The Mafia Encyclopedia (132 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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Page 395
Joseph Zangara was almost stripped of all his clothing
after being seized in his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate
President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some have insisted Zangara
was a Mafia hit man who did get his actual target,
Chicago mayor Anton Cermak.
choice of being tortured and murdered himself or killing Cermak.
Of course Zangara went to the electric chair proclaiming his pride with his act, insisting he had wanted to kill FDR. He said of Cermak, "I wasn't shooting at him, but I'm not sorry I hit him."
Was that the real Zangara speaking or the Mafia hit man sticking to his cover story? If it was the latter, it was hardly unbelievable. The mob always could draw on such unlikely sources ready to lay down their lives in some secret agreement. In
The Godfather
Mario Puzo tells of the Bocchicchio family, which permitted one of its members to confess to a murder he hadn't committed and go to the chair for it. That was fiction but it was hardly outside the behavior patterns within certain Sicilian Mafia families. The family was made an offer, a reward, it couldn't refuse. Had Zangara got an offer he too could not refuse? The majority view says no, that he was a political assassin, period. There are those in law enforcement and the underworld who laugh at that.
See also:
Nitti, Frank
.
Zerilli, Joseph (18971977): Detroit crime family boss
When Joe Zerilli died on October 30, 1977, a high official declared he probably took more crime secrets to the grave with him than any boss who had died in the past decade, including Frank Costello.
In the early 1920s, Detroit was not a Mafia town. Instead, it belonged almost exclusively to the Jewish gangsters of the Purple Gang and to smaller Purple rivals, including the Little Jewish Navy. The name of the Detroit crime game was booze (although jewel robberies, hijacking and extortion were common as well), and the Purples were determined to control it. In the process, they committed upward of 500 gang murders, on a per capita basis probably far outdistancing Al Capone's gangland hits in Chicago.
The Purples had the ability to work well with mafiosi, and during the Detroit gang wars they imported Yonnie Licavoli and his gunners from St. Louis. They also worked well with Gaspar Milazzo and another fast-rising Sicilian gangster, Joseph Zerilli. The later Licavoli family split its time between Detroit and Cleveland (as did such Purples as Moe Dalitz). Milazzo was assassinated in 1930 by New York mafiosi fighting their own Old World wars. Zerilli rose to the top as the Purples pulled out from the local rackets to take far more lucrative positions in the national syndicate's gambling enterprises elsewhere.
Zerilli had come to the United States from Sicily at the age of 17 and started out as a pick-and-shovel laborer. Joining with the Purples in a number of criminal activities, he eventually built an illegal operation that ran up profits of $150 million a year from such enterprises as loan-sharking, extortion, narcotics, bookmaking and labor racketeering. Unlike some mafiosi, Zerilli did not turn his back on prostitution. Anything that made money Zerilli wanted.
As a Detroit citizen, Zerilli posed as a baker-businessman. He lived in a $500,000 home on a 20-acre suburban estate, quite an accomplishment for a breadmaker. As a Detroit don, Zerilli was personally involved in several murders, but, throughout his lifetime was convicted only twice, paying fines for such gross offenses as speeding and carrying concealed weapons.
Highly honored as a godfather, Zerilli was for a time one of only two non-New York members of the national commission. He did not play a role in the national organization of crime, however, because he respected the rights of other bosses to rule their own
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territories, and he always demanded that same right for Detroit.
Zerilli retired from control of the crime family business in his early seventies, successfully installing his son as his successor, something other dons have tried and failed to do. It was different in Detroit. The Zerilli touch had been perfect, and no one wanted to tamper with what old Joe Zerilli said would work. But in 1975, the elder Zerilli was forced to return to the helm, in part because his son received a four-year sentence for conspiring to obtain a hidden interest in a Las Vegas casino. Also pending was the very troublesome matter of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Hoffa was becoming hard-of-hearing. Zerilli through his top lieutenant, Tony Giacalone, as much as any mafioso had made Hoffa, and Detroit had informed the labor leader after his release from prison to cool it, that everyone was happy with Frank Fitzsimmons running the Teamsters. Unfortunately for Hoffa, he kept right on coming.
