Tony Accardo

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Tony Accardo
Born April 28, 1905(1905-04-28)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died May 22, 1992 (aged 86)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Antonino "Joe Batters" Accardo aka "Big Tuna" (April 28, 1905 - May 22, 1992) rose from a small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization in about 1943, to ultimately become the final Outfit authority in 1972, until his death in May 1992. Accardo moved The Outfit into new operations and territories, greatly increasing its power and wealth during his tenure as boss.

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[edit] Early life

Antonino Joseph Accardo was born on Chicago's Near West Side, the son of Francesco Accardo, a shoemaker, and Maria Tillota Accardo. One year prior to his birth, the Accardos had emigrated to America from Castelvetrano, Sicily, in the Province of Trapani. At age 14, Accardo was expelled from school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls. He soon joined the Circus Cafe Gang, one of many street gangs in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago. These gangs served as talent pools for the city's adult criminal organizations. In 1926, Jack "Machine Gun"McGurn, one of Outfit boss Alphonse ("Big Al," "Scarface Al") Capone's toughest hitmen, recruited Accardo into his crew in The Outfit.

[edit] "Rising star" on the streets

It was during Prohibition that Accardo received the "Joe Batters" nickname from Capone himself due to his skill at hitting a couple of Outfit traitors with a baseball bat at a dinner Capone held just to kill the two men. Capaone was quoted as saying, This kid's a real Joe Batters! The Chicago newspapers eventually dubbed Accardo, "The Big Tuna," after a fishing expedition where Accardo caught a giant tuna. In later years, Accardo boasted over federal wiretaps he participated in the infamous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which, allegedly, Capone gunmen murdered seven members of the rival North Side Gang. Accardo also claimed that he was one of the gunmen who murdered Brooklyn, New York gang boss Frankie Yale, again by Capone's orders to settle a dispute. However, most experts today believe Accardo had only peripheral connections with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and none whatsoever with the Yale murder. However, on October 11, 1926, Accardo may have participated in the assassination of, then, Northside, Chicago, gang leader Hymie Weiss, near the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.

[edit] Caporegime

In 1931, Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison for an 11-year sentence, and Francesco "Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti" Nitto became the new Outfit boss, after serving his own 18-month sentence for tax evasion. By this time, Accardo had established a solid record making money for the organization, so Nitti let him establish his own crew. Accardo soon developed a variety of profitable rackets, including gambling, loansharking, bookmaking, extortion, and the distribution of untaxed alcohol and cigarettes. As with all caporegimes, Accardo received 5% of the crew's earnings as a so-called, "street tax." Accardo in turn paid a tax to the family boss. If a crew member were to refuse to pay a street tax (or paid less than half of the amount owed), it could mean a death sentence from The Outfit. The Accardo crew would include such future Outfit heavyweights as Gus "Gussie" Alex and Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa.

[edit] Personal life

In 1934, Accardo met Clarice Pordzany, a Polish-American chorus girl. They later married and had four children. In fact, Accardo had two grandsons, one of whom was Eric Kumerow, who was drafted by the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League. Unlike the majority of his colleagues, Accardo had a strong marriage and was never known to have been unfaithful to his wife. Clarice Accardo died on November 15, 2002, at age 91, of natural causes. For most of his married life, Accardo lived in River Forest, Illinois, until he started getting heat from the IRS about his apparent high lifestyle. So, he bought a ranch home on in the 1400 block of North Ashland Avenue, in River Forest, and installed a vault. Accardo's official job was that of a beer salesman for a Chicago brewery.

An ardent fisherman, Accardo spent many long weekends fishing the waters off Florida, Bimini Island in the Bahamas, or Mexico. A compulsive gambler, Accardo spent a good deal of time at his own gambling club in Calumet City, Illinois.

Although Accardo strived for normalcy and respectability in his personal life, he was still a ruthless mobster with a hot temper. "Tony," said one acquaintance, "could have the disposition of a rattlesnake, it depended on his mood." As an example, Accardo once slashed a teenage waiter with a knife for making him wait too long for a hamburger.

[edit] Chicago's Boss of Bosses

In the 1940s, Accardo continued to gain power in The Outfit. As the '40s progressed, it became evident that a number of Outfit bosses and members were going to have to face serious consequences for their parts in the extortion of the Hollywood movie industry's unions. However, because Nitti was claustrophobic, he was fearful of serving a second prison term, the first for tax evasion. So, Nitti committed suicide in '43. Felice "Paul 'The Waiter' Ricca" DeLucia became the sole Outfit boss and appointed Accardo as his underboss. When Ricca sunsequently received a 10-year prison sentence for his part in the Hollywood scandal, Accardo became acting boss. Three years later, as a parole condition, Ricca was forced to sever all ties with The Outfit. Accardo then became the office boss of The Chicago Outfit, though in practice he shared power with Ricca (who remained in the background as a senior consultant).

