rather out of the blue, my interest has been drawn to the OUTFIT once more. from another thread by rush about charts but this one i hope can answer some questions about this era...or not.
the questions will be totally random, so here we go.

when imprisoned from 1995-2003, did james marcello retain his role as capo of the melrose park crew? i have read from family secrets indictment he would have used his brother michael and by extension crew member as messenger to the street.
if not , was there a capo?
alphonse tornabene as acting or capo?
where did chiaramonti fit into crew upon his release in 1998.

looking at era after accardos death and on into 2000s, there was still alot going on in chicago in this era but usually gets overlooked because of the much more interesting past outfit years of power and influence.

Marcello was Boss by 2001

Hypothetically speaking, how would the scructure of the Outfit be in 2024 if the Family Secrets case never happened? None of those guys go to prison so whos currently running things if none of those guys get indicted? Would we have seen more killings and violence over the last 17 years? Guys like Marcello and Calabrese Sr would have been running things more than likely.

When Carlisi was boss, Marcello was his capo for the MP/Cicero crew (during those days Cicero was allegedly still divided on north and south between two crews). When Marcello got out of prison in 2003, his lieutenant and alleged acting boss Tornabene handed over the throne to him. And yeah, Marcellos brother was his go-between.

When Tornabene allegedly became acting boss (2001-2002/03), it is possible that Chiaramonti was his capo but after his murder in 2001, again it is possible that Tornabene gave that same position to Zizzo who in turn was released that same year or the following. The late Chiaramonti was previously released during the Monteleone era and was probably under Tornabene who possibly also gave the "ok" for the Cicero/South Side crew to take action against Chiaramonti, this receiving the acting boss spot.

After Marcellos release, I think that we can only speculate on what was Tornabene's new position, meaning he either was capo or went up as senior advisor (similar to the old Ricca, Accardo, Giancana admin), mainly because most of the former bosses took that spot and also because of the government allegations regarding Tornabene's alleged high stature within the Outfit. Tornabene was also never charged in the Family Secrets trials, which means he knew how to keep a low profile, probably with the help of his high position and also with the way he lived and operated.

IF Tornabene went up next to Marcello (and possibly DiFronzo), than theres great possibility that Zizzo was capo for their crew, obviously until his murder in 2006. I personally dont believe that Zizzo ever reached the official underboss position, like it was previously stated in some articles. I believe that it was either someone from the EP crew or someone from the Cicero-South Side crew.

After the "death" of the old Carlisi/Tornabene/Marcello/MP/South Cicero crew, in 2006 the Sarno group finally had the whole Cicero area for themselves, an idea which they tried to realize since the late 1960s under the old Buccieri regime. In fact, they also inherited all Outfit interests around the south side and Chi Heights areas.

Im not stating that this is 100% true but still, I hope it helps so you can receive general picture regarding the whole situation.

I keep asking, is there really anything to be boss of anymore in Chicago?

Just like in most U.S. cities, very little.

TD informative with a great explanation as usual.
A reminder on topic folks, i never asked about current day status of the outfit there has been many threads, comments, opinions on that. These are gonna be questions about era after accardos death into the 2000s. I say this because upon being re interested in outfit I've even been combing through old gbb threads. The one common denominator with all of them is how quickly they go off topic and devolve into internet bickering. Because of this the questions that have been asked in the past concerning this time period have not been accurately answered, or answered at all.
I am willing to take blinders off , cast off my bias and accept any and all opinions on admin, structure, crews etc.

Happy Thursday.

Thanks and you're welcome, and you are free to ask anything about the Outfit.

yeah TD from re reading a bunch of old chi tribune, suntimes, LIUNA reports, stier anderson teamster reports, as i said old gbb threads, indictments etc from around this time you get the impression that some were on the cusp of figuring out what was going on post accardo, but never hit it on the head. the crime reporters/authors of material seem caught between status quo how the outfit functioned and almost revealing how things have changed. its very cryptic at times as if the authors had a hard time accepting some of the new information. i found it similar to how the journalists from montreal reveal things about mtl mafia, the info is there but its not always obvious.

to carlisi/marcello. most reports and info have marcello as; capo, street boss, #2 or something of the like in relation to carlisi or even, "second highest ranking outfit member in city." next only at this time to underboss john difronzo, circa 1992. and when both carlisi and marcello are indicted in dec 1992 it was for running a street crew, as we know it today the melrose park crew. i can tell you that for someone that came up reading alot about traditional crime families out of east coast mostly this idea was strange to me at first and hard to accept. but chicago was never setup the same as ny et al. the idea of THE BOSS,carlisi also having his own personal crew that was heavily involved at the street level is not something we see in any other crime family outside maybe montreal.

good points on tornabene, he is the ultimate sleeper and most hard to pin down. but his name continues to come up, even in some of those older reports and articles i mentioned, so some were aware of his presence in the outfit.
? is it fair then with the passage of time to put an end to rumor/speculation that tornabene was a member of chicago heights crew? this is where he is placed most often when being mentioned in 1990s era info. it is my belief and others that by the time tornabene became more involved in outfit affairs, the heights crew ceased to exist making this a non starter. it is also my belief that tornabene was a member of the melrose park crew.

