MAFIA REPORT: CHICAGO OUTFIT

A Quick Note:

Here you will find a very detailed narrative of events both in the preface and report. This entire piece contains numerous supporting documents, including multiple FBI 302 reports via hyperlinks that appear in a green font. Just click away on the green font and read.

Preface

This article should perhaps be called a report, as it lays out very interesting dynamics of some of the components used many years ago by a small number of the Chicago Outfit’s forefathers for their purpose of fortifying the foundation that would essentially sustain a sizable measure of the Chicago Outfit, spanning from the days of Al Capone through the rest of almost all of its existence.

What you will read here is meant to serve as a public record primarily for research experts and historians who study organized crime for serious reasons. I want this information to be available to anyone who has even a moderate interest in learning something about some of the most infamous American historical events and people in the twentieth century.

I wish to stipulate that my information is one extremely thorough perspective on an outline of the Chicago Outfit. A number of the individuals who are named and written about in this report are my late immediate and/or extended family members, and others are my late friends or acquaintances. Some I did not know well or did not know at all. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to disabuse those of you who may question if I am infatuated with my relatives or have an agenda as a part of my reasons for writing what I write about.

I am able to cover family in an unbiased way. The fact is that I have simply used my God-given modest place in life of having easy access to subjects and material that I have found interesting enough to make into a research and study project – that I hope will be helpful to experts, researchers, and historians. Perhaps the Coronavirus-worldwide-shutdown/shelter-in-place situation deserves some recognition because I do not know when I would have made time to write this report. I have been meaning to get to this project for a long time.

Perhaps I should take a couple of minutes to explain something about my parentage and history, as these issues are relevant to my extended knowledge of the Chicago Outfit. It is well known to those who were close to my father, Armando Fosco, Sr., and step-mother, Gloria, their marriage had essentially collapsed by the early 1960s. Due to personal and social dynamics, divorce for them was not a possibility. Armando and Gloria would remain married in name only until parted by death, no matter how disconnected they were from each other emotionally.

Gloria prematurely lived her life as a widow where romance was concerned, which was her choice. She poured every ounce of her love and passion into her family, particularly her two sons, Armando, Jr., and Ralph, and her grandson, Mondie. Armando, Sr. moved on with his personal life and met my mother. They began their relationship in the early 1960s and remained seriously committed to each other until his death in 1987.

They had two children together. During my father’s lifetime, my younger brother Paul and I were led to believe that my father and Gloria were divorced and that he had been remarried to my mother. My brother and I learned the truth shortly after my father’s death in 1987. While it was hard to learn that my parents were not conjoined through a traditional union, we were much more troubled over the loss of our loving and wonderful full-time father.

Years prior to Armando’s passing, my father called upon his oldest son, Armando, Jr., to go along with the pretense that my father was divorced from Gloria, so that my younger brother and I could grow up having our older half-brother in our lives. This was a tough burden for Armando, Junior. Several other members of the Outfit, including Joe Amabile, Sr., Sam “Teets” Battaglia, Romie Nappi, Charlie Nicosia, Pat Marcy, Sr., Art Papa, Jimmy Nuzzo, Cosmo Guzaldo, and a few others bowed to Armando’s wishes and kept his secret.

Arrangements were made for my maternal family to have a private wake-service to pay respects to my then newly deceased father. Armando provided for both of his families.  Shortly after Armando’s death, I became good friends with Gloria, and her brother Romie, their sister Dolly, and her husband Mario. Gloria and her siblings understood the circumstances that we were entangled in and, to their great credit, they never displayed the slightest resentment towards me or my brother. Instead, Gloria and I mutually decided that she would be considered my step-mother (in sort of a reverse order).

We both had a sense of humor about this, as we laughed about it at first. Gloria’s main interest in accepting my younger brother and me into her extended family concerned my half-brother Ralph. He had suffered for several years from health problems, and Paul and I had spent a great deal of time and energy helping him. As Gloria once put it, “you and Paulie and my sons have the same flesh and blood,” which obviously meant a great deal to her. God rest her lovely and kind soul. I miss her very much.

My father dreamed his sons from both relationships would bond as one family. It was a nice dream, something I think we all hoped would come to pass, and maybe for a while, it did. Reality eventually comes calling, though, and my friendship with Armando, Jr., eventually deteriorated.

Close mutual sources between us had suggested that Armando, Jr., is likely battling recurring resentment over possibly feeling that our father replaced him with me. While I can understand this point of view, I certainly disagree with it. There is no way my father replaced any of his sons, no matter what. Nevertheless, I pray for the wellness of Armando, Jr., and forever extend my hand to him in friendship. I hope we can put things back together here, or when we meet in Heaven. Either is fine with me.

My greatest solace in this is that my other older half-brother Ralph and I enjoy our beautiful friendship very much. Perhaps someday I will have that kind of relationship with Armando, Jr., again.

In the middle 1990s Joe “Fibs” Amabile, Jr., introduced me to one of the then-current Outfit powerbrokers of the Melrose Park, Stone Park, and Northlake territory, a man by the name of Nicholas “Buddy” Ciotti. As a result of the rich history between our families, Fibs introduced me to Buddy as his cousin, which was an overstatement. Nevertheless, it was hopefully meant in a respectful and harmless way – you don’t get the nickname Fibs for nothing.

