The Mafia's Senator in Wyoming
The Mafia's Senator in Wyoming
An unexpected member in an unexpected place: a story of political representation, the Colorado mafia, and "Americanization".
An offhand reference from a reliable San Jose FBI informant in 1963 identified an apparent Cosa Nostra member in Wyoming who served as a US Senator. This is difficult to believe at first glance, but this was more than a fleeting rumor when considering the full range of the organization this man was alleged to be part of and who reported it. Investigation into this individual highlights the enigmatic nature of Cosa Nostra while leaving us with more questions about historic mafia activity in the Mountain States. This article explores this man’s life and the possible mafia connections he maintained.
This article also serves as an analysis of Cosa Nostra’s internal systems of political representation in addition to exploring its relationship to politics external to the subculture. In my opinion it is impossible to separate them. Since its genesis Cosa Nostra has made considerable effort to combine its own internal politics with the political world around them. Sometimes this synthesis has even been achieved.
In order to understand Cosa Nostra’s relationship to politics and government, it’s important to first discuss the roots of Cosa Nostra in Sicily where the mafia has long influenced and even directly participated in island politics. From there we will examine the alleged mafia membership of this Wyoming State Senator, but this allegation must be properly contextualized within the political framework of Cosa Nostra — a framework built in the villages of Western Sicily.
An Introduction to the Mafia in Politics
Pop culture often references Cosa Nostra’s relationship to unethical politicians, highlighting corruption and backroom deals that serve the mafia’s underworld interests. This has been mythologized to some degree, though these relationships did exist. Much deeper relationships also existed, particularly in Sicily, where pentiti (repentants) have cooperated with the government and revealed inside information about the inner-world of Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
The Sicilian mafia did not simply influence or control politicians at various levels of government, they even inducted them into their organizations. In many villages throughout the island, mayors and municipal councillors were identified by sources as made members and even bosses. The traditional term for boss in Cosa Nostra is rappresentante (representative), an official term used almost exclusively by the bosses themselves when referring to their position, as evidenced on the FBI’s extensive recordings of US Cosa Nostra bosses during the 1960s. Even John Gotti was heard using this term on an FBI recording decades later. In addition to its criminal activity, Cosa Nostra is its own system of political representation and it is unsurprising the rappresentante would similarly become the highest representative in municipal government when synthesis is achieved.
In the village of San Giuseppe Jato, an enduring mafia stronghold in Palermo province, the Fascist government’s Prefect Cesare Mori presided over investigations that revealed three successive bosses of the San Giuseppe Jato Family simultaneously held the positions of town mayor and Cosa Nostra rappresentante during the 1910s and 1920s. The town’s council was comprised almost entirely of Cosa Nostra figures, many of them related by blood, including Vincenzo Troia who would become a significant figure in the United States before his 1935 murder in Newark. In addition to being town mayors and Cosa Nostra rappresentanti, the men identified in these dual roles in San Giuseppe Jato were all cousins.
Vincenzo Troia is believed to have been the acting boss of the San Giuseppe Jato Family and deputy mayor on behalf of his mayor-rappresentante cousin who was in hiding, with Troia himself absconding to the United States in the mid-1920s. The mafia leadership of San Giuseppe Jato scattered after participating in the murder of a rival political candidate several years earlier that attracted intense investigation from the Prefect Mori. The victim was not involved with the mafia and Cosa Nostra “defensively” murdered him for attempting to unseat the mafia’s municipal power. Troia’s 1935 murder in Newark was similarly the result of him trying to challenge the local Cosa Nostra power structure, though in his case it came from within.
Though law enforcement speculated Vincenzo Troia’s murder was a dispute over the “Italian lottery”, Nicola Gentile revealed it was an internal political conflict between Troia and the local Newark rappresentante. Gentile also described how Vincenzo Troia had previously climbed to the highest ranks of the American mafia soon after arriving in the United States, being elected capo over a would-be Commission formed in the wake of the Castellammarese War, though he didn’t end up serving in this capacity.
Nobody called the position rappresentante dei rappresentanti, a mouthful, though its definition would match given the capo dei capi was a purely political position within early Cosa Nostra. Joe Bonanno was adamant in his memoir that capo dei capi was an invention, with the Sicilian mafia equivalent capo consigliere being the true terminology for this position. Bonanno’s capo consigliere makes sense when considering Nicola Gentile’s account of the capo dei capi presiding over the Gran Consiglio, a pre-Commission advisory and mediation board. The Gran Consiglio was involved in national meetings of rappresentanti, referred to as the Assemblea Generale, which met to discuss matters of importance that impacted the broader Cosa Nostra organization before the Commission was formed in 1931. Capo dei capi Giuseppe Morello described the Assemblea Generale and Gran Consiglio in an early 20th century letter written to a Chicago mafia leader.
Regardless of the preferred language, the capo dei capi or capo consigliere was not so much a criminal “super-boss”, but rather an administrator of Cosa Nostra whose duties involved constant political conferencing, leaving the activities of his Family to be managed by underlings. These men shifted seamlessly from diplomacy to violence as it suited them. Vincenzo Troia didn’t end up taking the position of capo over the new Commission, as Salvatore Maranzano protested and assumed the original position of capo dei capi through political manipulation, but San Giuseppe Jato still factors heavily into the shared history of the mafia in the United States and Sicily. A Sicilian pentito described both Troia and Maranzano as active participants in Sicilian municipal politics before their arrival to America, influencing Palermo politicians to work in their favor.
Though the Prefect Mori’s efforts temporarily halted San Giuseppe Jato’s synthesis of Cosa Nostra with local government, San Giuseppe Jato resumed its tradition as a “mafia municipality” after the fall of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist government. Immediately following World War II, Vincenzo Troia’s brother Giuseppe assumed the role of both mayor and Cosa Nostra boss in San Giuseppe Jato, a trend seen throughout the island during the 1940s. Giuseppe Troia was a practicing doctor, a profession not uncommon to Sicilian mafia members, particularly those involved in politics.
The phenomenon of mafia members holding office was not limited to rural inland villages, as Dr. Melchiorre Allegra, the same source who discussed Vincenzo Troia and Salvatore Maranzano’s involvement in politics, identified Palermo’s Lucio Tasca Bordonaro as a fully-initiated fratello (brother) in Cosa Nostra during the years before he took on the elected role of mayor. Bordonaro was the first post-Fascist mayor of Palermo, assuming this role around the time Dr. Giuseppe Troia became mayor of San Giuseppe Jato. In addition to being a practicing medical professional, Dr. Allegra was himself a member of Cosa Nostra who made significant efforts to involve himself in island politics.
Dr. Allegra’s account of Lucio Tasca Bordonaro illustrated how Bordonaro was able to serve as a helpful liaison between Cosa Nostra and government. Both men interacted closely with San Giuseppe Jato politician Antonino Pulejo, Vincenzo Troia’s cousin, who also served as the local mafia boss beginning in the mid-1910s. Pentiti have indicated Cosa Nostra leaders were selective in who they allowed to contact these highly-placed members who provided Cosa Nostra access to the political arena. As a result, few sources are able to shed light on them.
It was often mafia members from the professional and upper classes who assumed positions in government, a pattern that can be seen outside of Cosa Nostra. One of Dr. Giuseppe Troia’s predecessors as both San Giuseppe Jato mayor and Cosa Nostra rappresentante was his relative, the aforementioned Antonino Pulejo, an esteemed lawyer and socialite. Pulejo was a personal friend of Dr. Melchiorre Allegra and they operated in the same exclusive circles inside and outside of Cosa Nostra, though the two circles largely overlapped.
Dr. Allegra told authorities how Antonino Pulejo’s daughter was arranged to marry a friend of Allegra’s who was recently inducted into Cosa Nostra, this man being a lawyer like Antonino Pulejo. The trend of attorneys practicing the laws of the state and Cosa Nostra together can be seen in the United States, where Los Angeles boss Frank Desimone assumed power in the 1950s after a career as a practicing attorney. Desimone was the son of an earlier Los Angeles rappresentante and they were among the upper classes of Cosa Nostra. The Desimones previously lived in Pueblo, Colorado, where an early mafia Family existed.
Dr. Allegra and famed pentito Tommaso Buscetta both described how this outwardly respectable section of Cosa Nostra membership formed their own peer group, socializing with made members of their own type. Buscetta explained how the role expected of them within the mafia corresponded to this identity — they weren’t expected to function in the same capacity as other members, rather they were expected to carry out a more valuable function. They didn’t operate like thieves and bandits, what we now call “gangsters”, though they all coexisted together in Cosa Nostra.
This trend was not exclusive to early generations of Sicilian mafia members. The extensive cooperation of Sicilian pentiti has led to the identification of more recent figures who held positions in government while maintaining membership in Cosa Nostra Families, particularly those involved with the long-influential Christian Democrat Party. The Family in the Brancaccio neighorhood of Palermo is notorious for its “political engagement”, producing Gioacchino Pennino, yet another doctor who took the blood oath into Cosa Nostra alongside his Hippocratic Oath. He was an influential Christian Democrat politician and freemason who turned informant and revealed the deep corruption inherent in the party. The capomandamento (district boss) of Brancaccio was Giuseppe Guttadauro, a practicing surgeon who oversaw a major hospital and was active in political circles.
One historic Italian politician of particular note is Vittorio Orlando, who served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1917 to 1919 while simultaneously holding office as Minister of the Interior. He would go on to join the Italian Senate 25 years later and held other significant political posts during his lifetime, which began in 1860 and ended in 1952. Orlando was active in politics until his natural death, mirroring another position he held until his passing: Cosa Nostra member. Tommaso Buscetta identified Vittorio Orlando as a made member within Buscetta’s own Porto Nuovo Family in Palermo, though Orlando would reside in Partinico, not far from San Giuseppe Jato, where he associated with local mafia leaders.
Another alleged member with nearly the same stature was Bernardo Mattarella of Castellammare del Golfo who held numerous cabinet posts until his passing in 1971. Mattarella’s sons Piersanti and Sergio followed him into politics, Sergio Mattarella today being President of Italy. Piersanti Mattarella served as President of the Regional Republic of Sicily before his execution at the hands of Cosa Nostra in 1980. Their father Bernardo was intimately familiar with the mafia, being identified by pentito Francesco DiCarlo as an amico nostra.
Bernardo Mattarella’s compaesano Joe Bonanno, rappresentante of a New York Family, referenced his personal friendship with Bernardo Mattarella and stated the two men had grown up with one another in Castellammare del Golfo. Indeed, both Bonanno and Mattarella were born in 1905. In his memoir A Man of Honor, Joe Bonanno states that Bernardo Mattarella headed a red carpet welcome party for him in Rome when the New York boss arrived for a 1957 Italian visit alongside the son of publisher Generoso Pope, Fortunato. Bonanno believed Mattarella to be Minister of Foreign Trade at the time, though he was in fact Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, a relative triviality given an alleged Cosa Nostra member held a ministerial position.
There are indications these Sicilian mafia politicians served as emissaries to other Cosa Nostra groups internationally. In the 1960s multiple FBI informants reported on a traveling group of politically-connected Sicilians who arrived in Chicago where they were greeted by Wisconsin-based Bonanno member John DiBella. This group reportedly traveled around the United States visiting cities with local Cosa Nostra Families where they were hosted by Family leaders and dined with members.
A San Jose FBI informant reported a conversation with San Jose Family captain Angelo Marino who told the informant one of these Sicilian men was the “Mayor of Palermo”. The esteemed guest had recently stayed at the home of Marino’s father Salvatore, a former capodecina and ex-Pittsburgh member with relatives in the Milwaukee Family. Salvo Lima, who was murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1992, had been the Palermo mayor for four years at this point and would continue in the role for six more years, indicating it was Lima who visited San Jose. Salvo Lima would later become a member of European Parliament and was one of the most powerful Christian Democrat politicians prior to his murder.
Confirmation that the traveling “Mayor of Palermo” was Salvo Lima comes via contemporary newspaper accounts. Lima and a group of other Sicilian politicians headed a tourism campaign called “Ritorno”, intending to encourage transatlantic tourism among Italian and Sicilian expatriates living in America. Newspapers describe how Lima and his “Ritorno” entourage indeed visited the United States in Fall of 1962, the same period described by the San Jose informant. Lima not only attended meetings and galas with powerful legitimate figures in 1962, he had also visited the year previous, meeting Ted Kennedy and other US politicians in 1961. Mainstream coverage of these visits naturally makes no reference to Salvo Lima’s appointments with American Cosa Nostra leaders, a fact known only to mafia insiders.
