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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 episode, I investigate the life of Norman DuPont, the notorious manager of the Ravenite Social Club, a key mob hangout. From my background as a former Kansas City Police detective, I share insights gained from footage of the club’s patrons and recount a violent confrontation at the Feast of San Gennaro with New York City cops, an incident that marked Norman DuPont’s descent into organized crime.
Exploring the club’s evolution under figures like Carlo Gambino and John Gotti, I detail the FBI’s struggles to infiltrate this secretive world. Club manager Norman DuPont’s life ended in a chilling act of murder, showcasing the brutal code of the mob.
I draw parallels to similar social clubs in Kansas City, reflecting on the culture of loyalty and secrecy that endures. #johngotti #gambinocrimefamily #normandupont #garyjenkins #ganglandwire #ravenitesocialclub
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Transcript
[0:00]Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police intelligence unit detective, and now podcaster and former filmmaker and author. I mean, I’ve just done it all here in my retirement. I’m just kidding. You know, I don’t take myself that seriously. I want to tell you a kind of a short story today about the manager of the Ravenite Social Club, Norman DuPont. I recently was looking at some video and i snagged some video to put up youtube shorts of people going in and out of the ravenite and so i i didn’t hear this one guy was so i threw it out you know to the fans on youtube and they said oh that’s norman dupont and and what you could tell he was like the guy running errands he was running in and out opening the door going next door and getting supplies and bringing them back to a little corner store there and bringing them back to the club. So Norman DuPont. And I thought, well, who is this guy? I started researching him. You can’t find out a whole lot about him. It’s kind of an interesting story later in his life. One of the first things I found out about him was he was kind of crazy.
[1:12]In 1990, it’s not too long before he committed a crime that sent him away for a long time. he was working at the Feast of San Gennaro down in Little Italy at Mulberry and Spring Street. And there was a child of an off-duty New York City police officer named Anthony Pinzone, and she complained that a concession game was not working properly. And a couple of off-duty cops went over to the booth and started making a complaint. And the booth attendant called out. All of a sudden, some other guys showed up and some other off-duty cops were in the area, showed up, and they have a.
[1:54]Have a big brawl and and the cops ended up getting the worst end of it these guys beat him with like sticks and iron bars or something and they all get they got went to the hospital retreated and released one of them was uh kept for a while he had a fractured skull so one of the persons arrested was the ravenite manager norman dupont they charged him a second degree of salt all uh it’s just like crazy crazy crazy now this uh he was manager at the ravenite and ravenite was an italian american heritage club which is we all know was the headquarters of goddy late you know it’s like after he ascended to the the throne if you will it’s a 247 mulberry street used as a mob mob hangout and became a storefront later on became a shoe store and a men’s clothing most recently but what’s the history of it this thing goes clear back to 1926 it was the alto knights social club which was an old street gang during prohibition used it and that’s what they call themselves the alto knights it was a hangout for lucky luciano and and others of that prohibition area mafia uh this name was taken from the order of saint james of alto passio uh 1957 carlo gambino.
[3:17]Gambino took over the family and became named the Gambino family, as we know now.
[3:26]He renamed the club the Ravenite in honor of his favorite poem. Now, who would have thought that Carlo Gambino would have a favorite poem?
[3:34]Go figure that one. He liked Edgar Allan Poe, and of course, the Raven was his favorite poem. And so we call it the Ravenite. Now, he hung out there, and he was the boss there, and people would come and see him there. But eventually, you know, Carlo Gambino was a guy. He was careful. He was always careful. And he quit going down there when he discovered the cops had a big interest in surveillance of that club and the FBI. You know, by this time, you know, if you’ve listened to my podcast with Gary Clemente telling about his father, Peter Clemente, Peter Clemente was in the first one of the first guys in a top hoodlum squad. One of the first italian guys in the top hoodlum squad and gambino was his his guy so he was probably down there watching gambino himself so gambino he he leaves that he understands now he didn’t pass that god he didn’t learn that lesson from him as we know the management of club then and the the head duck of the club then goes to anello della croce of course he’s the underboss for Gambino and he uses it until he dies. Gotti will come in and take it over as his club, leave the Bergen Fish and Hunt Club after he does away with Paul Castellano.
[4:53]
The Ravenite’s Surveillance Struggles
[4:53]The uh the club is is a there’s a it’s a constant battle between the fbi and the mafia to get bugs and wiretaps in places now you can always tap a phone out on the pole but you can you need to get a bug inside because people are really careful and then eventually they’ll become even more careful about talking inside anywhere and they do the walking talks but the fbi if you watch this most Most recent, Get Gotti on Netflix. I think it’s in the second episode, they tell about all the ways they tried to get bugs into the Rabonite. It was hard. They got a key bait, so they could go in and out at will, and it seemed like nobody was paying any attention to it. They were going in and out, and they kept putting in bugs, and nothing was working, nothing was working. And even when they did kind of work, they weren’t getting anything because as they find out, eventually, eventually they find out that Gotti was going out the back door of the club up some inside stairs into another apartment building. Some elderly Italian lady giving her a little bit of money and she’d leave and he’d have his meetings up there. They got the bug up there and the rest is history. Really, it really brought them down that that wiretapper, that bug up there really brought them down, you know, surveillance of it.
