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.

The LIFE BLOOD OF ORGANIZED CRIME.

So you would like to start your own Sports Book. That can be hard unless you live in Nevada, Atlantic City or on a Reservation.  Plus, you will need millions to get it started. The good news is you can still start your own Book, and it is being done everyday all over the country.   

The best advice I can give you regarding gambling is never gamble. Its a sucker's play, the house always wins. You may have a good run, but it will grind you down.  The best Bookies never play EVER.

What action will you take?  The old Mafia Bookies took bets on Horses.  Today unless they are huge races, don't waste your time. There are four races: the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes, the Preakness and the Breeder’s Cup. Those you can take action on, but use track odds and you will also take in some smaller bets but it will be easy and it pays. In New York they had the OTB (Off Track Betting) and somehow they lost money!  It is kind of like the Lottery.  For years Organized Crime made a ton of cash in the Numbers games.  Now that states run them, they cost millions and they do not give as much to schools as they say.

In America, Football is king.  That goes for NFL and College games. Then there is Baseball. I love to take action on Baseball because the game is slow and I enjoy it.  A lot of Bookies close up shop for Baseball season. Hockey is a game not many people bet on in Los Angeles, but hey, why not, and if you live in a cold climate take the action.  Boxing is another sport that has few bettors unless it is a big pay-per-view fight.  Where you live will determine how much boxing action you should take.  The new fast growing sport of MMA is great for bookies.  It is fast paced and there is a clear winner.  You can take action on many aspects not just a knock out, but a Submission a kick etc...Then you also have Golf, Soccer and Nascar.  

What types of Bets?

The Straight Bet- The most basic of bets.  Lets say it is the Los Angeles Lakers vs San Antonio Spurs. Who cares who wins the game.  If I bet a straight bet, I only care who covers. The Lakers score 102 and The Spurs score 98.  Whoever took the Spurs wins! The Lakers did not cover the spread! The Lakers need to score 103 to win by 4.5 points. Some of your bettors may want to buy for 10 dollars on every 100 on top of the vig.  This would have paid off in this case.

• San Antonio -4.5 -110
• LA Lakers +4.5 -110

Moneyline- This means you just bet the team that wins.  It is simple but it does not pay off well.

• San Antonio   -190
• LA Lakers   +160

Over/Under- This is very simple. It is the total scores combined.  

• Over +187.5 -110
• Under

Parlays- This means the player will bet multiple games and teams and all his picks must win.  It pays off big but it is difficult to win.  It will make you money.

Teasers are great because again the player has to win both games he plays and pay juice!

Exotics-These are bets like who wins the coin toss, first round knock out etc.  

There are many more types of bets. Things to remember regardless of what action you decide to take: the gambler will always lose.  The edge is always with the house.  If a player is on a roll and wins 50k in a week, pay him. My rule as a bookie was always pay, no matter what.  When I give him that payout, I will put anything on it I would soon earn it right back, plus double, because he will keep chasing that big win.

I liked to settle up on Tuesdays.  I was taught that way, so I did it.  Most action was taken over the weekends. If someone lost, he will want to recoup some of his lost money, hence Monday Night Football is so popular!

I would only have my guys meet players if we were owed a thousand or more or if we owed it.  Some smaller books have different numbers, those were mine.

Today gambling has changed so much. There is no need to get a bunch of hardlines or a telephone system for a room.  You can get an 800 number for cheap and have it forwarded to a cell phone and then roll over to another.  A lot of guys use Offshore rooms, I did use those but sometimes the people working were hard to understand and were not that good.  

Getting set up Online combined with local Agents is the best for what I needed. I had a site and I had other bookies as Agents they would get their clients to post (deposit)  Then I would credit their account or they would tell me what to credit their clients. That way the could go online and bet whenever they wished.  If they lost or won they would meet their guy on settlement day and collect.  It is the same as a regular local bookie only now they have an option.  Plus with the service they can see the lines for all the games.  You used to have to call and ask what the line was at the time.  The papers print it but it may change.

