St. Louis was one of 14 cities where Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings in the early 1950s. Gambling was the focus of the committee, and to expose organized crime in interstate commerce. Colonel William L. Holzhausen, chairman of the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, was one of the first to testify and confirmed that organized gambling, facilitated by the race wire service, was the principal law-enforcement problem in the area.
Missouri Attorney General J. E. Taylor told the committee that efforts in 1938 to cut off the Pioneer News wire service were met by legal actions. A long struggle ensued to compel Southwestern Bell Telephone and Western Union Telegraph to discontinue service to the Pioneer News Company. When service was finally cut off, the company used illegal means to continue to supply race results to the local handbooks.
J. J. Carroll and John Mooney ran the largest bookmaking operation in the area. Operating out of East St. Louis, the operation was handling $20 million annually in bets. The enterprise functioned heavily in the "layoff bet business" and employed agents to work the various racetracks, betting "come back" money at the pari-mutuel machines. This last action would result in distorting the track odds with the sudden placing of heavy bets just minutes before post time. Carroll, who was the first committee witness to refuse to testify because of the television cameras, later continued his testimony in Washington D. C. at his own expense. Carroll, who saw himself as a respectable businessman and disdained the tag of gambler, glorified himself with the title of "Betting Commissioner."
One of the more unusual gambling operations discussed by the committee was run by C. J. Rich and Company. The enterprise, which grossed almost $5 million a year, used Western Union telegrams, money orders, and Western Union agents to conduct business. Telegrams placing bets would be sent to C. J. Rich in East St. Louis and the bets were then covered by Western Union money orders. Each day Western Union would accumulate the incoming money orders and issue a single check to C. J. Rich. Western Union agents were paid handsomely for their efforts and rewarded with expensive gifts. Western Union profited greatly from this arrangement. During May 1950 their billing to the C. J. Rich Company came to $26,700. With publicity from a June 1950 raid on the C. J. Rich Company, Western Union finally cancelled the account of the gambling enterprise. The committee surmised Western Union's reluctance to react prior to this was due in part to William Molasky, a well-known St. Louis gambler, being a major stockholder in the company.
The last item covered by the committee was the Pioneer News Service. Molasky was also a chief stockholder in this operation. The wire service, which once was owned by Moses Annenberg and James Ragen, effectively ended up in the hands of the Capone syndicate in the late 1940s, with muscle provided by East St. Louis gang boss Frank "Buster" Wortman.
In the mid-1940s, after what was seen as a lack of Italian leadership in St. Louis, the Kansas City mafia sent two representatives to oversee the rackets in the city, Thomas Buffa and Tony Lopiparo. Buffa, according to historian Fontane, actually arrived in St. Louis in 1922 and eventually took over leadership of the Pillow Gang after Fresina's murder. Buffa was murdered in 1946 in Lodi, California after testifying against the girlfriend of a Kansas City mobster.
Leadership of organized crime in St. Louis was sketchy at best during the late 1940s. Believed to be running the family were Lopiparo, Frank "Three Fingers" Coppola, and Ralph "Shorty Ralph" Caleca. Coppola had been involved in the drug trade in Detroit and New Orleans, as well as St. Louis, before being deported to Italy. During this period the St. Louis hoods developed closer ties to the Detroit family instead of Kansas City. Mob members from both Detroit and St. Louis were involved in narcotics trafficking. From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, three men shared prominent roles in the St. Louis underworld; Anthony G. Giordano, John J. Vitale, and James A. "Jimmy" Michaels.
Anthony Giordano was born June 2, 1914 in St. Louis. His police record began in 1938. His more than 50 arrests included charges of carrying concealed weapons, robbery, holdups, income tax evasion, and counterfeiting tax stamps. Giordano was groomed for his rise to the top by his predecessor, Anthony Lopiparo, along with Frank Coppola and Ralph Caleca. The latter two were one-time members of the Green Ones gang.
In 1950, Giordano served as a drug courier for the St. Louis mob. It is not known how many trips he made to Italy, but at least law enforcement officials observed three of them. Each time Giordano met with Frank Coppola, the deported ex-Green One who was competing with Lucky Luciano in the drug trade there. Giordano had been under the surveillance of famed Narcotics Bureau Agent Charles Siragusa. On the first two trips, Giordano and Detroit mobster Paul Cimino were unsuccessful in negotiating a heroin purchase. Cimino went back alone in the spring of 1951 and purchased 20 kilos of heroin, bringing it back in a steamer trunk with a false bottom.
