Timeline of Organized Crime in Chicago - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

8/13/2014 Timeline of organized crime in Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Timeline of organized crime in Chicago
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chicago, Illinois has a long history of organized crime and was famously home to the American mafia figure Al
Capone. This article contains a list of major events related to organized crime.
Contents
1 Events - timeline
1.1 1830s
1.2 1840s
1.3 1850s
1.4 1860s
1.5 1870s
1.6 1880s
1.7 1890s
1.8 1900s
1.9 1910s
1.10 1920s
1.11 1930s
1.12 1940s
1.13 1950s
1.14 1960s
1.15 1970s
1.16 1980s
1.17 1990s
1.18 2000s
1.19 2010s
2 See also
3 References
4 Notes
5 Further reading
Events - timeline
1830s
1837 - Chicago became incorporated as a city.
[1]
1840s
1850s
1850 - Chicago had a population of 80,000 people, but the city had no police force, only nine "watch
marshals."
[2]
1855 - The city had a bare-bones police force.
[2]
1850s (late) - Because Chicago was built over a swamp, mud constantly oozed from beneath the city's
wooden streets. It was decided the whole city would be mudjacked 10 feet (3 metres) and the city would
rest on stilts, with stones at the base. This led to the beginning of the free-wheeling crime sub-culture that
overtook Chicago. After the city was raised, criminals in the area began practicing their trades in rooms and
tunnels beneath the city. English immigrant Roger Plant, who ran a whorehouse in the Chicago netherworld
called "Under the Willows," became the chief of this criminal underworld.
[3]
Aug. 20, 1858 - Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, one of the "Lords of the Levee," was born.
1860s
1860 - Chicago's mayor, John "Long John" Wentworth, serving two non-consecutive two-year terms,
reduced his police force to 60 officers. Criminals from other states moved the city's "underworld."
[2]
Aug. 15, 1860 - John "Bathhouse John" Coughlin, the second of the "Lords of the Levee," was born.
1870s
Oct. 8, 1871 - Much of the city's population lost everything including their lives to a fire that lasted 36 hours
and brought rampant looting.
[4]
1879 - At some point in Chicago's history, Michael Cassius McDonald moved to the city and later became
what some, whom the author of the book doesn't name, consider Chicago's "first true crime lord." He lived in
the midst of what was called "Hair-Trigger Block." McDonald was a gambler who understood the power of
a bribe. Also politically motivated, he brought his underworld friends and associates together to form
"McDonald's Democrats" and got Carter Harrison, Sr., elected as mayor in this year. McDonald gained
control of all of Chicago's and the State of Indiana's bookmaking rights. His gambling joint, "The Store," was
considered by some, whom the author of the book doesn't name, to be Chicago's, "unofficial City Hall."
McDonald and his people are credited with the term: "Syndicate," because of the gang's "crime
consortium."
[5]
1880s
1882 - Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna opened a First Ward saloon.
[6]
1882 - Chicago Police Chief William McGarigle, in the pay of Chicago crime lord Michael Cassius
McDonald, was indicted for graft and later fled to Canada.
1882? - John "Mushmouth" Johnson opened the Emporium Saloon and gambling establishment, began his
reign as Chicago's first South Side Policy racket king.
[7][8]
1884 - Founding Outfit leader Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio, nicknamed "The Brain," who the source author
would call "the father of modern gangsterism," emigrated from Italy to New York City with his family, at age
two.
[9]
1890s
1890s - The under-manned city police department totalled 1,100 officers, for a 2.1 million population with
"more than a dozen" vice districts.
[10]
1890s - The Valley Gang formed in the city, beginning with pickpocketing and armed robbery.
Aug. 21, 1891
[11]
- Born in this year in Minnesota, future North Side Gang boss through gangland attrition
George "Bugs" Moran grew up on Chicago's North Side. He and another North Side Gang boss-to-be,
Dion O'Banion, became childhood friends. Moran "had committed 26 known robberies" and "served three
incarcerations" before age 21. He hated the city's flesh trade and regularly attended church.
[12]
1892 - Born in this year, future North Side Gang leader Dion O'Banion was raised on Chicago's Near North
Side, in "Little Hell," a section of the city that was later used to build the Cabrini-Green housing project, now
demolished to make way for urban renewal. O'Banion grew up leading a double life. Part of the time he was
a choirboy at the Gold Coast's Holy Name Cathedral, within walking distance of "Little Hell." The rest of the
time he was a street tough, working for the Chicago Tribune, then Hearst newspapers, threatening and
terrorizing those who sold competitors' newspapers. According to the source's author, it's been speculated
that O'Banion committed more than 60 murders in his lifetime.
[13][14]
April 5, 1892 - "Bathhouse John" Coughlin was elected a First Ward alderman.
[15][16][nb 1]
1893 - Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna - "Lords of the Levee" - "form an alliance," ruling the
First Ward, which, commercially, was the "most important ward in the city" until 1992, when the districts
were redrawn.
[17]
1893 - Chicago's South Side Levee District opened for business to serve customers who weren't only in the
city for the World's Columbian Exposition.
1894 - Frank Brunell founded The Daily Racing Form in Chicago.
1895 - Unione Siciliane was created in New York City in the 1880s as a fraternal organization and a
legitimate business to sell insurance, help with housing, help learn English, settle legal disputes (even with the
Black Handers) and do a number of other tasks to equip immigrant Sicilians with their new lives in America.
The Chicago branch was chartered in the mid-1890s; and, apparently from its beginning, 25,000 Sicilians
who lived in the city and 500,000 Sicilians who lived in Cook County, Illinois, were under the umbrella of
Unione Siciliane's Chicago branch, which was a tremendous influence on the people it served and therefore
was highly coveted for control by so many of the city's gangs.
[18]
1895 - Future master pimp Giacomo "Big Jim" Colosimo immigrated to Chicago, at about age 17, with his
parents. Colosimo had no known criminal record when coming to America.
[19][20]
1896 - The first of its kind "First Ward Ball," masterminded by businessman Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna
and Alderman John Couglin, first made an appearance in the City
[21]
1897 - Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna became a First Ward alderman.
[15]
1898 - Future North Side Gang leader "Hymie Weiss" (Earl Wajciechowski) was born. A well-rounded
crook, capable of accomplishing many criminal trades, Weiss was also a childhood friend of Dion O'Banion.
Weiss has been credited with the gangland term, "take for a ride (a one-way ride)."
[22]
1900s
1900 - Because checking the immigration status of immigrants became so lax, more than two million
unchecked people lived in the city by this year.
[4]
1900
[23]
- Six Sicilian brothers - ("Bloody") Angelo, Mike ("The Devil"), Pete, Sam, Jim and Tony ("the
Gentleman") - the "Bloody Gennas" - immigrated to America. They settled in Chicago's Little Italy in a
section called "The Patch." The brothers became the "Black Hand" extortionists. Two of the gang's earliest
gunmen were Sicilians Albert Anselmi and John Scalise.
[24]
1900 - Future Outfit boss Ross Prio (Rosario Priolo), was born in Sicily.
[25]
Feb. 1, 1900 - The Everleigh Club, run by Madams Ada and Minna Everleigh" (Ada and Minna Simms), at
2131-2133 S. Dearborn Street, opened its doors in Chicago's Levee District.
Dec. 16, 1903 - The Lone Star Saloon, on south State Street, was shut down after the owner/manager,
Michael Finn, was found to have been drugging patrons' drinks for years in order to rob them. This was an
orchestrated effort with the help of his saloon workers. This practice became known in popular culture as
giving someone a "Mickey Finn."
Apr. 28, 1906 - The Chicago Outfit's Boss-of-bosses for almost a half-century, Tony Accardo (Antonino
Leonardo Accardo), was born in Chicago to a Sicilian-immigrant shoemaker and his Sicilian-immigrant wife,
who both setteled in America in 1905. At the time of Tony Accardo's birth, the family lived at 1353 Grand
Avenue. The infant Accardo was baptized at Holy Name Cathedral, on Chicago Avenue and State Street.
He was the second oldest of six siblings.
[26]
1907 - With the country's "biggest handbook center" in Chicago, Mont Tennes was the nation's undisputed
gambling "czar," under the umbrella and with the blessing of First Ward aldermen John Coughlin and Michael
Kenna. Tennes also controlled the nation's race wire system, which was important for horserace betting
across the country at the time. Control of the race wire led to a very maniacal public dispute between the
interested parties in the summer of 1907, including bombings. Tennes' own home was bombed.
[27]
1907 - A group of leading Italian citizens, prominent businessmen, several ethnic organizations and the Italian
Chamber of Commerce formed the White Hand Society, a legal organization, to combat the Black Hand in
Chicago.
1907 - Chicago gambling racketeer Bud White's controversial gambling boat City of Traverse was closed
down after years of legally trying to stay afloat.
[28]
Sept. 1907 - A grand jury convened concerning the violence which had taken place during the summer over
Chicago's race wire business. Two of the findings were that Chicago's mayor, Fred Busse, and the city's
police chief, George Shippy, were bought by Tennes' racket.
[29]
1908 - The Chicago Coliseum sustained heavy damage from a bomb blast two weeks ahead of that year's
"First Ward Ball," after the ball received increasing disdain through the years from the city's respectable and
innocent citizens. Despite the blast, the ball was held there anyway. It's not known what, if any, information
was found as to who was responsible for the bombing.
[30]
1908 - Future North Side Gang leader Earl "Hymie" Weiss was first arrested for burglary in Chicago. Weiss
was caught robbing a perfume store and was immediately dubbed the "Perfume Burglar" by reporters.
May 24, 1908 - According to the Chicago Bureau of Vital Statistics, Outfit front boss Sam Giancana was
born, Gilormo Giangana, on this date and lived in Chicago's "Patch," west of the city's "Loop," on south
Aberdeen Street. His parents immigrated from Castelvetrano, Sicily, some years earlier. However, whatever
city records state about Giancana's birth date, he and his family celebrated his birthday on June 15. His
baptismal records also show his birth date was June 15, 1908, with the given name Momo Salvatore
Giancana.
[31]
1909 - North Side Gang leader Dion O'Banion was imprisoned three months for robbery.
[32]
1909 - After enduring the "First Ward Ball" for over a decade, citizens groups pressured Mayor Fred Busse
into putting an end to the "debauched" extravaganza in this year.
[33]
1910s
1910 - Chicago police arrested over 200 known Italian gangsters and known Black Hand members in a raid
in Little Italy. However, none of them were convicted as many of the notes of extortion threats could not be
traced to those men.
Jan. 1, 1910-March 26, 1911 - Thirty-eight people were killed by Black Hand assassins, many by the
unidentified assassin known only as "Shotgun Man," between Oak Street and Milton Street - "Death's
Corner" - in Chicago's Little Italy.
[34]
Mar. 15, 1910 - The Chicago Vice Commission was organized by the, then, Chicago Mayor Carter
Harrison, Jr., to be able to bring an end to the Levee District brothels and panel houses.
1911 - A young Filippo Sacco ("Johnny Roselli"), immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, from Italy, with his
mother. Sacco's father had already immigrated there. Sacco later became the Outfit's man in Hollywood and
Las Vegas.
[35]
1911 - Again, North Side Gang leader Dion O'Banion was imprisoned three months for a "concealed
weapons" conviction.
[32]
Aug. 1911 - By this time, there were 50 gambling establishments in the Loop. Respectable hotels hosted
some form of gambling to draw patrons. According to the source's author, every block in the Loop had a
gambling house in one form or another. Mont Tennes managed, oversaw, controlled it all, through his
lieutenant, Mike "de Pike" Heitler. The only police raids that ever occurred at this time were on gambling
establishments that competed with Tennes.
[36]
Oct. 24, 1911 - Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., ordered the Everleigh Club closed down permanently,
after the Everleigh sisters' fame and good fortune prompted them into distributing brochures for their brothel
in respectable hotels and restaurants, where visitors to the city stayed and ate. Other brothels were then
raided and closed in Chicago, which brought violence. The building which housed the Everleighs' brothel
stood until July 1933, when it was demolished.
[37]
1912 - By this time, "Big Jim" Colosimo, then married to a brothel madam, controlled 200 prostitution
houses. Colosimo took his place in Chicago's criminal history after becoming a leader in the city's Street
Laborers Union and City Street Repairers Union - doing "honest work." He had already formed his own
social club. Thus, Colosimo didn't go unnoticed by the Coughlin-Kenna political machine, who was looking
to expand its votes base to other ethnic groups. It took Colosimo under its wing. When Colisimo began
delivering big results, the First Ward "Machine" gave Colosimo "protected status." He became Democratic
precinct captain. Police could not bother Colisimo, whatever he was doing. And, what he began doing was
picking-up brothel pay-offs for the "Machine."
[38]
Jan. 18, 1912 - Jim Cosmano, a major Chicago Black Hand leader, was severely wounded in an ambush by
Johnny Torrio, near the 22nd Street police station. Cosmano had previously demanded $10,000, threatening
to destroy Colosimo's Cafe if he didn't receive the money.
[39]
July 18, 1914 - The closing of Levee brothels had incited violence in the area for some time, and on this day
brought about the death of Police Detective Sergeant Stanley Birns and the wounding of a second officer.
The Chicago Tribune entered the fray and directly blamed Michael Kenna and Police Captain Michael
Ryan, who was dubbed, "Chief of Police of the First Ward," for the violence.
[40]
Nov. 7, 1914 - Outfit extortionist, counterfitter and robber Charles Carmen Inglese ("Chuckie English") was
born.
[41]
1915 - Boston, Massachusetts-born William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson, "politically unknown at the time,"
was elected mayor of Chicago with the help of Chicago powerbrokers William Lorimer and Fred Ludin.
Thompson was in office for two consecutive terms, then lost, or withdrew from - depending on the source,
the 1923 election which was won by reform candidate and Massachusetts-born William Dever. Thompson
ran again in 1927 with $250,000 of help from Al Capone, won, then, was defeated again in 1931, by Anton
Cermak. That was Thompson's final term. His time as mayor brought brazen corruption to the Mayor's
Office and to the city. He promised the underworld and upperworld powers that were at the time "a wide-
open city," which translated to: any vice, any corruption - any time. "An unabashed defier of Volstead,"
Thompson was also a key member of the Sportsman's Club. This group actively solicited bribes from all of
the various Chicago underworld figures and also solicited their memberships in the club, including that of
brothel racketeer Jim Colosimo. In addition to the underworld members, it also had Charles Healy,
Chicago's chief of police, and Morgan Collins, a Chicago police captain as members.
[42][43]
1915 (approximately) - After future Outfit powerbroker Johnny Torrio had made numerous trips to Chicago
to do "mob chores" for his uncle through marriage, racketeer and "the biggest whoremaster in the city," Jim
