Stefano Magaddino

Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsteːfano maɡadˈdiːno]; October 10, 1891 – July 19, 1974) was an Italian-born crime boss of the Buffalo crime family in western New York. His underworld influence stretched from Ohio to Southern Ontario and as far east as Montreal, Quebec. Known as Don Stefano to his friends and The Undertaker to others, he was also a charter member of the American Mafia's ruling council, The Commission.[1]

Stefano Magaddino
Born(1891-10-10)October 10, 1891
Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy
DiedJuly 19, 1974(1974-07-19) (aged 82)
Lewiston, New York, U.S.
Resting placeSt. Joseph's Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York
NationalityItalian
Other names"Don Stefano", "The Undertaker"
CitizenshipAmerican
OccupationCrime boss
ChildrenPeter Magaddino
RelativesJoseph Bonanno (great nephew)
AllegianceBuffalo crime family

Early years

Magaddino was born on October 10, 1891, in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily.[1] In Castellammare del Golfo, Magaddino led a clan allied with Giuseppe "Peppe" Bonanno and his older brother and advisor, Stefano.[2] During the 1900s, the clans feuded with Felice Buccellato, the boss of the Buccellato Mafia clan. After the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe, their younger brother, Salvatore, took revenge by killing members of the Buccellatos. In 1902, Magaddino arrived in New York and became a powerful member of the Castellammarese clan.[3] Magaddino was the brother of Joseph Bonanno’s maternal grandmother.[2] Bonanno was the son of Salvatore, and was three years old when his family moved to the United States and settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for about 10 years before returning to Italy.[4]

In 1921, Magaddino fled to Buffalo, New York to avoid murder charges related to the death of Camillo Caizzo in Avon, New Jersey, who had killed Magaddino's brother Pietro,[3] and the Castellammarese clan was taken over by Nicolo Schiro.[5] Buffalo crime family boss Joseph DiCarlo died in 1922, and Magaddino succeeded him as boss.[3]

Joseph Bonanno slipped back into the United States in 1924, by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa, Florida with Magaddino’s son, Peter Magaddino.[6] According to Bonanno, upon arriving at a train station in Jacksonville, Bonanno was detained by immigration officers and was later released under $1,000 bail. He was welcomed by Willie Moretti and an unidentified man, it was later revealed that Magaddino was responsible for bailing him out as a favour for Giovanni Bonventre, Bonanno's uncle.

In 1924, Magaddino became a naturalized U.S. citizen.[1]

Buffalo crime family

Although he operated a legitimate funeral home business in Niagara Falls, New York, the Magaddino Memorial Chapel,[7] with Prohibition in effect in the United States, Maggadino made his real money running a profitable bootlegging business by smuggling wine and spirits across the Niagara River into New York State, thereby supplying the needs of speakeasies located in Buffalo and the very "Honky-tonk" Niagara Falls.[8] After Prohibition ended, Magaddino and his crime family made their money by means of loan sharking, illegal gambling, extortion, carjacking and labor racketeering as well as other legitimate lucrative businesses such as linen service businesses that served the needs of most of the hotels located throughout the region[9] as well as taxicab companies and other service-oriented businesses.

Magaddino's crime family held power in the underworld territories of Upstate and Western New York, namely, Buffalo, New York, bordering Canada and situated on Lake Erie, Rochester and Utica, along the Mohawk River as far east as Amsterdam, New York; from Eastern Pennsylvania as far west as Youngstown, Ohio, and in Canada from Fort Erie (opposite Buffalo) to Toronto, Ontario and as far east as Montreal, Quebec.[10][11] Magaddino led his Buffalo family through its glory years and its most powerful and profitable era in La Cosa Nostra. He was an old-style boss who preferred to stay in the background and not draw any attention to himself or his criminal activities if possible. Due to his territory's remoteness yet the vast amount of it he controlled and being geographically insulated from the inter-family squabbles of the New York City-based families, he was held in high regard and was at times called upon to be an arbiter involving territorial disputes between crime families based there.

National crime figure
Buffalo crime family - Chart of 1963

For fifty years, Magaddino was a dominant presence in the Buffalo underworld. He was the longest tenured boss in the history of the American Mafia. Magaddino was also involved in national La Cosa Nostra affairs. Magaddino was a charter member of Charles "Lucky" Luciano's Mafia Commission and attended important underworld summits such as the 1946 Havana Conference and the 1957 Apalachin Conference.[12][13]

It is believed Magaddino, along with Antonio and Johnny Papalia, played a role in notorious Hamilton bootlegger Rocco Perri's disappearance in 1944 in order to gain more Canadian market control.[14] After Perri's disappearance, three of his former lieutenants, in addition to Papalia and Giacomo Luppino, began answering to Magaddino in Buffalo: Tony Sylvestro, Calogero Bordonaro and Santo Scibetta, known as the "three dons".[15][16]

Magaddino had survived several assassination attempts. In 1936, rival gangsters attempted to kill Magaddino with a bomb, killing his sister instead. In 1958, an assassin tossed a hand grenade through his kitchen window, which failed to explode.[17]

