Gary interviews Mary Spicuzza, an investigative reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who discusses her personal connection to the Milwaukee organized crime landscape through her cousin, Augie Palmisano. Augie was killed in a car bombing in 1978, an event that had a significant impact on Mary’s family, yet was rarely spoken of. Growing up, Mary’s father instilled in her a cautionary respect for organized crime, advising her to avoid falling in with the “wrong crowd.” However, this left her with limited understanding of Augie’s life and tragic death until she delved into extensive investigative research.

Mary chronicles her journey into uncovering the mystery surrounding Augie’s murder, citing familial silence and societal stigma against discussing such topics. With Augie being part of the Milwaukee crime family, the Balistrieri Family, his history revealed a world filled with complexity, where he was not just a victim but also an active participant in gambling. Mary emphasizes that Augie ran a bar and was deeply involved in the gambling scene, but he was also a caring figure in his community, known for his generous acts and connections with local residents. This narrative complicates the typical portrayal of organized crime figures and invites listeners to see them as multifaceted individuals rather than solely as criminals.

The conversation touches on the broader context of organized crime in the 1970s, detailing how crime families in cities like Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Cleveland interlinked in schemes, particularly the infamous Las Vegas skim operation. Prominent figures like Frank Balistrieri, known as a ruthless mob boss in Milwaukee, are discussed, highlighting the violent measures he allegedly employed to assert his dominance. This included extortion and bombings, methods that claimed lives and instilled fear within the community. Augie’s murder was surrounded by speculation; many believed it was due to a refusal to pay tribute or cuts to Balistrieri, who was known for his violent reputation.

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Transcript

[0:42] Thank you so much for having me. Now, Mary, tell me how I should really pronounce Spicuzza. Well, if you’re in Sicily, my family’s from Termini Moresi, and I’ve gone back to visit a few times, and they will say, if they see my name or my passport, they’ll say, ah, Maria Caterina Spicuzza. There we go. There we go. So I don’t expect you to say that, but it’s always lovely this time of year if you want to go and you can practice.

[1:08] Yeah, I’ve been wanting to go. I’ll get there eventually. I’m sure I want to see the volcanoes is one of the things I want to see.

[1:15] So Mary is an investigative reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and she also has her own personal connection to the Milwaukee crime family, the Ballesteri family, her cousin, and she has done a whole investigative piece on that, a big long article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is online, by the way. I’ll have a link to that article down below. And she started her own podcast talking about this journey that she had in trying to uncover the murder of my cousin Augie, and that’s the name of the podcast, guys, My Cousin Augie. So look down in the show notes for that, uh, that link. So Mary, welcome. And, uh, you know, I, this is just, uh, it’s gotta be compelling as heck because you were, you know, you knew Augie and you know, all these guys and you’re,

[2:01] you were warned by people not to get into this. So start telling us about how you got into this.

[2:07] Yeah. So this was something that, um, uh, My family did not talk about and like pretty aggressively didn’t talk about. So my dad was very, my dad and cousin Augie, Augie or August, Augustino, Palmisano, they were born and they were both born around the same time. I believe they grew up together as cousins. But at a certain point, well, Augie was killed when I was a very little girl. He was killed in 1978. And my dad would not talk about it. And he would only say things like, don’t fall in with the wrong crowd. You know what happened to Cousin Augie. Don’t gamble. You don’t want to end up like Cousin Augie.

[2:51] Don’t talk back to the wrong person. You know what happened to Cousin Augie. And it was like, Dad, and I was a baby of five. And we’re all like, Dad, we don’t know what happened to Cousin Auggie because you won’t tell us. We just know it was something really, obviously really bad happened to him. But I went years before I realized what had happened to Cousin Auggie. And what had happened was that he was leaving for work one morning and went

[3:15] down to his parking garage and tried to start his car and was immediately killed. There was a car bomb, and it blew up.

[3:24] He was burned very badly and killed instantly. Luckily for the city and for others, nobody was in the parking garage at the time. And because it was like an enclosed concrete big parking garage, the damage was contained to just empty cars and the building itself. But it could have been. I talked to some retired police officers who talked about with that kind of explosion and the amount of sticks of dynamite that were used in the booster that it could have damaged several city blocks and killed a lot more people if it had gone off in the open. Yeah. And he was known, your mob boss up there, Frank Balistrieri, was known as the bad bomber. He liked to use bombs. Yes, he did like to use bombs. It was interesting because I wonder if how much of that was like a nickname in real time or like a nickname after the fact as people, because I heard like some people called him like Mr. B for Mr. Balistrieri or Mr. Big or Mr. Slick. fancy pants was one that yeah and i know some of the kansas city uh organized crime leaders kind of mocked him and called him fancy pants because they didn’t necessarily like him um but i do think yeah he is somebody i don’t think we know um i know there are rumors that he was behind a bombing or two in las vegas including the failed um if the failed car bombing that someone survived because of the car, like the makeup of the car.

[4:53] So I think, but yeah, Augie was killed. Obviously no one was ever convicted in the murder. Frank Balastrieri was convicted of other things. So we can’t say definitively who ordered it and who placed the bomb, but I think we have a pretty good idea of what happens. So tell us a little bit about your cousin Augie. He didn’t just appear one morning and have a bomb placed in his car. There’s some backstory here. So tell us a little bit about Augie. Yeah. So I learned a lot of this backstory as I was reporting because I knew so little about him from us not talking about him. But from what I was told. And what I was able to report. I did request all the FBI files on Augie. He was a gambler. I don’t want to portray him. And even some of our family members were like, we don’t want to portray him as this saint or angel.

[5:43] He was a gambler. He was a bar owner. A lot of gambling was going on in his tavern, some horse racing, some sports gambling, some money was changing hands, we will say. And this was in a neighborhood that’s known as the Third Ward in Milwaukee. Now it’s kind of this posh neighborhood where there’s boutiques and places for like boozy brunches and anthropology and plant stores.

