Tony Accardo

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Antonio Joseph Accardo (born Antonio Leonardo Accardo; April 28, 1906 – May 22, 1992) was a long-serving American mobster.

He went from small-time hoodlum to day-to-day chief of the Chicago Outfit in 1947 to finally becoming the final Outfit boss in 1972, during an eight-year criminal career.

Acquito migrated the company's operations and territories, significantly raising the company's name and fortune during his time as boss.

Early life

Acquito was born on April 28, 1906 in Chicago's Near West Side, and the second of six children of shoemaker Francesco Accardo and Maria Tilotta Accardo. The Accardos had emigrated from Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy, to America one year before his birth. Accardo, a 14-year-old boy, dropped out of school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls. He joined the Circus Cafe Gang, which was operated by Claude Maddox and Tony Capezio, one of many street gangs in Chicago's impoverished neighborhoods. These gangs served as job pools (similar to farm teams) for the city's adult gangs. Accardo, as well as long time friend Tony Mazlack of Gary, Indiana, were recruited into the Chicago Outfitters' crew by Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn.

Personal life

Accardo met Clarice Pordzany, a Polish-American chorus girl, in 1934. Marie Judith and Linda Lee Lee married and had two children, Joseph Frank and Anthony Ross, and adopted two sons.

Several of Acquito's relatives have played in the National Football League. Marie Pyle, the Baltimore Colts, Minnesota Vikings, and Oakland Raiders, married him. Eric Kumerow played linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, and Eric's son Jake currently plays wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. Cheryl Bosa, Eric's sister, married John Bosa, who played defensively for the Dolphins. Joey and Nick, both of whom play defensively, and San Francisco's Nick.

Accardo lived in River Forest, Illinois, for the bulk of his married life. Two bowling lanes, an indoor swimming pool, and a pipe organ were found in the six-bedroom, six-bath home he owned on Franklin Avenue in River Forest. He began to be concerned about his apparent high lifestyle by the IRS and bought a ranch home on the 1400 block of North Ashland Avenue in River Forest and installed a vault. Dr. Jim Carto, his neighbor and acquaintance, lived off the street from Ashland Ave in the Mars Candy Mansion and is said to have been instrumental in providing medical assistance. Dr. Carto was often confused with Accardo and became well-known as a member of the Accardo family due to their common sounding last names. Dr. Carto and his wife Rose (Kolanko) who was a nurse, were rumored as Accredited medical doctors who may have been involved in medical care "off the books." Acquito's new position was as a beer salesman for a Chicago brewery.

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Career

Accardo gained the nickname "Joe Batters" after using a baseball bat to murder three mobsters who had betrayed the outfit during Prohibition. Capone was reportedly quoted as saying, "This kid's a real Joe Batters" on "Boy." After a fishing expedition where Accardo caught a giant tuna and was prominently photographed with his catch, Chicago newspapers eventually named him "The Big Tuna." Accardo boasted that he was wired up to his involvement in the notorious 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which killed seven members of rival Bugs Moran's North Side Gang in later years. Acquito also stated that he was one of the gunman who murdered Brooklyn gang boss Frankie Yale, according to Capone's instructions to end a dispute. However, most experts believe Acquito had only peripheral connections with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, none of which was presumably committed by Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, and Louis Campagna. However, Acacio may have been involved in the assassination of Northside gang leader Hymie Weiss near the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago on October 11, 1926.

Capone was found guilty of tax evasion and sent to prison for an 11-year term, and Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti became the new Outfit boss after serving his own 18 months for tax evasion. Accardo had a solid track of earning money for the company by this time, so Nitti allowed him to form his own team by this time. He was also named as the company's head of enforcement. Accardo's rapidly growing rackets, including gaming, loansharking, bookmaking, extortion, and the selling of untaxed alcohol and cigarettes followed shortly. Accardo received 5% of the crew's earnings as a result of a so-called "street tax," as with all caporegimes. Acquito, in turn, owes a bribe to the Outfit's boss. If a crew member were to refuse to pay a street tax (or paid less than half of the amount owed), they would have been shot and killed. Gus "Gussie" Alex and Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa were among Acquito's crew members.

