The seventh and final article in Rocco LaDuca's series for the Observer-Dispatch on the history of the mob in Utica focuses on the 1980s.
The decade begins with the release of Dominic Bretti from prison in 1979 who sets up a crew -- including Donato "Danny" Nappi, Anthony John D'Amico, Jack "Jake" Minicone and Dawn Grillo -- with the reputed backing of the Colombo crime family from New York City. However, Bretti's run was brief because his conversations were being recorded by Anthony Mastracco who was an informant for the FBI. In 1980 Bretti and D'Amico were convicted for conspiring to murder Utica tavern owner Richard Clair, and in 1982 Bretti, Nappi and D'Amico were convicted for the 1979 murder of Grillo who allegedly had stolen $4,000 from him.
The decade ends with a federal racketering trial which finally brings down the remaining players -- Jack "Jake" Minicone, Anthony Inserra, Jack "Turk" Zogby, Benny Carcone, and his son Russell Carcone -- in the Salvatore and Joseph Falcone enterprise which had controlled the rackets in the city for 70 years through violent intimidation and public corruption. Unfortunately, however, the "key players who built the foundation . . . were never charged." Salvatore Falcone died in 1972, and his younger brother Joseph was a near-senile old man listed in the government's prosecution as an unindicted co-conspirator. Other unindicted co-conspirators in the racketeering case included "loansharking chief [Anthony] Falange, [and] gambling kingpin Angelo Conte" who were dead. Joseph Falcone died at 90 on March 27, 1992, and LaDuca reports:
When the death notice came to the Observer-Dispatch, the night desk didn't recognize Falcone's name. Seventy-two years after Prohibition started, 53 years after the Falcone brothers' federal tax trial, 35 years after the Apalachin raid, Joseph Falcone's news obituary story had to wait one more day.
A particularly interesting thread woven throughout LaDuca's seven articles providing a 70-year retrospective on organized crime in Utica is the role of former criminal defense lawyer Louis Brindisi who represented many underworld figures until 1983 when Joseph Dacquino, a 26-year-old attorney who worked for him, was gunned down in their law offices.
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