[6:13] But it was not that neighborhood back then. This was where a lot of the Milwaukee Sicilians. When they came to Milwaukee, a lot of us, myself included, our grandparents when they got here, or great grandparents, grandparents in my case, Milwaukee, the third ward was a pretty, very working class, very like pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Lots of people did what my family did was sell fruit, sell bananas, selling places where you could work, even if you didn’t know English and you didn’t have like a high school education because a lot of people just didn’t have that privilege. But it was a rougher neighborhood back then. And Augie’s was kind of, it had, it was kind of, it was changing when Augie was killed. And I don’t know what he would think if he was able to, you know, come back or my grandparents come back and see it now because it’s such a different world. But back then there was a lot of people working round the clock in the produce business and they’d want to go and have a drink and some food and maybe do a little gambling afterwards.

[7:12] But, you know, I think I was raised to think that Augie was like a bad guy. And I think that the way people would talk about organized crime victims back then is like, they had it coming. And, you know, and I think now I’m like, wow, he was in some ways, I feel like, I should be more like Augie, not in the gambling, but there were all these stories of his generosity where if somebody got sick and couldn’t do their produce route, he would pick it up for them and just give them the money so they wouldn’t lose their livelihoods or sponsor all these softball leagues or bowling leagues. The generosity and the looking out for community. Certainly, I think people’s notions of gambling have changed. So a lot of the police officers and the FBI agents I talked to back then who were like, yeah, we tried to build cases on gambling. Now it’s practically legal. But back then we’d bust him for, you know, sports gambling or pony racing. And, you know, they kind of the idea was you get the little fish to try to get the big fish.

[8:16] But there was also a lot more to Augie’s backstory that I was not aware of. Like he, there was bad blood from between the Balistrieri family and the Palmezanos going back to his older brother fell in love with the Balistrieri. And when his family found out that he wanted to marry a Balistrieri, I think the phrase was like, what are you crazy? And they really tried to talk him out of it and didn’t want him marrying into the Balistrieri family, which I’m sure the Balistrieris did not appreciate. But it’s my understanding that when he basically married into the Balistrieri family and was told, you’re now a member of the Balistrieri family, you can’t be part of the Palmozano family anymore, which apparently broke his mother’s heart. As any, I cannot imagine, I guess he went to his mother and said, I can’t love you anymore. I can’t come to Sunday pasta dinners anymore, which if you’re, I mean, I think probably not even not being Sicilian, but like, I can’t imagine my, if my father had said that to his mother, like, I feel like it would have been world war three. He was like, he was his mama’s, he was the youngest of 13 and very, you know, so, um.

[9:27] I think that there was bad blood going back to that time. And apparently his son, this lost, they kind of disowned him and said like, okay, if you’d want to be part of our family, you’re not part of our family. And so when Augie’s nephew, who was also Frank Ballestieri’s nephew, went and asked him for a job at his bar, and apparently Augie gave him a job, which Frank Ballestieri did not like. And apparently there’s some wiretap transcript or I’m sorry, not wiretap transcript. A witness overheard Augie arguing with Balistrieri. And apparently it was about a shared relative and this, you know, Augie giving him a job. And apparently Frank Balistrieri said, I will like chop you up and write your name in blood.

[10:14] And it’s so I think beyond Augie gambling, running gambling and apparently refusing to give Frank a cut of his profits. Which, as you know, I’m, yes.

[10:26] So I think that, you know, it’s hard to say like, what was the last straw? But I think this bad blood was building for a while. But I do think there were rumors that Augie Ballast, or I’m sorry, there were rumors that Augie was an informant or that Ballast jury said he was an informant. However, a lot of people said like, you know, FBI agents I talked to, federal prosecutors I talked to said like, police officers said, we have no information or we don’t have anything to suggest that Augie was an informant. But sometimes Frank would say someone was an informant because he wanted permission from Chicago to kill them. And he couldn’t say, this person hired my nephew or this person hurt my feelings. But the informant was something that would get him the approval to car bomb somebody in a really public way in downtown Milwaukee, um, in a way that saying he hurt my ego would not.

[11:24] So I’ve looked, yeah. I’ve noticed that. And I saw it a couple of times in Kansas city. And I’ve noticed that in some other cases that many times they’ll start, these rumors will start being floating out there, uh, denigrating a guy, this, this last one guy had a guy that disappeared. And so I’m asking around here just lately. It was like 30 years ago he said oh he was gay you know oh he was uh he was going to testify and none of it was true but what they do is as you just pointed out they start denigrating the person accusing them of things that would be uh the antithesis of that in that lifestyle to denigrate them that makes it easier when something does happen to them they just say oh that guy was you know was this or that or the other. And so it’s an interesting thing. It happens, I think, throughout the entire, United States and mob families like that, because as you’ve described, everybody’s so close. They live close together. They’re interrelated in some manner. Everybody’s a cuz. You know, that’s why everybody calls everybody cuz, because everybody is a cuz. Yes. I’ve got so many cousins. I wouldn’t even, I mean, when you’re the, when my dad’s the youngest of 13 and, you know, a lot of his brothers had kids and their brothers and sisters had kids and And it is, yeah, it is amazing how many cousins you have in that kind of situation.

[12:47] And if you’re not their cousin or true cousin, sometimes you’re the cuz. Anyhow. Yes. Yeah. Or a lot of them went to grew up together. They came out of the third ward. They went to the same high school. They, you know, Ballester, he went to a more prestigious school, I would say. He went to Marquette and then dropped out of Marquette Law School, which Augie did not, you know, but went to the same public high school. So a lot of them went back years. Now, so those pictures over your shoulder there. Yeah. Is that that’s Augie? Yeah, this is Augie. So we I was kind of there were so many stacks of documents that I was going through. Like we’re talking thousands of pages of police reports and Augie’s homicide

[13:32] file and other homicide files and FBI reports that I started. Sometimes I tend to over-report, which I always think is better than under-reporting, but I thought this board would kind of help me just keep everything in focus of, I put Augie up. He was a handsome guy, I think, but this was, he was kind of in the center of, this was all unsolved homicide victims that they would, people would refer to them as the murders often of people who were believed to have been organized.

