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The Chicago Outfit : Challenging the Myths About Organized Crime

Arthur J. Lurigio and John J. Binder
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 2013 29: 198
DOI: 10.1177/1043986213485656
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DOI: 10.1177/1043986213485656
About Organized Crime ccj.sagepub.com
Arthur J. Lurigio1 and John J. Binder2
Abstract
Americans have had a love affair with gangsters since the 1920s. Romanticized in
novels, movies, and television programs, they have been portrayed as outlaws,
entrepreneurs, men of honor, and benevolent godfathers. Stereotypes of organized
crime (OC) figures are an enduring feature of popular culture in the United States
and so are myths about OC families and gangsters who populate them. This article
confronts these myths as they apply particularly to Chicago’s OC family known as the
Outfit. Eight such myths are discussed: the Mafia is operating in America; OC families
consist of only Italians; all members of OC families must take an oath; nobody testifies
in OC families; drugs sales in OC families are prohibited; Al Capone was not the boss
of his gang; the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was not a Capone operation; the Outfit
helped elect President Kennedy.
Keywords
Mafia, Outfit, Organized Crime Mythology, Omerta, Crime and Ethnicity, Drug Sales
and Organized Crime
Americans have had a love affair with gangsters since the 1920s. Romanticized in
novels, movies, and television programs, they have been portrayed as outlaws, entre-
preneurs, men of honor, and benevolent godfathers. Stereotypes of OC figures are an
enduring feature of popular culture in the United States. Our country’s fascination
with OC and mobsters is expressed in every medium and shows no signs of
1Loyola University Chicago, IL, USA

2University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Arthur J. Lurigio, Department of Psychology, Department of Criminal Justice, College of Arts and
Science, Loyola University Chicago, IL, USA.
Email: alurigi@luc.edu

Lurigio and Binder 199
dissipating. Highly popular and critically acclaimed films, including Scarface (1932),
the Godfather Trilogy (1972, 1974, and 1990), Mean Streets (1973), Once Upon a
Time in America (1984), Bronx Tale (1993), Casino (1995), and Donnie Brasco
(1997), have featured the exploits of gangsters. Having spent a remarkable 67 weeks
on the bestsellers list, Mario Puzo’s classic novel, the Godfather (1969), sold more
than 21 million copies worldwide. The true crime sections of bookstores are saturated
with books about OC; many of these were written by turncoats, prosecutors, journal-
ists, retired mobsters, and relatives (or former relatives) of mobsters.
Cable television, the Internet, and video games provide the public with boundless
opportunities to satisfy its appetite for organized crime. Called “the television land-
mark that leaves other landmarks in the dust,” by the Washington Post, and winner of
numerous Emmy Awards, the Sopranos drew high ratings during its six seasons, and
the series is now in successful syndication. The show has spawned a full spectrum of
products including T-shirts, hoodies, beach towels, flip-flops, books, posters, board
games, tote bags, aprons, refrigerator magnets, and tourist packages (http://www.hbo.
com/sopranos). The History, Discovery, and Court TV channels also regularly air
documentaries and docu-dramas that showcase organized crime. A recent Google
search for “mobsters” produced more than 5 million results. In addition, the video
game industry invites people to live the life of a gangster through highly realistic and
violent interactive games, such as Mobsters: An Amoral Role-Playing and Strategy
Game by Burger Games of Finland in which “America is at the feet of gangster kings
and law enforcement is so corrupt that it has all but broken down” (http://www.burger-
games.com/G1.PDF).
Chicago’s Criminal Empire

Despite the country’s obvious obsession with gangsters, Americans know little about
the operations of OC and its insidious impact on their everyday lives. The bulk of
media coverage has concentrated on New York City’s crime families. Long in the
shadow of New York’s families in La Costa Nostra (LCN), Chicago’s gangsters have
been quietly running a highly successful and ruthless criminal empire since the 1920s,
surpassing every other OC family in terms of their success, whether measured in rev-
enues or with respect to its control of local law enforcement, politics, and government.
For example, in 1961 it was estimated that the Outfit’s revenues per annum were US$6
billion, when OC in the United States in total was taking in from US$20 to US$22
billion a year (Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1961).
Throughout the world, Chicago is recognized as the home of America’s quintes-
sential gangster, Al Capone, and of one of the most powerful, cohesive, and resilient
criminal organizations in the country, referred to variously as the Mob, the Outfit, or
the Syndicate. Starting out under Jim Colosimo in the early 1900s as a modest enter-
prise that consisted mainly of prostitution and gambling, the gang expanded under
John Torrio and grew dramatically during Capone’s years as the boss. Al Capone’s
leadership, which ended abruptly with his conviction for income tax evasion, laid the
foundation for the Syndicate’s later monopolization of organized criminal activity in

200 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 29(2)
the city and the surrounding area, because the Capone gang through mergers and
acquisitions became the Outfit after Prohibition. Its activities have included gambling,
prostitution, pornography, money laundering, labor and business racketeering, loan
sharking, and drug distributing.
The Outfit rose to become a political and economic powerhouse that controlled
local, regional, and national labor unions as it exerted tight political control over both
political parties at the city, county, and state levels. The Outfit’s political muscle
extended into the capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, and, at one time, even to the
White House. For example, the West Side Bloc of syndicate-anointed legislators sty-
mied the passage of anticrime legislation in lawmaking sessions of the state’s General
Assembly. The West Side Bloc controlled the political machinery of the near West
Side wards, some of which were heavily Italian, for nearly 40 years—from the end of
Prohibition through the early 1970s.
For more than half of the 20th century, members of the Outfit were virtually
immune from arrests and prosecution by local authorities. Even New York’s most
powerful major crime figures were unable to elude the sharp eyes and long arms of law
enforcement. For example, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, New York City’s “boss of
bosses,” was convicted on prostitution charges and sentenced to prison in 1936. In
Chicago, such a conviction was virtually impossible because of the Outfit’s corruption
of much of the criminal justice apparatus in the city and the county (Binder, 2003).
Although they were suspected in numerous murders, few (if any) members of the
Outfit—or the bootlegging gangs that preceded it—were convicted of a homicide until
1997. In fact, this conviction took place during the retrial of Harry Aleman, a prolific
Mob hit man of the 1970s. The state’s attorney proved that Aleman’s initial acquittal—
in a clear-cut case of homicide—had been the result of judicial corruption. For the first
time in history, the Constitution’s double jeopardy protection was bypassed. More
than a decade later, in a less unusual but equally sensational case, three Mob defen-
dants were convicted of 18 unsolved Outfit “hits” dating back to 1970: Frank “Frankie
Breeze” Calabrese, Sr., Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, and James “Jimmy the Man”
Marcello.
Mafia Myths
The Mafia is a secret criminal organization that originated in Sicily. Mafia myths and
mythologies were fostered by the mysterious nature of the group as well as from dra-
matic media accounts; both created a fictionalized aura that encompassed the group
and its legendary exploits, which later became accepted as truths (Reid, 1952). In
some cases, life in the Mafia imitated the dramatized newspaper or other media char-
acterizations of the organization. The myths and mythologies surrounding the Mafia
apply largely to OC groups in the United States, not to the real Mafia in Sicily. The
criminal influence and activities of the Mafia and other foreign OC groups, with few
exceptions, are concentrated in their home countries.
The etymology of the word “mafia” is unknown. Some language scholars suggest
that it might be an Arabic word meaning “boldness.” Others note that the term

