Sam Mesi
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Samuele "Sam" Mesi (June 28, 1900 - March, 1971) was a Chicago bookmaker, suspected in at least four gangland slayings, who operated three off track betting parlors on Chicago's Westside and was associated with mobster Tony Accardo. He was the brother of Philip Mesi, Sr. and uncle of Philip Mesi, Jr.
A successful bookmaker with a reported yearly income of several thousand dollars, Mesi was one of many organized crime figures found to be employed by the city during investigations by the Chicago Crime Commission. Sponsored by Twenty-Sixth Ward committeeman Matthew Biesczat, Mesi was hired as a foreman in the city's sanitation department for his work in 1959 city elections for the ward alderman and mayor, Richard M. Daley.
When questioned by authorities, Biesczat claimed he had been attempting to give Mesi a legitimate means of employment given his criminal record. Although city officials denied knowledge of his prior arrests, Mesi stated "A record like mine, you can't hide. The city knew about it when they hired me."
Mesi was taken into custody where he was fingerprinted and his arrest record forwarded to the city commissioner of streets and sanitation, however it apparently never arrived.
In 1971, Sam Mesi died (cause unknown).
[edit] Further reading
- Kallina, Edmund Frank. Courthouse Over White House: Chicago and the Presidential Election of 1960. University Press of Florida, 1988. ISBN 0-8130-0864-6
