Angelo "Big Ange" Lonardo, the son of Joseph, testified 50 years later that he believed that Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro, who had managed the Lonardo sugar refineries before leaving in a dispute and joining up with family rival Joseph Porrello, had murdered his father and then take over as boss. Two years later, Angelo avenged his father by shooting Todaro to death in front of the Porrello warehouse on June 11, 1929. Todaro's execution set off another round of violence. Angelo's uncle, Frank Lonardo, was shot to death four months later in a downtown barbershop.
Angelo Lonardo and his cousins were having difficulty luring Sam Todaro to a place where they could kill him and avenge the murder of Angelo's father. Finally, they came up with a plan. Without telling his mother why, Angelo asked her to accompany him to Todaro's new place of work. When they arrived, Lonardo sent a messenger inside to tell Todaro that his mom wanted to talk to him. When Todaro saw the widow, he let his guard down, got closer to the car, and Lonardo emptied his gun into him.
New boss Joseph Porrello did not fare much better than the previous bosses. He was gunned down in Frank Milano's restaurant on July 5, 1930. Milano, the leader of the so-called Mayfield Road Mob, rose to prominence as the Porrellos were killed off. After a short but successful run, Milano left Cleveland and moved to Mexico in 1935, one of the few Mafia bosses who voluntarily walked away from a leadership position. Alfred "Big Al" Polizzi then took over.
One of the key factors in the long-term success of the Cleveland family was its association with Jewish gangsters. Moe Dalitz is the best known. In 1947, Dalitz invested in the construction of a new hotel/casino in Las Vegas. To prevent other Mafia families from muscling in, Dalitz gave the Cleveland Mafia leaders a piece of the action. Their payments were skimmed off the top, in cash, to avoid problems with tax people. This partnership began prior to the Las Vegas endeavor and lasted into the 1980s.
In the mid-1940s, flush with cash, Polizzi semi retired to Florida, leaving capo John Scalish in charge. In 1957, Scalish was stopped and identified as he left the Apalachin meeting. This gave him unwanted national prominence. His use of a car registered to the Buckeye Cigarette Service of Cleveland also alerted the law about his participation in a long-running vending machine monopoly in Ohio. Scalish became the focus of numerous investigations and a target of a secret FBI intelligence-gathering operation. He was investigated but never charged.
By the mid-1970s, even before the national push by federal authorities against the Mafia, the Cleveland family was on its last legs. A generation of Cleveland Mob powers had died. Scalish died in 1976, underboss Anthony Milano in 1978, consigliere John DeMarco in 1972, and capo Frank Brancato in 1973. With no new blood waiting in the wings to take over-there were few inductees in the prior three decades-the family was growing old. Aging capo James "Jack White" Licavoli took over as the hand-picked choice of the dying Scalish.
Licavoli inherited a slice of the skim from the Las Vegas hotels and casinos. This came about because Cleveland associate, Teamsters Union International vice president William "Bill the Plug" Presser, had helped win a huge Teamster Central States Pension Fund loan for the Argent Corporation, which operated four casinos. Licavoli soon faced a rebellion from some long-time associates of the family who felt left out of the action.
John Nardi, secretary/treasurer of Teamsters Local 410, was contemptuous of Licavoli and his administration. A relative of former boss Frank Milano and underboss Tony Milano, Nardi, also a member of a Teamsters Joint Council that represented several locals, ignored orders from Licavoli and his underboss Leo "Lips" Moceri. To strengthen his position, Nardi allied himself with swashbuckling Irish gangster Danny Greene, who had his own gang of toughs. In August 1976, Moceri disappeared, no doubt at the hands of Nardi and/or Greene, and a shooting war broke out. On May 17, 1977, Nardi was killed by a bomb that blew up in a car parked next to his. "It didn't hurt," he said in a final act of defiance moments before he died. Several months later, on October 6, 1977, Greene was blown up as he left his dentist and got to his car. The mob had tapped his phone and planted a bomb in a car that they placed beside his after he arrived at the dentist's office. These bombing deaths were the beginning of the end of the Cleveland Mafia.
Key participants in the war, including Angelo Lonardo, became government witnesses. Turncoat California hood Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno, who had spent years in Cleveland, filled in many details about the Cleveland situation. Boss Jack Licavoli died behind bars on November 24, 1985. Capos John Calandra, Thomas Sinito, and Joe Gallo and numerous soldiers and associates were given lengthy prison terms.
John "Peanuts" Tronolone, although based in Florida, tried to carry on, but he was an ineffective leader who faced many legal problems until his death in 1991. By this time, there really was little to lead. The FBI also convicted Joseph "Jose Loose" Iacobacci in 1996. He was referred to as the acting boss, but this was a label used to make his conviction seem more important than he really was.
Along with the convictions, death, and defections, the loss of the family's influence over the Teamsters Union made running the Cleveland family much less appealing than before. Even when Jackie Presser succeeded his late father William as Teamsters Union powerhouse, it was all a house of cards. The mob had lost control of the Central States Pension Fund goldmine, and it faced two decades of increasing government pressure to eliminate the Mafia's influence over the Teamsters Union. The days of the Cleveland family being part of a criminal empire with national significance were long gone. The family boss now is said to be Joseph Iacobacci Jr.