With that, the family appears to be essentially defunct, although there have been some unsubstantiated rumors that there are still a handful of family members still operating various rackets. Oversight members have been combing through tips known as SARs - Suspicious Activity Reports - following a subpoena of the Treasury Department to look into business dealings of the president and his family members mainly his son Hunter Biden. He is buried in Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Jefferson County, Colorado. This wouldnt be his last arrest as hed continue to ring up gambling pinches (and acquittals) throughout the 1960s and 1970s, though he would do a few stints in prison and pay some fines here and there (and pay some fines). Similar to construction companies having to do business with the Mafia in New York City in the 70s and 80s in order to essentially get anything done, in Denver in the 20s and 30s, you pretty much had to deal with the unsavory figures of the KKK. Clyde Smaldone enters federal court after being charged with jury tampering in 1953. Just 3 months later, Roma would have Carlino murdered. Foster Symes, who was the presiding judge in the 1933 trial of the Smaldone brothers. In 2011, there were 151,125 crimes reported in Colorado. In November of 1952, in a somewhat calculated move to irritate Clyde and Checkers, Vigil would force the Smaldone brothers to pay their $1,000 fines dating all the way back to their 1933 bootlegging convictions (almost a full 20 years later). Marriage photo of Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone and Pauline (Blasi) Smaldone taken in 1943. Blandas immediate successor as Boss was his trusted aide, Vincenzo James Coletti, called Black Jim for his dark complexion and coal-black eyes. Unfortunately for Clyde, that very same day hed also be sentenced to 4 to 6 years for his part in (of all things) a $450 robbery of a cigarette, candy, and popcorn truck in Caon City, Colorado. In October of 1967, Clyde and several of his associates, including Eugenes son, were arrested on gambling charges for running a $100,000-a-week bookmaking operation (that is a whopping $1.1MM in todays which means the operation was taking $52-53MM in revenue annually). An elderly Clyde and Mildred Smaldone pose with their sons Gene (top left) and Chuck (top right). Over time, Clyde realized that in order to make real money, he needed to focus on selling the good stuff, aka bonded whiskey, which patrons were willing to pay top price for. Though seventeen suspects were arrested including Smaldone organization members John Porky Routta and Frank Blackie Mazza, nobody was ever convicted of the slaying. A He wont pay me the money he owes me. If you call that a good brotherAnd not only me. Checkers rang up his first arrest at the age of fifteen in 1925 when he was caught stealing automobile accessories. And through all of these activities, literal rivers of cash flowed into the organization. From the time Gaetanos opened in Denvers Little Italy neighborhood in 1947, everyone knew it as the mobs hangout. He wanted to take on a higher degree of control and kind of muscle in on the operations. Five Texas relatives were shot dead over noise row with gunman Blanda died on February 20, 1969 in Pueblo, Colorado after suffering a stroke. A bondsman signs bail bond for Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone in 1960. Crime in Colorado - Colorado Crime Map | SpotCrime Student's Nike Air Jordan shoes stolen in burglary leads to slam as other LCN families. Like he didnt me, and I was his brother. Web353,528 total crimes reported in Colorado in 2020, reflecting a 3.9% increase from last year. According to Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family, Chauncey was dead-on the best looking of the brothers, was much taller than his siblings (six feet), and was blessed with a full head of wavy hair and piercing dark eyes, which got him quite a bit of attention from the young Italian girls in his neighborhood. Checkers, as he would come to be known, would allegedly receive his nickname due to his wizardry at that game, for which hed allegedly won several city tournaments as a youth, and the nickname stuck for the remainder of his life. By the time it was all said and done, his criminal record would stretch over seven decades, and though hed be a suspect in several murders, he was never actually convicted of killing anyone. The Smaldone organization was suspected, but no one was convicted in either murder. But one thing was clear, even though the family and the entire Smaldone empire was in decline by this time, it was clear that the brothers still had teeth so to speak. Second, and this would serve him well during his time in organized crime, he was very adept at building relationships with important people due to his gentlemanly, affable, and outgoing personality. And according to autopsy reports (this is where it gets truly heinous), Cohen was alive (though he may not have been conscious) when he was put into the lake. In 1956, at age 32, Chauncey would be arrested for the first time on a gambling charge when he and seven others were busted