Book Making is easy and it makes huge money.  You just have to balance your books and you will never lose because you get the vig no matter who wins, that is the fee you take for the bet.  If you are a Bookie it is up to you to look over your players.  If you have a guy who is a waiter and is married to a waitress you cannot allow him to bet more than a hundred or so.  If he gets in over his head its lost.  If a guy owns a couple of used car lots he can bet up to 10k because he can pay.  If someone gets in over their head, cut their debt and get a payment.  It is stupid to threaten players for a debt. Its all "Air" money anyway.  In other words you are not out any product.  If you sell cocaine, you bought it so you are out that money.  If you front it and do not get paid then you are out real hard money.  So if a player does not pay just write it off.  I used to just say oh well now you cannot bet with us or anyone I know.  The business is real small and if you let people know a player is a deadbeat it works!  A Gambler that cannot gamble is lost.  Gambling is a great business and it supplies the cash for so many things.  It also goes hand in hand with my other former favorite way to make money, Shylocking or Loan Sharking.  The funny thing is, even today I see these payday loan places and they charge the same rates! Usary!  More on this another time.

Gangland Los Angeles: Not Like The Movies

If people were only to watch Hollywood movies like LA Confidential, Gangster Squad and Bugsy, they would get the idea that Mickey Cohen was the only real Gangster in Los Angeles.  The writers of these "gangster" movies have no idea how a real Mobster would act or how it works.

One myth I would like to bury is the yelling, threatening crime boss. If you are a boss of a crew  (for example, Mickey Cohen) you are paying guys to be your muscle. Yelling, berating, beating, killing is not done BY the boss.  Also, none of that is done TO the boss.

Why? These men are hardened criminals. Why would they let another man talk down to them?  They lose all credibility on the street if it were to get out.  Cosa Nostra: you have men who want to  be in the organization, men that took an oath.  You never yell or raise your hands.

There were three main groups in LA during the time period of Gangster Squad.  One was the Los Angeles Cosa Nostra Family, headed by Jack Dragna. The Underboss was Momo Adamo and they had 60 plus men.  The FBI likes to estimate that for every Made guy there are 10 associates.  The second was Joe Sica or JS and his brothers.  They ran a vast empire from Mexico to San Francisco from their Valley home base. They  would outlast everyone.  The third was Bookmaker Mickey Cohen. Mickey bought his loyalty and soon many of his men would end up dead at the hands of The Cosa Nostra.


The Most Famous Gangland Murder in Los Angeles

Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino aka the Two Tony's. These two guys were bad.  They were freelance muscle and armed robbers.  They were not killed by Mickey Cohen as portrayed in LA Confidential.  In fact, Mickey was already locked up for tax evasion when they were killed. He had nothing to do with it.

The two Tony's had run into trouble because they dared to rob a bookmaker in Las Vegas. Las Vegas at this time is not the family friendly vacation destination. It was an adult playground founded and owned by the Cosa Nostra. The rules were simple, no crime was to be committed in the town by any criminal.  Even the Cosa Nostra took care of business outside the town. They believed that crime would scare away gamblers and that was bad for business.  The penalty for crime was death and it would be swift.

Setting: Los Angeles, The Five O'Clock Club.   This was Nick Licata's bar in Los Angeles.  Nick Licata was a Capo in the family and he used it as a meeting place for his crew. Jack Dragna pulled Jimmy Frattiano, a newly made soldier in the family, aside, "Jimmy, these two guys. Tony Trombino and Tony Brancato - they are no good. They need to be handled. Take care of it," Jack says.  Jimmy says he'll set something up, "I'll reach out to them today."

Jimmy would then reach out to them through a bookmaker in Los Angeles. They were out on bail for the Las Vegas robbery and they were hiding in Los Angeles.

Jimmy met with them and told them about a high stakes poker game they could rob for fast cash. They needed cash because they were facing time.  Jimmy told them he would drive but could not go in because people would recognize him. They went for it, agreeing to give Jimmy a full cut.

Jimmy set up a meet for later that night.