Colosimo, Colosimo brought Torrio to Chicago permanently to run Colosimo's "houses," the kind of work
Torrio was already doing for himself in New York. Colosimo's business thrived under Torrio.
[44]
1916 - The Illinois State's Attorney's office began an investigation of the Sportsman's Club.
[45]
Jan. 16, 1917 - Indictments were handed down by the Illinois State's Attorney's office charging eight men
with bribery and graft concerning the Sportsman's Club. The eight were: Chief of Police Charles Healy,
Police Captain Tom Costello, Tennes' gambling lieutenant Mike "de Pike" Heitler, William Skidmore, a
saloon keeper, a gambler, a well-known politician of the time and two police officers.
[45]
1919 - By this year, Jim Colosimo was one of the "overlords of the underworld," in Chicago, "though there
were others who operated in spheres of influence" in the city.
[46]
1919 - Interested parties, including local businessmen and private citizens fed-up with rampant local thuggery
and murder in the city formed the Chicago Crime Commission, founded by Chicago Attorney Frank J.
Loesch. In the 1920s, he was the one to coin the term, "Public Enemy," concerning Chicago's organized
crime figures. In the 1930s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started using this term for the
hoodlums and "n'er-do-wells" who would plague various parts of the nation.
[47]
Jan. 16, 1919 - The Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) was passed at the federal level, redefining
American law. One calendar year was given to drinking establishments, breweries, etc., across the nation to
close down. Drinking any alcohol was not, however, prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment.
[48]
July 27, 1919 - A full-scale race riot began in Chicago, with accompanying arsons, lootings and murders.
The riot was initiated when a gang of racist thugs known as "Ragen's Colts," which started as a baseball team
formed by two brothers, stoned and drowned an African-American swimmer who had strayed into the
segregated "White" area of a South Side beach.
[49]
The riot ended on Aug. 3, 1919.
Oct. 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9, 1919 - The 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati
Reds, played in part at Comiskey Park, had its memory forever tarnished when it was verified that a group
of Sox players conspired to "throw" the series for financial gain. In the aftermath of the series scandal, eight
Sox players were banned for life from professional baseball, even if they only knew about the "fix," but yet
didn't participate. The players were: Arnold "Chick" Gandil, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (questionable
involvement at best), Eddie Cicotte, Claude "Lefty" Williams, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, Charles "Swede"
Risberg, Buck Weaver and Fred McMullin. The 1919 Sox have been referred to as the "Chicago Black
Sox" since that time. Finally, though always denying publicly that he had any part in the 1919 World Series
"fix," New York City rackeeter and gambler Arnold Rothstein has been repeatedly mentioned over the
decades as the one who financed this scheme to "throw" the 1919 series, in order to personally reap a
financial windfall through betting on the series.
[50]
1919 (late) - Johnny "The Brain" Torrio brought his cousin and Al Capone from New York City to Chicago
to help with business, after he faced a couple of murder charges in New York.
[44][51]
1919 - Under the tutelage of forward-thinking racketeer Johnny Torrio, Al Capone stood in front of Jim
Colosimo's multi-use house of prostitution the, "Four Deuces," at 2222 S. Wabash Avenue, barkering to
male passers-by to enjoy what "Big Jim's" business had to offer. Johnny Torrio also ran Colosimo's holdings
from that building. Pre-Prohibition, Colosimo's influence through Torrio, by then into suburban Chicago as
well, had given Colosimo holdings of more than "a thousand gambling joints, brothels and saloons." Estimates
are that Colosimo-Torrio was grossing $4 million a year at that time.
[52][53]
1920s
1920s - By this decade, with the encouragement and allowance of First Ward aldermen John Coughlin and
Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna "more than 100 gambling and bookie joints" thrived in the Levee District, and
there were 800 more throughout the city. The opening up of houses of prostitution "spread like wildfire."
Coughlin and Kenna had such a grip on what went on in the ward, not "a cop or a city inspector" could
succeed making a move against them. The bribes totalled $60,000 a year, $10,000 more a year than when
the aldermen hosted the, "First Ward Ball."
[54]
1920 - Perfected in this year, the Thompson submachine gun, or the "Tommy Gun," aka, "the Chicago
typewriter," became the weapon of choice for at least some of the city's mobster gangs. The Saltis-McErlane
Gang was the first to use this gun in Chicago.
[55][56]
1920 - Future Outfit consigliere "Paul Ricca" (Felice DeLucia) came to America from Sicily, at age 23, and
eventually landed in Chicago, after serving two years in an Italian prison for murder, at age 17. After his
prison sentence, Ricca murdered the witness against him whose testimony put him in prison. Ricca was
suspected of killing others, but nothing ever came of any of that.
[57]
1920 - 14-year-old Tony Accardo's parents filed paperwork with the authorities claiming young Accardo
was two years older so that he could leave school and go to work, an apparently common practice in that
day.
[58]
Jan. 16, 1920 - Prohibition ("Volstead Act") took effect for 13 years. While all legitimate establishments that
served alcohol had to close because of Prohibition, it's estimated that 200,000 speakeasies sprang up across
the country to take their places. Between 1920 and 1928 the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversaw
bringing bootlegged alcohol-making gangs - which included bathtub gin made by locals - to justice, fired 706
agents and prosecuted another 257 agents for taking bribes related to Prohibition alcohol. In Chicago,
Prohibition had some professionals scrambling. Fifteen-thousand doctors and 57,000 druggists "applied for
'medicinal' liquor licenses," and sacramental wine sales rose by 800,000 gallons the first year of the new
law.
[59][60]
1920? - With the dawning of Prohibition, the Genna brothers decided to switch from extorting the wealthy to
producing illegal alcohol (with help from many Italian- and Sicilian families in Little Italy). Having only a
permit to make industrial-grade alcohol, they took the finished product, put additives in it to make it
palatable, then labelled it whatever they wanted - gin, bourbon, etc. Drinking the brothers' alcohol was
known, even at that time, to "cause psychosis."
[61]
The Gennas' base of operations was an alcohol
processing plant at 1022 Taylor Street, in "The Patch," where allegedly the Gennas openly paid monthly
bribes to a large number of police from the neighborhood Maxwell Street precinct and even had money left
over for few men in the state attorney's office.
[24]
Feb. 2, 1920 - Labor racketeer Maurice "Mossy" Enright was killed near his South Side home.
May 11, 1920 - Three weeks after marrying his second wife, gambling racketeer and "whoremaster" Jim
Colosimo was gunned down in the lobby of his self-named restaurant at 2126 S. Wabash Avenue,
supposedly waiting for a shipment of some kind. Nobody was ever charged with the murder. Police
considered the "prime suspect" to be New York City gangster and Torrio-Capone ally Frankie Yale. At
Colosimo's funeral, there was an open, obvious mix of gangsters and politicians at the "lavish" affair.
Aldermen Coughlin and Kenna were kneeling before the coffin.
[62][63]
1921 - Within a fraction of time of Jim Colosimo's murder, Johnny Torrio had brokered a deal with all the
city's major gangs to share the city's Prohibition wealth by dividing the city into territories that each gang had
a piece of. Only the South Side O'Donnell Gang refused to come to the table. The gang was shortly
thereafter eliminated. Within weeks of Colosimo's murder, Torrio had moved into the suburbs with his
"army" stock of gambling, girls and booze. He persuaded the Gennas and Unione Siciliana to side with him,
even though Torrio wasn't Sicilian.
[64]
1921? - After the Torrio organization partnered with the Gennas, buying whatever alcohol the brothers could
produce, taking in shipments of Canadian liquor, and adding the "vice" element to his organization, Torrio
brought in $10 million a year, with the blessing of Unione Siciliana president Michele "Mike" Merlo, now a
Torrio friend.
[65]
Apr. 15, 1921 - Sam Cardinelli, extortionist and "Black Hand" leader, was executed by the State of Illinois
for the murder of a saloon owner, after a challenge to the execution was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1922 - Publishing magnate Moses L. "Moe" Annenberg bought the rights to The Daily Racing Form.
[66]
Mar. 22, 1922 - Tony Accardo was arrested for a "motor vehicle violation" just before his 16th birthday.
This was his first known arrest.
[58]
1923 - Al Capone established his headquarters at the Lexington Hotel, at the corner of east 22nd Street
(Cermak Road) and south Michigan Avenue, in Chicago. He also gained control of the Chicago suburb of
Cicero, Illinois, as a "safe base" for his illegal operations.
1923 - Because of city political reforms, the number of aldermen per ward was reduced from two to one.
Michael Kenna gave up his aldermanic seat in favor of his friend and ally, John Coughlin. Kenna was then
elected First Ward Committeeman.
[67]
1923 - Tony Accardo was charged with disorderly conduct, for "loitering" around a pool hall where people
of questionable character were known to congregate. He was charged $200 and court costs. He was still
living at his parents' home.
[68]
1923 - Around the time of his first disorderly conduct arrest, Tony Accardo hit the little "Big Time" and
joined the Circus Cafe Gang, which met at the Circus Cafe, 1857 North Avenue. At the time, the alleged
leaders of the gang were Claude Maddox ("Screwy Moore"), Anthony "Tough Tony" Capezio, and
Vincenzo De Mora ("'Machine-Gun Jack' McGurn"). Accardo steadily rose in the gang by going from
pickpocket, to doing home invasions, to driving trucks loaded with Prohibition alcohol. He was arrested
eight times before age 21 while the young tough was with the gang, mostly for disorderly conduct.
[69]
Sept. 17, 1923 - George Meegan, a Chicago bootlegger allied with the Southside O'Donnells, and
Southside O'Donnell member George Bucher were killed by Frank McErlane.
1924 - Prosperous Irish mobsters Paddy Lake and Terry Druggan, of Chicago's little-known Valley Gang,
each got a year in jail for contempt of court. This gang was willingly taken in and made a part of Capone's
organization by the end of Prohibition.
[70]
Apr. 1, 1924 - Frank Capone, brother of Al Capone, was killed by Cicero policemen during a gunfight
which broke out in the city during the 1924 Chicago elections, during strong-arming support at the polls of
gangster-backed, Republican politician Joseph Z. Klenha. Brother Al made sure his brother, Frank, had a
"lavish" send-off at his funeral.
[71]
May 1924 - Out of loyalty to one of his men, top Outfit boss Al Capone shot to death freelance hijacker Joe
Howard at Heinie Jacobs' saloon on south Wabash Avenue after he'd assaulted Outfit accountant Jake
"Greasy Thumb" Guzik and then insulted Capone, himself, when he tried to find out why Howard "slapped
and kicked (Guzik) around."
[72]
May 19, 1924 - Despite conflicting accounts of the situation and its aftermath, on this date crime lord Johnny
Torrio handed over $500,000 to rival crime lord Dion O'Banion, after Torrio believed O'Banion's story that
he was tired of his life of crime and wanted to leave the rackets; thus, he wanted to sell Sieben Brewery to
Torrio for $500,000 and make a clean break with his old life. What O'Banion didn't tell Torrio was that
O'Banion knew the brewery was to be raided by the authorities, thus bringing beer production to a
screeching halt and bringing possible jailtime for the apprehended offenders.
[73]
Nov. 8, 1924, Legitimate Unione Siciliana President Mike Merlo died of cancer. Of all of the Chicago
"talking heads" of the day people would gravitate to, Merlo was one who tried to foster "peace" and civility
among the warring Chicago gangs. Unione Siciliana was then taken over by "Bloody Angelo" Genna.
[74]
Nov. 9, 1924 - North Side Gang leader Dion O'Banion was shot multiple times and died, when three men
identified as Albert Anselmi, John Scalise (who both secretly had switched alliances to Capone) and the
handshaker, Frankie Yale, entered O'Bannion's flower shop, "Schofield's," 736 N. State Street, across from
Holy Name Cathedral, on the pretense of picking up a floral arrangement.
[75]
O'Banion's murder began a
five-year gang war between the North Side Gang under O'Banion, then under Hymie Weiss, then under
Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci (and later under George "Bugs" Moran), and Al Capone's Chicago Outfit,
that probably started when O'Banion swindled Outfit head Johnny Torrio out of half-a-million dollars when
O'Banion sold Torrio a Prohibition brewery O'Banion knew was going to be raided by the authorities.
[76]
Nov. 1924? - Apparently following O'Banion's murder, another North Side Gang member, highly decorated
World War I veteran Sam "Nails" Morton, "known" by Chicago police to have committed several murders,
was riding a horse in Chicago's Lincoln Park, when the horse threw the gangster and then kicked him to
death. Morton's gangster buddies got the last word and exacted gangster revenge on the horse. The "hit" was
planned by "Louis 'Two Guns' Alterie" (Leland A. Varain).
[77]
1925 - Joey "Babe Ruth" Colaro organized what would become Chicago's infamous, "42-Gang," which
would become a virtual "farm team" for the ranks of the Chicago Outfit. This group of street delinquents
would seem to do anything for a "buck", or to impress the "ladies". A number of these outlaws were
recruited into the Outfit, with some of them making it into its highest ranks, including: Sam Battaglia, Felix
Alderisio, Sam DeStefano, Marshall Caifano and his brother, Leonard, Charles Nicoletti, Fifi Buccieri,
Albert Frabotta, William Aloisio, Frank Caruso, William Daddano, Joe Caesar DiVarico, Rocco Potenza,
Leonard Gianola, Vincent Inserro and Sam Giancana.
[78][79]
1925 - Outfit front man and "42-Gang" graduate Sam "Momo" Giancana's arrest record consisted of more
than 70 criminal offenses by this year. Giancana was considered the "prime suspect" in three murders before
age 20, including the murder of a witness against him.
[80]
1925 - Vigilante citizens raids took place in Cicero, gainst Capone's whorehouses and gambling dens.
Jan. 12, 1925 - North Side Gang members Hymie Weiss, George Moran and Vincent "Schemer" Drucci
followed the limousines that Al Capone and Johnny Torrio were riding in to a restaurant, at south 55th Street
and west State Street. Both limousines were fired on in a hail of gunfire, but neither Capone, nor Torrio were
hurt. However, Torrio's chauffeur and dog were killed in the attack.
[81]
Jan. 24, 1925 - North Side Gang members again ambush Johnny Torrio as he returned from a Loop
shopping trip with his wife. The gunmen shot him several times and wounded him and his chauffeur, Robert
Barton. As George Moran was about to kill the wounded Torrio, the gun misfired and Moran was forced to
flee as police arrived on the scene. For two weeks after he was shot, it looked like Torrio would die, but he
recovered.
[82]
Feb. 9, 1925 - Johnny Torrio was sentenced by Judge Adam Cliffe to nine months in the Lake County,
Illinois, jail, in Waukegan, for being the owner of the Sieben Brewery when it was raided by the authorities.
The jail was supposedly chosen by Torrio's lawyers as a facility necessary for Torrio to receive proper
medical treatment for gunshot wounds; however, the jail was actually chosen for Torrio's protection as the
prison warden, Sheriff Edwin Ahlstrom, was in the pay of Torrio's organization. Torrio was later escorted by
Capone out of the city after his release. After much time to reflect in jail, Torrio decided the gangland empire
