Frank Nitti

Frank Nitti (born January 27, 1888 in Angri , Salerno Province , † March 19, 1943 in North Riverside , Illinois ; actually Francesco Raffaele Nitto ) was an Italian-American mafioso of the Chicago outfit . As the successor to the legendary Al Capone , he was his alleged head.

Life

birth

Francesco was born in Italy to Rosina Fezza and Luigi Nitto. There are different details about the year of his birth: 1883 is registered with the US emigration authorities, and the year 1884 is also mentioned. His gravestone reads 1888. A possibly credible version is the year of birth 1886, which is supported by the fact that Nitti personally entered this date on a prison document. The Encyclopædia Britannica names the year 1896, albeit with a question mark.

Early years

Francesco Nitto and his mother emigrated to the United States on July 1, 1891 on the steamship Guerra . First they settled in Harrison, New Jersey and later moved to the New York borough of Brooklyn .

Around 1907 Nitti was the leader of the youth gang Navy Street Boys , where he met eight-year-old Alphonse Capone , who was the gang's "mascot". Frank Nitti later became a member of the Five Points Gang with Al Capone . It was around this time that they both likely established their long-lasting friendship and partnership. Other hypotheses assume that they only got to know each other better later in Chicago, when Nitti, as an independent alcohol smuggler, tried to connect to larger groups. At the Five Pointers he came into contact with Lucky Luciano , another member of the gang known to this day, who was a childhood friend of Meyer Lansky , through which Nitti came into business contact with him. The stolen goods he wrapped presumably about his friend and mentor Alex Louis Greenberg from (again, it is unclear whether he him not only met in Chicago).

Chicago

When Capone moved from New York City to Chicago in 1919 , he probably brought Nitti with him to the city's South Side . A possible second variant is that Nitti left New York around 1911 and settled down in Chicago for the first time around 1913. Only a short stay in Texas around 1917 can be proven on the basis of files . There Nitti developed from a little alcohol smuggler ( bootlegger ) and fence to a full member of the Chicago outfit . It was probably taken up in the early 1920s under the direction of Johnny Torrio , another former Five Pointer , after pressure was exerted on alcohol smuggling in the wake of the reformist mayor William E. Dever and Torrio's "peace concept" (division of territories, in which the competing groups could act without the influence of others) seemed to slowly break apart through attacks. As a previously relatively independent smuggler (in collaboration with Greenberg), Nitti decided to join a more influential gang in order to achieve further success.

On May 9, 1921, Frank Nitti applied for US citizenship . This was approved on February 25, 1925 by the naturalization authorities in Chicago.

Nitti he was among other business partners of Giuseppi "Diamond Joe" Esposito , who nominally hired him from 1923 to 1925 as a hairdresser . Already before in his life Nitti had probably worked in a barber shop for John "Jake The Barber" Factor, a con artist and brother of the makeup company founder Max Factor Sr . Between 1923 and 1924, Nitti helped Johnny Torrio and Al Capone take over the Chicago suburb of Cicero .

After Torrio's retirement as head of the outfit in 1925, Al Capone succeeded him; Who was also responsible for the safety of Capone Nitti from 1924 to 1929, prevented during this period at least four major attacks on Capone during the Chicago beer wars (in English known as "Chicago Beer Wars").

Nitti also took on additional tasks during Prohibition and became an expert in bootlegging : through his numerous contacts, he organized the logistical chain of the smuggled whiskey from Canada to the illegal bars and clubs (am .: speakeasy ). His assertiveness in these activities as well as in the discipline within the group earned him the nickname "The Enforcer" (am .: The enforcer), and he soon took the post of consigliere .

The special position towards Capone was revealed in May 1926, among other things. After the murder of the young attorney William McSwiggin, Capone first experienced an unexpectedly negative reaction from the citizens of the city and settled in a vacation spot near Lansing, Michigan . Only two confidants were allowed to accompany Capone as bodyguards: Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn and Frank Nitti.

