Pittsburgh crime family

The Pittsburgh crime family is a criminal organization based in Pittsburgh and parts of northeastern Pittsburgh in the United States.

Impact of the Pittsburgh Crime Family

The Pittsburgh area Italian-Sicilian underworld was fragmented through the Prohibition Era. The South and North Sides of the city were dominated by a Sicilian Mafia presence, while the East End was held by a Neapolitan Camorra group. The central Hill District was often a battleground. Originally based in Pittsburgh, the crime family expanded its territory to include much of southwestern Pennsylvania as well as portions of Ohio (under agreement with the Cleveland family) and West Virginia. [www.onewal.com]

History of the Pittsburgh Crime Family

Brief History

The Pittsburgh Faction of both Sicilian Mafia and Camorra gangs were first documented in 1910 with the first named boss to take over the territory of downtown as well as some sububurbs that surrounded the area in the valleys. The Pittsburgh Crime Family seemed unable to find a solidified leadership basis, constant shuffling of bosses and lack of established members always seemed behind shadow it's progress. It also took time for Pittsburgh to get on the sitting body of the Crime Commission with this power struggle.

The first boss was Gregorio Conti (March 17, 1874, to ?). In his autobiographical work "Vita di Capomafia," Nick Gentile states that Conti was the leader of the Mafia in Pittsburgh in 1915. Conti and his nephew Peppino Cusumano ran a wholesale wine and liquor establishment. While Conti led a Mafia organization of Sicilians and Calabrians, a rival Neapolitan Camorra group in Pittsburgh was led by Ferdinand Mauro. This lead to the first war of the city, mostly revenge bombings on earning establishments between Napule crime figures and Sicilians.

1920 - Salvatore Calderone (1858 to 1933). Calderone led a Pittsburgh criminal organization through the early years of the Prohibition Era and, according to Nick Gentile, he was influential during the time of Gregorio Conti (above). Eventually Calderone allowed others to take control of day-to-day underworld operations, serving as an adviser to Mafiosi in the Midwest.

1925 - Stefano Monastero (March 3, 1889, to Aug. 6, 1929). Monastero led a Pittsburgh underworld clan during the later Prohibition Era, supplying sugar and other bootlegging commodities. Sugar and other fermenting ingredients used for making alcohol were Pittsburgh's most influential rackets at the time and Monastero took full advantage. His group eclipsed that of Calderone, who retired. The Monastero organization, largely made up of immigrants from the area of Caccamo, Sicily, briefly lost ground to Luigi "Big Gorilla" Lamendola in the mid-1920s. Lamendola, a castoff of Al Capone's gang in Chicago, increased in strength until he was shot down in front of his Chatham Street restaurant/headquarters on May 20, 1927. Monastero's gang is also believed responsible for the bombing of a rival bootleg supply warehouse in 1929.

1929 - Giuseppe Siragusa (1882 to Sept. 13, 1931). Monastero and his brother Sam were murdered in front of St. John's General Hospital on Aug. 6, 1929. Joe "the Ghost" Pangallo is suspected of orchestrating the hit. "Yeast Baron" Siragusa, who became wealthy selling yeast to home breweries during Prohibition, took over leadership of the Pittsburgh family. It is believed that Siragusa was a loyal follower of the Brooklyn Castellammarese family led by Stefano Magaddino and later Salvatore Maranzano.

1931 - John Bazzano (1890 to Aug. 8, 1932). Siragusa is shot to death in his large Squirrel Hill home on Sept. 13, 1931. Due to the timing (just days after Salvatore Maranzano was assassinated in New York), Siragusa was said to have been a casualty of Lucky Luciano's supposed "purge" of the American Mafia. Coffee shop owner Bazzano became boss upon Siragusa's death. Like Siragusa, Bazzano catered to home breweries during Prohibition, selling them yeast and sugar. Bazzano's reign turned out to be even shorter than Siragusa's, as he entered into a deadly feud with the Volpe brothers.

"The Volpe Eight" were a band of brothers who were left from the Neapolitan faction of gangs that had been almost silent or in alliance with Sicilian and Calabrese gangs headed by Bazzano. They controlled the Wilmerding and Pitcarin area, about 10 miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh. This area was thriving with industry at the time and Bazzano saw this as a golden opportunity to expand his sugar and yeast racket into other parts of the city. Up until this time it was the only area of Pittsburgh under Neopolitan control.