he was trying to build was too risky, personally. He handed the entire works to Capone. When Torrio left
the city for Brooklyn, New York, for good, at the end of 1925, or in early 1926, he took $30 million with
him.
[82]
1925 (Spring) - One year after Republican Joseph Klenha won the mayor's office of Cicero with Torrio and
Capone's support, Klenha vowed in print to "run his office independently of the gangster element." Al
Capone went to the Cicero City Hall and beat the mayor unconscious in full view of the police, who did
nothing to Capone. Thus, Capone became Cicero's "de facto mayor." At risk to the Torrio-Capone machine
were 100 saloons and 150 gambling establishments installed in Cicero since Klenha had taken office.
[83]
Note: It's not known if Johnny Torrio had left Chicago's organized-crime scene by this point, because he
would have still been in jail.
1925?-'26?-'27? Top-dog in the Chicago underworld, Al Capone's organization was pulling in $105 million
a year. Adding flash to his personality, Capone began buying $5,000 suits and custom fedoras at some point
along the way.
[84]
May 25, 1925 - "Bloody Angelo" Genna was murdered after being followed in his car by the North Side
Gang and Genna smashing into a lamppost after being chased. Someone then stepped out of the other car
and shot Genna to death. Apparently, nobody was charged with the gangster's murder.
[24]
June? 1925 - A month after his brother's death, Mike Genna and Genna Family members Albert Anselmi
and John Scalise, who had secretly switched alliances to Al Capone, were going for "a ride," where Genna
was unknowingly going to be killed. During the drive, the gangsters got involved in a shoot-out with police.
Genna was wounded and immobile, and Anselmi and Scalise bolted from the scene. Mike Genna died two
hours later. Two cops also died because of the shoot-out. Following Mike Genna's killing, brother Tony
Genna was killed by a trusted friend, after Tony Genna went into hiding following Mike Genna's death. Tony
Genna's death ended the Genna crime family for good.
[85]
1925 - Sometime after Angelo Genna's murder, professional fiddler and gangster Samuzzo "Samoots"
Amatuna walked into the Chicago branch of Unione Siciliane and declared himself the winner of the local
chapter elections that hadn't happened yet. Al Capone became furious at Amatuna for this, because Capone
had his own guy in mind for the job, Antonio Lombardo ("Tony the Scourge").
[74]
Nov. 13, 1925 - Samuzzo Amatuna, an ally of the "Bloody Gennas," was gunned down after sitting down in
a Cicero, Illinois, barber shop chair, allegedly by North Side Gang members Jim Doherty and Vincent
Drucci. Amatuna died at the hospital, before he could marry his fiance. Al Capone then had Tony
Lombardo installed as president of the local chapter of Unione Siciliana.
[74]
1925?-'26 - Realizing Outfit boss Al Capone was a "train wreck," according to one biographer, Capone
mentor Johnny Torrio returned to Brooklyn, New York, and began work on, "The Commission," realizing
that having a centralized ruling body overseeing organized crime in America would bring the overseers untold
wealth and power and ultimately give more wealth to - and, in theory, produce less violence among - the
individual crime families. The meeting took place at New York City's Park Avenue Hotel. The participants
included: "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano" (Salvatore Lucania), who masterminded New York's five crime families
and was the Genovese crime family's first boss, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, who went on to head-up organized
crime's assassins-for-hire group, "Murder, Inc.," Abner "Longy" Zwillman, who was a "Prohibition gangster"
and who also went on to be a member of "Murder, Inc.," "Joe Adonis" (Giuseppi Antonio Doto), was one of
the key criminal minds in beginnings of 20th-century American organized crime, "Frank Costello ("The Prime
Minister", Francesco Castiglia), a powerful gangster who also went on to head the Genovese crime family,
"Meyer 'The Brain' Lansky" (Meyer Suchowljansky), known as the "Mob's accountant" and a good friend
and business associate of "Lucky" Luciano, and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, allegedly the 'most feared' member
of Murder, Inc. This meeting was reported in the New York Times, in 1935, and was, "ratted out," by one
of the participants, Reles, in 1941. Following Reles' revelation, he either jumped or was forced out of a hotel
room window. He died from the fall.
[86]
1926 - Beginning this year, forces from Chicago to Washington, D.C., had been at work to "dethrown"
gangster Al Capone. With "The Big Guy" being the lead name of those who were turning the city into a
shooting gallery, Chicago Loop banker, Rufus C. Dawes, and his brother, Vice-President of the United
States Charles Dawes, under President Calvin Coolidge, launched an all-out assault on Capone. The
brothers' reason was clear. Rufus Dawes was president of the World's Fair Corporation at the time, which
would bring the Century of Progress to the city, in 1933. Fear of being hurt or killed by gang gunfire while in
the city could affect attendance, and the fair and showcasing Chicago life and business could be a financial
disaster for the city and state. Capone had to be removed. The Dawes' lobbied both Coolidge and his
successor, President Herbert Hoover. By May 1927, the brothers had handed to them "the goose that laid
the golden egg," which would allow the feds to nab Capone and put him away for a long time.
[87]
Apr. 27, 1926 - After the South Side O'Donnells had been inching their way in on Al Capone's Chicago
territory for a while, then in on Cicero, Illinois, Capone had had enough. With five cars and 29 gangsters, he
went to greet the O'Donnells at Cicero's Pony Inn. No O'Donnell member was wounded, however.
Capone's men did kill an assistant state's attorney who had been drinking with the O'Donnells. Realizing the
gravity of what had taken place, Capone hid out in Michigan for a time. While Capone was in hiding, not
only was the tide of citizen sentiment turning against him, police "sought reprisal, ransacking Capone's
speakeasies, gambling joints and whorehouses, some beyond repair." His cash-cow Cicero whorehouse was
reduced ashes by a fire. While six grand juries addressed the attorney's killing, no indictments followed.
[88]
July 1926 - When Capone returned to the city after hiding out, he went to the Cicero police who wanted to
question him about the assistant state's attorney's killing. Capone responded with an apparently unconvincing
line that he didn't kill the attorney, and he'd "liked the "kid" so much, Capone had personally given the
attorney a bottle of alcohol for his father the day before the murder.
[89]
Sept. 20, 1926 - Using 10 cars in a successive motorcade, North Side Gang leader Hymie Weiss and his
crew ambushed Outfit boss Al Capone with a cavalcade of bullets during his stop at the Hawthorne Inn in
Cicero. Capone, being protected by his bodyguard Frank Rio, didn't have a scratch on him, neither did Rio.
A Capone gunman, Louis Barko, and an innocent bystander, outside in a car during the attack, were slightly
injured. Capone gave the injured bystander $5,000 for her medical bills. When Capone was asked who was
responsible for that drive-by shooting, he reportedly said "Watch the morgue. They'll show up there."
[90]
Oct. 4, 1926 - In a show of magnanimity, Capone sent out RSVP invitations to host a city-wide gang summit
as Johnny Torrio had done. However, still enraged because of Dion O'Banion's murder, Hymie Weiss
responded he'd be at the summit "with grenades exploding and guns blasting." He also wanted the heads of
O'Banion's killers, something Capone would never have given up.
[89]
Oct. 11, 1926 - Three weeks after the last assassination attempt on Al Capone and one week following his
summit invite, Hymie Weiss and his bodyguard were gunned down and three bystanders were wounded
when the gangsters walked into their gang's clubhouse, the second floor of gangster Dion O'Banion's old
flower shop, on north State Street. Weiss' estate was valued at over $1.3 million.
[81]
Across the street from
O'Banion's flower shop, Holy Name Cathedral still bears the bullet holes today from the ambush on Weiss.
Oct. 20, 1926 - Capone's gangland conference took place as planned, at the Hotel Sherman, across the
street from a "chief of police headquarters." All of the major city gangs attended, and a still living North Side
Gang member presented the conference's opening talk. But, the conference's goodwill was temporary.
[91]
1927 - A study found that in the city, 1,313 gangs existed, claiming 25,000 members.
[92]
1927 - Outfit heavyweight Paul Ricca got married. Al Capone was his best man.
1927 - Highly ineffective and short-lived against the criminal gangs who were raging against the city at the
time, Chicago police tried to stop the criminals by employing groups of police officers who would be ready
to shoot known criminals with machine guns at the drop of a hat. This group of officers was known as,
"O'Connor's Gunners," after Chicago Police Chief of Detectives William O'Connor.
[93]
1927 - Sam Valante, recently hired by Joe Aiello, was killed while arriving in Chicago.
Jan. 26, 1927 - The Hawthorne Inn restaurant owner and Capone friend was killed by members of the
North Side Gang. However, per the gang-conference agreement, Capone didn't retaliate. Yet, when the
West Side's Joe Saltis killed gang member Ralph Sheldon, another Capone friend, Capone vented his rage
on the West Side gunmen who killed his friend. Following the murders of these gunmen, Joe Saltis wisely
"retired" to Wisconsin.
[94]
Apr. 4, 1927 - Arrested after being taken into police custody for perpetrating election violence, North Side
Gang leader Vincent Drucci was shot four times and killed by Chicago Police Department Detective Dan
Healy, while Drucci was in police custody. According to one report, the shooting was highly
controversial.
[95]
May 16, 1927 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that profiting from "illicit traffic(ing) in liquor" would be
taxable by the feds (U.S. v. Sullivan).
[96][97]
Nov. 9, 1927 - Singer and comedian Joe E. Lewis was viciously attacked and slashed on the face and neck
and left for dead in his Commonwealth Hotel room by henchmen associated with Outfit lieutenant "Machine-
Gun Jack" McGurn, who was at least part-owner of the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, 4802 N. Broadway, in
Uptown, where Lewis had been under contract, but decided not to renew. After the attack, Lewis initially
lost his ability to speak, but regained it with therapy. Al Capone stepped up and gave Lewis $10,000 to aid
his recovery.
Apr. 10, 1928 - The extraordinary level of violence leading up to Chicago's Republican primary election led
to the election being called the, "Pineapple Primary" because of the handgrenades used liberally by both
sides. Adding to the chaos were "about 1,000" Capone minions breaking arms and legs of those who
opposed Capone's candidate for mayor William Hale Thompson. Chicago Crime Commission founder
Attorney Frank J. Loesch paid Al Capone a visit to "demand" that the gangster get his and all the other gangs
to cooperate in a cease-fire leading up to the November general election. Capone made that work, and there
was peace in Chicago.
[98][99]
July 1, 1928 - New York City gangster Frankie Yale was gunned down in New York City by alleged
Capone mob members, after Yale had tried to take over Chicago's Unione Siciliana by backing Capone
opponent Joe Aiello, who was also backed by Chicago's North Side Gang. A second reason Yale was
killed may have been that Capone found out that Yale was stealing Capone's liquor shipments and then
selling them back to him.
[100][101]
July 25, 1928 - Aiello gang member Salvatore Canale was killed outside his home in Chicago.
Sept. 7, 1928 - Capone's former consigliere and Unione Siciliane president, Antonio Lombardo, was
gunned down during a busy Chicago rush hour, where north State Street divides Madison Street between
east and west, apparently by the Aiellos. Capone vowed revenge and retaliated by killing four of Aiello's
brothers.
[101][102]
1929 - The Capone organization was bring in $6 million a week. Capone had a personal worth of $40
million.
[103]
1929 - Tony Accardo was allegedly made head enforcer for Capone's Chicago Outfit.
1929 - Chicago native Eliot Ness returned to the city as a U.S. Bureau of Prohibition agent, under the U.S.
Treasury Department, with his "Untouchables" to try to stop the flow of illegal booze and bring down the
Capone empire.
[104]
Jan. 8, 1929 - Unione Siciliane leader Pasquale "Patsy" Lolordo was killed in his apartment, supposedly by
Joe Aiello and members of Moran's North Side Gang.
[101]
Feb. 14, 1929 - Four unidentified men, dressed as Chicago police officers, stormed into a Near North Side
garage, S-M-C Cartage Co., at 2122 N. Clark Street, and murdered members of gangster George Moran's
North Side Gang and two groupies, but missed killing Moran, who was not around when the killings
happened. Known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the attack effectively ended the five-year gang war
between Al Capone and the North Side Gang, which had presumably started some years before, when one-
time North Side Gang leader Dion O'Bannion swindled Outfit founder Johnny Torrio in a deal for a
Prohibition brewery O'Banion knew would be raided. A second scenario believed to be the reason for the
killings was that Capone found out that Moran's gang was hijacking Capone's booze shipments, so a phony
shipment was set up to lure Moran's gang to its demise. Moran and gangster Joey Aiello went into hiding
after the killings. At the time of the murders, Capone was vacationing at his Palm Island, Florida, compound.
Nobody was charged with this massacre, but seemingly everyone known to be allied with a gang in the U.S.,
in the late 1920s, has been broached as a suspect in the Chicago gangster crime biographies written through
the decades since the bloodbath. However, since the killings, it has been found through ballistics that one of
the guns involved in the massacre was also involved in two other killings, that of a Michigan policeman and
New York City gangster Frankie Yale. The gun was traced to Capone man Fred "Killer" Burke.
[105][106]
Mar. 1929 - In the wake of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Chicago Daily News publisher Frank Knox
and Chicago Crime Commission director Frank J. Loesch pled with President Herbert Hoover for federal
intervention in Chicago's gang wars. At that time, there were 63 gang-related murders a year. Besides the
work of Knox and Loesch, there was group of crime-fighting Chicago businessmen known as the "Secret
Six" who were working behind the scenes to bring Capone down.
[107]
May 7, 1929 - Gangster Al Capone claimed he wanted to hold a party in honor of three mobsters in his
ranks who he'd found out were actually traitors behind-the-scenes to mobster-rival Joe Aiello and Aiello's
desire to wrest Unione Siciliane from Capone's grip. So, Capone held a ruse dinner at a roadside inn in
Hammond, Indiana, in honor of ferocious killers Albert Anselmi and John Scalise and Capone's man heading
Unione Siciliana at the time, Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta. After the party was in full-swing, Capone personally
beat the three traitors with an "Indian club." Then, Capone shot all three men. Their bodies were found on a
roadside near Hammond. Contrary to popular culture, Capone enforcer Tony Accardo wasn't mentioned as
having played any role in either account.
[108][109]
May 13,14,15,16, 1929 - While the St. Valentine's Day Massacre outrage was still brewing around the
nation for many gangsters, mobsters from across the nation got together in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the
Hotel President, for the Atlantic City Conference, the first of its kind, to attempt to construct a national
"crime syndicate," or so-called, "crime corporation," aka "The Commission." To ensure that things went
