In terms of membership and influence, where does EP stand among other Outift crews? What was their last known and reported headcount?
Until DiFronzos bad health or maybe even death, they were allegedly one of the leading if not the top crew of the Outfit. Back in the days some sources said that the Elmwood Park crew allegedly closed its books but with this current case it might be possible that we were all wrong, as usual lol
I personally think DiFronzo 'deactivating' EP was splitting it from Cicero and the other crews to insulate himself. No more overall boss. I think he let the Southiside / Cicero guys do their thing, and his guys in EP continued his crew.
Do you think that the EP crew distanced themselves to an extent (alellegedly there were still some cash transactions between Sarno and DiFronzo) and let the Cicero crew take all the heat?
I think yes they distanced themselves on purpose - EP was more into legitimate enterprises - a lot of these guys like Doddono and DiFronzo and Boscarino are multimillionaires. If you look back at the Mendell/Engel case they talk on wiretap about the 'BMW/Starbucks gangsters' - those are EP guys. They make clear Albie and guys that gravitated towards Cicero were the rougher guys and that's where they went to. There are not many guys like that in the Cicero Crews from my vantage point. I think DiFronzo 'deactivated' the Outfit as a whole and the crews split and there were obviously some beefs going and some killings, but that's what happened from my view. I think EP does larger-scale scams - offshore betting, bid rigging, etc. They still have major influence at Ohare and McCormick Place and a lot of suburbs like Rosemont are still highly intertwined with 'affiliated'companies. They aren't selling drugs and ripping stash houses or working out of pawn shops. Gagliano is clearly out there running protection rackets, but this was for a multimillion dollar prostitution ring - Fronttier's gambling empire was also massive. You just don't see that money with Paulie Carparelli and the Sarno gang - all those guys have is video gambling.
