Random old DeCavalcante info

[B.]

I thought we had a thread already with this type of stuff but can't find it. Just some random details people might find interesting.

- The pallbearers for the mother of CT-based DeCavalcante member Joe Guerriero in 1957 were DeCavalcante members Sal Caterinicchio, Joseph LaSala, Mickey Puglia, Joe LaSelva, Frank Carbone, plus someone named Daniel Micali. Interesting that Caterinicchio and LaSala both traveled from Elizabeth for this. Never heard of Micali. The rest of the bearers were members.

- CT member Frank Carbone was arrested for gun possession in 1926 and suspected of involvement in the murder of alleged bootlegging "boss" Carmelo Tiralongo. Like CT DeCavalcante members Carbone, Guerriero, and suspected member John Grande, Tiralongo came from Siracusa province in Sicily. Other suspects were Cesare Barbieri and Carmelo Bongiovanni. There was significant gangland warfare going on in connection to these circles at the time with other violent incidents occurring around the same time, including the stabbing of Tiralongo's brother Salvatore.

- In 1955, Manhattan-Queens member Anthony Carubia was arrested for transporting stolen bonds from Connecticut to NYC and convicted in 1958. The other arrestees were names I'm unfamiliar with (most of them non-Italian except for Chester Orsini) but shows he was utilizing Connecticut for illegal activity. Carubia was Riberese like most of the Manhattan-Queens crew but was much more aggressive than the other crew members, having a long rap sheet and being a known bookmaker, involved in safe-cracking, etc. According to one FBI source, Frank Cocchiaro was actually inducted to protect him from abuse from Carubia. Cocchiaro once hid out in Connecticut as well and had a brother who moved there.

- In 1928, Joe LoLordo's brother-in-law Carl Cascio was arrested for transporting alcohol in New Jersey in a truck owned by DeCavalcante member Joe Cocchiaro. Cascio later moved to Colorado and was a suspected Pueblo member, also marrying the daughter of Calogero Parlapiano who was an early Pueblo leader and strong candidate for an early Pueblo boss. Note that in addition to Joe LoLordo being a possible ex-Chicago member whose brother was the suspected Chicago boss, Joe Cocchiaro also previously spent time in Chicago after arriving to the US.

- In May 1981, the FBI was searching for Alphonse Persico (Carmine's brother) and unintentionally raided a meeting between the leadership of the Colombo and DeCavalcante Families in a Brooklyn home owned by associate Vic Regina. In attendance were Carmine Persico, Tom DiBella, Vic Orena, John Matera, Gerry Langella, Allie Persico (Carmine's son), Vic Regina, and Anthony Induisi of the Colombo Family as well as Sam DeCavalcante, John Riggi, Stefano Vitabile, and Jimmy Rotondo of the DeCavalcantes. The timing coincides with DiBella stepping down as boss and Persico officially taking over. Never seen any inside sources mention this meeting but this may have been when Carmine Persico was officially introduced as boss to the DeCavalcante leadership. I do know other sources referred to a dispute in Florida that required a sitdown between DeCavalcante and Colombo members at one point (can't recall the year offhand) and the Colombo Florida guys were at this meeting so maybe it was related to that as well, though I can't imagine it would have required the entire leadership of both Families like we see in this meeting. Note that the DeCavalcante Brooklyn faction had strong ties to the Colombos, some of them starting as Colombo associates.

[B.]

- Early DeCavalcante figures were close to Sheriff James LaCorte (born 1892 in New Jersey). Sherriff LaCorte witnessed the naturalizations of many older DeCavalcante-linked figures and LaCorte's son Nicholas later became mayor of Elizabeth, his term ending in 1955 about a decade before Tom Dunn became mayor. Mayor Dunn could be regarded as a DeCavalcante associate, his long reign as mayor involving close, mutually-beneficial interactions with the DeCavalcante leadership, attendance at Ribera Club events, etc. Given Mayor LaCorte's father's close relationship to DeCavalcante-linked names and Mayor Dunn's similarly close relationship to the DeCavalcantes, we can presume Mayor LaCorte's term in the interim was also beneficial to the Family.

- Some DeCavalcante-linked figures purchased homes built by Phil Amari, notably Emanuele Riggi and Riggi in-laws the Colicchios. Amari was a prolific homebuilder in the area and also owned a farm in Raritan, one of his barns being destroyed by a non-Italian arsonist in 1949. His extensive peach tree orchards were heavily damaged by a hail storm the previous year. In addition to his role in the Ribera Club, Amari was also president of the Italian Welfare Association in the 1940s which actively backed political candidates. Unlike the Ribera Club, Amari seems to have been the only DeCavalcante member in the Association leadership though Joe LoBrutto was a trustee, LoBrutto being a Riberese name related to the LaRassos.

- While there is good reason to question sources like Rotondo, Stango, and Gerry Angiulo (and possibly Al D'Arco) who stated that the DeCavalcantes were the oldest or one of the oldest US Families, we at least have other indications they dated back many decades by the 1960s. John Riggi was recorded telling Sam DeCavalcante that the old timers had more freedom to express themselves than they'd had in the previous 40 years. This could be a reference to Phil Amari taking over as boss given he was accused of ignoring the interests of his members (i.e. they couldn't speak freely under his leadership as Riggi stated) and one source did believe Amari was boss by the 1920s which would fit the 40 year timeframe (though this was no doubt a generalization). However, another source placed Amari as boss beginning around the late 1930s. Another indication of their longer history occurred during Sam's dispute with elder members of the Family when he chastised them by reminding them that his father Frank, confirmed as a one-time capodecina on the DeCarlo tapes, had brought some of them into the Family, the senior age of these members suggesting this took place a long time earlier.

