Read The Mafia Encyclopedia Online

Authors: Carl Sifakis

Tags: #True Crime, #Organized Crime, #test

The Mafia Encyclopedia (40 page)

BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
3.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Page 106
D
Daddano, William "Willie Potatoes" (19251975): Chicago Outfit assassin and torturer
A top-echelon syndicate hood, Willie Potatoes Daddano was one of Boss Sam Giancana's favorite assassins. He was so refined at torture, whether with ice pick or blow torch, that he could keep a victim alive for hours of pain and torment. However, like quite a few psychopaths who have always distinguished the Chicago Outfit from the comparatively run-of-the-mill butchers in some other crime families, Daddano had his more human side. Doing time in prison, he broke down in tears when he learned that his mentor Giancana had been murdered. At home and with friends, he was, according to Antoinette Giancana, Sam's daughter (
Mafia Princess
), "a pussy cat" who would nod with approval at a child reciting the Ten Commandments.
While details of his tortures might best be left to the medical texts or lovers of sadism, Willie Potatoes was described as a ruthless and pitiless killer by FBI investigators, the Chicago Crime Commission and the press. His record included more than 10 arrests, charges that included bank robbery, burglary, hijacking and larceny. He was also a prime suspect in at least seven murders. Daddano ran gambling and vice activities for the organization in DuPage, Will and Kane Counties, Illinois. He was also the muscle behind the infiltration of much of Chicago's "scavenger," or garbage, industry.
Active in loan-sharking as well, he once informed a debtor who fell behind $1,000 in his "juice" payments: "If you don't pay the thousand, I'm not going to shout; I'm not going to holler. I'm going to hit you in the head [kill]."
The debtor was subsequently so frightened of Daddano's wrath that he borrowed from other loan sharks, sold a diamond wristwatch, his car, his house and cashed more than $27,000 in bum checks just to keep up his payments. When you faced a collector like Daddano, you didn't worry about having the law come after you.
Other members of the mob were equally frightened of Daddano. Sometimes assuming the identity of a deafmute, he would converse in perfect sign language, demonstrating the various means of murder in sign languagea rather more sinister communication than a loud vocal threat.
Mob law, according to Willie Potatoes, meant a low-level mobster had no recourse from his judgment. If he suspected treachery, he might order the suspects to submit to a lie detector test. Facing the criminal justice system, a criminal can stand on his rights and refuse to take such a test. Not with Willie Potatoes. On at least two occasions he ordered gunmen to submit to such tests even though they knew that if they flunked they faced instant extermination. In one known case, a gunman failed the test and got the fatal Daddano torture treatment. Likely a fulfilling experience for the sadistic Willie Potatoes, perhaps the most satisfying aspect of the murder was the fact that the hoodlum coughed up the $25 in advance for the polygraph. Daddano would not have appreciated being stuck for the tab.
Daddano died in prison a short time after his mentor and hero figure, Giancana, was shot to death. Naturally some writers could not resist observing Willie Potatoes's demise was probably due to a broken heart.
Page 107
Dadillacs: Getting a car just like dear old murderous dad's
The "dadillac" typifies the subculture of children of crime family members, in which it is not uncommon for many of the boys to emulate their fathers. Thus, they whine and pine for a big car of their own and, lacking this, the occasional driving rights to their wise guy fathers' Cadillacs. One Mafia child, Dominick Montiglio, who entered the witness protection program in the 1980s, reminisced about times when "guys drove around in their fathers' Cadillacs, left hand draped out the window, pinkie ring twinkling, a
cugette
[female companion] leaning into their laps. We called the cars Dadillacs."
Dalitz, Moe (18991989): Head of Cleveland and Desert Inn syndicates
In a conversation taped by the FBI, New Jersey Mafia bigwig Angelo "Gyp" De Carlo was talking about Jewish mobsters: "There's only two Jews recognized in the whole country today. That's Meyer [Lansky] and ... Moe Dalitz."
Ever since the 1920s Moe Dalitz was considered one of the top men in the syndicate. Even Lansky himself had much to learn from Dalitz's operation. He studied Dalitz's maneuvers closely, applied them to New York and later refined them and raised organized crime to a most professional level throughout the country.
