The Porrello crime family was a Sicilian-American Mafia family based out of Cleveland, Ohio during the Prohibition era. The leading members of the gang, the 7 Porrello brothers: Rosario, Vincenzo (who was known as James or Jim), Angelo, Joseph, John, Ottavio, and Raymond originally came from Licata, Sicily where they were laborers in the local sulphur mines.
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The family emigrated to America in the early 20th century and settled in Cleveland, Ohio where they settled into the Italian community and hooked up with hometown friends the Lonardo brothers, who had become the leading Mafia family in Cleveland.
The Porrello family quickly established themselves and made a name within the Italian community and underworld by starting their own gang or Mafia faction, involved in the traditional underworld rackets of gambling, loansharking, theft and robberies. In most cases Italian tradition dictates that the eldest male family member will lead the "mafia family" or "clan", but within the Porrello family Joseph or "Joe" Porrello was a standout in terms of intelligence and leadership abilities, while his brothers Raymond and Rosario became the second in command and top adviser to Joe who soon led the family into the profitable Prohibition era rackets.
All the Porrello brothers were involved in various criminal activities, along with legal endeavors such as their barber shop which helped mask their criminal interests and give them an aura of respectability. Most notably the Porrellos became involved in the corn sugar business under Cleveland Mafia boss Joseph "Big Joe" Porrello who was known as the corn sugar baron of Ohio.
Joe Lonardo was a wealthy and respected Italian community leader and Mafia boss and Joe Porrello[1] became one of his top Mafia lieutenants supervising various bootlegging and other criminal operations throughout the early-to-mid 1920s. Lonardo was a feared Mafia Godfather, but this did not curtail the ambition and greed of Joe Porrello and his brothers as they continued to expand their own operations and legitimate business interests. In 1926, the Porrello brothers left the employment of boss Joe Lonardo and pooled their money together to start their own corn sugar supply business.
They established their headquarters in the upper Woodland Avenue are around E. 110th St. The Porrellos used the many years of experience they had gained under the employment of Joe Lonardo and the many underworld contacts and connections they had formed in Ohio and across the country and they soon became successful and began competing head to head with the Lonardo faction for business, as smaller competitors began dying mysterious deaths leaving only the Lonardo gang as rivals. Corn sugar was a prime ingredient in bootleg liquor and with smaller competitors beginning to die mysterious deaths the Porrellos quickly established themselves in Ohio as one of the leading providers of this vital ingredient for distilling alcohol and the only remaining rivals to the Lonardo gang.
The Porrellos were had been competing with the Lonardos for wealth, now they began to directly compete for power and influence within the Cleveland Mafia and for control over the most lucrative rackets. The gang grew in numbers and continued to expand their underworld operations and legitimate interests throughout Cleveland and other areas of Ohio. Other notable members of the gang included Frank Alessi, Frank Chiapetta, Domenic Gueli and Sam Tilocco.
The Cleveland Mafia had been led by old world Mafia boss Joe Lonardo for roughly two decades through intimidation, a fearsome reputation for violence, his respect and influence further enhanced through the support of New York Mafia boss and the self proclaimed "Boss of Bosses", Salvatore "Tata" D'Aquila. The Porrello family had become the second leading Mafia group within Cleveland's Italian underworld by the latter part of the 1920s through their own brand of intimidation and a reputation for violence that was also aided by connections to New York Mafia bosses, most likely Joseph "Joe the Boss" Masseria who was the top rival of D'Aquila and himself looking to become the newly recognized Sicilian-American Mafia boss of bosses. In early 1927, hostilities between the Porrello and Lonardo gangs were escalating as several murders and well planned shows of force were perpetrated on one another by both Cleveland Mafia factions.
With violence on the rise, boss Joe Lonardo left for Sicily on business and for some much needed relaxation in the summer of 1927 and while away for the next six months he left his brother John and business adviser, Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro as acting heads of the Cleveland Mafia and in charge of all activities. The Porrello family quickly took advantage of Lonardo's absence and began to solicit support from various longtime Lonardo associates and allies, such as Todaro who was rumored as of late not to be too happy with his boss. Lonardo returned from Sicily and immediately peace talks and negotiations were attempted by leaders on both sides of the warring Mafia factions.
