The Chicago Outfit, one of the most infamous organized crime groups in the world with its own history filled with dark tales of gangsters and serial killers mixed with the greed for the all mighty dollar. During the pursuit of gold and riches, these people learned how to organize themselves into an unholy brotherhood that managed to infiltrate even in the highest levels of society. They used to portrait themselves as ordinary everyday people and also as modern day robin hoods. In reality they were nothing more than egoistic and barbaric villains with the sense for shrewd business deals and destruction of society. Most of these so-called mobsters came from the dirty slums and filthy streets of Chicago that used to be filled with poverty and death. So the gangster’s natural tactics of forcing other people to go the wrong way was by violence. Violence is the main rule for going up in the underworld and also to maintain order among the gangsters themselves. So to be considered a very violent and at the same time shrewd person in the underworld is a great achievement because everyday you have to deal with all kinds of murderers, psychopaths and backstabbing thieves. If you ever had the chance to ask a mobster about how he could do so many nasty and evil things to people, he would simply reply that there’s nothing personal in that and that’s all just business. If we agree with the ill logic of the mobster, any killing would be instantly justifiable, right? Why the need to observe the first precept of non-killing out of respect for life then? Now, this is rather classic unwholesome rationalisation of the unrepentantly abusive people who don’t think even for second that “what goes around comes around” in this life. In other words, if one wilfully, intentionally, with greed, hatred and delusion creates or supports suffering for others, one instantly creates negative karma for oneself too or the people that the one loves most. It’s just the way it is. So this is the story about a high profile member of the Chicago Outfit who foolishly justified his destructive deeds and non-constructive actions and along the way managed to awake the law of karma. In the end he became just another “wasted talent” in a long line of other wasted talents. “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same“. - Job 4:8


Sam “Teets” Battaglia was one of the most notorious criminals within the Chicago mob. Sam came from a criminal blood line and was surrounded by notorious relatives who by osmosis brought him in to the “life”. Even when he was just “small potatoes” in the criminal world, Sam again managed to bring the attention from the law and at the same time caught the eyes of the big shots of Chicago’s underworld. When he reached the top, Sam already represented someone who was known as a veteran and who survived through the notoriously gun-toting days of the late 1920’s and early 30’s upon which legend thrives, were certainly very “exciting” days. He also witnessed the birth and formation of the Chicago Outfit and tasted its glory days. Sam managed to hurt a lot of families and spread fear and hatred among his fellow mobsters. In the end he got what he deserved, but the sad thing was that his own blood got the worst of it. This is his story...


The influx of many immigrants to America from Southern and Eastern Europe came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This immigration of biblical proportions is very well known in the history books and as time it became a part of our common pop cultural memory. Most of us heard about the stories of squalor and struggle in New York’s Lower East Side, or perhaps about the ethnic enclaves in Boston or Philadelphia. Of course these immigrants didn’t settle only on the Eastern Seaboard but they went everywhere where there was a demand for supply of labor in the newly industrialized U.S.A. Many of the newly arrived Italians, Polacks and Greeks went to the midsized cities on the Midwestern rivers and lakes such as Chicago, Detroit and Wisconsin where the humming industry gave opportunity for the skilled. Today in our modern world, these immigrant stories are best portrayed in the movies like The Godfather Part II, where we can see that the Italian people brought not only their original traditions like food and religion but also their criminal activities and groups such as the world wide infamous crime organizations known as the Mafia and Camorra. Back in Europe these two criminal groups represents two separate organizations, for example the Camorra comes from the southern part of Italy and the Mafia comes from Sicily. In the old days, the two groups brought their differences to the newly formed world and clashed into constant conflicts for profits and territories. But their children or in other words the “young turks” that were born in the U.S. changed the old ways and brought the criminal empires on a level which their fathers could’ve only dreamed of.


At the beginning of 20th century one small town on the Midwest became one of the centers for the arriving Italian immigrants who later spread around in the nearby cities. That town goes by the name of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kenosha is situated on Lake Michigan on Wisconsin’s southern border with Illinois. Nearly equidistant between Chicago and Milwaukee, Kenosha was an emerging industrial port city and was the home to many new company factories. So Kenosha attracted many Italian immigrants from Calabria, mostly from the Cosenza area and also Sicilians mainly from the Palermo area. One of those Italian families was the Battaglia’s. Salvatore Battaglia and his wife Giuseppa(Josephine) Scaletta Battaglia arrived somewhere around the late 1890’s and during their stay they brought four sons and two daughters to this world. The brothers were Frank (born 1906), Sam (born 1908), Anthony (born 1914) and the youngest one Joseph (born 1916). Salvatore “Sam” Jr. was born June 30, 1908 in Kenosha County. Later the family moved to Chicago on the Near West Side part of the city on Taylor Street. During the 1910’s it was reported that over 10,000 Italian immigrants lived in the blocks around Taylor Street between Halsted and the Chicago River. There were also other immigrants such as the Polish Jews and Greeks in the same area but 70% of the population belonged to the Italians. The poverty and the poor conditions in the area led to the formations of many notorious criminal gangs and of course the most powerful ones were the Italian gangs. Because of the bad financial conditions inside the big Italian families, many young people dedicated their lived to crime and the Battaglia brothers were no exception.



Chicago’s West Side at the beginning of the 20th century


The Battaglia’s were a very big family. Some of Salvatore Sr. blood relatives already were established with their families in Chicago. So the young Battaglia brothers had a lot of cousins that already knew the area. Two of their oldest cousins, Paul Battaglia (born 1895) and August “Augie” Battaglia (born 1897), were the first of the Battaglia clan who entered in the world of crime and later brought all of their younger cousins into the same world. During the late 1910’s one of the main street crime group on Taylor Street was the Genna crime family. This crime group was led by 6 Sicilian brothers who managed to set up a cheese and olive oil distribution company and sold these commodities to their fellow immigrants. But the problem was that their main business was the “Black Hand" style extortion plots in that area and they were the ones that decided on who’s going to live and who’s going to die. For example, Tony Genna was a shrewd building contractor and architect and was also the most intelligent of all brothers. Sam Genna was a saloon keeper and political fixer of the gang. His brother James was a prominent thief and burglar while Angelo and Mike were the bloody enforcers. At the beginning of the roaring 1920’s the law of prohibition of alcohol came to effect and so the Gennas found their new way of making illegal profits. Because of the numerous competitions in this new venture the Gennas needed a bigger army and recruits. Angelo “Bloody” Genna had the ability to make others do his bidding through brutal force and later became street-level recruiter for the gang. By this time Paul Battaglia fought his way through the streets of Chicago and managed to catch the eye of Angelo Genna. Paul became a significant soldier for Angelo because he had the connections to many hungry young hoodlums who would’ve done anything for a quick buck. Through his younger blood relatives like Augie, Frank, Sam and Joseph, Paul had countless connections to all kinds of young burglars and shoplifters. Many of the youngsters were recruited by Paul to work in the Genna’s alcohol stills and were usually paid $15 a day because of the high risk. Later the “Bloody Gennas” as they were called, became known as the kings of corn sugar alcohol on Chicago’s West Side.





During his rise, Paul was arrested numerous times for burglary and for receiving a stolen property. In 1923 Paul was arrested together with his mentor Angelo Genna for carrying a concealed weapon. They were taken to a police station but according to mob lore Angelo’s reputation was too scary so the cops decided to drop the charges. While Paul was making a name for himself in the underworld, young Sam Battaglia and the rest of the brothers followed their older cousin’s footsteps. August Battaglia worked at one of the stills that were controlled by the Gennas. Augie, as he was known among his fellow criminals, was a mild-mannered and very likeable person but at the same time very deadly. Augie and Paul also collected cash from other small time bootleggers that owed money to the Gennas. Augie was the guy who sweet talked the debtors and if they didn’t pay up than they had to deal with Paul. Their younger cousin Sam was a tall blue eyed youngster with brown hair and with the guts to rob everything and anyone at any time. Sam started holding up drivers of merchandise trucks and managed to steal the trucks and the goods. One of his “specialities” was doing stick ups on wealthy people. He was often in company with his elder brother Frank. Frank was two years older than Sam and was a very ruthless street thug who always kept a gun in one of his pockets. He was known as a guy who would shoot anyone, even cops. Joseph was the youngest one and was also a very wild hoodlum who was arrested numerous times for vagrancy. The Battaglia brothers had their protection from the Genna organization and were running wild all across the West Side.



Paul Battaglia


But in 1924 the Genna brothers became targets of another criminal group which came from the North Side of the city. This group thought that the Gennas had a hand in the assassination of their beloved leader Dean O'Banion. This “unusual” thinking was born because of Genna’s association with another fast rising criminal group which was led by Italian crime boss Giovanni Torrio and his second in command Alphonse Capone. Torrio and Capone were in all out war with the Northsiders and both groups were making allies all around Chicago. This was a terrible time period for Chicago’s underworld which was filled with backstabbing games and soon the streets were filled with blood. The young turks such as the Battaglia brothers were in the middle of the crossfire. The Gennas started receiving hits from all sides but the main problem was the internal dissatisfaction among the ranks. Many of their so-called soldiers started betraying their bosses and the reason was greed. The Genna brothers were wielding way too much wealth and they gave almost nothing in return so some of their associates started to change sides. For example their two prime enforcers Albert Anselmi and John Scalise became more loyal to the Torrio/Capone mob and the list went on. So the Battaglia brothers saw the writing on the wall and started to seek their independence.


The year of 1925 was a black year for the Genna family. On May 26 Angelo “Bloody” Genna was killed during a car chase by the North Side group. His body was riddled from machinegun bullets but somehow managed to survive for an hour. Next on June 13 his brother Mike “The Devil” Genna was killed by two cops because of a previous shootout. Mike and two of his associates were in a shootout with the Northsiders and killed two police officers in the process. On July 8, Tony Genna was betrayed by one of his associates. He received a call and was called on a meeting. When he met his partner Tony was killed right on the spot. James Genna fled to Italy and the rest of the brothers waved the white flag.


Now the Battaglia brothers were left to be on their own and they didn’t work for any of the big criminal groups but instead Paul managed to gather another small juvenile gang under his wing. This juvenile gang was known as the 42’s and their leader or “smarthead” as he was called, was 22 year old Jospeh Calaro aka Joey “Babe Ruth” Cole. Calaro was a runner for Paul during the Genna period and was also a close friend of Augie Battaglia. Calaro was a very flashy dresser, he wore silk underwear, silk shirts and a suit and overcoat made from very expensive materials and also had a diamond ring on his left hand. The gang’s activities ranged from stealing coins from telephone booths and stealing cars to murder. They also held up nightclubs, robbed cigar stores and stole from peddlers. They even killed the horses that pulled peddlers’ carts, and sold their hind legs to businesses that purchased horse meat, which decades later will grow in a huge illegal business. Many of these young hoodlums were used by the big time criminals and bootleggers to do their dirty work. Some of the young turks were awarded for their evil deeds and some were found with a bullet in the back of their heads. Calaro and Augie used to take 5 to 10 dollars from every member, every month, in case of "hard times". 17 year old Sam Battaglia felt quite comfortable as a part of this gang since many of its members were almost his age and also had the same criminal mentality. Sam felt as a member of a real Italian criminal organization similar to the Capones or the Aiellos from the North Side. In reality they were small potatoes in Chicago’s underworld because they were bunch of young ruthless murdering teenagers with no sense for business or love and kindness for any human being. Sam met a lot of up and coming young hoodlums and rapists such as Salvatore “Sam” Giancana and Pete Nicastro. Giancana showed him how to steal cars and Nicastro showed him that everyone can be killed, even the cops. Sam became a very ambitions young criminal but the time for his rise in the underworld was just too early.


In 1926 Sam Battaglia was arrested for burglary. The same year his older brother Frank was also arrested on a charge of attempted burglary. Sam spent a year in the reformatory and Frank served four months in the county jail. This was the first time when the Battaglia brothers have hit the newspapers and slowly but surely the brothers were making their names known all across the underworld. On November 13, 1927 the leader of the 42’s “Babe Ruth” Calaro and one associate were caught by the police striping an automobile in the rear of 1317 Elburn Av. When the cops got near them the pair fled the scene but one of the cops fired few shots at them. The next morning, Calaro was found almost dead just few blocks down from the crime scene. He was shot once in the leg and once in the back. Calaro was taken to the nearest hospital but it was too late because he already lost a lot of blood. Now the 42’s needed a new street leader and next in line was another young and very notorious hoodlum Pasquale “Two Gun Patsy” Tardi. Tardi wasn’t like his previous leader Calaro. He usually walked in the same clothes for more than six month and was always out of money. But he was going to shoot anyone at any time and that’s what Paul Battaglia needed.



42 gang leader Pasquale “Patsy” Tardi


By the late 1920’s the most prominent crime group in Chicago was the Capone gang which now was led by Al Capone himself. Al didn’t liked much some of these small criminal groups such as the 42’s, because he considered himself the prime criminal boss of Chicago and all he needed was a sharp shooters, tough bodyguards, shrewd criminals and of course a lot of lawyers since he was considered “Public Enemy #1” by the government. So this meant that if any of these young hoods even tried to do a job on a restricted area, they were going to end up in a ditch. But that never happened because somehow Capone tolerated the young hoodlums to an extent. But not all of Capone’s associates were stubborn as their boss. Jewsih gangster Jack Zuta was one of Capone allies and started his career as a junk dealer and ended up as political fixer and as a pimp. Zuta also had a close relationship with Paul Battaglia and the 42’s. But the problem was that later Zuta changed his loyalty to North Side gang which was in war with the Capone mob. Now things looked bad for Paul and the 42’s because Tardi became one of Zuta’s close henchmen. Tardi worked as a house keeper in Zuta’s brothels and also delivered his services as a hitman. But the biggest problem wasn’t the alliance with the Nortsiders but the real problem was this one hit that Tardi was in on it. Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle became a “stone in the shoe” for Chicago’s underworld, especially for Jack Zuta, because of his reports and stories that usually hit the newspapers headlines.



Jack Zuta

On the afternoon of June 9, 1930, Lingle left the Sherman House Hotel and was on his way to catch the 1:30 pm train to a racetrack in Homewood where he gambled on horses. On his way though the Randolph Street Terminal, he was followed by two young males. One of the youngsters pulled a .38 caliber pistol and shot Lingle directly in the back of the head. Lingle’s death raised a public outcry but his death brought a lot of relief among the city’s gangsters. Right after the Lingle killing on June 30, 1930 Zuta was taken into custody for questioning regarding the murder. He was released the next day and while being given a police escort, the police cruiser was fired on by several unidentified gunmen. The attackers killed two bystanders before being driven off by police. Zuta fled Chicago and moved to Upper Nemahbin Lake, west of Milwaukee and changed his name to J.H. Goodman. So obviously stories spread around that Zuta was singing like a canary and was giving all of his informations on the Capone mob. So on August 1, 1930 Zuta was killed by two Capone hitmen in a road house in Delafield, Wisconsin.



Murder scene of Jake Lingle


Now the 42’s were again left without a sponsor and they also became targets. Paul Battaglia didn’t have the brains to be a leader and to become a big shot so the gang became reckless. They didn’t have any money so the boys started robbing everything and anyone. The problem was that the 42’s didn’t know the vast network of money collectors and people that were protected by the Capone mob and during the robbing process they made a few mistakes here and there which costed their own lives and also the lives of their close ones. For example, like the fatal mistake young Sam Battaglia did.


On October 6, 1930 the wife of the Mayor of Chicago William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson, Mary Thompson, went to see a show downtown together with her sister. Mary always dressed very well and also wore expensive jewels on her neck and wrists. When the show ended at around 11:00 pm Mrs. Thompson's driver, a Chicago police officer, picked her up outside the theater and drove her home. When the driver pulled up at the apartment building, at 3100 N. Sheridan, suddenly three men stepped out of a Nash automobile, pulled out their pistols and attacked the driver. One of the attackers kept the driver on the ground with a pistol on his head and the other two forced the Mayor’s wife into the building, pressed their guns against her forehead and told her to give them all her jewels. The criminals took off in their car and got away with 6.5-carat blue diamond ring, a 40-diamond bracelet, and a diamond brooch set. Mrs Thompson was a nervous wreck for several days and when the police came and asked her about the robbers, she gave the description of a tall handsome and good looking youth with blue eyes and brown hair. The street cops suddenly realized that the person involved in the robbery was 42 gang member Sam Battaglia. Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson called the chief of police and demanded immediate action. But the biggest problem for Sam wasn’t the law, but it was the Mayor’s close connections to Chicago’s number one gangster Al Capone. Later the cops arrested Sam and one of his close associates William Carr. Carr was also a member of the 42’s and was involved in many robberies and murders. Also arrested were John “Red” Carr, who was William’s brother, Maurice and Richard O’Connor, Sam Messi, Dave Micoletti and Joe Catrina.



Sam Battaglia arrested for the robbery


The trial for Battaglia was set to be in October 1930 but there was a problem. The court bailiffs were unable to obtain service on Mrs. Thompson, who was wanted as a main witness. Mrs Thompson told the bailiffs that she was allegedly very ill and could not make it to the trial. With or without the positive identification, Sam Battaglia was in court on October 10, 1930. There were numerous newspaper headlines before trial and also pictures showing Battaglia’s face. When Mrs. Lottle Brenner, the wife of the fake “count” Von Buelow, saw Battaglia’s face she immediately called the detectives and told them that she was robbed for $50,000 in gems some months ago and that Sam Battaglia was the one who did it. Mrs. Brenner also insisted that her case should take precedence over Mrs. Thompson’s case because the loss was larger. But Mrs. Thompson was the Mayor’s wife so Mrs. Bremmer’s case was placed on halt. During the trial Mrs. Thompson did not testify, but her driver Policeman Peter O’Malley did. But the problem was that his testimony was challenged by Battaglia’s lawyer Julius Reznik. Reznik said that first O’Malley reorted that he wasn’t quite positive about Battaglia being one of the robbers but later changed his mind that he was. Reznik accused O’Malley that he was just a puppet for Police Commissioner John Alcock and was forcibly influenced to make the identification. Reznik also said that he’s going to bring 6 witnesses to the bench on behalf of Battaglia just to prove that he wasn’t at the crime scene. Than Judge John Lyle turned to O’Malley and told him “I appreciate your position but I don’t want you to get in any trouble. I don’t want you to identify anyone for your chief in order that he can just clean a robbery”. The witness and the prosecutor protested but it was too late. Whether he was telling the truth or not, O’Malley has been compromised. Also maybe Battaglia had some backing or maybe he really had a good lawyer, so in the end he was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and the missing $17,000 jewels were never recovered. Now Sam Battaglia became a star among the young hoodlums in the underworld. He had the guts to rob the wife of one of the most corrupt mayors in the states, and in the end he got away clean. The young criminals around him were very happy but some of the old gangsters were not.



Mary Thompson

By now Big Al Capone had a lot of legal problems and the law was slowly closing in on him and he didn’t need any additional problems such as the case with the robbery of the Mayor’s wife. Capone enjoyed the close relationship with the Mayor of Chicago and he also needed a political protection for the upcoming trials and didn’t want any interruptions. Because of the Battaglia case, Mayor Thompson started receiving “hits” from his opponents. "The mayor, two months ago, should have supported my resolution for an investigation of the police department with the same vigor with which he fought King George," said one rival. So now Capone had no choice but to show his loyalty towards Mayor Thompson by doing few clean ups here and there. During this period Sam Battaglia wasn’t riding low because of the constant heat made by the press and the police but instead he continued with his crime spree. On November 29, 1930, Battaglia was riding in a car together with few of his fellow criminals like Joe Catrina, Phillip Epstein, Daniel Clementi and Joseph Pupeel. This wasn’t an ordinary ride along the streets of Chicago because the boys had a plan to make a robbery on a restaurant at W. Randolph St. In fact the boys knew that at the back of the restaurant there was a high stakes card game of commission men. According to reports, “stool pigeons” previously overheard their plans about robbing the restaurant and relayed them to the police. So before they arrived the cops were already in the joint and waited for the robbers to appear. When the gangsters arrived in front of the restaurant Battaglia remained at the wheel and all of his four associates got out and went in the place with their guns on point. Suddenly all hell broke loose with the sounds of a wild revolver battle with the police. When the smoke cleared one innocent pedestrian was killed. His name was 55 year old Leonard Sanor, a wholesale egg dealer of Los Angeles, who happened to be at the wrong place in the wrong time. Battaglia rode off in a panic, crashed the car through a display window and ran on foot. All four of his associates were arrested and taken into custody. On December 1, 1930, Battaglia was also taken to custody of the police and was questioned about the shooting because the cops again received info that Sam was the fifth member of the crew. Sam was in custody for over a month on suspicion that he was involved in the murder.


As much as the situation sounded bad for Sam, the time period when he was in custody actually saved his life because on January 4, 1931 the cleanup began with Sam’s older cousin Augie Battaglia. Augie was walking down the corner of Roosevelt Rd. and Halsted St. when two assassins walked right up to him and shot him several times in the head and back. Brothers Frank and Sam Battaglia were both in custody at the time but were allowed to attend Augie's funeral, handcuffed to police detectives. After that Sam was released from custody on the lack of evidences and there are also reports for possible police corruption.


Two days later after the murder of Augie Battaglia, on January 6, 1931 Patsy Tardi was walking down on North Polk St. together with another 42 gang member Ralph Costanzo. Suddenly two assassins crossed from the other side of the street and got in front of them. The two men fired several times with automatic pistols hitting Tardi twice in the head and wounding Costanzo in the abdomen. Story goes that back in November 1930, Tardi got information about one of Al Capone’s collectors Herman White who held a big amount of cash for the gang. So on December 9, Herman’s wife reported that her husband was missing. She also told to the police that her husband held $20,000 that he collected for the Capone gang. Obviously someone wanted the top layer of the 42 gang to be eliminated. Nobody knew the real reason for the killings. Some said that it was an internal war within the gang and that Paul Battaglia was responsible for the murder of Tardi. Others said that Capone was behind the hits because of the robbery on the Mayor’s wife and some said that the boys were killed because of their involvement in the Jake Lingle murder. Either way the murders remained unsolved as many other murders from that era.


