Also after the death of Claude Maddox, one of his underlings Joe Corngold became the top non-Italian member in the Cicero area. He and one of his top guys John Carr operated a large horse book operation. Corngold was also closely associates with the Italian faction of the Cicero area such as Joey Aiuppa, the boss of that area, and Robert Ansani. Corngold respected Alex very much because he was his protector in certain situations. Whenever Corngold had problems with some of Alex’s associates such as Louis Briatta or Frank Caruso, he always asked for Alex’s back up and he gladly received it…of course for the right share. But there was another big shot non-Italian member from the Cicero area known as John Varlas. Alex and Varlas knew each other for more than 20 years, since Varlas’ mother was from Greek descent and knew the Alex family. Some sources say that Varlas was the head of all Greek gambling operators from the Cicero area but by the end of the day, he reported to Alex. Varlas mainly operated a Greek dice and card game known as “Barbout”, in which people from Greek extraction used to bet heavily. As additional info, although he answered to Alex, but Varlas was also direct to Giancana because they were also very close friends.


Francis Curry was the Outfit’s boss in the Joliet area. He was a close friend of Paul Ricca and was involved with Alex in numerous gambling joints and coin machine operations. Back in the 1950’s Curry was a quite powerful individual but now he shared his interests with Alex, Kruse and Frank LaPorte.


Lenny Patrick was also a gambling operator, prominent extortionist and murderer from the Lawndale area and later spread his operations in Rogers Park. In Fact, Patrick together with Ross Prio and Les Kruse shared the profits from that area. Patrick and his partner Dave Yaras controlled a vast gambling and loan sharking operations in and out of Chicago. Yaras for example controlled few schemes in Miami and Dallas. But the thing was that these two guys also answered to both Alex and Battaglia because they belonged to the West Side Bloc. Yaras and Patrick controlled one of the most important factions of the Outfit and that was the Jewish faction which included men like Max Nettler, Ben Gagerman, Itzer Levinson, Benny Goldberg and William Block. Once when one of Alex’s guys started muscling in on Patrick’s territory and the two almost went to war. In the end they figured it out that in fact the guy who worked for Alex took his blessing straight from Giancana and Ross Prio, who in turn failed to notify both Alex and Patrick. In the end, Patrick backed off and the guy continued with his operations. Alex, Patrick and Larner were all partners in the Vencoa Music Company which was a branch of the Apex Amusement Corporation secretly owned by Vogel and Alex.


Another high profile figure was Hyman Godfrey who acted as a chauffer for the boss of this non-Italian faction and was also the group’s messenger and advisor. For example, Alex was such a paranoid individual who once observed a Ford automobile parked in close proximity to his headquarters at 620 South Michigan, and immediately took actions by writing down the license plate number and instructed Godfrey to go down to the police station and to obtain information on the owner of the car. Godfrey, upon returning to the headquarters, said that the registration was checked out to one E. P. Walters who resided at 936 South 11th Street in Maywood, Chicago. After that Alex again ordered Godfrey to make a contact with someone and to determine whether Walters owned such a car and what was he doing on Michigan Avenue. Godfrey later reported “He’s from Economical Tabulation. He works on the outside. Takes cabs and stuff like that. He might be waiting for his boss to come down. That figures.” To me this sounds quite funny but then again, this was one of Godfrey’s jobs.


Godfrey previously worked under Sam Hunt and by now was closely connected to Ralph Pierce in the policy racket on Chicago’s South Side. Pierce had an army of African-American lieutenants who ran the policy racket. They were absolutely necessary because they were the ones who gambled and they were the ones who collected the bets. What Pierce and the Outfit did was share in the profits. The policy racket on the South Side was very much different that the one on the West Side, where the African-American operators were often killed over the racket. It was a multi-million dollar racket, and that’s why Pierce was always considered as a very powerful individual within the Outfit. Florine Stevens and James Irving were the main African-American couple that controlled the policy racket for Pierce on Chicago’s South Side. Back in 1952, Guzik and Alex decided Irving was their man to operate the policy racket, and from then on Irving's stock climbed. Another major African-American duo in the policy racket was Andrew Hodo and Thomas Anderson. Later Hodo was pushed out from the policy racket by Anderson who in turn became the Outfit’s main associate on the South Side. Daniel Gaines was also a wealthy operator of the policy wheels and juke boxes and was also the owner of finance companies and other legitimate businesses. Sidney Korshak’s cousin Pepe Posner also controlled the policy racket for Pierce from 22nd Street to south which covered the Hyde Park section but one of Pierce’ prime lieutenants was Charles DiCaro. DiCaro’s brother Joseph was also a criminal who was involved in the narcotics racket with Jimmy Cordovano, Sam Garafolo and Jimmy Rancatore. Now Alex was one of the few rare people in the Outfit who really opposed drugs so if anything happened to DiCaro, Pierce was going to be held responsible. And something did happen because Joseph was arrested on narcotics charges and was facing jail term. So I don’t have any information on what really happened with the case, but all I know is that Joseph DiCaro was released from all charges and was exiled to Arizona. Pierce also had few more other guys that dealt with narcotics, such as Mario Garelli, and I personally believe that he was very much aware of that. Two members from Pierce’s crew mostly involved in the bookmaking operations were Ernest Sansone and Pasquale Amore, both old timers and long time associates.