“Mafioso” connotes a “man of respect.” The history of the Mafia is inextricably linked
to the turbulent history of Sicily itself, which was repeatedly overrun by foreign invad-
ers: Spaniards, Saracens, Arabs, and Normans. Subjected to numerous foreign masters
over the course of centuries, the people of Sicily became highly suspicious of outsiders
and hostile toward occupying governments. The Mafia arose in response to political
oppression and became a protective and clandestine force that served as a shadow
government in fierce opposition to tyrannical regimes.
Over many decades, the Mafia evolved into a vast underground band of criminals
that consolidated its power to exploit, rather than protect, people in the parts of Sicily
it operated in. The Mafia gained its reputation through a ruthless campaign of unremit-
ting intimidation, violence, and terror. Mafiosi robbed, extorted, and misappropriated
land and property in order to amass wealth and power over the local residents who fell
under the control of the Mafia bosses. According to one early newspaper article “[t]
hey seem to be everywhere, and have their hand in everything” (New York Times,
December 15, 1878).
Myth Number 1: The Mafia is Operating

in America and Around the World
The most pervasive and enduring myth about the Mafia is that the organization simply
transplanted itself en bloc into American society at the height of Italian immigration,
between 1880 and 1924. Proponents of the Alien Conspiracy Theory argue that the
Mafia arrived in the United States fully intact and ready to unleash its reign of terror
in the New World. In Italy, the dictator Benito Mussolini engaged in systematic
attempts to destroy the Mafia through imprisonment and deportation of its members
(New York Times, May 1, 1926). Many Sicilian Mafiosi fled to the United States,
including Carlo Gambino and Joseph Bonnano, who became the bosses of powerful
crime families in New York City. However, only scanty evidence at best supports the
notion that the Sicilian Mafia became entrenched in American life or in the life of
other countries; this belief was encouraged by sensationalistic newspaper accounts
(President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 1967,
Appendix A).
While the first mention of the “Mafia” in the press, pertaining to criminal activity
in the United States, is in 1888 (New York Times, October 22, 1888), other accounts
use this label to describe illegal acts in New Orleans around 1886 (Chicago Tribune,
March 17, 1891). But the media account that created the pervasive myth of the Mafia
in the United States arose from the murder of Police Chief David Hennessey in New
Orleans in 1890 (Reid, 1952). Responsibility for his assassination was ascribed to the
“Mafia” and was based on the unreliable confession of a possibly deranged suspect/
witness. The media frenzy that developed shortly after the murder led to the use of the
term “Mafia” in the New Orleans press; stories about the Mafia quickly spread
throughout the country. The trial of nine suspects ended in not-guilty verdicts for three
of the defendants and mistrials for the other six. Claiming that the jurors had been
bribed, an enraged mob led by prominent attorneys and a newspaper editor stormed

the jail and killed 11 of the 19 suspects implicated in the chief’s murder, including four
men of Sicilian origin who were not even involved in the case. None of the vigilantes
were arrested.
In profound indignation over this horrific event, the Italian government severed
diplomatic relations with the United States. The accusations of jury tampering were
never proved, and the murder of Chief Hennessey was never solved. However, the
damage was done. The Mafia became implanted into the American consciousness.
The press was quick to label murders involving Italians, especially Sicilians—as sus-
pected assailants or victims—as “Mafia Killings,” fueling the hatred and mistrust
against Italians and lending credence to the Alien Conspiracy Theory.
The founders of Traditional Italian American Organized Crime (TIAOC) shared
with their Mafia counterparts some elements (e.g., Old World values and organiza-
tional structure) but never attempted to replicate the Mafia in all its aspects. Many of
the leaders of TIAOC have either been born in the United States or came to America
as children and readily assimilated into American culture. Their experiences growing
up in urban ghettos (Little Italys) laid the foundation for a distinctly Americanized
version of OC. Unlike Mafiosi, members of OC in the United States created or took
advantage of the decidedly urban opportunities for criminal gain, which were absent
from Sicily—a largely rural, undeveloped, and agrarian region.
TIAOC had its roots in the corrupt political machines of rapidly growing cities in
the United States (e.g., New York, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans); these machines
controlled jobs, businesses, and labor unions as well as gambling, prostitution, and
other illegal activities (President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and
Administration of Justice, 1967). Through political corruption, OC insinuated itself
into all aspects of 20th-century urban life. In this sense, the term “Mafia” is a mislead-
ing description of TIAOC in the United States. The OC families in New York City are
known by the names of their prominent former leaders; in Chicago as the Syndicate or
Outfit; in Buffalo as the Arm, and in New England as the Office.
The Mafia is indigenous to Sicily. Exceptt for isolated incidents (e.g., the interna-
tional drug trade) TIAOC has also been quite insular in its criminal activities. Among
New York City’s Five Crime Families, crime is centered on the city and the nearby
areas or focuses on criminal opportunities that originate there. These crime families
rarely collaborate with one another. Even the street crews that constitute a crime fam-
ily tend to commit their crimes mostly within their own ranks and on their own terri-
tory. Hence, since their inception, the Mafia and TIAOC, overall, have been parochial
in their criminal endeavors and influence.
The Outfit’s reach was significantly longer than that of any other crime family in
the United States. The Chicago Syndicate controlled all OC activities in Cook and the
Collar counties, including DuPage and Kane counties, and it influenced the operations
of crime families in Rockford and Springfield, Illinois, Milwaukee and Madison,
Wisconsin, and Kansas City, Kansas (Binder, 2003). For decades, the Chicago Mob’s
authority over Iowa, Northern Indiana and even far away Los Angeles was unques-
tioned. As a founding member of the National Crime Commission, the Outfit’s bosses
often spoke for other crime families west of the Mississippi River, acting as emissaries

between the East and West Coast families and settling disputes among other crime
families.
Myth Number 2: TIAOC Consists Only of Italians

