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“Who’s Who” in Chicago Outfit For
1997
IPSN Oct. 12, 1997
A Chicago Crime Commission report detailing the hierarchy of the Chicago Outfit
identifies a Chicago Police Officer from the 23rd District as being an associate of
organized crime figures.
The report, which also names John “No Nose” DiFronzo as the “boss”
of the Chicago Outfit, identifies Officer Pierre Zonis in the category of “additional
members and associates” involved in the area of gambling.
The Crime Commission report, entitled The New Faces of Organized Crime, states that the
Chicago Outfit has “streamlined” its operations and consolidated seven
“street crews” into three, covering operations from Lake County down to DuPage
and Will Counties in the southern regions.
The report identifies DiFronzo’s top advisers as Joey “The Clown” Lombardo
Sr., and Angelo LaPietra, both seasoned organized crime hoodlums. In the 1980s, LaPietra
supervised Outfit gambling operations in Chinatown, the loop and the near South Side. He
is a member of the “old guard” whose arrest record dates back to 1938. He is now
on parole.
Despite recent federal convictions and indictments that have crippled the operations of
the Chicago Outfit, the new report re-affirms that Chicago’s organized crime element
is alive and well and easily adapting to new threats posed by federal law enforcement and
the recently retired U.S. Attorney Jim Burns who built a reputation as a local rackets
buster during his short tenure of office.
“This should put an end to the optimistic view that recent convictions have brought
the Outfit to its knees. They are still out there, as bold as ever, but trying to lay low
until the environment changes,” Flood said.
“My only dispute with the Crime Commission report is that I believe, and my sources
insist, that the real head of the Chicago Outfit is Joey Lombardo, not John DiFronzo.
Lombardo is the only organized crime boss I know of to be profiled on Ted Koppel’s
“Nightline” program on national TV,” CCPA President John J. Flood added.
Lombardo came to the attention of Koppel and the forefront of the national media shortly
after the assassination of Teamster official Allen Dorfman outside the Lincolnwood Hyatt
Hotel on January 20, 1983. The gangland slaying occurred only a month after Dorfman was
convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges with Teamster president Roy L. Williams in
what came to be known as the “Pendorf” and “Strawman” cases involving
the “skimming” of casino proceeds and distribution of monies to underworld
associates in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Kansas City. For years Dorfman provided insurance
and consulting services to the Central States Pension Fund, a cash cow for the mob since
the 1950s.
“Lombardo controlled the Central States Pension Fund, and in 1975, was one of six men
to be indicted with Dorfman for defrauding the pension fund,” Flood explained.
“I think that he and his associates have for a long time now tried to promote the
myth that DiFronzo is the boss in order to take the heat off himself. Lombardo’s real
street name is “Lumpy” - and he came by it because he was good at his job -
pounding lumps and enforcing discipline.”
Named as the heads of the three areas are:
Anthony Centracchio, 69, who oversees the West Side and DuPage County, has been an active
player since the early 1960s. A skilled cartage thief and one-time associate of burglar
Paul “Peanuts” Panczko, Centracchio was pinched by the FBI on February 10, 1962
with five other man and $75,000 worth of stolen television sets removed from the loading
dock of a Cicero warehouse. When asked by the feds what it is that he actually did for a
living, Centracchio replied: “I am a sewer contractor.”
Convicted of these crimes, he served 18 months at the federal penitentiary in Sandstone,
Minnesota.
Recently identified as an outfit lieutenant who answers to the top man in the mob pyramid,
Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, this veteran street boss and Oakbrook resident, was
secretly filmed on closed circuit TV discussing payoffs made to former Northlake Chief of
Police Seymour Sapoznik and his Chief of Detectives Tom Tucker. The court-approved
wiretaps helped convict Sapoznik who was protecting illegal syndicate gambling in his
jurisdiction in return for a monthly payout of $500.
Centracchio’s long time association with Ferriola and the incarcerated former Cicero
mobster Ernest Rocco Infelise gives him tremendous leverage in the organization.