[14:04] Murdered by organized crime. Many of them were believed to have been ordered by Frank Balistrieri, but again, he was never convicted of murder. He was convicted of gambling and that sort of thing, extortion, but not murder. And then here is Frank Balistrieri, who’s deceased. John Alioto, who was his father-in-law that he kind of took over the family business from.

[14:28] There’s actually some really interesting wiretap recordings that one of my colleagues, someone who was an investigative reporter before me, actually got to listen to, which is phenomenal. But she hired somebody to translate. They were arguing in Sicilian and going back between Sicilian and English. But John Aliotto, his father-in-law, was actually begging him to kill fewer people and be less bloodthirsty and, and, um, have some mercy on people. And because he was killing other Sicilians, um, you know, and it was, I think he thought like, cool it with the killing and, and Balistrieri’s answer was, no, I want to kill more people. And at one point he said like, gosh, if only I could have a funeral home or a, you know, a cemetery, so I could bury more people. Um, and then his sons, um his sons who have both passed away uh john passed away last year um he did not want to be interviewed for the story i did reach out to him i wanted wanted to be fair and give him the chance to talk um you know anytime we we try to do that anytime we’re mentioning somebody’s name that you want to give them the opportunity and then we had a row of i don’t know if you can see these folks but um, Some of the suspected hitmen who we believed are kind of the top suspect of the bomber was this man.

[15:48] George Nick, Nick Montos, who was a kind of prolific, involved in kind of organized crime, burglaries, that sort of thing. So, but again, since no one. Enforcer type. He was kind of an enforcer type. He looks pretty tough. He was. Yeah, he was pretty tough. I think he first was arrested maybe at age 14. And I think he was from Florida. And he was a safecracker, a burglar, and kind of a go-to guy for Chicago organized crime. He was seen in Milwaukee right around the time of an attempted car bombing of Augie’s best friend who survived because the bomb didn’t go off. But it was somebody who, Vince Maniaci, who his brother, Augie Maniaci, had been killed and gunned down in an alley. And Vince, shortly before Augie was killed, Vince was driving and had trouble starting his car and then was trying to figure out why it wouldn’t go more than like 15, 20 miles an hour and pulled into his mechanic shop and they opened the hood and saw the mechanic said, I think it’s a bomb because it was like very similar, apparently in structure to the bomb that killed Augie, but a bunch of sticks of dynamite with a booster close to the engine on like the driver’s side.

[17:06] So unclear whether that was designed to kill him or designed to be a warning but certainly could have killed him and a lot of people if it had gone off if you see now now are most of these bombs did you find in the reports did they report that most of them in their opinion were made by the same person in the same manner that was the that was the general uh quite a few folks including a couple of FBI agents now retired, felt strongly that they were built by the same person built based on how similar they were and just the method of, you know, planted overnight, stick the dynamite with a booster, the alligator clips. Obviously, maybe somebody learned from the same teacher. So it could have been, they could have franchised out. But I think a lot of

[17:52] people felt like it was Nick George Montos or Nick Montos who was the bomb builder. But again, And I don’t want to convict anybody of who was not convicted. But that seemed to be the general sense was the same person. And they had a strong feeling of who it was. Now, Augie and these other two fellows were they were all killed within a short period of time. So was there there must have been some kind of was it over maybe not paying the tribute or what did you what did you learn about that? They somehow they were kind of connected. That’s what my policeman’s mind says. These three murders were connected.

[18:27] That, yeah. So I think there were, Frank Ballast, there was a trail of unsolved murders that that extended earlier. And there was an attempted bombing of a restaurant as far back as like the 19, I want to say 55. It was the 50s, who was this Fazio family owned this restaurant that apparently, and there was apparently tension because Frank Ballestieri wanted to buy a restaurant or a bar that they had bought. And so he was a top suspect in that bombing where nobody was killed, but there were severe damage and definitely shook people up. And somebody, one of the older Fazios died of a heart attack shortly afterwards, the senior member of the family. So I think there was a sense that he was not shy about using force and using bombings and murdering people. However, all of Augie and Vince Maniaci, the attempted car bombing of Vince, the fatal car bombing of Augie, and the shooting death of Augie Maniachi, those were all in the 70s, 75 to 78. And I think at the time, there were a few things going on. There was Frank had taken over from his father-in-law, brushed off his concerns about being too violent.

[19:44] By a lot of accounts, Frank was a pretty ruthless person who wanted power and was not afraid to, uh, exercise force or to, to get it. Um, uh, so I don’t think from, from people I interviewed, a lot of people said like, you know, he was not the most popular mob boss, which might sound funny, but there were some like John, you didn’t hear of that kind of brute force being

[20:09] used on the regular from somebody like John Alioto. So I think a lot of people felt like he didn’t earn his, he didn’t earn his place that he kind of got it through marrying the boss’s daughter and that they didn’t necessarily respect him. And they called him fancy pants behind his back as somebody who was kind of a more.

[20:29] He was not like a, I mean, he went to Marquette Law School, which a lot of people in organized crime did not, he didn’t finish his law degree, but just, you know, that he was seen as somebody who was more kind of an elite, I guess. And that people didn’t necessarily feel like he had earned his place and that some people were maybe, not paying a cut or that they felt like he wasn’t giving them, they weren’t giving him the proper respect, I guess. So I think he maybe, from some of the folks that I interviewed, felt like he was trying to put people in their place. And I think Augie was somebody who does not sound from everything I’ve heard that he was not exactly the.