Though Tommaso Buscetta knew the inner-workings of Palermo’s mafia like few others, Buscetta stated he did not know if Salvo Lima was a Cosa Nostra member. He did, however, identify Lima’s father Vincenzo as one, lending itself to the informant’s information given the nepotistic nature of mafia membership, the traditional mafia preferring to recruit through blood and kinship. The Bay Area informant’s revelation, when combined with Dr. Melchiorre Allegra’s deposition, tells us there were at least two Palermo mayors between the 1940s and 1960s who held membership in Cosa Nostra, Lucio Tasca Bordonaro and Salvo Lima.
San Jose capodecina Angelo Marino told the Bay Area informant the Mayor of Palermo, who we know to be Salvo Lima, was an “official” of Cosa Nostra who carried out international duties for the organization. The basic function of these contacts is made evident by the traveling Sicilian contingent’s tour of the United States where they met with Cosa Nostra leaders in various locations. Perhaps the social and political stature of members who held office lent itself to larger diplomatic activities on behalf of the Sicilian mafia: they were representing their own secret government in Sicily while publicly representing the Italian government. This distinction is important — the Sicilian mafia does not believe Italian government is legitimate when it comes to their own affairs. They are their own government and a mafia member in political office serves Cosa Nostra first and foremost. Salvo Lima learned this in 1992 when a motorcycle-riding mafia gunman executed him weeks before a national election.
There is no indication the San Jose informant was shocked by this revelation about a sitting mayor with Cosa Nostra membership in Sicily. Many Sicilian pentiti similarly shared information about mafia politicians with a certain nonchalantness that suggests they understood Cosa Nostra has a built-in capacity for members of this nature. The FBI informant received the information about Salvo Lima from a leader in the San Jose Family, an organization with strong Sicilian roots, and it can be inferred that these old-fashioned Sicilian-centric American organizations understood the versatility of Cosa Nostra membership. No matter where the mafia ended up in the United States, the system and its processes came from the organization’s Sicilian ancestry.
High-ranking journeyman mafioso Nicola Gentile wrote in his memoirs how the early American Cosa Nostra groups similarly had professionals who involved themselves in local politics, though he did not identify any members who held significant political office. He did identify doctors who held high-ranking positions in American Families and some of them rubbed shoulders with local politicians. This included leaders in the Pittsburgh and Cleveland Families to which Gentile belonged at different times. American Cosa Nostra was created in Sicily’s image, most if not all of its initial members having been inducted in Sicily, and the history of Cosa Nostra in both locations is deeply intertwined.
A lack of sources within the historic American mafia make it difficult to identify the full range of activity of its early figures, though there are examples of early bosses and other Cosa Nostra members who held positions in local politics, particularly in Chicago. It can be assumed political office was more difficult for American mafiosi to obtain given Sicilians in the United States existed in smaller, insular communities and didn’t have an entire island of paesani at their disposal. Not everyone in America was part of their subculture and mafia membership became equated with organized street crime rather than self-government. The mafia still tried to achieve synthesis with the professional and political world in later decades but the effect was greatly diminished as law enforcement and the public became aware of Cosa Nostra.
Dr. Gregory Genovese was a practicing dentist in addition to being the son-in-law of Joe Bonanno and a San Francisco Cosa Nostra member. Dr. Genovese was ramping up involvement in local Bay Area politics with the support of Family rappresentante Joe Cerrito before his father-in-law’s notoriety ruined his chances. Along with his marital relation to Bonanno, Dr. Genovese’s father was a member of the Pittston and Bonanno Families. Had Dr. Gregory Genovese been a generation older and made similar attempts during an ealier era, he might well have succeeded in achieving a form of synthesis between underworld and overworld politics like the other examples given here.
There are indications American Cosa Nostra saw the value of inducting politicians even in the modern era and at times succeeded. Bonanno capodecina Frank Lino became a cooperating witness in the early-mid 2000s and described how he served as a delegate from New York who met with the Bonanno Family’s decina based in Montreal, Canada. Lino unintentionally created an international controversy when he revealed Alfonso Gagliano was a made member of the Bonanno Family based in Montreal.
A former Minister of Labor and Amabassador to Denmark, Gagliano was accused of political corruption but had no outward signs of “gangsterism” save for documented social and professional relationships with mafiosi from Agrigento who were far more overt in their criminality. Alfonso Gagliano had previously been a public accountant and a number of these figures used his services. Cosa Nostra will use any resource available within its own network, be it professional, political, social, or criminal.
Alfonso Gagliano’s seemingly contradictory nature can be understood fairly easily when examining his background. Gagliano was from the village of Siculiana in Sicily’s Agrigento province, an area that produced many of the Bonanno Family’s Montreal members along with the aforementioned Nicola Gentile and a seemingly endless roll call of infamous names. Siculiana itself was noted for having a degree of synthesis between Cosa Nostra and municipal government, not unlike San Giuseppe Jato in previous decades.
I spoke with former Gambino associate Salvatore Mangiavillano whose relatives were involved in Cosa Nostra in Agrigento and he had personal knowledge of one Cosa Nostra member who served as the longtime mayor of Naro, a village to the west of Siculiana. Mangiavillano was a blood relative of the man, this mafia mayor being his grandfather. It appears Alfonso Gagliano’s dual membership in Canadian government and Cosa Nostra was a reflection of his Sicilian mafia roots. The insular villages of Agrigento, where there is evidence of mafia-like activity dating back nearly 200 years, is an ideal climate for this form of symbiosis between two different forms of government.
Though he was a resident of Canada, Alfonso Gagliano was until recently the only known North American Cosa Nostra member to have served at the highest levels of government. Since the Gagliano revelation, the names of multiple Chicago politicians have also been revealed to be fully-initiated members of the local Family in decades past. However, research has uncovered the name of another man with alleged mafia membership who was elected to high political office. Like Gagliano, this man is believed to have been formally affiliated with a Family based in the United States yet resided in a remote outpost far from the organization’s base of operations. Unlike Gagliano, this man was not Sicilian nor does he have any obvious ties to the subculture of Cosa Nostra. He was not Canadian, but a citizen of the United States.
Rumors of a Senator With Mafia Membership
In 1963, San Jose Family member Salvatore Costanza, one of several FBI informants in that Family, reported that fellow San Jose member Alex Camarata referred to a "Louie Boschetto" as a Cosa Nostra member who was a "senator of some kind". Costanza was told this senator owned the El Rancho motel in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and that he was being used as a point of contact to monitor and report on the activities of San Jose member Pete Misuraca, a visitor to Wyoming. Misuraca came from a deep line-up of mafiosi in Detroit and New York City, including his elder brother John Misuraca who served as Colombo Family underboss for a period. Alex Camarata, the original source of the information on US Senator “Louie Boschetto” as cited by Costanza, was the son-in-law of John Misuraca, making the activities of his wife’s uncle Pete Misuraca a matter of personal relevance. It turns out Boschetto was a real man involved in Wyoming politics, but his connection to Misuraca is less obvious.
The younger Misuraca brother in San Jose was something of a misfit among his relatives, having a reputation for ineptitude and making trouble. Like Sal Costanza, Pete Misuraca was himself an FBI informant for a period. There are no documented references to this Mountain State senator in Misuraca’s cooperation from what I’ve been able to access, though our view into these FBI interviews is limited, with redactions occasionally blocking out entire segments. There are numerous other reports from these informants we can’t currently obtain. Fortunately there is other information available about the man in question.
Records show the El Rancho Motor Lodge in Rock Springs was in fact owned by a former Wyoming State Senator named Louis Boschetto (1898-1977), as reported to the FBI by Sal Costanza. The El Rancho was described as the “biggest motel” in Rock Springs and Boschetto owned an additional motel called Rose Court. The Boschettos were Northern Italians who came from Austria and Louis lived in Wyoming for most of his life. Nothing in his background jumps out as an obvious Cosa Nostra connection except for this discussion among made members, where Boschetto was identified as a Cosa Nostra member and an apparent point of contact for members visiting Wyoming.
Louis Boschetto was ostensibly an upstanding citizen, being State Deputy for the Wyoming Knights of Columbus in the late 1940s to early 1950s and holding influential positions in other civic groups. In 1938, Boschetto and an in-law patented a type of customized fishing equipment, Wyoming being something of a paradise for outdoor recreation. Records confirm he was a member of the Wyoming State House of Representatives circa 1950 and a Democrat. Louis Boschetto was also a leading member of the Highway 30 Association and he was no longer involved with the Senate when San Jose informant Sal Costanza made reference to him, though he remained active with the Democrat Party in Wyoming.
A certain amount of skepticism is necessary when reviewing FBI reports that identify Cosa Nostra members. Sources can be mistaken, though made members themselves have strict definitions of membership — there is only one definition — and members are generally correct when identifying one another. In the hierarchy of sources, member informants and FBI recordings of members in conversation with each other are our best resource for reliable intelligence on Cosa Nostra membership next to cooperating witnesses and memoirs. In this case, Salvatore Costanza was told by another mafia member that Louis Boschetto was a made member like them. The other identifying information is correct.
Rock Springs
Louis Boschetto’s residence in Rock Springs, Wyoming, could tell us more about his involvement in Cosa Nostra via environmental factors. Rock Springs had a long history of local corruption and criminal activity, both as a "cowboy town" earlier on and as a regional hub for organized criminal activity and municipal corruption. There was early criminal activity documented among Northern Italians in Rock Springs, where the Boschettos moved in 1931 after having spent a number of years in another remote Wyoming town close to Utah.
Rock Springs attracted Italian immigrants through its mining opportunities. The mountainous far-north of Italy where Boschetto and other Rock Springs Italians came from provided experience in this trade and through chain migration they arrived to areas where they could utilize existing talents. Countless Italian colonies formed around mining settlements in rural parts of America, Rock Springs being one of many in the Mountain States. Louis Boschetto began as a miner and it appears most of Rock Springs’ Northern Italian element arrived there for the same reason.
There is no clear indication what, if any, relationship this early Northern Italian criminal element in Wyoming had to established Cosa Nostra groups in terms of association or affiliation, but there must have been a relationship to the national Cosa Nostra network if a reputable Austro-Italian politician who spent his entire life in Wyoming became a fully-initiated member who could be tasked by the San Jose Family to watch over a troubled member visiting Wyoming. These relationships don’t manifest out of thin air, but are the product of intricate relationships and time-honored mafia protocol.
If Louis Boschetto was Sicilian, especially from a mafia-dominated village as Alfonso Gagliano was, it would be fairly easy to place him in the mafia network. These networks were established along compaesani lines, with mafiosi from the same town or region maintaining contact via letter and frequently traveling to areas where their relatives and compari lived and operated. In the context of Cosa Nostra, these networks expanded beyond hometown affinity to include “friends of friends”, but the patterns are consistent and we can often predict association if not affiliation by following them. Boschetto’s Northern Italian heritage in what was historically Austrian territory makes him extremely difficult to place using background and location alone.
An unidentified FBI informant reported how the American mafia initially only allowed Sicilian-born members, then came to accept American-born Sicilians, followed by Calabrians, Neapolitans, and finally other Italians, in that order. Other informants reported how the organization expanded its recruitment guidelines, originally allowing only Sicilians and eventually granting membership to members of mainland heritage. This basic evolution of the American organization is undisputed.
A summary in the FBI file for Neapolitan-born Genovese Family capodecina Ruggiero “Richie the Boot” Boiardo notes the belief that US Cosa Nostra Families began inducting non-Sicilians around 1915. Nicola Gentile’s account supports this, describing a group of criminal Neapolitans and Calabrians inducted into the Pittsburgh Family in the late 1910s. This became increasingly common in urban Cosa Nostra Families through the process of Americanization and the development of the Italian-American identity, though it was not limited to “Americanization” or the United States alone.
Even Cosa Nostra in Sicily has recruited non-Sicilians into their organization in recent decades. Pentiti have reported the induction of members from the Southern Italian mainland, though these members were typically high-ranking members of mainland Italian groups like the Neapolitan Camorra. There are parallels between the Sicilian mafia and mainland groups, but these organizations are not viewed by Cosa Nostra as u stessa cosa (the same thing), so they cannot recognize each others’ membership. Various accounts suggest the mafia has inducted leading members of the Camorra in order to include them in formal Cosa Nostra politics that further the criminal interests of all involved. The known examples of this process are exceptional in the greater history of Cosa Nostra but illustrate a willingness to expand the Sicilian mafia beyond traditional ethnic boundaries even in its homeland.
Sicilian-born Cosa Nostra members have long had a presence in mainland Italy, too. There have been formally recognized Cosa Nostra Families in select mainland cities and this influence has stretched further north on occasion. These members were initially part of Families on the island of Sicily, though, and most of these mainland excursions are in the lower half of Italy where pan-Italian underworld politics are easily understood by all parties regardless of the specific organization(s) or ethnicities governing them.
Louis Boschetto’s home province in South Tyrol is in the extreme north, which makes him an outlier even among outliers in terms of Italian-American mafia membership. Using Sicilian precedent to understand Louis Boschetto’s American membership is less meaningful given his inclusion in Cosa Nostra inevitably came through local American relationships. Still, Sicily’s capacity for expanding its recruitment practices to include non-Sicilians shows a versatility reflected to an even greater degree in the United States.
