Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary and Chicago Outfit expert and author Camillus Robinson discuss Mafia Boss Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo and the most significant criminal charge he ever faced. The IRS charged Anthony Accardo with tax evasion, just like Al Capone. Accardo went to a jury trial where several people testified that he was a beer salesman and always drove his Red Mercedes Benz sports car when he called on customers. They had to do this because he had deducted his depreciation, mileage, and gasoline for his work use of this unlikely car. We learn that future Southside Chicago Height’s Capo Al Pilotto was instrumental in testifying for Accardo.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
GARY JENKINS, Camillus Robinson
GARY JENKINS 00:00
Well welcome all you Wiretapperss back here in studio Gangland Wire got my good friend Camilius “Cam” Robinson. Welcome cam.
Camillus Robinson 00:06
How you doing? Very good to see you.
GARY JENKINS 00:08
Well, it’s a cold up there in Chicago with cold and hell down there.
Camillus Robinson 00:12
Yeah, it is it was in the it was in the teens earlier I might get up into the midterm needs to
GARY JENKINS 00:16
do. Anyhow, we’re going to talk about the big Tuna or Joe Batters, Anthony Accardo today and him and I both stumble across this little story. And I mentioned to him and he’d already knew something about it. And it’s the little red sportscar story. This is really fascinating, I think, in the lender in the 50s. Tony Accardo had the perfect job. He was a beer salesman, I remember as a kid guys wanted to get a job with the pearl brewery or on the brewery truck, because you got all the free beer you wanted to drink. Accardo had it for other reasons. Of course, you know, he was an outfit guy. He was he was the boss at the time. And he had a lot of connections with Chicago bars and liquor distributors and places to buy beer when you say
Camillus Robinson 01:09
Damn, that’s where you make the pickups. Three pickups, cash. That’s where
GARY JENKINS 01:13
you pick up the case, man. sports gambling was going on out. That’s where the deals are made. And that’s where that’s where the gamblers were, that’s where the money was. And he made $65,000 a year as a beer salesman. For everyone round he got he also got I mean, look at my notes here. He got five cents a case on all Foxhead beer. he sold. He was working for this company. It wasn’t really a mob company particularly but he was he was the mob guy representing them. And it probably was more of a mob company. We realize he deducted his expenses and like car expenses. Other expenses depreciated. That is a concern. But what’s interesting is his car was a little red sports car, but it wasn’t just any little red sports car. Was it what was it? I know you’re this
Camillus Robinson 02:06
guy as a car guy, you know, I know your motorcycle guy. But so for me the 300 SL, Mercedes Gullwing. We know what’s going on because Gary, I wondered for years, Gary found a great quote from the judge talking about the up and down doors. But 300 300 SL Goldwing was the first supercar I sat in one at an auction it’s got a steering wheel that tilts forward because it’s so hard to get into. So you can imagine these guys in their in their expensive suits stepping over this wide is wide beam to get into this car with the doors oh going up and it was a race car in in everything except name. They used him to race the handling was tremendous. This was the quintessential he was like driving around selling beer in the equivalent of a Lamborghini.
GARY JENKINS 02:53
Richard Ogilvy who was the sheriff for one for a while in Cook County and he was an investigator and he did some investigation on this and he went to 3500 local tavern owners, and he never found anybody that ever talked to Tony Accardo.
Camillus Robinson 03:12
Police work for the day!
GARY JENKINS 03:13
Really! He deducted $3,994 in depreciation and oil and gas expenses for this Mercedes don’t pay for the car, you know and Accardo at his trial was it was really interesting. He he was he had you know succeeded Capone so he was the man and he had always he knew how they got Capone right? Income tax so he had always showed some income and depreciation and some deductions like normal people do he wanted to make it look as normal as possible. Of course he lived way beyond those means but but maybe not like Capone did Al Capone you know he had these silver diamond encrusted belt buckles that he gave out then hotel homes and I guess he had a big home down in Florida and he just did a lot of other real ostentatious things that Accardo didn’t particularly do. He did have a home in Palm Springs later on in life. But this this Mercedes was was pretty ostentatious at the time what would that car be worth today?