Now Paul Battaglia and his cousins Sam and Joseph went into hiding because they started getting hits from all sides. Frank Battaglia was safe because he was previously sent to a year in jail on charges for concealed weapon. But the pressure didn’t last long because in 1931 Al Capone was on trial for income tax evasion and he wasn’t getting out easily on that one and also the same year his ally Mayor Thompson was defeated by Democrat Anton Cermak. So Sam immediately went on his usual criminal spree. On New Year’s Eve Sam, George Busk and one other individual wanted to rob the C&O café, a North Clark St. cabaret. The C&O was owned by John Connors who was the brother of a big political boss William Connors of the Near North Side. The gangsters walked in with their pistols and ordered everybody to get down on the floor. The problem was that two of the guests were police detective Martin Joyce and patrolman John Maier who were enjoying the evening with more than few drinks. When the cops saw the robbers, detective Joyce pulled out his gun and told them to surrender. It was a wrong move because Sam fired a few shots, wounding Joyce in the belly and also wounding Maier in the leg. The club's merrymaking turned into a bedlam, as screaming patrons sought refuge behind chairs and booths. Maier managed to pull his gun and took a shot at the gangsters. The bullet shattered the teeth of George Busk while one guest who wanted to be hero floored Busk with a diving tackle but got shot in the abdomen. It was a bloody massacre. Right after the shooting Battaglia and the rest of his cohorts fled the scene but later he and Busk were arrested and Busk was reported dying from bullet wound which he received it during the shooting.



Mugshot of Sam Battaglia during his arrest


First the robbing of the Mayor’s wife and than the robbing of the C&O demonstrated utter disregard for the political structure in Chicago. Also the fact that the gunmen were reputed gangsters coupled with certain other suspects of the spectacular battle, caused Police Commissioner John Alcock to open a personal investigation. It was hinted that the raid was staged for some reason other than robbery although a third gangster escaped with some amount of cash. Rumours spread around that the North Side Italian gang known as the Aiello crime family, paid the 42 gang to shoot up the C&O café, after the death of the gang’s leader Joe Aiello, because the owners of the joint had dropped the Aiello’s and switched their liquor purchases to the Capone gang. This information was developed by the Secret Six organization which was formed by six influential businessmen in Chicago who organized the business community against Al Capone.


Later Sam Battaglia was released on bond and was set to appear in court. In court Battaglia was represented by Sidney Korshak, the mob's lead attorney who later would become trusted advisor and fixer for the criminal hierarchy, and another attorney Edward “Ed” King. The lawyers stepped to the bench and told Judge Thomas Green that Battaglia’s case was on call the previous Saturday and he was there but this time Battaglia wasn’t sure if Judge Green was going to be present therefore he didn’t show up. Judge Green became very furious and told the lawyers “You attorneys are in contempt of court and now the bailiffs will take you into custody”. One lawyer was held in an anteroom and other in the jury box. Then Judge Green turned to the court reporter Miss Jeanette Roth and dictated to her for record “Policemen, lawyers and some judges seem to be under gangster influences”. Later he ordered $10,000 bond for Battaglia forfeited and set new bonds at $20,000 and than he told the bailiffs to release the two attorneys. The judge reduced the charge of assault with intent to kill to assault with a deadly weapon and Battaglia was sentenced to a year in the Bridewell Prison. While in prison, Battaglia was in the company of Marshall Caifano, also member of the 42’s and brother of Leonard “Fat Lenny” Caifano, another member of the 42’s. Battaglia and Caifano became very close and shared the same thirst for blood and easy money, which later will make them two of the most ruthless killers within the organization.



Mugshot Sam Battaglia

While Sam was cooling his head off in prison, in 1932 Frank Nitti (real name Nitto) who was Al Capone’s underboss, was released from prison and took over the reigns as boss of the old Capone mob. In fact Nitti wasn’t the real power behind the Chicago mob but instead he was just a puppet for the new organization called the Chicago Outfit which was led by none other than Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and his companion Louis “Little New York” Campagna. The difference between the Capone gang and the Chicago Outfit was in the memberships. You see, during Capone’s reign most of the members were not Italian, but most of the members of the Outfit were. That decision was made by Paul Ricca himself so only Italians can be placed on the top positions but other mobsters from different ethnicities can also be regarded as members but they can never reach the top position of the organization. That’s why the Chicago mob was never considered the same as the other usual Cosa Nostra families around the U.S.


The Outfit’s alleged leading figure Frank Nitti was in fact a union racketeer and still had the power to order a murder. First Nitti cleaned up all of Capone’s old powerful nemesis so they can rule all of Chicago by their own will. The same month when Nitti came out of prison Sam’s older brother 26 year old Frank Battaglia was taken for a ride, got shot four times in the head and was thrown in a ditch, 100 yards from Harlem Avenue. No one knew the real reason why was Frank killed in such a brutal way. Some say that Frank was becoming too much of an obstacle because he was in constant shootouts with the police and was on lam for more than six months before he was killed. He was the second Battaglia that went down by the hands of Chicago’s criminal organizations.



Frank Battaglia


By the early 1930’s the era of prohibition has ended and the Chicago Outfit was generally entering new lucrative rackets such as gambling, union racketeering and narcotics. Some of these businesses were already taken by other gangsters that didn’t want to share their profits so in the eyes of the Outfit’s leaders they had to go. Ricca and his companions realized that they needed some new and more ambitious blood in the organization. So the Outfit “opened its books” and brought many younger hoodlums into the organization, mostly from their gangster farm teams such as the 42 gang. Ricca came from the West Side so all of these small time criminals such as Sam Battaglia knew him and at the same time admired him. Ricca was their idol. In their criminal minds and eyes Ricca was bigger than Al Capone which he really was. According to new revelations, Ricca’s ally Louis Campagna had a “bright” idea on how to use these young turks for his own purposes. Ricca’s idea first came from one of his associates Luigi Fratto aka Louis “"Cock-eyed"” Fratto. Same as the Battaglia’s Fratto also grew up on the Near West side. He was one year older than Sam Battaglia and they were involved in few burglaries here and there. Fratto was also very well connected street thug who knew a lot of ruthless 42’s such as the Caifano brothers. Now the Battaglia bros had a new sponsor but this time it wasn’t Paul the main connection but it was his younger cousin Sam.



Louis Fratto

When Sam got out in 1933, he together with Louis Fratto, Ted Virgillio, John Wolek, Tony Pinna and Vito Messino went to Kenosha, Wisconsin with the plan to kidnap a wealthy car dealer by the name of Louis Kaplan. One day Messino and Fratto were riding in their automobile and at the same time they were following Kaplan and waited for the right time. Suddenly they got out of the car and ran towards Kaplan and dragged him in the automobile and in an attempt to save his own skin Kaplan pulled out $500 from his pockets and gave it to the kidnappers. Than Messino took the cash, punched Kaplan in the face and told him to shut up. Kaplan was taken to house were the rest of the gang was waiting. The problem was that the boys wanted more but he told them that he could pay no more and held him for six days. Than one of the gang members told Kaplan to come up with $10,000 so he can go free. Kaplan promised the kidnappers that he would get the money later and he was released. But that wasn’t the end of this “adventure” which will continue two years later.


The same year in July, Sam together with Virgillio, Wolek and two other Chicago hoodlums Sam Cooperman and Frank Lauer, went to Huston, Texas again on a mission to kidnap some very wealthy oil man. While the kidnapping team waited for their target, a police patrol spotted their car. The gangsters just didn’t fit in so the cops decided to investigate and arrested them. Later the police and federal authorities over there realised that all of these men had very long police records back in Chicago. They were questioned about their intentions in Huston and were later released on the lack of evidences and were sent back to Chicago. On August 2, 1934, Battaglia, Fratto and Wolek again were arrested and questioned about a recent murder. They were taken in front of a witness but no positive identifications were made so they were released.


Besides his constant and aggressive criminal activities, Sam managed to win the heart of a beautiful Italian girl named Angela Rose Siciliano. They dated for some short time period so Sam decided to get his personal life in order. On October 29, 1934 Sam and Angela were married and two years later they brought a baby daughter to this world which was named Joanna Battaglia. Angela loved Sam because of his looks and charms but as any real and strong Sicilian woman, she never questioned him about his job. Together they lived in a house on 567 Cabrini Street.


During the mid 1930’s crime was flourishing in Chicago and around the country. All of the big crime organizations like in New York, Chicago and Detroit already formed a national commission which decided the faith of the American illegal business world. By this time the Outfit already opened its doors to many young hoodlums and started giving them chances to become worst than they have ever been. Many mob historians say that two of the first hoodlums of the 42 gang that were recognized as members of the Chicago Outfit were Sam “Mooney” Giancana and Louis Fratto. Well I personally will disagree with that statement because I think that Sam Battaglia was one the first members that joined the organization. Giancana previously worked as a chauffer for some the big shots because he had very good skills for fast driving. He still wasn’t really an earner but he accomplished a lot of hits on behalf of the Outfit. According to informants Giancana was “made” just prior to going to prison in 1939. As for Battaglia by that time, thanks to his family, he was way too much involved in such crimes that shook even the worst realms of the underworld. Battaglia’s stature in those days can be proved with a wiretapped conversation that occurred more than two decades later, which was between him and the Outfit’s union racketeer and advisor known as Murray Humphreys. During the conversation Humphreys said to Battaglia “…and than of course Mooney (Sam Giancana), of course you cant blame it on them, because they weren’t around like you and I were in the old days. They don’t know the inner workings, you know.” So I see this statement which was made by Humphreys that Battaglia was in the inner workings of the Chicago Outfit before Giancana. Either way, the young hoodlums such as Battaglia, Giancana and Fratto opened the doors for many up and coming criminals who always dreamed of becoming real gangsters.


By now the Outfit was heavily involved in gambling and sports betting. Sam’s older cousin Paul Battaglia established many Outfit connections thanks to his work as a bondsman in the Desplaines street police court. So now he worked as a tout in few gambling parlors along West Madison Street which belonged to the Outfit. But still, Paul’s main business was robbing and it looked like stealing was engraved in the genetic code of the Battaglia Dynasty. Paul was connected to another low level criminal group which was called the Bolton gang. Joseph “Red” Bolton was a prominent robber and was also the leader of the gang, who was connected to other criminal groups which were rivals of the old Capone gang or the Chicago Outfit. Bolton was a “stone in the shoe” for Paul Ricca and the organization because he often robbed them for their gambling profits. Bolton was also a handbook operator but mostly hated the Outfit because previously they killed his brother John who was a state representative. On November 24, 1938 Red Bolton was gunned down by Outfit hitmen. But in 1939, many of the handbook joints that were controlled by Paul Battaglia were still getting robbed and large sums of cash were taken. So on June 29, one of Bolton’s associates Harry Minor was killed on 3110 North Ashland Avenue and another associate John O'Brien was killed on July 17 at Wellington avenue and Halsted street. So somebody tipped off the Outfit that the “mastermind” behind these operations was in fact Paul Battaglia. In fact Paul was the “finger man” for the handbook robbers and was also taking money from both sides. Robbing a handbook joint was a dangerous business because it directly challenged adult organized crime. That kind of greed resulted with fatal consequences. On August 24, 1939, 43 year old Paul Battaglia was taken for a ride and was shot two times in the head and was dumped in an alley behind 5115 Monroe Street. Few hours later three youths stumbled across Paul's body as it lay sprawled in a weed patch beside the alley. The police believed that Battaglia had been shot elsewhere and his body dumped from a moving automobile. Tire tracks led in from Leamington Avenue and turned out again at Laramie Avenue. It was a pure professional hit. Right after Paul’s death the hijackings of handbooks on the West Side suddenly stopped. The Outfit again proved that no one can swindle the organization and getaway with it, especially not a minor hoodlum such as Paul Battaglia.



Mrs. Marie Battaglia, widow of slain gangster Paul Battaglia, at inquest in county morgue


Now 31 year old Sam Battaglia had to choose between revenge, which obviously was going to result with the price of his head, and cooperation, which was going have more profitable results. The cunning and greedy Sam played it smart. He remained as a trusted member in the organization and also became very loyal to his superiors. He and his brother Joseph were the “last Mohicans” of the bloody faction of the Battaglia clan. By this time Lou Fratto introduced Battaglia and Caifano to one of his cousins Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio and so all of them worked under the auspices of Sam Giancana, which now was one of the leading young criminals within the Outfit. Giancana brought the sin upon them which will blood stain their souls and at the same time would make them filthy rich.


By the end of the 1930’s Sam Battaglia inherited the handbook operations from his cousin Paul along Madison St. and also brought Marshall Caifano along the way. Together they also operated a big gambling spot on 4500 West Filmore and during the Selective Service in the early 1940’s, Battaglia was registered at the same address as the place of employment. Besides their gambling operations, Battaglia and Caifano were involved in many ruthless hits that gave example to other members of the organization that if they went out of line, very bad things would’ve happened to them. Battaglia usually organized the hits, and Caifano did the dirty work. Battaglia was known for being very quick on decisions. There were no sit downs or anything. If the bosses couldn’t make up their minds about somebody’s faith, Battaglia would push them to organize the killing and Caifano was always glad to do it. Caifano was a merciless killer who was known for taking the lives of many men and even women, for example in this next case…


With taking over of the gambling operations of the late Paul Battaglia, Sam also inherited his connections like Nicholas Deani Circella aka Nick “Dean” Circella. Circella was a night club owner where many Outfit operations like gambling and prostitution were being operated. Cricella had close relationship to Battaglia and Caifano so whenever he had some valuable information he would give it to the duo. One night Circella was hanging out in one of his clubs, known as the 100 Club, together with his “goomar” Estelle Carey. Estelle worked as a waitress and a dice girl in Circella’s clubs and often flirted with the costumers and “manipulated” them with her beauty. During the night Estelle overheard a conversation between two of Circella’s drunken guests Willie Bioff, a known pimp, and George Browne, a known labor racketeer, about extorting $20,000 from the Balaban and Katz theater chain and a plan for extorting millions of dollars from the Hollywood Studios. Estelle immediately spilled the beans about the scheme to Circella. It was a priceless information so Circella decided to share it with his Outfit connections. Now one of Circella’s connections with the Outfit was Sam Battaglia. There was no need for Circella to introduce Sam to Bioff and Browne because they already knew his deceased cousin from back in the days. Later Bioff and Browne were introduced to the top echelon of the Outfit which was formed by Paul Ricca, Frank Nitti, Louis Campagna, Phil D’Andrea, Charlie Gioe, Frank Maritote and Johnny Roselli. Ricca and Nitti agreed to give the backup to these individuals so together, Bioff, Browne, and Circella, with the backing of the Outfit’s muscle, went on to bilk millions from the major Hollywood studios. But this adventure didn’t last long because at the beginning of 1940 a Federal Grand Jury was conducted in Los Angeles on matters pertaining to income tax evasion, labor racketeering and restraint of trade. During the hearings numerous film executives and union officials testified but their testimony was not made public. After their testimonies the Atherton Detective Agency investigated Bioff and also the allegations of labor racketeering and job buying in the film extras ranks. So this led to the indictment of Bioff, Browne and Nick Dean for extortion. Dean, plead guilty and received an eight year sentence while Bioff and Browne received 10 and 8 year sentences.



Nick Circella

Later rumours spread around that Circella was ready to talk to the government about the real people behind the operation but since he was locked up, the bosses were not sure about the situation and couldn’t touch him. Since the Chicago Outfit was an Italian type of criminal organization, legend goes that the old time gangsters usually didn’t go after the women and children of the alleged informers because it was against their rules. They usually would’ve sent threats or blow up few cars here and there just to make a point with out hurting anybody. But since the families were off limits, no one said that the mistresses can’t be touched. And in this case the bosses didn’t want to take any chances. Plus the Outfit knew that Circella had some big amount of cash stashed from the extortion scheme at the apartment of his girlfriend Estelle Carey. So things became quite scary for the young girl because she knew too much and she was also very precious to Circella. So this is when Battaglia and Caifano stepped to the game. While the bosses were prosecuted the two top guys of the Outfit were Tony Accardo from Grand Avenue and Lawrence “Dago” Mangano who was known as the “king of the West Side”. So Mangano gave the order to Battaglia and Caifano to take care of the problem. The duo has sent one of their associates from the old days Thomas Stapleton who was a close friend of Circella and Estelle. Estelle trusted Stapleton so there was no problem about meeting him. So on February 2, 1943 in the afternoon Stapleton called Estelle and told her that he’s coming over to bring her some presents and to share few drinks. Two hours later after the phone call, Estelle was talking with one of her cousins over the phone when suddenly she heard knocking on the door. She told her cousin that she is expecting someone and she’ll call her later and hung up the phone. When she opened the door, Estelle welcomed Stapleton in and made two cups of hot chocolate. That’s when Stapleton attacked her and tied her to a chair. Next, enter Sam Battaglia and Marshal Caifano. I’m quite sure that these two guys were involved in this very gruesome case because Stapleton wasn’t the kind of a criminal that was trained for torture and murder. The killers first started to stab Estelle with an ice pick several times. Than they broke her jaw, cut her with a knife and also burned her with an electric iron. The killers obviously wanted to know where was the hidden cash from the extortion scheme. Since that didn’t help, the killers poured flammable liquid on her legs and set them on fire. The poor girl was screaming so hard that her heart immediately stopped from the pain and she died. We don’t know if Estelle told them where the cash was hidden, but after her death the two killers left and they told Stapleton to take few fur coats with him and to make the scene like it was some kind of robbery.


Estelle Carey


Thomas Stapleton

When to cops came to the crime scene they were stunned. They found the smoldering corpse in the dinning room of the young redhead girl in a very horrid state. They were very confused because they didn’t have a clue on who and why would do such a terrible thing. When Estelle’s cousin came to the crime scene she was questioned by the cops if Estelle had any enemies on the side. Her cousin told them that she was good to everyone, but later noticed that her fur coats were missing. Now the cops were even more confused because her coats were missing but her expensive jewelry was untouched. Also what kind of burglars are known to carry a bottle of flammable liquid to a heist. So the cops started to question all of the residents around Estelle’s apartment if they saw anything suspicious. The cops also showed pictures of known gangsters to the residents. One woman resident unhesitatingly made the identification of Thomas Stapleton and she told the cops that she saw Stapleton exiting Estelle’s apartment but couldn’t say what time period that happened. The detectives immediately arrested Stapleton and questioned him about the murder. Stapleton told the cops that he knew Estelle very well and that he visited her but left her alive and very well. He also denied any gangster connections but the cops knew that was a lie. So one of the detectives, Captain William Drury of the Town Hall police, knew who was who in Stapleton’s gangster connections and also knew that Stapleton wasn’t able to do such a gruesome murder by himself. Drury knew that the only gang that can do such a terrible thing was the Chicago Outfit. So Drury ordered the arrests of Sam Battaglia, Marshal Caifano, Les Kruse and Ralph Pierce. All of the gangsters were represented by the attorney Sid Korshak and as usually no one knew anything so later all of them were released. Estelle Carey’s murder remained unsolved. This kind of a bloody message maybe worked on Circella because he turned off just like an electric light but all of threats to the families of Bioff and Browne, backfired because both of them agreed to testify against the Outfit bosses. So on December 30th, 1943, Ricca and the rest of the gang each received a 10 year sentences in federal prison but the “workers” like Battaglia and Caifano remained free on the streets of Chicago and operated as Ricca’s legacy.


On August 18, 1943, Battaglia and Caifano were riding in their black sedan when suddenly a cruising police car stopped them after recognizing their faces. The cops searched the car and found a whole arsenal of weapons such as sawed off shotgun, a rifle, a hand grenade and five pistols. Battaglia told the cops that he didn't know who the weapons belonged to. The cops didn’t believe them and took them to the station for further questioning. At the station Battaglia and Caifano pulled out a document that the car was a rental and both said that the weapons were placed in car by someone else before they rented it. So the cops had no choice but to release them and the case was dropped. From that day onwards, not a single ranking member of the Outfit ever rode around in a car that was owned by him.


After the murder of the old time mob boss Lawrence Mangano in 1944, Tony Accardo became the boss of the Outfit while Ricca served time in jail. So by natural order of things, Giancana became the number one man on Taylor Street which was a very good news for Battaglia and the rest of the old 42 gang because now they had the chance to make some real money. The West Side bloc of the Chicago Outfit was led by Giancana but the Melrose Park area was led by Rocco “Rocky” DeGrazia, an old time Capone gangster. Although Battaglia was very close to Giancana, he was ordered to work under the auspices of DeGrazia. The old man was heavily involved in gambling and often held court at his gambling joint known as the Casa Madrid. While DeGrazia enjoyed his profits from the gambling racket, Battaglia expanded his loan sharking operations. Battaglia served as DeGrazia’s enforcer who enforced the rules on many debtors and also killed the ones that refused to pay. According to mob lore during one occasion, Battaglia brought a debtor to the basement of the Casa Madrid and was beating him for hours. One of the mob guys who witnessed the savage thrashing of the victim, had the nerve to question Battaglia on how was he handling the guy who owed him. Battaglia became angry and yelled at him "Shaddup, or I'll bust ya in da teets!" By "teets" he obviously meant teeth. Some Italians, especially Sicilians, can’t pronounce the word “teeth” so they say “teets”. The nickname stuck for the rest of his life. Battaglia’s chief commander DeGrazia was also involved in another racket known as selling narcotics. He had few guys who robbed pharmacy stores around town for opium and morphine and re-sold it on the black market. So in later years Battaglia will inherit this business which was known as the “forbidden fruit” among the Outfit’s members under the rule of Tony Accardo.


There were three groups of ruthless enforcers on the West Side, first one led by “Teets” Battaglia and Marshall Caifano, second one by Fiore Buccieri and his brother Frank, and the third group was led by the Jewish faction of Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras. Patrick, Yaras and William Block answered only to Battaglia. These groups of “young bloods” were overseen by Giancana and Leonard Caifano and were also considered the most evil and menacing individuals in the whole organization.


On February 25, 1944 Sam and Angela Battaglia brought another child to this world, but this time it was a son. As any Italian father, Sam was very happy that he got a son and so he named him Sam John Battaglia. Few years later he received another son who was named Richard. But Sam Sr. wasn’t a very faithful husband to his wife. He was known to be very fond of beautiful women and always kept a mistress on the side. For now Angela always kept a blind eye.


