History
Early organized crime in Cleveland
Semi-organized Sicilian American- and Italian American-run "Black Hand" extortion rackets first emerged in Cleveland about 1900. The Cleveland Division of Police soon established an "Italian squad" (also known as the "Black Hand squad") to deal with the problem. After a series of Black Hand-related murders in the city in 1906, this police unit largely suppressed this first expression of organized crime in Cleveland.[5][a]
Loosely organized gangs emerged in the 1910s. An Italian American gang known as the Mayfield Road Mob formed in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood about 1913.[7] At roughly the same time, another Italian American gang, the Collinwood Crew, formed in the Collinwood neighborhood. This gang centered its activities around the intersection of St. Clair Avenue, E. 152d Street, and Ivanhoe Road.[8] Out of a drug store in Cleveland's Big Italy neighborhood,[9][b] notary public Angelo Serra ran the "Serra Gang". It was primarily an automobile theft ring which relied on Serra to forge titles to the cars and create fake vehicle registration plates. At one point in the mid-1910s, it did $500,000 ($14,000,000 in 2023 dollars) a year in vehicle thefts. The gang also engaged in other crimes such as extortion, illegal gambling, the numbers racket, and robbery.[13] In the late 1910s, the "Benigno Gang" formed under Dominic Benigno in Little Italy. The gang specialized in payroll robberies, and in 1919 and 1920 monopolized payroll robberies by intimidating or murdering anyone who tried to pull off a heist without Benigno's permission.[14][15][c] A less organized and more fluid criminal organization was the "reservoir gang", a group of criminals engaged in armed robbery, automobile theft, burglary, and other property crimes which met at Cleveland's Baldwin Water Treatment Plant reservoir in order to plan crimes, exchange stolen goods, and disperse profits from crime.[16]
Prohibition began in Ohio on May 27, 1919,[17] and nationally throughout the United States on January 16, 1920.[18] Many small, organized gangs emerged between 1919 and 1921 to circumvent the liquor law by importing liquor from Canada, diverting alcohol from legitimate purposes (such as medicine and industry), and distilling and distributing home-brewed beer and liquor.[19] Small bootlegging operations were run by formerly legitimate businessmen like Michelino Le Paglia, August L. Rini, and Louis Rosen.[20] A number of small bootleg gangs, run by Jewish residents, began operating in the "Little Hollywood" area of the Hough neighborhood,[21] an area bounded by Lexington and Hough Avenues between E. 73rd and E. 79th Streets.[22] The brothels, gambling halls, and speakeasies of Little Hollywood became the favorite place to relax for small gang leaders throughout Cleveland, many of whom established their offices in the tiny red-light district.[21] Larger organizations included an Italian American gang centered on Woodland Avenue and E. 55th Street, and an Italian American gang centered on Woodland and E. 105th Street.[d] The Mayfield Road Mob also grew larger as it focused more on bootlegging.[19]
The Lonardo and Porrello brothers
The four Lonardo brothers (Joseph, Frank, John, and Dominic) and seven Porrello brothers, including Joseph Porello, immigrated to the United States from Licata, Sicily. The Lonardo and Porrello brothers first established themselves as legitimate businessmen. The two groups dabbled in various criminal activities including robbery and extortion, before prohibition, but were not yet considered a major organization.[23]
At the start of Prohibition, Joseph "Big Joe" Lonardo was the boss of the Cleveland crime family.[23] He was the second oldest of the four Lonardo brothers. He and his brothers began by supplying Cleveland's bootleggers with the corn sugar they needed to produce liquor. His top lieutenant was Joseph Porrello, who supervised various bootlegging and other criminal operations throughout the early to mid-1920s.[24]
Split factions (1926–1927)
In 1926, the Porrello brothers (Rosario, Vincenzo, Angelo, Joseph, John, Ottavio, and Raymond) broke away from the Lonardo family and formed their own faction. They established their headquarters on upper Woodland Avenue, around E. 110th St. In 1927, hostilities between the Lonardo and Porrello families escalated as the families competed in the corn sugar business. During Prohibition, corn sugar was the prime ingredient in bootleg liquor.[24]
In the summer of 1927, Joseph "Big Joe" Lonardo, boss of the Lonardo faction at the time, left for Sicily, Italy amongst rising tension between the two families. He left his brother John and adviser, Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro, as acting heads of the Cleveland family. When Lonardo returned, a sitdown was scheduled between the Lonardos and the Porrellos. On October 13, 1927, Joseph Lonardo and his eldest brother John were to meet with Angelo Porrello in a Porrello-owned barber shop. Inside the barbershop, when Joseph and John Lonardo relaxed into playing a game of cards, they were ambushed and killed by two Porrello gunmen.[25][26] This allowed Joseph Porrello to take over as boss of the Cleveland crime family and become the most influential corn sugar baron in the Cleveland area.[24]
