Franchising crime
"Mobology" unveils organized crime
NWI Times
May 28, 1991
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/franchising-crime-mobology-unveils-organized/article_290a8026-f4db-568d-bd25-5d70b77725cb.html
Mobology (n., mob, organized crime, + ology, theory or science of): The study of the constantly shifting patterns of power in a shadowy world of illegal activity that generally shuns publicity.
The 1990 Chicago Crime Commission organized crime chart excludes the South Suburbs and Northwest Indiana. Only the latest FBI chart lists a Northwest Indiana mob street boss.
Despite the belated official recognition of hoodlum-ism in the area, there is a rich history for those who dig for it.
For some reason, said Lt. John Guarnieri of the Chicago Police Intelligence Unit, many of the hoods who do business on the Illinois side of the state line are moving into Indiana.
"Some of the up-and-coming young upstarts from the old (Albert) Tocco days have moved into Merrillville, Schererville, nice cities like that, and do their business in Cook County," Guarnieri said. "I don't know if they're trying to avoid law enforcement or if they just want better property taxes."
Today, the FBI says Northwest Indiana is controlled by Bernard "Snooky" Morgano, a Valparaiso resident and son of Gaetano "Tommy" Morgano, who ran the Lake County mob in the 1950s.
Morgano reports to the boss of the South Side street crew, identified as Dominic "Tootsie" Palermo, who is one of the seven members of "The Commission," the street crew bosses who report to the underboss of the Chicago mob.
After Gaetano Morgano returned to Sicily rather than go to jail, he was succeeded as Northwest Indiana mob chief by Frank Nick Zizzo, a Chicago native who lived in Gary, Griffith, Highland and Hammond while operating here, according to the FBI.
Zizzo, who was questioned by the Senate rackets committee in 1959, gave only his name and took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination on all other questions.
On the surface, Zizzo was a businessman, owner of the Pepper Pot Pizza restaurants with locations in Gary, Hammond and Highland and the Uptown Lunch Club in the 1600 block of 119th Street in Whiting.
In 1963, he was convicted of illegal gambling, along with three of his employees, one from Griffith and two from Chicago, for running more than a million dollars' worth of horse book in Burnham, Calumet City, Chicago, Hammond and Whiting.
The operations were in places like the old Reitz Inn, 5008 Calumet Ave., Hammond, run by Herman "Hymie" Goot, and the former Nardi's Tobacco Shop, 1612 119th St., Whiting, run by Edward Nardi.
In 1966, Zizzo was released from prison, but his parole was revoked in 1970 because of his meetings with Anthony "Nino" Gruttaduro of Calumet Township,
Zizzo's chief lieutenant and a convicted federal felon. Zizzo was released from prison for good in 1973.
The government again tried to put him in prison in 1976 in connection with the interstate theft of a number of television sets from a Chicago rail yard that eventually ended up in homes and businesses in Indiana.
Zizzo was acquitted, but his son Anthony, of Berwyn, was convicted along with four others. The younger Zizzo was given five years in prison. He is now listed on FBI mob charts as a co-street crew boss of the West Side crew, along with James Marcello.
Frank Zizzo's health began to decline in the early 1980s, and during his period of reduced capacity, soldiers from Joseph Ferriola's West Side crew moved in on some Northwest Indiana territory.
In an extortion that backfired, Richard "Big Richie" Piekarski and Frank Esposito tried to muscle the owner of Geno's Vending in Merrillville for 50 percent of his profits on electronic poker machines in taverns throughout Lake County.
The plot unraveled when Timothy "Geno" Janowsky, the owner of the vending machine company, became a government witness and taped his conversations with Piekarski and Esposito.
That led to their October 1983 conviction in federal court on charges of interference in interstate commerce by threats and violence and interstate travel to aid racketeering. Both drew 25-year sentences in 1984.
In the spring of 1986, Frank Zizzo died and was succeeded by Bernard Morgano.
That same year, the head of the Chicago Outfit, Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, was convicted in a cash-skimming case in Kansas City and sent to prison.
Aiuppa was succeeded by Ferriola, the old West Side crew boss, who died in 1989 and has been succeeded by DiFronzo or Carlisi.
The structure of the mob has always been such that the Northwest Indiana boss would report to the South Suburban street boss, who in turn would report to the Outfit underboss.
For example, in the 1950s, Gaetano Morgano reported to Chicago mobster Johnny Formosa. By the time Frank Zizzo assumed power, he was reporting to South Side boss Frankie LaPorte, who was succeeded by Alfred Pilotto.
