The Mafia Encyclopedia 3rd edn by Carl Sifakis (2005).pdf

MAFIA

ENCYCLOPEDIA

Third Edition

Carl Sifakis

THE

For Dieter Kohlenberger

A special acknowledgment to Ingrid Hagard,

who is equally adept at researching Jane Austen and the Mob

The Mafia Encyclopedia, Third Edition

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission

in writing from the publisher. For information contact:

Facts On File, Inc.

132 West 31st Street

New York NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sifakis, Carl.

The mafia encyclopedia / Carl Sifakis.—3rd ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-8160-5694-3 (alk. paper)

1. Mafia—Dictionaries. 2. Criminals—Biography—Dictionaries. I. Title.

HV6441.S53 2005

364.1'06'03—dc22 2004058487

Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses,

associations, institutions or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at

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You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com

Text design by Erika K. Arroyo

Cover design by Cathy Rincon

Printed in the United States of America

VB JT 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

Preface to the Third Edition

Introduction

Entries A–Z

Mafia Time Line

490

Photo Credits

498

Index

499

Preface to the Third Edition*

It was the big con in the world of organized crime.

Perhaps con is the wrong word. Delusion might be

more accurate. A delusion of course is a con that

fools just about everybody, often its perpetrators as

well. And that was very true about the so-called

decline and fall of the American Mafia. In the final

years of the 20th century many a family boss, under-

boss, and consigliere were imprisoned by law

enforcement campaigns, and as successors took over,

they too were neutralized. From the law enforcement

viewpoint it was glorious doings. U.S. Attorney for

the Southern District of New York Rudolph Giuliani

was widely quoted for predicting that the Mafia

crime families were on the way out and that the

Gambino crime family would soon be reduced to a

mere street gang, its major unlawful activities elimi-

nated. Other prosecutors and leading investigators

predicted the same dire fate for other crime families

in New York and elsewhere around the country. By

sheer numbers the claims had considerable logic.

Only a few cynics saw the triumphal bowing out of

these successful law enforcers as a ploy like the one

that had been suggested in Vietnam where it was said

that the United States should declare it had won the

war and was pulling out.

Of course, these law enforcement leaders were not

acting cynically but truly believed organized crime

could be eliminated by lopping off the leadership.

Long sentences were handed down to the top

mafiosi, who became doomed to spend the rest of

their years behind bars, sometimes being denied con-

tact with their outside cohorts. The idea was that

eventually the mobs would simply wither away.

Overlooked in this so-called strategy was that a boss

is just a boss, an underboss is just an underboss, a

consigliere just a consigliere. Mob guys can be

described many ways. Many are illiterate, downright

stupid, have no sense of conscience, or are murder-

ous, but above all they are ambitious. It does not

matter how many of them fall to the wayside under

attack from the law or from other mobsters. The

supply for bosses down to capos is without end, and

the race to the top is clearly Darwinian. The real

power of the mobs are the wise guys and soldiers,

even those who do not qualify as superbrains. They

are shooters, the final arbiter in the Mafia, and they

understand their own power. They know how to res-

urrect powers that are lost. They can do whatever the

job demands. They have the Mafia “gift” for exercis-

ing the process of corruption and influencing and

convincing people with promises that may never be

delivered or by lecturing a victim while holding him

feet-first out a high window.

Still it cannot be denied that the 1990s, give or take

a few years in special situations, marked the low point

of organized crime since the 1920s. Those observers

who insisted the Mafia was not dead were in a distinct

minority. The author of the second edition of the

Mafia Encyclopedia, which appeared in 1999, was

asked by an interviewer, “Aren’t you beating a dead

horse?”—a circumspect way of saying the author was

trying to milk a few bucks out of a criminal enterprise

whose time has passed? Certainly that evaluation of

the Mafia was held by the general public, but some

investigators were not buying into the dead or dying

Mafia. One of the most perceptive law enforcers in the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and for a time

the head of the New York office, Lewis J. Schiliro,

declared, “The families are in transition, trying to fig-

ure out how to redirect their criminal activities in a

*The introduction to the second edition of The Mafia Encyclopedia is reprinted below for its historical overview of the development

of the American Mafia. This preface picks up the story from about 1999 to capture the new history of the new American Mafia.

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