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 Los Angeles Brookliers

This November in Los Angeles a man was found dead in his Century City home.  It was an apparent suicide.  The man, born Anthony Philip Brooklier in 1946, was the son of a man born under the name Domenico Brucceleri who would be known as Dominic Brooklier.

Dominic would move to Los Angeles in the 1940’s after some prison time back east.  He called himself Jimmy Regace when he was around bookmaker Mickey Cohen.  Dominic chose to walk away from Mickey Cohen and started working instead with Los Angeles mafia boss Jack Dragna.

He took part in the wounding of Mickey Cohen on the Sunset strip.  He was inducted into the Los Angeles family in a winery along with Jimmy Fratianno.  Dominic would continue to move up the mafia ladder.  He became a capo in the family and he was in charge of Orange County.  In the 1970’s he became underboss of the family and after Boss Nick Licata passed away he moved to the top spot.

He was at odds with Jimmy Fratianno who had transferred to the Chicago Outfit.  

He played Jimmy Fratianno well and asked him to take over as acting boss when he had to go away for a short sentence.  Once out Brooklier demoted Fratianno to soldier and worked to have him murdered.

He long believed capo Frank Bompensiero was an FBI informant and soon he was gunned down outside a San Diego Phone booth.

Anthony Brooklier became a lawyer in 1971 after some time at the US Naval Academy and Loyola Marymount.

He was ready to defend his father.  He was good enough to convince a jury that his father did not take part in the Frank Bompensiero murder.

He also was able to get his father a reduced sentence in another extortion case.

Dominic would die in 1984 at a prison in Arizona while serving his sentence.  

Anthony would go on to have great success as a criminal defence lawyer.

He even defended Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss and a number of high profile celebrity clients.

He died on the one year anniversary of his son’s suicide.

Another piece of Los Angeles Mafia history has gone with him.  He was never in the mafia but he knew the players from the old days.  

I kept hoping he would do a book about his father.  He also represented Mike Rizzi in the shooting of Bill Carroll over the Mustang Ranch Theatre in Santa Ana.

Rest in peace Anthony.

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.

Johnny Roselli

Johnny Roselli

In late 1947 fifty men were gathered inside a winery on South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.  They were all standing in a circle around a long table.  There was a revolver and a dagger crossed at the head of the table.  Johnny Roselli then led in five men.  Three of the five will go on to become the Boss of the family one day. On this day in 1947 they were initiated into the Los Angeles family of La Cosa Nostra or the Mafia. The Boss at that table was Jack Dragna, but he respected Roselli, and even though he was part of the Outfit, on that particular day he was in LA.

Johnny Roselli had just gotten out of prison for his role in the extortion of Hollywood Studios.  He only served 4 years of a 10 year sentence (thanks to the high level Chicago bribery scandal covered in last week’s post).  He was working at Eagle Lion Studios but in reality he was doing much more.  The men in that room owned and controlled Trucking, Garment Center Businesses, Produce and Fruit delivery, Vast tracks of land in Rancho Cucomonga.  Roselli would soon be splitting his time between Los Angeles and Las Vegas because The Outfit was about to step it up.  They needed somebody who could mix in both the underworld and the business world, and Roselli fit the bill.  

The story of the Flamingo and Bugsy Siegal is well known to most people but I’ll go over it here.  Bugsy oversaw the planning and building of the Flamingo for the New York Families. They would recruit those that ran casinos for Meyer Lansky and the Mafia in other places like Kentucky and Havana to help run it. Dave Berman and Gus Greenbaum were heavily involved in the casino.  Gus was close to the Outfit but most of these guys were closer to Lansky.  The Hotel cost over 6 million dollars and lost money when it first opened.  It was a well-known fact that Bugsy was skimming money the whole time.  When Bugsy was killed in Beverly Hills, Gus Greenbaum took over.  

