Antonio Leonardo Accardo was born in Chicago on April 28, 1906, the son of a Sicilian immigrant shoemaker.He was baptized at the infamous Holy Name Cathedral, seven blocks away from his home on 1353 West Grand Avenue, near Ogden, on the West side.

Little is known about Accardo’s youth.At the age of five he enrolled in grade school.Tony began grade school at the James Otis Elementary School,but by the time Accardo was 14 he’d become disenchanted with the education system.His parents, Francesco and Maria, were not impressed with his progress.So as his parents, who, like many others of that era, filed a delayed birth-record,stating that their son had actually been born in 1904. The additional two years allowed Tony to drop out of school and begin working. As a young boy he held various jobs.His first job was as a delivery boy for a florist,than grocery clerk and truck driver.According to law-enforcement authorities, those two jobs probably constituted his only legitimate employment.At night he ascended up the ladder of crime, starting at pickpocket and eventually moving his way up to burglar and car thief. He was arrested several times, but never spent a night in jail, a record he kept intact throughout his life.

Accardo had several minor brushes with the law in his youth — among them a 1922 arrest for a motor vehicle violation and a 1923 charge in conjunction with an incident at a pool hall where organized crime figures were known to hang out .He was then convicted of disorderly conduct two more times in the next year.According to court records, Accardo said that he was still living with his parents and that he was employed and that he was a truck driver which apparently was true.
It was then that his violent antics caught the eye of some big time gangsters.He was an early product of the "Circus Gang," a strapping, flve-nine, 200 pound lad in the company of Northwest Side thugs who congregated at John "Screwy" Moore's (a.k.a. Claude Maddox) Circus Cafe on North Avenue. Moore was nominally connected to the Torrio-Capone outfit, and he willingly obliged Scarface with a percentage of his gang's liquor revenue, and the necessary armaments through their gun dealer Peter Von Frantzius.

He was introduced to the mob boys by "Tough" Tony Capezio, a gambling boss and syndicate man, who pulled him off the streets of the Grand and Milwaukee neighborhood, and gave him something more "useful" to do.Among his fellow gang members was James Vincenzo De Mora, also known as Vincent Gibardi. De Mora would later make his mark as Machine Gun Jack McGurn.By the end of the 1920s, Accardo was performing various tasks for the Capone mob like the time he drove a Capone beer truck part time.At that time he was running with another gangster of future importance, his closest friend and confidant, Felice De Lucia, better known as Paul "the Waiter" Ricca.

Mob media writers have always suspected the youthful Accardo of complicity in Chicago's most sensational gangland killing, the 1929 St. Valentine's's Day Massacre. In all probability Accardo acted as one of Capone's lookouts on Clark Street and may have had a small role in the planning the hit, but it is farfetched speculation to place him in the garage at the time of the actual shootings.

Its been said accardo was secretly recorded admitting to being apart of the massacar

Bill Roemer said that he heard it while listening to conversations between Murray Humphreys and Accardo, or during one of their reminisces. So I ordered Humphreys's and Accardo's FBI files and noticed this memory isn't in there. I contacted the FBI to see if it was somewhere else. I was told they didn't know and it would take too much time to search for it, if it was there. So at this point all we can say is that Roemer claimed to have heard this.

Faithful 1 - I'm glad you made this post. I've been tempted numerous times to order additional files on Accardo and Giancana under the FOIA. I believe the charge is about $15 per disk. I may re-consider now that you've given it a try and didn't get any new information.

I'll be back later to post some information I've discovered recently about Accardo.

Roemer's book is very self serving. It's not very accurate about the Structure of the Outfit and he is extremely biased about the people he admired (Accardo) & the people he despised (Giancana, DeStefano, Spilotro) because they had no fear of him and told him what they thought about him right to his face. He also invented a lot of dialogue that never existed and he even admits it. Joe Ferriola was never the Top Boss of the Outfit. I could go on but it would take up too much time. A writer should be objective, not biased.

Information below furnished by Chicago Outfit historian.

On Monday, Sept. 27, Accardo was arrested in Chicago by the FBI as a material witness in the Hollywood Extortion case being tried in New York. Accardo's arraignment was before a federal judge. Accardo's attorney was named Callaghan and he fought to keep Accardo from going to New York. Accardo's bond was set at $25,000, and a reduction was sought by Callaghan. Accardo was brought to court in handcuffs and his attorney petitioned for habeas corpus. The judge was busy and Accardo was sent back to his cell. Finally, Accardo's bond was reduced to $3500 and he was released. The Assistant U.S. Attorney representing the government was Maurice Walsh. After leaving federal service, Mr. Walsh represented Accardo in his income tax case.

Several pictures are posted online of Mr. Walsh and Accardo talking during a court break.

On February 12, 1945 Accardo and Giancana were arrested for disorderly conduct and questioned about the murder of James Larkin. They were also questioned about the kidnapping of Jake Guzik (Accardo thought Guzik's math was bad). Both were released.

Although Accardo did not spend a night in prison, there's a real good possibility he did spend a few nights in jail.

I did'nt know guzik was kidknapped, please tell me more
Good post faithful

Like Faithful1 said, there's very little evidence that Accardo was involved in the Valentine's Day Massacre. I personally believe the American Boys theory.

And is there even any real evidence that he was even Capone's bodyguard? like photos of them together or something? It seems more like Accardo started to become prominent AFTER the Capone era.

Some of you forget that back in the days to become a top guy in the mob you have to do some high profile crimes in the younger days.So Accardo must have done something.Theres also a theory bout police involvment in the massacre,the moran gang shot a police captains son....

There'w no real mystery regarding the Massacre; not much doubt at all it was the American Boys. They found the guns on Burke after he killed the cop in Michigan and Byron Bolton spilled everything in a confession later.

Bill Helmer makes the case that Hoover actually supressed the confession at the time because it would take press away from his "War on Crime."

Helmer's book is somewhat dry but an exhaustively researched treatise on the crime for anyone interested in it and likely to be the final word on the subject for real gangster buffs.

Interesting about Accardo's birth address. I have also endeavored to find Giancana's birth address but there's not much doubt his tenement was demolished when Daley built the expressway.

Yup, and so did Gus Winkeler's wife in a book she tried to get published.

I don't believe any of the American Boys evidence points to Accardo at all, other than maybe his affiliation with Claude Maddox, who was probably involved.

Exactly.

Did you see that retarded theory about Three Finger Jack White doing the massacre on his own that appeared in the "Get Capone" book that came out a while back? Talk about some sloppy research!

I gotta ask cuz i dont understand,you mean like it was said that he was the only one that rounded up all thouse guys and shot them??

Hahaha, no, I mean that the book says he was responsible for the massacre independently from Capone.

Another funny thing I've read in a couple places is the claim that one thousand rounds were fired in the massacre. It was actually seventy rounds, plus a couple shotgun blasts.

i get it,i was just joking..and yeah "1000 rounds" my ass

Yes. Utter nonsense. John Binder got on TV and ripped him into shreds. He proved that White was in jail during the time of the massacre.

The author then theorized that he might have paid someone to let him out of jail to commit the massacre.

The only real question is if the author made a legitimate mistake out of profound ignorance or if he intentionally, cynically threw out such a preposterous theory as a money grab.