at a house on 3357 Navajo Street for running an illegal barbooth game. Eugene "Checkers" Smaldone, hiding face behind paper bag, lunges at photographer while on his way to county -jail after receiving a 12-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine in 1955. Later that year on December 29, 1932, Clyde, Checkers, as well as associates Jim Spinelli and future Pueblo LCN Boss Charley Blanda were charged with carrying concealed weapons after a raid at Checkers home unveiled a veritable arsenal that included four .35-caliber rifles, two sawed-off shotguns, and a Browning automatic rifle. According to sources, Charley didnt have the look of a mobster (he wore large thick glasses), but had a stout build standing just 55 and weighing close to 200lbs, and a long arrest record that included pinches for burglary, grand larceny, and weapons violations and did jail-time on several occasions. John Skip LaGuardia, murdered in 1973, allegedly due to issues he had with the Smaldone family. WebColorado Crime Statistics. The operation included the Smaldones, their enforcer Paul Enrici, and also included members of the Pueblo LCN including Blackie Mazza. The restaurants owners, the Smaldone family, simply called it the place., In the 1950s and 60s, the Smaldone name was notorious in Denver, instantly recognized as the strong arm of the mob. Trump calls the Bidens a 'crime family' that is 'Watergate times 10 Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone (left) tending the bar at Gaetanos sometime in the late 1940's or early 1950's. Similar to the approach from law enforcement against Al Capone in Chicago, Vigil and Melville decided to focus on the angle of evasion of state income taxes and began working to catch the brothers and members of their organizations within that dragnet versus focusing on their more obvious crimes. Smaldones bond would be set at $500,000 while Salardinos was set at $300,000. An Ad for the Blakeland Inn in the 1930s. They did do some bad things. And so again, Clyde would go off to do his time in the state penitentiary in 1938 while Checkers and Stephens would go away in 1939 after a series of failed appeals. Colorado Crime From Gaetanos, the Smaldones ruled north Denver from the 1930s through the 1970s. First and foremost, I want to make it clear that the Smaldones, while gangsters for sure, were not Mafia nor was their family an official Cosa Nostra family. Do not sell or share my personal information. He related that during 1947, Denver gamblers Anthony Colosacco and John West opened a big barbuit game in a barn on a farm in Henderson, Colorado, owned by Joe Priola; that this undertaking was operated for only a few days when Colosacco and West received word from Clyde and Eugene Smaldone that they were to appear at a conference at the headquarters of the Smaldones at Gaetanos Restaurant in North Denver; that Colosacco and West declined the invitation and refused to confer with the Smaldones and a few nights later, as West entered his automobile parked in downtown Denver, Smaldone enforcers Frank Mazza, Porky Routta, and Paul Enrichi, who long had been known as bodyguards and strong-arm men for the Smaldones, accosted West, forced him into the automobile and ordered him to drive out onto the Pecos Road outside of Denver. While the Soprano family and their world of crime seems so fake and far away, it got me wondering if Colorado has any famous ties to the Mafia. A daytime burglary of a student flat netted a thief a collection of Nike Air Jordan trainers but he wasnt expecting a last-minute buzzer beater. Caroline, 35, turned her nose up at the offer to her father's frustration, who forwarded the email to Hunter. Most of them couldnt hardly talk English.. Reginald MacLaren killed wife, daughter with ax: Police Photo taken at Gaetanos restaurant sometime in the 1950s. So I think they found their niche right there and then. As of 2008, adjusted gross proceeds (total bets minus payouts) from gambling in Central City, and two other approved cities topped $715 million annually. However, in 1949 the party more or less came to an end when a new law-and-order justice of the peace, Lowell Griffith, was elected and began applying heat to the operation. Clyde Smaldone leaves courthouse in 1953. As Clyde would relate in his later years, hed make a lot of important connections during this time and even formed a partnership with the Capone mob in Chicago. Again, not a good look. However, the Colorado Crime Stats website is the best location to review crime data in its entirety. A few days after this incident Colosacco went to talk things over with the Smaldones in their office at Gaetanos Restaurant and there Clyde and Eugene Smaldone told him if he and his partner desired to continue their gambling activities at Priolas farm, it would be necessary henceforth to pay to Smaldones 50% of the gambling proceeds. I dont know anything about this gang stuff.. As previously mentioned, Coletti took over as Boss of the Pueblo family in 1953 after previous boss Charlie Blanda was sent to prison and later retired from organized crime.

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