The myth of Italian American exclusivity in OC is only partially true. Often recruiting
members from neighborhood streets in urban enclaves or from the relatives of existing
members, TIAOC groups insisted that aspiring members had to be full-blooded Italians
with family origins that were traceable to Italy or Sicily. Indeed, TIAOC groups are
referred to as “families.” Selecting recruits because of their background helped create
closer ties and camaraderie among the members of OC families and prevented infiltra-
tion by undercover law enforcement agents. However, much evidence suggests that
OC associates were frequently of other ethnic origins than the core members of the
organization.
Early OC groups in New York aligned closely with Jewish gangsters, who grew up
in the same hardscrabble environments as the Italian gangsters. These allegiances
were critical to the development of TIAOC. For example, Meyer Lansky (Jewish), was
instrumental in constructing a cooperative business model of OC and promoting the
formation of the National Crime Syndicate, both of which were crucial to the early
growth and success of TIAOC. The notorious group of OC assassins, known as Murder
Incorporated, had both Jewish and Italian. Among New York’s OC families, there are
many instances of other ethnic groups (e.g., the Irish OC group known as “the
Westies”) participating in crimes at the behest of Italian bosses.
The Outfit is the most inclusive TIAOC family in the United States (Binder, 2003).
In Chicago, many high-ranking members were of ethnic origins other than Italian. The
leader of Chicago’s OC family in the 1920s, Al Capone, forged many alliances with
other gangs that were predominantly non-Italian and eventually amalgamated them
into his own, such as the West Side O’Donnells, the Sheldon-Stanton gang, and the
North Side Circus Gang. Similarly, sometime after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
the Capone mob absorbed the remainder of the Moran gang. Influential members of
the Outfit included, at one time or another (Binder, 2003, p. 119), Jake “Greasy
Thumb” Guzik (Jewish), Ken Eto (Japanese), John Edward Moore (aka Claude
Maddox) (Irish), Willie Heeney (Irish), Jimmy Marcello (half Irish), Gus Alex (Greek),
Ed Vogel (Bohemian Jew), Murray “the Camel” Humphreys (Welsh), Lenny Patrick
(Irish Jewish), David Yaras (Jewish), Sam McPherson “Golf Bag” Hunt (Scottish),
Ralph Pierce (English Jew), and Gus Winkler (German). In Chicago, the ability to
generate income and peddle influence trumped nationality as a qualification for
belonging to the Outfit. As long-time Mob lieutenant Joey “the Clown” Lombardo
succinctly stated, “[The Outfit] is a group of people. They conspire and they go into
deals . . . [their purpose] is to make money” (Chicago Crime Commission, 1990, p. 3).
Despite the inclusion of members of non-Italian descent, the deliberate and systematic
cooperation of OC families with criminal groups outside the United States has been
limited.

Myth Number 3: All Members

of TIAOC Must Take an Oath
The ubiquity of the induction ceremony or ritual is another partial truth about OC. The
FBI recorded a member of the Patriarca crime family of New England being indoctri-
nated into the ranks of OC. The inductee was required to prick his finger to draw blood
and then burn a holy picture in the palm of his hand while reciting a pledge of lifelong
loyalty to the crime family and faithfulness to the code of secrecy or Omerta, also
known as the oath of silence. References to the OC induction ceremony can also be
found in the testimonies of former members of OC who later became FBI informants
(e.g., Fratianno, 1981). Joe Valachi was the first OC apostate to share the particulars
of the secret ceremony during his testimony in 1963 before the Senate’s Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations (New York Times, October 2, 1963). Hence, the
induction ceremony has a firm basis in the culture of TIAOC. However, it is unclear
whether this ceremony has been required for inductees to all of the OC families identi-
fied in the United States.
In Chicago, for years new members were sponsored by an existing member who
vouched for them and a banquet was then generally held to celebrate the induction
(Organized Crime and the use of violence, 1980, p. 90). During this period elaborate
rituals involving oaths of silence, daggers, kissing and/or the burning of holy cards
were nonexistent. According to the FBI:
It was the consensus among the sources that there is no formal initiation and that an individual
who is being considered for membership on the basis of his past performance has a sponsor
who has tested him in many different ways with various assignments, on occasions killings.
If the sponsor deems the individual of such caliber as to warrant membership, the sponsor
will advise the candidate that he should contact a particular person and name that individual.
At the time of contact the candidate is to advise the person he contacts that his sponsor sent
him to you. Accordingly the top persons, all of whom would be aware of the candidate’s
background, would look him over, question him, and may even give him an assignment
themselves as a further test. After reaching their decision concerning the candidate, if he is
accepted for membership, his sponsor is advised and the sponsor in turn advises the candidate
that he is “in” or “made.”
Consistent with this assessment, FBI agent William Roemer (1989, p.168) over-
heard, on electronic surveillance, mobster Butch Blasi describe how he was inducted.
Old-time Capone hood James “the Bomber” Belcastro told him that he was “one of us”
and that he would be working at a gambling place around Taylor and Halsted.
Similarly, one member of the Chicago Heights crew was told, “You’re with us now.
Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut” (M. Luzi, personal communica-
tion, 2002). This allowed Joey “the Clown” Lombardo to state in complete honesty in
1989 (Chicago Crime Commission, 1990, p. 3):
The guy from the FBI . . . he took the stand. He says, ‘In order to be a member of the
Outfit’—or La Cosa Nostra, or whatever it is—‘you have to prick your finger and let blood

come out of it and they throw paper on fire in your hand and you go like this and they give
you an oath over pistols and guns.’ Now, the only way I can answer that question, I never
pricked my fingers and never took an oath over guns or over swords and never put burning
paper in my hand . . . I never took an oath or any ceremony of any secret organization.
Mob experts agree that a swearing-in oath in Chicago might have occurred only
sporadically and at the special request of the capo (leader) of a street crew (a smaller
group in the larger organizational structure of the crime family) (W. Johnson, personal
communications, various dates). For example, Rocco Infelice tried to use East Coast
initiation rituals when he was the boss of the Taylor Street crew, much to the amuse-
ment of his Outfit colleagues (Johnson, n. d.). Therefore, membership in Chicago’s
Mob requires sponsorship by a member and a track record of productive earnings but
no oath of allegiance. In general, the oath taken by OC members outside of Chicago
applies only to their own family and never to any transcendent criminal organizations
or conspiracies, national or international.
Myth Number 4: Nobody Testifies in OC Families