The Porrellos (1927–1930)
Through late 1927 and much of 1928, the remaining Lonardo faction loyalists, which included an up-and-coming Mafia group known as the Mayfield Road Mob (led by Frank Milano) and various Jewish allies within the Cleveland Syndicate, continued to rival the Porrello family for the leadership within the Cleveland underworld. They vied for control of the most lucrative rackets outside of the corn sugar business, which included gambling, the most profitable hustle for American Mafia crime families after bootlegging.[24]
To establish dominance, the Porrellos needed backing from the top Mafia bosses in New York, as well as other leading Mafia families across the United States. On December 5, 1928, a high-level American Mafia meeting was held at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. Joseph Porrello, with the help of one of his top lieutenants Sam Tilocco, hosted the event in hopes that the top Mafia bosses from across the United States would declare him the official Mafia boss of Cleveland.[24]
The attendees of the Cleveland meeting became participants to one of the first known La Cosa Nostra summits in American history. Some of the powerful bosses who attended included Joe Profaci and Vincent Mangano of New York.[24] However, the meeting turned into a fiasco as some of the well-known attendees were recognized by local law enforcement and arrested along with their associates. Meanwhile, Mafiosi continued to arrive from across the country for the Mafia summit.[27]
The Porrello brothers arranged for their associates to be bailed out of jail. In spite of the chaos, Joseph Porrello was declared the boss and recognized nationwide as head of the Cleveland crime family. On June 11, 1929, Porrello family Lieutenant Sam Todaro was murdered.[28] At the end of Prohibition, most of the Porrello brothers and their supporters had been killed or had sided with the Mayfield Road Mob.
On July 5, 1930, Joseph Porrello was invited to a sitdown with Frank Milano at the Milano-owned Venetian Restaurant. Gunfire erupted and boss Joseph Porrello and his underling were killed.[27] Vincenzo "Jim" Porrello succeeded his brother as Cleveland Mafia boss. Three weeks after his brother's murder, Vincenzo was shot in the back of the head and murdered in a grocery store on East 110th Street and Woodland Avenue in an area considered a Porrello stronghold. Raymond Porrello declared revenge, and on August 15, 1930, an explosion leveled Raymond's home. He was not home at the time.
Mayfield Road Mob (1930–1944)
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In the early 1930s, Frank Milano and the "Mayfield Road Mob" of Cleveland's Little Italy had replaced the Porrellos as the Cleveland area's premier Mafia group.[27] The Mafia faction was even mentioned by its old name in the movie The Godfather Part II as the Lakeview Road Gang, as Lakeview Cemetery borders Mayfield Road Hill which marks the beginning of Little Italy in Cleveland. This area is also referred to as "Murray Hill" by locals. This Mafia family was formed in the late 1920s and was headed by Frank Milano.
In 1931, Milano joined the National Crime Syndicate, a network of powerful criminals from around the country, such as Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Milano was now the official boss of Cleveland crime family. By 1932, Milano had become one of the top American Mafia bosses in the country and a charter Commission member.[27]
On February 25, 1932, Milano made sure the Porrello family and their gang were finished for good by having Raymond and Rosario Porrello, along with their bodyguard, Dominic Gueli, murdered in a smoke shop on East 110th Street and Woodland Ave. in their old territory while they were playing cards.[27] After this, the remaining Porrello brothers backed out of the Cleveland underworld and fled the area.
In 1935, Milano fled to Mexico after being indicted for tax evasion.[27] Alfred Polizzi, another leading member of the Mayfield Road mob, seized power and reigned as boss until 1944 when he was convicted of tax evasion.[27]
Collinwood Crew
The Collinwood Mob, also known as the Young Turks, was based in Cleveland's South Collinwood Neighborhood, was at times integrated with the Mayfield Road Mob and has a Mafia history as old as that of the Mayfield Road Gang. The most notorious of the Collinwood Crew was the late Alfred "Allie Con" Calabrese. Allie Con was feared and respected in both neighborhoods and known as a stand-up guy, a "true gangster". His crew consisted of Joe "Joey Loose" Lacobacci, the late Butchie Cisternino and others from an area that stretched from the 152nd Street bridge, up Five Points and Ivanhoe Road, down Mandalay across London Road to Wayside and over to Saranac bordering the Collinwood Train Yards.
