About The MOB
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Sasa and Joe Parrino
Sasa and Joe Parrino were two brothers who perished in the Mafia war of 1930-31.
Sasa (Sam), a key figure in Detroit's underworld, was gunned down along with highly regarded Castellammarese Mafioso Gaspar Milazzo in a Detroit fish market in 1930. New York's Giuseppe Masseria was blamed for the killings, but assassin Cesare Lamare of Detroit may have acted in his own interests. Lamare took over the Detroit Family and aligned himself with Masseria.
Joe Parrino, a top lieutenant in the Brooklyn Castellammarese Family of Cola Schiro (which had formerly been run by Milazzo and Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino), seemed not to mind his brother's demise and might have been plotting along with Masseria.
When Schiro vanished in 1930, Masseria supported a Parrino bid to take over his Brooklyn operation. Joe Parrino was then eliminated by members of his own clan.
Raymond Patriarca
March 17, 1908, to July 7, 1984.
"The Man"
Raymond L.S. Patriarca was the longtime boss of Mafia rackets in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Born in 1908, his first known criminal position was serving as a guard for Mafia bootlegging shipments and as a hijacker of shipments belonging to rivals. In his early career, he reportedly dabbled in robbery, protection, prostitution and gambling enterprises. He became an important lieutenant and hitman in the Family of Phil Buccola in the late 1930s.
A 1938 conviction for robbing a jewelry store was penalized with a five-year sentence, but - evidence of the strength of his new connections - Patriarca served only a few months of that term before being granted a full pardon by the governor of Massachusetts.
Patriarca's influence grew as Buccola retired and Joe Lombardo guided Family operations. Lombardo slipped into the background in the late 1940s, and Patriarca began calling the shots from Providence, Rhode Island, concentrating on labor union rackets, gambling (including racetracks and interests in the Dunes casino in Las Vegas) and loansharking.
In the 1950s, Patriarca's interests in Boston were represented by Jerry Angiulo, who was probably not qualified for such duty (a 1963 FBI report stated tha Angiulo was the number-2 man in the organization, with Henry Tameleo as number-3). The Italian mobsters began eliminating their Irish competitors in the region.
Patriarca was betrayed by Mafioso Joe Barboza in 1967. Barboza's testimony and several years of FBI wiretaps resulted in Patriarca being convicted along with some associates of conspiracy to commit murder, and he served time in the federal prison at Atlanta.
Patriarca was released in 1975, and Barboza met a violent end in San Francisco in 1976.
Wiretaps overheard Angiulo conversations about Barboza's murder, and the authorities were able to put Angiulo, several brothers and his son behind bars in September 1983.
Raymond Patriarca continued to manage a crippled Mafia organization in New England until his death on July 7, 1984.
Dominick Petrilli
? to 1953.
"The Gap"
Petrilli was a minor hood who associated with Joe Valachi. Petrilli became a made Mafia member before Valachi did and figures prominently in Valachi's recollections of his Mafia career.
Petrilli appears to have ratted on some of his former associates as the U.S. deported him to Italy. He was murdered shortly after secretly re-entering the U.S. in 1953.
Joseph Pinzolo
c. 1887 to Sept. 9, 1930.
Pinzolo had an extremely short career as a Mafia Family boss in 1930.
"Joe the Boss" Masseria is believed to have been responsible for ordering the killing of Bronx boss Tom Reina outside of his home at 1521 Sheridan Ave. on Feb. 26, 1930. Reina had been sympathetic to the Castellammarese cause, and Masseria believed he was supporting Masseria rival Salvatore Maranzano.
Upon Reina's death, Masseria disregarded Reina underboss Gaetano Gagliano and appointed his own ally Joe Pinzolo (who hadn't been part of the Bronx Family previously) as boss of the Reina gang. That move, one of the terrible Masseria miscalculations that set off the Castellammarese War, sent Gagliano and his Reina Family allies immediately into the waiting arms of Maranzano.
In early September, Gagliano men brought Pinzolo to some offices belonging to Tommy Lucchese at 1487 Broadway and shot him in the chest and neck. One of the shooters was reportedly Bobby Doyle. The purpose of the killing was largely symbolic, as Pinzolo had previously lost virtually all support from Reina's former organization.
Aniello Prisco
? to Dec. 16, 1912.
"Zopo"
Prisco led a gang of extortionists in Italian Harlem in the early 1900s. He targeted the wealthier (it may be more appropriate to refer to them as "less poor") residents of Harlem with demands for cash and/or assets.
Prisco was partially disabled - reportedly a piece of one leg had been destroyed by gunshots and the healed limb was somewhat shorter than the other.
About 1910, he began targeting Pasquarella Spinelli, a woman who ran a profitable stable in the middle of East Harlem. (According to some sources, Spinelli also led a rival group of thieves from the stable.) Spinelli apparently resisted Zopo's demands.
