Back in 1936, with the blessing of Paul Ricca, the Outfits political boss John Patton spread the gambling operations by getting directly involved in many dog tracks in Florida. Under the directions of Jake Guzik, Patton made the dog tracks in Florida known as the Capone gang tracks. Another partner in the operation was Edward O’Hare, a lawyer who was known as the "Capone Syndicate czar of dog racing." That same year the Chicago Tribune published a chart of the Chicago Outfit that listed the names of Patton, O'Hare, Guzik, and Ricca as share holders in some of the Nation’s dog tracks like the Miami Beach Kennel Club, Inc., the Jacksonville Kennel Club and the Orange Park Kennel Club, Inc. But in 1939, O'Hare was suspected of being a rat and so he was shot to death on the orders of Paul Ricca.
With these kinds of schemes the Outfit made millions and took its place as the leading crime family on the Midwest with Ricca at the top. For example, during this time period he established good business relationship with the Los Angeles crime family. He has sent one of his underlings named Johnny Roselli to be his first representative on the West Coast. In fact some sources say that at the beginning Roselli started his criminal career in Chicago, but later he transferred to Los Angeles where he acquired membership in La Cosa Nostra. After that he was again transferred to the Chicago Outfit. Ricca liked Roselli because he was also from Neapolitan heritage and Roselli took the image of his mentor as an example on how a real gangster should be like.
As I previously stated, by now Ricca’s West Side faction of the Outfit was led by Lawrence Mangano, who in turn was followed by two former Circus gang members Tony Capezio and Tony Accardo and former member of the South Side James Belcastro. Ricca also had one very successful slot machine operator and distant relative known as Guido DeChiaro, who made a lot of cash for the boss. As for the boss, he was driven by a personal driver, constant companion, political enforcer and also Outfit associate known as Harry Hockstein.
But by the late 1930’s Ricca and Nitti “opened the books” for new membership and ordered to his underlings to present their best proposals. For example, Ricca and Campagna both had their own favourite contestant named Salvatore Giancana, former member of the 42 gang which ruled supreme on the streets of Chicago’s West Side. Other members of the same gang and “winners” for Outfit membership were Sam Battaglia and Leonard Caifano. Battaglia was probably sponsored by Louis Fratto, another former West Side hoodlum and “next in line” boss of Des Moines, Iowa. From these examples we can see that Ricca was forming his own stronghold which was formed by new members, mostly from the same territory. He even had his own loyal underlings in the Jewish neighbourhood of the Lawndale area. According to Jewish hoodlum Lenny Patrick, after he got out of prison in 1940, he took a job running dice games in Chicago for gamblers who put up the stakes. It was at that point, he said that he met Paul Ricca and started working for the Chicago Outfit. By now most of these “young turks” worked as bodyguards, drivers or even hitmen and they all looked at Ricca like he was their "General.” Other prominent criminal associates or so- called “farm team” on the West Side was led by one of Ricca’s oldest associates John Montana and included Rocco Iaccullo, Michael Greco and Joe Esposito Jr. For the last one, meaning Esposito Jr., he was the son of the late Diamond Joe Esposito Sr.
With opening the doors to the organization, Ricca formed a huge criminal army. He was the main leader who was able to represent the code of the Chicago Outfit, thus becoming guarantor of a story, that of La Cosa Nostra, which was formed of blood relations from way back home in Italy and lessons about organized crime. The Outfit never had a formal ceremony such as burning cards with saints, but their only “ceremony” was a formal dinner or just a tap on the back, followed by the words “You’re in.” A formal Mafia ceremony requires the presence of all area bosses, including advisors and boss, so there are big chances that this kind of gathering might turn the attention of the government and reveal this secret criminal brotherhood. So that’s why the Chicago boys used to arrange a meeting between 4 or 5 people tops, just to inform everybody about new changes.
