Whats up ladies and gents?! As we are coming close to the end of this year, too, I hope that all of us are still alive and well (even my enemies), and can continue enjoying this forum and the productive chats that we have together, followed by all of the free information on organized crime. That's why, I've decided to "celebrate" the moment by making one singe thread regarding all of the Chicago Outfit articles that I posted during the period of 2023/24. Most of the articles are already on this forum and so Ill only post the links, but for the articles that I personally asked to be deleted from that horrible site, (one of my biggest mistakes in my whole life and I apologize about it) Ill re-post some of them here, including the Angelo LaPietra, Mayor Cermak and the Catering Business articles, followed by the newly updated Hyman Larner project. In fact, Ill start with the Larner article. Also, since we still have several months until the end of the year, I advise you to stay tuned at the GBB forum for more free and never released before information on the Chicago Outfit.
P.S.
For all of those who previously missed the whole “action”, and also for those who never give credit when credit is due, I think now you have enough reading material for at least a year
And now, some of the previously deleted and updated articles. Enjoy, again, and don’t forget to boycott all paywalls and paying sites.
THE OUTFIT’S INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE – HYMAN “RED” LARNER
“He who knows not that the Prince of Darkness is the other face of the King of Light knows not me.”
Chicago is a city with a “disease” which was never cured, “thanks” to some of the symptoms such as the presence of police corruption, widespread gambling and vice, and inefficient and dishonest government. All of these so-called symptoms are caused by the presence of a “virus” known as Chicago’s crime syndicate. When people think of the crime syndicate, they usually form a picture of a room filled with gangsters in grey suits with big cigars, sitting on a large table and decide the faith of the criminal underworld. Well to tell you the truth, that same picture is not very far from the truth but the image of a “perfect” villain is a little bit different. During my research on Chicago’s organized crime for the last 12 years or so, I’ve noticed a different kind of gangster than the rest of the everyday mobsters and criminals. As far as money and power goes, it’s not much different than the rest, but the special ability of pulling strings, convincing people and making things happen with the lowest form of violence, that’s something quite rare to witness. That same type of criminal “puppet master” I believe was the real power behind all of the world’s crime syndicates, no matter his level of status within the organization he belonged to.
Most of us already possess the knowledge about flashy and quite known organized crime leaders such as Al Capone, Charles Luciano or Sam Giancana, probably because most of the mainstream authors are only interested in selling books instead of showing the real faces and picture of organized crime. The general public put its trust in their directives and sadly keeps on buying the same old mainstream historical and criminal culture their whole lives. Because of this mainstream “Mob propaganda”, many people are blinded even to the reality of the existence of the real criminals behind the scenes, who in turn caused the massive criminality. The basic thing or problem in this case is that most of us started with the hunger for knowledge regarding the formal structure and function of the Italian crime syndicates and so as any beginner, most of us had accepted every possible information without questioning it, first. But the most beautiful part of growing up in this so-called “Mob-research business” is the fact that the reality is always far divorced from the official story which was drilled into our heads by every day myths and legends. My point is that virtually every highly organized crime syndicate all over the world, has a secret or shadowy individuals who secretly pull the strings behind the scenes and those same individuals usually operate outside the bounds of the syndicate’s traditional rules and formalities.
For example, Hyman a.k.a. “Hy” a.k.a. “Red” Larner was one of the rare low profile and shadowy criminal figures in the United States underworld’s history. The first moment when he was recognized by the government or the press as an underworld figure, he was immediately labeled by the media as the “Ivy League Mobster", the ”Riddle Man” or “Chicago’s Mystery Man.” At first, Larner was mostly described as a “front man” or “puppet” for other Italian big shots in the so-called Chicago Outfit but I personally believe that this guy was more than that. In fact, I believe that this guy was one of the main international underworld connections between the World’s public officials, secret agencies and above all, America’s Cosa Nostra. Larner was the kind of individual who understood the most lucrative rackets, something which obviously made him a very smart and shrewd person, who during his whole lifetime was always followed by many mysterious situations.
Because he wasn’t Italian, Larner very rarely appeared on any of the government’s Chicago criminal charts but still there are strong evidences and reports that he was involved with the Outfit’s major leagues and also major businesses for a long time period and was also labelled by some informants as one of the Mob’s “higher-ups”. His elusiveness gave him the opportunity to stay in the shadows and to pull some important strings here and there, or maybe he really was just a “puppet” for the leading Italian faction, something which is for you guys to decide.
Hyman “Red” Larner
Hyman Oscar Larner was born on November 4, 1913 on Chicago’s far North Side. His parents Joseph Perry Larner (born 1887) and Annie Ester Atzman (born 1886) previously arrived from Poland in the United States and later settled in Chicago. Since young age or at the age of 15, he was a tall Jewish boy who loved to play sports and his favorite one was basketball, but the problem was that he came from a very poor family who didn’t have the money to support him. So young Larner decided to make some money and started selling flowers on the street corners to young lovers as they passed by. Young Larner never drank or smoked and always kept himself in a perfect condition and that’s how one day he managed to receive a chance to play for his high school team and later received some publicity on the basketball courts. But at the same time many of his young friends dedicated their lives on other things such as crime and so I couldn’t find any detailed info regarding Larner’s criminal beginnings, so I must go way back in the past of Chicago’s underworld, so we can try and understand the circumstances that surrounded young Larner, which in fact brought him into the “Life.”
During the 1920’s, on Chicago’s South Side, the Italian and the Jewish mobsters were in a very close relationship, probably since the beginning of the 20th century, followed by other alliances that included other criminals from different nationalities, like Greek or Irish. So a lot of these mixed-up gangs at the time worked for many political bosses, mostly as “bummers” during elections or union protests, but on the other hand, all of those political bosses couldn’t last a week without the backup of those same violent guys or as the general public calls them “gangsters.”
One of the up and coming gangsters at the time was Jewish racketeer Edward Vogel and this guy was Chicago’s “copy” of New York’s Arnold Rothstein. During the mid-1920’s, Eddie Vogel and his brother William, were two of the most infamous bootleggers and slot machine kings on Chicago’s South Side and the Cicero areas. The Vogels worked with all of the criminal groups, including Italian, Irish, Greek and including their own, the Jewish organization which at the time was still in close alliance with the Italian group headed by John Torrio and Al Capone, but the problem was that they were in war with another “outfit” from the North Side over the lucrative Cicero area, which in fact disrupted Vogel’s main operations.
Edward Vogel
Vogel was a guy with many lucrative business ideas but the problem was that he needed real and strong “muscle” so he can easily achieve some of his goals. Vogel already established most of his operations around the Cicero area and so being the smart guy that he was, he used the 1924 Cicero elections as a “test” on who was going to win over Chicago’s underworld and so later can be used as force regarding Vogel’s future plans. Vogel’s plan started as “peace operation” between some of the warring factions but soon they’ll realize that the effect would be quite the opposite.
The first plan was to unite all of the gangs who had interests around the Cicero area, into fixing the elections and the good thing was that they all knew that if they all played along with Vogel and helped him with the elections, millions of dollars could’ve been made. Vogel also knew that if his choice as “puppet Mayor” was elected, then Cicero would’ve been a wide open territory for gambling, booze and prostitution. Millions were about to be made for all the gangs who played along and some of the leading South Side crews headed by John Torrio already had their own stakes in the bootlegging and gambling businesses in Cicero and now, with the help of one same idea, they all have sent their own reinforcements to help with the elections, including members and enforcers from the Northwest area such as the Dean O’Banion gang and the Sicilian Mafia under Mike Merlo who in turn was one of the main “peacemakers” between all of the warring factions.
Historically, it was one of the most violent elections that ever took place in the city of Chicago. Torrio already had a big vice joint in Cicero but he had no political protection and the joint was closed many times and so it was very important to him that his so-called “satellite” gangs immediately went to work by polling booths with machine guns to see if the local residents "voted right". So the violence continued with cars filled with gunmen who paraded on the streets of Chicago. Few hoods entered the office of Democratic candidate and one campaign worker was shot in both of his legs and held against his will with eight other campaign workers until the elections were over. Also Stanley Stanklevich, another Democratic worker, was kidnapped and again 8 others were held as prisoners.
On February 29, 1924 scenes of gunplay and ferocious fights were the main cause for the brief closure of the elections. That same day gangsters shot up the headquarters of the Democratic candidate for president of the village board. The poor guy fled the scene in panic with bullets whistling at his heels and took refuge in a nearby house and stayed there until the police came to escort him safely to the station. Another incident occurred when the Democratic candidate for town clerk William Pflaum was beaten by six men at his own residence. He was beaten over the head with pistols and then the gangsters fired few shots in the ceiling and then they fled the scene. But some of the people around Pflaum’s residence heard the shots and so they curiously gathered around the house and so when the hoodlums got out, they started punching the curious people with brass knuckles and also with their pistols. Also eight people, including one 14-year old boy, who passed around Democratic flyers on the streets, were severely beaten by unknown hoodlums that same day. So this indicated that the Torrio gang or the North Side mob really joined forces because they did not have the amount of people to do all of these crimes in just one day on their own.
A month later, on April 1, 1924, regarding the elections, Torrio gang members Frank Capone and Charles Fischetti had a clash with the police which resulted with the death of Frank Capone. This became one of the main causes for the big conflict between the Torrio gang and the rest of the other gangs, because some of the high level Torrio gangsters thought that the murder of Frank Capone was one big setup.
Frank Capone
As for Eddie Vogel, by now he stayed in the middle and was very well aware of the problem, but the thing was he didn’t care because in the end he just needed a winner and also a backup for his own greedy needs. You see, in many different cities at the time, the Jewish gangsters were mostly the prime muscle, but in Chicago that job belonged to the Italians so this means that the one who was in alliance with the Italian mob, was the strongest of them all.
And so by the end of 1924, the leader of the North Side faction Dean O’Banion was murdered allegedly by the Torrio faction, also the boss himself, John Torrio was almost killed in the beginning of 1925, allegedly by the North Side group in retaliation for the O’Banion murder. It was a very nasty period, filled with lots of backstabbing, followed by rivers of blood. The conflict became even greater but in the end, the newly formed Al Capone crew was in control over the lucrative Cicero area which became a captive city and Vogel received what he had planned in the first place. Vogel’s main business, besides smuggling booze, was the slot machine business and so from his connection with the new mob in power, he reaped richly from its benefits. He didn’t care on who operated a certain territory, as long as he or she was a friend of the Capone crew, and so he easily placed his machines all over the gambling joints. They had special holes in the walls of the establishment where the slots were placed, and so if the cops entered the joint, small automatic doors immediately closed the holes, thus hiding the machines.
That same year Vogel, with the help of Capone, passed the word along all Western suburbs that he wanted to install slot machines and other gambling devices around the locals. It was the time of Prohibition so he did not expect to have much competition over that same venture, but the problem came from different source. With the spreading of his illegal network, Vogel received a very large illegal income and he started having many government officials on his payroll such as David Morgan who was the Chief investigator for the West Suburban Minister's and Citizens association and the best thing was that the guy loved being on somebody’s payroll.
Morgan also had a share from Vogel’s rackets in Cicero and so one day, for unknown but obviously selfish reasons, Morgan tried to inform the government about Vogel and his associates but the problem with the Mob at the time was that 99.9% of the city cops were under their payroll. There’s of course another side of the story, told by government officials, that one month previous of the shooting, Al Capone declared an ultimatum to the city’s reformers after the numerous attempts with bribes previously failed. So the only way to stop the association’s activities was to eliminate the Chief investigator. What ever was the truth on July 8, 1925, few of Vogel’s underlings found Morgan and placed him on the pavement, meaning he was shot multiple times but miraculously survived and never again said a word against Vogel and his illegal operations.
The slot machine business was a multi-million dollar business, but as I previously said that it was the time of Prohibition of alcohol which was the most lucrative illegal business during that period, and so many of these so-called “small time” businesses remained mostly unnoticed by the law and media. I think that Vogel realized that Prohibition was a huge mistake which was soon going to be corrected, and as for the gambling and slot machine business, he already saw the real future. He wasn’t the only guy, because many mobsters on the East Coast also started getting involved in the same operation.
In 1926, 79 members of the Cicero vice ring were called on a hearing by a federal grand jury for violation of the prohibition laws, which included Al Capone, the O'Donnell and Vogel brothers and even the president of the town Joseph Klenha and Ted Svoboda, the chief of Police. None of the above mentioned showed up.
It wasn’t a coincidence that the U.S. Mob in general became involved in the production of slot machines during the late 1920’s and early 30’s, as exemplified by the business activities of mobsters such as Eddie Vogel. He was now one of the main and big time dealers of slot machines in numerous gambling joints around the Chicago area, but only the ones that were owned by the Capone mob. If the bootlegging business brought almost 60 million dollars a year budget for the Capone crew, then the slot machine business brought smaller amount of at least 5 million dollars a year. Clearly it wasn’t a small amount but compared to bootlegging booze, it really was, and the reason for that was still the limited control of the Capone mob over certain parts of Chicago which was the South Side, Cicero and the West Side. But still, I believe that a big part out of the alleged 5 million dollar budget went right into Vogel’s pockets.
In 1930, Chicago racketeers Ted Newberry, Jake Guzik, Dennis Cooney, Peter Fusco, Paul Ricca, Eddie Vogel and Chicago’s Mafia representative Salvatore Loverde, all took a train to New York allegedly to watch a boxing match. But on their way, the train was stopped by the police and ordered the gangsters out. The cops also found a briefcase which contained $60,000 on which the gangsters planned to place a bet on the Sharkey-Schmeling fight. Later they were all released. By now Vogel was a very rich guy and has made its mark mostly on the new slot machine and gambling industry and embodied the fundamental nature of the Chicago Mafia racketeering style.
The early 1930’s presented the beginning of the Great Depression and being a basketball player and selling flowers wasn’t much of a choice and so Larner also started selling ice cream bars and eventually got involved in the selling of penny peanut machines. He started visiting all of these taverns and shops along the Northwest Side and in 1930, he had the pleasure to meet a local gambling and coin machine operator known as Matt Kolb. The young and tall Jewish kid allegedly asked the senior gangster if he wanted to buy some of his machines and Kolb agreed but he had other ideas for the tall boy. In addition, Kolb was allegedly in alliance with the Touhy gang which in fact was in war with Capone and all of his allies.
At the time Kolb owned almost all of the gambling joints on the Northwest Side and he was also involved in numerous other legal and illegal businesses and so he introduced young Larner with the slot machine business. At first Larner began working as a collector for the slots and became quite successful, obviously because of his physical appearance. But the problem was that by 1931, the Capone gang ruled supreme over the city of Chicago and so was Eddie Vogel. After the St. Valentines Day Massacre back in 1929, in 1931 the North Side crew came also under the rule of the Capone family. But even that wasn’t enough for the rising mob, so instead Capone had a thorn in his eye which was the Northwest area and Kolb, who in turn was one of the main obstacles.
Matt Kolb
Kolb was a guy who operated more than 150 joints, which was a multi-million dollar operation so if Vogel had the chance to place his machines around Kolb’s joints, it would’ve been a very lucrative operation for the young Jewish mob boss. But every time Vogel’s people came to place their slot machines around the area, all of the owners refused. Jake Guzik, the leader of Capone’s non-Italian group, allegedly personally tried to sweet talk Kolb into changing his mind. But things went on halt when in 1931 Chicago Mafia boss Al Capone was indicted of income tax evasion. But the problem was that things weren’t on halt at all because that same day Matt Kolb was killed at his speakeasy gambling club, the Club Morton on the corner of Dempster and Ferris Road. The shooting suspects were George Barker and Capone’s underboss Paul Ricca.
After Kolb's death, all of his slot machine operations and operators came under the rule of Eddie Vogel and the Capone mob. In fact, this was a major push for Vogel and his slot machine empire in Chicago and a new beginning for young Hyman Larner. The slot machines that were built during this period usually had a payback of about 50% when they weren’t bugged. When half the money you feed in its retained, it doesn’t take long before the machine had it all. And when the bug was used, you lost even faster. It was this type of machine that was called the “one-armed bandit”. Now, to place the lucrative “one-armed bandit” all around the Chicago area, you had to own a huge army of street enforcers and collectors for the job. So I believe that this is the right time period for Hyman Larner to be transferred from the Northwest to the Cicero area and South suburbs and got involved in the illegal activities of the Jewish faction of the newly formed Chicago Outfit.
During his teenage years, Hyman Larner was a thin boy with red hair and a high pitched voice, but besides that he was a tall tough kid. Besides working as slot machine distributor and collector, Larner was also hired to descend on political or union gatherings of rival candidates that opposed the Outfit. Larner’s sole purpose was orchestrating a disruption by using bone-breaking tactics with fist fights and in some cases even a murder. In the end many of these young enforcers usually ended up in a hospital or in worst cases, at the morgue.
The infamous “one-armed bandit”
So Vogel used the same enforcers who collected his street tax on the machines, also in the election dealings. On April 12, 1932, it was another one of the most violent election days in the history of Chicago. More than 40,000 cops were watching to prevent fraud and organised terrorism during the election. Again, there was few shootings, few kidnappings, and countless street fights which resulted with more than 100 street hoodlums being arrested. Young Larner, together with numerous other hoodlums, was recruited and armed with machineguns and baseball bats to “keep the peace” at ballot boxes during the elections. Vogel was quote influential so it wasn’t hard for him in finding “fresh meat,” or in other words finding young hoodlums with criminal brains. Maybe Vogel also saw something else in Larner besides his ruthlessness, and that was the ability to hide his real nature, which was the main thing in succeeding in the “dirty” business.
By constantly visiting these various and numerous gambling joints around the Chicago area, Larner met a lot of high profile Outfit mobsters such as Rocco Fischetti who operated Cicero’s Rock Garden Club. Fischetti, sometimes known as Ralph Fisher, has been in charge and in control of this large gambling establishment and young Larner always came on the right time to take his boss’ cut. Larner also met Frankie Foster, a Chicago gangster who operated illegal gambling for many years and was a very close friend of Vogel. Foster was considered as one of Chicago's toughest mobsters during the decade of the 1930's and was one of the men involved in the infamous Alfred Lingle killing. Also Nathan Hornstein, close partner of Vogel in the slot machine racket, who also became one of Larner’s mentors.
So young Larner besides working as a collector and also being involved in political violence, he was now given several illegal gambling operations by just placing Vogel’s slot machines and after a while, with the help of his new contacts, he forced many new local owners to pay tribute to the Outfit. Larner knew how to deal with all independent slot operators who tried to muscle in on the Outfit’s territory, for example throwing acid on their machines or in rare examples, in their faces. Soon the slot machines represented only a portion of the businesses that Ed Vogel controlled, and became the foundation of other future lucrative activities. This situation gave Larner the opportunity to created his own family and in 1935, he married Myrtle Redman and the following year they received their first child or son Morton Sheldon Larner.
By the late 1930’s, the U.S. mob already placed its foothold in Miami, Florida, and a lot of gangsters opened their own joints, private houses and operated many illegal operations. A Miami grand jury once reported that "in much of the city, residents and tourists alike could find numerous street machines and other gambling devices." Mob bosses such as New York’s Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello or Chicago’s Ed Vogel, Ralph Capone and Jake Guzik already sent their own men and oversaw their gambling machine operations in Miami. So I believe that Larner was probably one of those young “enforcers” who expanded the gambling machine rackets and became one of the Outfit’s representatives in Florida, since there are records from that period regarding he visiting that same area.
There are also reports from many young mobsters at the time who regularly met with Meyer Lansky, and many old mob historians say that Lansky was the “financial brain” behind these operations but I look at him more as a leader of his own group which was in alliance with the Italian faction. Yes, he knew how to gamble and how to extort, but by the end of day his main success were his Mafia connections. The Italians gave him physical security for their establishments and also gave him their financial back up. The Chicago Outfit and Lansky's organization started a good working relationship and by this time I believe that most of the young gangsters such as Larner were ordered to watch closely over the Jewish crime boss, while being in the Florida area.
Through Miami, the U.S. Mob already had its own smuggling routes to Cuba and many of the national crime families had their own shares in the Havana hotels and casinos. The Chicago Outfit had its shares in few hotels and casinos in Havana and so wherever the Chicago mob owned gambling joints, Vogel’s gambling machines were always present. As additional info, the West Side faction of the Chicago mob had its own smuggling routes from Cuba since the earliest days of Prohibition and so they had their own top representatives in the country. In fact, the mob never stopped using their smuggling operations since the days of Prohibition.
So with the help of these so-called old smuggling routes, Vogel and Larner started smuggling slot machines in and out of the country, big time. Besides the slots, they also got involved in smuggling tobacco and white slavery or prostitution. Hundreds of prostitutes were smuggled from Cuba into the U.S. or the other way around thus forming a multi-million dollar prostitution ring out of elite hotels and casinos in and out of the U.S.
The Chicago faction of America’s La Cosa Nostra was the main group involved in the prostitution racket and was mainly controlled by the Jewish criminals such as the Guzik crew and Ed Vogel. As additional info, allegedly the term “white slavery” was first used in 1830’s by English reformers in reference to East End Jewish pimps in London, England.
By 1940, Larner also started working at Vogel’s Scully Warehouse and Express Company at 8105-9 Cicero Avenue but in May, 1940, the government decided to strike the Cicero crew and arrested their capo Ralph Capone. Capone was arrested by the police on gambling charges but during his interrogation he was asked if he ever heard of deals about slot machines with the Vogel brothers or any of their associates such as Hyman Larner. As usual the Cicero boss claimed that he did not know anything about the slot machines, Larner or Vogel for that matter. The cops had a good reason to ask such a question since they received information about Vogel’s involvement in certain conflicts in the Melrose Park area and they knew that the Jewish slot machine King worked for Capone. So on May 24, 1940, County highway police seized 105 slot machines in a raid on Vogel’s warehouse and another 95, in taverns that were also owned by the Jewish mob boss.
Now, the slot machines were in fact coin machines right?! And so the same manufacturers of the slot machines started producing new type of coin machine, which was purely for entertainment, and that was the famous and musical jukebox machine. So this was a whole new operation and Vogel dabbled in jukeboxes, meaning he planned to distribute all over different neighborhoods around the Chicago area and would lease it to the bars and other various establishments. The jukebox racket came to out be a very lucrative operation because it was followed, or in other words, it was connected to another very lucrative racket. What does any jukebox need… a record right?! So now the mob also supplied the LPs for the machines, as well as the service to maintain the jukeboxes. The mob would also make copies of recordings and sell them at bargain-basement prices, or in plane words, they started bootlegging records.
So on August 28, 1940, there was a takeover in Chicago’s Melrose Park regarding the jukebox business which was led by Vogel in partnership with the Italian crime boss of that area, Rocco De Grazia. Vogel dispatched his prime lieutenant Larner to burn and smash their rival’s machines. Two truckers of the Universal Automatic music corporation were kidnapped and also several beatings occurred during the conflict. When the “smoke cleared,” Vogel has claimed Melrose Park as his own gambling territory. With Larner’s help, Vogel also expanded his jukebox machine business in Skokie, Illinois and Des Moines, Iowa, since the two areas were already under the Outfit’s “thumb”. According to some reports, in 1941, the government estimated that the coin machine operations of the Chicago Outfit made an amount of 8 million dollars a year (or 140 million dollars in today’s money), which means that at the age of 28, Hyman Larner made his first really big fortune.
But with all of the “glory”, sooner or later the watchful eye of the government always comes along. So one day while smuggling coin machines through out the country, in 1941 Larner was arrested for the first time in Little Rock, Arkansas, for possessing a gaming device and was fined $316.90 and was also sentenced to serve 30 days in jail. This was the first and also the last conviction that Larner ever received during his life time. He faithfully served his bosses and eventually went high up in the ranks of the non-Italian faction of the Chicago Outfit which by now was still headed by Jake Guzik, but in the eyes of the law, Larner was still just another and low level smuggler, wrecker, and a general law-breaker.
During the mid 1940’s Vogel had an idea for placing a new item and that was the cigarette machines, again in all of the Outfit controlled establishments in Chicago and around the country. Legend goes that the original idea came from or was caused by the government’s idea to ban all gambling devices around the country. So the main manufacturers made some new and creative alterations to evade the law. The trick was when the “player” dropped a nickel and pulled the handle, a candy or a bubblegum or a pack of cigarettes dropped out, thus turning the slot machine into a vending machine.
By now the Chicago Mob was involved in all kinds of vending machines, from candy and soda to coffee and condom machines. According to some reports, the cops realized that Vogel’s crew was also dealing with contraceptives and distributed machines which dispensed condoms, mainly in hotels, bars, dancehalls and clubs and so Vogel was referred to as “Birth Control Eddie” by the cops and media.
Chicago’s “King of Slots” Ed Vogel
The cigarette vending machine business was a huge success. With Larner’s smuggling connections, there was no problem in importing Cuban tobacco and cigarettes into the U.S. but the thing was that they first had to pay for their shipments in advance, and so the mob’s first job was to return their previously invested cash, and later to make something extra. So why bother? Instead, Larner got involved in hijacking trucks filled with cigarettes along the nation’s highways. Placed in Vogel’s vending machines, each pack of stolen cigs offered a 100% profit and so again, another very lucrative operation brought a lot of cash for the Outfit and a new big fortune for Larner. Two other top members of the Outfit that were involved in the same kind of racket were the boss and underboss Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana.
