We all know that families such as Cleveland, Florida, New Orleans, Buffalino, Rochester etc etc. are either completely defunct or headed that way. My question is... What do the last few made guys left actually do? Is there still a fair amount of discipline handed down to associates? I know that they probably loanshark, do bookmaking, etc... But do they even consider themselves part of a "family" anymore? How recognized are these guys if, say, their interests conflicted with the Genovese or Gambinos? Must be a lonely feeling for some of these guys who are now 70 years old and remember when they were working for a true family and now look around the club and see that they are the last made guys left. Anybody have any insight?

It just depends. Some are still hustling almost up until the day they die. Others are retired and living off their money. Others are basically legitimate.

I think the St. Louis Family (my hometown) is a good example to answer your question. The StL media have portrayed the family as dead and dying, and there have not been any prosecutions or capers in the papers for years.

A while back the FBI reported there were only 5-7 guys still active. It was widely reported that they were involved in book making and loan sharking, and owned legit bars and restaurants, which was their main source of income. I agree with this assessment.

Recently, there have been reports that the St. Louis Family has made more members and has "sub contracted" the hands on criminal work to other ethnic gangs. I find it hard to believe.

Salviardi, a poster on the RD, created the chart below back in 2006. I understand it to be mostly correct, but "true" size and positions within the family are debatable. As you can see, most of these guys are old.

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

CAPTAINS:
Frank Palazzolo(67)
Vincent "Vinny" Cammarata(59)

GUYS UNDER PALAZZOLO:
Phillip "Philly" Palazzolo(60)
Richard Bommarito(63)
Anthony Olivastro(67)
Joseph Panneri(49)

GUYS UNDER CAMMARATA:
James Castellano(61)
Anthony "Tony L" Lopiparo(55)
Anthony "Tony" Tocco(60)
Joseph Tocco(?)
Vincent "Vince" Giordano(?/inactive)
Peter Orlando(?96?/inactive)

SICILIAN CREW:
Benedetto Geremia(68/made)
Angelo Copo(44/made)
1-2 others(not made guys)

EAST ST.LOUIS:
Fernando "Nondo" Bartolotta(55)/Antonio Lopiccolo(58)
Leo Bartolotta(51)
Thomas Consiglio(?)
Robert Trask(40)
Timothy Hinton(44)
1-3 more

ASSOCIATES STILL ALIVE(THAT I KNOW OF):
Peter Tocco(83)
Anthony James Lopiparo Jr.(75/i dont think he was ever made)
Daniel Drago(?)
Leo Pisciotta(?)
Leo Bartolotta(51)
Thomas Consiglio(?)
Timothy Hinton(44)
Robert Trask(40)
(?)Gianino Sr.(?)
(?)Gianino Jr.(?)
I was told they have around 20-30 associates

SIDE NOTES:
Giacomo Parrino is either brother/half brother/cousin to anthony parrino they are close.
Joe Pisciotta is basically retired and is a elder counsel voice in the family.
Vinny Cammarata is either nephew/cousin/cousins son to joe cammarata.
Anthony "Tony L" Lopiparo is related to the late Anthony Lopiparo sr. who died in 1960 i dont know just how yet though.
Anthony James Lopiparo is the son of late Anthony Lopiparo who died in 1960
Anthony Tocco is the son of Peter Tocco who is alive today. Anthony Tocco has a love of Baseball and did umpiring for a hobby in a softball league, he also has a room in his house filled with Cardinal Memorbilia.
Joseph Tocco still holds a union job today.
Vincent Giordano was the nephew of Anthony Giordano and is a made man and alive today. I was told hes under vinny cammarata if hes still active. i believe he is just another voice to weigh in on things and thats it.
Peter Orlando is made and alive but is inactive.
Phil Palazzolo is brother of frank and he also married a parrino relative.
Joseph Panneri is not joe"bull"panneri who died in 96, im guessing though most likely he is a relative named after him.
Benedetto Geremia and Angelo Copo are sicilian born. they are the only two of there small crew made into the st.louis family. There crew is somewhat indepedent of the stl family and have done jobs with russian gangsters in st.louis.
Nondo Bartolotta and antonio Lopiccolo run a small crew together based in East St.louis. From what i gathered Antonio got some "work" over there when Thomas Venezia went away to prison in the early 2000's, then nondo who just got out of prison recently, also is over there running the crew with antonio.
Leo Bartolotta is the brother of Nondo. He held legit jobs until the late 80's were he was seen alot with Nondo. He did some stealing with him to. Leo also gave a false alibi to the court to try and save Nondo.
Thomas Consiglio besides leo is the closest to Nondo of his Associates. Consiglio was Nondo's right hand man alot and was apart of the thief Gang.
Robert Trask and Timothy Hinton were close guys to Nondo. They were close to him before the bust on there Theft Racket.
The Gianino father and son thing. I cant find there first names yet. They are both Associates of the Palazzolo crew. They own Club Buca in st.louis. My sister is actually friends with a palazzolo relative and she has got in free to the club before.
Daniel Drago was an associate and is now currently Involved in St.louis politcis.
antonio lopiccolo is related to pat lopiccolo, how? im working on it
more to come.

