The Jack Dragna-Nick Licata Family of LA

Good morning and Happy Sunday! Here's a little reading material to keep my followers entertained....
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They eventually earned the moniker the 'Mickey Mouse Mafia" for their failure to kill independent gang boss Mickey Cohan, and a few other bumbling incidents along the way.

But in truth, back when boss Jack Dragna led the borgata, and even later when Nick Licata first took over after Dragna's death, they were basically a small but decent crew that earned millions and ran some lucrative rackets.

Many of their 'original' members were old-time mafiosi imported direct from Sicily and Calabria. Tom Dragna, Mimi Li Mandri, Tony and Frank Milano, Tony Pinelli, and so many more.

https://thenewyorkmafia.com/2021/04/11/the-dragna-licata-family-of-los-angeles-ca/

In reading through this story I realize now that I didn't final 'proof' it. There are some grammatical errors and a few other mistakes. Sorry about those. But I do hope you'll enjoy this expose nonetheless.There are a few rare pics I think you'll like

I hesitated to write an expose on the LA Family for the simple reason that I wasn't so sure how many readers would be interested in them.

But in truth, this crew was interesting in their prime. After investigating them, I was going to do a follow up at some point on their later 'second tier' membership in a Part II.

But I see that many forum members are not taking to it. So I may rethink that project.

For whatever reason, the Los Angeles mob always had a weird dynamic to it. And I think thats reflected in what's been written, or hasn't been written, about it.

I liked it.the LA family is intesting cause of really wasted potential
California families should have had imported guys.from the old country
To add strength to.the rank.and file

Operating within a state such as Cali that had such a small Italian populous, they were always challenged for recruits. If it weren't for out of state imports, the Dragna's would have been hard pressed to build a crew in the first place.

I think that if Bompensiero would be the boss the family would be in better shape.ok they was called the mickey mouse mafia but until frattiano flipping the family was still viable and even under the weak leadership of Milano during the Operation thin crust and in the Blitzstein murder,the family continue to be active.
What I want to say is with a best leadership the family could be active like the Detroit family but unfortunaly they was absorbed by the Gambinos like the Tampa family.

Bompensiero was a decades long rat! So in truth the very foundation was weak to begin with. Imagine if the HAD installed an 'informant' as the boss?? Lol It would have been a worse shit show than they already had out there.

Very interesting NYMafia, funny I see the legendary Sidney Korshak in the family chart.

Yes Hollander, he seems to have been a good schemer. Controlled by the Chicago Outfit if I'm not mistaken, but he operated out of Cali as well

Bompensiero wasnt a rat when Dragna died in 1956 and the reason he ratted in 1967 is that he lost the boss position,and was demoted by frank Simone from capo to a soldier,if he would be the boss in the 1960s for sure he would preferenze to went to jail then rat on the family.

Great write up, interesting and informative. Thanks

Yeah and never went to prison his contacts went up to the highest echelons.
Wasn't LA represented on the Commission by the Outfit?

There was more to it than Bompensiero just ratting. It was a combination of a lot of things going on under DeSimone and Licata reign.

The Lucchese family represented L.A. on the Commission until Jack Dragna died. After that Bonanno temporary represented them, then it was the Gambino and finally Detroit before Chicago represented everything west of the Mississippi.

You have guys from Chicago, Lucchese, Gambino, and Detroit on that list.

You are correct Giacomo. The representative on the Commission started out as Tommy Brown. As after Dragna's death and Tommy's death, it morphed to other crews. Eventually, Chicago handled most everything west of the Windy City.

In their later years you are correct. Chicago 'serviced' them.

Thanks majicrat

Because LA was so convoluted, and so many guys resided out that way later in their careers, I didn't try and decipher each individual relationship. Suffice it to say that whether they were technically 'on record' with the Detroit crew, or Gambino's, or Chicago per se. The fact that they resided out west for years and interacted with the LA Family was enough for me.

Most everyone on that list was either a member, or was 'associated' with the Dragna faction, even if they were made elsewhere. For instance Mimi Li Mandri was originally around the Anastasia/Gambino crew in NYC. Yet, he and his son, and son in law, worked hand in glove with Dragna, DeSimone, and Licata.

