Lucchese Family

Back to the Lucchese Family this week.  Carmine Avellino, the younger brother of Sal Avellino (who used to be then-boss Tony "Ducks" Corallo’s driver and confidant).  It was in Sal’s Jaguar that they used to talk Mafia business which was valuable in taking down Tony Ducks in the Commission case.  Carmine followed the rest of his family into the Lucchese Family and into the Carting Rackets.  They sought to control all the carting (garbage hauling) on Long Island, and they came close to succeeding.  

When Tony Ducks went away for life in the Commission case, he first appointed Buddy Luongo as boss.  Buddy soon disappeared and that put Vic Amuso in the top spot.  Vic upped his long time partner Gaspipe Casso as the underboss.  

They soon decided that something in the Garment rackets had to change.  That something was a long time family member named Michael Pappadio.  Michael was a oldtimer who knew the “rag trade” inside and out.  He had virtually run the Lucchese's garment center racket for 30 years until Vic and Gas took over.  Soon some associate started telling them that Michael was holding back cash from the family.  They knew next to nothing about the rag trade, but what they did know is that it brought in a huge amount of cash.  They were basically drug dealers who made big money and had survived the commission case unscathed, so they were able to take over the family.

Carmine Avellino and his brother Sal were very close to Pappadio, so they were tapped to set him up for murder.  The place they chose was a Bagel Bakery in South Ozone Park Queens that Carmine had some ownership in.  On May 13, 1989, the day before Pappadio's birthday, Carmine led him into the bakery.  As soon as he entered, he yelled, “Surprise look who's here!”  Al D'Arco rushed forward with a heavy copper cable covered in rubber and smashed him on the head.  He didn't die easy, but he did die after George Zappola shot him with a 357.  Carmine went through his pockets and handed Zappola a small book and other things to be given to Gaspipe.

Today Carmine is back to his old tricks and he has been arrested for having two associates rough up two elderly shylock customers.  I always find it funny when the government uses the elderly card because Carmine is 70 years old.  They used that in California on Jimmy Caci: they claimed he deserved a longer sentence because he went after elderly people for something.  Jimmy was close to 80 when this happened so it was a waste of paper.  

Carmine had Daniel Capra and his brother Michael deal with the debtors who had started to cooperate with the FBI.  The FBI took them down and they held Carmine without bail until his daughter put up her house as a million dollar bond.  Now he is free with restrictions, but free.  

There are a lot of senior Lucchese Family members free now, so we should be seeing some big FBI operations coming down soon!

Alessandro Taloni & Vito Rizzuto

Charged with importing over 100,000 Kilograms of marijuana from Canada to New York and Philadelphia between 1998 and 2012, this drug trafficking organization reached from California to Montreal and took in over a Billion dollars.  They worked with the Hells Angeles, Mexican Cartels, Bonanno Family and the Rizzuto Family.

A large amount of the Marijuana was grown hydroponically in Canada and then smuggled across the border in the US via the Indian Reservations that straddle the US-Canadian border.  This was an easy way for them to bypass US Customs at other entry points on the border.

They would use profits from marijuana to purchase cocaine from the Sinaloa Cartel and distribute it across the East Coast and Canada. They would obtain sizable loads of cocaine from the Cartel. They would break them down to between five and ten kilo's to smuggle into Canada.

The indictment has so many counts of exporting in excess of 1,000 kilograms of marijuana that it is hard to follow.  Then they had the problem that was recently so well portrayed by Walter White on Breaking Bad. They had to do something with all the cash. The Feds posed as money launderers that could help move money and make it clean.

Alessandro Taloni is a name most people have never heard.  He was an important part of the Bonanno Family's drug connection.  Taloni was born in Italy but has lived in Montreal for many years.  It was here that he became friendly with Vito Rizzuto and his crime family.  Taloni was an unknown until the head of the Drug Trafficking asked a DEA informant to move 1 million dollars in cash for him.  The Informant and the DEA told them they would move 200,000 at a time for a 6% charge which means they would launder 188,000 for the organization. A man in Los Angeles met with the Informant and after that meeting he was followed back to the Beverly Hills Hotel where he met Taloni and gave him a large suitcase which he placed in his trunk.  Taloni then left and drove to a home in Woodland Hills where he took the suitcase from the trunk and brought it inside.  The DEA sat on them in the house until Taloni left.   The DEA later pulled him over and found $80,000 in cash, a couple prepaid cell phones and an encrypted Blackberry.  The big surprise came when they searched his person and found Taloni was carrying a business card for a man named “Vito Rizz” and another for his Café Consenza in Montreal that served as his branch of the Bonanno family’s headquarters.