Also this is just from research ive gathered,from some sources i know, and from lennert who help alot in this chart.This is most likely not 100% accurate, i dont know. St.louis is a hard place to find dirt on these guys.

I went to school with a female Bartolotta in Marshall. Non-important but she was smoking hot. Ran into her in KC when I was on a B2B sales job, and she was working at Palmentere Bros. Trucking. There's a Palazzolo here that runs a douchey Power and Light pool/bar. He gets fucked with constantly on the gossip site the Dirty, which is somewhat unwarranted. And there are quite a few Pisciotta's this way. I worked for one in the liquor business and i think his brother or cousin is a convicted killer who went down for arson recently. But the payer did not. the one I worked for was a nice old fat guy. Nicest guy in the company. I don't know the extent of relations, but it would be interesting to know more about the STL-KC ties/relationship.

No offense but that St. Louis chart is one of the "BS" charts that have floated around the net. salviardi doesn't even come around the Real Deal anymore, probably because he knows his chart doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Little Al, who was one of the most knowledgeable posters on St. Louis, could only name 4 or 5 remaining members at most a few years ago - Anthony "Nino" Parrino, Joseph Cammarata, Frank Palazzolo, Fernando "Nondo" Bartolotta, and maybe Vincent Giordano.

Tony G, great chart on the St. Louis family. That was in 2006, thogh. So, I'm sure there's maybe like 8-10 left there now.

I'm sure the made guys in these defunct organizations are still involved in crime. That's their life. Most of them never had a real job. But a lot are just living off the money they made. There's a few poor ones that could even be pretty close to being homeless I'm sure.

For St. Louis, the FBI had them at 35 members in the 1960's. Then 17 members in 1980. And then less than 10 members in the late 1980's. So it's unlikely they still having 8-10 members, let alone the 20+ shown on that chart.

No offense taken Ivy. I agree with you, it is inflated. I do know that St. Louis did not make guys until they were older, usually in their 50's. My uncle's name is on that list and he was never made.

At its peak, St. Louis was composed of 3 gangs, the LCN, the East Side Gang (controlled by Chicago and generally non Italian) and the Syrians (led at one time by Jimmy Michaels). They worked together in an uneasy coalition that disintegrated in fights over union control in the late 70's and early 80's.

I think a key point is the FBI numbers do not consider the non-Italian head counts associated with the other gangs (East Side & Syrians) and those under the protection of the LCN, such as my uncle. My uncle was not Italian, but I assure you, he was involved in criminal activity, mostly gambling and book making, his entire adult life.

I believe that LCN in St Louis is dead and dying. There are some guys still there, but I don't believe they do much, if anything, anymore.

Except where indicated, salviardi's chart seems to suggest those guys are made members. Which is obviously what I'm referring to. Associates is entirely different. When it comes to members, a guy is made or he isn't. So it's much easier to get a fairly accurate estimate on total made guys. But the definition of an associate can vary widely depending on who's doing the defining. Usually, it's up to the local FBI SAC. I really don't pay much attention to associate estimates because they're all over the place.