The Chicago mob never had huge numbers of “made” members like in the New York crime families, but most of these Chicago “young turks” were followed by countless of lower street level criminals and associates, who formed the first layer of the Outfit’s “pyramid.” By doing my research on Ricca and the Outfit I’ve noticed that most of these new members, if not all, were maniacs, psychopaths and above all, serial killers, but every one of them possessed a sense for business. Many of them were clever tacticians and there was nothing in the world that could’ve stopped them from accomplishing their goals. So during the 1940’s, the West Side faction was almost finished in establishing its stronghold, which was the city of Chicago. Also back in the late 1920’s, during the Capone era, over 30 percent of the members in the Outfit were with Italian background, but by now, they were over 60 percent.
In 1940, one key document, compiled by Italian Treasury Police, was forwarded to a U.S. Customs supervisor in New York, who sent it on to the supervising customs agent in Chicago and from there made its way to Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The document showed that there was a presence of a “Grand Council of the Sicilian Mafia” in the U.S. and nine men were in charge, including New York bosses Vincent and Philip Mangano, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci and Joe Traina, also Stefano Magaddino from Buffalo, from Cleveland Al Polizzi and Frank Milano, and in the end Paul Ricca from Chicago. This shows that the Italian authorities developed information, possibly from their informers within the Italian Mafia that the Italian syndicate was in contact with the American La Cosa Nostra.
Commission boss Paul Ricca
But as smart, shrewd and aggressive as they were, still Nitti and Ricca made one huge mistake. They have forgotten that they were the bosses of the organization so that means that they should’ve used “middle-men” or “front men” to make the contacts with men such as George McLane for example. Now if one day “Georgie boy” decided to show and tell to the government about the operation, automatically all of the bosses were threatened with jail sentences. And “unexpectedly” that faithful day really came. In 1940, because of all of that pressure made by the mob bosses, George McLane filed a suit in Chicago circuit court charging that Nitti, Ricca, Campagna and Humphreys had moved in with an eye to the union's $125,000 treasury and $250,000 annual revenue. But the problem was that McLane only testified in front of the cops but later during the hearing he invoked the Fifth Amendment. With that the prosecution’s case failed and the union was thrown into receivership of the Chicago Outfit and the charges were dropped.
Some of Nitti’s labor operations were slowly crumbling down and Ricca and the rest of the top guys received unwanted attention and in the early 40’s Ricca became quite famous in the media. So during that period the newspapers again charged the Nitti-Ricca-Campagna ruling panel that had cleaned out the treasury of the Retail Clerks International Protective Association, Local 1248. Story goes that Max Caldwell, alias Max Pollack, an Outfit associate and also close associate of Ricca, had been in charge of the union funds. In a very short period, the gang managed to steal more than $1,000,000, which belonged to 10,000 clerks, $25 and $20 a week employees who paid $25 for “initiation” and $2 a month dues for protection. When the gang got thru with the union, there was only $62 left in the bank. Also when the gang realized that the cover was up, suddenly all of the union’s books and records were destroyed and so the State’s Attorney had nothing left to show for. Another subject that disappeared along with the records was Pollack himself. Later the main witness Michael Savachka refused to testify against Pollack and the Outfit, and allegedly the reason was based on the fear that he would’ve incriminated himself. Since none was talking, Ricca and bosses were confident that just as they had so far beaten all raps, they will ultimately beat this government case also, which they really did.
The year of 1942, when the world was at war for the second time, the U.S. government took a break and started a new promising battle against the Chicago Outfit and its bosses. The problem was when Bioff, Browne, Roselli and Nick Circella, with the blessing of Ricca, extorted millions of dollars from the major Hollywood studios. Browne and Bioff were in direct contact with Nitti or Phil D’Andrea, as for Roselli, obviously he was their contact and main extortionist in Hollywood, and later the extortion cash was sent back to Circella in Chicago, who in turn spread the cash among the bosses. Nitti's demands for more cash were so compelling that Browne, Bioff and Circella kept "biting" the film industry harder and oftener. Strikes were called and then settled for larger sums and soon the extortionists had the motion picture executives doctoring their books to hide the blackmail.
