June 7, 2024 — After the loud, showy and destructive “Tony the Ant” era in Las Vegas in the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, the Chicago mafia turned to a more understated, low-key and loyal lieutenant to take his place. This man was so under-the-radar, most American mob watchers today don’t even know who he is.

Two people that do: the DiNunzio brothers in Boston, the top shot callers for New England’s Patriarca crime family in Beantown.

Reputed Chicago mafia figure Albert (Ragtime Al) Rapuano humbly and in strictly hushed tones looked after the Outfit’s less-substantial interests in Las Vegas during the city’s post LCN-centric years of the past three and a half decades, per multiple sources on both sides of the law and FBI informant records. Rapuano didn’t have any significant criminal record and passed away peacefully in his sleep in July 2022 at the age of 80.

At the beginning of his tenure running the Chicago mob’s business in Sin City in the years following his notoriously unhinged, power-obsessed predecessor Anthony (Tony the Ant) Spilotro’s murder — inside the basement of a Chicagoland home in June 1986 –, “Ragtime Al” helped shelter current New England mob bosses Carmen (Big Cheese) DiNunzio and Anthony (Little Cheese) DiNunzio, allegedly saving them from a murder contract they were dodging in Boston by having them placed in the Outfit’s West Coast crew and getting the Patriarcas to back off in their quest to kill the then two up-and-comers. Per sources and FBI intelligence memos, the DiNunzios were chased from Beantown after stealing $100,000 from the Patriarca clan’s East Boston crew in a drug rip-off

The DiNunzios went to work for the Chicago mob factions in L.A., Las Vegas and San Diego. The insubordinate 48-year old Spilotro’s rise and fall were depicted in the film Casino, with Oscar-winner Joe Pesci portraying a character based on Tony the Ant.

According to FBI documents and federal-court filings, the Chicago mob assigned its lieutenant in San Diego, Chris (The Greek) Petti and one of its own up-and-comers at the time, Robert (Bobby Popcorn) Dominic to aid Rapuano in getting the crime family’s West Coast affairs in order, specifically in Las Vegas and in regards to Spilotro’s sheet of outstanding debtors. Dominic, 70 years old and reportedly back in the government’s crosshairs these days, acted as the DiNuzios go-between for communications with Rapuano. The DiNunzio brothers were indicted in 1992 and copped a plea to extortion charges the following year for collecting a $30,000 debt in L.A. in the late 1980s previously owed to Spilotro.

“I told the guy I was going to cut off his fucking head…….he started to cry,” “Big Cheese” DiNunzio, 66, was caught on an FBI wire recalling the altercation to Chris Petti in an intercepted conversation from 1989.

Rapuano was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut and college educated, earning a degree in hotel management from Fordham University in the Bronx. His nickname hailed from his love of Ragtime and Jazz music. He landed in Chicago in the mid-1960s and was employed as the manager of the well-known Palmer House hotel in the city’s Downtown “Loop” district, popular with the celebrity and politician crowd visiting and doing business in Chi-Town. ‘It was during this time period where Rapuano became acquainted and business partners with powerful people in the Chicago mafia, per his FBI jacket.

Before heading to Las Vegas, he made stops for hotel-management gigs in Atlanta and Dallas, eventually taking managerial positions at the Riviera and the MGM Grand in Vegas. Prior to getting his job at the Riviera, Rapuano ran a casino-hotel in Reno and for a less than a month was running a casino-hotel opened by entertainment-world impresario Merv Griffin, but was fired when his superiors realized about Rapuano’s alleged mob ties.

Rapuano and mafia shot callers in L.A. allegedly brokered a safe passageway for the DiNunzio brothers to return to Boston following them completing their three-year federal prison stints from their work with the Chicago Outfit’s West Coast branch, per sources, FBI 302s and federal-court filings. The deal to bring the DiNunzios back home in Boston required them to repay the 100K they owed to East Boston from a decade earlier. They quickly received buttons and within a few years, Big Cheese was named underboss, a decision that caused further strife between the DiNunzios and the East Boston guys they had burned in a dope deal back in the day to boil once again. Big Cheese became boss in 2015. Little Cheese, 65, served as acting boss in the early 2000s with his big bro doing some time in “college” and per sources, is Big Cheese’s acting boss again today

Later in his career in Las Vegas, Rapuano became the general manager of the Chicago mob’s Crazy Horse Too strip club, Ground Zero for the Outfit’s remaining crew members in Vegas and on the West Coast, as well as visiting LCN figures from New York, New Jersey, New England, Kansas City and Detroit. Although he encountered gambling-licensing issues with the state of Nevada in the past, he was granted a managerial and liquor license in 2002 to run the Crazy Horse Too, with relatively little hassle.

The Crazy Horse Too has been known to employ sons, nephews and siblings of high-ranking mobsters in Chicago and New York, including the brother of Chicago Outfit consigliere and the Godfather of Grand Avenue, Joseph (Joey the Clown) Lombardo and the son of Bonanno mob skipper John (Johnny Green) Faraci. In his interview with licensing officials, Rapuano admitted being friends and socializing with “Joey the Clown,” who was incarcerated back in the 1980s for skimming Las Vegas casinos — as the Spilotro “Hole In The Wall Gang” crew’s direct superior back in the Midwest — and bribing Nevada U.S. Senator Howard Cannon, and Spilotro confidant Joey Cusumano, a former Hole in the Wall Gang affiliate that remains black-listed from entering Nevada gaming establishments at age 87. Lombardo died of cancer in prison in 2019.