1932 - Vincenzo Capizzi (1884 to ?). Bazzano was found dead of 22 (or 27) ice pick wounds in a large sack in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, NY, on Aug. 8, 1932. Santo Volpe, boss of the Scranton mob family and unrelated to the recently murdered Volpe Brothers, was a suspect in the killing (as was Brooklyn's Albert Anastasia). Authorities believed Bazzano was lured to New York for a dinner after Volpe appealed to the Commission for justice. Bazzano was succeeded by Capizzi, whose five-year reign became the longest in Pittsburgh Mafia history. The Pittsburgh family became aligned with the Genovese Crime Family in New York, which represented Pittsburgh at meetings of the eastern Commission. This gave birth to the true Pittsburgh Crime family. Up until this time the fight for power was almost anyones game, but Capizzi realized that in order to assert Pittsburgh's earning potential they must have a voice sitting on the acting body of the commission.

1937 - Frank Amato (c.1893 to 1973). Capizzi retired to Italy in 1937. The Pittsburgh family experienced a prolonged period of leadership stability under Amato. Amato's son, Frank D. Amato Jr., followed his father into the Mafia. (Frank Jr. was a gambling bigshot who managed to avoid attention from media and law enforcement until his death in 2003 at the age of 75.)

1956 - Sebastian LaRocca (1901 to Dec. 3, 1984). "John" LaRocca, who appears to have had some family relationship with Amato and a background in the Scranton mob, served as the supreme boss of the Pittsburgh family from 1956 (when Amato turned over command and became a LaRocca adviser - serving first as underboss and then as consigliere) until his death of natural causes in 1984. Under LaRocca, the mob became a powerful force in Pittsburgh area labor unions and established rackets in Ohio, sharing some of that income with the Cleveland Mafia. LaRocca also brought his family into an agreement with Tampa's Santo Trafficante for management of the Sans Souci casino in Havana, Cuba.

1957 - LaRocca was one of the attendees of the Apalachin conference. He was accompanied by his lieutenants, Michael James Genovese and Gabriel "Kelly" Mannarino. (Mannarino later took part in efforts to wrest Cuba from the control of Fidel Castro.)

1978 - Ailing LaRocca turned leadership of the family over to a panel including Michael Genovese, Gabriel Mannarino and Joseph "Jo Jo" Pecora of West Virginia. A prison sentence for gambling immediately took out Pecora.

1980 - Michael Genovese (April 9, 1918 to Oct. 31, 2006). Genovese became sole acting boss under ailing Sebastian LaRocca in 1980, as Mannarino died July 11 of cancer.

1984 - While law enforcement watched "Jo Jo" Pecora, Michael Genovese took the family reins upon 82-year-old LaRocca's death (at his home in suburban McCandless Township) in 1984. Under Genovese's leadership, the Pittsburgh mob became a middle man in drug deals with distribution rings in the Midwest and Northeast and began making moves into Ohio territory vacated by a weakened Cleveland Mafia. The family was also linked with an attempt to infiltrate an Indian casino near San Diego.

1990 - The Pittsburgh organization began to crumble after the successful prosecutions of underboss Charles Porter and lieutenant Louis Raucci Sr. and the subsequent defections of Porter and Lenny Strollo.

2000 - Federal agents believed Michael Genovese, then 82 and living in rural West Deer, PA, was still in control of the remnants of the Pittsburgh Mafia family. Genovese died in 2006 at the age of 87. Though he had served some time behind bars for refusing to testify, prosecutors were never able to assemble a successful racketeering case against him.

[ [http://onewal.com/maf-b-pi.html The American Mafia - Pittsburgh Bosses ] ]

Prohibition

One Pittsburgh crime family was part of the Sicilian mob that began to influence the local government in the 1920s. Sicilians began to emigrate from Sicily to escape Benito Mussolini in 1922. They operated in Arnold, Wilkinsburg, Bloomfield, Larimer, McKees Rocks, Wilmerding, Braddock and New Kensington.

The industry they began to rule was bootlegging (the illegal making, selling, or transporting of alcohol). “Between 1926 and 1933, there were more than 200 gangland killings in Allegheny County, according to old news accounts. About one half of them went unsolved. Many bootleggers simply disappeared.” All major mob bosses began with their control of yeast, and sugar. The first major prohibition boss was Sicilian John Bazzano Sr., who was a manager of a theater and eventually gained control of sugar and yeast. Because of his greed he decided he wanted to expand his controlled territory by plotting to murder a group of other Neapolitan mob bosses, the Volpe Eight.