Sam Giancana became the boss of the Outfit in the mid 1950's and he was very close to Roselli.  Chicago had a huge bank of cash via the Teamsters so they would move to buying and building Casinos.  Roselli  would soon start a number of side businesses some that controlled the parking lots of Casinos, others that brought Broadway shows and other shows to Las Vegas.  He also started a production company, a company that sold ice machines to casinos and a company that was building a marina at Lake Mead.

Roselli was a huge earner and very important to The Outfit in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so its amazing that Hollywood continues to churn out tall tales.  Roselli had been directly under Capone when he was boss and in Los Angeles he worked closely with Jack Dragna but after Jack died he would stay with The Outfit and the new boss Sam Giancana who he had known way back when Sam was a driver for Jack McGurn aka Machine Gun Jack.

The Mafia was riding high.  They had casinos in Cuba and Las Vegas and they had even branched out to Great Britain.  But there was trouble brewing.  

The trouble was Fidel Castro and his revolutionary army which would soon take over Cuba.   They closed the casinos and took over the hotels.  They imprisoned mafia men like Santo Trafficante and kept his cash.  The Mafia saw this happen and they were furious.  It seemed the US Government was on the same page and wanted to take down Castro.

This would not be the first or the last time the US Government would work with the Mafia.  They worked with Lucky Luciano during World War Two to secure the docks from sabotage and then again when the Allies landed in Sicily.  They would use Greg Scarpa to find the dead Civil Rights workers bodies in Mississippi during the civil rights movement.

Sam Giancana

The CIA regularly uses "cut outs" or a go between they trust to take on assignments that they cannot or do not want to be involved.  Robert Maheu, a former FBI Counter Espionage Agent who was then in private practice knew Johnny Roselli, so when the CIA approached him to find people to assassinate Fidel Castro, he thought of Roselli.  He approached Roselli and they met at the Brown Derby in Los Angeles where Maheu was claiming to represent a number of US Corporations that wanted Castro out. Roselli saw the value in the plan so he went to his boss Sam Giancana who reached out for Santo Traficante Jr in Florida and they agreed to meet with Maheu in Florida.

They would meet at the Fontainebleau in Miami with Roselli useing the name John Rawlsten when he first met with Maheu and CIA Colonel Sheffield Edwards Director of security.  Roselli then introduced two men to the two CIA agents. Sam Gold (Sam Giancana) and Joe (Santo Trificante).  They worked out a deal where the CIA would provide cash and poison pills to Cuban Exiles and other contacts to assassinate Castro.  They may have tried or they may have just kept the cash, but they would meet again at the Plaza Hotel in New York.  The Bay of Pigs disaster made the CIA step up their operations but nothing would ever come of this plan.  Roselli would later talk about Santo Traficante possibly being a double agent for Castro and sabotaging their efforts.

I have about 8,000 FBI papers on Roselli but they really pick up in 1961 and they are all marked with the San Diego FBI Office on them. This is probably because they had turned Frank Bomp in San Diego who had a grudge against Roselli.  Bomp thought that he should have gotten something from the Frontier Hotel in las Vegas because he did some work way back but it was instead Roselli who got the gift shop and some skim.  Frank Bomp knew about Roselli's secret birth name and the FBI was soon onto Roselli.  By the end of the 60's Roselli was headed for a downfall.

Roselli had been sponsored by Frank Sinatra for membership in the Friars Club.  Once there, he discovered a cheating scam going on.  They held card games in an upstairs room and these were high stakes games with some very wealthy men playing.  Some other members had drilled holes in the ceiling and they could see the hands played and they would send signals to their players to hold or fold.  It was very lucrative and soon Roselli was getting a cut.  They even had a Palm Springs Town Home that they also rigged with peepholes.  The FBI found out about this and served search warrants.  They found the peepholes and arrested everyone including Roselli. They then decided they wanted to turn Roselli so they approached him on the street in Beverly Hills on Dayton and Rodeo.  The Agents had a picture of a 4 year old Roseli and his mother which they showed him along with a paper showing his real name, Fillipo Sacco, on it. I am sure they unnerved him and the Agents told him they wanted to meet him in the valley in a week which he agreed to before they left. Rosselli went right to his lawyer's office who called the FBI Office and told them Roselli would only talk to the Agents with his lawyer in his office.  Then Rosselli made a couple of calls and made a trip to New York to meet with Colonel Sheffield Edwards about his name.