By definition Vogel’s crew was a small group made out of shady businessmen and Outfit members, and since their main goal was semi-legit income, they mostly financed business that they thought was the best for them and the organization in general, and so they mostly stayed in the shadows, thus leaving the work to few guys, including Larner, to deal with the problems on the streets. Larner wasn’t some violent guy but instead he was a very calm person, who in a whispering tone would tell the ones that refused him, that they would never see the light of day ever again.
Besides Vogel’s brother William and Larner, few of Vogel’s othet lieutenants were Sam Greenberg and Tony Fragassi who originally came from Evanston and was considered by law enforcement as member of the Chicago Outfit. In January, 1947, William Vogel, Fragassi, Skokie's village president John Wuerth, and four of his trustees, including Harry Hoffman, Carl Bennett, William Permer, Peter Conrad and also Chief of Police Ted Heinz, were indicted for operating slot machines in Skokie, Illinois.
William Vogel
Anthony Fragassi
In fact, the real problem was the sudden appearance of gambling and vending devices around Chicago and Illinois, especially in Skokie, just before the county-wide election. Story goes that the Democratic chieftains, who were in control of the law enforcing machinery, had sent out the "word" so as to replenish the party war chest for the election. So during the trial, the Chief of Police “sang” a little bit by confessing that he took bribes and passed them on to some of his colleagues at the police department. Two of the indicted trustees also talked.
But in the end on May 13, 1947, shady Judge John A. Sbarbaro, also known as the “Mob’s Undertaker” because he arranged all of the funerals for many gangster big shots from the previous Prohibition era, freed William Vogel and all of the indicted in the conspiracy. This was a blow to the face for the government and justice in general and so first on the list was Cicero’s former assistant state's attorney Frank Christensen who allegedly opposed the gambling and coin machine rackets in the Cicero area. But this wasn’t the government’s list, but instead it was the Outfit’s “hit” list. In April, 1949, two assassins sprang from ambush as Christenson was crossing the street to his home. Suddenly one of the assassins shouted "Get into this car, you!” and after that a rapid burst of 10 to 12 shots followed, and Christenson fell on a sidewalk near the door of the building. The poor guy was shot eight times in the head, chest, back and arms and died on the way to the Loretto Hospital.
This was an obvious mob hit, and it was allegedly sanctioned by the Fischetti brothers Charles and Rocco, and also Ed Vogel. Another incident was the kidnapping attempt of another former politician and Cicero village president John Stoffel. The guy used to hunt down Cicero gamblers but one day out of nowhere decided to quit and got away with a warning. In addition, since the early 1920’s many of Chicago’s crime syndicates were known for killing public officials with the blink of an eye.
You see in all of these previous indictments and conflicts, we cannot notice Larner’s name and that’s because he probably and successfully flew under the government’s radar. I cannot find one single article or sign of suspicion regarding Larner’s criminal activities during this time period, and yet by the late 1940’s the guy lived like a “King”. Larner owned two restaurants and a mortgage company in Chicago and also had interest in four oil wells in Texas and steel companies and other investments such as real estate in Indiana and Milwaukee. He made over $100.000 a year only for himself and had a big apartment in Chicago at 3430 Lake Shore Drive, and also another huge apartment in Skokie, Illinois.
By 1950, the Outfit’s administration gave Larner his own territory in which he operated freely and that was the small town of Oak Forest in the Southwest section of Cook County, an area which I believe was under the control of Cicero’s Rocco Fischetti. Story goes that Larner deeply corrupted the police force and the whole village administration. For example, the chief of police Oliver Christenson and the rest of his officers were involved in gambling, burglary and even peddled pornographic movies. Larner’s headquarters was the Crossroads Tavern at 15301 Cicero Av., and was constantly seen in the company of chief Christenson and other village officials. He even controlled two more taverns in that same area, the Hilltop at 15400 Cicero Av., and Ten Pin Lounge, 6119 150th St., which were a front for gambling operations. As additional info, by the mid 1950’s Larner spread his operations around Calumet Park, Thornton and Markham, Illinois, and he probably shared his income with the Italian capo who controlled those same areas, Frank LaPorte, who in turn was closely connected to Vogel and Larner in the same coin machine racket since “day one”.
Larner also managed to gather another crew of paid enforcers mostly formed by small time ex-convicts, burglars and extortionists. One of these guys was Jim Rini, also known as the “Green Hornet.” Rini was a street-level ruthless Chicago criminal who was responsible for a lot of burglaries, extortions, car thefts and was also a suspect in few mob hits. He also controlled a small band of low level criminals and there was a story that once he did more than 20 crimes in just one night.
Two other associates were Frank Mustari, another suspected killer who was involved in many hijackings and also Alex Ross, a huge ruthless enforcer and official killer for the Outfit. Mustari was the cousin of Sam Rinella, a known Capone member from back in the days. Now all of these guys had an extensive criminal reputation in Chicago as being what was known as outstanding ruthless con men. Once Rini, Mustari and two of their associates Robert Furey and Angelo Divito, once were arrested with a list of 100 prostitutes, suspected of organizing a racket to smuggle the prostitutes out of the country. With out a doubt, this was a syndicate operation operated by Larner and Vogel in connection with the “First Ward” crew headed by Jack Guzik and his Greek protégé Gus Alex. In fact, by now Vogel still answered to his non-Italian representative on the Outfit’s board of directors, Jake Guzik who in turn was grooming Alex to take his place in near future. This situation also created close collaboration between Vogel, Larner and Alex.
Jim Rini
Alex Ross
Angelo Divito
This crew of extortionists, collectors and hitmen was also often hired by the Chicago Heights crew under Jim Ammarati and LaPorte and also by other crews from around the Northwest area, such as the Willie Daddono and Ross Prio crews, and all of these groups had their own deals with Vogel regarding the slot and vending machine operations. For example, one Vogel’s and Larner’s close associate was Francis Curry, crew boss of the Joliet area and associate of the Chicago Heights mob. Curry and Larner were given permission to operate their machines in Will County but paid tribute to the Chicago Heights crew administration.
Another example is when Dennis Kelly who was a union delegate and Chicago Outfit associate, one day he allegedly decided to move on some of Curry’s and Larner’s gambling operations so he was shot by a few shotgun blasts but managed to survive. Both Vogel and Larner knew that all of the bloodshed wasn’t good for their business operations so the two Jewish gangsters decided to spread their multi-million dollar income in a different way, and also to go up within the corrupt upper world. They also realized that there was a frequent and unsubstantiated link between some of the manufacturers of coin-operated vending and game machines and the Chicago Outfit. They knew that jukeboxes, pinball and vending machines were the domain of their organization and so by placing their machines in protected businesses, the Outfit shared the take with the manufacturer. This deal was in fact followed by one huge or massive corruption.
Francis Curry
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
By the mid 1950’s Ed Vogel became the real owner of the Apex Amusement Corporation and also secretly owned the Globe Distributors through one of his associates Charles Johnson. Both companies were housed in the same building and the Globe was the supplier to Apex for all kinds of vending machines and so by 1955, as a convenience to Vogel, his associates Johnson and Roger Rudnick formed the Skill Amusement Company to supply the Apex Corporation. As vice president of the Skill company, the Outfit placed none other than Hyman Larner.
Later both Vogel and Larner had another lucrative idea to open another of their own Outfit-controlled association and to gather all of the coin machine operators, manufacturers and distributors under their rule and the idea was gladly approved by the top boss of the Outfit, Paul Ricca. So in December, 1955, the gangsters created the Chicago Independent Amusement Association or the CIAA with Larner at the top. They saw a quick success because in the beginning of 1956 the association has grown steadily and their membership numbered almost 100 companies and distributors, and this was allegedly over one third of the total industry in the city of Chicago. Larner seldom appeared at the association’s offices and conducted most of his business deals through telephone calls.
The association also made arrangements to work together with the Recorded Music Service Association and the jukebox operators and distributors. Again, Vogel placed Sam Greenberg as president of the association and Hyman Larner as its executive secretary and general manager. Larner played it very smart by changing his name into “Thomas Waterfall” and managed to hide his real identity, which was a very good tactic in confusing the government, at least for a while.
The association also had dealings with the Local 134 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a racket union which was headed by long time Outfit associate Tom “Jukebox” Smith. In the end it was Larner who decided that Local 134 should join in and pay tribute. The association also handed out union labels to be placed on every machine but in reality there wasn’t any union contract. Plus, the new operators could not get in the union unless they had a label on their machines from the Electrical Workers Union. Of course, if someone refused a union label box, that same joint would suffer electrical problems from “unknown” origins.
The dues in the association were upped almost 600% and of course no money from the dues ever found its way to the legitimate union members. The thousands of dollars received by the association from $1 tax a month on each machine were given to Larner and then he split the rest with Vogel and the Outfit’s bosses. Local 134 was also like a sponsorship for the association which was obviously a private deal between Vogel, Smith and Larner. So now old time boss Vogel became head of the Apex Amusement Company and pulled the strings from the shadows. Through violence and intimidation, they forced many operators to join their union and association and every operator paid from 1 to 10 dollars per machine, weekly and if someone didn’t pay up, he or she was visited by guys like Jim Rini or Alex Ross.
Rini and Ross were hired by Local 134 as “union inspectors” and were paid $150 a week. Larner’s associates usually entered a joint and said that they cannot have machines from different companies in that same joint. So they gave the owners a card from the CIAA, with the name and number of “Thomas Waterfall” (Larner). These guys made so much terror around Chicago and also spread a lot of fear among coin machine operators. Once Rini poured down so much acid over some slot machines that the acid dripped down on the electric wiring and short circuited the power and blew the electric door of the joint. It was a mess but in the end millions of dollars in coins still poured down over Vogel and Larner.
And just to make things even better, two Outfit members, the Inglesia or English brothers Charles and Sam secretly owned the Lormar Distributing Company, which was mainly involved in the making of jukebox records. So the English brothers and Larner forced all of Chicago’s jukebox operators to buy records from their company. They were also selling counterfeit vinyl and had a monopoly in Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states around the country.
It was a beautiful scheme and during this period there was a constant cash flow into Larner’s pockets. And just like in the movies, again the “dark overlord” Hyman Larner dispatched his minions to further spread his lucrative coin machine empire. But the problem was that those same “minions” started to attract too much heat from the government by getting too often arrested by the cops, a situation which made Larner very angry.
For example, Ross, Rini, Mustari, and another Outfit guy Frank Eldorado, were arrested by Maywood police in a truck containing 3 pinball machines hijacked from Des Plaines businesses. At the station, Ross asked the cops to call the Crossroads Tavern at 159th & Cicero, Oak Forest, and to notify "Red"(Larner) of their arrest. So allegedly Larner gave the bond money to Outfit capo Willie Daddano to bail the hoods out.
Also in June, 1957, Willard Bates the owner of the Rio Vista tavern, who refused to pay tribute to Larner’s association, was instantly visited by Alex Ross who in turn was told to “F*ck off”. So one morning, Bates woke up and prepared for work. As he neared his car, which was parked in front of his home in Brookfield, suddenly his Doberman dog named “Princess” started barking. The dog’s warning caused Bates to draw his gun and when he opened the door of the car, the dog jumped and caused the man who was hiding in the back seat of the car to shoot at the dog. That gave a chance for Bates to shoot the man right between the eyes. Than two other guys rushed from the nearby parked car with their guns blazing at Bates, but his dog rushed them, again giving Bates the opportunity to fire back so the two men retreated and fled with their car. The two men were Jim Rini and Ross and the dead gunman was identified as Frank Mustari.
Larner was allegedly quite furious at Rini and Ross because first they screwed up a simple job, which was to kill Bates, and then they lost one of their own, something which instantly connects them to the murder since the victim was their known associate. But even with that, that gangster mentality took over their thoughts and so four months later, on October 1, 1957, Will Bates was gunned down by several shotgun blasts in front of his house and Larner was never suspected of being involved directly in the murder. As additional info, Frank Mustari's widow, Ruth, later re-married with one infamous Chicago Outfit hitman known as Harry Aleman.
Larner’s biggest problem was the media, which I personally believe was the real enemy of organized crime at the time. Back during the late 1920’s and early 30’s, William McCabe was an ex-County State’s Attorney and later became a part owner of a newspaper called “The Spectator”, which was a weekly newspaper that actively crusaded against gambling and coin machine operations of the Outfit. So McCabe decided to run for committeeman in the Forty-Sixth Precinct but the problem was that shortly after he was kidnapped, stabbed, beaten and shot but miraculously managed to survive. Later McCabe claimed that he was attacked by Outfit henchmen for refusing to withdraw from the elections. He eventually recovered and remained as the main shareholder of the weekly Spectator but gave daily control of the newspaper to his partner, Amelia Molly Zelko who in turn continued the strong crusade against the Outfit’s gambling and coin machine operations.
By the late 1950’s Molly Zelko started supporting the election of candidates to the city counsel who voted to outlaw vending machines, which became a big problem for the Outfit. Miss Molly even started sending reporters and photographers to investigate all gambling houses around the South suburbs, including Cicero. She was even “obsessed” in finding out on who was responsible for the attack of her business partner William McCabe back in 1948. She also hired private investigators which were driving past the local mob bosses’ homes on a regular basis, who were writing down license plate numbers of their cars which were parked in front of their homes. Story goes that Molly was getting close in finding out on who had orchestrated the attack.
Zelko was often warned by her friends and family regarding her dangerous job and all of the enemies she made were by writing about mobsters and crooked politicians. She also received many threatening letters but still she continued with her work. The main mistake was while writing crime stories, Zelko came across a name which was allegedly running the whole vending machine action in Chicago and went by the name of Red Waterfall a.k.a. Hyman Larner.
The evening on August 5, 1957, Molly Zelko was attacked and kidnapped while she was entering her car in front of her home. Her shoes were found kicked off on the sidewalk and her car keys were in their usual place underneath the driver’s seat, which tells us that she was attacked as soon as she entered the car. A woman or neighbor who lived nearby Zelko’s house said that she looked out the window after 12pm the night Zelko disappeared as she was waiting for her husband and saw four men with a black car removing a bundle from the back of the car, she then saw a human arm fall out and realized it was a human body. Story goes that the hit was orchestrated by Vogel, Larner and Francis Curry with the jurisdiction of Italian Outfit capos, William Daddano and Frank LaPorte. Zelko’s body was never found and her murder remains a mystery even today. Later her business partner William McCabe allegedly died of natural causes in August, 1958.
The main suspect in Molly’s disappearance was James Rini because he allegedly confessed to the FBI that he was one of the kidnappers. Even though his “fantastic” confession was viewed with skepticism by Chicago authorities, still Rini had Robert Kennedy and his boys digging up alleged graves all over Southern Cook County farm fields, looking for Molly's grave but they found nothing. The problem was that the feds caught Rini lying by stating that one of the kidnappers was Frank Mustrari, the guy who was killed three months before the vanishing of Zelko. Story goes that Rini made up the story so the authorities would reduce his previous sentence for providing vital information. If you ask me I do believe in Rini’s involvement in the kidnapping and also the murder of Zelko, but the poor guy probably had some type of story which was unbelievable, and during the process he made himself and the FBI a laughing stock in the eyes of the public.
During the 1950s, the Chicago Outfit turned its attention mostly on the West Coast or to be precise, Las Vegas, Nevada. Since gambling was legal in this particular state and since the casinos were legitimate places for a gambling device, both Vogel and Larner “detected” another very lucrative opportunity to expand their slot machine business. At first the income of the slot machine business was on second place since the real sources of income were the table games and roulettes, but it was not long before the slot machines became the significant source of income for their casinos. They reported large income from the vending and slot machines to cover the illegally earned income, or showed less income from the gambling operations that were actually received, in order to avoid paying taxes on that same income and to payoff investors who were not on the corporate rolls. This operation made a lot of cash for the Outfit in general and the Chicago boys became the prime force around Las Vegas.
Business was booming for Hyman Larner and so the “gangster tycoon” decided to open his own oil firm which was called the Salinas Basin Development company with its headquarters in a building at 165 E. Ontario and at the same place he also he had another office for the amusement association. Larner operated the oil firm under the alias “Edward Jarvis” and he used his real name only when he made private oil investments, for example in Texas or Nebraska. He had two partners in those investments, businessman Rue Manken, who was also involved in the amusement association and also another “gangster tycoon” and Cosa Nostra capo Ross Prio.
Larner also had a partner in his real estate empire known as Isadore Blumenfeld, a Jewish gangster and racketeer from Minnesota who was a real genius regarding organized crime in Miami Beach and Havana, Cuba. Besides his apartments in Chicago and Skokie, Larner also bought a $50,000 house in Miami, Florida and also owned six cars, two Cadillacs and three Mercurys and another unidentified car which he rented for $1.000 per day and in the end he also bought two 27-foot yachts. Larner was living high and in fact there were only two guys within the Outfit that lived like this, and they were Paul Ricca and Tony Accardo, the Outfit’s top bosses.
Photo of Larner’s house in Miami, Fla.
There was another darker side of Larner’s personality, which during the late 1950’s started to manifest as being one quite aggressive guy, something which brought him into the higher ups of the Mob. The first reason occurred back during the late 1940’s, when Israel was fighting for independence against the Arabs, Meyer Lansky and the rest of the U.S. Jewish gangsters allegedly held a fundraiser and through the New York’s docks and also through Miami, Florida, they smuggled weapons to Israel to help their Jewish friends in the conflict. In reality, it was an operation in which the mobsters sold most of the weapons and of course made a lot of money, so years later the new order of the Chicago Outfit headed by Sam Giancana used the same tactics and also expanded their smuggling operations in another and different conflict.
During the mid 1950’s the Cuban government started having problems with communist rebels and their leader Fidel Castro. Both sides needed financial backup and of course weapons. At first the U.S. Mob backed President Fulgencio Batista, mostly with the profits from the casinos in Havana, but on the other hand they also backed the rebels, mostly with food and weapons supply. This means that the U.S. Mob made money both ways.
Larner allegedly had more than few corrupted U.S. Army officials in his back pocket, and so the Outfit allegedly started stealing weapons from their army bases and than smuggled everything in Cuba and sold it either to the Cuban government or the Cuban rebels. Many corrupt public officials and secret agencies also saw profits from the operation because at the same time, they started spreading paranoia among all U.S. citizens with the help of the alleged rising communist force in Cuba and that they didn’t need a communist country near the U.S. borders. So they thought that if they helped in the Cuban conflict, the winning group will be on their side. But in reality they wanted the conflict to go on because it meant more profits.
Story goes that the Central Intelligence Association or the C.I.A. already got wind of the situation and approached the U.S. Mob. the main Mob “agents” for the C.I.A. were Santo Trafficante Jr. from Tampa, Florida, Carlos Marcello from Dallas, and Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Richard Scalzetti a.k.a. Cain, and Hyman Larner from the Chicago family. In fact, Roselli was allegedly the first guy who was approached by the C.I.A.
Rumors started to spread out that not all bosses were happy about the CIA-Mob connection, especially the Outfit’s top boss Paul Ricca who in turn represented the old guard and also respected the old rules against the government. In fact, it was Ricca who years earlier brought in these rising members such as Giancana and Roselli, so it was probably uncomfortable for him to be directly connected to these individuals who in turn decided to collaborate with the government. Their tasks and jobs were mainly on the same level as the dirty work which they committed on daily basis, meaning they were not giving any information about their criminal syndicate but instead, they collaborated with the government against certain individuals and other country regimes. So my personal opinion is that even though old man Ricca was right, still in the eyes of the younger generation of members this was a huge opportunity for their criminal careers. In fact, as I already stated, there were also other bosses such as Trafficante and Marcello who were probably backed by some of the New York crime families regarding that same venture.
Cuba, or to be specific, Havana was very important for the U.S. Mob and also for the American business elite in general because every single one of them had invested a large portion of their cash in that same country, for example in hotels, casinos and other various enterprises. But things went really wrong when Castro's guerrillas increased their attacks on Batista’s military outposts, forcing the government to withdraw and by the spring of 1958, the rebels controlled some hospitals, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory.
Batista was under increasing pressure and as a result of his military failures, the CIA and the Mob ceased supplying him with weapons because they obviously saw on who was going to win the war. And so Batista was warned and fled into exile with over US$ 300,000,000 on 31, December 1958 and so Castro took over the country and now the Mob, the CIA and America’s business elite, thought that they also had Castro in their own pocket but they thought wrong. Castro turned his back at them and closed every casino and business enterprises, legal or illegal. Most of the American mobsters and businessmen fled Cuba and some were imprisoned by the new Castro government but the biggest problem was that all of the mobsters who invested a big part of their money in Cuba, realized that their investments were lost forever.
So the CIA wanted Castro dead but the Mob thought otherwise. The CIA wanted the Mob to orchestrate the assassination of Castro but the thing was that nobody moved a finger. The gangsters received money from the CIA but every time they tried to kill Castro, they “allegedly” failed or in other words they swindled the CIA and extorted money from the government. The infamous CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro were pure failure because the Mob knew that if they killed Castro, they still won’t get their casinos back because all of the people in Cuba now supported their leader and his ideals. They were still going to have terrorist attacks, which was bad for their business. Maybe the Mob still had faith in Castro but that faith slowly faded away and life went on because they continued to operate their other illegal operations which were on American soil, and also in other countries around the world.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the CIA had engaged with members from the Outfit because of their Havana contacts, and also for their smuggling operations. The Outfit and the CIA recruited Spanish speaking volunteers who were sent to South Florida and Central American CIA training camps specializing in guerrilla warfare/commando tactics. by now guys like Larner and Richard Cain became emissaries between Cuban contacts, secret government officials and their fellow gangsters, which in fact I believe it was a big push for Larner and his criminal career.
During the process Larner also made many connections close to various top government people from all around Central America. He passed a portion of the Outfit’s profits from the coin machine racket, on to government officials in Mexico and also to individuals in the Philippines and Panama. So by the late 1950’s the government was closely listening with the help of wiretaps and so they picked up Larner ordering seven Corvettes to be immediately shipped to Panama as Christmas presents for some local officials. With all of these financial backings and corruption, the Outfit expanded its operations around the world, including Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The main international operations for the Outfit were headed by Larner, Gus Alex and Les Kruse, in correspondence with Sam Giancana and their mixed crew, meaning a group of members and associates from different crews, was known as the “Combine”. They actively tried to corner the gambling market in those countries such as racing tracks, casinos and the national lotteries. But besides the gambling racket, they also controlled many international car theft rings, in which stolen cars from the U.S. were transported to Central America and even all the way to the Middle East. They even smuggled cigarettes and prostitutes but the most lucrative racket of them all, again, were the vending machines. So the gangsters made a lot of airplane reservations which were often monitored by the FBI and so Larner had an idea smart and started investing in many airplane companies which provided him with “safer” travels, meaning it was easy for him to erase any traces regarding his trips.
Sam Giancana
So this is where the CIA comes in. You see, for the secret agency to infiltrate a spy of its own in a foreign country for example, first they had to train the individual and then to somehow infiltrate inside the foreign government, which in fact was a years of work. Or the other solution was to pay off some guy who already worked for that foreign state but they couldn’t trust that person on a long time period. So since they already had their “own” guys, which were the local gangsters who in turn already had established high level connections in those countries by “donating” big amounts of cash to certain officials. So the CIA wanted to use these so-called international gangsters, for the right price of course, to get info from all of these countries and to create their own influence around the world, even if it meant murder. The agency thought that these gangsters acted like patriotic spies for their government but they thought wrong.
Gangsters like Giancana or Larner hated their government, they never trusted their government and in fact, they also killed people who worked for their own government. This was their main “ingredient” for their outlaw nature and that’s why I believe that most of them never lifted a finger for the agency and just took the money. But I said “most” of the gangsters because I believe that few of them such as Richard Cain and Hyman Larner really worked for the agency as secret agents. You might ask yourself on why some mobsters joined the CIA ventures and others did not, well the answer is simple. Most of these guys such as Larner mainly worked as corruptors and corruptors don’t have limits in their job because they would go all the way to the top. So I believe that the CIA connections were one step further regarding the Outfit’s scale of government corruption.
So besides the Outfit’s pockets, much of the agency’s cash went in the pockets of many foreign government officials, politicians, police enforcement and military officials. Since Larner and the rest of the gang were considered international “gangster spies”, their operations were kept in the dark. If you think that the agency was the only player fooled in this game, I think you’re wrong. I believe that in return for the Outfit’s services, the deal was that the gangsters should’ve received protection against the FBI. The agency provided the gangsters with some counter listening equipment against any listening devices which were planted by the feds, but in reality the gangsters never received the real protection that they really hoped for.
In Chicago, the FBI started to notice all of the illegal tactics within the coin machine business and so Government investigator Arthur Kaplan handled the jukebox and vending machine investigation in and he found out that some underworld figures had established an association in order to keep a monopoly of the coin machine operations in the “Windy City” city. Kaplan also found out that the Chicago Outfit placed a man by the name of “Thomas Red Waterfall” to run the association. Kaplan was very confused because nobody seemed to know who Red Waterfall really was. Waterfall did not live at the address he gave in his application for office and the banks he gave as a credit reference did not exist. He seemed never to have had a picture taken, and only the most meagre description of his physical appearance could be obtained from the operators themselves, who were obviously too afraid to point a finger at the man who was extorting thousands of dollars from them. So Kaplan started to follow old trails such as flight and hotel reservations and money trails from Chicago to Miami Beach to Texas to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Little Rock, Arkansas, to Hollywood, California and to many other places around the country. By tracing insurance applications for a Chris-Craft cruiser and hotel reservations in Texas hotels, Kaplan finally was able to prove that Hyman “Red” Larner was in fact Red Waterfall. This was bad for Larner, the Outfit and soon for the CIA also.
