Salvatore Santoro (mobster)

Salvatore "Tom Mix" Santoro, Sr. (1915 – 2000) was the powerful Underboss of the Lucchese crime family during the 1980s before he was eventually convicted in the Mafia Commission Trial and sentenced to 100 years in federal prison.

Early life

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Santoro made his way up to the Gagliano crime family very quickly, as his early criminal activities included profiting from extortion, loansharking and narcotics and prostitution during the early 1930s. He earned the mob moniker "Tom Mix" because in his younger years he closely resembled the Dutch-German-American western film actor by that name. After he met Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo, another street thug, sometime during the late 1930s, then-current family bosses Gaetano "Tommy" Gagliano and Thomas "Tommy" Lucchese decided to make the two of them, as well as many others, into the crime family of the Bronx.^[1]

Lucchese captain

As Santoro kept on as a soldier for the Gagliano crime family throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, he reportedly operated much with drug trafficking and loansharking activities. According to "Crimelibrary", Santoro was a tough street soldier for the family, cracking heads along with future boss Anthony Corallo, whom he continued to have a great friendship with. As longtime boss and family founder Tommy Gagliano died in 1953, his Underboss Tommy Lucchese stepped up to serve the family, which from then on bore his name. As many stepped up due to the restructure of the Lucchese crime family, Santoro was promoted caporegime or captain of Lucchese's old crew in the family's powerful Bronx faction. Corallo was also promoted.^[1]

Drug conviction

Santoro kept operating out of the Bronx, New York during the mid 1950s, as his main racket was running a large drug trafficking operation in the East Harlem/Bronx faction of the Lucchese crime family, however, in 1958 he was arrested and tried for narcotics charges, as well recognizing him as a partner and associate of Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, although this never was confirmed. Santoro was convicted of all charges in 1959 and went in for a long prison term. This led him away from the drug trade and went over to labor and construction racketeering instead, in which he would do very well for himself in the future.^[1]

Death of Lucchese

In 1967, longtime boss and Lucchese crime family founder Tommy Lucchese died of a brain tumor and Santoro's longtime friend Anthony Corallo was seen as the most obvious candidate for Boss, however, Corallo was imprisoned during the time and the family leadership went to Carmine "Gribbs" Tramunti, who also favored the imprisoned Santoro, as well as Corallo. After Corallo released in the early 1970s from prison, he reputedly took over the Lucchese crime family at once. Corallo put Paul Vario in charge as Underboss of the family on acting basis, until his dear friend Santoro was to release from prison.

Underboss

During the late 1970s, Vario and most of the Vario Crew members were sent to prison on various of charges, however, as many went down, Santoro went up, as he was reputedly recognized by US law enforcement as the Underboss of the Lucchese crime family from the year of 1979, and had gone back to run the powerful Bronx faction of the family. Corallo, now the powerful family boss, chose Santoro as the head of the construction and labor racketeering operations in most areas of New York City. Santoro began cooperating much with reputed Consigliere Christopher "Christie Tick" Furnari and other top capos of the Lucchese crime family. It was around this time that Santoro began his reputation of being an excellent labor racketeer, who brought in big money, as he bought a new residence on City Island Avenue in the Bronx.

Tony Ducks & the Jag

In the early 1980s, Corallo found a new way to discuss business without ever meeting his top underlings Santoro and Furnari. Corallo used his Jaguar with a phone inside and talked to mostly Santoro on the phone while he was driving around in New York with his chauffeur Aniello "Neil" Migliore. This way succeeded mostly because the noise of the old Jag was so loud that it wasn't possible to hear anything, however, after the Jaguar came with a new engine and new filter to prevent any sound annoying the ones driving the car, Federal Bureau of Investigation planted a bug in it, and listened to a lot of the conversations Corallo had with Santoro, mostly about the profit from the labor and construction racketeering operations in the Bronx, where they extorted the unions and made great influence in construction industry.

Commission case

As US law enforcement decided to crush most of the organized crime activities in New York City during the mid 1980s, they put 11 top members of all the Five Families on a trial, called the Mafia Commission Trial or the Commission Case, including the entire administration of the Lucchese crime family. Santoro, including Anthony Corallo, and powerful Consigliere Christopher Furnari were all arrested on February 25, 1985, on various of charges, including labor racketeering, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling and murder charges. Every boss of the Five Families were brought to this court, which began in September 1986. The charges also involved the execution of Bonanno crime family de facto boss Carmine "Lilo" Galante in 1979, which were allegedly on the orders of the Commission because they saw Galante as a potential rival and thought he planned to take over everything. On November 19, 1986, Santoro and the other defendants were convicted on all counts and were sentenced to 100 years in prison and fined $250,000.^[2] After the sentencing, Santoro and the other convicted defendants met with their lawyers and each other in a backroom of the courthouse for a final Italian meal and a bottle of wine. Corallo gave the traditional Italian toast of Cent'anni, may we live 100 years, at which time Santoro stated, "I think it's time to get a new toast?" The rest of the bosses just laughed and kept eating.

New leadership

As the entire Lucchese crime family administration were sent to prison, Corallo chose Anthony "Buddy" Luongo as the new boss of the family to run the day-to-day activities, however, toward the year of 1987 Luongo was allegedly murdered by Furnari's protégés and Brooklyn faction leaders Vittorio "Vic" Amuso and Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso who seized the complete power of the family. As nobody wanted a new war within the organization, Furnari advised Corallo to make Amuso and Casso the new bosses in early 1987, although Santoro is to have strongly advised against it, knowing the succession of Amuso and Casso would be the biggest mistake in the crime family's history. However, Corallo still made Amuso the new boss of the Lucchese crime family that same year.^[3]

Death

In 2000, Santoro died at a medical center for prisoners at the age of 87. As did Corallo only months before. Furnari and Colombo crime family boss Carmine "Junior" Persico and Underboss Gennaro "Jerry Lang" Langella are currently serving their life sentence as the only survivors of the defendants from the Mafia Commission Trial who received 100 years.

Footnotes

External links

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/lucchese2/5.html
Magnuson, Ed. ""Hitting the Mafia"". Retrieved 2006-11-15. Time.com January 24, 2001.

[Crime_Library-1] Crime Library

[2] New York Times

[3] American Mafia

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