Exactly who was responsible for Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance and evident murder on July 30, 1975, is unknown. The conventional wisdom cites Pennsylvania-upstate New York boss Russ Bufalino and New Jersey mafioso Tony Provenzano as the likely assailants. However, the man Hoffa was slated to meet outside a Detroit-area restaurant was Zerilli aide Giacalone. Hoffa was snatched in Detroit and probably killed there.
If Joe Zerilli insisted on any one thing, it was control of his turf. Nothing was ever done in Detroit by other mafiosi without his approval, and he was never known to tolerate any outsiders handling rubouts in his area. If a murder was done in Detroit, he not only had to be requested to allow it, but also had to handle it. Zerilli was the kind of old Don who insisted on such protocol.
Once, a Detroit mafioso, Nick Licata, fell into disfavor with Zerilli and fled to Los Angeles. Zerilli notified Jack and Tom Dragna that Licata was there. Acknowledging a sort of Golden Rule in crime, Zerilli would never have dreamed of going into L.A. territory in violation of the Dragna rights there. Instead, he suggested rather than requested (which would have been binding) that L.A. carry out the hit. Consequently, Zerilli did not object when the Dragnas decided against the hit, and even took Licata into the family. It was, Zerilli held, their right to do so. All he ever insisted on in return was that he decide on all hits in Detroit, and there are those observers who feel that the Hoffa matter was completely a Joe Zerilli operation.
The police never got a word out of the old man on the Hoffa disappearance.
Ziegler, Shotgun George (18971934): Public enemy and mob hit man
Shotgun George Ziegler was uniquea criminal who flourished in both organized crime and the more colorful world of the public enemy gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s.
Ziegler, whose real name was Fred Goetz, was just about the best-educated member of crimeland, having graduated from the University of Illinois where he had been a celebrated football player and a top golfer. Previously he had served as a second lieutenant and pilot during World War I. Famous FBI agent Melvin H. Purvis once wrote of Ziegler: ''His character was one of infinite contradictions; well mannered, always polite, he was capable of generous kindnesses and conscienceless cruelty.''
Arraigned as a youth on a rape charge, Ziegler's parents put up bail money before the trial. But, fearing he'd be convicted, Ziegler ran. Feeling guilty because his parents lost their money, he decided to pay them back the quick way. He held up a doctor who made a habit of carrying large sums of money. When the doctor drew a gun, Ziegler blew him away with a shotgun. It was the beginning of the career of Shotgun George Ziegler.
How and when he got there is not known, but Ziegler next turned up as part of the Capone Mob, becoming one of the gang leader's most-prized triggermen. There is considerable evidence that Ziegler became part of a special execution squadà la Brooklyn's Murder, Inc., troopthat was employed by the Capone syndicate and some of its affiliated units. The teamZiegler, Fred "Killer" Burke, Gus Winkler, "Crane Neck" Nugent and Claude Maddoxwere said to be paid $2,000 a week (collectively) with expenses for travel and an occasional bonus tossed in. There is some reason to believe this unit, with others, may have handled the St. Valentine's Day massacrecertainly there is no doubt Burke was involved. Public enemy Creepy Karpis, who was well liked by Capone and later did time with Scarface Al in Alcatraz, insisted that the massacre was masterminded by Ziegler. Others do not accept this version, but agree that Ziegler probably handled at least 10 other killings for the Capones.
Ziegler was never happy being just a mob hit man, craving bigger rewards and, possibly more important, greater excitement. He joined the freelance KeatingHolden Gang of bank robbers. Then, suddenly, Ziegler disappeared from the crime scene and worked at his college-trained profession as an engineer. Then, just as suddenly, he would return to the Capones, go back to engineering, or pull a job with KeatingHolden.
In 1933, Ziegler joined the Barker-Karpis band of public enemies, and his superior intellect soon put him
Page 397
in a position of leading authority. He planned many of the gang's jobs and was the one who selected wealthy Edward George Bremer of St. Paul, Minnesota, as a kidnap target. Thanks to his foolproof planning, the job netted the gang $200,000. But the ransom money was too hot to dispose of, and the gang decided that Ziegler, whom all trusted implicitly, should take charge of hiding it for the time being.