[21:14] Kowtow to somebody in power type of person, that he was more of the like, this is my money, I earned it, I’m keeping it. And from what I’ve heard and what I’ve read and been told that Frank Bell’s jury, it wasn’t just like gambling businesses that he wanted to cut off. It was if you, he was very into the vending machines. So he would often go and show up at a restaurant, whether they wanted a vending machine or not, he was going to try to put it in there and shake them down and try to get cuts of their profits, legal and illegal businesses, from what I was told by folks like Joe Pistone. So if he had somebody who was making a lot of money and a very successful as a bar owner, Augie had a produce company. He also had his gambling side hustle.

[21:59] I think with that kind of money changing hands, he sees somebody who’s successful who’s not giving him a cut. And I think it might’ve been from some of the folks I talked to, it was, well, I want to make an example out of him and show who’s boss and remind people who’s boss. And there was some interesting stuff in the police reports of FBI surveillance on Balistrieri, where shortly after Augie was killed, he went to another family and said, like, about that bar, I want to buy from you. And they, from what the police report said, they basically sold him what he wanted to buy. And then for the first time in their life, took a trip to Italy to get away, which kind of makes you wonder if it was the message was received and it was like, give Frank Balistrieri what he wants and try to, you know, be careful when you start your car or be careful where you go. Wow.

[22:53] Interesting. You know, another interesting thing I find from my viewpoint, those same years in Kansas City, we had a mob war and we had killings and bombings. And in Cleveland, that was during the time when Danny Green and Kill the Irishman story, if you know that at all, they had a mob war going on with killings and bombings and stuff in Cleveland during those years. I often thought it was kind of like as the baby boomers started growing up and the old guys that came, you know, were like their dads,

[23:28] like baby boomers were moving in and the dads were wanting to kill them off. Keep them out. So I don’t know, but.

[23:35] Wow, that’s so interesting that you say that. And in this case, like John Frankie was saying, he did this really interesting presentation when I talked to him and he was very gracious with his time. But he was saying that at one point he said he asked the FBI to get him a list of all of the like made members in Milwaukee. And he looked at it and he said it was a remarkably small crew and a remarkably old crew. And that Frank was not. And that part of, he kind of thought part of why maybe Frank welcomed Joe Pistone and Ty Cobb, who was undercover as Tony Conti. And um you know ty not as much as joe pistone he really wanted like really was recruiting donnie brasco to join his crew and come to milwaukee um but john was like i wonder i think he wanted to show off these like young guys because his crew was so old and i think some of the old timers were kind of like who is this punk kid frank balestri who does he think he is you know, ordering me around and telling me what to do. And so like when, when Augie Maniaci was murdered, I mean, he’s somebody who was older.

[24:46] He was an older gentleman, you know, he was like starting his car to go to work. And I, I don’t want to misspeak, but like, he was not a young guy. So yeah, but it is, it’s interesting that he, that I think in some ways, Frank was not getting the respect from the older guys who might’ve been worked their way up from the streets and started with lots of more, you know, TVs falling off trucks or meat, you know, meat, you know.

[25:12] Like very petty crime. We’re talking, this was not like, these were not big time, you know, criminal masterminds. They were not skimming from Vegas casinos. They were, you know, hijacking a meat truck or something. Interesting. Yeah. As, as Balistrier was. And at that time he was, you know, he started in that skim. Did he, did he like let other people know, or did he keep that really close to his vest. I know in Kansas City they kept that really close to their vest, but he did share it here with some of the other old timers.

[25:45] Yeah, it was so interesting. I don’t know if you’ve talked to the retired agent who was Gary Magnuson, who was here in Milwaukee and then Vegas. So it was really interesting talking to Gary because he kind of recounted some of what was in the book Casino about Frank was really trying to keep it close to his vest, where he knew somebody on the Teamsters pension fund here and introduced Alan Glick. And he had that kind of sweetheart deal that for his kids to essentially get ownership of this, they could claim ownership of this casino for like very, very little money. And that, so they had this deal worked out. And apparently that was in a safe hidden at the Shorecrest Hotel, which is not too far from where I’m sitting here now. Unfortunately I wish I could take you on a driving tour still there not owned by the balisteries anymore um but um I think he kept it initially very very close to his vest and apparently that got him in trouble you probably know more about this but got him in trouble with some of the Kansas City folks when they started asking Alan Glick and called him in and um I think there was a quote um it was either in Gary’s book or in Casino where they said like they talked to Alan Glick and said something like, drive up to Milwaukee and get that fancy pants here. I don’t care if he’s in his pajamas. Bring him here. We have some questions for him.

[27:12] I think he kept it maybe less close to his vest after that just because I don’t think he had much of a… I didn’t get the sense it was necessarily out of generosity and team spirit that he was deciding to share, but more wanting to not get killed by the Kansas City folks. Yeah. I think so. But you probably know more about that than I do. Yeah, that’s a whole other story. And I wouldn’t do that some other time, but that is a whole other story. But I’m really interested in…

[27:42] And you mentioned Joe Pistone and wanting to bring in new people. I know you interviewed Joe and that other agent who was undercover in Milwaukee at the time under the name of Tony Conte. Is that correct? And he had a, did he have a, trying to start a vending business, which anywhere you see vending machines back in those days. And to me today, if you see video poker machines or something, you got somewhere there’s going to be some mob involvement. I don’t know where, but, but vending machines was huge back then.

[28:13] And this guy was moving in. So you got into that in your research. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So back then, I think that back then the, you know, Joe Pistone had been so successful as Donnie Brasco infiltrating organized crime. So they started sending him to different cities around the country. And there was a agent in Milwaukee here, Ty Cobb, Gail Tyrus Cobb, I think he went by Ty.

