The early 1960’s was en exceptional period for the Chicago Outfit and the National Mob Syndicate in general. Back in 1957 the U.S. Senate Select Committee, also known as the McClellan Committee, was created by Chairman John McClellan together with Chief Counsel Robert F. Kennedy and Senator John F. Kennedy. The committee investigated and questioned publicly on national television many mafia bosses from around the country. Now the Chicago Outfit was getting too much of an unwanted public attention and also things were getting too hot within the organization. The worst thing for the mob was when on January 20, 1961 John F. Kennedy sworn in as the 35th president of the United States. He appointed his brother Robert Kennedy as U.S. attorney general. Indicting the mob was a high priority with the new attorney general, who claimed that the mob used extortion, bribery, and physical violence to rule the nation. By now many Outfit figures like Nicoletti stayed out of the limelight but that wasn’t the case with his boss Sam Giancana. He acted like a movie star by posing and smiling for pictures in front of the press and also walking around Chicago, Vegas and many other places with famous broads like Phyllis McGuire and others. Giancana had Sicilian blood running through his veins so that kind of a lifestyle was unacceptable for his other Sicilian friends like Accardo. On numerous occasions Charles Inglesia aka Chuckie English advised Giancana to stay away from the spot light as a real mafia boss should do. But Giancana didn’t blame himself for the heat but he pointed his finger towards the Kennedy brothers. According to FBI wiretaps, Giancana and the rest of the national mob screamed for the blood of the Kennedys. But they also had another ally that shared the same desire with them and that was the CIA. Back in 1961 the U.S. government made unsuccessful attempt in form of an invasion on Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro. A group of about 1,400 Cuban exiles was assembled and trained by the CIA for several months to invade the Bahia de Cochinos, or Bay of Pigs, on April 17, 1961. But Castro was ready for the invasion and his 25,000 troops defeated, killed or captured many of the invaders, embarrassing the United States and causing Castro to form a closer alliance with the Soviet Union. The CIA blamed Kennedy for the failure because he didn’t approved the backup that he had promised to the invaders and Kennedy blamed the CIA for their unprofessional activities and planning. So something had to be done.
After a while F.B.I. electronic surveillances started picking up conversations between Sam Giancana and other high profile criminals talking about the concern of their criminal activities. Giancana told his cohorts that everybody was on their own, which meant that the members no longer received support from the organization. During one conversation between Giancana and Felix Alderisio, things went over really sour. Alderisio, because of his often travelings, was very passionate about classical ruins and spent hours photographing them. Alderisio talked about 20 minutes describing ruins he had recently seen in Europe and Giancana lost his patience and in furious anger he yelled at Alderisio: "Phil, goddammit! Ruins! I got coppers coming out of my eyeballs and you sit there telling me about ruins! Listen to me, Phil, listen real good! Forget about them goddamn ruins!" All this “harassment” over Giancana and the disruption of his business enterprises sent a signal for the end of his administration. And that’s what happened. On Friday November 22, 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm. allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald. On Sunday, November 24, Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters when suddenly a guy by the name of Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the chest, fatally wounding him on national television. So that was the end of the Kennedys. Giancana and the rest of the national mob were celebrating like it was New Years Eve. So now they thought that the problems were gone and they can operate freely. But they were wrong and their problems were far from over, in fact the real problems just started. Jack Ruby, the guy who killed Oswald was a mob associate since day one, so the feds picked up for questioning few of Ruby’s close associates that belonged to the Chicago Outfit. Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras were two of Giancana’s lieutenants of the non-Italian faction but as usual these guys gave nothing up and denied their close associations with Ruby. All they said was that they knew him from back in the days in their old neighbourhood. But the damage has already been done because if the mob was really involved in the JFK hit than they made a big mistake because now the heat from the government was bigger than ever.
JFK’s head blown by the shot
The Outfit bosses became paranoid beyond reasonable doubts so things had to be changed for the good of the organization. Tony Accardo and Murray Humphreys, who by now became the most paranoid old man that walked the streets of Chicago with a gun under his belt, thought the same thing that Giancana was slowly slipping. But Paul Ricca was still the most respected boss in the organization and didn’t allow anything to happen to his Taylor Street guys. Even with the government on his tail, Giancana still continued his famous love affairs and also continuously confronted the government. Also he together with Chuckie Nicoletti and another Chicago hoodlum named Americo DePieto were involved in the narcotics trade, which was the most dangerous move during this time. According to FBI files Nicoletti and DiPieto were the main ringleaders of a large national narcotics ring under the auspices of Giancana.