Ralph Pierce


So the powerbase of the non-Italian faction of the Chicago Outfit was centered on the South Side. These non-Italian members always played a major role in making the Outfit one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the world. The Chicago Outfit did not call itself La Cosa Nostra. It does not strictly adhere to Italian tradition, as followed on the East Coast. It is not governed by 'Families', as they are so known in New York. In the old days there were no godfathers, no arcane rituals, and no oaths. What kept this group together were greed, power and money. The Chicago Outfit was an organized criminal enterprise that always had more vision than their New York counterparts, and has come to operate at all points west of Chicago in the United States. It followed basic management principles, with a hierarchical structure, top-down management and formalized rules and regulations for business transactions and conduct. The Outfit strived for a monopoly over legitimate and illegitimate industries through extortion, intimidation, bribery and violence at the highest levels of government and business. More so than any other criminal organization, the Chicago Outfit relied, and still relies, on protection from an 'unholy alliance' between the mob, corrupt police officers and corrupt public officials to survive and perpetuate itself. Without this cooperation, the Chicago Outfit would’ve cease to exist long time ago. And back in those days, the group that provided this so-called “protection” were Humphrey’s crew and the First Ward “administration.”


During the 1950’s and early 60’s, millions of dollars in “fix money” were given to numerous policemen of the Chicago Police Department for numerous favours received. The “fix money” was left in an envelope for the police officials, who in turn picked it up from a certain location and that each envelope was numbered which indicated the specific policeman to receive the envelope. Alex had his own courier and trusted individual known as Julius Epstein and his job was to drop the envelopes filled with cash at certain restaurants. In the early 1960’s, a confidential source for the FBI named several policemen that received these envelopes from Epstein during the past 8 years, including Deputy Commissioner of the Chicago Police Department Kyran Phalen, Police Captain James Hackett, Sergeant Pete Harlib, Sergeant John O’Shea, Sergeant Edward Kirby, Police Captain Rosey McLaughlin, Police Captain Harold Enright, Lieutenant Nick McLean and Captain Frank O’Sullivan. While looking at this list, I’m thinking that Alex and the Outfit had the whole police force in their back pocket. Also one of the main reasons for which the Outfit operated freely in the Loop area, was Police Captain Frank Pape. However, Pape would never pick up his envelopes in person and always sent some individual to make the collection for him. One of Pape’s main bagmen was Detective Brian Connelly who mostly handled the payoffs in the First District Police Department. Story goes that the reason for Pape’s continued popularity and influence in the police department was his willingness to split fix money with all of the other supervising captains, as well as some of his patrolmen. Later Pape became the chief of security at the race tracks. Also Colonel John Gottlieb, who was a close associate of Alex and Sidney Korshak, was instrumental in obtaining promotions on the Chicago Police Force for Howard and Charles Pierson, who were brothers on the Outfit’s payroll.