Angelo Porrello met with Joe Lonardo frequently in the Porrello barber shop over coffee and a game of cards during the first week of October and on the day of October 13, 1927, another meeting was scheduled between the two leaders. On that day, longtime Cleveland Mafia boss Joe Lonardo and his brother John were on their way to meet the Porrello family representatives, but unknown to them they had been betrayed by an underling and were being set up. Both men were murdered by members of the Porrello gang as they entered the Porrello barber shop. This immediately allowed the Porrellos and their closest allies to take control of the corn sugar trade and the leadership of the Cleveland Mafia or Cleveland crime family.
Joe Porrello quickly grabbed the top spot and named himself the new boss of the Cleveland Mafia and with the support of Sam Todaro, the former Lonardo underling who had run the corn sugar business for Lonardo the Porrello family where now the top suppliers of corn sugar to most Ohio based bootleggers. Joe Porrello named Sam Todaro as his #2 man or underboss as a reward for his betrayal of Lonardo and Sam Tilocco became the #3 man or top adviser. (the consigliere position had not yet been officially established within the American LCN). Joe Porrello did not immediately become the undisputed Cleveland crime family boss.
In fact, the old Lonardo faction was quick to put up as much opposition as they could to the Porrello leadership. Through all of late 1927 and much of 1928 the remaining Lonardo faction loyalists which included an influential, up and coming Mafia group known as the Mayfield Road Mob led by Frank Milano and his Jewish allies within the Cleveland Syndicate continued to rival the Porrello family for the leadership within the Cleveland underworld and for control of the most lucrative rackets outside of the corn sugar business, mainly gambling which was the biggest earner for the American Mafia crime families next to bootlegging.
Joe Porrello like his predecessor had his own allies and supporters within the Cleveland underworld. Various Italian and Jewish mobsters and racketeers controlled the Cleveland underworld and the most lucrative rackets such as gambling, loansharking, narcotics, along with union and labor racketeering which was fast becoming important to the Italian crime families and the overall business interests of the American Mafia. Porrello had his own supporters in Cleveland, throughout Ohio and in New York, the recognized powerbase of the American Mafia.
Porrello soon realized that he would not only need support in his Cleveland base of operations, but also he would need a declaration or some kind of recognition from the top Mafia bosses in New York and in various leading Mafia territories across the United States if he was ever gonna be declared the undisputed Mafia boss in Cleveland. On December 5, 1928, a high level American Mafia meeting was held at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. Joe Porrello and one of his top lieutenants, Sam Tilocco hosted the event hoping that the top Mafia bosses from across the United States would declare Joe Porrello the official Mafia boss of Cleveland.
Top American Mafia bosses representing Italian underworld groups or crime families from areas such as New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Tampa and Chicago were in attendance making the Cleveland meeting one of the first known La Cosa Nostra summits in American history. Some of the well known and powerful bosses who attended included Joe Profaci and Vincent Mangano of New York, but the meeting turned into a fiasco as some of the well known attendees were recognized by local law enforcement and arrested along with their associates as the mafiosi continued to arrive from across the country for the Mafia summit.
Joe Porrello and his brothers immediately made arrangements for their associates to be bailed out of jail so they could return to the hotel and relax before departing for their homes, the bosses realizing it would be too dangerous to make any attempts to hold the meeting. Joe Porrello was soon declared the boss and recognized nationwide not-with-standing the fiasco which he was supposed to have hosted. The Porrello gang and their allies clearly maintained the Cleveland Mafia leadership throughout the remainder of the 1920s, but the overall reign of the Porrello family would be short lived within the Cleveland underworld.