During this period Sam Giancana was travelling around the world with his girlfriend Phyllis McGuire so when he wasn’t around many of his underlings and so-called friends were forced to talk behind his back. One day Paul Ricca met with some of the Outfit’s political bosses, like Pat Marcy, who said that he has never seen things so bad before in his life. So even old man Ricca had his own limits and decided to change things around Chicago’s underworld. First he ordered Tony Accardo to sell his expensive and huge mansion and to buy an average house. Second he ordered Giancana’s flamboyant associate Johnny Roselli to leave Las Vegas and the West Side of the U.S. Later he sent a message to Giancana to return to Chicago and to find a temporary substitute for his position as boss. In November, 1963 Sam Giancana ordered his underlings to make few meetings and to agree on their decisions for the new acting boss of the Chicago Outfit. So on December 21, 1963 Charles Nicoletti attended a meeting together with Chuck English, Jack Cerone and Giancana at the Red Steer restaurant at 8800 West Grand and River Road in River Grove, Illinois. On December 27, 1963 Nicoletti attended another meeting with Charles English and Jack Cerone at the Red Steer restaurant. Next in January 1964 Ricca called a meeting which was chaired by Tony Accardo to elect a new front boss for Giancana. Present at the meeting were Sam Battaglia, Willie Daddano, Felix Alderisio and the Fratto brothers. Giancana’s friend since the old days in the 42 gang, Sam Battaglia was placed as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit and Gus Alex replaced Murray Humphries as boss of the non-Italian faction. When Giancana was called before a grand jury in 1966, he respected the “omerta”, which put him in prison for over a year. During Giancana’s stay in prison, Nicoletti received instructions through Sam’s brother Chuck Giancana. When he got out, to cool things down, Ricca agreed with Giancana’s idea to spread more operations in Mexico. They already had their guy Nick “Dean” Circella over there so Giancana negotiated with Circella to divide the lucrative gambling operations. Circella realised what was going on and that Ricca and Accardo were spearheading the effort to place Giancana in Mexico as overseer of the gambling operations, far away from Chicago.
Having Battaglia as boss, most of the Outfit members were not happy about the decision because Battaglia was a very treacherous person with many enemies within the organization. But things were smooth for Chuckie Nicoletti because when Battaglia took the heat as boss of the Chicago Outfit, Nicoletti became the prime force in Melrose Park. He became the sole owner of Al Piemonte Ford Co. at 25th and North Av. He also had interests in the Mars Oldsmobile Co. and purchased the land on which the Ford agency was built. Nicoletti opened up a restaurant on North Av. with Lou Nikolas and two other Greeks. Nicoletti also spread his legitimate businesses and also owned several condominiums in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also invested in hotels and gambling joints out of the country like Puerto Rico. During this period Nicoletti was riding high in Chicago’s underworld. He also had the police chief Dominic Cimino of Melrose Park in his back pocket. Nicoletti and Cimino were constantly seen together at Slicker Sam’s Saloon at 1911 Rice Street. The owner of the saloon was Sam “Slick” Rosa, who was a golfing partner of Sam Giancana and close associate of Nicoletti, operated a crap game at the place. Nicoletti and Outfit member Rocco Salvatore oversaw all of the gambling operations in Melrose Park for Battaglia. Nicoletti even expanded his gambling operations in northern Indiana. His main guys over there were Frank Zizzo and George Dicks.