It was during this period the influence of the South Suburban crew waned, said Lt. John Guarnieri of the Chicago Police Department's intelligence unit and a mobologist.
"At one time, everything was based in Calumet City," he said, but as the notorious "Strip" along State Street and State Line Avenue dried up under several reform mayors, the mob profits shrunk and the importance of the south suburbs along with them.
On July 25, 1981, as Pilotto was golfing at the Lincolnshire Country Club in south suburban Crete, he was shot several times and collapsed. In June 1985, Richard Guzzino of Chicago Heights and Robert Ciarrocchi of Mattoon, were convicted of conspiring to kill Pilotto.
Testimony showed Guzzino's older brother, Sam, believed Pilotto was about to turn government witness and wanted him killed. Daniel Bounds, the actual triggerman in the Pilotto shooting, turned government informant and testified against Richard Guzzino and Ciarocchi, who helped plan the intended hit.
Bounds worked for the Guzzino's Chicago Heights cab company, and was recruited by Richard Guzzino for the murder. Ciarocchi provided the gun and drove the getaway car.
Sam Guzzino - who was in the foursome with Pilotto when the shooting happened - was never brought to trial; on Oct. 3, 1981, he was found in a ditch near Beecher. He had been shot once in the head and his throat slit. His killer has never been charged.
Pilotto, who was facing a labor racketeering trial in Florida, did not cooperate with the government. He was convicted in 1982, and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence.
After Pilotto's conviction, Albert "Sir Albert" Tocco of Chicago Heights moved in to take over the south suburban and Northwest Indiana mob, or so say some mobologists.
Others disagree. "Everybody says Tocco was the man, but the more we learn, the less I am convinced," said Robert Pertuso, FBI supervisor in Merrillville. "We think the man was Tootsie Palermo all along, and that Tocco reported to him."
But Guarnieri said he believes Tocco was the south suburban kingpin. "I would definitely say Palermo was a street boss, but if there was a commission meeting from Illinois and Indiana, I don't think Palermo would have been invited - Tocco would have been. Tocco was THE man, I am sure of that, there is no doubt in my mind."
Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, formerly of South Holland and now living in Orland Park, was indicted with 14 others last December in Hammond on federal gambling conspiracy charges, and faces a July trial.
Whatever the case, Tocco was active in Northwest Indiana, particularly in the area of "chop shops," where stolen cars would be brought to be disassembled into parts that would then be sold.
Tocco and Clarence Crockett, one of his tax collectors, were charged in 1988 in a federal indictment with running a major extortion racket in the south suburbs and Northwest Indiana from 1977 to 1986.
Both were convicted in 1989, and Tocco was given 200 years in prison and fined $2 million.
After Tocco's indictment, on Oct. 17, 1988, he disappeared - he had fled to Greece and was later returned after he was captured by the FBI - Palermo became the undisputed South Side boss and full-fledged member of the "Commission."
The "Commission" is identified as the street crew bosses who oversee mob activity in various geographic areas in and around Chicago. The include Palermo; Ernest "Rocky" Infelice (Lake County, Ill.); James "Jimmy L" LaPietra (city South Side); James Marcello and Anthony Zizzo (city and suburban West Side); Vincent "Innocence" Solano (city North Side) and Marco D'Amico, Joseph "The Builder" Andriacchi and Michael Castaldo (Elmwood Park-Northwest suburbs).
Other mob figures listed on former Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan's 1983 Chicago mob hierarchy list include several Northwest Indiana people, including Tocco soldiers Daniel Bonnets and Sheldon "Shelley the Whale" Fishman.
Bonnets owns a limousine service in Gary's Miller neighborhood, and Fishman, who owns an auto wrecking yard on Chicago's East Side, lives in St. John.
In 1982, Chicago police raided Fishman's auto yard on 100th Street, looking for stolen cars or parts. When a newspaper photographer walked onto the scene,
Fishman threatened her and snapped the camera from around her neck, flinging it onto the roof of his one-story office.
Police retrieved the broken camera, and the photographer filed a criminal damage to property complaint against Fishman. The following day, the photographer's car exploded on the street in front of her home on Chicago's East Side. She dropped the damage charges and was not bothered again.
Fishman was never charged with the damage, nor was he linked to the auto bombing. Charges brought against him from the raid were later dropped on a technicality.