- Capodecina Giacomo Colletti's daughter married Ribera Family member Gennaro Sortino (b. 1922), who spent time living in both NJ and NYC, running VJS Sanitation with Giacomo's son Joseph Colletti. Gennaro also used the name "Emanuele" in America, the name of his father and son, but later returned to Sicily where he was suspected of involvement in the murder of Ribera boss Carmelo Colletti in 1983, an apparent relative of both Sortino and the NJ Collettis (Anthony Rotondo stated that the NJ Collettis had relatives in the Ribera Family). Gennaro succeeded Carmelo Colletti as Ribera Family boss, marching at the head of Ribera's patron saint procession to mark the occasion, but fled to the US for 16 years before going back to Ribera where he was a loyalist of boss Paolo Capizzi, whose son spent time living in NJ as an associate of the DeCavalcantes. Gennaro's own son, also named Emanuele Sortino, is/was a suspected DeCavalcante member before returning to Sicily where he was recorded updating his father on DeCavalcante activities in the 2000s.

- Gennaro "Emanuele" Sortino also sat on the Ribera Club's orphanage committee when Nick Delmore was boss alongside Family leaders Delmore, Sam DeCavalcante, John Riggi, Stefano Vitabile, Joseph Sferra, Paolo Farino, and Luigi LaRasso. The committee also included important Family associates Mike Kleinberg (influential in labor unions) and Ribera Club president Jack Miceli, whose cousin Alfonso was a member of the Ribera Family. Another committee member was John Parlapiano, who was likely Ribera native Giovan Battista Parlapiano (1904-1989) who came to the US in 1930 and interestingly married a woman born in Alabama where a Riberese mafia colony once existed and may have led the short-lived Birmingham Family, this colony having several other DeCavalcante links. Parlapiano is a complete unknown but his presence on the orphanage committee with many leading members and two key associates suggests he was at the very least agreeable to mafia influence.

- The father of Colletti son-in-law Gennaro Sortino died by the early 1950s and his mother remarried a Cucuzzella in Ribera.Cucuzzella is a relevant Riberese mafia name as Pasquale and Joseph LoLordo of Chicago/DeCavalcante fame had cousins named Cucuzzella which included Nicola Gentile's one-time friend Antonino Cucuzzella, the two traveling to Canada together on an ill-fated trip circa World War I. Though Gentile said nothing to indicate Antonino's mafia affiliation or status one way or another, his association with Gentile and relation to the LoLordos suggest he was a mafia affiliate. Antonino lived in NYC and his son Calogero moved to Philadelphia then nearby Delaware where he was once arrested on gambling charges, the FBI noting that Calogero Cucuzzella remained in contact with his cousin Joe LoLordo. Joe LoLordo also had another cousin in Montreal he remained in contact with, bringing to mind Antonino Cucuzzella's earlier travels there. DeCavalcante member Girolamo "Gerry" Guarraggi had brothers in Montreal (his brother marrying the daughter of murdered Bonanno member Pietro Sciara of Siculiana), Ontario, and Delaware, showing links to the same locations as the LoLordo-Cucuzzella clan.

- Antonino Cucuzzella had other interesting connections. In addition to living in NYC, he spent time in Boston circa 1923 where his friend Nicola Gentile arrived two years previous and where a large population from Agrigento existed. Not only that, after one trip to Canada in 1913 Cucuzzella arrived back to NYC where he was meeting his friend Gaetano Marino. During Nicola Gentile's arrival to Boston in 1921 he was greeted by a friend also named Gaetano Marino, this Marino a Cosa Nostra member living or staying in Boston but evidently not a member of the New England Family although he was allowed to attend a banquet of the New England Family hosted by boss Gaspare Messina. Some time ago I found a candidate for Gaetano Marino who came from Gentile's hometown of Siculiana and believe it's likely that both Cucuzzella and Gentile arrived to the same Gaetano Marino, Cucuzzella arriving to him in NYC making sense given Gentile was clear that although he arrived to Marino in Boston, Marino was not a member of that Family. That Cucuzzella himself spent time living in Boston shows these recurring connections.

- There is no evidence Antonino Cucuzzella lived in New Jersey even though his son ended up in the Philadelphia area. However, alleged "Black Handers" attempted to extort and blow up the home of a baker named Antonio Cucuzzella in Newark's Ironbound district in 1911. While mafiosi were sometimes the victims of so-called "Black Hand" extortion and even staged fake "Black Hand" attacks (for insurance or other purposes), this appears to be a different Antonino Cucuzzella who came from Petralia Sottana in Palermo, a town that produced Genovese members in New Jersey, there being no evidence this man was a mafia affiliate. Going back to Gennaro Sortino's stepfather in Ribera being a Cuccuzzella, I don't have access to records to confirm a relation to Antonino Cucuzzella though I should note that Cucuzzella seems to be a rare surname in Ribera, being more common in other Agrigento towns like Cattolica Eraclea.

