if you ever think of, or do something like this, I can tell you definitely I cannot prevent what will happen to you.' He said I would be killed.”

Glick also testified that before he received the Teamsters loan, Balistrieri told him he wanted his sons, lawyers Joseph and John, to have "an active role within the corporation."

An option agreement, which would have allowed the sons to obtain 50% of Argent Corp. for $30,000, was drawn up and signed but never executed. Argent was the umbrella organization under which Glick owned the hotels.

"I had to sense from Mr. Frank Balistrieri that (the option agreement) was something he wanted and without this option I perhaps would be precluded from receiving the loan .... " Glick testified.

"They (the sons) felt that their consideration of owning, or an opportunity to own 50% was correct, since through the efforts of their father that is how I was obtaining the loan."

Later, Glick said that out of a sense of obligation to Joseph and John he appointed them as attorneys for Argent. Joseph agreed that he would represent Argent for a retainer of $50,000 a year.

"I probably would not have paid those type of fees to an outside law firm for the work that I received," Glick said.

During a taped conversation in 1979, Frank Balistrieri said he had discussed skimming with the man who succeeded Glick. Balistrieri referred to the skim as "the white stuff," but the skim was definitely green.

One of the main men in the skimming operation was Carl Thomas, who was a well-dressed, well-manicured model of the successful businessman.

"You have to compromise the people within the casino," Ouseley said. "You have to get a security guard to work for you and protect you, and you go in the morning and you get into the cash cage and you open the box and you take the cash out and close the boxes before the count team comes in."

The FBI taped Thomas discussing how in the past he avoided security cameras by crawling on his belly to get to the casino cash box in the count room.

During an April 28, 1980, wire­tapped conversation, Frank Balistrieri said: "I guarantee Carl Thomas'll talk."

In the same conversation Frank and Joseph Balistrieri indicated that they suspected they were on the brink of their own downfall.

Referring to federal officials who arrested Mafia leaders in Kansas City, Joseph said: "They got KC wrapped up, they got 'em."


Frank: "Yeah, they're gonna tie us in."

Joseph: "They got 'em wrapped up, bedecked and beribboned."

But it wasn't for a party.

In court, a half-dozen mobsters involved in skimming in Las Vegas were sent to prison in 1986.

Meanwhile, on the street, four people associated with those involved in the skimming scheme have been murdered since 1975: two Chicago gangsters who worked in Las Vegas, a former business associate of Glick and a pit boss who worked for Glick.


The bodies of Tony Spilotro and Spilotro's brother, Michael, were found buried in a cornfield in Indiana in 1986.

Tamara Rand, a San Diego businesswoman who invested in businesses owned by Glick, was shot to death with a .22-callber pistol in 1975.

Edward (Marty) Buccieri, the pit boss, was shot to death in 1975 in Las Vegas on orders of Frank Balistrieri, according to a federal document filed in court. No motive was cited, and no one was charged.


After Balistrieri pleaded guilty in Kansas City to skimming, he was sentenced to 10 years, which runs concurrently with his sentence of 13 years on extortion, gambling and tax charges in Milwaukee.

Before Balistrieri was sentenced Civella, his associate and sometimes adversary, died. And Rosenthal nearly lost his life in his car, but it wasn't in a traffic accident.

A bomb exploded.

***

[Patrickgold]

Balistrieri Tapes, Part 12: 'Balistrieri convictions left void in local Mafia, FBI agents say'
Mary Zahn and Bill JanzMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning Oct. 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series. This is the final excerpt.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

***

The lifestyle of Frank P. Balistrieri gave him a stage on which he played the leading part, but he never noticed the curtain falling.

For nearly 30 years, Balistrieri’s name was mentioned in reports of threats and intimidation and mob deaths, investigations of gambling and extortion and other crimes, and in hundreds of news stories that gave him an incredible notoriety. Yet, he didn't see the end coming.

One person did.


Antonina Balistrieri, one of the few who stuck with him through his tumultuous life since the 1930s, warned him that the end was approaching. Married to him for 49 years, she was recorded by the FBI as saying:

"They're laying the groundwork to hang you, Frank, and you don't know your enemy. You keep thinking I'm your enemy. You keep thinking the other ones are your friends and your friends are going to hang you."

She also said, "Frank, you're gonna get hung by your nails, Frank. Giving confidence to people you don't know nothing about."

Two people in whom he confided were undercover FBI agents. With the help of tape recordings and agents from FBI offices here and elsewhere, Balistrieri was caught, convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison for extortion and other crimes.







Balistrieri is 70 years old, and his mandatory release date from prison is 1992. Many of the people left in the Mafia here are aged or in prison, and the status of the local mob has been questioned.

"Our biggest power used to be our secrecy. But now it's not that way anymore because if one talks, the FBI tells everybody,” Balistrieri said, referring to coverage of him and his associates in the media.

An Italian-American whose father's parents were immigrants, Michael DeMarco has worked in organized crime for 20 years, has lived In New York City, Chicago and Milwaukee, knows the Mafia well, and studied the Sicilian language.

Like most Italian-Americans, DeMarco, 46, is not a criminal. He is one of dozens of FBI agents who helped make a big dent in organized crime here. The dent occurred with the loss of Balistrieri's leadership.

Although Balistrieri is in prison, the Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra, “is not gone by any means," DeMarco said. "It's been dented, but not destroyed."

During a recording taped by the FBI in 1980, John Balistrieri, son of Frank and Antonina, spoke to his mother, who was worried about legal problems:

"Mom, mother, let me tell you something, this is our life. This was the life of your great-great-grand­father… Your father, this is our life. I don't worry about it. This is our life."

Many of Frank Balistrieri's businesses are in shambles and both of his imprisoned sons, John and Joseph, have denounced their father as a lying, evil man.

The FBI tape recordings of Frank Balistrieri, who was such a force in this community, showed that he was difficult to have as an enemy, became difficult to have as a friend, difficult to have as an employer, and even difficult to have as a father. His two sons ripped him apart publicly.

And in a recorded conversation in 1980, John said, "People don't want to work for him.

"Well, I'm not gonna tell him that," Mrs. Balistrieri said.

"Because he treats them (employees) that way," John said. "And the people who show him loyalty he doesn't give 'em any.”

"That loyalty thing, bull ... ," Frank Balistrieri said in another taped conversation.

Speaking about the status of organized crime here, DeMarco said, "The Mafia or La Cosa Nostra is at a very low ebb, based on its obvious lack of leadership. That does not mean it will not swing back again when forceful individuals take leadership roles in the future.

"Basically, the LCN is money-oriented. If the LCN from Kansas City or Chicago saw a financial reason to come to Milwaukee, I do not believe they would hesitate to do so."

DeMarco, who was accompanied by an agent for a while because of threats during the investigation, said, "Since the 1950s, the Milwaukee La Cosa Nostra family has been subservient to the Chicago family. Furthermore, the Milwaukee family has close ties to the LCN family in Kansas City. The Milwaukee family has, in the past, imported people from Kansas City to assist them.

"Both factors lend credence to the ... theory that Chicago or other LCN figures could fill the void In Milwaukee."

William N. Ouseley, a former FBI agent and expert on Midwest organized crime families, is not positive that families from other cities would move in here.

"You cannot talk about La Cosa Nostra as a whole,” he said. "You've got to go to every city. There isn't any one magic that says this one thing happens to La Cosa Nostra all at the same time. These are independent groups.

"Historically and traditionally other cities have not moved in to take over other cities. Why is it that Kansas City has taken a severe blow and yet we still have a sizable amount of activity, as opposed to Denver which has taken a severe blow and they got nothing, or St. Louis which seems to be falling apart and maybe Milwaukee?"

Referring to heads of some organized crime families who involve their children in crime, Ouseley said, "They see it the same as bringing your kids into the shoe business. This is what life is all about. We're right and they're wrong.

"If you go to the different cities and you check the offspring of some of these people, you see some of everything. Some have been in it. In some cases, their father didn't want them to be in it. Others think it's the only way of life and they believe in it, because La Cosa Nostra does have certain conditions and some of the old-timers don't see anything evil."

Frank Balistrieri obviously doesn't think of himself as evil. This was just his business, operated in the way some respected, Sicilian men have operated similar businesses in this country back to the 19th century.

He reportedly took over from his wife's father, who took over from somebody else. But, like them, Frank Balistrieri wasn't an ogre you could spot on the street. He was recorded threatening to kill people, but he dressed like a businessman on his way to an important lunch.

Talking about buying ice cream for his employees, Balistrieri was recorded as saying, "But nobody'd ever believe a gang boss would do this."

DeMarco, who is proud of his Italian heritage, said, "I think the Italian Sicilian community in general is affronted when they read or see on TV the results of Mafia action whether it's in the United States or in Italy.

"It's a minuscule percentage of the people with Italian heritage who create a bad image for that vast majority of honest, hard-working people," he said. "The Italian heritage is so full of so excellent people, especially in the arts, that it is an affront that a small group of people who belong to a secret society can have an adverse effect on a much larger population."