To the surprise of both Coppola and the Detroit mob, the heroin had been diluted prior to the sale and Coppola needed to make good. Giordano returned to Coppola's farm in Anzio to pick up the shipment. Upon arriving, the Italian newspapers broke the story of a major international drug smuggling ring bust in San Diego. Spooked by the turn of events, Giordano returned home empty handed. Years later, Siragusa wrote that Giordano was under surveillance and had he tried to return with the heroin he would have been arrested and given a long prison term.
During his years on the rise, Giordano dressed the part of the big time gangster wearing wide-brimmed, pearl gray hats, expensive suits, coats, shoes, and rings. In the 1960s, he changed his wardrobe and took on the appearance of a blue-collar worker. During this time he and his wife lived in a conservative home in southwest St. Louis. Giordano could often be seen dressed in work clothes at one of the flats he owned in south St. Louis doing carpentry or plumbing chores.
In 1956, Giordano and two others were sentenced to four years in prison on income tax charges in connection with a vending machine business. In February 1968, he was arrested as a "suspected" gambler during a citywide crack down on gamblers.
Giordano had ties with the Metropolitan Towing Company, which had a contract with the police department to remove vehicles from crash sites and to tow stolen or illegally parked automobiles. On November 30, 1970 three members of the St. Teresa of Avila Church drove onto the lot in a van to retrieve a stolen church vehicle. Apparently the lot had a rule that allowed only two people to come in at one time. Giordano, who was in the office, ordered the van off the lot. Words were exchanged. When one of the men identified himself as a priest, Giordano grabbed him by the shirt and told him, "I'm Catholic too. You run your church and I'll run my business." He then threatened to blow their heads off with a sawed off shotgun. All of this took place in front of a uniformed police officer who ignored the incident. Warrants were soon issued for Giordano's arrest.
Giordano
In January 1971, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that the Missouri Task Force on Organized Crime had released the results of a yearlong study on organized crime in the state. The 15-member task force claimed that organized crime in St. Louis was "engaged in labor racketeering, gambling, infiltration of legitimate businesses, loan sharking, and narcotics traffic." Three factions were identified as cooperating in illegal activities. The first group was "headed by Anthony Giordano, with John Vitale second in command," and maintained strong ties with the Detroit syndicate." Aging, former Cuckoo gangster Jimmy Michaels headed the second group; and the last group was identified as "remnants of the East Side gang that was once headed by the late Frank "Buster" Wortman."
The report went on to state that the Giordano faction was heavily dependent on gambling, from operations in the north and northwest areas of St. Louis, as its main source of income. It also claimed that in addition to gambling, the group was into disposal of stolen property and had infiltrated legitimate businesses, including the Banana Distributing Company owned by Giordano, a produce trucking company, and the aforementioned Metropolitan Towing Company. The Task Force's findings accused the Giordano led faction of using the Metropolitan Towing Company to launder illegal income and provide an outlet to market stolen auto parts.
What concerned the committee was that all three factions had infiltrated organized labor. Authorities estimated that at least 30 mobsters were working as business agents for the unions, including relatives of both Giordano and Jimmy Michaels.
In conclusion to the committee's findings, it is interesting to note that in 1997, a former police official stated, "it behooved police to puff up the local organized crime situation because by doing so, the department became eligible for mob-fighting grants from the Nixon administration."
During the mid-1970s, Giordano was indicted after he attempted to gain hidden ownership in the Frontier casino in Las Vegas. Convicted with him were Detroit mobsters Michael Polizzi and Anthony Zerilli. Giordano was sent to prison in 1975 and released in December 1977. Giordano was nominated for Nevada's infamous Black Book on March 4, 1975, but because he had been sent to prison for the infraction, he was removed in April of the following year.
Another tie between St. Louis and Las Vegas was through Morris Shenker. Described as veteran defense attorney from St. Louis, Shenker represented Teamsters' President James R. Hoffa beginning in the mid-1960s and quickly made his way up the ranks of the "Teamsters' Bar Association." He also represented leading racketeers in St. Louis and was active in Democratic politics. His client list of organized crime figures not withstanding, Shenker was appointed by St. Louis Mayor A. J. Cervantes to serve as chairman of the city's new Commission on Crime and Law Enforcement. He resigned amid allegations that money from a $20 million dollar federal grant to fight crime was going unauthorized to the commission.
Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Ronald J. Lawrence said of Shenker:
"There is a tendency to dismiss as inconsequential the tremendous influence and power wielded inside and outside the underworld by Morris Shenker, a functionary for the St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and other families. This largely was because most local law enforcement officers were unable to comprehend the complexity of the man and his operations."
"Shenker, a lawyer who once represented Jimmy Hoffa, was a mover and shaker and a financial genius of the caliber of Lansky. It was Shenker who tapped the Teamster Union's Central States Pension Fund to finance much of the mob's penetration of Las Vegas casinos and other ventures. Shenker's influence extended far beyond the underworld and he was able to get two of his own federal indictments killed."
"St. Louis underworld interests controlled two Las Vegas casinos the Dunes, owned by Shenker, and the Aladdin."
As early as November 1974, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was reporting that Vincenzo "Jimmy" Giammanco and Matthew M. Trupiano Jr. (both sons of Giordano's sisters) were in line to replace Giordano before he was sent away to prison. The paper also discussed the possibilities of a mob war between the mafia and the Syrians, led by Jimmy Michaels, for control of several labor unions.
On February 12, 1979, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story that Giordano was directing organized crime activity in Colorado. The paper quoted an unnamed source as stating, "Giordano is not just an errand boy. He is overlord for Colorado and he is the commission's representative here. Territories and geographical boundaries are not important. Relationships between people are paramount, and Giordano provides that relationship with the top of the mob."
The article went on to say that Giordano, working with the Smaldone Family Eugene "Checkers," Clyde "Flip Flop," and Clarence "Chauncey" oversees gambling, loan sharking, major fencing and investments into legitimate businesses. Giordano's dealings with the Smaldones began in 1973. Authorities believe it was through this relationship that "organized crime attempted to gain control of the Pueblo, Colorado Police Department in 1977 through the selection of two St. Louisans as candidate for chief of police."
The article also revealed that influences in Colorado by the St. Louis mob went back to the mid-1960s when St. Louis gangster Sam Shanks went there to help the Smaldones re-establish control of the gambling interests after they were released from a long prison term for jury tampering. During this time, Shanks murdered a gambler turned informant. Later Shanks retired to St. Louis and was a confidant of Giordano.
On August 29, 1980, Giordano died from cancer at his South St. Louis home. He was 67. Ten days before his death, a meeting was held at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge at Interstate 44 and Hampton Avenue. The meeting, with members of the Colorado underworld present, was called to choose a successor. Giordano's choice was said to be his nephew, Jimmy Giammanco. However, some family members balked at the decision and instead supported Joseph Cammarata, an ex-convict who had been keeping a low profile. Reports stated Giammanco threatened Cammarato when the decision was made to promote him. When neither candidate seemed to emerge, Anthony M. "Nino" Parrino, an officer of Teamster's Local 682, was considered.
New Regimes
Jimmy Michaels' career began in the 1920s when he was known as "Horseshoe Jimmy," and was a member of the Cuckoos Gang. At 19, he was arrested for robbing the Illinois Central freight depot in East St. Louis. He skipped bond, but was recaptured a year later. He was convicted of the robbery and sentenced from 10 years to life in prison in 1929. Michaels was released briefly while the U. S. Supreme Court reviewed his conviction. While out, he was arrested as a suspect in several gangland killings. Michaels served a total of 13 years for the robbery and was paroled in 1944. He quickly got involved in gambling, and in 1959 was arrested for operating an after hours joint on Hampton Avenue.
Michaels obtained a Missouri insurance broker's license in 1959, but under a new state law introduced in 1962, it was revoked because of his felony conviction. In December 1963, Michaels, Giordano and Kansas City mobster Max Jaben were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in a hotel room where they were registered under the name of Mrs. Frank Wortman. The charges were dismissed. When Frank Wortman went to prison on tax evasion charges in 1962, authorities believed Michaels was being groomed to take over for him. In the mid-1970s, Michaels was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, but the charges were dismissed.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a bloody struggle going on for control of Laborer's Local 42 in St. Louis. The fighting had begun almost two decades earlier. Around 1965, a "hoodlum element" led by Louis D. Shoulders, Jr., George "Stormy" Harvill, and William "Shotgun" Sanders, took control of the local. Leadership was officially in the hands of Thomas "T. J." Harvill, due to the criminal records of the others. In 1966, "Stormy" Harvill was gunned down, and in 1972 Shoulders was killed in a car bombing. When Thomas Harvill died of natural causes in 1979, ex-Cuckoos member Jimmy Michaels backed John Paul Spica for the leadership position. Spica was described as a contract killer who was released from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1973, after serving 10 years of a life sentence for the first-degree murder of a local real estate agent. This move brought him into opposition led by Raymond H. Flynn.
Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa (POLICE)
Flynn contacted Chicago mobster Joseph Aiuppa and asked for permission to challenge Michaels' move. Flynn was told that the St. Louis family would not interfere with Flynn's actions as long as Michaels was not harmed, due to his long-standing friendship with Giordano. In November 1979, Spica was murdered by a car bomb outside his home in Richmond Heights, Missouri. After this killing, Michaels met with Giordano to appeal for help against Flynn. Giordano was rebuffed by Aiuppa and told not to interfere in the power struggle. However, he could assure Michaels that no harm would come to him.
Flynn moved against Michaels again by approaching Anthony and Paul Leisure, members of Michaels' Syrian faction, and luring them away with high salaried jobs within the union. The greedy double-cross enraged Michaels who had supported the Leisures for years and gave Anthony an officer's position in Local 110. When Giordano died from cancer in August 1980, Aiuppa informed Flynn that any arrangement that Giordano had to protect his friend Michaels was "cancelled out" by his death.
Just 19 days after Giordano's death, David R. Leisure crawled under Michaels' black Chrysler Cordoba, which was parked outside St. Raymond's Maronite Church, and planted a remote-controlled bomb under the driver's seat. Michaels left the church driving on Interstate 55 in South St. Louis County near the Reavis Barracks Road exit when Anthony Leisure detonated the bomb. The automobile bounced three feet in the air. The force of the explosion tore Michaels' legs to pieces and part of his body was hurled against a passing car.
With the death of Giordano, government sources indicated that John J. Vitale was acting boss of the St. Louis family. Vitale's status was never really clear over the years. He was reputed to be the family's consigliere. However in 1967, the U.S. Justice Department identified him as "representing the national cartel in St. Louis." Little is known of Vitale's early years. In the 1940s he served two years in prison for a narcotics violation. Over the years he had been called to testify before several congressional committees, including one into alleged ties between professional boxing and the St. Louis family.
Vitale had been a suspect in several killings, including the 1968 murder of Thomas Rodgers, owner of a mortuary supply company. In addition, he had close ties to the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and may have had connections to the Tropicana along with members of the Kansas City mob. In October 1980, Vitale was stopped and searched by FBI agents at St. Louis' Lambert Field airport. Agents seized $36,000 in cash hidden on Vitale.
After the death of Giordano and the subsequent murder of Michaels, Vitale tried to keep peace between the warring factions. Vitale, sometimes called the "gentleman gangster" was unsuccessful. In 1981, Vitale became an informant for the FBI and fed information to them on the war going on between the Michaels' gang and the Leisures. At the age of 73, Vitale was becoming frail to the point that he needed two canes to walk. On June 5, 1982, he died from heart disease at Faith Hospital in Creve Coeur, Missouri.
One of the hoodlums that Vitale tried to set up for the FBI was Jesse Stoneking a lieutenant of Arthur Berne, the East St. Louis rackets boss who had replaced Buster Wortman. Stoneking, an ex-choirboy, had made a name for himself in the mob after being taken under the wing of Berne. Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Ronald J. Lawrence describes Stoneking as follows:
"Stoneking's reputation for violence was partly the result of the man himself. His presence, alone, was menacing. Built more like a bull than a man, he could talk, fight or shoot his way out of a jam. His stentorian (loud) voice demanded attention and obedience. His eyes could be as piercing as laser beams, as innocent as a baby's, depending on what he wanted to convey. His words could beat a man into submission or relieve him of his wealth.
"The other part of his reputation was built on his deeds."
Stoneking was a hitman with a conscience. On October 22, 1979, he murdered a man who had raped a girlfriend of his mentor Berne. In December 1979, he killed two men who had tried to set him up for a hit. However, when Joe Cammarata found a bomb in his pickup truck and ordered a hit on the man he suspected Tommy Callanan, a union business agent whose legs had been lost to a car bomb in 1973 Stoneking refused to carry it out because Callanan was confined to a wheelchair.