Now Tony Accardo’s main illegal business was gambling and he had a desire to control the racket all over the Midwest. So by the mid 1940’s the Chicago mob started a move to push their gambling and terror operations in Indiana. With the help of their multimillion-dollar schemes and the corruption of all local and state officials, the gangsters spread their operations from Hammond to South Bend. By directing the drive to control all gambling and vice operations on that territory and to take over carefully every illegal operations, the Outfit needed to remove few stones here and there. For example in 1945 Alexander Chase, who was known handbook operator and gambler from Hammond was resisting the Outfit’s control and refused to pay his tribute to the organization. So Battaglia received the order to go to Indiana and take care of the problem. Battaglia orchestrated the operations and took two other associates with him. The plan was first Battaglia would have a more than few drinks with Chase and later when they depart, the two hoodlums would seize Chase and take him for a ride. So on September 28, 1945 Battaglia met with Chase in a saloon in Gary, Indiana and the pair started to drink heavily. Two hours later, the duo left the local and a dark automobile was waiting for them outside. Battaglia told Chase to get in the car and they departed together. Few hours later Chase’s body was found shot to death on a street in Hammond. Almost two weeks later, Battaglia was identified by witnesses from the saloon, as being the last person who saw Chase. On October 13, 37 year old Sam Battaglia was arrested at his home in Chicago. When the cops searched him he had $3,000 in his pockets, which was a quite huge amount to have it in the pockets in his pajamas. Battaglia refused to waive extradition to Indiana so he was sent to Felony Court in Chicago and as usual later he was released for the lack of evidences.



Mugshot of Battaglia during his arrest


In 1946, the leader of the “young bloods” Sam Giancana became very greedy and declared war to the African-American policy kings. Giancana wanted the policy racket under his wings because it brought millions of dollars in just one week and it was the only thing that was going to bring him to the top of the Chicago Outfit. So he and Leonard Caifano decided to use an old 42 gang tactic, known as kidnapping, on one of the most prominent and also very wealthy police king known as Edward “Eddie” Jones. Giancana met Jones few years previously and Jones made Giancana his partner in the policy business. Now Giancana wasn’t the first Outfit member that got involved in this racket because Sam “Golf bag” Hunt, an old Capone killer from the South Side, was involved years before him. But the difference between Hunt and Giancana was that Hunt collaborated with the black racketeers and only took his cut, as for Giancana he wanted all of it for himself and the rest of his followers. So in May 1946, Jewish hoodlums Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras kidnapped Jones and brought him to a house in Oak Park. In the house, Jones was met by Giancana, Leonard Caifano, Leonard Gianola and Fiore Buccieri, all former and most ruthless members of the 42 gang. Jones was forced to surrender his most profitable business. After that Jones was released and never stepped foot again in Chicago. But not all of Jones’ associates joined the Outfit.


Theodore “Teddy” Roe was the main black policy king that refused to give his hard made business into the hands of Sam Giancana. The problem was that Roe was very distrustful and suspicious of the Italians, especially Giancana, and he also virtually controlled all the other small-time black wheel operators. So Giancana made plan and formed a hit team made of Leonard Caifano, Vincent Ioli and another hitman. The plan was to kidnap Roe and later to bring him to a yacht that was rented by Caifano, and to give Roe the same treatment that Eddie Jones got before him. So on June 19, 1951, Roe was driving along with his two bodyguards when suddenly a darkened sleek sedan was stealthily stalking their car. Roe recognized some of the stalkers and got off from his car, together with his bodyguards, and started shooting with their guns towards the sedan. The three Italians were caught completely off guard and during the process Caifano got shot directly in the head and died right on the spot. From the other side of the car, Ioli screamed he’d also been hit and instinctively the other hitman got the wheel and sped off into the night, leaving Caifano in a pool of blood. After that Roe was considered untouchable and many Outfit members were afraid to take the contract of Roe’s life. Now this is the time when Sam Battaglia came to the big picture. So he and the revengeful Marshal Caifano took the contract on Roe’s life. So Battaglia waited for things to cool down and to make his move at the right moment. Even though Battaglia had a high stature and was very well known around Chicago by now, he still loved to do the dirty work, but this time he knew that Roe might recognize their faces so he sent two of his underlings Joseph Amabile and Armando Fosco. During the 1940’s these two men served as muscle for Battaglia and were very much trusted. On August 4, 1952, the two hitmen jumped in their 1950 grey Chevrolet sedan and drove across Michigan Avenue. The hit team parked their car behind two signboards in a vacant lot south of the building where Roe lived at 5247 South Michigan Avenue and waited. After half an hour Roe came out of the building and approached his car which was parked in front. Suddenly the hitmen pulled out their 12 gauge shotguns filled with double-o-buckshots and fired 4 times at Roe. The blasts sent 45 large pellets, about as large as a .32 caliber bullets. The pellets entered Roe’s chest and also struck his head below the left ear. After that the killers sped off in the dark of night. When the ambulance came, Roe was still breathing but later died shortly after his arrival in the Provident hospital. Behind the signboards where the killers stayed, the cops found five empty shotgun cartridges, tire tracks and an empty half-gallon beer bottle. No one was ever charged with the murder of Roe.


Now Giancana was very grateful to Battaglia because the murder of Teddy Roe was very important for Giancana’s prosperity. The significance was that the policy racket first of all brought a lot of cash and traditionally supplied the campaign funds for many politicians. With that the Outfit was now able to spread its political influence from the West Side strongholds into the black wards on the South Side. By now Giancana became the number two guy under Accardo so many of his underlings such as Battaglia and Bucceri started to climb up the ladder. Battaglia’s influence in Melrose Park was spreading like a plague, but Rocco DeGrazia was still the number one guy even though everybody knew that Battaglia was the real power. So now some of the old time bosses realized that the younger faction of the Chicago Outfit was becoming more and more powerful and because of that they started to loose their grips over the organization. Ricca and Accardo were very much aware of this “phenomenon” but they didn’t move a finger because they needed the new guys like Giancana and Battaglia to clean up every possible old member that wanted to be above the organization. Plus, who was going to take the contract on the West Side boys? Claude Maddox, the “underboss” of the aging “Don” Louis Campagna who controlled the Cicero area, was very much involved in the illegal operations of the West Side bloc. Ross Prio the boss of the North Side was also in connection with the young bloods, same as Murray Humphreys and Gus Alex from the South Side. So eventually the old Capone mob became a victim of its own legacy. You see, guys like Battaglia and Giancana were “one way street” individuals, there was no way of reasoning with these people. If they wanted something very badly, there was nothing in the world that could’ve stopped them. They were not the biggest earners in the organization, but they made the right move at the right time, such as the policy racket. I mean they also had the juice business, narcotics, prostitution same as any other crew in the city, but the important thing was that almost every member in the West Side bloc had more than few skeletons in their closets.


For example, there was also another Chicago group known as the "west side bloc" which was formed by politicians who were elected from Chicago wards or districts where the Chicago crime syndicate had its deepest roots. The bloc members invariably supported bills intended to further syndicate businesses and opposed those designed to curb crime. Some of these men were Representatives James Adduci, Peter Granata and Clem Graver. All three members were secretly financed by Giancana and Battaglia.


Clem Graver began his political career in the old "bloody 20th" ward, part of which was the 21st, as the protege of his brother-in-law, Harry Hochstein, former intimate of Al Capone. Later he became the state representative and 21st ward Republican. He was also in the excellent position of being not only a representative but a successful ward committeeman from an organized and controlled “vest pocket" ward. Granata's district, the 17th, was just to the north and east of Clem's and Adduci’s was just to the west. Many of their voters were living in identical types of communities and had similar problems. There was a story that every member of the west side bloc usually said “If you can tell me how Pete and Jimmy are voting then I'll go along them.” So this tells us that Adduci and Granata controlled the whole bloc but the problem was that Graver never did this and he always held his own opinions. In other words he stood on his own feet. That was a big problem for Adduci, Granata and the Chicago Outfit because Graver had announced his stands on other matters which the bloc opposed. These included Gov. Stratton's proposal to redistrict the state, for the first time in its history, and in the process wipes out such vest pocket areas as Graver's, Adduci's, and Granata's by balancing the voting numbers amongst them. Graver stated publicly, in such a way that he could hardly reconsider, that he would support reapportionment. He also announced that he would support two bills filed on behalf of the Republican controlled sanitary district of Chicago. One of these allowed the district to use current tax income for building purposes, thus saving the cost of bond issue financing. The west side bloc was outspoken against these bills, for a special reason. This involved action by Anthony Olis, president of the sanitary district, and other Republican board members in firing 31 employees who had been sponsored by the bloc group. These firings coincided with the indictment and trials of Adduci for taking kickbacks from state suppliers while he was in the legislature. The indictment came in 1951, and two trials in 1952 and 1953. Adduci finally was declared not guilty after the second hearing but the first one ended with a hung jury. Adduci was persuaded to withdraw his candidacy for re-election to the legislature. Now Pete Granata became the acknowledged authority for the bloc in the house and the Outfit became stronger than ever. Granata immediately fired Graver and so he became resentful for losing his $325 a month job and never had the chance to get it back.



Clem Graver


So on June 10, 1953, Graver and Granata had a whispered heated conversation on the floor of the house during an afternoon hearing on the sanitary district bills. Granata had made a motion to consider the bills to delay and possibly prevent them from following the procedures thru various and to a final vote. When a roll call was ordered on the motion, Granata called Graver to his desk and the two became red faced and heated in their low toned exchange. Graver has made Granata very angry and so Granata took it to Giancana and Battaglia. Giancana immediately gave order to Battaglia to take care of the problem. The next day on June 11, 1953, Graver drove to his home at 976 W. 18th pl. He got out of his car to open the garage doors, he drove inside, but before he could close the doors, two men, who got out of a dark colored Ford automobile, pushed their way inside the garage. Than the kidnappers closed the garage door from the inside and emerged from a smaller door which was cut in the larger door. Graver’s arms were pinioned behind his back and he was struggling with his captors and was forced into the Ford, which was driven by a third person. That was the last time that anyone ever saw or heard about Clem Graver. It was a “clean job” because no trace of him ever has been found. The only clue that the cops had was the witnessing of Graver’s wife. She said that the three kidnappers were very well dressed…that was it. There was also another theory, which was later developed, that Graver obtained money from Giancana himself in order to “spring” an unknown individual from prison and Graver failed to do this. So Giancana assigned three suspected underlings, including Frank Ferraro, Gus Alex and Sam Battaglia to handle the kidnapping either by themselves or through others.



1953 Press Photo Mrs. Emily Graver collapses after seeing husband Clem kidnapped


Anyways, Battaglia again showed his skills for masterminding a clean and neat job for making people disappear and in the end got away clean. But the thing was that the rightful politicians were not the biggest problem for Battaglia and the Outfit, but it was the people among them. For example, in 1953 two North Side members Paul “Needle Nose” Labriola and Jimmy Weinberg planned the potential murder of the infamous Capone lawyer Abraham Teitelbaum. Teitelbaum was president of the thriving Chicago Restaurant Association and Labriola and Weinberg wanted a piece of it. Both gangsters were backed by the syndicate’s big shots Sam Hunt, Bruno Roti, Ross Prio and Tony Accardo. Now, when Labriola and Weinberg were making arrangements for setting up their beverage association, Hunt and Roti advised them that they should get in touch with Giancana’s representative on the West Side Sam Battaglia and inform him that their association was coming in his territory, and that he and Giancana are going to get their share. But there was problem when Battaglia realized that he and his cohorts were going too receive a much smaller share from the operation that the other old time bosses such as Hunt, Prio, and Roti. So Labriola and Weinberg failed to get permission from Battaglia to enter their operations on West Side unless they were able to give Battaglia and Giancana an equal share. That’s when Labriola and Weinberg made a huge mistake by threatening Battaglia with the information that behind their operation stood three Outfit bosses. Previously Labriola and Weinberg were told by Hunt, Roti and Prio that their names should be kept out of any conversation. The deal was that if Labriola had any trouble with the West Side bloc he was to contact Ben Warner, who was more or less a messenger for Hunt. So in an effort to impress Battaglia, the problem backfired to Labriola and Weinberg. Also the two gangsters thought that the “young bloods” were not going to make any move with out the “ok” from Accardo, so Labriola decided to further establish his operations on the West Side without the approval of Giancana and Battaglia.



Paul "Needle Nose" Labriola(on the left)

Battaglia decided to take this problem to the higher ups, not Accardo but Paul Ricca. By now Battaglia had a very close relationship with Ricca so he decided to ask the top guy of the organization to settle the problem. So Ricca advised Roti and Hunt to withdraw their support for Labriola and Weinberg. Roti and Hunt had a good reason to withdraw their support and turn their backs because their involvement was already exposed by Labriola and Weinberg. Ricca realized that if Hunt or Roti still supported the operation there was going to be an all out war. As for Roti and Hunt they already had things pretty well wrapped up so they didn't want any violence because it brought a lot of heat on their operations. Now both Labriola and Weinberg were in real hot water because the infuriated Sam Battaglia required justice, meaning he wanted blood as an example to the other members of the organization. Labriola and Battaglia knew each other since the old days. In fact Labriola was the stepson of Lawrence Mangano. After the murder of his stepfather, Labriola moved his operations on the North Side under Nick DeJohn who was also slain in San Francisco in 1947. So death was following almost every mentor of Labriola and this time it caught up with him too. Giancana and Battaglia pressured Ross Prio to take care of his two underlings in the most gruesome way. On March 15, 1954 the police found Paul Labriola and James Weinberg garrotted and stuffed together in a car trunk. Later their autopsies revealed that they were also poisoned.


From this previous example, we saw that the underworld is full of treachery and back stabbing games. Some of the Outfit’s members were led and later betrayed by their superiors because of greed for the old mighty dollar. Now I’m going to show you another example, where some Outfit associates made a lot of cash for the organization until they were uncovered by the government which brought them to their demise. Anthony Pape was a known West Side hoodlum with high profile connections within the Chicago Outfit. He was only 15 years old when he became a close friend of Sam Battaglia and other 42 gang members. Pape was arrested 22 times since 1929 and also served 14 months in jail on murder charges. At first Pape was a major player for Battaglia in the sale and distribution of counterfeit cash but the thing was that Pape was later involved in another business which some of the old Outfit members like Rocco DeGrazia supported it, and that was the sale of narcotics. Pape had a very large crew of west side dope peddlers, including his younger brother James Pape, Anthony Ponzi, Joseph Iacullo, Tony Sperna, Frank Coduto, Harold Scales, Samuel Felton, Joseph Burns, Anthony Schullo, Frank DeMarie and Roy Pinna. According to government investigations, this large crew made over $5,000,000 a year only from the narcotics trade. So I believe that Battaglia very well enjoyed the fruits from this allegedly forbidden business. Now we all know that Tony Accardo was the boss during this period and we all read about his alleged hatred towards the narcotics trade. But FBI surveillances said otherwise. In a matter of months one of Pape’s top men in the narcotics trade, Joseph Iacullo, was seen going in and out of Accardo’s home for more than 20 times. My opinion is that Accardo also enjoyed the big amounts of cash which was made by the narcotics crew but he always respected the old rule “deal but don’t get caught…if caught, you die”. In reality, Accardo was scared from the bad publicity given by the narcotics trade and avoided any government heat that might jeopardize his vast gambling operations but my opinion is that he never refused the fat envelopes. So this meant that Accardo was ready to kill anyone at anytime if things went out of control.

On March 16 and 17, 1954, the federal bureau arrested Anthony Pape and the rest of his crew on narcotics charges. In fact, the feds managed to infiltrate an undercover agent who posed as narcotics buyer. The agent’s name was Harry Mattera who testified before the grand jury that he saw Coduto come out of a restaurant, entered an auto with Pinna and then drove to the 1500 block in Warren av. He also said that he saw Coduto counting out money to Pinna. Coduto then received a newspaper in which two packages of heroin were wrapped. The agent said that later Coduto returned to the restaurant and gave the newspaper to Mattera. Mattera also added that he paid $800 for the heroin packages. Later the dope peddlers refused to sell the agent more dope and counterfeit money, so the agent told his superiors that the Pape gang had detected him and would kill him. For this reason, the bureau decided to make the arrests. Because most of the defendants like the Pape brothers and Coduto were released on $25,000 bonds, Accardo immediately called a meeting with his West Side representatives Giancana and Battaglia and ordered the deaths of the Pape gang members.


On April 10, 1954, Anthony and James Pape were driving down Flournoy St. when suddenly another car with two hitmen blocked their path. James Pape, who drove the car, apparently made a frantic effort to elude the assassins by turning south and that’s when one of the hitmen fired few shotgun blasts hitting James in the head and also fatally wounding his brother Anthony in the head and shoulder. Their car went out of control, struck the corner of a building and stopped on the sidewalk. James’ body was found sprawled face down in mud in the parkway with his legs still under the steering wheel and Anthony was in front beside the driver s seat. Anthony was taken to the Garfield Park hospital in a critical condition and died two days later. He never gave up his killers. My opinion is that since the killing occurred near the Lawndale area, Battaglia must’ve sent Lenny Patrick and William Block to do the job. Now the rest of the Pape gang members were receiving death threats, which was the main reason for them to start shaking in their own boots and be scared from their own shadows. Frank Coduto told the feds that he and the rest of the gang were very much scared for their safety and pushed for their imprisonment because they knew if they stayed at their homes it was the end for them. But it was too late for Coduto. On May 14, 1954, Coduto was on his way home while driving along Cullerton St with one of his associates. When he came near his house, his wife Antionette was waiting for him at the window but she filed to see the man on the back seat. Suddenly few shots were fired from a .38 caliber pistol and Coduto fell against the door causing it to open and his body fell out. Coduto was shot three times in the back of the head and once in the shoulder. Out of nowhere a black sedan came behind Coduto’s car, picked up the killer and sped off into the night. The other gang members were saved by going off to prison. For example, Schullo received 60 years, Ponzi and Pinna received 15 years separately and Iacullo received 30 years in prison. So again the Outfit bosses succeeded in protecting themselves by “silencing” the only people that had the chance to connect them with one of the dirtiest business in the underworld.



Frank Coduto


During this period the government wasn’t well informed about the Outfit’s hierarchy and membership but they started to listen to stories about the new up and coming “young bloods”. Rumours spread around that the new guys were hoping that some kind of trouble would turn up among the old gang chieftains and they would kill
each other, so things would get better for younger fellas. Whether the rumours were true or not, in August, 1954 two Outfit old timers Charlie Gioe and Frank Maritote were murdered obviously on the orders of the Outfit’s hierarchy. The murders were allegedly executed by Battaglia’s personal and favourite duo Charles Nicoletti and Felix Alderisio. Also the mid 1950’s was a tough period for Tony Accardo because the government was after him and he also managed to make few mistakes along the way. So Ricca decided that he should give the top spot to the man that desired it the most and would kill anyone just to get there. That man was Sam Giancana. Giancana was blinded by the huge amounts of cash and extensive power that he simply overlooked the heat from the government that was coming his way. Ricca understood this, Accardo understood this and even Battaglia understood this. But even with that Giancana would bring the Outfit on much higher scale which was never seen before.


Giancana’s organization looked like this…Frank Ferraro from the South Side was his underboss and Murray Humphreys was his advisor and political fixer. Hyman Larner was the main guy with overseas connections and smuggling routes. Ricca and Accardo remained in the shadows behind Giancana as top advisors, especially Ricca. Ross Prio remained as the top representative on the North Side and after the death of Claude Maddox, Joseph Aiuppa became the boss of the Cicero area. Aiuppa’s close associate Jack Cerone was the boss of Elmwood Park, the old Mafia boss Frank LaPorte was the main guy in the Chicago Heights, Lenny Patrick had the Lawndale area and part of Rogers Park, and Fiore Buccieri and Sam Battaglia took the West Side and other parts from the city. Bucceri was the main guy in the old area of Taylor Street, parts of the North/West Side and parts of Cicero and Battaglia took Melrose Park and other areas. If you look at this list, you will see that Giancana’s organization was very much similar to the hierarchy of the old Capone gang. Except for the fact that the top positions were taken by the Italians, they still had the non-Italians on high positions and Giancana’s ego was as bigger than Al Capone’s.



Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana


So now Sam Battaglia went to the Casa Madrid in Melrose Park and told Rocco DeGrazia that he, meaning Battaglia, is in charge now. The old man simply stepped away and remained only as owner on a document paper of the Casa Madrid which was renamed by Battaglia as the Avenue Lounge. The basement of the joint was where Battaglia held “debtors court” where he sat as a judge in his court room and decided who is going to get a beating and who’s going to end up dead. Now you ask your self why there is not another option like not getting anything of those two options?! That’s because if someone was called at the Casa Madrid, that meant that he was in big trouble. Battaglia was known for chasing debtors by himself around the streets of Melrose Park and gave them the “bust ya in the teets” treatment publicly in front of everyone in the neighborhood. Because of his violent and at the same time public actions, Battaglia became one of the most feared and successful loan sharks in Chicago. Battaglia handled few millions of dollars on the streets of the Windy City at any given time. Battaglia also controlled gambling and loans shark operations in the suburbs of Melrose Park, Schiller Park, Bellwood, Franklin Park, Stone Park, Northlake and also in Gary and Hammond, Indiana and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


Now in the position as area boss, except gambling and loan sharking, Battaglia also operated several other illegal enterprises including extortion, burglary rings and narcotics. He had a quite rough crew of enforcers and money makers that some of them were almost independent and since most of them were former 42 gang members they were also direct with the boss of the organization Sam Giancana. For example, Phil Alderisio was the main guy who specialized in loan sharking, extortion, bookmaking and was also a liaison between the Chicago Outfit and the Milwaukee mob. Alderisio answered only to Battaglia and Giancana. Another top guy was Albert Frabotta who was very close with Alderisio since the old days, and was also involved in extortion, gambling and of course in murder. Charles Nicoletti was the main enforcer in Melrose Park and one of the most feared individuals in the organization. His “hobby” was also gambling. Willie Daddano, another enforcer with fearless reputation, was a guy who loved stealing so he controlled a ruthless burglary crew and also specialized in loan sharking and extortion. Rocco Pranno, another gruesome individual who operated in Stone Park, was known for his involvement in vending machines, extortion and large scale of loan sharking operations. So the positions of these guys in the hierarchy of the Outfit were very confusing because they had other members of the organization who obeyed their orders or in other words most of these guys had their own crews. By looking at all of these big names in the Outfit it seemed like Battaglia was one among equals, but in reality he was a little bit more equal than the others because all of these high profile gangsters referred to other people in Battaglia’s name as “the old man wants to see you”. So according to my opinion, Battaglia was the “chief of staff”.