As noted above, the oath of secrecy is an integral component of the induction cere-
mony into TIAOC in many cities. New members’ pledge to uphold the oath of silence
is threefold. First, it is a pledge to keep the existence of the organization itself a secret
from outsiders. Hiding the existence of TIAOC became impossible after the testimony
of Joe Valachi and the discovery by state police officers of the National Commission
Member Summit in Appalachin, New York, which was held on November 14, 1957.
Second, it is a promise to keep one’s own membership a secret. Third, it is a commit-
ment to refrain from testifying against other OC members. OC associates who never
take an oath of Omerta are also expected to uphold the secrecy of the organization and
to steadfastly withhold information about criminal activities even if doing so would
increase the likelihood that they would suffer legal consequences. The cost of violat-
ing the code was death. Many paid the ultimate price simply for being suspected of
cooperating with authorities.
In the 1980s, federal prosecutors adopted legal tools that sorely tested the code of
Omerta and shattered the wall of secrecy at the highest levels of TIAOC. These tools
included the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, which
allowed federal prosecutors to charge the leaders of OC with a long list of predicate
offenses committed by any members of the organization (Wallance, 1994). A convic-
tion under the RICO statute guarantees a lengthy (typically life) prison sentence along
with forfeiture of assets and indicts the organization as an entity rather than simply
charging individual members of the OC family. In addition, the widespread use of
electronic surveillance and undercover agents helped create insurmountable cases
against OC members and encouraged them to plead guilty or participate in the Witness
Protection Program, which promises relocation, a new identity, and insulation against
OC retaliation for the witnesses and their family members.

Since these tools have been used against TIAOC, thousands of members have
become government informants, testifying against “the family.” Members at the high-
est ranks of TIAOC families betrayed the organization in order to broker a lesser
sentence for themselves or for other personal gain. Such informants include Angelo
Lonardo (boss, Cleveland Family), Sammy “the Bull” Gravano (underboss, Gambino
Family), Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso (underboss, Lucchese Family), (Phillip "Crazy
Phil" Leonetti (underboss, Philadelphia Crime Family), John Vitale (boss, St. Louis
family) and Joey “Big Joey” Massino (boss, Bonnano Family). In the recent Family
Secrets Trial in Chicago, Frankie Calabrese, Jr. and his uncle, Nick Calabrese, testified
against Frank Calabrese Sr. (Frankie’s father and Nick’s brother), leading to numerous
indictments of members of the Outfit and the convictions of high-ranking members for
murder, as mentioned above (Coen. 2009).
The defection of OC members has seriously weakened the ranks of TIAOC groups
throughout the United States and has greatly reduced their power and control over all
their criminal enterprises. The diminishment of traditional OC Families has created
opportunities for newly arrived criminal groups from Russia, Yugoslavia, Jamaica,
and elsewhere to compete with TIAOC.
Myth Number 5: Drugs Sales in TIAOC Are Prohibited

A common myth about OC is that its members are forbidden to sell illegal drugs. In
his autobiography, Joe Bonanno (1983, p. 192; boss of New York’s Bonanno crime
family) claimed, “My Tradition (sic) outlaws narcotics. It has always been understood
that ‘men of honor’ don’t deal in narcotics.” In reality, the Bonanno crime family was
once the hub of heroin trafficking in the United States, participating in an elaborate
scheme in the 1970s to smuggle it from Sicily, sell it in pizza parlors throughout the
city, and launder the profits as legitimate business earnings. Similarly, deported gang-
ster Charles “Lucky” Luciano was, from Italy, the boss of the U.S. illegal narcotics
trade (Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1951), which included the famous “French connec-
tion” that channeled Turkish opium, refined into heroin in Marseille, to New York’s
Lucchese crime family (New York Times, January 19, 20, 1962).
In Philadelphia, Harry “the Hump” Riccobene and others were heavily involved in
the methamphetamine trade and John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family from
1985 to 1991, rose to prominence as a capo due in part to the drug-related earnings of
his crew (Jenkins, 1992). The drug trade in TIAOC in the was so prevalent that in the
1970s the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), two federal agencies that for years jealously guarded their own
turf, joined forces to better fight the hoodlums trafficking in heroin (Wiedrich, 1977).
At one time or another, all the TIAOC families were major drug traffickers, distribu-
tors, and sellers, as documented in several government reports about the illicit drug
trade in the United States dating back to the 1930s.
The most persistent claims of a “no drug” rule pertain to the Chicago Outfit. This
assertion probably originates with turncoat Joe Valachi, who testified in 1963 that in

Chicago mobsters were paid US$250 a week not to handle narcotics (Chicago Tribune,
October 10, 1963). Roemer (1995) extended this notion by claiming that under Tony
Accardo Outfit members were forbidden to deal in illegal drugs. The actual circum-
stances appear to be quite different, however. Russo (2001) and others have reported
on Chicago’s OC family’s involvement in the drug trade.
The Capone gang certainly did not deal in narcotics, as reflected in a statement by
William D. Allen, U.S. narcotics agent in charge of Chicago that drug dealers and OC
were two separate worlds with no connections (Chicago Tribune, November 25,
1928). Al Capone supposedly became extremely upset whenever members of his
gang, such as Willie Heeney, were found using narcotics. Similarly, no reliable data
suggests that the Outfit under Frank Nitti was involved in drug sales. The situation
changed dramatically after Nitti’s death as Paul Ricca and Tony Accardo turned the
Chicago mob into the Midwest distributor of illegal narcotics (Chicago Tribune, May
16, 1954). For example, in 1943, 26-year-old Charles “Chuckie” Nicoletti, only a mob
associate then, was arrested for making a sizable sale of heroin to federal narcotics
agents (Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1943).
Also during the 1940s, Melrose Park gang bosses Rocco and Andrew De Grazia
were charged with running a nationwide drug ring (Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1947),
and Outfit gambler Paul Jones was convicted of smuggling US$75,000 worth of opium
into the country (Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1947). Vigil Peterson, operating
director of the Chicago Crime Commission, also explicitly mentioned the Outfit’s
involvement in narcotics (Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1948). Of course, retail sales
were never conducted by members of the Outfit street crews. Instead, they generally
employed African American dealers and, to a lesser extent, Latino dealers to sell the
Outfit-owned product to end users. Thus, the syndicate was deeply involved in the
drug trade; however, the organization prohibited its members from selling narcotics on
the street.
In 1954, authorities arrested 11 men, including Anthony Pape, Frank Coduto, and
Joe Iacullo, for operating a drug ring in Chicago generating US$10 million in annual
revenue (Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1954). Pape and Iacullo were close associates
of Tony Accardo; the latter frequently visited Accardo at his home (Chicago Tribune,
May 8, 1954). Mid-level hoodlum Joe “Crackers” Mendino was linked to Iacullo later
that year and described as “the kingpin of the Midwest narcotics racket” (Chicago
Tribune, May 31, 1954).
Outfit narcotics trafficking continued during the 1960s. For example, Arthur Bilek,
chief of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department from 1962 to 1966, and Jim McGuire,
a high-ranking officer in the Chicago, Cook County Sheriff’s, and the Illinois State
Police Departments from the 1950s until his retirement, were emphatic that the Outfit
was involved in narcotics during this time as well as later, as were numerous other law
enforcement figures (A. Bilek, R. Lombardo, J. McGuire, F. Perry, & J. Wagner, per-
sonal communications, various dates).
Two major drug rings were disrupted by federal and local authorities in the first
part of the decade. Syndicate operatives Anthony DiChiarinte, Salvatore Pisano, and
Spartico Mastro dealt in narcotics sales of no less than US$15,000, and mobster

