Ross Prio ensured his protection and also expanded his connections with the government through his attorney and associate Fred Romano. One of Prio’s connections was a police Captain Redmond P. Gibbons, who was a chief of the uniformed police and commander of the Hudson Av. police district. Gibbons had a good reputation as a policeman but his colleagues knew about his shady connections with the underworld. In 1953 Police Commissioner Timothy O'Connor started an investigation and pressed charges against Gibbons that were under the direction of Philip Breitzke, the deputy commissioner. The investigators found a little red memo book, which Gibbons admitted may be his, which contained addresses and telephone numbers of gambling places, clubs, and business enterprises in the Hudson Av. police district. The book also contained mysterious numerical entries, ranging from 10 to 100, after some of the names. The numbers raised speculation about being "payoffs." Gibbons defended himself by saying that he didn’t fully acknowledged that the red book was his, but he said he had kept such a book while he was in command at Hudson av. back in 1949 and 1950. He said he kept data on his automobile and camera in the book. Gibbons also said that he listed in it the names and addresses of friends and as well as information needed for police investigations. Gibbons also added that the addresses and telephone numbers which were traced to gambling establishments were in fact collected in the investigation of the murder of Marvin Bas, an attorney, who was shot and killed on September 25, 1950. The murder was not solved. It was reported that Bas was about to give information to the United States senate crime investigating committee about his underworld connections. The biggest problem was that the book contained the phone number of Fred Romano who by that time was a known associate of Ross Prio and they shared an office at 134 N. La Salle St. The State's Attorney John Gutknecht also took the heat because his name was also been drawn from the entries in the book. When asked about this, he said that he had no intention of firing Romano, who by now he was one of his assistants. But the reality was that Gutknecht hired Romano with the full knowledge that he was a very close friend of Ross Prio. Attorney William Mannion, who had screen Romano as a candidate, said that as far he was concerned, Prio was a “respectable businessman” with no prior criminal record. But the truth was that Prio’s criminal record dated from 1929, but because of this case, a court order was issued for the record to be destroyed. The records of hundreds of Chicago's big time hoodlums have been removed from the police bureau of identification over the years. Such removals were granted in cases where there was no evidence in the records that the hoodlums had ever been convicted. The removals all took place prior to 1951 before police commissioner O'Connor ruled against such action.
One undercover detective raised his voice by saying that Prio, Aldermen Bauer and William Goldstein were the boys that should be seen about vice and gambling. Each of their names was listed in the notebook. On July 8, 1953, 53 year old Ross Prio was questioned by the “investigation elite” in the Central Police building including the deputy commissioner Philip Breitzke, the head of the Sotland Yard secret investigation unit Captain William Balswick, Chief of detectives John O’Malley, and John Golden, the head of the homicide section. Prio was joined by one of his attorneys Bernard McDonnell. During the questioning Prio only gave his name, age and the address of his home at 6116 Forest Glen Avenue. He also described himself as an oil dealer, who had been recently drilling some wells in southern Illinois. Than Breitzke asked Prio about his involvement in vice and gambling operations in the Hudson Avenue police district, about the kidnapping of Republican legislator Clem Graver, the murder of former police lieutenant William Drury, the killing of the attorney Marvin Bas and in the end he was asked how it happened that he’s telephone number was found in the notebook kept by Captain Gibbons. Prio calmly replied to each question with a single sentence “I refuse to answer”. Breitzke wanted to hold Prio for further questioning but his attorney McDonnell warned the investigators that Prio would sue them for damages if arrested without justification. Prio’s lawyer also produced a doctors certificate that Prio had been ill and that any emotional upset might be serious. Again, Prio walked free. So the notebook case became a big national scandal but everybody walked free when Mayor Kennelly decided to dismiss the significance of the same notebook. In other words Prio became untouchable. It was considered by law enforcement that during this period the two main players just below Paul Ricca and Tony Accardo were Sam Giancana and Ross Prio.
So by now everything for Prio was business as usual. The same year in 1953 he used two different investors as fronts for constructing a development of homes in Lincolnwood, Illinois. He invested through William Enke of the Stratton Grain Co. and Julius Frankel and William Kelly who were associated with the Village of Lincolnwood. Later Chicago architect William Cohan confirmed that Ross Prio was the advisor of the investors and that all of the financial transactions involving the investors were handled by Fred Romano, Prio’s attorney. Also for number of years Prio made investments in the grain industry and he transacted some of his main businesses through Enke’s Stratton Grain and Trading Company.