Dalitz started out in crime in Detroit with the old Jewish Purple Gang and later shifted his operations to Cleveland. There he and three othersMorris Kleinman, Sam Tucker and Louis Rothkopfset up the Cleveland syndicate, which dominated the bootleg booze racket to Ohio from Canada. The Cleveland syndicate was also the top dog in Cleveland crime, having learned the deft use of the bribe rather than the bullet. Dalitz also formed friendly relations with the "young Americans" of the MafiaAl and Chuck Polizzi, Tony and Frank Milano and the three Angersola brothersand backed them until they achieved primacy among the mafiosi in Cleveland. Relations between the two groups would remain cordial for the ensuing decades; just as Lansky aided Lucky Luciano's rise in New York, so did the Dalitz group help out the Young Turks who became known as the Mayfield Road Mob. Just as Luciano-Lansky would triumph over the two contending forces of Masseria and Maranzano in New York, so too would Polizzi-Dalitz win out over competing mafiosi, the Porello brothers and the Lonardo family.
With the end of Prohibition the Cleveland syndicate and their Mafia allies operated gambling casinos in and around Cleveland and then spread out to the surrounding states of Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana. Eventually the Cleveland syndicate pulled out of the area in favor of Las Vegas where they took over the Desert Inn and so became known as the Desert Inn syndicate. The four partners always shared everything equally. Called the Big Four, they quickly gained control of other casinos and for many years dominated the Vegas gambling industry.
Dalitz cemented relations with gang leaders of various ethnic origins from all around the nation. "However," notes Virgil Peterson, former longtime head of the Chicago Crime Commission, the group "maintained its identity as a predominantly Jewish underworld organization and there is no evidence to indicate it ever fell under the control of the Italian Cosa Nostra."
When Dalitz got his back up, no one could rattle him. There is the oft-told tale of Dalitz sitting in the dining room of the Beverly Rodeo Hotel in Hollywood. Heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, in an ugly mood from drink, approached the old bootlegger. Words were exchanged and the angry Liston drew back a powerful fist. Dalitz did not move and his voice was not loud but crisp. "If you hit me, nigger, you'd better kill me, because if you don't, I'll make one telephone call and you'll be dead in twenty-four hours."
The racial slur was Dalitz's way of demonstrating that he feared nothing in provoking a man officially crowned the toughest fighter in the world. The room itself was electric in its silence, even police intelligence officers who had overheard the exchange sat bolted in their chairs nearby. Liston stared at the then 64-year-old gambler, fist still poised. Dalitz, a man proud of his self-proclaimed fine tastes in art and his recognition in the social and philanthropic worlds, now bared the instincts of the hoodlum. Seconds ticked by. Then suddenly Liston dropped his arm, wheeled about and left without another word. The champ checked out of the hotel immediately.
In the late 1960s Dalitz sold the Desert Inn to Howard Hughes. Tax men were closing in on him and skimming appeared a dying art in the casinos. It could not be determined if Dalitz stripped himself of other concealed ownings. Later on, skimming was back and apparently so was Dalitz. In later years Moe continued to use his clout with the political establishment, making contributions to both parties and was involved in a luxury retreat in California for the super-richthat is, people like him.
In his last few decades, Dalitz placed dozens of offspring of mobsters from the old days in legitimate positions that guaranteed their futures. In that sense, like the passing of Meyer Lansky, Dalitz's death reflected a similar retreat of Jewish influence in organized crime. And, like Lansky, Dalitz was mourned by the mafiosi.
Page 108
Dead Man's Eyes: Hob superstition
There is an old belief, said by some to go back to the Old World, that when a person dies, the last scene he sees is forever imprinted on the retina of his eyes. In the case of an underworld hit, that often means the mob killers. Thus it is logical for hitmen to shoot out victims' eyes and so remove damaging evidence.
The superstition was evidently heeded widely in New York City around 1900, a period coinciding with a number of Black Hand and Mafia murders. The origin of the belief, thought by some to be particularly strong in Sicily from where the mafiosi and numerous Black Handers emigrated, is most difficult to determine. But it affected non-Mafia killers as well. Dead Man's Eyes was explained to Monk Eastman, the infamous Jewish gang leader, after he noted that some murder victims were getting their eyes shot out. After his next murder, he recalled the custom, and, whether or not he believed it, decided to err on the side of caution. He trudged back up three flights of stairs to blast out the eyes of his latest corpse.