Though it is evident Cosa Nostra did ultimately allow most if not all Italian-Americans to join so long as they had heritage from any part of Italy, the organization still recruited primarily from Southern Italian populations. Most of the smaller US Families outside of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and New England remained heavily Sicilian throughout their existence. Some groups, as noted by a 1958 FBI informant, explicitly limited membership to Southern Italians from Sicily, Calabria, and Naples.
If Northern Italian figures in Wyoming did become Cosa Nostra members, it would seemingly be later in the timeline. Given Louis Boschetto didn't move to Rock Springs until 1931, it's more likely he received his membership after that point given the organization by then had opened itself to a broader range of Italians. This is speculation, but it is informed by what is currently known about the Americanization of Cosa Nostra, evolving from a purely Sicilian phenomenon to a pan-Italian group that still nonetheless conforms to the group’s Sicilian roots.
With few if any exceptions, American Cosa Nostra demanded that members uphold the Sicilian mafia structure, rules, and protocol even as the membership grew to include other Italians. This is mirrored in Sicily, where the induction of mainland figures into Cosa Nostra required the inductees to honor the traditions of Cosa Nostra rather than create a new, hybridized organization. Membership evolves but changes to the organization are rare, gradual, and still dictated by its Sicilian core. Though the traditional mafia is known to recruit some Sicilian members who are not ostensibly criminal, common ground with other Italian ethnicities under the banner of Cosa Nostra is often found in criminal activity above all else.
Regardless of whether he participated in illegal activity himself, it's possible Louis Boschetto became connected to the mafia through the Northern Italian criminal element in Rock Springs. Rock Springs Italian crime figure Pietro Zanetti, from Piedmont, lived in Las Vegas in the 1930s where he allegedly associated with Bugsy Siegel before returning to Rock Springs. If true, Siegel could have facilitated contact between Zanetti and the countless Cosa Nostra figures Siegel associated with in the area, assuming Zanetti didn’t have existing contacts prior to Las Vegas. Las Vegas would also put Zanetti in proximity with California Cosa Nostra members and the many other members from various US groups who traveled there. Pietro Zanetti is one possible connection between the mafia and Rock Springs, and therefore Boschetto.
John Anselmi was another Rock Springs crime figure of northern extraction. Like Louis Boschetto, the Anselmis came from Austria-controlled Northern Italy and settled in rural Wyoming. One of John Anselmi's sons, Don, became a Democratic Party chairman in Rock Springs before resigning in the late 1970s due to an investigation into embezzlement that targeted the longtime Mayor of Rock Springs. The reputation of the Anselmi family was well-known in Western Wyoming and they did little to hide it, though another Anselmi, Rudolph, was a contemporary Wyoming State Senator alongside Boschetto in the early 1950s and served as Democratic State Chairman.
Don Anselmi was accused of having organized crime ties to Arizona and a 1974 LA Times article alleged he was involved in gun running between California and Wyoming along with real estate scams. Don Anselmi's grandson wrote a memoir and a corresponding write-up mentioned how "rumors of his family's mob connections followed him" around Rock Springs. Records show John Anselmi's family lived in Los Angeles for a time in the 1920s and early 1930s before returning to Rock Springs, another California connection for the shadowy Northern Italians in this small Wyoming town.
Like Louis Boschetto’s ownership of the El Rancho motel, noted by San Jose member Sal Costanza, the Anselmis owned a motel in Rock Springs. Under the supervision of John’s son Don Anselmi, the family established the suggestively named Outlaw Inn, which like Boschetto’s El Rancho was located off the highway. The Outlaw Inn was used as a main meeting place for the Wyoming Democratic Party Louis Boschetto and Don Anselmi belonged to.
Their Austro-Italian roots, residence in Rock Springs, ownership of highway motels, and involvement in Wyoming Democratic politics suggests the Anselmis were close to former US Senator Louis Boschetto. The previous involvement of fellow senator Rudolph Anselmi with Boschetto in contemporary politics shows this connection went back further, too. Further evidence of a relationship is Louis Boschetto's nephew, who served as a pallbearer at the funeral of Don Anselmi's father John. An Anselmi worked at Boschetto's El Rancho motel, so the families were clearly close.
Another corrupt political figure close to John Anselmi's son Don during his own time as a corrupt Democratic politician was Frank Mendocino, Wyoming Attorney General, described by a criminal investigator as a "crook". Don Anselmi's position in the same political party as Boschetto and Anselmi's involvement in local municipal corruption, which is alleged to have been pervasive throughout the history of Rock Springs, suggests Boschetto himself was no stranger to corrupt practices during his time as a high-level Wyoming politician. Louis Boschetto’s alleged membership in Cosa Nostra certainly does nothing to detract from this theory, though there is no concrete evidence of crime or corruption on his part.
If Louis Boschetto was a mafia member in Wyoming, it may have helped that Rock Springs was a small town. He achieved much higher political office than the local municipality, but Boschetto’s status was in Rock Springs. It’s where he lived, ran his business, and both he and the Anselmis were active in Democratic Party activities from their Western Wyoming base, hosting meetings with their political allies at their roadside motels.
Returning to Sicily, we do see urban Palermo mayors and even European Parliament members with Cosa Nostra membership, but it is small villages like San Giuseppe Jato where the mafia achieved complete synthesis with local government. The framework of local government lends itself to the mafia, which governs its own jurisdictions through localized Families, though Cosa Nostra too has its own federal system via the Commission and earlier national governing bodies. Regardless of its own national processes, the conservative and local-minded mafia is by nature more at odds with federal government and it is no coincidence Cosa Nostra’s main antagonists are the Italian Carabinieri and the American FBI. It is local police that Cosa Nostra corrupts and it is their local political environment they seek to control — anything beyond that generally amounts to flirtation.
The mafia can achieve influence in federal politics but rarely sustains it. They do maintain local influence with some ease and this is particularly true for districts, neighborhoods, and villages in Sicily. Louis Boschetto was an alleged member of a Cosa Nostra Family, likely one led by Sicilians at the time he was initiated, so it makes sense his role would be similar to what we’ve seen in Sicilian history. He was a Northern Italian who achieved much higher office than mayor, but it is his relationship to the village-like Rock Springs that seems to have driven his status in public politics and made him an attractive recruit for Cosa Nostra.
Membership, Legal Representation, & Election
Membership in Cosa Nostra does not happen randomly nor is it defined by circumstantial factors alone like criminal association or participation in the same activities. Members of the same mafia organization might have nothing else in common aside from their affiliation with the same Family. As with the doctors and politicians mentioned in the introduction who share membership with bandits, the mafia has its own peer groups where the more rough and criminal element engage in activities within their own circle and others, like professionals and businessmen, similarly stick to themselves.
There is of course a spectrum of gray with some members resting in the middle, but recruitment has a highly specific process regardless of who is being recruited. All members must agree to take a blood oath to commit murder if asked, as the government of Cosa Nostra is like other governments in that it believes it has a monopoly on violence. However, Cosa Nostra members are not so much “licensed to kill” as much as they are forced to commit murder in order to maintain the organization’s power and renew their own individual license as representatives of the group.
Along with engaging in acts of violence when asked, another universal rule in Cosa Nostra is not to contact or cooperate with law enforcement. This is not only because the mafia has an enduring criminal nature and collaboration with authorities is counterintuitive to these goals, but Cosa Nostra also refuses to recognize the legal authority of anyone outside of their own government. They believe in self-policing through violence, but the mafia wouldn’t exist today if that was their sole method of mediation. As much as the mafia has earned its reputation for bloody conflict resolution, there is a more prevalent tendency to carefully cooperate within the guidelines of its own system.
A made member has a license to practice law. An associate can’t formally represent himself, so a made member stands in as his advocate, using Cosa Nostra membership to argue for a given outcome on behalf of the men who retain him as their representative. Like a real lawyer, backroom deals happen and Cosa Nostra members occasionally corrupt the system. The system itself is prone to exploitation and corruption, though it is still a system of representation and advocacy.
The term “advocate” is not lost on Cosa Nostra members. Commission members were formally referred to by the title avvocato, pronounced “avugad”, and this literally translates to “advocate” but is used in Italy to mean lawyer. The Commission was the highest level of the mafia’s federal government, showing the mafia used a legal lexicon when referring to its top representatives.
In addition to negotiating policy, Commission members were true political representatives. There were few national bosses elected to this position and many of them were assigned a set of other Family bosses who didn’t sit on the Commission but received representation through this avvocato. These formal relationships were generally based on longstanding political and compaesani ties but also sometimes common locale. Commission members could represent other organizations anywhere in the country, New York bosses representing groups as far as California, but examples like Chicago show how an avvocato could provide this service to Families within their own general region.
Whether it is a made member representing an associate or a Commission member advocating for another rappresentante, these representatives argue their point in earnest, seeking a favorable outcome for the defendant as it often means a reward for the lawyer himself. With representation comes compensation, though like an attorney in the American legal system, Cosa Nostra’s own licensed practitioners work “pro bono” for the right cause or when politics require them to do so. This can be self-serving in its own right, though there are close relationships between members, associates, and “civilians” in the subculture and not all members are cruel sociopaths. Members are motivated by a just outcome under the right circumstances and there are rules requiring high-level members to carry out these duties as part of their position.
The term “sitdown” is widely known to the public as the mafia’s preferred method of conflict resolution. This term was a street translation of what earlier American members called an arguimendo, literally meaning “arguing” but used to mean “arguing body”. This was a more formalized way of describing underworld trials and it was reported that a decision made at these meetings could be appealed, escalating to the Commission if needed. There are numerous accounts of issues within Families being taken to the Commission in this way, even disputes involving rank-and-file members.
There are many ways to win an argument and that is true for an arguimendo or sitdown. Former Colombo associate Bill Cutolo Jr. believes his father Bill Sr. was particularly adept at sitdowns not through sheer force of will but because of his ability to convince all participants the outcome was fair. Cutolo’s son may have been biased, but Gambino capodecina Michael DiLeonardo echoed this account in courtroom testimony, saying the elder Bill Cutolo was near-impossible to outdo in mafia trials.
Like Cutolo Sr., Michael DiLeonardo was a skilled mafia lawyer who served as designated Family representative at countless high-level sitdowns while he was capodecina. Michael was offered the position of consigliere at a relatively young age, an opportunity earned by demonstrating an advanced understanding of mafia law and its corresponding politics. He has commented his favorite part of Cosa Nostra was attending sitdowns and from speaking with him there is a sharpness when it comes to these subjects — the politics of American government and Cosa Nostra both.
This practice of arguimendo is not exclusive to one type of issue. Criminal disputes are resolved this way, as are negotiations pertaining to legitimate business deals. Sometimes these sitdowns concern matters that are purely organizational or political. Nicola Gentile’s duties as a traveling representative commonly involved matters of life and death, as is to be expected of this organization.
Other times these trials are social in nature, a personal dispute within the subculture that can best be settled by its highest representatives. The bigger picture reveals Cosa Nostra as a system of representation and just as politicians in American government often come from legal backgrounds, Cosa Nostra leaders are typically skilled lawyers within their own system. As outlined earlier, some of them were once licensed attorneys in the true sense who bridged a gap between the two conflicting systems of Cosa Nostra and federal law.
Philadelphia capodecina John Cappello Jr. was recorded telling an FBI informant the consigliere is “like a lawyer”. Another source used the same description, commenting how the consigliere is “not necessarily” an actual attorney in the professional sense, indicating it’s possible for the man in this position to be a real attorney in some cases, too. I will raise them one and say the consigliere is like the Attorney General. Joe Bonanno’s insistence that the capo dei capi position was in fact called the capo consigliere plays into this, showing how the term scales up to the highest position in national mafia politics.
The consigliere is regarded as the ultimate authority should a problem escalate and he advises the boss while representing the membership at the highest level within the Family. Sources have indicated it is the consigliere rather than the Family rappresentante who often serves as the arbiter when an arguimendo passes through the bottom-up chain of command. Former Bonanno underboss Salvatore Vitale testified how the consigliere was also responsible for announcing candidates in the election of a boss, suggesting the position was utilized for ceremonial purposes in Family politics in addition to its functional role on the street.
Stefano Magaddino was recorded in January 1965 educating two Bonanno leaders on the election process for the open boss position in their Family. They hadn’t elected a new boss for 34 years and the men were clueless as to how the process is formally handled despite their senior positions. Magaddino explained how the Family must agree on a candidate and the Commission in turn ratifies the decision. He told them the Commission will appoint an acting boss in cases of Family instability, but it is still the Family itself who elects someone as rappresentante.