Scalish era (1944–1976)
John Scalish held the longest reign of any Cleveland mob boss. He took control of the family in 1944, and remained the boss for thirty-two years, until his death in 1976. During his time as the crime family's leader, the group developed ties with important crime figures like Shondor Birns, Moe Dalitz, Meyer Lansky, and Tony Accardo. The family also became allies of the extremely powerful Chicago Outfit and Genovese crime family. Additionally, the Cleveland mob also expanded its influence to areas throughout the Midwest, as well as California, Florida, and Las Vegas.[2] The Cleveland crime family helped finance the construction of the Desert Inn hotel and casino in Las Vegas in the late 1940s and received a percentage of profits from the resort in exchange for providing protection.[29]
In the 1950s, the family reached its peak in size, with about 60 "made" members, and several times as many associates.[3] By the 1970s, the family's membership began to decrease because Scalish didn't induct many new members.[29] During the 1970s, the Cleveland Mafia's main sources of income came from two primary sources; a partnership with other Midwestern crime families which allowed the organization to profit from the "skim" of various Las Vegas casinos, and an arrangement with the Pittsburgh crime family under which the Cleveland mob was entitled to twenty-five percent of the profits of the Pittsburgh mob's Youngstown, Ohio rackets.[30] The Cleveland, Kansas City and Milwaukee crime families exerted influence over the multibillion-dollar Central States Pension Fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and in 1974, the three groups backed a $62.75 million Pension Fund loan to buy two Las Vegas casinos.[31] Additionally, the Cleveland family collected protection money from casinos in Western Pennsylvania and Northern Kentucky.[32]
Scalish died during open heart surgery in 1976 and failed to name a successor beforehand.[2]
War with Danny Greene and decline (1976–1990s)
After the death of John Scalish, it was decided by the family's members that James "Jack White" Licavoli would take over as boss.[32] Licavoli worked for the infamous Purple Gang in Detroit during Prohibition before moving to Cleveland, where he gradually rose up the ranks of the city's underworld.
During Licavoli's reign, an Irish gangster named Danny Greene began competing with the Mafia for control of rackets.[33] Greene partnered with John Nardi, a rogue Mafia associate and Teamster, who arranged the murder of Calogero "Leo Lips" Moceri, Licavoli's underboss.[33] Moceri disappeared after attending a Feast of the Assumption festival in Cleveland's Little Italy on August 22, 1976 and his blood-stained car was found in Akron days later, although his remains were never recovered. Moceri was allegedly killed by Keith Ritson, an enforcer for Danny Greene.[34] This resulted in a violent mob war between the Mafia and the Danny Greene gang, during which there were almost 40 car bombings in Cleveland. This time period earned Cleveland the unofficial title of "Bomb City U.S.A.".[35] Nardi was killed on May 17, 1977, by a car bomb in the parking lot of the Teamster Hall in Cleveland.[36]
After several failed attempts to kill Greene, it became evident that Licavoli's outfit needed outside help.[36] In 1977, Danny Greene was murdered after a scheduled visit to his dentist. After learning of the dentist appointment scheduled by Greene, Licavoli and Lonardo contracted Ray Ferritto to assassinate him. While Greene was in the dentist's office, a bomb was placed underneath a car adjacent to his. Upon return to his vehicle the bomb was exploded remotely. Greene lay under the ruins of his vehicle for at least an hour before his corpse was removed.[37] After Greene's assassination, Ferritto heard that the Cleveland Crime Family wanted him dead and in response became an FBI informant. The information that he provided led to the arrests of many high ranking mafia members, including Jack Licavoli himself.[38]
In 1978, Cleveland police warned then-mayor Dennis Kucinich that local Mafia members had put out a hit on him because of some of his mayoral initiatives were hindering money-making opportunities. Police told Kucinich that a hitman was planning on shooting the mayor while he marched in The Columbus Day Parade in October 1978. Kucinich missed the parade as he was hospitalized with a ruptured ulcer.[39] However, he took note of the threat and began keeping a gun in his home for protection.[40]
