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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this segment, we delve into the life and influence of Angelo Bruno, the Philadelphia boss of the Mafia. We aim to fill in knowledge gaps and increase our understanding of the Mafia in the United States. Angelo Bruno, also known as the Gentle Don, stood out from others in the mob due to his preference for peace over violence. He was born in Italy and migrated to the United States as a child. One of his significant associations was with Carlo Gambino, the boss of the New York Gambino crime family. Bruno’s cousin, John Simone, connected him to the mob. To establish himself in the Philadelphia Mafia, Bruno changed his name from Antoloro to Bruno and was sponsored by Michael Maggio. Bruno married in 1931 and had two children. He owned various businesses, including an extermination company in New Jersey and an aluminum products company in Florida.
Additionally, he had a share in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Throughout his life, Bruno faced several arrests for offenses such as illegal alcohol sales and gambling. In 1959, there was a plot to assassinate him, but he emerged as the boss of the family after the conspiracy was revealed. Bruno successfully evaded media attention and lengthy prison sentences for the next two decades. He prohibited his family’s involvement in narcotics trafficking and focused on traditional Costa Nostra operations like bookmaking and loan sharking. Some family members were discontent with this decision and suspected Bruno of profiting from the narcotics business secretly. This will ultimately lead to his murder.
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Transcript
[0:00] Well, hey, guys, welcome back here in the studio of Gangland Wire.
Gary Jenkins here, retired Kansas City Police intelligence detective with one more of my little short bios, not a real in-depth bio, but a bio of the Philadelphia boss, Angelo Bruno.
You know, I’m doing these bios to kind of fill in any knowledge gaps because, you know, when you talk about to interview an author, for example, from a book and he’ll say something about, of course, Angelo Bruno was killed.
Well, you know, sometimes we go, well, who is Angelo Bruno? Well, I know he’s from Philadelphia.
Well, you know, what else about him? So I’m trying to help you all fill in your knowledge gaps and fill in my own too.
Lots of times, you know, I can’t remember all this stuff, but if I do a story, I can remember quite a little bit of it.
So I’m doing this story for me and for you and to increase my knowledge about the mafia in the United States.
[0:48] He was from Sicily. He’s going to rule the Philadelphia crime family for two decades AIDS until his assassination.
He was known as the Gentle Don. Now, we’ve all heard of the Gentle Don.
Well, this is the Gentle Don, because he had a preference for conciliation over violence, which was in a stark contrast to what happened later on after he left.
He was born in the Villababa province of Colton, Assetta, Italy.
Bruno came to the United States as a child, settled in South Philly with his brother Vito.
His father was a foundry worker. They opened a small grocery store at Fort North 6th Street in Philadelphia, in Feltonville, Philadelphia.
So you guys in Philadelphia will probably know where that is. I’m not sure.
He helped with his father in the store until when he’s only 12 years old.
He goes into school, but he came out just a few years later.
And as a young man, he opened a South Philadelphia grocery store himself at 8th and and Annan Street in Passy Yonge Square in Philadelphia.
[1:54] Bruno was a close associate of, New York Gambino crime family boss, Carlo Gambino. Now, I’m not sure I can figure out how that came about, but he had some connection to Carlo Gambino from early on.
Living with Bruno was a cousin, mobster John Simone, so that gave him an entree into the mob.
He dropped the name of Antoloro at the time and replaced it with his paternal grandmother’s maiden name, Bruno.
His sponsor into the Philadelphia mafia was a guy named Michael Maggio, who was a convicted murderer and had a national reputation in mob families.
He was also the founder of M. Maggio Cheese Corporation, who has since been brought up by Crowley Foods.
Angelo Bruno’s Rise in the Philadelphia Mafia
[2:35] Angelo Bruno got married as a young man in 1931 to Asunta Sue Maranca.
[2:42] This was his childhood sweetheart. He will be married to her until he’s dead and she’s dead.
They had two children, Michael and Jean. Angelo Bruno will own an extermination company in Trenton, New Jersey.
Now, you know, New Jersey and Philadelphia are pretty close to each other.