The gang also had high level associates who worked as front men and also had political connections. For example, Leo Rugendorf was the main front man for the gang in legitimate businesses, a major mob fence of stolen property and was also involved in large scale loan sharking activities. He was questioned about numerous murders and during one period of time, the FBI considered Rugendorf as a member of the Outfit. Irwin Weiner was also a favourite front man for the gang who worked as a bail bondsman and fixer and was also a very close associate of Battaglia and Alderisio. Battaglia’s brother Joseph was in charge of the gambling operations at a casino which was located in the Casa Madrid. Joe also handled few bookmaking operations around Melrose Park with another member of the crew known as Angelo Jannotta. Jannotta was one of Battaglia’s chief bookmakers together with Frankie Beto. Battaglia’s associate from the old gun totting days, John Wolek was involved in loan sharking activities and Joe Amabile still served as Battaglia’s enforcer and extortionist. Later Amabile was ordered to work in Northlake together with Rocco Pranno. Joe Rocco served to Battaglia as his leading counterfeiter and Rocco Salvatore was the chief driver and bodyguard. Salvatore also oversaw all of the gambling operations and reported everything to Battaglia. Tony Cardamone was a relative of Willie Daddano and served as Battaglia’s front man. John Zitto was a gambling operator and also worked as keeper at Battaglia’s headquarters the Casa Madrid. Americo DePietto was the guy that ran the narcotics racket in Melrose Park. He had a crew of dope peddlers that handled 10 million dollar a year narcotics ring that controlled over 80% of the trafficking in Chicago. DiPietto's crew was formed by members like Joe Battiato, Teddy DeRose, Angelo Passinni, Solly Monte, Frankie Carriscia and Mike Demaro. The crew had connections to drug traffickers from St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Cleveland. The crew imported heroin from France through Canada and also from South America. DiPietto worked under Alderisio and was also a close associate to Nicoletti. As for the old Capone mobster Rocco DeGrazia, he remained as an elder statesman for the gang and advisor to Battaglia. He also acted as a messenger or as Battaglia’s voice on many mob sit downs.



Rocco DeGrazia


The Melrose Park crew wasn’t the biggest money making crew within the Outfit but there was a certain characteristic that made it special. Most of the other crews were specialized in certain illegal schemes, for example the Northsiders were mostly involved in gambling and investment in very profitable legit enterprises or the Taylor Street crew which specialized in national loan sharking activities. The difference was that Battaglia’s crew maybe did not generate the same cash amount as Ross Prio’s North Side rackets but they were involved in every possible illegal racket. They had all of these different criminal contacts in and out of Chicago and so if anyone wanted to start a new venture, first they had to go and talk to the guy with most contacts and that was Sam Battaglia.


During the late 1950’s the Outfit’s main illegal racket in Chicago was loan sharking. The Melrose Park crew lent money to companies that were on the downfall such as car companies, building supplies wholesale companies, clothing factories and food companies. For example, in 1957 Meyer Ditlove, who was an Outfit associate and also ex-convict because he served time for his involvement in the infamous horse meat scandals, launched the Twin Food Products Company at 3250 Wentworth Av. The Twin Food became very successful company that sold shortening products to many restaurants and hotels around the Chicago area. And why was the company so much successful, well because guys like Sam Battaglia and Felix Alderisio held interests in the company. Ditlove needed more cash so he decided to get involved with the Melrose Park crew. Beside Detlove, Battaglia’s front men in the company were Leo Rugendorf who served as the company’s president, and Ditlove’s son-in-law Lawrence Rosenberg who served as secretary and treasurer. The main stockholders in the company were Battaglia, Alderisio and Albert Frabotta. Battaglia and his associate from the old days Marshall Caifano served as salesmen for the company and of course the main reasons for the success of the company were the hoodlum tactics that were applied on many night clubs, hotels and restaurants to induce them to buy from the Twin Products Company. The Twin Food also distributed products owned by sister companies such as Twin Distributing Company and The P&S By-Products Company, which both were owned by the Outfit. Battaglia who allegedly “worked” as a salesman for the Twin Food, was also a buyer for the P&S By-Products, who was engaged in buying of a meat by-products used in the manufacture of commercial shortening. So the companies became a real “cash cow” for Battaglia and his gang and they meant to keep it that way.


Another example was the Sterling-Harris Ford Agency at N. Cicero Av. in Chicago which was owned by Leroy Sterling and George Harris. Sterling was previously involved in the shortening business with the Twin Food Company but decided to form his own car business with his partner Harris. But there was problem for the two business partners and the problem was money. So Sterling decided to ask for help from his former business partner and secretary of the Twin Food Co. Lawrence Rosenberg. Rosenberg told Rugendorf about the problem and they received the “ok” from Alderisio and Battaglia. Now Sterling was in big trouble because he didn’t realize that he and his company were in the hands of the Chicago Outfit. Battaglia quickly connected the Ford Agency with the Evanston Cab Company which started buying cars from the Ford Agency because it was secretly controlled by Sam Giancana, Frank Ferraro and Gus Alex. Like any other legitimate enterprise, this company was also a “cash cow” for the organization but not for long.



Leo Rugendorf


During the late 1950’s the Chicago Outfit was too powerful and was slowly taking over the Vegas casinos from the rest of the national gangs. So in 1958, Battaglia’s old attorney and friend Sidney Korshak hosted a national mob meeting in Beverly Hills, California. Present at the meeting were Moe Dalitz and Morris Kleinman, representatives from the Cleveland mob, Joe Stacher and Longy Zwillman from the New Jersey mob, Meyer Lansky from New York, Sam Garfield from Detroit, plus Chicago delegates Sam Battaglia and the Outfit’s man in Las Vegas and Battaglia’s partner Marshall Caifano. The purpose of this meeting was about the Outfit’s takeover of the Stardust Casino. The casino was previously owned by Dalitz but he agreed, because he had no other choice, to lease the casino for $100,000 a year in the name of a firm known as Karat Incorporated. Dalitz was the president of that firm and John Drew, who was a known Outfit associate, was the vice president. So now Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo, Sam Giancana, Murray Humphreys and Sam Battaglia, all had their own shares in the casino.


In 1958, The United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, also known as the McClellan Committee, came to Chicago to study the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations. All of the well known Chicago Outfit bosses, members and associates were publicly questioned and were also uncovered for what they really represented. In July the committee called for Sam Battaglia to answer their questions and now the world had the first glimpse of one of the original mob figures in the country. Here’s a small part from the investigations:

The Chairman: State your name and your place of residence and your business or occupation.

Mr. Battaglia: My name is Sam Battaglia. I live at 1114 North Ridgeland Avenue, Oak Park, 111.

The Chairman: What is your business or occupation?

Mr. Battaglia: I refuse to answer on the ground that my answer…wait a while…I refuse to answer on the ground that my answer may tend to incriminate me.

The Chairman: I suggest you change that word "refuse" to "decline."

Mr. Battaglia: I decline.

The Chairman: Will you make that change as you read your statement?

Mr. Battaglia: I don't understand.

The Chairman: I said, instead of using the word "refuse," will you say you "decline"?

Mr. Battaglia: Do I have to do that?

The Chairman: Well, you may have to. I think "decline" shows a little more respect for your Government, don't you?

Mr. Battaglia: O. K. decline, then.

The Chairman: Proceed.

Mr. Kennedy: Could you tell us, Mr. Battaglia, a little bit about your background, as to where you were born?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground that may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Just where you were born, Mr. Battaglia. Can't you tell us that?

Mr. Battaglia: I answered already.

Mr. Kennedy: I am asking you again to reconsider your answer. Could you tell us where you were born, and the date of it?

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

Mr. Kennedy: I would like to have you reconsider it, and what is your answer on reconsideration of my question?

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

Mr. Kennedy: You haven't answered this question. I want to have the date and the place of your birth.

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground that may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy. You were born in Chicago, were you, in 1909, is that correct?

The Chairman: Let the Chair make a record here, please. We are going to test out some of these instances. The Chair will ask you the question "Where were you born?

Mr. Battaglia: I refuse to answer…decline to answer on the ground that that may tend to incriminate me.

The Chairman: With the permission of the committee, with its approval, the Chair orders and directs you to answer the question.

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

The Chairman: Is that your answer?

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: You understand that you are being ordered and directed by this committee to answer the question as to where you were born?

Mr. Battaglia: I just told you where I was born.

The Chairman: You did?

Mr. Battaglia: I just told you.

Mr. Kennedy: Is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia. I answered the question.

The Chairman: Now, I asked you the question, and I have ordered and directed you to answer, and state where you were born.

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

The Chairman: Is that your answer?

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: That is not an answer. That answer will not be accepted. Do you still refuse to answer?

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

The Chairman: I said: Do you still refuse to answer and state to this committee where you were born?

Mr. Battaglia: I answered it.

The Chairman: Is that the answer you want to give?

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Your answer is that you refuse or decline on the ground that to answer it might tend to incriminate you?

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Do you honestly believe if you told this committee where you were born that a truthful answer to that question might tend to incriminate you?

Mr. Battaglia: One answer leads to another, and I am not answering.

The Chairman: I asked you if you honestly believed that, if you gave a truthful answer to the question: Where were you born? a truthful answer might tend to incriminate you.

Mr. Battaglia. I answered it.

The Chairman: You haven't answered this question, and, with the approval of the committee, the Chair orders and directs you to answer the question as to whether you honestly believe that, if you gave a truthful answer to the question: “Where were you born?” a truthful answer might tend to incriminate you.

Mr. Baitaglia: I answered it.

The Chairman: You have not answered it, and the Chair holds you have not answered it, and you are under orders and direction of the committee to answer it.

Mr. Battaglia: I just told you; I read this off this paper, and I answered you.

The Chairman: You haven't read off that paper when I asked you if you honestly believe.

Mr. Battaglia: I refuse to answer on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me. Does that answer your question now?

The Chairman: That doesn't.

Mr. Battaglia. That is my answer.

The Chairman: All right, let the record stand. Proceed, Mr.
Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy: Have you ever been arrested?

Mr. Battaglia: I refuse to answer on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.

The Chairman: The Chair, with the approval of the committee, orders and directs you to use the word "decline" instead of "refuse."

Mr. Battaglia: All right, decline.

The Chairman: Can you say it with any more contempt?

Mr. Battaglia. What is the matter with "refuse", that is a word too, isn't it?

The Chairman: Proceed.

Mr. Kennedy: As we understand it, Mr. Battaglia, your specialty is armed robbery, is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia: I refuse to answer on the ground…on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: You are back on "refuse."

Mr. Battaglia. What is the other word?

The Chairman: The other word is "decline," and it is a little more respectful.

Mr. Battaglia: All right, decline.

Mr. Kennedy: Now, did you know Estelle Carey? Did you know that young lady?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Were you arrested in connection with Estelle Carey in 1943, in connection with her being bludgeoned and burned to death?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: You and Marshall Caifano at that time were arrested in connection with her murder?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Can you tell us anything about the murder of Estelle Carey?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Then tell us about Alexander Chase, could you tell us anything about him?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the account it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: You were also arrested in connection with his murder, were you not?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on account it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Now, our interest in you, Mr. Battaglia, is your relationship with Mr. James Weinberg, and Paul "Needle Nose'' Labriola. Could you tell us anything about James Weinberg and Paul "Needle Nose" Labriola?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy. Did you know "Needle Nose" Labriola?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Now, when Labriola and Weinberg were making arrangements for setting up this association, they had to go or it was suggested that they get in touch with you, and the man in overall charge of it was Sam "Golfbag" Hunt, but that you were in charge of the West Side, is that correct ?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And the man that they had to be solicited on the South Side was Bruno Roti, is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Now, according to the testimony yesterday, what developed was that the group of "Needle Nose" and Weinberg failed to get your permission when they moved in on the West Side, and so you became very angry, is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And because you got angry, Bruno Roti also with' drew his support from the South Side, is that right?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And you all work those things out together, do you Mr. Battaglia, a little club among yourselves?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And then an instance was given where Marshall Caifano's brother was killed in the attempt to kidnap Theodore Roe. His name was "Fatty" Leonard, is that right?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And because Roe had killed "Fatty" Leonard when they were trying to kidnap him, Roe was later killed out in Chicago, is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: And according to the testimony yesterday, you were in on the job of killing Roe, is that correct?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Did you have anything to do with killing Roe?

Mr. Battaglia: I decline to answer on the ground it may tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Kennedy: Well, Mr. Chairman, this witness doesn't want to seem to help much.

The Chairman: Are there any other questions? You will remain under your present subpoena subject to being recalled for further testimony. Where can we notify you?

Mr. Battaglla: At home.

The Chairman: Where is your home?

Mr. Battaglia: 1114 North Michigan.

The Chairman: You will remain under your present subpoena.

Mr. Battaglia: You mean I can go home now?

The Chairman: Upon reasonable notice, you can expect to reappear before the committee at such time and place as it may designate to give further testimony.

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: You will remain here for the remainder of the day, and we may want to recall you.

Mr. Battaglia: All right.

The Chairman: Do you agree to remain under the present subpoena to return, do you?

Mr. Battaglia: I have got to, you are telling me to stay here, and what do you want ?

The Chairman: What is that?

Mr. Battaglia: You are telling me to stay here?

The Chairman: I said for the present, but when you are excused today you will remain under the same subpoena, and you agree to that, do you, and to return whenever the committee desires to interrogate you further?

Mr. Battaglia: I suppose, I don't know.

The Chairman: What is that?

Mr. Battaglia: I suppose. Am I supposed to agree to it? I don't know.

The Chairman: Well, we can put you under another subpoena right now, if you want to do that.

Mr. Battaglia: I will agree.

The Chairman: You will agree?

Mr. Battaglia: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Very well.

Mr. Battaglia: Yes.

The Chairman: All right, stand aside.

As we can see clearly from the above conversation that Battaglia was virtually playing games with the committee but deep inside of him he wasn’t laughing because he knew that this kind of publicity wasn’t good for him, or his associates and the organization in general. As additional info, Battaglia took the fifth more than sixty times during the questioning.



Battaglia at the McClellan Committee









Anyways, the next year in 1959, Roger Touhy, who was known for his hatred toward the Chicago Outfit, was released from prison after 25 years of incarceration. Touhy had a quite a good reason to hate the Outfit because he was railroaded to prison in a conspiracy between the Outfit and the state attorney's office as a result of the framed kidnapping of John Factor. In fact Factor helped the Outfit to get rid of Touhy once and for all and was now their front man in the Stardust Casino in Vegas. While Factor and the Outfit were growing rich off the Stardust, Roger Touhy hired a quirky, high strung, but highly effective lawyer named Robert B. Johnstone to take his case. A brilliant legal tactician, who worked incessantly on Touhy's freedom, Robert Johnstone managed to get Touhy's case heard before federal judge John P. Barnes, a refined magistrate filled with his own eccentricities. Judge John P. Barnes released a 1,500-page decision on Touhy's case, finding that Touhy was in fact framed in a conspiracy and that John Factor had kidnapped himself as a means to avoid extradition to England. Touhy and Johnstone fought back by drawing up the papers to enter a $300,000,000 lawsuit against John Factor, Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo and Murray Humpreys as well as former Cook County state attorney Thomas Courtney and Tubbo Gilbert, his chief investigator, for wrongful imprisonment. As some of the big shots in the Outfit knew, murder was bad for business because it brought a lot of heat from the government and also made a lot of enemies. They used to be afraid that murder may bring unwanted attention to their illegal operations and schemes, but this was a different situation which brought their Las Vegas operations in great danger.


In the early evening of December 16, 1959, Roger Touhy prepared to drive to a meeting with Ray Brennan, Touhy's ghost writer of his biography, "The Stolen Years". At 5:00 p.m. Walter Miller, a retired Chicago cop who had once guarded John Factor and who was now acting as Touhy's bodyguard, pulled his car up to the front of Roger's sister's home and waited for Touhy. Miller walked out of the car to help Touhy while the two old men slowly walked up they suddenly heard a call from one of the two men running toward them. Instinctively, Miller reached and pulled out his police badge and said to the men "Wait, hold on, we're police officers" but it was too late. The men were running toward them, already pulled out their shotguns as they sprinted across the frozen street. Miller aimed and fired at the men who fired back with shotguns. Miller raised his left arm to cover his face and nearly had it blown off at the elbow. Hundreds of pellets lodged into his back and legs. Almost at the exact moment that Miller was blown backwards, two huge blasts from the killers' shotguns knocked Roger across the porch and then smashed him face first into the ground. Hundreds of pellets tore a hole in Touhy's left inner leg, the other pellets dug into his right upper rib cage. The leg was barely attached to the body. The killers disappeared into the night. Touhy was brought to a hospital where Father Richard Birmingham was brought into the room and gave Roger Touhy the last rights of the church, which he completed at 11:23. Two minutes later, at 11:25, Roger Touhy expired. Miller survived the attack and was taken to the Loretto Hospital under strong police surveillance and armed guards. A crime reporter from the Chicago Daily News sneaked in and managed to ask Miller about his attackers. Miller gave a description of man known as Sam Battaglia. Later the reporter gave Battaglia’s name to Police Captain Russell Corcoran who immediately issued an arrest warrants for Sam Battaglia and Marshall Caifano. The police force knew that the duo were the kind of people that murder was an “everyday thang”. The gruesome reputation really preceded them because the cops questioned and always took them as suspects about every possible murder that occurred in the Chicago area.



Roger Touhy lying on the ground while bleeding to death


On December 18, Battaglia and Caifano were brought in for questioning and were also taken into custody. But the problem was when Miller was called to identify the attackers he suddenly changed his previously given statements. Miller said that he didn’t mean the “Sam Battaglia, who was known as an infamous hoodlum but another “Sam Battaglia. He also later denied that he ever singled out a suspect and said something like "I saw some strangers. I wouldn't know whether they were black, while or colored. I wouldn't know who they were and that's that." Coroner Walter McCarron asked Miller about a reporter's statement that he said one of the killers might have been Sam Battaglia, Miller replied "I was loaded with morphine and I couldn't have identified my own brother." It was obvious that Miller was very much afraid for his life and the lives of his family, so he decided to keep quite and developed the infamous “Chicago amnesia”. I personally don’t believe that he saw Battaglia as one of the shooters but maybe he recognized one of them that belonged to his crew. Also many Veteran Chicago police officers were dubious that the Battaglia of that period would ever have to do his own gun slinging. They were right because Battaglia was 51 years old and was also way too big to do the dirty work by himself. Although we can’t exclude the possibility that the killers were from his own crew but we can say for sure that he wasn’t involved directly. If you ask me, I would place my bets on four mobsters, including Charles Nicoletti, Joseph Amabile, Lenny Patrick or William Block so pick two. Plus I’m sure that the guys who pulled the strings in Touhy’s murder were Murray Humphreys and his number two guy Gus Alex. According to a wiretapped conversation between Humphreys and Outfit member Joey Glimco, Humphreys had two main reasons to push for the murder. One was that he had never forgiven Touhy for humiliating him back in 1931 and the second was the lawsuit that Touhy planned to set on motion against Humphreys, Ricca and Accardo. Also the very same day of Touhy’s assassination, Gus Alex fled Chicago and went straight to hiding in New Jersey. Anyway the murder of Roger Touhy remained unsolved.


Battaglia’s reputation as a guy who shoots first and asks question later, was not only known among the police men but it was also known among his fellow mobsters. In January, 1960, the FBI caught a wiretapped conversation between top echelon guys from the non-Italian faction of the Chicago Outfit like Murray Humphreys, Les Kruse and Ralph Pierce. Pierce took over as one of the South Side bosses after the death of Sam Hunt. The three hoods discussed a situation in which Irvin Hornstein, a well known jewel fence from Chicago, owed the Stardust Casino in Vegas $7,400 and that for months he has failed to settle the debt. In this regard, Pierce made a comment that only “Teets” is the right guy that can solve the problem. Humphreys suddenly jumped up and said that “Teets” is out of the question because they needed Horstein to stay alive. Humphreys knew that recently Battaglia personally chased half way through Melrose Park and almost publicly killed a small gambling debtor for lousy $300. But not everyone was lucky as Hornstein. Ralph DelGenio, who worked as a truck driver, was also known as money collector for Outfit’s loan sharks, especially for Sam Battaglia. But one day DelGenio made a huge mistake by not bringing a $100,000 of loan collections. Story goes that his son Frederick DelGenio was responsible for the missing cash. The cash reportedly was stolen and hidden by Frederick with out the knowing of his father. Ralph DelGenio was picked up by Battaglia’s goons and was taken to a basement for questioning regarding the stolen cash. On June 20, 1961 Ralph was found in his auto parked on the edge of the Loop. He had been beaten and kicked to death.


The same year, there was a high profile mob conference between Murray Humphreys, Frank Ferraro and Sam Battaglia. The purpose for this meeting was the safety of their meeting place which was located in room 108 of the St. Clair Hotel at 162 East Ohio Street in Chicago. Battaglia was very much concerned that law enforcement agencies might become aware of their meeting place in that hotel room. And he was right because the feds already bugged the place and listened to every conversation. In this connection Humphreys made the following reply to Battaglia’s concerns:

HUMPHREYS: The danger in the spot is, putting too much confidence in the operators. Frankie is the one that does that. I talked to him the other day. He only gives the operators five a month. I said, Frankie, you’ll never get by that way. You’ll have to give them money. You want people on your side, you’ll have to give them something. So I said, you oughta give those girls 100 dollars for Christmas present, and he said ok, I think I will. That’s up to him. That’s up to him. You cant give them too much, but if you give them 20 dollars a month see, that’s cheap for you to protect yourself. What’s the use of kidding. But then if you get an important call, than you gotta get off your ass, and go out and call. You, because any conversation goes out on the telephone, now, Sam, say you should talk to me, than I’d know you right away. Just say “Hi”, or what is it. I’ll see you over a Jake the Plumber with a bum name, and that’s all the conversation. Now they’d have to figure out that conversation. All right, the next time you call, you say “Hi”, you understand, they don’t know who the hell it is, do they? They don’t know, but then they may get your voice, after a while, see. You have to give them credit for something. Of course, the government is famous for breaking down codes. That’s nothing for them to break down codes. If you use a code on them, in a little while, they’ll work it out. But it may take them some time. Now take… he’s a lazy fuck. He’s out in Cicero. He says, this guy was over today, and says this and says that, or George did this or that, and then he’s putting the finger right on you, see? Because he’s lazy, and didn’t come down. All he has to say, is I want to see you, where can I see you? All he has to say, is the Tailor’s. Everybody knows about the tailor. At one time we used have one, two, and three, and four, and we’d change, back and forth. But that was among ourselves. I’d defy them to find out where we was at, unless they’d follow, say, number four, then they’d break it down, but then we’d change our numbers every month, and Mooney (Giancana) would come to me, and say, now this month is going to be such and such, you know, se we’d change the numbers, Gussie (Gus Alex) and I would, and Frank (Ferraro) and Mooney and Joe (Joe Batters a.k.a. Tony Accardo).


