Reputed mob boss linked to 'old-time Mafia'
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Jason Cato is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7936 or via e-mail.
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By Jason Cato
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Running numbers in East Liberty might have introduced Michael J. Genovese to the underworld of organized crime, but it didn't satiate the criminal appetite that took him to the top of Pittsburgh's mob scene.
The head of the all-but-vanquished La Cosa Nostra crime syndicate that once dominated Western Pennsylvania died Tuesday at his West Deer home. He was 87.
"He was the old-time Mafia here," said Kenneth McCabe, the former special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh FBI office. "Most people think of the Mafia like 'The Godfather' movies. That's what they were."
Michael A. Genovese, 41, said his father was a retired car salesman, not the mobster portrayed in news reports.
"I always looked at the articles in the newspapers," the younger Genovese said. "If he did half of the stuff they said he did, he should've been in jail. That tends to make me believe you shouldn't believe everything you read."
Michael James Genovese never was charged in mob-related crimes, but that had more to do with being well insulated than from not associating with organized crime, federal and state investigators said.
Genovese was born and reared in East Liberty, where he once controlled the numbers racket, according to a report by the defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission.
His climb through the Pittsburgh crime clan included a stint as capo and underboss to Sebastian John LaRocca, who became boss in 1956.
In November 1957, Genovese was part of the Pittsburgh contingency that attended a notorious summit of mob bosses from across the country in Apalachin, N.Y., according to the crime commission.
By the late 1970s, LaRocca's age and health forced him to begin yielding his power to Gabriel Mannarino, Joseph Pecora and Genovese, according to the crime commission. Pecora was convicted on gambling charges in 1979. Mannarino died in 1980.
Genovese took over the Pittsburgh clan, one of 24 original La Cosa Nostra families in the U.S., when LaRocca died in 1984.
Under Genovese's reign, the Pittsburgh Family dominated illegal gambling in Western Pennsylvania, the panhandle of West Virginia and eastern Ohio, the crime commission said. It was a major drug trafficker in Pittsburgh and was heavy into loansharking, scams and theft.
Age and federal prosecutors began catching up with organized crime in Pittsburgh by the early 1990s.
Charles "Chucky" Porter, who was Genovese's right-hand man, and Louis Raucci Sr., were indicted by a federal grand jury in March 1990 on charges including distribution of narcotics, extortion, conspiracy to commit murder, robbery, gambling and racketeering.
Stake-outs at L.A. Motor in Verona, where Genovese worked, revealed him meeting with Porter and Raucci almost daily, according to the crime commission. A wire inside the business, however, never recorded Genovese making any incriminating statements. He was careful to go outside when talking to Porter and Raucci.
Though the indictment against Porter and Raucci did not name Genovese as boss, several witnesses during the trial testified that he was the head of the Pittsburgh crime family. Other witnesses in mob trials in Ohio did likewise.
A funeral prayer will be held at 9:30 a.m. Friday at William F. Gross Funeral Home, Penn Hills. Mass of Christian Burial at 10 a.m. in St. Bartholomew Church with burial in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Penn Hills.
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