William “the Saint” Skally was the liaison between this operation and mob boss Sam
Giancana (Chicago Tribune, March 10, 11, 1960). Also, in 1963, various members of
the mob’s drug operation—which still grossed US$10 million annually—were
arrested, including Americo Di Pietto, who supervised the Outfit’s narcotics activities
in the Midwest and reported directly to Sam Giancana (Chicago Tribune, October 31,
1963). The Di Pietto operation smuggled drugs from Italy and France by way of
Canada and New York City, handling more than 80 percent of the narcotics sales in
Chicago and supplying drugs to other Midwestern cities. In addition, Frank “Skid”
Caruso, later boss of the 26th Street crew, was actively threatening narcotics dealers
on the South Side during the 1960s (Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1963).
By the late 1970s, Chicago was a major distribution center for Mexican heroin flow-
ing into the United States and Canada; the Outfit worked closely with the Herrera fam-
ily on Chicago’s South Side in the drug’s importation and sale. For example, Outfit
member Rocco Infelice was arrested in 1972 and convicted the next year as the main
figure in a group that sold enough heroin to keep “a small army of addicts” supplied for
weeks (O’Brien, 1972). This case was the outgrowth of a special investigation into the
links between the Outfit and African American narcotics dealers. In response to this
criminal conglomerate, a new narcotics unit was created inside the Chicago Police
Department in 1979. Deputy Superintendent William Duffy, who was the department’s
leading expert on traditional organized crime, led the unit (Wattley, 1979).
By the early 1980s, the Outfit had essentially withdrawn from direct street selling
of heroin and cocaine in many areas of Chicago. The void was filled by African
American and Latino street gangs in some parts of the city and by Outfit-supplied
independent dealers in other neighborhoods and the suburbs (Organized Crime, 1980).
However, the Outfit still operated at a higher, and less visible, level. For example,
brothers Clement and Chris Messino, former Chicago police officers who were mem-
bers of the Outfit’s Chicago Heights crew, distributed more than 220 pounds of cocaine
to dealers from the 1980s through the early 1990s (Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2000).
One of their alleged customers was flamboyant Southwest Side dealer John Cappas, a
20-year-old making US$25,000 a week selling drugs during the mid-1980s (Janssen,
2009). Koziol and O’Brien (1982) referred to this outsourcing as the Outfit’s “fran-
chising” of the narcotics racket.
In the early 1990s, the Outfit was working with the Italian “pizza connection” and
Chinese organizations to import heroin and with various motorcycle gangs to obtain
amphetamines, as were other TIAOC families (Chicago Crime Commission, 1991).
Joseph Di Fronzo led this effort, running the largest indoor marijuana farm in Illinois,
if not the country, from mid-1989 until Di Fronzo and 11 others were indicted in July
1993 (Lehmann, 1993). The Chicago mob became much more heavily involved in
drug importation in the early 1990s. Lindberg, Petrenko, Gladden, and Johnson (1997)
stated:
Upon the death of Tony Accardo in 1992, the Outfit sent its members around the world to
establish contacts. The upper echelon mob members serve as a bank for financing large
purchases of narcotics; and the lower level members are generally involved on the street to
make extra money for themselves without official approval by the mob hierarchy.

Therefore, evidence strongly refutes the claim that the Outfit after World War II
eschewed the narcotics trade.
Myth Number 6: Al Capone

Was Not the Boss of His Gang
Bergreen (1994) asserted that from 1925, when John Torrio left Chicago, until Al
Capone’s incarceration in 1931, Capone was not the boss of the gang in Chicago that
bore his name. Instead, Bergreen claimed that Chicago Heights gangster Frank LaPorte
(born Franceso Liparota)—in conjunction with Dominick Roberto and Jimmy Emery
(real name Vincenzo Ammirati—was really in charge while Capone was a mere front
man. For example, Bergreen (1994, p. 406) referred to “the powerful Chicago Heights
contingent—Roberto, Emery and LaPorte—to whom Capone owed his position and
for whom he served as figurehead.” Bergreen’s claims were based on nothing more
than the reflections many years later of a man whose family relocated from Chicago
Heights to Lansing, Michigan, when he was a young boy. This individual, given the
pseudonym Anthony Russo in Bergreen’s book, observed Capone walking around
Chicago Heights with La Porte and other Heights gangsters during his visits there and
drew his conclusion based on these brief and nondescript interactions (M. Luzi, pri-
vate communication, 1996).
Not a single word in the Chicago newspapers or the Chicago Heights newspapers,
which closely followed the gangland in the south suburban area during Prohibition,
hinted that Al Capone was no longer the boss of the organization. In fact, reliable
information suggests the opposite. Starting in 1926, Capone aided Roberto, his busi-
ness partner Emery, and La Porte, who was Roberto’s cousin and third in command in
Chicago Heights, in taking over the rackets in that suburb (Binder & Luzi, 1995). They
in turn swore fealty to Capone. According to the most credible accounts, LaPorte was
not even the boss in Chicago Heights during Prohibition, and most certainly not the
boss of Chicago.
None of the descendants of Roberto, Emery, or La Porte ever claimed that they
outranked Capone (M. Luzi, numerous interviews with relatives of the south suburban
bootleggers, various dates), and they would be in a position to know because a number
of the trio’s male relatives (especially in La Porte’s case) were high-ranking members
of the Chicago Heights crew. They unanimously agreed with the standard accounts
that Capone was in charge of the organization. If anyone had an incentive to make
exaggerated claims about these three men, it surely would be their own relatives, yet
they have not done so. Therefore, Bergreen’s conclusions must be dismissed as the
naive impressions of a young boy based on his casual observations as a child visiting
during Prohibition of how Capone interacted with gangsters from Chicago Heights.
Similarly, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass claimed that Paul Ricca was
Capone’s boss. He stated that the Outfit was so adept at deception that “they had their
front man, Al Capone, take all the media and federal heat, which is the way Paul ‘the
Waiter’ Ricca wanted it” (Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2002) and that, during the 1920s,

