The Old Los Angeles Family

I get asked about the Los Angeles family all the time. Every time I’m asked, I think about how the past will soon be lost forever. The men who took part in the family during its heyday are dying off.

Peter J Milano, the longtime boss who ran the family for 28 years, died in 2012 a free man.

He was an important link to the past for the family.  He not only had an uncle who was boss of the Cleveland family, but his father was also under boss for many years.  Anthony Milano, his father moved the family to Beverly Hills, California in the late 1930’s.  Pete became his own man in Los Angeles.  He worked with Mickey Cohen who had spent some time in Cleveland.

Pete was soon working with the Los Angeles family.  Hollywood and writers who have no idea what they are talking about like to portray Mickey Cohen as a boss.  The guy was a bookie that did a lot of business.  You can read Jimmy Fratianno’s book “The Last Mafioso” which is very detailed and accurate because the author used FBI 302’s to set dates and places.

Jimmy Fratianno was only the second made guy to flip, so it is a great look inside the former world.

You can learn a lot about Jack Dragna the boss and his attempts to kill Mickey Cohen.  To set the record straight, the LA Family murdered Cohen's men and friends and not one thing happened to any LA family member.  

Bugsy Siegel has become another larger than life figure.  He was no boss, he was sent out to the west coast to watch over the Trans American racing service.  Bugsy was a kind of franchisee who controlled it in California and Nevada.  He would later be gunned down in the Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill.  

The fact that Mickey Cohen went to the Roosevelt hotel with pistols looking for Bugsy can tell you a lot.  Mickey was not on the inside, he was not in the know.  In recent years there has been a few books written by some who claim someone in their family killed Bugsy.  It's a fantasy, because once he was dead guys moved right into the Flamingo before it was even on the news.  The mafia would have been looking for his killer considering how much Meyer Lansky had at the time.

Jack Dragna was the boss of Los Angeles and he was not crawling for anyone.

The decline of the family began shortly after the death of Jack Dragna when Frank DeSimone became the boss.  Johnny Roselli, who had begun as an Chicago Outfit guy, was seen as the logical boss, but he was incarcerated at the time.  DeSimone held a vote within the family and he was voted in as boss.  The fact that he never got a vote from some of the capos who were locked up didn't matter.  DeSimone would be caught at the Apalachin mafia conference in upstate New York along with his underboss.  This brought a lot of heat to DeSimone’s life.  He was a lawyer who was not known to be a criminal until the arrest.

Desimone’s father, Rosario, had been the boss of Los Angeles and his nephew Tommy DeSimone would become famous as “Tommy Two Guns” in Goodfellas.

Nick Licata would be the next boss.  He was very well connected in Detroit and with the other Midwest families.  

Louie Gelfuso used to work as a bartender at Licata’s bar and he used to talk about Licata in glowing terms.

Licata owned apartment buildings and bars across Los Angeles.  Licata also was a huge bookmaker and loan shark who did business in the black neighborhoods.

Louie Gelfuso was also friendly with another man and his brothers who were a power in Los Angeles.  That man was Joe Sica and he ran his criminal empire from the San Fernando Valley.

He controlled the rackets from the Mexican border to Northern California.  He would mentor many young up and coming mafioso including “the Cheeseman” Carmen DiNunzio, acting boss of the New England family.

The stories about Joe Sica and his brothers are priceless. There are very few today that even know who he was in the Los Angeles underworld.

We are now back to Dominic Brooklier who I wrote about last week. The death of Anthony Brooklier means we will never get the story.

I wish I knew Pete Milano well enough to hear stories about the old days.

Carmen Milano was a throwback to the past.  He was a lawyer who became a gangster who was better suited for working with the big families on intricate money making schemes.  I used to see him at the deli in Las Vegas when I was with Steve Cino or Jimmy Caci.  He loved to talk about the old days in Cleveland. The sad thing is that when he died, someone from Las Vegas called me and told me that he died.  I called a Las Vegas reporter and he did not know anything about it.  I called the morgue and they asked if I knew next of kin, I gave them Pete’s name and number.

Jimmy Caci was another story. I was close to Jimmy and he knew so many guys all over it was great. One day he would tell a story of working with a guy from the Purple Gang to blow a safe, the next day a story of driving dynamite to Rochester New York during a vending machine war.  

Jimmy was close with mobsters all over the country.

The family is gone except for a few who moved away.  It is in the hands of Sicilians and the history here is lost.

For a deeper look at Los Angeles mafia history, I suggest reading Anthony Fiato’s book “The Animal in Hollywood” in order to understand the Los Angeles family after Jimmy Fratianno.

My book Breakshot will fill in a few gaps up into the 2000s.

