Vincenzo Cotroni
Vincenzo Cotroni | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Vincenzo Cotrone 1911 |
| Died | 16 September 1984 (aged 72–73) |
Resting place | Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal |
| Other names |
|
| Occupation | Crime boss |
| Spouse |
Maria Bresciano (m. 1928) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Frank Cotroni (brother) Dino Bravo (nephew-in-law) |
| Allegiance | Bonanno crime family Cotroni crime family |
| Conviction | Extortion (1975) |
| Penalty | Six years' imprisonment; served six months on appeal |
Vincenzo "Vic" Cotroni (Italian: [vinˈtʃɛntso koˈtroːni]; born Vincenzo Cotrone;[1] Italian: [koˈtroːne]; 1911 – 16 September 1984), also known as "The Egg", was an Italian Canadian crime boss and founder of the Cotroni crime family in Montreal, Quebec.
Cotroni was born in 1911 in Mammola, Calabria, Italy. In 1924, he immigrated to Montreal. In his early life, he worked as a professional wrestler under the name "Vic Vincent." By the age of 20, Cotroni had accumulated a lengthy record of minor offences, bootlegging with local bootlegger Armand Courville. In 1928, Cotroni was charged with rape against Maria Bresciano. The charge was dropped when Maria agreed to marry him in May 1928, and later had a child, Rosina.
Throughout his life, Cotroni kept a low profile. In 1974, he was subpoenaed to stand before a Quebec government commission inquiry into organized crime and was jailed for one year for contempt. The following year, Cotroni and his capodecina Paolo Violi, along with Hamilton, Ontario mobster Johnny Papalia, were convicted of extortion and sentenced to six years in prison; Cotroni's sentence was later reduced on appeal to just six months.
In the late 1970s, Cotroni transferred control of the day-to-day activities of the family to Violi, together with his brother Frank Cotroni, Nicolas DiIorio, and Luigi Greco. A power struggle between the Calabrians led by Violi and a Sicilian faction led by Nicolo Rizzuto soon broke out; in the mob war that followed the Sicilian Rizzuto crime family emerged as the preeminent crime family in Montreal by the early 1980s. Cotroni died of cancer on 16 September 1984.
Early life
[edit]Cotroni was born in 1911 in Mammola, Calabria, Italy. The precise spelling of his surname remains unknown as Italian, American and Canadian records variously spell his surname as Cotroni, Controne, Coutroni, Catrino, Catroni, and Citroini.[2] Cotroni was illiterate for his entire life and never gave a precise spelling of his surname.[3] His tombstone gives his surname as Cotrone, but the Cotroni surname came to be the one most preferred by journalists and court officials, and this became the accepted spelling of his surname.[2]
His family left Italy for the United States and later came to Canada.[4] In 1924, he immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada with his two sisters, Marguerita and Palmina, and his brother Giuseppe; his two other brothers, Frank and Michel, were later born in Montreal.[5] Cotroni became a Canadian citizen in 1929.[5]
Cotroni grew up in a house at the junction of Ontario and St. Timotheé streets in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal (now in Montreal), a poor neighbourhood that more affluent Italian immigrants avoided because of its high crime rate.[6] His father, Nicodemo, was a carpenter whose average weekly income was $35.[6]
By 1924, Montreal had been a key centre in the business of bootlegging, forming a crucial link in the smuggling network running south from Montreal to New York City and the other cities of the American Northeast.[4] Quebec was the only province in Canada that did not ban alcohol, and for much of the 1920s Quebec was the only place north of the Rio Grande where it was possible to legally drink alcohol.[4] Members of the Cotroni family had moved to Montreal to take part in bootlegging and were repeatedly arrested during the Prohibition era for smuggling alcohol into the United States.[4]
Rather than attend school,[7] Vic Cotroni worked briefly as a carpenter and then as a professional wrestler under the name "Vic Vincent."[8][9] By the age of 20, Cotroni had accumulated a lengthy record of minor offences, including theft, possession of counterfeit money, and assault and battery,[8][10] as well as bootlegging with local bootlegger Armand Courville.