Asked if Frank Balistrieri were still active in decisions in the community here, DeMarco said, "Our indication based on the review of prison records shows that there is very little contact between Frank Balistrieri and friends in Milwaukee. Frank, from my perception, is somewhat ostracized by the community in Milwaukee and particularly by his sons Joseph and John."

DeMarco also said the future of the Mafia in Milwaukee would partially depend on 30 to 50 second and third-generation Sicilian-Americans whose families have been involved in organized crime in the past. If they go one way, the Mafia could come back; if they go another way, the Mafia's future here would be in trouble.

Frank Balistrieri's sons were much more visible in the community, especially Joseph, who often was regarded as the most intelligent person in any room he was in. He was flash and wit, and when he tore his father apart in a letter to a judge, it sounded like an assault put to poetry.

After graduating from law school in 1965, Joseph sold life insurance and promoted rock 'n' roll bands until he could get his law practice going. His first law office was in his parents' home. In 1966, he opened his own office, and his brother joined him in 1973.

"I never wanted John to become a lawyer," Joseph testified. "John was always interested in business … I am a lawyer who happens to be in business. My brother John is actually a businessman who happens to be a lawyer."


His father referred a number of cases to him, Joseph testified.

"My father's record is 100%, I never got paid a cent," he said.

After he had been out of law school five years, Joseph assumed the mortgage on his parents' home, and a short time later purchased the Shorecrest Hotel for about $1 million, he testified.


His brother, John, has told prison officials that he intends to live at the Shorecrest and be "self-employed as a management investor for his brother and himself" when he is released.

Although the FBI doesn't believe it, Joseph, 48, and John, 40, have maintained they were the innocent victims of their father. The brothers are expected to be released from federal prisons in the next few months, after having served about three years for extortion.


And federal and state officials have expressed hope that the community remains quieter without Frank Balistrieri.

Whether the days of organized crime return will be up to the people Frank Balistrieri left behind.

In a letter to a judge in 1987 Balistrieri wrote, "I have one consolation. Hell cannot be any worse for me. But I will never know, for when I am judged by the judge of judges, the worst sentence I can get is purgatory."

***

[Dr031718]

Thank you for posting. I only got through 2 before I got hit with a paywall

[Patrickgold]

My cousin was killed by a car bomb in Milwaukee. A mob boss was the top suspect. Now, I’m looking for answers.
Mary Spicuzza
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Florence Grady and Augie Palmisano reached the elevator doors at the same time.

Both were tenants at Juneau Village Garden Apartments in downtown Milwaukee. And shortly before 9 a.m. that Friday — June 30, 1978 — both were heading to the basement of the apartment complex.

Grady was carrying a basket of clothes to the laundry. Augie was going to the underground parking garage. They chatted about the weather and Summerfest.


When they reached the basement, she went to the laundry room. He walked to his car, a 1977 Mercury Marquis.

Less than a minute later, there was a massive explosion. Grady thought the boiler had exploded. But when she looked into the garage, she saw Augie’s car in flames.

The blast shook the city. Paintings fell from walls and books tumbled off shelves. One woman said her recliner lifted off the ground. Tenants ran from the building as firefighters and police rushed to the scene.

Augie Palmisano was my cousin.

His murder has never been solved.

We don't talk about Augie


I was told very little about Augie’s life when I was a child. I heard even less about his death — except when my father was trying to scare me straight.

“Don’t fall in with the wrong crowd. Look what happened to Cousin Augie.”

“Don’t gamble. You don’t want to end up like Cousin Augie.”

“Don’t talk back to the wrong person. You know what happened to Cousin Augie.”


I actually knew almost nothing about what happened to Augie. I was four years old when he was killed, and have no memory of ever meeting him.

The most I heard about Augie probably came from TV news in the early 1980s when reputed Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri was facing gambling and extortion charges. I remember a TV reporter talking about how Balistrieri was suspected of being involved in Augie’s murder. I hurried from the living room to the kitchen, where my mom was making dinner, and told her they were talking about Cousin Augie on the news. She looked mortified.

Through the years my siblings and I have heard various stories, typically passed on in hushed conspiratorial tones, about why Augie was murdered. In one version, he was killed over gambling debts. In another, he became some sort of Mafia kingpin. In yet another widely believed — and still often repeated — theory, he was an informant.

I had no idea which of those stories was true.

I was raised hearing stories about my grandparents and their families coming from Sicily to the United States, and how they rose to success through hard work and sacrifice. They were more than family stories to me. They were lessons in how to live.

But my father didn’t ever want to talk about Augie. He was the youngest of 13 in a Sicilian immigrant family, and I think he wanted to keep his own children out of trouble and far away from even the mention of organized crime.

After my dad died 11 years ago, I thought my Aunt Marjorie — the last survivor of the 13 Spicuzza siblings — might tell me why Augie was killed.

“Why do you want to talk about that?” she snapped, ending the discussion before it started.

Now an investigative reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I mustered the courage to try to find out what happened to Augie, and why.

I turned to police files, FBI reports and newspaper articles — and tracked down former detectives, FBI agents, prosecutors and others who knew Augie, many of whom agreed to speak with me about the case for the first time.

What I found was a story about loyalty, jealousy, and power — and what some people are willing to do for it.

'The King of Commission Row'


Augie in historical photos. Bottom left: Augie’s father’s produce truck. Top right: Augie’s bar on North Broadway, circa 1980s.
Agostino (August) Palmisano was born in 1928. He was the son of my great-uncle Giovanni (John) Palmisano and his wife, Angeline, making him my father's first cousin.

Like many Sicilian Americans in Milwaukee, Augie’s story is rooted in the Third Ward.

The Third Ward – which lies on the southern edge of downtown – was an Irish enclave for much of the 19th century. It came to be known as the “Bloody Third” due to its rough reputation, thanks in part to the high number of saloons and brawls.

After a massive fire in 1892 destroyed more than 400 buildings and left some 2,000 people homeless, Italian immigrants moved into the neighborhood.

Most, including my father’s family, came from Sicily. And many of them made a living in the produce business, selling fruits and vegetables – first from push carts, then horse-drawn wagons and eventually trucks. The Palmisano and Spicuzza families were among them.

Augie grew up helping at his father’s produce business in the heart of what was then known as Commission Row — a gritty stretch of Broadway that was packed with fruit and vegetable merchants. One fading black and white photograph shows a John Palmisano & Sons Wholesale Produce truck with “AUGIE” painted on the driver’s side door.

Augie graduated from Lincoln High School on Milwaukee’s east side, where he ran cross country, acted in plays, and was a manager for the football team. I’ve been told so many Sicilian Americans attended Lincoln High that at one point plays were called from the sideline in Italian. It was the same school that Frank Balistrieri graduated from a decade earlier.

In 1952, Augie married Jean Rose Lassa. They had four children together and bought a home for the family in Whitefish Bay. He worked second shift at American Motors while helping run the family produce company. After his father died in 1964, Augie took over the company, which by then was named Palmisano Produce.

In the years that followed, Augie started running the tavern adjacent to Palmisano Produce. It was called Richie’s on Broadway, but he eventually renamed it Palmy’s.

Augie’s side-by-side businesses – perched on the corner of North Broadway and East St. Paul Avenue – became a gateway of sorts to Commission Row.

A painting behind Augie’s bar portrayed him as the “King of Commission Row.” Palmisano standing next to a fruit display.
The tavern was especially popular with Commission Row’s produce workers. It had a long bar, a pool table, a couple of pinball machines, and a jukebox that frequently played Frank Sinatra songs. A typical Friday night included a fish fry featuring the catch of the day from Lake Michigan.

By many accounts, it was a wild place where illegal craps games were sometimes played on the pool table, people would stop for dice or card games, and a lot of money changed hands.

Most nights, Augie held court while tending bar, ready with a witty remark or practical joke, or just to loan a friend some cash or a sympathetic ear.

Behind the bar hung a painting that showed Augie and a bottle of Early Times whisky, both hovering larger than life over his two businesses. The artist who painted it said it was meant to portray him as “the King of Commission Row.”

As his legitimate businesses grew, so did his gambling operation.

'A Harvard education in the hustle game'


Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative reporter Mary Spicuzza sorts through the news organization’s archives on her cousin Augie.
One afternoon, I went to the now-shuttered Journal Sentinel printing plant in West Milwaukee to search for more information in our archives, known by people in the industry as “the morgue.” I found several small, musty-smelling manila envelopes and file cards with Augie’s name on them – all stamped “DEAD” in green ink – and many more devoted to Frank Balistrieri. I borrowed them all.

The envelopes were filled with newspaper clippings and microfiche that offered more glimpses into Augie’s life.

He first became front page news in the early 1960s.

“Gambling Crackdown! 3 Arrested,” was splashed across the top of the Milwaukee Sentinel – above the name of the newspaper – on March 23, 1962.

