Sam I Was

Twenty-eight year old Sam Cilluffo, started in the Detroit booze racket at the on set of Prohibition. He had been arrested five times since 1922, and did a stretch in Leavenworth for bootlegging. Cilluffo worked for East Detroit mob boss Angelo Meli, who during the summer of 1930, was at war with the West Side's Chester LaMare.

After the murder of two of LaMare's boys on July 7, the West Siders struck back by eliminating Cilluffo. At about 12:25 AM on July 12, Cilluffo was driving along in his coupe when a sedan containing three men swung up along side him. One of the men blew out Cilluffo's rear tires with a shotgun blast, forcing the gangster to stop. When he did, the sedan drove past and another hoodlum raked Cilluffo's coupe with a Thompson machine-gun, hitting the gangster eleven time.

Sam Cilluffo

House Call

As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, brothers Meyer and Irving Shapiro were the top underworld dogs in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Together they controlled the slot machines and other nefarious activities in their bailiwick. Irving's main concern was floating crap games. One of their goons was a young thug named Abe Reles, who decided that since he was taking all the chances that could find him in jail or the cemetery he was entitled to a bigger slice of the pie. The Shapiros saw it differently and war broke out out.

Reles and his band shot it out with the Shapiro gang for about year, each side losing members, Finally on July 11, 1931, Reles though that he had both Shapiros in his sites. He knew that they  were both at the Democratic Social club and so he, Happy Maione, Dasher Abbandando and Vito Gurino waited outside in order to gun them down. 

As the Shapiros exited, another group of men followed them out so Reles called off the assassination. Assuming that they were going to head to the family home, Reles and company drove there and beat them home. The reason being was that Meyer wanted to go to the turkish baths so was dropped off. Irving was going to join him but had their driver, Smokey Epstein, take him home first for a change of clothes.

While this was taking place Reles and his confederates entered the foyer of the Shapiro house and removed the light bulb and waited. They heard the car pull and idle as Irving jumped out and ran up to the house. Entering the dark foyer he could nothing. His enemies pulled their triggers and two bullets ripped into Irving's face, spinning him around, the gunmen stayed long enough to empty their guns in the prostrate hoodlum's back. It was one Shapiro down, one to go.

Irving Shapiro

Louis Loses

Thirty-four year old Louis Candia had made a small fortune bootlegging in Detroit. With his profits he bought the Tremont hotel and was part owner of a speakeasy called the Ocean View Yacht Club (an odd name considering Detroit is about 700 miles away from the nearest ocean). Due to his mis-management, and the fact that he was dealing in prostitution, he lost his hotel and was facing deportation.

Only July 9, 1930, Candia entered the Ocean View Yacht Club at the same time as another guy. They sat close to each other and soon and argument broke out and both men stood up and drew their weapons. Candia was late on the draw and was hit by three bullets. As he fell he fired off a shot but only succeeded in hitting the bar manager's hand, who was trying to prevent the gunfight. Candia was dead when he hit the floor and his killer escaped.

Initially, police thought that he may have been killed by a former associate for some old bootlegging grudge, but it was determined that the fight was over a woman.

Louis Candia and the Ocean View Yacht Club

 

Shaking Hands Can Be Unhealthy

By 1925 the six Genna brothers, or "The Terrible Gennas" as they were known ran the illicit activities in Chicago's Little Italy. practically the whole neighborhood was on the Genna's payroll cooking alcohol. The Genna empire began to fall in spring of that year when, depending on who tells the story, either Al Capone or the North Side gang struck out at them.

The first to go was brother Angelo that spring, followed by brother Mike, both of whom were the muscle of the family. On July 8, 1925,  brother Anthony aka Tony the Gent, received a phone call from a former associate named Joseph Nerone, alias Anthony Spano, known in the underworld as Il Cavaliere because of his polished demeanor. Feeling that the Genna's didn't pay him his worth, Nerone had moved on to Chicago Heights, and a more lucrative bootlegging career.

Nerone asked to meet Genna at the corner of Grand Avenue and Curtis Street.  Genna arrived first and waited. A sedan pulled up and Nerone alighted. Genna went up to greet him. As the men shook hands, two men walked up and fired a number of shots into Genna's back before running off. Nerone too, fled the seen.

We know that Nerone set up Genna because Tony the Gent didn't die right away. Later at the hospital, he was overheard telling his brother Sam that the Cavaliere was behind the murder. 

With the death of Tony, the Genna family was all but through in the Chicago underworld.

Tony the Gent Genna

I Spy

Ralph D'Amato was a gangster associated with Frankie Yale and Al Capone. It was with the latter that he was arrested just after Christmas of 1925 for the murder of White Hand gang members Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, Neil "Needles" Ferry and Aaron Harms in the Adonis Social Club.

By the mid-twenties the relationship between Yale and Capone had started to sour. When Capone's alcohol trucks, supposedly being protected by Yale, began to get hijacked, Capone started getting suspicious. He called on Ralph D'Amato to spy for him. Sure enough, D'Amato was able to report that Yale was indeed the one behind the hijackings.