There are no documented cases where the underboss or captains are elected. All sources, including recorded statements from bosses Magaddino and John Gotti, agree these positions are appointed by the boss. This carries significant weight, as captains are used as proxies in Family elections given not all members can attend these secretive meetings and the “at will” nature of a capodecina’s rank puts him at the mercy of Family politics just as the position gives him immense influence over said politics. Captains have been known to influence Family elections as a result of their vital position but the boss directly controls who serves in this capacity, making the capodecina capable of being both manipulative and manipulated himself.
Stefano Magaddino was recorded saying the capodecina position was “all-important” in the Family, indicating they served as a political gateway between the members and top leadership. Greg Scarpa’s participation in formal elections supports this, as it was his capodecina who organized a meeting with the members of his crew to collect their votes and discuss candidates. The men expressed their opinions, some of them conflicting, but ultimately decided on a unanimous vote, with Scarpa’s account showing clear influence from the captain. Other accounts of Family elections describe how captains attend a subsequent meeting where they cast a single vote on behalf of the entire decina.
With regard to consigliere, many sources have described an election process where this role is selected by the membership rather than chosen by the boss, making this position unique within the hierarchy. Interestingly, Nicola Gentile referred to the consigliere being appointed by the rappresentante rather than elected and later cooperating witnesses describe being promoted by the boss, suggesting the election process has been lost to time in some Families or the process is inconsistent. Mafia leaders like Joe and Bill Bonanno along with their cousin Stefano Magaddino referred to the consigliere election process, the chosen candidate being voted in. Different sources have given different accounts as to how a given member becomes the consigliere, though the duties of the position are largely consistent.
Tommaso Buscetta in Sicily provided some clarification on this, stating that in smaller Sicilian Families the consigliere is appointed and in larger groups it is elected. This plays into the political nature of Cosa Nostra, where factionalism and conflicting politics are an inevitability in Families who maintain larger membership and more leadership positions. As Buscetta indicates, a larger organization would gain political stability from the consigliere being elected by the different factions rather than appointed by the head rappresentante alone. As with “real” elections, Cosa Nostra’s elections are prone to manipulation and outright fraud, though other times integrity is upheld.
The FBI recorded a 1977 discussion between high-ranking Philadelphia members where longtime member Harry Riccobene commented there was “never” more than one candidate in the Family’s historic consigliere elections, hinting at a predetermined outcome. The men on the tape, including underboss Phil Testa, expressed dissatisfaction at being left out of the process, complaining how the Philadelphia Family’s elder members under Angelo Bruno were deciding the outcome without consulting the “young” leaders (Testa was 53-years-old). In contrast, the account of a 1980s Bonanno Family election for the acting boss position described how the leading candidate barely won, with nearly half the captains voting for a rival leader during these tense proceedings.
John Gotti’s “election” as boss was arranged behind closed doors so that all parties would vote unanimously. Colombo member Greg Scarpa told the FBI the mafia has a rule against “campaigning” for these reasons, citing the upcoming election of Joe Colombo as rappresentante. Scarpa said Colombo was actively breaking this anti-campaigning rule by seeking private meetings with other Family leaders in order to gain support.
A contemporary FBI recording of New England boss Raymond Patriarca with Greg Scarpa’s friend Nick Bianco highlights the “no campaigning” rule, with Bianco commenting to Patriarca he was only recently informed of the rule. Bianco was a newly made member who soon thereafter transferred from New England to the New York Colombos thus never having experienced the election of a boss. Patriarca acknowledged the anti-campaigning rule and voting process, though he explained violation of the rule would be ignored unless a significant number of captains opposed the candidate.
Raymond Patriarca also stated the Commission would influence the selection of new bosses they felt were suitable. When the visiting Bonanno leaders suggested this prospect to Stefano Magaddino, he was vehement about this only taking place if there was significant discord in the Family, with the choice of rappresentante otherwise being completely up to the Family’s own members. In his memoir, Magaddino’s cousin Joe Bonanno describes a meeting of his Family’s entire membership where attendees all voted at once to elect one of two candidates, with Bonanno taking the majority vote.
Greg Scarpa told the FBI he was asked by a senior leader to cast a vote for the new rappresentante and Scarpa was also allowed to vote on behalf of his imprisoned brother and another incarcerated member, indicating the Family at least went through the formalities of a proper election. Greg Scarpa’s triple vote went to Joe Colombo, the man accused of illegally “campaigning” behind the scenes. During a previous Family election that would later be denounced by the Commission, Scarpa cast the same three votes though another member questioned Scarpa’s right to speak for the incarcerated members. In both Colombo elections the membership was included in the voting process whether election integrity was upheld or not.
Following the 1962 death of longtime rappresentante Joe Profaci, his brother-in-law and underboss Joe Magliocco quickly rallied support from loyalists and rushed an election without properly consulting the Commission. As Greg Scarpa noted, it was customary to wait a duration of time before holding a formal election after the death of a boss, an observation noted by Bill Bonanno as well in one of his memoirs. The Commission refused to recognize Magliocco’s position because his Family was in the middle of a conflict with the rebellious Gallo brothers and other sources state a Family must wait until these troubles are resolved before a new rappresentante is recognized by the Commission. There are other examples of the Commission similarly suspending formal elections due to internal Family conflicts, as they did with the Colombo Family.
Despite popular belief, the underboss is not guaranteed the boss position following the death of the latter, though if he has significant political power or controls an influential faction he might become boss or retain his underboss position, as Neil Dellacroce did in the Gambino Family. There are indications the underboss loses his position immediately when a boss dies or steps down, while the captains aren’t demoted until the new boss is elected, as their rank is still required during the election process. The new rappresentante is allowed to choose his underboss and “reappoint” previous captains or name new ones. These demotions are part formality and part reality, as some captains lose their position permanently while others don’t.
Stefano Magaddino and other sources have described the Joe Magliocco dilemma, where Magliocco was called to account at a national arguimendo presided over by the Commission. In addition to being accused of plotting the murders of two rival bosses, Magliocco was shamed for not following proper protocol in getting himself elected boss. Joe Magliocco was recorded discussing the events preceeding this arguimendo on an FBI tape in Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno’s office. Bruno explained these political processes to the hapless Joe Magliocco, who like Stefano Magaddino’s Bonanno visitors had not participated in a boss election for over 30 years.
Following the arguimendo in which he was criticized by the Commission and removed from defacto power, Joe Magliocco was forced to pay the travel expenses of visiting Commission members. Joe Magliocco was not killed for his indiscretions though the stress may have contributed to his natural death in 1963. It may not have been Magliocco’s underhanded attempt to gain power that bothered the the Commission so deeply, but the bullheaded way he approached Cosa Nostra’s rule of law. Joe Colombo followed the Commission’s processes even though he privately campaigned and manipulated the outcome behind the scenes.
It is noteworthy that despite occasional violations of protocol, none of the men who successfully became rappresentante openly proclaimed themselves boss without going through the motions of election protocol. They sometimes manipulate the process behind the scenes but maintain an aire of legitimacy within Cosa Nostra’s guidelines. Even when the outcome is predetermined and a boss is elected underhandedly it is done through careful navigation of Cosa Nostra politics, making sure the appearance of law is upheld.
FBI recordings of John Gotti show his own understanding of these techniques. Following a disagreement with longtime consigliere Joe N. Gallo, Gallo claimed that John Gotti could not demote him due to the elected nature of his position. Gotti explained on the tape how he would get around this by briefly demoting dissenting captains, appoint agreeable captains who would take Gallo down from the position, then return the original captains to their former rank. Joe N. Gallo was soon removed from his position thereafter, though it’s unknown if John Gotti achieved this result through the means he described.
Just as an ordinary citizen still essentially believes in many of the laws they break (speed limits being a prime example) and follows most of them them as a general rule, Cosa Nostra members operate similarly. It is not only the members who must believe in them, but the entire subculture. Friends, relatives, neighbors, and associates of Cosa Nostra members are expected to understand the basics of these principals and defer to the laws of Cosa Nostra and its licensed representatives. They understand that breaking these rules still requires careful navigation of them, as they are the laws of the society around them. Members have more status in this environment, but both Cosa Nostra and the communities it operates in require each other in order for their shadow government to exist.
At its core, the mafia in all periods of its documented existence in America and Sicily share this quality of representation. The nature of recruitment, promotion, and election offer differing accounts, but the way formal positions are used in the mafia center around this key function. Crimes, businesses, and even people themselves come and go, but Cosa Nostra remains a system of representation within its own defiant society and it mirrors the way we elect and utilize representatives even if it corrupts the process just as we do ourselves.
Cosa Nostra’s corruption is more immediate and direct, though objectively it cannot be called more violent when considering the wars, government-sanctioned executions, and other acts of aggression carried out by the state. Both the mafia and official governments claim a monopoly on violence, navigating their own legal parameters to justify actions that are by definition destructive.
This is not political commentary on my part, rather a simple truth that comes with governing bodies on any scale. It is up to the society to decide what constitutes a valid justification for violence and Cosa Nostra has drawn its line in the sand. It nonetheless remains a heated topic of debate inside and outside of Cosa Nostra as to what measures should or should not be taken in matters of human life. The American legal system holds these formal debates in a courtroom, while Cosa Nostra arranges for an arguimendo or sitdown.
This section may read like a diversion from the topic of Louis Boschetto, but it is essential to understand how and why someone from his background and position in society was seen as a candidate for membership in this exclusive subculture. Louis Boschetto was not an elected rappresentante in Cosa Nostra, but San Jose member informant Salvatore Costanza’s reference to Boschetto as a made member suggests he served as a Cosa Nostra representative in Wyoming just as he was a senator for the state in which he lived. A basic comprehension of how Cosa Nostra governs itself is essential to understanding its relationship to external politics and the middleground where these elements meet.
All Members Belong to a Family
Despite the impression given by television, no Cosa Nostra member is required to commit crimes other than murder. They are encouraged to participate in crime and corruption if that’s their calling, and one could argue that Cosa Nostra mirrors other governments through its inherent potential for corrupt practices, but in terms of the organization’s operation the members themselves are not required to commit crime and have no “criminal quota”.
No member has ever been punished for refusing to participate in a gambling operation, robbery, or kickback scheme. If they are already engaged in those activities, however, they are expected to do as the leadership asks. This is as true for other activities and resources under a member’s control as it is for overt crime. It’s a fine distinction but it exists.
Recruitment therefore happens for many different reasons. Sometimes members are inducted into the organization impulsively, but even then the process has remained consistent. It is a strict system dating back to Sicily in the 19th century, if not earlier. A proposed member is formally sponsored, inducted, and assigned to a specific Family and he must report to a fixed supervisor, either a capodecina or the Family administration itself. Just as the Bonanno Family’s Montreal decina reported to the Bonanno leadership in New York, individual members in a remote location can report to a capodecina or other leader in a different city or even state. Typically these assignments do follow geographic patterns even though it is not an absolute rule.
Proximity suggests the Cosa Nostra element in Rock Springs was part of the Colorado Family given it was the closest mafia group and Colorado members had ties to Wyoming via Prohibition-era bootlegging. Though Denver is the most well-known Colorado city and most mafia-related publicity focused on the Denver underworld, the historic leadership of the Family was based in Pueblo. The Pueblo-based leadership was primarily from Lucca Sicula, Burgio, and surrounding villages in Agrigento and nearby parts of Trapani province like Poggioreale and Salaparuta. This group was likely formed along compaesani lines, as virtually all Families were, expanding their membership to other Italians through Americanization.
Frank Desimone, the lawyer and Los Angeles boss, was born in Pueblo. His father Rosario was a Pueblo member before transferring to Los Angeles and soon becoming the Family rappresentante. Rosario Desimone was from Salaparuta in Trapani province, though he married a woman who came from Lucca Sicula like many of the Colorado members. Frank Desimone is the product of two compaesani groups known to have provided members in the early Colorado Family. The Desimones provide a connection between Cosa Nostra in California and the Mountain States just as they connected the Trapani and Agrigento groups in Pueblo through marriage and blood.
Pueblo was a significant location in the early US mafia network, as noted by the Agrigento-born Nicola Gentile. Gentile helped negotiate politics stemming from the 1922 murder of leader Pellegrino Scaglia and open warfare that followed. Relatives of Scaglia sought national intervention, with Nicola Gentile serving as their advocate in a trial that involved the highest levels of national mafia leadership. Nicola Gentile’s national position revolved largely around his Agrigento heritage that connected him to groups with members of a similar background.
One of the men represented by Nicola Gentile was Vincenzo Chiappetta from Poggioreale, part of Trapani province that borders Agrigento. Like the Desimone marriage to a woman from Lucca Sicula, Chiappetta from Trapani was a relative of Pellegrino Scaglia from Burgio, Agrigento. Vincenzo Chiappetta and other loyal Scaglia relatives ended up in Missouri, with Chiappetta becoming an influential senior figure with the Kansas City and St. Louis Families. An early St. Louis boss was from Burgio like Pellegrino Scaglia and other Missouri figures fit into a corresponding compaesani network, making the state a destination for the fleeing Colorado figures.