Buddy and I quickly became friends. After some time Buddy and I discovered that our families and close friends were deeply acquainted through Outfit/Mafia operatives such as the late Tommy “Tommy Ryan” Eboli and his late son Louie, the late Charlie Nicosia, and the then living “Joey O” Aiuppa. Through Buddy, I eventually met Outfit operatives Carmine Bastone, Joey DaVita, Joey “Kong” Culotta, old man Angelo Volpe (the brother of Outfit underboss Jack Cerone’s best friend, Dominic Volpe), and many others.

Angelo Volpe recalled my father very well, smiling as he reminisced about Armando from the days when my father and Joe Amabile, Sr. carried a great deal of weight in Buddy’s territory many years earlier. When Angelo connected the dots for us he was able to share various pieces of historical information that were helpful enough for Buddy to pull up a significant personal and endearing recollection of my father from the 1960s, which was when Buddy (born 1944) was a very young man. Buddy and I felt more bonded by this time. Our friendship was as strong as any good friendship could be.

During this same time period, I became very close to Joe Amabile Senior’s eldest son, Johnny. He was one of the finest, most decent, and nicest people that I have ever known. I am grateful to have known him. I bonded with him in the mid-1990s. We frequently sat together in his brother Danny’s deli in Melrose Park for lunch or coffee. We partook in the joy of sharing many beautiful family stories over a period of a couple of years while having lunch or coffee together, sharing memories and thoughts about the simple things in life. Our fathers being so closely bonded in their lifetimes, which was obviously extremely well known to us, made those lunches very memorable for me. We were able to reunite his mother and my stepmother, Gloria, one last time for a lunch date at Danny’s deli in the mid-1990s, which was the first time both women saw each other in many years. They were once so close that, prior to an extortion indictment lodged against Joe in the late 1960s, my stepmother would visit Annie in the early to mid-1960s at her home in Addison, Illinois, sometimes staying for a week at a time.

I could go on for some time in this vein, but it will detract from the goal of this report.

As the above should illustrate, I have extensive knowledge of Italian-American organized-crime lore. I invite anyone with a serious interest in expanding on my work in a meaningful way to contact me. I can only cover so much on my own given the way I have gone about doing my research. Without the good help of others, my ability to further develop my current focus will be very challenging, and I may likely remain limited to the individuals and information that currently makes up my realm of knowledge.

I have extensive notes from conversations that I had with sources, witnesses, and subjects. Additionally, I have many old FBI 302 reports, payroll sheets, and itemized statements of earnings reports from the Social Security Administration, that make up some of the material used to verify my findings. Being my father’s son made accessing his records possible, particularly with the U.S. Navy. I would be happy to share my material with others who have a serious interest in this type of research. However, please be aware that I will vet any interested parties who are unknown to me and their information very thoroughly prior to any collaboration.

My thorough and sometimes hard-hitting articles have made the subject of numerous ad hominem attacks. I have had my share of harassers, pranksters, slanderers, and defamers, who apparently feel very strongly about some of the things that I have written over the years. Some of it has been so unpleasant to cope with that, at times, I almost felt envious of the average internet hack who writes things he or she does not understand about total strangers and is simply ignored by them and discarded as a crank. Unfortunately, great efforts have been made to detract my good work over the years, employing underhanded tactics largely by anonymous people or known criminals.

 In addition to this report I would recommend some further reading, which I will leave in hyperlinks at the end of this document. If you care to review some of the many posted comments that my work receives on the internet, I have tens of thousands of comments associated with a great deal of my dated articles. However, in recent years the comment traffic moved over to our Facebook page. I attribute this to a significant lull in the production of my work a few years back. A few years ago I put things here on hiatus to make time to address other important projects. I now feel, however, it is time to put my knowledge of these matters to better use.

Thank you for your time and indulgence,

Joe

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Great confluences that set the stage for large swathes of history are usually impossible to predict. To wit, who would have guessed that, sometime in the early-to-mid 1800s, in the small town of Naples, Italy, the form and structure of the most powerful organized crime syndicate in Chicago’s history was set. As King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies ruled over his kingdom spanning from Palermo to Naples, The Capones, DeLucias, and Ioriis were also forming a coalition, a bond so significant that they would almost be one extended family – Paesanos!

Although the Iorii family’s ties to the Capones and DeLucias began in Naples, I wish to clarify that the Iorii family originated in Abruzzo, Italy. Tony Iorii was the son of a very prominent military general in Italy. General Iorii’s prominence made him well-known and well-connected in regions all around central and southern Italy, especially Naples. He was also a land baron and famous consigliore (lawyer), specializing in criminal law. The General’s family, including Tony and Assunta (my father’s mother-in-law) were raised in a castle located in L’Aquila – the capital of Abruzzo, Italy.

Around the turn of the century, these families gave birth to many children in Naples and Abruzzo, as well as America, as their migration from Italy to the USA was in full process. Among the many children born around the turn of the century to these closely connected families, were Felice, Antonio, and Alphonse, more infamously known in later years as Paul Ricca (Felice DeLucia), Tony Iorii and Al Capone.

I am not suggesting that this trio grew up together as friends playing in the same sandbox. However, I am establishing that their roots were intertwined, and all three knew it very well. Most interestingly, this family connection meant a great deal to Paul, Tony and Al when they became old enough to work together in a serious capacity within the greater Chicagoland area. They were aware of their families’ closeness, and these three men would form the backbone of the mafia that would dominate Chicago for decades.

When Al Capone made his way to Chicago from New York, his meteoric rise to power left him in need of trusted associates to help rule his criminal empire. Two of his most treasured selected counterparts were his paesanos, Paul Ricca and Tony Iorii.

