DiNunzio Brothers

The brothers DiNunzio have had a long history around the Mafia going back decades. Last week I wrote about the Boston Mafia or the Patriarca Family based in Providence, Rhode Island.

Carmen has long been thought to be the Underboss of the family, handling business out of his Cheese Shop in the North End.  Anthony DiNunzio is his younger brother who was the acting boss of the family until he became the sixth boss to be taken down in a very short time.

Carmen DiNunzio came out to Los Angeles when he was on the lam from things in Boston.  

He met a former Boston transplant Anthony Fiato in Los Angeles where he had done well in Organized Crime circles.  Anthony Fiato had hooked back up with Los Angeles Capo Mike Rizzi and they had gone to New York and met with the Administration of the Gambino Family.  They wanted to do their own thing in Los Angeles, start their own family.  Pete Milano the boss of Los Angeles would eventually bring Anthony into the family.  He was made and then he did his own thing.  Anthony would have over a million dollars in shylock loans on the street when Carmen hit town.  Anthony did not want to take Carmen in so he brought him to his old friend Joe Sica.

Joe Sica and his brothers were long time players in Organized Crime on the West Coast. That is why I find it very amusing when Hollywood makes movies about Mickey Cohen the so-called “Boss of Los Angeles.”  One of the guys that was close to Joe was Chris Petti who would end up in San Diego. Chris was close to Tony Spilatro and others in the Chicago Outfit.  Chris came up with a plan to get in on the ground floor of the Rincon Indian Casino. The Rincon Tribe was looking for groups to bid on, build and ultimately run a Casino on their reservation.  Chris had the perfect backers… The Outfit, and they had a long history of getting inside Casinos and skimming them.  

They had an inside man in the tribe, but the Outfit told Chris to find other investors because they had another casino that was losing money.  That is where the FBI came in with an Undercover Agent posing as a Colombian dealer looking to launder cash.  They would end up taking down Chris, the administration of the Outfit, Carmen DiNunzio and his brother Anthony.

Luigi Manocchio became the boss of the Boston Family in 1996 after many years of fighting inside the family.  In 2004 he made Carmen his underboss.  Anthony was a Capo in Boston using the Gemini Social Club as his base.

Carmen was soon involved in a scheme to sell the Massachusetts Highway Department 300,000 cubic yards of loam soil from a company he had an interest.  He then decided to bribe a man he thought was an agent of the Highway Department (who was actually an FBI Agent). The FBI had flipped the middle man in the deal and he set up Carmen.  Carmen gave the informant $10,000 to give to the agent and then he gave him another $5,000 in cash at another meeting.  Then they provided the agent with a sample of the loam that they would supply.  It would have been a great score getting a contract to supply loam to the Big Dig but the FBI took him down.

Manocchio was a greedy boss and his men did not like him and there started to be decent, so he would step aside for Peter Limone.  Peter Limone had been locked up for 33 years for a murder that the FBI and their informant Joseph Barboza set him up.  He was released after the FBI found “real” evidence and it only took 33 years. He was released and won a 26 million dollar settlement from the FBI.  He then got right back into the family and busted again.

In steps Anthony DiNunzio as acting boss of the family and what he finds makes him very unhappy.  He went right to work in Rhode Island to beef up their rackets and one of them was

the adult sex industry business (strippers, escorts, porn). The family had made big money from these businesses and Anthony wanted to bring that back to profitability. He had a Eddie Lato a Capo in the family start picking up from the businesses in Rhode Island.  Then he had sitdowns with senior members of the Gambino Family to let them know they would be hitting up a guy who ran stripclubs and adult Bookstores in Rhode Island.  They contacted the Gambinos because the guy was friends with some soldiers in the family.  In the 1980’s the guy was close to Chris Richichi a Capo in the family based in Las Vegas. The Gambinos gave Anthony the green light to shake the guy down.

The crew would meet at a Chinese restaurant in Boston Billy Tse’s until they found out the whole place was wired up and the Feds had taped them.  The FBI then grabbed some of them after a meet and found cash from the stripclubs on them.  