Emboldened by the sudden death of Anthony "Tony Dope" Delsanter, the Cleveland crime family consigliere and representative in the Mahoning Valley, from a heart attack in August 1977, Vincent "Two-Gun Jimmy" Prato, the Pittsburgh crime family's caporegime in the area, attempted to establish a monopoly over gambling and extortion rackets in Youngstown, a territory which had historically been shared between the two families, resulting in a mob war which lasted two and a half years between 1978 and 1981.[41] The Cleveland Mafia faction in Youngstown was headed by the brothers Charles "Charlie the Crab" Carabbia and Orlando "Orlie the Crab" Carabbia.[42] Twelve murders took place during the conflict.[43] The Pittsburgh Mafia emerged victorious in the war after the disappearances of Charles Carabbia in December 1980 and his crew's top hitman, Joseph DeRose, Jr., in April 1981.[44]
Eventually, Licavoli was sent to prison for RICO charges related to the murder of Danny Greene in 1982.[2] Angelo Lonardo, the son of Prohibition mob boss Joseph Lonardo, took control of the Cleveland crime family. He led the family until 1984 when he was convicted of running a drug ring and was sentenced to life in prison. He then became an informant, making him the highest-ranking Mafia turncoat up to that time. He informed on powerful Mafiosi from numerous families while in prison, and caused serious damage to the Mafia's infrastructure.[45]
After Lonardo became an informant, the Cleveland crime family's boss was John "Peanuts" Tronolone, a long-time Miami Beach resident who prior to becoming the boss, was a South Florida point man for the New York-based Genovese crime family and other mobsters. He was also closely associated with Meyer Lansky. In 1989, he became the only Mafia boss to have the distinction of being arrested in a hand-to-hand undercover transaction by local law enforcement. He accepted jewelry from Dave Green, an undercover Broward County deputy in exchange for bookmaking and loan-sharking debts. He died before he could start his nine-year state prison sentence.[46]
The Cleveland Mafia was dismantled by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies so aggressively in the 1980s that by 1990 the family had no made members who were not imprisoned and the organization was reported to be virtually defunct.[1][45][46] In addition to convictions, defections and deaths, the loss of the family's influence over the Teamsters Union also significantly weakened the Cleveland Mafia.[47] After Tronolone's death in 1991, Anthony "Tony Lib" Liberatore took over the remnants of the Cleveland crime family until he was imprisoned for racketeering and money laundering in 1993.[1][48]
Current position
Following the imprisonment of Liberatore, two Mafiosi who had been inducted into the family by Angelo Lonardo in 1983 – Joseph "Joe Loose" Iacobacci and Russell "R.J." Papalardo – became the leading figures in the Cleveland Mafia.[1] Iacobacci, along with Alfred "Allie" Calabrese, was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to three years in federal prison in 1995, during which time Papalardo served as acting boss of the family.[45][48]
In May 1998, Anthony P. Delmonti, an associate of the Cleveland crime family and the Rochester, New York faction of the Bonanno crime family, became a confidential informant for the Cleveland office of the FBI and provided the bureau with information on a Mafia-controlled Rochester-to-Cleveland stolen car ring, a Los Angeles-to-Cleveland cocaine ring headed by Cleveland businessman Robert E. Walsh, and a $10 million-per-year numbers racket operated by Virgil Ogletree, a former associate of Shondor Birns and Don King.[1][49][50] Delmonti covertly recorded over 500 audio and videotapes which led to the seizure of $100,000 in illicit gambling money, $250,000 in stolen vehicles and 700 kilograms of cocaine, and over a hundred convictions in Cleveland and Rochester between 2000 and 2002.[49][51][52][53]
Despite the imprisonment of Iacobacci in the late 1990s, he and Papalardo were reportedly able to steadily rebuild the organization in the 21st century with the assistance of the Chicago Outfit.[1][45] Iocobacci inducted new members into the family, forged ties with the Chicago, Detroit and DeCavalcante families, and reportedly oversaw rackets in Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Rochester.[54][55] Papalardo succeeded Iacobacci as boss of the Cleveland crime family upon Iacobacci's retirement.[1][56] In 2020, the crime reporter Scott Burnstein described the organization as: "These days, the Cleveland crime family is a small group of mostly old-timers, bookies and loansharks".[55]