Does anybody know if James Marcello was around the Outfit days at Las Vegas. He would had to been in his 20s by the 1960s. He's 80 years now. I got the impression despite being born in 1943 he was around the old timers like the Clown, Spilotro etc

I posted on another thread about the Outfit about the oldest living guys. Can anyone enlighten me on that subject?

Weren't there rumors a few months ago that the Outfit made a lot of younger guys in the last few years, recruits from their traditional farm teams like the C Notes? I could swear I read that somewhere on this forum

Montrose, I myself can't say I saw or read any such story. And I'd pay close attention to who puts put such information. (In order words, consider the source it comes from before accepting it as gospel.)....IMO, it's sounds very questionable.

I have to check my files but i think his father was around during those days who in turn was killed by the Outfit or something like that....

I searched through the forum, it was this article shared by RushStreet that I was referring to: http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1088128&Searchpage=1&Main=43692&Words=%2Bc+%2Bnotes&Search=true#Post1088128

I was off on the timeline, it said "more than two dozen men" were made between 2005 and 2010 and "another batch" in the 2010s.

If it's true then Chicago has at least 30 or so relatively young made guys in their ranks, this puts them above families that are almost extinct like Detroit or Philly imo.

I would ask myself, WHO was the source of this "alleged" information about the Outfit?

...I think thats the first (and most important question, right?) So you can check and validate the "viability" and "legitimacy" of the source.

mafia 101 when then do you think marcello took over as boss?
after carlisi death jan 1997.
after monteleone death jan 2001.

and boss of what ? all the outfit, i guess this would depend what difronzos position is at this time as well.
acting boss/ #1?
boss?

marcello could have been street boss of the south side, as well as melrose park capo 2003-2005, in effect like difronzo and monteleone, 1A, 1B in outfit. clearly at this time the south side was into a lot more rackets than difronzo and company.

and i guess if in this scenario difronzo and his brother pete had already begun to 'retreat' from wanting to be overall leaders in any way making the south/marcello the dominant most active faction of the outfit.

The Boss is the Boss is the Boss. We're talking about a Mafia Family that has a specific hierarchy just as any other so let's use the proper terminology. There's no street crew bosses or any other fantasy structure people have created over the years.

James Marcello took over after John Monteleone passed in 2001. Al Tornebene was his Acting Boss while he was serving time in prison. John DiFronzo was probably never Boss.

Dont remember the source but back in the days someone posted an information that Sarno allegedly kicked up to DiFronzo. Maybe it was some joint operation between EP and Cicero and DiFronzo took his cut, or maybe Sarno simply followed protocol and kicked up to his boss.

so then by your 'fantasy' remarks mafia, you do not believe in the outfit having a different structure and make up then say the colombo crime family?
which is fine and was a question i had posed on another thread asking about this in regards to structure. if anyone were to try to make new accurate charts on the outfit we need to come to an agreement on its structure.

the disagreement about this is the crux of the issue. personally years ago i would have agreed with you to a point, but the more you re read all material on the outfit the more you realize this simply cannot be the case.
take john monteleone for example circa 1994. information from his FBI file backed up by informants, monteleone was around this time;

SOUTH SIDE BOSS
in charge of both 26th street crew as capo and supervising cicero crew led by michael spano sr.

there is also speculation monteleone was also ACTING BOSS of the outfit.
so which family in the US had a similar set up to this? i cannot think of any off the top of my head.

there is also the sticky issue of the fact the outfit never, not once made a boss while he was imprisoned. possible this all changed once accardo died and carlisi was boss. there is good evidence to show that more and more outfit leaders retained control while imprisoned. marcello and frank calabrese sr come to mind.


https://archive.org/stream/183-cg-1622-d-section-2/281A-CG-91205%20---%20Section%201_djvu.txt

a link to monteleones FBI file.

Many higher ups didn't respect Sarno because they thought he was a slob. Thats a fact.

I've never really looked at Sarno as some important figure in the Outfit to be honest.

