Breakshot Re-Release!

Breakshot Re-Release!

This week my first book Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia has been re-released.  The new version has some updated material and is also available for Kindle.  

It occurred to me when I was proofreading this version for typos, that many of those I wrote about are now dead.  The whole 1970’s Los Angeles mafia family is now gone.  

They tried hard to rebuild the family but the lack of a talent pool and the constant assault by the FBI made it an impossible task.  That part of my life is over now too, but I am thankful that I was able to sit with those men of a bygone era and hear their stories.  Soon the only record left will be those that learned from them.

The dream of having a casino on the Las Vegas strip that started with Jack Dragna and Jimmy Fratianno is dead.  Bobby Milano and Jimmy Caci wanted to have a Titanic themed casino but that died with Bobby and Paulie, the boss of the Denver family.

Jimmy Caci spent his whole life as a criminal, and yet if he gave you his word he would keep it.  If you were around Jimmy you could not swear if there were ladies present.  Jimmy had some great stories from Buffalo, New York.  One I was thinking about today. Jimmy and another guy were cutting into a safe at a clothing store when their lookout signaled to them that a cop was coming.  It was a beat cop on foot and Jimmy was in the display window.  Stores used to put their safes in the front hoping it would deter safe crackers. There was no way Jimmy could get out of the window in time so he posed like the other mannequins until the cop passed.  The cop never gave him a second glance and they soon cracked the safe and took off.  Jimmy would laugh when telling that story.

I wrote about Danny Persico in Breakshot because he was there at the time.  He has passed away and it is a shame.  He was harmless and he was a young guy.  I have no ill feelings toward him at all.  I hope when Teddy Persico gets out of prison he does something else with his life.

Some people just cannot learn from history so they keep repeating the same mistakes. Michael Mazzara, Charles Kerrigan and Anthony Mascuzzio are just those people.

They were part of a bank robbery crew that cut their way into bank vaults after bypassing the alarms.  They would break into buildings next door, or go through a roof and then cut their way into the vault.  They would then bust into safety deposit boxes, trashing sentimental items but taking cash and jewelry that totaled five million dollars at least.  A lot of people will not be reporting what was really in the boxes, so I am sure the haul was much larger.

Anthony Mascuzzio seems never to learn his lesson.  He had a father who was with John Gotti, but was shot dead trying to shake down a disco. Battista “Benny” Geritano a former of the “Night Drop Crew” is his stepbrother.  I wonder where Anthony got the idea to rob banks?  

The FBI and task force has been watching the crew. They installed a camera on a pole across from Michael Mazzara and Charles Kerrigan's home.  They also had a cooperator in the crew who gave up their cell phones.  They traced the phone near one of the banks they burgled.  It was pinged off towers within a block.  They caught them on video with the same red car that was used in the bank job pulling into a property next to theirs.  They also have video of them driving away with plywood in a truck that was later found at the bank.  They got them buying fire extinguishers and water buckets on a credit card. It should be noted that the red F-250 pickup truck is registered to a relative of Michael Mazzara.  They have video outside the banks with them and even though they wore hats and hoodies they were recognized.

The broke into Maspeth Federal savings bank in May where the haul was 296k in cash and 4.3 million out of the safety deposit boxes.

They hit the HSBC bank in Brooklyn in April and they are believed to have hit at least 8 other banks.  This is an unfolding story.  It will be interesting to see who the informant is and who goes down.

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.

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/‎

Los Angeles 1970's

Gambling Racket in LA

The gambling plot started while Nick Licata was still boss of the LA Family.  He was sick at the time and he would die in October of 1974 in a hospital in Santa Monica.  The Underboss Dominic Brooklier was running the family day to day so he was in fact the acting boss.  They wanted to get some more gambling places up and running.  

John Vaccaro and John Ludlow Dubeck came from Las Vegas to run a restaurant on Sunset Blvd.  It was in a well known high rise office building.  John Vaccaro had a long history in gambling that could be traced all the way back to begninnings in New Orleans. In fact, he would later serve time for cheating slot machines in Las Vegas.  They opened an after hours gambling spot on Sunset Blvd at the restaurant Forget about the fact that the house always wins, they decided to hedge their bets.  They had card games and table games like craps. They also had John DocJon Deems.  DocJon was a wizard with cards and dice.   