So one thing led to another and Larner was called to testify before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management in 1958. When Robert Kennedy's boys tried to find him and the records which would tell them more of the union business association and its ties to the national juke box ring, Larner disappeared from the face of the earth. At first some people suspected that he was killed by his peers from the Chicago Outfit but they were dead wrong because by now he was much of an important person and so he was hiding in Florida, but was later located and was immediately subpoenaed. On February 26, 1959, 44 years old Hyman Larner took the stand in front of the Senate Labor- Management Committee which was headed by Senator McClellan and Robert Kennedy. The Committee asked Larner on how he truly maintained a fleet of six cars, home in Florida, two 27-foot cabin cruisers and two Chicago apartments on the $8,700 a year income that he reported for tax purposes. He was also asked if whether he hired any hoodlums to throw sulphuric acid on machines of non-members of his Chicago Independent Amusement Association and break up machines to force operators to join up and pay the fee for each machine. Besides giving his real name and address, the rest of the questions remained unanswered by Larner because he took the 5th Amendment on every single one of them.
This last question that the board asked Larner was rather sensitive which was regarding a house in Florida and whether was used for shipping out arms to the Cuban revolution. This meant that the FBI knew or at least suspected about the so-called secret operations and probably placed Larner in a very uncomfortable situation. Lamer again refused to answer the rest of the questions on the grounds of possible self-incrimination and invoked his 5th Amendment rights more than fifty times. Here’s the conversation:
Senator Mundt: I don't see how an answer like that could incriminate him. I think he is taking the Fifth Amendment frivolously.
The Chairman: I may have incriminated the house by the questions I asked, but I don't see how it would incriminate the witness.
Senator Mundt: That is a frivolous use of the Fifth Amendment, unless per chance there are some illegal activities being conducted at the house and I might ask him that. Are there any illegal activities being conducted in that house?
Mr. Larner: I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me.
The Chairman: Let that document with the pictures be made exhibit No. 61.
Senator Mundt: Is there an operation operating in the basement of the house, a dope ring or a counterfeiting bloc or a kidnapping bloc, do you know?
Mr. Larner: I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me.
Senator Mundt: This wasn't where they were shipping out arms, sending them to either side of the Cuban revolution, is it? There must be something suspicious about it, and you just can't be incriminated by looking at a house. The Fifth Amendment is available to a witness as a legitimate protection against self-incrimination, and if there is something illegal in this house you can take the Fifth Amendment. I don't see how the courts can justify a man taking the Fifth Amendment on a house which is just somebody's home. Do you know of anything illegal being done in that house?
Mr. Larner: I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me.
It was suggested by Senator Karl Mundt that Larner’s testimony should be considered for possible contempt action because of his “capricious” use of the 5th Amendment. Senator McClellan agreed but said that he thought little would come of it in view of the recent court decisions. The other witnesses were Larner’s wife Myrtle Larner, Sam Greenberg, Fred Tom Smith, Jim Rini, Alex Ross, Chuck English, Rocco Pranno, Joseph Gagliano and Larner’s boss Edward Vogel. Rini and Ross were handcuffed together when they appeared in front of the committee and all of them took the Fifth. The only witnesses that dared to testify were the coin operators who were terrorized by the Chicago Amusement Association. Two of them were Herman Klebba and Mr. Romaszaievicz from the L&S Amusement Company. Two Chicago gangsters were also wanted for questioning about coin machine rackets but were mysteriously missed. The two gangsters were Sam Giancana and Ralph Capone. Later both were found and refused to testify, invoking the 5th Amendment. After this tremendous attention from the law, that same year the Chicago Independent Amusement Association broke up.
Larner’s wife Myrtle Larner
Larner was getting too much of a public attention and also saw that things were getting too “hot”, not just from the government but also within the Outfit. In the early 1960’s when the FBI already knew that the mob was making deals with the U.S. secret agencies behind closed doors, they placed so much “heat” over the Chicago Outfit which became a big obstacle for their business enterprises and so guys like Giancana, Roselli and Larner, the men with many “dark secrets”, were under constant surveillance. The FBI even invented the famous “Lock-step” program in which the agents followed the mobsters in just few steps behind them. As for Larner, by now he still answered to Vogel and Gus Alex, and plus he spent most of his time in Florida where he constantly oversaw the smuggling shipments to Central America while nobody watched him. He kept Alex’s pockets filled with cash and nobody bothered him, and so he kept any contact that he wanted to, such as CIA station chief William Lohmann in Chicago.
So during this time it was a battle between the FBI and the Chicago Outfit, a battle in which I believe that the Outfit struggled for survival. Larner crew was also changed since he formed new lucrative connections with the leading Italian faction of the Chicago Outfit, such as associates from his own crew a.k.a. the rising Joey Aiuppa group, and also the Willie Daddono crew and in fact, Larner was the main guy who brought all of those rising Italian members within the organization and taught them on how to operate. Few of his underlings were Peter and William Altiere, Anselmo Pacini, Sal and Carmen Bastone, Frank and Albert Meo, Charles Ross, Tony Orlando, Tony De Angelos, Dominic and Tommy Russo, Jack De Lamater, Allan Rothman, Louis Lederer, James Tortoriello and Sam Volpentesto.
Carmine Bastone
Salvatore Bastone
The Bastone brothers often acted as Larner bodyguards wherever he travelled around the world. The Bastone brothers originally came from the North Side of Chicago but later they transferred their operations on the West Side and together with Tony Orlando they controlled the Town and Country Vending Company. Anselmo a.k.a. Sonny Pacini was an old known collector and enforcer for the Vogel brothers in the coin machine racket but by the early 1960’s, he was the main Outfit representative in Ecuador who controlled the slot machine racket in that particular country. The Meo brothers owned the infamous Outfit hangout Meo's Norwood House Restaurant in Norridge and they also fronted the Villa Venice in Wheeling, Illinois. Their father Charles Meo was an old Capone mobster. The Bastone and Meo brothers, together with Hyman Larner and Les Kruse, were the main Chicago Outfit representatives in the Dominican Republic. Kruse also tried to spread some of the Outfit’s gambling operations in England and as for the Bastone and Meo brothers, they obtained South American passports because of their constant travels. Louis Lederer was the main guy who managed few casinos in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas and also far as the Middle East. The “general manager” was still Sam Giancana who oversaw the racket with the help of his prime associate Hyman Larner, who in fact was still Vogel’s and Alex’s representative.
By the end of 1964, the “Combine” prepared for a full attack over the Dominican market and so they stashed huge number of slots and all kinds of vending machines in Florida and waited for the “green light”. The main guy who all waited for to give the go-ahead was Larner himself because he was the main connection between the Outfit and the opposition of the current Dominican regime. The deal was that the new government should’ve taken control and later to allow the Chicago “Combine” to open their gambling and vending machine operations. But an unexpected problem occurred when during the revolution, all of the Outfit members including Albert Meo and Carmen Bastone were evacuated from Santo Domingo regarding the outbreak of hostilities and that’s how the Outfit’s operations in the Dominican Republic were shut down because the new government banned all gambling in April, 1965. This means that Larner and the “Combine” were swindled for the second time by a foreign country and all of their lucrative arrangements failed to materialize.
None of the international gambling operations came out like they should’ve come out but that was for gambling, as for the vending machine business it was a whole new lucrative story. Allen Rothman was the main frontman for Alex and Larner, who back in 1962 also became the President of the Vending Corporation of America in Chicago and so with his help, the “Combine” opened up manufacturing plants and offices all around the Midwest, including Kansas City and Milwaukee and also in Europe, Japan and Australia.
At the same time, the “Combine” from Chicago was in contact with the President of Brazil and his regime regarding the introduction of that country into all types of vending, slot and music machines since the country was a huge market. Besides the President of Brazil, also present were the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the National Police Force. It is not known which members of the “Combine” were present at the meeting but I would choose between Alex, Larner and Allen Rothman since all of them were reported often travelling to Brazil. The problem was the lack of coinage in Brazil as the country more relied on paper currency at the time. And vending machines “feed” on coins right?! So Larner and the “Combine” found a solution and asked for permission from Brazil’s top administration to mint nine million coins in three different denominations to operate the new devices. So the group managed to mint the coins in denominations of 1, 2, and 5, worth approximately 7 cents, 16 cents and 35 cents. It was a fabulous scheme.
Larner and the gang acquired a building in Sao Paolo, Brazil, for storage purposes and also formed two Brazilian vending corporations and opened up jobs. The first corporation was known as the Touristal and the second one as The Valley of Brazil and so these two Chicago Outfit-connected corporations held a protective shield on the market because it was in the same basket with the current regime. But Larner used the same tactic as he previously used in the old Cuban conflict, by also supporting the opposition of the current regime in Brazil and in fact, later it turned out, according to the FBI, that Larner was the main contact with the Brazilian government. In the end, the deal between the Chicago Outfit and Brazil’s top administration profited between 100 and 150 million dollars. Who would’ve known that Brazil’s vending machine history was connected to the Chicago Outfit, and because of that, Rothman, Larner and one very influential guy known as Eddie Ginsburg, were the guys who exported millions of dollars worth of food, drink and cigarette vending machines in Central and South America. Larner and the rest of the “Combine” also had concessions for slot machines in casinos located in other various places such as Argentina and Larner was known for making shipments of $500,000 in just few months.
Back in Chicago, the “Combine” thru Rothman controlled the J&S Amusement Company and the Oasis Vending Company which was merged into the Vending Corporation of America. The Altiere brothers owned the A & W Electric and controlled a vast coin machine operation in Summit, Illinois and were considered as part of the Cicero crew. Also DeAngelos, Russo and DeLamater worked as collectors for Earl Kies and Julius Zimberoff, the general managers at the Apex Amusement Company and Ajax Phonograph, which were controlled by the Vogel brothers. As for James Tortoriello and Sam Volpentesto, they controlled a large lucrative vending machine ring in Kankakee County, with the help of two enforcers Guy Sparta and Alan Zimmerman. Tortorielo was a known hitman for the Outfit, direct under Giancana and Larner. Other prominent operators and enforcers in the coin machine racket for the “Combine” were Paul Payne, Harold Edwards and Armando Pezzopane. With the help of this crew, Vogel and Larner became invincible in the toughest time period when the whole Chicago Outfit was under huge government attack and many of its most lucrative rackets were on the downfall. The vending machines were legal but the violent tactics that gangsters such as Larner used, were not.
That’s why many Italian and non-Italian mobsters decided to join the coin machine “racket” and invested a lot of cash, and so by 1964 Larner became business partner with many infamous individuals such as Jewish gangster Lenny Patrick and together they invested in the Vencoa Music Company and also bought shares in the City Music Company. Larner and Patrick became huge in the bootlegging of music records which brought a lot of money for the organization. Another partner of Larner’s became Rocco Pranno, the boss of the Stone Park and Franklin Park areas and together they expanded the jukebox and vending machine operations as far west as Elgin. And just for the good old days, even Vogel’s and Larner’s former Cicero capo Ralph Capone connected with the “Combine” and placed Chuck Buffano as his frontman at the Universal Vending Corporation. After the deaths of the old Cicero bosses Willie Heeney, Louis Campagna and Claude Maddox, the rest of the guys such as Joseph Corngold, Joey Aiuppa and Robert Ansani were mostly involved in the coin machine racket, obviously because Aiuppa was still the capo of that area, and both Vogel and Larner answered to him.
Joseph Aiuppa
By the mid 1960’s the so-called “King of Slots” Ed Vogel controlled the Apex Cigarette Service Inc. and also the Deluxe Cigarette Service Inc. but the problem was that Larner had too much attention over his head and just wasn’t the right guy to lead the companies so old man Vogel decided to make his business partner Joe Mahoney the general president of the two companies. Again both companies were located at the same spot on 4246 Lincoln Ave., in Chicago, where they also shared a common telephone number. The Chicago Crime Commission also has identified Vogel as having control of both firms.
By now old man Vogel spent most of his time in California and Larner’s new boss was Gus Alex and the reason was the death of the previous boss of the non-Italian faction Murray Humphreys. Alex respected Larner very much and considered him a very valuable person mainly because back during the mid 1960’s Alex was banned from Switzerland for 10 years after Congress complained that his repeated trips were to stash Outfit money on Swiss bank accounts so he was restricted to go out of the country for some time and that’s when Larner came in with his Panama connections and helped Alex during the process.
Gus Alex
but the government already had its eye over the Jewish gangster and Alex being the very paranoid individual that he really was, so instead he had a new solution for his business partner and advised him that he should remain away from the Apex Corp. so he can reduce the government heat and to take control over the Outfit’s “out of country” operations since he already had a vast illegal smuggling network established both in Central and South America. Larner was absolutely brilliant when it came to handling the dirty cash, probably the best the mob had ever seen and he was responsible for moving the cash through South Florida to Panama and investing it around the country. Also two FBI agents, who decided not to be identified at the time (one of them probably being retired agent Francis Marrocco), said that Larner was absolutely the main individual who was responsible for moving the Outfit’s money through South Florida and Panama.
By the late 1960’s the Outfit’s former boss Sam Giancana decided to lay low and fled the country to Mexico in the pursuit of spreading the Outfit’s international operations even further. So Alex had the same offer for Larner who in turn gladly approved it and the main things that made Larner perfect for the job were his international contacts and also probably his old CIA contacts. Alex took over the coin machine racket while old man Vogel remained as one of Alex’s senior advisors. Besides Alex’s support, Aiuppa’s support for Larner was also some type of “security” and insurance from other rival crews at the time, that were headed by a new order under Ricca and Accardo which included Sam Battaglia, Phil Alderisio, Frank Cerone, Fiore Buccieri. So first Larner sold one of his apartments in Chicago and then he fled the country and vanished from the eyes of the FBI. He took his wife and settled in Panama where he bought a big house on a top of a hill outside of Panama City and he also took all of his cash and stashed it into Panama’s national bank.
Larner’s passport photo from 1969
Larner stopped dealing directly with the Outfit’s bosses but with the help of his enforcers and couriers, he stayed in contact with the top echelon and became the main “go to guy” out of the country. In Panama, he was also joined by one of his cousins Marcel Harrick and together in the city of Colon they operated the Juliano International, S.A., a corporation which was only engaged in importing vending and slot machines and also all kinds of gambling equipment from Chicago, of course all exported to Panama by Outfit owned firms. For example, Ross Scheer operated the Bally Manufacturing Firm in Chicago and in just few months the firm sold and shipped more than $500,000 worth of slot machines to Juliano Imports in Panama. Through Juliano Imports, Harrick and Larner also tried to export their coin machines in Guatemala. Larner sent his cousin to Miami, Florida; to purchase an armored car for the President of Guatemala and so Larner’s request was granted by bringing the slot machine business under the auspices of charitable organization known as “Bienestar Social” which was operated by the President’s wife of Guatemala. As additional info, by now Larner from time to time “sneaked in” the U.S. and resided in an apartment under the alias Allan Harrick, a surname which he obviously has taken from his cousin. Also Larner and Harrick together operated a restaurant known as La Pompa Restaurant in the center of Panama City.
In 1970, Giancana and Larner engaged in the operation of gambling rooms on large cruise ships that went from Mexico to the Caribbean which carried many high-rollers. So Larner and Giancana invested a large amount of Outfit cash in four excursion ships that sailed from New York to Florida and into the Caribbean and placed their long time operator and enforcer James Tortoriello in charge of the operation. The feds also highly suspected that in reality these boats were used for smuggling slot machines around the Caribbean countries. There are also unconfirmed suspicions that even weapons, narcotics, illegal immigrants and stolen cars were also smuggled with the help of those same boat excursions. That’s same year, on November 30th the “Combine”, with the help of Louis Lederer, opened up the Ab-Ali Country Club & Casino in the plush Ab-Ali Hotel in Ab- Ali, a suburb of Tehran, Iran. Many of the members of the “Combine” were present at the opening including Giancana. Lederer reportedly was appointed as manager of the casino, in which the “Combine” had invested one million dollars for renovating the hotel which was built years ago by the late father of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, shah of all Iran. Taking over the world, no?!
James Tortoriello
In 1972 Larner was back to Chicago under the alias “Allen Harrick” and as any other millionaire at the time, he rented a luxurious apartment at the Astor House at 1340 North Astor on Chicago’s Near North Side, and for just one night he paid $485 and also another $300 for two parking spaces, and he resided over there for several months. While being in his home city, Larner was seen having meetings on daily basis with the Bastone brothers, Tommy Russo and the Meo brothers.
That same year, the billion dollar Pritzker business clan, with the help of their Hyatt Hotel chain, wanted to buy the Four Queens casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. But the thing was that the Pritzker clan used a very lucrative business technique known as asset management where the manager, member of the Pritzker family, did not directly fund the projects. Since it was too expensive to buy a hotel in Vegas and later it took more than few years to see some profits, so the Pritzker’s usually invested a small amount of their cash and later teamed up with a wealthy backer to fill up the several million-dollar bill which actually bought the hotel. For a very long time, the Pritzker’s family “backer” was the Mob and the main connection was allegedly Hyman Larner. But Larner and the Pritzker clan had a much darker relationship regarding their hidden finances.
It turned out that both the Pritzkers and Larner together with other members of the Mob were few of the largest depositors in the most notorious offshore tax haven known as The Castle Bank of the Bahamas. I previously stated that Larner and the Outfit already used the Bahamian and Cayman Islands banks which have long been valued by those wishing to hide their money because those nations absolutely refused to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. Legend goes that one part of the Pritzker family’s fortune came from their Mob connections and allegedly this is what reportedly financed the creation of the famous Hyatt Hotels. There was no crime involved, but the financial backing came from organized crime, plain and simple. So the connection between Larner and the Pritzker clan goes back with the formation of the Hyatt Hotel in Lincolnwood, Illinois. Later the hotel became a favorite spot for Larner to party with his foreign guests where he would often buy them expensive jewelry, expensive drinks and high class escorts. So in the early 1970s, after Ben Goffstein's death, the Four Queens Casino became part of the corporate era of Nevada gaming. So now Larner turned to the Outfit’s lawyer and union racketeer Sidney Korshak to acquire a Teamsters Pension Fund loan at just four percent, thus saving the Pritzkers $8 million.
Drawing of the Hyatt Hotels from the 1950’s
As any other “tycoon”, during this period Larner preferred quieter and much more traditional means of exploiting and controlling corruption, and thereby remaining out of the headlines and out of the FBI’s radar. On top of that, Larner’s representative Alex received even higher position within the Outfit, next to Aiuppa and Tony Accardo. On the other hand, guys like Les Kruse and Ralph Pierce were getting old and started having health problems, meaning some of Larner’s old associates were slowly fading away. By the mid 1970’s, Joey Aiuppa became the official boss of the Chicago Outfit, and so he made some changes within the still-existent “Combine” which was still headed by Alex and Larner, but this time Aiuppa preferred for Italian members to be in charge of the operation. Since Larner was mostly out of the country, in 1976 Aiuppa appointed Tommy Russo as the head of the “Combine” who answered, again, to both Aiuppa and Alex. Russo’s headquarters was the Palmetto Restaurant on the northwest corner of 17th Avenue and 22nd Street in Broadview and Russo allegedly used the same companies such as the Vending Corporation of America, Skill Amusement, Apollo Vending, Coney Island Amusement, Flip Amusement, B&T Vending and the Town and Country Vending to launder the Outfit’s dirty cash or on other words, this new crew transformed one of their most lucrative operations as their main “laundry machine” for the Outfit’s illegal income.
Thomas Russo
During the same time period, Larner’s name popped up in some Panamanian newspaper regarding his alleged involvement in a murder but the local authorities never opened a case against the Jewish gangster. The victim was some local Panamanian gangster who was allegedly Larner’s partner in the coin machine business, and was shot several times in a public place.
By the late 1970’s the Chicago Outfit was still considered as the most dangerous Cosa Nostra family around the country, mainly because of the one hundred Outfit-related murders which occurred during that whole decade. But smart gangsters who were out of the country like Larner didn’t care about what was going on back home, but instead they followed the trend, meaning during that same time period the coin machine business was completely changed because there were many new alternations. The new machine, which was marked as The Trade Booster, already replaced the standard coin-operated slot to an electrical slot which was operated via cable usually by the bartender in the joint. So during the late 70’s there was this new lucrative form of a machine and that was the video poker machines and again the main “go-to-guy” was Hyman Larner.
The current overseers of this new gambling racket were still the Bastone brothers, Carmen and Sal. Carmen Bastone went to Spain, where he invested in real estate and also supervised the video poker machine factory that the Outfit already owned and Larner had his own shares in it. All of the manufactured video poker machines were transported to Panama where they all got sold. Larner’s main courier was one small Italian guy only known as “Alberto” who always came to Miami, Florida; by plane carrying the Outfit’s cash from all of the video machines that were sold back in Panama. “Alberto” was a quite strange and calmed looking fella, who always waited for the last person to leave from the plane, while staying in the lavatory where no one checked. In fact, this was a trick so he can see if any government agents were following him or waited for him at the baggage claim. The cash that “Alberto” carried from Panama was divided in two parts, one part was for the guys who produced the poker machines and the second part went in the pockets of Larner’s longtime associate and boss Joey Aiuppa.
And so by the early 1980’s the video poker machines became one of the biggest money sources for the Chicago Outfit and the best thing was that nobody ever knew where all of the big cash came from but truth was that everything came from Panama and parts of South America that had the Outfit’s video poker machines and the guy who still took care of things over there was Larner, who always added an extra amount to the Outfit’s income from the rackets. In 1983, Larner was 70 years old but his senses still did not fade away. He still had high connections in Panama which at the time were represented by Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Larner and Noriega had two things in common and that was both individuals were criminals and second, both worked for the CIA. And that is why I strongly believe that Noriega was on Larner’s personal payroll and I also strongly suspect that Noriega sometimes used Larner’s smuggling routes and contacts through Florida for the purpose of smuggling narcotics, mainly cocaine, into the U.S. As additional info, when I speak about these so-called “smuggling contacts” I usually mean about corrupt individuals who worked in coast guards, military services, police squads, border patrols, airplane pilots and crews or even simple bus drivers. Everyone is looking for the chance to make a quick buck and usually the ordinary citizen is the main link in the chain of organized crime.
During the same time the FBI was conducting an investigation regarding the disappearance of Larner’s close associate and blood relative Marcel Harrick. Story goes that previously Harrick had some fall out with Larner and decided to leave Panama and so Harrick allegedly established himself in Tampa, Florida. The feds knew that Harrick was murdered but they weren’t able to connect Larner to the same case. In fact, this was Larner’s “style” of eliminating his enemies and potential rivals, no body no crime.
Marcel Harrick
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
By 1985, the face of the Outfit again took a new form and I believe that this is the point where Larner started to think about retiring from the organization. Aiuppa was in jail, Accardo was still at the top and the only guy who left and was close to Larner, was Gus Alex. But the thing was that by now Larner didn’t owned anything to nobody and nobody ever owned anything to him and everyone knew that he was too old to get involved in big actions. So maybe Alex still received monthly “postcards” from Larner but just as a sign of respect towards his old time “captain.” By the late 1980’s Alex had so much trouble that I personally believe that he didn’t care anymore if Larner did or did not send his regards.
But right after his alleged step-back, you shall see the true power that Larner accumulated through the years as member of the Chicago Outfit and close associate of the C.I.A. So during this period there were a big number of informants among Outfit members so word came down to Larner that somebody talked about his activities and whereabouts. And Larner heard right because his alleged former underling Mike Corbitt decided to cooperate with the feds while in prison, just to reduce his sentence regarding his involvement in a previous murder. But Larner already had an “ace in his sleeve” because he had everybody who was anybody in Panama and they were all eating out of his hand. I mean he was an old and very wealthy and quite influential American mobster with a long and ruthless reputation and so this means that he also had newspaper editors in his pocket and so in 1991 the Panamanian newspapers announced that Hyman Larner had suddenly died of natural causes. Everyone was shocked and even the FBI could not believe the news and so the feds decided to send few of their men to investigate the matter. The agents looked all around Panama for any evidence regarding Larner’s death but they had no luck. They didn’t even found a grave with Larner’s name on it and so that was it. The agents returned home and obviously did not believe the story and so they left the case open.
And so, as expected, few years later in 1995 rumors surfaced that Larner was very much alive and resided in the U.S. or to be specific, in Flathead County, Montana. In reality, Larner played it very smart because at first he faked his own death by using corrupt Panamanian newspaper editors to publish it, and also he had suspicion that the U.S. government will send their agents to check out the news and so he decided to come back home quietly to his own country, where nobody will be looking for him. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book.
In his early 80’s, Larner’s health was slowly failing because of his old age so the time for the FBI was running out. Government informer Mike Corbitt decided to testify against Larner and so in 1997 the FBI wanted to make a move against the old mob boss but suddenly the State Department had intervened and stopped the whole investigation. To be perfectly honest, for me this is the most mysterious event in all of Larner’s criminal history. Nobody ever gave an answer regarding the situation and so I believe that this is the right proof regarding Larner’s immunity which obviously came from his former connections to the secret intelligence community, hidden by their shared interests.