smoothly, Atlantic City political boss and racketeer Enoch "Nucky" Johnson paid off law enforcement. The
purported attendees at the conference besides Johnson were future Murder, Inc., boss Albert Anastasia
(Umberto Anastasia), New York City bootlegger and numbers racketeer Dutch Schultz (Arthur
Flegenheimer), another head of Murder, Inc., Louis "Lepke" Buchhalter, future head of the Genovese crime
family Frank Costello (Francesco Castiglia), Genovese boss Lucky Luciano" (Salvatore Luciana),
Prohibition bootlegger and Murder Inc.-associate Abner "Longy" Zwillman, bootlegger, racketeer and future
"Mr. Las Vegas" Morris "Moe" Dalitz, Genovese family member Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (Benjamin
Siegelbaum), Kansas City, Missouri, political boss Tom Pendergast, who had just helped launch future
President Harry S. Truman's political career seven years earlier, and Al Capone. Capone brought with him
to the conference Daily Racing Form owner Moses L. "Moe" Annenberg and Capone accountant and
political "fixer" Jake Guzik. Former Chicago gang mastermind Johnny Torrio was there from New York, as
he had instigated "The Commission" in the first place. The conference was called for to work toward a united
front among the nation's organized crime leaders while removing the "old" mafia and bringing in the "new"
mafia, cooperation during Prohibition and gambling concerns. While a "14-point peace plan" was the result
of the conference, "Capone the man" also became a hot topic for discussion at the conference, because the
other racketeers understood that despite payoffs to local authorities, the Feds would only take so much of
what was going on in Chicago gangland before they would find a way to deal with it, and that treatment of
Capone by the Feds might spill over onto other organized crime-controlled cities. Jealousy concerning
Capone's "success" seemed to find its way into the conference: with their eyes on the Chicago turf war,
which by the time of the conference was finished for good, the other organized crime bosses demanded that
Capone "immediately dismantle" his gambling empire and give it to "The Commission." However, Capone
"adamantly refused to be forced into that humiliation." The crime bosses also had the audacity to install
deadly Capone-opponent Joey Aiello as the Unione Siciliane's Chicago branch president, which didn't last
long.
[110][111]
1929 - Most likely following the Atlantic City conference and for reasons not quite clear, Chicago gang boss
Al Capone "strolled" through Philadelphia, and was "arrested" on a concealed weapons charge. The arrest,
which was solely a PR move, landed him in prison for "a year" at the Eastern Penitentiary, in Philadelphia.
However, Capone was actually free to leave the prison when he wished, according to one biographer. The
"incarceration" had been set up by Philadelphia racketeer Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, with Capone's knowledge
and consent. While "incarcerated" in prison, Capone had a number of comforts, including use of the warden's
office phone. Capone allegedly tipped the arresting policemen $20,000.
[112][113]
May 29, 1929 - Thomas McElligot of the Westside O'Donnells was killed in a Chicago Loop saloon.
1930s
1930s - Rival gangs threw dynamite into the others' cabs in what became Chicago's, "Taxi Wars."
1930 - By this year, President Herbert Hoover's work on behalf of Chicago's "Al Capone" problem began
to "get legs." A Washington, D.C., special prosecutor, Dwight H. Green, was dispatched to Chicago to
"send Chicago gangsters to prison," specifically Al Capone. Any government ammunition Green needed to
bring down Capone was at Green's disposal, as long as he could prove the need. However, Capone wasn't
ignorant of the growing ground-swell of sentiment against him across the nation, even that his deeds had
reached the fed's ears, who he knew had started to make plans of their own against him by motivating men
such as Frank J. Wilson, a U.S. Secret Service agent, and Elmer Irey, the Internal Revenue Service head.
So, Capone sent some of his legal team to the nation's capitol, "to put in the fix," by spreading Capone's
wealth around in the tens of thousands of dollars, at least. Yet, while the money was taken, it bought Capone
no influences at all in Washington, D.C. To wit: The investigation into Chicago gangsterism also brought
charges and convictions for tax evasion against Capone underlings "Frank Nitti" (Francesco Nitto), who was
sentenced to 18 months in prison and a $10,000 fine, and Capone's brother "Ralph" (Raffaele Capone, Sr.),
who got three years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and a $10,000 fine.
[114]
1930 - Months before Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle's murder, Chicago Daily News news
reporter Julius Rosenheim was shot to death by gangsters, after Rosenheim blackmailed bootleggers,
whorehouse overseers and gamblers by threatening to write exposs about them. Apparently, nobody was
ever charged with the murder.
[115]
Mar. 1930 - Gangster Al Capone had had enough of his PR exile in Philadelphia, so he left the prison.
[113]
1930 (likely the end of the Spring semester) - Soon-to-be "Super Lawyer" Sidney Korshak received his law
degree from DePaul University College of Law. One of his most important functions for the Outfit was his
work in eventually getting cash siphoned from the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund to infuse
organized crime's "promised land," Las Vegas, with cash. But, one to never be seen with any mobsters in
public, a sanitized Korshak also "moved easily" in elite Hollywood- and in sports team circles and with
captains of industry and commerce. Korshak's California office was at a Beverly Hills eatery called "The
Bistro," where women and men would fawn over him, or want an audience with him. However, for Outfit
business he always used the restaurant's pay phone. The "Super Lawyer" could do miracles for his legitimate
clients anywhere with one phone call, even though he never tested for the California bar exam. His clients'
bills went through Korshak's Chicago office.
[116]
June 9, 1930 - Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle was gunned down in broad daylight, in a busy Illinois
Central commuter train station underpass, at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street. At first,
the deceased reporter was hailed as a hero. Over time though, people began to learn that Lingle's death had
more to do with who his friends were, than what his news reporting was about. A one-time low-level
member of St. Louis' Egan's Rats, Leo Vincent Brothers, found his way to Chicago and was convicted of
Lingle's murder. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but was released from prison in 1940. It was noted
by the author of this end-line reference that Brothers may not have been the one to shoot Lingle.
[117]
Aug. 1, 1930 - One-time pimp and former Outfit accountant Jack Zuta was gunned down while hiding out at
an inn on Upper Nemahbin Lake, near Delafield, Wisconsin, after defecting to the North Side Gang. Some
believe Zuta had even ordered the contract on Jake Lingle.
Oct. 28,
[118]
1930 - North Side Gang bootlegger Joe Aiello was shot to death after unsuccessfully
attempting to bribe a hotel cook to poison Al Capone. Trusted Capone associate Louis Campagna has been
alleged to be Aiello's killer as Aiello walked out of his apartment on north Kolmar Avenue. No one was ever
charged with the murder.
[119]
Nov. 6, 1930 - Forty-two-Gang member at the time and soon to be Outfit rising star Sam "Teets" Battaglia
and two other thugs executed a brazenly stunning armed jewelry robbery on the, then, mayor of Chicago's
wife, Mary Walker "Maysie" Thompson, as she walked into her apartment. The crooks ran-off with
$15,000 in Thompson's jewelry and also with the gun and badge of Thompson's chauffeur-cop. Battaglia
was never identified by witnesses of the crime.
[120]
1931 - William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson was defeated for mayor of Chicago by Anton Cermak.
1931 - Long-time freelance Chicago, "assembly-line" pimp Mike "de Pike" Heitler was found burned to
death in the wreckage of his house after he defied the poor treatment he was allegedly getting, due to a
Capone takeover of his whore house business, by "ratting" details concerning Chicago Mob business.
[121]
1931 - Sometime in this year, a group of mostly college graduates in the Chicago area, dubbed, "College
Kidnappers," decided it was going to take the bold step of kidnapping low-level, area gangsters and holding
them for ransom. Allegedly, the Klutas gang, named after leader Theodore "Handsome Jack" Klutas, took in
a half-million dollars from these kidnappings in about a two-year span.
[122]
Oct. 17, 1931 - Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion following a four-day trial in Chicago. While
Capone's original jury had been bribed by his underlings, the presiding federal trial judge, James Wilkerson,
switched the jury at the last minute. It was also reported that Capone's defense team was ill-prepared to
protect him against the stream of witnesses testifying to the gangster's "lavish lifestyle." However, Capone
had "cut a deal" with the prosecutors during the pre-trial to drop 5,000 Prohibition violations that could have
"nailed him" for 25,000-years-to-life if convicted on all the charges. The public talk concerning the trial,
during and afterward, was that the poor showing of Capone's lawyers in his defense smacked of a set-up
against Capone. Capone's close associate Paul Ricca was quoted explaining that Capone had to go away for
a while, for the benefit of the organization. It has been said by the author of this end-note reference that
Capone underling Gus Winkler was prevented by other Capone men from freeing him outright with
$100,000 upfront tax payment (not a bribe) to the federal taxman.
[123]
Oct. 24, 1931 - One week after being convicted of tax evasion, Capone was sentenced to 11 years in
federal prison (first, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, then Alcatraz Island), fined $50,000 and charged $30,000
in court costs. While awaiting transfer to Atlanta to serve his sentence, Capone sat in Cook County Jail,
where it was reported in this accoount that he had all the booze and women he wanted.
[124]
Dec. 1931 - Months before the nationally broadcast news about the kidnapping of aviator Charles
Lindbergh's baby, in 1932, and some time before any federal kidnapping law was enacted, Outfit lieutenant
Murray "The Hump" Humphreys kidnapped and held for $50,000 ransom Robert G. Fitchie, president of
the Milk Wagon Driver's Union. Fitchie was released when the ransom was paid to Humphreys, who went
to get the money, it was alleged.
[125]
May 1932 - Capone began serving his 11-year sentence for tax evasion, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was
eventually transferred to Alcatraz Island to finish his sentence.
[126]
1933 - Chicago "reform" Mayor Anton Cermak sent two city cops to Outfit frontman Frank Nitti's office to
put a "hit" on the gangster. Apparently, the mayor wanted to take over Outfit territory and give it to the likes
of Teddy Newberry, someone more to the mayor's liking. Nitti eventually recovered from his injuries.
[127]
1933 (early) - Theodore "Handsome Jack" Klutas was machine-gunned to death by cops after one of his
gang turned on Klutas, ending the gang's kidnapping spree.
[122]
1933 - Des Plaines, Illinois, gangster Roger Touhy was arrested by the FBI and eventually sentenced to 100
years in prison for kidnapping a Capone associate, con man Jake Factor. The kidnapping has been widely
seen as a frame-up by the Outfit to take over Touhy's rackets. Allegedly after Touhy's conviction, Outfit
mobsters flooded into Des Plaines.
[128]
Feb. 15, 1933 - Corrupt Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was riding in an open car with President-elect
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in Miami, Florida, when Cermak was hit with sniper bullets. He died three
weeks later. Speculation for years afterward was that Cermak had always been the sniper's real target, not
FDR, the president-elect, in part because Cermak had put a failed "hit" of his own out on Outfit frontman, at
the time, Frank Nitti. Cermak's assassin was a sharp shooter during his time in the Italian army.
[129]
Dec. 5, 1933 - Prohibition legally came to an end with the signing into law of the U.S. Constitution's 21st
Amendment, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was time for organized crime across America to find a
new money-making racket.
1934 - Colorfully versed Mob "girlfriend" and Mob courier Virginia Hill came to Chicago to be a coochie
dancer at the 1933-34 World's Fair. She eventually became more than "arm candy" for some of the top
brass in the Outfit, before she moved on to others and eventually to Genovese Family mobster Benjamin
"Bugsy" Siegel. First, she met Mob tax expert and top Chicago bookie Joe Epstein, who was smitten with
Hill throughout his life, even after they broke up. Then, she was seen with the Fischetti brothers, Charles,
Rocco and Joseph, Murray Humphreys, Frank Nitti and [Tony Accardo, who is believed to always have
been faithful to his one wife.
[130]
1934 - Outfit member Tony Accardo married his fiance and former showgirl, Clarice Porter. Within a short
time after the marriage, Accardo became a capo who oversaw Outfit gambling.
[131]
June 13, 1934 - The Copeland Act, federal anti-racketeering legislation, was signed into law by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
[132]
Feb. 4, 1935 - Thomas Maloy, president of local 110 of the Motion Picture Operators Union, was killed by
multiple gun blasts from a pair of gunmen while Maloy drove down Outer Lake Shore Drive, near the former
site of Chicago's 1933-34 World's Fair. FBI Agent William F. Roemer believed the gunmen were Tony
Accardo and Gus Alex, with Frank "Strongy" Ferraro going along to help out.
[133]
Feb. 15, 1936 - Once a top Outfit player, Jack McGurn was gunned down by three unknown assailants at
Kafora Bowling and Billiards Parlor, 805 N. Milwaukee Avenue. Members and associates of the Outfit are
the leading suspects in the murder. But, nobody was ever charged.
[134]
Nov. 11, 1938 - Former First Ward alderman and "Levee Lord" John Coughlin died on this date, at age 78.
January 1939 - Once feared and respected, Mob leader Al Capone was transferred from Alcatraz Island to
the Federal Correctional Institution on Terminal Island, near Los Angeles, California, because of
deteriorating health due to an advanced case of syphilus.
[135]
Nov. 8, 1939 - Chicago Attorney Edward O'Hare was shot to death by two unknown gunman who drove
alongside his car while O'Hare drove down Ogden Avenue. Apparently, O'Hare double-dealt the Outfit by
managing some of its affairs and also by feeding information about the Outfit to authorities for years.
O'Hare's son, Edward Henry "Butch" O'Hare, who became "the Navy's first flying ace" and a Medal of
Honor recipient in World War II, became the namesake for Chicago's O'Hare Airport sometime after his
father's death and during the initial airport building stages in late 1943 or early 1944. The name proposal was
suggested by Chicago Tribune publisher Colonel Robert R. McCormick, who had been part of the Illinois
National Guard, which served a tour of duty in Europe beginning in 1917, during World War I.
[136]
Nov. 16, 1939 - Steadily declining in mental capacity and in overall health, Outfit boss Al Capone was
released from federal custody and sent home to Chicago.
[135][137]
1940s
1940s - The Latin Kings criminal organization was formed in Chicago. The alleged motivation for forming
this group was an attempt to overcome the prejudices that Hispanics faced at the time.
Mar. 19, 1943 - Facing extended incarceration for the extortion of Hollywood film studios and being
claustrophobic, Outfit front boss Frank Nitti got drunk and publicly committed suicide on an Illinois Central
railroad track, in North Riverside, Illinois, blocks from his home.
[127][138]
1943 - The court in the "Hollywood Extortion" trial found eight men associated with the Outfit, Paul Ricca,