They set up the games and the split went like this.  Luigi "Louie" Gelfuso and Pete Milano would get 20% of the profit.  Gelfuso the guy who worked at Nick Licata’s bar and now in Milano’s would later find locations for the games which included a house in the San Fernando Valley.   I met Gelfuso later in life and I liked him. He came to los Angeles from Providence, Rhode Island and he fell right in with the guys.  He was very close to Pete and Carmen Milano but he was a loyal guy.   Gelfuso's job was to provide security and collect markers from those who didn't have enough to cover their losses. John Vaccaro was to get 50% and he was supposed to cut in Dubeck and a lawyer named Calaway.  Vaccaro would run the game and the lawyer would provide legal services.  

Everything of course went bad because being Mobsters they were short sighted and greedy.  People started to complain about being cheated at the tables and that is a bad thing when you have an illegal casino.  They had enough problem just getting people to the games.  This was a Milano crew game and Milano was in charge because it was his crew.  Louie's son Michael Gelfuso told me about setting up the tables and the games. Being in his twenties at the time he found it exciting and fun.  The problem with Gambling in LA is that the LAPD Vice Squad knows everyone and when people get cheated they complain to LAPD Vice Squad and they come down on the guys running the games.  Soon LAPD and the FBI raided the games. Milano had a bail bonds business and he posted bonds for those guys who were picked up at the games.  

Things soon became even worse for the LA Family because the Feds took down everyone for running the gambling business and they had a star witness.  The star witness was John Ludlow Dubeck and he knew more than enough to put everyone away.

Things do not always work out for the good guy in life.  Sometimes they turn out bad.  Early in the morning of March 19th 1974 in Las Vegas John and Francis Dubuck returned from working the late shift at their jobs in a casino.  John was a shift manager and Francis was a cocktail waitress.  They were tired when the parked their car in their space and began the short walk to their apartment.  They had just walked into the garden courtyard when a man dressed in dark clothing stepped out of the shadows and let loose with two shots from a sawed off shotgun. He was so close he could not miss either person and they were both killed. They were scheduled to testify in the upcoming gambling trail of the LA Family.  They had been offered Witness Protection and refused. They had probably felt safe in Las Vegas since there had been no mob killings in the town.  It was against the commission rules to kill in Las Vegas because it would bring heat and unwanted attention to the Gaming Capital.  So the LA Family must have gone to the commission for the okay.  It was probably through Chicago because LA and the Cleveland family were close to Chicago.  This was the first of the major killings in gangland done with a shotgun. This is a big deal because there would be a large number of people killed with 22 Cal pistols.  The other killing would come two years later in California and that was when two men in a van blasted turncoat killer Joseph Barboza with a shotgun.

This is just the start of the killings that would come and be connected with the LA Family. The LAPD gave them the name the Mickey Mouse Mafia but they could kill. Louie and Michael Gelfuso have passed away.  Pete Milano passed away.  I just found out that Docjon Deems passed away.  Docjon contacted me years ago and sent me a dvd that he made. He was a facebook friend and his page is still up.

Los Angeles Mafia 1960's

“No, its not Mafia. That’s the expression the outside uses,” Joe Valachi, 1963

In 1963, Law Enforcement and the Cosa Nostra itself were still reeling from the debacle of Appalachia which happened in 1957 (if you missed that post, read it here). All this attention forced the FBI to step it up.  It would soon get much worse for the men who made their living in the Underworld.  Everything changed for the Cosa Nostra in September of 1963.  

Joseph Michael Valachi told everything he knew.  He claimed it was because the organization had ruined his life and he wanted to right that wrong.  Valachi gave the world a new look - an inside look - at a criminal organization that had been called many names by the outside world.  

He referred to it as Cosa Nostra and from then on it was no longer a secret organization.

Why did Valachi flip?

