Anthony Riela is an interesting character. A few months ago i requested an article about him to NYMafia but, unfortunately, there wasn't enough material to write about him. That's how low key he was.
He is the one who set up the meeting between the Milwaukee Boss Frank Balistrieri and Lefty and Donnie Brasco. It's very interesting how the whole thing was done. It's a good illustration of the mafia protocol and connection throughout the country.
Riela was first an associate of the Rockford Family then he moved to New Jersey and got made with the Bonnano. In order to set up a meeting with Balistrieri, the Bonnano had to get the Ok from Chicago, because Milwaukee answered to Chicago. Since Riela was well connected to Chicago, the Bonnano used him to reach out to the Outfit.
At the time, there were some tensions between the Rockford family and Milwaukee so Chicago thought that the Bonnano request was a good opportunity to patch things up between the two families. So instead of reaching to Milwaukee directly, Chicago asked Riela to go through the Rockford family to set up the meeting, which he did.
In the book, Pistone talked about the first meeting with Balistrieri and it happened during a dinner where made guys from Rockford were there to make the introduction.
Anthony Riela was suspected of attending Apalachin in 57'. Its not hard to believe because Bonanno and Joe Barbara were compare and similar in business. I am sure that it was a lot of connections between the families at that time because of the Castellamarese connections.
Riela had many connections across the country. New Jersey was a hot bed for alot of powerful guys. It often makes me wonder if, all the the collective guys in New Jersey were ONE Family. Even if the Decavalcante's could take just one of the great crews from each family in NJ. They would've really been powerful.