Louis Campagna, Phillip D'Andrea, Frank Diamond (Maritote), Charles Gioe, Johnny Roselli and a New
Jersey union boss, Louis Kaufman, guilty of conspiracy and extortion. They were all, then, sentenced to 10
years in Leavenworth Penitentiary. Though he was charged with these crimes, Frank Nitti was exempted
from sentencing, because he'd committed suicide. Having steadily risen in the Outfit ranks, Tony Accardo
became acting Outfit boss while Ricca was away in prison, with some claiming Murray Humphreys was co-
boss with Accardo during that time.
[138]
1943 - Paul "The Waiter" Ricca met "Mad Sam" DeStefano in Leavenworth Penitentiary and must have told
him to look-up the Outfit boss when DeStefano got out.
Aug. 3, 1944 - Lawrence Mangano, a mobster who oversaw Outfit interests on the Near West Side, was
gunned down at Blue Island Avenue and Taylor Street, along with his body guard, "Big Mike" Pantillo,
during a night of Mangano's partying with a lady friend, after the Mangano car stopped because the partiers
realized they had been followed for some distance that night. There were at least 200 shotgun pellets in
Mangano's body, after being shot when he got out of the car to see what the problem was. Pantillo was shot
when he tried to pull Mangano out of harm's way. The murders have never been solved. However, it's been
suggested that Mangano's death made for an easier ascension and transition to power for new top Outfit
boss Tony Accardo.
[139]
Aug. 23, 1945
[140]
- Capone-era, prolific Outfit bomber James "Jimmy the Bomber" Belcastro died of heart
disease.
Sept. 1946 - Gangster James M. Ragen died of mercury poisoning, which followed Ragen being shot at with
a hail of bullets and landing in the hospital the previous month, after the Chicago Outfit gave Ragen a chance
to have his race wire business bought out by the mob.
[141]
Nobody was ever charged with the murder.
Oct. 9, 1946 - Former First Ward alderman and "Levee Lord" Michael Kenna died from heart problems
and diabetes at age 89.
Dec. 22, 1946 - During this week, the Outfit sent a delegation of its top mobsters to the "Havana
Conference," in Havana, Cuba, a historic organized crime conference for top mobsters from throughout the
U.S. The decisions and policies decided at this conference applied to the American Mafia infrastructure of all
of the Mafia Families for decades thereafter. Acting Outfit head Tony Accardo was there, as well as Capone
cousins, the Fischetti brothers, Charles, Joseph and Rocco. However, some of the Outfit's top brass had to
be excused, because they were in Leavenworth Penitentiary. The 1946 conference was the last time the
American Mafia's Top "Boss of bosses" Charles Luciano could have the full-expression of his power mean
something, because earlier in 1946 he'd been deported from America back to Italy, but got to the Cuba
conference on a forged passport. It was during this conference it had been decided that Genovese mobster
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel would be assassinated for allegedly skimming Flamingo building funds for his own
purposes and allegedly for being a terrible businessman in overseeing the casino's construction. Singer and
Hoboken, New Jersey native Frank Sinatra, allegedly, was the conference's entertainment.
[142]
1947 - The Outfit higher-ups who were each sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Hollywood extortion
case were paroled from Leavenworth Penitentiary in 42 months, a decision granted at the time by U.S.
Attorney General Tom C. Clark, under President Harry S. Truman. About two years later, Clark was
appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. One condition of Paul Ricca's release from prison by the court was
that he was banished from ever associating with the criminal element or he was to, then, face serving the rest
of his prison sentence; which, depending on what the reader believes, there were enough corrupt cops in
Chicago to shield Ricca from even one appearance before a local judge for the rest of Ricca's life.
Jan. 25, 1947 - One-time head of the Chicago Outfit Al Capone died at his Palm Island, Florida,
compound, of an advanced case of syphilus.
June 20, 1947 - Following the murder of Genovese Family mobster "Bugsy" Siegel, which happened on this
date, his "girlfriend," Mob courier Virginia Hill, was told by Outfit taxman Joe Epstein she "had to" return any
money Siegel stole from his bosses during his building of the Flamingo, in Las Vegas. She did.
[130]
1950s
Apr. 6, 1950 - After failing to keep his promise to use $200,000 of borrowed Mob money - mostly from
the Chicago Outfit - to get newly elected Missouri Governor Forrest Smith to "open up" Kansas City and St.
Louis to Mob interests, or to even pay the money back, Kansas City mob boss Charles Binaggio and his top
enforcer Charles Gargotta were found shot to death, each man having four bullet holes in his skull showing a
dice pattern, a way to murder a victim that is considered by law enforcement a Mob "hit." Binaggio and
Gargotta were killed in Kansas City's First Ward Democrat offices. These killings were the springboard for
the originally stalled United States Senate Kefauver Committee hearings, then just a month in the future. This
was also the political ward which launched the political career of President Harry S. Truman, in 1922, whose
Attorney General in the Truman administration, Tom C. Clark, set free on parole the incarcerated Outfit
higher-ups who perpetrated the extortion of Hollywood celebrities and movie studio owners in the 1930s
and early 1940s.
[143][144]
May 10, 1950-May 1951 - Broadcast live across America even though the majority of households didn't
have televisions yet, the Kefauver Committee hearings (aka, United States Senate Special Committee to
Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce) convened in allegedly mobster-controlled cities around the nation,
including in Chicago, where former pimp, Outfit accountant and legal wiz Jake Guzik made an appearance.
Outfit "West Coast" man Johnny Roselli testified, but said a lot of nothing. Also, to testify was Captain Dan
Gilbert, chief investigator for the state attorney's office in Cook County, Illinois, after not raiding a single
jurisdictional "bookie joint" in more than 10 years. He was called, "The World's Richest Cop," by reporters.
Outfit heavyweight Paul Ricca and bosses Louis Campagna and Charles Gioe were called to Washington,
D.C., to testify before the Committee, but all said they had made their wealth from the "race track." Al
Capone's living brothers, John and Ralph, also were called before the Committee in the nation's capitol.
However, many alleged mobsters in other organized crime cities came down with, "Kefauveritis:"
Spontaneous ailments which wouldn't allow the alleged mobsters to testify before the Committee at any
location it called them to.
[145][146]
Sept. 19, 1950 - Outfit Florida-man Harry "The Muscle" Russell, with the help of Murray "The Camel"
Humphreys, set a federal precedent in testifying before the Kefauver Committee when Russell was the first
person in American history to invoke "The Fifth" - the right not to incriminate one's self - while sitting before
any Congressional committee.
[147]
Sept. 25, 1950 - Fired former Chicago Police Detective William Drury was murdered in his garage, at the
time he was investigating the life and activities of Outfit "Super Lawyer" Sidney Korshak for the Kefauver
Committee hearings. Apparently, nobody was charged in the killing.
[148]
Jan. 1951 - Secret Outfit boss Tony Accardo followed-up Harry Russell's Kefauver Committee precedent
by invoking "The Fifth" 140 times, in Washington, D.C. Outfit boss Joseph Aiuppa stopped saying anything
to the Committee and only chewed his gum. Both Accardo and Aiuppa were cited for Contempt of
Congress, but neither citation was upheld in federal court.
[149]
March 15, 1951 - Mob "girlfriend" and secret Mob courier Virginia Hill was called to testify before the
Kefauver Committee for one, because the Committee knew that the Outfit had given Hill a ton of money for
unknown reasons. While the verbally incindiary, verbally expletive-laden Hill didn't give-up any information
of value, she did put on quite a show for Committeemen and reporters alike. The Committee was aware of
Hill's antics beforehand and had her sit down with it in a pre-Committee, closed-door session, as was
warranted.
[150]
May 28, 1951 - Outfit lieutenant Murray Humphreys, who schooled other Outfit mobsters in the art of
"keeping quite" before Congress, had a contentious session with the congressmen while being asked personal
questions about his life and family. He was cited for Contempt of Congress, but the citation wasn't upheld in
federal court.
[151]
1952 - The IRS forced Murray Humphreys to pay taxes on the ransom money he'd received for the 1931
kidnapping Robert G. Fitchie, president of the Milk Wagon Driver's Union. Humphreys paid $25,000 in
taxes on that money.
[125]
Aug. 18, 1954 - Having weathered federal prison for participating in the "Hollywood Extortion Scandal" in
the 1940s, Outfit liuetenant Charles Gioe was murdered while driving on a Chicago street. Gioe's mobster-
associate passenger, Hymie Weisman, escaped being murdered by fleeing the car. Mob underlings who
worked for Outfit-connected labor leader Joey Glimco have been suspected of carrying out the
assassination. But, nobody was ever charged with the murder.
1955 - On order from soon-to-be Outfit front boss Sam Giancana, Outfit loanshark and "nutjob" Sam
DeStefano killed his low-level mobster- and drug-addicted brother, Michael. When DeStefano was
questioned about the killing, he laughed uncontrollably. So, while an untold number of connected guys may
have put Mob-associated blood relatives "to sleep" throughout the decades, just as part of their "job
descriptions," there is evidence that Sam DeStefano was a "devil worshipper."
[152][153]
Nov. 4, 1955 - Extortionist, informer and former pimp Willie Bioff ("William Nelson") was blown to
smithereens by a dynamite bomb blast from under his car, after turning on the ignition at his Phoenix,
Arizona, home. He testified against his Outfit friends more than a decade earlier for a lighter sentence in the,
"Hollywood Extortion Case," and was found at that later time, supposedly by Outfit Las Vegas, casino
overseer and assassin Marshall Caifano (Marcello Giuseppi Caifano), to be working as the entertainment
director at Gus Greenbaum's Riviera Hotel and Casino. Nobody was ever charged in the
murder.
[108][154][155]
Feb. 21, 1956 - One-time pimp, turned Capone confidant, Outfit legal wiz and top accountant, Jake Guzik
died of a heart attack at his post at St. Hubert's Olde English Grill, on Federal Street. However, the Mob
brass did not want Guzik to be found dead in a gangster hangout. So, they secreted his body to his home
and told his wife to tell medical personnel Guzik died there.
Feb. 21, 1956? - After the death of the Outfit's highly esteemed Jake Guzik, Outfit lieutenant Murray
Humphreys became the Chicago Mob's chief "political fixer."
[125]
1957 - Outfit consigliere Paul Ricca was ordered by a court to be stripped of his U.S. citizenship and then
ordered deported back to Italy. But, in the midst of Ricca's legal team's maneuvering, court appeals and bid
to "tell the truth" about the mobster, neither Italy, nor any other country applied to, would take him.
[156]
1957 (early) - Tony Accardo retired from the day-to-day leadership of the Chicago Outfit and appointed
Sam Giancana to oversee these operations of the crime syndicate. However, Accardo remained a presence
in the organization serving in an advisory capacity as consigliere on all major Outfit business and
assassinations.
[157]
Feb. 25, 1957 - One-time Prohibition bootlegger and Al Capone nemesis George Moran died of cancer in
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for bank robbery. He had just
completed a previous 10-year sentence for another robbery. Moran was buried in a wooden casket outside
the prison.
[158]
Apr. 16, 1957 - Foundational Outfit leader Johnny Torrio died of a heart attack while in a barber chair in
Brooklyn, New York.
Nov. 14, 1957 - An aborted Mafia conference took place in Apalachin, New York, after state police and
federal investigators showed up at the home of Genovese Family member Joseph "The Barber" Barbara, Sr.
(some label Barbara as only a businessman with "friends" in organized crime), unannounced. Fifty-eight high-
level Mob members from various parts of the country were detained by the police. Outfit consigliere Tony
Accardo and newly elevated Outfit front-boss Sam Giancana, reportedly at the conference, were not among
those detained. They had gotten away unnoticed. Yet, any charges filed against any conference members
were not related to the conference itself, because it was simply a meeting. Conspicuous by their absences:
Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, "Doc Stacher" (Joseph Oystacher), the New Orleans Mob representatives
and Charles Luciano, who was deported at the time, didn't attend the meeting. There has been considerable
speculation over the years as to why the raid took place at all. One source said the raid happened because
of "money matters" between Barbara and the police. Another source pointed to recorded statements to back
the idea that this meeting and subsequent raid were allowed to occur as a set-up to embarrass in-coming
Mob boss Vito Genovese. Another source said the raid happened because of good police work by a local
cop. However, six-months after the conference, Genovese was arrested on drug charges and received a 15-
year sentence. He died after 10 years in prison.
[159][160]
Nov. 27, 1957 - In the wake of the stunning news of organized crime's Apalachin conference, FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover ordered all FBI field offices to implement his "Top Hoodlum Program: Anti-Racketeering"
and assign agents to investigate organized crime in those cities, including Chicago.
[161]
1958 - The Vice Lords criminal organization was founded in St. Charles Correctional Facility by a group of
young thugs from 16th Street, on Chicago's west side.
1958 - During the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management
hearings (McClellan Committee meetings), in Washington, D.C., Outfit Nevada]-casino overseer and
"hitman" Marshall Caifano invoked the "Fifth Amendment" 73 times. During John "Jackie the Lackey"
Cerone's "testimony" at the McClellan Committee hearings, he took "The Fifth" 45 times.
[162]
Dec. 3, 1958 - Brilliant accountant-Las Vegas point man and Outfit-connected Gus Greenbaum and his wife
were found brutally murdered in their Phoenix, Arizona, home. There could have been any number of
reasons for the Greenbaums' murders, including his alleged casino skimming, or the fact that he'd hired Outfit
"Rat" Willie Bioff to work at one of the casinos following the "Rat's" betrayal of his Outfit loyalties. Nobody
was ever charged with the Greenbaums' killings.
[163]
Mid-1959 - Actor, producer and Desilu Productions owner Desi Arnaz had a Mob "contract" put out on his
life by the Outfit for creating and producing the very "less than accurate," cult-television hit, "The
Untouchables," which incited Italians across the nation at the time. Arnaz even refused to back down from
the project when he got a call from Al Capone's son, "Sonny," Arnaz's childhood classmate and one-time
best friend. The contract was apparently stopped when Al Capone's wife, Mae, dissented to the "hit" and
after singer Frank Sinatra, sent in to talk Arnaz out of the project, got a million-dollar deal to produce
whatever movie he wanted at Desilu.
[164]
July 1, 1959 - Outfit heavyweight Paul Ricca was sentenced to 10 years (reduced to three years) at the
federal prison in Terra Haute, Indiana, for tax evasion. He served 27 months.
[165]
Dec. 16, 1959 - After spending 26 years of his 100-year sentence in prison for a kidnapping that was
concluded by Federal Judge John H. Barns not to be a kidnapping at all, but instead was a "disappearing" by
con man Jake Factor, Des Plaines, Illinois, racketeer Roger Touhy was eventually released from prison one
