In another thread about the midwest families St. Louis was mentioned. In their prime, what are ya'lls opinions on that family. From what I've read, Tony Giordano was pretty well respected amongst LCN when he ran it. But you never really hear much about the family. Were they just a small time family that operated in the shadow of Kansas City and the other midwest heavyweights?

check out this thread, lots of good info! to keep it short, even in their heyday, they were never considered that big/active/influential of a family by lcn standards. thats not to say that they didn't have some influence, especially local, but nothing close to even a small family like KC.

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=615349

From what i've read about them (which is very little) they were always a small family but quite powerful in their on right, i know they had influence in some Laborers unions as well as the usual rackets Loan sharking,gambling etc, and if i'm not mistaken they had some small involvment in Las Vegas. My guess is they've been gone since the 90's.

Yeah, the last case involving the St. Louis mob was when Trupiano was busted for running a card game on union time back in the early 1990's.

Am i mixing them up with another family or were they involved in LV in some minor way?

My mom is from St. Louis and its because of hearing stories about the St. Louis family that I became interested in the mafia. While I know they are nothing like the families in NYC or Chicago, they were actually very powerful in their own right. The family had control of several of the unions and and also had a lot of power at numerous large markets throughout the city. Their main base of operations was "The Hill"' which is a predominantly Italian section of town. My mom's cousin was married to Joseph Scalise, who was a pretty influential guy and was known as "Torch Boy" due to the fact that the family used him as a sort of in house arsonist. My uncle's father-in-law was in some way associated with the family, though he says he never asked any questions about that aspect of his life. He was employed by the brewery as a delivery driver but in all actuality he did very little driving. He spent most of his days at Soulard Market, which was known to the locals as being mafia controlled. Today their does not seem to be much going on. My uncle has a friend who is a former detective and according to him the only action going on is a few guys who own a couple of bars or clubs.

Hopefully you post more because you post 10 times more eloquently than me, and about 10 times less snooty/self concious than Olivant.

Giordano had a part of the Aladdin and the Dunes through Morris Shenker. Shenker was a defense attorney who had represented Jimmy Hoffa and had access to the Teamsters Pension Fund. Thank you Camarel, I look forward to being a part of the site with you guys.

I've been to to the hill. They have great food and the neighborhood is still Italian majority, but no wiseguys.

Good stuff! Thanks

If memory serves, they had shares in the Aladdin, Dunes, and Frontier casinos.

The STL LCN was unique in its evolution and ways of doing business. The Irish gangs were larger and controlled more until about WWII. After WWII, there were 3 guys who took the LCN lead and made them the most powerful OC gang in the city - Anthony Lopiparo, John Vitale and Tony Giordano.

STL LCN shared the rackets and power with 2 other OC groups - the East Side and the Syrians, both groups being largely non-Italian. The East Side (East St Louis, Illinois was a "crew" of the Chicago Outfit and dated back to Prohibition and the Capone era. Frank "Buster" Wortman was its most prominent leader and a former member of the Shelton gang. The Syrians were led by James "Jimmy" Michaels, a former member of the Cuckoos gang. At one point, Michaels was being groomed to take over for Buster Wortman.

In all of my research into STL LCN, I have never found any information / speculations about how power was shared between the 3 groups. What is clear, STL felt marginalized by the Outfit's East Side crew and Wortman, and developed close working relationships with Kansas City and Detroit, in part due to familial relations between members in each city.

Vitale and Giordano were involved in the heroin trade, with Vitale getting convicted. Giordano made several trips to Italy, and was surveilled by Charles Siragusa of the Narcotics Bureau, but they could not catch him. Giordano was involved in some schemes in LA and was convicted for a robbery out there with some west coast guys when he was young. Later, Giordano served time for income tax evasion and concealed ownership in the Frontier, along with Tony Zerilli and Michael Polizzi from Detroit. It was later reported that Johnny Roselli fed the FBI the info on them.

Giorando and Vitale were into Vegas, using various front men including Morris Shenker and Sorkis Webbe. STL had interests in the Frontier, the Aladin and the Dunes. There is evidence that Giordano was boss / responsible for the Smaldones in Colorado. Vitale was known to travel widely across the country and internationally, and was widely known by other LCN families.

STL LCN likely never exceeded 30 - 35 made guys during its peak. They made their money primarily from gambling, loan sharking and fencing, and were heavy into the unions. STL had a diamond and gem exchange and the LCN was very active moving stolen diamonds, and stealing diamonds.

When Giordano died, fighting over union control brought an end to the family, and all the major OC groups. The first move in the fight for control of the unions was the car bombing of John Paul Spica, a made guy. He was blown up by Ray Flynn, an Irish guy aligned with the Syrians. Then, Jimmy Michaels was blown up in his car on the highway by a faction of his own group, headed by Paul Leisure. Several bombings and shootings later, several east side guys and Syrians turned and gave up pretty much everyone. The most prominent witness was Jesse Stoneking, the alleged number 2 guy from the East Side.