The front page of The Milwaukee Journal that same day featured a photograph of Augie with his hand covering his face. It was the first picture I can remember seeing of my cousin.

Augie was nearly 6 feet tall and had a slender build, which made him appear even taller. He had dark brown eyes and black hair parted on the side. But in the photograph, it looked like he was trying to disappear beneath his left hand and hat. Only his nose and ear were visible.

The articles detailed how Augie was accused of accepting bets on college basketball games. He was eventually convicted and fined $1,000.

Through the clips — and hundreds of pages of FBI records — I learned that Augie grew his small gambling activities into a fairly large bookmaking operation, one that reportedly spanned several taverns across the city. Although profitable, it also drew unwanted attention from law enforcement, who seemingly had his tavern under constant surveillance for months at a time.

Newspaper clippings from Augie’s early gambling charges in the 1960s.
Augie’s tavern was one of nine locations raided on Super Bowl Sunday in 1974, when 60 FBI agents searched locations in and around Milwaukee. In the raids, agents confiscated piles of gambling records, guns and about $20,000 in cash.

Agents also found something else in the basement of Augie’s tavern – 93 sticks of dynamite stashed in a crawlspace. It was unclear how long the dynamite had been there, and Augie said he had no idea where it came from. The charges linked to the dynamite were dropped, and he eventually pleaded guilty to conducting a gambling business.

A Milwaukee Sentinel article about the case said Augie’s attorney argued he “comes from a good family, is the father of four children, gets up daily at 4 a.m. to start operations at Palmisano Produce, works eight hours operating a truck and then helps run his tavern.” The article said Augie “had been working 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week since he was a young man.”

One of Augie's former employees, who asked not to be identified because of safety concerns, told me he was “a good dude” who “had his hands in everything.”

“I got a Harvard education working at Palmy’s,” the man said. “I really got a Harvard education in the hustle game.”

The way he tells it, Augie was “bigger than God,” and at the center of it all.

He, like others, described Augie as well-liked and funny, somebody who played by his own rules but would also lend people money or give them food when they needed it.

I asked the former employee – who said he fled town after Augie’s murder – why my cousin was killed. His eyes filled with tears.

“He was too big. He got too big,” he said. “And Frank Balistrieri couldn’t put up with it.”

Fancy pants


Left: Frank Balistrieri entering federal court in 1984. Center: Balistrieri leaving the Federal Building in 1983 after being convicted of gambling and tax charges. Right: Balistrieri in 1966.
Most Sicilian Americans in Milwaukee had nothing to do with organized crime.

The same could not be said about Frank Balistrieri.

Born in 1918, Balistrieri graduated from Marquette University and briefly attended law school there. But by the 1950s, the FBI had placed him on its nationwide list of "top hoodlums."

Balistrieri reportedly took over as Milwaukee’s organized crime boss by the early 1960s, and had a wide range of legal and illegal business interests: nightclubs, restaurants, strip clubs, vending machines and gambling.

FBI documents show that starting around that time, Balistrieri decided bookmakers in Milwaukee should be required to give him a cut of their profits, and sent his enforcers to collect.

And Balistrieri – who frequently conducted business from a table at Snug’s restaurant on the ground floor of the Shorecrest Hotel, which was owned by his family – became a key figure in skimming money from Las Vegas casinos, a story made famous in the 1995 movie “Casino.”

Balistrieri was a short man, but had an ominous presence. Franklyn Gimbel, a former federal prosecutor who won a tax evasion case against Balistrieri in 1967, said his eyes were like “spotlights… from his skull that penetrated everything he looked at.”

Some called him “Frankie Bal,” “Mr. Big,” or “Mr. B.” He was also known as "Fancy Pants" due to his hand-tailored, custom-made suits. That nickname was especially popular among people who didn't like him.

Balistrieri demanded respect, and was notoriously ruthless when it came to getting it.

Longtime Milwaukee Sentinel investigative reporter Mary Zahn and columnist Bill Janz once reported that Balistrieri’s willingness to resort to violence even drew criticism from his father-in-law, John Alioto, who preceded him as Milwaukee’s crime boss. Alioto pleaded for more merciful solutions after Balistrieri threatened to kill two men during an argument secretly recorded by the FBI.


“L’amazzari,” Balistrieri said in Sicilian. I’ve got to kill them.

He was suspected by law enforcement of ordering a string of murders in and around Milwaukee, none of which were ever solved.

August J. Maniaci pictured in 1961. Maniaci was shot and killed in an alley behind his house in 1975.
In 1960, nightclub owner Isadore “Izzy” Pogrob was shot to death and left in a ditch in Mequon. The murder reportedly happened soon after Balistrieri got a phone call at one of his taverns, glanced over at several of his associates, and slid his index finger across his throat.

In 1963, the body of Anthony Biernat, a jukebox distributor, was found in the basement of a vacant farmhouse near Kenosha. He’d been tied up and beaten to death, and his body was covered in lime in an apparent effort to speed decay.

In 1972, Louis Fazio was shot several times with a .38-caliber gun outside his home. Balistrieri was later heard gloating about Fazio’s death.

In 1975, August Maniaci was murdered outside his East Side home by someone with a .22-caliber pistol equipped with a silencer. Maniaci had openly feuded with Balistrieri.

Soon after, an informant told the FBI that Balistrieri thought Maniaci’s brother Vince might try to get revenge. Balistrieri reportedly put out the word that Vince “should be killed like his brother.”

Balistrieri was never charged in any of the murders.

Vincent Maniaci


Vincent Maniaci, Augie’s best friend, pictured in 1975. Top right: Vince’s bar on North Water Street in 1976. Bottom right: Police disarming a bomb found in Vince’s car in 1977.
Vincent Maniaci was my cousin’s best friend. They were so close, they were like brothers, a former FBI agent told me.

Vince ran a bar on Water Street named Little Caesar’s Cocktail Lounge, later known as Under the Bridge. He was also a regular at Augie’s tavern, often seen laughing and joking with my cousin as he tended bar.

Like Augie, Vince had some run-ins with the law. The same year his brother was murdered, Vince was sent to prison for fencing four stolen mink coats and threatening someone who owed him money.

When he was released from prison, the FBI was so convinced somebody wanted Vince dead that agents started following him everywhere he went.

The morning of Aug. 17, 1977, Vince tried to start his car but could tell something was wrong. The accelerator was so stiff he couldn’t push it down to the floor. He drove 15 to 20 mph – as fast as it would go – from the north side halfway house where he was staying to the East Side.

After a brief stop he went to his mechanic, who opened the hood and immediately spotted a package with wires coming out of it. “I’m going to call police,” he told a shaken Vince. “It looks like a bomb.”

Vince ran for cover and was picked up by the FBI agents who’d been following him. They took him to an agent’s house, where he had a stiff drink and told investigators he had no idea who would want him dead. Soon afterward, federal officials sent Vince back to prison for his own protection.

Members of the Milwaukee Police Department bomb squad found a taped-up gray package placed near the engine on the driver's side of Vince’s car, jammed near the accelerator and wired to the ignition with alligator clips. The bomb had 20 sticks of dynamite and a booster but luckily failed to detonate, possibly due to faulty wiring.

A police report described the device as an “overkill bomb” designed to “destroy all traces of possible evidence that could connect anyone” with the crime.

Donnie Brasco


Not long after someone planted a bomb in Vince’s car, the FBI brought in an agent named Joseph Pistone to help infiltrate the Balistrieri crime family.

Today, Pistone is better known by his undercover name: Donnie Brasco.

He wrote about his experience in a book, which inspired the 1997 movie starring Johnny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as New York crime family member Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero.

One scene from Pistone’s book in particular stuck with me – the strong reaction Ruggiero had when Pistone mentioned Milwaukee. Ruggiero didn’t know it at the time, but “Donnie” was trying to help another undercover FBI agent who was posing as a new vending machine company owner in Milwaukee.

An undated surveillance photo of FBI Agent Joe Pistone while undercover as “Donnie Brasco.”
“He’s crazy, Donnie. Doesn’t the f------ guy know you can’t operate a vending business anywhere without connections? Especially Milwaukee. They’re crazy out there. It ain’t like in New York, Donnie, where they may just throw you a beating and chase you out. Out there they’re vicious. They answer to Chicago, you know. They blow people up. Donnie, if this guy’s a friend of yours, you better tell him to get the hell out of that town.”

When I reached Pistone, he was gracious with his time, patient, and had an impressive memory.

At the time, organized crime in Milwaukee wasn’t as well-known as the Outfit in Chicago or the Mafia in New York. But Pistone said Balistrieri was a “very well-known” Mafia boss throughout the U.S. who was closely aligned with the Chicago Outfit — and notorious for his brutality.

Pistone recalled one night when Balistrieri took him and others to a charity banquet on a whim. Pistone said people scrambled to clear a table in a prime spot for Balistrieri and his entourage.