The Birth of WitSec

The first known Cosa Nostra turn coat was Joseph Valachi and the US Government ended up building him his own suite after he flipped in FCI La Tuna in Texas. The fact that he lived helped the Government, but they need to be able to dangle an even greater reward for cooperation.  That reward would be Witness Protection. Also known as Witness Security or WitSec and like any Government program there must be that first person to go through and see if it works.  That person happened to be a man named Pasquale "Paddy" Calabrese, a criminal in Buffalo, New York. Paddy was an up and coming armed robber who knew the guys in the Buffalo Cosa Nostra family.  Paddy wanted to impress Frederico "Freddie Lupo" Randaccio, the feared Underboss of the family headed by Boss Stefano Maggadino.

On December 29, 1964 Paddy and two men walked into the Buffalo City Hall and held up the Treasurer’s office.  They fled (after stealing $16,245 in cash and $284,000 in checks) to a waiting stolen car that they would abandon a couple of miles away. The Buffalo police put out an APB but the men got away. Paddy was hiding out when Steve Cino showed up and told him that Soldiers Pat Natarelli and Freddie Lupo wanted to see him. Paddy had gotten their attention and he was to meet them at Pat’s home the following night.  Paddy arrived the next night and Steve and Pat were already there.  They started telling him that the family had some big scores lined up out of town if he was interested. Freddie Lupo arrived and they started laying them out for him.

A man who used to be with the Buffalo Family but was now living in Los Angeles, had started working with the Family there.  The man was Charles Caci but went by his stage name Bobby Milano.  Bobby Milano was a talented singer who had bad timing because it was now the 1960's and he sang ballads much like Frank Sinatra.  Bobby was close to another former Buffalo Crime Family Associate named Louis Sorgi who just happened to be head of security at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Louis Sorgi had two scores set up at the hotel for Paddy. One he was to rob the wife of Penzoil oil Millionaire Walker Mccune of her jewelry worth over $400,000; the other the Armoured Car Service that picked up the cash at the hotel weekly.  They gave Paddy expense money and he hopped a plane for Los Angeles where Bobby picked him up.  A few days later Steve Cino flew into town. They met Louis Sorgi at the hotel where he showed them the suite that Mrs. Mccune always occupied, and then he showed him a tunnel that the armoured car guard used to pick up the days’ cash receipts.  Paddy wondered how he could get inside the suite and a smiling Bobby Milano showed him a pass key that would open every door in the hotel.

The plan was set, but like all things criminal, something big came up. The Buffalo Police had identified Paddy as one of the City Hall robbers and he was wanted. The Underboss ordered Steve Cino back to Buffalo so he would not be found with Paddy. Paddy waited five days and then he surrendered to the Buffalo Police.

Everything seemed to be fine at this point because there was never a robbery and the Buffalo family went on its business. Paddy sat in lock up facing a lot of time but he thought Randaccio would take care of bail and get him a lawyer.  He sat and he went through a number of interrogations by the Buffalo Police and at that time I am sure they were brutal.  No lawyer and no bail came, so he finally gave up the robbery and the planned robberies.  Once Paddy started talking, the FBI and the US Attorney stepped in and decided to move him, his girlfriend and her two children from a previous marriage.

Paddy and his family became the first to be moved in what would morph into the Wittiness Protection Program.  Once they were away safe they arrested Freddie Lupo, Pat Natarelli, Steve Cino and in Los Angeles they arrested Louis Sorgi and Bobby Milano.  One of the things Bobby had on him at his arrest was the passkey to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

They went to trial and Freddie Lupo, Pat Natarelli, Steve Cino got 20 years for violations of the Hobbs Act and other charges,  Bobby Milano and Louis Sorgi both received 10 years from the judge. Paddy was whisked away into the void that would become WitSec.  The story did not end there because the two children that belonged to Paddy’s now wife had a father who wanted to see them.  He tried everything, going to the police, the FBI everyone but he all he got was stone-walled. He finally retained a lawyer and sued the Government.  He tried for many years with the Buffalo family keeping a watchful eye on his progress.

This would become the basis for the book Hide in Plain Sight and later a movie directed by James Caan by the same name.  Years later Jimmy Caci would tell me the story because he hated James Caan because he used the Caci name as the informant in the film.  They were so pissed that Bobby went and spoke to Gene Gotti about it because James Caan supposedly was connected to Andrew Russo in the Colombo Family.  The Mob had many problems at this time and this one fell by the wayside.

Jimmy, Bobby and Stevie are all gone.  The Buffalo guys Freddie Lupo, Pat Natarelli are gone.   Paddy Calabrese the first man in WitSec passed away on October 13 2005 where he had been a Private Investigator.