In January 1967 the FBI placed a lot of pressure on Battaglia’s territory and made triple raids on many of the Outfit’s gambling spots in Melrose Park. They also revoked the liquor licenses of many of the Outfit owned clubs in that territory and also began a big investigation on Battaglia and on one of his top lieutenants Joe Amabile. Than a trial commenced on April 24, 1967 but before the trial Gus Alex, Outfit’s fixer, obtained a list of jurors in the case. The purpose was to place pressure over the jurors to vote for an acquittal. But the action failed and later Alex expressed his deepest anger at the hoodlums who were assigned for the job. Battaglia and his two main enforcers Alderisio and Nicoletti saw this as a slap in their face so later Alex decided to take a “vacation” out of Chicago. So on May 9, 1967 the jury returned a guilty verdict for Sam Battaglia, Joe Amabile and construction manager Dave Evans for violating the Hobbs Act for obstructing interstate commerce and extortion. Battaglia was sentenced to 15 years and a fine of $15,000. He was followed to prison by two other mobsters from Giancana’s administration, Marshal Caifano and Rocco Pranno. Many of these top mobsters were jailed in the same prison and as a result of that, Battaglia was moved in the same area as Richard Speck, a serial killer who murdered eight student nurses. This was a situation that was very disturbing for Battaglia.
The late 1960’s weren’t so good for the Outfit’s gambling and bookmaking operations because the feds raided hundreds of bookie joints on Chicago’s North/West Side and the rest of the city. On February 8, 1968 Chuckie Nicoletti was arrested together with one of his associates Joe Scaramuzzo in his grocery during a raid on a bookmaking joint. The joint was operated by Nicoletti in a room at the rear of the food store which was owned by his wife, Agnes, at 1000 Loomis blvd. The bookie joint which handled an estimated $100,000 a month in horse bets. Besides gambling paraphernalia seized in the raid, the detectives confiscated a sawed- off shotgun, a .38 caliber revolver and a pamphlet which told how to "bug" police radio calls with a new electronic eavesdropping device. The cops also found a shotgun and a .38 caliber revolver in a room at the rear of the food store. On March 14, 1968 Nicoletti was taken to a trial. The findings and sentence were made by Judge Albert LaPlante who heard the two- hour case without a jury and in the end Nicoletti walked free and was fined only $200 in Domestic Relations court.
By now the Chicago Outfit had no official boss. There were many candidates such as Felix Alderisio and Jack Cerone but they had so many legal troubles that they were going to end up the same way as Sam Battaglia ended up. So now the aging Outfit’s elder statesman Paul Ricca made one last move. He advised his long time companion Tony Accardo to step up and to make a ruling panel. Meaning, Accardo would be the top boss or main advisor and under him there would be two street bosses or in other words, front bosses to manage the day to day operations. Ricca’s idea was to find the right guy for the job and to groom him until he was competent enough to take charge all on his own. One of the bosses was Gus Alex because he was by now the only Outfit figure with many friends in high places so he was perfect for the job. The main candidates for the second spot were Chuckie Nicoletti, one of the three Doms (Brancato, DiBella, Nuccio) and Joseph Aiuppa from Cicero. Since Nicoletti was one of Giancana’s closest allies and if he became the boss, Ricca and Accardo were afraid that Giancana might take control of the organization again. Nicoletti was always loyal to his friends from the old 42 gang, so in the minds of Ricca and Accardo, Nicoletti was out of the question. In fact, his close relationship with Giancana was the only obstacle for Nicoletti’s rise to power as one of the top bosses. So Accardo advised his mentor Ricca that the prefect combination for the job would be Aiuppa. It was a good combination, Alex had the brains and Aiuppa had the brawn and he was also a friend of Nicoletti. So Ricca agreed.
Joey Aiuppa
On July 25, 1969, the grand jury in Chicago returned suppressed indictment against Felix Alderisio. On July 29, he was arrested at his residence at po5 Berkley Road, Riverside, Illinois. Present during the arrest at Alderisio’s home was another Outfit hoodlum Joey “The Clown” Lombardo. When the cops searched the house, they found thirty-three different kinds of weapons, including 14 handguns and 19 rifles and shotguns. In January 1970, Felix Alderisio was taken to a trial on charges of federal bank violation. The main witness in the case was Irwin “Pinky” Davis, a convicted associate of Alderisio. Davis was very scared about his safety and the safety of his family because he greatly feared of retaliation from Alderisio or Nicoletti. But besides that Davis was an outstanding witness during the trial so on January 30, 1970 Alderisio was sentenced to 5 years in jail on the bank violation and 2 more years for firearms violation.