“It had to be a couple hundred people. Everything just stopped when they saw him. The maitre d’ came over and said, ‘Oh, Mr. Balistrieri, I didn't know you were coming,'" Pistone remembered. "It was like, you know, if you were in a foreign country, a president walking in. Or the queen walked in, I mean, you could see that that everybody knew who he was. And either they were terribly afraid of him or respected him."

“But he was the man," Pistone said. "He was the man in Milwaukee.”

Despite Pistone’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Mafia, he didn’t have a lot of answers when it came to Augie.

Pistone told me he doesn’t believe he ever met my cousin, but clearly remembers his murder – which he also wrote about in his book.

“He wasn’t a boss,” Pistone said. “I think he probably was involved in bookmaking operations.”

He did recall Balistrieri claiming that Augie was “a snitch.”

“Whether he was, I don't know,” Pistone said, adding that he made it a point not to know.

“It's human nature,” he said. “You’re going to act differently if you know that somebody, you know, is on your side.”

Pistone’s work in Milwaukee in 1978 would eventually help dismantle organized crime here. But not before it claimed another life -- Augie's.


Closing time


Augie spent his final hours like he did much of his life. He was working.

He closed his tavern at 2 a.m., then spent 20 minutes cleaning up with his 24-year-old son, John, before they left together.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Augie told his son as he walked toward his car.

Augie stopped at Pitch’s Lounge and Restaurant on the East Side, where he joined an old friend known as “Teach” for breakfast. “Teach” would later tell police Augie came and left alone, but that he was too drunk to remember the exact time.

Pitch's Restaurant at 1801 N. Humboldt Ave. in Milwaukee in 1987. Augie visited for breakfast the morning of his murder.
Augie’s routine was to stay awake after closing his tavern long enough to go back to the Third Ward and check on the day’s produce delivery, which typically arrived at 4 a.m. It was Friday, an especially busy day at work, so he would often sleep for only a few hours at his apartment before heading back to work on Commission Row.

That’s where he was going when he stepped into the elevator with his neighbor, Florence Grady.

She was the last person to see him alive.

The seat of the blast


The bomb that killed Augie destroyed the front half of his car and burned his face so badly that police had to identify him through fingerprints.
Augie’s car was still engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

The explosion mangled the overhead door to the parking garage so badly that firefighters had to pry it open and prop it up with wooden beams. The blast also shattered the lights, leaving it almost pitch-black inside. The air was heavy with smoke, and the garage was flooded from the sprinkler system and water streaming from burst pipes in the ceiling.

The front of Augie’s Marquis was essentially gone, and parts of his car lay scattered across the garage. The damage spread to 28 nearby cars, but miraculously no one else was injured because Augie was alone in the garage that morning.

It wasn’t until firefighters extinguished the flames that they found Augie’s body. His right foot was missing — investigators determined it had been incinerated by the blast. His face was so badly burned that police identified him through fingerprints.

He was 49 years old.

Those who responded to the crime scene that morning included about 25 firefighters, members of the Milwaukee Police Department bomb squad, the state fire marshal, and Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, as well as numerous police officers and FBI agents.

Notably absent, according to police reports: longtime Milwaukee Police Chief Harold Breier, who famously said there was “no prosecutable evidence of organized crime” in the city.

“We demand honest government in Milwaukee,” Breier said in that 1975 TV interview. “Our city wouldn’t stand for it. We’re different. We’re quite a community."

A diagram drawn by Milwaukee Police Department investigators shows the location of Augie’s car in the parking garage and the extent of the blast.
Ted Engelbart, then a new member of the bomb squad, was at the crime scene that morning. He told me that they quickly realized it wasn’t an accidental fire.

Engelbart said they determined the “seat of the blast” was in the front of the car, and the bomb was placed near the engine. The explosion followed the path of least resistance – right toward Augie.

The bomb even moved the foundation of the apartment building. Had it exploded outside, the damage would have extended several city blocks, said Engelbart, who’s now retired.

“That is sending a message,” Engelbart said. “Something like this tells other people, ‘Oh, watch your ass.’”

The bomb likely had numerous sticks of dynamite and a booster, much like the one found in Vince’s car. Among the debris, investigators found a key component: an alligator clip just like the one in the bomb that nearly killed Augie’s best friend.

McCann, the former DA, told me that the incident was “clearly no act of passing violence.”

John Palmisano


Augie Palmisano's watch was found near his car after the bombing.
The explosion woke up Augie’s son, John, who like his dad had an apartment at Juneau Village.

After the building manager knocked on John’s door and told him Augie’s car was on fire, John called Palmy’s, then drove to Commission Row to look for his dad. Somebody said they thought they’d seen Augie early that morning, but nobody knew where he was.

After John returned to the apartment building, an officer showed him a silver watch with a broken band found near the mangled car. John recognized it as his father’s watch.

Police who stopped at Palmy’s later that day found a locked door with a note that read: “Sorry, the tavern is closed. My father died today.”

'Augie got put on a troublemaker list'


In the aftermath of Augie’s murder, Milwaukee police detectives interviewed nearly every resident of Juneau Village Garden Apartments, talked to business owners and workers along Commission Row, and spoke to Augie’s friends throughout the city, according to police reports from the time.

Just hours after the bombing, an anonymous caller reported seeing a late model white Cadillac with Ohio license plates occupied by people “who appeared to be gangster types.” The FBI traced the license plate number to a car dealership, whose manager said the sedan had been leased to a “self employed contractor” named Larry John. The reports don’t say whether investigators found him or determined if that was the getaway car.

Juneau Village Garden Apartments on North Jackson Street in 1971. Augie had an apartment here at the time of his murder in 1978.
Several days after the murder, a detective stopped at a halfway house to question Anthony Francis Pipito, a Balistrieri employee who’d been convicted of armed burglary and other crimes. Asked whether he had any information about Augie’s murder, Pipito told the detective he wouldn’t give him “any information regarding Frank Balistrieri.”

Asked why he brought up Balistrieri, Pipito refused to answer.

Others dropped similar hints. When detectives went to the Iron Horse Diner in Glendale to interview its owner, Anthony Fazio, he told them that only four or five people in Milwaukee “would be able to hire a bomber.” He added that police “should probably start looking on Prospect Avenue.”

The detective wrote, “Probably meant Snug’s bar – Frank Balistrieri.”

Balistrieri frequently conducted business from Snug's bar on the ground floor of the Shorecrest Hotel at 1962 N. Prospect Ave.
Fazio, whose brother Louis was murdered six years earlier, told detectives he and others believed “that some people in the Milwaukee Police Department are on the take and therefore we are not conducting a proper investigation into this homicide,” the report said.

He also warned them people “who might have information regarding this murder are afraid to come forward because they fear for their lives.”

A newspaper article about the murder quoted a Palmisano Produce truck driver who said Augie was “good to bums, paupers, rich men and poor men” and would feed people off the street. The owner of the building described Augie as a “nice fellow” who always paid his rent on time and slept very little, often starting work before 5 a.m.

But the narrative that Augie was a Mafia leader or suspected informant seemed to stick.


One front-page article, quoting police sources, described Augie as a “substantial figure in organized crime in Milwaukee,” and said that “somebody thought he was going to talk.”

Another said his killing was “part of a long standing feud between criminal factions in the city.”

Yet another said Augie “had been branded as a troublemaker by organized crime leaders” for protesting too publicly about the attempted bombing of his close friend, Vince Maniaci.

“Augie got put on a troublemaker list,” a source told The Milwaukee Journal.

The Satin Doll


Minnette Wilson was a former dancer who was close friends with Augie. Bottom: Wilson in her bar, the Satin Doll Lounge, in 1996. Top right: Wilson is pictured in the bottom row with Duke Ellington’s hands on her shoulder.
One person didn’t hesitate to name Balistrieri as a suspect in Augie’s murder: lounge owner Minnette Wilson.

Today, a fading Schlitz sign still hangs over the lounge Wilson owned on West Fond du Lac Avenue. The concrete walls of the now-shuttered tavern are covered in graffiti, and weeds grow through cracks in the parking lot.

But in 1978, Satin Doll’s Lounge was a hotspot for jazz, vice and wild characters. And few were wilder than its owner. Wilson was a stunning former dancer who performed with Duke Ellington and claimed to have inspired his hit song “Satin Doll.”

She often went by the Satin Doll, or just the Doll.

When a pair of detectives first went to the lounge to interview Wilson about Augie’s murder, she was visibly distraught. The lounge was packed, and she told them she was too busy and upset about her old friend’s death to talk – noting Augie’s funeral had just been held.

Detectives spotted two large portraits of Augie hanging on the back walls of the lounge and suggested a follow-up interview.

“It is apparent that she is more than just a close friend of the deceased,” they wrote in their report. “We were unable to determine at this time just how close the relationship was.”

But there’s nothing else that might indicate they were romantically involved.