- Apart from Gentile's fleeting reference to Antonino Cucuzzella, his relation to the LoLordos, and his son's ongoing relationship to Joe LoLordo, Antonino is a virtual unknown. His relation to high-ranking Chicago/DeCavalcante leaders and friendship with Gentile and Gaetano Marino, the latter likely the same Cosa Nostra member friendly with Gentile, make him a solid candidate for membership and he could have been an early NYC DeCavalcante alongside paesani like the Giacobbes, Galletta, and others. Just as Gentile never confirms Cucuzzella's mafia status, he unfortunately never makes reference to the DeCavalcantes even though he was in a prime position to know of their secretive existence. In addition to his friendship with the DeCavalcante-linked Cucuzzella, Gentile noted that his own brother-in-law was staying or living in Ribera when he arrived to Sicily on one occasion and made reference in one interview to Phil Amari visiting Charlie Luciano and Joe Doto in Italy (note that the Genovese Family was the DeCavalcante Family's avugad; not sure if this was during Amari's 1948 visit to Sicily for the orphanage opening or another occasion as there is a reference to Amari again visiting Italy after he was deposed). Gentile says nothing of the Family's existence, though.

[NorthBuffalo]

Always great information. Can you remind me where Gerry Angiulo talked about the DeCavalcantes being the oldest?

[B.]

Always great information. Can you remind me where Gerry Angiulo talked about the DeCavalcantes being the oldest?

Thank you. It was in the early 80s, he was talking to Larry Zannino and they were talking shit about Sam DeCavalcante but Angiulo pointed out that Sam had "one of the fuckin' oldest Families out there." Basically seems to be saying even though Sam had one of the oldest Families he still carried himself like a "phony motherfucker."

[Antiliar]

Is it possible that Angiulo was talking about Decavalcante's personal family since they came from royalty?

[NorthBuffalo]

Thanks for the response - I generally viewed DeCavalcante almost in an earlier generation than Angiulo / Zannino as he retired by the late 70s while they gained power in Boston - I've done some more reading and realized my timeline was off. Interesting why they call him broken down.

[JoelTurner]

Thank you for sharing this stuff - it’s a real treasure trove.

- The pallbearers for the mother of CT-based DeCavalcante member Joe Guerriero in 1957 were DeCavalcante members Sal Caterinicchio, Joseph LaSala, Mickey Puglia, Joe LaSelva, Frank Carbone, plus someone named Daniel Micali. Interesting that Caterinicchio and LaSala both traveled from Elizabeth for this. Never heard of Micali. The rest of the bearers were members.

Daniel Micali was Joe “Pippy” Guerriero‘s maternal cousin so he was a nephew of the deceased.

[B.]

I don't think Angiulo was talking about anything other than Sam DeCavalcante's Cosa Nostra Family.

Awesome Joel -- thank you. It's also mentioned on the DeCavalcante tapes that Guerriero's father-in-law was involved in CT gambling activity with the Family and a while back you found this was the non-Italian Morris Beatman. Curious if his cousin was also involved. The tapes also indicated Beatman's gambling activity may have connected to Boston. While I'm not aware of any DeCavalcante Boston connections (though note I mentioned that Antonino Cucuzzella lived there for a time and there was a strong colony from Agrigento that included Aragonesi and Sciacchitani), Konigsberg was aware of the DeCavalcante branch in CT but also thought they had a presence in Springfield. However, Konigsberg makes many mistakes and he just as likely was referring to the Genovese crew and confused the affiliation.

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Early members of the Family are mostly a mystery outside of select names. The FBI surmised in the 1960s that the Family was based primarily around men who came from Ribera, Caltabellota, and Alessandria della Rocca (there were a few members / suspected members from Caltabellota like Farina and the Marsala brothers, then some with heritage in AdR like the LaMelas, LaBarbera, and possibly Cino) and Anthony Rotondo similarly said the Family's identity was tied to Ribera, it being obvious through the totality of research that the Family was built around Riberese mafiosi even though it had diversified even by the 1960s.

We're at a major disadvantage though when trying to identify suspected early members given there are no sources on that era and there were apparently no criminal investigations into these circles or other obvious signs of mafia activity. They were also deliberately far more secretive than their peers, the well-known DeCarlo tape showing that despite living in Union County alongside the DeCavalcantes and knowing virtually every mafioso in North Jersey going back to the 1920s, DeCarlo knew only around five members, Louis LaRasso commenting in response that nobody will ever know the bulk of their membership and you could pass by them on the street without ever knowing they were in Cosa Nostra. This was not empty boasting on LaRasso's part -- it was obviously true.

The core of the Family though was obviously from a certain region of Agrigento and recruited the traditional way through blood ties and kinship so that is the best way we have to speculate on who may have been members. There are some names, some discussed previously and others never mentioned, who I consider possible members. Will mention them over several posts.