[6:13]Kind of helped the FBI when Gotti made everybody come in on Wednesdays, I believe. He also, another thing that’s not known is labor union guys who were connected to the Gambinos or wanted something from Gotti, was doing business with Gotti, was doing business with the mob. They would show up a lot and do those walking talks out front. So it helped the FBI determine who the labor union people that were corrupt.
[6:36]Melvin DuPont, he wanted to be a gangster so bad, I guess, because he eventually will make his bones. Now he’s, you know, he’s involved with this fight, but that ain’t a deal. There was a guy named Joy Fabozzi who had a car service company there in Manhattan and he owed money to Melvin DuPont or Melvin DuPont had, had, had verified him and vouched for him or something. The guy wasn’t paying DuPont. I believe he got drunk. He goes to the car service, and there’s a dispatcher there named Harmon Fuchs, and DuPont shoots and kills him just as a message to his boss. There’s a couple of low-rent scumbags, Tony Nose Perscietti and Guy Zappula, who are either with him or know about this, and they end up testifying against him, and he gets like 25 to life or something. Now, while he’s in prison, he has a teenage son who is drowned in an upstate boating accident there in New York. And the prison people will not, the management will not let him go out and go to the funeral. But he does get an agreement with his family that they’ll bury the kid. They bring the kid down into West Virginia so at least he’ll be buried close to his father’s in Glenville, West Virginia, the Gilmer Federal Prison.
[7:59]
Tragic Fate of Melvin DuPont
[7:59]And that’s kind of an interesting story.
[8:05]Another thing about these social clubs, I know, you know, they had several managers. And we look at our social club here in Kansas City, they’re always a target of the FBI and the intelligence people.
[8:20]And they’re really careful in and around them. But here we had one called The Trap. Everybody just called it The Trap. It really was a Northview social club. They even used to have a sign out front. When I was young, they had a sign out front. And you know i’d see these guys hang around out front they’d be inside to be playing cards they had the espresso machine and and the whole nine yards and and they’d have people they have games going on texas hold them and play gin and and different kinds of gambling games they know there’s always gambling on it of course and and in the back room there was a smaller room that’s where they’d have the bigger games and that’s where these guys would bring some big fat fish that they could fleece that this some of these business guys they’d want to you know have the the cachet of playing cards with the mob so they’d bring them into the back room and and of course fleece they’d pay for that little trip into the back room of the uh trap or the northview social club we always had a manager here too back when i first went in the unit it was a guy named turk harris he was italian i don’t know what his if his father was not italian or whatever his last Last name was Harris, but he was Italian. He used to tell everybody that he was like the head of the mafia in Kansas City. And he lived up above it. So he’s really hard to get into that thing. Anyhow, you could get it done, but it was hard to do.
[9:40]I know an FBI agent who was in the basement running some wire one night about four o’clock in the morning. And as he started out, there was some mob guy had been up in one of these upstairs apartments visiting a girl. And he was walking out the same time the FBI agent was walking out. The FBI agent just happened to hear him coming out the front door as he started to open the front door of the trap. and he pulls the front door shut and just looks out the window and sees this Willie Camisano Jr. Walking out and getting his car driving away.
[10:12]And then Bobby Maroon took it over after Turk Harris. I never knew what happened to Turk Harris. I don’t think he died.
[10:24]
The Trap: A Kansas City Social Club
[10:18]I think, I don’t know. He was kind of a loud mouth. I think people didn’t like him in the end. And a guy named Bobby Maroon took it over. He had been, I think, a joint at a West 12th Street bar, bar kind of a b-girl bar and he’d had that for quite a while and they trust him and and he helped run the gambling games there he actually ended up starting another game down the street uh upstairs above a pharmacy but he ran it until i think it finally closed down bobby maroon got old and died everybody started going to prison there in the 80s late 70s early 80s and and it just closed down it’s still sitting there today uh vacant i know a guy that went in there tried to buy it they They wanted like $100,000 for this just like run-down old storefront.
[11:06]It actually had a little restaurant adjoining it, but they wanted $100,000 for it. And this guy wanted to turn it into an Italian restaurant, and it’s down in our little Italy. So I don’t know. Somebody ought to do that with the Ravenite, get a hold of it, and turn it into a little bar and restaurant.
[11:26]
Conclusion and Future Projects
[11:22]I think it would go just a cachet of being able to go into the old Ravenite. But anyhow, so that’s the story of Norman DuPont and the Ravenite Social Club.
[11:32]Thanks a lot guys and don’t forget i like to ride motorcycles so watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there if you have a problem ptsd go to the va website and get that hotline number and along with ptsd is drugs and alcohol you got that problem you don’t have to be in the uh, the you don’t have to be a veteran you can go see anthony rugiano he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in florida and he has a hotline on his uh website or his youtube page or something i don’t know he’s got one anyhow and and don’t forget to like and subscribe and tell your friends about us and you know hey i’ve got books and movies out there and movies to rent my documentaries you can rent and i got a book for sale in amazon i’m working on a couple other books i think i’m going to start trying to like take several podcasts and then make a short book of several chapters And each chapter will be whatever the podcast was that I did a particular week. What I’ve got so far is a bunch of Chicago stories. And so I’m working on that and I’ll do some New York stories and I’ll do some Midwest stories. I may do one with just Kansas City stories and some of my own experiences. I must start putting out a few short books as if I don’t have enough to do. But anyhow. So thanks a lot, guys. And keep coming back.