Wilson told another pair of detectives who returned the following night that she and Augie had dinner together a couple of times in the days leading up to his murder, and he didn’t show any signs of concern about his safety. But she added he was “the type of person that if something was bothering him, even though it would be quite serious, he would not tell anyone else about it,” the police report said.

“She several times stated that she feels that one Frank Balistrieri, otherwise known as Frankie Bal, was responsible for having August Palmisano killed,” detectives wrote.

As they were leaving, Wilson told detectives: “Frankie Bal has gone too far this time.”


'I'm in a lot of trouble'


Detectives kept getting hints Balistrieri was behind Augie’s murder, but they struggled to find details about a motive.

A painting found in Augie’s apartment led them to his close friend, a stockbroker named Sante DiAntoni, who went by Sam Denton. Denton told police that when he and his wife found out Augie was murdered, they both sat on their bed and cried.

After what detectives described as a “long conversation,” Denton revealed more. He said about six months before the murder, Augie confided in him that he’d been threatened over his friendship with Vince Maniaci, who by then had fled town for Hawaii.

“I think I’m in a lot of trouble,” Denton recalled Augie saying. “I was told if I help Vince, I would be in more trouble – that I should stay away from Vince forever.”

Three months later Vince decided to come back to Milwaukee, and Augie went to pick him up at the airport, Denton said. Augie waited for three hours but Vince never showed up. Augie later found out that Vince had arrived in Milwaukee but immediately took a flight back to Hawaii. Denton told police that Augie was very upset and frightened, and thought Vince may have been threatened when he arrived at the airport.

Then, a month before the murder, Vince again called Augie and told him that he was having trouble finding a job, and wanted to come home to Milwaukee.

“It’s better for you to stay where you are, and I’ll stay where I am. That will be best for both of us,” Denton overheard Augie tell Vince.

Denton told detectives he hoped they would solve the case, but said he didn’t think it would be possible.

A meeting at FBI headquarters


Less than a week after Augie was killed, a group of federal agents met with Milwaukee police detectives at FBI headquarters in downtown Milwaukee.

There had been tension simmering between the FBI and Milwaukee Police Department for years, with some officers accusing agents of not sharing enough information with them. Several former FBI agents told me they knew some officers were on Balistrieri’s payroll and were worried about corrupt cops leaking information — concerns also documented in FBI reports from the time.

Nicholas Montos in an FBI wanted poster from 1956.
But that day, the agents had information to share. They told detectives the FBI was contemplating a grand jury investigation focused on the attempted car bombing of Vincent Maniaci as well as Augie’s murder, and said the agency might be willing to give out immunity in some cases with the idea of “shaking loose information not forthcoming at this time.”

The agents then told police they’d identified a possible hit man in the Maniaci car bombing case, and said he was also a suspect in Augie’s murder. His name was Nick George Montos, a career criminal who escaped from prison five times and was the first person to make the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list twice.

FBI agents conducting surveillance had spotted Montos following Vince Maniaci before someone tried to kill him.

Gary Magnesen, one of the FBI agents at the meeting that day, told me they nicknamed Montos “The Mope” because he looked so unremarkable.

“A car pulled up almost right in front of us - a black sedan - and a short little guy dressed in gray work clothes got out of the car,” Magnesen said. “He was a Chicago guy. They had used him quite a bit. He was not Italian and he was not part of the mob, but he was a guy that was an expert in bomb making.”

Retired FBI Agent Bob Walsh told me he also saw Montos in Milwaukee when he noticed him trailing Vince into a McDonald’s shortly before the attempted bombing.

But neither police nor FBI knew whether Montos was in Milwaukee the day Augie was murdered.

The FBI also asked about similarities in the explosives used in the two bombings. They suspected both bombs were closely linked, and likely built by the same person.

No answer


A few weeks later, Milwaukee police detectives tried to talk to Frank Balistrieri at his large Shepard Avenue home on Milwaukee’s East Side. Detectives stopped several times one day, noting the car in the driveway.

“No one would come to the door,” they wrote of the visit. “However, it seemed as if someone was present in the home.”

The home of reputed Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri on North Shepard Avenue in March 1980.
They also went to the home of Peter Balistrieri, Frank’s brother. Nobody answered there either.

“In addition, we checked at the Shorecrest Hotel,” the report said. “But found that neither one of the Balistrieri brothers were in.”

It appears the officers never returned.

Over time, tips coming into the Milwaukee police slowed to a trickle.

One anonymous caller told police that someone using the name “Michael Block” had moved into Juneau Village shortly before Augie was killed and hadn’t been seen since the murder. He reportedly left behind an expensive razor and nice clothing.

Another tipster told police the killer was a Mafia hitman named Richard Montey, who’d since gone into hiding using the alias “Dick Montage” and was living in a cabin behind a tavern near Athens, in northern Wisconsin.

Yet another called police and said their son’s friend, a man nicknamed “Dough Pop,” would get high on cocaine and brag that he had something to do with Augie’s murder.

Police hit one dead end after another. But the feds were just getting started.


'He called me a name to my face'


Frank Balistrieri had been on the FBI’s radar for years. Augie’s murder helped inspire an all-out crackdown, former agents told me.

“Now we had a crime, a very serious crime – a homicide – to tie him to,” Magnesen said. “Once those murders began, we knew he was behind it. The problem was to prove it. So that’s when we started pushing really hard.”

Just weeks after the meeting at FBI headquarters, undercover FBI agent Gail Cobb, who was posing as a new vending machine company owner named Tony Conte, was summoned by Balistrieri to a meeting at Snug’s restaurant in the Shorecrest Hotel.

He went with New York Mafia member “Lefty” Ruggiero, who was helping him work out an arrangement between the New York and Milwaukee crime families over vending machine profits with the help of undercover agent Joe Pistone posing as "Donnie Brasco."

It was July 29, 1978 — nearly a month after Augie's murder.

Balistrieri, sitting across the table from Cobb, had reached out to shake his hand when Ruggiero introduced him as Conte. Balistrieri recoiled in shock.

“We’ve been looking for you all week. We were going to hit you," Cobb remembered him saying. "We figured you were the G.” (The G, or G-man, is short for a government agent.)

Balistrieri reportedly laughed as he explained that he’d had three guys following Cobb. The would-be hit men had even trailed Cobb to the meeting and were still waiting until Balistrieri waved them away.

After Ruggiero reassured him Cobb wasn’t an informant, Balistrieri made it clear the vending machine business in Milwaukee belonged to him.

Then the conversation turned to Augie.


“He was arrogant. He called me a name to my face,” Balistrieri said, touching his fingers to his face.

He added: “Now they can’t find his skin.”

There was no recording of the exchange. It would have been too dangerous for Cobb to wear a wire to the Shorecrest that night.

Shortly afterward, a shaken Cobb told Pistone: “First thing I’m going to do is put a remote starter in my Cadillac.”

A few weeks later, Cobb and Pistone were at a bar with Balistrieri when they ran into Peter Picciurro, the owner of Pitch’s Lounge & Restaurant, where Augie had his last meal.


Balistrieri reportedly laughed as he told the two men that Picciurro hadn’t talked to him since “the guy had his accident” and “got blown up.”

“They were buddies — goombahs — real close,” Balistrieri added.

That same night, Balistrieri bragged to the undercover agents that nobody had ever lived to be a witness against him.

Only in this case, if Balistrieri was trying to gain power by making an example out of Augie, he may have instead set in motion his own downfall.

A full-court press


A booking mug shot of crime boss Frank Balistrieri. FBI agents raided Balistrieri’s home in 1980.
In October 1978, Cobb was frozen out by Balistrieri, who reportedly had discovered that he was an undercover agent. But by then he and Pistone had already gathered extensive information about Balistrieri’s gambling ring and extortion activities.

The FBI’s investigations into Balistrieri and his associates would ultimately involve a federal grand jury, subpoenas, search warrants, wiretapping and other physical and electronic surveillance.

“We call it a full-court press,” said Magnesen, the longtime FBI agent who’s now retired.

The FBI targeted several locations for surveillance, including the Shorecrest Hotel. After obtaining blueprints to the Shorecrest and a search warrant, a group of FBI agents broke into the building one night. They were able to slip in through the front door after two agents pretended to make out in front of the entrance -- blocking the door from view as an FBI lock expert cut a key in real time.

Magnesen, one of the agents who broke in that night, said he still remembers the concrete dust falling on them as they drilled a hole in the basement ceiling. They then placed a listening device under the carpet.

It turned out they had put the microphone in the wrong place, and had to enter the Shorecrest for a second time to move the microphone.

Magnesen said one of the conversations agents heard thanks to that microphone was a worried discussion about a subpoena served to Nick Montos, who Balistrieri warned had “real, real, real good information” on what he called “the boom.”

That quote was one of several glimmers of hope that prosecutors would be able to charge Balistrieri with the murders they believed he’d ordered.

Despite Balistrieri gloating about the deaths, officials never felt like they had enough evidence to win a homicide conviction.