Acquito gained traction in the Outfit in the 1940s. Senior members of the Outfit were investigated and charged with using the threat of strike action by labor unions to extort millions of dollars from Hollywood studios as the decade progressed. In 1943, Nitti, who was claustrophobic and afraid of serving a second prison term, committed suicide. Accardo was named underboss by Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, who had been the de facto boss since Capone's detention. For the next 30 years after Ricca's death in 1972, Ricca and Acqua will run the Outfit for the next 30 years until Ricca's death in 1972. Accardo assumed acting boss after Ricca received a 10-year jail term for his role in the Hollywood fiasco. Accardo took over the Outfit three years ago, when Ricca was forbidden from approaching mobsters as a condition for his release; in reality, he served in Ricca as a senior consultant.

The Outfit transformed into slot and vending machines, counterfeiting cigarette and liquor tax stamps, and amphibitive smuggling has thrived under Acquito's leadership in the late 1940s. Throughout Acquito's territory, the company's territory was dotted with slot machines. The Outfit expanded outside of Chicago, taking over gaming from the Five Families of New York City. Acquito made sure that all the legal Las Vegas casinos were running his slot machines. He exploited the federal prohibition on alcohol sales in Kansas and Oklahoma to sell bootlegged whiskey. In the majority of the western United States, the Outfit became a leader of organized crime. Acquittee and extortion were phased out in order to minimize the Outfit's risk of court dockety. He also converted the company's brothel trade into call girl services. The result of all these changes was a golden age of productivity and influence for the Outfit.

Acquito and Ricca stressed the importance of keeping a low profile and allowing flashier figures, such as Sam Giancana, to grab attention instead. For example, when professional wrestlers Lou Albano and Tony Altomare, dubbed "The Sicilians" by Mafia-inspired tag team, arrived in Chicago in 1961, Accom warned the guys not to remove the gimmick from any mob-related media. Acquito and Ricca were able to last the Outfit much longer than Capone because of strategies such as these. "Accardo had more brains for breakfast than Capone had in a lifetime," Ricca once said.

Acquito resigned as the boss of Giancana after 1957, owing to "heat" from the IRS. Accomo then became the Company's consigliere, moving away from the day-to-day running of the company, but the company's chief retained a hefty authority and demanded unquestionable reverence. Giancane also had to obtain the approval of Acquito and Ricca on major industries, as well as murders.

However, this professional relationship eventually came to an end. Unlike Accardo, the widowed Giancana lived a glamorous lifestyle, frequenting posh nightclubs and dating high-profile singer Phyllis McGuire. Giancana has also refused to give some of the handsome profits earned by Outfit casinos in Iran and Central America to the rank-and-file members. Many in the Outfit also felt that Giancana was attracting too much attention from the FBI, which was also tailing his car around the Chicago metropolitan area. Acquito and Ricca replaced Giancana with Aiuppa in 1966 after being in jail for a year on federal contempt of court charges. Giancana was murdered in the basement apartment of his home in Oak Park, Illinois, in June 1975, after spending the majority of his Outfit-exile years in Mexico and unceremoniously being barred from that country, while making Italian sausages and escarole.

Ricca died in 1972, leaving Accardo as the sole authority in the outfit.

While Acacio was holidaying in California, robbers broke into his River Forest home in 1978. The three alleged murderer and four others were discovered strangled and with their throats cut just short of being discovered shortly after. Acquittal of the robbery had been ordered by law enforcement authorities, who suspect Acquito had ordered the murders in revenge for the robbery. This belief was confirmed on witness stand by Outfit turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, who had been involved in all of the murders in 2002. In the Family Secrets trial, the living assassins were all found guilty and sentenced to long prison terms.

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