Thanks @H for your support and also nicely said.

Btw I dont know if you guys ever knew that Scalise served as a technical advisor for the 2009 movie Public Enemies with Johnny Depp lol. This was after the burglary attempt on LaPietras house. Only in the U.S. lol

....in addition, during the 1988 induction ceremony, Pete DiFronzo, Rudy Fratto, Anthony Chiaramonti, Greald Scarpelli and LaPietra/Chinatown crew member Jim DiForti were all made.

Sal DeLaurentis was made the following year or in 1989, possibly together with Scalise, Matassa and others.

Scalise was interviewed several times for his role in that movie - a bunch of those 'behind the scenes' or 'making the movie' documentaries. He talks openly about the feeling of a score. Michael Mann actually had a lot of friends who were serious burglars in Chicago - he had quite a lot of real life influence.

Scalise was also a kid born into wealth - his father was college educated as are his siblings.

You probably remember that Bill Hanhardt also acted as technical advisor for the 1981 movie "Thief". NY mobster Anthony Casso lied that the movie was about his burglary gang, obviously since Hanhardt was from Chicago and used stories from his own burglary crews lol

One of the characters in Thief was based on Chicago's own Ronnie Jarrett.

+1

Yeah James Caan actually hung out on social clubs on Grand Avenue in the early 80s - he was tight with Legs D'Antonio and guys like that - the real people in Handhardt's burglary crew. I knew Sam DeStefano Jr. socially in the 1990s who was in that crew - he told me the movie Heat was based on another Chicago crew. Mann was said to be working on a movie about Accardo - I wonder what ever happened to that. Mann had a real fascination with the Outfit.

I agree and as always, special respect goes to you, and I also wonder on what the hell happened to that flick regarding Accardo...

By the way its very interesting to read that LaPietra was heavily involved in business with the Gambinos in New York. I've always wondered about that and now I come to find out it was in fact true.

It is possible that LaPietra mainly financed the narco deals and also used "middlemen"/associates between him and the Gambinos in NY, meaning LaPietra possibly never had direct contact with the product, and those same "middlemen" had their own crews of "runners" who in turn sold the product on the streets. Mad Sam did the same thing and also other Outfit loan sharks.

TooDoped have you ever heard the transcripts of Angelo LaPietra talking in sicilian to one of the KC guys (Civella I believe?)

No but thanks for the info and so Ill try to find it. During those days it was quite rare for an Outfit guy to speak in Italian. And yes, there were many meetings between the Outfit (Aiuppa, Cerone, LaPietra) and KC (Civella) and there was allegedly some type of problem between Aiuppa and Civella at the time regarding the Vegas scheme, as I already stated in the article.

Speaking about convos between LaPietra and other made guys, heres one interesting convo regarding LaPietra buying a Winchester rifle from Alderisio's guy and Grand Av crew member Sam (Blackie) Cesario....Cesario's name was misspelled as "Spilario"....

Very cool to see. Thank you for posting.

As always, you're welcome

Btw, there are hunderds of interesting convos between LaPietra, Torello, Annoreno, Monteleone etc. but believe it or not I personally dont have the time to go through all of them lol

All those conversations are from the Buccieri investigation into the juice rackets - and a lot of good breaking balls.

Someone posted this about Angelo a little bit ago. Thought I would share...

As a kid, I grew up in Bridgeport, and my mother‘s cousin, somehow was associated with the Italian American club, and the 28th & Wallace reunion one year at Christmas. My sisters were good singers, and my cousin called my mom and said they wanted some kids to come and sing at the club Christmas caroling for the party, we went over there, and my mother pointed him out, he was old at the time, but seemed really nice, patted me on the head and pinched my ear, then gave my mother $1000. My dad was out of the picture, and he knew it. He may be a killer, but that went a long way.

For guys like Ricca it was their first language LaPietra being born in the 1920s would probably be fluent.

LaPietra spoke fluent Italian, his wiretaps with Kansas City prove it. It's very interesting to hear him on those wiretaps because it really makes you realize how much of a real old school gangster he really was. There's extremely very few guys out there today that are alive on the same level as Angelo LaPietra.

Heres one wiretapped convo in which we can see LaPietra speaking in Italian on the phone....



And another one....

....and a third convo in which LaPietra was playing cards with his associates but the feds werent able to identify on who spoke constantly in Italian....

At last, someone gets the reason behind his nickname correct. It's about time. Well done, good article.

That means a lot and thank you very much. Stay tuned for further never released Outfit articles. Cheers

Interesting stuff. Thanks TP

You're always welcome @G and thank you too.

Btw heres another interesting short convo which shows us on how LaPietra worked the "juice" racket....

Yep, "juice" was one of the Outfits biggest and most lucrative rackets...it also became an absolute favorite of theirs.

Two of the largest juice guys in Chicago who don't get enough credit but were essentially the mentors of guys like LaPietra are Frank 'Calico' Teutonico and Joe Rossi. If you go through those transcripts, Rossi and 'Calico' are discussed frequently as being the smartest and crudest with their loans. These guys were ruthless fucks who are burning in hell as we speak.

I always wonder what a heavyweight earner for decades leaves behind in terms of assets and cash. Is there a few bank accounts overseas filled with millions of dollars? Some barrels buried somewhere? A ring of keys to a bunch of properties and businesses that have been acquired and "legit" owned on paper and taxes paid and alla that and passed down to family, not Family? Or does that get absorbed back into the Outfit and the remaining family just looked at as regular square civilians and ignored by the Outfit? They don't take care of member's families after they're out of the picture, whether dead or in jail. I mean, open season on "The Hook's" compound is pretty brazen and disrespectful. Even for someone that was not liked. Unless the people that allowed it to happen were anticipating a nice cut of whatever it was they would find. IF there was something to find.

Nice article! Weird that they always incorrectly say he was called "The Hook" for hanging juice loan victims from meat hooks. I seem to remember reading somewhere that someone had taken some steaks or meat from the fridge at the social club and Angelo would sit in there at night in the dark with a shotgun trying to catch who was stealing the meat. Guy with that much scratch caring that much about some missing meat. I guess the principle of the thing. Never heard that Angelo was a drunk like Jackie, surprised that's not a bigger deal...not good for guys to be getting drunk and possibly running their mouths or making stupid decisions while wasted.

The social club story is true. The culprit that drove Angelo crazy was Rocco LaMantia.