In 1980, after months of around-the-clock surveillance, the FBI broke down Balistrieri’s front door with a sledgehammer. He was later charged with gambling, tax evasion and extortion.


John Franke


One September afternoon, former federal prosecutor John Franke led me down the staircase to the basement of his suburban Milwaukee home, stopping at a stash of bankers boxes.

“They sat in storage in different houses for the last, what is it, 40 years?” he said.

Franke peered inside one of the boxes, which was filled with court documents, FBI wiretap transcripts, notebooks and other files from the years he spent working to win convictions against Balistrieri and his associates.

As Franke flipped through a manila folder, an old black and white photograph caught my eye.

“Is that Augie?” I asked.

“That might be your cousin. Yeah, it probably is,” Franke said, turning it over and reading the name on the back. “Augie Palmisano.”

Former federal prosecutor John Franke goes through material from the Balistrieri case in his basement in 2022.
The file also held pictures of Balistrieri, including a booking photo and another of him dressed in one of his custom suits.

“Fancy Pants,” Franke said. "Well-dressed as always."

Frank Balistrieri had proven to be slippery in the past. About a decade before Franke joined what was known as the Organized Crime Strike Force, a federal tax evasion case against Balistrieri was nearly derailed when Balistrieri discovered the FBI had illegally planted microphones to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant.

To prepare for the Balistrieri trials some 10 years later, Franke and others on the Organized Crime Strike Force spent weeks listening to hours of conversations between Balistrieri and his associates that had been secretly -- but this time, legally -- recorded by the FBI.

“I don't know how many hours I spent in that room with those big old reel-to-reel tapes running,” Franke told me.

In 1983, Balistrieri was convicted of gambling and tax charges. The following year, he and his two sons were convicted of extortion. At the trials, former undercover agents Pistone and Cobb were among those who testified.

Franke said one thing that "caught everyone's attention" was the explosion that killed Augie. While he was prosecuting the case, people would tell him where they were when the bomb went off, he said, because it could be felt from blocks away.

“That was a pretty dramatic moment in terms of, creating the sense in the community that maybe there is organized crime here, and maybe it’s something that we should actually worry about,” Franke said. “Because it’s not just, you know, gangsters gunning down gangsters. It’s people doing things that could kill innocent people easily.”

When I asked if he thought Balistrieri got away with murder, Franke fell silent.

“The most compelling statement from Frank was not recorded,” he said after a long pause. “That would be ‘they can't find his skin. He was arrogant to my face.’”

But it was clear he was reviewing the case in his mind.

“Look, you're making me pause. Because I'm sure if we thought that was enough, we would have pursued it. But, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he ordered it just because he was gloating about someone's death,” Franke said. “I don't know. Maybe we missed something. But it really probably wasn't enough to convince a jury.”


Bad blood


The convictions of Balistrieri and his associates dealt a massive blow to organized crime in Milwaukee, and the investigations that led to them are widely considered to be among the greatest success stories for the FBI here.

For his crimes in Milwaukee, Balistrieri was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Two years later, in a separate federal case involving skimming money from Las Vegas casinos, Balistrieri pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a concurrent 10 years.

He was released from prison early due to his failing health in 1991, and died two years later at age 74.

Nick Montos had a long criminal career and spent years as a fugitive. In 1995, he tried to rob a Massachusetts antique store, where he tied up the 73-year-old Jewish owner and called her an antisemitic slur. She was able to escape and fight off Montos, then 78, with a baseball bat. He was still a prisoner when he died at age 92.

Montos was never charged in Augie's murder or Vince's attempted car bombing. But to this day, retired FBI agents Magnesen and Walsh told me they believe that Montos built the bomb that killed my cousin on the orders of Balistrieri.

A team of FBI agents investigating organized crime in Milwaukee in the 1970s. FBI Agent Bob Walsh is standing third from right. Right: Walsh photographed in 2023.
As for motive? Magnesen said it was well known Augie “had contempt" for Frank Balistrieri. And he wasn’t the only one.

“All of the soldiers and so on despised (Balistrieri) because he didn’t have cred. He was a nobody really. He had never really shown himself to be a good criminal or anything like that. So they didn’t like him,” Magnesen said. “And Augie Palmisano – although he was not a made member – he didn’t like (Balistrieri) at all either. And would talk about him on the street.”

Magnesen said Balistrieri, through his enforcer, put pressure on Augie to pay a percentage of his gambling winnings to him — “or else.” That enforcer was observed by another FBI agent in a big argument with Augie shortly before he was murdered, he added.

Magnesen stressed that my cousin was neither a made member of the Mafia nor was he a "rat," as Balistrieri had claimed.

“Palmisano was not an informant. But (Balistrieri) told the Chicago people he was, and therefore a threat to him and therefore a threat to them,” Magnesen said. “He just lied. He did everything he could to get them to do his dirty work.”

FBI documents corroborate that there was bad blood between the two, including a July 1978 report stating that Augie had “openly showed his disgust with Balistrieri for having a bomb placed in Vincent Maniaci’s vehicle.”

The report also said that Balistrieri had previously accused Augie of operating a bookmaking business without paying off “the LCN,” or La Cosa Nostra.

Family history suggests the bad blood may have started years earlier, when Augie’s brother married Balistrieri’s sister, against the Palmisano family's wishes. The relationship reportedly got worse when Balistrieri and Augie began feuding over a shared relative they both wanted to hire who'd taken a job as a bartender at Augie's tavern.

Former FBI Agent Bob Walsh said Augie and Vince refused to take orders from Balistrieri.

“They were sort of outsiders,” Walsh said. “He couldn’t control them. They were kind of on their own.”

He believes Balistrieri used them as an example to scare others into doing as they were told.

“I think he wanted to show that he’s in charge here,” Walsh said. “And every once in a while, you’ve got to flex your muscles and put somebody down.”

Chasing ghosts


In the more than four decades since Augie’s murder, the Third Ward has undergone a seismic shift. What was once the working-class stretch known as Commission Row has been replaced by posh boutiques, restaurants, bars and other high-end businesses that now line Broadway.

The building that was home to Palmisano Produce and Richie’s on Broadway, or Palmy’s, is now Café Benelux. The boards that used to cover the windows are gone, as is the pool table. Now the bar serves Belgian beers and craft cocktails, and a staircase leads to a rooftop patio.

Top: Reporter Mary Spicuzza and her brother in 1978, the year of Augie's death. Bottom: Spicuzza researching documents related to Augie's death in 2023.
As for me, trying to report on the 45-year-old unsolved murder of a cousin I never knew has felt a bit like chasing ghosts – or trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces.

Many of the key figures involved have died. Some would only talk anonymously because they were still afraid of the reach of organized crime, or simply didn’t return my phone calls. Others declined to be interviewed, like Frank Balistrieri’s son, John. Augie’s children did not respond to interview requests.

It’s been a relief to learn that Augie was not some murderer or Mafia kingpin – nor was he a “made” member, according to the FBI agents I interviewed who knew him. Those same agents said that while Augie was no angel, he was funny, charismatic and well liked. And many of his gambling activities that were front-page news decades ago are now basically legal.

Months spent poring over hundreds of pages of police reports, FBI files, court records and wiretap transcripts made me realize that in a sense I’d been blaming Augie for his own murder – or at least trying to figure out what he did that led to the car bombing.

Franke noticed I was still struggling to make sense of the murder when I called him months after our initial interview to ask about additional documents that may shed some light on the case.

“Mary, I know you’re trying to understand what your cousin did or didn’t do that led to his death,” Franke told me. “But this was about power.”

He was right. Augie may have been a gambler who refused to give Balistrieri a cut of his profits, and criticized the attempted murder of his best friend. And he probably even called Balistrieri a name to his face. But he didn't deserve to die the way he did.

He was a businessman and a hustler. A convicted gambler and a devoted friend. A rebel who bucked authority. He was adored. And he had some powerful enemies.

His name was Augie Palmisano, and he was my cousin.

Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

[Patrickgold]

Q&A: How former undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco, helped infiltrate the Milwaukee Mafia
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative reporter Mary Spicuzza interviews former FBI undercover agent Joe Pistone, also known as Donnie Brasco, about his work in Milwaukee.
Mary Spicuzza
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Organized crime in Milwaukee has never been as infamous as the Chicago Outfit or the New York Mafia. But reputed Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri was notorious enough by the late 1970s that renowned undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone came here to help investigate.

Pistone was later portrayed by Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” a 1997 movie that also starred Al Pacino as New York crime family member Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero.

When I started doing research for my investigation into my cousin's 1978 car bombing murder, widely believed to have been ordered by Balistrieri, a coworker mentioned Pistone wrote about Milwaukee in his book that inspired the film.

As soon as I read it, I knew I needed to talk to Pistone. I wasn’t sure of the best way to approach him — especially since the Mafia put out a $500,000 contract on him in the early 1980s — but reached him through the producer for his podcast, “Deep Cover: The Real Donnie Brasco.”

We spoke at length about his time in Milwaukee. Below are excerpts of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.