It would go down like this.  Angelo Polizzi would drive Jimmy and Charley Battaglia to the street where they would meet the two Tony's. He would wait down the street.  Leo Moceri would drive the crash car and be a back up shooter in case anything went wrong.

Jimmy and Charley were waiting on the street just off Hollywood Blvd.  The car pulled up with Tony Trombino driving and Tony Brancato in the passenger seat. Charley went in first and was behind Brancato, Jimmy was behind Trombino.

Time stood still for Jimmy as he opened the rear door for Charley. When he got in and closed the door his heart was pounding, a cold sweat ran from his armpits.  Jimmy took a deep breath, relaxed, pulled out his snub nose 38. cal pistol and placed it to the back of Trombino's head. Boom, Boom. Trombino jerked forward and back from the impact of the slugs. Blood and smoke filled the car. Charley was frozen, so Jimmy turned his pistol on Brancato and fired four times.  Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.  Charley woke up and fired his pistol one time.  Boom! He opened his door and ran out. Jimmy, now bloody with his ears ringing, opened the door and walked to Angelo in the getaway car.

This was how the Cosa Nostra handled problems.  It shows how the families worked together. Las Vegas was still an open city to other Cosa Nostra families but New York and Chicago ran it with an iron fist.    Jack Dragna gave the contract to Jimmy Frattiano, the new guy from Cleveland. This would make Jimmy's reputation in the Cosa Nostra,  Jimmy murdered two tough men in a few seconds and later would be picked up by the LAPD. He would walk on the charges but everyone knew he had done the work. This is one of the things most people do not understand about the Cosa Nostra or Mafia.  You do not get paid to kill, you do not ask why, you just do it.  Every guy connected is there to protect the Organization, to protect its rackets and members and preserve the power.  It is part of the life.

JIMMY CACI

Dominic Vincent Caci aka Jimmy Caci. Jimmy was the real deal. The last of the true La Cosa Nostra guys on the West Coast. He was the link to the past. That past is now gone. I spent a lot of time with Jimmy. I used to visit him in Terminal Island FCI, Taft, North Las Vegas jail and other places. He taught me a lot and I will never forget him. I spoke to him a month before he passed. he sounded like the same old Jimmy. He asked about my ex-wife Tabitha Stevens and my father who also has passed. Jimmy was one of a kind. He would not cuss in front of a woman, he drew pictures on napkins for kids. He was what the Cosa Nostra used to be. He did a lot of time and in the end he came to realize that it was a dead end life.

I will miss you Jimmy. RIP

NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Published:September 4, 2011, 12:00 AM

2 Comments

Font Size:

• -2
• -1
• Standard
• +1
• +2

• E-mail
• Share
• Print

Updated: September 4, 2011, 2:15 PM

ADVERTISEMENT

Vincent D. “Jimmy” Caci liked to delight little children by drawing pictures for them.

A friend recalled that Caci would sit at a restaurant table, pick up a napkin, sketch a clever little drawing on it, and with a friendly smile, hand it to a kid sitting nearby.

But others saw a more fearsome side of Caci.

Cops say he was a tough-as-nails mobster who specialized in loansharking and shakedown schemes in Buffalo, and later in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Caci, described by associates as one of the toughest mobsters ever to emerge from Buffalo’s underworld, died of an illness last month in Palm Springs, Calif., two weeks after his 86th birthday.

He was quietly buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheektowaga, a low-key farewell for a man who lived a stormy life, rubbed elbows with big-time mobsters and entertainers, and got involved in some high-profile criminal investigations.

“Guys like Jimmy are part of a dying breed,” said Ronald M. Fino, a former Buffalo mob associate and FBI witness who now works as a private investigator in Norfolk, Va. “The guys who ran things in the Buffalo mob back in the ’60s, there’s only a few of them left.”

“He was tough, he was a strong man,” added a Buffalo businessman who knew Caci for decades. “Jimmy was a stand-up guy. He was in and out of prisons all his life and never ratted on anybody.”

Caci’s mob career blossomed after he left Buffalo in the 1970s and became a feared mob leader in Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Las Vegas. Authorities said he was one of a number of Buffalo mobsters who took leadership positions after moving to Nevada or California.

