Now before we move on and briefly talk about the Pueblo LCN, here are a few other members of the Smaldone organization present on the infamous family chart that we really didnt touch on too heavily during the episode: Calogero "Charles" Blanda, Boss of the Pueblo LCN Family, from 1931-1953 in his younger days. Student's Nike Air Jordan shoes stolen in burglary leads to slam They would begin making good money, and gambling would go on to be the Smaldones primary source of revenue for the next several decades. Officers find men shot, 1 in driveway, 1 on porch after verbal Not saying it wasnt true, but a reach. He had been severely beaten, then shot four times in the right side of the body. Paul "The Harp" Enrichi, Smaldone family member and enforcer. Its easier to take them down from a law enforcement perspective when theyre divided. Spinuzzi was very close with Eugine Checkers Smaldone, and the two would reportedly attend various gambling events together (along with Charley Blanda) to make shylock loans to participants whod been on the losing end. Clyde Smaldone leaves courthouse in 1953. A year later hed be arrested again for going on an amazing car theft spree of stealing twenty-five cars in just ten days! Comer replied: 'Well, right now, we have nine. Clyde would be paroled from Caon City on December 24, 1942 after serving four years and five months when he received a pardon from his good friend, influential Governor Ralph Carr. Spinuzzi and the deceased wrestled toward the back of a station wagon parked in the area. In the Summer months of 1947 through 1949, he and his brothers would open and run the Monte Carlo casino which offered craps, roulette, and slot machines among other games to local tourists eager to spend a buck. Frank Blackie Mazza: Smaldone Family lieutenant and enforcer, Allen "A.D." Miller: Smaldone Family Member. A month later, on November 23, 1953, Judge Willis W. Ritter, who was known for making some pretty eccentric and bizarre rulings over the years, went with the hammer! I shouldnt have even tried to help him because hes a no good S.O.B.. First, a woman who knew Checkers told police she saw men tampering with the car just before the explosion, and then there was a patrolman whod told investigators that hed observed Clyde making a call from a neighborhood phone booth just minutes before the bomb went off. The government would attempt to seek conviction on charges of being habitual criminals. Now, with many gangster stories, youll find that they typically come from broken homes, poverty, and often lack a father figure. The Smaldone organization was suspected, but no one was convicted in either murder. A family of four who vanished months ago has been located, according to the Newton, Illinois, Police Department. Gabriel Turcios convicted of murder in 2020 Pigeon Forge Tom Lahey, who grew up a block from Gaetanos, said the following about the Smaldones and based upon my research the sentiment rings true: They did a lot of good in north Denver. Eugene Smaldone would plead guilty and would do a year in prison as a result. Besides his intellect, Clyde was known for his talent for making friends, whether it was with his neighbors, Mafia kings like Al Capone and Carlos Marcello, or Colorado Gov. So in May of 1933 following their guilty pleas, Clyde and Checkers would be sentenced to serve 18 months in federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas and fined $1,000 apiece (roughly $22,000 in todays money). The three men would serve their time at FMC Fort Worth (the medical center) prison in Texas. Pauline Smaldone, wife of Chauncey Smaldone in 1948. Colorados Carlino Brothers: A Bootlegging Empire. Louis F. Smaldone (left), second cousin the the Smaldone brothers, who was arrested as part of their jury tampering case in 1953. Always the entrepreneur, Clyde Smaldone was always looking for ways to expand the organizations gambling empire. Joseph "Scotty" Spinuzzi, Boss of the Pueblo LCN family from around 1972 until his death in 1975, in his younger days. The pair would do business with small-time gamblers, but would also be able to work with higher-stakes players as well. The Smaldones would continue to rack up arrests, and in 1932, they would be arrested several times though no serious charges stuck. On August 7, 1963, the body of Robin Walkie Talkie Roberts, was found murdered and lying in a ditch in a fairly well-to-do subdivision in Denver. The reference to the still was in relation to a recent gunfight in Florissant in which hijackers, reputed to have been Clyde, Checkers, Charley Blanda, and a few others, were fired upon while stealing a large quantity of alcohol from a rival gang. But as an Italian family, it was only natural to rely on your sons, and the money to be made was significant even with the obvious risks involved. Anyhow, coming up next, were going to be digging into maybe a biography, and then as promised previously I am going back into a family history to cover the little-known Cerrito family out of California. Clyde and Mildred Smaldone (left) pose for a photo in 1973. He wanted to take on a higher degree of control and kind of muscle in on the operations. He was riddled with seven bullets total, with six shots to the head. They knew what they were doing. It looks like, if there wasn't legitimate business dealing in any of these LLCs, it was influence peddling. Everybody would make money. This all stemmed from an issue in which a man named Joseph Nucci, was shot and wounded (although not fatally). So at this point in time in the 1960s, its a growing area of concern. Denver, ColoradoThe gambling Smaldone brothers Eugene and Clyde were each sentenced to 60 years in federal prison Monday by U.S. Judge Willis W. Ritter. A bondsman signs bail bond for Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone in 1960. The judge in the case, Judge J. Thirteen months after they went away, Judge Ritters decision would be thrown out after the sentences would be ruled as excessive by the US Supreme Court. First, go get Colorados Carlino Brothers: A Bootlegging Empire by Sam Carlino, who is in fact the grandson of the infamous Pete Carlino and great nephew of Sam Carlino who helped build the Carlino bootlegging empire and who was in fact murdered in 1933. Others in the family tried to warn Checkers, but of course the father had a major blind spot for the dealings of his son, a fact which rankled many in the organization. He says, Al says to give it to you for $35 a case. Clyde Smaldone, cigar in mouth, standing on a Denver sidewalk in front of cars sometime in 1940s. In addition to running the Tejon Bar and Cafe, Clyde Smaldone began to enterprise, getting into lucrative slot-machines, beginning to dive full-force into sports parlay betting