 

The FBI was watching this because they had Roselli cold because now he was an illegal Alien and could be deported.  Roselli told the FBI to kick rocks and they charged him for failing to register as an alien on top of the cheating scandal. The CIA sent a memo to the FBI asking them to take it easy on Roselli, because they would be in a bad position if the truth about the plot to kill Castro.  He would get four years for the Friars Club and another year for the Immigration charges.  Tony Accardo had now taken over again as the boss because Sam Giancana was on the lam so he demoted Roselli from his Las Vegas position until he was finished with his cases.  

Santo Trafficante

Roselli served his time and moved to Plantation, Florida where he lived in his sister’s guest house.  He made trips to LA where he met with Jimmy Frattiano and told him about the Senate Select Committee that had called him as a witness for the Castro plot.  Santo Trafficante was afraid his name would come up but it already had so he was delusional.

Jimmy had heard that Johnny was a marked man and told him in no uncertain terms, which Roselli blew off.  

July 28, 1976 Roselli left his sisters home to run errands around town and never came back.  They knew something was wrong right away.  Twelve days prior he had lunch with Santo Traficante.  He was to meet again but nobody ever called for him again.  

On August 9, 1976 some fisherman in Dumfoundling Bay saw a strange 55 gallon oil drum with holes punched in it floating on the surface.  They pulled it in and saw what they thought was a human arm through the holes, so they called the police.  It would prove to be JohnnyRoselli.

Johnny Roselli was without a doubt one of the biggest Mafioso in Los Angeles for decades but his name is never brought up.  

Rest In Peace Johnny.    

Andrew Didonato: Life in the Gambino Crew Part 2

Bank Robbery is a full time job. If anyone tells you it is not it is because they have no idea. Andrew, no longer able to work with the same guys he had always worked with now that he was wanted for absconding on his parole, hooked up with a serious crew.  These were Genovese guys and they would take their time looking for a big score so they didn't have to step out more than once a year on a job.

And rew would get up early and go watch an armoured car depot. The crew had a tipster inside that gave them the truck to follow. They watched it make its scheduled drop at the bank they were studying.  They learned that the bank employees, busy when the cash delivery arrived, would store the bags of cash behind the counter until later when they would move it into the vault.

The members of the robbery crew were friendly with an old guy who lived a few miles from the bank.  On the day of the robbery, they staged at the old guys house. The getaway car was parked in back of the bank and the driver was the old guy.  Andrew went in, jumped over the counter and grabbed four bags that had been dropped off earlier that day and had not been moved to the safe.  While they were inside a women saw them and ran screaming outside. They walked past her and got into the car and ducked while the old guy calmly drove away.  They knew the police would set up roadblocks.  They heard later that they were looking for the crew and a woman.  They thought that the woman was part of the crew!

They would hide out at the old guys house until the heat died down.  They opened the four bags and only two of them had cash.  There was still over 400,000 dollars to be split up amongst them.

Andrew’s world was getting smaller by the day. He was wanted and Nicky Corrozzo was having guys reach out to the Genovese Crew to see how much cash he was making.  Nicky was not happy that one of his men was pulling in cash and not giving him a cut.  No matter what Andrew was facing or how much he needed, Nicky wanted his end.

This is the way the Mafia works: money flows up, never down.  Back when Andrew needed $5,000 to pay his Lawyer he had asked Nicky for a loan and what do you think Nicky said to him?  Nicky said "You are not a good investment at this time" That is always nice to hear from a guy you have been loyal to for many years.