There is no good reason for me to cover Al Capone and Paul Ricca extensively here, as these two remarkable figures have been covered very thoroughly by many, but Tony Iorii is a different matter. His early role in Capone’s power base is practically unknown, and I mean to remedy this state of affairs.

I’m sorry to say that my knowledge of Tony Iorii is thin regarding his earliest years working with Al Capone and Paul Ricca. My knowledge begins around the 1930s, the time my father’s brother-in-law was working with Iorii. Perhaps some readers can help me fill out Tony’s early years in future articles. In fact, in previous pieces that I authored on my father, which were general and casual in nature,  I purposefully withheld mentioning the depths of his involvement with Iorii. I felt the subject deserved more attention than a casual mention. You will see in this report that I have taken the time to be somewhat detailed.

I will start at around 1930. Al Capone had previously given Tony Iorii a vast territory that spanned from Northern Illinois to Southern Wisconsin. With Al’s blessings, Tony was free to engage in whatever Outfit racket he wished within this vast territory without answering to anyone. Power over the local corrupt politicians and police also came with Al’s gift of the territory.

Talk about family connections, eh?

During prohibition, Tony made a fortune on selling moonshine and running speakeasies in his vast territory. During and after prohibition, Tony made another fortune on slot machines geared for gaming as well as novelty. Uncle Tony’s income from these enterprises was substantial. I have an interesting first-hand account of Tony Iorii’s extensive wealth from a man named Willie Messino. Willie was an old-time Outfit guy born in 1917, who I came to be good friends within the 1990s.

One day in the late 1990s I brought Willie to visit my step-mother, Gloria, at her Oak Park, Illinois, home. We had a nice visit. Willie briefly dated one of her older sisters when they were teenagers. In fact, Willie recalled holding Gloria’s hand while on his date with her older sister. Back then, sending a young child off on a date with teenagers was a way of making sure the date remained respectable. Gloria was probably around 8 or 9 years old at the time.

Willie then explained to us that he used to also date Tony Iorii’s daughter (by his first marriage). Willie claimed she was somewhat unruly, which scared me coming from the perspective of a young Willie Messino. Gloria knew her as well (after all, they were cousins). At this time, Uncle Tony had remarried a beautiful, younger woman of German descent named Milda, and they lived up north of Chicago, somewhere on or near Sheridan Road. They had a palatial estate that sported a ballroom that could easily hold 100 people.

Willie was familiar with the home. He shared with me later that he used to bring Tony’s daughter “up there” to see her father since she was still living in the city with her mother. Willie told me that Tony used to carry an obscene amount of money on him. Tony referred to these fat bundles of hundred, five-hundred, and thousand-dollar bills as “artichokes.” My father used the same term to refer to large rolls of cash, most likely because of Uncle Tony.

When Willie periodically brought Tony’s daughter to see him, Tony would reach into his pocket and toss his daughter a few thousand bucks, and even toss Willie a few thousand for himself. As he would toss them the rolls of cash he would laugh and say, “Have some artichokes!” Once as Willie and Tony’s daughter were leaving, Tony stopped them and tossed over another “artichoke” for her mother, as he told his daughter to say hello for him. Willie confided in me that he and the daughter only gave the mother a fraction of the three grand. Apparently the line of communication between Tony and his ex-wife was not very good since Willie was not worried about Tony finding out they made off with most of the woman’s cash.

Some of Uncle Tony’s vast success would not have been possible without his nephew, Ralph Nappi. Tony Iorii’s sister, Assunta Iorii, married Felice Nappi, a.k.a. Felix Nappi, who was a barber. Starting around 1910 they began raising a family of 8 children on Chicago’s Polk Street in the then financially depressed Taylor Street neighborhood, known as Chicago’s Little Italy. Their oldest boy, Ralph Nappi (who one of my older brothers was named after) was born in 1911, went to work for his Uncle Tony Iorii around the year 1927. Ralph was a rising star in the Outfit by the 1930s because of his hard work helping Tony run his Outfit rackets. Ralph got to know other Outfit rising stars such as Frank Nitti/Nitto, Sam Giancana, Sam “Teets” Battaglia, Anthony “Joe B” Accardo, Joe “Joey O” Aiuppa, and many more. Ralph also got to know more seasoned Outfit operatives such as Paul Ricca and Louie “Lefty” Campagna.  Ralph would form powerful bonds with many of these men, especially Teets, Lefty, Paul (my youngest brother was named after Paul), and Al Capone. Then, around 1929, Ralph became a ‘made’ member of the Chicago Outfit, sponsored by Uncle Tony.

With his powerful connections and deep pockets, Ralph might have gone on to run The Outfit, but he was murdered in 1941 at age 30. Ralph was in a bar in Wisconsin where he threw out a rowdy drunk. A bit later the drunk came back with a gun and practically shot Ralph in the back. Romie, Ralph’s younger brother, was with him at the time, but did not realize what had happened until it was too late.

The police were quick on the scene and the man was taken to jail. He was later convicted on murder charges and spent his natural life in prison in Wisconsin. Teets tried to have the murder case fixed through their political clout in Wisconsin. However, the judge was sharp enough to know that the defendant would be murdered, so he would not comply.

According to Ralph’s youngest sister, Gloria, who is my now late stepmother, there were at least 100 cars at Ralph’s funeral. Ralph was still single, though he did have a fiancée, who never married and died a spinster. She was looked after by Romie.