Absolutely VitoCahill. The Family in Chicago is no different than any other. They have a Boss Underboss Consigliere Captains Soldier and Associates. And also like any other Family they had Associates that's were low level and some who were high level and leaders in their own rights. There's absolutely no difference and I'm sorry but it's insane the debate of their structure is still happened when theres a mountain of evidence telling us this exactly.

It's not impossible for a Captain to retain his crew when given a Acting position. Has happened in other Families. I read that file as the agent or whoever wrote it used boss fairly liberally to indicate who took over certain crews/territories and wasn't actually talking about becoming Boss of the Family. During this time the Acting Boss was Joseph Andriacchi

I don't see what relevance Chicago not making a imprisoned Boss has on whether they were any different. A better question is what examples are there to even question this? Families can go years without filling the Official Boss position or any position for whatever reasons. It doesn't change what the organization is or the structure.

Who becomes boss once Solly D passes away? Who makes the most logical sense?

Andriacchi was never boss, and Vito is right....there was or still is something different about the Chi syndicate. Some ppl need to stop with the same old "boss, underboss, consiglieri" point of view. The reality is different. The old mob wasnt that stupid by having the same structure in every family.

Who would you choose as the next boss for the Outfit? Think about the candidates and then you tell me who would be the best choice to keep this family alive.

Caruso or Cataudella aka the Chinatown-Cicero squad.

Who has the more sound mind right now? Are both mentally fit to be boss?

Toodoped I know you're a big pusher for these made up structures but it's irrefutable that the structure was exactly the same as any other Family. Hell the only Chicago member to testify testified that the structure was Boss Underboss Consigliere Captains Soldiers and Associates. There's no wiggle room to dispute that.

"Made up structures"? Really? Nick C wasnt the only informant and on top of that, he was so low in the game that he probably wasnt able to know on what was really going on in the top admin. You want to tell me that both Ricca and Accardo were consiglieri at the same time for four decades? Also, Ricca never removed Giancana as boss? You also want to tell me that the non-Italians never had a line of succession regarding their rep on the Outfits round table? Also, the Indiana capo was never represented by the Chi Heights caporegime? Really? Or DiVarco saying that Accardo had the last word on who was going to be made or not and made the inductions while Aiuppa was the boss during the 70s? There were different time periods for the Outfit and its structure because of various reasons. How you gonna explain on what happened in 1947 when Accardo became boss and both Ricca and Campagna were released at the same time? What was the structure back then? When was the last time you wrote one huge article with detailed information? Im doing it for more than a decade. Dont get me wrong, but you are completely manipulated by the ppl that you are surrounded. First learn or research and take your time...than you'll be able to understand...i hope

good discussions going here fellas, another question though.

what do we make of john difronzo all these years later?
the building consensus now seems to be that he never served as boss. there has never been any confirmation that he was and putting my long held bias and belief aside im open to any and all thoughts.
first a rough timeline of alleged roles.

JOHN DIFRONZO
UNDERBOSS (1986-1997??)
-i think we can all agree that he became UB after cerones imprisonment, this does not seem to be in dispute. it is also alleged he continued to control the elmwood park crew.

ACTING BOSS (1990-1993??)
-and into the weeds we go, it could be said that with carlisi 'semi-retiring' to florida difronzo could have been considered AB as he was the #1 ranking outfit member in chicago during this time. upon his march 1993 conviction all good info has him stepping back to deal with appeal/legal issues. it is around this time that john monteleone begins to be mentioned as AB. so whether difronzo was ever official AB or not he would at least have retained the position of UNDERBOSS i think.

UNDERBOSS (1994-1997)
-after success of appeal difronzo returned to chicago and i cannot see why he would have vacated UB position.

and now we get into the void....

with the death in january 1997 of BOSS sam carlisi a new BOSS had to be selected, maybe we are not sure. the going belief one that i can agree with is that monteleone took over as BOSS. the circumstances behind this arent as clear. difronzo upon carlisis death was next in line as official UNDERBOSS, it is alleged difronzo declined offer to take over as BOSS, letting monteleone take the big seat. with the many current and ongoing indictments across the outfit this cannot come as a surprise considering difronzos recent legal troubles.

UNDERBOSS (1997-??
SENIOR ADVISOR (1997-??

this poses a couple questions...
upon declining boss role, what position if any did difronzo hold going forward 1997 and on?
did he continue as UB but in a much less active role? perhaps also serving as an advisor to new boss?
i think we can assume that he no longer held any role inside the elmwood park crew. if he did not want to serve as boss i cant see him wanting to continue in any way dealing with the ins and outs of a crew.

if difronzo relinquished the UB role post 1997, who took it over? andriacchi? peter difronzo? al tornabene?
and if no longer UB did he then become a type of senior advisor and technically a made member with no crew, doing mostly legit business with his brother and far removed from outfit activity?

keep the banter going i feel were onto something and any little piece of info helps. there is such a lack of reliable info on the outfit , but as ive said before there is lots of knowledge on gbb.

happy saturday.

