Denver crime family

Denver crime family

In	Denver, Colorado
Founded by	Giuseppe Roma
Years active	1910s-2006
Territory	Colorado
Ethnicity	Italian, Italian-American made men and other ethnicities as "associates"
Membership	Unknown
Criminal activities	Racketeering, loansharking, extortion, prostitution, drugs, bookmaking and gambling

The Denver crime family, also called the Smaldone crime family, was a small organized mob family based in Denver, Colorado.

The first "Italian mobster" to come in Denver, Colorado was Joe Roma. He recruited brothers Clyde and Eugene Smaldone. The Smaldone brothers had been working for their father as bootleggers, and quickly became soldiers. They affiliated with the mob in Pueblo, Colorado, beginning in the 1930s, but operated independently. The Smaldones were involved mainly in small crimes such as gambling, bookmaking, and bootlegging. They were arrested and went to prison on numerous occasions, but were known for their charity contributions to the local people. They were active as a crime organization in the Denver metro area until the early 1990s.

The head of the crime family was Clyde Smaldone, who worked closely with his brother, Eugene "Checkers" Smaldone. Clyde was nicknamed "Flip-Flop" by the press. Clyde ran the family business until his retirement in 1962, after serving a ten-year sentence at Leavenworth federal prison. Checkers, younger brother of Chauncey, and their nephew, Paul Villano, ran the operation until Checkers' death in 1992, then the organization faded away in the face of government-sponsored gambling and more severe federal penalties for bookmaking.

The Smaldones owned a popular Denver restaurant called Gaetano's. It was later sold to current Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who in turn sold the restaurant to a group of employees in 2007.

Current status

In November 2006, Denver Boss Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone died. Now, the Smaldone crime family is extinct.^{[citation needed]}

References

• http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Denver.html
• http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5106734,00.html
• http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_4602277
• Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family, by Dick Kreck (Fulcrum, 2009).