Los Angeles Crime Family

The Los Angeles Crime Family was a La Cosa Nostra group in Los Angeles that California authorities called the Southern California Crime Family. The California Attorney General's Office described it in June 1987 as "the only functioning traditional organized crime family based in this state."¹

Structure in 1986

The Attorney General's report for 1986 lists Peter Milano as boss, his brother Carmen Milano as underboss and Jack LoCicero as consigliere. It names Luigi Gelfuso, Vincent Dominic Caci, John Aquilante and Michael Rizzitello as caporegimes, and states that the family consisted of about 20 members, five of whom were recruited during the last three years. The report says the structure "remained unchanged in 1986" and states that the family's weakness "is due largely to police scrutiny and ineffective family leadership."¹

The report states that the Chicago Crime Syndicate had represented the family's interests on the La Cosa Nostra Commission until recently, and that it "is believed to have been replaced in this role by one of the New York crime families, probably because the breakdown in its structure diminished its influence in California."²

Las Vegas and the Chicago mob

The report states that Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago syndicate's lieutenant, "led a cadre of key personnel in Southern California and Las Vegas who were heavily involved in bookmaking and loansharking" during the 1970s and early 1980s, and that he and his brother Michael were found beaten to death in a shallow grave in Indiana in June 1986.²

The Las Vegas Sun wrote on February 3, 1998 that "the FBI offensive smashed a bid by the Los Angeles crime family to muscle in on the street rackets once controlled by the Chicago mob," and that no mob family had moved so heavily into Las Vegas since Spilotro's 1986 murder.³

Gambling conspiracy, 1975

In 1975 the Ninth Circuit affirmed convictions in a gambling conspiracy in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles that involved Peter Milano, Luigi Gelfuso and John Joseph Vaccaro. Milano and Gelfuso received concurrent four-year sentences.⁴

Cardroom and vending machines

The 1986 report identified Rocco Zangari, who was observed unloading cartons of cigarettes at Piggy's Vending in Riverside County, and the manager of that business, Steven Cino, as members of the family.⁵ On February 9, 1989 the Press-Enterprise reported that Zangari, the manager of the cardroom of the Cabazon Indian Casino until 1981, was identified in a federal racketeering indictment in Los Angeles as an associate of Peter Milano, whom federal prosecutors identified as the leader of mob activities in Southern California until his conviction for racketeering.⁶

Indictment and pleas, 1987 to 1988

On May 21, 1987 Michael Gelfuso, Peter John Milano and Luigi Gelfuso were indicted on racketeering and loansharking violations, conspiracy and attempt to distribute cocaine, and distribution of cocaine. They were ordered detained, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of reconsideration of the detention orders on February 1, 1988.⁷

United Press International reported on April 5, 1988 that the racketeering trial of Luigi Gelfuso Jr. and co-defendants had opened in Los Angeles federal court, and that eleven other men, including Peter John Milano, described as the reputed boss of the Los Angeles Mafia, had already pleaded guilty.⁸

Blitzstein murder and the 1998 indictment

A federal racketeering indictment unsealed in Las Vegas on February 2, 1998 named 16 defendants, including Carmen Milano as the reputed underboss of the Los Angeles mob. The Sun reported that the FBI had alleged that Los Angeles and Buffalo mobsters murdered Herbie Blitzstein to take control of his loansharking and auto insurance fraud operations.³

The Ninth Circuit's opinion in the appeal of Robert Panaro and Stephen Cino describes a fifty-count indictment with fourteen co-defendants, charged with racketeering-related crimes including murder, conspiracy to commit extortion and money laundering.⁹

In March 2000 the Las Vegas Sun reported that Carmen Milano and Dominic Spinale had pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, and that Zangari pleaded guilty to supervising other mob members while they sold $75,000 in counterfeit checks to undercover agents in the fall of 1996.¹⁰