Years before when Andrew had gotten out of prison he had asked permission to whack out a guy who was really bad to a relative. Nicky had given the okay, so his friend and fellow Gambino Crew member Mikey Yanotti came up with a plan.  They would call the guy, who was a plumber, and they would tell him that Mikey had a problem in his place.  Mikey lived in a three story apartment home and his place was in the middle.  There was a stairway down to the garage from his place so it was private.  They would have him come up through the garage and when he did they would kill him.  They decided against it in the end for whatever reason.

Around the time of the bank robbery, Mikey Yanotti called him and asked him to come by his place.  Andrew went to Mikey’s place.   They were upstairs and just when they started to talk Mikey put his finger to his lips and pointed at the ceiling (Meaning his place was wired) He motioned for Andrew to follow him down to the garage.  Andrew could not help notice the lights were off, so as he walked behind Mikey he fingered his pistol in his waistband.  He thought for sure that someone was waiting to pop him in the dark, but as he got towards the ground there was some light and he could see the place was empty.  They went outside and Mikey talked about what they would do to the Luchese Crew that was after him.  Mikey was talking about Danny Cutia, Sal Cutia, John Baudanza and Craig Marino (who was a Colombo).  John and Craig had asked Robert Arena where Andrew lived on Staten Island like they were going to do something to him.  I personally know both of those guys and the only thing they are capable of is shooting their friends in the back. As Andrew stood talking to Mikey, the only thing going through his mind was that this entire conversation is window dressing, and Mikey had just pulled a dry run on him to see if he would play along.  The next time he was invited over to “talk” the real hit would take place.  It reminded him a lot of their old plot to hit the plumber.

Andrew went out on a score with another crew soon after this incident, he was hoping to raise some cash fast.  This was not an armed robbery but a bank burglary.  They went and stole a piece of heavy equipment from a construction site to bust out a night deposit box and chute.  The bank was in the Bronx and they had cased it good. They went there on the night of the burglary and the idiot kid driving the machine accidentally drove it through the wall!  He didn't use the scoop to bust open the chute as planned, and pretty soon the building collapsed.  They had to make a run for it! No cash on that job.

Andrew laid low from the cops better this time than he did after a previous shooting he had done on the streets.   The previous time he had flown to Los Angeles and then taken a plane to Las Vegas and from there a bus to Laughlin. This was in 1988 and Laughlin was a small dusty town with only a few hotels.  Andrew was there with his dad hiding out and had just gotten to sleep when there was a loud pounding on the adjoining door to his room. Andrew was sure it was the Feds coming to grab him and take him back to New York.  The pounding grew louder and a voice was screaming,”What are you doing in there!”  Andrew jumped out of the window and started running down the street in his underwear.  It didn’t take long for his father to yell at him to get back in the room.  Andrew was already pretty far away and people started looking at him in his underwear with bare feet. It turns out that an elderly couple had the room next to their room and maybe the guy had never been in a hotel before because he thought the door was another part of his own room.

The more experienced on-the-run Andrew stayed low in the tri-state area.  Nicky would have meetings at diners at 3am or later in out of the way places in order to avoid the Feds.  This was a good idea because the FBI likes to work 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.  He sent for Andrew one night and they met at a diner.  Nicky wanted cash from the Bank jobs to pay some legal bills.  They spoke about the Lucchese Family problem and his troubles. Nicky was pissed because of the headache Andrew had caused him, and he didn't even make anything from it.  Then Nicky wanted Andrew to bring the kids he had been getting cash from drug deals to meet the crew.  Andrew knew right then that they were going to kill him because in all the years Nicky had never asked him to meet anyone.  He never needed to meet them, because he had Andrew to be the middle man.  Andrew knew that it was only a matter of time before the Genovese crew would have to give him up to the Gambino's (Nicky) so that was the end of his run on the street as a bank robber with the Genoveses.

