Everybody would make money. He had the closest ties to the feared Mafia bosses to the south in Pueblo. William Calvaresi, Dupont tavern operator and Jerry Benallo, Jr., were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment each, and Michael Bonnalo of Wheat Ridge to 10 years. My goal will be to tell the entire history of those families so that people get a glimpse of what the Mafia was like outside the primary hubs of New York and Chicago. While the Soprano family and their world of crime seems so fake and far away, it got me wondering if Colorado has any famous ties to the Mafia. He was mean. Aside from the charges, the bigger issue for the Smaldones was that the younger Smaldone was arrested with a local hood and mob novice named Robin Roberts, who was known in the street as Walkie Talkie for his habit of being a compulsive talker, loud-mouth, and a person who generally liked to horn in on peoples conversations. Police officers and EMS performed life-saving measures, but James Gamino died on the scene. It had just 15 property crimes and 2 violent crimes over the course of year. So lets talk about some of the key players. The pair would do business with small-time gamblers, but would also be able to work with higher-stakes players as well. Most of the patrons are local, and many of them knew the Smaldones, says Gaetanos general manager, Don Knowles. In reality, they were neither. Judge J. A bondsman signs bail bond for Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone in 1960. After doing a little digging, I found out that the Centennial State has a long history of mob activity, including the infamous Denver Crime Family.. Despite their denials, Smiling Charlie Stephens, Clyde and Checkers Smaldone as well as another man, would be arrested and charged with conspiracy. WebThe most accurate, comprehensive, neighborhood-specific crime, demographic, housing, school performance, and real estate trend and forecast analytics available today, with Thereafter the deceased and his friends were pushed from the club by one Ricci and one Parlato who was the manager of the club. They left shortly after noon and went to a motion picture house, they said, differing, however, on the house they attended, Clark said. WebCrime news from 9 News KUSA in Denver, Colorado. 'Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12014459/Trump-calls-Bidens-crime-family-Watergate-times-10.html?ito=msngallery, Biden's son Hunter, 53, is being investigated by Republican-led committees over his business dealings, with inquiries into his tax affairs and purchase of a gun. Okay, lets quickly touch on the Pueblo LCN before we close the episode. Talk about being about as harsh as you could be in sentencing them well above or right at the top of the maximum guidelines. And with the deaths of Coletti and Spinuzzi, the influence of the Cosa Nostra in Pueblo faded, and that faction of the national LCN went defunct as well. This is the point where the cash really begins to accumulate for the Smaldone brothers and theyd become rich. In January of 1943 (just three weeks after Clyde), Eugene Checkers Smaldone was paroled and immediately jumped in with his brother to help run and expand their gambling empire. There were two alleged witnesses to the bombing. From their bar on Tejon Street, the brothers would sell everything from black market liquor to simple daily items like canned goods, sugar, butter, meat, shoes, clothes, etc. The Smaldone organization was suspected, but no one was convicted in either murder. Thirteen months after they went away, Judge Ritters decision would be thrown out after the sentences would be ruled as excessive by the US Supreme Court. But the business of the Smaldone family would soon change, and Raffaele along with his sons would find another means for making money: bootlegging. A month later, on November 23, 1953, Judge Willis W. Ritter, who was known for making some pretty eccentric and bizarre rulings over the years, went with the hammer! As a class 2 misdemeanor, resisting arrest carries up to 120 days of county jail time and/or up to $750. Joseph "Scotty" Spinuzzi, Boss of the Pueblo LCN family from around 1972 until his death in 1975, in a Denver mugshot from the early 1960s. In 2008, there were 158,236 crimes reported in Kreck, Dick. He would say the following in an interview later in his life: We went to jail, that beloved brother of mine, Checkers. Armed police are searching a street in West Auckland after reports of gunshots on Monday afternoon, after a house and car appeared to have been shot at. John Skip LaGuardia, murdered in 1973, allegedly due to issues he had with the Smaldone family. Additional arrests for bootlegging, reckless driving, more burglaries, impersonation of police officers, receiving stolen goods, hijacking, and brawling would follow. In fact, the beginning of their era would start with a relative thud as for the first time in their lives they would spend significant time behind bars. He is also buried at the Crown Hill Cemetery in Jefferson County. The arresting officer related the following about the murder: It had been widely rumored in gambling circles that the Smaldones believed that Robbins had furnished information to police authorities concerning the bookmaking activities of Eugene Lois Smaldone which had ultimately led to his conviction on Federal Gambling