Criminal career
[edit]Wrestler and hoodlum
[edit]Montreal was notorious during the interwar period as one of the most corrupt cities in the world and for being a global centre of drug smuggling and prostitution.[11] French police reports from the 1930s listed Montreal as the world's third most "depraved" city, after only Port Said and Marseille.[4] In 1936, the mayor of Montreal, Adhémar Raynault, estimated that Montreal's vice industry was worth $200 million per annum, making the vice business one of Montreal's largest industries.[4]
Cotroni flourished as a gangster in this climate. As an young man, Cotroni spent much of his time working as a guard and a bouncer in various gambling houses and bars, becoming involved in organized crime in the late 1920s.[4] Courville served as a mentor to Cotroni, teaching him professional wrestling .[12]
In 1928, Cotroni was charged with rape against Maria Bresciano, but the charge was dropped when Maria agreed to marry him in May 1928, and later had a child, Rosina.[5][8] As an young man, Cotroni was deeply influenced by the 'ndranghetista subculture of his native Calabria, whose ethos stressed an ultra-aggressive, almost mindlessly macho persona for 'ndranghetisti, who proved their virility, strength and dominance over men through violence, most notably by castrating rival men.[13] 'Ndranghetisti were expected to be just as sexually aggressive as physically aggressive and could never accept a refusal of sexual advances, which would question his sense of machismo.[14] The Italian sociologist Pino Arlacchi wrote about the 'ndranghetista subculture, "Except among relatives, the two sexes represented qualities in constant antagonism: the uomo di rispetto ("man worthy of respect") had the task of demonstrating his virility at every opportunity, even if this meant committing violence against women or seizing them by force."[14] Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star, wrote that Cotroni was almost certainly guilty of raping Maria Bresciano, who had rejected his offer of marriage, which he took as a humiliation that questioned his sense of machismo, which in turn required an act of extreme violence to prove his virility and strength as a man.[14]
Likewise, Edwards wrote that it was the same need to dominate others that led Cotroni to work as a professional wrestler under the ring name of Vic Vincent, as he wanted to prove his machismo by demonstrating his strength and fierceness as a brawler who apparently won victories over other men in front of thousands of people.[14] The fact that the matches were staged in the pseudo-sport of professional wrestling was not widely known in the 1930s, and many believed that the wrestling matches were authentic bouts.
In 1938, Cotroni retired from professional wrestling, but he remained fond of his Vic Vincent persona as he continued to use Vic Vincent as an alias as late as the 1960s.[15] Cotroni was uncle by marriage to professional wrestler Dino Bravo, believed by authorities to be involved in his organization for some time.[16]
Cotroni was involved in the 1930s in "baseball bat elections", where he served as "muscle" for the Quebec Liberal Party and the Union Nationale, beating up supporters of rival parties and stuffing ballot boxes.[1] As a result, the Cotroni family enjoyed the protection of Quebec politicians for decades afterwards,[1][10] while Cotroni and Courville acquired reputations that were to last for decades.[14]
As the 1930s went on, Cotroni became increasingly prosperous, as his taste in clothes became more and more expensive.[14] As Cotroni aged and he became the uomo di rispetto he always aspired to be, he became more quiet, modest and introspective as he sought to avoid the limelight.[17] However, though Cotroni presented himself as an illiterate pepperoni salesman to pizzerias, he still maintained the reputation of being a terrifying figure capable of extreme violence.[18] Cotroni's unofficial title of Le Parrain de Montreal ("the Godfather of Montreal") guaranteed him the respect that he felt was due to him.[3]
In 1940, Cotroni escaped internment despite being born in Italy.[14] During the interwar period, i Figli d'Italia ("the Sons of Italy"), a group linked to the Grand Fascist Party, attempted to mobilize support for the Fascist regime in Montreal's Italian Canadian community.[19] Unlike the other provinces, where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) interned all Italian immigrants, only those who belonged to the Sons of Italy group were interned in Quebec.[19] As Cotroni had never belonged to the Sons of Italy group, he was allowed to remain at liberty.[19]
