Joe Alioto, former Mayor of San Francisco

San Francisco's former Mayor, Joseph "Joe" Alioto famously sued and won a libel suit against Look Magazine for publishing a 1969 story about his many ties to known mobsters, especially to acting boss of Los Angeles, and top hitman of California, Jimmy “The Weasle” Fratianno. Later, Fratianno published a book which revealed more about his close relationship with Alioto. The Weasle was not sued for libel.

Joe Alioto was elected mayor in 1968 and served until 1976. His uncle Giovanni "John" Alioto, the former Milwaukee Mafia boss, attended the swearing in ceremony. One of John's brothers, Mariano “Mario” Alioto was an early San Francisco gangster, gunned down by Black Hand rivals in North Beach not long after his father-in-law Gaetano Ingrassia, another gangster, was killed on the same spot a year prior. Another brother, Joe Alioto's father Guiseppe Alioto, served as underboss to Frank Lanza while Joe grew up to be a mob lawyer, representing Frank Lanza’s son, James “Jimmy the Hat” Lanza after he took over control of mafia operations in 1961.

Mayor Joseph Alioto was married to Angelina Genaro, the daughter of Lorenzo Genaro, a soldier in the Dallas Crime Family who was killed in 1932. Her uncle John Genaro was also a soldier with much influence, but not as much influence as her grandfather, Michael Angelo Genaro who was Caporegime under Carlo Piranio, the first boss of the Dallas Crime Family. Angelina’s grandmother, Angelina Ardizzone Caito was a cousin of the first crime boss of the Los Angeles Crime Family, Joseph “Iron Man” Ardizzone, who was the brother-in-law of Joe Cerrito, notorious crime boss of San Jose.

Former mob boss John Alioto hosted a dinner at Alioto’s restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf in honor of his nephew, Mayor Joe on Thursday, March 30, 1972. The mayor spoke to approximately 80 of his cousins. Introducing him was his cousin, attorney Joseph Balistrieri, son of mob boss Frank "Mad Bomber" Balistrieri. Eight months later, a testimonial dinner was held for San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto on November 11, 1972 at the Marc Plaza Hotel in Milwaukee. It was organized by the Italian-American Men’s Club of Milwaukee. Four hundred people attended the event, including Frank Balistrieri and underboss Steve DiSalvo.

The Look Magazine trials:

"The first trial ended in a hung jury. At the second trial the jury returned a special verdict finding the article false in one or more particulars and defamatory, but reached no agreement on the issue of actual malice. The trial judge granted defendant's motion for judgment n.o.v., but the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded "for a new trial on the sole issue of actual malice." The third trial which followed again ended in a hung jury. The action came on for a fourth trial before this Court commencing March 21, 1977, both parties having waived the jury.

The Court, after considering all of the evidence and the arguments of counsel, finds and concludes, for the reasons hereafter discussed, that plaintiff has sustained the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that defendant published the defamatory statements contained in the article with actual malice, that is, with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not, and is entitled to judgment in the sum of $350,000.00, plus costs."

https://casetext.com/case/alioto-v-cowles-communications-inc-3

Yes, the Alioto's was extremely hooked-up at one time in their early history.

Compliments jtsterling. This is a very interesting story and topic you've brought up.

Bravo!

The Aliotos were cousins of Vito Guardalabene, the first recognized boss of the Milwaukee Mob.

https://milwaukeemafia.com/wiki/vito-guardalabene/

very interesting. I have yet to research and write about the Milwaukee family. It's the only family across America that I haven't delved into yet.

By all means please post up any and all research and data you may have about them. I'd love to read it.

There's a wealth of information available on Milwaukee, I'm knee-deep in it.

Sad. There are some others here who know a lot about S.F. but not commenting. Don't worry, the family is DEFUNCT!

Thats an old story here. Most members don't contribute. It's always the same old members who continually and reliably post new threads. Without those few contributors this particular section would be barren of stories and info. I really don't know why that is, but it's a fact.