McGurn was later killed in February 1936; possibly Nitti was also involved in his murder; because throughout his life he remained significantly involved in the planning and implementation of various attacks on the outfit . He is believed to have played a key role in the planning and execution of Earl "Hymie" Weiss , an ally of George "Bugs" Moran's North Side Gang , who was murdered on October 11, 1926. Other murders that can possibly be attributed to Frank Nitti's plans were those of Frankie Yale in early July 1928, in which Louis "Lefty Louie", "Little New York" Campagna (a bodyguard and hit man for Capone and later Frank Nitti) was the prime suspect, and the Valentine's Day massacre on February 14, 1929.

Successor to Al Capone

Besides Capone and Nitti in 1930 came under pressure from the US tax authority IRS and was indicted in March 1930th On December 20, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, which he served on January 11, 1931 in Leavenworth Federal Prison .

Nitti was probably the “front boss” of the outfit since around 1930/31 ; after his release in March 1932, he visibly took control of Chicago. Capone had been sentenced to an eleven year prison term in October 1931 and tried to delay the start of his prison sentence until 1932 in order to be able to continue his role as head of the then free Nitti. It is unlikely that Nitti was head of the outfit at this point , because Capone was still expecting a quick release from prison at this point. Relevant visits to his Atlanta detention center were recorded, which ensured his external contact. Presumably to suppress this communication and thus his continued exercise of power, Capone was moved to Alcatraz in 1933 .

Only since then has Nitti been traded as the subsequent head of the outfit ; at least the press saw him in this role: due to the investigation pressure of the authorities, the outfit had slowly fragmented and Nitti was one of the few mobsters who remained visible. Nevertheless, there is the thesis that Nitti was never the real successor of Capone. (See below: Frank Nitti - front boss or chief? )

The assassination attempt on Nitti

On December 19, 1932, Frank Nitti was seriously injured in his office by the two police officers Harry Lang and Harry Miller. Presumably responsible was the Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak , who had been elected to this office in 1931. He was considered a social reformer and announced the fight against organized crime shortly after his election. After Cermak was elected mayor, the personnel losses of the outfit in this dispute actually increased rapidly.

However, he also had contacts with bullies, especially Edward "Ted" Newberry , a former associate of the North Side Gang under Moran, who probably switched sides after the Valentine's Day massacre and had come under control of the outfit (a change, which fueled Moran's aversion to Newberry). Cermak seemed to have made a better offer to Newberry, who was known as a career gangster, and thus bought his "loyalty". Accordingly, it was Newberry who advised Cermak to support Roger Touhy against the outfit .

Police officers Lang and Miller reportedly received a $ 15,000 bounty for killing Nitti. To do this, they carried out a raid on Nitti's office, at which Campagna and the politician Joseph Parrillo were present. Those present were examined and put on the wall similar to the Valentine's massacre . Several shots were then fired at Nitti. Lang then shot himself in the left hand with his weapon in order to later be able to justify an alleged self-defense . Nitti was taken to a hospital and taken by Dr. Gaetano Ronga operates. But since his chances of survival were classified as low, he already received the sacraments . Nitti survived, however, and subsequently recovered from the injuries; his health was impaired until the end of his life.

An attack on a leader of La Cosa Nostra , always an attack on the reputation , is always rewarded. Whether Nitti or Paul Ricca planned these retaliatory attacks cannot be clarified today. Since Campagna was a witness to the attempted murder of Nitti, he was out of the question as an executive. In any case, Teddy Newberry was found dead on January 7, 1933 in Porter County , Indiana . The common assumption is that Anthony Accardo , who later became the boss of the outfit , carried out the murder and received the rank of capo as a reward .

The police officer Harry Lang was later charged with attempted murder, but these proceedings were dropped because Frank Nitti - in the sense of the Omertà - did not make incriminating statements. Like Miller, who had testified against his partner, Lang was dismissed from the police force. Mayor Cermak, who apparently expected revenge actions, increased his personal protection and decided to leave Chicago for the time being in order to move to Miami . The political justification for this behavior was that he wanted to work for Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami.