In 1941, Cotroni and Courville bought a bar and nightclub, "Au Faisan Doré" and the "Café Royal".[8] Au Faisan Doré was the most popular nightclub in Montreal between the 1940s and 1960s,[20] due to a charismatic emcee, Jacques Normand, alongside the galaxy of European stars who performed shows, with the most popular being Charles Aznavour, Tino Rossi, Charles Trenet and Luis Mariano.[20] Au Faisan Doré was moreover the nightclub where numerous future French Canadian stars such as Roger Baulu, Raymond Lévesque, Denise Filiatrault, Fernand Gignac and Monique Leyrac began their careers.[21] Though Courville and Cotroni both had thuggish reputations, the ownership of Au Faisan Doré and their sponsorship of la chanson française gave them the reputation of promoters of culture.[21]
Cotroni had a gangster, Harry Ship, rent an office next to Au Faisan Doré, which was a 24-hour center for gambling.[22] Ship's office was equipped with ticker-tape machines reporting the results of sports events and horse races while bookies took bets from anyone willing to phone in.[12]
Decina boss
[edit]
In 1953, Carmine "Lilo" Galante, an influential member of the New York City-based Bonanno crime family, arrived in Montreal and worked with Cotroni. Galante planned to make Montreal a pivotal location in the importation of heroin from overseas for distribution in New York City and across the United States in the French Connection. Police also estimated that Galante was collecting gambling profits in Montreal worth about $50 million per year.[1]
Cotroni was close to Galante, with whom he was constantly seen.[23] Edwards wrote that in the early 1950s Cotroni "...was a significant but not a dominant force in the Montreal underworld and an éminence grise of the arts scene who was credited with launching the careers of several Québécoise folk singers."[23] When the owner of a nightclub, Solomon "Solly" Schnapp, refused to allow prostitutes working for Galante in his nightclub, Cotroni and his associates destroyed Schnapp's club with sledgehammers and baseball bats, causing $30,000 in damage.[24]
Cotroni's association with Galante elevated his importance in the underworld and gave him the connections with New York that he always wanted.[23] Galante formally established the Bonanno family decina in Montreal and made Cotroni his chief lieutenant.[25]
Montreal became a key smuggling point in the French Connection smuggling ring.[26] Opium grown in the "Golden Crescent" nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran was smuggled via Turkey to Marseille, where the gangsters of le Milieu converted the opium into heroin.[26] From Marseille, the heroin was smuggled into North America with Montreal being one of the chief entry points.[26] Cotroni's nightclub, Au Faisan Doré, was listed as the mailing address for Antonio D'Agostino, a French Corsican gangster known as one of France's most powerful heroin smugglers.[23]
In 1954, Cotroni tried to prevent the election of the reformist candidate, Jean Drapeau, as Mayor of Montreal, using violence and stuffed election boxes full of false ballots.[27] Drapeau still won the election and one of his first acts was to appoint an incorruptible policeman Pacifique Roy "Pax" Plante as the police chief of Montreal.[27] Plante in return pressured the federal government to deport Galante, as he noted that Galante had no official source of income or a job.[27]
In April 1956, due to Galante's strong-arm extortion tactics, the Canadian government deported him back to the United States.[28] Bonanno replaced Galante with Salvatore "Little Sal" Giglio as his Montreal agent.[27] In the 1957 municipal election, the Cotroni family joined forces with the Union Nationale government of Premier Maurice Duplessis against Drapeau, who was running for reelection.[29] Drapeau was the victim of attempted murder when a car driven by Cotroni soldiers tried to run him over; the campaign headquarters of Drapeau was smashed up by Cotroni family thugs; and the president of the anti-corruption group, the Civic Action League, Reuben Lévesque, was beaten bloody in public by Cotroni's thugs.[30] Despite all the violence, to ensure the victory of the pro-corruption candidate, former Liberal MP Sarto Fournier, it was still necessary to provide 20,000 false ballots to allow Fournier to win the election.[30] One of Fournier's first acts as mayor was to demote and then fire Plante as police chief and replace him with a more venal man.[30] Cotroni was said to have placed a contract on Plante's life.[30] Believing his life to be in danger, Plante fled to a remote village in Mexico.[30] As corruption boomed again in Montreal, the federal government deported Giglio after he was found with 240 Cuban cigars that he failed to declare at customs when he returned from a vacation in Cuba.[30] Bonanno appointed Cotroni as his new Montreal agent.[26]