[28:45] Although then he started going by Tony Conti. That was his undercover. But from all accounts, and especially from talking with Joe, he was having a lot of trouble. He was not having the success that Joe had infiltrating. He set up, I think he called it Best Vending Company. He set it up on the east side, not too far from the Shorecrest Hotel, where that was like Ballast Jury headquarters. So he was basically kind of thrown in in their face, you know, like I’m here and I’m trying to open. And then, but he was just not having a lot of luck or getting a lot of reaction. I think unbeknownst to them, Frank Ballast Jury had guys following him and he was thinking of killing him. But to his, as far as he knew, he wasn’t getting any kind of.

[29:31] Interaction. They were probably just following him and trying to decide when to kill him. But so then they bring in, they’re like, you know, talk to Joe about it. Like, how about you come here? So Joe starts kind of from what he described, kind of, you know, laying breadcrumbs out for Lefty saying, hey, Left, I got this friend in Milwaukee. He’s going into the vending machine business. And then, you know, I guess it was over. They were at some restaurant or something. And apparently Lefty throws down or drops his fork and is like, where’d you say he was? Milwaukee. And then the reaction, I always think of us as Milwaukee is so Wisconsin nice, but that was apparently not the reputation. His response is like, Milwaukee, what is he, crazy? They’re crazy out there. They’re not just like New York where they’ll beat you up. In Milwaukee, they’ll kill you. They’ll blow you up. If he’s a friend of yours, tell him to get out of that city. Which again is, you know… I knew so little about organized crime growing up because I was basically told, just stay away from it and stay away from those people, stay away from those establishments.

[30:40] You know, we were not going to Snugs, which was the balustrier-owned place in the short crest, or having anything to do with anything like that. My dad was a school teacher and a wrestling coach. And I joke that he was about as like, buy the book as you can. Like he was kind of like one step away from a cop to us where it was like, you do not, you know, like you are, you know, you pay your traffic to if you get you pay your bill on the day it’s, you know, day you get it kind of guy. So he was not messing around with any of that kind of stuff. But but at that time, unbeknownst to Ty, he was being watched. He was being followed. Then Joe comes in and Balistrieri, before he knows that he’s Donnie Brasco, who’s friends with Lefty, he had his guys apparently following both of them, thinking he was going to kill, probably kill both of them or have his guys kill both of them. So Lefty and apparently the Chicago folks and some folks from Rockford organized this meeting at Snuggs where it was going to be Donnie Brasco, Joe Pistone.

[31:52] Tony Conti, Ty Cobb, Balistrieri, and then some of the Rockford guys and Lefty to try to work out a deal of where basically the Balistrieris would get a cut of best vending.

[32:04] And Tony Conti would get to stay alive. Seems to be the terms of it. I don’t think they were buying in, really. You know what I mean? I think on paper they were buying in, but it was more like, we won’t kill you and you’re going to give us a cut of your profit.

[32:18] I think we call that extortion. Yes, extortion. Correct. Yes, that would be what they were charged with eventually. But, you know, they decided that it was too dangerous for Tony to wear a wire into that meeting because he’s in a balustrary stronghold surrounded by people. People who were, you know, had probably killed people or ordered people to be killed or some of a mix of both. Donnie got called away. Joe got called away because his wife was in like a terrible accident and he had gone back to visit her. And he was not there for that initial meeting, but he heard about it from Ty. And then he did have another follow-up meeting at Snugs.

[33:05] And I hopefully I’m getting all the details right. He laid this out really well in Donnie Brasco and when we talked to him. But essentially, you know, the story goes that Ty gets there as Tony and Frank gets introduced to him and he kind of reaches out his hand and then he goes, he’s like Tony Conti and like kind of his hand recoils and he’s like, we were going to hit you. We thought you were the G. And he’s like laughing about how he was going to kill him unbeknownst to you. He was actually the G or the government agent, but, um, but he’s a friend of lefties at this point as according to everybody. So he’s cracking up. Cause he was like, he had guys following him and he’s like, oh yeah, you’ve got that office. You’ve got your apartment in like, he knew the car he was driving. He knew where his office was. He knew where he was living. Um, I guess lucky, luckily Tony and, uh, Donnie tie and Joe had been staying at a hotel while Joe was in town.

[34:03] So that might have, I mean, I think Joe being there and Joe facilitating that meeting very likely saved Tony’s life. And I think Lefty making it happen saved probably Joe and Ty’s lives because I think that they were pretty close to getting killed. And at one point, like, uh, they were so close to, they were looking for him. They were going to kill him. And I think Frank took a trip to Florida. So he would be out of town for like a few days when the hit was going to happen. Um, but yeah, so he kind of went into business with these government agents, not knowing obviously that they were government agents and really took Joe, especially under his wing and, And before icing them out, before icing out Ty, and I think it’s widely believed that he found out from somebody that he had a source maybe in Milwaukee Police Department.

[34:58] That’s not to say that there weren’t some very good police officers at Milwaukee Police Department at that time, but there were certainly some on Ballesteri’s payroll, as judging by some of the FBI files where it’s all redacted, unfortunately, so we couldn’t see who it was. But he had somebody he would pay for information from police reports, somebody he would pay to get license applications so he would know before anybody else. So it’s unclear whether there was a leak at MPD at the time or if they just found out from somebody or somebody recognized him. But, yeah, I think they are very lucky that they were not killed and that they, you know, went on to obviously Ty’s operation fell apart after he got iced out by Ballester. But Joe said to this day, he does not know why or how, if the Balistrieres believed he was a federal agent, why that wasn’t conveyed to Rockford or Chicago or New York. And he said that’s kind of like a mystery to this day.