John “Johnny Apes” Monteleone, 73, a low-key unassuming type, continues to run
the South Side territories south of the Eisenhower Expressway, and Northwest Indiana. His
appointment came in 1994, and it is seen as a reward for his long years of meritorious
service to the outfit as one of “Fifi” Buccieri’s juice loan enforcers, and
later as Rocco Infelise’s underling and chief of North Side gambling. In 1986,
Monteleone was sentenced by a Milwaukee, Wisconsin judge to four years in prison for
contempt of court after he refused to testify concerning an attempted car bombing in that
city. His “I.R” sheet also includes a 1964 arrest for possession of burglary
tools, and a 1965 pinch for theft. In recent years he has been questioned by federal
authorities about several other unsolved car bombings including those of Lenny
Patrick’s daughter, and some local union officials. He controls Cicero, and its
political machine, through Jimmy “the Man” Marcello. In the 1970s, Monteleone
transacted mob business at Clean Air Exterminators & Sanitation, at 5102 W. 14th
Street in Cicero. The building was under constant surveillance. FBI agents who reported
that it was a “front” for juice loan payoffs.
Joseph Andriacchi, overseeing the North Side, Elmwood Park and Lake County, is nicknamed
the “Builder.” Just what does he build? Well, it’s hard to say and it
depends on who you talk to. He is 65-years-old now, and is a cousin of Joey Lombardo.
During the years of Jackie Cerone’s incarceration in a federal penitentiary,
Andriacci and John DiFronzo looked after the mob’s interests in Elmwood Park. Though
his stature has risen in the last few years, “the Builder” has kept a low
profile for much of his career, though he was called upon to testify before a federal
grand jury a few years back concerning the bombing of Lenny Patrick’s daughter’s
car outside her North Side home.
“When you look at the faces, we see a lot of the young “Turks” who were
making names for themselves in the 1960s under Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Sam Giancana, and
Joey Aiuppa, but now, as they enter their “golden” years, they have become the
elder statesmen of the Chicago outfit,” Flood said.
“Today’s bosses are just going to try and be a little bit smarter and more
resourceful. Lombardo only recently completed a federal prison term and he certainly
doesn’t want to go back that quickly, so he is going to lay low for as long as
possible and put the heat on someone else, like DiFronzo.”
Nowadays the Outfit is lying low. The “trunk music” refrain of the 1970s and
1980s has ceased. Bodies are no long being pulled from shallow graves out in the country,
or from parked cars inside the O’Hare Airport garage. Things have been quiet for the
most part. One only wonders how long it will be before the tranquility is disturbed.
Nevertheless the Outfit continues to thrive and the wise guys have been identified.
Among Anthony Centracchio’s crew, we find Joe Cullotta, James Inendino and Mike
Schivarelli, who is related to former Chicago Streets and Sanitation bigwig Pete
Schivarelli, manager of the rock group, Chicago.
Monteleone’s street crew includes Jim DiForti, an official with Local 1 of the
Laborer’s Union who is suspected in several murders; reputed mob hitman and former
Chicago Cardinal football star Wayne Bock, and Jerry “Joe” Scalise, a jewel
thief.
Andriacchi’s street crew includes: Vincent J. Cozzo, Michael Marcello, Don Scalise,
Rudy Fratto, Andrew Lombardo, Frank “the German” Schweihs, the brittle
octogenarian Lenny Patrick (recently released from federal incarceration), and former
Chicago cop Phil “Beans” Tolomeo, who is also on parole. Andriacchi’s
street crew is the largest, although all three are considered equally dangerous.
The report names 38 mobsters who are serving time in prison, including Rocky Infelise,
Frank J. Calabrese, Sr., who headed a street crew involved in extortion and loan sharking
until the feds closed it down for good in 1995 , Joe LaMantia, Lou Marino and Albert
Tocco, former boss of the south suburban “chop shop” operations.
Business associates of the mob include Cicero’s John Crededio, William Daddano and
Rocco Lombardo.
Union leaders associated with the mob include Joe Abate, Bruno, Leo, and Frank Caruso.
In light of the Chicago Crime Commission’s identification of the Carusos as mob
“associates,” it comes as bitter irony to know that Bruno Caruso, the president
of Laborer’s Union Local 1, served as co-chairman at a testimonial dinner given in
honor of Edward T. Hanley, president of the Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees
International Union (HEREIU) last June at Plumbers’ Hall on West Washington Street.
The Cook County Democratic Party, chaired by former Cook County Assessor Thomas G. Lyons,
sponsored the fund raising event which they billed as a “Salute to the American Labor
Movement.”
Eddie Hanley’s organized crime connections and the federal civil racketeering suit
filed against the union in 1970 alleging that the general executive board cooperated with
mobsters in order to solicit bribes from employers and the theft of union funds, have
permanently sullied the reputation of the labor movement for years.
How tragic that the Cook County Democratic Party should lend its resources and name to
such a sham.
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