By Date

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 11-13-00
  (Part Eight - Final) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 11-6-00
  (Part Seven) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 10-30-00
  (Part Six) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 10-23-00
  (Part Five) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 10-15-00
  (Part Four) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 10-9-00
  (Part Three) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 10-2-00
  (Part Two) Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Chicago’s Unione Siciliana - 1920 – A Decade of Slaughter - filed 9-25-00
  (Part One) Anthony D’Andrea Allan May takes us through an eight-part in depth look at Chicago's Unione Siciliana during the bloody decade of the 1920s. All eight men who held the position of president of the society died. Seven of them were brutally murdered.”

• Mob War in Beantown - filed 9-18-00
  (Part Two) In January 1995, a federal grand jury handed down a thirty-seven-count indictment against Salemme and six other members of the Boston underworld. Included in the indictment were James “Whitey” Bulger and Steve Flemmi. The two men were the leaders of Boston’s infamous Winterhill Gang. James A. Ring, the former supervisor of Boston’s FBI organized crime squad, said of the indictment, “It’s kind of the stake through the heart.”

• Mob War in Beantown - filed 9-11-00
  (Part One) Boston’s Italian underworld has never approached the organizational level of its contemporaries in other cities in the United States. When it did have its heyday it was actually ruled from Providence, Rhode Island and became known as the New England Crime Family.

• Frank McErlane - Chicago’s “Murder Machine” - filed 9-4-00
  (Part Two) The year 1926 got off to a slow start. The first South Side beer war shooting didn’t occur until February 10 when Sheldon associates “Mitters” Foley and William Wilson were wounded.

• Frank McErlane - Chicago’s “Murder Machine” - filed 8-28-00
  (Part One) According to the Illinois Crime Survey, Frank McErlane was “the most brutal gunman who ever pulled a trigger in Chicago.” Alleged to have murdered at least nine men, a woman and two dogs, McErlane was credited with introducing the Thompson sub-machinegun to Chicago’s bloody bootleg wars. In the end, it wouldn’t be a bullet that brought about the demise of this vicious killer, but rather a fatal case of pneumonia.

• The Purple Gang / Encyclopedia of Organized Crime In the United States - filed 8-21-00
  Book Review Paul R. Kavieff gives us a gem in his well-researched account of Detroit’s infamous Purple Gang. This is a book that has been long over due. The Purple Gang is one of the best known of the Prohibition Era gangs and the least written about. Kavieff gives us a year-by-year, blow-by-blow of the entire history of the gang.

• Red Mafiya / Before Bruno - filed 8-14-00
  Book Review Robert I. Friedman’s account of Russian organized crime activity is a stunning, eye opening story of the menace facing United States law enforcement agencies today. The author sets the chilling stage for us by revealing in the first paragraph of his introduction that he has been made the target of a murder contract by the people he is investigating.

• The Number of Made Men - filed 7-24-00
  A Commentary I am always seeing posts on the Forum where people are asking how many made members does this family or that family have? Who cares? More importantly, who really knows? What is so significant about the number of formally initiated members a family has?

• A Plethora of Mob Books for 2000 - filed 7-17-00
  Book Review So far in the year 2000 at least six books have been published about organized crime. The releases have taken us from Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia to Canada and Moscow. They run the gamut from before prohibition to the 1990s and even into the new century.

• John Gotti - filed 7-10-00
  A Cry for Justice Commentary Too many times on our AmericanMafia.com Forum we get posters who implore the virtues of John Gotti and berate the lengths that our government went through to put him away. While many feel that some of the posts are the work of someone immature, a mob wannabe, or even a lunatic, there are legitimate efforts underway to bring Gotti’s plight to the public’s attention.

• Charles “Cherry Nose” Gioe - filed 7-3-00
  Charles Gioe was a peripheral character in the Chicago mob whose credentials for making it up the leadership ladder were simply that he out lived other gang members. If it weren’t for his colorful nickname, “Cherry Nose,” and his association with the upper echelon of the Chicago Outfit, he may have faded into obscurity as just another victim of a Chicago gangland hit.

• The Death of Tony Soprano’s Mother - filed 6-26-00
  A Commentary The death this past week of Nancy Marchand, the unlovable television mother of Tony Soprano, will leave a definite void in the popular HBO series “The Sopranos” when it returns in March of 2001.