The Italian faction of Chicago’s Near South Side and the Loop, which was headed by Frank Ferraro, did all of the heavy work on the streets. In fact, Ferraro and Alex shared equal power and shrewdness when operating their illegal rackets. Everything that Ferraro controlled, Alex also controlled it in the same manner. The individuals that worked under Ferraro were the same individuals that worked under Alex also. According to a wiretapped conversation between Hyman Godfrey, Ross Prio, Charles English and Albert Frabotta, Godfrey stated that “I’ll tell you one thing, they’re two real guys to work that Frank (Ferraro) and Gus (Alex), as far as I’m concerned.” Also in its issue of June 10, 1959, the “Chicago Daily News” quoted Robert Kennedy as follows: “Alex and Ferraro are two of the most ruthless and vicious hoodlums with complete control over Chicago’s First Ward.” The South Side was the territory where the Outfit was born and so it was considered a very honourable thing to run things over there. But the only difference between the two was their stature within the Outfit because this was mostly Italian organization and the top spots were mostly reserved for the Italians. So this made Ferraro one scale over Alex in the Outfit’s hierarchy by being the Outfit’s Italian representative in the First Ward. But according to a wiretapped conversation between Lester Kruse and another individual, Ferraro was regarded as a very weak individual and that’s why his close associates Murray Humphreys and Gus Alex were the ones who held the real power in the First Ward. Ferraro was a modern mobster who avoided violence but worked only with the threat of it. If somebody crossed him, that individual usually surrendered his operations or worked for free. For example in this next recorded conversation we can see Ferraro’s style of taking action:

PHIL SCHER (former gambling operator for Ferraro in the Loop and current front man): … and on top of that Frank I’ve protected you, I’ve kept your name clean. I don’t think I deserve to get hit over the head for this.

FERRARO: I’m not going to hit you over the head Phil, I’m going to drive you right down the street.

SCHER: Go ahead, kill me if you want to.

FERRARO: I don’t go around killing people. I’ve got other ways of taking care of people.


Outfit boss of the First Ward Frank “Strongy” Ferraro


By now the three biggest and most influential crews of the Outfit were the North Side gang led by Ross Prio, the Melrose Park crew which was headed by Battaglia and Ferraro’s First Ward crew. Because of his authority over Alex and the First Ward politicians Marcy and D’Arco, Ferraro was regarded by the FBI as the number two guy in the Outfit. According to some new so-called informations, the FBI was wrong about Ferraro’s rank within the mob but one thing is for sure that the most important choices in the sphere of crime were made with the help of that crew. It wasn’t an easy job for the boss who at the same time controlled the political machine and the illegal operations in his own district. This was a separate crew or faction of the Chicago Outfit so as any other area bosses, Ferraro and Alex also had a small list of crew members under their rule, including Pat Marcy, or the “three Louie’s” Louis Tornabene, Louis Briatta and Louis Arger or another guy known as Charles Bertucci. Tornabene had two brothers involved in the rackets, Tony and Frank, and Briatta also had two brothers involved, Tom and Mike. They had other “made guys” from the South Side involved in their every day rackets, including Frank Caruso, James Catuara and Rocco Fischetti. This crew had a huge list of associates, mostly formed by front men, gambling operators, police captains, judges, aldermen, mayors and lawyers.


During the late 1950’s, two Chicago gangsters Louis Tornabene and Louis Arger, were the major players in maintaining Alex’s and Ferraro’s illegal operations on the streets of Chicago. Alex’s favourite cousin, Louis Arger was known as “Louie the Greek” and also “the Mayor of State Street” because he was considered a multi- millionaire by law enforcement for of his control over numerous strip joints in the vicinity of Van Buren and State Street. By now Arger and Alex were doing business together for more than 10 years. Back in the days, Arger was a small time store operator for his uncle and businessman James Savolos but later “graduated” in club operator on State Street and he had an Italian partner known as Joe Bovido and because of that partnership, the Italian faction of the Chicago Outfit started muscling in on Arger’s operation. Because of his uncle’s relations to the Alex family, Arger immediately went to see his cousin and complained about the situation. Alex managed to protect Arger but told him that he can operate freely in return for a fee of 20% from the strip joint, and so the relationship began to make profits.