Paul Ricca and Teets Battaglia took Ralph’s death as bad as Romie and the rest of the Nappi family. From that time on, Paul decided that while he was alive, Romie would collect Ralph’s piece of the pie from whatever endeavors he and Paul and some of the others had in the works. Teets, who was involved in these endeavors, could not agree more with Paul. By the late 1930s Romie Nappi was also working for Uncle Tony, helping Ralph run Tony’s rackets. In 1941 Ralph’s death moved Romie up the line of power. While the allies of his brother and uncle were useful, Romie would also need new alliances to move his business interests forward.

Very quickly, Romie pulled my father in with him. Armando Fosco, Sr., (born 1922) and Romie were brothers-in-law as a result of my father’s then-recent marriage to Romie’s youngest sister, Gloria. Romie and my father bonded as if they were biological brothers. They entered into a discrete and exclusive partnership where they would give the other nearly half of what they profited on any business venture they were involved in independent from one another. Whatever mutual endeavors they would have, Armando was the working partner – if work was required of either of them. Seeing as how the clout originated from Romie’s family, Armando was agreeable with being the junior partner.

World War II caused a brief interruption. Romie spent approximately one year away during WWII and was discharged honorably due to a medical issue. Armando spent less than one year away before going AWOL. Armando worried terribly about his elderly mother, Anna Marie Fosco (nee Rossi), who was compromised with serious health issues at the time. She was not alone in her life, but Armando felt that he could look after her best. Armando was eventually charged with desertion, as his unlawful leave from service during WWII went beyond thirty days. Once that charge was leveled, Armando did not see the sense in returning to the Navy at all.

While on the lam from the war, Armando juggled two positions with the Chicago Outfit. One position involved the Iorii territory slot machine style gaming and novelty rackets. The other position involved Teets Battaglia. Teets took a special liking to Armando right away partly because he knew one of Armando’s older brothers, Vito, who was once a member of The 42 Gang, which Teets belonged to years before. In fact, Teets used Armando on some of his own street rackets in Chicago.

Shortly after the end of World War II, Armando was captured in Chicago by U.S. Military Police and was court-martialed on the desertion charge. Armando was looking at five to ten plus years in prison for deserting during a World War. Fortunately for Armando, his network of influential and powerful cohorts had a deep connection to the Kansas City Outfit, which controlled a vast political entity known as the Prendergast Machine. The significance of this connection meant that the Harry S. Truman Administration was well within their reach, as Truman belonged to the Prendergast Machine.

Thanks to the friendship he built within The Chicago Outfit, Armando was only held in custody for slightly longer than one year. Armando served his time in Portsmouth Naval Prison, which is on the east coast and located on an island. The prison was also known as Alcatraz of the East. Several months in prison is no picnic, but he was spared the bulk of the prison time in which he originally faced.

After his release, things quickly went back to normal. The Outfit was always looking to expand its power. This led men like Romie and Armando into far-flung territories, utilizing all manner of new connections to expand the Outfit’s reach. To this end, the Armando and Romie partnership, and others, employed a longtime associate of theirs by the name of Jack Ruby (yes, that Jack Ruby) to utilize his connections with politicians in Dallas, Texas, in order to set up slot machine rackets in The Lone Star state. Chicago Outfit heavy, Anthony “Joe B” Accardo was very much involved in this project. They had previously relied on another slot machine kingpin by the name of Eddie Vogel to send money, reportedly six figures, to then-candidate for governor of Texas, Beauford H. Jester, which helped him win the office of governor in the state of Texas.

With Jester’s victory, the timing seemed perfect. Ruby was sent with a small number of men to meet with the people in Dallas. Among the men sent to Dallas were Romie Nappi, Pat Manno, and Butch Blasi. As a bizarre side note, some members of this Manno family (under a different surname) for many years claimed to be related through marriage to E.P. Taylor, who was a wildly successful Canadian businessman. E.P. Taylor was a business partner with the father of my good friend, Conrad Black.

While in Dallas, the unforeseen occurred. The men were taken into custody and held on suspicion of tempted bribery of a public official. Their Chicago allies acted quickly to organize their release. One of the men sent to Dallas to secure this outcome was my friend, Willie Messino.

Willie related to me the story of his fateful trip to Texas. He was sent by train with an attorney to Dallas with two hundred thousand dollars in cash to help the waylaid Outfit contingent. According to Willie, Accardo told him, “Do not come back to Chicago without Romie, Pat, and Butch.” Prior to boarding the train, Willie was sent to see Romie’s wife, Maryon, to let her know that Romie would be home soon. Willie told me that she was so upset that he felt sorry for Romie for having to later return home. We both laughed.

By the time Willie arrived in Dallas, Texas, Romie, Pat and Butch and some of the others were already released. Willie also told me that as they were about to leave Dallas, the then newly-elected Sheriff Steve Guthrie called all of them “dagos” and “wops,” while holding a gun on them. The Sheriff threatened that all of his men were ordered by him to “shoot-to-kill any of you dagos and wops” if they ever tried returning to Dallas. While laughing, Willie said, “I got the hell out of there.”

Aside from the information provided by Willie Messino, you can find a lot about this story on the internet. Many researchers and historians have this information available online. Apparently the Jack Ruby connection is fascinating to some. I admit it caused my eyebrows to raise when I first heard the story many years ago.

Time marched on. The bulk of Tony Iorii’s rackets, which eventually became Romie’s and Armando’s rackets, largely came to an end in 1951 as a result of the United States Senate Special Committee called the Kefauver Commission. It was assembled to investigate organized crime, which crossed state borders in the United States. Until the end, the Iorii, Armando and Romie rackets thrived, as they did since the days of Al Capone.