A marriage between two crime families

Pistone's work in Milwaukee included vouching for another undercover FBI agent, Gail "Ty" Cobb, who was trying to infiltrate the Balistrieri crime family by posing as a vending machine businessman named Tony Conte. Pistone visited Milwaukee several times in 1978 to try to "form a marriage" between the Balistrieri and Bonanno crime families.

Spicuzza: Do you remember what Frank Balistrieri's reputation was like back then?

Pistone: Frank Balistrieri was the head of a Mafia family in Milwaukee, which was aligned and associated with the Mafia families out of Chicago (the Outfit). And he was also a very well known Mafia boss throughout the United States.

He had some college education. But he was still a ruthless individual, according to my Mafia contacts that I was associated with in the Bonanno crime family.

He actually controlled everything that happened, both illegally and a lot of times legally.

Spicuzza: What do you remember about him from your meetings or your dealings with him?

Pistone: He was a little short, pudgy guy. Very dapper looking. Every time I saw him he was in a suit — dressed in a suit and very well-spoken. And you could see that when he made a point, none of the people that were with him disputed whatever he said. I mean, what he said was a rule of law.

After (one) meeting at Snug's, at the restaurant, he invited us to his house for dinner the next night. If you know anything about the Mafia, you don't go to a boss's house for dinner. I mean, not in New York, anyway. And he actually picked us up at our hotel, which was also crazy, for us being New York mob guys.

Life undercover

As Pistone developed ties with Balistrieri and his associates, he went through both stressful and humorous moments. That included close calls with getting found out, and the antics of "Lefty" Ruggiero, who at one point confused Lake Michigan with the ocean.

Spicuzza: Lefty wanted to take a speedboat from New York to Milwaukee?

Pistone: Yeah. Ty was showing us around Milwaukee and we're driving along the lake, and he says, "That's one of the Great Lakes." And Lefty looks out and he says, "It's not a lake. That's the ocean." There were freighters out there, and he said, "You see that big ship out there? That ship couldn't float on a lake. It's got to be the ocean."

Yeah, OK, Lefty. The ocean where? The middle of the United States?

There were some other good (stories). Another one was, Ty was one of the best undercovers I ever worked with. I mean, he was good. But we're in a car one day. It might have been the same time. And he was driving and Lefty was riding shotgun, and I'm in the back. And Ty must have had a brain freeze because he keeps calling me Joe. He'd say, "Isn't that right, Joe?"

An undated FBI surveillance photo shows Joe Pistone undercover as Donnie Brasco.
Lefty finally says, "Tony, who the F is Joe? There's me, you and Donnie in this car. Who the F is Joe?"

So without missing a beat, Ty says, "That's the new thing here in Milwaukee: everybody's Joe. Every place you go, you call somebody, you call them Joe." So all night we go to a restaurant and Ty is calling a bartender Joe, is calling a waiter Joe, is calling a waitress Joe.

You know, there were some comical moments during the six years.

Spicuzza: Do you remember the reaction when my cousin, Augie Palmisano, was car bombed?

Pistone: Ty had a remote starter put on his car. And at one of the meetings we had with (Frank) Balistrieri, we're talking about snitches, and he said, “Yeah, you can tell all the snitches because they have remote starters on their car.”

And here Tony Conte, the undercover, had a remote starter on his car. So that kind of, you know, shook him up a little bit.

Spicuzza: Did you often not know who was an informant when you were undercover?

Pistone: No, I did not. I didn't want to know who an informant was, or if the FBI had added any informants in any of the groups. I said, "Look, if you do have informants, don't tell them that there's an undercover FBI agent there. I don't want to know who the informant is." Because it's human nature. You're going to act different if you know that somebody is on your side, so to speak.

Frozen out

In late 1978, Balistrieri froze out Cobb, reportedly after discovering he was an undercover agent. It led to the end of Pistone's time in Milwaukee, but by then, the two had already collected extensive information that was later used in federal gambling and extortion cases against Balistrieri and his associates.

Spicuzza: How do you think they could have found out that Tony Conte, or Ty Cobb, was an undercover agent?

Pistone: Well, there had to be a leak somewhere. Where, we don't know. But Ty had been a cop in a town outside of Milwaukee at one point in time. And I'm sure that they checked what individuals knew regarding Ty. And I think that's probably how they found out. There had to be a leak somewhere.

Spicuzza: If Balistrieri had found out Ty was an undercover agent, why do you think he didn't tell the Bonannos or the other crime families?

Pistone: I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I mean, I don't know. It's the craziest thing that they never they never blew the whistle.

We tried to figure it out. I tried to figure it out. I don't know that they thought that he was an FBI agent or just an undercover cop. I don't know. But the reason they never told New York or Chicago is beyond me. I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

Going to trial

Pistone's work in Milwaukee helped federal prosecutors eventually convict Balistrieri of gambling, extortion and conspiracy during a series of trials in the 1980s. Pistone and Cobb were among those who testified in Milwaukee.

Spicuzza: I think it was in Milwaukee where Frank Balistrieri’s attorney was asking you questions about where your family lived.

Pistone: Oh, definitely. His line of questioning started about where I resided, et cetera. And I told him I’m not going to answer, it has no relevance to my investigation.

The judge ordered me to answer, and I told the judge, “Your Honor, I'm not answering. I'm not answering where I reside, where my family resides." He said, "Well, I'll hold you in contempt of court." I said, "Do what do you have to do."

And then finally, the prosecutor (John Franke) called the side conference in and advised the judge that there was a $500,000 contract out of me at the time. So the judge told him, "Just move on. We don't need to answer that question."

(At another point in the trial)

Pistone: It was late into the afternoon. And my voice was going, and I didn't have any water by the witness stand … so (the defense attorney) poured a glass of water from his table, from the defense table, and brings it to me. So I take the glass and I look at it and I say, "You take a sip first."

So he did. He took it, took a sip. And I said, "OK, now I'll have a drink of it."

The jury, everybody, even the judge laughed.

Life after the trials

In addition to the Balistrieri trials, Pistone testified at a number of other trials around the country involving organized crime figures. He still does not disclose where he and his family live.

Spicuzza: Have you noticed in your work a kind of the glorification of the Mafia and misunderstanding of what they're really like?

Pistone: Back in their heyday, yeah, they were glorified. If they knew that you were even associated with the Mafia, you were treated like royalty. And of course, if you had an Italian last name, (it was assumed you had) some association with the Mafia.

I don't think it's so much anymore today. And I'm proud to say that our case was the beginning of all the Mafia cases that brought the downfall of them. They're not as strong. They have nowhere near the strength today that they had back in the day. They're just another criminal element, another criminal organization. I don't even know if Milwaukee has any any Mafia members there.

Spicuzza: Do you have any other memories of Milwaukee?

Pistone: Bad winters. Bad winters. Good Lord, I remember one snowstorm — I don't know how many feet of snow there was, but wow. And cold. That's what I remember.

And good restaurants. A lot of good restaurants in Milwaukee.

Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

[Patrickgold]

A renowned attorney. A powerful mob boss. The untold story of how Franklyn Gimbel won an early case against Frank Balistrieri
Mary Spicuzza
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
One Friday night in the fall of 1966, a pair of attorneys was driving from Milwaukee to Springfield, Illinois, to get ready for opening arguments in a tax evasion case against reputed crime boss Frank Balistrieri.

One of them was prominent Milwaukee attorney Franklyn Gimbel, then a young prosecutor who was about to try the biggest case of his career.

Gimbel and his fellow prosecutor had stopped at a restaurant in Peoria to have dinner when the maître d' walked over to their table and asked if there was someone there by the name of Frank Gimbel.

“I’m Frank Gimbel.”

“I have a telephone call for you.”

Gimbel had no idea who knew he was in Peoria, much less at a restaurant there.

The caller was Mitchell Rogovin, U.S. assistant attorney general for the tax division.

"I know that you're on your way to Springfield, Ilinois to begin the Balistrieri case on Monday morning," Rogovin said. "By this telephone call, I'm asking you to seek an adjournment of the beginning of the trial."

"What possible reason would I advance to the judge?"

“I can't tell you that.”

Gimbel would later learn the reason: Balistrieri had found a microphone hidden behind wood paneling in his office and a wire connected to it stretching from his building to a telephone pole. It turned out to be an illegal wiretap planted by the FBI.

When Gimbel hung up the phone and returned to his table, his fellow prosecutor asked who was on the phone.

“You’re just not going to believe this conversation,” Gimbel responded.

Then he passed out.

Sitting in his sleek downtown Milwaukee law office some 50 years later, Gimbel could still recount the incident in vivid detail.

“I think I'm a pretty streetwise guy and I tell you, I passed out. That's not a well-known fact,” said Gimbel, now 87. “But I was just so keyed up for this trial and this was like sending a plane over my dining room table and dropping an atomic bomb on it.”