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Giacobbe brothers

- Lorenzo Giacobbe (1890-1960), father of later member and acting captain Joe Giacobbe, was a confirmed member and according to notes from the Rotondo interview with Italian LE that Felice posted years ago, he was apparently an early captain, likely of the Manhattan-Queens crew his son later belonged to. After arriving to his elder brother Carmelo in New York in 1907, Lorenzo eventually spent time living in Hartford, Connecticut during the 1910s so it's possible he played a role in the formation of the Family's otherwise peculiar Connecticut faction, there being other Riberesi with the Giacobbes in CT. Adding to this is that a CT FBI source who mingled in CT DeCavalcante circles was aware of a connection to an important NYC mafioso named "Jacobi" (ph) who died around the same general period as Lorenzo Giacobbe.

- The Connecticut faction by the 1950s included non-Sicilian leaders like underboss Joe LaSelva and capodecina Mickey Puglia as well as members Joe Guerriero, Frank Carbone, and John Grande (Grande is suspected but all indications are he was an influential member if not earlier leader) from Siracusa in eastern Sicily yet despite living in CT and sharing no ancestry with the clannish Elizabeth and Manhattan-Queens base, they were fully accepted and close to the Family's NJ base. Member Louis DiGiovanna's family was from Santa Margherita di Belice in Agrigento so he fits in more with the dominant membership of the Family. As mentioned above with Carbone, there was an active criminal underworld made up of men from Siracusa by the 1920s and at least Carbone was tapped into this. There were also Calabrian Camorra/'ndrangheta links later to the Gambino faction in CT that included Paolo Agresta and eventually Cosmo Sandalo. Whether there was some kind of organized criminal element (i.e. Camorristi, which we know included different Southern Italians and eastern Sicilians in some cases) that was brought into the DeCavalcantes as we see elsewhere is unknown but the most logical explanation for the creation of the DeCavalcante CT faction is that Riberesi like Lorenzo Giacobbe and likely others we don't know recruited local guys who became fully accepted in DeCavalcante circles over time.

- Lorenzo Giacobbe was back in NYC by 1919, living in Midtown where many of the Manhattan-Queens DeCavs operated and as LCNBios mentioned he later witnessed the naturalization of Agrigento-born Bonanno member Nino Adamo's father. Not much is known about his mafia activity but he did sit on the original Ribera Club orphanage committee in 1947 along with 11 other prominent members of the DeCavalcante and Chicago Families. His son became well-known in the late 90s and early 2000s during the big indictments and cooperation of three NYC-based members and the only references to Lorenzo's membership come as a result of his son's relative notoriety. Though there was previous confusion over whether the "Larry" Giacobbe identified as a member in 1999 was Leonardo Giacobbe, LCNBios has a younger Lorenzo "Larry" Giacobbe (the elder Lorenzo also used "Larry") as a member circa 1999 and his age is consistent with Joe Giacobbe's son, suggesting this may be Lorenzo Giacobbe's namesake grandson.

- Lorenzo's brother Carmelo Giacobbe (1875-1948) looks to have been the first brother to arrive in NYC, first coming to a cousin named LaSala (a surname that produced a DeCavalcante member who served as a pallbearer at CT member Joe Guerriero's mother's funeral) in 1906, though he apparently returned to Sicily and arrived again to brother Lorenzo in 1910. He apparently returned to Sicily again, arriving again to Lorenzo in 1921. In addition to his immediate relatives being important DeCavalcante members, Carmelo's nephew was future Chicago member Filippo Bacino who arrived to Giacobbe in NYC when he came to the US in 1923 and it appears Carmelo remained in NYC during the interim, living in Midtown throughout the 1920s.

- Phil Bacino was Carmelo's wife Palma Triolo's blood nephew and the same Rotondo interview notes shared by Felice made reference to Bacino being an early DeCavalcante figure of influence, it being unclear how long Bacino spent in NYC before heading to the Chicago area though he remained closely involved with the DeCavalcante Family for decades, served on the Ribera Club's orphanage committee with Lorenzo Giacobbe in 1947 (even traveling to Sicily with boss Phil Amari for the orphanage's opening), and his son married a marital niece of leading member Salvatore Caterinicchio after meeting her at the wedding of Frank Majuri's daughter. It should be noted that Bacino's brother Luciano was identified in the 1940s and 50s as a leading figure in the Ribera Family and Rotondo also made reference to other Giacobbe relatives who were part of the Ribera Family, among them Emanuele Giacobbe and his son Leonardo who moved to NJ.

- A point of confusion with Carmelo Giacobbe is he appears to have listed two or possibly three different wives in various records. In his earlier records he lists a wife named Montalbano and interestingly the boss of Ribera in the 1940s/50s was a Francesco Montalbano, Giacobbe nephew Luciano Bacino identified as one of the top men under him. However, when he returns to the US in the early 1920s he lists Bacino aunt Palma Triolo as his wife and within a few years lists a wife named "Corinda". The first name of his earlier wife Montalbano is illegible but does not appear to say Corinda nor Palma. It's possible he remarried (maybe more than once) and these guys were sometimes known to maintain multiple marriages especially if their wives remained in Sicily but I'm confident all of the records are the same Carmelo Giacobbe.

- Carmelo took an overseas trip in 1946, presumably to Sicily, then returned to New York, living on the Upper East Side by this time, but he looks to have returned to Ribera before his death in 1948. His advanced age and early death make it impossible to identify him as a confirmed member given the total lack of early sources on DeCavalcante history but the prominence of his brother and two nephews in the US and other clan members in Ribera add high probability to his membership.