Prio's attorney Fred Romano
During the mid 1950’s one of Prio’s most lucrative business was the selling of horse meat. Back in 1951 the biggest meat packing companies centralized their operations in a few cities and the largest of them all was the meat packing industry in Chicago. At the same time many high ranking mobsters, including Ross Prio, met at a restaurant on the North Side allegedly to discuss business and the illegal horse meat operations. They arranged to start selling horse meat which was labelled as beef with the help of their meat packing companies. They also arranged that the illegal horse meat dealers set very high prices for a pound of meat sold in the Chicago area. So the Rush Street crew through their C & B Meat Co. sold the “beef” to every tavern, restaurant, club or hotel around their area and they had only five employees. The scheme was a cash cow for the gangsters because beef was sold for 62 cents a pound while horse meat cost only 15 cents a pound. According to some reports, Prio and his crew made over $500.000 in few months from this operation alone. The Outfit also started eliminating competition and during this period several bombings on restaurants and butcher shops occurred in the Chicago area over the horsemeat business.
Horsemeat Hamburger Grand Jury 1952. A secret witness who's name and face were concealed, leaves the grand jury testimony on the selling of horsemeat to area butchers and restaurants as ground beef.
So the government started investigating the criminal infiltration in the meat business. The police started arresting owners of meat packing plants and companies that were mob connected and were selling horse meat but the mobsters remained untouched. On July 11 1958, Ross Prio, Caesar DiVarco and Jackie Cerone were questioned by investigative committee during the McClellan hearings. During the hearings, Senator John McClellan and Robert Kennedy questioned Ross Prio:
The Chairman: All right, the one on my right. What is your name?
Prio: Ross Prio, 1721 Sunset Ridge, Glenview, 111.
The Chairman: And what is your business or occupation?
Prio: I decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.
The Chairman: This last witness on my right, I ask you the question: Do you honestly believe that if you gave a truthful answer to the question, "What is your business or occupation?” that a truthful answer thereto might tend to incriminate you?
Prio: I decline to answer on the grounds that the answer may tend to incriminate me.
The Chairman: The Chair, with the approval of the committee, orders and directs the witness to answer the question: Do you honestly believe that if you gave a truthful answer to the question, "What is your business or occupation?" that a truthful answer there to might tend to incriminate you?
Prio: I decline to answer that on the grounds that my answer may tend to incriminate me.
Kennedy: Mr. Prio, according to the information that we have that was developed under oath before the committee yesterday, you had a very prominent role in the setting up of these syndicate-sponsored trade associations in Chicago in 1952 and 1953. Could you tell us about what you did in connection with that?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Kennedy: We understand that you are probably one of the most important figures in Chicago as far as bookmaking is concerned, but that you operate chiefly out of the North Side of Chicago. Is that right, Mr. Prio?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Kennedy: And that another man that was going to work with you was Joey Caesar, is that right?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Kennedy: Do you know Joey Caesar?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Kennedy: Is that Joey Caesar that is sitting on your right there?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Kennedy: Would you mind looking and seeing if you can identify him? Not that individual, but the one sitting next to him. Do you recognize him?
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
The Chairman: You are ordered and directed to answer the question.
Prio: I decline to answer that question, sir.
Joseph DiVarco, Jack Cerone and Ross Prio during the McClellan hearings
Later Kennedy also referred to the C & B Meat Co. and said that DiVarco and others took orders from Tony Accardo who had interest in the same meat supply company. But Prio and the boys each took the fifth more than 90 times. In reality the meat scandal already went big that it became national. After this the heat from the government was constant so Prio and the Outfit in general never had the meat business on high level ever again.
During the late 1950’s the Chicago Outfit led the rest of the Mid West crime families in taking over the Las Vegas casinos. Many mob meetings occurred during this period and the Rush Street crew had its own representatives on these gatherings. For example, in the summer of 1957 in small town near Los Angeles, California Ross Prio, Joseph “Ruffy” Lisciandrello, Dominick DiBella and Benny Goldberg met with leaders from the Los Angeles crime family to talk future business in the Vegas casinos. In 1958 at the Indian Creek Hotel in Miami Beach Prio, Lisciandrello, DiVarco and Allegretti met with representative of the Pittsburgh crime family Sam Mannarino about their shares in the Vegas Casinos. Later in 1959 another meeting occurred in Chicago between DiVarco, Allegretti and Nick Danolfo and Wilbur Clark of the Desert Inn casino in Las Vegas. The purpose of this meeting was to gain control of the gambling operations in the State of Nevada by financing acquisition of political control in the state. They also talked about obtaining control of the policy and prostitution rackets in Vegas. It was the period of the golden era of Las Vegas and the Chicago mob was in charge.