The Foscos and Ioriis had strained relations in later years. The Armando and Romie partnership ended up with a great deal of Uncle Tony’s assets, including his street rackets, cash, and some property in Wisconsin. One of Tony’s sons made a complaint to Romie after Tony’s death as to the portions of his father’s wealth that went to the Romie and Armando partnership. As usual Romie handed the matter (which involved work) over to Armando to settle. In short order, the complaint was rescinded.

Another close and strong bond that formed by the late 1940s, included Teets’ right-hand man, Joe Amabile, Sr., Armando and Romie, which caused these fellows to become as close as brothers. Paul Ricca and Romie Nappi were almost inseparable until Paul’s death in 1972. Some thought of Paul as an older brother figure to Romie. The deep connection between Paul and Romie caused Armando the opportunity to get very close to Paul as well.

Paul and Armando each had a son that suffered from significant medical difficulties, and the two would further bond over this terrible hardship. Paul once expressed to Armando that their sons’ medical issues were their “cross to bear” in life.

To give you another example of the closeness between these men, Romie and Armando would sometimes share the talented abilities of a very trusted handyman that worked for Paul – he was a man by the name of Billy “Gumpie” Crisci. Armando and Romie would sometimes use Gumpie for their own household repairs (of course compliments of Paul).

Armando and Joe Amabile, Sr. would also become very close. To illustrate this bond, I will share a story. I believe this event occurred in the 1950s. I am also going to be very discrete about details as to the identity of the victim and killer, as it is to an extent a private family matter. A close relative of Joe’s shot and killed another relative during a domestic squabble (both parties were male adults). This murder occurred inside of the City of Chicago. It quickly became a concern for Teets, Joe, Romie, and my father, that Chicago Police would find the shooter and kill him, as the suspect was on the lam and considered armed and dangerous. Since Joe was looking for his armed relative, Teets commissioned my father to meet with the “captain’s man.”

The “captain’s man” in those days was considered the captain’s china-man, collector or bagman, as most if not all of Chicago’s Police District captains were on the take at this time. This captain’s man was Edward Louis, the son of Sam Louis, who was a heavyweight operative of the Lucchese Crime Family of New York and a good friend of Paul Ricca’s. Out of respect for Paul, and appreciation of Sam’s good deeds to the Chicago Outfit over the years, Sam’s sons, Sam, Jr., and Edward were put on the Chicago Police Department as officers sometime around 1948, with the help of Chicago’s then First Ward Alderman John Budinger (don’t let the non-Italian surname Budinger fool you – he was certainly under the control of The Chicago Outfit). Sam Louis and his sons were under the control of Paul Ricca, so setting the meeting was simple enough.

My father connected with Ed Louis in enough time to make arrangements for Chicago police officers to not shoot to kill. Instead, once the suspect was discovered, Joe was successfully brought into the fold to calm him. I lost track of whether they fixed the case for the suspect or if the suspect died before trial. The suspect was not a spring chicken and as you can imagine obviously had a great deal of stress and other complications in his life.

After the collapse of the Iorii, Armando and Romie multi-state rackets, Armando and Romie began working more frequently with Teets and Joe Amabile on other Outfit rackets throughout the Chicagoland area. While Teets and Romie were very close friends and allies, and in some ways partners in various ventures, Joe Amabile and Armando had similar experiences and bonds with each other, as well as with Teets and Romie. The four men formed a confederation of sorts (beyond Armando and Romie’s decades-old private arrangement). This group belonged to Paul Ricca.

Teets and Romie were somewhat elevated in stature within the Outfit compared to Armando and Joe. However, the elevation was slight, as Joe and Armando were very serious operatives. No one else ranked as highly with Teets and Romie than Armando and Joe, and Paul’s blessings affirmed this reality. These men would have others who served them in their Outfit duties. Among the men under them were fellows by the names of Art Papa, Bennie Fosco (one of Armando’s older brothers), Jimmy Nuzzo and Cosmo Guzaldo. Art, Bennie, and Jimmy were musclemen, allowing Joe and Armando some respite from their former spots in that role. Cosmo was someone who worked for them in the capacity of sports and pony gaming. There were several others who performed in similar capacities, but these men formed the core of the team.

Beginning with Paul Ricca’s orders, from the 1940s until the early 1990s, Teets and/or Romie, et al, were The Outfit’s discrete powerbrokers in Chicago’s First Ward. From time to time, the men who held official positions with the ward needed a hand with various discrete matters, – it would go to Teets and/or Romie, who would address those needs through Armando and Joe, and others beneath them. The same process went for several Outfit-controlled labor leaders in Chicago, who served as the front men for their unions, including but not limited to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

During most of the 1950s through nearly all of the 1960s, Romie and Teets were especially active in Melrose Park, Stone Park, and Northlake, Illinois (what would become Buddy Ciotti’s territory in the 1980s and ’90s) with respect to Outfit street rackets. In fact, this is where Joe “Joey O” Aiuppa would begin meeting with Romie on a steady basis. Armando was the liaison for Teets and Romie with respect to sensitive Outfit communications they exchanged with major bosses such as Ross Prio and Frank LaPorte. I have some copies of FBI 302 reports that I consider to be supporting documents. You can review a selection of FBI 302 reports on Romie Nappi here. Armando’s FBI record was destroyed in the 1970s, but I have a 302 report on Outfit Boss Ross Prio that supports the sensitive Outfit communications between him and my father.