Mike Rizzi and Killers in the Mafia

As I’ve touched on before in this blog, contrary to Hollywood Portrayal or popular belief, there were plenty of Workers or Killers in the LA Family.  Just like every mafia family, every man would have to at least participate in a murder to become a Made man.  Nowadays, this is not so true.  Even all Associates were encouraged to kill back then.  You don’t actually have to pull the trigger, stab someone or strangle someone to participate.  You could be the getaway driver, the crash car, a lookout, or the person setting up the kill.  All those roles meet the requirement of participating in a murder prior to being made.  The only reason to kill someone is to protect the family, promote the family, protect the territory, or for some violation of the rules.  There are no unauthorized killings allowed. There is no one cleaning up after an unplanned murder, everything is planned, down to digging the grave or having a disposal site for the body in advance.  Anyone who actually pulls the trigger earns respect by the rank and file but is feared by leadership, because they always fear that they are next or that they will be challenged for leadership positions.  

Those who participate in murders are NEVER paid.  There are no killers for hire in the mafia.  Anything you read or hear in the news about the Mafia putting a 500K contract on someone’s head is bullshit.  People kill because they are told to kill or asked to kill, in order to earn respect.  Anyone who says they were hired to be a hitman by the mob is lying.  There are always eager young men looking to get noticed who are willing to kill.  

One of LA’s more notable workers was Mike Rizzatello, aka Mike Rizzi.  After Dominic Brooklier passed away, Pete Milano took over leadership of the LA family in 1984.  He inherited Capo Mike Rizzi.  Pete really had no idea what to do with Mike, because Mike Rizzi was the exact opposite of Pete.  Pete was a businessman.  Mostly a gambler, a bookmaker, successful in his businesses.  Mike Rizzatello was a strongarm guy, a worker, who had fought in the Columbo war in Brooklyn on Joey Gallo’s side.  He had done many years in prison.  Mike was a hard luck guy who could never make enough money.  So he was a short buck artist.  He would just shake someone down and take a thousand dollars, rather than thinking long term and shaking them down 500 a month for life.  

So Pete in many ways feared Mike Rizzi.  This created a rift in the family.  The young tougher guys looked up to Mike and wanted to make a harder image or a throwback to the old days, which would not work at the time.  What the family needed was to move into legitimate businesses that they could control with a monopoly, with the hammer in the background, but not so overt.  However, a lot of the young guys could not see this and wanted to act like cowboys shaking down criminals and drug dealers for quick money.   So Mike Rizzi and Anthony Fiato went to New York to meet with the Underboss of the Gambino family, Neil Dellacroce and Joe Piney Armone.  Rizzi was well liked by both of them, and other members of the Gambino family.  They authorized him to run his own family or crew in Los Angeles, separate from Pete.  They also saw Pete as weak.  In retrospect, it's clear that Pete’s leadership was the strongest path for the family to take.  

Mike Rizzi started his own family in LA and made Anthony Fiato his underboss.  He had a sizeable contingent of young, hard men who followed him over from Pete’s side.  Mike’s constant need of money, kept him in constant trouble with the law.  After a few prison terms, and finding out the news that Anthony Fiato, his former right hand man, and his brother, had worn a wire for the feds, he found himself in Orange County, California, where he reconnected with an old friend with a new name, Bill Carrol.  Bill and Rizzi had met in Chino State Prison many years before when Bill was known by his real name, which is now erased because of Witness Protection.  I’m not sure what his real name was.  

Anyways, Bill had muscled his way into Orange County’s premier strip club, the Mustang Club, located in Santa Ana, California.  The Mustang Club had been started by another convicted criminal, going by the name Jimmy Casino.  Jimmy Casino made a ton of money from the Mustang Club, but spent it all as quickly as it came in, and didn’t pay his taxes.  This was Bill Carrol’s opening.  He loaned money to Jimmy Casino, and soon it became apparent that Jimmy Casino’s flamboyant ways were going to sink the Mustang Club.  