Michael Corbitt
In an alleged act of revenge, Corbitt began writing down his own, allegedly true memoirs, and decided to publish a book with the help of the late Sam Giancana’s nephew Sam Giancana Jr., the author of a previous written book about his uncle’s criminal life called “Double Cross”. Corbitt’s book had a similar name which was called “Double Deal” and it mainly shows Larner’s alleged involvement with the CIA and his international criminal operations. But by reading the book you can feel Corbitt’s hatred against the Outfit and Larner so that’s why I believe that the book should be taken with a “few grains of salt”. Very interesting thing was when Corbitt’s book came out, the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA immediately rushed and assaulted the book. "The allegations about the CIA are a potpourri of yarns that don't bear any resemblance to reality," said Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the CIA. Who knows, maybe Corbitt’s book did reveal something that made the CIA a little bit nervous?!
Anyway, just when the book started printing, the Miami Herald announced that Hyman “Red” Larner had died of a sudden heart attack on October 12, 2002, and was going to be buried in Skokie, Illinois. Larner died at the age of 89 and was later buried in another place or in a crypt in Waukegan, Illinois. I’m not quite sure on why he was buried in Waukegan but all I can find is that at one time the town had become the largest Jewish community between Chicago and Milwaukee, and Larner came from the far North Side. And so, years later, some conspiracy theorists claimed that in reality Larner was a member of a political movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supported the re-establishment of their Jewish homeland and this movement was known as Zionism and its followers were known as Zionists. Of course, there are no real evidences for this kind of claim regarding Larner’s involvement in such activities.
In the end, I personally want to say that there’s probably a lot more to say regarding Larner’s criminal activities, obviously because his life story represented one quite mysterious “saga” and represented a straight line because by the end of his criminal career, luckily for him, he was convicted only once which was a very small conviction. He never opened his mouth and never posed for a picture. In his prime time, Larner made a lot of money and spent it all lavishly and during the process he also developed many lucrative connections, both in the underworld and in the upper world, which gave him his real protection on both sides of the same “coin”. But we have to understand that we’re “looking” at a rogue, out of control, international criminal with access to limitless cash funds, high level connections and personnel for the ruthlessly violent tactics. Larner used the U.S. government and other countries as camouflage to hide or to disguise his illegal activities and during his whole life time he made totalitarian power plays and that’s why powerful international factions allied with his interests, but by the end of the day his complete loyalty was towards the Chicago Outfit. As I already said at the start of this story, Larner was the very rare type of villain “disguised” as an Outfit “member” or associate and was remember as the last old underworld “big league” who also took a lot of Chicago’s darkest secrets and bloody history to his grave.
"The primary weapon of emotional abusers is the deliberate infliction of guilt. They use guilt the same way a loan shark uses money. They don't want the 'debt' paid off because they live quite happily on the interest." - from Gavin de Becker's book "Gift of Fear"
INTRO
The current world is driven mainly by the ideology of capitalism and financial uncertainty and so with the need for quick cash, many unlucky individuals find themselves in bank loans up to their necks and later with nowhere else to go, they usually turn to street loan sharks as a last resort for their financial debts. The loan sharks usually operate beyond the borders of legality and prey on every individual who is desperate for financial assistance. Loan sharks, also known in the city of Chicago as "juice men", thrive on the opportunity to lend money to those who are unable to access traditional forms of credit, or to place them on "juice". However, sometimes the consequences of dealing with criminal loan sharks extend far beyond interest rates and crippling debts, meaning in some cases people get killed.
Angelo LaPietra, is a known name within so-called "underground" circles, especially in Chicago. Some consider LaPietra as the prime example of how one criminal loan shark operated decades ago and in fact, they are not far from the truth. LaPietra learned from the "best" on how to use intimidation, threats, and violence to install fear in his victims, making it nearly impossible for them to escape his "clutches". In fact, LaPietra had so many "clients" on his list, that he literally forced the Federal Bureau of Investigation to lost count. Even today there are many myths and legends floating around regarding LaPietra, like the one in which he allegedly placed debtors on meat hooks, something which is far from the truth. Still, LaPietra's criminal profile is worth examining during the following story.
FIRST CHILD OF IMMIGRANTS
Born October 30, 1920 to Italian immigrants Joseph Lapietra and Mary Clementi Lapietra, their son Angelo LaPietra was the first generation of family members being born in the U.S.A. By 1940 the LaPietras lived on West Grand Avenue, but later or by the early 1950's they transferred on West 37th Street, near Bridgeport and Chinatown. Angelo's mother was possibly some distant relative to another "crime family" from the West Side such as Louis and Pasquale Clementi, a connection which might've started LaPietra's criminal career. During the late 1920's and early 30's Louis Clementi was allegedly a soldier for Outfit capo from the West Side known as Lawrence Mangano, while his younger brother Patsy Clementi was an alleged member of the infamous 42 gang which included many future Outfit heavyweights such as future Outfit boss Sam Giancana. In fact, this is probably the reason for which many researchers also labelled LaPietra as former member of the 42's, or youngsters which were used as a "farm team" by many Outfit members including the Mangano crew.
Angelo was followed in the life of crime by his seven years younger brother James LaPietra who in turn wasnt different at all than his older brother. Sources say that both brothers had short temper, especially Angelo who in turn was known for his violent outbursts and also the "courage" to pull the trigger from a gun. By the mid 1930's, young Angelo LaPietra was mainly involved in the car-theft and burglary schemes but when some of his older peers became members of the Chicago Mafia, he began entering more serious illegal operations including murder. In 1939, LaPietra was arrested on charges for carrying a concealed weapon, followed by his younger brother James who in turn was arrested in 1941 on burglary charges and also for carrying burglary tools.
CONNECTIONS ARE EVERYTHING
While living on the Northwest Side, Angelo LaPietra never relinquished his old West Side criminal connections and when one of his older mentors Sam Giancana became a capo in 1943, LaPietra began operating both around the Near West Side and also the Cicero area thus becoming an associate of Giancana's crew. LaPietra's violent temper was quickly recognized by one of Giancana's close associates known as Fiore Buccieri who in turn operated mainly around Cicero.
Buccieri was a very brutal individual, something which completely fitted with LaPietra's personality but still, Buccieri was different. For example, when Buccieri's younger brother Frank Buccieri was caught for ten dollar robbery, Buccieri himself asked the Judge for approval to whip his own brother with a rubber hose and his request was granted and in fact, later the whole act became a huge scandal. Besides his younger brother Frank, Buccieri also had other blood relatives involved in the life of crime, such as George and Albert Buccieri. On top of that, Buccieri's criminal record dates back to the late 1920's but by the late 1930's he worked as a "union organizer" by using violent tactics such as breaking windows of undertaker establishments and members of the Embalmers' union, and also sent threats. The reality was that Buccieri was never official member of any union at the time but instead he worked as organizer for young hoodlums for the purpose of executing violent actions over certain individuals.
The Buccieri family was related through marriage to the Laino family which was also from the West Side and already had close connections to the Outfit, especially Frank, Louis and Joseph Laino. Same as LaPietra's relatives, the Lainos also belonged to Managano's crew, especially Frank who in turn was one of Mangano's main connections to younger hoodlums such as Buccieri or the LaPietras. During World War II, the Buccieri "clan" owned gas stations and were also involved in illegal transfer of gas coupons by violently forcing other gas station owners to buy their coupons. By 1944, Fiore Buccieri worked as precinct captain for the 27th Ward and smuggled huge numbers of counterfeit coupons for thousands of gallons of gasoline, a racket which brought a lot of money and was overseen by the Chicago Outfit at the time. Also, as I previously stated that sometime around 1943 or 1944 Giancana became a capo for the Taylor Street-Cicero crew, but by 1946 he became the Outfit's number two guy or underboss. Also, by that time former Outfit capo Lawrence Mangano was eliminated for betraying the leading administration and so many of his younger associates ended up under Giancana.
This was probably also the time period when Buccieri became a made member of the Chicago Mafia under Giancana's regime, which means that Angelo LaPietra had "open doors" to the brotherhood of the Mafia, if he was able to obey every order and rule that was required by his superiors. By the late 1940's Giancana's crew was headed by Leonard Caifano who in turn was also one of Buccieri's old associates, followed by Caifano's younger brother Marshall, William Daddono, Charles and Sam Inglesia aka English, Chuck Nicoletti, Leonard Gianola and others. From this point on, all of LaPietra's criminal activities were stationed and directed from the Taylor Street and Cicero areas.
CLIMBING UP THE LADDER
Besides Buccieri's previously mentioned rackets, during the late 1940's one of the Outfit's "new" lucrative rackets was loan sharking and above all, collecting. Older Outfit bosses like West Side leader Paul Ricca or Jake Guzik from the South Side crew began lending huge amounts of cash to many younger members and associates who were able to spread it and later to double it, but they also lent money to other individuals and so someone needed to collect the interest and one of the perfect guys for the job was Angelo LaPietra. In fact, one non-Italian Outfit associate from the Cicero area known as Joe Corngold played a major role in teaching Italian criminals like some of Buccieri's men regarding the loan sharking racket and also collecting. So LaPietra started working as a collector for Corngold who in turn shared the profits with Buccieri and the Outfit, and so during his "ventures", LaPietra was introduced to another of Corngold's collectors, James Torello. Same as LaPietra, Torello was also very vicious individual who loved to torture and also enjoyed killing people.
In 1951, Outfit capo Leonard Caifano was killed during an assassination attempt of another individual, and so the following year LaPietra's mentor Fiore Buccieri became the new capo for Giancana's personal crew. From that point on LaPietra was watched closely by his new capo and fellow members, mainly because he became professional collector and also enforcer for the organization. Meaning, sooner or later he was about to be made by the Mafia.
Joe Corngold also made a connection in the loan sharking business between Guzik's South Side group and the newly formed Buccieri crew from the West Side, an introduction which would last for the following several decades. For example, in 1952 LaPietra's younger brother James was arrested on burglary charges together with South Side member from the Chinatown area Charles Bertucci, while another member from the Near South Side known as Louis Briatta was also in partnership with Buccieri in the loan sharking business. In fact, most of these guys looked for enforcers and collectors, and so Buccieri was their main guy for the job in finding those same profiles.
So during the early 1950's Buccieri became heavily involved in the loan sharking business and LaPietra collected for him, thus receiving knowledge on how to operate the scheme and also slowly becoming his favorite racket. Giancana's Cicero area was divided on two parts. north and south. The northern part of Cicero was controlled by Giancana and Buccieri, while the southern part was controlled by John Moore aka Claude Maddox and Joey Aiuppa. The so-called Maddox/Aiuppa crew was heavily involved in the union racketeering business and so they also needed collectors and that's when LaPietra again played a major role in collecting the proceedings. So besides the loan sharking racket, Buccieri used LaPietra as enforcer in every other scheme such as burglary, union racketeering and also in other more sophisticated rackets like gambling and narcotics.
By the mid 1950's two of Buccieri's main overseers of the narcotics racket were again Angelo LaPietra and James Torello, and their main supplier was allegedly Frank Pasqua from New York's Gambino crime family. Besides having various connections through their older peers, both LaPietra and Torello also allegedly extorted drug peddlers around the Chicago area and sometimes even stole their stash and later re-sold it. For example, Torello and one other Outfit associate and known dope peddler Ernest Infelise were once arrested with around $100,000 worth of allegedly stolen narcotics but later the case went nowhere. As for LaPietra, he was more organized, meaning he was connected to a large narcotics peddling ring which included Joey Pacella, James Cordovano, Joseph DiCaro, Anthony Annerino and Frank Panatera. This was a mixed crew because some of those same associates belonged to the old South Side mob, such as Cordovano and DiCaro, and they knew LaPietra from around the Chinatown area. Panatera was LaPietra's main go-between guy between him and the Gambinos in New York. Story goes that one day Panatera allegedly has "shortened" LaPietra and the Gambinos on some dope deal, so he was savagely beaten personally by LaPietra himself.
In 1956, the Buccieri crew began expanding by inducting several new made members within their crew, such as Joe Ferriola. I also believe that Torello was possibly one of those new inducted members but still Im not quite sure on who were the rest of new members from the Buccieri crew and so I cannot say on whether LaPietra was also inducted during that same ceremony since he was still involved in many rackets which were usually forbidden for made members, although in 1957, LaPietra's friend and former capo Sam Giancana became the new boss for the Chicago Outfit, meaning all rackets were allowed.
Same as his long time friends, Giancana was also very brutal individual and so LaPietra needed to show his own skills and so whether or not he was a made member, in 1958 LaPietra managed to leave a mark in the Outfit's history as one of the most violent members. During those days the Chicago Outfit was entering the lucrative Bolita gambling racket which was mainly controlled by the Latin community. Two of the main Outfit capos who were involved in taking over the Bolita racket were North Side capo Ross Prio and Fiore Buccieri from the West Side, and every operator who refused to give percentage to the Outfit or refused to relinquish his whole operation, met the most gruesome faith.
One of those Bolita operators was Santiago Gonzalez who was looked upon as a "big man" among his peers in the Latin community. After refusing to give part of his proceedings to the Mob, the Outfit sent for one of Prio's associates Ken Eto to go and talk to the guy. But Eto was chased out by Gonzalez and few other Puerto Rican hoodlums armed with metal pipes and baseball bats. Later, Eto was again ordered to set up a meeting with Gonzalez, together with one of LaPietra's associates John Fecarotta. On January 29, 1958 Gonzales was lured to a meeting in an industrial area and LaPietra together with his henchmen grabbed him and tortured Gonzales for few days. On February 2, his body was found on a parking lot. He was brutally beaten, slashed, stabbed, and gutted so severely that his intestines spilled out of his body.
LaPietra obviously had to show some ruthless skills, mainly because he belonged to one of the Outfit's most ruthless crews. For example, in 1961 LaPietra's capo Fiore Buccieri and his lieutenant James Torello were involved in one of the most gruesome tortures and also murder in all of the Outfit's history. Buccieri and Torello, together with Jack Cerone, Sam DeStefano and Dave Yaras, for several days brutally tortured Outfit loan shark William Jackson who in turn was wrongfully labelled as informant, although other sources say that Jackson was killed because he allegedly raped the wife of one imprisoned Mob-connected guy. Whatever was the reason behind Jackson's brutal murder, Outfit boss Sam Giancana allegedly posted photos from the crime scene to some Outfit members, just to install fear among the rest of the Outfit's criminal brotherhood.
"JUICE" IS THE WAY OF LIFE
During Giancana's reign as boss, the Buccieri groups was divided on several distinct loan sharking or "juice" crews which were overseen by Buccieri's top lieutenant James Torello, with one being headed by Buccieri's brother Frank, followed by Ferriola's crew and in the end, LaPietra's crew. In fact, one informant and collector for LaPietra and the Buccieri crew, stated that LaPietra's and Ferriola's crews are the leading loan sharking groups for the Buccieri group at the time. Few of LaPietra's most prominent loan sharks and collectors were his brother James, Steve Annoreno, Louis DeRiggi, Angelo Severino, Al Milstein, Frank Teutonica and John Monteleone. LaPietra's headquarters was the S.A.C. Club on West Roosevelt Road, Cicero and on top of that, LaPietra also bought a two flat building at 5303 West 30th Place, Cicero; as his new home. LaPietra also visited another joint for collecting his crew's loan sharking proceedings known as the Sportsman's Billiard Parlor at 5142 West 25th Street, Cicero.
LaPietra's violent nature preceded him and so he also received several nicknames like any other mobster, such as "Moustache Angie", "Nutcracker" and "The Bull". Some sources even reported another nickname which allegedly went something like "The Hook", a street moniker which is often confused with LaPietra's violent character but in reality, it was given to him because he precisely knew on how to "hook" people on "juice" and to receive huge interest.
On top of that, every time when some Outfit district boss or crew leader needed some assistance regarding the lack of enforcers or collectors, they usually asked for help from LaPietra and the Buccieri crew. For example, in 1963 non-Italian South Side leader Gus Alex and Buccieri had a meeting in some hotel in New Mexico and on that same gathering, Alex allegedly asked Buccieri for help, meaning Alex needed to borrow few collectors or enforcers for his operations around the Loop and Chinatown areas, mainly because most of his previous prime lieutenants were either retired, imprisoned or "shelved" by the Outfit. Buccieri agreed to help for some "small" percentage from all of the collections and so "out of nowhere", Buccieri suddenly also received interests around the Near South Side, an area which was already known by none other than his crew member Angelo LaPietra.
So two of Buccieri's personal enforcers Sam Gearis and his son Arnold, were sent to look out for Alex's gambling and loan sharking interests and collections from around the Loop area, while LaPietra was instantly sent as Alex's collector around the Chinatown area. LaPietra quickly connected to one capo from the Chicago Heights crew known as Jimmy Catuara, who in turn was also an old resident of the Chinatown area and in fact, Catuara still had a lot of influence in that same territory. Besides Catuara, another prominent Outfit member and LaPietra's long time associate was also Tony Maenza, who in turn answered to Frank Caruso, the original capo for the Chinatown area at the time who also answered to Alex and Giancana's underboss Frank Ferraro from the South Side mob. These men were also quite notorious and hardened criminals who had been arrested for all kinds of criminal activities, including murder.
NO RESPECT
Story goes that LaPietra began making so much money from his loan sharking operations, obviously followed by huge everyday pressure, a situation which brought one of the worst addictions like alcoholism. Sources say that LaPietra was heavy drinker and mixed together with his short temper, it created a "monster". FBI surveillance shows that one of LaPietra's best "drinking buddies" was Outfit capo for the Elmwood Park crew, Jack Cerone, who in turn was also known alcoholic among Outfit and government circles. According to one informant, LaPietra was a individual who rarely smiled and never talked to anyone who he was not acquainted with. LaPietra's addiction slowly became his own obstacle in moving up within the Outfit's organization, thus losing trust from some of his peers by being considered as unstable individual, something which also worried LaPietra's capo Fiore Buccieri very much. In fact, when Buccieri allegedly realized that LaPietra had a problem with alcohol, his statement was "No wonder he acts nutty at times."
Same as LaPietra, Cerone also lost trust among some of his peers and that's why he wasn't able to receive the underboss the position after Ferraro's death in 1964, but instead it was given to Sam Battaglia. In LaPietra's case, by the mid 1960's Torello was already considered as Buccieri's future successor, and sources say that Torello began going up in the organization while LaPietra remained on the same level allegedly because of the previous reasons. Sources say that Torello was more "polished and smooth" in his operations, while LaPietra was "too rough and too crude". This shows us that no matter if someone was a captain or a soldier in the Chicago Outfit, if that same individual had some personal and serious issues or addictions, that same member wasn't going anywhere until he proved himself in front of the top bosses such as Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo and Giancana. So during this period LaPietra remained as one of Buccieri's most lucrative and also most violent crew members, but also being closely watched by his fellow members regarding some of his actions which might bring unwanted attention.
MIND OF A BUSINESSMAN
In 1965, LaPietra and Joe Ferriola became partners in the J & R Cleaners Company at 6240 West Cermak Road in Cicero, and LaPietra also became the owner of the Shoo-Shoo A-Go-Go Club at 4628 W Cermak Road, which in fact was a front for LaPietra's prostitution racket. By 1967, LaPietra's club received lots of unwanted attention both from the media and the government and so this was the time period when investigators for the first time publicly listed LaPietra as one of the leading Outfit members, especially in the loan sharking and extortion schemes. According to some of the local low level criminals, the two LaPietra brothers and Torello were known as the "Three Rats of Cicero", meaning they were "eating" everything which stood in their way.
During this period the new acting boss for the Outfit was Sam Battaglia, followed by his Melrose Park a.k.a. Grand Avenue crew. Reports say that by now LaPietra spent most of his time around the Melrose Park area and also acted as the main messenger between Battaglia and Buccieri, especially regarding the "juice" racket. LaPietra owned the Stop Light Tavern located at 12th and Cicero avenues, which was a place where most of LaPietra's "juice" payments were dropped off and in fact, that same place was also used as LaPietra's "torture chamber" for all of the victims who weren't able to pay their debts. For example, one truck driver who visited LaPietra's tavern wasnt able to pay off his debts and so one day he was viciously beaten almost to death by none other than LaPietra himself. Another of LaPietra's joints which was also used for loan sharking was an apartment located at 14th street which was near 50th and Cicero avenues. In reality, it was guys like LaPietra, Torello and Ferriola who created the "badge" for their capo Fiore Buccieri as the city's most notorious loan shark and extortionist.
LaPietra also controlled many floating crap games around the Cicero area, while being in partnership with other mobsters from different crews such as Joey Aiuppa, including one which was operated by one of LaPietra's associates located in Alsip, Illinois; at 127th Street. Both Angelo LaPietra and his brother James relaxed and also had daily meetings with other high level Outfit mobsters like Aiuppa and Robert Ansani at the Luxor Bathhouse on North Avenue, which was allegedly owned by non-Italian "members" Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras. During this period the LaPietra brothers always looked tanned, well dressed and also drove expensive cars, which means that they lived the so-called "high life".
Because of that, during this period LaPietra's capo Fiore Buccieri was considered by law enforcement as the prime loan shark whose operations allegedly extended from the Chicago River west to Harlem and from north of 22nd Street to the northern part of the Cicero area. Bucceri was the "real deal", meaning he was a gangster who made a lot of money by controlling all of the crap games and loan sharking operations and tortured or killed a lot of people during the process. In fact, Buccieri once said "I dont need any money, I have more then I can spend in three or four life times".
Buccieri usually held court at the Spot-Light Grill restaurant located at 1205 South Cicero, and Buccieri's constant "guests" were his brother Frank, Torello, Ferriola and LaPietra. After their meetings, Buccieri's driver was either Torello or LaPietra, which means they were his most trusted crew members at the time. Another of Buccieri's meeting spots was the Town Barber Shop which was located at 5900 block W Roosevelt Road. LaPietra also spend a lot of time at Buccieri's residence at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and also sometimes took care of transferring Buccieri's day-to-day orders.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
In 1967, Outfit boss Sam Battaglia was sent to prison and so his position was inherited by Jack Cerone, who in turn instantly placed Buccieri as his number two guy or underboss. According to one informant, Ricca, Accardo and Cerone were the ones who made all final decisions and later transferred it to Buccieri who in turn also transferred it to the so-called "board of directors" which represented the Outfit's four factions, such as the North, West, South and Chicago Heights crews. Since Battaglia's Melrose Park-Grand Avenue crew was removed from the top, including his former underboss Phil Alderisio, the Outfit's top bosses Ricca and Accardo decided to give Alderisio a seat on the board as representative for the West Side faction, just to prevent any further conflicts between him and the Buccieri crew.
Besides all of the so-called precautions, that same year Buccieri allegedly gave the approval for one of his crew members, Joe Ferriola, to "invade" some parts of the South Side area, a deal which was previously made between Buccieri and Alex. But there was problem with Alderisio who previously also received interests around the Loop and South Side as former underboss for the Outfit. Sources say that Alex and his prime South Side operator Ralph Pierce backed Buccieri in the conflict and wanted to throw out Alderisio from the whole picture, but Alderisio held much higher stature within the organization then Ferriola, and during one meeting Alderisio allegedly threatened to kill Ferriola and took over all of his new operations around the city's southern part.
In 1969, both Cerone and Alderisio were indicted in different cases and so by 1970, both of them were placed in prison by the government. This was a huge opportunity for Buccieri and his crew to take the Outfit's leadership in their own hands, obviously because Buccieri was the next in line after Cerone. According to one informant, Buccieri was an individual who never bought anything or anyone, but instead anything that he wanted it was given to him, or else. But the problem was that in 1971, Buccieri was diagnosed with cancer and his leath was failling fast. That same year Alderisio died of a heart attack while in prison, and so during his funeral the whole Outfit showed up, including Accardo, Aiuppa, Buccieri, Torello, the LaPietra bros etc. Sources say that when Accardo and Buccieri entered the chapel, all of the Outfit's membership stood up as a sign of respect for their leaders.
In 1973, Buccieri died of natural causes and during his funeral both Torello and LaPietra acted as members of Buccieri's personal family. Story goes that three of the main candidates for Buccieri's replacement were his brother Frank, Torello and LaPietra. By 1974, investigators concluded that Torello officially became the new capo for the former Buccieri crew, and was also one of the four main representatives on the Outfit's board of directors, by having interests around the Lake County, the Near West Side, northern Cicero and also parts of the South Side area. During this period both Ferriola and LaPietra controlled various crews and also worked with other Outfit crews from different areas, but under Torello's jurisdiction. For example in January that same year, LaPietra was arrested together with members from the North Side crew such as Joe Arnold and Joey DiVarco regarding a loan sharking operation and so both Arnold and DiVarco received prison sentences, while LaPietra was released on $50,000 bond. But when the government's main witness found out that the Outfit placed a "contract" on his head, he refused to further testify and so the case went nowhere and all charges against all three defendants were dismissed.
CAPOREGIME
By 1974, former Outfit boss Sam Giancana was deported from Mexico to Chicago by the government and was wanted regarding his former CIA connections, especially about the alleged assassination attempts on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. By that time most of Giancana's supporters were either dead or in jail, and so the Outfit under the leading triumvirate Tony Accardo, Joey Aiuppa and Gus Alex decided not to take any chances and in the end they issued a contract for Giancana's life which was executed in July 1975. According to some sources, it was allegedly up to Angelo LaPietra's men such as Frank Calabrese Sr. to provide the gun which later was given to Dominic Blasi who in turn fired the six shots into Giancana's head and neck. LaPietra's indirect involvement in the murder of former boss probably bought him another "badge" within the Outfit's hierarchy.
