Aniello Migliore

Aniello "Neil" Migliore (born October 2, 1933) is a New York mafioso and acting leader of the Lucchese crime family. Migliore was a close associate of family bosses Thomas Lucchese and Anthony Corallo. [http://da_wizeguy.tripod.com/omerta/id22.html] .

Early years

In 1957, Migliore missed the famous Apalachin Meeting, a national Cosa Nostra summit in Apalachin, New York that was broken up by law enforcement. By 1973, Miliore had become a rising star in the Luchesse family. Aniello Migliore was born in Queens. As a teenager he demonstrated remarkable aptitude for running illegal gambling operations. He had been recruited by a local mobster Joseph Lorato, who quickly devolved him on virtually total control of all gambling operations in Queens. Arrested ten times, he served only a nine month prison sentence. By the time he was twenty-one, in 1957, Migliore was earning $50,000 a day, an astounding earnings record that made him the most talked about young mafioso in the entire organization. He was invited to serve as a Lucchese crime family delegate to the Appalachian summit meeting, a rare honour for someone so young. To the Lucchese's suprise, Aniello made it clear that he had no ambition to rise to a senior leadership position. He was a close friend of Anthony Corallo, and agreed to become his chief capo only on the understanding he would not have to participate in such duties of the mafia's executive ranks. Sometime in the 1970s, Migliore became a captain in the family. He already was a powerful labor racketeer in the New York City construction and trucking industries. Migliore owned a large Queens-based concrete company and had been a second-in-command to Joseph Lucchese, who was a captain in the family. The two men operated a large scale, lucrative illegal gambling and numbers operation. By the early 1980s, many think, Migliore was actually running the family from behind the scenes.

Labor Racketeering Conviction

In 1988, Migliore was convicted of distributing contracts and receiving kickbacks in the construction of the concrete superstructures for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Trump Plaza, and other New York buildings.

On March 21, 1986, Migliore was indicted for extortion and bid rigging with Genovese crime family front boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and a host of soldiers and labor official associates. The men were charged with helping to elect Roy L. Williams in 1981 as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Buildings where bid-rigging was said to have occurred include the Trump Plaza residential building, several other luxury apartment buildings, and residences for Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, all in Manhattan. On May 4, 1988, Migliore, Salerno, and captains Vincent DiNapoli and Matthew Ianniello were convicted of the labor racketeering charges. Migliore was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

In August 1991, Migliore's conviction was overturned and he was released from prison. Migliore came back to a family battered by the abusive regime of Vittorio Amuso and Anthony Casso. Amuso and Casso represented the Brooklyn wing of the family; in the past, family leadership has always resided in the East Harlem/Bronx faction. Suspicious and insecure, Amuso and Casso ordered the killings of many Lucchese members who they suspected to be informants or threats.

Assassination Attempt and Aftermath

On April 3, 1992, Migliore was celebrating the birthday of a friend's granddaughter in a Westbury, New York restaurant on Long Island. [http://www.americanmafia.com/Mob_Hits/1992_04_update.html] . During the party, a gunman in a passing car fired one or two shotgun blasts through the restaurant window, hitting Migliore in the head and chest. Despite his wounds, Migliore survived.

Vittorio "Vic" Amuso had reportedly ordered the hit on Migliore from his prison cell. He feared that Migliore was planning to remove Amuso as official boss and cut off his cash stream. Some investigators suspected that Lucchese soldier Paolo LoDuca, an Italian cocaine trafficker, was responsible for setting up the hit. The attempt on his life did not sway Migliore away from the crime family though.

Since about 2000, Migliore, Matthew Madonna, and Joseph DiNapoli, all members of the East Harlem/Bronx faction, have served on the Lucchese family's ruling panel in the absence of family acting boss Steven Crea. Migliore remains a respected and highly regarded member.

In late 2007, Migliore was recognized as the official Underboss of the Lucchese crime family.

Further reading

*Goldstock, Ronald, Martin Marcus and II Thacher. "Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: Final Report of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force". New York: NYU Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8147-3034-5
*Kelly, Robert J. "The Upperworld and the Underworld: Case Studies of Racketeering and Business Infiltrations in the United States". New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-306-45969-8
*United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "Organized Criminal Activities: south Florida and U.S. Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga.: hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs". 1980. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC04442345&id=CRw_HUlyr-8C&q=Aniello+Migliore&dq=Aniello+Migliore&pgis=1]

External links

* [http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/lucchese2/5.html Lucchese Crime Family Epic: Decent Into Darkness Part II - Good times, bad times] by Thomas L. Jones
* [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/10870/index.html New York Magazine: What’s Left of the Mob] by Jerry Capeci
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DE103DF936A35757C0A964958260&sec=&spon= New York Times: Reputed Mobster Shot; Power Struggle Suspected} By JAMES BENNET