The big problem came when the bosses became too greedy and told the picture magnates to dig up 2 million dollars for the organization. Twentieth Century- Fox, Paramount, and Warner Brothers were "assessed" $550,000 for the immediate needs of Browne and Bioff. So one of the picture makers had enough and finally asked the federal government for assistance. Then a Federal Grand Jury was conducted in Los Angeles on matters pertaining to income tax evasion, labor racketeering and restraint of trade and during the hearings numerous film executives and union officials testified regarding the extortions. After their testimonies the Atherton Detective Agency indicted Bioff, Browne and Circella for extortion. Dean, plead guilty and received an eight year sentence while Bioff and Browne received 10 and 8 year sentences. But then Ricca made a huge mistake by giving order to his underlings to place pressure over Browne’s and Bioff’s families so the two racketeers could kept their mouths shut. But all of threats to the families of Bioff and Browne backfired because now after serving two years in Alcatraz, both agreed to testify against the Outfit bosses.
On December 30, 1942 Nitti was indicted together with Roselli for attempting to extort over a million dollars from several Hollywood studios, including Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox. Other indictments were also coming down the way, and so Ricca immediately called a meeting at Nitti's home and story goes that Ricca told Nitti that he should find a way and take care of Bioff and Browne and if not, he, meaning Nitti, had to take the fall for the rest of the gang. Later Ricca also blamed Nitti and said that this was his scheme and the rat Bioff was brought by him. Nitti had no choice so on March 19, 1943 he decided to take his own life. After the suicide of Nitti, Ricca became the ultimate power in the Chicago Outfit. Few months later the government also indicted Phil D'Andrea, Louis Campagna, Nick Circella, Charles Gioe, Ralph Pierce and Paul Ricca. Federal Judge John Bright said “The evidence showed the guilt of these defendants was practically without dispute. Except for Kaufman, not one of them was a member of the union nor had any right to interfere with the activities of the union. The evidence amply sustains the verdict. The activities of these defendants were obviously in violation of an act of congress and certainly showed some indication of disgraceful conduct in the union."
Ricca during the extortion hearings
Ricca’s mugshot
So on December 30, 1943, Ricca and the rest of the bosses each received up to 10 year sentences in federal prison, plus $10.000 in fines along with court costs, only their East Coast connection Louis Kaufman was given 7 years but also a $10,000 fine. The only mobster who was released from all charges for the lack of evidences was Ralph Pierce. As additional info, Nicholas Schenck, head of Loews Movie Theatres, which owned by MGM, who was also convicted with Bioff and Browne in the infamous extortion case, but was surprisingly pardoned by President Harry Truman and resumed his powerful position within the movie industry. Also Ricca’s close associate Harry Hockstein was also indicted and charged with perjuring himself before the grand jury that indicted Ricca, but he was not convicted.
Ricca and the gang were sent to the Atlanta penitentiary which was operated by Warden Joseph Sanford. On top of that, Sanford was allegedly a high level member of another kind of criminal organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, meaning Sanford didn't like the Italians very much. There’s a story that one night Outfit commission boss Phil D'Andrea was beaten senseless by the Warden himself. Reason for that was, when D'Andrea complained and asked for a doctor since he allegedly felt ill and when then the doctor conducted a urine test, suddenly D'Andrea threatened his life unless the results came out alright. The doctor fearful for his life reported the threat to the Warden who in turn marched down to D'Andrea's cell and beat him senseless. This action made Ricca and the rest of the bosses really scared for their lives, for the first time after a long time period. Now the FBI reported that Ricca still continued to put some kind of influence even from that prison, but the problem was that he and the other bosses could expect no kind of assistance in Atlanta. So one day the bosses decided that they should be transferred to Leavenworth prison since it was closer to Chicago and probably safer but the request was immediately denied. Now Ricca became really mad and took the situation in his own hands. He was known in the past for doing lucrative scams that involved members of the "upper world" and so on May, 1945, Campagna, D'Andrea, Gioe, and Ricca, formally requested that they be transferred to Leavenworth prison because the trip to Atlanta was too great of an expense for their families to bear. The wardens of both prisons protested against the decision, but the gangsters were granted their wish. In July of 1945, they were moved to Leavenworth and no records were left to explain on who was responsible for this action, or from where the order originated.