Ricca “was the real boss” (Chicago Tribune, September 12, 2003). Kass never sub-
stantiated this claim, however. Nothing in the Chicago newspapers at the time sup-
ports this assertion. In late 1926, when Capone had been the boss for more than a year,
Ricca was still only a gunman for the gang (Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1926).
Similarly, Ricca’s relatives were astounded by Kass’s assertion (J. Binder, interview
with a Ricca relative, 2009).
Myth Number 7: The St. Valentine’s

Day Massacre Was Not a Capone Operation
A number of claims about the St. Valentine’s Day massacre contradict the facts. Most
of these claims pertain to the gunmen’s identities, but recently Eig (2010) asserted that
Capone was not even behind the killings. Instead, he concluded that the event was
planned and actuated by William J. “Three Fingered Jack” White. Eig’s claim was
based on a letter (dated January 28, 1935) sent to the FBI by a Chicagoan named Frank
Farrell. Farrell, a patronage worker with the state highway department, wrote to
J. Edgar Hoover to share his own “investigation” into the massacre. According to
Farrell, North Side gangster William “Billy” Davern, Jr., was shot in November 1928
by members of his own gang. Before Davern died, Farrell claimed that Davern was
visited by his cousin, Jack White, to whom Davern revealed the names of his killers.
White then planned a robbery in conjunction with the men responsible, but when they
met at the garage at 2122 N. Clark Street on February 14, 1929, White killed the North
Siders to avenge Davern’s slaying.
The letter is problematic and therefore so is the Farrell assertion. Many of the
details in what Farrell wrote, such as names, dates, and how people were related to one
another, were incorrect. These inaccuracies explicitly challenge the letter’s credibility.
Furthermore, the Chicago Police Department conducted its own investigation and
summarily named Fred “Killer” Burke as the chief suspect based on evidence found in
a raid on Capone ally and Circus gang leader Claude Maddox’s office at 1134 N.
Ashland Avenue (Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1929) and eyewitness identification of
Burke as one of the men at the massacre (Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1929).
Burke’s identification was strengthened by ballistic evidence confirming that two
machine guns in Burke’s possession had been used in these killings, as well as in the
slaying of New York mobster Frankie Yale in 1928. The Yale killing was also a
Capone operation. A lot of other evidence, including the identity of the lookouts across
the street from the garage, the Circus gang’s disposal of the cars involved, the confes-
sion of Byron Bolton, one of the lookouts who was in Burke’s crew, and statements by
the wife of Gus Winkler, another Burke gang member, supports the conclusion that
Burke and his henchmen carried out the killings for Capone (Helmer & Bilek, 2004).
The Farrell assertion is, therefore, inconsistent with reliable information about the
Clark Street killings.
According to the Chicago Police Department and other sources, Capone’s top
killer, Jack McGurn, was the chief suspect in the Davern killing (Bundesen, April 1,

1929; Burns, 1931, pp. 271-272). Davern and another North Side gangster shot
McGurn in 1928, and McGurn, rather than the North Side gangsters, killed Davern in
retaliation (Hunt McGurn in slaying quiz, February 16, 1929). This considerably
weakens the Farrell assertion by undermining Jack White’s supposed motive for the
massacre.
Most important, Jack White was in Cook County Jail from March 1926 until July
1929, without bond, for murdering a police officer (Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1926;
July 11, 1929; Chicago Crime Commission, May 2, 1930). Is it plausible that he could
leave the jail to commit such a crime and then voluntarily return, rather than simply
escape? Eig asserted that the jail had an “open door” policy that allowed White leave
and enter ad libitum (Goudie, 2010). However, a check of the details reveals that the
opposite was true during White’s incarceration.
In 1925, the jail experienced security breaches. The most glaring was that bootleg-
gers Terry Druggan and Frankie Lake, who were being held on minor contempt of
court charges, bribed officials so that they could come and go as they wished. Based
on credible investigation, they were the only criminals with such a privilege, and they
were always accompanied by a jail official on their sojourns. Also, no evidence sug-
gests that they committed any crimes during their absences.
The Druggan-Lake case was much less serious than that of an accused killer of a
police officer. White would obviously flee if freed from custody; he was eventually
sentenced to life in prison in 1927. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that a guard or
official would allow him to leave, especially without a guard detail. Newspaper
accounts from the Druggan-Lake incident created a massive scandal. A federal judge
sentenced Cook County Sheriff Peter Hoffman to one month in the Du Page County
Jail and Cook County Jail warden Wesley Westbrook to four months in the De Kalb
County Jail in October 1925 for accepting money from Druggan and Lake. Both
Hoffman and Westbrook’s careers were ruined.
Even in a setting as political as Cook County, a scandal of this magnitude resulted
in major reform. A blue ribbon citizen’s committee hired a professional penologist
from Indiana, Edward Fogarty, as the new warden in September 1926. In Cook County,
where politically appointed jobs are normally filled by party loyalists, outside hires are
considered only in times of crisis—and the politicians are forced to give the reformers
carte blanche, as happened with O.W. Wilson, the first police superintendent hired
from outside the Chicago Police Department in the wake of the Summerdale scandal
in 1959. In this vein, Sheriff Graydon, who replaced Peter Hoffman when he resigned,
“allowed Fogarty a free hand and a virtual civil service system was set up. Grafting,
dope smuggling, and other evils were promptly eliminated at the jail” (Chicago
Tribune, June 12, 1929). Therefore, during Fogarty’s tenure as warden, which started
in late 1926 and extended beyond February 1929, abuses at the jail were nonexistent.
Thus, White could not have left the jail to commit the St. Valentine’s Day massa-
cre. Similarly, he would not have been able to plan such an attack, which, given the
number of men and other logistics involved, was a complicated undertaking that
required military precision. Also, when he was jailed in 1926, White was a freelance
thief with no ties to OC and most of his known associates were dead or in jail them-
selves by early 1929. Hence, White had no resources outside the jail.