One night, Jimmy Casino and his girlfriend came home and were ambushed by a couple of men who killed him and raped his girlfriend.  Bill Carrol stepped right up and took over the club.  This left the door open for Mike Rizzi, who was always looking for income, to get his hands in the club through his friendship with Bill.  Joseph Grosso, a limo company owner, controlled the lingerie sales inside of the club.  The club also had a bouncer named Big George Udavitch (big is an understatement for this massive man), who also happened to be relocated through witness protection, for testifying against Joe Piney and the Gambino family.  Soon it became apparent that Bill Carrol was not going to share the wealth with his prison friend Mike Rizzi.  

So one night, Bill Carrol, Joseph Grosso and Mike Rizzi went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Santa Ana.  After dinner, they asked Bill Carrol to drop them off at Mike Rizzi’s car in a parking garage near South Coast Plaza.  As soon as they pulled to a stop in the garage, Mike Rizzi reached his large arm around Bill Carrol’s neck and Joseph threw himself around Bill’s legs.  Mike placed a pistol with a silencer on it to the back of Bill’s head.  He snarled, “This is for not letting us eat.”  He fired three times.  Carrol jerked and blood splattered everywhere.  They released Carrol’s now lifeless body and exited the car, their ears ringing.  They got into Joseph’s car, and drove away.  At dawn, a bloody, but somehow still alive, Bill Carrol, stumbled out of the parking garage where he startled security guards who called police and paramedics.  At first, Bill Carrol refused to name the person who shot him.  Big George Utavitch bragged that he had disposed of the bloody clothes and weapon.  A few days later, Big George Utavitch, who was gathering cash to head back to New York, received a call in his hotel room at El Toro California.  He was told that someone would meet him and bring him cash at a nearby Irvine parking lot.  When Big George arrived, someone got into the passenger seat of his car, and fired two bullets into his head.  He was able to get out of the car and walk around toward the trunk, where he got shot again, this time he was killed.  As a side note, this location was close to Fat Bobby Paduano’s mortgage business.  Fat Bobby is a long time LA mafia Associate.  Bill Carrol was hidden away by the Feds where he recovered from being shot but was blind as a result.  When the Feds agreed to drop some federal charges against him, he fingered Mike Rizzi as the shooter and Joe Grosso as his accomplice.  Everyone always wonders why Mike at his age, and his high rank, would take part in a murder, and use an untested associate.  Mike Rizzi, in his 60’s and sick with emphysema, was once again desperate for cash, and could not do hits alone because of medical issues.  Mike was put on trial, and was convicted.  He went away to the highest security prison in the state of California until he became sicker and was moved to a Medical prison.  He was released a few weeks before he passed away in Cathedral City (near Palm Springs).  At his funeral there were no members of the LA Family.

Bill Carrol dissapeared into witness protection once again.

Pete Milano lived a long and prosperous life and died in Westlake California in 2012 a free man.

Read more about the recent guilty conviction in the murder case of Jimmy Casino here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/01/local/la-me-ln-casino-murder-conviction-20130501

If you want to read more about Mike RIzzi, read Anthony Fiato’s blog:

mafiaslugger.blogspot.com/‎

The Los Angeles Mafia

LA Gangland 1950’s & LCN Tradition

Nick Licata would rule the Los Angeles Family for seven years. He continued working with many of the Eastern Cosa Nostra Families.  He had great connections with the Detroit family.  Nick's son Carlo, a made man in the LA Family, had married Detroit Family Capo Black Bill Tocco's

daughter.   

After Frank DiSimone died, Nick stepped in the top spot easily because he was the Underboss.

Nick was now in a whole different game.   He would no longer be the guy who operated from the shadows.  He was very low key and did not attract much attention until he held the alibi party for Jimmy Frattiano on the night he killed the Two Tony's.  After that he was always a blip on the radar of the LAPD and the FBI.