According to this statement which was made by Humphreys himself, we can see that he was a very shrewd mobster and always taught the younger generation on how to keep low profile and at the same time, how to keep in contact and keep their operations floating. Battaglia was a good learner and managed to keep his gambling and loan sharking operations real tight. The nucleus of all of Battaglia’s vice operations was composed of five clubs that were located in hoodlum-dominated Melrose Park, including The Avenue Lounge a.k.a. The Casa Madrid, The Charm Club Inc., Mary Ann’s Tavern a.k.a. Mary Lou’s, Angelo’s and Club Twenty. One of Battaglia’s most profitable clubs was the Chez Paree Club which had a national reputation. The club had a back room which was known as the “Gold Key Club” and this room was operated for many years as a gambling concession by Battaglia himself. Battaglia used to take 60% of all gambling operations and 40% were given to his operators. Battaglia received complete police protection including the use of Melrose Park police officers to escort Battaglia’s men to the local bank with the previous day’s receipts. Guys like Alderisio, Pranno, Daddano and Nicoletti became more and more powerful so Battaglia gave them their own independent operations and territories. But the deal was they still had to include him in major operations as their partner and also they still gave him a small cut from their profits as a sign of respect. That cut was usually split between Battaglia and the boss of the Outfit Sam Giancana. Now the main members or operators for the Melrose Park crew were Rocco Salvatore and Battaglia’s younger brother Joseph. They oversaw almost every gambling or loan sharking operations for their boss, for example the high stakes card games. The card games were conducted in the early morning hours at a recreational hall located at 2111 West Lake Street and in a building complex which was located at 26th and Lake Streets in Melrose Park. The card games were operated by Elmer Del Percio, his brother Willie Del Percio, Gerald Nargie, Angelo Pacheco and John Zitto. Zitto was a long time close associate of Battaglia in the gambling business. This crew was also involved in many card-cheating operations. The scheme was done with the help of a peephole that was made in the ceiling above the players and short-wave electronic signals were sent to Battaglia’s accomplices that were involved in the cheating. They managed to swindle many people from Chicago's elite of millions of dollars. Joseph Battaglia’s major chore was hauling each dawn to a night depository the thousands of dollars which were taken across the gambling tables of these card games. According to FBI reports, some of the biggest transfers were made under the escort of the Melrose Park police.


Now Rocco Salvatore used the alias Bobby Doer and worked as a front man in many mob owned gambling clubs, especially The Charm Club. Salvatore also operated other very profitable enterprises for Battaglia in the western suburbs, such as real estate. Richard Derrico was another member of the crew who operated a large gambling operation on 2413 West Lake Street. Joe Dom Scaccia was another high profile gambling operator for the Battaglia group who operated a large scale gambling operation out of his Square Deal Auto Wreckers shop. Nicholas Palermo was another high profile associate of Battaglia who worked as a “Mob plumber”. Palermo was a prominent extortionist and also owned the Mayo Plumbing Co. in Melrose Park with his brothers, Gino and Frank. Palermo was the uncle of Tony Accardo’s son-in-law. He knew Accardo for over 40 years and was considered as a part of his “inner circle.” Also John Tarrara was one of the members of the Battaglia group who was also a close associate of Paul Ricca. Other members of the crew were loan shark operator Anthony Padavonia and gambling operator Pasquale Clementi. One of Battaglia’s main protectors was a Police Captain from the Oak Park Police Department by the name of Lewis Case. The Police Captain even served from time to time as Battaglia’s family chauffer and escort. Battaglia collected his juice loans with the help of a private detective named Julian Burkman from the Advanced Detective agency at 64 West Randolph Street in Chicago. Burkman’s job was to locate recipients of juice loans from Battaglia who tried to skip out on their debts. In Franklin Park, Battaglia also oversaw many vending and pinball machine operations with the help of three ruthless enforcers, Sam Ariola, Guy Cervone and Louis Eboli. One day, two men were caught cheating on a pinball machine in a tavern and were picked up by River Grove policemen. In the police station, the two cheaters were subsequently turned over to Ariola, Cerovone and Eboli by the cops. So the two cheaters were taken to a Franklin Park warehouse and were viciously beaten with baseball bats.


Battaglia’s organization derived tremendous sums of illegal income from these wide open casino type around the clock gambling joints and vending operations. And don’t forget that this were only two operations. So if you include the large scale of loan sharking and other illegal or legal activities, we’ll see a much larger picture of Battaglia’s underworld network. During this period, the Outfit ran a lot of legitimate businesses like real estate and also managed a lot of locals, firms or small factories. For example, Sonny Lazarus who was the public adjustor for the Lazarus Company lent $150,000 from Battaglia personally. This resulted from Sonny’s gambling addiction on horse betting. So in order to afford Lazarus the opportunity to pay off his debt, he was utilized by Battaglia as a public adjustor on countless fraudulent insurance claims which resulted from fire to theft losses. Battaglia stayed in touch with Lazarus directly or through his brother Joseph. Also Battaglia together with Phil Alderisio and Irwin Weiner opened an investment firm known as the I.S.P. Company. The “I” presumably stood for Irwin, the “P” from Phil and the “S” for Sam. Their company maintained very large amounts of cash in the Exchange National Bank probably for hoodlum operations. The trio also had their fingers in many other companies such as the Grayslake Peat Moss Company, the General Leasing Company and the First Finance Company. Battaglia’s chauffer and constant companion Joseph Rocco also rose through the ranks and became an associate of the Marshall Savings and Loan Company. Battaglia’s chief handbook operator Frankie Beto, owned a storefront called Harrison Court Cleaners on 2905 West Harrison Street. The name “Court Cleaners” came from the fact that most of its handbooks clients were lawyers who came from the nearby law library. Battaglia, Alderisio, and Beto even had their own shares in one of the Outfit’s most profitable operations the Sahara Inn Hotel which was fronted by Manny Skar. The gang even took small parts of their funds and started investing heavily in commercial real estate in many cities outside of Chicago. For example, the crew started to invest their dirty cash in a massive industrial office complex located in Tucson, Arizona. Also with the help of Battaglia’s old friend Lou Fratto, who was now the boss in Des Moines, Iowa, they also invested in a car leasing companies and building supplies wholesale companies in that same area. They even had shares in clothing factories, food processors, dairy products and theatres, for example in Indiana or Wisconsin.


By this time Sam Battaglia was one of the kings of Chicago’s underworld. He was intimately acquainted with the top echelon guys like Ricca, Giancana and Accardo and because of that he felt untouchable. Almost every Saturday Battaglia went to Ricca’s house in River Forest for a nice Italian dinner. Battaglia even became the fishing companion of Accardo in Bimini and elsewhere. Accardo had three main fishing companions when he took off for his frequent forays for fish, Jackie Cerone, Joey Aiuppa and Sam Battaglia. This was a clear sign that Battaglia was slowly groomed by these “ancient” bosses for a higher position in the organization. Accardo and Battaglia had their own shares in the Fox Head Brewery Company in Waukesha, Wisconsin. On June 13, 1959, Accardo, Battaglia, Rocco DeStefano, "Foggie" Fillichio, Marshall Caifano and Jack Cerone visited the brewery, with arrangements for the brewery tour being made by Cerone who was the brewery’s representative at the time. Also every Sunday night, Battaglia held a meeting at his house together with Weiner, Frabotta, Alderisio and Rocco Salvatore, to establish their present and future operations. His underlings attended these meetings almost without a fail.


Battaglia lived in a big house at 1114 N. Ridgeland in Oak Park. In those days if you were considered a big shot in the Chicago Outfit, there was no better place to buy a home than Oak Park and River Forest. Battaglia's home was valued at $50,000 or $390,000 in 2015 dollars. Bataglia also owned a huge 400 acre farm since the late 1940’s, which was located 55 miles northwest of Chicago on Damisch Road in Pingree Grove, Illinois. It was a huge land which was named The Free Meadows Stock Farm and Horse Breeders and was listed to the caretaker of the place known as Bill Meyers. The farm was located one-half mile north of Pingree Grove, on the east side of Damisch Road with land holdings on both sides of the highway, the more extensive being on the east side. In fact, the property had three different residences, a very large modern swimming pool, a race track and several barns. On all of the property Battaglia had signs posted indicating that the land was posted for shooting games and that all trespassers would be arrested. A mailbox which was placed at one of the entrances of the farm bore the name of Bill Meyers. The farm was valued at $500,000, or 4 million dollars in today’s money. Battaglia owned very expensive trained race horses at the farm and also all kinds of animal stock. Battaglia’s horses were used at the Arlington Park Race Track in Arlington Park, Illinois. Battaglia’s trainer for the horses was Arnold Winick, brother of Albert Winick president of The Rallson Corporation. Battaglia secretly owned the Arlington Race Track and constantly visited the place and gave orders to Albert Winick. Battaglia’s underling Joseph Rocco was also a horse trainer at the farm and was also a constant companion of his boss. Battaglia became very well known in the farming community of Pingree Grove and also a very respectable citizen in that area. Many low level hoodlums visited Battaglia at this place where he usually used them for painting fences or do some repairs on the farm buildings. He even used this farm for loan sharking activities or in underworld slang, juice operations. For example Sid Sheridan, who was a local contractor, was on “juice” to Battaglia. Sheridan was paying off his juice loan by boarding horses at the farm, and paid $60 per month for each one of them. Most of the horses were sold to Sheridan by Battaglia at an extremely over-valued price and that on this semblance of legal transaction Battaglia was able to issue the juice loans. On daily basis in the early morning hours Rocco Salvatore drove Battaglia to his farm, and than both would return to the Casa Madrid in Melrose Park, where they usually remain for two hours during which time Battaglia checked the daily receipts from the gambling profits and loan shark collections and after that he usually went to his home in Oak Park.


Battaglia also owned 200 acres of property in Kane County, Illinois and also in Aurora, Illinois. The name of Battaglia’s sidekick Joseph Rocco was in the records of the Marshall Savings and Loan Company as regards the purchase of a sizeable piece of real estate near Aurora by an Oakhurst realty company. Also records at the Exchange National Banked showed that a trust was formed between Marshall Caifano, Irwin Weiner and his wife Lillian, Phil Alderisio and his wife Molly, Albert Frabotta and wife Santina, and Sam Battaglia and his wife Angela. The trust covered adjoining property which was located at 3240 through 3250 South Wentworth in Chicago. Battaglia has claimed his legitimate income from the Free Meadows Stock Farm, from his job at the Twin Foods, and from a building that he owned and also rented apartments at 3248 West Roosevelt Road in Chicago.


On April 24, 1960 Sam Battaglia organized a Chicago “Mafia party” for his daughter’s wedding. In fact this was a “Mafia marriage” because Joanna Battaglia was marrying Donald J. Gagliano, the son of Outfit big shot Joseph Gagliano. The wedding occurred at the establishment which was owned by Sam Giancana known as The Villa Venice on Milwaukee Avenue, near Wheeling, Illinois. There were approximately 300 automobiles parked in the adjoining lots and every possible member of the Outfit attended the wedding, including Accardo, Giancana, Prio, Alderisio and Buccieri.



Joseph Gagliano


Battaglia, or the “old man” as he was called by his underlings, even flourished in his “secret” love life. Remember the late Ralph DelGenio and his son Frederick? During the “questioning” of Ralph, he gave Battaglia information that his son Frederick was dating a local girl and that maybe she knew where the cash was hidden. After the murder of Ralph, his son Frederick went to prison in Texas for robbery, so Battaglia decided to pay a visit to the girl. When Battaglia met the girl for the first time, he already forgot about the money because he was looking at a 28 year old 5 feet tall blue-eyed blonde bombshell and fell in love immediately. The name of the girl was Darlene Fasel Kalivoda. She was the daughter of a very wealthy River Forest industrialist who disowned her because of her association with hoodlums. She became Battaglia’s mistress for many years to come. Battaglia employed her as a receptionist and secretary for Leo Rugendorf at the Twin Food Company and also bought her a nice house on North Harlem Avenue in Elmwood Park. Miss Kalivoda also became Battaglia's constant companion on journeys gambling joints around Melrose Park as he picked up the day's take. At the end of the day the pair usually enjoyed a nice dinner at the North Avenue Steak House which was located at 8500 West North Av. in Maywood, Illinois. It was all rainbows and sunshine for Battaglia because the “old man” felt young again.


One day the pair was driving in their 1960 maroon Oldsmobile towards Bloomingdale, Illinois. They were returning from an outing at Battaglia’s Free Meadows farm. While approaching the small town, Battaglia pressed hard on the accelerator and the car darted in and out of the holiday traffic. Police Chief George Mueller of the Bloomingdale police took notice of this and began a pursuit of Battaglia on Lake Street. While he was chasing Battaglia, the cop radioed to Sgt. Richard Loy for assistance. The pursuit continued for more than a mile before the cops managed to curb Battaglia’s car at Lake and Bloomingdale road. Battaglia stepped out of his car and instantly started cursing and yelling at the cops. Chief Mueller said to Battaglia that he was speeding, and Battaglia replied “You’re a liar!” Furthermore Battaglia called the cops "a couple of keystone cops". Miss Kalivoda sat calmly in the car while Battaglia continued to curse the cops and also refused to show his driver license. After a while Chief Mueller had enough of Battaglia’s behaviour and said “You’re going to jail” and Battaglia again replied “Try and put me there.” So the cops started to push Battaglia across the street to Bloomingdale’s one room police station and locked him up in a single cell. Battaglia cursed and fumed there for more than an hour while the cops wrote out charged for driving 70 miles an hour in a 50 mile zone, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and disobedience of a police officer. Police Magistrate James Bell fixed Battaglia’s bond at $417. The still cursing Battaglia opened his wallet and produced the $417, and Chief Mueller estimated that at least $2,000 remained. Battaglia with some parting shots of profanity stomped out of the police station and drove away at a normal rate of speed. So this “adventure” ended ignominiously for the pair because of Battaglia’s terrible temper. But because of that kind of temper, three months later Battaglia’s reputation as one of the toughest gangsters was shattered to pieces by an ordinary Chicago police sergeant. On August 22, 1961 police sergeant Francis Nash and his partners detectives John Zitek, Maurice Guerin and Frank Kenny set out to look over a mob conference between Giancana, Battaglia and other Outfit chiefs. The meeting was said to have been arranged by Giancana to discuss measures to head off police investigations of eight recent gang murders which have been linked with the Outfit’s juice operators. The meeting was in adjournment by the time Nash and his squad arrived at Giancana’s residence. So the police squad checked few more suburban gang hangouts and then headed back to Chicago thru Oak Park. When they arrived in Oak Park, the cops saw Battaglia and Rocco Salvatore sitting in a car near Battaglia’s residence. When the two hoodlums spotted the police squad they sped off with their car with the detectives in pursuit. The chase went at high speed for more than a mile until Salvatore slammed his car to a stop in an alley near Elmwood Av. and Division St. in Oak Park. Nash’s squad was close behind. Suddenly out of the car came Battaglia and in his own style he started to curse at the cops. He approached Sergeant Nash and attempted to tear his shirt and challenged him to a fight. Battaglia attacked with two wild haymakers, which missed and then Nash pushed him away with a light left jab. Battaglia, who outweighed Nash by 20 pounds, fell to the ground and cried out “Don’t hit me, don’t hit me again, you’ll kill me!” Meanwhile, Salvatore ran down the alley shouting “Robbers, robbers!” It was a very hilarious situation. A near resident who witnessed the situation called the cops who took the four policemen and the two hoodlums into the Oak Park police station. Story goes that at the police station Salvatore said to his boss that they should retaliate but Battaglia replied “Forget about the whole thing. I don’t want any trouble over this. I don’t want any part of those Chicago coppers.”

You see most of these so called big time hoodlums are nothing without their guns and bodyguards. People like Battaglia who love to curse and yell at other people are pure cowards. If he was so tough as he pretended to be, than why he didn’t knocked out the cop in front of him? He just needed to stay calm and act like a gentleman because the cops had nothing on him. Instead he barked like a wild dog which didn’t had the chance to bite. But that was just the old 42 gang street mentality filled with aggressiveness and stupidity. Guys like Ricca, Accardo or Prio would’ve never acted in such a way, and that is one of main reasons for them to be on the top spots in the organization for a very long time. Yes the 42’s were one of the biggest money makers in the mob’s history but the problem was that they had much lower moral values. They were killing people with the blink of an eye, they were chasing girls publicly which was very bad thing for the image of their wives, they were doing drugs or drank too much liquor. The vicious cycle continued with succeeding every high position by the 42 gang members, with the loss of sense for any kind of responsibility. The old timers were total opposite of these guys but the problem was that they were also too greedy because they were blinded by the huge profits and also failed to see coming downfall.


While Battaglia was being blinded by the gold and riches in his life and also by his very large ego, the government started lurking from the shadows and was slowly closing in. At the beginning of 1961, Chicago’s main newspaper The Chicago Tribune disclosed that the Twin Food Company was working without a rendering license since 1957. The Tribune also disclosed that the company was controlled by known Chicago hoodlums and was protected by unnamed high profile member of the Democratic Party. So Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley issued an order to the commissioner of investigations Irwin Cohen to take measures about the situation. On March 21, 1961, during public hearings the chief sanitary officer Edward King of the Chicago Health Department testified that inspections of the Twin Food plant revealed numerous violations of the health laws, and the rendering operations of the company were ordered halted. City sanitation inspectors also examined Twin Food trucks containing products owned by sister companies known as the Twin Distributing Company, Incorporated and the P and S By-Products Company. The truck floors were described as dirty and the city health inspectors also condemned 1,000 pounds of meat and other products. Also during the trial, the president of the company Leo Rugendorf was called for questioning. While King testified, Rugendorf pointed at him and made motions as if cutting his throat. Later at a recess Rugendorf told King “I wonder how you would look without your teeth?” King laughingly removed his false teeth and showed him how he looked. These incidents were not funny at all and the name for them is “attempted intimidation of a witness.” The judge did not happen to see Rugendorf’s throat slitting motions and he was also not informed about the threat.



Rugendorf running away from the newspaper photographers


In May 1961, the Twin Food Products Company was found guilty in the Municipal Court of Chicago for operating without a rendering license, and in August fines were imposed. At the same time the government opened an investigation on the Sterling-Harris Ford agency. During one weekend, the owners of the agency managed to sell 356 autos which was a ridiculous number for such a short time. They received $225,000 from the sales and later declared bankruptcy and the creditors only located $5,000 in assets. Also the records of the agency had conveniently disappeared. FBI agents investigated the matter as a National Bankruptcy Act or NBA scam committed by the Sterling-Harris agency. The agents discovered that the large sale was forced by Rugendorf, who was obviously pressured by Battaglia and Alderisio, with the purpose of collecting a debt from the owners. All of the cars were sold, at prices which were far below cost, to members of the Chicago Outfit, their families and friends. For example Battaglia’s driver Joseph Rocco picked up two of the cars. FBI agent John Bassett, while investigating another matter, accidentally stumbled upon the missing records from the agency which solidified the up coming case against Rugendorf, Rosenberg, Harris and Sterling. Three years later, all of the defendants were indicted and found guilty of conspiracy to conceal assets in violation of the National Bankruptcy Act. Federal Judge Joseph Perry sentenced each of the four subjects to five years in prison and a $19,000 fines.


Another problem that disrupted Battaglia’s business world was the insurance swindle case that occurred the same year. The insurance fraud, which involved numerous fraudulent conspiracies such as false burglaries, fires in restaurants and other damaged properties, was overseen by Battaglia’s partner Marshall Caifano and Chicago Outfit associate and Loop insurance broker Lewis Barbe. Other people involved in the conspiracy were Frank Campanella, Herbert Basan, Kenneth Bratko, Allen Widmark and Robert Sacks. During the operation Caifano and Barbe received orders from Battaglia through Phil Alderisio. These men like Basan and Sacks, got involved with the Outfit through Barbe. One day Robert Sacks asked a favour from Barbe, regarding his old friend Lester Bagis, to locate Sam Battaglia. The reason, Sacks told Barbe, was that Marshall Caifano wanted to kill Bagis because he owed a big amount of cash to Caifano. So Sacks wanted from Barbe to ask Battaglia if he can call off Bagis’ contract in exchange for their offers. Battaglia cancelled the contract on Bagis and now Sacks, Barbe and the rest of their associates worked for the Outfit. That’s why the insurance operation was going pretty well until the government got wind of the situation and made few arrests and that’s when some of the people that were involved in the conspiracy started talking. The first guy that started talking was Allen Widmark, who was the president of the Chicago Rolling Mill products company located at 5616 N. Washtenaw av. Thru Herbert Basan, a salesman for this firm, Widmark sold wire valued at $782. This wire was then insured for $48,000 and reported stolen by the eight indicted persons, including Basan. After Widmark, another witness decided to step up, William Archer a known steel broker. When Battaglia heard about the situation he immediately summoned Alderisio and told him to send a deadly message to Barbe, because these guys were his people. In fact, Barbe was a very unstable person because he loved to talk about his gangster ventures to people that he met for the first time in his life. For example, Barbe had talked to many persons about Alderisio and Battaglia, often in derisive terms, but asked them to keep quiet about the information he gave them. So now Barbe knew that his life was in danger and tried to contact Battaglia through a go- between who was to arrange the meeting between the two. But Battaglia refused and Barbe got very scared so he went to the Internal Revenue service with information about Caifano, Alderisio and Battaglia. Barbe was about to testify against Caifano and he thought that Caifano would be acquitted in the insurance conspiracy case even though he might testify against him. As I previously stated, Barbe was a very unstable person and was known liar and swindler, but this time he picked the wrong people to play with. One night Barbe told a Chicago Tribune reporter that “The council (The Chicago Outfit) will meet Friday night and decide what to do. They’re going to hit me.” As he spoke, Barbe had a chrome-plated, snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver beside him. Two weeks before his testimony, Barbe was sitting in a crowded restaurant on East Chicago Avenue when a swarthy-faced man in hid mid thirties, blew a whistle in Barbe’s face and laughed like crazy. Barbe recognized the action which was a message from the Outfit that he had “blown the whistle” to the authorities and now he must pay. Just few days before his position as key witness against Caifano took place, Barbe made a bold move by insisting that his police guards be removed.