The 1960s marked a time were Armando and Romie were riding the crest of a wave. Their “Papa,” a reference to Paul Ricca, was still in absolute and total control of the Chicago Outfit. Their guy, Teets, was the day-to-day boss for a while, and their legitimate business ventures were making nearly as much money as their rackets. Romie became a silent shareholder in Austin Liquors and Gold Seal, along with other gangsters who were partnered with him. Romie’s group fronted Gold Seal through a kind Jewish fellow, Laurie Friedman. They took the ownership out of Joe Fusco’s name, a man who was once Al Capone’s confidant. My family was very close to the Fuscos. We considered ourselves as family. As a now late prominent liquor distributor, Bill Wirtz, once told me, Joe Fusco put nearly every Illinois-based liquor family in the business. Given Fusco’s closeness to Capone, one might suggest that Capone put nearly every Illinois-based liquor family in the business. Armando’s interests in these liquor companies were exclusively through his longstanding silent partnership with Romie.

In the 1960s one of the most successful companies Armando had (along with Romie and a couple of other partners, including then Chicago’s First Ward’s Pat Marcy, Sr.), was a mobile catering company named Meals on Wheels. Located on the 4500 Block of North Pulaski, Meals on Wheels was formerly known as Sam’s Coffee Service, named after Sam Parisi, a close friend and partner, who fronted the operation.

This catering service ran from the early 1960s to approximately early 1972. It consisted of dozens of catering trucks that first sold coffee and breakfast rolls (in the early 1960s) at job sites throughout the City of Chicago. By approximately mid to late 1965, they offered a full lunch menu.

What made Meals on Wheels truly unique was that, during the company’s entire run, the City of Chicago did not permit other catering companies to obtain a city license and/or authorization to operate catering trucks. Of course, this meant that Meals on Wheels had no competition whatsoever. By around early 1972, the ownership of Meals on Wheels faced the reality that their more than ten year run of having no competition was not going to be possible forever. Armando was very good at accepting that the party does not last forever, and was always good about moving on to better things.

The 1960s did not end so well for Teets and Joe. Joe was indicted on an extortion case, which created a similar problem for Teets. Teets was mad about being snared by Joe’s indictment. My understanding is that Teets was brought into the matter unfairly by the Feds. Both men were sent off to prison. For quite a while Romie and Armando gave Joe’s wife, Annie (God rest her beautiful soul) money every month to help her with the expenses she faced as a temporary single parent with several children.

A few of Annie’s nine children (which included a nephew that she and Joe raised as if he were their own) by that time were productive adults. However, Annie had two young daughters (twins) and four young sons (triplets and her nephew). I’m not suggesting that the monthly envelope of cash that Romie and Armando provided for Annie was enough to keep the entire family living in the lap of luxury, especially since my father and Romie were aware that her oldest son Johnny was experiencing significant financial success in the produce business. Nevertheless, Armando and Romie wanted to help Annie with her necessary living expenses. The money was usually picked up from my father at the now-closed Royal Oaks Restaurant (located in the greater Oak Park area in Illinois) by one of Annie’s sons. This payment system went on for a reasonable period of time, despite Teets’ upset about his “bum rap.”

The 1970s brought permanent loss to Armando’s and Romie’s unique network of Outfit operatives, as well as new ventures. Art Papa was murdered around 1970, though it was not Outfit-related. Next, Joe “Gags” Gagliano in 1971, Frank LaPorte, Paul Ricca and Ross Prio in 1972, Sam Battaglia in 1973, and Joe Amabile in 1976 – all to natural causes. They also lost Sam Giancana to an Outfit hit in 1975. There were a number of other Outfit operatives who passed in the 1970s as well.

Good thing for the survivors of Armando’s and Romie’s intimate and unique network of Outfit operatives was the fact that Armando and Romie were very much aligned and allied with Anthony “Joe B” Accardo, Joe “Joey O” Aiuppa and others almost as powerful. Armando’s and Romie’s past Outfit street rackets going back to the 1930s with Uncle Tony’s ventures, and Romie’s rather discrete involvement in Austin Liquor and Gold Seal, as well as their powerful connection and discrete roles with the then Chicago’s First Ward, made it absolutely impossible for them not to be closely aligned and allied with Accardo and Aiuppa.

As far as new ventures went, by early 1972 Armando basically retired. He had worked since he was 15 years old, so he had roughly 35-years of gainful employment under his belt (in one way or another). Armando felt that he made enough money to at least semi-retire. Armando was a high energy person, so he was not about to buy a fishing boat and completely retire, despite his friend and business associate Joe “Gags” Gagliano’s numerous attempts in previous years to sell Armando his “fishing” boat. Armando repeatedly declined, not only because he was more of a hunter than a fisherman, but that this vessel was more of a yacht than a schooner.

Armando’s “retirement” would come in the form of the Franklin Coin Shop, a modestly-sized antique coin shop he opened in the spring of 1972 (though he told the IRS that he was working for Rosario D. Salerno Funeral home instead). My father was a rare coin collector and dealer for most of his adult life. Though before then he never had his own brick and mortar based coin shop as a physical headquarters. It was located on the 6900 block of West North Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois. It was actually in a building that was then owned by a fellow named Joe Giossi. Armando and Joe Giossi were engaged in a silent business arrangement in that property, which made Armando’s decision to locate his coin shop there quite simple.

In early to mid-1974 Armando was advised by Romie and others in the Outfit that he had to get involved with something very important. With the then-recent loss of all of the Outfit leaders in the early 1970s as previously noted, along with a number of others who I have not mentioned here, the Outfit was restructuring from the top. Where they previously colluded with front-men such as prominent labor leaders like Peter and Angelo Fosco, Joe Glimco, and Dominic Senese, now The Outfit decided to directly insert members into the locals. Romie and Armando joined men like Vince Solano and Al “Blue Eyes” Pilotto in being deployed into powerful roles within Chicago’s various unions.