Did they transfer their memberships? Or did they remain as NYC based guys and just did business with the LA crew? I do think that's a matter of semantics, because essentially nearly ALL of these fellas worked in tandem at one point or another.

Another case in point was Tony Milano and his brother Ciccio, who was literally the boss back in Cleveland years earlier.

Did Ciccio Milano just retire out there? Did he work in tandem with Dragna/Licata? Did he 'affiliate' with the boss of LA? ...... quite frankly, I don't think it really matters.

At the end of the day, each was firmly planted out that way with residences, investments, etc.

They lived and operated in LA. End of story!

Do you get my point Giacomo?

Yes but he ratted after Dragna death as I said.

I read that the L.A. police would threaten wiseguys from back east who came into L.A.. Telling them we know who you are, we will be watching you, etc. I guess that must have put a damper on at least some of the guys who wanted to do business in California.

Yes I think they even did that with Alphonse Capone on a visit.

I believe you guys are right. The local police squads tried damping em down and chasing them out.

I just had a nice conversation with a fella who is the great-grandson of LA boss Jack Dragna. Nice fella.

J. Michael Niotta. He wrote a few books about the LA mob and his relatives. At first he seemed a bit over the top. But he's actually a nice guy.

He critiqued my expose at first, but then later admitted that I had a lot of solid info in there, and that he enjoyed my article about his great-grandfather and the LA Family much more than any other he's ever read. That I brought a very good perspective to that borgata.

I guess thats a ringing endorsement if ever there was one, huh fellas. Lol

Anyway, it was nice speaking with him. He seems like a nice young man.

good job.

So the L.A. family can deeply bribe the police like in the east coast? Damn if the police warm the wiseguys its normal that the family can replace the ranks.

I think Frank Milano had alot of influence and pull in LA after he moved to
Mexico from the harsh Cleveland winters.
He was one of the original Commission members.
In the eyes of the Commssion he probally had more credibility than Dragna.
Dragna was the boss but Im sure the Milano Brothers had their hands
In the LA family cookie jar

I think Dragna was respected after all he WAS a boss, and very close to Lucchese and La Salle too. But I agree in that for at least the years they ruled Cleveland, the Milano brothers, Ciccio especially, was a more pivotal figure to the overall Mafia. Sat on the Commission as a founding member, was head of a key city not far from NYC and integrated with many other crews in nearby states. etc.

They NEVER had the juice or corruption power like certain key deeply corrupted east coast cities had, but the LA crew of course tried bribing the cops just like every other mafioso did. But out in Cali most cops were often very foreign to that sort of thing. They didn't even truly understand who the hell they had in their midst for many years. In other words, they were 'green' themselves and often NOT receptive to bribes, etc. Trying to pull that altruistic bs.

Thank you

I do believe you're correct with that Fleming

Thanks pal. glad you enjoyed it that much

Agreed. I also think because of the greatly reduced racket opportunities out in CA., many guys just couldn't 'lock into' the kind of real solid and steady rackets like back on the east coast in the grittier mafia dominated (and Italian and Jewish ) neighborhoods. You know its a lot different when your plying your trade in a Little Italy, East Harlem, Bronx, or Williamsburg or East New York where there was a heavy influx or jewish, Italian, and Irish immigrants. As opposed to trying to deal with the white bred, WASP, 'americani' born people of the country or west coast where they looked at those immigrants like martians and didn't even understand their lifestyles and mindsets.

It just wasn't as conducive a geography for rackets period!

Hmmm...
While Southern.Cal didnt have the East Coast variety of ethiciticies....
It did and does have a intresting mix of Mexican, and Southeast Asian
Groups.
Could have the traditional LA LCN Family made their presence felt
With those groups with traditional LCN rackets?
Then.you.include the adult film industry and plus construction
Rackets in Southern Cal....
Didnt at one point in NYC the Gambinos were fully entrenched
In the concrete industry in NYC
Plus the LA Family could have really profited from.the stolen cars
And chop shops much how Roy DeMeo got wealthy off of back East

The reason it was hard to bribe cops is because of the culture. It was a good ole boys "cowboys and sheriffs" culture. Its the wild west and those gangsters were outsiders. Its not that it wasn't Corruption (contrary to this, California was very corrupt), its just the mob was kinda on the outskirts of this system. Unlike NY, where it was interwoven with the system, and inherited from the original jewish guys.