Joe Alioto had many connections, he is always credited with helping Jimmy Lanza, but he also helped other members in the Bay Area and from other crime families. He helped out the LaRoccas in the Bay Area, Salvatore Marino with the cheese factory, helped John Profaci Sr son of Joe Profaci who actually was legit but did use his dad's contracts to help his business, sidestep a legal problem. Overall Joe Alioto helped the San Francisco and Milwaukee families the most.

In addition to the LaRocca family, Alioto was very friendly with a friend from my hometown.

Dating to the earliest days of the Milwaukee family, Giovanni (John) Alioto, born in the late 1800s, had been a boss over that borgata. If I'm not mistaken Mayor Joe Alioto was a direct descendant of that family line. It may have been Joe's great uncle if memory serves me. Future Milwaukee boss Frank Balistrieri had married John Alioto's daughter, fast tracking his ascension into the family hierarchy.

Al LaRocca owned a couple fish companies, do you know if one of them was the Starfish Company?

His brother Pat and cousin Leo were silent partners in Starfish Company. Alphonse and Pasquale LaRocca owned LaRocca & Sons.

Alphonse J. (Al) LaRocca, aka Alphonse Charles LaRocca. He was born in 1912 in the City of San Francisco. He was a lifelong resident of that city who lived for many years with his wife Vera and son Leo at 260 Cayuga Avenue.

He stood over 6'-1" tall and weighed a solid 225 pounds. LaRocca had dark brown eyes, thick jet-black hair, and a dark olive complexion.

Together with his father Accursio (Leo), and his brother Pasquale (Pat), the family owned and operated LaRocca & Sons Wholesale-Retail Fish & Seafood Inc., a company originally based at 2350 Taylor Street in San Francisco that supplied area restaurants and the public with fresh seafood. He also reportedly held an interest in several commercial fishing vessels that supplied their business. In later years the LaRocca's involved themselves with several other fish companies as well.

Al LaRocca had a very limited police record with only one arrest dating back to 1939 for criminal investigation. Although both the SFPD and the FBN long suspected that he operated as an important narcotics smuggler who utilized fishing boats to bring narcotics into the Bay Area.

Federal investigators reported LaRocca as being closely associated with San Francisco Family boss Jimmy (The Hat) Lanza, and several top members of that family.

To this very day LaRocca's descendants operate related LaRocca family seafood companies that are among the better known brands in the Bay Area with consumers.

Thanks Giacomo. I thought there was a connection!

All of those San Francisco mobsters had very limited police records, especially if they didn't get out of the city of San Francisco often. SFPD was not interested in locking them up for some reason.

And by the same token SF never had the pervasive variety of illegal rackets available to run like guys did in other cities. Originally bootlegging, some gambling and some drug distribution, etc. That was mostly it. So because of less racket activity there were less arrests on their records. A second reason I think is also because many of them were already older (very similar to what happened in San Jose) and by the late 1940s into the 1950s and later many were no longer interested in 'street rackets' per se. They were either semi-retired or operated small legal businesses they had started.

So with few exceptions you just didn't have the same type mentality or member as guys in other states.

I think there were less arrests because they compromised the SFPD. The FBI complained for decades about the SFPD frustrating their investigations of Lanza and his crew. Even in the 1990s the FBI went on record saying as much during the big cocaine busts that went down at that time, when they busted Balistrieri and sons and Sergio Maranghi. They weren't able to get to the main target, G. Toracca, because elements of the SFPD protected him.

The history of the San Francisco Police Department is intertwined with the history of organized crime in S.F. from the very beginning. The Atherton Report of 1937 sheds some light on it.

Where did you hear that Giuseppe Alioto served as underboss to Frank Lanza? I had not heard that claim before, and it’s a pretty big one. And about Ingrassia being a gangster? I haven’t even been able to verify that Alioto was made… According to Tony Lima and Nicola Gentile, the first recognized underboss was Joseph Piazza, around 1919. Also, Giuseppe Alioto and Giovanni Alioto were not brothers but cousins. Giuseppe had six brothers, all in SF, one of which was Mariano.