Nick was in poor health and had to spend six months locked up after he was given immunity by a grand jury in Los Angeles.  Nick appointed Joe Dippolito, a well liked member of the family, as his underboss. Joe Dip was a serious landowner in the inland empire and he had wineries.  He also took part in a couple of murders, so he had the respect of the family.  Joe Dippolito died 9 months before Nick died.   Nick then appointed the loyal Jimmy Regace aka Dominic Brooklier as his underboss.  Dominic was well liked by the white collar members of the family, but he had also taken part in some killings, including the attempted hit on Mickey Cohen in front of Sherry's.  They would make a lot of members that were capable.  The goal of being made or inducted into the Cosa Nostra used to be the highest honor a criminal could obtain.  Today that is no longer a main motivating factor in the life.

Being Made

Jimmy Frattiano described being made in his book The Last Mafioso. You can tell by his words that even when he told the story more than 40 years later, he was excited.  He was brought to a winery in LA where he was escorted into a room by Johnny Roselli.  Once inside, he joined fifty men already seated around the large fermentation room.  The family had all come together to induct five new members.  Three would move on to become bosses and another would be underboss in the future.  They had a dagger and a pistol on the table.  They would prick the inductee’s trigger finger and then recite the oath.  Then the men were Amico Nostra, “A friend of ours.”

The years would take their toll on the Family.  The FBI would record the New England Families Ceremony, and from that point on it would no longer be a secret ceremony.

I know that Pete J Milano aka Shakes was made by Brooklier, but I do not know how it went down.  Jimmy also wrote in his book about making Mike Rizzi.  They were in Murrietta, California on June 6, 1976.  It was Mike Rizzi, Frank Bomp, Louie Dragna and Jimmy in a car.  Jimmy would explain what Bomp was saying as he recited the words in Sicilian.  They would do the whole thing in the car at the end of a dirt road.  They had no pistol or knife, but Dragna had a pin that they used to prick Mike's trigger finger.

Jimmy Caci many years later would tell me a little about his experience.  He told me that they all played golf in Palm Springs.  Pete Milano was boss. Carmen Milano was underboss and after dinner they went back to a hotel room.  That is where Jimmy was made into the family.  He told me it was not what he thought it would be, and that he wished he never did it.  He would tell me later that he had wasted his life, that it all just fell apart.  It was sad when Jimmy told me that.  We were sitting at a restaurant in Ontario after we left the Auto Mart in 2003.  He was telling me about how good the old days were and then how it all went downhill.

Some years later I would be in New York and a former Colombo guy would tell me about his big day.  He wore a suit.  He was picked up by his Capo and driven to a home in Long Island.  He was waiting upstairs with a guy named Joe Baudanza and he was called downstairs.  The

acting boss and the Underboss were down there with a number of Capos.  They had a pistol and a dagger on the table. They did the ceremony in English and he was made.  Next, they brought down Joe and made him.

Later Joe would sit on the panel that ruled the family and he would be one of those that gave the okay to shoot my friend.  They failed but it goes to show you how far the Cosa Nostra had fallen. So we sat in a Midtown restaurant on a rainy day talking about it.  He told me that none of it was worth it.  That the whole thing was wrecked it was not what he thought.  He told me that his Capo had taken him aside and told him not to get into the life.  I asked him if he knew anyone in the life who lived a happy life.

The two of us could not think of one person.

The LA Family was big in gambling in LA, San Diego, Tijuana and Palm Springs.  The Sica brothers worked with them running action up to Northern California and the new boss formerly Jimmy Regace, now Brooklier was close to them.  Once Dominic became boss he would make Pete Milano which was a smart move because Pete’s father was the underboss of the Cleveland family and his uncle had been boss.  He started sending word to other families that he was the boss.  He then appointed a very well connected Sam Sciortino as his underboss to help him get the family in shape.  Sam was a smart choice because he was related to the under boss of the San Francisco Family, he was also related to a Capo in the New Orleans family.  He had deep connections in the garment center in Los Angeles and Dallas. He was also big into trucking.  

These guys could have led the family into a new era of prosperity but the heat was on.

More next week!