Unfortunately for D'Amato, Yale found out that he had a spy in his midst. The gang leader rectified the situation on July 7, 1927. Shortly before midnight, D'Amato was speaking to two men on a corner. They parted ways, but the men followed him and opened fire. D'Amato was hit in the neck, stomach and side. The gunmen ran back to the corner and jumped into a sedan and escaped.

D'Amato was about forty-years old and lived with his dad and sister. He had six arrests under his belt and did a year in prison for possessing narcotics.

Ralph D'Amato

Sorry Charlie

Charles Entratta was a former associate of Jack "Legs" Diamond with dealings go back to the 1920s. He was with Diamond in the Hotsy-Totsy club when the guns went off  in the summer of 1929 leaving gangland fellows, William Cassidy and Simon Walker dead.

Like Diamond, Entratta disappeared while the homicide detectives searched in vain for them. Eventually arrested in Chicago, Entratta was sent back to New York City to face a murder trial. He beat the rap, which allowed Diamond to come out of hiding and to be himself, exonerated.  Since none of the boys helped Entratta during his troubles, his relationship with Diamond soured.

Fast forward to the summer of 1931. In addition to a box factory and dress manufacturing plant, Entratta is part owner of Winkenfeld Bottling Company in Brooklyn. Using his underworld connections, it is assumed that Entratta was bottling beer and sales skyrocketed. Though lucrative, his enterprise was most unwelcome by the local beer barons and on July 6, of that year he was put out of business; permanently.

Moments after arriving at the bottling office in his chauffeured sedan, Entratta was gunned down by three men while talking to his partner. His partner was physically unharmed...economically? Sales probably plummeted.

Charles Entratta

Murders in Cleveland

Ninety-years ago there was tension in Cleveland, Ohio's underworld. Seven brothers by the the name of Porrello were the top purveyors of corn sugar in the region. A most needed ingredient in the manufacturing of alcohol. The Mayfield Road Mob, the top Mafia gang in the city, headed by Frank Milano, was attempting to seize control or, at the very least, shake down the Porrellos for protection money.

On July 5, 1930, Joe Porrello, head of family operations, and his lieutenant, Sam Tilocco, attended a meeting with Milano and a hand full of his gang at Milano's Venetian saloon. They played cards for a while and Milano laid it all out. He wanted a piece of the Porrello's corn sugar business. Porrello said no and, as he and Tilocco were getting up to leave, the guns came out.

Porrello never made it out of the saloon, with two bullets to the face, he fell to the floor. Tilocco, though wounded, was able to stagger outside before collapsing and having a another round of shots fired into him by Milano's retreating men.*

Joe Porrello

*For the full story on the Porrello clan and the Cleveland Mafia, check out Rick Porrello's book in the link. A great book.

No Dynamite for the Fourth of July

Unfortunately for New Jersey gangster, Dynamite Joe Tricoli, the explosions in the wee hours of July 4, 1929 were the ones resulting in his demise. He was shot twice in the back of the head and twice beneath the rear left shoulder.

He was last seen leaving a Newark restaurant at 1:30 a.m. Four hours later a man was walking his dog through the Eagle Rock reservation in West Orange, New Jersey when his dog ran up and found Tricoli laying face down in the road.

Tricoli on the spot

Police stated that they were going to question him that day regarding the kidnapping of local bank executive and that the kidnap gang bumped him off before he had a chance to speak to detectives. The executive in question went to the morgue but stated that Tricoli was not one of his abductors.

Tricoli had been accused of kidnapping in the past, as well as robberies and being a beer runner. Another motive given was that he was killed for messing around with another gangsters girl.

On his person was found a wallet containing $295, drivers licenses from four states, a diamond studded pocket watch and a large diamond ring.

Dynamite Joe Tricoli

On the Outskirts of Town

On this date in 1932 Chicago hoodlum Otto Fernick, alias Dutch Hill, was found dead in his car on the outskirts of Chicago in the town of Westchester. He was the former chauffeur of recently deceased boss for the Central Teamster and Chauffers union, Timothy Lynch. Police felt that Fernick was bumped off because he started running beer on Chicago's northwest side. Detectives however, felt he was bumped off for his involvement in the union. His record dated back to 1903 when he was arrested for being a pick pocket.

Otto Fernick aka Dutch Hll

Big bang for Big Sam

Big Sam Oteri was a Boston gangster who was scratched from the "Cradle of Liberty's" underworld on this date back in 1933. It was about 1 A.M. when a card game between Oteri and some of his cronies broke up.

Oteri, who had previoulsly been arrested for bootlegging and suspicion of murder, walked out with Frank Castelone, the brother of Oteri's late partner Charles Castelone who was killed the previous July, and as the men parted a car pulled up and three quick shots from a shotgun lit up the night.

Hit by over two dozen pellets, Oteri fell to the ground as Castelone ran away. A cop found Oteri on the sidewalk and rushed him to the hospital where he died less than an hour later.

Big Sam Oteri

Dammit Jim, I'm a gangster not a...

A cop knew him as "Bones." and according to the police he was a minor member of Joe Saltis' gang. Other than that there was no identification of the body found on this date in 1930 at 94th Street and Roberts Road. About a mile or so away from where Dingbat Oberta and Sam Malaga were found a few weeks before hand. It was theorized that his killing was a result of Dingbat Oberta's demise, but one never knows.