Vito Rizzuto

This was an eye opener for the DEA because Vito was as big as you get in International Organized Crime.  The DEA then went to the house in Woodland Hills and searched it where they found 49 kilo's of cocaine and 1.7 million in cash, numerous prepaid cellphones and a encrypted Blackberry.  Taloni had dropped off the cash but this was not the first time he had been observed in the company of the drug dealers. A few months before the Anaheim Police were watching a local cocaine dealer who met a man named Marc Canel-Pierre.  They followed Marc to Beverly Hills where he met Taloni in a parking lot.  They spoke for a few minutes and then Taloni removed a large bag from his trunk and gave it to Marc.  They then followed Marc to his home where they got a search warrant and found 34 kilo's of Cocaine and 1.6 million in cash.

Taloni loved Ferrari cars and the Ferrari racing team.  Many of his support letters from friends and family speak about his love of the cars.  All the cocaine was stamped Ferrari so I wonder how much pull he had in the organization.  I’ve read all his letters of support and one of them is a blessing from the Pope! I guess it didn't help much because he was given 10 years just the other day.  The one thing I find interesting is the fact that Taloni, who had a hair product business that sold to hair salons kept doing business in Beverly Hills.  That city seems to be very popular with the Zips.

Mickey Cohen Files

I have recently acquired a lot of FBI Documents on Meyer Harris Cohen AKA: C. Cain, Donald Duitz, Michael Kane, Michael Masters, M. Michaels, Max Patterson, M. Weaver and best known as Mickey Cohen.

Mickey, Mike Howard, Johnny Stompanato

These were easy (and cheap) to get my hands on.  It makes me wonder why all these people writing books or screenplays could not bother to get this information. Its all Freedom of Information Act stuff, which means a lot of the names are redacted.  I have read most of the 4,000 pages, many are FBI Airtels (interoffice memos) and other interoffice communications.

Mickey was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 4 1913 to Max and Fannie Cohen. Both Max and Fannie were born in Russia and emigrated to the US.  Mickey attended school until the age of 15 but never did well because he was a truant.  Max died a year after Mickey was born, and his mother moved them to the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. 

He was a bad kid and did a lot of time in reform school.  In 1929 he moved to Cleveland to train as a pro boxer.  He was never a stand out in pro boxing but I am sure from what I have read that he fought in a lot of "smokers" or illegal fights.  He became known as a scrappy tough fighter, although not a great fighter.

He got involved in the gambling rackets in Cleveland with some other Jewish gangsters but soon left for Chicago.  Once in Chicago, he built up a gambling business that included games and taking bets.  He got into trouble with some Outfit men and soon left for Los Angeles.  

Once in Los Angeles he began shaking down madams for cash and this brought him to Joe Sica. The FBI has Joe Sica listed as part of the Mafia, but according to everything I have been told, he was never a made guy. Joe, along with his brothers, was a huge money maker that basically ran his own family that stretched from Tijuana to the Bay Area.  Joe Sica had a huge gambling network and was a very big drug smuggler.  He was very well respected by many Cosa Nostra bosses all over the country.

Joe Sica and a man named Mike Howard witnessed Mickey's marriage at a Chapel on Western Ave in Los Angeles on October 15, 1940, the marriage would last until February 1st, 1957 when his wife divorced him because of "extreme cruelty."  He must have done something because he got away with just paying her 1 dollar a month in alimony.

The FBI had a number of female informants that gave them information on Mickey and by the winter of 1950 they were investigating them for kidnapping a former Los Angeles Gambler/Bookie who had fled to Las Vegas because he owned Mickey $5,000.  Mickey found out where the man was living and had his men grab him and put him on a plane to Los Angeles.  Once in Los Angeles, the man gave Mickey two checks for 1000.00 each that he deposited in his own account!  The FBI seized them from the bank and opened a safety deposit box he had at the bank but the victim told them he came to Los Angeles on his own accord.  That case died on the vine.