Alderisio arrested by the feds
Now with his buddy and business partner in jail, Nicoletti tried to be more independent by expending his shakedown activities on the supermarkets. Since he was involved in the supermarket business, Nicoletti brought Lenny Patrick, who was one of his partners from the North/West side and introduced Nicoletti to Louis Steinberg, the president of Steinberg-Baum discount chain. Patrck and Steinberg had long standing relationship. On November 15, 1970 Nicoletti attended a meeting with Outfit members Mario DeStefano, Lenny and his brother Mike Patrick in a North Western Avenue pizza parlor to share Steinberg’s companionship. Steinberg wrote checks, some as high as $900,000 and were cashed in different banks and than transferred to the chain’s 20 different subsidiaries or affiliates, with different corporate names which some were owned by Nicoletti and the Outfit. The FBI also received a report that in return, Nicoletti introduced Patrick to the narcotics trade on the West Side. Nicoletti pushed forward to the narcotics business because by now the government shot down most of the illegal gambling rackets.
But glory days of 55 year old Nicoletti were slowly coming to an end. On September 25, 1971 Nicoletti’s old friend and partner in crime, Felix “Milwaukee Phil” Alderisio died suddenly from an alleged heart attack at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois at the age of 59. His death brought an end to the brutal history of one of the most vicious duo in Chicago’s underworld history. On September 26, the wake of Alderisio drew more police attention than the gangster’s friends and family. Some of the mobsters that appeared at his funeral were Charles Nicoletti, Chuck English, Joe Gagliano, Dominic DiBella and Irv Weiner. Alderisio’s death was follwed by the death of Joe Gagliano on December 14, 1971, who was the king of West Side loan sharks. Paul Ricca attended Gagliano’s wake with his head bowing in the realization of defeat than in respect to a fallen comrade.
With his old boss Sam Battaglia rotting in jail, Nicoletti decided to grant him one last wish. During Battglia’s trial there were three key witnesses who testified for the government in the case. The first one was William Riley, president of the Riley Management Company and victim of extortion, the second one was Mike DiVito, suburban contractor and the third one who was the main witness against Battaglia, Henry LaKey the president of Carlson Construction Company. Riley and DiVito were given new identities and were relocated to other parts of the country but LaKey declined to be relocated and changed his name to Henry Rufo. Few years later Nicoletti, through his corrupt police contacts 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.
Things got really bad for the old West Side gang when their leader and protector Paul “The Waiter” Ricca died almost a year later on October 11, 1972 in Presbyterian-St Luke's Hospital. Just about everybody who was anybody in the underworld went to pay their last respects to the man they all agreed was the father of Chicago’s Brotherhood of Crime.
By this time Melrose Park was still one of the most lucrative territories for the Chicago Outfit and Nioletti was the prime force. During December, 1972 the new acting mayor of Melrose Park, since the death of Jake LaSpisa, was August “Augie” Taddeo. Taddeo was the godson of Outfit boss Joey Aiuppa and close associate of Nicoletti. Vic Taddeo, Augie’s father, worked as a dealer in Cicero gambling games and also worked as a muscleman for Aiuppa. Nicoletti and Aiuppa played major role in placing Taddeo as the new mayor. Shortly before LaSpisa’s death Nicoletti was still the dominant force in Melrose Park politics. He had few nominates for the mayor spot. One was Ralph “Babe” Serpico who served as the Democratic Committeeman for Proviso Township. He did two stints in prison and was discovered by the press as the connection between the Chicago outfit and the Democratic Party. So Nicoletti washed his hands of Serpico by refusing to intercede. The other guy was Lou Nikolas but Nikolas started bragging about this too early, telling people that he’s the next mayor and had the backing of the Chicago syndicate. This move even enraged Sam Battaglia in prison. The Outfit called on Nikolas he was told that not only he was not going to be the mayor but he also had to resign his job as trustee. That’s when Taddeo got in to the picture and became mayor. Also it was at this time when Nicoletti brought Aiuppa to Melrose Park and became the boss of that area. Now Nicoletti and Aiuppa were the prime forces in some of the most lucrative area in Chicago. Their main messenger was an attorney by the name of Barney Bruno. Bruno was the courier that carried instructions and messages to other lower members and imprisoned bosses like Cerone and Battaglia.