On February 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara , an Italian-American with a criminal background who intended to assassinate President Roosevelt, shot him several times, including in the lung. A few weeks later, on March 6, 1933, the mayor of Chicago died in hospital from his injuries. To this day theories persist that the mentally unstable Zangara did not plan an assassination attempt on Roosevelt, but that Cermak was actually the victim of the shooting. Zangara was specifically intended to give the impression that it was a politically motivated assassination attempt, although he had been secretly hired through outfit contacts. Zangara was executed by the electric chair on March 20, 1933 , after pleading guilty to the murder trial. Allegedly, Cermak himself is said to have admitted on his deathbed that he expected to be the victim of an attack through the outfit . The founder of the Chicago Crime Commission Frank J. Loesch also suspected that this was an attack that resulted from activities in the outfit .

Expansion of the outfit

In principle, it can be assumed that Nitti was permanently installed in Chicago - whether as a head or front boss - although the attack can also be seen as an attack on his reputation . Apparently to restore this, Nitti began a campaign of bomb attacks on February 1, 1933. Countless offices and department stores of small businessmen who had become negligent in paying their protection money fell victim to bombs. The executing force is the bomb expert in the outfit, James Belcastro .

With the end of Prohibition in 1933, the outfit tried to expand its business area and looked for new sources of income. Even so, the outfit stayed in the liquor store; with the help of the takeover of unions belonging to this industry, attempts were made to maintain control. Straw men acquired legal licenses, and the outfit was able to keep its own beer brands such as Great Lakes and Cream Top in the market. A well-known brewery was the Canadian Ace Brewing Company , formerly called Malt-Maid Brewery and bought by Johnny Torrio in 1919. After some time it was renamed the Manhattan Brewing Company after Alex Louis Greenberg was hired as a manager. In 1933 Greenberg became the owner of the company himself and changed its name to the Canadian Ace Brewing Company .

The main focus of the expansion was above all the world exhibition in Chicago, which was to take place in 1933 under the name A Century of Progress (Eng .: A Century of Progress). The involvement in the alcohol business served to gain supremacy over this upcoming exhibition. In addition, influence has also been expanded in the areas of food supply, hygiene, transport and in the trade unions in order to maximize their own profits. Many believe that only now did Nitti fully consolidate his status. In 1933, for example, a meeting was held in Miami at which many syndicate bosses, including Meyer Lansky and Jack Dragna , paid homage to Frank Nitti. In addition, agreements were made at this meeting in order to maintain control even after the imminent lifting of alcohol prohibition without harming each other.

However, an important point was the expansion in the area of gambling ; by 1937, direct control of most of Chicago and Cook County's gambling operations was achieved. The Cermak successor in the mayor's office provided active support, Edward J. Kelly , who allowed the outfit to operate various gambling houses and brothels - in exchange for guaranteeing the votes of Italian-born voters in the elections, some of which were secured by violence.

Nitti saw it as a target to compensate for losses due to the elimination of alcohol smuggling by using the store's own bookmaker (at .: bookmaking ) was operated. Presumably through death threats, Nitti succeeded in blackmailing Moses Annenberg and receiving protection money. The following years after Nitti's death, however, brought further conflicts about these agencies with them, as James M. Ragen , founder of Ragen's Colts and successor to Annenberg, refused to give in. In addition, various news agencies emerged under Nitti that concentrated on disseminating specific insider information that was relevant for betting games and especially for bookmakers, for example horse races about the current condition of the track, favorite horses, injuries that occurred at short notice, chances of winning, etc. An example of this was Trans-American Publishing & News Service, Inc. under the leadership of Gus Greenbaum and Moses Annenberg.

Another main priority of the outfit was the control of the trade unions ( “labor racketeering” ). The Wagner Act of 1935 enabled the organized trade unions to develop towards organized crime. By gaining control in the trade unions, the outfit received the possibility of targeted blackmailing of various industrial sectors through threats of possible strikes. There was also the opportunity to keep the union as calm as possible and to receive appropriate payments for it. It also gave access to union coffers and pension funds. The person primarily responsible for taking over the unions and not shying away from kidnapping and murder or death threats was senior Outfit member Murray Humphreys .