Anthony was caught on tape speaking about his leadership of the family.  He said when he took over he changed everything and that anyone who did not toe the line was shelved (meaning they were no longer active members of the family) Then he told the guy that anyone who did not follow his rules would be buried alive until they died.  He also claimed that even if he was locked up he was still the boss.   He would continue to dig a deeper hole for himself when he was a senior Gambino guy he spoke about sponsoring a guy to be made and then afterward the guy telling him he is 100% with him.  

Anthony would end up pleading guilty and taking a 6 year sentence on November 14, 2012.  His brother Carmen took a 6 year plea deal in 2009 so they are for now off the streets.

Patriarca Family

The New England Family is referred to by the FBI as NELCN (New England La Cosa Nostra).   I still call it the Patriarca Family after its long time boss Raymond Patriarca.  

The New England Family started as two distinct families in the early 1900’s: one in Boston centered around the North End, and the other in Providence Rhode Island.  Gaspare Messina became the boss of the Boston LCN in 1916 and in 1917 Frank Morelli became boss of the Providence LCN.  Filippo Buccola became the boss of Boston in the early 1930’s but it was a family at war.  He would battle Irish gangs and others for dominance and after he killed the Irish leader Frank Morelli and merged his Providence family into the Boston family.  Buccola would retire in 1952 giving control of the family to Raymond Patriarca.

Raymond would make a lot of changes to the family beginning with moving the seat of power to Rhode Island.  He would run the family from the Coin-o-Matic vending machine office on Atwells Ave in Federal Hill. It would be known as The Office to members of the family.  Federal Hill is still a small neighborhood today and you can see why Raymond chose it as his base of operations.

Raymond was close to the Colombo and Genovese Family in New York and he was a member of the Commission.  The Genovese would have a crew in Springfield Mass that is still there today.  He had ties with the Los Angeles Family and his guys would head to the West Coast when things got hot.  One of the guys who would become boss stabbed a guy on Hollywood blvd when he was hiding out.  The current Underboss Carmen DiNunzio was hiding out in California and worked with Joe Sica and his brothers.   

Raymond brought 30 years of stability and prosperity to the family.  In Boston there was an Italian bookmaker named Jerry Angiulo who was running a large book and other games from the North End. Jerry was being shaken down by other hoods because he was not a made man.  The story is he went to Raymond and offered up a sizeable cash gift if he was made.  No matter because Jerry and his brothers would bring in huge amounts of cash and in 1968 he was made underboss.

The family would suffer after Raymond passed away in 1984.  The FBI was able to penetrate Jerry Angiulo’s office and plant a bug which would bring him down.  

The Commission decided that Raymond Jr would be boss of the family and they hoped it would stop the factions from fighting.  The Family then decided to induct some new members including Vincent Ferrara who was in prison and had to be released on a furlough. What they did not know was the FBI was watching, they had gotten word from an informant that a ceremony was in the works.  Vincent had used the address of the home they were going to use for the ceremony as the place he would be at during his furlough.  They FBI bugged the home and the basement where a large table was set up.  They recorded the whole event and that would forever debunk the myth that there was no Mafia.  The tape is online and if you are interested you should give it a listen.  

The FBI took down the acting boss of the family last week. Anthony Spagnolo, the acting boss, and Pryce Quintina, a made man in the family, were busted for extorting a video poker machine company.  The case actually shows a couple of things about the NELCN and the FBI.

The Poker machines were placed in the Revere Moose Lodge and they came from a company named Constitution Vending Company which broke both State and Federal law by placing the machines in bars and social clubs.  A new owner took over in 1984 and they quickly found out that they had to pay cash to the local mafioso in order for their machines to stay in places like the Moose Lodge.  The old owners paid and they started paying $600 a month to Anthony Spagnolo. When he became acting boss he had Pryce pick up the cash.  It is not much money but it is just one small portion of what gets picked up every month.  Another company wanted to put their machines into the Moose lodge and they even offered a better split with the lodge but they were not paying so Constitutions machines were there to stay.  The FBI got the owners of Constitution and the guys at the Moose Lodge to flip on Spagnolo and Quintina.

It is funny because the FBI uses the fact that the Moose Lodge and the illegal vending company do business across state lines as the violation of federal law to make the case.  It really shows how much the FBI does not want the family to revamp itself and make themselves whole.