month before he was gunned down on the steps of his sister's house on this date. A $40,000 price was
allegedly put on the "hit" for Touhy, by Outfit lieutenant Murray Humphreys. Humphreys then awarded the
contract to himself. But, no evidence was found to link him to the murder.
[166]
1960s
1960s - The Black Gangster Disciples criminal organization was formed on Chicago's South Side, by uniting
two separate gangs. The two gangs conjoined were, The Supreme Gangsters, led by Larry Hoover, and the
Devil's Disciples, led by David Barksdale.
1960 - The State of Nevada's Gaming Control Board first published the so-named, "Black Book," which
had a short list of 11 names of men banned from all casinos in Nevada. Three of the 11 men were allegedly
associated with the Chicago Outfit: Sam Giancana, Murray Humphreys and Marshall Caifano, who sued on
constitutional grounds and also seemingly for slander, but lost his case. The 'Black Book" is still published
today.
[167]
1960 - Summerdale scandals; Eight Chicago police officers were accused of operating a large-scale burglary
ring, an embarrassment to the city's mayor at the time, Richard J. Daley.
June 1960 - Outfit boss Tony Accardo and his lieutenant, Murray Humphreys, and two other mobsters were
having dinner during a weekly Thursday meeting at Accardo's Franklin Avenue address, in River Forest,
Illinois. However, this meeting, in particular, was to "decide who would become the next president of the
United States."
[168]
Nov. 15, 1960 - Outfit frontman Sam Giancana allegedly "fixed" the 1960 U.S. presidential election-day
results in Cook County, Illinois, in favor of Sen. John F. Kennedy, of Massachusetts. Presidential-race
challenger Richard Nixon, vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the time, did not
challenge the race's election results in court.
Aug. 11, 1961 - Outfit loanshark William "Action" Jackson was suspended on a meathook and tortured
two-to-three days until he died of shock, by fellow Outfit mobsters who mistakenly thought Jackson had
become an FBI informant. While nobody was ever charged in the murder, apparently at least some of
Jackson's killers - which included enforcers: Fiore "Fifi" Buccieri, James "Turk" Torello, John "Jackie the
Lackey" Cerone, Sam DeStefano and Dave Yaras - were found discussing Jackson's torture-murder on an
FBI surveillance tape. Also, while some believe Jackson reported to DeStefano, he actually reported to
William "Willie Potatoes" Daddano, Sr., according to the FBI.
[169][170]
1961 - Robert F. Kennedy became U.S. Attorney General under his brother, President John F. Kennedy.
Robert Kennedy, "....was the first attorney general of the United States to make a serious attack on the
Mafia and organized crime;" and, "many hold he was the last one."
[171]
Nov. 30, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy authorized "Operation Mongoose," a plan to clandestinely
assassinate the leader of Cuba's revolutionary military forces, communist dictator Fidel Castro. In
cooperation with the CIA, the federal government was allegedly planning to use members of the Chicago
Outfit, such as Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, to carry out this operation.
[172][173]
See also: "Family
Jewels."
May 2, 1962 - Chicago police received a call that a suspicious car was parked on Superior Street. When
the police checked out the call at 1:00 a.m., they found two men on the floor of a 1962 Ford sedan trying to
not be noticed in the car. Ultimately, the two men told police they were waiting for someone they didn't
know, in a car that wasn't either of theirs, nor did either of them know who owned the car - someone who
ultimately turned-out to be non-existent. But, the men in the car turned-out to be Outfit "hitmen" Felix
"Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio, of Riverside, Illinois, and Charles Nicoletti, also of Riverside, The two were
taken into custody and each posted $1,000 bond. However, police couldn't link the "hitmen" to any crime of
the moment, or even link them to the car they were found in. So, the men were let go, even though the car,
later dubbed the "Hitmobile" by reporters, had a secret compartment for guns and extra switches installed to
turn off the taillights. There was also a switch to change license plates on the car. The car was impounded by
the police.
[174][175]
May 3, 1962 - Burglar Jimmy Miraglia went missing.
[175]
May 15, 1962 - The bodies of burglars Jimmy Miraglia and Billy McCarthy were found in the trunk of a car
on west 55th Street. They were badly beaten and their throats were slit. At one point earlier, they had
received "juice loans" from loanshark Sam DeStefano. They had also, some time before, killed three people
in a robbery attempt in a neighborhood called "off limits" by Outfit brass. DeStefano, Tony Spilotro, Charles
Nicoletti and Felix Alderisio were involved in murdering the two burglars, according to court testimony years
later. It was also found out that McCarthy was tortured to find out the whereabouts of his partner, Miraglia.
One of the tortures that McCarthy was subjected to was having his head put in a vice and having the vice
tightened until he talked. But, one of his eyes then popped out as the vice was tightening, instead. However,
McCarthy gave up Miraglia's whereabouts anyway. McCarthy was then killed. Yet, unlike the popular Mob
movie, Casino, in which the vice torture was re-enacted, this source is unsure which Outfit torturer tightened
the vice on burglar McCarthy. The torture deaths of these two men is known as the "M&M Murders" in the
Chicago crime annals.
[176]
1963 - The FBI's "lockstep surveillance" of Outfit front boss Sam Giancana began.
[177]
Nov. 22, 1963 - President Kennedy was assassinated while being driven in a convertible, while in a
presidential motorcade, in Dallas, Texas. It's been widely and hotly debated to this day whether the Chicago
Outfit had anything to do with supplying the gunman/-men who killed President Kennedy. Yet, at the time,
the Warren Commission declared that one, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone in the killing. But, Oswald,
himself, was, then, assassinated in broad daylight, while surrounded by law enforcement, by lone gunman
Jack Ruby (a man who had a lifestyle that raises more questions than gives answers) before Oswald could
go to trial.
1965 - Outfit front boss Sam Giancana was thrown in federal prison for one year for a federal Contempt of
Court citation, when he refused to testify to his or the Chicago Outfit's alleged criminal activities.
Nov. 23, 1965 - Outfit lieutenant, legal strategist and chief "political fixer" Murray "The Camel" Humphreys
suffered a fatal heart attack. A "laceration" was found on the back of the deceased Humphreys' head, below
his right ear. Some believe that Humphreys could have been stuck with an empty hypodermic needle and had
a shot of air sent to his heart, causing his heart attack. Just prior to the heart attack, he'd had a visit at his
apartment from some FBI agents where he'd pulled a gun on them. Humphreys had to post bail for this irratic
behavior. Allegedly, then, word spread that "The Hump" was "losing it."
[125]
May 20, 1966 - While hiding out with his family at the Country Club Motel, at 8303 North Avenue, building
contractor and Tony Accardo friend Sam Panveno ("Van Corbin") was shot and killed by two unknown
men, after Accardo found out Panveno had been paid a visit by FBI Agent Bill Roemer. The specific motive
for the killing is unclear. Apparently, Panveno built one of the Accardos' River Forest, Illinois, homes.
Nobody was ever charged with Panveno's murder.
[178]
Dec. 1966 - After being let out of federal prison after one year, Sam Giancana was then deposed as Outfit
front boss, due to his high-profile lifestyle and his surly, confrontational demeanor to authorities that brought
an abundance of "heat and light" on Chicago's underworld. He then moved to Mexico to oversee the Outfit's
international gambling operations.
1968 - The Outfit's man in Hollywood, Johnny Roselli, still a formidable force in, "Tinseltown," and several
other people, cheated Hollywood celebrities, including Tony Martin. Phil Silvers and Zeppo Marx, out of
$400,000 in a crooked card game.
[35]
1970s
February 17, 1970 The Towne Hotel (formerly Capone's Hawthorne Inn), 4833 22nd Street, Cicero,
Illinois, burned to the ground. When questioned about its ownership, Outfit front boss Joseph "Ha Ha"
Aiuppa pleaded "the Fifth" five-dozen times.
[179]
He must have remembered what Outfit lieutenant Murray
Humphreys had taught him going into the Kefauver Committee hearings in the 1950s.
August 1970 Outfit loanshark and juice loan collector Michael "Hambone" Albergo went missing after
receiving a federal indictment concerning his mob activities. More than 35 years later, fellow mob associate
and loanshark Frank Calabrese, Sr., was convicted during the 2007 "Operation Family Secrets" trial of
killing Albergo and burying his body under what is now the U.S. Cellular Field parking lot, on west 35th
Street, in the Armour Square neighborhood, on Chicago's South Side. Calbrese received life in prison for
that murder and the other murders he was convicted of committing during the trial. Calabrese's brother,
Nick, was also one of Albergo's assassins. But, Nick Calabrese became the prosecution's star witness
against his brother, Frank, and other mobsters, who were tried on various other charges. Nick Calabrese
was taken in to the Federal Witness Protection Program after the trial.
Oct. 15, 1970 - The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act law was enacted to allow
federal prosecutors to look at organized crime not just as various people committing various, unrelated
crimes against the law, but instead to look at it as a group of people committed to acting illegally in order to
maintain and sustain a specific, orchestrated "criminal enterprise". This law was first used against organized
crime in the mid-1980s.
Sept. 25, 1971 - One-time day-to-day boss, prolific earner and hitman Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio
died in federal prison of natural causes, after being convicted of extortion. His funeral was attended by the
top Outfit brass, including Tony Accardo.
[180]
1972 - Very under-the-radar, yet very highly placed Outfit North Side boss Ross Prio died of natural
causes. It was said he was even consulted on "hits".
[25]
Oct. 11, 1972 - Behind-the-scenes boss and ultimate Outfit consigliere Paul Ricca died of a heart attack.
1973 - Outfit tough guy and frontman Sam Battaglia died in prison during a 15-year sentence, after being
convicted of extortion six years earlier.
[120]
Apr. 14, 1973 - Outfit loanshark Sam DeStefano was shotgunned to death in his garage, allegedly by his
brother Mario and one-time Sam DeStefano protg Tony Spilotro. Nobody was charged in the
murder.
[181]
Dec. 20, 1973 - Richard Cain, cop turned mobster, turned informant for the FBI, was shot in the head at a
busy Rose's Sandwich Shop, on 1117 W. Grand Avenue. The alleged suspects are Marshall Caifano and
Joseph Lombardo. No one has ever been charged in the murder.
Sept. 27, 1974 - Once complicit with Chicago Outfit activity, area businessman and federal witness Daniel
Siefert was gunned down at his Bensenville, Illinois, plastics factory, in front of his wife and youngest son for
deciding to testify in a federal investigation as to his knowledge of an embezzled and "laundered" $1.4 million
from the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund. Joseph Lombardo, Sr., was convicted of the murder
during the "Operation Family Secrets" trial and was sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, evidence was
shown that Lombardo's fingerprint was on the car title of the car used in Siefert's murder.
[182]
June 19, 1975 - Former boss Sam Giancana was shot in the back of the head while cooking a snack of
sausages and escarole in his Oak Park home on his birthday. It has been debated whether it was the Outfit
or CIA that murdered Giancana. There has been speculation that alleged Outfit associate Butch Blasi,
Giancana's friend and one-time driver, who visited him on the night of his death, was his killer. But, nobody
was ever charged in the murder.
June 24, 1975 - Outfit "West Coast" man Johnny Roselli testified during a special hearing of U.S. Senate
Intelligence Committee, in Washington, D.C.
[35]
Sept. 9, 1975 - Valued Outfit capo and adept torturer William "Willie Potatoes" Daddano, Sr., died in
federal prison, about three months after his good friend from his "42-Gang" days, Outfit front boss Sam
Giancana, was assassinated.
Aug. 9, 1976 - The decomposing body of Johnny Roselli was found floating in a 55-gallon drum, in Florida's
Biscayne Bay, following a not-quite completed hit. The killers forgot to make sure the drum wouldn't surface
with the body in it. His legs were sawn off and shoved in the barrel with the body. There had been
speculation as to who had killed Roselli, including Santo Trafficante, Jr., the alleged Florida Mafia boss at the
time who, at least, would have had to give permission for Roselli's body to be dumped in Florida. But,
nobody was ever charged with Roselli's murder.
Feb. 17, 1977 - Helen Brach, heiress to the Brach's candy fortune, disappeared after leaving the Mayo
Clinic gift shop. The alleged suspects in her disappearance are her "houseman", Jack Matlick, her alleged
lover Richard Bailey, horse stable owner Silas Jayne and Outfit associates Victor Spilotro and Curtis
Hansen. Only Bailey was charged with, but not convicted of, her murder. Brach has never been found dead,
or alive, and was declared dead in May 1984.
Mar. 29, 1977 - Feared hitman Charles Nicoletti was killed by three .38-caliber slugs to the head, while
waiting in his Oldsmobile at the Golden Horns Restaurant, in Northlake, Illinois. Supposedly, Outfit front
boss Joey Aiuppa ordered the "hit", because he believed Nicoletti had become an informant, which was
untrue. Outfit assassin Harry Aleman allegedly did the "hit". Nobody was ever charged with Nicoletti's
murder.
[183][184]
Nov. 1977 - Jewelry store owner Harry Levinson walked into his north Clark Street store to find he'd been
robbed of all his most expensive jewelry. It was a financial disaster, especially since Christmas was a month
away. The thieves had broken in and left the store without the alarm system sounding. Levinson called police,
but the police had found the thieves so good they left no trace of evidence. Then, Levinson called on his
friend and top Outfit boss Tony Accardo. At the end of their meeting, Accardo let Levinson know everything
would be ok. Two days later, Levinson received all of his stolen jewelry back at the store, after Accardo's
men traced the compromised alarm and the stolen jewelry to the work of burglar John Mendell.
[185]
1978 - Jimmy "the Bomber" Catuara was found dead near his car at Hubbard Street and Ogden Avenue.
Alleged mob associate Bill Dauber was a suspect in the murder. However, he would have done the killing
only at the bidding of his boss, Albert Tocco, who was allegedly trying to take over Catuara's rackets.
[186]
Jan. 9, 1978 - Months after Tony Accardo and his wife had left Chicago for the warmth of Palm Springs,
California, Accardo "houseman" and long-time friend Michael Volpe called Accardo to inform him that his
home on north Ashland Avenue, in River Forest, Illinois, had been torn apart, though nothing seemed to be
stolen. Access to the house was gained, because the burglar alarm was compromised. There was no mention
whether the Accardo's contacted the police about the break-in.
[187]
Jan. 20, 1978 - The body of Bernie Ryan, part of John Mendell's burglary crew, was found in his 1976
Lincoln Continental, in Stone Park, Illinois. He was shot four times, and his throat was slit.
[187]
Feb. 2, 1978 - The body of Steven Garcia, a partner of Bernie Ryan, was stabbed multiple times and his
throat was slit. His body was found in the parking lot of the Sheraton O'Hare, on Mannheim Road, in the
trunk of a rented car.
[187]
Feb. 4, 1978 - The bodies of Vincent Moretti and Donald Swanson ("Donald Renno"), suspected Accardo