cards (which were coming into fashion around that time), and they would also partake in more traditional mob rackets including bookmarking and loan sharking. An icon of a desk calendar. He got to be low-key [later in life], but this guy used to get in fights, hed pistol-whip people.. Drinking turned to fist-fighting amongst each other. Web353,528 total crimes reported in Colorado in 2020, reflecting a 3.9% increase from last year. And if you want to get technical, and if you want to get to a legal term, that's called being a foreign agent. Chauncey, as his friends and family called him, was born on February 8, 1924, and was the youngest of the eleven children born to Raffaele and Mamie Smaldone. Now as I mentioned above, after his semi-retirement Clydes drinking would become pretty problematic so much so that his sons would put him in alcohol rehabilitation on several occasions throughout the rest of his life until he was finally able to kick the habit (which wouldnt happen until much later in his life). Clyde Smaldone enters federal court after being charged with jury tampering in 1953. 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. 8 most wanted sex offender. Not that this last part is something to be proud of, but he even was able to get along with the local Ku Klux Klan (which had infiltrated nearly all levels of government in Denver at the time). Standing are Eugene Smaldone (far left) and Clyde Smaldone (center. As a result of this information making its way out, the authorities were able to conduct successful raids on the club leading the the arrest of Clarence Smaldone, Villano, and Salardino. He would go to trial in 1962. Checkers rang up his first arrest at the age of fifteen in 1925 when he was caught stealing automobile accessories. Crime is rising in Colorado. This state data shows by how much On March 13, 1932, Clyde and another brother James Smaldone would be arrested for an attempt to buy shotgun shells loaded with buckshot at a local pawnshop, which authorities believed was related to attempts on the lives of staff members of District Attorney Earl Wettengel. In fact, two years later in February of 1950, Falbos good friend Harold Murph Cohen, age thirty-seven, was found by two young boys under five feet of water near the shoreline of Blue Lake (now Coors Lake), which is near West 44th Avenue and McIntyre Street in rural Jefferson County. One of these men, a former lawyer named Charles S. Vigil, had been appointed as the U.S. District Attorney for Colorado in 1951 by President Harry Truman, who himself of course was famously mobbed up and was an acquaintance of none other than Clyde Smaldone. Hopefully that will be of interest to viewers since other families arent talked about nearly as often. These 7 men ran Colorado's most notorious crime family - KMGH Comer (pictured) claims the DOJ is in a 'pickle' over 'what do you do with this many family members of the president? And a lot of the description I just provided makes Checkers seem like kind of a bad dude, but dont forget that he also had a big part in taking care of the local community, and there was even an infamous story of him saving a little girl (the wardens niece from when he did time in prison) and another child from being kidnapped as part of a planned a prison break by other inmates. Spinuzzi arose from the body of the deceased with a gun in his hand, put the gun in his belt and walked away. 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. Enter the youngest brother, Clarence Chauncey Smaldone. It had just 15 property crimes and 2 violent crimes over the course of year. Their first move would be to partner with a man named Ova Elijah Smiling Charlie Stephens, who was known as a gambling kingpin in the Denver area from the 1930s into the 1950s. Retired Denver police captain Jerry Kennedy would later recall running into Roberts, who knew he had a major problem, just days after the devastating revelation: I ran into Walkie a day or two later in that Theater Bar on Sixteenth and Glenarm, doing a routine check, and I said, How you doing, Walkie?, He says, Hey, Kennedy, theyre going to kill me., I said, Walkie, theyre not going to kill you., He says, Hey, Im telling you, Borden named me on the stand. In the 1950s, hed be identified as one of the top leaders in the Colorado Mafia, and in 1953 hed do 3 years after an income-tax evasion conviction. In July of 1950, the United States Senate would identify the Smaldones as well as their contemporaries as the men in control over the underworld in Colorado, shining a major national spotlight on the two gangs operating in Northern and Southern Colorado. They used to send food and coal to a woman whose husband had left her with small children. In their own way, they were gentlemen.. Most of them couldnt hardly talk English.. In addition to being shot in the head three times, hed been beaten and stabbed in the face numerous times. Photo Credit: Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family, Raffaele "Ralph" Smaldone, father of the Smaldone brothers and patriarch of the Smaldone clan. Once in Pueblo, Coletti would immediately become a part of the underworld due to his familial relationship with the infamous Carlino brothers (he was their cousin) who controlled much of Colorado at the time. 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. Now, there were certainly other members, but I wont bore you by going through every single one. 'Comer and his committee have yet to name anyone except Joe Biden's businessman brother Jim, who was involved in some of Hunter Biden's dealings, and Hallie Biden, who was married to Joe Biden's late son Beau.Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12014459/Trump-calls-Bidens-crime-family-Watergate-times-10.html?ito=msngallery, Hunter and his wife Melissa Cohen were spotted at the weekend retreating to a $50 million vineyard north of Los Angeles owned by a Biden mega-donor. His brother lighted a cigar as officers led him handcuffed from the court room and sent up clouds of smoke. 'I mean, this was the Biden family influence peddling scheme. It certainly was a long episode, but again something that I found to be a very interesting and compelling story that I really want to share with my channel. Spinuzzi was considered a handsome man, approximately five-foot-eight-inches tall with dark, curly hair, dark brown eyes. Michael Roxie Villano: Smaldone Family member. From the 1920s well into the 1960s, Checkers would work closely with Clyde, though eventually through a series of events the brothers would have a falling out. Eugene (Checkers) Smaldone discusses his $12,000 bond, which was set for Checkers after he was arraigned on a habitual criminal charge and conspiracy charges in district court in 1953.