A brief period of prosperity and peace was accomplished by gang leader Joe Porrello in the late 1920s even with animosity and rivalries brewing between the remaining Lonardo Loyalists, their allies within the Mayfield Road Mob led by up and coming Mafia powerhouse Frank Milano and the Porrello gang. In fact, rumors have circulated in the past that the Porrello family felt secure and powerful enough to try to expand their bootlegging operations outside of Ohio and into Pennsylvania and Western New York, but they quickly met strong opposition from various Mafia groups based in Northeastern Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York who allegedly drove the Porrellos back to the safety of their Cleveland base of operations, but this is only speculation as many killings attributed to bootleg wars were sometimes more likely old world vendettas or internal conflicts within a Mafia faction.
What can be determined is that while the power and wealth of Joe Porrello continued to grow in the late 1920s his rivals within the old Lonardo faction continued to plot their revenge at the same time the new Mafia power in Cleveland had already begun to establish itself not only through intimidation and violence, but through co-operation and consolidation with Jewish crime groups and other east coast Mafia factions carrying a great amount of influence within the Prohibition era rackets such as those in New York. A direct threat to the Porrello leadership and a message was relayed directly from the old Lonardo loyalists that included Joe Lonardo's 18 year old son Angelo "Big Ange" Lonardo, a future Cleveland Mafia leader when Porrello gang lieutenant Sam Todaro was murdered on June 11, 1929 right outside the Porrello headquarters by Ange Lonardo.
Next a combination of law enforcement scrutiny and an onslaught by rivals which included rising Mafia power Frank Milano and his associates began to diminish the underworld power and influence of the Porrello gang. Milano, his brother Anthony had become quite powerful and went as far as to demand a piece of the Porrello's lucrative corn sugar business. Milano had major support in Cleveland from the Dalitz group, the Little Jewish Navy which was responsible for most of the top quality Canadian booze imported via Lake Erie and from the Luciano Mafia faction in New York who was close to Dalitz ally Meyer Lansky.
On July 5, 1930, Joe Porrello was contacted by Frank Milano and invited to a sitdown at the Milano owned Venetian Restaurant on Mayfield and Murray Hill Roads in Little Italy to discuss business affairs and peaceful solution to the conflicts erupting between the two top Cleveland Mafia factions. Joe Porrello and his bodyguard arrived for the meeting and soon gunfire erupted and both Porrello gang members, leader Joe Porrello and his underling were dead. The Cleveland Mafia was ripe for a takeover and the underworld was about to erupt as Vincenzo Porrello, known as Jim who had succeeded his brother Joe in running the corn sugar business was declaring the Porrello gang would have their revenge, but only 3 weeks after his brother's murder, Jim was shot in the back of the head and murdered in a grocery store on East 110th Street and Woodland Avenue in an area considered a Porrello stronghold.
Now it was brother Raymond Porrello's turn to lead the gang and declare the family would have their revenge. On August 15, 1930, just three weeks after the murder of brother Vincenzo, a violent explosion leveled Raymond's home, but luckily he was not home at the time. By this time the Mayfield Road Mob and its leaders had taken over the Cleveland Mafia with the backing of various New York Mafia bosses and the Porrellos were effectively no longer an underworld power in Cleveland having closed down their corn sugar operations and losing all their underworld influence and support in Cleveland and in New York. Frank Milano and his group were now in complete control of the Cleveland Mafia, but this did not guarantee the Porrello family would not look for revenge in the future.
By 1932, Milano had become one of the top American Mafia bosses in the country and a charter Commission member. On February 25, 1932, Milano made sure the Porrello family and their gang was finished for good as Raymond and Rosario Porrello, along with their bodyguard, Dominic Gueli, were murdered in a smoke shop on East 110th Street and Woodland Ave. in their old territory while they were playing cards. After this, the remaining Porrello brothers backed out of the Cleveland underworld and fled the area. After Prohibition, the Porrello family was no longer active in organized crime. No one was ever convicted of the murder of any of the Porrello brothers. He would be greatly missed by his relatives: The Porrello, Catalano and Pinzone Families
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