Edwards has written that Cotroni was just a glorified "branch plant manager" who took his orders from New York and that the Cotroni family was only the Canadian decina of the Bonanno family of New York, instead of being a crime family in its own right.[31] Edwards wrote, "While Cotroni's operation was a branch plant, it was big league by Canadian standards, and any young man serving under him could expect to serve a five-year apprenticeship before being considered a full family member. They then became part of something huge. When the police peeked into the bank account of one of Cotroni's four main money-launders, they found it had been the conduit for no less than $83 million. And during the heyday of Cotroni's illegal gambling rackets, police estimated his American bosses siphoned off some $50 million yearly as their cut."[32] Marvin Elkind, the former chauffeur to Jimmy Hoffa, served as Cotroni's chauffeur in the 1950s, which was the source of immense pride for Cotroni as it showed his importance.[33] Elkind recalled that he drove Cotroni to meet gangsters, politicians, lawyers, policemen, journalists, civil servants and customs agents.[34] The most important of Cotroni's contacts was Hilaire Beauregard, the director of the Sûreté du Québec whom Cotroni met on a regular basis.[34] Elkind recalled that Cotroni jokingly called William "Willie Obie" Obront "the butcher" on the account of him owning a deli and because people kept dying from eating the rotten meat that Obront sold.[35]
As Cotroni entered middle age, he delegated the enforcement duties to his younger brother, Frank, who was 20 years his junior and who very much resembled him in his younger years in his willingness to use violence.[7] In November 1959, another of Cotroni's brothers, Giuseppe "Pep" Cotroni, was convicted of heroin trafficking due to the efforts of a charismatic Crown Attorney, Jean-Paul St. Marie, at the time an avowed enemy of the Cotroni family.[36] In April 1960, St. Marie again prosecuted "Pep" Cotroni, this time for his role in the largest bank robbery in Canada adjusted for inflation, namely the theft of $9 million from the Brockville Trust & Savings bank in May 1958.[36] Once again, the case ended with "Pep" Cotroni being found guilty.[37] Two thugs arrived at the office of the Italian language Montreal newspaper Cittandino Canadese to warn the editors that it was "not respectable" to publish stories about "Pep" Cotroni.[37] Nick Chamara, the editor of Cittandino Canadese, boldly chose to defy Cotroni, saying that "publicity is my best weapon."[37]
By the 1960s, Cotroni owned a limousine, a duplex in Rosemont, and a brand new home in Lavaltrie. The house, built in 1959, featured marble floors, a large conference room, a walk-in industrial sized refrigerator, a built-in movie screen, six bathrooms, and crystal chandeliers.[38] The conference hall in his Lavaltrie house had a huge, handcrafted walnut board table with the words "Italia" carved on the chairs on the head and the foot while all of the other chairs featured the names and crests of the Italian regions.[39] The conference hall had a huge window overlooking the St. Lawrence River and led out to a sundeck supported by a type of 24 inch steel beams normally used in bridge construction.[39] All of the guest rooms had views facing the St. Lawrence and all had walk-in closets and ensuite bathrooms decorated with white marble.[39] Cotroni also donated large sums of money to Montreal churches and charities, and later fathered a second child—this time, a son, Nicodemo, named after his father, with his French-Canadian mistress.[40]
In 1964, Cotroni was faced with a dilemma when his boss, Joseph Bonanno challenged the Commission, the governing board of the American Mafia.[41] Bonanno had been a founding member of the Commission in 1931, but fell out in the early 1960s with three fellow Commission members, namely Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese of New York, and Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo, whose murders he had plotted.[42] Bonanno was ordered to appear before the Commission to explain himself, but he instead fled to Montreal.[41]