Attorney Franklyn M. Gimbel in the conference room of his law office in Milwaukee on May 28, 2021. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Mary Spicuzza interviewed him as part of her investigation into the 1978 car bombing murder of her cousin, August Palmisano.
Neither Gimbel nor federal officials with the Justice Department and IRS had any knowledge of the FBI wiretap, he said.

The next day, Rogovin flew to Springfield, where  Gimbel suggested that he acknowledge the FBI had conducted an illegal wiretap on Balistrieri and promise not to use any information gathered from it in the tax evasion case.

When Gimbel went to court, he sought permission from the judge to empty the courtroom of all prospective jurors, he said.

“I got up and I said, ‘Your Honor, it’s come to my attention that there was an illegal wiretap that was conducted against Mr. Balistrieri," Gimbel recalls saying.

Gimbel promised to prove the wiretap had "no effect or influence" on his case.

Gimbel said Balistrieri's defense attorney erupted in the courtroom, pounding his fist on the table and saying it was the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct he'd ever seen. He argued the case should be dismissed with prejudice, and that the government should pay Balistrieri's legal fees.

The judge ultimately agreed with Gimbel that the trial could proceed.

Gimbel was aware of Balistrieri's reputation as an organized crime figure, but his case wasn't focused on that — it was a "net worth expenditure" case based on his taxes. The witnesses included a tailor and a car dealer.

“Balistrieri had bought a couple of handmade suits for $300, when you could go to Boston Store department store and buy a suit for $39.95,” Gimbel said. “And we put on the stand the dealer, a Cadillac dealer, who said that Balistrieri walked in the door and handed him like $5,000 to buy a new Cadillac at the time.”

A 1965 photo of reputed Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri.
Most of the witnesses for the prosecution were reluctant, he said.

Gimbel said he wasn't afraid for his safety, but admitted that some of the looks he got in the courtroom were chilling. And Balistrieri certainly made an impression.

“He was a guy who was not tall, not heavy. He had eyes that were almost like, if you will, try to think of spotlights coming from his face, from his skull, that penetrated everything he looked at,” Gimbel said. “He was an extraordinarily well-dressed and well-groomed person. He never had a hair out of place on his head. His suits were immaculately tailored to fit him. And he walked with a with an air of confidence.”


Balistrieri was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to two years in prison.

Gimbel went on to a successful career as a criminal defense attorney. Along the way, he represented many high-profile clients, including restauranteur Sally Papia. But he said his case against Balistrieri remains one of his most memorable.

"This trial was 50-plus years ago and my memory is less than perfect," Gimbel said. "But I remember some things, like that conversation that I had with Mitch Rogovin, that I'll never forget."


Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

[Patrickgold]

Q&A: Author Gavin Schmitt on the rise of the Milwaukee Mafia and the reign of Frank Balistrieri
Author Gavin Schmitt discusses the history of the Milwaukee mob with reporter Mary Spicuzza. Mary is writing a story and a podcast about searching for answers in the car bombing of her cousin August "Augie" Palmisano in 1978.
Mary Spicuzza
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ever since librarian and local historian Gavin Schmitt started writing books about organized crime, one question keeps coming up: People want to know whether he gets a lot of threats due to his work.

“I really don’t,” he told me. “It’s extremely rare that somebody is actually upset.”

But Schmitt said he hears from the adult children — or more often, grandchildren — of people he's written about, who have questions about their family’s past.


“A lot of times people don’t hear it from their own parents. They hear it from a friend who somehow knows something. And so it skips that generation, where the grandparents knew something,” Schmitt said. “But they kind of put it upon themselves not to pass it along.”

Schmitt, who works as a librarian in the Fox Cities, has written several books, does podcasts and runs a Milwaukee Mafia website.


After I began investigating the 1978 car bombing murder of my cousin, August "Augie" Palmisano, I asked Schmitt to speak with me about his research on organized crime in Milwaukee, especially the era dominated by reputed crime boss Frank Balistrieri.

Here are some highlights from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

What have you heard about Augie Palmisano's murder?

I find it to be possibly the most shocking mob murder in the entire history of the Milwaukee Mafia.

The bomb wasn't timed. The bomb was set to the ignition. The person who planted the bomb would have no idea who is in the garage when that happens. And that troubles me, because not that it's okay to kill Augie, obviously — but you don't know if kids are going to school, or just the average person is going to work the same time that Augie is going to work when he turns that ignition. I mean, every car parked anywhere near him took some damage. And it's a small miracle that nobody else got injured.


Do you have any theories on why Augie Palmisano was killed?

My sources are limited to what was in the newspapers and what's in the FBI files — I haven't seen anything beyond that at this point. The general belief seems to be it was directly related to gambling, whether it was he wasn't paying in the "proper cut" or he wasn't going through the "right channels." But somehow, his gambling through the different taverns that he operated, such as Richie's on Broadway, he just wasn't paying "proper respect." So there's that.

The second theory is just that he was — whether it was directly tied to gambling or not — that he was highly disrespectful of Frank Balistrieri. There's the often repeated quote that apparently Frank said, "He called me a name to my face, and now they can't find his skin."

And then lastly, the third theory is that he was killed because he was an informant. And that to me is the least likely of the three. I've seen absolutely nothing to substantiate that.

More:How former undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco, helped infiltrate the Milwaukee Mafia

Could you talk about what the reputation of Sicilians was like, from your research?

In Milwaukee, as just about anywhere else in this country, the reputation of Sicilian immigrants was not positive. The other Italians, even in their own community, generally looked down on them, and this goes back to Italy itself. Southern Italians were looked down upon.

So when the Italians moved over to the United States in the early 1900s, those prejudices came with them... that these people were of a questionable, secretive nature and had a hot-blooded temper and things of that kind.

I generally don't think it's good to, you know, paint an entire people with one brush.

That’s always the tough thing with talking about (the Mafia), because nearly 100% of Mafia members are Sicilian. But you have to be really clear to people it's only like 1% of Sicilians.

Video:Declines and glorious comebacks are all part of Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward

Frank Balistrieri has come up a lot. How would you describe him to people who don't know who he was?

I never met the man. He passed away in 1993, so that's before I was actively investigating any of this. But what I understand, based on what I've read and speaking to people who knew him, he was a stern man... He was very firm in his convictions, and some of those convictions weren't necessarily good convictions.

He went to Marquette Law School. He had no reason to go into organized crime. It was just about the power and feeling that he was somebody important. That's speculation, but that's how it comes across to me.

So he's a mysterious man. I don't know that I fully understand him, and I probably never will.


What kind of businesses was Frank Balistrieri involved in that you know of?

In his early days it was taverns, it was hotels, specifically the Hotel Roosevelt, which got torn down as part of the city's redevelopment. And he spread out into other taverns and nightclubs, which is probably what he's best known for today. He had a number: Gallagher's, the Downtowner, the Ad Lib, the Brass Rail. I mean, it goes on and on.

He's generally seen as having the Shorecrest Hotel and the Snug’s restaurant that was inside of it. That's debatable because the Shorecrest was in his son's name, so officially it was Joe's hotel.

Vending machines is probably the one that he's most known for outside of the nightclubs.

And gambling throughout his entire life, gambling was the backbone. I don't know how much he personally was involved in any bookmaking, but he was definitely involved in overseeing bookmaking through a number of people. And then ultimately, that's one of the main things that he was taken down for in the early 1980s — a gambling operation involving sports betting. So it's a thread that goes through his entire life, I mean, a solid 40 years.

It seems like Frank Balistrieri was one of the architects of Vegas casino skimming and the Teamsters Union's Central States Pension Fund loan. What have you read about what his involvement was?

So, Frank Balistrieri’s role in Las Vegas. I don't want to overstate it, but at the same time, I don't think he's been given as much credit – if that's the right word – as he maybe should have.

The Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas on Dec. 10, 1970. Frank Balistrieri helped orchestrate a skimming operation at this casino and others, which formed the basis of the 1995 film "Casino" directed by Martin Scorcese.
What his role really was: There was a real estate developer in San Diego and his name was Allen Glick. He wanted to move on to Las Vegas from San Diego.

And Frank (Balistrieri) was able to get Glick a substantial loan through his friend in the Teamsters Union, because his friend in Milwaukee sat on the board of the pension fund. So Balistrieri was a key piece in getting the mob into the Stardust, the Fremont, the Hacienda, all these casinos.

He got paid from the skim, but how much he knew about the day-to-day operation, I don't know.

What has your research told you about what happened to organized crime here?

I'm always really clear and upfront with people when I get asked, "Is there a Mafia in Milwaukee today?"

Publicly, I've seen no evidence. I've definitely seen that since Frank Balistrieri's passing, it's essentially vanished. I hear rumors here and there that things are still going on. But as far as I can definitively say, it seems like when Frank left, it just kind of left with him

[Patrickgold]

That is the series. I will add photos later. That might take a while.

[cavita]

That is the series. I will add photos later. That might take a while.

Awesome, thanks for posting these. It adds real insight as to how Balistrieri operated.