All that said, it doesn't take much to see that St. Louis - as a formally structured, viable family - is dead. They were under 10 total members over 20 years ago and the most knowledgeable poster on these boards (that I'm aware of) could only name 4 or 5 remaining guys a few years ago. And there hasn't been mob cases of note there since the early 1990's when Trupiano was busted for running a card game on union time.

Palazzo runs with Marcus Arnone who just went down for X distribution, Joe Pete Simone and Joe Patrick Balano. The Pisciotta clan in KC are related to Frank Pisciotta who was the boss of St. Louis, he was the uncle of Vince, Frank and Louie Pisciotta here in kc. Vince and Mark Sorrintino were just recently indicted for the Hereford House arson job. I beleive there are some Simone clan in St louis to, there was at one time a lot of family members involved in LCN in both cities.

My favorite name with all those St. Louis "charts" was Nino Parrino. What a rhyme scheme!

Thanks for the post - I was not aware of those family ties between Palazzolo and KC.

Just for the record, Anthony "Nino" Parrino is widely reported to be the boss of St. Louis, which is hardly saying much. They are all old and generally inactive.

Yeah, thanks for that post Joey. You are the KC king. I have been trying to figure out if some names I've seen in STL are related. Joe Pete had that club on Grand, right? Makes sense for Arnone to pump if you got the marketplace. I think that's their thing now. Do you know if there is still any collaboration or are both families so decimated they are just trying to stay afloat?

TonyG, is the Bommaritto (Sp?) car dealership one of the STL family's businesses?

I do not believe the Bommarito Auto Group has anything to do with the STL LCN. There are a lot of Bommarito's in STL. Frank Bommarito runs the car dealerships. Vince and Anthony Bommarito are the famous restaurateurs - Tony's (a 5 star restaurant and prolly the most elegant / expensive restaurant in STL) and Anthony's. Tony and Vince also used to own the Fatted Calf, which they sold a long time ago. These guys are all legit and it has never been reported that they are associated in any way. In fact, Vince was on the City Board of Police Commissioners until recently. There is another Bommarito that owns and operates a vineyard.

They may be cousins with Richard, but I am not sure.

I am not sure if there is much collaberation at this point. KC is in better shape then St Louis, I thnk both just deal in legitimate businesses which are used to launder gambling and shy activities. Joe Pete had the club on grand across from the Cigar box bar (which is now managed by the Piscottia's and temptations which is owned by Pete Ribaste. Palazzo, Arnone and Simone also have Club Envy on Admiral.

It's tough for me to believe those charts in their entirety, but they're interesting.

It always surprises me that when it comes to St. Louis, no one, but no one on any of these boards, ever mentions either the Sansones or the Rallos. Anyone know if anyone in either of those families is still active? Joey Dice, IvyLeague, TonyG, you guys seem pretty knowledgeable. Heard anything about those guys?

The Sansones have been brought up a few times over on the RD. More questions than answers about them. Don't know if I've ever heard of the Rallos.

heard the sansones moved thier setup to nj and set up one of the largest used car dealerships in the state to fence all of the stolen cars from thier massive operations in st louis


http://www.66automall.com/

The charts are speculative, and please note, I believe they are inflated.

I went to school with Tim Sansone and Chuck Rallo. Tim went to Wash U and has an MBA from SLU. He works for the family construction company (Sansone Group).

Chuck used to work at the family construction company (CJ Rallo) then he and his brother split and started their own company - CMR. They were ousted by new investors a while ago, even though CMR had $25M of work in progress and pending jobs at $250M (http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2000/05/29/story4.html?page=all).

I remember seeing one of the Rallo's on the news back when there was a controversy over the casinos when gambling was legalized.

In the 8th grade, Tim and his brothers were removed in the middle of class, just after lunch. About 15 minutes later, the school made an announcement that the Sansone's grandfather had passed away. That was the day Jimmy Michael's was blown up in his car, and the STL mob war took off.

There have been rumors and speculation about the Sansone's and Rallo's for years.