Aware of his history in the organization, the FBI later sought out an elderly Vincenzo Chiappetta for an interview. Perhaps seeing his mafia life behind him, Chiappetta was surprisingly candid while carefully denying his own membership and direct knowledge of Cosa Nostra. He admitted having read extensively about the 1957 Apalachin meeting and provided commentary that brings to mind his history with national mafia politics via Colorado.
Vincenzo Chiappetta suggested the Apalachin affair was organized to prevent warfare following the shooting of Frank Costello and murder of Albert Anastasia in New York. He felt the attendees who achieved status as legitimate “businessmen” with “positions of responsibility in their various communities” stepped in to mediate the conflict so as to protect their status. He emphasized the distinction between these different types of men.
Vincenzo Chiappetta told the FBI the Apalachin attendees were largely involved in “rackets” and therefore it required “gangster leaders” to mediate the conflict. He noted how a dispute involving “legitimate Italian businessmen” would similarly involve other “legitimate Italian businessmen” to settle the conflict. Note that he didn’t say these “legitimate” businessmen would use the American legal system to settle the matter. This draws back to the accounts of Sicilian pentiti like Dr. Melchiorre Allegra and Tommaso Buscetta who described the more socially acceptable and outwardly professional and political class of Sicilian mafiosi traveling in their own circles and operating within their own peer group.
This distinction between the hoodlum, bandit, and gangster element in contrast with the ostensibly legitimate element comes up repeatedly from former members of Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the United States. Gambino underboss Sammy Gravano makes a distinction in his book between what he terms “gangsters” like himself opposed to his boss Paul Castellano, who Gravano calls a “racketeer” for his business-oriented goals. Gravano described these differences as a source of tension between the different classes of members, leading to Sammy Gravano and John Gotti deciding to kill Castellano in 1985. These distinctions are an obvious catalyst for factionalism and political conflict.
The former underboss of Philadelphia, Phil Leonetti, explained to an interviewer how there was a clear separation in the Philadelphia Family between Sicilian “businessmen” like boss Angelo Bruno and Calabrian “shooters” like his uncle Nicky Scarfo. Leonetti elaborated, saying Scarfo held a philosophy that “shooters” like them had to prove themselves in the organization through ruthlessness to strike a balance with the Sicilians who achieved their status as “businessmen”. Leonetti’s perspective included an ethnic element, associating one class of member with the Sicilians and the other with Calabrians, the two major factions that populated his Family. He also said when Phil Testa became boss he promoted a fellow Sicilian to underboss despite his Calabrian friend Nicky Scarfo expecting the position and emphasized how this decision was motivated by ethnic preference.
The terms used by Sammy Gravano and Phil Leonetti reflect those used by Vincenzo Chiappetta to describe the different peer groups in Cosa Nostra. Gravano didn’t mention an ethnic component as Leonetti did, though none of Castellano’s killers came from a Sicilian mafia lineage like Paul Castellano. Castellano’s lineage was filled with high-ranking members of Palermitano heritage, his close relative Carlo Gambino having been the previous boss and Paul’s father Giuseppe serving as a historic capodecina. Sicilian pentito Giovanni Brusca from Vincenzo Troia’s hometown of San Giuseppe Jato said members in urban Palermo, where Castellano had his roots, mocked the men from inland villages, calling them “peasants”. John Gotti and Sammy Gravano saw themselves as hardworking peasants challenging the mafia’s own aristocracy.
Vincenzo Chiappetta reflected on changes within the organization in his FBI interview. He admitted having read about the mafia as a boy as one would read about outlaws in the “West”, perhaps unintentionally invoking his time in Colorado and its location on the American frontier. He said if the mafia existed, it would be declining given younger Italians and Sicilians no longer “subscribe to the regimentation” of Cosa Nostra as the older immigrant members once did. This is a sentiment echoed by countless older members who offered their perspective, among them Joe Bonanno.
Vincenzo Chiappetta described his business and social relationship with early San Francisco boss Francesco Lanza, the food industry bringing them together from afar. As Family rappresentante, Lanza projected a legitimate image and was a fixture in the Bay Area’s Sicilian community, his son James taking on his father’s same title of boss decades later while selling insurance. Chiappetta’s reference to the “businessmen” with influence in their “communities” draws comparisons to Louis Boschetto, who may have crossed paths with individuals familiar to Vincenzo Chiappetta in Colorado and the Mountain States. Chiappetta admitted knowing a local Kansas City politician quite well and being involved in various Italian/Sicilian civic groups and “benevolent organizations”. He told the FBI he came to the United States in 1905 at age 18, which places his formative years with Cosa Nostra in America.
Though he spoke in generalities and was no doubt projecting an image for the FBI, Vincenzo Chiappetta’s interpretation of the Apalachin meeting after Albert Anastasia’s murder sheds a crack of light on his earlier experience at a national arguimendo concerning the murder of Colorado boss Pellegrino Scaglia, his relative. Both events led to a national meeting and though the governing bodies had evolved in some ways by 1957, the overall process is not dissimilar. His perspective, though it was tailored for the FBI, does offer commentary on his experiences in Cosa Nostra and therefore the Mountain States where he may have encountered a dynamic range of mafia affiliates.
A former Pueblo member commenting on the decline of “regimentation” takes us to New York, where another former Colorado member unexpectedly appeared. Cooperating witness and Lucchese leader Al D’Arco recounted generations later how an ancient member of his decina in Brooklyn, Paolo D’Anna, participated in the same Colorado war before moving to New York and transferring membership. The murder of Pellegrino Scaglia and the surrounding conflict caused multiple members to transfer to other American Families through national intervention. D’Anna’s own story is particularly interesting based on the small glimpse given to us by D’Arco.
Paolo D’Anna was unknown to Al D’Arco though D’Arco had been a made member for five years and an associate for even longer, but as a formality he was officially introduced to D’Anna because of D’Arco’s recent promotion to capodecina. As the man’s new representative in Cosa Nostra, Al D’Arco was obligated to meet Paolo D’Anna even though he was over 100-years-old and homebound. Angelo Bruno was recorded similarly telling an underling how elderly members were still expected to contact their captain once a month to retain their standing in the organization, as they might have relatives who needed representation from the Family even if the member himself was too old to concern himself with the active affairs of the mafia. D’Arco didn’t say if this monthly check-in was a rule in his Family, though at 103 we can be certain Paolo D’Anna didn’t have many months left to worry about these formalities.
As evidenced by the official introduction, formality still had some relevance when it came to D’Anna meeting his new captain. When Al D’Arco met the elderly Paolo D’Anna, D’Anna indicated he was inducted into Cosa Nostra back in Sicily, proudly showing Al D’Arco a photo of the man he reported to in his native Agrigento hometown. Paolo D’Anna’s story was typical of members from his generation and informs us about the relationships that formed the Colorado Family. Pueblo was not only linked to Sicily and other American cities but spread out relatively wide within its own Colorado jurisdiction considering its small size.
Though it was far from Wyoming, the Pueblo group had influence throughout the state of Colorado and this included the southern part of Wyoming, perhaps including the crime-friendly railroad town of Rock Springs. Rock Springs crime figure John Anselmi's son John Jr. went to a private school in Canon City, Colorado, just outside of Pueblo, where Family members Joe and Gus Salardino lived. Joe Salardino was identified by FBI informant Frank Bompensiero as the former underboss of the Pueblo Family and like the Anselmis, the Salardinos had close ties to Los Angeles as reported by Bompensiero. Hardly evidence of involvement with the Colorado mafia, but it demonstrates the criminal-minded Anselmis were no strangers to the immediate area around Pueblo, where the mafia leadership resided.
Influential Colorado Cosa Nostra member and future leader Rosario Dionisio was married in Wyoming in 1916. Additionally, the Smaldone brothers of Denver reportedly had connections across the border in Cheyenne, including bootlegging operations during their formative years. The Smaldones were Italian mainlanders with heritage in Basilicata’s Potenza province and their predecessor in Denver was a Calabrian, Giuseppe Roma, who was murdered in 1931. Though a direct tie-in can’t be confirmed, Rock Springs would have been an attractive Wyoming location for the illegal pursuits of these mafia figures and the northern part of Colorado brought mainlanders into the organization.
A missed connection comes from the Denver-based Clyde Smaldone. As one of the most publicized and active underworld figures in Colorado history, Smaldone is unsurprisingly carried as a member of the Pueblo-based Colorado Family. Along with his brother and other relatives, Clyde Smaldone was known publicly as a dominant Italian crime leader in Denver.
Many would assume Clyde Smaldone was a “boss”, and perhaps the Smaldones eventually claimed official titles, but Colorado is one among endless examples of appearances not fitting the reality inside the organization. Insider knowledge shows that Smaldone was formally a subordinate of Sicilian men who lived in the far south of the state. This takes nothing away from his presence in Denver, it is a simple fact within the organization.
Prior to Clyde Smaldone’s death he allowed his son to tape record him in interview sessions where he spoke openly about his former life; openly about his basic criminal past, but not Cosa Nostra. Smaldone’s son supplied the tapes to an author and an enjoyable book was written but there is little substance in terms of organizational information. If Clyde Smaldone was a made member, he didn’t break his oath or share the identities of made members in Colorado or Wyoming.
Smaldone did tell his son that early on in his “career” he traveled the country frequently, meeting many different men. This was left vague but didn’t seem to be framed around criminal activity. If he was inducted into Cosa Nostra we can be certain he traveled to the many documented meet-and-greets the early mafia held to make formal introductions and strengthen politics. His travels also could have taken him to Wyoming, where the Smaldones are known to have had criminal ties in Cheyenne.
Rock Springs is a significant distance from Cheyenne, but the Colorado Family was not afraid of distance. Boss Jim Colletti lived in Pueblo and ran his Colorado Cheese Business in Trinidad, 84 miles and over an hour south on modern highways. The co-owner of Colorado Cheese was Joe Bonanno, who shifted regularly between his homes in Arizona and New York. Colorado Cheese was initially a partnership between members of the Colorado and Bonanno Families and included the Trinidad-based Rosario Dionisio and other Bonanno members close to Joe Bonanno.
The Pueblo and Trinidad branches were the core of the organization and there was fluidity between them, making distance a fact of life even for the tightknit mafiosi from Agrigento in the southern part of the state. They were known to visit their Denver faction as well and some of them moved there. This is not unique to the Colorado Family nor are they a particularly strong example, as other Families had members, formal crews, and administration members in different states or across national borders. Colorado is simply one example among many.
The Colorado Family maintained a small formal organization with a wide geographic base, though by the time the FBI ramped up their investigation into Cosa Nostra during the 1950s and 1960s, the Colorado group appears to have been much like other small US Families in that its membership and activities were dwindling. Like the bosses of other Western Families who were caught in the fallout from the Apalachin meeting in 1957, Jim Colletti pulled back heavily from his activities and FBI informants from later years had little to report on with regards to Colorado’s national presence in Cosa Nostra politics.
There is no evidence the FBI ever developed a significant informant within the Colorado Family, making it virtually impossible to definitively identify most of its members regardless of era. Working knowledge of the Colorado Family is primarily limited to guesswork, relying on speculation and the public stature of a given underworld figure. As we’ve learned with more deeply-penetrated Cosa Nostra organizations, these external factors alone can’t be used to determine formal membership or rank within a given Family. We do have the identities of some members, though.
Using what is currently available on the Colorado Family and patterns in other Cosa Nostra groups, it is likely the compaesani-based Pueblo leadership formed their Sicilian-centric organization and gradually expanded to include other Southern Italians, like the Calabrian Giuseppe Roma of Denver, who then provided a bridge to other Italians like the Smaldone brothers. From their Denver branch, which included non-Sicilians, the Pueblo leadership may have seen the value in expanding their geographic and ethnic boundaries to include Northern Italians in Wyoming like Louis Boschetto.
The references to Colorado mafia figures with criminal operations in Wyoming could have provided common ground that was further cemented by the induction of members in the state. The Colorado Family is believed to have been established relatively early in American Cosa Nostra history and Nicola Gentile traveled there during his early years roaming the mafia network. The Colorado Family had time as well as geography on their side when it came to establishing regional contacts.
Given the geography already covered by the Colorado Family from their base in Pueblo and further south in Trinidad, expanding from their Denver outpost to Wyoming would have been a minor extension of their radius. The Sicilian members in Colorado were well-traveled, with boss Jim Colletti coming from a New Jersey faction of the Bonanno Family that had a wide range of relationships. These men were part of an Agrigento network that was flexible and expansive, as Gentile’s account shows. Wyoming didn’t connect to Agrigento, but the same principal may have applied.