I’m not sure exact geography there, but they’re awfully close.
He’ll have an aluminum products company in Hialeah, Florida, and have a share in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba, like a lot of these other guys did in the 50s.
After the war, they had a piece of the action down in Havana until Castro came along and kicked them all out.
His very first arrest was for reckless driving. That was in 1928.
I didn’t know they wrote tickets in 1928 for reckless driving.
My first ticket, I think, was reckless driving, for sure.
State trooper did that to me. He had subsequent arrests that, guess what, for?
Operating an illegal alcohol steal during prohibition, illegal gambling, receiving stolen property, you know, dealing in swag.
Had a firearm violation in there, too, as a young man. And he will start moving up in the Philadelphia family.
In 1959, there was a period of friction between himself and an Antonio Mr.
Miggs Polina, who was a family boss.
And a plot to have Bruno murdered was uncovered, and Polina was disposed by the commission and allowed to live and operate.
[4:06] But Angelo Bruno took over. And this is kind of his first indication that he was going to be a gentle Don.
There was, you know, there’s no recriminations, no retribution.
The guy was able to go on, even though the guy had plotted to have him murdered, got uncovered, and the commission promoted him.
[4:25] Over the next 20 years, Angelo Bruno will successfully avoid any intense media.
He is no John Gotti. Trust me on that. He was no John Gotti.
And, you know, when you avoid that kind of scrutiny, you also many times avoid law enforcement scrutiny and the different outbursts of violence that will clog many of the other families over, especially during the 60s.
He avoids any lengthy prison sentences, even though he was arrested several times.
He had the longest term was for two years.
And that two years was just for refusing to testify in front of a grand jury.
Hell, they all go to prison for refusing to testify if they’re any kind of man at all.
You know, Angelo Bruno, like a lot of the other mob bosses, you know, the whole deal about the Appalachian Convention in 1957 and the mob and going to deal in narcotics on one on the surface.
But yet they are, you know, don’t ask, don’t tell was it was their policy on that narcotics deal because there’s too much money in it.
Bruno will forbid any his Philadelphia family’s involvement in narcotics trafficking.
Trafficking, and he preferred the traditional Costa Nostra operations, bookmaking, loan sharking.
[5:37] Dealing in swag, just like he’d already been arrested for, a variety of other vice activities, I’m sure.
Now, this arrangement kind of angered some of his family members because there was a lot of money in that drug deal, and they want a piece of that action.
[5:50] Philadelphia mobsters know know that like Paul Castellano and many other mafia bosses who claimed to ban all drug sales, or they knew Angelo Bruno was getting some money from the narcotics business on the down low.
[6:07] John Gotti, that was one reason Paul Castellano got killed.
Castellano was getting a piece of the action as long as it never came out, but it was getting ready to come out underneath him, if you remember.
And so Bruno preferred to operate through bribery and soft power, a little arm twisting here and there, rather than murder and loan shark kind of activity, you know, where you’re starting to break somebody’s leg and that kind of thing, or burn their business down and that kind of stuff. He was a velvet glove.
He may have had a male fist, an iron fist, but he had a velvet glove when he dealt with people.
And here’s a pretty good example. He had a kind of a fiery young guy who will go on to create quite a name for himself named Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo.
He got in some argument with somebody and he killed him and he got charged with manslaughter.
Well, it wasn’t really an approved action. And rather than, you know, take some more violent action against little Nicky. He just banished him over to Atlantic City, New Jersey.
I mentioned the narcotics business that we involved in during these years.
So that comes out of a guy named Raymond Long John Matarano.
He has a brother named George Matarano that’s out here somewhere.
And I actually had a conversation with, I was trying to get on the podcast and all of a sudden he started ghosting me.
And you never, I don’t know whatever happened to him. I may make a run on him again one of these days.
[7:31] Monterano had come over to Philadelphia from Sicily.
And between 1950 and 1955, he was convicted five times right after he got here for illegal narcotics or liquor dealing.
So he was moving. He was making his moves. Now, coming over from Sicily during those years, they had those connections to heroin from over there already.