[35:59] Interesting. Probably Balistrier, when he learned he was probably embarrassed and didn’t want anybody to know that he was taken advantage of. Yeah. I mean, that’s what Joe was like. Well, it could have blown back really badly on him if they found out that he had given kind of big, you know, huge access. And he actually offered Joe as Donnie a job running like gambling for him, I think, in 1978, fall of 78, I want to say, or maybe 79. But yeah, so he really like threw open the doors and welcomed them, especially Joe with open arms. So maybe he didn’t want to have to report that back. Yeah. Yeah, really. I didn’t know that is interesting. Could be embarrassing or also probably embarrassing. Yeah. Or I’m sure he wanted to save his, his hide too. You know, I guess it could go badly for him if they find out like he’s opened, opened up the operation so much to undercover agents. Right. Chicago would take him out just like Joe Messino took out Sonny Black, Napolitano. For introducing him in, being so stupid as to introducing him in, that’s part of the game. That’s one of the rules there. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s why they were kind of thinking that Lefty was in trouble at one point, too, but I think he was in custody by the time. He got lucky. Yeah, he got lucky.

[37:25] Interesting little side story there. I have a guy here in Kansas City that was in Springfield Penitentiary with Lefty. Oh, okay. And Joe Pistone once said he’d hate to be in a cell with Lefty Ruggiero because he’s so demanding and such a one-way dude. So I got a hold of Joe and I got him to give me some soundbites on that. And then I interspersed it with talking to my guy here in Kansas City, talking about being in the cell with Lefty Ruggiero or actually being in prison and joking around with him and doing stuff with him. And my friend said the same way, he said, he just is a taker. He wants everything all the time. He’s wanting more and more and more.

[38:06] Yeah, it was interesting. Both Joe and John Franke mentioned the hours and hours and hours of tapes they were all listening to, either from ones that Joe or Ty had recorded or ones that were on the wiretaps. And they did share one with me of, it was basically like Joe in the car with Ty driving around where Lefty is convinced that Lake Michigan is so big it must be the ocean. And he’s going on and on about like, no, that’s not a lake. That’s the ocean. Did you see the size of that ship?

[38:40] And, you know, I think Lake Michigan is very impressive. It’s a great lake, but it is not an ocean. Um, but they said that like, it was, it was a part of the challenge of listening to the tapes was that lefty would just talk and talk and talk and talk in these circles and, but like to not underestimate him because he was very street smart and would, um, he was not a dumb guy when it came to, you know, he was, he was street smart. He was very savvy. He was good at making sure he got money, but he would just talk and talk and talk and talk. And so some of it was like they said, like it was just hours and hours and hours of listening to like lefty rambling on and on about all kinds of things. But I’m sure if they’re, you know, the FBI trying to listen to something that’s more like incriminating, it was probably kind of torturous for them, honestly. It would be. It would be. I’ve listened to a few tapes like that, and they can be torturous after a little bit. You mentioned Rockford. What is Rockford? Is that Rockford, Illinois?

[39:39] Tell me about the geography and how Chicago, Rockford, and Milwaukee, how did that work? From a kind of mafia institutional standpoint, a table of organization. How did that work? Yeah, it’s interesting because Rockford is not as known as Chicago, obviously, but apparently they did have a thriving organized crime family there.

[40:03] It seems like in this case, they were kind of intermediaries, which is interesting because they’re really close to the, they’re not far from the Wisconsin border. So maybe they were kind of like the Switzerland or something. I don’t know, but they were mediators in the middle on multiple things. But apparently it sounds like they kind of were played kind of the like introducing making connections in the case of lefty Ruggiero and Donnie Brasco kind of meeting. It was almost like networking or something. That’s what Joe called it, like networking and that, you know, let us introduce you to this family up here and kind of like trying to facilitate connections. So, but they were, I mean, I think that they were certainly, I did not know that Rockford had this thriving family that was well known, but I’ve talked to others who were like, oh yeah, Rockford, they had this family. So I think for people who probably know more about organized crime than I ever did growing up. That was probably a very known family. But for me, because my dad specifically raised me to know virtually nothing about organized crime to the point where he always presented it as like, it’s a slippery slope and you just want to stay away. So I didn’t see the godfather until I was maybe 30 years old.

[41:28] I think I didn’t, yeah, I was very afraid of, It gave me nightmares and really spooked me. I had a nightmare that I was like a mafia hitman and it was kind of like, you had to kill or be killed all the time. And it seemed like a stressful, miserable existence. So I knew so little growing up that I had no idea there was even a family in Brockford, but apparently they are very well known. So that’s probably very disrespectful to them to not know that. But apparently they’re quite successful. I don’t know much about their status now. So maybe you’ll hear from this. I may have to look in a little further in Rockford. Maybe I did something one time, just touched on Rockford. I can’t remember. I’ve done so much. But anyhow, really interesting. Mary Spicuzza. Spicuzza. Spicuzza, yeah. Great, great story. It’s going to be a great podcast, or it is a great podcast, guys. You’ve got to get out. You really go down deep into the Milwaukee crime family. And as you can tell, she knows her stuff and, and she really has done her research and talked to all the people directly involved. And she was directly involved herself through her family. And, and so we like that firsthand accounts and it’s, it sounds like a wonderful podcast. I’m going to have to, I’m going to have to squeeze you in all the other podcasts I listened to.

[42:46] Thank you. I haven’t done it. Thank you. I know there are a lot of them. I’m still learning when it comes to organized crime and podcasts. Um, but it was, I did feel like I could almost, I feel like I could spend seven

[42:59] years researching this and get like a PhD in the Milwaukee organized crime family. I knew so little and there was so much. And like, even from, um, I have a, this is funny. This is just one of my fact checking binders where each chapter by chapter for the story, I have a podcast fact checking too, but, um, just cause I don’t want to get sued and I I don’t want to, you know, defame anybody or get anything wrong. It was just a lot of learning. And then can I say this? And how do I know this? And I tried to be really careful not to convict somebody of a crime they had not been convicted of because, you know, Frank Balastrari was never convicted of murder, although he was suspected of ordering many. Um, he was here, he was convicted. Um, and then he went to Kansas city, obviously for the, the skim, um, the skim trial, which I’m sure you’re far more familiar with than I am. It was a real challenge.