The Volpe Eight was a band of brothers that controlled Turtle Creek Valley and Wilmerding, the two territories Bazzano needed to expand his empire. Bazzano called on caporegime Cesario Norece, an immigrant from Castellammare del Golfo born into the honored society and a "made" man within the Pittsburgh Crime Family at the time. Fleeing Sicily from another murder charge of a Palermo providence official, Norece maintained close ties with the Island while operating in Pittsburgh although not a legal citizen of America. Norece was given the order to kill the Volpe's and accepted the contract to solidify his place with Bazzano and keep his place in America. To get close to them, He and Bazzano mediated a partnership on the numbers and sugar racket and the Volpe brothers readily consented. A coffee shop Bazzano owned on Wylie Avenue was made into their headquarters and soon Bazzano and Norece made them comfortable with the relationship. After gaining the brothers’ trust' Bazzano decided the time had come to murder all eight brothers and had Norece crew associates Frank Lurito, Michele Vecchia, and Salvatore Artusa orchestrate the hit on July 29, 1932. The drive-by shooting took place by the coffee shop and murdered three of the eight. During the period of grieving held for the three brothers 50,000 people visited their home. Proving that because of the fear of these brothers, people from the area felt the need to make an appearance. The remaining brothers planned their revenge on Bazzano and Norece. In 1932 Norece was arrested on an illegal gun charge, although not convicted due to lack of evidence. During the trial it was exposed that Norece was an illegal immigrant, and in 1933 word had surfaced that the Palermo official was killed by Norece. The murder called for the extradition of Norece back to Italy to stand trial. He was tried in Caccamo, Sicily but miracuously was acquitted due to lack of testimony. Although Norece's immediate family was in America at the time, he remained in Castellammare with strong ties to his Pittsburgh and New York brethren mediating narcotics operations between Sicily and America. He died in 1961 at age Bazzano, who remained in Pittsburgh did not fare so well. As vendetta to their brothers being slayed, the rest of the Volpe faction consulted New York who sided with the neopolitans in agreeing to take out Bazzano. He was murdered while having dinner in Bloomfield “on August 8, 1932, his body turned up in the middle of a street in Brooklyn, NY, wrapped in a burlap sack.” ( [www.post-gazette.com..)]

From LaRocca to Genovese

However, before its execution this murder plan had to be shown to La Cosa Nostra Commission, a group “formed to oversee mafia disputes.” Over time, other mob bosses succeeded Bazzano. The other godfather that left a major mark was John LaRocca, an immigrant that United States courts had tried and failed to deport came into control. In 1958 he was caught attempting to sell $50,000 of ammunition to soldiers of Fidel Castro. This event proved his influence spread along the east coast and on to foreign countries. After almost being caught with this action he kept a low profile and was even donned “a man of respect” by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission. He died in 1984 and was succeeded by life-long friend, Michael Genovese to rule the Pittsburgh Family.

Since the bootlegging and ammunition trading industries were finished, Genovese turned to gambling and drugs. By this time, around the 1980s, the mob was slowly losing its influence on the government so the FBI quickly saw path the mafia was about to take and, unhindered by the non-existent influence of the mafia, the FBI pursued them. The FBI quickly traced Genovese’s cocaine trail to his three top men, Charles "Chucky" Porter, and Louis Raucci Sr. Another change the mob had was finding new people for the Family. The two chosen were Joseph Naples and Lenine “Lenny” Strollo who were inducted in 1987. However the major fall the mafia took over the years and decline of political and governmental power led to the murder of Naples by Strollo in 1991 and the arrest of Strollo in 2000 for “running a gambling ring in Fayette County.” There is no member by the name of Martrano.

Notes

:¹ Following LaRocca's retirement due to poor health, a triumverate was formed from Michael Genovese, Gabriel Mannarino and Joseph "Jo Jo" Picura to takeover the day-to-day running of the organization. However, with the death of Mannarino and imprisonment of Picura, Genovese had become acting head of the crime family by 1984.

Further reading

*Capeci, Jerry. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia". Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2

References

*Ove, Torsten. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
** [http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20001105greenbank1.asp "“Local FBI Agent Plays Key Role In Dismantling Region’s Organized Crime Family,”"] (Part 1, 05 Nov 2000).
** [http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20001106mobhistory2.asp "“Mafia Has Long History Here, Growing From Bootlegging Days,”"] (Part 2, 06 Nov 2000).
*Sifakis, Carl. "The Mafia Encyclopedia". New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3

External links

* [http://www.onewal.com/maf-b-pi.html The American "Mafia" - Pittsburgh Crime Bosses]
* [http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Pittsburgh.html History of La Cosa Nostra in Pittsburgh by AmericanMafia.com]
* [http://www.onewal.com]