- Another brother Emanuele (1893-1974) and his family lived in Manhattan and rented a room from Gambino capodecina Domenico Arcuri, who also had roots in Agrigento, the Arcuris being very close to the Manhattan-Queens DeCavalcantes and Joe Arcuri later serving as a liaison between the Families. Other tenants in the Arcuri-owned building were the Francos, who intermarried with the Arcuris and produced multiple generations of Gambino members, as well as Giuseppe LiCalsi, the uncle of Gambino member Joe LiCalsi, the uncle himself being a possible Gambino member with the Arcuri crew. Like the Arcuris, the Francos and LiCalsis were from Agrigento and previously lived in Tampa. Emanuele remained in the United States through World War II but returned to Sicily at some point and died in 1974. The Emanuele Giacobbe identified as a Ribera Family member who moved to the United States in later years would appear to be a cousin. Suspected Alabama mafioso Pasquale Amari, whose clan had DeCavalcante connections, also married a woman whose maternal grandfather was named Emanuele Giacobbe.

- Coincidentally, much as Lorenzo Giacobbe once lived in CT and appears to have remained an NYC point of contact for CT DeCavalcante figures, their friends the Arcuris at one time included the Gambino Family's CT faction as part of their Manhattan-based crew who like the DeCavalcante CT leaders were non-Sicilian. Strange that these two adjacent Agrigento-heavy crews in the same neighborhood, who hung out at the same social club, both had relationships to members in Connecticut.

- Another possible connection within the Riberese network is the surname of the Giacobbe brothers' mother: Caterinicchio/a, variations of this surname producing leading DeCavalcante member and reported "council" member Salvatore Caterinicchio (who like Joe LaSala served as pallbearer in CT for Guerriero's mother) and suspected Alabama leader Giuseppe Caterinicchia (who died in New Jersey), it already being mentioned that Caterinicchia's brother-in-law Pasquale Amari married a woman whose mother was a Giacobbe.

[B.]

Note that Bonanno-then-Genovese member Bobby Doyle Santuccio lived in Connecticut when he was coming up, moved to NYC, then returned to Connecticut and like a few of the CT DeCavalcante members had heritage in Siracusa province.

[PolackTony]

Some really excellent stuff here, bro.

I don't
Phil Bacino was Carmelo's wife Palma Triolo's blood nephew and the same Rotondo interview notes shared by Felice made reference to Bacino being an early DeCavalcante figure of influence, it being unclear how long Bacino spent in NYC before heading to the Chicago area though he remained closely involved with the DeCavalcante Family for decades, served on the Ribera Club's orphanage committee with Lorenzo Giacobbe in 1947 (even traveling to Sicily with boss Phil Amari for the orphanage's opening), and his son married a marital niece of leading member Salvatore Caterinicchio after meeting her at the wedding of Frank Majuri's daughter. It should be noted that Bacino's brother Luciano was identified in the 1940s and 50s as a leading figure in the Ribera Family and Rotondo also made reference to other Giacobbe relatives who were part of the Ribera Family, among them Emanuele Giacobbe and his son Leonardo who moved to NJ.

- A point of confusion with Carmelo Giacobbe is he appears to have listed two or possibly three different wives in various records. In his earlier records he lists a wife named Montalbano and interestingly the boss of Ribera in the 1940s/50s was a Francesco Montalbano, Giacobbe nephew Luciano Bacino identified as one of the top men under him. However, when he returns to the US in the early 1920s he lists Bacino aunt Palma Triolo as his wife and within a few years lists a wife named "Corinda". The first name of his earlier wife Montalbano is illegible but does not appear to say Corinda nor Palma. It's possible he remarried (maybe more than once) and these guys were sometimes known to maintain multiple marriages especially if their wives remained in Sicily but I'm confident all of the records are the same Carmelo Giacobbe.

A couple of things to note.

Regarding Phil Bacino’s time in NYC, it would have been 5 years at the most, as he filed his naturalization papers in 1928 in Chicago. As I’ve noted previously, this document was witnessed by fellow Riberese Filippo Cusumano, whose address on W Ohio St in the Grand Ave neighborhood was used by Bacino on his naturalization. This was close to the North Ave and Damen section where compaesani Pasquale LoLordo and the Diana and DiGiorgio families had ensconced themselves, and Bacino’s other witness was Calabrian local political personage Pietro Lavorata, who I’ve mentioned previously in one of the Chicago threads, clearly an associate of the above Riberesi mafiosi. It would seem that Bacino then relocated to Calumet City in the South Suburbs following the slaying of Pasquale LoLordo in 1929.

Phil Bacino’s *mother* was Palma Triolo. She was born in 1871 to Ribera natives Paolo Triolo and Carmela Corso. In 1891, she married Giovanni Bacino, a native of Burgio occupied as a campiero (an estate guard, an occupation with a strong association with the mafia in those days, of course). Giovanni Bacino died in 1923, the same year that Phil immigrated. Palma Triolo died in Ribera in 1942. I see no indication that she had a sister that shared her given name.