While Ricca was spending time in jail and the only way to get his messages and orders to his men was through Tony Accardo and Murray Humphreys who both used the same alias of one of Ricca’s lawyers Joseph Imburgio Bulger. With this the Outfit was able to get into the penitentiary at Leavenworth and to consult with the boss regarding important issues on running the day to day operations for the Outfit. It was on one of these visits that Accardo told Ricca that the one of issues on the mob agenda was Lawrence Mangano, one of his oldest confidants and captain of the West Side and the old Taylor Street group.
Even in prison, Ricca still held the position as boss and his voice on the outside was Tony Accardo. Now Accardo still worked under Mangano who in turn felt that he was superior over Accardo and he was next in line for the “acting boss” position. So maybe Mangano grew envious of Accardo and started muscling in on his operations. Many older mobsters, such as the North Side crew, started doing what ever they wanted because they felt superior over the younger Accardo. There was even a rumour that these mobsters were backed by their associates from other cities that were represented by the Outfit, such as Kansans City and St. Louis, in an upcoming rebellion against the current ruling administration. But Ricca always looked at the younger generation as the real future of the Chicago Outfit so he made his word clear by ordering the deaths of all “rebels.” From 1943 until 1947, Ricca’s allies and their hit teams hunted down six high profile Mafiosi and silenced their ambitions forever.
Back in 1946, the infamous NY mobster Benjamin Siegel, backed and financed by the National mob, started to built the Flamingo Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The funding for the final construction of the project was provided by several crime groups, including Tony Accardo, the Fischetti brothers and Paul Ricca from Chicago. Even though Siegel worked mainly for the New York mob, he was closely watched by the boys from Chicago. And how they managed that? Simple, the Fischetti brothers found a woman spy, and the woman they chose was the same woman Siegel came to call his Flamingo, Virginia Hill. Still, the boys back in Chicago never trusted Hill, and so the lovely pair was overseen by one of Ricca’s men Johnny Roselli. On June 20, 1947, Siegel was riddled with bullets by unknown assassin in Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills home. Allegedly his death was the result of his excessive spending and possible theft of money from the mob. Immediately after Siegel’s death, the mob sent for few people to take over the Flamingo casino. One of those men was Chicago mob associate Gus Greenbaum, who later brought the struggling casino out of debt within several months, and at the same time he controlled several other Outfit casinos and bookmaking operations in Arizona within several years.
Also according to some mob historians, the Hollywood extortion case spread a lot of waves through out the underworld. This resulted with Accardo’s actions with reinforcing the Outfit’s operations around the Midwest and even east of Los Angeles and that is Las Vegas and a little bit more eastern to Arizona. When it comes to organized crime, some of these areas were considered as "haven" and virtually untapped territories.
Now Ricca’s organization changed its face for the first time in over a decade. Besides Accardo being the boss and the West Side still being the powerbase of the organization, other crews became quite powerful but under the watchful eye of the ruling combine. Crews such as the new North Side crew, since the old one was exterminated, or the Cicero crew which played one of the main roles in this next example… back in Leavenworth Prison, Ricca was making a plan with the help of his constant visitors, Accardo and Humphries, to get out of prison as soon as possible but his gang had to make a few steps first. The organization has put a lot of effort to save their boss and in other words, this is the most important proof about Ricca’s importance. If all of these top mobsters stayed in jail for ten years, that would’ve been a big setback for the mob in Chicago and around the U.S.