home burglars, were found in Swanson's Cadillac, in the parking lot of Esther's Place, at 5009 S. Central
Avenue, in Stickney, Illinois. Being Italian in Chicago didn't offer Moretti any insight into the Italian culture of
Chicago. For his crime against Accardo, Moretti's face was torched off, he was disemboweled and his
throat was slashed like all the other Accardo-home burglars.
[188]
Feb. 20, 1978 - The tortured body of burglar John Mendell was found in the trunk of his 1971 Oldsmobile,
at 6300 S. Campbell Avenue.
[189]
Federal witness Nick Calabrese testified during the "Operation Family
Secrets" trial that Mendell was lured to a place where his brother, Frank Calabrese, Sr., strangled Mendell
and Nick Calabrese then slashed Mendell's throat.
[190]
Apr. 26, 1978 - Burglar Bobby Hertogs was found in the trunk of a car at a Jewel grocery store parking lot,
at 3552 Grand Avenue. He was shot multiple times and his throat was slashed.
[189]
Sept. 30, 1978 - Apparently, because of the just previous deluge of burglary murder victims in Chicago
associated with the break-in of Tony Accardo's home, a special federal grand jury - Northern District of
Illinois was held in Chicago to get to the bottom of the situation. Accardo was the first witness and flew
through his time by taking "The Fifth." The following witness was Accardo's "houseman", Michael Volpe. His
testimony took quite a bit of time, and allegedly it was "significant".
[191]
Oct. 5, 1978 - Accardo "houseman" Michael Volpe was reported missing by a family member. He has never
been seen since.
[191]
Nov. 10, 1978 - Because of Michael Volpe's unexplainable disappearance after testifying before a federal
grand jury, which could be construed as an obstruction of justice violation, the FBI sent a team of agents to
Tony Accardo's home with a search warrant. The Accardos were already wintering in Palm Springs,
California, by this time. So, with permission from the Accardos' oldest daughter and the family attorney, the
agents entered the home. Of the significant items seized in the raid, there was a note pad with Harry
Levinson's name on it, there was a police scanner like the one burglar John Mendell used, which turned up
missing from his possessions in his car, and there was $275,000 in cash wrapped in a Las Vegas bank's
paper-bill wrappers, found in vault that had been built in the home. However, the cash didn't leave the
premises without an intense fight with the Accardos' two daughters, with Accardo's criminal defense attorney
and after telephone conferences with a couple of bail bondsmen. Ultimately, the FBI raid didn't affect
Accardo at all. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made no judgments against him and
returned the $275,000 found in his vault.
[192]
May 22, 1979 - John Borsellino's bullet-riddled body was found in a farmer's field at the CookWill County
line. Then, the body of Gerry Carusiello was found with bullet holes in his back, in an apartment complex, in
Addison, Illinois. He was Outfit front boss Joey Aiuppa's driver at the time. Both deceased men were also
allegedly Outfit "hitmen" who'd killed six of the seven home burglars in John Mendell's partners, though
Borsellino and Carusiello did not kill Mendell. After these two Outfit murders, there was no reported FBI
raid on Tony Accardo, nor on anyone else allegedly connected with the Outfit.
[193]
1980s
1980s - Operation Greylord was a federal-level investigation, followed by various corruption trials, targeting
the Cook County, Illinois, judiciary (the Chicago jurisdiction).
1980s - "Marquette Ten": 10 police officers in Chicago's Marquette District were convicted of taking bribes
from drug dealers. Among those was Chicago police officer Thomas Ambrose, the father of former U.S.
Marshall John Ambrose, who was convicted 20-years later of leaking information to the Chicago Outfit
about federal informant Nick Calabrese, who testified against top Chicago mobsters in the "Family Secrets"
trial.
July 2, 1980 - Alleged Outfit "hitman" and muscle man William Dauber and his wife, Charlotte, were chased
in their car and shotgunned to death after leaving the Will County, Illinois, courthouse, allegedly by four Outfit
tough guys, Gerald Scarpelli, William Petrocelli, Frank Calabrese, Sr., and depending on the source, Joseph
"Jerry" Scalise, or Ronald Jarrett.
[194]
Calabrese's brother, Nick, corroborated that Frank had participated
in the Daubers' killings during the 2007 "Operation Family Secrets" trial.
Sept. 11, 1980 - Outfit burglars Joseph Scalise and Arthur Rachel stole the Marlborough Diamond (a value
of $960,000 in 1994) and $3.6 million worth of jewelry from a jewelry store in London, England, in broad
daylight. The diamond has not been recovered. Scalise and Rachel each got 15 years in jail in England for
the crime. They were both released in 10 years.
[195]
Feb. 10, 1983, Japanese, Chicago mob boss Ken Eto survived a Mafia hit and, then, testified in court
against the Chicago Outfit, sending more than a dozen fellow mobsters and corrupt cops to prison. Eto's
failed assassins, Jasper Campise and Johnny Gattuso, were later found dead in the trunk of one of their
cars.
[196]
Eto died in 2004, in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Feb. 13, 1985 - Long-time mobster and West Side Outfit street boss Chuckie English, downgraded to a
mob "soldier" and put in Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo's crew after English's good friend and former
Mob boss Sam Giancana's murder, was shot to death in an Elmwood Park, Illinois, restaurant parking lot,
allegedly by an Outfit "hitman." Nobody has been charged with the murder.
[197][198]
1986 - Having been convicted of skimming $2 million from Las Vegas, casinos, Outfit bosses Jackie Cerone
and Joe Aiuppa were given long prison sentences.
[199]
Jan. 1986 - Joe Ferriola was appointed boss of the Outfit. With the approval of his top captains and
consiglieri Tony Accardo, Ferriola had decided it was time to kill troublemaker Anthony Spilotro for causing
a multitude of problems in Las Vegas and in Chicago.
June 14, 1986 - Alleged Outfit Las Vegas overseer Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael, an alleged low-
level mob associate, went missing. Their bodies were later found beaten and together in a shallow grave, in a
cornfield, in Enos, Indiana. According to autopsy testimony given later in court, the brothers were not buried
alive.
[200]
June 15, 1986 - On Father's Day of that year, alleged Outfit boss Albert Tocco called his wife and told her
to pick him up at a cornfield in Indiana. Tocco, then, told his wife he'd just buried the Spilotro brothers.
[201]
Sept. 1986 - Outfit juice loan collector and one-time, no-show union official John Fecarotta was gunned
down while being chased on foot in front of Brown's Banquet's, Inc., 6050 W. Belmont Avenue, after he
realized the "hit" he was on was for him. He bolted from his car with three bullets wounds. The fourth wound
he'd received to the back of his head while running from his car to the banquet hall killed him. Apparently,
the "hit" was put out because Fecarotta botched the Spilotro brothers' burial assignment. The bodies were
not supposed to be found. Outfit "hitman" Nick Calabrese admitted killing Fecarotta in federal court during
the "Operation Family Secrets" trial. Because of DNA evidence, Calabrese also had to admit during the trial
that he was wearing the bloody glove that was dropped at the murder scene, while chasing Fecarotta, and
was found by investigators and federal law enforcement, who ultimately put together the "Family Secrets"
trial.
[202][203]
1988 - Outfit-associated bookmaker James Basile agreed to become a government informant, later
identifying a "Mafia graveyard" at Route 83 and Bluff Road, near Darien, Illinois. Over the years, the bodies
of three adult males were found there. Michael Oliver, age 29, of Chicago, a low-level mob associate went
missing in November 1979. His body was recovered May 16, 1988. Robert Hatridge, age 56, of Cincinnati,
Ohio, went missing in April 1979. His body was recovered June 9, 1988. Robert Charles Cruz of Kildeer,
Illinois, a low-level mob associate went missing Dec. 4, 1997. His body was found in March 2007. Cruz
was the nephew of alleged Outfit front boss Joseph Ferriola and the cousin of convicted Outfit "hitman"
Harry Aleman.
[204]
Dec. 1988 - Outfit bookie heavyweight Dominick Basso was convicted of gambling and conspiracy to
commit gambling and was given 20 months probation and 70 days of work-release. Basso was the bookie
linked by phone records to one-time Cincinnati Reds player-turned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose,
when he was accused of betting on sports in 1989. Rose has always denied the association with Basso, but
eventually admitted he'd bet on sports.
[205][206]
Mar. 11, 1989 - Outfit frontman Joe Ferriola died at a Houston, Texas, hospital after receiving his second
heart transplant.
1990s
1990s - Operation Silver Shovel
Mar. 21, 1990 - Outfit gambling boss of west suburban Elmhurst, Donald Angelini, who had operated a
highly successful sports betting empire along with Dominic Cortina, was arrested and sentenced to prison.
Each mobster got 21 months in prison and was ordered to pay for the $1,210-a-month cost of his
incarceration.
May 27, 1992 - Tony Accardo, Chicago's Boss of Bosses, died of congestive heart failure after almost 50
years at the helm of the Outfit.
[207]
1994 - Operation Greylord trials concluded.
1996 - "Super lawyer" Sidney Korshak died.
[116]
Sept. 1997 - Feared hitman Harry Aleman, nephew of one-time Outfit frontman Joe Ferriola, was retried for
the murder of Teamster William Logan and sent to prison, based on testimony by former Outfit attorney
Robert Cooley and evidence which showed the first trial would never have come back with a guilty verdict,
because the judge in the first case took a $10,000 bribe to acquit Aleman. So, the U.S. Constitution's
"Double Jeopardy" clause would not have been in play after the first trial's "Not Guilty" verdict. This was the
first time in U.S. history someone has been retried for the crime of capital murder after being acquitted.
July 24, 1998 - One of the "wiliest and slickest crooks" in the Chicago Outfit, high ranking Greek
descendant Gus Alex died of a heart attack in federal prison.
Mar. 28, 1999 - Outfit front-boss Angelo J. "The Hook" LaPietra died from natural causes.
Dec. 23, 1999 - Ronald Jarrett, a mob lieutenant to John "Johnny Apes" Monteleone, of the South Side 26th
Street crew, is shot while going to a funeral. It is the first mob hit in Chicago in seven years.
2000s
Jan. 25, 2000 - Ronald Jarrett died from the gunshot wounds he sustained in late 1999.
Jan. 15, 2001 - William Hanhardt, the Chicago Police Department's former Chief of Detectives, was
indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of masterminding a ring of Outfit-related thieves who stole $4.85
million in jewels in heists across the nation.
[208]
Nov. 20, 2001 - Highly feared Outfit "Juice Loan" operator and enforcer Anthony "the Hatch" Chiaramonti
was shot five times and killed after a vehicle pulled-up beside him and the loanshark had words with
someone inside the vehicle, outside a Brown's Chicken & Pasta in south suburban Lyons, Illinois. The
murder has not been solved.
Sept. 6, 2003 - One-time Las Vegas casino overseer and alleged Outfit "hitman," downgraded to an all-
around Outfit utility player after being removed from his job in Las Vegas, Marshall Caifano died of natural
causes. He was 92 years old.
Apr. 25, 2005 - The U.S. Department of Justice's Operation Family Secrets trial indicted 15 Outfit top
mobsters and associates under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Joseph
"The Clown" Lombardo, a top Outfit leader, and Frank "the German" Schweihs evaded their indictments and
became fugitives for a time.
Sept. 21, 2005 - After having been extradited from Greece by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 1989,
where he fled to, reputed Outfit boss Albert Tocco died at the federal prison at Terra Haute, Indiana, after
having a stroke, while serving a 200-year prison sentence for racketeering, conapiracy, extortion and tax
fraud.
Dec. 16, 2005 - Outfit "hitman," muscleman and fugitive from justice in the Operation Family Secrets trial,
Frank Schweihs was apprehended in Berea, Kentucky.
Jan. 13, 2006 - Outfit boss and fugitive from justice in the Operation Family Secrets trial, Joseph Lombardo,
Sr., was apprehended in Elmwood Park, Illinois. FBI agents found him while a mob "person of interest" was
under surveillance, most likely John "No Nose" DiFronzo, but this has yet to be confirmed.
June 14, 2006 - Former city clerk James Laski was sentenced to 24 months in prison after admitting he
pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in bribes as part of the, "Hired Truck Program."
June 15, 2006 - A 26-year-old member of the Vice Lords on Chicago's West Side was arrested.
Reportedly, he had information on where the supply of fentanyl-laced heroin was coming from which had
already killed at least 60 people.
[209]
Aug. 31, 2006 - Mobster Anthony Zizzo disappeared. His car was found in Melrose Park, Illinois. There
was no sign of foul play, because his body has never been found.
June 18, 2007 - Aided by RICO, the Operation Family Secrets trial began in Chicago.
Sept. 10, 2007 - The "Family Secrets" trial's anonymous jury found guilty verdicts on all counts of the five
defendants where there was corroborating evidence against the defendants and not just witness testimony
against the defendants. The five defendants were Joseph Lombardo, Sr., James Marcello, Frank Calabrese,
Sr., Paul Schiro and Anthony Doyle.
[210]
July 23, 2008 - Alleged Outfit "hitman" and muscleman Frank Schweihs died of cancer.
Sept. 9, 2008 - Alleged Outfit boss Nicholas Ferriola, son of one-time Outfit frontman Joe Ferriola, was
convicted of running a gambling operation and of extorting a Chicago pizza chain. He was given a three-year
prison sentence.
2009 - High-ranking Chicago Outfit members Joseph Lombardo and James Marcello were sentenced to life
imprisonment, because of their convictions in the "Family Secrets" trial.
Apr. 28, 2009 - Deputy U.S. Marshal John T. Ambrose was convicted of leaking secret information to the
Chicago mob about federal, protected witness, mobster Nick Calabrese in the Chicago organized crime
investigation, Operation Family Secrets.
[211]
Ambrose was charged with theft of U.S. Justice Department
property, disclosing confidential information and lying to federal agents who questioned him about the leak.
He was however acquitted of two charges of lying to federal agents. Ambrose is the son of disgraced former
CPD Officer Thomas Ambrose, who was convicted of taking bribes from area drug dealers as part of the
Chicago Police Department's "Marquette Ten" scandal, in the 1980s.
2010s
May 15, 2010 - Hitman Harry Aleman died in state prison during his 300-year sentence, after being retried
for the murder of Teamster William Logan, for which, at first, Aleman was acquitted. In a historic U.S.
Supreme Court ruling following the first trial, the U.S. Constitution's "Double Jeopardy" clause, which
originally forbid Aleman to be retried for the murder, was found not to apply in his first court case, because
of judicial corruption in the first trial. So, Aleman was retried and found guilty.
Dec. 25, 2012 - Convicted in the deaths of six men and one woman during the Operation Family Secrets
trial, Outfit enforcer and loanshark Frank Calabrese, Sr., age 75, died at the Butner Federal Correctional
Complex, in North Carolina, while serving a life sentence.
[212]
Feb. 27, 2013 - Mob enforcer Mario Rainone was found guilty by a federal jury on a charge of a felon in the
possession of a firearm. Because he is a habitual criminal, he faces at least 15 years in prison. He was to be
sentenced June 5, 2013.
[213]
See also
Timeline of organized crime
Hired Trucking Scandal
Chicago Crime Commission
List of Chicago criminal organizations and crime bosses
Crime in Chicago
References
1. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.8
2. ^
a