The FBI would speak to anyone who was ever seen with Mickey, including a number of Hollywood stars and others in the entertainment business.  They all said that Mickey loved the attention and loved being in the media.  He lived for the spotlight.  

Mickey was arrested for tax evasion twice.  After his release he had a number of businesses, Michael's Greenhouses 1956-57, Carousel Ice Cream Parlor 1958-60, he owned a piece of Rounders Restaurant and he went on to sell his life story many times, but he never had a resulting book published.  

The selling of his life story was a con job that he used to get cash from a lot of people.  He did have a really well known gifted writer working on it.  The man's name was Ben Hecht, and he won an Academy Award for Underworld at the very first awards ceremony.  He also wrote the classic movie Scarface, the original black and white movie.

Mickey and Ben went to La Paz Mexico to finish the book but it was never finished.

Mickey moved into a brand new apartment complex at 705 South Barrington where he paid a lot of money at the time, $250.00 a month in rent.  He had lived for years at the Hotel Del Capri on Wilshire before he moved.  Another soon-to-be famous name also lived at the Del Capri, Johnny Stompanato, the sometimes body guard of Mickey.  Stompanato had been a Marine during World War II for 3 years until he was discharged honorably.  The FBI had information that Cohen was working with others back east in an extortion ring where they used young good looking people like Stompanato as gigolos that catered to both men and women.  Stompannato was killed by his girlfriend Lana Turner's daughter in April of 1958.  

The FBI and the LAPD Intelligence division had a number of bugs in Mickey's places. It would be great to listen to those tapes!

One of the things they picked up was Mickey having someone break into Stompanato's room when he was killed and stealing his shave kit.  It was not just a shave kit it had a bundle of love letters from Lana Turner which Mickey sold to the tabloids.

A lot of the memos and Airtels are from the FBI Top Hoodlum Program but in none of them do they ever refer to Mickey as a Boss or part of what they called the Mafia at the time The Syndicate. They just call him a hoodlum or a muscleman who collects debts with bodily force.  He was employed by the Flamingo Casino Hotel to collect cash from guys who left Las Vegas without paying their markers. 

There were a lot of FBI Memos from an informant who was a woman that was close to Bugsy Seigal. She told the FBI that when Bugsy came to LA he wanted to establish himself as a sportsman, not a gangster, so he used Mickey because he would do whatever he was asked to do.  He helped Bugsy get bookmakers signed up for the wire service he was repping at the time.

She went on to tell the FBI that Mickey was never on the inside circle and that is why after Bugsy was murdered in Beverly Hills, Mickey went to the Ambassador Hotel with a pistol.

This lady was pretty plugged into the workings of the Mafia or Syndicate because she told the FBI after Los Angeles Boss Jack Dragna died Nick Licata took over aided by Frank Milano!  She told them that Jimmy Frattiano was a killer who set up Mickey to be murdered.  She told them that Frattiano had killed Frank Nicoli, Dave Ogul and the Two Tonys.  She also gave them information on Frank Costello being the boss but later falling out of favor.  I am pretty sure I know who this informant was and I am sure many of you can guess because she later moved to Europe.

 One story that has been told and retold is Mickey killing bookie Max Shaman who came into his office on May 16, 1945 threatening him.  The FBI claimed the real shooter was Hooky Rotham, his body guard, but Mickey took the blame because it was easier to claim self defense.  Paulie Gibbons was a burglar, gambler, cheater and armed robber of gamblers.  He also robbed Mickey's home. Mickey told people he wanted him dead, but he was killed instead by major gamblers Benny Gamson and George Levinson.  They would be gunned down by Hooky Rothman near their home.  Hooky was paid $500.00 a week by Mickey.  The other men working for Mickey were paid $200.00 a week. Hooky would never face the music for any murders because he was killed by Frank Bomp when Frattiano set up Mickey in his Haberdashery on Sunset Blvd.

It is very clear from all the papers that Mickey was never a boss.  He shook down madams, bookies, drug dealers.  He conned people for money, extorted them, did armed robberies, dealt in stolen credit cards and shoplifted clothes.  The real Gangsters of that era are still relatively unknown men like Jack Dragna, Nick Licata, Frank Milano and the Sica Brothers.  It is also clear that Mickey bribed LAPD Vice and other officials.  He also informed for them, giving up his competition.  He had an LAPD Sgt for a body guard and that was not the only time. He was shot outside Sherry's on Sunset along with Special Agent Harry Cooper from the California Attorney General's office.  No other gangster has ever had law enforcement body guards in public.