In 1963, Joseph Bonanno made plans to assassinate several rivals on the Mafia Commission—bosses Tommy Lucchese, Carlo Gambino, Magaddino, as well as Frank DeSimone.[18] Bonanno sought Profaci crime family boss Joseph Magliocco's support, and Magliocco readily agreed due to his bitterness from being denied a seat on the Commission previously. Bonanno's audacious goal was to take over the Commission and make Magliocco his right hand man.[19] Magliocco was assigned the task of killing Lucchese and Gambino, and gave the contract to one of his top hit men, Joseph Colombo. However, the opportunistic Colombo revealed the plot to its targets. The other bosses quickly realized that Magliocco could not have planned this himself. Remembering how close Bonanno was with Magliocco (and before him, Joe Profaci), as well as their close ties through marriages, the other bosses concluded Bonanno was the real mastermind.[19] The Commission summoned Bonanno and Magliocco to explain themselves. Fearing for his life, Bonanno fled to Canada, leaving Magliocco to deal with the Commission, but was deported back to the United States.

In October 1964, Bonanno returned to Manhattan, but on October 20, 1964, the day before Bonanno was scheduled to testify to a grand jury inquiry, his lawyers said that after having dinner with them, Bonanno was kidnapped, allegedly by Magaddino's men, as he entered the apartment house where one of his lawyers lived on Park Avenue and East 36th Street.[20]

Arrest and death

Magaddino's empire began to crumble in 1968, when police found $500,000 stashed away in Magaddino's funeral home and his son's attic. "At that time, Magaddino had been telling his underlings that money was tight, and he could not afford to pay them Christmas bonuses," Hartnett said. "People began to stop trusting him when we found all that money."[21]

Stefano Magaddino died of a heart attack on July 19, 1974, at age 82 at Mount Saint Mary's Hospital in Lewiston, New York.[1] His funeral mass was celebrated at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic church and he was buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery on Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls.

Legacy

Mob Boss, written by Mike Hudson, is a book about Magaddino's life as a mob boss. Magaddino is also mentioned in Niagara Falls Confidential, also written by Mike Hudson. He also gets a passing mention in The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas. Magaddino, as head of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls crime family, is a subject throughout the two-volume history, DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime (Vol. I through 1937, Vol. II 1938 through 2012) by Thos. Hunt & Michael A. Tona (2013).

Magaddino is an unseen character in the third season of the hit HBO series, Boardwalk Empire.

References
  1. Perlmutter, Emanuel (July 21, 1974). "Stefano Magaddino Dead at 82". New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  2. A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno By Joseph Bonanno p.24-28
  3. Jerry Capeci The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia pg.49–52
  4. Organized Crime by Howard Abadinsky pg.104–107
  5. The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno: The Final Secrets of a Life in the Mafia By Bill Bonanno, Gary B. Abromovitz pg.57–58
  6. Raab, Selwyn. Five Families. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005. Print.
  7. "NOW OWNED BY FALLS, FUNERAL HOME ONCE TIED TO MOB CONDUCTS BUSINESS AS USUAL". buffalonews.com. May 18, 1992.
  8. Rizzo, Micheal (2012). Gangsters and Organized Crime in Buffalo. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. Kindle Location 727. ISBN 978 1 61423 549 1.
  9. Gryta, Matt; Karalus, George (2012). The Real Teflon Don: How An Elite Team of New York State Troopers Helped Take Down America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family. Buffalo, NY: Cazenovia Books. pp. Kindle Location 2568. ISBN 978-0-9749253-6-3.
  10. Gryta, Mart; Karalus, George (2012). The Real Teflon Don How An Elite Team of New York State Troopers Helped Take Down America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family. Buffalo, NY: Cazenovia Books. pp. Kindle Location 2222. ISBN 978-0-9749253-6-3.
  11. Hunt, Thomas; Tona, Michael (2013). DiCarlo: Buffalo’s First Family of Crime. II, From 1938. Hunt & Tona Publications. pp. Kindle Locations 3089-3096. ISBN 978-1-304-26582-1.
  12. Glynn, Don (November 11, 2007). "Glynn:Area delegates attended mob convention". Niagara Gazette. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
  13. McHugh, Ray (August 26, 1963). "Federal Attack, Internal Fights Trouble Crime Clan". Lodi News-Sentinel. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  14. Humphreys, Adrian (1999). The Enforcer:Johnny Pops Papalia, A Life and Death in the Mafia. Toronto: Harper Collins. p. 26. ISBN 0-00-200016-4.
  15. Schneider, Stephen (2018). Canadian Organized Crime. Canadian Scholars' Press Inc. p. 176. ISBN 9781773380247.
  16. Schneider, 2009 p.285-286
  17. "CRIME HUNTER: Buffalo blues — last rites for the mob in Queen City". torontosun.com. May 5, 2018.
  18. Staff (September 1, 1967) "The Mob: How Joe Bonanno Schemed to kill – and lost" Life p.15-21
  19. Bruno, Anthony. "Colombo Crime Family: Trouble and More Trouble". TruTV Crime Library. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  20. Raab, Selwyn (May 12, 2002). "Joe Bonanno Dies; Mafia Leader, 97, Who Built Empire". The New York Times. Retrieved March 11, 2011.
  21. "Buffalo's Crimes of the Century
    Mayhem, Murder and the Mafia -- Darker Moments in the City's History"    . The Buffalo News. December 27, 1999. Retrieved September 27, 2018.

Further reading
  • Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Checkmark Books, 2005. ISBN 0816056951
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