• Gaetano Gagliano - filed 6-19-00
  A Mafia Short Story If the ingredients for being a successful mob boss are keeping a low profile, avoiding arrest, shunning media publicity, and above all else longevity – then no Mafia leader has proved himself more than Gaetano “Thomas” Gagliano.

• Havana Conference – 1946 - filed 6-12-00
  (Part Two) On the morning of December 24, 1946 the Havana Conference was underway. Luciano states that he sat at the head of a large rectangular table with Lansky, Costello, Genovese and Adonis at his side.

• Havana Conference – 1946 - filed 6-5-00
  (Part One) The year 1946 was a busy one for Mafia chieftain Charles “Lucky” Luciano. He was released from prison, he boarded a boat to return to his native Sicily, and, within eight months, was executing his plan to get back to the United States with a stopover in Havana, Cuba.

• Frank Bompensiero
  San Diego Hitman, Boss & FBI Informant - filed 5-22-00
  San Diego Hitman, Boss & FBI Informant
  (Part Two) In the mid-1960s, Fratianno claims he and Bompensiero had a series of meetings with attorney Joseph L. Alioto, the future mayor of San Francisco. Bompensiero knew many of Alioto’s relatives back in his hometown of Milwaukee. One of Alioto’s relatives was the boss of the Milwaukee Crime Family from 1953 to 1962.

• Frank Bompensiero
  San Diego Hitman, Boss & FBI Informant - filed 5-15-00
  San Diego Hitman, Boss & FBI Informant
  (Part One) Few hoodlums ever handled the dual responsibilities of being a ranking member of a Mafia family and a FBI informant like Frank Bompensiero and James “Jimmy the Weasel” Fratianno. Ironically, the two mobsters were best friends. However, when the FBI decided that Fratianno was a bigger fish than Bompensiero, they left him out on a limb that was quickly cut off by the Los Angeles mob.

• Serving Up Harry - filed 5-8-00
  The Riccobene – Scarfo War Two decades of tranquility in the Philadelphia Crime Family came to an end on the night of March 21, 1980. Late that evening, as Mafia boss Angelo Bruno and his driver John Stanfa sat in a car outside Bruno’s row house chatting and smoking cigarettes, a gunman stepped out of the shadows, leveled a shotgun behind the “Docile Don’s” right ear and pulled the trigger.

• Johnny Torrio - The “Fox” … after the Chicago Years - filed 5-1-00
  Part Two In the early 1930s Johnny Torrio purchased the Prendergast & Davies Company, LTD. for $62,000. The company was a wholesale liquor concern as well as an importer. Torrio set up an in-law as president of the company and hired a few former bootlegging pals to help run it.

• Johnny Torrio - The “Fox” … after the Chicago Years - filed 4-24-00
  Part One Some people think that after Johnny Torrio turned his crime empire over to a young Al Capone in 1925 that he retired from organized crime. Far from it. Many historians believe that his most important contributions to organized crime were yet to come.

• Can Someone Please Explain This To Me - filed 4-10-00
  Despite many years of reading about and studying organized crime there are still many mysteries I don’t understand. Please feel free to let me know if you have any answers to my queries.

• The Five Iron Men Of Kansas City - filed 3-27-00
  With the death of Johnny Lazia in July 1934, less than a year after the repeal of Prohibition, gambling became the lucrative activity of the Kansas City underworld.

• Brucify This!
  Bruce Cutler Commentary - filed 3-6-00
  Having witnessed the obnoxious defense lawyers representing the four Bronx police officers involved in the recent Diallo trial covered on Court TV, I harkened back to the late 1980s to the most obnoxious defense attorney of them all – Bruce Cutler.

• The Definition of Minuscule
  A Gravano Family Commentary - filed 2-28-00
  This past Thursday the most celebrated “rat” of all time was arrested in Arizona and accused of being the “brains, bankroller and boss of an Arizona crime syndicate dealing in the designer drug known as Ecstasy.

• Like Father, Like Son…Like Son-In-Law
  A Gotti Family Commentary - filed 2-21-00
  What is it with the men in the Gotti family that makes them want to spend large parts of their lives behind prison walls?

• Nick Civella - Kansas City Chief - filed 1-31-00
  In March 1983, Nick Civella was paroled from the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. He was going home to die. Civella was surrounded by family members when he passed away, but was unable to speak.