Valachi was a low level Made guy in the Luciano Family, a family which would later become the Genovese Family.  He had been sent to prison for heroin trafficking, and he thought he was marked for death. Vito Genovese, in the same prison, also for heroin trafficking, had given him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  Valachi interpreted it as the so called “kiss of death.”  He did not eat or sleep for weeks after the “kiss” so when an inmate approached him in the yard he thought the guy was going to kill him.  So Valachi beat him to death with a pipe. It turned out to only be a guy who looked like a connected guy, but was not involved in any way. Valachi was now facing a death sentence for killing the inmate.  As a result, he reached out to the FBN who had arrested him for heroin. The FBI quickly took over handling Valachi from the FBN, and he spilled it all.  Once the FBI took over they moved him to jails all over the country and he would finally live out his life in what would become known as the Valachi Suite in La Tuna Federal Prison.

The 1960's were not good to the LA Family.  Frank DeSimone and his underboss had been caught in Appalachian.  The underboss was deported back to Italy, so he appointed Nick Licata as the new underboss.  Then Valachi flipped and caused the Cosa Nostra to be known all over the world.  Gone was the mystery and the mysticism of the once secret organization.  Frank's name and picture were published in newspapers all over.  Look Magazine even did a story naming him as the boss of the LA Family.  Frank filed a lawsuit against the magazine for the story, but he had been caught with the rest of the Cosa Nostra at Appalachian.  Frank was also a second generation boss, his father Rosario DeSimone was part of the Cosa Nostra family in Pueblo, Colorado before moving to Southern California and joining the LA Family.  Rosario would become boss briefly in LA before stepping down to pursue his legitimate business interest in Downey, California. He ran a successful Import/Export business until his death in 1946 of natural causes. He was known as the Chief or Pappa and he kept a low profile.

There was once a shooting outside Rosario’s home in Downey.  Some rivals fired upon Joseph Ardizzone, the man who would later become boss, and Little Jimmy Basile, as the two hoods left a meeting held at DeSimone’s Downey home.  Ardizzone was also known as The Iron Man.

The swift and deadly attack left Basile dead in the street.  Ardizzone was seriously wounded but made it to the safety of the house. DeSimone, his son Leon, "a Stanford grad," and nephew Simone Scozzari were questioned and later released.  People may recognize Simone as the underboss who was picked up with Frank in Appalachia.

Frank's nephew Tommy DeSimone in Queens, New York would become a Lucchese Associate known as Tommy Two Gun.  He would be immortalized on film by Joe Pesci in Goodfella's as Tommy DeVito. He would later be killed for killing a Gambino guy and his body would never be found.  Anthony DeSimone, another nephew, also in Queens, was with the Gambino family.  Anthony was killed by Tommy Agro, a Gambino family Soldier. Frank had gone to USC and graduated to become a successful Criminal Attorney.  However, once Jack Dragna died he would step up to take the top spot.  His new position in the family resulted in lots of bad press, and caused his professional career as an attorney to suffer greatly.

I used to think for a long time that a Boss like Frank was bad for the LA Family. I felt they were to white collar not real gangsters. Now that I am no longer in the life, I see that he could have taken the family in a better direction.  Led it into more white collar or legitimate enterprises.  It is a criminal organization and there is a need for strong men who can put in the heavy work. It is a hard balance to find, a guy who can do the work but not one who likes it. It is one of those things that has to be done as a last resort.  Most famlies have a few guys who can really do the work and others who can help out.  Some have a work crew that handles these things, it keeps everyone in line and it protects the power of the Cosa Nostra.    The only problem with these guys is that they generally get into a lot of trouble and they can never make enough money to live well.  They are really well liked and useful when times are tough but during peace, they are shunned. This is a problem. The solution is to have a balance like the Outfit in Chicago where they take care of their workers.