Unless I’m missing something, I don’t believe that Carmelo Giacobbe was married to an immediate relative of Phil Bacino. I’m not sure if you have some records to indicate that apart from the name, however. In 1901, Carmelo Giacobbe married a Ribera native who was born Corinda Parinisi. She used the name Corinda Triolo, her mother’s surname, on records in Ribera. Giacobbe’s 1910 arrival in the US lists his wife back in Ribera as *Palma* Montalbano. Then, his 1921 re-entry to the US gives his wife’s name as Palma Triolo. His subsequent US naturalization petition gives his wife’s name as Corinda, and Corinda indeed arrived in the US in 1930 to join Carmelo in NYC, traveling as Corinda Giacobbe Triolo. While it’s possible that Carmelo Giacobbe may have had a second, common-law wife, relationship accounting for these discrepancies, I think it’s more likely that Palma was a middle name of Corinda Triolo. The Montalbano thing in 1910 could have been denoting another woman, though I also wonder whether, given his relationship to the mafia, Carmelo Giacobbe was simply falsifying his wife’s name on his travel documents.

Either way, his legal wife Corinda Triolo was, IMO, likely a cousin of some degree of Bacino’s mother. Palma was not an uncommon female given name back in the day in Ribera, but the apparent common use of it here suggests some relation. Triolo is, of course, one of the three most common surnames in Ribera, so simply sharing this surname wouldn’t necessarily indicate any meaningful degree of kinship. I’m not sure what relation, if any, Corinda Triolo’s maternal grandfather, Antonio Triolo, had to Phil Bacino’s grandfather, Paolo Triolo (I was unable to find any link apart from recurring names such as Antonio, which obviously doesn’t mean much). That Phil declared Carmelo Giacobbe to have been his “uncle” on his 1923 arrival in the US doesn’t necessarily indicate that they had this relationship (Bacino may have used this just for immigration purposes, or may have meant “zio” in the commonly used honorific of fictive kinship).

Another thing that might be worth noting are the men who witnessed the 1891 marriage of Giovanni Bacino and Palma Triolo: Serafino Santini, occupation “home builder” and Domenico Maniglia, denoted as a “borgese” (borghese, “bourgeois”; an indicator of the middle class status of a town dweller of some means, rather than a specific occupation). Presumably both natives of Ribera, though this wasn’t specified on the marriage record. Maybe these surnames connect to other names in the mafia network. I note that there are several records of marriages between Maniglias (not a very common surname in Ribera) and Giacobbes (including another Carmelo Giacobbe) in late 19th century Ribera, so Domenico Maniglia could well have been an extended relative of Lorenzo and Carmelo’s family.

[B.]

Ok awesome, that helps a ton with the wife confusion even though it brings up other questions.

Phil Bacino lists Carmelo as his uncle and Carmelo on one record stated Palma Triolo was his wife, the Triolo name seemingly being the source of Phil's stated nephew relation to Carmelo so I assumed it was cut and dry (even though I should know better at this point). Whatever the nature of the connection is, it doesn't seem coincidental that Phil's mother was a Triolo, Carmelo's mother-in-law was a Triolo, and Phil listed Carmelo as his "uncle" indicating they were at least part of an extended clan although it does seem "uncle" was used loosely here and it's not a given that they were related in a meaningful sense. These types of coincidences do of course happen with this stuff, though, and sometimes there is a connection through an entirely different branch of relation.

It does look like the "wives" were all the same woman Corinda Triolo Parinisi, which at least reaffirms a possible Triolo connection to Phil, but then the confusion is why they used Palma Triolo, Phil's mother's name, which is neither Corinda's first name nor her own maiden name and why she was listed as Palma Montalbano on earlier records given that wasn't her first nor maiden name nor her mother's maiden name. He could have falsified his wife's name for shady reasons as you said although I'm not sure how effective this would be given his own identity is pretty clearly and consistently stated and he was the presumed mafioso, not his wife. He also uses his brother Lorenzo's true identity as his arrival contact more than once and Lorenzo was a confirmed mafioso so there was no attempt to hide who he or his brother were.

It's possible the "Palma Triolo" departure contact was mistranscribed as his wife which is known to happen on these records but it's part of a larger clusterfuck of discrepancies related to records of his wife and we can see she used Palma earlier when the Montalbano surname was given which shows it wasn't a one-off. If his departure contact was actually Phil's mother Palma Triolo and it was mistranscribed as "wife" (i.e. maybe he told them it was his a relative of his wife and it got truncated to "wife") it would be interesting in its own right that Phil's mother was his departure contact then two years later he was Phil's arrival contact however I don't think that's the case since we have an instance of her using the name Palma earlier. Also strange she consistently used her mother's surname of Triolo rather than her birth name, the wife apparently using a selection of given names and surnames. Maybe SHE was the mafioso, haha.

If the relation is more distant than I assumed it adds further weight to a possible mafia relationship between him and Bacino, these people all no doubt being ingrained in the Cosa Nostra subculture in Ribera.

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I've never come across any Santinis or Maniglias in these circles in either Ribera or America. Those are good leads, though, and as is typical whenever we find new names I will probably start coming across Santinis and Maniglias left and right now.

[B.]