And it was pretty commonplace for Sicilians to, they were already part of this pipeline flying, going to Cuba and then up to Montreal to bring heroin in the United States.
So he probably had a good solid basis in the narcotics business.
One time he got probation. He ended up doing as much as five years in prison.
You see these guys, they go in and out, they get out, they get a probation and they violate it.
So they go in and then maybe they get back out a little bit and they violate it and they do something.
They get a little more time and started out with a son, you know, like a year’s probation and they end up doing about five years in the penitentiary.
These guys, who knows? Go figure. It’s just a lie.
1960s and 1970s, Monterano…
[8:36] Will become associated with Angelo Bruno. He ran a vending machine business, and he actually hired Angelo Bruno for a sizable fee for his work as a quote-unquote commission salesman.
You know what that means. He was just paying him money.
And I heard one figure that was quoted at $50,000 a year.
It’s one of these deals with, you know, what do you do for this company?
Well, you know, I go out and sell vending machines. Well, where do you sell them?
That’s where Anthony, Tony, Joe Batters Cardo got in trouble.
He had this real fancy sports car.
I digress here. He had this real fancy sports car, and he was getting his commission for being a beer salesman from one of his buddy’s companies.
Long John Matarano’s Rise in the Drug Trade
[9:16] And, of course, he was never showing up. Nobody ever saw that sports car at a bar, and no bar owners could remember when he came in and sold them beer.
So this is the same kind of a deal. During these years, Long John Matarano will become one of the most successful methamphetamine dealers in the city during the 70s as that drug starts becoming more and more popular.
During the 70s, he had a little bit of cocaine, a lot of marijuana, and meth has always been popular.
And he developed relationships with bikers where they were always the primary consumers and dealers of methamphetamine.
Black gangs, Greek gangs, other criminal organizations. He reached out and had a lot of good connections, which I’m sure that the docile Don, as Angelo Bruno was known by now, could use and keep himself insulated from that.
And he will turn a blind eye to Maturano’s operation.
Angelo Bruno’s Assassination and Suspected Involvement
[10:08] March 21st, 1980, 69-year-old Angelo Bruno will be killed.
He’s sitting at a traffic light, I believe, at an intersection close to his home at 10th and Snyder in South Philly.
His driver, John Stamfa, was with him, and somebody will come up and blast him with a shotgun and wound John Stamfa.
[10:31] Well, at the time, for some reason, I’m not sure why, suspicion fell on his consigliere, a guy named Antonio Caponegro.
Caponegro was summoned to New York to the commission and questioned.
He had to sit down in front of these dudes and be questioned about what happened.
And he claimed that he thought it was sanctioned by them.
He claimed that the Genovese family, a guy named Frank Terrieri, had told him that this was sanctioned.
And what they did, they needed to get Bruno out of the way because the gambling was opening up in Atlantic City.
The Commission’s Denial of Involvement in Bruno’s Murder
[11:11] And Angelo Bruno and the Philly family historically controlled Atlantic City.
And they kind of needed him out of the way. nobody ever really said this out loud. Well, the commission told him, said, hey, we didn’t commission this.
And he turned to this Genovese boss, Frank Thierry, who just like, I don’t know.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Frank Thierry, he had been sponsored by Carlo Gambino to be the boss of the Genovese family.
He was known to be a low profile and diplomatic mobster and a pretty good earner.
But we now know he did play a key role in the the assassination of Angelo Bruno, the docile Don.
[11:49] And mainly because at that time when gambling was opening up, you know, docile Don was not really allowing New York to have a free hand down there.
And they wanted it. He didn’t really want to share in Thierry.
We find out years later that he had sent a message to this Philly capo, Antonio Caponigro, that the commission would support him. if he assassinated Bruno and he would not be the next boss of Philly.
Well, what Caponegro didn’t know, of course, as I mentioned before, they didn’t intend on sanctioning Bruno’s murder. They might have talked about it.
But, you know, go back to this meeting. They called Caponigro back up to a meeting and they had this confrontation with Thierry.
Shortly after this meeting with the commission, Caponigro’s body and the body of his brother-in-law, Alfred Salerno, will be found battered, nude, dead in the trunk of a car left in the Bronx.