By now there was more profit in these strip joints than there was in the old days of running houses of prostitution. It is a type of operation where exotic dancers are continuously performing strip tease dances and the customers who enter are being solicited for expensive drinks and to buy the company of girl entertainers through the purchase of these drinks. The girls are trained to sexually stimulate the customers to the point where they become drunk and not responsible for their acts. At this time they are generally stripped of their money and in many instances induced to write personal checks in large amounts. Every stripper and b-girl was forbidden to mention Arger’s name in any situation. The person who generally fronted the ownership of the strip joints was Leo Lenit or the Spudeas brothers and one of his prime operators in the Loop area was Bill Fishman. Arger’s headquarters was the Crossroads Restaurant which was located on Van Buren and State Street. Part owner of the restaurant was also George Hobson who was a former dice expert and professional cheat in crap games for Gus Alex. Few of the most prominent and lucrative joints were Eddie Foy’s Club at 754 South Wabash, Cabana Club at 514 South Wabash, Holiday Lounge, The Rouge, The Brass Rail at 52 West Randolph St., the Chez Parisian, the Paradise Arcade and the Kitten Lounge. Arger was making so much cash that he became Alex’s number one guy, and also constant companion on many travels. For example in 1960, Alex and Arger spent the Christmas holidays at the King Cole Hotel in Miami, Florida and together for $16,000 they purchased a 27-foot yacht.


Arger was also connected with the Rush Street crew or the Northsiders through a major pimp and extortionist known as Jimmy Allegretti who was second in command under Ross Prio. One day the pair accused each other of cheating. The issue involved payoffs to the cabdrivers who delivered loads of conventioneers with fat wallets to the strip-tease dens. Since the prostitution business in the Loop was mostly overseen by Alex, he acted as a mediator in the conflict. He called for a meeting between Allegretti and Arger at Valentino’s Restaurant on 15th East Ohio. Arger complained that Allegretti was giving $10 to the cabbies for each cargo of suckers, which was positively underhanded. Worse, it was inflation. Arger also added that it was twice as much as he was paying the taxi drivers on State Street. For the added $5, cabdrivers were hauling the marks out of the Loop to Allegretti’s joints on the North Side. With that extra fin, Allegretti was stealing Arger’s business. So Alex, who sat in front of them like a judge, ended the quarrel by fixing prices and penalties. He ruled that for one sucker, cabdrivers were to get $2. For each additional chump, the cabbies should receive an extra dollar up to a maximum of $5. Under no circumstances should the taxi payoff exceed $5. For the operators who violated Alex’s order were penalized by the Outfit. For the first offence, the fine was $1,000 and the second offenders were stripped of their holdings in the clip joints. Both Alex and Arger lived high on the extra cut of the so-called strip-tease profits, which was estimated at $1,800,000 per year.


But even though Alex defended Arger in certain situations, he still held a lot pressure over his cousin. Arger was endlessly advised and threatened by his boss, to keep his personnel in line and to keep less publicity over the strip joints. Because of that pressure, Arger threatened every stripper in his joints with lie tests, if he ever received message, or even rumour, about somebody getting information outside the strip club regarding the “indoor activities.” And if someone got caught, he or she would’ve been killed, pure and simple. Arger also told his “ladies” not to get emotional with the other employees or customers at the strip joints because these were places of business, not dating camps. As additional info, these white slavery institutions on Chicago’s South Side were in fact the legacy of the Guzik family, which lasted for over 50 years and was transferred from one mob generation to another.


Louis Tornabene operated a huge handbook operation on Polk and State Street and also a huge prostitution ring at the Santa Fe Hotel at 732 South State Street. He also controlled another huge handbook operation on the first floor of a hotel known as The Continental at1525 East 67th Street and in the late hours they were operating crap games. One of Tornabene’s main operators for floating crap games was a guy known as Edward Joyce. Tornabene also operated the Brass Rail Tavern at 52 West Randolph Street which was a front for gambling and prostitution. His front man was George Ossey and his younger son. Tornabene had three brothers, Alex, Tony and Frank. Alex was legit, Tony worked as a front man for Louis’ joints and Frank was heavily involved in the prostitution business. Tornabene also owned the Dauphin Hotel in Glenview, Cook County, Illinois, which was fronted by his old pal Ben Newman. Tornabene received racing information from the Racing Form Telegraph Room. He received calls regarding the races and usually had the results of the races before he accepted the bets from the “sucker bettors.” Tornabene also had a cousin who was a big shot in the New Orleans crime family, and had something to do with the “New Orleans wire” in connection with the race horse betting. So occasionally his cousin would’ve called from New Orleans in connection with large bets that have been placed over there and then Tornabene shared the cash with his cousin and the Outfit. In fact, this was a Chicago/New Orleans mob connection.