Even if the other evidence that conflicts with the Farrell assertion is ignored, the
fact that Jack White had neither a motive nor the opportunity to commit or plan the St.
Valentine’s Day massacre invalidates Farrell’s letter to J. Edgar Hoover. It was simply
one of many letters (and more broadly leads, communications, and criminal confes-
sions) sent to the authorities that had no credibility, similar to other letters in the FBI
file purporting to solve a major crime. The Capone gang and the Circus gang, which
abutted the Moran area to the west just across the Chicago River, had both the motive
and the opportunity (by not being in jail at the time) to bring in outsiders, whom the
North Side gang would not recognize, to conduct the killings. This is consistent with
valid reports about the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.
Myth Number 8: The Outfit Elected

and Then Was Betrayed by John Kennedy
Several authors have discussed the role of the Outfit in the 1960 presidential election.
The earliest statement, by Brashler (1977), was quite innocuous. He argued that Frank
Sinatra, who knew Sam Giancana and John F. Kennedy, approached Giancana and
asked for his help in electing Kennedy. However, the Outfit’s efforts were secondary
to those of the Chicago Democratic political machine, which exerted tremendous
effort to elect an Irish Catholic. According to Brashler (1977, p. 195), “an order from
the mob to work for Kennedy only insured a total Chicago effort of the kind that his-
torically had been known to work miracles in the early-morning hours of vote count-
ing.” In other words, the Chicago Democratic machine delivered on election day for
John Kennedy just as it always had done for a presidential candidate, with the Outfit-
controlled wards doing little (if anything) extra.
A greatly amplified version of this story appeared in Giancana and Giancana
(1992), the authors being the half nephew and half brother, respectively, of Outfit boss
Sam Giancana. According to the Giancanas, Joseph Kennedy, John Kennedy’s father,
struck a deal with Outfit boss Sam Giancana before the election. Sam Giancana is
reputed to have said that “I help get Jack elected and, in return, he calls off the heat”
(Giancana & Giancana, 1992, pp. 279-280). Giancana and Giancana (1992) claimed
the Outfit did everything possible for Kennedy in the wards they controlled. Allegedly,
massive fraudulent voting occurred and hoodlums inside the polling places ensured all
ballots were cast for Kennedy by breaking the arms and legs of those who failed to
comply. The Kennedys, however, “double-crossed” the Outfit and, according to
Giancanas’ book, the Outfit killed both John and Robert Kennedy.
In a chapter entitled “The Stolen Election,” Hersh (1997) also maintained that the
Kennedys struck a deal with the Outfit. Former Chicago lawyer Robert McDonnell
claimed that he helped arrange the meeting between Joseph Kennedy and Giancana in
Chicago, which curiously McDonnell did not attend. McDonnell asserted that the
Outfit produced votes for Kennedy at the ward level in Chicago. Russo (2001) repeated
the stories told by the Giancanas and Hersh, claiming (p. 397) that “scores of
Giancana’s ‘vote sluggers’ or ‘vote floaters’ hit the streets to ‘coerce’ the voters.”
Summarizing the election, Russo (2001, p. 1) wrote that the top Chicago hoodlums
met in June 1960 to “decide who would become the next president of the United

States.” On the other hand, Len O’Connor (1975, p. 158), the dean of Chicago’s politi-
cal commentators, remarked:
The power of the Daley Machine was evident throughout the city, only the two crime
syndicate wards, the First and the Twenty-eighth, delivering a low count, fewer votes for
Kennedy in 1960, in fact, than they had delivered for Daley in 1955. The Machine interpreted
this disappointing performance as a mild rebuke by the syndicate people who had been
mercilessly pounded by the presidential candidate’s brother, Robert [at the McClellan
Committee hearings].
O’Connor discussed how Charlie Weber, the Democratic alderman of the 45th Ward,
openly opposed the Kennedys, having been influenced by his friend Murray Humphreys.
Several of these accounts also discussed voting by labor union members, locally or
nationally. For example, Robert McDonnell (Hersh, 1997) alleged that the Outfit pres-
sured various unions to support Kennedy. Murray Humphreys’ second wife Jeanne
was more specific. She reported that the Outfit delivered teamster union votes at the
national level. She professed to not only have witnessed Humphreys coordinating this
effort but to have worked with him as he directed teamster leaders from around the
country. Russo (2001) also alleged that Humphreys ensured that union members
nationally voted Democratic. Although he quoted Mrs. Humphreys’ teamster-focused
account, Russo asserted that nonteamster union members nationally were also influ-
enced to vote for Kennedy. O’Connor argued that unions tied to the Outfit were dis-
pleased with Robert Kennedy and the McClellan Committee hearings and, therefore,
did not support John Kennedy Binder (2007).
When closely examined, the claims of the Giancanas, Hersh, and Russo are implau-
sible and their sources lack credibility. For example, not one of Chicago’s four major
daily newspapers reported about violence directed at voters in November 1960, and
there is certainly no mention of a 1920s-style wave of terror against voters in the city.
In fact, legendary crime reporter Ray Brennan (Chicago Sun-Times, November 9,
1960), writing the day after the election, described it as “sissified” and “bland” in
comparison to the violent primary election of April 6, 1928.
The Outfit had no ability to deliver a significant number of votes for Kennedy in
Chicago. In 1960, the Outfit controlled the Democratic Party’s political machinery in
5 of 50 Chicago wards, all on the West Side. There were 279 precincts/polling places
in those wards. Effective intimidation of voters at a polling place would have required
at least four or five gangsters; otherwise, irate voters would have pummeled the
“intimidators.” With roughly 300 members in 1960, the Outfit would have been able
(if the police did not intervene) to coerce voters in essentially only one of these wards
because each ward had between 46 and 63 precincts. When Al Capone’s minions
helped elect the Republican candidates in Cicero in 1924, he needed to bring in men
from Dion O’Banion’s North Side gang as well as others. Capone’s gang, with 500
gunmen, was larger than the Outfit in 1960 while Cicero was quite a bit smaller (about
70,000 residents in 1924) than the five Outfit-controlled wards (with a total population
of more than 300,000 in 1960).