With Romie’s previous direct dealings with liquor companies such as Gold Seal and others, it was decided by Outfit bosses that Local 3 would be a good fit. Romie was discretely inserted into Local 3 (known as the Duff Family Union, primarily because of all negative press they’ve attracted), which represented employees in the liquor industry. It ended up being a simpler job than the one given to his partner.

Armando was literally blindsided by this news that he would have to go to work for the Teamsters. With great caution, perhaps apprehension, he arranged to take the position and had officially started working for the Teamsters by sometime shortly after July 1st of 1974. His employment with the Teamsters abruptly ended sometime shortly prior to September 30, 1974.

There was an apparent problem that Armando was trying to sort out that lead up to his rather quick departure from the Teamsters. This meant that he could refocus more on his coin shop, which he certainly preferred over having a job with the Teamsters and dealing with whatever complicated matter The Outfit wanted him to address with unions.

By July of 1975, Armando was told by Romie and others in The Outfit to return to his post at the Local 738 headquarters in the then near future, which he did with the same apprehension as the previous time. He returned sometime shortly after July 1, 1975. By sometime shortly prior to the end of the year of 1975, Armando was informed by the then-current Secretary-Treasurer of Local 738, Raymond “Ray” Domenic, that Armando would be unable to continue with his employment with the Teamsters because they learned of his 1940s felony conviction for deserting during WWII. Armando, once again, returned to running his coin shop on a full-time basis.

Returning to the coin shop would turn out to be very fortuitous. In late June of 1975, Romie Nappi brought Armando into a very interesting payday arrangement, and it involved the assets of the recently murdered Sam Giancana.

According to highly credible sources, days prior to a meeting Romie had called with Armando, Butch Blasi, who was almost as close to Romie as Armando was, struck a deal with Chicago Outfit bosses Anthony “Joe B” Accardo and Joe “Joey O” Aiuppa. Butch Blasi was a well-connected Outfit operative who was close with top bosses, and an extremely close friend and business associate of Romie and Armando.  For a number years, Butch was holding, “for safe keeps,” a couple of million dollars of fine jewelry for his very close friend, former Chicago Outfit Boss Sam Giancana. This fact was discovered by Accardo and Aiuppa because they purportedly appointed Blasi to be Giancana’s primary executioner a short number of days earlier.

Given the success of the hit, Accardo and Aiuppa were supposedly more than happy passing on taking a cut of the jewelry collection that Blasi long had in his possession. Blasi did them proud, and, in their minds, he earned every bit of Giancana’s jewelry. Considering the way Giancana left this world, no one with significant power in The Outfit gave any consideration to the Giancana family’s welfare. Had Giancana departed under different circumstances, his family would have been awarded the jewelry.

The extreme largesse of Joe B and Joey O’s actions may seem odd, so I will better emphasize what Blasi accomplished for The Outfit. With Giancana deceased, The Outfit could once again run like a well-oiled machine. The still recent death of Chicago Outfit Overlord Paul Ricca brought on a power struggle between Accardo and Giancana, which caused serious dysfunction in the administration of The Chicago Outfit. Accardo was paranoid that Giancana would murder him at some point in the near future. To avoid this outcome, those old cagy bosses, Accardo and Aiuppa, planned Giancana’s murder – and financed it with Sam’s own assets. Total ownership over the two million in jewelry was excellent motivation for Butch Blasi to pull the trigger on his own friend. Of course, fear of saying no to Joey O and Joe B probably also weighed on Butch’s mind.

Personally, I would have liked to see Giancana live out his natural life. Accardo, Aiuppa, and a few others did not like him, but many others thought very highly of Sam.

Armando was appointed by Romie to liquidate the jewelry collection for Butch Blasi. It took a little time to do, but it was done very well, as Armando’s professional marketing connections allowed for the transactions to be processed safely and discretely, and for the most profit possible.

By around 1976, Michael Spilotro, brother of Outfit operative Tony Spilotro, opened a restaurant called Hoagies directly across the street from Armando’s coin shop. Tony Spilotro and my father were not newly acquainted. They had known each other for a long time. Tony was then spending a lot of time in Nevada focusing on endeavors independent from the Outfit.

The Spilotros controlled one of the City of Chicago’s largest and most profitable burglary crews. The Spilotros frequently found themselves looking to unload scores of valuable jewelry. My father being the wheeler-dealer that he was, quietly and quickly deviated from coin dealings whenever the right Spilotro score came his way. They established a regular system.

This venture had become a very lucrative arrangement for Armando, as he had all of the outlets in place necessary to sell whatever he bought from the Spilotros in a safe, expeditious and most profitable way. Obviously it was a lucrative arrangement for the Spilotros as well. Aside from making money, which was one of my father’s greatest joys, he had a lot of fun with the Spilotro Brothers and their friends. He thought they were crazy (in an over-the-top sort of way) kids. They frequently made him laugh with their bizarre antics.

In or around sometime in July of 1977, approximately one year after he had left the Teamsters for the second time, Armando was told by Romie and others in The Outfit to report to his old post at Teamsters Local 738 headquarters. According to a credible source, Romie had waited for the then-recent Presidential Election to play out to see if Democrats would regain the White House, which they did through Jimmy Carter’s victory. Shortly after the Carter Administration took control of the federal government, the now-former and late U.S. Congressman Frank Annunzio from Illinois was allegedly able to arrange a discrete deal with officials in the Jimmy Carter Administration to sweep Armando’s federal conviction under the carpet to a large extent. Initially, they were seeking a full pardon. However, Carter’s people allegedly refused to consider a pardon for a WWII desertion, especially for a Teamster. It would be impossible for the President, particularly after Hoffa’s scandalous behavior pursuing a pardon during the Nixon administration. So they went in a different direction with their alleged arrangement.