Even though they were his biggest money makers, both Tornabene and Arger were forbidden to mention Alex’s name in any conversation. He warned them that if they continued to blow their mouths off on the telephones, he was going to kill them. In fact, Alex wasn’t recognized by the government as a high ranking hoodlum until he became associated with those two guys. Alex was so into his rules, so if anyone broke them, it was the end for him. During this period Alex avoided any violence, so his usual punishment was by stripping his “soldiers” from their operations. For example, in 1960 rumours spread around that Tornabene was holding cash from Alex and the Outfit. Alex told Pat Marcy to go and see Tornabene at the Santa Fe Hotel and to determine whether the rumours were true. So Marcy uncovered the scheme and received information that Tornabene withheld approximately $75,000 from Alex by not posting all of the bets on his book. To make things worst, Tornabene also became involved in a gambling dispute in which he refused to pay to gambling profits to an unknown individual, who was very well connected to Sam Battaglia and also to the Genovese crime family in New York. When Tornabene heard about the connections, he had sent two of his enforcers with the intent to threaten the individual to take no further action regarding the gambling debt and crashed the individual’s office. So that’s when the “victim” decided to take the issue straight to Battaglia and his contacts in the “Big Apple.” So somebody from New York called Frank Ferraro and informed him about the situation, who in turn immediately called Alex. Ferraro allegedly told to one of his underlings “Warn him that we’re gonna to take action if we catch him holding out anymore.”


So Tornabene was called to an urgent meeting at the Normandy Bar and Cocktail Lounge where he was aggressively and minutely questioned by Ferraro and Alex. With the image of a naughty child who just crashed an expensive vase, Tornabene wasn’t able to give straight answers, did not have the facts and figures in his mind and was obviously lying, whereupon Alex became furious and called Tornabene a “degenerate gambler.” Alex hated people who drank booze, used drugs or gambled so he also advised Tornabene that “It’s a sucker’s game. You can’t win out there, you understand. We got the percentages rigged all in our favor. The longer you stay, the more you play, the more chances you got of losing. I don’t let nobody around me who gambles. A couple thousand, okay, but no gambling!”


Previously, Charles Bertucci chauffeured Tornabene to the meeting place and during the meeting he waited outside. Bertucci was a gambling operator who came through the ranks of the late mob boss Bruno Roti. In fact, Bertucci was related to Roti’s wife. By now Bertucci was also a business partner with Alex and Tornabene in numerous clubs and building projects. Now back to the story…so Ferraro walked out of the joint and interviewed Bertucci regarding the situation and again, he received no straight answer. On his way out, Alex told Tornabene that he’s going to fix the problem and added “Now you’re responsible for the guy, you understand?! I know that you hired people to shake him down, and now you should hire someone to protect him because if anything happens to him, it’s gonna be your end!” After that Alex arranged a meeting but none of the bosses showed up, but instead they sent their underlings. Battaglia’s and New York’s interests were represented by a guy named Pope, and Alex’s interests were represented by Charles Bertucci. Bertucci told Pope that any physical damage will be cashed to the victim, all of the material damage that had been done at the victim’s office will also be cashed and also the gambling debt will be taken care of. Bertucci also added that in fact Bennie Bernard, who was one of Tornabene’s enforcers, was the one who made the attack on his own. Bertucci also said that Alex sends his regards and that he personally will take care of Bernard. By solving the dispute, Alex became highly recommended by the New York mob, especially Richie Boiardo’s crew, a Genovese crime family faction from the Newark area.


Now Tornabene felt very nervous and started having cold sweats because he knew that Alex was going to strip him from every operation that he previously controlled. In fact Tornabene was a very lucky person by just staying alive after the dispute. If he had made the same mistakes under Fiore Buccieri, he would’ve been dead for sure. So now he had to come up with $85,000 and pay his debts. He owed $75,000 for the scheme and another $10,000 for the gambling dispute or in other words he owed to Alex $60,000, another $15,000 to Joey DiVarco, a known North Side Outfit big shot, and another $10,000 to a businessman known as Robert Stein. As additional info, Tornabene and DiVarco were first cousins since their mothers were sisters. So in the next few years Tornabene sold or burned, just to take the insurance money, almost every joint that he previously operated. So as it was expected, the remaining of Tornabene’s operations and his stature within the Outfit were taken over by his brother Tony and also Bertucci. Later Tornabene was convicted to a year in jail for a Federal Housing Administration matter, and after that he received 5 years probation. Also when he got out of jail, he also got out of the Outfit or any illegal operations.