White-Collar Mafioso

Tommy Lucchese (1899-1967)

Leading a family

By the 1950s, Lucchese was outwardly a prospering vice president of a garment factory, Braunell, Ltd., of 50 East Ninth Street.13 Behind the scenes, his corrupting influence was felt in garment workers unions, longshoremen unions and truckers unions as well as in the New York City government and the local entertainment industry.

Jimmy Durante

Part owner of some downtown hotspots, including the Casino de Paris and the Music Hall, Lucchese was known to be friendly with Jimmy Durante, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin (Sinatra and Martin were linked to Lucchese through joint investments in the Berkshire Downs Race Track in Massachusetts).14

A treasury agent of the day reported, "Gaetano Lucchese... has become as dangerous a character -- if not more so -- than Costello in his heyday." (Costello apparently lost most of his political connections after his appearance at the Kefauver Committee hearings.)15

Lucchese became family boss after Gagliano's death of natural causes about 1951-52. (Some sources say Gagliano lived until 1953. A few have argued for 1951. Lucchese seemed to resolve the matter by referring to Gagliano as deceased during a 1952 questioning.)16

John Dioguardi

The new boss drew to him such underworld characters as Johnny "Dio" Dioguardi, Vincent Rao and Antonio Corallo, men who possessed both keen business sense and willingness to employ extreme violence.

Dio was influential with the Teamsters Union and helped Jimmy Hoffa win election to the union presidency. He appears to have excelled in investment frauds. He created, sought investors for and bankrupted various paper corporations until government investigators caught up with him in the 1960s.

Dio's brutal side came to light in 1956, when he ordered the acid-blinding of crusading journalist Victor Riesel.17

Vincent Rao

Rao, who rose to the position of family consigliere and eventually might have become boss if his underworld career had not been interrupted by a stay in federal prison (perjury), had interests in gambling, real estate, labor unions and construction. His forte appears to have been money-laundering.

In the mid-50s, he was president of a largely fictitious local of the International Hod Carriers union and inked lucrative contracts with the Five Boroughs Hoisting Co., a firm Rao himself owned.18

Anthony Corallo

Like Dio and Rao, Corallo knew how to handle money. His personal rackets were largely confined to the construction and waste hauling industries. A 1968 bribery conviction exposed Corallo's connections to New York's City Hall and brought down a member of Mayor John Lindsay's administration. Further corrupt connections to the Tammany Hall political machine run by Carmine DeSapio were revealed a year later.19

The presence of such men allowed Lucchese's organization to successfully compete with much larger New York families, like the Genovese and Gambino clans.