During the 1970's the top leadership under Accardo, Aiuppa, Cerone and Alex issued a ban for their underlings to get involved in the narcotics trade, and some sources say that both Torello and LaPietra were also firmly against the racket, besides both of them being previously known regarding their involvement in narcotics, same as some of their crew members. Both Accardo and Alex needed more high level members who were able to maintain the order within the Outfit's brotherhood and both Torello and LaPietra were perfect for the job. In fact, less then a decade later one of LaPietra's associates was caught on a FBI wiretap saying "They talk about how the Mob deals with that drugs. That's a lie. Not in this town. I dint care what anybody says, the Mob don't deal with dope in this town."
In 1975, LaPietra was constantly seen holding court at Giannotti's Restaurant in Forest Park Illinois; and he didnt move much, mainly because he developed a medical problem due to his excessive drinking of alcohol. LaPietra already developed diabetes and some people with that same type of decease are known to develop poor blood flow which often causes complications on the legs and feet, in the form of blisters, sores or cuts. So undetected and untreated wounds can quickly become infected, leading to complications which sometimes need surgical assistance. This was probably the main reason on why LaPietra was limping during the rest of his life.
By 1976, old time Chinatown capo Frank Caruso Sr. began having serious health issues and so he decided to take a step back from the whole "Life". As I previously stated, Caruso inherited the position as capo from previous leaders such as Bruno Roti Sr. and Phil D'Andrea, but later was placed under the jurisdiction of Ferraro and his "secretary" Gus Alex. Right before Ferraro's death, Alex made an alliance with the former Buccieri crew regarding the lack of enforcers from around the Loop and Near South Side, including the Chinatown area. In addition, some sources say that before he handed down the whole Chinatown area to LaPietra, including his whole crew, Caruso Sr. allegedly made a deal with LaPietra that if anyone tried to kill Caruso's son Frank Jr., the old man was going to eliminate everyone.
Later, we already saw that former underboss, the late Phil Alderisio, had conflicts with the former Buccieri crew regarding interests around the South Side, which obviously means that by this time or by the mid 1970's, the former Buccieris such as Torello, Ferriola and LaPietra already received almost all interests from that same area, mainly because of the decline of the former South Side crew. In fact, they previously also began "invading" the Chicago Heights area which was also on the downfall at the time, thus creating a conflict between the two crews. Speaking about downfalls, Caruso's retirement marked the end of the old South Side crew, with Alex as member of the Outfit's top administration followed by "leftovers" from the old South group who still answered to him, such as Pat Marcy and Fred Roti, leading members of the political First Ward and also known as the "connection guys", including old time non-Italian crew boss Lenny Patrick.
This means that in 1976, the Outfit's top leadership headed by Accardo, Aiuppa, Cerone and Alex decided to give the former Buccieri aka the Torello crew, the whole Chinatown area, including jurisdiction over the First Ward. Since Torello was already the territorial boss of northern Cicero, Lake County and the South Side, LaPietra received the capo position for the new Chinatown or 26th Street crew, but under Torello's jurisdiction. FBI surveillance and also information from few informants shows us that during this period LaPietra still met with Torello on weekly basis and also gave him envelopes full of cash, same as Ferriola and Frank Buccieri.
There's also one infamous photo from that same time period, labelled by the media as the "Mob's Last Supper", in which we can see the leading administration formed by Accardo, Aiuppa and Cerone, followed by Torello and LaPietra and the rest of the Outfit's board representatives and capos. In fact, the close connection between Torello's Cicero crew and the newly formed LaPietra's Chinatown group always existed, even today, mainly because they were "born" from the same former Buccieri crew, thus making them one of the Outfit's most powerful groups or in other words, Torello and LaPietra represented the new South Side faction. During that same gathering, it was allegedly decided for crew boss Joe Amato to relinquish most of his operations around DuPage and McHenry County and to literally hand it down to Torello's group. During that period, Amato was arrested on gambling charges with members of his crew, who by now belonged to Torello's group such as Sal DeLaurentis, and later Amato was again arrested for committing arson and fraud, which in fact was a clear sign regarding Amato's "retirement".
LaPietra's Chinatown crew was formed by his brother James LaPietra, James Cordovano, Charles and Frank Bertucci, James DiForti, Frank Caruso Jr., John Fecarotta, Frank and Nick Calabrese, Gino Martin, Ronnie Jarrett, Fred Barbara, John Monteleone, Joe LaMantia, LaMantia's son Aldo Piscitelli Jr., Frank Furio, Frank Santucci, Frank Saladino who in turn also had close ties to the Rockford crime family and also took care of LaPietra's business relations with that same group, and also Nick Ferriola, the son of Cicero capo Joe Ferriola. All of these men already closely collaborated in many business ventures and also murders with their "cousins" from Torrelo's and Ferriola's Cicero crew, such as Donald Angelini, Dominic Cortina, Harry Aleman, Rocky Infelice, Joseph Scalise, Gerry Scarpelli, Butch Petrocelli, Tony Borsellino, Mike Sarno, Sal DeLaurentis and Jimmy Inendino.
In 1977, LaPietra celebrated his new position by building one huge fortress-like house at 30th Street and Princeton Avenue in Cicero, circled by a 6-foot high brick wall and at night, several huge lights covered the whole area. LaPiera's display of power probably didn't satisfy everyone in the Outfit, especially his bosses, but he was making a lot of money for them and so they kept quiet. Because of that, LaPietra's influence didn't just extend around Chinatown, Cicero and the South Side, but instead he also had many allies and interests from around the Chicago Heights area and some other southern suburbs.
For example, Jimmy Catuara was a capo under the Chicago Heights group, which at the time was represented by Al Pilotto, but Catuara wasnt liked quite much by most of his peers. LaPietra knew Catuara since the old days, mainly because Catuara grew up around the Chinatown area and later they worked together, and Catuara allegedly still had some "action" around Chinatown. But since by now LaPietra had a higher stature within the Outfit then Catuara, story goes that LaPietra allegedly "pushed out" Catuara from the Chinatown area allegedly because LaPietra wanted the whole territory for himself only. It seems LaPietra already knew that Catuara was slowly losing power and allegedly used the moment when Catuara was told to retire but the old man refused. In 1978, Catuara was killed by hitmen from the Chicago Heights crew and most of Catuara's former interests were inherited by LaPietra, especially in the auto-theft racket.
LaPietra also inherited and shared with Torello all of the contacts and interests from the Las Vegas casinos, which were previously "bought" by their former leader the late Fiore Buccieri since the late 1950's. That's why LaPietra together with his old friend Jack Cerone were also seen having meetings with representatives from other families, allegedly regarding the Vegas scheme. For example, in October 1978, Aiuppa, Cerone and LaPietra had a meeting in an apartment on the city's North Side, with the boss of the Kansas City crime family Nick Civella regarding their interests in Vegas and some sources say that complications occurred with one of the Outfit's frontmen over there, and story goes that because of it some tension was created between Aiuppa and Civella. Also, what was left of the Milwaukee crime family at the time, also had meetings with LaPietra and his bosses regarding the same subject. By now the Chicago boys were in charge of the Vegas scheme and so both the Kansas and Milwaukee crime families were to follow orders, a situation which also gave LaPietra unlimited power in the world of union racketeering and legitimate enterprises, such as the garbage scam.
In April 1979, James Torello suddenly died of a heart attack and sources say that some type of friction allegedly occurred between LaPietra and Ferriola regarding Torello's former position as representative for the new South Side mob, including the Cicero crew. Story goes that Ferriola allegedly was making some problems at the time, like unsanctioned extortions and the usage of unsanctioned violent tactics, but whatever was the real reason behind Ferriola's alleged "poor" reputation at the time, in the end it was LaPietra who became the new representative for the South Side mob, including the Cicero crew, and also remained as capo for the Chinatown street crew. Ferriola remained as district boss for the Cicero crew, but now under LaPietra's jurisdiction.
TOGETHER WE KILL FOR THE OUTFIT
Besides being one of the most lucrative groups, both the Cicero and Chinatown crews were involved in numerous murders and in fact, they became two of the most feared Outfit crews which also included other quite violent groups such as the Grand Avenue crew under Outfit capo Joey Lombardo and also the Melrose Park crew under Outfit boss Joey Aiuppa and his capo Tony Ortenzi. During this period the Cicero area was still divided between the LaPietra and Aiuppa crews, something which again gives us a full picture of the close connections between the two groups. Back in 1978, the Chinatown crew alone killed around four victims and continued killing anyone who stood in their way.
In 1979, Cicero crew member Butch Petrocelli blamed missing revenue on Tony Borsellino and also blamed him for being an alleged informant. Story goes that Borsellino was quite disappointed from the whole situation and sought help from Frank Calabrese Sr. who in turn asked his capo Angelo LaPietra, if Borsellino was able to switch crews from Cicero to Chinatown. But the problem was that LaPietra stated that the only way for Borsellino to be saved, was for Calabrese to sacrifice himself in his place, meaning LaPietra wanted Borsellino dead. In May that same year, Borsellino was murdered by one of his Cicero associates and long time friend, Gerald Scarpelli.
In July 1980, Chicago Heights associate and hitman William Dauber and his wife Charlotte were killed together on the Outfit's orders and the individuals who executed the "contract" were Chinatown associates Frank Calabrese Sr. and Ronnie Jarrett, together with Cicero crew members Butch Petrocelli and Gerald Scarpelli. In September 1980, Petrocelli himself got into a trouble with his superiors and story goes that he was allegedly called by both Angelo LaPietra and Joe Ferriola to come in for a sitdown. When Petrocelli arrived at the scene, LaPietra's crew members Frank Calabrese Sr. threw a rope around Petrocelli's neck and later slit his throat. Petrocelli's corpse was thrown in the trunk of his car, while Clabrese's brother Nick tried to burn the car but the fire went out too early, thus leaving Petrocelli's body half burned, although some sources speculated at the time that Petrocelli's face was allegedly burned with a acetylene torch.
Michael Cagnoni was an associate of both the Cicero and Chinatown crews but in June 1981, on LaPietra's orders Cagnoni was killed when a bomb exploded under the seat of his Mercedes. Sources say that it was Frank Calabrese Sr. who was responsible for the Cagnoni murder by planting a bomb under Cagnoni's car, which was detonated by an automatic radio-controlled device. In July 1981, the capo and representative for the Chicago Heights crew Al Pilotto survived an assassination attempt on his life which was orchestrated by one faction from his own crew. Story goes that two members of Pilotto's crew, Nick D'Andrea and Sam Guzzino, were allegedly behind the botched hit and so a "contract" was quickly placed on their lives. In September 1981, D'Andrea had been lured to a garage in Chicago Heights where he was killed by LaPietra, Nick Calabrese and high level member's of Aiuppa's personal crew, Sam Carlisi and Jimmy Marcello, while LaPietra's crew associate John Fecarotta was waiting outside. Story goes that the prime Outfit members who were previously sent to investigate the whole conspiracy, were old time Indiana capo Frank Zizzo, South Side boss Angelo LaPietra and Sam Carlisi. So before being killed, D'Andrea was first beaten at a warehouse and then they were going to take him to Pilotto's future successor Dominic Palermo. Carlisi was allegedly hitting D'Andrea with a shotgun on the way, but they discovered that the victim was dead once they got to the house.
Besides surviving an assassination attempt on his life, In June 1982, Chicago Heights boss Al Pilotto was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail regarding the skimming of millions of dollars from the Labors International Union of North America. Pilotto's "unofficial" successor was Dom Palermo who in turn was less powerful then his predecessor and so the leadership of the Chicago Heights crew and its membership became quite vulnerable. Some government sources at the time believed that there was a much larger picture behind the assassination attempt on Pilotto. Sources say that the dead Chicago Heights members who tried to kill their boss were possibly backed by Palermo, Joe Ferriola and LaPietra and in fact, the whole situation already had a long history. As I previously stated, since the late 1960's the former Buccieri - Torello faction "eyeballed" both the South Side and Chicago Heights areas, and it seems that this was the right time for them to accomplish their long desired goal.
That same year or right after Pilotto's imprisonment, the feds reported that a "platoon" of enforcers allegedly headed by Ferriola and LaPietra, invaded some of Pilotto's south suburban areas allegedly by "taking everything away and beating up anyone who doesn't go along". Sources say that their enforcers were going on a "wholesale throwing out of vending machines and electronic games" belonging to firms owned by Pilotto and the Chicago Heights crew.
LONG LIVE THE BROTHERHOOD
In 1983, LaPietra allegedly "sponsored" both Frank and Nick Calabrese to become official members of Chicago's Cosa Nostra family, followed by Rocco Infelice from the Ferriola's Cicero crew. LaPietra sponsoring three members from two different groups, meaning the Chinatown and Cicero crews, is one of the main evidences regarding the existence of one official representative for one, two or even more Outfit crews. The boss who presided over the induction ceremony was Joey Aiuppa himself, followed by one high level member of his own crew known as Al Tornabene. Some speculate that Tornabene knew the traditional Italian procedure of making new members, mainly because previously, or before the 1970's and 80s, the Outfit was known for making new members without any type of traditional customs.
It is possible that LaPietra realized that his days as Outfit capo were already numbered, meaning during this period LaPietra was looked upon by law enforcement as one of the Outfit's most powerful and feared leaders under Aiuppa, Cerone and Accardo, and so he also began receiving a lot of pressure from the government. That's why LaPietra decided to bring "new blood" within his own crew, and the Calabrese brothers were perfect for that role.
THE DOWNFALL
Back in 1980, Angelo and James LaPietra together with Joe Ferriola briefly appeared before a Milwaukee federal grand jury regarding the Mob's infiltration in Las vegas casinos. Also, in 1981 two of LaPietra's crew members Frank Saladino and Ronnie Jarrett were indicted in a burglary case and so the government quickly connected them to LaPietra's name which also "exploded" in the newspapers. For example in 1982, the Chicago Tribune posted a chart which allegedly explained the chain of command within the Outfit and LaPietra's name was on it, and the following year his name appeared again when one of his enforcers Joe LaMantia was arrested and indicted for making threats to one victim who in turn was an undercover informant and was secretly taping all of the conversations that he had with LaMantia. During one of their conversations, LaMantia told the informant to scare one of their victims by saying "You tell this guy...the guy I'm with, he's a gentleman, but he'll cut your heart out. You scare him 'cause he don't mean a thing to me. I'll stick him the head with an ice pick".
Finally, in May 1984, the government officially announced the indictments against Aiuppa, Cerone and LaPietra regarding the skimming from Las Vegas casinos and in June, all of the bosses were called to testify before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in Kansas City, including the local crime bosses from that same town. As usual, all of them stood hidden behind the 5th amendment and the greatest spectacle occurred when Tony Accardo also arrived at the hearings. The old man confirmed knowing Al Capone and also confirmed his long time nickname "Joe Batters" but refused to say anything regarding Aiuppa's or Cerone's daily activities besides being socialized with them for quite a long time period. The bosses were out on bond at the time while Accardo stated that he and Aiuppa saw each other in Palm Springs right after the indictments were disclosed, meaning Aiuppa wasn't allowed to associate with known felons and so he could've violated his bond, unless they were indicted in the same case as he was. The thing was that Accardo wasn't indicted in the skimming case and he was only called as a witness but on top of that, the old man was never recorded as ex-felon which means that Aiuppa was off the hook.
During the 1985 trials Aiuppa was accused by prosecutors as being the so-called "mastermind" behind the Las Vegas scheme while being backed by Cerone, LaPietra and Grand Avenue capo Joey Lombardo, by constantly playing tapes made from hidden microphones and also constantly pulling out witnesses during the investigations. In the end, in March 1986, both Aiuppa and Cerone were sentenced each to 28 years in prison for their role in conspiring to steal millions of dollars from a Vegas casino, while Angelo LaPietra, who was described as the one who oversaw the information and illegal income from the scheme between Las Vegas and the bosses, was sentenced to 16 years in prison, followed by Lombardo in April that same year, who in turn received additional years on his previous conviction which also resulted with the amount of 16 years imprisonment.
Before going to jail, Aiuppa, Cerone and LaPietra had to make few final decisions, such as which member was going to inherit their crews and also on who was going to get "whacked" next. Sources say that Anthony Ortenzi should've continued his role as Aiuppa's capo for his personal crew but the problem was that Ortenzi already had serious health issues and so LaPietra's long time associate Sam Carlisi was allegedly the guy who inherited both Aiuppa's crew by placing Jimmy Marcello as the crew's new capo, and also became the acting boss position for the Outfit. On the other hand, Cerone handpicked the capo from his own crew, John DiFronzo, as the new number two guy or underboss for the organization, followed by Louis Eboli who in turn represented Lombardo's successor. As for LaPietra, he placed his brother Jimmy LaPietra as the new capo for their personal Chinatown crew while Joe Ferriola finally became the new representative for the whole Cicero/South Side mob. Same as his predecessor, Ferriola also displayed his power by building one huge $500,000 mansion in Oak Brook and also becoming one of the Outfit's most important leaders. In fact, some government sources at the time though that Ferriola was the Outfit's boss, an information which was obviously wrong.
All of their successors needed to show loyalty to their imprisoned bosses by all being involved in the June 1986 murders of the Spilotro brothers. Story goes that the Spilotro brothers were swindled, meaning Tony was given a promise for becoming a capo while his brother was going to become a made guy. Those present during the brutal executions were John DiFronzo, Louis Eboli, Al Tocco, Joe Ferriola, Rocco Infelise, Jimmy LaPietra, Nick Calabrese, Sam Carlisi and Jimmy Marcello, among others. The involvement of high level members in a double murder shows the loyalty between them by killing two of their own, since they all participated in the same crime. Three months after the Spilotro murders, LaPietra's crew member Nick Calabrese also received the contract to kill one of their long time associates John Fecarotta and after the murder, Nick Calabrese made one small mistake which will haunt him and his associates decades later.
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Sources say that both Jimmy LaPietra and Joe LaMantia were frequent visitors of Angelo LaPietra at the prison in Danbury, Connecticut; and with their help, LaPietra was allegedly still able to make all important decisions and also to control all rackets of his own crew. Also some reports say that Jimmy LaPietra somehow found an inside source who was able to smuggle Italian food to his imprisoned brother. In August 1988, 67 year old Angelo LaPietra was caught by prison guards with contraband food in his jail cell and so he was transferred from Connecticut to another prison in Petersburg VA, because of violation of prison disciplinary rules. According to some government sources at the time, even though their boss was imprisoned, still the LaPietra group remained as one of the most powerful and also most violent street crews within the Chicago Outfit.
While being in jail, in March 1989, LaPietra heard about the sudden death of his long time associate Joe Ferriola who in turn died during a heart surgery and this was allegedly a huge loss for the Cicero-South Side faction. Story goes that Ferriola had serious health issues during the past several years but it seems that didn't stop him in the control over his personal crew and also in attending meetings with the Outfit's top leadership. The guy who inherited Ferriola's position as capo for the Cicero crew was Rocky Infelise who was previously described as Ferriola's top lieutenant. Even though he received all of the interests from his predecessor, still its hard to believe that Infelise had the same power to receive jurisdiction over both crews but instead, it is possible that job belonged to the Chinatown capo or LaPietra's brother Jimmy who in turn had more seniority then LaPietra and was also very well respected by all members and associates. In October 1989, investigators labelled both Infelise and Jimmy LaPietra as successors of the late Ferriola and also as prime leaders of the Cicero-South Side crew.
In May 1992, Chinatown heavyweights Jimmy LaPietra, Frank Calabrese and John Monteleone appeared before a federal grand jury regarding the investigations of an alleged Mob involvement in several car bombings and that same year, the government also listed Jimmy LaPietra as member of the Outfit's leading administration. In August 1993 Cicero capo Rocky Infelise was sent to prison together with several of his lieutenants, including Sal DeLaurentis, on racketeering, extortion and murder conspiracy charges. In September 1993, Jimmy LaPietra died of natural causes, although it seems that Jimmy's death didn't cause any type of problem to his own crew mainly because he already had powerful lieutenants who were able to take control over the whole faction, at any given time.
One of those powerful lieutenants was LaPietra's long time associate John Monteleone who in turn succeeded the late Jimmy LaPietra as capo for the Chinatown crew, while Mike Spano Sr. received Rocky Infelise's position as capo for the Cicero crew. The thing was that besides Chinatown, Monteleone also had interests around Cicero, the South Side and north of the Loop and above all, he held more seniority than Spano, thus making him the top level capo for the Cicero-South Side faction. Some government investigations reported that some of Spano's top lieutenants were often seen in Monteleone's company and in fact, same as his imprisoned boss, Monteleone was more of a Cicero guy rather than Chinatown but the problem was that he followed the LaPietras since "day one". Monteleone's crew was divided on two groups, with the first one being allegedly headed by Frank Caruso Jr. who in turn was the son of the late Frank Caruso Sr., and the second group was headed by Frank Calabrese Sr.
During this period the Chicago Outfit was headed by John DiFronzo from the Elmwood Park crew and reports say that both DiFronzo's close associate Joe Andriacchi and Monteleone acted as his messengers for the rest of the Outfit's capos and soldiers. Sometime between 1996 and 1997, DiFronzo allegedly took a step back from the day to day decisions and so he gave his boss position to Monteleone. Sources say that there was allegedly some type of tension between Monteleone and Andriacchi and so DiFronzo somehow managed to keep the peace between the two factions by making Monteleone the Outfit's new boss and Andriacchi his second in command. According to one informant who gave his story years later, the capo of the Cicero crew Mike Spano Sr. allegedly once told him that during this period Monteleone was his boss and was also the boss of the Outfit.
Frank Caruso Jr. became the new capo for the Chinatown crew mainly because back in 1995 Monteleone's other crew boss Calabrese Sr. was indicted on loan sharking and extortion charges and two years later he was sent to 9 years in prison. Caruso's brother, Bruno was the chief of the Chicago District council and was also president of Local 1001, while Caruso Jr. took a job as trustee and assistant manager of the union's $775 million pension fund.
THE OLD BULL IS HOME
In 1997, Angelo LaPietra was released from prison and when the 77-year old returned back to Chicago, his own crew already controlled the whole Chicago crime family. Old man LaPietra was still looked upon as one of the original creators of his Chinatown crew and his ruthless reputation from the old days already preceded him but while in prison, on the outside times were changing fast. Some government sources speculated that LaPietra allegedly took some type of advisory role next to his long time associate Joey Lombardo, who in turn was also released from prison before LaPietra.
Besides that, other reports say that during this period LaPietra was allegedly quite paranoid and refused to talk to anyone within or outside the Outfit. But no matter how paranoid LaPietra was, his own faction currently ruled the Outfit and it is hard to believe that he never met the Outfit's boss who in turn was his personal successor. LaPietra allegedly often sat in the corner of one Oak Lawn restaurant, in which Monteleone often held court, but rarely socialized with the visitors and guests. Anyone who tried to shake hands with LaPietra, the old man would've simply given him or her the so-called "crazy look" and that was it. Since LaPietra was a made man and also former capo for the Outfit, he was probably still receiving income from his own crew and also still lived lavishly at his old fortress in Cicero. By 1998, LaPietra's old associate Monteleone allegedly controlled all video poker and other gambling machines around the Chicago area and also controlled extensive gambling and loan sharking activities, which means that money wasnt a problem at the time.
END OF THE ROAD
In April 1999, Monteleone's predecessor and alleged advisor, Angelo LaPietra died of natural causes at the age of 78. Within the government and around the U.S., LaPietra remained known as a ruthless gangster who mainly loved the action of the so-called "blue collar" rackets which often involved violence, intimidation and murder. LaPietra was always feared and that's why he also became one quite greedy individual by taking almost everything under his jurisdiction. Back in the days he started working for one of the Outfit's most violent district bosses and that's why LaPietra's so-called legacy was also represented by brutal individuals like Monteleone and Frank Calabrese Sr., who also killed people with the blink of an eye. But around the Chicago area, especially within his old neighbourhood, LaPietra remained known as individual who donated lots of cash for the needy and poor, and also as founder of the Old Neighbourhood Italian American Club, and story goes that the Cicero, Chinatown and Bridgeport areas were considered "sacred" by the Outfit and LaPietra's name can still be heard even today. LaPietra was survived by his wife Mildred, a daughter Joann Lascola, a son Angelo Jr., three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
"LIFE" AFTER DEATH
In 2010, the name of the late Angelo LaPietra managed to hit the front pages of newspapers again. In April that same year, federal agents observed old time member of the Cicero-South Side group Joseph Scalise together with Arthur Rachel and Robert Pullia and during the recording of one of their conversations, the feds stumbled upon another more controversial subject or a bizarre twist, on which the boys planned to execute in near future. The conversation started between Scalise and Pullia and was mostly regarding the recent seizure of huge amounts of cash, jewellery and firearms at the residence of Chicago Outfit big shot Frank Calabrese Sr. They also talked about some previous cases in which some of deceased crime bosses, such as Tony Accardo and Joe Ferriola, had safes in their residences because they did not trust banks. In the end, Scalise mentioned deceased crime boss Angelo LaPietra, who built his own house and allegedly had a safe somewhere in it, and that's when the feds realized that the boys were planning to rob the house of the late Outfit "capo".
In fact, Scalise unknowingly explained to the feds the whole plan. Here's what he said: "From day one, the upstairs windows. 'Cause I remember when he (LaPietra) built that house. The upstairs windows have never been opened. If you can get up there, it will not be alarmed. Art (Rachel) checked out Maggie's (LaPietra's wife) daughter's house, and there are no alarms on the second floor." Then Pullia added: "She spots you over there, fuck 'em. She, she walks in while we are there we will grab it, fuck it, because we'll be masked up anyways. Fuck her. Put the arm on her and walk her back, any alarm goes off we will kill ya." During the conversation, Scalise also showed a small dosage of personal hatred against the late LaPietra by stating: "He was a miserable person…who after his release from prison would sit in a chair in a corner and stare at people. Every little thing made him nuts." So in plain words, they hoped to find a secret stash of jewels and valuables at the residence, which were allegedly stashed by the late LaPietra, and if they were caught by his daughter, their plan was to scare and threaten her at the same time or maybe even kill her. And so instead of chasing them for planning a bank robbery, the feds immediately changed their plans.