And the assassins stuffed a bunch of $20 bills on all of Caponigro’s orifices.
I guess that’s a message.
Don’t get too greedy, I got a feeling. They thought he got greedy.
[12:59] New York families, of course, moved right into Atlantic City as best they could.
Other Philadelphia family members found to be involved in Bruno’s murder had any kind of around anything to do with it around that were caught, tortured, killed.
There was a lot of retribution over his murder. I don’t know why, because they all benefited from it. But they did.
You know, I remember we had a meeting with New Jersey State Police and New and Atlantic City. I think the prosecutors down there at intelligence unit, the meeting of intelligence units about this time.
And they were talking about this and they said, we we’ve got this lockdown.
We’ve got a gaming commission. We’re going to like really vet all these guys.
[13:43] And they did for a while, but eventually they all moved in.
And the first thing they did is they got control of like all the transportation into like all the buses that come out of New York City and different transportations.
And then all the service industries that then sell stuff to the casinos down there.
And I know they weren’t thinking about that at the time.
And so they eventually got something going until they didn’t, of course.
So we had a period of calm under Angelo Bruno in Philadelphia.
[14:15] But after his murder, the gloves came off and there was a period of bloodshed that will last more than two decades. It seemed like that was all over the United States around these years, 70s and 80s. A lot of the young guys, I think the young guys were coming up.
The post-war baby boomers came up, and then they needed to knock off the old guys because they weren’t leaving.
They weren’t giving up anything and retiring. They were hanging on to their action.
There was a series of mob land murders started under the succeeding boss of Angelo Bruno, you know, Philip Chicken Man Testa and his son Salvi Testa.
And they’ll be murdered.
Bruce Springsteen’s song about Atlantic City and the boardwalk and somebody murdered the chicken man last night.
And these will continue with like 20 more murders. And Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo will then become the boss in Philadelphia. And he was a pretty brutal guy himself.
So that’s kind of the, you know, the…
[15:16] Overall of Philly during these years and under Angelo Bruno and kind of the fallout after that.
Now, you know, what kind of interesting little sideline about Mr.
Bruno in February of 2016, there was an author and historian, Celeste Morello.
And I don’t know, does anybody know this guy? Does he write a book or whatever?
I don’t like, I didn’t look him up.
He started an effort to designate Angelo Bruno’s house a historical landmark.
And, you know, I’m just like, oh, my God, that makes balls.
He was part and parcel of the history of Philadelphia, just like Nick Civella was here in Kansas City and Al Capone was in New York.
And then Tony Accardo and a lot of these other guys are part of the history of a city, an important part of the history of the city.
[16:03] A historical landmark advisory committee ruled against this request, which is not, I don’t know, I shouldn’t say you the word politically correct, the word’s politically correct, but it didn’t get done.
I don’t think it would ever get done, anything like that, not where the historical landmark, although I think maybe here in Kansas City, in this area, we have a bank that Jesse James robbed that is a historical landmark, and his home, his boyhood home is out there, it’s totally preserved, but it’s not, I don’t think it’s designated by any authority as a kind of a cultural or historical landmark, but it is, and it’s preserved. and popular culture.
Angelo Bruno was portrayed by Chaz Palmateri, a perennial favorite, a guy that to portray mobsters.
It was in the film Legend in 2015.
And Harvey Keitel will play Angelo Bruno in the film The Irishman in 2019.
[16:58] So that’s the short bio of Angelo, the docile Don Bruno.
So thanks a lot, guys. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles.
So watch out for motorcycles when you’re on the streets.
[17:10] If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website and get that hotline number.
Drugs and alcohol addiction go hand in hand with aging.
So if you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, go visit our friend Angelo Ruggiano down in Florida.
He’s a real deal Gambino guy that’s a drug and alcohol counselor down there now.
Go to his website or his YouTube page and you’ll find a hotline.
So if you ever go down there, get a hold of me. I’m just curious how it worked out for you and what that experience was like.
And don’t forget to like and subscribe and maybe give us a review or give us one of those star things on the Apple app.
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