The Trupiano era was short, and pretty much the end. They were still into the unions, gambling, loan sharking, extortion, etc. The FBI and local law enforcement targeted them and put most of the in jail, even for short stretches, marginalizing their activities.

Bruce Mouw was the lead FBI agent in STL on OC, before moving to NYC to lead the famed Gambino Squad that put away Gotti.

TonyG : Is Nino Parrino still the boss? Is anybody left for him to be boss of? Do you know how many/and who the made guys are left, if any? Thanks, Jeff

TonyG and I discussed this before. I can't remember exactly what he said but, from what I understand, the remaining members are Anthony "Nino" Parrino, Joe Cammarata, and Fernando Bartolotta. I've also seen Frank Palazolla, Vincent Giordano, and Jack Parrino listed as members in the past but I'm not sure about them.

I showed this thread to my mom today and she got a kick out of it. Not because she is interested in anything mafia related but because it is stuff she remembers from when she was younger. I know there are people who know much more then my mother and me, but she was close with a Gene Giordano who swore his family was not the same Giordano family as Tony. Has that name ever come up in anything you all have seen.

I've never heard of a Gene Giordano involved in the family but there's plenty of posters who'll know more on the subject than me, i'll just say that it seems Giordano is quite a common Italian-American surname.

now I see why east st.louis is a total shithole

the mafia fucked up the town and then left it in rubble

makes sense now

Good info TonyG.

I read somewhere that Capone contracted out the St. Valentines Day Massacre to some guys from a gang in St. Louis. Anyone else read that?

I read the same thing but with detroit

According to my research, these are the guys who have been reported (law enforcement, indictments or newspapers) as made guys in St. Louis, with approximate age in parenthesis and supposed position (according to newspapers when Trupiano died):

Boss - Anthony "Nino" Parrino (76)
Underboss - Joseph "Joe" Cammarata (88)
Consigliere - Giacomo "Jack" Parrino(80) / Joseph "Joe" Pisciotta(88)

Frank Palazzolo (67)
Vincent "Vinny" Cammarata (59)
Fernando "Nando" Bartolotta (56)

I have not been able to verify anyone else rumored / speculated to have been made. There has been virtually zero media reports in the STL papers since Trupiano died.

There are a bunch of old East Side and Syrian guys running around still. But these were not LCN groups. As I said before, STL is unique in that there were 3 OC gangs that for the most part, peacefully shared the rackets.

Nando made the casino black book in Missouri back in 2009. Nothing was reported in the papers nor was any reason given:

https://www.mgc.dps.mo.gov/casinoexclusionsweb/details.aspx?id=83

The little prick is still a chubby POS. Nando was, and probably still is, crazy. He wanted to rob a Venture (similiar to Target) a few days before Christmas back in the day. He planned to walk in, wave a gun at a manager, have them open the safe, then walk out. Stoneking prevented from happening by tipping the cops (he was cooperating at the time) who parked a few cars out in front. Nando walked in and almost did anyway.

Spica was blown up one block from grandparents house.

I was in 8th grade when Jimmy Michaels got blown up. One of his grandsons was sitting in my class that day. They came and got them out of school early.

There are several Giordano's in STL, not all of them related to Tony. I do not believe that Gene Giordano was involved in LCN.

Yup, the East Side is a shit hole, and has been for a very long time. When I was in high school, the city went broke and they could not afford for trash pick up. You could smell it for miles. They had mobile homes parked on the side of the highway that you could pull up to and buy drugs from, almost like a McDonalds drive through.

It was always sex, graft, gambling and chemical plants over there. There are no titty bars on the Missouri side, but probably 30 on the east side. The joke about the East Side used to be: "If someone wanted to f*@& an elephant, the STL zoo would be missing an elephant the next day and it would be over on the East Side".

My uncle ran book making over there and back room casinos for 40 years. He went to the track (Fairmont) almost every night. But he lived in STL.

You are probably thinking of Fred "Killer" Burke and James Ray, or "Screwy" Claude Maddox.

Burke was a member of STL Egan's Rats, a predominantly Irish gang that also included Jews and Italians. Witnesses placed Burke near the St Valentines scene and guns seized from his home in 1929 were matched to bullets from the crime.

James Ray was an friend of Burkes and was also placed at the scene by witnesses. Burke and Ray had dressed as cops before when committing crimes.

Maddox was also a member of STL Egan's Rats, and had moved to Chicago. At the time of the St Valentines Day Massacre, he owned the Circus Cafe and was aligned with Capone. One of cars used by the killers was traced back to him.

IMO, Burke was one of the St Valentines Day Massacre shooters. There is just too much evidence. I am not sure who else was there, but Ray probably was, or was a lookout.

As a side note, Maddox's place became the name for the crew (the Circus Cafe Gang) that included Anthony "Tough Tony" Capezio, Vincenzo De Mora ("Machine Gun" Jack McGurn) and Antonino "Tony" "Joe Batters" Accardo.

Obviously it's related to those goddamn NY rats.

One time in east st louis I saw a sign of the city with the motto, "city of champions."

You can't beat Edinburgh, who were contemplating changing their slogan to incredinburgh .

How do you know that?