Charges, and that Checkers Smaldone was reported to have been furious at Robbins because of this., On August 13, 1963, Captain Hindes reported that Sam Shanks had been charged with the murder of Robert Robbins and was being held without bail in the Jefferson County Jail pending trial in District Court, Golden, Colorado. Canadian bonded whiskey would end up being such a success that the brothers would find themselves on the road for weeks at a time. Seeing as though I am really in touch with the times, I recently discovered the HBO hit The Sopranos and have been watching an episode or two every night after my husband and sons fall asleep. Very convenient. In the end, the Stephens-Barnes affair would end in an assassination attempt that would get the Smaldone brothers embroiled in some serious legal trouble. Spinuzzi would ultimately be found Not Guilty due to insufficient evidence and would skate free of any prison time. Federal agents said the heavy sentences levied against the brothers brought to an end a gambling empire which at one time grossed millions of dollars in slot machines, racetrack betting and other illegal operations.. He was certainly tough, but more often than not used his brain to make money and advance his interests by knowing and influencing the right people. An icon of a paper envelope. Paulie, who never married and remained a bachelor his entire life, was said to be a ladies man, and was always up for a good time, regularly spending freely on alcohol, beautiful women, and taking frequent trips to Vegas to partake in all of those things. Spinuzzi was considered a handsome man, approximately five-foot-eight-inches tall with dark, curly hair, dark brown eyes. According to Clyde, he and his brother Eugene would hang out by the railroad hurling rocks at the steam-locomotive crews that drove by, and when the crews responded by throwing chunks of coal, the boys would carry them home to help heat the house. His body would be discovered in the backseat of his Cadillac in a lot behind the Alpine Inn. Theres almost no way to have existed in this organization without getting your hands dirty, and as we stated in Part One, its pretty clear that Roma engineered the assassination of the Carlinos before he himself was killed. Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of The Members Only Podcast. In the early 1950s, the Smaldone brothers would begin to increasingly draw the ire of authorities, and it would eventually lead to the slow downfall of their organization. The best hidden gems and little known destinations - straight to your inbox. With that, the family appears to be essentially defunct, although there have been some unsubstantiated rumors that there are still a handful of family members still operating various rackets. They had been convicted of a charge of jury tampering. As West entered his automobile parked in downtown Denver, Smaldone enforcers Frank Mazza, Porky Routta, and Paul Enrichi, who long had been known as bodyguards and strong-arm men for the Smaldones, accosted West, forced him into the automobile and ordered him to drive out onto the Pecos Road outside of Denver. In November of 1965, Checkers Smaldone and his son Eugene would be arrested after a raid found evidence that over $100,000 worth of bets on college football had been placed with them in the previous week. According to Clydes sons, theyd often observe their father digging through his pockets and extracting fat rolls of money at the end of each workday. Its between the mid-to-late 1940s that between what they were doing in gambling as well as their black market operation that the Smaldone empire reached its zenith going into the early 1950s. While testifying for Mazza during this trial, Clyde Smaldoneclearly agitated (and youre going to see that both Clyde and Checkers did not like photographers)snapped on a Denver Post photographer taking pictures outside the courtroom, snarling the following: The next time you shoot my picture, Im going to punch you in the nose.. They would use their power and intimidation to muscle in on many local gambling establishments including Mountain View Club and others. He is buried in Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Jefferson County, Colorado. And with Chaunceys death, the Smaldone Crime Family, which had reached the pinnacle in the Colorado underworld in the late 1940s and early 1950s, essentially came to a quiet and fairly unspectacular end. Marriage photo of Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone and Pauline (Blasi) Smaldone taken in 1943. This was an argument and a dispute between Joseph Nucci and Checkers that pretty much went from shouting to shooting really, really quickly. Wives of the Smaldone brothers fought back tears as they talked to their husbands through bars of the detention cell. Andrea Blanco and Rachel Sharp report Now, its around this timeframe that he got the nickname Flip Flop which was created by the local press whom hed historically disdained. Raffaele landed a job as a laborer with the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad making $30 per month, and when he became a foreman his salary increased to $40 per month which allowed him to replace the familys outhouse with an in-home toilet and bathtub, a relative luxury at the time for a large Italian family.
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