On April 5, 2010, somewhere around the morning hours Scalise met with another "friend of his" from the old Cicero crew known as James Inendino, and so and Scalise asked his buddy to find out on who was usually house sitting at the LaPietra residence. Later, Inendino talked to the some people and received information that there was nobody there however in the end Scalise agreed that "there's gotta be somebody there." On April 8, at approximately 8:00 p.m., the trio appeared near the LaPietra residence and engaged in what was believed to be a counter-surveillance driving, like rounding the residence etc. Scalise was behind the wheel and he parked the van on the south side of the house and they all just watched. After that, Scalise said that he could see right in and that the blinds were open on one of the windows and so both Scalise and Pullia quickly got out and went straight to the window which was located on the southwestern corner of the residence and started drilling holes so they could take down the whole window and enter easily.
As the burglars worked on their "task", suddenly dozens of FBI agents and police patrol cars appeared and quickly arrested them. When another group of federal agents arrested Rachel while sitting in the van, he tried to act like he did not know what was going on. He said: "What is this all about?" and one of the agents replied "It's about the house over there", while pointing with his finger in direction of the LaPietra residence. The trio was quickly taken into custody and the day was saved, including the house of the late Angelo LaPietra that was built from the sweat and blood of the ordinary citizen, again thanks to the feds.
THE ASSASSINATION OF MAYOR CERMAK & THE CHICAGO OUTFIT
In this post I want to talk about one quite old situation, since it is too early for me to say a possible “Mob hit”, which is quite similar to many other “situations” that occurred during the following decades.
There is not much difference between high profile public killings such as the assassination of President Jack Kennedy or the public “hit” on infamous Mafia boss Joe Colombo. Or even the killing of JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy which was also executed in the same style and also it occurred in front of more than few witnesses. In fact, some of these killings occurred in front of thousands of eye witnesses and in most cases, the alleged assassins were killed sooner or later, and on top of that, all cases remain closed but at the same time, there are still many unexplained details or connections regarding the murders, mainly because the assassins had minimal and almost non-existent mob connections.
All of the previously mentioned targets were killed by some type of “strange” and lone gunmen who in some way sacrificed their lives in eliminating publicly some high profile individual, allegedly for their own or personal ideas and reasons. This wasn’t happening only in the U.S., but instead it was, and it’s still happening all over the world. For example, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar also used similar tactics while eliminating public figures, or Mexico’s AFO cartel or even today’s suicidal Islamic extremists who sacrifice their own lives with the blink of an eye just to eliminate their prime targets.
Obviously these types of killings sometimes were triggered by one single mind who decided to solve the problem in his own way, but some were triggered by a group of people who decided to use some lunatic with crazy ideology and with some social problems, ready to sacrifice his freedom and life. I personally believe that all examples are mainly executed with the help of “Machiavellian” manipulation, followed by massive corruption. Once that happens, it is very hard, almost impossible, to make one whole conclusion on who did what and was there someone else behind the murder, or whether the assassin acted alone.
Well there was one alleged assassination attempt which preceded all of the previously mentioned situations, and in this case the alleged target was the country’s President, which luckily for him remained alive but one famous (or infamous) Mayor, who was also present, received one bullet in his stomach and later died. Since this was a tragedy which occurred decades before the JFK or Colombo assassinations, my personal belief is that there is some similarity in the details of the killings between this one and the rest.
The high profile killing for which I’m talking about involved President Franklin Roosevelt and the alleged “unlucky” Mayor Anton Cermak, and everything occurred in 1933 at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida in front of hundreds of visitors who came to see their President and everything finished with the fatal wound in the stomach of Chicago’s Mayor Cermak. If we want to solve the case, first we have to look at the four main individuals involved in the situation, one by one, which includes President Roosevelt, Mayor Cermak, one high level Mafia boss and the alleged assassin.
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was America’s 32nd President from 1933 until his death in 1945, and according to multiple reports, this guy allegedly had “indirect” Mob ties. Roosevelt was against Tammany Hall and his alleged plan was to neutralize the Tammany influence, which means that he had to go against the Mob. Tammany Hall was sponsored by all of the east coast crime families, including Chicago. The main moment or situation which Roosevelt used to get the gangsters on his side was when one influential member of Roosevelt’s faction, Albert Marinelli first decided to separate himself from the party. Story goes that Marinelli was backed by Genovese boss Charles Luciano and later “someone” forced Marinelli to again join Roosevelt’s group. The mob always, and I mean always used to support both oppositions, no matter if it was about local politics or regarding some election in a different country.
I usually don’t believe much in statements which were allegedly made by some mobsters and then were placed in some book, although years later some of those statements came out to be true. Again, I usually relay on information that comes from wiretapped conversations which according to me are the best evidences but still, here’s one statement allegedly made by Luciano himself and it goes something like “I don’t say we elected Roosevelt, but we gave him a pretty good push”.
Now let’s look at one of Sam Giancana’s alleged statements which can be found in the “Double Cross” book: “Truman owes everything he’s got to us. Pendergast made him judge and then, with the Italian muscle behand him, got him to the Senate. When the 44th election came up, Kelly here in Chicago got him on the ticket with Roosevelt. Shit, Chicago got Roosevelt and Truman nominated and elected. We were good to Roosevelt, he was good to us.”
If we look at Roosevelt’s ally from the Chicago area, Ed Kelly, well this guy had one close political associate since the old days who went by the name of Patrick Nash and their political group was known as the “Kelly-Nash Machine”. Both Kelly and Nash were closely associated with the Jewish faction from the Chicago Outfit which at the time was mainly located around the Lawndale area and was represented by big time gamblers such as Ben Zuckerman, who in turn was closely connected to one Italian capo from the West Side faction known as Lawrence Mangano. By the early 1940’s, Mangano already introduced the Kelly-Nash duo to his prime political representative, James Adducci who in turn was allegedly a made member of Chicago’s Cosa Nostra. On October 6 1943, Patrick Nash died of natural causes, thus leaving both Kelly and Adducci to take complete control.
I personally do not have any evidence showing direct connection between Roosevelt and the U.S. Mob, but there are obviously evidences regarding his political allies from the Pendergast and the Kelly-Nash political machines having deep mob-ties at the time.
Anton Cermak
During the late 1890s, young Anton “Tony” Cermak mostly hung around Chicago’s Southwest Side and began his political career as a simple precinct captain, who by 1902 was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. It was the time when the original Irish Mob ruled supreme over Chicago’s underworld and controlled all politics, and above all they managed to organize all ethnic criminal groups in one single and huge gambling syndicate with its own criminal commission. The Southwest Side and the areas around the Union Stockyards were mainly ruled by Irish bosses such as “King Mike” McDonald and his longtime associate and protégé James “Big Jim” O’Leary. In fact, since O’Leary belonged to the Irish Mob, he also had huge influence within the Democratic Party with the help of one of his underlings known as Roger Sullivan, who in turn was the head of that same Democratic faction and was always considered as Cermak’s mentor. So it for Sullivan who first gave a job to Cermak as precinct captain, and later placed him in the House of Representatives.
Story goes that Cermak didn’t represent himself as one highly educated individual but instead, he often acted as one quite tough individual, same as his mentors, and wasn’t afraid to use violence and loved being in the company of racketeers on daily basis. There’s nothing surprising in this type of information since the whole political machine in Chicago at the time was financed and also headed by organized crime individuals, and so by the late 1910’s Cermak worked as Alderman for the 12th Ward. In 1922, Cermak was elected as the president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and later in 1924 he attended the lavish funeral of one political crime boss and head of the Unione Siciliani known as Michele “Mike” Merlo, who in turn was also former boss of Chicago’s Italian Mafia. The late Merlo previously continued the tradition of the old Irish mob by keeping the peace between all ethnic criminal groups and also constantly tried to keep them in one piece or one syndicate, obviously with the help of constant collaborations between those same crews and not crossing each other’s areas.
Back in 1907, the first organized crime boss of Chicago’s underworld and political corruptor, and also “peacemaker” for all gangs, Mike McDonald, died of natural causes and 17 years later or in 1924 Mike Merlo also died, followed by “Big Jim” O`Leary in January 1925, who also died of natural causes. This meant that all of the so-called “peacemakers” who kept the balance within Chicago’s underworld were now dead, and so all hell broke lose. Some gangs remained independent, while many had to chose sides between the most powerful factions, and the same situation was for the politicians too, especially for the ones who were financed and backed by different criminal crews.
Some reports say that two of the prime crime bosses around the Southwest side were Joseph "Polack Joe" Saltis and Frank McErlane. Another criminal faction at the time who also lurked around those same areas, was the John Torrio/Al Capone crew which in turn was in alliance with the rising Italian Mafia.
Story goes that Cermak was some type of racist who allegedly hated most Italians and used foul words whenever he allegedly mentioned some Italian or the population in general. So if the story is true, then it is quite clear on why Cermak backed some of the so-called independed non-Italian gangs such as the Saltis crew which were in conflict with some of the Italian groups at the time. Sources from that period say that the Saltis gang was in conflict with the “Diamond Joe” Esposito clan from the West Side. Joe Esposito was one of the “few” non-Sicilians who were made members of the old U.S. Cosa Nostra.
Besides having the Italian Mafia on his side, Esposito was also allegedly in alliance with the Ralph Sheldon gang from the nearby South Side, but in 1928 Esposito was killed allegedly by his own Italian people, but there is another theory in which non-Italian gangs were allegedly involved in Esposito’s demise. “Coincidentally”, that same year Cermak became the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. At the time there was an internal war within Chicago’s underworld regarding two main spots, including the top position in the Italian Unione Siciliani and also regarding the Mayor position of Chicago. So the Italians already had the Mayor spot since the Republican representative William Hale Thompson was on their payroll but regarding the complete control of the Italian organization, a lot of representatives ended up dead, and by 1930 the so-called Capone crew was the most powerful crime organization in Chicago.
During that same year Cermak allegedly made an alliance with one non-Italian and influential racketeer known as Ted Newberry, who in turn used to be a member of the former Dean O’Banion/Vincent Drucci gang and in fact, he was allegedly one the fellas who betrayed and lured their own group by setting up a meeting which later became known as St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. In addition, many researchers say that there was no connection between Cermak and Newberry, but the reports from that same time period regarding their alleged alliance are too overwhelming.
So Newberry became a close associate of Chicago’s Italian Mafia, especially to Salvatore Loverde and Paul Ricca, and story goes that he even received a diamond belt buckle personally from Al Capone himself, regarding his loyalty. Capone used to give that same type of gift to all leaders, both Italian and non-Italian, who decided to betray their bosses and joined the Capone family. In 1930, Newberry was arrested while riding on a train together with Ricca, Loverde, Jake Guzik and Ed Vogel, while being on their way to New York, allegedly to watch a boxing match.
It seems it was up for Newberry to maintain the connection between Cermak and the Italian syndicate, and according to one FBI memo, Cermak allegedly promised the Capone family all rights in operating the lucrative policy racket around Chicago’s South Side, in exchange for him to receive the Italian votes regarding the position as Chicago’s Mayor, and of course a percentage from all of the illegal income. In fact, Cermak’s connection to the Italian syndicate was only out of selfish reasons, something which will end up bad for both Cermak and Chicago’s Italian crime syndicate.
In 1931, Cermak was elected Chicago's 36th Mayor by defeating “Big Bill” Thompson who in turn was also backed by the Italian syndicate, and so Cermak immediately established a Democratic stranglehold in the mayor's office, which quickly built the strength of the Democratic Party by also bringing together old enemies within that same group. Cermak obviously felt powerful and during his whole lifetime he was a very ambitious guy, but maybe too ambitious for a man in his position. As I previously stated that during his political career, Cermak was mostly backed by Irish, Pollack or Slovakian racketeers but above all, his connection to the rising Italian crime syndicate was inevitable.
Since Cermak allegedly hated the Italian population, he possibly waited for the right moment to turn his back on the Capone family, and to takeover their rackets with the help of non-Italian criminal crews. That moment came in 1932 when Capone was imprisoned and was also taken to prison out of Chicago, and so many old enemies tried to take over his criminal empire. And story goes that Ted Newberry was allegedly the one who instantly made an alliance with the rival Roger Touhy crew and some of the African-American crime groups, and decided to take the Capone family out of the gambling racket.
Legend goes that members of the newly created Chicago Outfit, such as Paul Ricca and Charles Fischetti, previously asked for political and police protection from the Cermak administration, regarding their gambling rackets, and it seems that Cermak realized that the Capone family depended on their gambling operations, since it was their next huge financial income, obviously after the end of Prohibition. Newberry allegedly assured Cermak that with their complete control over the policy racket on the South Side, he would become the richest guy in the city of Chicago. Cermak made a plan for “selling” the rights to the previous “owners”, which meant the Jones brothers and the African-American crime syndicates and to simply take out the next-in-line boss of the Capone Mob, which they all thought was Frank Nitto.
Frank Nitto
The thing was that Nitto got out of prison after Capone’s imprisonment and one government investigator mentioned Nitto’s name as possible successor, and so that same statement quickly went national by being on the newspaper headlines for the next 6 or 7 years. Decades later even some less informed Outfit members mentioned Nitto as one of the old time bosses and on top of that they never met him. I have some examples which indicate that many members didn’t know that some of their business associates were also made members, meaning some members didn’t know their “brothers” from their own “brotherhood” or crime family and so no wonder on why some of them gave such info regarding Nitto.
Since they were all wrong, still many rival gangsters and political bosses believed in the information and so in their eyes Nitto was the “real boss” of the Chicago Outfit, and all of the media coverage constantly pushed the false information into everyone’s head. Nitto obviously held some high stature within the Outfit because I have evidence that he, together with his close West Side associate Louis Campagna, were sponsoring new members for the organization which possibly means that Nitto was either a capo or captain of his own crew, or was a representative for the whole West Side faction on the Outfit’s Board of Directors, with Campagna above him or maybe as his second in command.
Whatever is the truth, I have numerous evidences that the real boss of the organization was in fact Capone’s number two guy Felice DeLucia a.k.a. Paul Ricca, who in turn was often seen with bosses from other families during that same time period. Capone was “Best Man” at Ricca’s wedding and as the years passed by, Ricca became the boss’ main “voice” on the east coast and received a nickname such as “Il Comparello” which was allegedly given to him by some of the New York bosses. Also, some researchers say that Campagna was Ricca’s underboss, which brings me again to my previous statement regarding Nitto’s position.
There’s not even a speck of information out there regarding the Chicago Outfit or the U.S. Mob in general wanting to eliminate the country’s President or Chicago’s Mayor during that same time period, which means that the Mob was “busy” fighting for the control over new lucrative rackets and proof for that was their move to make a deal with Cermak regarding the policy racket on the city’s South Side.
This is also a proof that none of the rival non-Italian and political bosses understood the Italian Mafia at the time and its own way of regrouping in their ranks. The Cermak administration obviously becoming a huge problem in the eyes of the rising Italian Mob at the time and the “dark clouds of war” were slowly arriving over the city of Chicago.
The Conflict
As I already stated that in 1932 Frank Nitto was out of prison and so Ted Newberry allegedly made the first move for eliminating his “main” target. Now, for Newberry to make a move against the Capone/Ricca family, first he had to control large crew and also to have high level police and political protection. Newberry didn’t have a large crew, but he obviously had some police, and probably political backing too.
There are still some claims and alleged conclusions that there is no real proof for Cermak being involved in the beginning of the conflict. Well that’s obviously wrong. First of all, the Cermak administration allegedly gave “free-reign” or free pass for some of the police squads to harass and assault certain high profile Chicago gangsters, usually the ones who belonged to the Capone family.
Second, there’s one FBI memo which might be the only proof that Cermak swindled the Outfit regarding the policy racket and gave it to Newberry and the African-American syndicate, which was possibly the main reason for the beginning of the longtime quarrel between the black syndicates and the Outfit regarding that same racket. In fact, the African-American syndicates controlled the policy racket since the late 19th century, and so this was a war between other ethnic groups, with huge political backup, on who was going to control the black man’s racket. Cermak wasn’t interested only in receiving his share from the rackets, but instead he also needed the votes from the huge black population from around the large South Side.
So all of the statements made by other mob historians regarding the Newberry/Cermak alliance being non-existent are not true. We can obviously see that the African-American/Cermak alliance and the swindling of the Outfit were two quite real situations. This means that we can obviously form a conclusion that Cermak possessed deep Mob-connections and as Chicago’s Mayor, he also had the power of having the last word on who was going to illegally run what in his own city, especially in the sphere of the gambling business.
On top of that, at the time Cermak’s daughter was fooling around with one Capone associate known as Otto Kerner, who in turn married her and a decade later became a U.S. States Attorney. So my point is that Cermak possibly was already tied to the Outfit but for some reasons he swindled them and allegedly became their problem. Another interesting info is that after the imprisonment of Al Capone in 1932, two Outfit members Jake Guzik and Murray Humphreys tried to intensify the cultivation of political and police officials, which will be friendlier to the Outfit but obviously Cermak was standing in their way.
This was the moment when Newberry orchestrated a hit by sending two corrupt police detectives so the whole thing would look like a raid and to quickly kill their target right there on the spot and in the end to say that it happened in a self-defense. So on December 19, 1932, in a gangland fashion, two detectives from Chicago’s police squad, Harry Miller and Henry Lang, went to Frank Nitto’s office at 221 N. LaSalle Street, and the duo entered through the door, disarmed the four bodyguards and handcuffed the alleged crime boss. Suddenly detective Lang took a military position and fired five shots into Nitto’s body and quickly after that, the duo left the scene.
Miraculously Nitto managed to survive and slowly recovered in hospital, and that’s when Cermak and Newberry made a huge mistake by thinking that with Nitto out of the picture or “with the head dead, the body dies”, but the problem was that neither the alleged “head” was dead, nor the Capone family was really damaged by the situation.
Obviously none of Capone’s real successors such as Ricca, Frank Rio and Fischetti were that stupid since they were able to find out on who was behind the Nitto assassination attempt with their “eyes closed”. Maybe Newberry didn’t understand the Italian Mafia, but he obviously understood the streets of Chicago and even though Nitto was alive, still Newberry knew that the Capone family were coming after him and so he fled the city. After all, one of the government “hitmen” decided to talk or “spilled the beans” that Nitto was attacked with the intent to be eliminated. So less than a month later, or on January 3, 1933, Newberry was found dead in Indiana, shot by several shotgun blasts.
The Plot
According to some reports from that same decade, after the Newberry murder, Mayor Cermak allegedly was warned several times by government agents and also by Chicago’s police department that he was probably in trouble, since they allegedly noticed that he was being followed by quite suspicious individuals, on daily basis. Story goes that Cermak was also warned by couple of his close political associates that rumors started floating regarding his future assassination but according to one of his close associates, Cermak always said that he was the Mayor and no one will dare to touch him.
Still, in the end Cermak was convinced to buy himself a bullet-proof vest and moved into a different apartment and he even increased the number of his bodyguards, from two to five, and also placed police guards at the homes of his two daughters. This means that after the Newberry murder, the Mayor was obviously fearing for his own life and also for the lives of his loved ones, since he obviously realized the mistake he made and also the dangerous problem in which he was implicated. If there wasn’t any connection between Cermak and Newberry, then why all of the high level security?!
When the cops received all the complaints and secret information that the Mayor’s life was in danger, they quickly began following many known members and associates of the Capone crime family, which at the time was allegedly the only crime syndicate that had the ability and connections to pull off such a “job”. In fact, the Chicago Mafia was known for killing politicians since the 1920s.
I believe that the Mob was quite aware of the danger regarding killing the Mayor on their own ground because it was going to be obvious on who was responsible for the “hit”. So they probably waited for the perfect moment, or in other words, they waited for the Mayor to leave town or to start moving around.
On February 12, 1933, word went out that Cermak was going to Florida and was about to attend the speech of President Franklin Roosevelt in Miami, on February 15, or three days later. Strange “coincidence” occurred when on February 14, or less than 24 hours before the gathering, Capone members and prime hitmen William White and Vincenzo Gibaldi a.k.a. Jack McGurn were arrested at the train station in Chicago, while waiting for their lift to Florida. They were questioned for their plans in Miami and later they were arrested and allegedly held at the police station in Chicago until the next morning or in other words, until the whole thing was finished down in Florida.
Now, McGurn was known to the Chicago police since the mid 1920’s as one high profile killer for the Capone family, and after the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, he was known all around the country. As for “Three Finger” White, I believe that there’s no need to waste any words regrading this fella since he was one of the most notorious individuals within Capone’s Outfit at the time, mainly because White was considered as professional killer, kidnapper and extortionist who killed anyone who stood in his way, including cops. The main point here is that these guy were also good logisticians for orchestrating contract killings.
As I already said that those two guys were known by every cop around the country, especially in Florida since the Chicago mob always had their interests and many guys constantly travelled down there. This means that no Mafia boss would’ve ever placed these two “famous” killers in front of dozens of bodyguards, policemen and secret service agents, and between hundreds of attendees and newspaper men. There was no chance for them to getaway unnoticed by all of those people, and so what was their plan?
Usually, when the Capone family wanted for some high level target to be executed, they used some professional killer from the “outside” or someone who had almost no ties to their organization or as some of the media called them “out-of-town men”. This is something which occurred quite often during the days of Prohibition and it is quite well documented. So again, what were both White and McGurn doing that same day on train station, while waiting for a train to Florida and what was their purpose? They obviously knew that they were constantly followed by the cops and government agents, so what was going on?
Again, according to my long time research on the Chicago Outfit, those guys quite often used assassins who recently came or were brought by some third party from a different city, just to eliminate the problem. You see, when Al Capone came on the scene, the media and newspaper men went crazy about his close associates and members of his crime family, and so they were constantly followed by newspaper men who in turn also took pictures of these fellas, and this was just one of the main reasons for changing their murder logistics. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they still personally killed each other but when it came to high profile and highly secured targets, they used other tactics.
So the Outfit obviously knew about the huge political gathering and they were also aware of the number of cops on the streets, and so the arrest of both McGurn and White was probably a simple decoy or a diversion for the cops to think that they got the “wannabe” assassins. Neither White nor McGurn weren’t able to arrive in Miami since both of them were locked up for the night on February 14, or the previous day before the political gathering occurred. So I think that I personally can assure you that during this period the Mob quite often used all kinds of alibis, decoys, professional tactics and assassins, just to eliminate their problem. They often used military tactics, huge payoffs and every possible tool for creating their logistics on some particular contract killing. For example, when the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred, the cops found a trail of evidences which led straight to some Outfit guys such as John Moore a.k.a. Claude Maddox but the thing was that he had a strong alibi, meaning he was in court during the shootings. Even the Judge stepped in Maddox’s defense, who later came out to be one of their “puppets” in the judicial system. So this is only a theory but maybe McGurn and White were sitting there on purpose so they can get noticed by the police and get themselves arrested, while the real assassin took the train to Miami or maybe was already there?!
On February 15, among the thirty or more noted political visitors and local leaders on the platform at Bayfront Park in Miami, also present was Mayor Cermak. All of the political leaders who attended the gathering had their own chauffeurs who in turn some also acted as their security guards but the main thing was that President Roosevelt, besides being always followed by his huge security, he was also watched by ten Secret Service men who in turn often followed him when he toured around or out of the country. And on top of that, there were also at least a dozen of Cermak’s personal security guys who carefully watched for any familiar criminal faces in the crowd, who might belong to Chicago’s underworld, something which again proves my previous point regarding Cermak knowing that he was in trouble.
According to several reports, there was so much security at that particular gathering and everyone thought that it was for the President, which means that not even a fly was able to go near the prime political faces. When President Roosevelt arrived in his presidential automobile, suddenly he singled out Mayor Cermak for a greeting and later the President stood on the back seat of his car and spoke briefly to the crowd. There were great cheers and as he finished, and Cermak immediately rose from his seat and stepped to the front of the stand. He leaned over so he can again shake hands with Roosevelt and later the Mayor moved away. While Cermak stood few feet away from the President’s car, there was a startling interruption when allegedly five shots suddenly rang out.
One quite short man, who stood 9 meters from the President, between two or three rows of spectators, began yelling and started shooting with his pistol. The first shot allegedly missed the President who previously quickly slid down under the backseat, but somehow the target continued shooting four more times. As I previously stated that Cermak was 5 or 6 feet away from the President but when the smoke cleared, Cermak had a bullet in his stomach, or below his last rib and also five other individuals, who stood behind him, were also injured. President Roosevelt remained unharmed while Cermak died 19 days later from complications which occurred from the bullet. The assassin was quickly declared as anarchist who missed his original target which was the President, and just twelve days after Cermak’s death, he was executed by the government. The name of the alleged assassin was Giuseppe “Joe” Zangara.
The Assassin
Joe Zangara was a Calabrian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. sometime during the early 1920’s and story goes that previously he served in World War I. Zangara allegedly settled in New Jersey and mainly worked as bricklayer, something which helped him to become a naturalized citizen of the United States back in 1929. By 1933, the whole New Jersey area was infested by all kinds of criminal crews that belonged to some of the New York families, including the Charles Luciano family which in fact was a “older cousin” of the Chicago Outfit.