Marshall Caifano


So at the beginning of February 1964, Lewis Barbe was called to testify in the courtroom of Chief Justice Alexander J. Napoli, who had continued the conspiracy trial until February 6, because at the same time Caifano was on trial in Los Angeles in an extortion conspiracy case where he was accused of trying to extort $60,000 from Ray Ryan, a multi-millionaire oil man. After he left the court room at 10:20 a.m., Barbe entered his car which was parked in front of 2814 W. 26th St., just north of the court building and turned on the ignition key and suddenly a bomb blasted his car. The hood of the auto was blown over the 45-foot-high roof of the Vacuum Can Company, in front of which the car was parked. The hood landed 100 yards north of the building. The right door at the passenger seat of the auto was also blown off. All windows in the building were broken. Miraculously Barbe survived the blast. He got out of the car, fell on the street and kept calling for help. Buttons were ripped off his coat by the blast, his trousers were shredded, and his hair was singed. He lay in the street for 15 minutes before a police squad removed him to St. Anthony de Padua hospital. Before he was removed, Barbe told to one of the police officers to get "the papers" out of the bombed car and to take care of them. While in the hospital the doctors took him into the operating room and worked for two hours on his badly mangled right leg and foot. The police department’s bomb squad later revealed that at least six sticks of dynamite were used in the bombing. They also thought that the bomb was placed in the car during the 30 to 40 minutes while Barbe was in the court. Two men probably were involved. One man drove another to the spot, he placed the bomb in Barbe's car, and then the driver returned and picked up the man who planted the bomb. Although the area was a busy one and many policemen were in the vicinity, a raised hood would not attract any attention because many people frequently have motor trouble. But this didn’t solve Caifano’s problems because he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Los Angeles extortion case. Caifano appealed the conviction and was released on bond.



Anguished Lewis Barbe shouts for assistance


This was a step back for Battaglia’s business ventures but didn’t do much damage because he was about to become the number two man in the Chicago Outfit. On August 24, 1964, Giancana’s underboss Frank Ferraro died of cancer in the Wesley Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Three days before Ferraro’s death, he together with Accardo, Ricca, Humphreys, Cerone, Les Kruse, Ralph Pierce and Hy Godfrey held a farewell meeting at the Cart Restaurant on 601 S. Wabash Avenue. Giancana was absent at the meeting because he was on a love trip with his famous girlfriend and singer Phyllis McGuire. Before Giancana left Chicago, as current boss of the Outfit, he gave his vote for Battaglia to be Ferraro’s replacement. At the meeting, the bosses had hard time to decide on who’s going to take Ferraro’s position because some of them had different opinions. For example, Ricca and Accardo supported Cerone to become the number two man and Humphreys, Pierce and Kruse supported Battaglia. Also considering Giancana’s vote for Battaglia, it was a tie. But Cerone had one problem. He was blamed for the heat that he brought over the Outfit because of the imprisonment of some of his underlings on loan sharking and gambling charges, and above all he has become a drinking problem. So this meant that Battaglia was the obvious choice for the underboss position. But the thing was that Cerone became very angry about the decision so to avoid any conflicts, the number two position allegedly remained vacant. So even with no underboss, according to informants, everybody in the Outfit knew that Battaglia was the number two guy in the organization. To be honest, Battaglia never liked these top spots because he knew that the more he was closer to Giancana, the more he was getting into trouble. He hated the everyday headaches and his position as area boss was the best thing he ever achieved. He had all the money and women that he ever wanted so that’s why he didn’t need any problems with Accardo or Cerone regarding the underboss position. But when Giancana came back to Chicago, he made everyone understood by organizing a party for his old friend and associate at the infamous Armoury Lounge. From this point on the Accardo-Cerone alliance always had a little bit of hatred towards Giancana.



Giancana with popular singer and love of his life Phyllis McGuire


Now because of his “unofficial” number two position within the Chicago Outfit, Battaglia was regarded as a big shot and was very well trusted by the other mob bosses because he was standing next to Giancana, who by this time was known in government circles as the “boss of bosses”. Battaglia’s farm in Pingree Grove became the main headquarters for high profile meetings among mob bosses from all around the country. By now the Chicago Outfit had authority over Milwaukee, Madison and Hurley in Wisconsin, Rockford and Springfield in Illinois, Hammond and Gary in Indiana, St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri, so all of the bosses from those areas occasionally met at Battaglia’s farm. For example, Frank Balistrieri, the boss of the Milwaukee mob, travelled periodically to Pingree Grove to meet with the Outfit’s hierarchy. Balistrieri dealt with Giancana directly or through Battaglia and Alderisio. Also occasionally Battaglia, Alderisio and Caifano met with Balistrieri at a hotel in Milwaukee. Balistrieri consulted the Chicago Outfit only on specific and important subjects. The Chicago Outfit also had close connections with the Los Angeles crime family and the New York crime families, such as the Lucchese and the Genovese family. For example, the FBI once observed Giancana together with Battaglia and Alderisio in Los Angeles. The trio had a meeting with some top hoodlums of the Los Angeles crime family regarding the purchase of a land and also new automobiles. Also from time to time, Los Angeles members were seen at Battaglia’s farm. In July, 1964, the FBI received an information about a possible national mob meeting that might be held at Battaglia’s farm. The unknown informant who alerted the feds, had no information on who exactly might attend this meeting, but has advised that high profile members of the Milwaukee, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Detroit mob families might be present. The informant even gave the exact date of the meeting which was August 2, 1964. My opinion is that this must’ve been a high echelon informant because only top members of the mob’s hierarchy received such informations. So now the FBI alerted all of its offices in Chicago and other cities and has established a huge photographic and physical surveillance coverage over Battaglia’s farm. But besides their surveillance measures, somebody tipped off the mob bosses and the meeting was called off. Maybe the informant was working on both sides or maybe the mob had simply someone within the government and alerted them about the stake out.


As I pointed out in some of my previous articles, Giancana was the best and at the same time the worst thing that happened to the Chicago mob. Giancana had tremendous power and had master control in Chicago. He had the power to produce more money and votes for politicians than any other organization in Chicago or even Illinois. He controlled many high lucrative illegal and legal enterprises and because of the power, during his reign as boss, he formed a godlike feeling that destroyed everything that he previously achieved. Giancana thought that he was above the organization and also above the law… well he thought wrong. The main rule in organized crime is that no one is above the organization. We have countless and countless examples in mob history that can prove that statement. Mobsters like Ricca, Accardo, Prio and even Battaglia understood this, but the problem was that Giancana was the only top guy that was too much stubborn to realize this. But I don’t blame him because he grew up in very poor conditions, had no education and the act of violence was his only way to get noticed and to make some fast money. The real people that should be blamed are Ricca, Accardo and another old time boss who was Giancana’s sponsor to be made, Louis Campagna, because they were the ones who stuffed the big amounts of cash in their pockets that were made by Giancana and his crew and later made him the boss. My opinion is that after a while Ricca and Accardo realized that they made a mistake but it was too late because Giancana already took control over everything and everyone. You see, Ricca and Accardo controlled the capital of the Chicago Outfit with Giancana being in charge of operations, who worked as a broker and investor. But Giancana was also a hitman and controlled a lot of guys who killed with the blink of an eye. If Giancana said to these guys something like “The old guys have to go”, that was it. No matter who they were, they were going to get “whacked”. But after a while, even his guys started having second thoughts because they also felt the heat from the government because of his stupid actions.



Outfit boss Sam Giancana fooling around while being drunk


On May10, 1965, the feds “stalked” Battaglia in order to serve him with subpoena to appear before a grand jury. Battaglia was driving down the Illinois tollway when he suddenly saw the federal agents closing in on him from behind. So in his own style, Battaglia stepped on the gas pedal and led his pursuers into a high speed auto chase for some miles. The agents managed to drive up beside the hoodlum, identified themselves and got him to stop. Battaglia and the rest of the Outfit’s big shots were called before a federal grand jury concerning Sam Giancana’s activities. The mobsters were “harassed” by the government for hours. According to a wiretapped conversation that occurred few days after the questionings, between Giancana and one of his top guys Charles English, this is what have happened during the investigations:

ENGLISH: I’m laughin’ at ‘em. (laughs) Two guys fell asleep in the Grand Jury room. I’m tellin’ you Sam, they must have asked me a hundred and fifty questions and I don’t think that five of ‘em made sense. He says are you a gambler? I say what? Then he mentioned a date. May the 6th or June the 6th. He asked if I was in New York with you? Hey, if I was in New York with you, huh? You’re lucky, you got out of there fast. I was in there for an hour. We don’t have to come back. Ahhh, when they started to talk to me about narcotics I got hot. I said “I DECLINE TO ANSWER THAT.” (with emphasis) Even the Grand Jury woman, I heard her talk to the other person. She was scared. I don’t know what is it with Steve (Anselmo). They held me up awhile waitin’ for him, then after I finished they kept Teets (Battaglia), waiting for about ten minutes, then when he didn’t show they had Teets go in…after that they had Rocky (Infelice), Cowboy (Mirro) and Pete (DePietro).

GIANCANA: I says I don’t know what are you talking about…

ENGLISH: Me too, maybe they’re after those guys and just usin’ us for show. They asked me four or five more questions then they would go back to Teets, then four or five more questions then go back to Teets again. You know I was surprised. I thought it was all going to center on you. Than they asked me if I had any connections in Framingham, Massachusetts? I said where? Then one of the guys says, well we got enough to get him before the Judge. I says what? I says be more specific. They asked Teets, are you the guy that is going to take over for Sam Giancana? I says to Teets, you should have asked “take over what, Phyllis (McGuire)?” (laughs long and loud)


During this period the last thing that the Outfit needed was publicity like this. According to this conversation I think that English didn’t have the guts to tell directly to Giancana that his public relations with the popular singer and his vast narcotics operations were virtually destroying their organization. The pressure got to Giancana and so his erratic behaviour and his front page life style in return gave Ricca, Accardo and Battaglia fits. But luckily for the Outfit, on June 1, 1965, the government jailed Giancana for contempt of court. He received a one year sentence in an 8 by 10 foot cell in the county jail where he dined on a 14 cent meal of pork sausages and baked beans. With the Outfit’s boss incarceration, the organization needed a front man to deal with the day to day operations. Again there were three candidates for the job. One was Battaglia, the second was again Cerone and third one was Alderisio. Since Giancana was still the official boss, Cerone was out of the question so there were only two candidates that remained for the position. But the problem was that both candidates didn’t want the top spot because they knew that the federal government practice of targeting the top man in the Outfit, turned the job of Boss into a revolving door with prison on the other side of that door. So Alderisio played it smart and out of respect for his mentor, he took a step back and allowed Battaglia to become the top guy. Accardo and Ricca gladly approved this, and so the whole Outfit except for Cerone and another very ambitious mobster Fiore Buccieri. As a result of Giancana’s absence, dispute has arisen between Battaglia’s and Buccieri’s factions. The frustrated Buccieri began invading other territories that belonged to the Battaglia group and also to the Frank LaPorte group. A sit down was arranged in restaurant on Chicago’s North Side between the two factions. During the meeting, Battaglia’s close associate Phil Alderisio lost his nerves and threatened at one of Buccieri’s top men Joe Ferriola by saying “I’m going to tear you apart, limb by limb!” It was a very bad situation for the Outfit and many members thought that this should be immediately resolved by a strong leader. Buccieri said that Giancana should be the one to clear things up but he was in jail and ignored the problem. My opinion is that this was the boiling point where Giancana has lost most of his authority over his underlings. Thoroughly disgusted with Giancana, Ricca and Accardo again took the stage, resolved the dispute and immediately elevated Sam Battaglia to the position as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit, no questions asked.


This is a proof that Ricca still had the last word because another former 42 gang member took the top spot. It wasn’t Ross Prio who was clearly one of the best mob bosses in the country and it wasn’t Frank LaPorte, who was also very elusive boss. Because of Ricca, most of the top candidates were always from the West Side. In other words Battaglia was forced by Ricca to take the position. According to wiretapped conversation between the Outfit’s First Ward people Pat Marcy and Romey Nappi, Ricca ordered that Giancana had to stay in the background and that no one was going to give any trouble to Battaglia in running day to day operations. But the problem was that Accardo, who was the second top advisor, felt that Giancana should be totally removed as boss and that Battaglia should be THE boss. According to the same wiretapped conversation between the two Outfit associates, Accardo and Giancana had a heated argument in Giancana’s jail cell and allegedly Giancana told Accardo to “Fuck off!”



Chicago Outfit boss Sam “Teets” Battaglia


Even though he was a little bit scared because of the current situation, Battaglia had the backing of the prime players in the Outfit to rule his criminal empire with out any problems. His right hand man or number two man became Phil Alderisio, who according to some reports became Battaglia’s chief of staff and personal advisor. Alderisio also controlled all of the strip joints, nigh clubs, brothels etc. in the Diversey District with his crew members Leonard Gianola and Albert Frabotta. Charles Nicoletti remained as Battaglia’s chief enforcer and also his prime player in the Melrose Park area. Battaglia was one of those mob bosses who thought that blood is thicker than water so he also elevated his brother Joseph as his main messenger and also as his contact with many Chicago political figures. With Battaglia's blessing, Rocco Pranno became the Outfit’s prime player in the construction racket which became a major project for the Chicago Outfit. Rocco Salvatore also became a major player from his Country Club on North Avenue in Melrose Park and besides his gambling operations he also controlled a burglary crew. His crew was involved in numerous burglaries such as the robbery of the National Tea Store on West Madison Street and the Armoured Express job at North Riverside. This crew was mainly formed by six individuals, including Joseph Lombardo, Mario DeAngelis, Frank DeRosa, Guy Cervone, John DeMaria and Tony Scudiero. This crew was very active during this period and was also loaded with cash that kicked it up straight to Battaglia. With the help of a police contact, Salvatore frequently checked just to see if any government heat was placed on his burglary crew. Nick Palermo was in charge now of the sewer contracts around Northlake and Melrose Park. One contract cost over 250.000$. Joe Amabile was now involved in the washing machines business that generated over 50.000$ a month. Now both Palermo and Amabile still answered to Rocco Pranno but if they had any problems they took it to Battaglia.

The Mayor of Melrose Park Chester Carson and Chief of Police Anthony Iosco were both Battaglia’s pawns. One day Mayor Carson had enough of the Outfit and wanted out of the game but Battaglia informed him that he has enjoyed their profits for a long time and he will continue to deal with their troubles until his term expires out. One of the most profitable deals for Battaglia that involved the police and few politicians was the judicial setup in Oak Park. Under the new judicial system the magistrate court in Oak Park handled all of the cases from a number of surrounding towns, including Melrose Park. Whenever a felony charge was brought to the attention of the judge and the states attorney that were in charge of the magistrate court, a lot of wheeling and dealings went on. Battaglia knew that the only way a case could be fixed was by threatening the judge and the attorney and they usually would’ve reduced the felony charge to a minor wrongdoing. But that was not all. In cooperation with some corrupt policemen, Battaglia also had the power to place some of his rivals in jail. Now because the judge and the attorney made a crime by reducing the felony, they were shaken down usually by the corrupt policemen and were threatened with publicity. So now the judge and the attorney had no other choice but to obey. So both individuals were told that the police had personal interest in some case and that they wanted to see the defendant found guilty. This was the best deal for Battaglia and the police because they all scored points.


On November 23, 1965, Battaglia’s old friend and ally Murray Humphreys died of a heart attack during a raid which was managed by the feds. Before his death, Humphreys was still in charge in establishing and maintaining contacts with public officials, members of the judiciary, local law enforcement officials and also leaders of organized labor so that whenever a favour was desired from the Outfit’s leaders, Humphreys was the guy for the job. So now the Outfit needed a good replacement for the position. Few days later after Humphreys’ death, at a Italian restaurant on Wabash Avenue, Battaglia chaired a meeting together with other top hoodlums, including Charles and Sam English, Joseph DiVarco, Hy Godfrey and Gus Alex. All voted for Humphreys’ underling Gus Alex to take his place.


Like any other family, Battaglia’s family also had its ups and downs. His son Sam Jr. was having marriage problems and divorced his wife Elaine Ruane Battaglia. But his other son Richard was a success. He finished school at the Oak Park-River Forest High School and was an outstanding athlete who was awarded for being an all-state outstanding high school football player during the season back in 1964. Battaglia threw a big party for all the parents and the players after Oak Park won the championship game. There was lots of food and drinks and Battaglia paid for the whole thing. So now Richard he had been offered several football scholarships and wanted to go to the university in Arizona. But because of his father’s reputation he had been turned down. When his father heard about the news, he became furious. He immediately made few phone calls and with the help of his connections, he managed to make a contact with the Dean of Men and Head of the Engineering College at the University in California, who recommended several schools that might accept young Battaglia. The arrangements were made and Richard succeeded in being accepted at the university in Kentucky. During Richard’s stay in Western Kentucky, he was often visited by his father and his companion Phil Alderisio. The two legendary mob bosses usually travelled to Kentucky with Battaglia’s black Cadillac. Back in the days the old time mob bosses never allowed for their children to be involved in the “life”. You see, most of the guys like Battaglia became criminals not because of they choose to be, but because they had no other choice. Their prime goal was to make money so their families can enjoy their lives without any problems or without any criminal activities. These days a Mafia boss often makes wrong decisions by implicating every possible member of his family in crime like his brother, father, mother, wife, kids, dog, fish etc. In other words, they forget why are they doing this and what’s the point of it all.



Phil Alderisio and Sam Battaglia with their wives in the back, driving the black caddy


Now with the backing of Ricca and Accardo, Battaglia became the de facto boss of the Chicago Outfit. He was regarded as the “tightest guy” who was “heavily loaded.” He was considered the most menacing mob boss who closely watched his crime empire so nobody had the chance to getaway with anything. There were always some hoodlums who were looking for some favours or tried to get in good with Battaglia. By the end of the day these punks often got sucked into performing sizeable jobs for Battaglia, thinking that they were going to get his favour. Battaglia called these individuals “dopes”. He also ordered to his underlings to avoid mentioning his name in front of other members and associates regarding any operation. He was considered to be a very hard individual to deal with and he always had to be right. That’s why Battaglia disliked to be used as an arbiter in an argument between members of the Chicago Outfit. Whenever there was trouble between the members, they were steered directly to Nick Palermo or Charles Nicoletti. Because of his scary reputation, Nicoletti was the one who generally settled the disputes with out any further reference to Battaglia. Like any other criminal organization, Battaglia also had few enemies within the Outfit but general feeling was that they all respected him, obviously out of fear. Because of his previous boss, Battaglia also learned to avoid any publicity but deep inside of him he knew that sooner or later the government heat will be focused directly on him.


As boss of the Outfit who tried to avoid the spot light, Battaglia spent most of his time at the Free Meadows farm in Pingree Grove. In those days Pingree Grove used to have population of 150 citizens and it was a place where only wagon loads of hay rolled down the blacktop county roads but now loads of expensive autos sped by, filled with gangsters. In short time Pingree Grove became a hamlet possessed by fear. Everybody talked in whispers of "the Old Man" in the massive, two-story farm- house that sat on a knoll to the north of the village like a brooding medieval castle overlooking a fief. And in the fields where paid workmen once toiled, vassals of the gang chieftain worked off their usurious loan obligations in an environment of sweet clover, a setting far removed from the crime syndicate dives they usually frequented in Chicago. The local people on various occasions witnessed many of the ex-convicts, burglars, and hold- up men, most of them loan shark victims who worked on the nearly 400 acres of the gangster s estate. One day Battaglia invited a band of mobsters out to the farm. A few brave souls who dared to follow at a distance watched in amazement as the hoodlums spilled out of their cars in undershirts and Bermuda shorts. They trotted into one of Battaglia’s fields and then, as if at a command, began to pull carrots from the ground. The gangsters also sparked the economy of Pingree Grove for a few hours as they made repeated trips for cartons of soda pop. Another funny story is when Battaglia’s sidekick Joseph Rocco travelled 12 miles to a pig auction at Huntley. Farmers from throughout Kane County gathered for the auction and they began bidding against Battaglia. The farmers quietly bowed out when the price had been raised beyond reason. Battaglia returned to the farm that day with 20 to 25 hogs. They had cost three times the going price. Also Battaglia once paid twice the value of a Charolais bull, a highly prized breed of bull that originated in France centuries ago and improves the quality of beef.


Battaglia has been acquiring virtually all of the land that lies directly north of Pingree Grove. In a very short time he purchased another 180 acres that front on Reinking road, the hamlet s main thorofare. Battaglia's hoodlum holdings encompassed Pingree Grove from the north and the west. With his latest purchase, he owned nearly a third of the town now. Battaglia's trucks without state license plates rose huge clouds of dust as they pounded down the country lanes. And on both sides of the road that cuts thru the center of Battaglia's land, the dark green beauty of the fields was marred by a litter of rusting truck bodies and battered cars. There was a story in the village that an investigator for the Illinois secretary of the state’s office noted the truck license violations, but his fear of the Outfit boss was too great so he took no action. And for a land that used to be known for its strict enforcement of its laws against dumping, Battaglia appeared to be above the law. One day newspaper men came to visit Battaglia’s farm and to try to get some interview from the boss himself. The reporters waited in front of the main gate at the farm when suddenly Joseph Rocco arrived with Battaglia in a late model station wagon that trailed behind a giant flat bed semi-trailer truck. The truck had pulled into the yard, but Battaglia had rolled on down the road to inspect his visitors. As soon as the station wagon circled into the farmyard on another road, Rocco appeared at the barbed wire fence. He told the reporters "All we want is peace and tranquillity out here, the stuff that they re printing in the newspapers could get somebody killed. In the end, we’re all human beings. The Old Man doesn't want to be bothered . . . he doesn't want to be harassed." Then he boasted of the newly remodeled hog house with its aluminum storm windows and shingle siding and the silo being erected. But he made no mention of the 2-ton truck without license plates that bore the shield of the Twin Food products company that was forced out of business after police I discovered its hoodlum operation. Nor did he made any mention of the green pick-up truck, also without state plates, that roared down a side road, driven by Sal Scudiero, who was a gambling operator in one Battaglia's rackets joints in Melrose Park.