b

c
Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.10
3. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.9,10
4. ^
a

b
6. ^ Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna (http://annalsofcrime.com/03-04.html)
7. ^ John "Mushmouth" Johnson and the Policy Racket
(http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2444.html)
8. ^ John V. Johnson, gambling house owner (http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/4323/Johnson-John-V-
1907.html)
9. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.92,93,360-362
11. ^ One reference notes as late as 1893; Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999),
pp.252,253
12. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.252,253
13. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.278-280
15. ^
a

b
"Bathhouse John" Coughlin and Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna
(http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2408.html)
16. ^ "All Down But Nine: Out Of 34 Old Aldermen 25 Are Retired". Chicago Tribune. April 6, 1892. p. 1.
17. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp.20-23
21. ^ The First Ward Ball (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-wardball-
story,0,1020358.story)
22. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.316,379,380
23. ^ A second source reports that the Gennas came to America as late as 1910; Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury
(2001), p.22
24. ^
a

b

c
Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.150,151
25. ^
a

b
26. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.17,18
27. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp.21-24
28. ^ "City of Traverse" (http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/ships/id125.html)
29. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp.21,22
30. ^ Alderman Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna (http://wwww.southloophistory.org/people/kenna.htm)
31. ^ Giancana, Antoinette and Thomas C. Renner, Mafia Princess: Growing Up in Sam Giancana's Family, William
Morrow and Company, Inc. (1984), p.30
32. ^
a

b
Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), p.278
33. ^ Alderman Michael "Hinkey Dink" Kenna (http://www.southloophistory.org/people/kenna.htm)
35. ^
a

b

c
36. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.22
39. ^ Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1912
40. ^ Roemer, Jr., William, F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.23
41. ^ Giancana, Antoinette and Thomas C. Renner, "Mafia Princess: Growing Up in Sam Giancana's Family," William
Morrow and Company, Inc. (1984), p.295
44. ^
a

b
Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.360-362
45. ^
a

b
Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.24
47. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), p.220
52. ^ pp.Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), 139,140
53. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.18,19
58. ^
a

b
Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.18
63. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.20,20n
64. ^ Russo, Gus, "The Outfit", Bloomsbury (2001), p.21
65. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.22.23
67. ^ City Aldermanic Changes (http://www.southloophistory.org/people/kenna.htm)
68. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo; The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.18
73. ^ Torrio duped by O'Banion (http://www.siebensbrewing.com/history.htm)
74. ^
a

b

c
75. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.16,17,150,151,280
77. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), p.8,259
78. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury, (2001) pp.180,181
81. ^
a

b
82. ^
a

b
85. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp150,151
86. ^ Russo, Gus, Russo, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.32-34
87. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.44-46
89. ^
a

b
90. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.173,174,259,260,379,380
96. ^ Feds rule "Prohibition" profits taxable (http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/259/case.html.#263)
101. ^
a

b

c
104. ^ Elliot Ness comes back to town (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1292.html)
108. ^
a

b
110. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.15,16,21,22
111. ^ Russo, Gus, The Oufit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.41-43
113. ^
a

b
116. ^
a

b
118. ^ One biographer notes the date as Oct. 30; Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.42
120. ^
a

b
Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), p.31
122. ^
a

b
125. ^
a

b

c

d
127. ^
a

b
128. ^ Sikafis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.362-364
130. ^
a

b
133. ^ Roemer, William F., Jr., "Accardo: The Ultimate Godfather," Ivy Books (1995), p.70-72
134. ^ Roemer, William F., Jr., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.64,65
135. ^
a

b
136. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.508,509,509n
138. ^
a

b
139. ^ Roemer, William F., Jr., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.82-84
140. ^ The death date is disputed.
143. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.35,36,135,136,209,216,217
146. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.255,257,258,260
147. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.254-256
151. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), pp.263-266,272
153. ^ "Mad Sam" DeStefano: The Mob's Marquis de Sade, Part 2 (http://americanmafia.com/Allan_May_5-17-99.html)
154. ^ The bomb explosion at Willie Bioff's house (http://www.gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-the-chicago-
outfit-made)
155. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury, (2001) pp.306,307
157. ^ Roemer, William F., Jr., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p.157-160
158. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp/252,253
164. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloombury (2001), pp.352-354
168. ^ Russo, Gus, The Outfit, Bloomsbury (2001), p.Introduction
170. ^ Roemer Jr., William F., "The Enforcer," Ivy Books (1994), pp.25,26
172. ^ CIA conspired with Mafia to kill Castro (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/27/usa.cuba)
175. ^
a

b
Roemer, Jr., William F., "The Enforcer," Ivy Books (1994), p.28
176. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., "The Enforcer," Ivy Books (1994), p.27-29
177. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp.219.220
179. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), pp. 173,174
180. ^ Sifakis, Carl, The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Checkmark Books (1999), p. 5
181. ^ Sam DeStefano's death photo (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/photo/chi-
chi_mob_hits_02320080730084427,0,7403075.photo)
182. ^ Mob fingerprint found on car tile (http://www.chicagomag.com/core/pagetools.php?url=%2FChicago-
Magazine%2FMay-2009%2FIn-the-Name-of-the-Father%2F&mode=print)
183. ^ Hitman Aleman Allegedly "Hits" Hitman Nicoletti (http://www.ganglandchicago.blogspot.com/2010/02/harry-
sam-aleman-january-19-1939-may-15.html)
184. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., "The Enforcer," Ivy Books (1994), pp. 157,158
185. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp. 57.
186. ^ Devil's Advocate (http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2005/Devils-Advocate/index.php?
cparticle=4&siarticle=3)
187. ^
a

b

c
Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p. 8
188. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp. 8,9
189. ^
a

b
190. ^ Burglar tells how he survived the Outfit (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-07-
26/news/0707251046_1_siegel-burglarized-chicago-outfit)
191. ^
a

b
192. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), pp. 1014
193. ^ Roemer, Jr., William F., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, Ivy Books (1995), p. 13
194. ^ Couple assassinated in rural Will County (http://www.ipsn.org/scarpel.html)
195. ^ Outfit burglars snatch England's Marlborough Diamond (http://www.ipsn.org/scarpel.html)
196. ^ Campise and Gattuso - "Trunk Music" (http://www.ganglandchicago.blogspot.com/2010/02/photo-gallery.html)
197. ^ Chuckie English autopsy photo (http://www.ganglandchicago.blogspot.com/2010/02/photo-gallery.html)
200. ^ Mobsters were not buried alive
(http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/01/pathologist_mobsters_likely_beaten/)
201. ^ Mob boss confesses to murder (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=3478253)
202. ^ [1] (http://www.ipsn.org/fecarotta.php)
203. ^ Botched burial ends in murder (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-outfit-
062207,0,5976595.column)
204. ^ "Gangster graveyard" (http://www.thechicagosyndicate.com/2007_07_29_archive.html)
205. ^ Outfit bookie linked to Pete Rose betting (http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/27/sports/baseball-rose-case-is-
itself-an-impact-player.html)
206. ^ http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2798498 [Pete Rose admits betting on Cincinnati Reds]
207. ^ Reputed Mob Boss Accardo Dead At 86 (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-05-
28/news/9202170658_1_chicago-mob-al-capone-obstructive-pulmonary-disease)
208. ^ Round Up The Usual Suspects 1 (http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_106.html)
209. ^ [2] (http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-heroin16.html)
210. ^ [3] (http://www.suntimes.com/news/mob/550060,mob091007.article)
211. ^ U.S. Marshal guilty of leaking information to Outfit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28/john-ambrose-
us-marshal-c_n_192440.html)
212. ^ Calabrese, Sr., dies in prison (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-12-26/news/chi-mob-hitman-frank-
calabrese-jr-dies-in-prison-20121226_1_mob-hitman-frank-calabrese-nicholas-calabrese)
213. ^ [4] (http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/02/27/mob-enforcer-could-face-life-on-gun-charge/)
Notes
1. ^ Reference incorrectly states Coughlin's age at election as 35.
Further reading
Lesy, Michael (2007). Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties. W. W. Norton.
ISBN 0-393-06030-6.
Thompson, Nathan (2003). KINGS The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers
Racketeers. The Bronzeville Press. ISBN 0-9724875-0-6.
Russo, Gus. The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld In the Shaping of Modern America ISBN
1-58234-279-2
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title=Timeline_of_organized_crime_in_Chicago&oldid=618310010"
Categories: Organized crime in Chicago, Illinois Organized crime in the United States by city
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