• Charles Binaggio - A Promise Un-Kept - filed 1-24-00
  On July 13, 1934 Charles Binaggio, tears flowing from his cheeks, helped carry the coffin of his political and underworld mentor Johnny Lazia, to his final resting place in Kansas City’s Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery. Lazia had been assassinated by persons unknown at the age of 37. Sixteen years later, Binaggio, at the age of 41, would die under the same circumstances and be laid to rest less than one hundred yards away.

• Johnny Lazia - Law of the Land - filed 1-17-00
  Johnny Lazia was born in 1897, the son of a laborer. Although his education ended in the eighth grade, Lazia was a bright youth and found work as a clerk at a small law firm and for a while studied law. However, the bad influences he was exposed to constantly in his environment soon put him on the wrong side of the law.

• Refusing to Refuse - filed 1-10-00
  The Kleinman / Rothkopf Testimony
  The committee’s last scheduled stop was New York in mid-March 1951. Then committee members returned to Washington DC where, according to Kefauver, some “important witnesses from the government and odds and ends from the underworld (were) due to appear.” Included in those “odds and ends” were two members of the Cleveland Syndicate – Morris Kleinman and Louis Rothkopf.

• Gophers, Goose Chasers, and the Early Years of Owney Madden - filed 1-3-00
  In New York City during the decades prior to the Prohibition Era there were many brutal gangs that roamed the streets of Manhattan.

• Sterling, Roemer and Messick - filed 12-27-99
  A Sad Farewell
  As the decade of the 1990s comes to a close we bid a sad farewell to three organized crime writers who have kept us informed and entertained over the years.

• Sylvestro Carolla - filed 12-20-99
  Will the Real “Silver Dollar Sam” Please Stand Up
  While trying to spread my column topics to all corners of the nation, I decided to include one on Sylvestro Carolla, the New Orleans Mafia boss from 1925 to 1947.

• Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson (Part Two) - filed 12-13-99
  Source Wahoo - Out Sourced
  Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson's handler, Agent Abbott, informed Willie Boy about what was about to happen.“I will be killed,” Johnson said. “My family will be slaughtered.”

• Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson (Part One) - filed 12-6-99
  Source Wahoo
  Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson wasn’t constrained when it came to providing information to the FBI and the New York City Police Department when it suited his needs.

• Louis Campagna - filed 11-29-99
  Done in by a Grouper
  When Louis “Little New York” Campagna met his demise, it wasn’t because he ended up “sleeping with the fishes.” Instead, it was because he was done-in by one.

• Jerry Buckley - filed 11-22-99
  A Victory Short Lived
  In July 1930 Detroit was suffering through a wave of unsolved murders. Buckley’s was the eleventh during a nineteen-day period.

• The Brothers Capone - filed 11-15-99
  (Part Two)
  Some Capone historians believe that had Frank Capone lived he would have been the brother to take the lead role in the family’s affairs.

• The Brothers Capone - filed 11-8-99
  (Part One)
  The name Al Capone is to crime, what the name Babe Ruth is to baseball. Ruth was an over achiever and rose to the top of his profession, so did Capone.

• The Last Days of Lepke Buchalter, et al - filed 11-1-99
  It was Thursday, March 2, 1944, and time was running out in Sining prison for Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and the four men facing execution with him.

• Jimmy McBratney: A Footnote to Mob History - filed 10-25-99
  When Gotti was convicted on April 2, 1992, the Staten Island Advance interviewed members of McBratney’s family. “My father’s claim to fame is that Gotti earned his bones by killing (him). Trying to live with that is the hardest thing to do,” said Joseph McBratney, one of two sons interviewed.

• Colletti & Drake: Women In the Wrong Place At the Wrong Time - filed 10-18-99
  Although most women are safe from the atrocities of organized crime, the deaths of Christina Colletti and Janice Drake prove that the mob will not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way.

• Ciro Terranova: Tales of the Artichoke King - filed 10-11-99
  Terranova began his monopoly of the artichoke market by purchasing all the produce shipped to New York from California at $6 a crate. He created a produce company and resold the artichokes at 30 to 40 percent profit. Dealers were frightened away from finding alternative sources to buy the artichokes for fear of violence.