Battaglia was constantly visited at his farm by all kinds of people, including gangsters, politicians, friends and relatives. He sat like a true Mafia don and made deals, gave orders and granted favours. John Wolek, who was one of Battaglia’s oldest friends, often came to help around the farm. By now Wolek was a heavy drinker and was out of the Outfit’s businesses. Plus he was in favour to Battaglia because previously he owed $3,000 to one of the Outfit’s big shots and Battaglia’s partner in the gambling business Rocco Potenza. Because of his addiction, Wolek wasn’t going to pay the money so Battaglia helped him and saved his life. Another gangster who often visited Battaglia was James Mullane. Mullane was the brother-in-law of Outfit member Vincent Inserro. Anthony Cardamone was a relative of Battaglia’s partner Willie Daddano and was very heavily involved in the music business. Cardamone also often came to Battaglia with an envelope full of cash. Also Cardamone opened a west suburban bank account under the name of the Northern Illinois Music Company listing himself, Joseph Glimco and Battaglia as officers of the company. Tony Panzika, who was known Outfit associate and high level burglar, also gave his respects. As boss, Battaglia portrayed the image of a quiet and nice old man who loved to help many people that were related to him in different ways. For example, Antoinette Caifano, who was Marshall Caifano’s relative, also came very often to seek favours from the boss himself. Battaglia even took care of the widows of his former deceased friends, for example Marie Capezio who was the widow of the late Capone gangster Tony Capezio. Battaglia regularly gave money to Miss Capezio. Another quite interesting person that visited Battaglia’s farm was Nicholas Ciaccio. Ciaccio was the chief administrative aide to the Secretary of State Paul Powell. In fact, Ciaccio was the contact between Powell and Battaglia. Ciaccio usually used a chauffeur driven state car to travel to farm and sat with the boss in the main farm building usually for several hours. Another high profile figure who often visited Battaglia was Nicholas Balsamo, who was at the Board of Directors of the Maywood Provision Bank.


But the good times always felt short and it was just a matter of time until Battaglia’s good times were finished forever. My opinion is that Battaglia was very well aware about the situation he was just the front boss from Ricca and Accardo and that he wasn’t going to stay at the top for a very long time. But I don’t think that he ever knew about consequences that were coming his way which were product of his sinister life style. Everything started in February, 1966, when Battaglia was called before a grand jury in Kansas City regarding the murder of Salvatore Palma, a lieutenant of Kansas City mob boss Nick Civella. On February 16, Battaglia arrived at the Municipal Air Terminal by plane accompanied by his bondsman Irwin Weiner and his lawyer Miss Anna Lavin. Battaglia appeared in a gray skin suit and black coat and fedora. FBI agents waited around the exit for Battaglia and they stood in a loose semicircle, about 10 feet between them. As Battaglia entered the Terminal, the FBI agents stood quietly watching. None spoke to Battaglia or his companions. Newsmen at the airport began taking pictures. Battaglia walked slowly among them and kept moving his head as if to avoid the cameras. After Battaglia walked outside he partly obscured himself behind a pillar. When a newsman asked him why he was subpoenaed, Battaglia said “Talk to my lawyer.” and than the lawyer said “There is no comment at this time.” The government became interested in Battaglia because of the meetings that he held with the Kansas City bosses in his home in Oak Park. The next day, the Outfit’s boss spent 50 minutes before the federal grand jury and took the fifth amendment on almost every question. Federal authorities said that Battaglia, by heading the Chicago underworld, was one of the men who also controlled organized crime in Kansas City through a Cosa Nostra decree. The FBI knew that Battaglia must’ve been at least consulted regarding the murder of Palma. After the questioning, Battaglia was released and returned to Chicago the very next day.



Battaglia in Kansas City




Battaglia’s biggest problems began with two of his associates, Rocco Pranno and Joe Amabile. All began when reports began to circulate that village officials and gangsters were shaking down companies for building permits and inspections in Northlake. Back in 1962, William Riley had an idea to stuff a bunch of one bedroom apartments into a two story building that looked like a motel. Then he built 30 or 40 of these around a common swimming pool and then sold the individual buildings to investors that were looking for rental property. Riley named his project The King Arthur Apartments in Northlake. Riley sent his lawyer to meet Northlake Mayor Henry Neri and Alderman Wayne Seidler about getting the necessary zoning changes. Neri tried to extort money from Riley by telling his lawyer that everything is going to cost him around $70,000. So the Outfit guys who were in charge in Northlake Nick Palermo and Joe Amabile met with Mayor Neri and told him that they are taking over the squeeze on Riley and that they could get him $40,000 for his people. Neri asked them for $10,000 good faith money to be delivered before the next Zoning board hearing. But since Battaglia’s partner Rocco Pranno was still the main guy in Northlake he wanted his own cut from every extortion deal that occurred in that area.


The Mayor of Melrose Park Henry Neri


But Pranno was swindled by his associates in the mob, because Battaglia’s underling Amabile had another selfish agenda by not informing Pranno on the deal. So Pranno got wind of the operation and confronted Neri at Alderman Seidler’s house. “You’re not gonna cut me out of this King Arthur deal coming up.” said Pranno. “I want a piece of the action. You cut me out of it and I’ll kill you.”. “I don’t need you anymore.” replied Neri. “Amabile is running the deal and Battaglia is backing him up. You’re all through in Northlake.” Pranno became very angry at Amabile but he chose to keep quiet.



Rocco Pranno

So now Riley paid the extortion money and became partner with Amabile. So he got his permits in Northlake and the apartments were selling like hotcakes. Riley’s projects were doing so good that he decided to make a mistake. He asked one of his long time employees named Dave Evans to be the construction supervisor on the projects. He told Evans to start lining up subcontractors, but to keep the job secret from Amabile. Riley said he can’t make a profit if the boys from Melrose Park are on it. But Riley didn’t know that Evans was also a close friend to Amabile and he spilled the beans. So Riley was summoned to Nick Palermo’s office. At the office Amabile told Riley that they knew where his mother lives and that he will be walking with a candy cane of he doesn’t give them the plumbing contract. Riley had no other choice but to agree. One day Amabile decided to visit Pranno’s D’or supper club in Stone Park and met with Pranno and a buddy of his named Mike DiVito. Divito, who was a sewer contractor by trade, asked if there was any work for him in the Riley projects. Amabile told him “yes”, but informed him that they can’t have DiVito’s name on the contract since he was a known Outfit associate. Pranno and Divito thought about it and together they pick a guy named Henry LaKey as a front man. LaKey had worked as a foreman in sewer construction, so he could talk the talk. More importantly he had a reasonably clean record. So now everybody was making money until one day Amabile decided to make a mistake. Amabile asked LaKey to do him a favour and to gravel some roads at a farm in Pingree Grove. LaKey didn’t know at the time that this was Battaglia’s horse farm. So Amabile took LaKey to the farm and introduced him to Battaglia and also told him that this was the main guy. When Pranno heard about LaKey’s presence at the farm, he went ballistic. Pranno immediately summoned Amabile and LaKey and tried to slap LaKey but Amabile stops him. Amabile said “I took him and the old man says he’s OK”. Pranno was right to be angry because Amabile had taken a low level associate to see the boss. And if you think about it, in this case Battaglia may have been the more naïve person by letting someone who he never knew before to talk business directly with him. So somewhere down the road the business started to fall apart because of greed and now the low level associates such as Evans, LaKey and DiVito knew that they were expendable and could get very easily killed. So when the mobsters like Pranno started loosing money, LaKey realized that he was in hot water and decided to go to Florida.


Pranno was also a shrewd mobster so he decided that he wanted out of the business. He just wanted his money back so he could wash his hands from the whole thing, and when it blows up, he can put all the blame on Amabile. Pranno told Amabile to find LaKey so he can get his money back, but after several days of no results Pranno again informed Amabile that they are going to have a sit down at the farm to see the old man. So they went out to Pingree Grove but this time Rocco made a mistake by bringing Mike DiVito as a witness. Eventually Pranno and Amabile ended up in a shouting match that Battaglia had to break up. Pranno accused Amabile for loosing his money and he also blamed him that there was supposed to be $20,000 for Battaglia himself in the next Riley projects. Pranno knew that this wasn’t a big deal, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity to get Amabile in dutch with Battaglia. But the situation backfired on Pranno because Amabile was way too close with the old man and it just convinced Battaglia that Pranno was just a “cry baby”. But Pranno’s real problems began with his indictment on shaking down the International Paper Company. This was considered a violation of the Hobbs Act, which made it a Federal crime to use extortion to interfere with interstate commerce. In March 1966 the government charged Pranno, Mayor Henri Neri, Alderman Wayne Seidler, and Peter Anderson. Mayor Neri was dismissed because his lawyer proved that Pranno had pushed him away him from the deal. With no money trail, the prosecution failed to make their case against the Mayor. The rest had been found guilty, including Pranno who was sentenced to 15 years, Seidler to 5 years and Anderson to 3 years.


With Pranno in jail, Battaglia gave Amabile his job. This was one of Battaglia’s biggest mistakes because Amabile wasn’t taken very seriously by the other top bosses and plus, this decision made Pranno even more angry. While in jail, Pranno was aware that Amabile was getting in trouble with the government. He also knew that Battaglia and the Outfit were doing the same thing to Amabile as they have done to him. The government pressed Pranno to give his inormations and to testify against Amabile for reduced sentence. Even though Pranno hated Amabile very much, he refused to testify and also said that if gets implicated in the matter he’s going to take the 5th amendment. But Pranno still got his revenge by not giving Amabile any information on the government’s plans. Also the other Outfit members considered Amabile only a “stupe”. Accardo and the other bosses felt that Amabile had no future in the Outfit and they couldn’t see where he could’ve fit in. But they decided not to interfere and just watched. According to some sources Amabile was a total screw up and in near future Battaglia would regret their association for the rest of his life.



Joseph Amabile


In May, 1966, Sam Giancana was released from jail and he was not welcomed with opened arms by his peers. At this point, Battaglia was more powerful than Giancana and turned his back on his old friend. In fact, Battaglia publicly stated regarding Giancana’s release that “this is the worst thing that could have happened to us.” Battaglia felt that because of the situation, new laws would be passed which would curtail the Chicago Outfit to greater extent. Battaglia and the other top leaders of the Outfit also felt that Giancana should be thrown again in jail with no possibility to get out. But Ricca had another less painful plan. He advised Giancana to get out of the country and to spread his international enterprises further than they are. So Giancana had an idea to go to Mexico and join Nick Circella, who already had established few lucrative gambling operations. Circella knew that the Outfit was spearheading the effort to place Giancana in Mexico as overseer of the gambling operations, far away from Chicago.


Even with Giancana out of the way, the government didn’t play “soft ball” on Battaglia. Now the government decided to attack one of Battaglia’s most profitable protections and so in May, 1966 Captain Lewis Case from the Oak Park Police Department, who was Battaglia’s lackey, received two choices. Either retire from the department or face the charges from the FBI. Case chose wise and retired. Three months later Battaglia made efforts through his underling Joseph Amabile, to obtain a state liquor licence for the new night club in Melrose Park, which was called Strangers in the Night located at 4701 Lake St. The night club was scheduled to open on August 3, 1966 but the problem was that Amabile wasn’t able to obtain the license from the Illinois Liquor Control Commission or ILCC. Based upon the background information that was provided by the FBI to Howard Cartwright, chairman of the ILCC, every possible licensee applicants had been rejected. For more than four months the club, a concrete block structure, stood empty. In other words, Battaglia's quarter of a million dollars sat tied up in a pile of building materials instead of making a profit. The only licence that Amabile received was the permit for the place to operate as a dry night club, probably the only one in the entire town. So now Battaglia told Amabile to try and sell the club for $250,000 so they can recoup the previous expenses. There have been no offers and the building remained abandoned. This was a sign that the walls were slowly closing in on the Outfit’s boss.


By the end of 1966, the FBI also launched an investigation on all of Battaglia’s clubs and gambling joints in the Melrose Park area. As I previously pointed out, these clubs were the nucleus of all of Battaglia’s illegal and legal operations in that area and the FBI knew this. So the feds again confidentially furnished informations to the chairman of the ILCC regarding recent violations that occurred at two of Battaglia’s clubs, including the Charm Club and Mary Ann’s Tavern. Both club owners were subsequently given citations and were notified to appear at a hearing to show cause on why their state liquor license should not be suspended or revoked. After this decision, in November 1966, Battaglia was seen twice conferring with his liquor licensee John Zito, at Mary Ann’s, concerning the prospects of more trouble with his Melrose Park joints. During the investigation, the FBI also contacted the Mayor of Melrose Park Chester Carson but he declined to cooperate because he feared of retaliation against himself and his family. Another problem that occurred for Battaglia during the investigation was the dumping of old rusted cars and trucks and miscellaneous farm equipment on his farm in Pingree Grove without displaying proper state license plates. This information was disseminated by the local authorities who apparently were reluctant to act until the Chicago Tribune exposed the situation with a headline article. Battaglia’s farm was referred to as “a cancer on the landscape”. So after that Kane County zoning officials and the Illinois State Police were dispatched and began a crackdown on the use of all vehicles on the farm to ensure that Battaglia cleaned up the place and complied with the law.


In late December, 1966, the attorneys that represented the Strangers in the Night club filed a motion in the Circuit Court of Cook County before a judge who was more friendly to their cause. However this attempt was prevented. License revocation hearings were held on January 3, 1967, regarding the Mary Ann’s Tavern and the Charm Club. Mayor Chester Carson and Police Captain Anthony Iosco were subpoenaed and they testified. The attorneys for the clubs were caught in surprise when by a new ILCC citation charging the club with having a convicted gambler Rocco Salvatore as a corporate officer that was additional grounds for revocation. It was also determined that the Esquire Club in Melrose Park, which was another of Battaglia’s vice dens, was in violation of the state liquor laws. So eventually, the ILCC subsequently revoked the liquor licenses of the three clubs. In the meantime, the FBI placed more pressure on Battaglia’s gambling operations. On January 13, 1967, the feds raided one of Battaglia’s gambling spots at 2111 West Lake, Melrose Park. The raiding party smashed through the heavily barricaded rear and front doors simultaneously to gain entry to the first floor premises. Eleven persons were arrested, including William Del Percio, Elmer Del Percio, Gerald Nargie and Angel Pacheco, all of whom are part of the Sam Battaglia group. Elmer Del Percio was charged as the gambling keeper. The same day, another raiding party smashed through the front door of the Square Deal Auto Wreckers, which was owned by Joe Dom Scaccia. The feds made an entry to the gambling room which was located in the center of the structure, and revealed various gambling equipment, including plush gambling den with after hours bar, along with dozens of decks of playing cards, card table, records of horse race bets, scratch sheets and even slot machines. Scaccia was charged as the gambling keeper. The records that were seized disclosed that this joint operated as a bookmaking operation during the day. On the early morning of January 16, 1967, Richard Derrico, one of Battaglia’s key operators, was observed by the FBI while entering a gambling spot at 2413 West Lake Street. The feds immediately entered the gambling room by smashing through two front doors, one barricaded with two reinforcement bars, revealing professional casino type setup in the back game room, including kidney shaped poker table with elevated platform for dealer, smaller poker table, as well as professional cloth covers for tables. Derrico was arrested and was charged as gambling keeper. Confiscated were numerous horse race bet slips recovered from Derrico’s bag, as well as numerous other sport betting slips, scratch sheets, ledger sheets used for football betting, sports parlay cards and numerous decks of cards and dice, all valued at $2,000. Derrico admitted to the feds that some small type of gambling activities occurred at the place but denied any large scale casino type operations. The feds also found records with the names of many hoodlums that belonged to the Sam Battaglia group.

These raids were devastating for Battaglia and his gambling operations, so now the old man became very paranoid and also thought that someone might be talking to the feds. Battaglia has gathered opinions from all of his operators and police contacts to give him any informations on specific suspicious activities on certain associates so he cam make an example of. On February 2, 1967, 24 year old Charles Michelotti, who was one of Battaglia’s handbook operators in Melrose Park, was shot straight in the heart by an Outfit assassin. After the murder, according to witnesses the Melrose Park police issued a warrant for the arrest of Guy Cervone in connection with the shooting. As additional info, Michelotti’s slaying was the 1,000th gangland murder in Chicago since the 1920’s. But even with Battaglia’s precautions, the feds already planned their attack over his empire.


During this period, FBI agent John Dallman commenced a joint operation between the FBI and IRS, on Battaglia and Joe Amabile. The investigation centred around the conspiracy to extort more than $48,000 from William Riley during the construction of the King Arthur Apartments in Northlake, Illinois. Now the feds placed Battaglia on a 24/7 surveillance. Agents of the Internal Revenue Service's intelligence division had his home under surveillance from a church belfry which was located few blocks from his Oak Park home. They knew when he left home each morning, and which one of his drivers was at the wheel of the car or station wagon that called for him. Battaglia would have been just as surprised if he had opened the window of the car and looked overhead as his car sped along the toll road. He would have seen a helicopter overhead. He might even have seen the IRS agent, clad in electrically heated clothing, but cold nevertheless in the 40-below temperature 1,000 feet overhead, leaning out the helicopter door. The agent in the sky was in radio communication with the helicopter pilot who was snug and warm in his compartment, and with IRS agents in cars on the toll road. They were following Battaglia's car as closely as they could to the oasis where he and his top lieutenants held their after-midnight meetings, which were never held twice in a row in the same oasis. Battaglia should have paid closer attention to the workmen with lunch buckets who descended on the oasis where he held his top-level conferences. Of course, a toll road oasis at 2:30 or 3 a.m. was a busy place. Battaglia wasn’t expected to notice that the lunch buckets which were aimed at his table contained hidden cameras.


In February, 1967 the feds served a subpoena to William Riley because he hadn’t been completely honest when he filled out his tax returns. So now Riley was stuck between the mob and the government sp he had only one way out of the situation by agreeing to testify against the gangsters. Riley confessed everything and so they put him into protective custody. The feds also got lucky when two other witnesses agreed to testify, including Mike DiVito, who was the main witness against Battaglia and Henry LaKey, who was the president of Carlson Construction Company. DiVito’s and LaKey’s recollections would end up being the evidence that tied Battaglia to the conspiracy. On February 16, Ed Hanrahan the United States attorney in Chicago was bringing in the indictment at 2 p.m. and he told his agents “Find Battaglia and if you let him get away, it'll be your funeral.” The feds had to be very careful because they knew that Battaglia was one of those old time “Apalachin meeting” bosses, meaning if he catches a sight of them he’ll start running and they all are going to be involved in a high speed chase.



William Riley


Mike DiVito


So on that same day, Battaglia and his driver Joe Rocco were on their way to his farm in Pingree Grove. Battaglia was not surprised, however, when he stopped at a roadside telephone on the way to his 400-acre farm and called a lookout he had at 25th Avenue and Lake Street in Melrose Park and was told he was being followed by a strange car. This time it was the IRS agents' turn to be surprised. Of the 11 cars each containing two agents that were tailing Battaglia, all avoided the intersection in Melrose Park except one car containing agents not familiar with the case. Someone had forgotten to tell them Battaglia had a lookout there. Joe Rocco, Battaglia's driver, took evasive action. The agents didn't know it until later, but under the hood of the Ford station wagon Joe drove with such skill was a souped-up Thunderbird engine. Up one street and down another he sped, through one suburb after another. The agent in the IRS lead car had picked up police cars from Schiller Park, Melrose Park, and Northlake. He was speeding along North Avenue at 90 miles an hour but the Northlake police car was gaining on him. Battaglia and his driver sped through a toll plaza near Rockford without stopping to pay the toll. Four cars in radio communication were right on his tail and they sped through at 80 miles an hour speed without stopping. The gangsters started playing games with the agents by cutting thru to the opposite lanes at emergency crossings and heading the opposite direction. As they all went south they passed other state police cars, notified by the toll plaza, which were heading north. Battaglia was finally tired of the game and his driver left the toll road and drove sedately into Marengo, where the agents telephoned Hanrahan, learned the indictment had been returned, and put Sam Battaglia in handcuffs. Newspaper stories of Battaglia's indictment and arrest said merely that he was apprehended in Marengo by federal agents after a high speed chase on the toll road.


On February 23, 1967, Sam Battaglia, Joseph Amabile, Nick Palermo, Dave Evans, Mayor Henri Neri, Alderman Leo Shababy and Alderman Joseph Drozd were taken to the Federal District Court on conspiracy charges and they all pleaded innocent. Neri, Shababy, Drozd, Amabile and Palermo were named in the first indictment on charges of extorting $60,500 from the Riley Management Company. This trial was set for May 1st, 1967. Battaglia, Amabile and Evans were named on the second indictment on charges for conspiracy to extort $48,500 again from the Riley Company. This case was set for trail on April 17, 1967. One week prior to the trial, the Outfit’s fixer Gus Alex obtained a list of the jurors in the Battaglia case. Battaglia’s personal associates Phil Alderisio and Charles Nicoletti told Alex to investigate the background of all of the jurors. According to FBI reports, with the help of Battaglia’s old enforcer Lenny Patrick, Alex managed to make a contact with police officer Ronald O’Hara, who was conducting the background investigations of the witnesses. So O’Hara allegedly approached a female juror who agreed to vote not guilty. The FBI also received a information that their witnesses might’ve been in trouble, so they relocated them to the Owl Motel in room 205 under heavy guard. Also Jack Walsh, who was the special agent for the Internal Revenue Service, and his wife began receiving calls at home. The voice on the phone would describe in detail the clothing Walsh's children wore to school that day. Walsh approached some of the Outfit’s higher ups about it, and a meeting was arranged with the defendant so prosecutors could inform Battaglia of what was happening on the outside. So Battaglia told the prosecutors “Tell the kid he doesn't have to worry any more. It won't happen again” and Walsh never got another call.


During the trail, Battaglia, Amabile and Evans were prosecuted by two very good assistant attorneys Lawrence Morrissey and Joseph Lamendella. The two prosecutors brought their witnesses one by one. Mike DiVito and Henry LaKey recounted their meetings with the boss himself and told the prosecution about their shady deals and in the end William Riley have told the whole story. Battaglia had no worries because he thought that he had a fixed jury and was going to be released of all charges, but he was wrong. The female juror, who agreed to vote not guilty, became quite concerned about her safety, not from the mob but from the government, so she decided to vote guilty. It was noted that only one juror’s ballot was taken and it was unanimous for guilty as charged. In the eyes of Alderisio and Nicoletti, Alex was the one who bungled the job so he made smart decision to take a short vacation to Florida. So on May9, 1967 the returned a verdict and found all subject guilty as charged on conspiracy to violate the Federal Hobs Act extortion statute. The verdict crashed Battaglia and he couldn’t believe his ears. On top of that, the Federal Judge Julius Hoffman refused a motion of all defendants to be admitted to bond and placed them in custody of the US Marshall until the sentencing.