My father, along with most of the intelligent and cagey members of The Outfit, was careful not to appear in photos with political figures in thrall to Outfit interests. After the work allegedly done by Congressman Annunzio, Armando was doubly sure to avoid being seen with his covert ally, which is why this photo collage is so interesting. Both Armando and Congressman Annunzio were at a Teamsters conference in Washington, D.C. in 1978. They both took great pains to avoid being seen together at this event. Their act was so convincing that Local 738 Secretary-Treasurer Ray Domenic, thinking Armando and the Congressman somehow managed to entirely miss one another, decided to put them next to each other in a picture collage that appeared in a Local 738 newspaper.

Needless to say, Armando was secretly furious at Domenic, but there was nothing he could do. Domenic was entirely unaware of the alleged favor done by Congressman Annunzio. This might seem an odd story to bring up, but I wanted to once again illustrate how far the serious members of The Outfit went to maintain outward appearances.

Once the alleged arrangement came to fruition, standard criminal background checks would no longer detect the conviction. Most of Armando’s federal records were also destroyed around this time. All Armando had to do was report to Local 738 headquarters and explain that his official criminal record was corrected as if the felony that once existed on his record had appeared only in error. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters was finally satisfied, and Armando’s employment with the Teamsters was secured. He eventually closed his coin shop, though he never sold off his inventory, as it was his serious intention to return to his business once he was able to untangle himself from the union rackets.

Once reporting to work at the union hall, Armando quickly dominated Secretary-Treasurer Domenic. Armando pressured Ray and the executive board into making my father a Trustee. At the wish of one of my father’s close associates, within roughly a couple of years, Armando pressured Ray and/or the executive board to bring in Ralph Massey as a business agent. Armando knew and liked Ralph’s family, as Armando’s connection to the Massey (originally Masucci) family went back to the 1930s. A few months later, Armando, at the behest Joseph Aiuppa, pressured Ray and/or the executive board to bring in Pete Agliata as a business agent. Pete was the son-in-law of Outfit Capo Joe Ferriola. My father knew Joe Ferriola for many years. A couple of weeks later, Armando outright intimidated Ray into agreeing to retire. The plan was to pressure the executive board to appoint my father as the new Secretary-Treasurer.

As the process took a couple of weeks to conclude, rumors surrounding Ray’s sudden fateful decision to retire quickly became gossip around the office. During this time it got back to Armando that Pete Agliata was trying to get his father-in-law to pull some strings to have him appointed as the Secretary-Treasurer instead of my father. Joe Ferriola reached out to Joe Aiuppa on behalf of his son-in-law to try helping Pete take over Local 738. Aiuppa denied Ferriola’s request. Obviously, Ferriola was not fully in the loop on what the big bosses were doing with Romie and Armando with the union rackets.

It is worth noting that, after my father’s death in 1987, Pete Agliata finally succeeded in taking over Local 738. A few years later, Pete’s foolishness caused the union to go into receivership.

Jack Cerone, Esquire, who was a newly hired union attorney (per my father’s doing), started pushing for Ralph Massey or another Local 738 employee named Joe Roveto to be appointed as Secretary-Treasurer instead of my father. Despite Jack, Esq., advocating for his friends, his wishes were not granted. Indeed, it is doubtful anyone took the effort seriously. It was obvious to some that Jack, Esq., often tried to ride on his father’s coattails and play at being an Outfit boss. In those days he was often sent back to his law office by his father with the reminder that he was a lawyer and not a gangster.

Soon after my father officially became the head of the union Local, the first person that he hired was his dear friend, Pat Marcy’s brother Paul. My father appreciated his close friendship with Paul just as much as he appreciated his close friendship with Pat. Click here to view a supporting document, a Local 738 payroll list.

In 1986, Teamster Official Dominic Senese, who came up in the 1950s with legendary Teamsters Official Joey Glimco, was starting to show signs to some as if he was feeling slighted by Armando’s fast-paced and steady rise in the Teamsters community, especially in The Outfit’s Labor rackets division (or crew). He was reluctant to give Armando the full level of respect that Dominic should have given him. This was the beginning of Dominic’s demise. Armando tried to be reasonable and negotiate as best he could, out of respect for all that Dominic had done over the years. Things might have worked out if Armando had not died early the following year of cancer. Without Armando around to handle Dominic, the then boss of the Outfit, Sam Carlisi, ended up taking matters in a more serious direction, which is better illustrated in the second article linked below.

This report is complemented via the two articles linked below. I suggest that you read them. At this time I will end here. I will continue adding to this record soon. Future addendums to this record will be done separately, as articles titled “addendum to the report,” to make it easy to follow along.

5/31/20 – Mafia Report: Chicago Outfit – Addendum One

6/4/20 – Mafia Report: Chicago Outfit – Addendum Two

6/24/20 – Mafia Report: Chicago Outfit – Addendum Three

7/18/20 – Mafia Report: Chicago Outfit – Addendum Four

You may click on the following links to review the two articles that I suggested that you read earlier in this report.

Mr. Armando “Mondo” Fosco Sr.

Late Chicago-Based Teamsters Officials Armando Fosco And Dominic Senese Exposed!