@Vito I wont jump to conclusions but instead, Ill use one example from previous situations which might help us to understand on what was going on with DiFronzo...

When Giancana was fully pressured by the government in 1964, sources say that his underboss Frank Ferraro was allegedly next in line to take his position as boss, obviously because during that period Ferraro headed the second most powerful group aka the former Loop/South Side group which also included Chinatown under Skids Caruso and Gus Alex. But since Ferraro died of cancer that same year, the two main candidates were Giancana's old pal and caporegime or "capo squadrone" Sam Battaglia and Accardo's Elmwood Park capo Jack Cerone, and both belonged to the West Side "mob". So, Battaglia became Giancana's new underboss and by 1965/66 Battaglia became the new (acting) boss under Ricca and Accardo. There was also allegedly some friction between Battaglia and Cerone first for the underboss and later for the boss position, but orders were orders mainly because most of the Outfit's leaders, including Murray Humphreys, voted for Battaglia. The main point is that Giancana's Battaglia-Alderisio-Buccieri-Daddono alliance was still quite strong at the time and was still the leading group, meaning they still had the power to demand respect and obedience.

Now, lets look at DiFronzo's situation...he belonged to the Elmwood Park crew and was Carlisi's underboss, and Carlisi belonged to a different crew aka the MP/Cicero group. On top of that, one of the main informants who ALSO confirmed DiFronzo's underboss position was a non-Italian crew boss aka Lenny Patrick, way before Nick Calabrese became an informant (speaking about same knowledge). So, when Carlisi, Marcello, Zizzo and Chiaramonti went to jail, the MP/Cicero crew was "breathing on tubes" but was still alive mainly because of Tornabene's respect within the organization. Since Carlisi's crew was almost powerless to keep the throne out on the streets, the job fell into the hands of the more powerful EP/Grand and Cicero/Chinatown groups. I believe that when DiFronzo beat the case against him, he received even more respect within the Outfit and his close alliance with Cicero/Chinatown crew made him the obvious leader of the organization, hence the reports regarding his alleged decisions such as nixing the street tax so he can lower the heat on the Outfit and also pushing the organization (mostly his own crew) into legitimate enterprises. Also, when Carlisi allegedly ordered a murder contract on DiFronzo's brother regarding that weed case, his older brother was obviously powerful enough to protect him.

Dont forget that the Cicero/Chinatown crew also had their own problems with the law during those days and lost many of their prime leaders and lieutenants, but still remained as the second most powerful crew within the organization (also because of the "deaths" of the former Loop/South Side, North Side and Chi Heights crews). During DiFronzo's reign as Carlisi's underboss, Apes Monteleone was a soldier under the LaPietras (besides being originally from Cicero and also worked with Ferriola and Infelise), meaning he was way lower in the ranks than DiFronzo. Back in the days some researchers speculated that Andriacchi was allegedly DiFronzo's underboss, which reminds us regarding the Giancana/Battaglia situation, but I personally think it was like the previous Giancana/Ferraro admin, meaning Monteleone was DiFronzo's underboss. Same as the previous reports regarding the alleged friction between Battaglia and Cerone for the number two spot, there was also allegedly some friction between Monteleone and Andriacchi regarding that same position and DiFronzo was allegedly smart enough to give it to Monteleone, obviously so he can keep the peace within the organization. Many Outfit leaders in the past struggled to keep the whole organization in one piece and all of them succeeded in their job (especially Ricca and Accardo), and I believe that DiFronzo was one of them and also had the power to demand respect and obedience.

When Carlisi died and Monteleone became the new boss of the Outfit, DiFronzo either went up (same as Ricca or Accardo) or something else happened which we are still not aware of, but one thing is for sure and that is, the EP/Grand crews were still one of the leading groups at the time (even today we have evidence that the old EP crew is still alive with the help of the latest Gagliano case) and they never had further problems with the leading Cicero/Chinatown group, not like the former MP/Cicero crew. Carlisi's death and Monteleone becoming official boss, reminds me of the alleged situation when Giancana was killed back in 1975, the same year when Aiuppa officially became the new boss under Accardo (some sources speculated that Giancana allegedly never officially relinquished his boss position, besides Ricca's alleged decision, obviously until his murder lol). Hope this makes sense.