On May 29, 1967, Sam Battaglia was sentenced to 15 years in jail and was also fined $10,000. His associate Joseph Amabile also received 15 years and a fine of $10,000. Dave Evans received 10 years in jail and was fined $5,000. The three defendants were also ordered to pay $6,000 in costs for the three week trial. Judge Hoffman also denied the motion for an appeal bond because the three key witnesses and their families were threatened by the Outfit. In the end Judge Hoffman stated “This is one of the most serious cases in the federal crime courts. It would be very dangerous for the community, based on the evidence, to have any of the defendants admitted to bail. I would be derelict in my responsibility if I admitted them to bail. I find each one of the defendants to be dangerous. I cannot assume the responsibility of letting these defendants go about threatening people with baseball bats.” After that the judge ordered for the defendants to begin their sentences immediately.


Battaglia was taken to the Cook County jail to serve time. But he wasn’t alone because in the same jail other mobsters like Rocco Pranno, Marshall Caifano and Joseph Amabile also served time. They all have been given the “royal treatment” because of their high positions within the Chicago Outfit. They received daily expensive red wines, sea food, Cuban cigars and expensive clothes. Battaglia was very often visited by his brothers Joseph and Anthony, Rocco Salvatore and Joe Rocco. In jail, Battaglia became very close friend with his “barn boss” who was a convicted murderer named Martin Tajra. The jail was overcrowded so Battaglia shared the same prison cell with Tajra.


While in jail, Battaglia didn’t relinquish his power as boss of the Chicago Outfit because he still had very important people, like Alderisio, Nicoletti and Salvatore, on the streets of Chicago. But he made one egoistic mistake by placing his brother Joseph as his voice and ear on the street. In fact, Battaglia wanted for his brother to take the position as acting boss which was unacceptable for the members of the Outfit because Joseph had no experience as the other mob bosses within the organization. In reality, the next people in line for the boss position were Alderisio and finally Jack Cerone, the man who always dreamed for the top spot. So to avoid any further conflicts, Battaglia made a deal that his brother would be his overseer only of the Melrose Park rackets. Joseph Battaglia, the bow-legged brother, became also the main fixer in the Melrose Park area because of his previous political connections. He was always backed by Nicoletti, who in reality was the real boss of Melrose Park, and the up and coming mobster Louis Eboli and together they controlled the Melrose Park politics and rackets. Joseph held meetings on daily basis at a tavern which was near the Melrose Park City Hall with suburban officials and his Outfit associates from his brother’s old crew, such as Nicoletti, Eboli, Joe Rocco, Tony Padavonia and Patsy Clementi. From there they masterminded the day to day affairs with permissions from Sam Battaglia’s headquarters which was now located in the Cook County jail. Their main messenger was an attorney by the name of Barney Bruno who was the courier that carried instructions and messages to Battaglia and the other way around. Since Amabile was sent to prison, Eboli took the position as supervisor in Stone Park and Northlake. As for Joe’s and Sam’s baby brother Anthony, he operated his own club in Cicero known as the Silver Spur Lounge. The joint was a known hangout for the police and the underworld figures.


But the problem was that Joe Battaglia wasn’t made from the same cloth as his brother Sam. Joe was a nervous wreck, tense and very fearful of the increasing pressure from the government because his brother’s 15 year sentence was foremost in his mind. According to FBI surveillances, Joe was seen frequently visiting the Melrose Park City Hall but officials there have explained that Battaglia’s visits were with civic conscience. In other words, Joe Battaglia acted like he was the “Mayor” of Melrose Park by constantly arranging repairments of street lighting, downed street signs, and other public works failures. Joe also worked as a part time salesman in the curio bazaar, where he and his wife Florence had operated in Addison and also in Melrose Park. One of Joe’s personal rackets was the extortion of taxicab companies in the Melrose Park area. Once, his target was the Central Cab Company, which was a firm in business in the western suburb for 21 years. When the company refused to pay, seven windshields on cabs of the firm have been smashed and a fire destroyed the company’s offices. Now if you look at Joe’s resume, he acted like an old time “Sicilian Mafia Don” with a shady background, a legitimate job and also cared for the society around him. But the problem was that those times were long gone and were finished forever.



Joseph Battaglia


While in the Cook County jail, the Cook County Sheriff Joseph Woods was informed that Sam Battaglia was still conducting business with his other jailed inmates who were members of the Chicago Outfit. Wood experienced difficulty in keeping these prisoners separated because the institution was overcrowded. Battaglia even tried to win an appeal bond but he was denied by the United States Supreme court. And so on October 6, 1967, Battaglia was moved to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Before he left the Cook County jail, it was learned that the state’s attorney’s office was investigating an allegation that Battaglia was permitted to leave $600 on the account of his barn boss Martin Tajra. Warden Jack Johnson denied that Battaglia left any money for Tajra, adding one inmate cannot transfer funds to another inmate’s account nor can he leave money for another inmate when he leaves the institution. Anyway, as a result of the transfer, Battaglia was confined in the same general area as Richard Speck, a convicted serial killer who murdered eight student nurses in Chicago. This was a very disturbing situation for Battaglia because now he was surrounded by serial killers instead of his Outfit associates.


In the next few years, the Battaglia family will make more newspaper headlines, than Sam Giancana ever did in his life time. If you think about it Giancana’s travel to Mexico was a very smart move made by the Outfit, because the everyday headlines with his name on it stopped right there. Maybe Battaglia should’ve done the same thing before he was jailed, because now the newspaper men were all over his associates and family relatives. Plus, Battaglia’s family wasn’t your everyday American family, which created another media circus around the Outfit.


Back in 1966, Battaglia’s son Sam Jr. was arrested by the feds on charges of violating the selective service act or in plain English he was brought up on draft dodging charges. Sam Jr. was arrested in his home at 7321 Fullerton Avenue in Elmwood Park, as he prepared to leave home to make his rounds as a collector of coins deposited in amusement and vending machines which were controlled by the Chicago Outfit. Junior’s mistake was he failed to notify the draft board that he had been divorced bi his wife back in November, 1964. By failing to notify the draft board of his change in marital status, Junior had retained his 3-A classification, which is granted only to married men with children. Sam Jr. also applied for marriage license to Kari DeOrio two days after he received a notice asking about his marital status. Sam Jr. was convicted and was sentenced to four years in jail. On December 27, 1967, Sam Jr. and his father’s lawyer Maurice Walsh appeared in the federal District court on motions to reduce his prison term or get a new trial on the charges. The judge advised Sam Jr. to look into a federal statute which enables prisoners to obtain parole and possible elimination of any record by joining the armed forces. Junior’s lawyer said that he was waiting for answers to letters that Sam Jr. wrote to try to get the armed forces to change its mind. His lawyer also added that the navy, air force and marines, all have turned down Sam Jr. on grounds that he had two small children and also had a criminal case pending. Then the judge continued the hearing motions to reduce the sentence to January 15, 1968. On February 7, 1968, Sam Jr. four year prison term was reduced to two years.



Sam Battaglia Jr.


Meanwhile the same year, his father Sam Sr. had two attempts to reduce his prison term or get out. Battaglia lost two rounds in court in his attempt to get out of the Leavenworth federa1 prison. The United States court of appeals turned down his motion for a review by the entire court of his conviction on May 19, 1967, of conspiracy to extort.


Things got worst when Joseph Battaglia’s wife Florence was arrested on September 15, 1969 for stealing kitchen curtains from the Penney store in the Yorktown shopping center. But the charges were dropped on a legal technicality when Mrs. Battaglia's attorney, George Guerine, contended the complaint against Mrs. Battalglia was incorrect because it said the theft occurred in the Penney department store. He maintained there was no legal corporation known as Penney department store but there was a corporation known as J. C. Penney, Inc. Magistrate Jack Parish upheld Guerine's motion and discharged the case. This was again a shameful show up for Battaglia’s name in Chicago’s newspapers.


On January 2, 1970, the two-year prison sentence of Sam Jr., was lifted by Judge James Parsons and placed the young Battaglia on three years probation, instead. The judge ordered Sam Jr., as conditions of the probation, that he must submit to his draft board for induction, would order the draft board to accept him, and if the board refused, Sam Jr. must once each month during his 36 months probation attempt to enlist with some branch of the armed forces. This was a big relief for the Battaglia’s because only one family member, meaning Sam Sr., remained in jail.


When thing cooled off, another Battaglia family member again brought their name on the headlines. This time it was Sam senior’s younger brother Anthony. This time it wasn’t Anthony’s fault but the incident occurred at his club in Cicero where he conducted his business. In June, 1970, three of Cicero’s off duty officers were badly battered with a baseball bats when they paused for fellowship in Anthony’s Silver Spur Lounge. At the time, two assailants were arrested and a third one escaped. In the next four months, there was a manhunt for the fugitive, Billy T. Ivy, a lad on federal probation for counterfeiting, and every time they mentioned the fugitive they also mention Anthony’s place and his imprisoned brother and Outfit boss Sam Battaglia.


Eventually the pressure got to some of the members of the Battaglia family, especially to Sam’s son Sam Jr. and his mother Angela. Then, a big tragedy struck the Battaglia’s. On August 7, 1971, 27 year old Sam Jr. Battaglia died of a heart attack at his home. Two days later on August 9, his mother and Sam senior’s wife Angela also died of a heart attack probably because she couldn’t take the death of her son and all of the publicity made by her imprisoned husband. Two days later, Sam Sr. came home from prison to attend the wake for his wife and son at the stately and porticoed Montclair Funeral Home, at 6901 W. Belmont Av. The funeral parlor was ringed with unmarked police cars. The intelligence detectives who manned them weren't especially subtle. As the people walked down Belmont, they could hear the two-way radios crackling with the voice of the police dispatcher. If there were police inside, they weren't obvious. Sam was brought in a wheel chair, accompanied by a prison guard and a male nurse. He was so broken and destroyed by the deaths, that many people at the funeral weren’t able to recognize him. Among the nearly 100 persons who were still at the wake at 10:30 p.m., were the full range of young men and women in mod dress to the grandmotherly types. As they milled and chatted, the common questions were: "Where's Sam? Has he been here?" "Is that Sam?" a girl in her twenties asked her escort. She was pointing to a mortuary staff member. A Chicago Tribune photographer entered the visitation room and made a photograph of several onlookers. Hearing the click of his shutter, a dozen of the men converged on him from three sides. The mourners were yelling “Smash his Camera". "Smash his camera, take his film," screamed one man. "Call the police" shouted another. After a few moments discussion, during which the photographer explained that he would not give up his film unless the police were called, the angry men gave up their demand. "That's what killed them!" screamed one middle aged mourner, "All this damn publicity."


Now this is the point of the story where I want to remind my readers about all of the karma that Sam Battaglia created for himself and also brought it upon his own family members. Sam thought that he paid the piper by going to prison for the rest of his life, but he was wrong. The “cosmic energy” that watched his terrible sins for half a century wasn’t satisfied only with his life sentence, so it took the lives of his most beloved ones. Don’t get me wrong, karma is not a magical energy that surrounds us all the time, but it’s a “domino effect” of our actions in our own lives and sometimes that positive or negative effect can be brought back like a boomerang upon us or our loved ones. Battaglia very well understood this, but it was too late. In fact, he made the same mistake as his previous boss Sam Giancana, but the difference was that Giancana with the help of big publicity destroyed the Chicago Outfit and Battaglia destroyed his own blood family.


Some of Battaglia’s old associates like Charles Nicoletti felt very bad for their former boss. So to show his respect and the cheer up his broken boss, Nicoletti managed to find one of the key witnesses that were responsible for Battaglia’s imprisonment in the extortion case. After the trial, key witnesses William Riley and Mike DiVito were given new identities and relocated to other parts of the country. Henry LaKey refused to be relocated and only changed his name to Henry Rufo and moved to Lombard, Illinois. So with the help of his corrupt police contacts, Nicoletti knew about LaKeys’s whereabouts and decided to make a move. On December 15, 1971 the body of LaKey was found in the trunk of a stolen car in Freeport, Illinois. He was viciously beaten and showed signs of knife wounds, cigarette burns and other various signs of torture. A rope was still fastened around his neck, which apparently had been used to suspend his body throughout the torture. There was no known publicity of LaKey’s killing in the Chicago news media. The murder was never solved, but it was obvious that it was the work of the Chicago Outfit and Nicoletti’s torture techniques as a sign of respect for his boss Sam Battaglia.




Charles Nicoletti


By this time Battaglia was slowly loosing his grip over the Melrose Park area. His top man Phil Alderisio back in January 30, 1970, was sentenced to 5 years in jail on bank violation charges and 2 more years for firearms violation and on September 25, 1971 Alderisio died from an alleged heart attack at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois at the age of 59. So Battaglia’s close associates from the old days that remained on the streets of Chicago were his brother Joseph, Joe Rocco and Charles Nicoletti. In 1972, the Mayor of Melrose Park Jake LaSpisa died and the position remained vacant. One of Joe Battaglia’s candidates Lou Nikolas had hoped to become the mayor so much and was so certain he would get the job he started bragging to others that he was backed by the Chicago Outfit. Nikolas was involved with Joseph Battaglia and Nicoletti in owning several condominiums Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Joseph Battaglia heard about this bragging from a waiter at a restaurant on Rush Street and he became enraged, called Nikolas in and told him that not only was he not going to be mayor but that he had to resign his job as a trustee. Also Babe Serpico, who was another of Nicoletti’s candidates, got into trouble with the Outfit and Nicoletti washed his hands of Serpico refusing to intercede. So the new acting Mayor of Melrose Park was August Taddeo. Taddeo, who was an attorney in charge of Melrose Park’s Department of Public aid, was also the godson of up and coming Outfit boss from the Cicero area Joseph Aiuppa. Aiuppa and Nicoletti arranged for Taddeo to become the Mayor after the death of the previous one. Till now Nicoletti and Joseph Battaglia were in charge of Melrose Park, but since Taddeo became the mayor, Aiuppa took over the reigns as boss of that same area. Aiuppa was also backed by his superior Tony Accardo and that’s how Sam Battaglia has lost his old territory.

So with the murder of one of the witnesses that destroyed his life and the relinquishment of his old territory, Battaglia’s tenure as mob boss was very unpleasant experience which lasted for only about a year. In the years that followed, almost every top mobster in Chicago, including everyone who sat in the boss’s chair, was convicted and jailed, with the exception of Tony Accardo. Now because of all the pressure, pain and suffering, in 1973 Sam Battaglia was diagnosed with stomach and liver cancer while in prison. So Battaglia was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Over there the doctors performed an exploratory surgery and informed him that he had only few days to live. So after six years imprisonment, the federal government showed mercy to Sam Battaglia, by placing him on parole and released him to die at home. In reality, Battaglia’s old friend and associate Irwin Weiner paid few checks of $5,000 to some government officials for Battaglia’s early release. So on August 29, 1973, Battaglia was carried on a stretcher from a plane that carried him to the Midway Airport in Chicago from the Medical Center in Springfield. Battaglia had a patsy gray complexion that may have been from the six years in a prison cell, but it was also an evidence of the death sentence that he was under.



Battaglia on stretcher at the airport



His son Richard was the only family member who waited for more than an hour for the arrival of the plane. When Battaglia was carried out on the stretcher, Richard immediately rushed up and cupped his hands to shield his father’s face from the hot sun. Suddenly a group of photographers moved in on the stretcher-borne Outfit boss, but Richard warned them “Better get out of here right now!” and so the photographers retreated. Battaglia slowly turned his head and one of the photographers heard him as he whispered to his son “Let them be.” Richard accompanied his father into a waiting ambulance which took him to St. Anne’s hospital. Nine days later, on September 7, 1973, 64 year old Salvatore “Sam” Battaglia died of cancer at the same hospital. His son Richard and the rest of his family were beside his bed when he died. Battaglia was buried at the Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery.



Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery


Sam Battaglia’s tomb




With the death of Sam Battaglia, his family members and relatives thought that the everyday pressure and bad luck were finished forever, but again they thought wrong. On April 29, 1975, Battaglia’s baby brother 61 year old Anthony Battaglia was shot and killed as he got out of his car in the driveway of his suburban LaGrange Park residence. Police ruled out robbery as a motive because Anthony’s wallet containing $280 was found near his body. LaGrange Police Chief John Savage said Anthony was killed by a single shot to his neck, fired from a medium caliber pistol and a silencer may have been used in the killing. So Battaglia’s legacy again dressed his own family members in black clothes. No one knew why such a low rank associate like Anthony Battaglia was killed in such a professional style. Maybe Anthony knew something big, maybe he required something too big or stole something from Battaglia’s former associates in the Outfit or maybe he made some other mistake that we will never know of. As most of the gang land murders during that era, Anthony Battaglia’s slaying also remains unsolved.


Still to his family, Sam was remembered as the father who came home every night to have dinner and on Friday nights he was the dad who piled through the front door of his house with all his buddies in tow to partake in one of his mother's multi-course feasts. The men would sit around the big round basement table after dinner smoking cigars and talking. They still miss him even today, especially his son Richard. Richard made a success in the food service industry and also received three sons, Sam, Anthony and Jonathan “Bates” Battaglia. Richard divorced his wife Sandra during the early 1980’s and his three sons would spend the school year and hockey season in the Chicago area with their mom. Once school was out, they headed to Florida where Richard had become a successful restaurateur. Neither parent told the Battaglia boys much about their grandfather. They usually told them that he was one of the nicest men, and that that's the way a lot of people knew him. But the kids around Chicago knew otherwise and they talked, as kids do. Richard’s greatest success was his son Jonathan. Jonathan, or Bates as he was called, became a professional hockey player. Bates played on the three-time NCAA National Championship Lake Superior State University Lakers from 1994–1997. Then in 1999 Bates made his NHL debut with the Carolina Hurricanes in their inaugural season. Bates established himself as a NHL regular with the Hurricanes, enjoying his most successful period as a third of the BBC line during their 2001–2002 Stanley Cup run. During the 2004 NHL lockout, Bates joined his younger brother Anthony on the Mississippi Sea Wolves of the ECHL for the 2004–05 season on February 21, 2005. Also Bates and his brother Anthony competed in season 22 of The Amazing Race and won the Amazing Race 22 title and the one million dollar grand prize over newlyweds of Max & Katie. Bate’s father Richard encouraged his son to put his money in real estate. So the hockey player owned two condominiums, a beach house, a house, a bar and a building in Raleigh's restaurant district that he and his dad planned to transform into an upscale Italian eatery.



Bates Battaglia


In Italian the name “Battaglia” means “battle” or “fight”, so Richard Battaglia, and his three sons fought their way out of the big shadow which was cast by the names of their ancestors like Sam “Teets” Battaglia. In history and even today, many people changed their names because of the evil deeds their ancestors had made in the past, but not the Battaglias. They stood proud. If you think about it, in the past Sam Battaglia believed in his son Richard and made everything in his power to help him succeed and luckily for him that was the only smart thing that he ever did during his life time that changed the course of his family and later purified his name. This means that when you are patient and kind, it tends to happen that you are not so easily ruffled by others, you don’t hold grudges, people like you and thus your experiences tends to be happier. In some ancient texts, there is mention of possibility of rebirth even in the extremely cold hells for the extremely cold-hearted and cruel, so let us mindfully listen to our hearts, and not foolishly justify any of our destructive deeds and non-constructive inaction. Let us be proactive instruments of goodness instead.


This article is completed from various infos from FBI files, newspaper reports, books, articles and personal opinions.

Toodoped u have a gift my friend.

Thanks F.

awesome toodoped! I'd have never thought someone could find that much information on this guy. Will read it asap!

Nice Work toodoped

Thanks guys, i really appreciate it

Nice work indeed, took me a couple of days to read it but was definitely worth my while..

Awesome piece Toodoped thoroughly enjoyed it sir..it was like a mini novel much appreciated

Thanks guys im glad that you liked it. This is the biggest and longest article that i've ever wrote so im sorry if there were any grammar or spelling mistakes because i didnt had the nerves to check it for more than one time

I also want to add that my next article is going to be on Gus Alex and also have two more articles in the works on Sam Hunt and the Outfit's involvment in the unions.

For those who havent read my previous articles, here they are:

Ross Prio
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...9897#Post849897

Claude Maddox
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...6400#Post846400

Charles Nicoletti
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...1295#Post841295

Lenny Patrick
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...3753#Post833753

Hyman Larner
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...9657#Post809657

The Outfit's Greates Heists
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...0309#Post820309

The Arizona Mob
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...6494#Post816494

The Beginning of Chicago's Organized Crime
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...8087#Post808087

Nah the spelling and grammar looked spot on to me pal...Thanks again for the articles, Im a huge fan of the Nicoletti and Prio articles didn't know much about them...If I can make a request which im sure you get all the time but possibly in the future can you do an article on either Joey Aiuppa or Jackie Cerone? They were in power obviously during a very interesting time in Outfit history, but would like to know more about how they started...Just my two cents, appreciate the articles sir, keep up the great work

Will do and thanks again.

Good stuff, Todoped. Always enjoy the historical stories and background info relative to the players in the Outfit.

I also enjoy the photographs. I have, on occasion, surreptitously borrowed a few.

Thanks Gary, I really appreciate your comment. Also you can borrow all the pictures you want because I don't own them

its good to hear your next Article is on Gus Alex make sure you do Jackie Cerone soon as well bro

Thanks for another detailed and well researched article Toodoped.

You're welcome Trapper. Cheers

Great article todoped, I like melrose park history keep it coming. Thanks

You're welcome JoeSlim. Yeah Melrose Park provided some very interesting crime figures in the past. One of the first big Italian criminals was Joe Montana, who is said to have controlled a bootlegging ring with almost 100 stills in the area during the 1920's. Montana was a close associate of the Genna crime family.

What's going on in today's Melrose Park crew, is there one and if so who is involved??

Thanks again

Mostly been absorbed by the Cicero crew. Aiuppa moved into the territory and shared it with Chuck Nicoletti when Battaglia went to jail. Eventually, Aiuppa's right hand man, Carlisi, was rewarded with the territory and his own crew, which more or less lasted for 15 or so years until it was decimated by indictments. After that, the territory was reclaimed by Cicero.

Thanks snakes