Back to Boschetto
It's not difficult to believe the nationally-connected Colorado Family had an outpost in Wyoming that was not sustainable long-term but by the 1960s still maintained Louis Boschetto as a relic. How an otherwise legitimate politician like Boschetto became a member is another question, but his close relationship to John Anselmi, an alleged “outlaw”, could suggest the Colorado Family first established ties to Rock Springs via criminals like Anselmi and through those connections brought in less obvious figures like Louis Boschetto. The Pueblo leadership likely made no distinction between a “gangster” like John Anselmi and a socially-acceptable politician like Louis Boschetto given the leadership’s roots in Sicily, where politicians were inducted into Cosa Nostra alongside bandits.
Just as Sicilian pentiti have said Cosa Nostra members who held political office were insulated from the rank-and-file membership and their status in the organization was kept relatively secret, Salvatore Costanza’s information about Louis Boschetto could lend itself to a similar practice in America. Alex Camarata, who was related to Pete Misuraca through marriage, expressed disapproval upon learning Misuraca spoke openly about Wyoming.
If Louis Boschetto’s Cosa Nostra membership was meant to be a secret, Camarata did not communicate that. He told Salvatore Costanza the name of Louis Boschetto, his status as a US Senator, the name of his business, and most importantly his membership in their secret society. Costanza was a close friend of Alex Camarata, though, and he may have trusted himself to communicate that information but not Pete Misuraca.
Pete Misuraca was a source of trouble within the organization and regarded as mentally unstable. The year prior to the conversation with Alex Camarata about Louis Boschetto and Wyoming, Pete Misuraca was put through an arguimendo presided over by the Family’s council. Misuraca was accused of making threatening remarks about another San Jose member and his overall conduct was put to task. His brother John, the underboss of the New York Colombo Family, had to travel to San Jose in order to resolve the matter.
Alex Camarata may have felt comfortable discussing Wyoming and Louis Boschetto with his friend Costanza, but didn’t have faith in Pete Misuraca to do the same. Whether Alex Camarata’s dissatisfaction with Misuraca involved an unspecified purpose for the trip Misuraca wasn’t supposed to mention, his contact with Louis Boschetto, or simple disapproval of Misuraca’s general conduct isn’t clarified. What is evident in the report is Pete Misuraca’s presence in the state involved contact with Louis Boschetto and Boschetto was in a position to keep San Jose updated on their visiting member. Alex Camarata did not feel Pete Misuraca should be talking about Wyoming and therefore Louis Boschetto even to another member like Salvatore Costanza.
The term “friend of ours”, as Boschetto was described in the report, is used within Cosa Nostra to refer exclusively to made members and is often phrased in Italian as amico nostra. Members use it deliberately and its use does not waver, nor is it open for interpretation when applied to someone in these circles. It remains the only available identification we have of Louis Boschetto as a Cosa Nostra member.
In subsequent interviews Salvatore Costanza told the FBI he was not in a position to inquire further about Louis Boschetto’s status in Cosa Nostra. Citing concern that further inquiry would compromise Costanza’s position as a secret informant, Salvatore Costanza was able to deflect the FBI’s obvious interest in the Wyoming State Senator though he said he would take the opportunity should it come up naturally. Costanza and Alex Camarata did speak openly and gossip about other Cosa Nostra members and their history, suggesting Salvatore Costanza felt Alex Camarata was more guarded about a politician with membership given his reluctance to make further inquiries on his own.
The FBI report where Boschetto is mentioned as a Cosa Nostra member was forwarded to the Denver FBI office and contact was made between them and the San Francisco and NYC FBI offices in an attempt to gain more information related to Boschetto. The report stated the Denver office would consider trying to interview Boschetto. Immediately after the reference to Boschetto, the report mentions Colorado mafia figures the Smaldone brothers and Vincenzo “Jim” Colletti, the latter being Family rappresentante.
Though it is not clear what the context was in referencing the other Colorado mafia figures, the report's focus on Boschetto and Colorado Cosa Nostra suggests Boschetto was suspected of affiliation with the Colorado Family. An additional FBI report mentioned the Denver FBI office was responsible for investigating Cosa Nostra ties to Wyoming, so the Denver office may have been contacted simply because of their proximity and we can't assume Boschetto was part of the Colorado Family, though it seems most likely.
It's also possible Louis Boschetto was affiliated with a California Cosa Nostra group given the only apparent references to him came from California members. However, this seems unlikely given all three California Families were thoroughly compromised by FBI informants who identified most of the membership and neither Boschetto nor any other senator is mentioned as a member or suspected member within their own ranks. Neither is Wyoming mentioned as an outpost, past or present, of any California mafia group. The only reference to a California figure in Wyoming is San Jose member Peter Misuraca traveling to Jackson Hole.
Salvatore Costanza was the Bay Area informant who reported the visiting Mayor of Palermo as a Cosa Nostra member in 1962, this being Salvo Lima. His identification of two politicians, one in Sicily and the other in Wyoming, suggests again these arrangements between Cosa Nostra and public officials were not revolutionary in certain mafia environments. Though the Bay Area was relatively insignificant in terms of organized crime, the local members were no strangers to the wider application of Cosa Nostra beyond localized racketeering. The San Francisco Family’s dentist Dr. Gregory Genovese and his failed municipal goals are evidence of that.
Most of the West Coast Families were little more than a networking hub for the umbrella organization they all belonged to and the leaders operated as legitimate businessmen. At the time Louis Boschetto was identified as a Cosa Nostra member, the bosses of the California Families were a Los Angeles lawyer, a San Francisco insurance salesman, and a San Jose car dealer. Each of these men was from an upper class Sicilian mafia lineage and their respective fathers were all made members, with two of these fathers having held the same position as rappresentante earlier in American mafia history.
There is little to no evidence the professions held by these bosses were hollow “front” businesses for organized crime, rather they were how the top West Coast representatives of the Cosa Nostra network earned their primary living. FBI reports document how members, associates, friends, and relatives bought cars from the San Jose boss and purchased insurance from the San Francisco boss. Underworld figures used to hire the Los Angeles boss for legal representation.
When Dr. Gregory Genovese graduated from dental school, he sought out boss James Lanza to insure his dental practice. San Francisco members even went to Dr. Gregory Genovese for dental work. An elderly member having teeth issues reported the matter to his rappresentante Lanza, who arranged for dental work with fellow San Francisco member Dr. Genovese. Afterward, the senior member reported to Lanza how his teeth still hurt after having work done by Dr. Genovese and planned to return.
Toothaches, like criminal disputes, were relevant to the Family rappresentante when it involved two members. The member needed dental assistance, so it was arranged through Family channels. If the elder member felt his dentist hadn’t done a proper job, he could seek representation because his dentist was a fellow Cosa Nostra member and the men were subject to a certain process should the boss choose to assist, as he did when recommending a fellow Cosa Nostra member. This may have been handled casually, but the boss was nonetheless involved.
If the member experienced grief from Dr. Genovese’s dental practices or another member made a similar complaint, the rappresentante may feel the need to act. He would have no right to revoke the dentist’s license to work on teeth, but he could make a decision about Gregory Genovese’s license in the organization. The elderly member was including his boss in the process either way.
These arrangements are of course practical and convenient. These men are part of a highly secretive subculture that seeks to network within its own element. Rather than thumbing through a phone book, making calls, and scheduling appointments with dentists outside of their network, they seek to follow their existing connections to have services rendered. As a Cosa Nostra member with a dental practice, Dr. Gregory Genovese carried with him a built-in recommendation that communicated trust.
The same member seeking dental treatment, Vito Bruno, told the FBI when he came to San Francisco he sought out James Lanza’s father Francesco, then the rappresentante, who provided him with a mailing address and other basic resources to help Bruno establish himself in the area. Nicola Gentile recounted moving to new American cities where the local mafia boss provided him with similar amenities. Dental work and mailing addresses are important to people who need dental work and a mailing address, so the basic purpose can’t be trivialized.
The San Francisco Family was small and criminally unimpressive, but they carried out the formal processes expected of a mafia organization. A criminal dispute would follow the same protocol as a dental problem. This was an organization with international recognition in the Cosa Nostra network and their representation of San Francisco included time-honored protocol. Gregory Genovese’s father-in-law Joe Bonanno said in his memoir that Cosa Nostra is a “process”. The more I observe, the more I’m inclined to agree with this general interpretation.
The California Families were primarily carrying out the processes of the organization and little more. Many California members, particularly those who cooperated, were nationally connected and quite knowledgeable of random members and connections among smaller regional groups, making it unsurprising they would be a source of information on an obscure Wyoming politician whose jurisdiction occasionally overlapped with their own. Along with Louis Boschetto’s relationship to San Jose, Rock Springs crime figures Pietro Zanetti and John Anselmi having their own ties to Arizona, California, and Nevada hints at the potential for ongoing relationships between this strange Wyoming mafia outpost and West Coast Families.
Regional Protocol and Rules
It is easy to dismiss FBI informant Salvatore Costanza’s reference to Louis Boschetto keeping an eye on Peter Misuraca as a casual arrangement, but an understanding of traditional Cosa Nostra rules demonstrates a strict regional protocol members and organizations were expected to follow. Boschetto’s alleged Cosa Nostra membership indicates the San Jose Family was obligated to contact him and he in turn was obligated to touch base with them about Misuraca’s stay in Wyoming. Other examples would indicate this was first arranged by the San Jose leadership and Louis Boschetto’s superiors.
Mafia protocol places heavy emphasis on making and maintaining regional contacts within the formal Cosa Nostra network. For one, it is how the mafia network grows and survives (the absence of this is one reason for the mafia's decline), but it was an actual mafia rule that the local group be contacted when a member from another group is visiting. This doesn’t only pertain to members wishing to engage in business or crime, but even social visits are subject to this same jurisdictional system. When Vincenzo Chiappetta told the FBI about the lack of “regimentation” among younger members, he was likely referring as much to these regional processes as he was the internal administration within the Family. There is evidence of a decline in these processes during the period Chiappetta spoke with the FBI.
The FBI recorded Milwaukee rappresentante Frank Balistrieri discussing this with his Family’s ruling council in 1964. A Bonanno Family member with ties to Milwaukee visited the area without Balistrieri being consulted, which was a violation of protocol and an insult to Balistrieri. Balistrieri was not simply insulted, he was filled with violent outrage and planned to kill the visiting Bonanno member but senior members of his Family attempted to talk him down, as evidenced on the tape. One member in particular, Balistrieri’s father-in-law John Alioto, felt particularly comfortable challenging his boss’s reaction. Alioto was himself the former boss of the Family and served by this time as a capodecina over elderly members.
Though his emotions and broken sentences color the transcript, one particular sentence stood out to me. Balistrieri said, “…if he spoke to him and he doesn’t come here to meet [me] to have me talk to him to give me satisfaction then I’m not being treated right.” It is difficult to dissect a sentence like this just reading it, but it’s worth putting into context. He is saying, “…if (visiting member) spoke to (his representative) and (his representative) doesn’t come here to meet [me] to have me talk to (visiting member),” then Balistrieri’s jurisdictional authority is being abused. He is saying the member must go to his superior who then must go to Balistrieri so that Balistrieri can meet with the member. All of those in attendance knew what he meant.
The Bonanno member did attempt to contact Balistrieri, but as other sources have explained, these arrangements are supposed to be made first at the higher levels of the two organizations and require advanced notice. As with formal transfers being arranged via written letter, Nicola Gentile indicates regional protocol could be similarly honored through a letter that was presented to the local rappresentante upon arrival and the visiting member was thus treated as a guest of honor. There are later indications this could be handled through a simple phone call. What was important is that contact was made.
The political implications of this protocol violation were evident in Frank Balistrieri’s anger, with the Milwaukee rappresentante reading more deeply into the Bonanno member’s visit — he saw it as a sign the man’s boss Joe Bonanno was himself disrespecting Balistrieri. This plays into the philosophy in Cosa Nostra that rank-and-file members themselves serve as representatives of their boss regardless of position in the hierarchy. A member who doesn’t follow this process creates potential tension between national leaders and lends itself to paranoia that the other rappresentante is seeking to conspire with the local boss’s members at his own expense.
The “as above, so below” and microcosm/macrocosm principal applies to the mafia as much as it does to other systems. The leaders represent the members, but the members in turn represent the leaders and they all represent Cosa Nostra. It’s almost spiritual, and to them it often is. Even members who break the oath and testify have said their induction into Cosa Nostra was the most important day in their life along with marriage and the birth of a child. For members from mafia lineages, like Frank Balistrieri, it takes on an ancestral component.
In the 1970s, again in Milwaukee, we see the great measures taken to make sure proper protocol was followed when Bonanno Family member Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero and undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone attempted to get involved in Milwaukee rackets under the jurisdiction of Frank Balistrieri. This arrangement involved elderly Newark Bonanno member Antonio Riela making introductions between the Bonanno Family and Milwaukee leadership through the Rockford Family, requiring several stages of meetings and travel, just so the local Milwaukee leaders could be formally introduced to a Bonanno member who wanted to place an associate in a gambling operation.