There is no question that Tony Sansone was neck deep with the Syrians through his father in law, Jimmy Michael's. There have been several instances reported in the papers, mostly years ago, but the best evidence was in 1964 when the FBI bugged Sansone when he was the business associate and campaign manager for former STL Mayor AJ Cervantes (the old convention center was named after him). The FBI recorded a lunch meeting with Sansone, Cervantes and Jimmy Michael's, at a vending machine company that had been incorporated by Morris Shenker. A second meeting took place with Tony Sansone, Jimmy Michaels and Tony Giordano after Cervantes won the primary, prior to the general election in March, 1965.

Cervantes was widely believed to have been in the pocket of the mob. You can read the Pulitzer Prize winning story about it here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7lUEAAA...p;q&f=false

Incidentally, Mayor Cervantes sued the reporter and Time Life for libel. He lost the suit, and the Federal court opined that the allegations in the article were substantiated by its facts.

There is a very good article about the difficulties the reporters had getting the story published, and its aftermath (they left town). You can read it here:

No Hall of Fame for Them

This article also has great information on Morris Shenker, STL attorney for mobsters, including Jimmy Hoffa. Shenker was also an owner of a casino or 2 in Las Vegas.

I remember the Stations Casino/FutureSouth blowup in Lemay and the Michael Lazaroff scandal connected with it. And that was pretty recent--2001, I think. If you look at the names of the investors, it's tough to believe that there's nothing going on here anymore--but it all seems pretty legitimate these days.

Concerning the Rallos, I believe it was Jesse Stoneking's testimony that said that the Rallo construction company worked hand in glove with the Chicago Outfit. Can't find that testimony online, but I bet it's available somewhere.

I find it interesting how much interplay there was back and forth between the Sicilians and the Syrians in St. Louis. I remember Jimmy Michaels' daughter married a Sansone--also, Mike Trupiano married the daughter of Virgil Daly, who was another Syrian, and I heard that a lot of the Bommaritos go to St. Raymond's, because they married Syrians.

Another name I see missing from this list is Miceli. Unless I totally misremember things, wasn't Phil Miceli supposed to have been a made guy? He's another one who married a Syrian. I'd heard Tony Sansone was a made guy, but I rarely if ever see his name on any of these lists.

Great article you posted. I remember Morris Shenker very well--he was a good friend of my grandparents and went to their temple. Big guy, and always sharp as a tack and dressed to the nines. As I recall, Shenker was front owner of the Sands and the Aladdin, and I think at one point, he had a piece of the Dunes as well, but I'm not sure about that. I can never remember which Vegas casinos St. Louis had with KC and which they had with Detroit.

Common knowledge, but some Sansones up here in KC are grandsons/in laws to a late Civella. The KC Sansones have some relatives up in St. Joe that own a flower shop, but I don't believe they are involved in any illegal activity.

Yeah, I saw that. I have no idea if the KC Sansones are related to the St. Louis Sansones. The St. L Sansones are very, very wealthy these days and probably 100% legitimate, to the best of my knowledge.

For that matter, I don't know if the KC Sciortinos are related to the St. L Sciortinos, either.

Anyone know whether the Detroit Toccos are related to the St. L ones?

I do not know if the STL and KC Sansone's are related.

I do know the STL and Detroit Tocco's are related - they are cousins.

Below is an excerpt from a verbatim transcript of a St. Louis FBI field office interview with an unnamed informant on June 18, 1991:

"… [redacted] stated that while he was [redacted] of Arthure Berne, head of the eastside outfit, BERNE had told him that RALLO CONSTRUCTION COMPANY in St. Louis, Missouri, belonged to [redacted] of the Chicago La Cosa Nostra (LCN) at that time. BERNE told [redacted] that if Chicago wanted to buy property, businesses, get loans, or some other such financial transaction it would be done through RALLO CONSTRUCTION COMPANY in St. Louis. …"

Sounds like that was Jesse Stoneking. That would be consistent with the timeframe in which he was cooperating.

That's the testimony I was talking about, all right. Nice work. I remember seeing it a while ago on Media Mayhem, but I'm not sure if it's there anymore.

I can't imagine who else it would be besides Stoneking. He knew Berne better than probably anyone. Is the whole interview online somewhere? Wasn't it in that same interview where Stoneking says that Trupiano is Chicago's boy?