The credibility of the individuals who made these claims is also questionable. OC
operates with the same degree of secrecy as major intelligence agencies, such as the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Only those who “need to know” are informed of
particular operations. The average Outfit member would not have known the informa-
tion the Giancanas claimed to have known, especially Chuck Giancana, who was
merely a mob associate. Moreover, the Giancanas’ book is not taken seriously by well-
informed students of the Chicago Outfit. In it, the authors claimed that Sam Giancana
was involved in every major event related to OC in Chicago that occurred from his
adolescent years onward, even though many of their assertions contradict the facts.
The same point applies to the second Mrs. Humphreys. In the completely male
world of TIAOC, members share no information with women, including wives.
Female relatives of gangsters, in fact, regularly make remarks such as “I’m a woman.
They never told me anything” (J. Binder, private conversations, various dates). Union
leaders would have refused to conduct business with Humphreys if a woman or non-
Outfit member was present.
Similarly, it is difficult to find informed, unbiased individuals who place any faith
in statements by Robert McDonnell. A disbarred attorney, a compulsive drinker, and
an uncontrollable gambler, McDonnell borrowed heavily from loan shark Sam
DeStefano to support his gambling habit. When he was unable to pay his debts,
DeStefano put McDonnell to work for him, including having him carry two dead bod-
ies from his basement (Chicago Tribune, January 14, 1966). Therefore, it is extremely
unlikely that someone as unstable and unreliable as McDonnell would have been
involved by the Outfit in an enterprise of this magnitude and with information this
secretive and sensitive.
Direct evidence to test these claims emerges from analysis of voting in the election
itself. Eight separate tests were conducted with the local voting data to determine
whether Outfit-influenced or controlled political districts voted (everything else being
equal) unusually heavily for Democratic candidates in 1960. In only one case, infor-
mation suggests that unusual Democratic voting might have stemmed from the influ-
ence of organized crime. This weak result might be attributed to chance. However, it
most likely indicates that the Outfit had a negligible effect on voting in these districts,
as Brashler and Roemer argued. It certainly is inconsistent with a significant Outfit
effort to elect John Kennedy.
Analysis of the 1960 presidential voting in isolation ignores local political issues
that might have caused the results to be biased in favor of assertions that the Outfit
worked to elect Kennedy. The regular election for Cook County state’s attorney also
took place in November 1960. During the preceding 4 years, Republican incumbent
Benjamin Adamowski had been a thorn in City Hall’s and the Outfit’s sides, raiding
gambling joints in Cicero and strip clubs in Calumet City. It was widely believed that
Adamowski, if reelected, would expose further crime and corruption and then run
against Richard J. Daley for mayor in 1963.
The Outfit worked assiduously against Adamowski and, therefore, in support of his
Democratic opponent Dan Ward in 1960. Adamowski alleged rampant voter fraud and

named 10 wards in Chicago as the worst locations, four of which were Outfit con-
trolled. If some of this effort involved straight-ticket voting as the Cook County
Republican party chairman claimed, with Democratic precinct captains pulling the
voting machine levers for illegal voters, then the efforts against Adamowski indirectly
contributed votes to Kennedy.
In a partial recount, Adamowski gained 6,186 votes and Richard Nixon only
943 votes, which shows that voter fraud was principally directed at Adamowski.
Statistical analysis of voting in the Outfit-influenced wards and suburbs in the state’s
attorney election versus the presidential election reveals evidence in all four tests that
these political districts voted much more heavily for Dan Ward than they did for
Kennedy. Owing to straight-ticket voting, this effort spilled over to the presidential
election, causing the weak pro-Kennedy results in those statistical tests. Similar statis-
tical tests show that the Outfit wards strongly delivered votes for Richard J. Daley
(because the mob greatly feared his Republican opponent) in the 1955 mayoral elec-
tion. Therefore, the Outfit could produce votes in certain areas of Chicago; it was
simply uninterested in doing so for John Kennedy Tagge (1952).
No indications can be found that union members nationally or in states where the
Outfit at least partially controlled organized criminal activities voted unusually
heavily Democratic in the 1960 presidential election. Data indicate that union mem-
bers in Outfit-influenced states voted less heavily Democratic than usual, as Len
O’Connor suggested. Thus, no convincing national statistics suggest that the Outfit
helped elect John Kennedy. If a preelection agreement was established—which is
highly doubtful given the claims made—clearly no “double-cross” occurred when
the Kennedy administration intensified the fight against OC because the Outfit never
delivered the votes. The Outfit had no reason to retaliate against either John or
Robert Kennedy, an assertion that lies at the heart of several conspiracy theories
about their assassinations.
Conclusion
Numerous myths about TIAOC abound, which is expected given the clandestine
nature of that world. What is true in some or most cities with TIAOC families is not
true in all such cities. The Chicago Outfit adheres only loosely to the national norms
of OC families, leading to various myths about its structure, operations, and member-
ship. Also, given the Outfit’s rich history and the considerable amount of material
written about it, a variety of misconceptions that are unrelated to how TIAOC works
in other cities have appeared. In this article, we have examined a number of these
myths. Although many such notions have been widely accepted, we have shown that
the data do not support them.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
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Author Biographies
Arthur J. Lurigio, a psychologist, is a Professor and Faculty Scholar in the Department of
Criminal Justice and Criminology and the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and
Sciences, Loyola University Chicago, where he also serves has the Associate Dean for Faculty.
Dr. Lurigio has won several awards for his contributions to scholarship and practices in psychol-
ogy and corrections.
John J. Binder is an Associate Professor of Finance in the College of Business at the University
of Illinois at Chicago. He has been studying organized crime in Chicago for more than 20 years
and was the president of the Merry Gangsters Literary Society. Dr. Binder has been the technical
advisor to numerous shows on organized crime in America. He is the author of the Chicago
Outfit and a work of fiction entitled, The Girl Who Applied Everywhere, a tale of college admis-
sions and college choice.

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Journal of Contemporary Criminal

The Chicago Outfit : Challenging the Myths About Organized Crime

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Arthur J. Lurigio1 and John J. Binder2

1Loyola University Chicago, IL, USA

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Chicago’s Criminal Empire

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Myth Number 1: The Mafia is Operating

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Myth Number 2: TIAOC Consists Only of Italians

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Myth Number 3: All Members

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Myth Number 4: Nobody Testifies in OC Families

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Myth Number 5: Drugs Sales in TIAOC Are Prohibited

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Myth Number 6: Al Capone

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Myth Number 7: The St. Valentine’s

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Myth Number 8: The Outfit Elected

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Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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