Antonio Riela was from San Giuseppe Jato, the mafia’s political stronghold illustrated earlier, and his FBI file states he was a relative of Vincenzo Troia. If true, this makes him a relative of the men referenced earlier who held the dual positions of mayor and rappresentante in his hometown. It’s worth observing that despite the efforts of senior citizen Riela to ensure formal protocol was followed, he does not appear to have benefited financially or otherwise from the arrangement beyond perhaps having his travel expenses recompensated as Joe Magliocco had to do for the Commission members that attended his arguimendo.
A former resident of Rockford who participated in murders there, Antonio Riela nonetheless recognized the necessity of Cosa Nostra’s regional processes and took it seriously though he was not a stakeholder in the desired arrangement. It was undeniably serious, as Joe Pistone described in his book how Balistrieri hinted at a violent outcome should his jurisdictional authority not be recognized, much as he had with the errant Bonanno member who made a social visit to Milwaukee the previous decade.
Riela experienced a variation of this firsthand after he and Vincenzo Troia moved to New Jersey from Illinois. Troia and his loyalists were killed for challenging the local mafia authority. The men who died with Vincenzo Troia were from his hometown of San Giuseppe Jato, including his son, and another man murdered with them was an alleged relative, like Antonio Riela. Riela’s FBI report says he worked with the men who authorized Vincenzo Troia’s murder and took account of Troia’s financial interests for them, maintaining his own standing. Troia’s murder was primarily for political reasons, though like real politicians this did not stop them from taking the opportunity to collect his resources.
There are other examples of this rigid regional protocol throughout North America and Sicily, including contact between the two continents. Cosa Nostra has a time-honored rule demanding formal contact be made with a regional point of contact if a Cosa Nostra member travels to that area. In Milwaukee we can see this was expected not only when a New York associate wanted to engage in criminal activity in Frank Balstrieri’s area, but also for a visiting member simply having dinner with Milwaukee members, as the 1960s visitor was accused of doing. It didn’t matter to Balistrieri that this man, Pietro Sciortino, was a close Bagheresi compaesano of Balistrieri and most of the Milwaukee membership — rules are rules.
A rule all mafia members learn is to inform their superior when they are leaving town or going on vacation. In addition to the Family leadership wanting to keep track of the member's whereabouts, another reason given for this rule is so contact can be made with local Cosa Nostra groups beforehand. A practical motivation for formally reporting travel plans is so members can give messages to the traveling member to pass on to the other group. This is a form of currency in the mafia network and it is one of the reasons Cosa Nostra has been able to sustain itself to present day.
As discussed on an FBI bug in Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno’s office, this protocol extended to members traveling to Sicily and presumably anywhere there was a mafia presence. An elderly member of Bruno’s Family attempted to make contact with a leader in his native Sicily and Angelo Bruno had to step in and explain how the member had to contact Bruno, who had to contact the Commission, with the American Commission then contacting the Sicilian Commission, who would contact the boss the Philadelphia member was looking to reach. The senior citizen member was a former Philadelphia leader himself, so perhaps he felt comfortable jump-cutting the process or his old age made these complicated arrangements easy to forget.
When Sicilian Cosa Nostra representatives visited Montreal Bonanno leader Paolo Violi in the early 1970s, Canadian authorities recorded the Sicilians following identical protocol. This was of particular significance because Violi was born in Calabria, yet the Sicilian mafia recognized his regional authority in Canada despite ethnic rivalry and well-known misgivings between the two Southern Italian identities.
The Sicilians understood Paolo Violi’s position, acting capodecina in the Bonanno Family, and conducted themselves accordingly, at least when it came to formal discussion. To insult Violi was to insult his rappresentante and therefore the entire system of Cosa Nostra. The RCMP’s recording of one exchange shows the warm language used to greet and update Violi on a Sicilian member’s promotion to capoprovincia of Agrigento, referred to by the Sicilian as the rappresentante di provincia (provincial representative), and other political changes in the Sicilian mafia.
This particular exchange was of relevance to Paolo Violi because members of the Montreal Bonanno decina were from the same part of Agrigento and mafia politics in their native Sicily impacted them even in Canada, a modern example of the relationships that played out in virtually every Family during the early years of the American mafia. The Sicilian representative did not simply go to the members themselves, but formally approached their acting capodecina as protocol demands. The Sicilian emissary may have casually approached his paesani first with the news, but as we see with elections, strict protocol still had to be followed even if it was little more than a formality.
For members tapped into the Sicilian mafia network, news of hometown or provincial politics was relevant to their lives much as a “civilian” expatriate keeps tabs on his home country’s politics from afar. In this case it is far more intimate and can have an impact on a given member’s status in Cosa Nostra or even his well-being while living overseas. Many American mafia murders have been linked to events in Sicily, both earlier in history and during the extreme violence of the 1980s Sicilian mafia war, with Sicilian members of the Gambino Family ordered to kill their own relatives in the United States under the direction of Paul Castellano in New York and Salvatore “Toto” Riina in Corleone.
History repeats and though Paolo Violi was murdered by the rival Bonanno Agrigento faction in Canada during the 1970s, Violi’s relatives in the Buffalo Family’s Ontario faction took in his sons. One of his sons, Domenico, was arrested in recent years when an undercover informant was inducted into the Bonanno Family in Violi’s Canadian jurisdiction. The Bonanno informant recorded Violi discussing how Buffalo boss Joe Todaro Jr. promoted him to underboss of the dwindling Buffalo-based organization though he lived across the national border. Todaro consulted with the New York Families to make sure this promotion of a Canadian member was up to code, who in turn told him he could promote any member of his Family to the administration regardless of location — even if the member lived in Canada like Domenico Violi.
A group of Bonanno representatives from New York included Domenico Violi in the induction of the undercover informant and the investigation indicated the same jurisdictional principal was at play as heard on the 1970s RCMP tapes of his father in Montreal. The two men represented different Canadian regions and Families but the protocol was near-identical. The Bonanno Family’s interaction with underboss Violi in Ontario mirrored the treatment his father in Montreal received as the Montreal representative of the Bonanno Family over 40 years earlier because the two men were the highest-ranking members in their respective jurisdiction. These affairs are often misunderstood by outsiders but we can see the same guidelines are in play regardless of time and place.
It’s been established that Pete Misuraca was a troublemaker. He was put on trial by the San Jose consiglio prior to his alleged Wyoming visit and the Colombo Family underboss was brought in to intervene. His unruly, disturbing behavior made his travels a concern of the San Jose leadership for their own internal reasons as much as it concerned the Family representing this Wyoming outpost. Though San Jose was expected to contact this organization as a matter of protocol for any visiting member, it was of greater relevance because it was the unpredictable Pete Misuraca visiting their jurisdiction.
Louis Boschetto was not a Family rappresentante, meaning boss, but he was the only alleged member who has ever been identified in Wyoming and he was likely utilized in this representative capacity. It’s likely Boschetto’s boss, be it in Colorado or elsewhere, was contacted by the San Jose leadership and the chain of command informed Boschetto, designating him as the point of contact with San Jose on this matter. Even if Louis Boschetto held no formal rank above standard membership, if he was the only member in the region he would have been the regional representative for the Family he belonged to.
That Misuraca visited Jackson Hole and not Rock Springs and Louis Boschetto was expected to monitor him suggests Boschetto was the network’s representative in the entire Western Wyoming area on behalf of his Cosa Nostra Family. When outsiders hear that a Cosa Nostra member “represents” a certain territory, it is often perceived that this person is a “crime boss” in that area and though that can be true, the two designations are not synonymous. Louis Boschetto could have been involved in local crime or corruption, but that wasn’t the purpose he was serving in Cosa Nostra in this example.
Louis Boschetto could well have been the only living member in the area at the time or the only member to ever have lived there. If there were multiple members in Western Wyoming, he may have simply been selected for the role given he was a well-connected figure. This doesn’t guarantee a member had particular dominance in any local activity, though Louis Boschetto’s known wealth, legitimate political influence, and upstanding reputation would have given him advantages in the Cosa Nostra network that a “crime boss” didn’t have. Cosa Nostra inducts both types of men for different reasons but uses them in similar political capacities once they have membership.
American Families like Cleveland, Detroit, and many others had individual members who were the sole member in a given town or region and thus served as its representative should another Cosa Nostra Family take interest in the area, be it social, criminal, or through legitimate enterprise. If Louis Boschetto was with the small but scattered Colorado Family, their organization could have included a number of these unknown locals in various locations who carried with them the license their society issued.
Even an Austrian-born Northern Italian was obligated to follow these rules as part of his membership in Cosa Nostra. It isn’t that he benefited financially or personally from looking after an errant San Jose member or that he would have suffered significantly had he not obliged, it’s that protocol required it of him and protocol renews a member’s license, not a particular operation or activity. When the 103-year-old Paolo D’Anna was introduced to his new capodecina Al D’Arco in New York, the old man was similarly having his license renewed even though he was unlikely to need it — many times members follow protocol “just in case”. No branch of the Cosa Nostra network was exempt from this international protocol.
Boschetto’s Ethnic Roots and Further Investigation
The Boschettos were from Salorno (not to be confused with Salerno) and their friends the Anselmis were from Lana, both in South Tyrol. When Louis Boschetto's father was born, this area belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and it was still considered part of Austria by the time Louis Boschetto was born in 1898. It wasn't until 1918 that this area was annexed by Italy and it was under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime that the Italian government tried to re-Italianize the province's culture given its overwhelming Germanic influence.
Louis Boschetto's birth name was Lodovico Boschetto. While he was born in what is today Italy, he was an Austrian national through his birth and when he arrived in the US he was listed as having Austrian heritage, though both of his parents were ethnically Italian. Immigrants from this region like the Boschettos and Anselmis didn't just learn about Cosa Nostra after coming to North America, they likely learned how to be “Italian” in America — as much as Wyoming could offer in that regard.
I jest only slightly, as most of South Tyrol communicated in German and despite Mussolini's efforts even today there are only five towns in the province that speak primarily Italian, including Louis Boschetto's' hometown of Salorno. South Tyrol and Salorno offer striking mountainous landscapes and impressive castle ruins far more reminiscent of their Austrian roots than anything Southern Italian. South Tyrol nonetheless had its own form of compaesani network that brought Austro-Italian families like the Boschettos and Anselmis to Rock Springs.
The FBI investigated Louis Boschetto further after receiving the initial tip from Salvatore Costanza. The FBI believed Boschetto came to the US in 1921, but this isn't entirely true. He and his family came to the US in 1904 and were living in Wyoming that early, at least through 1910, but it appears Louis returned to Italy at some point and arrived back in the US in 1921. Other relatives remained in Wyoming in the interim.
Louis Boschetto was friendly with both the local County Sheriff and Undersheriff, who the FBI interviewed. Neither man provided any incriminating information on Boschetto and spoke highly of him and his local activities in the area. One source knew Louis Boschetto and his wife to take trips to Italy though their destination is not specified. He was universally praised by everyone the FBI interviewed.
Prior to entering the motel business and politics, Boschetto was a coal miner and tailor. In addition to the motel business, Boschetto allegedly had an interest in a car dealership. Through his motel interests, he was also an officer in the Wyoming State Motel Association. One source stated Boschetto served two terms on the State Legislature and one term in the Senate, while further investigation revealed he served four terms in the House of Representatives and one Senate term.
The County Undersheriff told the FBI Louis Boschetto was held in high standing in the community, involving himself in many civic affairs, and that he was "instrumental" in helping establish a police pension fund. The Undersheriff claimed Boschetto was not known to be involved in any criminal activity or association. Rock Springs had a reputation for corruption at all levels of local government, so this should be kept in mind with regard to Boschetto's relationship to local police.
Though his underworld reputation was well-known locally, John Anselmi was similar to Boschetto in that he was heavily involved in civic organizations, serving as president of both the Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce and Lions Club. Like Boschetto, he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. The involvement of these men in so many civic groups and fraternal organizations could indicate Cosa Nostra was simply another club for Louis Boschetto to join, providing him exclusive access to another social network of influential men. In remote Rock Springs, the pressure typical of larger Cosa Nostra organizatons would have been virtually nonexistent aside from serving as a regional point of contact for a rare visiting member, like San Jose’s Pete Misuraca. He was given a certain status and basic duties but didn’t have to contend with factionalism. There may have been no downside especially given Boschetto escaped into near-obscurity aside from one reference from an FBI informant.