Thats a good way to put it Don Pep

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they did fool around with porno, and interact with Mexicans moving junk across the border. But overall, it wasn't as conducive an atmosphere for Italian OC as gritty eastern areas for many reasons. And if you are familiar with Chinese. especially many decades back, they are a very insular people and handle their own stuff. They weren't open to dealing with whites. Plus, it was a very different dynamic in Cali for all the reasons I stated. And the cali crew was small and somewhat disjointed compared to better organized and larger east coast CN borgatas

Sorry but the LA police (at leate in Italy) had the fame to be violent and rogue,so if the money ofcthe italians had the same color why could be so hard to bribe a cop? Maybe the cops gain better extortiong the other white criminals? Maybe this is the reason or maybe they prefer to direct extort money to all the streets criminals.

For import sicilians from italy,there was a total number of people that can immigrate every years and the gov could make a veto on a person if had criminal records.

I think there were a few guys who did business with the yakuza.

Tommy Gambino is still going strong in LA.

Yep a lot of Mexicans for decades.

The Dragna era was the golden era. I've lived in this city since 2018 and had conversations with a few old timers. It's funny, there's a lot of guys from Brooklyn in LA. I know one guy who owns a pizzeria in Sherman Oaks who grew up in Park Slope and was around the Persicos. He said he left Brooklyn because he was tired of getting photographed by the police lol

In Europe all we know about LA are the Crips and Bloods.

LOL... well nowadays thats all that's there. This expose I wrote about Dragna, etc., is absolutely, positively, from a bygone era..... long gone! Never to be seen again.

Mexican drug cartels, gangbangers like the Crips, Bloods, etc., is all you have out there now. And some independents who move tonnage of marijuana to the east coast on occasion.

Sad! But thats what its come down to. They didn't want CN around. Well the feds got their wish. Now they can deal with all the shit thats 1000% worse than CN ever was.Lol

"Mulholland Falls"

It was a waterfall with no water, just wiseguys that police threw off the mountain.

A liberal, "easy breezy" lifestyle had nothing to do with the mob never getting a foothold in Cali, either. It's actually quite the opposite. Before the 1960s, California was one of the most conservative states that made up the former union "northern" states. So conservative in fact that the protestants who ran LA were reluctant to work with Irish, Italian or Jewish gangsters, despite being on the take. By the time the "City Hall Gang" was broken up and Willie Parker took over as chief, the fix in LA was done, and the east coast and midwest mobs that previously ran rackets in LA moved to Vegas. When LA became liberal in the 1960s, this was when the Dragna family began to actually thrive again through drug distribution. Frattiano was wisely trying to form an alliance with la Eme (Mexican Mafia) just before he flipped.

You didn't have the huge Italian and Irish voting blocs like the Eastern cities. So you had people in power descended from the early white settlers. And as you said, different religion, too. It's not like the cops and politicians were rubbing elbows with rackets guys at Sunday Mass. One of the Manson books, I think the one by Jeff Guinn, says that one of those police chiefs, (Parker I think), would not tolerate officers who took bribes or anything, but was totally cool with them using excessive force with little to no provocation. On poor people that is. The rich and influential got off with a warning. He writes a story about some movie stars kids who were shooting out streetlights in a housing development under construction. They were sent home with a warning and their gun was not confiscated. But blacks and working class whites got their asses kicked for much less.

Michael Rizzitello | Jimmy Fratianno | Los Angeles Crime Family | (1981)

Hey Gia...were any of those "oldtimers" involved in the L.A. or San Fransico Porn boom that was going on @ the time...U have 2 remember that VHS was a major thing back n the early 80s..& I know 4 a fact that some the "outfit" as well as NY guys had thier hands dirty..??..any input??

Even though there wasn’t traditional homegrown neighboorhoods to initially back the loan sharking

and the gambling, there were nonetheless plenty of opportunities out there, it’s just that the family’s in

New York Chicago and elsewhere controlled all of it...Vegas was in theyre backyard and other than the one

casino they got 5k a month from in the 50s, none of Vegas was ever theirs. The movie and record

industry was dominated by New York and Chicago... as well as the Pornography Business....

Louie Dragna did have a large Garment Company however that dominated the industry there....