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News and Features about Organized Crime, Mafia and La Cosa Nostra taken from National and Local News Sources. In an attempt to get you this type of coverage in a timely manner we can not be responsible for the content of the following material. |
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5-14-00 Detectives examine Aramante mob ties. His arrest in Harvey concerns detectives. Sunday, May 14, 2000
By Gene O'Shea When he was first arrested by Cook County sheriff's police during a raid at a Harvey strip club, Vincent R. Amarante of New York distinguished himself by arguing loudly with officers over the legitimacy of their actions, law enforcement officials said. Amarante's behavior during the April 1 raid led vice squad detectives to take a closer look at him. What they learned has raised eyebrows in Chicago and New York. Law enforcement officials now want to determine why Amarante, a reputed member of a New York crime family, is working in the south suburbs, authorities said. Specifically they want to know if New York crime families are expanding into the Chicago area — a move that could touch off a gang war — or if the families are working hand in hand with the Chicago Outfit. Amarante, who listed a current home address at 6401 Home Ave., in Worth, wasn't just the purveyor of scantily clad women who provide lap dances for $25, sheriff's police learned. Instead, Amarante, 53, was identified by police in Illinois and New York as a "soldier" in a New York City crime family now considered one of the most dangerous on the East Coast. Amarante, who was charged with keeping a house of prostitution following raids April 1 and 27 at Arnie's, a strip club at 14701 S. Wood, works for capo Louis Attanasio in the Bonanno crime family, according to George Quinlan, a spokesman for the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. Sheriff's police have raided the club three times. On the last raid on May 5, police arrested a second New Yorker, Allan Grossman, 43, who lists the same Worth address as Amarante. Grossman is being investigated to see if he has connections to a New York mob operation because of his recent relocation from New York to the Chicago area, authorities said. More than 20 women have been charged with prostitution as a result of the raids. A 45-year-old Park Forest man was also arrested twice on charges of keeping a house of prostitution, police said. Amarante, who has been nicknamed "Elmo" by his compatriots, is a "made man" in the Bonanno crime family, Quinlan said. In a brief telephone conversation Friday, Amarante denied he has any ties to organized crime. "I don't know what you're talking about," Amarante said before hanging up. Local law enforcement officials said they're doing all they can to determine why Amarante is working at a club in the south suburbs. "He's here for a reason, and chances are we'll never find out,'' said Wayne Johnson, chief investigator for the Chicago Crime Commission and a former Chicago police detective assigned to the Chicago Police Intelligence Section. "Whatever he's doing here has to be sanctioned by Chicago or they would kill him,'' Johnson said. "You just can't move into another town without permission." At one time considered the weakest of the five New York City crime families, the Bonannos have reportedly made a strong comeback under the tutelage of boss Joseph Massino. Like Tony Accardo who ran the Chicago Outfit years ago, Massino runs a tight ship and avoids the limelight, Johnson said. "It's all about the bottom line. Like Accardo, Massino's been quietly making money without drawing attention to himself or the family,'' Johnson said. Massino also denies he is a mobster. "I don't believe there is such a thing as the Mafia,'' Massino told The New York Times in April. "A bunch of Italian guys go out to eat, and they say it's Mafia." Cook County sheriff's police have turned over their reports to the FBI. Sheriff's police sources said the FBI also doesn't know what to make of Amarante's presence in Chicago. A spokesman for the FBI said he couldn't comment on the sheriff's police case. Chicago and New York mobsters have been known to collaborate on gambling and prostitution operations outside of their respective territories, Johnson said. Other law enforcement sources said it's possible the Chicago Outfit has grown so weak it's now allowing outsiders into the area. Such outsiders may be required to pay a "street tax" to Chicago organized crime figures, but the lion's share of the profits may be shipped back to New York. "These gentlemen's clubs are big business. The strip-teasing is just a facade for other illegal activity,'' one police source said. "There's an art to running these places. Maybe Amarante is showing Chicago how to do it." Ronald Goldstock, the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, said Amarante is the first New York mobster he's ever heard of setting up shop in Chicago. Goldstock, who headed up the task force for 14 years before becoming a private consultant, could recall only one experience involving New York and Chicago mobsters. Some 20 years ago, Goldstock said, an FBI wiretap in Chicago picked up a New York mobster phoning his cronies in the Big Apple. The FBI wire tap was running on the phone of the New Yorker's cousin. The Chicagoan was a member of the Outfit, Goldstock said. The resulting tap provided only mere laughs for federal authorities, he said. "The New Yorker calls his friends back home. He tells them he took a walk around town," Goldstock said. "They asked him what Chicago was like and he responds, 'It's unbelievable. They got a (expletive) ocean here.'" Amarante has an arrest record stretching back to 1967 on charges of gambling and narcotics. He was sentenced to 54 months in prison in 1981 for the sale of narcotics and possession of stolen handguns, New York City police records show. He was released from prison in 1987. During the latest raid at Arnie's, police seized business records from the club and intends to turn them over to state or federal authorities for review, sheriff's police said. During the raids undercover detectives have witnessed the women lap dancers inappropriately touching patrons, police said. Recently however, the doorman at the club has been seen using a microphone to tell patrons that touching isn't allowed, police said. Patrons also are sometimes frisked before entering the bar. Police suspect the club is trying to determine which patrons are undercover officers. Harvey Mayor Nickolas Graves said he doesn't consider what happened at the club to be prostitution. "It doesn't sound like they were doing anything wrong to me,'' Graves said. Graves said Harvey went to court to try to shut down the clubs and similar businesses but were unsuccessful. Graves brushed aside concerns that Harvey's reputation could be tarnished by the strip clubs, New York mobsters and the fact that the Chicago chapter of the Hell's Angels has its clubhouse in Harvey. "We've never gotten one complaint about the Hell's Angels," Graves said. "We didn't like it when they moved here, but there was nothing we could do. "Harvey's no different than Chicago or any other town," Graves said.
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