John Anselmi's sister would marry and live in San Francisco, where Louis Boschetto apparently knew nearby mafia figures in San Jose. John Anselmi himself spent part of his retirement in Tucson prior to his death. Joe Bonanno and his top loyalists maintained residences in Tucson and other Arizona towns, as did Detroit and Chicago Family members. None of these connections prove a relationship to Cosa Nostra figures, but the Rock Springs Austro-Italians did have demonstrable ties to areas that were “in network”.
Louis Boschetto was not involved in any reported criminal activity, though the FBI investigation discovered his son Louis Boschetto Jr. was involved in local gambling. In what role Boschetto Jr. participated in gambling or to what extent he was involved is not clear. Both Louis Boschetto Sr. and Jr. were known to visit Jackson Hole, which is where Salvatore Costanza reported Boschetto was keeping tabs on Cosa Nostra member Pete Misuraca. Jackson Hole was known for gambling activity, like Rock Springs.
As a top elected member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, yet another fraternal group he participated in, the FBI learned Louis Boschetto traveled to Chicago in the 1960s to attend the National Convention of Eagles. Boschetto’s contact with Cosa Nostra members from California opens the possibility he had contact with like-minded individuals in Chicago. The Chicago Cosa Nostra Family had a history of high-level political corruption, with John D’Arco identified as a Chicago Cosa Nostra member who served in the Illinois House of Representatives during the same period Boschetto served in the Wyoming House of Representatives. D’Arco’s membership in the Chicago Family has only recently been confirmed by researchers.
Like Boschetto, John D’Arco was a member of the Democratic Party and came from the Italian mainland, D’Arco’s roots being in Campania. D’Arco would fall from grace in the 1970s when he was accused of attempting to “fix” the murder trial of a Chicago Family hitman. D’Arco faced ongoing allegations of corruption and involvement in criminal activity. His son John D’Arco Jr. was an Illinois State Senator who was later convicted on charges of corruption. Another Chicago member, Fred Roti, served on the Illinois House of Representatives himself through most of the 1950s and was an Alderman like D’Arco and other Chicago mafia politicians. Fellow Family members Vito Marzullo, Pasquale “Pat Marcy” Marciano”, and Joseph Bulger (true name Imburgio) were other elected officials within the secretive ranks of Cosa Nostra, Marzullo being yet another Alderman while Bulger served as Melrose Park Mayor in the 1930s and was employed as an attorney.
Chicago mafia historian Richard Warner provided me with a list of other Chicago Cosa Nostra figures who held influential positions in local politics or attempted to gain office through their political influence, including early rappresentante Antonio D’Andrea. The Sicilian D’Andrea ran for Alderman and sat on the Republican Committee prior to his 1921 murder. D’Andrea was also a former Catholic priest. Italian authorities have documented the existence of active priests with Cosa Nostra membership early in Sicilian mafia history and a traveling duo of mainland investigators learned an alleged mafia priest was involved in the murder of his own cousin.
The Chicago Family became one of the more Americanized mafia groups in the country, bringing in larger numbers of non-Sicilians and giving non-Italian associates influential roles over the Family’s operations. Given the history of Chicago’s Sicilian mafiosi in politics, of which D’Andrea is just one, John D’Arco’s involvement in politics could be seen as a continuaton of the same tradition, one that traces back to the organization’s Sicilian roots but became modernized in the form of non-Sicilian members gaining a foothold in political life. John D’Arco and the Austro-Italian Louis Boschetto are both examples of American members who mirrored some of their early Sicilian counterparts by serving Cosa Nostra in ostensibly legitimate politics.
Given Chicago’s long history of inducting politicians, Chicago is worth considering for Louis Boschetto’s membership affiliation. Chicago had a wide geographic base with members living in Arizona and the West Coast, placing Wyoming in the realm of possibilities especially given Boschetto’s documented travel there on Eagles business. Our limited knowledge of Louis Boschetto’s Cosa Nostra contacts means we must consider all possibilities based on his known travels and connections even when they don’t directly pertain to mafia activity. In this case, there is no evidence inside or outside of Chicago to suggest Louis Boschetto was a member of that Family and though remote members do exist, the larger patterns of Cosa Nostra place their affiliates in closer proximity with the Family’s base. With Louis Boschetto, our most reliable indicator is regional in nature, returning us to Rock Springs.
A Common Interest in Mining
The Rock Springs address Louis Boschetto lived at on Pilot Butte Avenue today has a nearby automobile repair shop owned by the Zanetti family, likely descendants of Rock Springs crime figure Pietro Zanetti. The Zanettis were said by a local journalist to have formed a union of mine workers, a trade that brought many Italians to Rock Springs and was a foundation of the local economy.
The Boschettos initially lived in another mining colony before moving to Rock Springs, with Louis Boschetto then working as a Rock Springs coal miner prior to his social and political ascent. There is no evidence the mining industry in Rock Springs under the Zanettis was corrupted by organized crime, though the widely-reported corruption in Rock Springs and Pietro Zanetti’s alleged criminality open the doors to speculation. Louis Boschetto may have come to know the Zanettis through mining and these labor activities and economic connections could have facilitated regional networking, as we see from other labor unions that organized workers regionally and nationally.
The mining industry brought many Sicilians to America, including the founders of the Pittston Family, who themselves formed mining companies and dominated the local industry. Early Pittston Family leaders, including Russell Bufalino’s uncle, owned a mining company and in 1929 planned a murder conspiracy to kill union officials. They also enlisted their men to violently break up strikes. Sicilian mafia figures were not simply experienced in the labor itself and its corresponding businesses, taking advantage of these developing communities after arrival. Back in Sicily there was a deep history of fully corrupting the industry as evidenced by a 19th century Italian investigation into mafia control of the mining trade. This took place in Agrigento, the same province many Pueblo members came from.
An 1883 Italian investigation revealed the mining industry in Favara, Agrigento, was entirely compromised by a violent Cosa Nostra group called the Fratellanza (brotherhood), an early name for the Sicilian mafia found in other towns on the island. The Pueblo Family was controlled by men from Burgio and Lucca Sicula, a trip up the coast and slightly inland within the same province. It was mining that brought Italians to Southern Colorado, specifically Pueblo, though I’m unfamiliar with any parallel investigations into mafia control of the mining industry in Burgio or Lucca Sicula like investigators found in 19th century Favara.
Pueblo is noted as the site of the deadly Ludlow Massacre in 1914, when striking Italian miners were killed by private security forces hired by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The list of those killed shows no common surnames with known Colorado mafia figures and few of the names appear to be Sicilian. Colorado Fuel and Iron was not connected to the Italian underworld, though the labor activism in opposition to Colorado Fuel and Iron brings to mind the unionization of miners in Rock Springs under the Zanettis as well as the Pittston Family’s violence toward striking laborers and union officials.
Cosa Nostra was already well-established in Pueblo by 1914 and Nicola Gentile and his brother visited in 1915, the year following the massacre. Gentile was a made member by this time and though he doesn’t mention knowledge of the massacre, he describes the local Cosa Nostra element hosting a dinner in the Gentile brothers’ honor — Vincenzo Chiappetta was among their hosts. Nicola Gentile had no known relatives in Pueblo, but the local Family members were accomplished networkers just as Gentile was and they shared a regional connection in Sicily.
The Ludlow Massacre would have been of interest to Pueblo mafiosi who were brought to Southern Colorado for its mining opportunities. Whether they were connected to the victims or the perpetrators is unknown. Whatever interest they had in local coal mining activities could well have expanded to various mining colonies in the Mountain States that were sewn together by railways. Rock Springs’ development as a town is heavily linked to its proximity to the rail system and its use in the mining industry — the transport of resources and workers.
Louis Boschetto was employed as a coal miner by the Union Pacific Coal Company. Union Pacific was created in response to the inflation of coal prices sold by a previous coal company and thus draws parallels to mining labor unions in that it was organized to regulate the industry’s unethical practices. Union Pacific specifically sold coal to the railroad to power trains. Union Pacific’s dependence on the railroad for both transport and income as well as its relationship to railroad franchises would have made the company a hub of regional networking along train routes.
The influence of the Zanettis over Rock Springs mine workers and Boschetto’s involvement with a mining company that supplied railroads with coal could provide a common link with Pueblo’s miners. These mutual interests could have facilitated relationships between the significant populations of Italians in the two Mountain State mining colonies. This would have provided common ground with Louis Boschetto, the Northern Italian miner who thereafter became an influential politician.
That Louis Boschetto is cited as having gone from a coal miner to a successful businessman and politician may be a sign his involvement in the coal and mining trade eventually boosted his local status. He was a clear overachiever given the resume this article provides for him and it is not difficult to imagine he gained influence at Union Pacific beyond laboring in mines. It at least provided him with contacts and relationships in the business be it through his employment in coal mining or social connections made in a town oriented around mining companies.
Though I could find no references to Louis Boschetto exerting influence in the coal mining industry he worked in, the involvement of the Zanettis in a local mining union and Boschetto’s political career would have complemented one another, with local politics in small Rock Springs no doubt centering on its economic identity as a mining colony. The economy informs politics and the reverse is also true. I assume the politics in Rock Springs frequently concerned mining.
The mafia is an economic force as much as it is political. Just as the Colorado Family was drawn to a mining colony in Pueblo where it cultivated itself as an early influence in Cosa Nostra politics, perhaps Louis Boschetto’s political career has roots in his work as a coal miner. There is certainly room for intersection between these common interests in Rock Springs and Pueblo where well-connected individuals formed a unique American identity through their ability to make contacts throughout the region — contacts that yielded social, financial, political, and perhaps other benefits.
Conclusion
Louis Boschetto is explicitly named, first and last name, as a Cosa Nostra member in a reported conversation between two San Jose members and all other identifying information checks out. Research confirms Boschetto was not only a real person, but quite likely an obscure mafia member in an unlikely location who we would never know about if it wasn’t for a moment of gossip between California members. That he was an influential local figure in his community with no obvious criminal activity and attained an important political position in his state shows we still don't know the entire scope of the US mafia, its connections, and its history.
It wouldn't be surprising if there were other unknown members early on in seemingly fringe locations in the mafia network. When the American branch of Cosa Nostra was developing, cities and regions weren't as established as they are today and Italian immigrants settled in colonies without knowing what the future held for local industry. In many of these colonies, employment opportunities dried up or the area simply didn't grow. In some places, there may have been a small and short-lived mafia element that left a holdover or two. That's not hard to believe when it comes to Sicilians or Southern Italians. Even with our limited knowledge of the early American mafia we have evidence of these colonies and their remnants, sometimes in the form of a remote decina or a single Cosa Nostra member representing an area.
What makes Louis Boschetto’s story so strange is the combination of his Wyoming location, Austrian-born Northern Italian background, and involvement in high-level American politics. Nothing about his location or background fits the profile of an obscure member we'd expect to find hanging around unnoticed in a remote mafia outpost. His existence is a reminder that we, as researchers or simply readers of this subject, cannot be overconfident or assume we know all of the ins-and-outs of Cosa Nostra and the unpredictable ways it manifests in different times and places. Unpredictable, yet still based on patterns. Louis Boschetto’s personal background is unheard of in the mafia yet they inducted men like him whose social, political, and business accomplishments brought another dimension of value to these versatile Sicilian organizations.
Personally, I don't believe Louis Boschetto was the only Cosa Nostra member inducted in Rock Springs, Wyoming. His longstanding ties to fellow Austro-Italians the Anselmis and the Anselmis' long history of crime, corruption, and presence in California make John Anselmi a strong candidate for membership alongside Boschetto. Pietro Zanetti is another whose name should be included as a potential candidate, though it would be audacious to include them on a definitive list of mafia members. Beyond the information presented here, we can't assume anything given none of us would have assumed there was a Cosa Nostra member in a small Wyoming town who served as a State Senator.
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Thanks to Felice for the Riela photo and Cavita for the Troia photo.
Additional thank you to Tony Kociolek for help clarifying details on Salvo Lima’s trips to the United States.
Excellent write up of an interesting and important subject. I don’t know if his membership has ever been confirmed, but I strongly suspect that US representative from Illinois (1957-1965) Roland Libonati was a Chicago member. He was at the least an associate going back to Capone. Prior to his term as US congressman, Libonati had served in the IL House and Senate. I’m sure Rick Warner told you about other Chicago members who held elected offices in the city, such as Aldermen Vito Marzullo and Fred Roti. Roti, the son of Calabrian Chicago capo Bruno Roti, was 1st Ward Alderman. As the old 1st Ward encompassed the downtown Loop area and City Hall, Roti and his partner Pat Marcy (1st Ward Democratic Commiteeman) effectively controlled building projects in the Loop and city services departments on behalf of the Chicago mafia. Marcy and Roti, under the direction of the Chicago Outfit’s admin, functioned as a shadow government and exemplified the degree of interpenetration of the mafia and Chicago’s infamous Democratic political “machine”, a state that endured until the 1st Ward corruption apparatus was smashed by the Feds in the early 1990s and the old 1st Ward redistricted out of existence.