One example of this was the acquisition of the Chicago Bartenders' Union . George B. McLane , who had headed the union for 28 years, testified at a court hearing in 1940 that Frank Nitti's outfit had been trying to infiltrate the union since 1935. As a result of this testimony, Nitti, Ricca, Humphreys and Campagna, among others, were charged with conspiracy. But since it had apparently succeeded in threatening McLane from further statements, the prosecution failed.

The Hollywood Blackmail

One of the largest companies launched under Frank Nitti was directly involved in the expansion of the Chicago outfit west into Hollywood . As early as the end of the 1920s, the outfit developed considerable interest in the entertainment sector and planned to exploit it as profitably as possible .

Initial efforts were made by the mobster Tommy Maloy , who took over the Motion Picture Machine Operators' Union in Chicago in 1920 and subsequently worked with Al Capone and George Moran . The real interest was only piqued at Nitti when the commercial potential of soundtracks began to unfold. Maloy was beginning to matter to the new Chicago leader, as he had control of the city's projectionists' union. He had had a critic executed shortly before because he had complained to the national union president about his actions. When all union records were withdrawn following an investigation, Maloy went into hiding. However, Frank Nitti got these documents and used the information they contained to enforce direct control of the union from March 1933. In 1934, Maloy asked Nitti for help when he was facing tax evasion charges . Nitti initially seemed to agree to a cooperation, but betrayed Maloy by deliberately delaying his help - in the form of political influence - until Maloy was charged and convicted. However, that plan initially failed as it appeared that Maloy might escape charges. Since the takeover of the projectionists union was of great importance, Nitti now decided to more drastic methods and ordered the elimination of the Irish Maloy; However, kidnapping attempts failed. Meanwhile, Maloy was faced with another charge in January 1935, in addition to tax evasion, there was now an accusation of blackmailing cinema owners. There was no further charge because Tommy Maloy was shot dead in his car on February 4, 1935 in the street. His successor was Outfit member Nick Circella .

Two masterminds in the big blackmail scheme were George E. Browne and Willie Bioff . Both were actually small and independent working people who managed to blackmail Barney Balaban (and indirectly Sam Katz ). To do this, they threatened their cinema chain Balaban & Katz Theaters with a union strike. Balaban initially refused to respond to these threats, but after he was persuaded that the money should go to a cash register for unemployed unionists and soup kitchens, an agreement was reached on a payment of $ 20,000. In reality, however, these soup kitchens and "donation kiosks" were just front money laundering organizations and the money then ended up in the hands of Bioff and Browne. Shortly afterwards, the successful gangsters aroused the interest of the Chicago outfit and were "invited" to a meeting with the superiors of the organization. After they explained their strategy to Nitti and Co., it was made unequivocally clear to them that the outfit would take over their operations from now on and receive a large proportion of the income. At the same time, Nitti was already planning to transfer this strategy to a much larger concept - the birth of Hollywood blackmail.

The first goal of this partnership was to gain control of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees ( IATSE ). To do this, Browne should be elected as the new president, while Bioff should act as his executor. The effective control should keep the outfit , the two henchmen only take care of the daily exercise of their tasks (including collecting the funds). Initially, the focus was on gaining the entertainment sector in Chicago, but this was just the beginning of the bigger action in Hollywood. Nitti observed the business there and checked which unions could act as an important link. There were favorable conditions in Los Angeles , especially since key figures such as the district attorney , police chief and mayor could be classified as corrupt.

Without the cooperation with the other families of La Cosa Nostra , however, it would not work; Hollywood was not part of the actual area of ​​the outfit and, above all, the independent clans of the east coast exercised control over important unions that were necessary for the procedure. For this purpose, an agreement in the National Crime Syndicate or the “Commission” was necessary in order to coordinate this national company and the distribution of the profits. This also secured the connection to New York City, as chairman Lucky Luciano was also head of the largest mafia family in the USA, which was later classified as the Genovese family .