Some observers of criminal behavior attribute the increase in eye shootouts around 1900 with the criminals' growing awareness of the miracles of scientific detection. Fingerprinting and other advances had proved effective, so it seemed possible a retina-picture development method might be found.
For many years, doctors at the New York medical examiner's office explained to the press they had studied and studied the eyes of corpses and found no such image. Evidently the underworld acknowledges the lessons of medical researcheye shootouts have decreased in recent years.
Dead Man's Tree: Chicago "murder notice" site
Even before Prohibition Chicago's 19th Ward was known as the Bloody Ward. As the Italian population exploded in size and encroached on the old Irish neighborhoods, armed political warfare ensued.
Shut out of political influence by the old Irish power structure, the Italians rallied around Tony D'Andrea, a defrocked priest who concealed his criminal past as a whoremaster and counterfeiter. Eventually president of the powerful Unione Siciliane, D'Andrea ran for office in the 19th on several occasions against John "Johnny de Pow" Powers, the Irish boss of the ward, but continually lost the elections.
With the onset of Prohibition, the mafiosi who moved into bootlegging in Little Italy, the heart of the 19th, felt they had to have their own men in power to guarantee the safety of their operations. The Genna brothers, the top Sicilian gangsters of Little Italy, backed D'Andrea in yet another assault on Powers for alderman of the ward.
The Gennasas, indeed, the Powers forcesbelieved they could influence the balloting and so they reinforced their campaign with the murders of their foes' supporters. The militant arm of the Powers group countered in kind. A bizarre landmark of this political and criminal competition was a certain poplar tree on Loomis Street in Little Italy. It became known as "the Dead Man's Tree." Both sides took to announcing their intent to murder a certain enemy by posting his name on the tree. The postings served two purposes: often shattering the man's nerve and thus making him an easier victim, or, if nothing else, at least magnanimously according him the opportunity of getting his affairs in order. Virtually all the 30 men murdered in the D'Andrea-Powers war had their names posted on the Dead Man's Tree. That included Tony D'Andrea himself, who in 1921 was one of the last killed in the conflict.
In the end, the Genna brothers discovered all the murders had been in vain. They found that all the men they could not vote out of office or otherwise murder could be bought. Not a single conviction was obtained in any of the slayings, but at least Little Italy gained a tourist attraction in the poplar.
Death Corner: Chicago murder site
In the early days of the 20th century, Black Hand terror groups held sway in all the large Italian ghettos in the United States. The Black Handers, some mafiosi, some Camorristas and others freelance criminals, were extortionists who extracted money from fearful Italians under the threat of death for themselves or their families. Such terror tactics worked only if backed up by some actual murders. The Black Handers in Chicago recognized this truth and, to reinforce their intentions, made one location a regular murder site. "Death Corner,'' as the press called it, was surely an added factor in Black Hand terrorism.
Death Corner was located at what was then the intersection of Milton and Oak Streets in the Little Italy section of the city. Over one 15-month period alone, from January 1910 through March 1911, 38 Black Hand murders occurred there. In this periodand for a considerable period of time thereaftera great many residents of Little Italy went blocks out of their way to avoid traversing the Death Corner. They also made excruciating efforts to pay up on the Black Handers' demands.
See also:
Black Hand; Shotgun Man; White Hand Society
.
Decarlo, Angelo "Gyp" (19021973): New Jersey racket boss
A longtime New Jersey boss of Mafia loan-sharking, gambling activities, and stolen securities operations,
BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
3.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Secret Lives of the Tsars by Michael Farquhar
Erotica from Penthouse by Marco Vassi
Daphne by Beaton, M.C.
Babyville by Jane Green
Sins of the Lost by Linda Poitevin
The Dark King's Bride by Janessa Anderson
Provoke by Missy Johnson


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024