Joe Bonnano, one of the original bosses on the commission in New York, decided to kill some other bosses.  I guess he wanted to be Capo di tutti cap or Boss of Boss which is not what the Cosa Nostra is about. This plot was leaked to the other bosses by Joe Colombo who was a well known soldier in what would become the Colombo Family.  We will never know the truth about what went down. One of the bosses that he had on his hit list was Frank DeSimone, the boss of the LA Family.  Joe Bonnano was exiled to Tucson, Arizona by the Commission and replaced by Gaspar DiGregorio one of his Capo’s. The Commission told him he was to have no dealings in Brooklyn with his family. They have no formal enforcement arm, just other famlies.  So he moved those loyal to him out west with him to Arizona.  Some guys from other famlies went with him and one of those was  Charlie "Batts" Battaglia, a Made guy in the LA Family, who left the LA family to be with the Bonnano's.  Frank DeSimone took the threat of the hit from Bonnano very seriously.  After the plan was uncovered, he would never again go out after dark. He would still meet with trusted LA Family guys like his underboss Nick Licata but he was not the same.  He later died of a heart attack in Downey, California where he lived with his mother.  

I keep reading about how the LAPD was responsible for the decline of La Cosa Nostra in Los Angeles.   The truth is, they caused their own decline with in-fighting.  Another factor towards decline was the small Italian population of Los Angeles.  Although it nearly doubled from 9,650 in 1920 to 16,851 in 1930 (a surge due in part to a downturn in the Italian film industry which encouraged many Italian film technicians and film set designers move to Los Angeles), most of these immigrants were Northern Italians.

Compare this small number to New York where over 4,000,000 Italians immigrated between 1880 and 1920. That is a huge talent pool that would grow up in the urban ghettos of New York City.  If you look at the what is known as the LA Family, almost all of there Made members were pooled from other places and just ended up here.

Here is what I know.  The boss of the family when I was around was Pete "Shakes" Milano and the Underboss was his brother Carmen.  They were both from Cleveland, Ohio.  Capo Louie Gelfuso was from Providence, Rhode Island.  Capo Jimmy Caci’s soldiers, Charlie Caci, Steve Cino, Rocky Zangari all were from Buffalo, New York.  Soldier John Joseph Vaccaro is from New Orleans.  Capo Louie Caruso is from New Jersey.  Soldier Anthony Fiato is from Boston, Mass.  That is just a few that I can name off the top of my head.   It was a mish-mash of second or third generation immigrants from all over the country.

Next week I will lay out more of the LA Family history.

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The end of an Era in Los Angeles Gangland

The End of Post WWII Gangster Era in Los Angeles

“There are no happy endings in the life.” - Joseph "Joe Campy" Campenella


The Life is what being a wiseguy or being in Organized Crime is called.  Very few men involved in The Life ever live out a full life.  The Life is hard, treacherous and stressful.  Men in The Life never take care of themselves and are frequently locked up.  I’ve seen it so many times in my life.  A guy does very well, lives a super star life and then when he is older he loses it all and there is no way for him to get it back.  

Mickey’s not-so-happy ending

Mickey Cohen lived The Life. He bought a home in Brentwood for forty thousand dollars and then spent forty nine thousand in renovations.  He spent eight hundred dollars a year on shoes. He bought two new Cadillacs a year. All money that legally he should have paid the IRS. So he did his first prison stint in about four years.  Mickey came out and opened up a plant business that supplied real and plastic plants to restaurants.  The scam?  Mickey would have some of his guys walk into places and tell them they needed his plants at say 200 a month. This was a way to get his hooks into restaurants and clubs. He would also continue his bookmaking business.  The house was gone and so was his wife, so Mickey moved into a small apartment.  He had it redone with new carpets, floors and closets. Then Mickey came up with a brilliant scam. The reporters had loved him because he sold papers every time he was on the front page they flew off the racks.  Mickey was a known name and he found that he could use this infamy.  He started working on a piece about himself with a screenwriter who had written the original Scarface.  He started hitting up anyone rich or poor to buy a piece of his life story. He would collect upwards of four hundred thousand dollars. This was working out very well for Mickey until the night of December 2, 1959 at Rondelli’s, when Jack Whalen was murdered.  Mickey and his friends were put on trial.  Luckily for him, they were acquitted.  However, Mickey had no time to celebrate because the IRS came down on him again.  They proved he was guilty of not paying his taxes again and he was sent to Alcatraz, this time for 15 years.  He was there a short time when he was released on an appeal bond but this freedom did not last long.  The appeal was rejected and he was back in Alcatraz. Alcatraz was closed and he was relocated to a Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he was hit in the head with a pipe and partially paralyzed.  After Mickey was home from his prison sentences and in a wheelchair, he lived in an apartment. This time there would be no long nights at clubs or thousand dollar dinners with movie stars. This was the same man who years earlier had raised a million dollars for the state of Israel and then claimed the ship carrying the arms was “lost at sea.” The same man who once had hundreds of bookies paying him weekly.   When Mickey died from stomach cancer in 1976 he was worth a total of three thousand dollars. So much for being the King of the Sunset Strip.