In June 1934, George Browne was elected the union's new president at an IATSE meeting in Louisville, Kentucky . Immediately, Browne and Bioff began getting various union members and studio unions to work with the IATSE. Soon after, operations in Los Angeles began with the usual tactic of extorting money from the big studios like Paramount , 20th Century Fox , RKO Studios, etc. In addition, a special levy was levied on union wages in 1936, allegedly to be used for a union defense fund. Through these methods, the outfit managed to generate millions of dollars in profit over the years, sums of money that were never taxed. Other people who played a special role in Hollywood for the outfit were Johnny Roselli and Fred Evans . While Evans was considered an expert in money laundering of the extorted amounts, Roselli was tasked with overseeing Bioff's actions in Los Angeles. Due to his heavy alcohol consumption and the associated talkativeness, he was considered to be a security risk that required constant monitoring. Nick Circella took a similar role for Browne, who was mainly in Washington and New York .

Over time, even the studio bosses' perception of this blackmail changed. It became more and more a kind of bribe for Browne and Bioff to keep the union's demands as low as possible. This allowed the studios to have a rigorous policy against weak unions and saved them millions in "expenses" through legitimate increases in salaries. In addition, Bioff reached a secret agreement with Joseph Schenck that placed him in the position of commercial agent between Hollywood and DuPont Chemicals in the procurement of the raw footage. Bioff accepted the offer of a 7% stake on the understanding that annual income from it would have to be more than $ 50,000. In addition, Browne should not be involved, nor should he or Nitti be informed.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) achieved official recognition in May 1937 after a large-scale strike of the actors in Hollywood was carried out and they also received support from the IATSE. Despite this help, however , the outfit failed to infiltrate and take control of this union and other organizations such as the Associated Actors and Artists of America in the following years . As early as 1938, Nitti demanded from Bioff that he should officially resign from his post because he had become vulnerable. Nick Circella asked for something similar a year later. However, both remained internally on the payroll. The reason for this was the actor Robert Montgomery , who was president of the SAG in 1938 and who was suspected by his own informants that Bioff had been bribed by Joseph Schenck. He put a former FBI agent in charge of a private investigation, which soon revealed evidence in the form of checks. A check for $ 100,000 was then forwarded to the tax authorities , which began an official investigation. Schenck had to testify in a court where he disclosed the tactics of the outfit in detail. The result of these statements was that he only had to go to jail for a year before he could resume his duties in Hollywood. But the outfit increasingly lost control.

The decisive setback then came in November 1939 by the reporter Westbrook Pegler . He came across documents about Bioff's criminal past in Chicago and started independent investigations into why he was now able to stay in the company of Hollywood greats. Robert Montgomery additionally supported the reporter with his investigation results, which resulted in a veritable journalistic crusade against Bioff and his allies. As early as 1940, Bioff was jailed for an outstanding 1922 conviction. Immediately after his release a year later, however, he was charged with blackmail along with Browne and Circella. Circella declared himself guilty in 1943 after his girlfriend Estelle Carey was murdered in February (presumably as a warning to the defendants to keep silent and not incriminate the captains of the outfit , as Bioff and Browne had done from 1941). With Browne and Bioff, the threat was unsuccessful; When both were found guilty, they nevertheless decided to make further incriminating statements against Nitti and Co. in order to receive a mild sentence. While Circella was sentenced to eight years in prison, Bioff and Browne got away with three years. In addition, the great studio bosses such as Harry and Albert Warner , Louis B. Mayer and Joseph Schenck were questioned in court. Roselli initially took over Bioff's post in Hollywood after he was convicted. However, due to the testimony and incriminating material, on March 18, 1943, Frank Nitti, Paul Ricca , Johnny Roselli , Louis Campagna and Charles Gioe , among others , were indicted. A development that was to herald the end of Frank Nitti.

Nitti's end

On the same day, shortly before the start of the trial, a meeting took place in Nitti's house, in which Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna, among others, took part and was deposed as head of the Nitti. The strong man at the meeting was Ricca, who was probably already the de facto boss of the outfit .

Apparently, Nitti was blamed for the failure of the actions in Hollywood. In retrospect, the involvement of Willie Bioff by Nitti was seen as an unnecessary risk. Presumably Nitti was asked to take the legal punishment to protect the entire organization. Plans were also being considered to prevent Bioff's testimony in court, for example by being shot in the courtroom, which would also intimidate Browne.