Bonanno's unwanted arrival placed Cotroni into the impossible situation of having to either serve his boss, Bonanno, or the Commission, both of which he wanted to be loyal to.[41] The Commission were willing to forgive Bonanno for his breach of their rules and wanted him to return to New York. Several times, New Jersey boss Sam "The Plumber" DeCavalcante was sent north to Montreal to ask Bonanno to return to New York, only for Bonanno to declare that he no longer recognized the authority of the Commission, a situation that DeCavalacante likened to the possibility of "World War III" breaking out.[43]
Cotroni's efforts at remaining neutral were much strained. Magaddino saw Bonanno's presence in Montreal as signalling an intention to move into his turf of southern Ontario, and led to threats from Buffalo that Cotroni should disassociate himself with Bonanno if he wanted to live.[44]
Much to Cotroni's relief, Bonanno was deported from Canada in the summer of 1964.[43] A police wiretap at DeCavalcante's office in Kenilworth, New Jersey showed the latter talking on 23 December 1964, with Bonanno family member Joe Notaro at length about Cotroni.[45] Notaro told DeCavalcante, "They want to be left alone. I said, 'All right, convey the message to Vic that as of this night, as far as we are concerned, they are at liberty to do what they want'. When we get this ironed out, we go talk to them."[45] A Bonanno family caporegime, Gaspar DiGregorio, had broken away to declare his loyalty to the Commission.[45] The police wire recorded that DeCavalcante asked Notaro, "How many people remain that are not with Gasparino?"[45] Notaro replied that 25 remained loyal to Bonanno including five caporegimes, one of whom Notaro named as "Vic from Montreal."[45]
On 28 November 1966, a delegation of New York Mafia leaders led by Bonanno's son, Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno, together with Carl Simari, Peter Magaddino, Vito De Filippo, Peter Notaro and Pat De Filippo, arrived in Montreal to talk with Cotroni about the upcoming Expo 67.[46] The Montreal police pulled over Bonanno's car and found three loaded handguns, leading him and the rest of his party to be deported to the United States for the illegal ownership of guns.[47]
Magaddino was "mad like a beast" when he learned of the Bonanno–Cotroni meeting, leading Cotroni to send a message that the meeting had not been planned by him.[48] Cotroni declined Magaddino's offer to see him in Buffalo about the matter.[48] Giacomo Luppino of Hamilton, who was one of the few people Magaddino respected, intervened to talk the Buffalo boss out of his plans to kill Cotroni.[49] Luppino, in a successful attempt to play the peacemaker, worked out an agreement under which his son-in-law, Paolo Violi, who had moved to Montreal in 1963, would be a Cotroni family underboss in exchange for Magaddino cancelling his plans to kill Cotroni, who would continue to work for Bonanno.[50]
Magaddino always saw Violi as his "beachhead" in Montreal who would ultimately allow him to add Quebec to his Canadian territories and in the process weaken his hated rivals, the Bonanno family.[51] Violi for his part was contemptuous of both Bonanno and Magaddino.[52] Violi told Luppino's son, Jimmy, in a 1967 phone call wiretapped by the police that he thought that the Cotroni family should declare its independence and set itself up as a crime family in its own right.[52]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Cotroni used associate William Obront to supervise a bookmaking network in the Ottawa-Hull area that handled around $50,000 in bets per day, with 25 per cent going to Paolo Violi.[53] Obie also served as Cotroni's chief banker and financial adviser, responsible for laundering money.[53] For Expo 67, Obie also helped the Cotronis land the meat and vending machine supply contract. Most of the meat he supplied was tainted.[54]
The October Crisis
[edit]Starting in September 1969, Frank D'Asti of the Cotroni family contributed heavily to the leadership bid of Pierre Laporte to be the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.[55] On 16 April 1970, Laporte met with D'Asti and Nicolo di Iorio of the Cotroni family.[56] On 3 May 1970, a police wiretap recorded di Iori and D'Asti expressing the hope that Laporte be appointed the Quebec Attorney General.[57]
In August 1970, Cotroni went to Acapulco, Mexico to attend a "crime summit" attended by gangsters from Canada, the United States and France to discuss how to take advantage of the plans to legalize casinos in Quebec.[58] The plan was to take over the casinos to use them as fronts for money laundering. The subject was considered so important that Meyer Lansky served as the chairman of the conference, representing "the Commission."[58]
On 5 October 1970, James Cross, the British trade commissioner in Montreal, was kidnapped by the