“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.