Stoneking's rise to the top and eventual possible leadership of the East Side rackets, then under Berne, went into a tailspin after the death of Jimmy Michaels. First, Vitale tried to set him up for the FBI by offering Stoneking $5,000 to get a bomb. Then on September 16, 1981, FBI agents arrested him for his involvement in an interstate stolen car ring and chop shop operation. Before he went to prison, he attended a party at Berne's home. Berne's wife, who dabbled in astrology, told Stoneking that one day he was "going to go straight."
"Go straight" in the mob usually means going straight to the authorities, which Stoneking did. While having time to reflect on his life in prison and seeing that his family, or families he had two, a wife with three children and a girlfriend with three more were not being taken care of, Stoneking flipped. His undercover informant role for the FBI over the next two years would result in the imprisonment of 30 members of organized crime including Berne and Matthew Trupiano.
Less than a year after Jimmy Michaels' murder, his supporters retaliated by planting a bomb under Paul Leisure's car outside his mother's home on Nottingham Avenue on August 11, 1981. The ensuing blast cost him his right leg and left foot. In addition, his face was severely disfigured. Members of the Flynn faction struck back a month later on September 11, by wounding Charles John Michaels, Jimmy's grandson, outside the Edge Restaurant. Authorities were surprised at the shooting because Michaels, who had no record, was not involved in the union power struggle. On October 16, George M. "Sonny" Faheen, Jimmy's nephew, was killed by a bomb planted in his Volkswagen Beetle, which was in the parking garage of the Mansion House Center. Again, authorities were baffled because Faheen was a city worker and not involved in the union power struggle.
On March 24, 1982 James A. Michaels III, another grandson of Jimmy Michaels, and Milton Russell Schepp, a former St. George, Missouri police chief, were charged with the Paul Leisure car bombing. Michaels was convicted of the Leisure bombing by a federal jury on October 19, 1982. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
In another twist, Michael E. Kornhardt, charged with the murder of George Faheen, was killed on July 31, 1982 while free on bond. Police theorized he was silenced to prevent him from striking a deal with the FBI. The murder of Kornhardt proved to be the undoing of the Leisure gang. Paul, Anthony, and David Leisure, Robert Carbaugh and Steven Wougamon were charged with Kornhardt's murder.
On April 14, 1983 eight members of the Leisure faction were indicted on state capital murder charges and federal racketeering charges. The charges would be handled in separate trials. The eight men indicted were Paul Leisure, business agent for Local 42 and part owner of LN & P Company, a towing company owned by the Leisure family; Anthony Leisure, Paul's brother and a business agent for Local 110 and part owner of LN & P; David Leisure, a cousin of Paul and Anthony and a part owner of LN & P, charged with murder and assault; John F. Ramo, an employee of LN & P charged with making the bomb that killed Jimmy Michaels; Ronald J. Broderick, a business agent for Local 110; Charles M. Loewe, a LN & P employee charged with the wounding of Charles John Michaels; Robert M. Carbaugh, a part-time employee of LN & P charged with killing Michael Kornhardt; and finally Steven T. Wougamon also charged with the murder of Kornhardt. Testifying against this group would be Fred Prater, the ex-LN & P employee who had become a protected government witness. Prater admitted to the U.S. Attorney that he had built the bomb that killed Jimmy Michaels.
On April 2, 1985 bothers Paul and Anthony Leisure and their cousin David, along with Steve Wougamon and Charles Loewe were convicted. Ramo and Broderick, who had pled guilty to charges earlier in the trial, testified against them. With the last defendant, Robert Carbaugh, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. On May 1, 1985 Paul and David Leisure were sentenced to 55 years in prison. The sentence consisted of 20 years for conspiracy, 20 years for racketeering, 5 years for obstruction of justice, and 10 years for manufacturing the bombs. Anthony Leisure received 40 years and Charles Loewe received 36 years. Wougamon was sentenced at a later date. Within weeks of the convictions, the five men and Carbaugh would be indicted on state murder charges. In the second trial, Paul Leisure was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole for 50 years on December 7, 1987. Later, Anthony and David Leisure were found guilty with Anthony receiving a life sentence. David, however, in a mob rarity, was sentenced to death.
Raymond Flynn, who was tried separately, was convicted by a federal jury for his role in the car bombings and sentenced to 55 years in prison in March 1987. An appeal in 1988 reduced his sentence to 30 years.