Besides the semi-legal businesses such as the former cheese company, the constructions or the horse meat business and the illegal rackets such as gambling, prostitution, protection racket or the Las Vegas schemes, the most profitable racket for the Rush Street crew was the Latin numbers game known as “Bolita”. The game originally came from Puerto Rico and Cuba and at the beginning it was considered to be a relatively harmless amateur sport to raise money for clubs and fraternal groups. But the Chicago mob saw it as a very profitable operation and it became illegal in the U.S. In the old days bolita had 100 numbered balls which were placed in a bag than the bag was tossed from person to person at the throwing. The sack went round in a circle of tossers until the time for drawing. At the time the person that held the bag took a numbered ball out of it and that was the winning number. People made bets at the local grocery store, the butcher, in the street, at work, and in any number of bars, cafés, and restaurants. Millions of people bet their money on what the combination of the balls would be. For the Chicago Outfit it was a $50,000 a day profit game that maintained for almost two decades. Most of the operations were placed on Chicago’s North Side.
The two major bosses that controlled the bolita racket were Ross Prio and Fiore “Fifi” Buccieri from the West Side. Their prime operator and lieutenant for the racket was a Japanese gambling boss known as Ken “Joe the Jap” Eto. Eto was a very shrewd card and dice player that was first noticed and brought to the organization by Prio himself. Under Prio, Eto controlled the game among non-whites in Chicago and Indiana. He also operated two cocktail lounges for Prio on Rush Street, The Den and The Bourbon Street Club. The Bourbon club was owned by Rita Miyoshi, who in fact was Eto’s daughter. Reports say that every morning Eto met with Prio and later went to the clubs or racing tracks to collect his payment. The duo was also known for driving in Eto’s car aimlessly along Morton Grove, Niles and other Illinois areas. If Prio wasn’t available, Eto attended meetings with Dominick DiBella or Nuccio. Eto also had a crew of Orientals under his rule that operated the game such as Raymond Choy, Oda Tsutomu, Kazutoka Moto and Stanley Imoaka. Eto used these guys to carry cash and gambling receipts because they were clean, had guts and kept their mouths shut. Usually the Subway Pool Room, Mike’s Rainbow Restaurant and Merlo’s Real Estate and Insurance Co. were the main places that have been used as money drops. The Subway Pool Room was often used as a meeting place between Prio, Allegretti, DiVarco and Eto. With the bolita racket Eto made millions of dollars a year for Prio and the Outfit in general. By the late 1950’s the Outfit was taking over the bolita racket from the Latin community. Some joined the organization and others refused. Those who refused met their demise.
Ken “Joe the Jap” Eto
Eugene Lopez was a tavern owner and a very close associate of Eto in the bolita business. He also lived under the alias James Crizell. One day Lopez decided not report all of his earned cash from the bolita perations which was a big mistake. Ross Prio didn’t want any shortages from anyone because the idea might spread around to other Puerto Rican bolita operators. So Prio was forced to make an example and told Eto to lure Lopez to an alleged meeting. On November 19, 1957 unaware of the murder plot, 42 year old Lopez walked into a trap. He was beaten and than strangled by Prio’s henchmen. His battered body was found the next day jammed in the back seat of a 1957 convertible near Antioch Lake County. The police theorized that the victim had been killed outside the auto and then dumped onto the back floor. There was a livid strangle mark on the victim’s throat and two deep cuts on the head which represented a typical gangland style murder. The news about the murder quickly spread around the Latin community and they realized that they couldn’t defy the mob and get away with it alive.
Another bolita operator met the most gruesome faith. Santiago Gonzalez was a big man among his peers in the Latin community and was also a big fish in the bolita racket. So blinded by his ego, Gonzalez decided that he will operate independently and didn’t want anything to do with the Chicago mob. Again the mob sent for Eto to go and talk to the guy. But Eto was chased out by Gonzalez and few other Puerto Rican hoodlums with metal pipes and baseball bats. So again the boss of the Near North Side Ross Prio issued a contract on Gonzalez’s life. Eto was ordered to set up Gonzalez, along with another Outfit associate known as John Fecarotta. On January 29, 1958 Gonzales was lured to a meeting in an industrial area. Outfit henchmen grabbed him and tortured him for few days. On February 2, his body was found on a parking lot. He was brutally beaten, slashed, stabbed, and gutted so severely that his intestines spilled out of his body.