Now the first step in getting out was to pay off the tax debt that Ricca owed to the U.S. because a prisoner cannot be paroled if he has another case pending. There were back taxes on the part of Campagna and Ricca to the extent of about $500,000 and they settled it for about 20 cents on the dollar. By the end of the day, they settled for around $100,000. Also one of Ricca’s layers went to the appointed judge with the $160,000 on his desk and informed him that this was for Ricca and Campagna. As additional info, all of this “payoff” cash was collected from all of the crews that were faithful to the old guard, including the boys from Cicero, North Side, the Near South Side and the South Suburbs.
Second step was to dismiss an indictment for mail fraud. This problem was solved by promising the Attorney General of the United States Tom Clark, the next appointment to the Supreme Court. Clark accepted the deal and Ricca's indictment for mail fraud in New York was vacated. The next step was to influence the parole board and rumours are that the Parole Board members accepted a $500,000 bribe. So on August 13th, 1947 Ricca and the other bosses, except for Frank Maritote, were set free after just 3 years and 4 months of the ten years sentence. This was a very strange since they were handed a sentences without the possibility of parole. This situation caused an uproar among the U.S. citizens, media and some federal authorities. According to some reports, major players in making the parole come true were Chicago’s Jewish boss Jake Guzik, New York’s Genovese crime family boss Frank Costello and Owney Madden in Hot Springs, Arkansas. These were the times when the Mob had the ultimate power to walk free out of jail when ever they wanted to and with that they also had the licence to steal and also kill. And the most realistic thing was that these guys would’ve received an even much earlier release than three years, but the problem was that according to the law they had to serve at least one third of their sentences.
The night after they got released from prison, Ricca and Campagna were accompanied by Outfit tax lawyer Eugene Bernstein on a plane ride from Kansas City to Chicago. Bernstein bought six tickets for this flight and that six tickets were used with two of the passengers keeping their identities secret. When the gangsters were asked about who donated the cash for their parole, they said that they had no idea where the money came from to settle their income tax liens but they assumed that it was contributed by their friends. Campagna also allegedly boasted that “It was an act of God!” As for their tax lawyer Bernstein, he said that “I don’t know who gave me the money. Men I didn’t know and haven’t seen since, came to my office and, one at a time, dropped bundles of money on the table. One would say “Pay this for Paul.” Another would say “Pay this for Louis.” These kind of people I don’t ask who they are.”
Now Ricca was again a free man but the problem was that he already got “the curse of Al” meaning the newspapers targeted Ricca at the moment he stepped foot out of jail and in a record time he became the center of media and government attention. The good cops knew that there were plenty of other gangsters to hunt down, but they also knew the fact that Ricca was the real deal of the organization and the real legacy of the infamous Al Capone. Maybe Ricca never wanted to be like Capone but in reality they shared the same kind of life which was always followed by huge attention from everyone and from this point on, Ricca’s life transformed into an ongoing battle with unwanted publicity and above all, with the law.
Ricca
Once he was out, on January 24, 1948, Ricca paid a wedding breakfast for his daughter at the Blackstone Hotel and in the end he handed $13,000 to the manager of the joint and all of it in hundred dollar bills, which he took out from his pocket. Also to clean his image, Ricca became very generous in his donations to assist Chicago's poverty stricken immigrant Italian community. Like his former boss Capone, Ricca also financed many meals for the homeless and started acting like a real “Mafia Don” with his “throne” located at 812 Lathrop Avenue, River Forest, Ill. When he wanted to take a short break from the everyday troubles, he usually went to his summer estate which was located near Long Beach, Indiana, and worth about $100,000 at the time. He also had a farm in Kendall County, Illinois, about 1,100 acres there, which has been managed, or was, during his imprisonment by Francis Curry, a coin machine racket boss from the Joliet area. Few years later Ricca also bought another huge $80,000 mansion in Miami Beach at 4385 Pine Tree Drive, which was one of the swankiest sections of the resort city. Before buying the house Ricca complied with local police regulations relating to ex-convicts. He was also reportedly been investing tremendous sums in real estate and legitimate businesses.