After he was sentenced to 46 months in a telemarketing fraud case in 1996, the California Attorney General’s Office wrote this about Caci in its annual report on organized crime: “Caci’s imprisonment has left an organized crime leadership void in the Palm Springs area, with no one moving in to take his position.”

“Jimmy was very successful after he made the move out west,” Fino said. “People liked him, because if he was your friend, he would help you out and wouldn’t ask anything in return.”

Caci was born in Westfield in Chautauqua County, but was raised on Buffalo’s West Side. His parents, who had nine children, ran a fish market and clam stand.

He got involved with the Buffalo Mafia and in schemes to take over vending machine companies in Western and Central New York.

In 1972, after his arrest for allegedly trying to blow up a vending machine company outside Syracuse, Caci was sentenced to three years in state prison. Police had put the company under surveillance after learning that mob figures had been trying to take it over.

Police said they found dynamite, a blasting cap and a timing device when they arrested Caci and two co-defendants in a field near the company.

While Caci was serving time in that case, he went on trial in Buffalo’s federal court in 1974. In that case, Caci and other alleged mobsters were accused of trying to extort a Binghamton vending machine operator. In that case, Caci was acquitted.

He had some more good fortune in Buffalo’s federal court in 1978, when District Judge John T. Curtin dismissed charges that Caci tried to sell a painting, valued at $18,000, that had been stolen in a Las Vegas burglary.

Prosecutors failed to prove that Caci knew the painting was stolen, Curtin ruled.

In July 1976, Buffalo Police charged Caci and four other men with loitering at a large dice game at a shopping plaza at West Ferry and Grant streets. The disposition of the case was not available last week.

After moving to Palm Springs, Caci returned to Buffalo for a visit in October 1983, but got busted at the Peace Bridge for failing to declare $26,660 he was carrying in his hip pocket. He later was convicted of failing to declare the cash, but details on his sentence also were unavailable last week.

Following a highly publicized California mob probe in 1988, a judge in Los Angeles sentenced Caci to a year in prison, after he pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge. One of his co-defendants in that case was Peter Milano, whom police called the boss of the LA mob.

Caci was back in prison in 1996 after his telemarketing fraud conviction. In 1998, federal prosecutors filed a racketeering case that tried to connect Caci to an effort by Buffalo and Los Angeles mobsters to take over mob operations in Las Vegas, but Caci was never convicted of that.

That case ended in April 2001, when a federal judge in Las Vegas sentenced Caci to six months in prison for conspiring to sell counterfeit travelers’ checks.

At that sentencing, Caci — then 75 — asked the judge for leniency, saying he had numerous health problems.

Caci also spoke at that time to a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“When I was a young kid, I was raised not to be an informant . . . That doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong,” columnist John Smith quoted Caci as saying. “When I talk, I might give the impression that I’m a wiseguy, but it’s not true . . . I’m not a criminal. I’m not a gangster. I’m not a Mafia guy.”

Caci had two younger brothers who also were well known in Buffalo’s organized crime circles.

Salvatore “Sam” Caci, a construction worker who was president of Laborers Local 210 during a time when federal agents said it was controlled by Buffalo’s mob, died in 2002. He was 72.

Charles J. Caci, a singer and actor whose stage name was Bobby Milano, died in 2006 at age 69. He was a talented crooner whose friends included Frank Sinatra, Frankie Avalon and Jerry Vale. He was married for many years to actress and singer Keely Smith.

But the entertainer also had trouble with the law. In 1967, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to hold up an armored car messenger in Beverly Hills, Calif.

He was sentenced to four months of home confinement in 2001, after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell counterfeit travelers’ checks in Las Vegas.

The Buffalo News made efforts to get comments from Jimmy Caci’s son in Palm Springs, and other family members in Buffalo, but was unsuccessful.

One Buffalo relative of Caci, who answered the telephone at the home of Caci’s sister, said the family does not want to talk about Caci.

“His life is over. ... He did what he did,” the man told a reporter. “He has nieces and nephews who love him. ... Why do you have to bring up all this now?