• Lakewood Tranquillo Incident - filed 10-4-99
  On June 10th, a Canadian rum-running boat named the Tranquillo sailed into the Rocky River lagoon and anchored near the foot of Clifton Park Hill. The initial estimate of illegal whiskey hidden aboard the craft was 2,000 to 2,400 quart bottles of “Johnny DeWar Scotch.” Three days later, after a tip from a boat owner at the lagoon, Lakewood Police officers went out to inspect the suspicious craft.

• La Stella Restaurant Incident - filed 9-27-99
  The Power Lunch – Mob Style
  In 1966, thirteen members of organized crime were arrested at an Italian restaurant in Queens, New York. The arrests appeared on the front page of the New York Times which called the affair “Little Apalachin.”

• Vannie Higgins: Brooklyn’s Last Irish Boss - filed 9-20-99
  Charles “Vannie” Higgins had all the right connections and built a thriving bootleg empire in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn during the 1920s. Higgins greed would cause him to perish before Prohibition had run its course.

• Godfather Part One - Movie Quiz Answers - filed 9-13-99
  Winner!
  AmericanMafia.com - Godfather Part One Movie Quiz has a winner! Joe C. from Trussvile, Alabama gets an autographed copy of "To Kill The Irishman"

• Godfather Part One - Movie Quiz - filed 9-6-99
  Second Big Week! 24 difficult questions
  Winner gets autographed copy of “To Kill The Irishman”

• Godfather Part One - Movie Quiz - filed 8-30-99
  24 difficult questions
  Winner gets autographed copy of “To Kill The Irishman”

• Greed in the Desert - filed 8-23-99
  The Herbie Blitzstein Murder Trial
  The investigation into the murder forced a two-year FBI probe called “Operation Button-down” to surface. The investigation, which was also targeting the Milano Crime Family, returned indictments on 25 individuals with a total of 101 counts. In the end though, only two men would be tried for the murder of Blitzstein.

• Alvin J. Sutton, Jr. - Cleveland’s Forgotten G-Man - filed 8-16-99
  These are the twilight days of Big Al’s life. Things weren’t always this serene. Back in the late 40s and early 50s, Sutton created a legacy that was second only to Eliot Ness when it came to fighting crime in Cleveland.

• Iron River Revolt - The Michigan Whiskey Rebellion - filed 8-9-99
  It seems improbable, but just weeks after the Volsted Act brought national prohibition into effect on January 16, 1920, armed federal agents accompanied by an army of news reporters descended on the village of Iron River, Michigan to squash a “whiskey rebellion” that had captured headlines throughout the country.

• The History of the Race Wire Service - Part Three - filed 8-2-99
  Ragen and McBride and the End of the Race Wire
  The mob wanted to cut itself in on the operation, build up the business and by doing this they felt they could employ several hundred hoods in the business.

• Anthony Giordano - St. Louis Hot Head - filed 7-26-99
  He is Anthony Giardano. He lives here, works here and heads La Cosa Nostra (“our thing”) here.

• The Wexler / Gordon Story-Part Two- filed 7-19-99
  The Fall of Waxey Gordon
  This week's column is Part 2 as six investigators worked full time collecting evidence that would stand up in court on Gordon.

• The Wexler / Gordon Story-Part One- filed 7-12-99
  The Rise of Waxey Gordon
  Waxey put a gang of hoods together from the old neighborhood to help him with the rum running business. The liquor would be retrieved from “Rum Row,” the fleet of ships anchored off the coast of New York and New Jersey, just outside the three mile limit.

• The History of the Race Wire Service - Part Two - filed 7-5-99
  M. L. Annenberg and the Growth of the Race Wire
  This week's column is Part 2 of a three part monthly series on the history of the Race Wire Service. Upcoming feature will focus on James Ragen (August 2).

• “Undying Loyalty” The Thomas Aurelio Affair - filed 6-28-99
  Aurelio stated: “During my brief acquaintance with Mr. Costello of approximately six months standing, I knew him to be a businessman of good repute, and I definitely disavow any knowledge of his criminal background.”

• Lawrence Mangano
  The Immigrant Who Became Public Enemy No. 4 - filed 6-21-99
  Mangano was a suspect in two prominent murders in 1931. On April 29 he was playing cards with Mike “de Pike” Heitler, a thorn in Capone’s side. The following day, Heitler’s charred remains were found in a burning house in the suburbs.