The DOJ files concerning Family Secrets have trascripts of Joey "the Clown" Lombardo and Morris Schenker discussing monies owed to the Outfit by Schenker. Joey is basically telling Schenker to pay up the money he owed. The converations give true insight into the inner workings of these guys:

May 22, 1979 Intercept 2 Intercept at AIA between Lombardo, Dorfman and Shenker http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/hot/familySecrets/2007_06_27/may_22_1979_t2.pdf

I did get it from Media Mayhem - C.D. Stelzer is a great writer and reporter. I cannot recall if it was disclosed during one of the trials. None of the people that Stelzer alleged for association or corruption have sued him for libel or made public statements denying his allegations. I think that says a lot.

I have never heard that Tony Sansone or any of the Rallo's were "made" in the STL family, but the evidence of association is over whelming, especially Tony Sansone. I believe he has gone legit today, and that none of his kids are involved. Why would they? They are loaded and have legitimate businesses and social clout.

From what I understand, the STL family did not make a lot of guys for a number of reasons - rivalries (Giordano and Vitale, Trupiano and Parrino, STL LCN and the East Side and the Syrians), a larger share of any profits, and it is mid size city with limited rackets and opportunities. Under Giordano, most guys were not made until they were older, usually in their 40's and 50's, although there are exceptions.

Before the trials, the FBI leaked a lot of what StoneKing disclosed to Ronald Lawrence, who published it the Post Dispatch. There are stories that Trupiano was supported by both Detroit and Chicago.

I had heard that one of the Sansones was a capo in the fifties. I can't say where I heard that, and I'm not pretending to be in the know--I just simply can't remember where I heard that. It wouldn't shock me either way, if he was or wasn't.

I did know a guy (who, for all I know, might actually post here, so I don't want to use his name) who was a serious researcher, and who was writing as definitive a history of the St L scene as could be done, but he was slapped with threats of libel lawsuits by the Sansone and Bommarito families, and ended up not publishing his book. Which is too bad, because the only books out there about the St. L scene (like that garbage that John Auble wasted time and money on) suck. I don't know what was in that book of his, and I've lost touch with him. Nice guy, though.

My impression was that St L LCN worked very closely with the Syrians (as the number of Italian/Syrian marriages attests to), but that there was always tension with the East Side. They worked together, but the relationship was not nearly as cozy. I also got the impression that there was tension between St. L and Chicago, mostly over Springfield, but for other reasons as well. Does this sound accurate to you?

There just is not good information about the STL family in the 50's, except arrest records and what was reported in the papers. I have not read Daniel Waugh's books, there may be more information there.

In a previous post, you asked about a Micelli being a soldier in the STL. There is a Phillip A. Miceli that has been listed as a soldier in some charts on RD. I don't know if he is alive or deceased, but if he is alive, he has to be around 90 years old now.

I would like to hear more about the guy who got threatened with suits. Please send me a PM.

The 3 gangs in St. Louis had an uneasy alliance, that shifted over time. I understand there was tension between STL and Chicago, primarily bumping into each other and sharing east side rackets. Buster Wortman and Tony Giordano were very close and I understand that tensions were minimal because they shared profits and rackets, which marginalized and pissed off John Vitale. Another key issue during this time was when John Vitale wanted to put a contract on Morris Shenker for a failed real estate investment. Giordano and Wortman both supported Shenker, the contract was not approved and this situation increased the rivalry between Vitale and Giordano.

Jimmy Michael's was originally a Cuckoo, and worked the east side under Wortman, and was thought to be his successor. At some point, he moved more south STL and was aligned with and protected by Giordano. The time point and the reasons for the shift are unclear and debated. The evidence on what happened later is clear - there were major issues over union control (Local 42) between the east side (Chicago) and the STL LCN. Michaels supported John Paul Spica who took over the union, until he was killed by Ray Flynn, who was backed by Chicago. You know the rest of the story.

Sure do. I'd forgotten about Jimmy Michaels being one of the Cuckoos. You reminded me. Another one was a guy named Joseph "Mulehead" Simon. Does that name ring a bell? Wasn't he related somehow to the lawyer, Paul J. Simon?

It gets complicated in St. Louis, I think, because so many of these guys were so involved in politics or close to people who were. After they got bored with blowing each other up in cars, they got quiet, or just went legit.