Here’s a little blurb I put together on Piazza based on the info provided by Lima and Gentile: Joseph Piazza was the first recognized underboss of the San Francisco family. A mysterious character, Piazza was referred to as the number two man under Francesco “Don Cicciu” Lanza as early as 1919. He was active with his own group of black handers who opposed Lanza’s leadership. Piazza plotted to extort Giuseppe Alioto, a pioneer in the fishing industry and Lanza’s partner in the Exposition Fish Grotto, one of the first restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf. When consigliere Salvatore “Sam” Lima disagreed with the extortion plot, Piazza attempted to kill him. In response to his behavior, Joseph Piazza was murdered in the early 1930s in Lodi, CA. Sam Lima’s nephew, Antonio “Tony” Lima, took credit for the hit.

GREAT info
Thanks, for posting…

Thanks, you are correct about Giuseppe and Giovanni being cousins, not brothers. I'm slowly getting the facts straightened out. And also, thanks for the info you shared.

Giuseppe Alioto has shown up as an underboss on a couple charts I've seen. The bottom chart on this page shows it (as well as Ingrassia): http://mafiamembershipcharts.blogspot.com/search/label/San%20Francisco I am still looking for solid evidence of this (as solid as it can be, I mean, no one was supposed to know any of this info and a lot of effort went into keeping it all secret).

Frank Lanza immigrated to New York City and was with Nick Schiro. Early 1920s he lived in Southern Colorado and then moved to San Francisco. By 1926 he was the head of a local gang in San Francisco, before that he had influence in the bay area. A few that were with him were Gaetano Lazio, Frank LaRusso, Emilio Giorgetti, and Dominic Pagano to name a few.
Gaetano Ingrassia was the second in command when he was killed in 1916. 1920-1925, the top guys were Vincenzo LaRocca, Salvatore Lima Sr, Filippo Maita, Luciano Sabella, Nunzio Mannina, Antonio Sciortino, Joseph Lintini, Jerry Feri, Al Scariso, Girolamo Piazza, and Luigi Malvese.
By 1928 to 1930 Filippo Maita, Vincenzo LaRocca, Antonio Sciortino, Salvatore Lima Sr, and Joseph Lintno would join Frank Lanza. Lanza would also have the backing of Giuseppe Vicari of Santa Clara, Onofrio Sciortino of San Jose, Nick Schiro and Gaetano Riina of New York City, Rosario DeSimone, Jack Dragna, and Giuseppe Aleccia of Los Angeles, Peter Carlino, John Pricco and the Collettis of Colorado, as well as Milwaukee, notably John Alioto, Joe Vallone and Carmelo Zarcone.

Thanks again, Giacomo. Always appreciate your input.

On the SFPD, a few things to mention, all three factions had cops on the payroll in 1920s. By 1928 to 1930, Frank Lanza and Jerry Feri had caused so much trouble that many officers did not go by the guidelines and were extremely rough with outside mobsters, notably the Italians, Jewish, and Irish. Dominic Lonardo is one of the route causes of this, along with a Jewish mobster from Massachusetts, and Irish mobster who was making trouble in the dogpatch. The cops had enough. Also guys that had worked with Frank McManus and Jack Welch, ended up joining the police force. When Frank Lanza side won, an old member of Luigi Malvese crew gave up the pad and paper to Lanza side, and they had a couple of detectives on the pad, plus a captain. It wouldn't be until around 1950 that a marriage took place to where SFPD would look the other way for the crime family. Not to mention that associates kids and relatives would also join the SFPD and would help shield the family as much as they could.

San Francisco history is fascinating, especially the early days. So many characters!

Lots of corruption in the SFPD through the years. It seems that vice cop, Lester Garnier, who was found shot execution-style in his blue Corvette in 1988, was done in by crooked vice cops.