[43:55] And I think part of my struggle was I wanted to be honest that my, uh, cousin was a gambler. He was not a saint. He did not have a halo. Uh, at the same time, I didn’t want to revert to victim blaming and say like, well, he had it coming. Cause from everything I’ve seen, It’s like just, um, having a successful business and not kowtowing to somebody that should not be a crime punishable by car bombing death.

[44:20] Um, in my mind, um, and I have not seen anything of him ever murdering anybody or anything like that, you know, it was, so it was kind of a relief for me to say like, oh, I grew up thinking my cousin was like, or fearing that my cousin was like a pretty bad guy. And by all these stories of him, um.

[44:38] One person called me the day the story ran and said they wanted to talk to me. And I was like, oh, God, I’m going to hear he beat somebody up or killed somebody or something terrible. And instead, they were saying their dad died unexpectedly before Christmas. They were Greek Orthodox in a period of mourning. And Augie unexpectedly showed up at their door with this fancy, expensive flocked Christmas tree and told his mother every boy needs to have a Christmas tree. And I was like, oh my gosh, it’s such a relief to hear stories about what a kind, generous person he was. So to say he was not an angel, he was a gambler. There’s hundreds of pages of FBI surveillance of them watching him and all of his gambling activities. It was pretty wild. At one point they were watching, I think they’re called, you know, they don’t use this term now because it’s offensive, but they were saying there was like a suspicious midget outside his bar who had horse papers. And I was like, just because like a little person was outside your bar, that’s suspicious. But I think there was at the time I, and then I asked somebody and they’re like, Oh yeah, that was, that was so-and-so he was actually, uh, like running, he was like a runner or like running gambling stuff. So I guess he was actually suspicious or, or involved in gambling too. But, um, they, they had this raid at one point on Superbowl Sunday here where they knew that they were gambling on the game. And, um.

[46:07] They went in and apparently like just all these FBI agents and they found, you know, all of this gambling paraphernalia and cash. And somebody said they walked in and their agents were just counting cash on the pool table. They also found dynamite in the basement. But, yeah, it was like a whole like coordinated raid. And it’s amazing to think now of all the people I know who gamble on Super Bowl Sunday. I don’t because my dad always told me not to gamble. but, uh, it’s just a different world, I guess. A whole different world now. It’s, uh, between marijuana and sports gambling, it’s just, uh, and casinos too, but especially sports gambling, it’s just so ubiquitous and the marijuana is the same way. It’s just so many people went to jail so many times, but I have to explain to you from a law enforcement standpoint, that’s an easy way to get into the mob because they got to get on the phone and they talk to all these different people. And it’s, you know, there’s a case you can make on people. And so then you make

[47:06] that case on that guy and then you put pressure on him to then learn about this and learn about that. So that’s, that’s how it works, you know? Yeah.

[47:15] Yeah. And definitely, I think that idea of like starting with the little fish to try to get to the big fish and then get on wiretap or, um, so yes, I think what got Augie onto the front page for gambling, um, and he was working on like a general motors plant. And I think his first, I want to say his first big bust was, uh, he was, um, working at General Motors and collecting spats. Yeah. It was the bookie. Yeah. Yeah. Bookie. Um, yes. Yeah. It was funny. I was talking to somebody who was like, oh yeah, I worked at Augie’s bar. And then I worked at this other bar and I was like, oh, were you bartending? And they’re like, no, I was making book. And I was like, oh, okay.

[47:56] That makes sense. But, um, yeah. Now boy corporations are doing it. Right. Right. Silly me. I thought he was bartending, but I think a lot of those bars back in the day had some side hustles going of bookmaking. Swag, stolen property, stuff that stole off, fell off a truck. And it’s all part of it. Yes. Yeah. Stuff that. Yeah. I was talking to some people who grew up in the third ward and they were saying like, yeah, we never asked uncle so-and-so how he got that. You know, if we asked how he got a TV, it just always whenever we got like nice appliances or a color TV, it was always something fell off a track. Yeah. I was in a restaurant recently whose guy, his mother was in there, and she was about 85 or 90 years old. They were retiring, and a lot of other people from the neighborhood came in. This was a family that was well-known. His dad was involved in politics and was not connected at all, but everybody knew everybody. The mom was in there, and she starts talking to this other old guy, and she starts talking about that time. That and then she dropped a mob name brought a fur coat to her and how cheap it was so.

[49:14] That is some it’s just part of it that is something that vince money actually got in trouble for was he apparently was he fenced like four stolen mink coats and then i got a after the story ran i got a message from uh we got like a facebook note from somebody i worked with gosh 20 years ago at a paper down in Florida um and he had I forgot that he had family from Milwaukee he’s Italian and of course like his I think his dad or his grandpa he had a relative who had like bought um bought a fur coat from Vince and had to go testify and I was like what a small walkie world we call it small walkie and it’s like of course to me I’ve known for 20 years just happened to have this connection to like buying a fenced mink coat from a friend of Auggie’s.

[50:04] But yeah, it was, it was, I think one of the really comforting things for me was hearing these stories about Auggie, because I think, I think I grew up fearing he was a really bad guy, which by all accounts, he was not, you know, besides the gambling, he was not like this hardened criminal. And I think just hearing of his generosity and kind of care for the community and the looking out for each other back in the old neighborhood. Neighborhood. I think with gentrification and people dispersing, you find people like that still, but I don’t know. And I think some of my cousins, I still have, some of the Palmizanos very much have that trait still of being just so caring and so kind and so thoughtful and looking out for each other. But I’m trying to be more like that in my life because everybody’s not in the same old neighborhood anymore that they used to be when my dad, you know, when my grandparents came here.