On February 7, 1973 there was a big meeting which was held at the SAC club in Melrose Park at the request of certain members and associates of the Chicago Outfit. Main figures at the meeting were Aiuppa and Nicoletti, followed by Tony Mastro, Tony “Bucky” Ortenzi, John Romano, Louis and Frank Karris, Rocky Montagna, attorney Vito Dalleo and mayor August Taddeo. There were also two uknown individuals who were brought by Montagna and also a cop only known as “Slim”. Montagna brought these two people, who allegedly came from the west, like Las Vegas or Los Angeles, to purchase a quarter of a million in stolen securities. The deal was done. Next, Aiuppa handed a brown paper sack filled with cash to “Slim”, who shortly after that departed from the meeting. Next on the agenda was the quarrel between Ortenzi and the attorney Dalleo. Dalleo thought that Ortenzi was far beneath him mentally and socially, so he didn’t want to take orders from him. Suddenly some hard words started to be exchanged at the table but all ended when Aiuppa ordered Dalleo that he was to take orders from Ortenzi or else. Next, Nicoletti, Aiuppa, Taddeo and the Karris brothers discussed the new pub that the brothers wanted to front. Taddeo was ordered to see to it that they would not receive any troubles from the Melrose Park police. Next thing was the discussion between Ortenzi and the two unknown people about Nicoletti’s and Aiuppa’s desire to purchase a building, that recently burned down, for $75,000. They wanted to open a club which would be fronted by the Nikolas brothers. The deal was done. Last on the agenda was regarding the juice operations in Melrose Park, the members present at the meeting were have been told that they are now on their own, because the Outfit was afraid that the government agents were getting people to go on juice so as to trap the juice operators. The meeting lasted for half an hour and in the end everybody disappeared in different directions.
By this time Aiuppa and Nicoletti ran Melrose Park pretty smoothly and made a lot of cash. They also felt that Gus Alex wasn’t devoting much of his time as a part of the ruling panel because they started having many problems with “City Hall”. The problem was that Alex spent most of his time in Florida and often travelled to Europe. Both Aiuppa and Nicoletti advised Tony Accardo that he should prevail over Alex and to make him stay in Chicago permanently. During a meeting between Accardo and Alex, he stated that he had no intentions of staying in Chicago nor that he had any intentions of taking greater responsibilities. He also tried to talk Accardo in retiring in Florida and into buying a house next to his. Later Alex also became very critical of Aiuppa and Nicoletti and became enraged because by now Nicoletti and Aiuppa divided the Chicago Outfit in two factions. One faction was the “Management” which was formed by Accardo, Aiuppa and Dominic DiBella and the second faction “The Blazers” which was headed by Nicoletti with members like Joey Lombardo, Frank “the German” Schweihs, Tony Spilotro and Harry “The Hook” Aleman. So the “Management” wasn’t very satisfied with Alex and his operations in the Loop. They wanted more money and they also suggested that Alex should take more active part in the North/West side which was one of the most profitable areas for the Chicago Outfit.
As being one of the bosses in Melrose Park, Nicoletti’s enterprise had its own problems with thievery. During this period Nicoletti discovered an organized band of thieves that were preying on the receipts of mob-owned, coin-operated vending machines in the western suburbs. They were mostly two-bit punks, who had never worked a day in their lives and now wanted to cut themselves in for a piece of the action. Nicoletti’s men warned this band of thieves through their leader 33 year old James Leonetti. But besides the warnings, Leonetti still prowled the suburbs, skillfully using a set of lock picks and a metal receptacle to carry off his loot. Now Nicoletti was forced to make an example. On July 15, 1973 Leonetti was lured by one of his friends to Bill's Grill at 2300 W. North Av. At 3 am two masked men entered the tavern, grabbed him, spun him around and than shot him to death. Than they carefully placed a metal receptacle on his chest, which Leonetti had used to ply his trade. When the cops searched the scene they found about $300 in coins spread around in his car which was nearby the tavern. The gangsters had left their message unmistakably for all those who could recognize it.