In March 1934, Ziegler turned up in Cicero, Capone's captive city, where he went frequently to booze it up. Drinking was all fine and well, but Ziegler was talking wildly, bragging about all his crime capersincluding the Bremer job. The Capone gangsters were upseta man who talked about the exploits of the Barkers and Karpis might just as likely blab about the syndicate mobsters on other counts. In fact, Ziegler was in the process of losing his mind, which, however, in the underworld hardly represents extenuating circumstances.
On March 22, 1934, just two months after the Bremer job, Ziegler came strolling out of his favorite cafe in Cicero right into the blasts of four shotguns. Ninety percent of his head was blown away. It is not known for certain who was responsible. Four shotguns generally spelled the Capones, but there is a wider belief that the Barkers had pulled it off. If so, the Barkers had done so without first getting back the ransom money, but they sent Ma Barker to visit Ziegler's grieving widow. The old lady was able to convince Mrs. Ziegler that her husband had been killed either by the Capone forces or their enemiesand that Mrs. Ziegler should give back the $200,000. It is a matter of record that the Barkers neither lived long enough nor remained free to enjoy the loot.
As for Shotgun George Ziegler, his double career in syndicate and less-organized crime had been a relatively short one.
Zips: Sicilian Mafia imports
In the 1970s and '80s, two groups of mad-dog killers became extremely powerful on the organized crime scene in New York. They were the Westies, Irish gangsters on Manhattan's West Side, and the so-called Zipsyoung mafioso gangsters imported from Sicily. Both groups caused severe problems for the established crime families. Neither could be trusted. Of the two the Zips were worse but were tolerated because they generated considerable amounts of money, many millions in fact, for the mob, especially for the Bonanno and later the Gambino crime families. Some of the Zips got so rich that they had to be rather inventive in spending their loot. One gave his young daughter a genuine fur coat for her Barbie doll.
Lefty Ruggiero, a Bonanno soldier once explained to undercover FBI agent "Donnie Brasco" (Joe Pistone) about the relationship between Carmine Galante, the head of the Bonannos, and the Zips: "Lots of people hate him [Galante]....There's only a few people that he's close to. And that's mainly the Zips. ...Those guys are always with him. He brought them over from Sicily, and he uses them for different pieces of work and for dealing all that junk. They're as mean as he is. You can't trust those bastard Zips. Nobody can. Except the Old Man."
Actually Galante was not the Zips' only sponsor. Carlo Gambino, head of the largest crime family at the time, also turned to the Zips when he needed reliable killers who could do a better job than the average Gambino soldier. Before his death, however, Gambino started having second thoughts about the Zips, and Galante took full control of the erratic Sicilians.
There is more than one explanation of how the Zips' name originated. One is that it was used perjoratively by other mobsters in reference to the Sicilians' passion for ziti. Another theory says it evolved from their use of silent, homemade zip guns. Other contemptuous underworld terms applied to them were Siggies and Geeps, never of course in face-to-face dealings.
The Zips' true power emanated not only from their cooperation with Galante but from their own parent organizations back in Sicily. The Sicilian Mafia cooperated with their American counterparts to import heroin to the United States. The Sicilians acquired the morphine base from the Middle East, refined the stuff in Sicily and shipped it to New York for distribution. The Zips were a vital cog in the operation and thus vital to Galante since he was determined to put all Mafia drug profits in America in his own coffers.
The American mob supplied support services and territories for distribution, for which the local families collected "rent." This was ideal for the local families since they profited from heroin without getting too involved in the deals.
As the heroin distribution grew, more and more Zips were needed, and Galante ordered reinforcements. By the late 1970s sales of heroin in this country probably topped $10 billion a year. Pressures mounted on the American mafiosi. Bosses had a hard time keeping their soldiers out of more active participation in drugs, and it looked like Galante might start recruiting mafiosi from other families, which would have gnawed away at the Mafia structure.
Just as important, the increasing narcotics traffic drew more attention from law enforcement and threatened the mobs' holds on more "wholesome" activities such as gambling, loan-sharking, construction shakedowns,

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