Ken Eto was also known for handling small time juice loans in the Rush Street area out of the Golden 8 Ball Pool and Billiard Hall. In 1962 Eto and another Rush Street associate and club owner Aaron “Obie” Oberlander travelled to San Juan, Puerto Rico to establish multimillion dollar hotel for gambling operations and to be utilized by Ross Prio and others. Through Prio, Eto began connecting with prominent hoodlums of the Chicago area such as Armando “Mondo” Fosco, a notorious figure who back in the late 1930’s at the age of 14, drew a gun at few police officers. During this period Fosco was often seen having meetings with Prio. Policy number operator and club owner William Belmonte was also involved in the bolita racket with the North Side crew. Belmonte was a long time associate of policy numbers king and infamous hitman Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt. Another prominent associate of the Prio/Eto bolita operations was James “Kid Riviera” Williams, a 300-pound African-American gambling overseer, mob muscleman and big time narcotics peddler from the West Side. According to FBI reports also during this period Williams had several meetings with Eto and Prio.
James “Kid Riviera” Williams
Eto was also involved in another “numbers racket” which was known as the Cadillac numbers. In this operation he was connected with another syndicate hoodlum known as Joseph “Cappy” Capizzi. Capizzi also worked for another big time hoodlum Felix “Milwaukee Phil” Alderisio and was constantly seen in the company of other hoodlums such as Prio, Allegretti and DiVarco. The Cadillac operation was the largest ever to operate on Chicago’s South Side and in general. It employed over 100 runners. The runners distributed the numbers cards to hundreds of persons on the city s North, South and West Side each day. The bettors chose any combination of three numbers on the cards, which were then returned to the collection offices by the runners. Each day the ring obtained "the handle," or total proceeds bet, at a particular race track in the United States on that same day. If the bettor’s choice of the three numbers all appeared in the figures of the track’s proceeds, he won. If you really think about it, during this period Ken Eto was maybe the prime money maker for the Rush Street crew and Ross Prio.
During the late 1950’s and early 60’s many Outfit high profile figures wanted to transfer some of their illegal operations on the North Side. Outfit member from the West Side Rocco Potenza wanted to sell some of his dice and roulette tables to clubs and other joints that were located on Chicago’s Northwest Side which was Prio’s territory. So he had to ask his boss Sam Giancana to ask Prio if he can operate freely. Giancana talked to Prio and a deal was made. Potenza had to pay weekly $2,000 for Prio’s sanction to operate in the Northwest suburbs and also he had to pay Giancana another $3,000 for the same reason. During the same period people from the Jewish community in Chicago migrated from the West Side to the North Side of the city. The most prominent Jewish mobsters at the time were Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras. So again Patrick had to ask Giancana to win Prio’s approval to move to Rogers Park and operate his own bookmaking schemes. Patrick made a deal with Prio and another old Capone gangster Leslie “Killer Kane” Kruse to share his profits with the two bosses in exchange for protection by paying off undisclosed aldermen and three police captains. So Patrick’s protection was granted. But the problem was that Giancana and Prio, the two top gangsters in the Outfit, sometimes made mistakes by giving the same territories on two different gangsters. For example, Lenny Patrick had a quarrel with Louis Ciriona over horse book operations on the North Side. Ciriona worked for Outfit big shots Gus Alex and Frank Ferraro. The argument was due to the fact that Ciriona received the “ok” from Giancana and Prio to operate a handbook without the knowledge of Gus Alex. To calm things down, Ciriona was told to work under the auspices of Lenny Patrick, in other words to give him a percentage of his gambling earnings.
On February 10, 1961 Ross Prio organized a wedding for his daughter Joanne. The lucky guy was a 30 year old advertising auditor Gerald Avery. Their relationship resulted of their same attendance in a military academy. The couple was married in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in suburban Glenview. The bride wore white silk and some of the guests wore guns at gangland's big social event of the season. Among the 175 invited guests were Felix “Milwaukee Phil” Alderisio, Willie “Smokes” Aloisio, and Marshal Caifano, who wore elevator shoes. Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana couldn't make the wedding but they put in appearances later at a dinner dance and reception in the swank Villa Venice night club. The Outfit’s top boss Paul Ricca sent regrets because he was detained at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Prio’s son Ross Jr. got previously married to girl named as Frances Maiale. She was the daughter of Frank Maiale, a businessman from Wisconsin who knew Prio for more than 20 years. Ross Jr. worked as independent broker who was doing some speculative buying and selling for himself and also for any brokerage firm that contacted him. Junior also held seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. From his son’s marriage, Prio Sr. received two grandchildren.
Chicago North Side boss Ross Prio