Reports say that Zangara was allegedly always “obsessed” with a huge urge to kill a King or a President, since throughout his life time he allegedly hated capitalists. Back in those days Italy’s Calabrian criminal clans, such as the infamous Camorra, like all secret societies, they were also a closed sect that acted in the shadows. Story goes that the Neapolitan Camorra has a longer history than any of the other Italian mafias. Some researchers say that the Neapolitan Camorra has Spanish origins and it is possible that the name “Camorra” was “invented” during the times when many poor people were exploited by their aristocratic bosses, whether they belonged to the Spanish rule or capitalists who were in alliance with the Spanish elite. The creation of camorrist gangs also created some type of anarchistic ideology and motives which resulted with constant homicidal violence against the capitalist “system”. Legend goes that the so-called Camorristi sometimes used a knife as some type ritualistic weapon while killing some policeman who in turn previously molested some family or families, or while escaping from prison.
Again, some sources say that the Camorra’s hierarchy was in fact “born” in the local prisons, similar to today’s prison gangs, especially when one Spanish adventurer known as Raimondo Gamur was arrested in Naples and was sent to jail. Legend goes that Gamur later allegedly inspired and taught some of the imprisoned Neapolitans regarding the so-called “Spanish theory” which in fact was a recipe for a secret criminal organization with its own code of conduct, hierarchy of command and bosses. The word “Camorra” was said to be the Neapolitan dialect (idiom) rendering of the surname “Gamur”.
From the late 19th century and throughout the 1900’s and 1910’s, lots of Neapolitan criminals began immigrating to the U.S., including Chicago. During the 1910’s one Neapolitan criminal leader who went by the name of Antonio DeLucia, was charged for some crime and was also labelled as the main individual who allegedly oversaw the “transportation” of Italian criminals to America. In addition, even though it is not 100% confirmed, still it is possible that Antonio DeLucia was possibly the father of future Chicago Outfit boss and former Camorrista, Paul Ricca, who in turn arrived in the U.S. in 1920, while Joe Zangara arrived three years later with his uncle named Vincent Cafaro. I personally don’t have any kind of proof that Zangara had any connections to the Italian Camorra, but I think that I can make a conclusion that Zangara had that same old anarchistic ideology by hating all capitalists and also in keeping his mouth shut, in a fanatic way.
As I previously stated, Mayor Cermak allegedly hated Italians and obviously swindled Chicago’s Italian organization, while being in alliance with a non-Italian gangster. On top of that, during those days the Chicago Outfit was mainly headed by non-Sicilians or so-called “Mainlanders” such as Ricca, Nitto, Campagna, Rio, and the rest of the fellas. So obviously coordinated terrorist activity requires special organization, loyalty and ideological fanaticism, which often goes to the extreme by one sacrificing himself for an ideological cause. These sick individuals usually have a strong need for attention and loyalty, and those who demonstrate loyalty to them and assure them some type of alleged safety, usually end up as mentors and leaders for those same type of mentally sick patients. And Zangara was one of those “sick individuals” who suffered from severe and constant pain in his abdomen and according to Zangara himself, he allegedly attributed his pain to being forced to do strong physical labor on his father's farm back in Italy, because they were very poor.
In some of the video news reports from that time period, we can see Zangara’s relaxed body position and face while answering questions, which in turn were all answered in some kind of cynical style in which he used sentences such as “his a capitalist” and “because my stomach hurts…yeah”. So after reading some of his answers and simple health diagnostics, if you ask me Zangara was the perfect target for easy manipulation. You see, Zangara was a sick man who suffered from serious type of depression and constant hypochondriac thoughts, caused by some organ difficulties and felt a lot of physical pain. In fact, he suffered from adhesions on his gallbladder, which can be often caused by the result of injury during some previous surgery. Or in other words, Zangara was suffering from post-Cholecystectomy Syndrome, which is a symptom that often appears after a gallbladder surgery. Even though it is almost impossible to predict which patient will go on to develop that kind of syndrome, still there are some strong factors that are known to increase the risk following a surgery.
These factors include surgery performed for causes other than confirmed gallbladder disease, also patients with a prior history of irritable bowel syndrome or other chronic intestinal disorders, and in the end patients with a history of certain psychiatric illnesses. In fact, Zangara previously really went through a surgical procedure which allegedly caused his stomach problem and constant pain, but this fella wasn’t right in his mind too because he was constantly speaking about stomach pain and against capitalism.
My point is that Zangara was previously suffering from some kind of weak delusional disorder, which during those days was known as paranoid disorder, and after his gallbladder surgery, the situation got worst. Meaning he obviously developed serious mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is right from wrong. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, unshakable beliefs in something untrue or not based on reality. Individuals such as Zangara with delusional disorder, often continue to function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner, which again explains his almost normal behavior. So some patients, such as Zangara himself, might become too much preoccupied with their delusions that their lives become disrupted. Obvious proof for that is Zangara’s preoccupation with his desire to kill a President or some big time capitalist, or maybe “someone” who was both capitalist and allegedly hated all Italians.
Later records showed that in his own mind Zangara was obviously always a nobody, with an illusion that he had no kind of hope of ever becoming somebody, and so people like that usually become simply mad and often try to impose their pain to others so everybody can understand their situation or at least, everybody can hear about it, and so their usual targets are usually famous people. In other words, sometimes they become an easy “tool” for someone else’s desires in accomplishing that same atrocity. For example, If Zangara talked to some people, like his uncle or his alleged “longtime friend” Davis, regarding his crazy ideas and violent solutions, then there was a great possibility for that kind of information to arrive at the wrong door or entered the wrong ear, since judging to his open talk after the assassination attempt, he obviously had no problem in sharing his ideas.
So it is quite possible that Zangara probably shared some of his violent ideas and desires towards the world’s most powerful capitalists at the time with few of the people which he obviously met during his stay in the U.S. My point is that powerful organized crime syndicates at the time such as the Capone Mob or the Chicago Outfit, obviously had the power of manipulation and in fact, manipulative people usually prey upon your good and caring nature and the reality is that Joe Zangara was that same kind of victim, meaning he somehow cared for the world, or found a “getaway door”, and felt betrayed by the so-called capitalism, since that same time period the Great Depression already spread out through the country.
Some of the smarter Mob members within the hierarchy of Chicago’s underworld, were preying on sensibilities and emotional sensitivity, and they knew that they had a good chance of hooking some weak individual into some kind of imaginary relationship, since that same victim is often feeling and caring person. But obviously the reality is that they only care about what the victim can do for them. You see, by that time some of the mobsters and racketeers have mastered the art of deception and they often appeared respectable and sincere, which was a way of luring their victims in some sort of a relationship. Manipulative people are really not interested in their “target”, except using him or her as a vehicle to allow them to gain control so that they can become an unwilling participants in their plans.
Zangara allegedly landed in Florida around five months before the political gathering and so when he allegedly read the newspapers that Mr. Roosevelt was coming down to Miami, that’s when he decided to go for the kill and to satisfy his crazy desire. This report came later which was made by government investigators who came to a conclusion that Zangara was in fact some kind of anarchistic individual who came to kill the President of the U.S. Reports say that Zangara bought a .32 caliber five-shot revolver from a guy named Gordon Davis, who in turn was a Miami pawn broker. Davis sold the gun to Zangara with an ammo pack of ten bullets. The problem was that Davis had a criminal record back in Chicago and the main thing is that during those days Miami was a Mob heaven for retired racketeers and refugees and also an open territory for all gangsters around the country, including the Chicago Outfit.
This is the point for which I previously talked about, meaning the Mob allegedly used assassins with almost no criminal connection, while at the same time being connected to some individual with minimal or former mob connections such as Jack Ruby from the infamous JFK/Harvey Oswald assassination, or in this case, Gordon Davis. So my next conclusion would be that Zangara bought his weapon from one allegedly “former” Chicago criminal who previously fled Chicago and later resided in Miami, which means there’s obviously too much coincidence in the whole story, meaning a Chicago criminal selling a gun to the future assassin, while at the same time the Mayor was having problems with the whole Chicago Mob. Again, it was similar situation decades later with the JFK hit, when the infamous Jack Ruby previously worked with the mob in Chicago and later landed in a city where the assassination of JFK occurred, and eliminated the alleged assassin. This is obviously something important to think about, meaning in both cases there was some small and almost “non-existent” Mob connection, a tactic which was used by many crime syndicates.
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
So on February 15, 1933, everyone gathered at the Bayfront Park area of Miami, Florida; including Zangara and they all waited for Roosevelt’s speech. You see, Zangara was one quite short individual with only five feet and one-inch tallness, which means that it was quite tough for him to rise above all of the cheering spectators in front of him and to hit his target. And the answer for that was that he fought his way to the second row and got up on empty chair and that’s how he got his clear aim.
First of all, Zangara didn’t take the shot while the President was standing on the back seat of his limousine, meaning Roosevelt made his speech while standing above everyone else which made him an easy target, obviously if the story is true that the President was allegedly Zangara’s main goal. So nothing happened during the President’s speech and after the ending, the motor engines of the President’s limo started running, and so Mayor Cermak got up and went to the President-elect, and both had their short conversation, shook hands and began moving away from each other and that’s when Zangara started shooting. Zangara began yelling and fired his gun more than few times. As I already said, President Roosevelt remained unharmed, while Mayor Cermak received one lethal shot in his stomach which was the main cause for his death, days later. Besides mortally wounding Mayor Cermak, the assassin also wounded several other people, including Mrs. Gill the wife of the president of Florida’s Power and Light Company at the time, one chauffer, one club owner and one retired New York policeman who also guarded the President that same day, and in the end one secret service agent known as Robert Clark. In no time, Zangara was arrested and was taken to custody for questioning.
The main thing that I want to explain in this whole Roosevelt/Cermak/Zangara saga is that the general story is made out of more than few conflicting reports. Many newspapers at the time provided false information that the shooting occurred while Roosevelt and Cermak shook hands, and that wasn’t true at all because the Mayor was standing with his face towards the assassin while slowly backing off from the President, and that’s when the shooting began and the Mayor received one bullet under his last rib on the right side of his stomach, which is a proof that he was already more than few feet away from the President. Also another conflicting report was that after the first shot, Zangara allegedly began shooting in the crowd around him and again, that’s not true because according to many credible eye witnesses, when Zangara took aim at his target, his hand was “jogged” or in other words, steady and “frozen” as he took the first shot.
I’m saying “credible” because this next witness was far from being truthful. So according to another eye witness, Mrs. Cross, who said that she stood near Zangara and was quite offended by his rudeness, obviously when he popped up on the chair and when she heard the first shot, she “bravely” grabbed his arm, an action which allegedly was the reason for his four missed shots. But later it turned out that Mrs. Cross was lying about grabbing the assassin’s arm, but instead after hearing the first shot, she began panicking and allegedly bumped the chair on which Zangara was standing and allegedly made him miss his main target four times. It’s hard to make a conclusion with the help of that same type of eye witnesses, mainly because most of them lied and invented their own stories, just for publicity and fame.
So with all of the alleged difficulties, Zangara somehow managed to empty his pistol by hitting the Mayor and also managed to hit five more people. According to his own words, Zangara said that after missing his target with the first shot, he emptied his gun hopefully so he would get killed by the cops and security. This is a proof that Zangara was ready to sacrifice his own life for some mentally ill purpose. Some investigators wondered on why the rest of the four bullets ended up in people who were near Cermak, and none ended up in people around the President or in his limousine. Obviously we’ll never know that but I know one thing for sure, meaning if all of the bullets ended up in Cermak’s body, that would’ve been additional “fuel to the fire” regarding the conspiracy theory about the whole thing being a Mob “hit”.
Zangara took his first steady shot almost 9 meters away from the President’s car and Mayor Cermak, and anyone who ever held a gun and took a shot from that kind of distance, knows that he or she doesn’t need any kind of special skills for hitting the prime target. Some of today’s researchers stated that we might assume that Zangara was allegedly taught on how to shoot a rifle in the army, but nothing suggests that he had any special ability or training. His job assignments in the army reflect that his superiors considered him better suited for basic labor than a highly skilled “marksman” or “sharpshooter”. I completely agree regarding Zangara being better suited for the basic stuff, mainly because of his mental and physical condition.
I mean no kind of military captain or lieutenant, who was right in his mind, would’ve let a guy such as Zangara to constantly hold a rifle 24/7, even if he was the best shooter out there, which would’ve made him even more dangerous for everyone around him. The main problem is that this information regarding Zangara’s alleged passive military activity mainly comes from Zangara’s own words, since his military record was allegedly destroyed after World War I, for unknown reasons, something which makes Zangara’s personal history even more murkier.
This means that Zangara’s could’ve said anything, since he obviously was an individual who needed a psychiatric and medical help, but still there is some evidence that he was really in the army and served during WWI. So my point is that I can only speculate regarding Zangara’s military skills but if he was in the military, then he obviously went through a shooting training more than a couple of times. You see, the basic shooting training with a rifle at the time included everyone, even the medical personnel, and the shooting usually started from 15 meters range distance the least, meaning Zangara possibly did go through that same basic training and obviously felt the power of a rifle and a pistol.
So, when Zangara pointed his .32 caliber pistol and took one clear and steady shot from only 9 meters away, Zangara somehow “missed” his alleged “prime” target and managed hit Cermak who was more than few feet distance from the same “prime” target a.k.a. the President. My point is that for a guy who possibly went through some kind of military shooting course, missing his alleged target from only 9 meters with a clear shot, sounds a little bit strange.
On top of that, the Chicago Outfit at the time was known for previously training its future assassins regarding their shooting skills so they can perfectly complete their job. For example, it was reported that after the 1932 spectacular assassination of Chicago racketeer George “Red” Barker, the cops found a makeshift target range and according to many witnesses, a couple of men were seen there shooting a Thompson at a 12 inch post the very same day before Barker was killed. So my final point is that Zangara was either a terrible shooter or a perfect one. According to some reports, Zangara claimed that every time he took a weapon in his hand, he would’ve felt his intense stomach pain, which is a strong proof that Zangara had serious mental problems, but he never mentioned the feeling of that same kind of strong pain during the assassination, meaning it is possible that his alleged urge to shoot to death any famous capitalist was quite huge for someone who allegedly had serious health issues while holding a weapon.
As a conclusion on this part of the story, I would like to confirm that Zangara’s military record was destroyed, and the investigation mainly relays on his own word and also from few small reports, and it is quite possible that Zangara’s psychiatric problem was possibly the main reason for his unknown military activities and the destruction of his file. Again, I think that I can make another conclusion regarding Zangara being 9 meters away from his target, with at less than a dozens of cheering fans in front of him, and he used .32 caliber five-shot revolver, which he emptied at Cermak’s direction and managed to wound five more people who stood behind or next to the Mayor. Again, this means that none of the bullets entered or even grazed the President’s body or car or anyone who stood nearby or behind him, even though the distance between him and Cermak was only few feet away. So my point is that Zangara was either a terrible shooter, or he really managed to hit his real target.
The cops managed to trace Zangara’s revolver to Davis’ pawn shop and later Zangara himself admitted buying the gun from that same individual. When some of the investigators questioned Davis regarding the situation, he allegedly told them that he had known Zangara for “quite some time” and also admitted that he was the one who sold him the revolver. Davis simply said that Zangara visited him at his pawnshop and purchased the weapon.
The thing was that Zangara’s weapon wasn’t a problem at all, since they found it right there on the scene and later compared the bullets which were taken out from the surviving victims and it was confirmed that all of the bullets allegedly came out from Zangara’s gun. The problem was that Davis allegedly admitted having a criminal record back in Chicago, but denied any connections to the Chicago Outfit. Even in this particular story there’s some conflicting information, like for example Davis stated that he knew Zangara for quite some time and he said this in February, 1933, while Zangara arrived previously in Miami sometime around August 1932, and story goes that he did get out much, hence his mental and physical disabilities.
This means that Zangara was in Miami for only five months, which maybe for Davis himself represented “quite some time”. My point is that Davis probably lied since he was possibly pressed by the investigators regarding Zangara’s obvious symptoms of suspicious behavior and so he had to tell them that he allegedly knew him for a long time period and that Zangara was allegedly “sane” individual. So I personally wonder if Davis also lied regarding his non-existing syndicate connections? Obviously there’s no proof of Davis having or not having syndicate connections, but still there was another quite confusing report which again brings up the “syndicate” question.
The Alleged Sixth Bullet
If you start researching the whole story from different perspectives, you might find many myths such as the bullet in Cermak’s stomach being .45 caliber instead of .32 caliber, which came from Zangara’s gun, and so this quickly brings the conspiracy theory that there was more than one shooter or second assassin in the crowd, other than Zangara. This is obviously false since the autopsy records showed that all of the bullets, including the one in the late Mayor Cermak, were .32 caliber. Some researchers stated that the science of ballistics was still in infancy in 1933, and that the science of ballistics was in its early stage of development.
Again that’s not true and the main proof for that were the ballistics investigations in a scientific crime detection laboratory which occurred four years earlier or in 1929. The investigators were already able to investigate bullets from the so-called St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, like acquiring guns and bullets from the police stations to determine whether the actual shooters were in fact real police officers. Or in 1931, when the cops raided the house of Capone hitman Fred Burke, where they found two Tommy guns and again with the help of ballistics tests, they proved that both of the guns had been used in the St. Valentine's Day massacre and those same tests also showed that one of the guns had been also used in the murder of New York gangster Frankie Yale back in 1928.
The main reason for the non-existing .45 caliber bullet was that everything ended with a total of 8 “hits” on 6 victims, with only five bullets. The main suspicious situation for me personally is that there was allegedly no kind of ballistics report from the scene where the shooting occurred, which obviously would have been quite important for the investigation. The investigators even stated that “Considering that there were thousands of witnesses to the shooting and immediate apprehension, and a complete confession, it doesn’t seem like a ballistics report would have been deemed necessary.” So that same statement is quite suspicious because one thorough ballistics test and report obviously would’ve been great, instead of receiving only doctors’ report. Some of today’s researchers say that it was allegedly “impossible” to track the trajectory of the bullets or bullet fragments, which again I personally disagree since that’s one of the main points of a ballistics report.
Also, in some of the diagrams from that period you’ll notice in one picture that when the shooting occurred, one bullet went into Cermak’s direction and the second bullet ended in one person from the Mayor’s left side, far behind him, which again means that the first two bullets went into Cermak’s direction, not the President’s direction who in turn was on his right side, several feet away. In another diagram, which is a little bit conflicting, but still it shows that Cermak was on the President’s right side and again most of the bullets are in his direction.
So investigators stated that there were six victims hit by five bullets, and there was also another similar statement in the 1958 Florida Historical Quarterly Report, which was written by Nathan D. Shapee, Professor of History at the University of Miami, who delivered his report regarding the Zangara case at the annual meeting in Tampa, Florida. The so-called conflicting information is on page 101, where Professor Shapee talks about all of the main people who were involved in the tragedy, but he also talks about whom else received a bullet besides Cermak and in the end he finished his sentence with a “sixth bullet” ending up on the ground. Then on page 104, the Professor stated that “Zangara shot through a crowd of people around him, shot through a group of people around Roosevelt’s car and wounded “six people with five shots”. I know that you can already see the conflicting information, meaning at first he stated that 5 people were wounded, including Cermak, with 5 shots and a 6th one ending up on the ground, and later he states that 6 people were wounded with 5 shots.
If anything of this is true, then I can somehow explain the six people being wounded with five bullets, but what about the alleged sixth bullet in the ground, which again brings the question on why there was no kind of ballistics tests? Because if there was really a sixth bullet, while Zangara’s used a five-bullet pistol, then this obviously can raise the question in the minds of many conspiracy theorists, if there really was another shooter with the same caliber, which sounds more realistic rather than the one regarding the .45 caliber. Maybe the Professor made a mistake but for me personally this is the most confusing moment since nobody heard or reported a sixth shot, except for the previous five which allegedly all came from Zangara’s .32 caliber pistol. Maybe it was only a bullet fragment in the ground? Or maybe fragments from that same bullet went into some of the victims? Maybe the second “imaginary” shooter used the same moment when Zangara was empting his pistol and took a shot at the same time when one of Zangara’s bullets blasted out, which is something almost impossible but you can never really tell with the old timers.
The main conclusions this time would be that Zangara managed to hurt six people with five shots and the most important thing to remember is that no kind of ballistics investigations or reports were ever made by the authorities, except for the reports which were sent by the doctors who pulled out the bullets and fragments from the victims. So because of that there’s no evidence or additional info regarding any sixth bullet, since the assassin used a five-bullet pistol. If there really was a sixth bullet, then that’s the kind of information which could change the whole investigation.
Case Closed
Now, this is the chapter which throws a lot of suspicion over the whole story, especially regarding the question on whether there was a massive corruption present during the closure of the assassination case. As I already explained multiple times that Zangara had both physical and mental issues, and one of the main evidences were some of his answers during the trial. Answers which were directed to the investigators and judges such as “All the time my mind is in my stomach” or “When I get in trouble in the stomach, when it come, my head look like I am gone. You see I suffer all the time and I suffer because my father send me to work when I was a little boy…spoil my life. If I no suffer, I no have trouble. I no kill the President. If I nice, well, I no bother the President. It get in my mind…capitalists make trouble to the poor people…I am sorry I shot someone else. . . I am ready for die, no use living. . . . I am no good, stomach like a drunk man, can’t walk on street, people think I am drunk.”
According to some researchers who read the court transcripts, when the investigators returned to interrogation of the motives for the attack on the President-elect, Zangara again returned to the pains in his stomach as being the main reason for the atrocity. He even allegedly stated that he was sorry for shooting Cermak and the rest of the people, but it was allegedly their fault for being in his way. Obviously no one from the victims was in his way, nor stood in front of the President, which means that Zangara was rumbling.
But after all of the so-called “crazy talk”, still at the end Zangara was officially declared as “sane individual”, meaning according to the investigators and the judge at the time, Zangara didn’t have any mental issues and that he was able to realize right from wrong. So the “smell” of corruption was obviously present but still the question remains, on who could’ve pushed for Zangara’s fast conviction and made false reports regarding his “stable” mental state?
Zangara had the right to an insanity defense trial, since the defendant obviously showed signs of paranoid delusion. For example, during the 19th century in the United States of America, some of the courts often looked to whether the defendant could distinguish between good and evil, while others asked whether the defendant was able to rationally realize on what he has done. So by the end of the century, it was generally accepted that insanity was a question of fact, which was left to the jury to decide. You see, during those days the so-called "McNaughton rule" was a standard, which was obvious for to be applied by the jury, after hearing medical testimony from prosecution and defense experts. The whole thing started in 1800 when the British government voted the Criminal Lunatics Act, but its real significance came in 1843, in the so-called McNaughton case, where one Englishman known as Daniel McNaughton shot and killed the secretary of the British Prime Minister, believing that the Prime Minister was conspiring against him. The court later acquitted McNaughton "by reason of insanity," and he was placed in a mental institution for the rest of his life. However, the case caused a public uproar, and Queen Victoria ordered the court to develop a stricter test for insanity. So after that, the McNaughton rule became the standard for insanity in the United States and the United Kingdom.
By the 1930’s, the Chicago Mafia already manipulated that same "McNaughton rule" in many ways, obviously with the help of massive corruption. They had several ways of doing this, like when they often took on what the suspect said and has done, and later twist it around with the help of corrupt judges and corrupt juries. And as I previously stated that Zangara was the perfect individual for that kind of manipulation and wasn’t afraid to die, because he probably felt respectable and gave his whole loyalty, but I also have to be honest that this will always remain as one simple theory since statements like this can never be really proved, especially in cases such as this one when the main actor is suspiciously declared sane and afterwards quickly executed.
In fact, when Zangara was placed on the electric chair, he allegedly yelled "Viva l'Italia! Goodbye to all poor people everywhere! ... Push the button! Go ahead, push the button!". Now, this might confirm my previous statements regarding the Cammora organization and their beginnings by opposing or acting against state authority, and also acting as protectors for their own people and also keeping their honor, and also the statement regarding the rumor of Cermak’s dislike towards the Italian population.
So the final conclusion in this chapter would be that Joe Zangara was suspiciously declared by the investigators as sane individual, who had Italian-patriotic ideas, and just a couple of weeks after the death of Mayor Anton Cermak, which occurred on March 6, 1933, Zangara was sentenced to the electric chair. The thing was that during his trials, his defense was unable to win any kind of motion regarding his mental state or his alleged real victim instead of the President, but the most important thing to remember was that during the 1933 trial of Zangara regarding the assassination attempt and the murder of Mayor Cermak, no kind of insanity defense was ever offered, even though the convicted felon had the right for it and showed clear signs of mental instability, and also the question regarding Cermak being the real target was quickly overruled and never mentioned again.
But again the question still remains on who could’ve pushed for Zangara’s fast conviction and made false reports regarding his “stable” mental state? If you ask me, the whole thing looked like one lazy investigation in which everyone was happy that the President-elect remained untouched and the “ruthless villain” was caught and quickly executed. Just like during the Dark ages. As for the “poor” Mayor, I believe that everyone in the higher level of political and government circles felt safer to say that there was no kind of syndicate connection in the Zangara and Cermak cases, because if something like that ever came out in public, all hell was going to break loose. For example, right after the death of the Mayor, some of the police detectives in Chicago strongly suspected that the assassination was in fact Mob-related shooting and so they contacted the police department in Miami and gave them a list of Chicago gangsters who resided or were on a trip at the time in that area, which included 18 gangsters, 12 of whom were known Chicago Outfit members and associates. But the arrests were never made because it turned out that the request had been deleted by the State's Attorney Thomas Courtney, who obviously didn’t want any of that type of information to get out in public. This means that the FBI and the Secret Service, or the government in general, did little to uncover anything which would’ve indicate that the Chicago Outfit or the Mob was behind Cermak’s murder or tried to manipulate the assassin in any kind of way.