Camillus Robinson 04:18
So now they go for about 1,000,002 million 1,000,002 just went on an auction. I
GARY JENKINS 04:23
think if you could find the one that Tony Accardo actually owned. If you could trace that VI N
Camillus Robinson 04:29
Jay Leno has got a red one taht looks something like it looks something like it but yeah, they are a tremendous car if you could trace Accardo’s that would just be an extra maybe an extra $100,000 in the bank
GARY JENKINS 04:40
or more. They would I wonder how you do that you know how you trace those bi ends I know guys do that they go back and find their high school car that they had I’ve heard of that.
Camillus Robinson 04:50
If you went down to either probably go downtown to the registration road vehicles and maybe track it down and I have a hard time believing that the car no I had too many good and records but because that car was in a court case, I’m sure it would be somewhere
GARY JENKINS 05:06
you might be able to find the VIN in that old court case. And it uses real mob fans out there in Chicago and Cook County that like to research. It’s a go find those if you can find those court records. There’s not a lot of those cars out there and get that VIN and then start trying to trace it or send that VIN in to me, I’ll try to trace it. At least whatever I can get on the internet. I’m not going to travel around the country, but it would be worth it actually to travel around the country if you thought you could find it. But even if you found it, even if they didn’t know who it was, you know, it’d be hard to buy. Oh, they just don’t go up for sale. Those No, no, no
Camillus Robinson 05:40
people get them and hold onto them.
GARY JENKINS 05:42
Accardo is famous for never spending a night in jail. And that trial he they put up a pretty good defense. It was a typical Chicago defense. And he take a look at here. It’s a pretty good quotes. He got Al Pilotto in there, who at the time would have been what would he have been at the time in 1956. He was pretty
Camillus Robinson 06:02
high ranking Lieutenant down in Chicago Heights. A lot of the Chicago Heights crew Frank Frank Laporte was running things in Chicago Heights and Al Piolotto. And a bunch of guys Joe Colombo, Joe and Joe Costello. These guys all were witnesses in this trial. So basically the whole Chicago Heights group because a lot of the bars that Accardo was supposedly selling to were down in between Kankakee and Calumet City, in the south of south of Chicago.
GARY JENKINS 06:28
And that makes sense why Pilotto would would be the one that came down he at the time he had been the president of the local number five for the International Hod Carriers, Builders and Common Laborers union. Yeah. And he claimed that he worked with he was a leg man for Accardo, which is why you didn’t see Accardo when these joints he sent. Pilotto said I want us to go out and do things in these joints and take bar napkins and you know, little giveaway items and promotional things for him. He said and even remarked that he was in a particular liquor store the park in liquors in Calumet City, and he saw Accardo come in with Jackie Cerone you know, that’s how far back Jackie’s thrown goes. He had to be really young guy. He must have been like driving Accardo How would he have been?
Camillus Robinson 07:18
Yeah, it was in. So he was in his early 50s. He was born in 1906. So in the late 50s, he was just turned 50 Driving this car and so yeah, he would have been in his 50s throne would have been he was born. So in his in his late 30s, early 40s.
GARY JENKINS 07:35
Okay, yeah, he would have been a young guy so he was he’d been going round with Accardo. Yeah, really young man carried on all the way to the rest of his life as Accardo was alive. He was Jackie Cerone was the guy that was a longtime relationship. I never really thought about that. I know. Look at it later on in the 70s when he’s sitting up but nor the males restaurant, Meo’s Norwood restaurant, I think and he’d sit there. Meet with Paul Ricca before he died and meet with other people Jackie Cerone was was often noted as being the guy that took him there and maybe stayed Yeah, maybe came back and got him and so he was with him a long time.
Camillus Robinson 08:14
Oh, yeah. He was his right hand, man. And I’m with Mark.
GARY JENKINS 08:16
Yeah,