• “Three Thin Dimes” - The Demise of Larry Fay - filed 6-14-99
  Fay’s ambition to move beyond “gangster status” could be seen in the elaborate offices he maintained in a respectable office building off Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

• “Sammy G” Home Town Gangster - filed 6-7-99
  Salvatore Gingello was the most colorful gangland figure in Rochester, New York’s organized crime history. His quick rise to fame and sensational ending was characteristic of the Rochester mob itself.

• The History of the Race Wire Service - Part One - filed 5-31-99
  Mont Tennes and the Birth of the Race Wire
  This week's column begins a three part monthly series on the history of the Race Wire Service. Upcoming features will focus on Moses Annenberg (July 5) and James Ragen (August 2).

• The Two Tonys - filed 5-24-99
  A couple of shake down artists, who were muscle for hire, the two Tonys began their criminal careers in Kansas City. The fates of Anthony Brancato and Anthony Joseph Trombino were sealed when Jack Dragna said "The way I see it, we’ve got to clip them. Set something up, will you."

• “Mad Sam” DeStefano -The Mob’s Marquis de Sade
  (Part Two) - filed 5-17-99
  “Mad Sam” was despised by everyone who knew him. Police considered that anyone who ever had contact with him could be considered a suspect.

• “Mad Sam” DeStefano -The Mob’s Marquis de Sade
  (Part One) - filed 5-10-99
  “Mad Sam” was despised by everyone who knew him. Police considered that anyone who ever had contact with him could be considered a suspect.

• Charles Workman - “A Bug’s Life” - filed 5-3-99
  One of the prolific murderers, who supposedly racked up an impressive body count, was Charles (Charley or Charlie) Workman. Known as “The Bug,” “The Powerhouse,” and “Handsome Charlie,” this curly-haired, “casual” killer was rumored to have dispatched twenty individuals.

• Thomas Eboli - Down for the Count - filed 4-26-99
  Eboli had been involved in the fight game during the 1940s and managed several boxers. Despite his long involvement with organized crime his only prison time was a sixty-day sentence for jumping into the ring and assaulting a boxing referee.

• The Tortured Soul of Ann Coppola - filed 4-19-99
  Despite the beatings he gave Ann, Coppola continued to shower her with expensive gifts. Ann stated, “He gave me this vast amount of material things to prove to people how big and successful he was.

• Jack Zuta – Angina from the Grave - filed 4-12-99
  After his murder investigators discovered cancelled checks to two judges and two state senators as well as records showing $3,500 in bribes to police officers.

• Murder on the Day the Pope Came to Town - filed 4-5-99
  On the evening of October 1, 1979, the day Pope John Paul II visited the Big Apple, James Eppolito and his son were killed in Coney Island by members of the Gambino Crime Family.

• Yasha, “The Wandering Jew” - filed 3-22-99
  Narcotic and drug dealing was going on during the 1920s and 1930s and involved both Italian and Jewish mob leaders.

• Whacked By the Good Guys - filed 3-22-99
  Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci left behind quite a legacy, he may have been the only mob boss ever to be killed by a law enforcement officer.

• Cleveland's Sly - Fanner Murders - filed 3-15-99
  On the morning of December 31, 1920 a payroll robbery would result in the double slaying of Wilfred C. Sly and George K. Fanner of the W. W. Sly Manufacturing Company.

• Late for the Opera - “Samoots” Amatuna - filed 3-8-99
  Musical and murderous, a gay, light-hearted troubadour, and one of the most treacherous and cold-blooded killers in gangland.

• Perfecting the Number Two Spot - filed 3-1-99
  Phillip Kastel chose to hitch his wagon behind two of the most successful crime bosses of all time; Arnold Rothstein and Frank Costello.

• The First Shooting of Frank Nitti - filed 2-22-99
  On December 19, 1932, Nitti would face his biggest challenge in trying to survive after he was shot three times by a Chicago police detective.

• Ghosts of Bader Avenue - filed 2-15-99
  This story could serve as the basis for a good murder mystery with all of the unanswered questions.

• Forgotten Man at Sparks - filed 2-8-99
  The possibility that Bilotti would be left to run the Gambino family must have left members of all five families shaking their heads.

• A Sicilian Bedtime Story - filed 2-1-99
  Who were the 40 individuals who perished in one night of butchery?

• The Last Hours of Mr. Big - filed 1-25-99
  Arnold Rothstein seemed more myth than man and had his own booth at Lindy’s.