So now let’s try and make a list of all final conclusions in general:
1. President Roosevelt obviously had Mob connections, not directly, but through his political associates from around the Midwest, such as Chicago and Kansas City. I don’t have any information regarding the Mob having any problems with Roosevelt, and in fact we have some alleged statements that he was backed or respected by the national crime commission. Maybe the Mob’s good relation with the Roosevelt administration somehow helped in the obvious corruption regarding the whole Cermak/Zangara case, meaning with nixing the ballistics report and also declaring Zangara as “sane” individual, followed by his quick execution.
2. By the early 1930’s Mayor Anton Cermak was another public figure who possessed Mob-connections and also had the power of having the last word on who was going to illegally run what in his own city, especially in the sphere of gambling business. Also I can’t confirm the rumor if Cermak really had something against the Italian crime syndicates or the Italians in general, but all I know is that he obviously swindled the Capone Mob and wanted to remain as the top overseer of all gambling vice in Chicago, which was obviously a huge problem in the eyes of the Capone crime syndicate because they were also the ones who wanted to control that same racket, obviously because of the end of their previous and most profitable racket, which was Prohibition.
3. Cermak’s situation changed after the failed “hit” on Outfit mobster Frank Nitto and also later with the murder of his associate and mobster Ted Newberry, since after that Cermak obviously feared for his own life and also for the lives of his loved ones, since he obviously realized the mistake he did and also the danger in which he implicated himself. I can also make an additional conclusion that Cermak wasn’t involved directly in the assassination attempt of Nitto but instead, he was connected to the main individual, Newberry, who in turn was behind the murder attempt and also behind the attempt to take over the policy racket, and as I already said, during the same time Cermak also tried to overthrow the Outfit from the policy racket on the South Side, something which connects both Newberry and Cermak.
4. After the murder of Newberry, the Chicago police was quite aware of the Mayor’s situation and they constantly followed the most dangerous members from the Capone Mob, before they went down to Miami, and so they arrested them and later transferred them to Chicago’s police station and held them for 24 hours. It was a simple tactic to show the gangsters that they were not allowed in that area until the President’s gathering was over. In fact, the Chicago police was the only department at the time which constantly gave warnings regarding the dangerous situation. I also personally believe that the arrest of nationally known Outfit killers Jack McGurn and William White was a simple decoy made by the Chicago syndicate, so the cops can be deceived in thinking that they arrested the “would-be” assassins.
5. During the investigations, it came out that Zangara was 9 meters away from his target, with at least a dozen of cheering fans in front of him, and he used .32 caliber five-shot revolver, which was emptied at his target, while he stood on a chair. The alleged assassin decided to fire his gun one time and later he emptied all of the remaining bullets from his gun in the same direction or in Cermak’s direction. One proof was that one of the bullets entered his body, and the rest of the four bullets ended up in people who stood behind or besides Mayor Cermak, which means that none of the bullets entered or even grazed the President’s body or car, even though the distance between him and Cermak was only few feet away.
6. The assassin bought his weapon from one former Chicago criminal Gordon Davis who resided in Miami and denied any Mob connections and on top of that, it was never made a thorough research regarding Davis’ criminal history in Chicago. There’s too much coincidences in the story and reports, meaning a Chicago criminal selling a gun to the assassin, while the Mayor or the victim was having problems with the whole Chicago Mob at the time.
7. Also there’s no proof or any conflicting information regarding the existence of a sixth bullet, other than the one from Professor Nathan Shapee. The assassin managed to hurt six people with five shots and the most important thing to remember is that no kind of ballistics investigations or reports were ever made by the authorities, except for the reports which were sent by the doctors who pulled out the bullets and fragments from the victims. So because of that there’s no hard evidence or additional info regarding any sixth bullet. If there really was a sixth bullet, then that’s the kind of information which would change the whole investigation.
8. The assassin’s military record is almost non-existent, except for his own word and few small reports, but I think that we can safely say that he obviously went to some sort of a shooting training, which was probably something inevitable for those days. On top of that Zangara obviously needed some kind of psychiatric or doctor’s help, which possibly was the main reason for his alleged low level military activities during WWI.
9. During the trial, Zangara was declared by the investigators as sane individual with anarchistic ideas, who just a couple of weeks after the death of Mayor Cermak, was sentenced to the electric chair. His defense was unable to win any kind of motion regarding his mental state and no kind of insanity defense was ever offered, even though the convicted felon had the right for it and showed clear signs of mental instability. The defense was also quickly overruled regarding the question on whether Zangara’s alleged real victim was the Mayor instead of the President. During the execution, Zangara again showed his love for his country and all of the poor people in it.
10. The FBI and the Secret Service uncovered nothing, or in other words, haven’t done anything special (ballistics report, insanity tests, not arresting a single Capone member after the killing) to indicate the presence of a massive corruption, or if the Chicago Outfit or the Mob in general was behind Cermak’s murder and if they tried to manipulate the assassin in any kind of way.
11. A lot of important pieces and details are missing from the investigation and I also believe that the killing of Mayor Cermak later brought some kind of stability within Chicago’s organized crime, at least for several years. Three decades later or during the 1960’s, the Untouchables television series aired a two-part episode entitled “The Unhired Assassin” and so the fictional account depicted Nitto and his associates planning to kill Cermak, when suddenly or out of nowhere a demented lone gunman Joe Zangara accidentally beat them to it. This means that the element of suspicion was present since the moment the late Mayor Cermak released his final or last breath.
12. For me personally, the investigators and the judicial workers are the first suspects in the whole case, followed by the Chicago Outfit and their political ties. But for now, the Cermak case remains still closed, because the hit was executed by some strange guy who missed his prime target and acted alone, same as the JFK hit which was again done by some strange guy who was declared as “the lone gunman”, and also the RFK hit was also done by some strange fella who did it for his own country, followed by the hit on Mafia boss Joe Colombo who was also executed by some black street hustler, who in turn suddenly decided to kill a Mob boss and gave his own life during the process, and according to many researchers that was “obviously” some kind of a Mafia conspiracy while in all of the previous situations, all of the assassins acted alone. I personally think that’s not fair at all.
Chicago’s Italian underworld or the Outfit entered the 1970’s with a lot of trouble but by the end of the day, they still represented one quite stable and strong organization with a strong hierarchy, and also with many new ventures. By now, one of the most powerful crew was the so-called Elmwood Park group which was led by the Outfit’s top boss Tony Accardo and his personal capo Joe “Gags” Gagliano who in turn was a known as the top guy in the loan sharking business and also inherited one quite murderous group which was formed by up and coming killers and extortionists, who in fact were no different than the rest of the Outfit’s crews from that same era. So one of the most lucrative and legit operations at the time was the catering business, which became the new style of business in providing food service for the citizens of the second largest city at the time.
Now, the most interesting thing regarding the catering business is the mobile caterers, which serve food directly from a vehicle, cart or truck which is designed for the purpose at outdoor events. All kinds of food products are provided at remote sites such as weddings, funerals, working places, ships, planes, concerts or at sites such as hotels, public houses and other locations. Every owner offers different catering food options for the costumers including Italian, Chinese or Mexican cuisine or maybe even Kosher, Balkan or vegetarian styles, mostly depending on the costumer’s taste.
For example, the Italian catering is usually completed from savory dishes perfect for any occasion, such as mouth-watering combination of contemporary Italian appetizers, Italian entrées, pasta dishes and Italian desserts’ artfully prepared with superior quality and also flavorful dishes like Chicken Marsala, Eggplant Parmesan, Fettucine Alfredo, Lasagna, Italian meatballs or a gourmet pasta station, where chefs often create pasta dishes made to order for each guest. But for some other reasons, the mobile catering service in the Chicago area never really reached its peak.
I believe that organized crime did not have any problems in infiltrating the business, since they already owned many restaurants, working sites or hotels in which weddings often occurred, or cruise ships which travelled around the world, including air-catering. So in 1970, Outfit capo Joe Gagliano was already into the food catering business with the help of one of his associates known as John Schaffer a.k.a. Juan Atilano, the owner of the restaurant La Hacienda Del Sol, located at 1945 N. Sedgwick St. on the city’s North Side and also the part owner of the Thunderbird Catering Co. at 4242 S. Racine Av. on the South Side. It was a beautiful scheme since, besides his alleged Mob connections, Schaffer had no criminal record and was clean, and on top of that he had a professional “team” under his rule which carried out the operation. For example, besides Schaffer, another individual with hidden interests in both establishments, and was also employed as manager, was Jack Clarke, one quite controversial consultant for the Chicago Police Department, undercover agent for the FBI and private investigator, who in turn also had many connections on Chicago’s docks which made him the Mob’s perfect puppet. In fact, Clarke was one of the worst kinds of criminals since he worked for three different “agencies”, including the police, the feds and the Outfit, and paid, with tons of cash, many high profile informants from within the crime syndicate regarding underworld activities, but above all he worked for himself.
The other half of the “team” was completed by one quiet, unassuming, hardworking and intelligent lady who went by the name of Rita Payonk and she was the group’s main bookkeeper for both establishments and knew all the secrets and schemes, which in fact were tax evasion and forcing other establishments to buy their catering products or trucks. By now the Thunderbird Catering Co. had almost 100 mobile catering trucks, which in fact became one of the leading companies who were on the rise in making a monopoly around Chicago. In addition, Miss Payonk was in fact Clarke’s friend who in fact brought her into the firm and there’s also one possibility that Schaffer’s Outfit “friendship” really came from Clarke’s personal connections.
But things became complicated for the Chicago Outfit since in 1971, Gagliano died of natural causes and also two years later, Jack Clarke was indicted for tax evasion in a different case and was sentenced to three years in jail, and on top of that, after a while it was disclosed that he also worked for the feds, which made the situation quite dangerous. Instead of serving three years, Clarke served only 11 months in prison and in 1975 he was called before a grand jury regarding his shady activities, who in turn took the 5th a lot more than few times. After Gagliano’s death, the late big shot who allegedly resented psychopathic violence, as expected the crew completely changed its way of operating in becoming quite the opposite or in other words, more violent. Some say that the new capo for the Elmwood Park crew or Gagliano’s successor was John “No Nose” DiFronzo, obviously because most of the previous Elmwood Park leaders like former boss Jack Cerone and Willie Messino were in jail, except for their top boss Tony Accardo.
Being a lieutenant for the late Joe Gagliano who in turn was probably one of the first more sophisticated Outfit capos in doing business, John DiFronzo became one of the first Elmwood Park capos who mostly set his sight on corruption and legitimate enterprises, including gambling, with loan sharking and extortion being on second place. Sources say that DiFronzo was in partnership with another Outfit capo Joey “The Clown” Lombardo who in turn was the boss of the so-called Grand Avenue crew. Lombardo became a partner mainly because large portion of the catering trucks were moving around the areas which were under his control. In fact, the Elmwood Park and Grand Avenue crews were in close association since the old days and it is quite possible that the connection remains even today. So by the late 1970’s few people in the catering business died from “unnatural causes” and the case which I’m about to show you has no conclusion but instead it remains unsolved until this day.
If you look at the situation more clearly, one might just find two possible solutions, including the possibility of Clarke’s various government associations or maybe even the main problem was that the front guys such as Schaffer who began noticing that they were losing more money instead of the gaining, because most of them were not aware of their own situation since they obviously did not understand the meaning of “front man”. So for some reasons, or right after Clarke’s testimony, on May 6, 1975, somebody planted a pipe bomb under the hood of John Schaffer’s automobile, which after the explosion, luckily for him, he was quite away from the car and left unharmed. Some of the investigators said that it was a possible murder attempt and some said that it might’ve been only a warning since the bomb was professionally planted, but what were the reasons? When the investigators questioned Schaffer, he answered that he allegedly had no clue on who would’ve tried such a thing and he never had a quarrel with anyone.
If Schaffer was telling the whole truth, then the life-threatening situation of his bookkeeper Rita Payonk would’ve never occurred. On January 18, 1976, two masked men armed with high powered rifles, while riding a car, fired more than a dozens of shots as the poor woman drove home but she ended up wounded slightly in the incident. Now, according to the previous information, Schaffer was in a position to help his female co-worker but instead, he and Clarke told her that it was a possible mistaken identity and that all of those bullets were meant for someone else. From that point on the poor woman was forced to ask her colleagues on daily basis to escort her to her car after work. But according to some reports, during this period Miss Payonk was again visited more than a couple of times by Clarke, who in turn allegedly advised her that the coast was completely clear and there was no reason for her to be further afraid. So according to her colleagues, on February 6, 1976, she allegedly told them that she wasn’t scared anymore and that all things were good. That same day, 31-year old Rita Payonk was found shot two times at the back of her head and four times in the chest, while being seated and slumped over the wheel of her car in the 1800 block of North Lincoln Avenue.
The investigators reported that it was a professional assassination since they found six 38.caliber shell casings on the floor of the victim’s auto but they were not able to determinate if the killer or killers lay and waited inside the car or forced his or their way in. In the end, the investigators connected Payonk’s murder to the narcotics business, since some of the truck drivers were involved in the scheme, which for me personally doesn’t make any sense. After the slaying of Miss Payonk, the government turned its view over the mobile catering business which in fact was one of the first reasons for its huge failure at the time.
My personal opinion is that this was possibly the type of crime in which you might find many corrupt government officials and mobsters involved in one conspiracy, which usually ends up unsolved forever, and I also believe that the individual in the middle was in fact Jack Clarke. Proof for that were the high profile slayings of two of Clarke’s former colleagues such as police officer John Lourgos in April, 1977, and also police commander Mark Thanasouras in July that same year. Story goes that both victims were seen on daily basis at the La Hacienda Del Sol and they also associated with owners, truck drivers and employees of the Thunderbird Catering Co. My other belief is that these guys were possible associates with Clarke or whoever was behind him, like DiFronzo and the Outfit, that ordered the murder of those two individuals. The next proof for that was the murder of the manager of the Thunderbird Co. and long-time employee, who went by the name of Richard Crofton, which occurred in December that same year. He was shot to death “gangland style” by two assassins with ski masks outside his garage, or in other words, six times in the head, chest and back.
On top of that, during this period the whole pressure probably caught up with Schaffer and he died of natural causes and his ownership was inherited by his wife. So before the Crofton murder, Miss Theresa Schaffer told the police that she allegedly received a death threat over the phone. So from this point on, some of the corrupt investigators were no longer in a position to cover up the whole scandal, since it became obvious that something dangerous was happening particularly in the food catering business. Many of the newspapers began posting statements regarding the mobile catering alleged war or conflict and so in no time, the whole violent and murderous situation suddenly went quiet. Again, my personal belief is that these slayings were obviously orchestrated by the Chicago Outfit and the Elmwood Park crew under John DiFronzo, mainly because of the modus operandi in the slayings, which were exactly the same as the ones which were executed by hit teams from different Outfit crews.
“Somebody” obviously cleared the way for the Thunderbird Co. and also killed anyone who might’ve represented a danger for the whole operation, including their own people. By now the catering company became the main player in the industry with almost 150 trucks which made the money flow quite serious since they held their own monopoly within the city of Chicago. The so-called “peace” lasted for nearly 6 years, until “somebody” went on a killing spree for the second time, but from this point on most of the victims belonged to rival companies. For example, in 1983 one of the leading catering firms was the Best Catering Co. which was owned by Theresa Schaffer, one Louis Papalia and also one shady individual with criminal connections known as Mike Spiotto. Obviously their company was successful because of Schaffer’s interest but that same year, “someone” thought differently, meaning it was time for the Best Catering to go fully with the Thunderbird. So one day, in the same style, Spiotto was gunned down by two assassins as he left his girlfriend’s apartment on the city’s South Side. When some of the authorities questioned Spiotto’s family of any possible enemies of theirs but they said that he had no problems in life and that he belonged to some local motorcycle gang.
During the same time, two other food catering giants such as the E & D Catering and also the M & S Catering companies were suffering for the same problems, meaning some shady individuals were constantly warning them regarding their supply of food catering trucks around the Chicago area and also tried to extort them. At one instance, there was a suspicious fire at one of their plants, and finally, just one day after the Spiotto slaying, the main shareholder in both companies DeMar Thorton was killed together with his wife Norma at the bathroom in their home on the western suburbs.
Now the strange thing was that none of the investigators ever cleared any of the previous murders, but since the Thorton slaying was high profile, they quickly “found” the murderers and so the police chief at the time declared that the double murder was nothing but a simple drug deal which went wrong and also loudly stated that it was unrelated to any “non-existing” war in the catering business. The police also stated that they allegedly managed to find $250,000 worth of cocaine in one of Thorton’s antique automobiles and also photographs of the couple with local gang members and organized crime figures. So in no time they made quite a big deal out of it by also arresting and convicting two alleged suspects. My opinion is that if the couple was really in the dope business than why didn’t somebody from the investigators previously found or arrested at least one suspect dealing drugs for the late Thortons, but instead they found the stash after their murders. If you ask me, somebody could’ve easily placed the drugs there right after the killings and make the take the whole case in a different direction.
If anyone really believed in the police chief’s words, then nobody would’ve left or sold their food catering businesses, but instead that’s what really happened such as the Papalia family who sold and left the business permanently like many others. On top of that, many close friends and associates of the late Thorton couple stated that there was no need for them to sell any kind of drugs since they had all the money in the world from their legit business. For me personally the only investigator who told the truth was one Patrick Healey from the Chicago Crime Commission who in turn never mentioned any personal finding regarding the narcotics racket, but instead he clearly stated only what have the other investigators told him and allegedly discovered. That’s why in the Healy only stated that there wasn’t much space for democracy in the mobile catering business and that everyone was forced to buy their supplies and food from certain individuals and that was it. One mobile caterer also stated that all of the investigations came to nothing in the end and that they were like fishing expeditions which fished for some alleged impropriety but none really came up.
The Chicago Outfit was so deeply involved in both the mobile catering and other types of catering services, that one Outfit member and main representative in Las Vegas, Nevada; known as Tony Spilotro, in 1983 went to a trial in which he planned to contact the owner of the catering service which fed all 17 grand jurors and also the underworld informant known as Sal Romano, and to convince him to poison the food which all of the previously mentioned individuals ate. In plane words, Spilotro planned to kill the entire Nevada grand jury, including their main witness, and story goes that he worked out the plot but later for unknown reasons he cancelled the operation. The other interesting thing was that around 1984 or 85, all of the problems again suddenly stopped but this time it was the same period when many indictments were announced to the public, especially regarding the Outfit’s top leadership.
At the end of this particular story, I want to say that the Mob obviously had their fingers in all of the previous murders by placing out the facts. But this particular “mystery” was one of the reasons for which the government tried to legally ban the mobile food vending units and companies on several occasions, mainly because this kind of food vending was allegedly destroying the business of the local restaurants, bars or hotels and on top of that, some of the investigators tried to prove that most of caterers were not paying their taxes but by the end of the day they couldn’t make one single case. The government tried to ban the food truck business all around Chicago, but according to some reports, “coincidentally” their main target was the Grand Avenue area, obviously for the biggest concentration of food trucks in that same territory. Another problem which allegedly occurred and the government was concerned about was the physical violence among truck drivers, mainly for selling spots. But even with that, by the end of decade most of the top mobsters who were possibly extorting the food catering business were gone and also with most of the competition gone, the Thunderbird firm remained at the top of the industry with Theresa Schaffer as the chief executive. With so many trucks, her company began leasing food truck for a price between $40 and $75 per day, depending on the truck’s condition. Also, during that same time period, over 300 licenses were issued to various food vendors.
Today, there are less than 100 trucks in all territory of Chicago since it’s the only big city in the U.S. where food trucks have hundreds of restrictions such as parking around public places or staying longer in one place for more than one or two hours. But in Los Angeles or New York for instance, the food trucks and firms are well established and on top of that, they began spreading their businesses in nearby smaller cities.
Cheers
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
In addition, for that "paywall" motherfucker who previously constantly made threads in the form of a joke like "Where's Angelo?".... I obviously posted the Angelo LaPietra article in this thread and I hope "IT" will read it again and cry like a baby because "IT" missed few miserable dollars....and right now "IT" is making a similar joke by making a thread like "Where's Ross?" lol Well motherfucker, here it is and I wrote it long before you came here to poison this forum with your bullshit/wiki info.....suck a dick up until you hiccup
You look like a fucking boss TD lol. Love the outfit and the shades! Don't forget that your hard work is greatly appreciated around here
Yeah fuck that paywall broad lol
thanks @OG. Means a lot coming from a known "playa" such as yourself. You were always and you still are like a brother from another mother to me from this forum and also from that other place from across the street, and I really appreciate it man. As for the shades, I think I already told you...only DITA lol
P.S. Right on brother, fuck em paywalls! GBB rules!....damn I think I made a rhyme lol lol
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Lol thanks @Rush! Respect buddy and keep it old school
Old School NEVER dies.
.......and never will @H! We have to make sure that we are not the last stand against these money greedy....whatever they are....by passing the "old school" to the younger generation.
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
You look like a fucking boss TD lol. Love the outfit and the shades! Don't forget that your hard work is greatly appreciated around here
Yeah fuck that paywall broad lol
thanks @OG. Means a lot coming from a known "playa" such as yourself. You were always and you still are like a brother from another mother to me from this forum and also from that other place from across the street, and I really appreciate it man. As for the shades, I think I already told you...only DITA lol
P.S. Right on brother, fuck em paywalls! GBB rules!....damn I think I made a rhyme lol lol
+1
Much love brother
But you had to play it cool, had to do it your way Had to be a fool, had to throw it all away
Re: TD'S FREE CHICAGO OUTFIT ARTICLES 2023-2024
[Re: Toodoped]
#1099510 09/13/2409:46 AM09/13/2409:46 AM
Even photo's of Hyman are very rare but I believe they are out there. Family/Friends
Long time ago, I was contacted by the nephew of Marcel Harrick who in turn was Larner's right-hand man in Panama but was later killed on his boss' orders in the style of no body, no crime. Harrick's nephew sent me two pics...one black and white with Harrick and one unknown individual, and the second was a colored pic with Harrick sitting at the some restaurant with one skinny and well dressed guy next to him, with short reddish hair, reading glasses and a huge pinky ring on his hand...it was Larner. I think that during those days I posted the pic on all forums but it seems the uploading sites went down, thus deleting the pic. Ill try to find it in some of my old hard disks but I doubt it.
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Re: TD'S FREE CHICAGO OUTFIT ARTICLES 2023-2024
[Re: Toodoped]
#1100102 09/19/2410:46 AM09/19/2410:46 AM
All of my future articles will be posted in the OC forum, while the links will be posted here so all of the new members can find them instantly instead of going through all of the previous pages, same as all of the old members who again would like to read one nice crime article, while enjoying a glass of wine and a nice cigar. Cheers
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Re: TD'S FREE CHICAGO OUTFIT ARTICLES 2023-2024
[Re: Toodoped]
#1100671 09/24/2409:04 AM09/24/2409:04 AM
@Toodoped Good stuff and more importantly it's stickied. So I can take my time without it dropping off the page.
See you got an article on the Chicago Heights crew. I've got a book on " the boys from Chicago Heights". I think that's the title, haven't read it yet. But I flicked through the photos and didn't really recognise most of the names . I'm sure you know the book. Looked like it was 1940s or 50s based.
Re: TD'S FREE CHICAGO OUTFIT ARTICLES 2023-2024
[Re: dsd]
#1100672 09/24/2409:26 AM09/24/2409:26 AM
@Toodoped Good stuff and more importantly it's stickied. So I can take my time without it dropping off the page.
See you got an article on the Chicago Heights crew. I've got a book on " the boys from Chicago Heights". I think that's the title, haven't read it yet. But I flicked through the photos and didn't really recognise most of the names . I'm sure you know the book. Looked like it was 1940s or 50s based.
Thanks buddy and also thanks for your support. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the articles that you possibly missed.
The "Boys from Chicago Heights" book is written by Mr. Luzi and I havent talked to him in years, meaning i lost contact. Back in the days when I started researching the Outfit, Luzi contacted me regarding me posting pics from his book (most of em are still floating around the internet) and he wanted credit, and so I never made that same mistake ever again. People's work need to be respected, thats it. Luzi and Prof. Binder are the so-called "base" of all Outfit knowledge (the old Outfit) and one of them once told me that I allegedly completed that same knowledge with the help of my detailed projects. Thats why in some of my old projects I always used to give credit to both of them.
Enjoy and stay tuned.
P.S. also dont miss the Outfits Indiana crew article because they were under the jurisdiction of the old Chi Heights group.
Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Re: TD'S FREE CHICAGO OUTFIT ARTICLES 2023-2024
[Re: Toodoped]
#1103059 10/20/2405:12 AM10/20/2405:12 AM
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/63XfRc0G/larner.png)
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thanks @OG. Means a lot coming from a known "playa" such as yourself. You were always and you still are like a brother from another mother to me from this forum and also from that other place from across the street, and I really appreciate it man. 
![[Linked Image]](https://eclecticanecdotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Hymen-Larner-1.png)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.ibb.co/qn8t4q3/Screenshot-20240919-172432-Chrome.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.ibb.co/tmfZyQd/Screenshot-20240919-174028-Chrome.jpg)