[51:08] But I also think that like trying to capture who he was and who he wasn’t has been very meaningful. So even though I don’t have somebody and I didn’t like nobody’s in handcuffs being charged with his murder, I think just kind of setting the record straight on who he was and who he wasn’t has been very meaningful for me and my family. I think a lot of people thought of him as like the guy who got blown up in a parking garage and who probably had it coming or something like that, you know? And I think, um, it was very, it was just really, um, meaningful for me to find

[51:42] out more about who he actually was. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. That’s what I’ve learned as I’ve done this podcast and really got into it is, is everybody has family and everybody’s not one-dimensional and and a lot of people were it’s just part of the the culture really because people that come from another country who speak a different language who were a little bit darker complected than the irish and the english that were already over here and had all the jobs sold up then you know you got to figure out a way you got to figure out how to make your way and and the language barriers to start and then you get businesses small businesses and And with those guys come these young, bright guys that don’t have any opportunity.

[52:23] The english and the irish they got all the the police and you know fire jobs and and uh other kinds of jobs sewed up and they don’t they don’t not gonna let you in right away and so you know now you got you know crime prohibition started you know there’s all this money to be made and and just yeah and uh the gambling and on into the future so that’s uh i mean it’s just part of the american everybody just wants a piece of the american dream and yeah and there was a huge fire before the Sicilians moved into the third ward and Italians, I shouldn’t say just Sicilians, but there was a huge fire.

[52:58] And then the, the, like, um, people who had lived there before who kind of, they’d started moving out, but then the fire really kind of forced their hand. It was actually the Irish immigrants who arrived before them, who were kind of the poor group before the Italians and Sicilians. And, uh, so yeah, not to, not to discount the Irish side of the family who I think I had a Irish family member who opened bars and my grandpa Spacusa and the Palmezanos who sold fruit.

[53:27] It’s funny. I’m like, wow, I feel very cliche with the bars and the fruit, but they really, you know, they kind of, the Irish had come and they were kind of the poor immigrants before, but then they had worked their way up and left. And then this fire came and then And the Italians and Sicilians moved others too, but primarily them in the third ward. And they, yeah, I mean, talk about hardworking, like the stories you hear of my grandpa or Augie’s father or Augie himself of working like around the clock and like being up before dawn. And Augie’s work schedule was, he would often close the bar or his son or a bartender would close the bar. That was like 2 a.m. then he would often go to like pitches which was this place that a lot of people would go and get like a breakfast or kind of uh eat briefly and he would try to stay awake especially on fridays because it was busy days he tried to stay awake so he could check the produce when it got delivered that’s like 4 4 30 then uh he’d go catch a few hours of sleep then go back to the bar like produce business at like, I think it was 9am, typically, to start his day with like getting the produce rats out, then open the bar because they were open, you know, some people would go and get a drink before work or after they were getting off their all night shift. So it was like a nonstop operation. And this, I mean, I’m like, when did he sleep? And somebody told me we would often like nap in.

[54:56] In the booths at his bar, um, in like a lull kind of the afternoon doldrums. But yeah, I, I mean, I just am in awe of like the amount of work that people put in. Um, I feel like I work hard, but I was, I’m not working like around the clock like that. I would be, um, and my grandpa was, you know, up before dawn often pushing a fruit cart and then worked his way up to get a horse. I think was Dick the horse and then, you know, a horse and wagon, then a truck. And a lot of Augie’s father was the same way. You know what I mean? Like everybody had their horse and they just worked their way up. And like the long hours, it’s pretty amazing. And I think, I think there are a lot of Sicilian families, Italian families that have similar stories to that. Not always in fruit, but many in fruit, but also bars, restaurant, bakeries. It’s, it’s pretty phenomenal. Yeah. I tried to capture a little bit of that, too, of just kind of the backstory, I guess, of how people came here and how they lived. Yeah. Interesting. Well, that’s I like those backstories. Well, Mary Spicuzza and my cousin Augie kind of a play on my cousin Vinny.

[56:07] I’ve never I’ve actually never seen my cousin Vinny, but I just I was I called my cousin Augie and people were like, oh, like my cousin Vinny. And I’m like, I have to watch that. But it was partly just because that was always what he was like. It was always just don’t fall in with your own crowd. And it was always just Cousin Auggie. Like, I don’t even think I knew his last name for a long time. So it was just this kind of figure hovering over of, you know, something that some we didn’t know what happened to him. But something tragic happened to him for some some reason we didn’t know. And it was like the mystery. But all we knew was something bad happened to Cousin

[56:44] Auggie. and this kind of nefarious figure was behind it. Kind of a cautionary tale in this Bakuza and the Palmasana family. Yes, but thank you for the reminder. And I do need to watch my cousin Vinny because I’ve heard it’s good. And I’ve watched a few mafia things now.

[57:03] Just I have to get over the fear and maybe not watch it too late at night because it tends to give me nightmares. Okay. All right. Got to get your recommendations. I’ll give them to you. Thank you so much for coming on. It’s been a great show. Thank you so much for your time. So guys, don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street. And if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website and get that hotline number. And, you know, hand in hand with PTSD is problems with drugs and alcohol or gambling to addiction. And our friend, Angelo Ruggiano, he has a hotline number on his YouTube or his website. I can’t remember. I’ve got a picture of it here on YouTube. And he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida. So you can have a counselor in your rehabilitation from addiction who was a former family member of the Gambino family. So wouldn’t that be cool? Let me know if you ever do that. And I got books and movies out there. Just Google my name on Amazon and Gary Jenkins Mafia and books. And I’ve got a new one that just came out about stories about the New York crime family called Big Apple Mafia, stories from the five families. And I’ve got the Chicago Windy City Mafia, the Chicago outfit. And other than that, you know, thanks a lot, guys. And Mary, thanks so much for coming out. Thanks for having me.