Nitti should not have responded to these demands and the meeting verbally escalated; that is, Ricca is said to have issued a death threat against Nitti, Nitti to have expelled the assembly from the house.

One day later, on March 19, 1943, Frank Nitti got drunk before leaving his house for North Riverside . There he was observed by railroad employees William F. Seebauer , Lowell M. Barnett and EH Moran . Some reports mention two witnesses, and others mention a sister from a nearby sanatorium .

According to this, Nitti had been observed drunk on the tracks in the afternoon as he moved towards an oncoming train before he changed the platform and fell near a fence. A pistol was in one hand while a bottle of whiskey was in the other. Shortly afterwards, Nitti pointed the pistol at his head and shot himself.

Frank Nitti is thus the only leader of La Cosa Nostra to date to commit suicide. Since there was no reference case for Nitti's suicide, the rumor of his murder also emerged. So there should be different reports about the number of projectiles in his head and the cartridge cases found. The obvious motive on the part of Paul Ricca would have been to silence Nitti as a precaution if he would decide to become a Pentito due to his dismissal or to avoid imprisonment and thus to make further incriminating revelations about the infiltration of Hollywood as a key witness .

There are various theses about the reasons for suicide. Nitti is said to have suffered from claustrophobia , which is why he wanted to avoid imprisonment in a cramped prison cell. Other psychological and physical aspects were also used; After the death of his first wife, Nitti is said to have suffered from depression and severe damage to health as a result of the attack. He is said to have even suffered from cancer or a neurological disease and had heart problems.

Frank Nitti was buried in the Mount Carmel Cemetery .

Frank Nitti - Front Boss or Head?

One of the biggest controversies about the person Frank Nitti revolves around his actual status, which he assumed in the Chicago outfit . A popular thesis is that Frank Nitti was not really at the head of the organization for a large part of his "reign", but only assumed the role of a front boss. Because of the attention he received in the 1930s after his first prison sentence, he was quickly seen by the newspapers as the successor to Al Capone. This fact may have been right for the people in the background, including Paul Ricca and Anthony Accardo , and so Nitti acted as a kind of lightning rod for the outfit . For example, it is stated that Paul Ricca had a seat in the National Crime Syndicate and that Frank Nitti probably knew nothing about it. There are also examples citing that in some situations people like Ricca, Murray Humpreys and Jake Guzik openly questioned and contradicted Nitti's decisions.

However, there is also enough evidence to disprove his subordinate function as a "front boss". It is argued that the length of his term of office alone must be taken as an indication of his true role as leader, since it is unlikely to cover up the true facts over such a long period of time. The assassination attempt on Nitti in 1932 is also seen as an indication of its importance. FBI reports state that Nitti was even one of the founding members of the “Commission”, which decided on internal disputes and the organization of various crimes. Then there were the leaders of the Five Families from New York City : Lucky Luciano , Joseph Bonanno , Joe Profaci , Gaetano Gagliano and Vincent Mangano as well as the Buffalo boss Stefano Magaddino and the Kosher Nostra Meyer Lansky . Paul Ricca would have been Nitti's underboss. Reasons for Ricca's later (allegedly without Nitti's knowledge) participation in meetings of the "commission" resulted in a conflict between Luciano and Nitti, who harbored a mutual aversion that was exacerbated by differences of opinion over control in Hollywood. However, Luciano held the chairmanship of this commission and so it is quite possible that Nitti decided to send Paul Ricca as his delegate. In addition, the childhood friends Luciano and Lansky allegedly decided in 1932 to negotiate with Ricca and no longer with Nitti. As a result, it is quite possible that over the years Nitti's power waned and Ricca gained in influence to the same extent before he rose to the new official head and developed the thesis that he was the real boss over the entire period.