On Oct. 29, 1911, Prisco sent a thug, Chuck Minaco, to the house Spinelli shared with her 20-year-old step-daughter to collect blackmail money. Minaco reportedly gained access at 239 E. 109th Street by telling the step-daughter, Nelly Lenere, that he had information about her estranged husband who was near death. Within the house, Minaco began beating Lenere to learn the combination to the household safe, according to press reports. Once he learned the combination he went over to the safe and began trying to open it. Lenere quietly approached him and stabbed him to death. She did a thorough job of it - the papers say there were 25 stab wounds in Minaco's corpse.
While Prisco plotted a means of restoring his prestige, Spinelli and Lenere moved to a more strategic location, 335 E. 107th Street, just across the street from the stable. The new home afforded Lenere the opportunity to watch helplessly through the front window on March 20, 1912, as Prisco and an associate approached the stable and shot Spinelli to death. Lenere subsequently fled the country and was reportedly killed in Italy.
His reputation restored, Zopo turned his attention to an especially ripe target, Giosue Gallucci. Gallucci was widely regarded as the racket king of Italian Harlem, running a profitable policy (numbers gambling) operation as well as a number of successful businesses. According to some reports, Prisco had killed Gallucci's brother in 1911 when he refused to pay the extortionist.
In December 1912, he approached Giosue. A meeting was set up between the two for Dec. 16. Gallucci did not show up but sent a representative to bring Prisco to the back room of Gallucci's bake shop. Upon arriving there, Prisco was shot to death by Gallucci bodyguard John Russomano.
Prisco was out of business, but his organization continued terrorizing Harlem (and Russomano in particular) for a couple more years.
Joe Profaci
Oct. 2, 1897, to June 6, 1962.
"The Old Man"
Born in 1897, Profaci was part of a wave of Sicilian Mafiosi to wash ashore in New York during the 1920s. Profaci reportedly showed up in 1926, already with strong ties to the Magaddinos and Bonannos and outwardly in the olive oil business.
Profaci was among the Unione Siciliana members arrested at a Cleveland convention in 1928, so it is apparent that he was already significant in the underworld by that time. He quickly became a gang leader in Brooklyn and found himself in the good graces of the winning side of the Castellammarese War in 1930-31. He was made the father of his own crime family in 1931 with Charlie Luciano's reorganization of the Mafia.
During 1961, a group led by Joey Gallo rebelled against Profaci. That rebellion might have been part of the behind-the-scenes mischief-making performed by Carlo Gambino against the conservative Mafia wing in an effort to enhance his own power. It also might have been due to Profaci's policy of extracting regular membership fees from his gang underlings.
Early in 1962, Gambino suggested that Profaci retire. The Mafia's national Commission, however, gave him a vote of confidence that year. Profaci would not live to see 1963. He died of cancer shortly after receiving the Commission's backing.
Upon his death, Joe Magliocco took the reins of the Profaci Family, and civil war with the Gallo group broke out. Magliocco was quickly replaced by Joseph Colombo, and Profaci's old underworld clan became known as the Colombo Crime Family.
Anthony Provenzano
c. 1912 to Dec. 12, 1988.
"Tony Pro"
Provenzano of New Jersey (also a resident of Florida) is believed to have been a key link between organized labor and organized crime in the 1960s and 70s.
He was reportedly a senior member of New York's Genovese crime family. He also rose to a leadership position in the regional Teamsters during Jimmy Hoffa's reign. Hoffa promoted Tony Pro into the Union City, NJ, Teamster administration in order to avoid a federal labor demand to eject the reputed mobster from the union rank and file.
It seems Hoffa had to maintain a relationship with him at all costs. The two men apparently cooperated on schemes involving the Teamster pension fund.
Provenzano and Hoffa reportedly had a falling out during a shared time in a Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, prison. It is possible that Hoffa came to realize the mistake he made when he allied himself with organized crime. When Hoffa won his release and sought to regain control of the Teamsters, Provenzano stood in his way.
Hoffa tried to mend his fences. He reportedly requested a meeting to settle things with Tony Pro.
A meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m., July 30, 1975, at Machus Red Fox restaurant in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. It is supposed that Provenzano and Detroit mobster Anthony Giacalone were invited. Hoffa's guests did not arrive on time, if at all.
Hoffa reportedly communicated with his wife at 2:15, telling her he would wait around only another few minutes. He vanished without a trace after that phone call.
Provenzano was long considered the prime suspect in Hoffa's disappearance. However, Tony Pro had an alibi that prevented him from being tried in connection with Hoffa's disappearance. He reportedly met with a number of Teamster associates in New Jersey on July 30. Giacalone, too, was visibly elsewhere on that date. (Giacalone died in 2001 at the age of 82.)
In the late 1970s, Provenzano was implicated, along with Salvatore Briguglio, in the 1961 murder of a rival within the Teamsters, Anthony Castellito. Briguglio was shot in New York City in 1978 while prosecutors were assembling their case against him.
Provenzano was ultimately convicted of labor racketeering, removed from the New Jersey Teamsters and sentenced to serve 20 years at Lompoc, California. He suffered a heart attack Dec. 12, 1988, at the prison and died while being rushed to a nearby hospital. He was 71 years old.