Calogero Coniglio (1894-1983), Domenico Renda (1893-1964), Vincenzo Carlino (1884-1976)

- Calogero "Charles" Coniglio, Domenico Renda, and Vincenzo Carlino sat on the 1947 Ribera Club orphanage committee and of the 15 total committee members, these three are the only ones who are not confirmed mafiosi. The other 12 committee members were DeCavalcante boss Phil Amari, future capodecina Giacomo Colletti, member Salvatore Caterinicchio, future underboss Frank Majuri, member and possible capodecina Lorenzo Giacobbe, member Pietro Galletta, future capodecina Joseph LoLordo, Chicago member Phil Bacino, Chicago capodecina Jim DeGeorge, and suspected Chicago member Nicola Diana. That these three obscure names sat on the committee alongside 12 influential mafia members, many of them leaders, does not confirm they were mafiosi but adds a great deal of suspicion.

- All three were born in Ribera, Coniglio being among the early wave of Riberese Peterstown residents, arriving to Elizabeth in 1906 around the same period the Merlo brothers settled there; Coniglio already had relatives living in Elizabeth. He worked as a barber while his brothers worked as hod carriers, the trade of DeCavalcante-controlled Local 394. In 1915, Coniglio was living in the same building as Sheriff James LaCorte and his son, future mayor Nicholas LaCorte, James noted earlier for his ties to numerous Riberese DeCavalcante-connected names and unsurprisingly Coniglio himself is one of the figures whose naturalization was witnessed by the elder LaCorte.

- Coniglio was additionally listed among fifteen names who founded the Ribera Club in 1923, other notable founders including Phil Amari and the Merlo brothers, Michele and Giuseppe. He was a nearby neighbor of future capodecina Joe Sferra by 1950, the two having served on the Ribera Club orphanage committee three years previous.

- Domenico Renda worked for Standard Oil, at least a few DeCavalcante members or their older relatives, including the Riggis, working for Standard Oil early on. Renda was another relatively early settler in Elizabeth, arriving there straight from Ribera in 1912 and like Calogero Coniglio he shared a close relation to the Firetto surname. Renda too used Sheriff James LaCorte as a naturalization witness. In 1930 he lived on John Street just a short distance from Giovanni Riggi, father of Emanuele and grandfather of John, and a just a bit further down John Street was Emanuele Riggi and young John. In the 1940s Renda and his family were living in the same building as future capodecina Giacomo Colletti.

- Domenico Renda may have been related to fellow 1947 orphanage committee member Frank Majuri through marriage. Frank Majuri's daughter Marie appears to have married the Ribera-born Saverio Renda, son of Michele, whose mother was a Paola Amari. Domenico Renda also had a son named Saverio several years older than this Saverio, an indication he may have been a cousin. Marie's son is Frank Renda, believed to be a current DeCavalcante member under his uncle Charlie Majuri. The Renda-Majuri wedding is also apparently where Phil Bacino's son met his wife in what became another DeCavalcante-coordinated wedding. Saverio Renda died young in 1989 and Marie Majuri later remarried DeCavalcante member Nick LaMela, this second marriage to a made member possibly an indication her first marriage had mafia connections as well which would be logical given who her male relatives were.

- The third unknown 1947 orphanage committee member Vincenzo Carlino was a one-time employee of Standard Oil like Renda and Carlino was also one of the fifteen named founders of the Ribera Club in 1923 along with Calogero Coniglio, Phil Amari, and the Merlos. The eldest of these three men, Carlino may have also been the last to arrive in America, citing a 1921 arrival through Philadelphia on his naturalization although there was a Vincenzo Carlino of the same age from Ribera who arrived to NYC in 1905 -- either way he was living in Ribera before he arrived for permanent residence in 1921. The arrival manifest for the 1921 trip shows that the Carlinos were heading to Elizabeth and accompanied by a fellow Riberese traveler named Firetto, a recurring name connected to Coniglio, Renda, and Carlino, and that Carlino's brother Giuseppe was already living in Elizabeth. By 1930 he lived in DeCavalcante ground zero, living on John Street a few doors down from possible Family leader Michele Merlo and five doors down in the opposite direction from Phil Amari. Vincenzo's brother Giuseppe Carlino's own home was directly next door to Amari.

- Even during the Delmore era the Ribera Club orphanage committee was comprised almost entirely of Family leaders plus future Ribera Family leader Gennaro Sortino and high-level associates like Mike Kleinberg and Jake Miceli as well as the mysterious John Parlapiano. The original 1947 committee was dominated by an even more overwhelming number of mafiosi so either Coniglio, Renda, and Carlino were the only three non-members on the 15 man committee or they too were Family members/associates. The Family had between 30 to 40 members in the 1960s with roughly 27 or 28 identified, leaving a number of slots that logically should have included at least a few elderly Riberesi who were holdovers from an earlier era and completely off the radar.

- While certain direct relatives of DeCavalcante members are strong candidates for these unknown slots as well, these three names are equally if not stronger candidates given two of them not only helped found the Ribera Club but all three sat on the 1947 orphanage committee. The Ribera Club itself was controlled by the DeCavalcante Family and carried Family leaders and other members as officers but Ribera Club posts also included many "civilians" from within the broader Sicilian/Italian community and the Ribera Club's administration pales in comparison to the sheer concentration of mafiosi we see on the club's orphanage committee in 1947 under Amari and later under Delmore. That twelve of the fifteen 1947 committee members were mafiosi makes it probable that at least one of these three was a member and if they weren't members they were nonetheless regarded as respected peers.