The Sica Brothers

Joe “JS” , Alfred “Fred” , Angelo and Frank Sica.  These were the real faces of Organized Crime power in LA.  Nobody writes about them and they are not in movies.  JS gave many a gangsters his start and right now one of the top guys in  the Boston Cosa Nostra is a Sica taught man. They were part of LA’s Underworld from the 1940’s until the 1990’s when JS passed. The Sica Brothers had long worked out of the Formosa Cafe.  They were still running their empire from their ranch in the Valley all the way to Northern California in the shadows.They Shylocked, Booked sports, ran dope and anything else that made them cash.  The Cosa Nostra had not missed a step when Dragna died in 1956.  They would keep it going till today. This I will get into in future blogs

The LA Family tried for many years to get a casino but had failed. Jack Dragna was a good boss, but he was complacent.  He did not have the drive to get into a casino, he wanted the cash now, not long term. The others did not have what it took to lead the family into these lucrative rackets. They would come close.  Pete Milano would almost get into the Tallyho, Jimmy Frattiano just missed getting into a counting room of his own. Jack Dragna had been close to Benny Benion the Dallas gambling kingpin and later Casino owner but he never did do anything but hit him up for cash.

The Mickey Mouse Mafia is what the LAPD called the LA Family, the press picked up on this and ran with it.  The LAPD likes to pat themselves on the back and claim the Gangster Squad was the reason the Cosa Nostra never grew like it did back east.  The truth though was simple.  The family had no talent pool to pull from.  The Families back east had a large population of Italian immigrants to pull talent from. If you look back on who was in the LA Family everyone was from back East.  If you follow the Cosa Nostra now, you can see that even in New York they have problems today.  They do not have the pool of qualified hoods to pull from.  The Commission realized the pool was small and at the behest of Carmine Persico and John Gotti they decided to okay making guys who were not 100% Italian. This was in the early 80’s.  The two bosses did this mainly so that their sons could join the life and take over for them. The other families gladly welcomed it because they could fill their depleted ranks.


Happier Endings

There is no denying that the men who fought against the gangsters were brave and put their lives on the line for what they felt was right. Those men from LAPD who chased the gangsters during the time after the war would end up much better than the famous gangsters they chased.  One example is Jerry Wooters, the cop who had fed info to Jack Whalen.  After Jack met his end, Jerry soon left the force and started a career in sales. He did very well and moved his family to Newport Beach where he would die a wealthy man.

Jack O'Mara went from the LAPD right to leading the large Security force at Santa Anita Racetrack.  He would live a long fruitful life with his wife and kids. He would laugh about the old stories of dealing with gangsters.  One he often recalled was taking Marshal Caifano up to Coldwater Canyon where he explained to him why he did not want to be in LA.  Marshal was “the man” in  Las Vegas for a while but he ended up in exile in Florida.

Lindo "Jaco" Giacopuzzi was the one Italian on the squad who could speak Italian.  Lindo became rich and successful like Jerry Wooters.  He would build a huge shopping center and he also moved to Newport Beach.


This ends the Gangster era of post World War Two Los Angeles.
Fifty eight murders and only two of those would ever result in people going to prison.

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

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Published:September 4, 2011, 12:00 AM

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Updated: September 4, 2011, 2:15 PM

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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?