Recent Mafia Headlines

There was a lot of Mafia news in New York this week. A couple of the stories were funny and one of the best headlines was, “Canoli King sexually harassed waitress: Suit.”

That is correct, Reputed Gambino “Baby John” Delutro, owner of Cafe Palermo in Little Italy (where one can get the best Canoli in the US) has been sued by a former waitress.

Baby John is the son of Tony West Delutro, a respected Gambino Family man.  Baby John was busted back in 1984 for dealing drugs, and he was still on paper when he met with an informant who was wearing a wire.  Baby John was trying to negotiate the purchase of 50 Kilos of Cocaine and 50 Kilos of Heroin.  There were drug sales in Little Italy and other tapes were made, like when he spoke to the informant, telling him "I can only take 3 Kilos right now, my friends are fat from the feast".  He was talking about a big buy he and his gangster buddies bought during the Feast of San Gennero.   Baby John, what a guy!

In other headlines, Alicia Garofalo, who quit the reality show “Mob Wives” after finding out the judge does not find her reality stardom funny.    They keep talking about her crimes in the show like it is no big deal.  She stole money from hard working Union Members, their health and pension.  I was around Eddie Garofalo a lot and trust me he was no genius. In fact, the guy wrote like a 3rd grader.  She has claimed that she had no idea what was going on.  Really? The FBI has tapes of her.  In fact, she pleaded guilty to the charges before she took back her plea.

I can tell you this: her brother (who is in pictures with her going to court) knew what Eddie was about.  He was around a number of functions when I was around.  She goes on “Mob Wives” talking about how she had no idea about the criminal activity, and then talking about Eddie's dad being killed.  I did some work with a Tele Communication's company on Maiden Lane.  Eddie got about 500k from the guy who ran it and he started his trucking business.  The business had guys like Wild Bill Cutolo, George Tropiano, John Baudanza and Manny Garofalo involved.  Big R trucking was run out of Eddie's cousin’s porno business in Brooklyn with the trucks run out of the Bonafide Fuel truck lot in downtown Brooklyn.  Big R is named after Eddie and Alicia's son, and it moved to a Staten Island truck lot owned by his cousin Eddie G, a Gambino man who is locked away for life.

Big R was also a lot of other companies and he had a heavy equipment company called T and E as in Teddy and Eddie. That is right Teddy Persico was a part of the business and he was there a lot!  Yes Alicia is just a woman who has been duped into thinking her man was just a truck driving schlub who works hard.  Nevermind their home in Cherry Hill, the elaborate vacations or Eddie’s huge gambling problem.  He has pictures of himself with all these huge checks from casinos all over.  The problem?  Those pictures are of the times he won, and anyone who knows gamblers knows they lose more often than they win.

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Eddie had also been arrested before by the FBI for Pump and Dump stuff he did with others.  He went on the lam running to Las Vegas and as far as La Jolla, California, until he felt he would not go away for long.  Then there is his Uncle Manny, his father’s brother.  That man has been arrested with the “Who's Who” of the Mafia and yet now, miraculously, he gets no time?

Alicia took back her plea just this last week because the judge wanted her to pay for restitution because the Union is claiming a much larger loss.  The judge and prosecutors did not like that she lived it up on “Mob Wives” glamorizing the Mafia life.  She wanted Eddie to testify for her at her sentencing, yet she cheated on him?  She has stated that she is getting a divorce?  If she was not gaining from being around the Mafia why is she on TV, getting paid 8k an episode!

There was also Colombo news this week because a judge hit Dino "Little Dino" Saracino with a 50 year sentence for his part in the racketeering case that took out many Colombos.   Little Dino was part of Capo Tommy Gioli's crew, and he killed for him.  He walked on the biggest charges like killing NYPD Cop Ralph Dols or Wild Bill Cutolo, but he was convicted of enough.  It didn't help that he bragged to a wired up informant that he could do 17 years of a 20 year sentence and come out with a smile.

The judge gave him 50 years and this time, he wasn't smiling.  He killed real people.  He is no hero, and he could ease the pain of his victim’s relatives.  He is done.  Why not tell the family of victim Carmine Gargano where his body is hidden?