- Former proposed member and CW Frank Scarabino stated that the Ribera Club's orphanage activities in the 1990s were carried out in collaboration with members of the Ribera Family, who also traveled to America to attend orphanage events hosted by the Ribera Club, the DeCavalcante tapes further confirming that these benefit dinners were a Family-controlled affair in the 1960s. This is despite the fact that during Scarabino's era these links had been fully exposed for decades and even during Sam DeCavalcante's early years as boss the Ribera Club and its corrupt orphanage philanthropy were becoming known. In 1947 it appears the then-unknown Family was even less apologetic in inserting itself into orphanage activities based on the sheer number of DeCavalcante and Chicago members on the committee.

- Renda died in 1964 but the other two lived into the mid-1970s and early 1980s, their advanced age already taking them off the radar of the FBI and contemporary sources and the unassuming nature of Riberese mafiosi in Elizabeth making it more difficult to confirm/deny their membership.

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Mariano Coniglio (1895-1991)

- Along with members Emanuele Riggi and Jake Colletti, a Mariano Coniglio was one of the men who posted bond for Salvatore Caterinicchio when he was held as a material witness in the 1948 John DiBiasio murder so it is a surname that connects to top DeCavalcante figures more than once. Mariano, who used the name "Michael", was from Ribera like the aforementioned Calogero Coniglio (relation unconfirmed; both related to Venzianos) and arrived to NYC in 1909 then settled in Elizabeth. He was another one-time Standard Oil employee, also living two doors down from Frank Majuri's Riberese father-in-law Emanuele Caruano circa 1950. A decade earlier he'd been Salvatore Caterinicchio's next door neighbor which may explain why he was one of the men who posted his bond.

- Another name who posted Caterinicchio's bond was a "Joseph DeStephens". I'm not sure who "DeStephens" is as I couldn't find a record for him but there was a Joseph DeStefano (b. 1903) living in Peterstown circa 1940 although I haven't found many leads beyond that and it's a fairly generic name. There was a Joseph DiStefano buried in Linden in 1942 which would rule him out as "Joseph DeStephens" but I couldn't find a DOB, neither could I find a DOD for the 1940 Peterstown resident. There was also a younger Joseph DeStefano (b. 1915) living in Peterstown whose father Alfonso DeStefano/DiStefano came from Girgenti (Agrigento; possibly Ribera) and reportedly lived in Elizabeth since at least 1908 based on the locations given for his children's birth on his naturalization paperwork. It's anyone's guess who "DeStephens" actually is although the latter is a good candidate based on his confirmed heritage and that he's confirmed to have been alive in 1948.

- I don't consider Mariano Congilio a particularly strong candidate for membership (nor "DeStephens" for that matter) compared to the three unknown 1947 orphanage names but his surname together with posting bond for a top DeCavalcante in tandem with two other top DeCavalcantes puts him in the conversation. Living next door to Caterinicchio adds a more practical angle to the relationship and it's not uncommon to see neighbors post bond for one another. He's worth of including in the discussion particularly in light of the info on his paesan and possible relative Calogero Coniglio.

[nash143]

Amazing thread. Just fantastic!

[B.]

Thanks man. Please feel free to contribute / correct anything.

- Something I forgot to mention is that Mariano Coniglio was also president of the Ribera Club at one time, as was Vincenzo Carlino's son Emanuele. For some reason the Ribera Club temporarily closed down between 1932 - 1935, not sure why given the Sicilian colony was in full swing by the 1920s (hence the formation of the club in 1923) and continuing to grow. Other presidents of note over the years were Pietro Guarraci (possibly acting boss Frank Guarraci's father) and John Riggi. The founding president circa 1923 was Paolo Sgro (b. early 1880s) who previously lived in Lower Manhattan between 1904-1913 and was a relative of the Truncales, Phil Amari's mother's maiden name. Joe Colletti and Giuseppe Merlo (possibly Joe Merlo Jr.'s father based on the period) once served as trustees in the 1970s while Pietro Guarraci was president and Sam DeCavalcante was the club's general director at the time.

- Since we were talking about confusion over the Triolos, Phil Bacino's mother's family, one of Phil Bacino's associates in Calumet City was an Andrew Triolo. I assume this was a relative but I already made some incorrect assumptions about the Triolo-Giacobbe relation. Bacino did associate with some distant relatives named Bacino (one of them told the FBI he was a distant relative in this case, not sure what the research shows) in the area who were around the Chicago Family who we've discussed previously.

[PolackTony]

Ok. Also strange she consistently used her mother's surname of Triolo rather than her birth name, the wife apparently using a selection of given names and surnames. Maybe SHE was the mafioso, haha.

I suspect that Corinda was an illegitimate birth, hence her using her mother’s maiden name. I’ve seen cases like this before, where the father’s name was just used for the birth record but then the mother’s name is of course used subsequently. I don’t have her mother, Giuseppa Triolo’s death record, so I also wonder if her mother may later have married a guy named Montalbano. Speculative, but could well account for these discrepancies. I also wonder whether Palma may have been her middle name, or if it was her baptismal name (these don’t always correspond to one’s legal given name), as Palma was not an uncommon female name in Ribera.