Attorneys for David Leisure tried desperately to save their client. They argued he had diminished mental capacities and that it was his cousins who were the ringleaders. David was "merely a follower who knew no better," they claimed. The attorneys went on to state that he "was born into a poor family two months premature, wasn't toilet trained until age eight, dropped out of school in the third grade, and used alcohol and drugs as a child."
An unlikely call for clemency came from Michaels' grandson, James A. Michaels III. He wrote Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan stating, "The Michaels' family and the Leisure family have experienced enough grief for one lifetime. I feel that the execution of David would bring additional needless hardship, not only to his family, but to my family as well."
Leisure's execution was set for 12:01 am September 1, 1999. A last appeal was being reviewed stating that one of Leisure's attorneys was a drug addict at the time of the trial. The man in reality was a law student and only part of the defense team during the trial. While Leisure waited for the final appeal to be ruled upon, he had a last supper of steak, baked potato, salad, apple pie, ice cream and a Pepsi.
With all appeals exhausted, Carnahan denied clemency and Leisure was strapped to the gurney inside the death chamber at the Potosi Correctional Center. His last statement was, "I am an innocent man. The lawyer who represented me was on drugs. Tell my children, family and relatives I love them."
The only family member present was Leisure's sister. Sobbing with her head resting on a priest's shoulder, she watched as her brother mouthed the words "I love you," as a lethal dose of drugs ended his life.
Incredibly, David Leisure's death was the first execution of a member of organized crime since the electrocution of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter at Sing Sing in 1944.
On July 22, 2000 Paul Leisure died at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri where he had been incarcerated since 1993. Leisure, who was 56, suffered from heart disease.
Meanwhile the new St. Louis mob boss finally emerged. Described as low-key and elusive, Matthew M. "Mike" Trupiano, Jr. was identified by the FBI as the heir apparent to Giordano in the wake of Vitale's death in 1982. Trupiano, a nephew of Giordano, was born in Detroit and as one federal investigator stated, "He got messed up in gambling in Detroit and was sent here for some guidance from his uncle."
In May 1986, Trupiano was fined $30,000 and sentenced to four years in prison for running a gambling ring that handled bets on college and professional football games. During the trial, witnesses testified that Trupiano's bookmaking operation lost money. It was the first time federal agents had ever heard of an underworld bookmaking operation running in the red. Some insiders believed it might have been due to Trupiano's own gambling in which he lost more than won.
In transcripts of recorded conversations, Trupiano was heard to say, "He got no respect, either from mob chapters or his own underlings." Other comments overheard indicated that Italian-American businessmen kept him at arms length, and mob families cheated him out of money from the sale of a hotel in Las Vegas. Trupiano claimed his own soldiers were holding out on him from their bookmaking take. By the time Trupiano was released from prison, after serving just 16 months of the sentence, the St. Louis mob "had dwindled to a handful of soldiers."
The newspapers described Trupiano as "flashy, temperamental, profane, averse to neckties and a compulsive gambler." The FBI kept him under so close surveillance that he was arrested in 1991 for running an illegal gin rummy game in the back room of a used car dealership on South Kingshighway. Prosecutors stated that since Trupiano was an officer of Laborer's Local 110, and was playing cards on union time, that he was in effect embezzling from the union. In June 1992, the Local 110 membership voted him out of office. In October, Trupiano was convicted on one of six counts and sentenced to two and a half years in prison and told by the judge to "shun gambling in all forms."
Trupiano's health deteriorated in prison. He suffered from diabetes, underwent daily kidney dialysis, and had suffered one heart attack. He died after suffering a second heart attack at St. Anthony's Medical Center in south St. Louis County on October 22, 1997.
In the wake of Trupiano's death there are two men local mob watchers say are candidates as family leaders Joseph Cammarata and Anthony Parrino. According to Ronald Lawrence, both men are retired, "at least from their legitimate jobs." He claims Stoneking's testimony was really responsible for putting away the mob in St. Louis.
Bibliography
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Magazine, May 1989, "The Bully of the Mob", by Ronald J. Lawrence
Farrell, Ronald A. and Carole Case The Black Book and the Mob 1995 University of Wisconsin Press
Kefauver, Estes Crime in America 1951 Doubleday & Company, Inc.
The following individuals contributed to this article:
Walter M. Fontane, organized crime historian
Ronald J. Lawrence, retired investigative journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Barbara Miksicek, librarian for the St. Louis Police Library
Charles R. Molino, organized crime historian