Additional difficulties in defining the exact role of Nitti are that the organizational form of the Chicago outfit was different than in the other families of the La Cosa Nostra . While these are traditionally constructed in a strictly hierarchical manner, the Chicago version showed early on the structure of a company in the legal economy. The positions of boss, underboss and consigliere do exist, but they work in a kind of board of directors with other leading members of the outfit to jointly discuss important decisions. As a result, the management class has a smooth transition, in which a change at the top was even more difficult to recognize than with the other families. Something similar was observed later with Anthony Accardo , who despite his resignation from his actual position as boss in the background as consigliere kept the strings in hand.

family

Nitti's father Luigi died in Italy when Francesco was still a toddler, after which his mother took him to America. There she married a few years later. Frank Nitti couldn't get along with his stepfather, which was probably one of the main reasons he left home at a young age. According to information that Nitti supplied to the FBI in 1930 , he still had a sister named Anna Vollaro, who lived in Brooklyn, and a (presumably half) sister named Marie, who was with Chicago Outfit member Anthony "Tough Tony" Capezio was married.

Frank Nitti married his first wife, Anna Theresa Ronga, on February 16, 1929 in St. Louis . She was the daughter of Gaetano Ronga, a doctor who probably worked as a mob doctor, including for Samuel Samuzzo "Samoots" Amatuna , a president of the Unione Siciliana , who was assassinated in 1925, and Frank Nitti himself, as a result of the attempted assassination attempt on Nitti in late 1932. In 1934 Frank and Anna presumably adopted a boy named Joseph. On November 19, 1940, however, the 38-year-old Anna died, probably of an inflammation of the colon . In July 1942, Frank Nitti married Antoinette M. Caravetta, former secretary and fiancé of former Capone attorney (and later adversary) Edward Joseph O'Hare (father of the naval officer O'Hare , after whom O'Hare International Airport in Chicago was named ). Even after Nitti's death in 1943, Caravetta carried Mrs. Nitti's name on.

Movie and movie quotes

• 1959: Bruce Gordon played Nitti in the American television series The Untouchables and in the film Al Capone Returns .
• 1967: Harold J. Stone embodied Nitti in the movie Chicago Massacre ( The St. Valentine's Day Massacre ) by Roger Corman , where the Valentine's Day Massacre is discussed.
• 1975: Sylvester Stallone turned Nitti in the movie Capone by Steve Carver is.
• 1987: In the movie The Untouchables - The Untouchables - Nitti is played by Billy Drago and (historically incorrect) pushed from the roof of a courthouse by Eliot Ness and killed.
• 1988: The filmmaker Anthony LaPaglia portrayed Nitti in his genre film Nitti - the bloodhound (OT: Frank Nitti: The Enforcer ).
• 2002: Stanley Tucci's impersonation of Frank Nittis in the film Road to Perdition is considered a historically appropriate representation. However, at the time the (fictional) film plot takes place, Nitti was actually in prison.
• 2009: Nitti is portrayed by Bill Camp in Public Enemies .

literature

• John J. Binder: The Chicago Outfit ; Arcadia Publishing 2003; ISBN 0-7385-2326-7
• Ronald D. Humble: Frank Nitti. The True Story of Chicago's Notorious "Enforcer" ; Barricade Books 2007; ISBN 1-56980-342-0
• Thomas Reppetto: American Mafia. A History of Its Rise to Power ; Holt Paperbacks 2004; ISBN 0-8050-7798-7
• Gus Russo: The Outfit. The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America ; Bloomsbury 2001; ISBN 0-7475-6651-8
• Richard J. Shmelter: Chicago Assasin. The Life and Times of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring Twenties ; Cumberland House Publishing 2008; ISBN 1-58182-618-4

Web links

• The First Shooting of Frank Nitti ( Memento from February 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) by Allan May (English)
• Frank Nitti's gravestone at www.findagrave.com (English)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation - Freedom of Information Act: Frank Nitti ( Memento of March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Seize The Night: Frank Nitti" ( Memento from November 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (English), on www.carpenoctem.tv
2. ↑ Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti at www.findagrave.com (English)
3. ↑ Article about Frank Nitti in the Encyclopædia Britannica (English).

predecessor	Office	successor
Al Capone	Head of the " Chicago Outfit " of La Cosa Nostra 1932 - 1943	Paul Ricca