Under Accardo's leadership in the late 1940s, the Outfit moved into slot machines and vending machines, counterfeiting cigarette and liquor tax stamps and expanded narcotics smuggling. Accardo placed slot machines in gas stations, restaurants and bars throughout the Outfit's territory. Outside of Chicago, The Outfit expanded rapidly. In Las Vegas, The Outfit took influence over gaming away from the five crime families of New York City. Accardo made sure that all the legal Las Vegas casinos used his slot machines. In Kansas and Oklahoma, Accardo took advantage of the official ban on alcohol sales to introduce bootlegged alcohol. The Outfit eventually dominated organized crime in most of the Western United States. To reduce the Outfit's exposure to legal prosecution, Accardo phased out some traditional organized crime activities, such as labor racketeering and extortion. He also converted The Outfit's brothel business into call girl services. The result of these changes was a golden era of profitability and influence for The Outfit.

By keeping a low profile and in the late '50s letting flashier figures such as Salvatore ("Sam," "Momo," "Mooney") Giancana, become "boss" to attract attention, Accardo was able to run The Outfit much longer than Capone. Ricca once said, that Accardo, "....had more brains for breakfast than Capone had all day."

Also in the late '50s, the FBI had to finally admit that organized crime in America is real, because of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's embarrassment over the local law enforcement's uncovering of the 1957 Apalachin Meeting. Thus, the FBI began to employ all types of surveillance against mobsters. Though, because of the surveilliance, one particular Chicago-based FBI agent and his family were having difficulty with The Outfit. All the members of his family were getting ominous and frightening anonymous phone calls about the agent's safety at work. So, in a secret meeting with The Outfit, Agent William F. Roemer initiated a gentleman's truce with Tony Accardo that each party wouldn't touch the other man's family. Accardo kept his word as to the agreement as long as he was in power, as did the Chicago-based FBI unit.

[edit] Change of leadership

After 1957, Accardo turned over the official position as boss to long-time, money-making associate Giancana. Accardo then became The Outfit's consigliere, stepping away from the day-to-day running of the organization, but he still retained considerable power and demanded ultimate respect and won it from his men. Giancana had to consult Accardo and Ricca on any major business and all assassinations.

However, this working relationship eventually broke down. Unlike Accardo, the now widowed Giancana lived an ostentatious lifestyle, frequenting posh nightclubs and dating high-profile singer Phyllis McGuire. Giancana also refused to distribute some of the lavish profits from 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, who was forever "tailing" his car in the greater-Chicago area. Around 1966, after spending a year in jail on federal Contempt of Court charges, Giancana was replaced as acting boss by Accardo (with Ricca's support) with street-crew boss Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa. In June 1975, after spending most of his Outfit-exile years in Mexico and unceremoniously being booted from that country, Giancana was assassinated in the basement apartment of his home, in Oak Park, Illinois, while cooking Italian sausages and escarole. Mob watchers, though, are divided as to whether this "hit" was sanctioned by the Outfit higher-ups, and ultimately by Accardo, or possibly by the U.S. government, which had subpoenaed Giancana just before he was murdered to testify on his knowledge of certain alleged government conspiracies.

[edit] Death and Burial

In later years, Accardo spent much of his time in Palm Springs, California, flying to Chicago to preside over Outfit "sit-downs" and mediate disputes. By this time, Accardo's personal holdings included legal investments in commercial office buildings, retail centers, lumber farms, paper factories, hotels, car dealerships, trucking companies, newspaper companies, restaurants and travel agencies. Accardo spent his last years in Barrington Hills, Illinois living with his daughter and son-in-law. In 1992, Anthony Accardo died of congestive heart failure at age 86.

Accardo was buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. However, despite an arrest record dating back to 1922, Accardo allegedly spent only one night in jail or avoided the inside of a cell entirely (depending on the source).

[edit] In popular culture

  • In the 1995 television movie Sugartime about Sam Giancana and Phyllis McGuire, Accardo is portrayed by Maury Chaykin.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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Preceded by
Paul Ricca		 Chicago Outfit Boss
1950-1957		 Succeeded by
Sam Giancana