Tony Spilotro

Anthony Spilotro "The Ant"

Anthony Spilotro was born in Chicago on May 19, 1938. His family was good to him and he was doing good in school, but he decided to drop out. He joined a gang of other dropouts from the same school soon after and started performing petty crimes like shoplifting and mugging.

He was caught for the first time on January 11, 1955 for stealing a t-shirt and was fined $10 and given probation. Over the next five years, Spilotro was arrested another twelve times. By this time Anthony had decided that he wanted to move onto bigger things, so he joined the the La Cosa Nostra family.

Anthony was taken under the wing of "Mad" Sam DeStefano and started out as a debt collector. Anthony performed his job so well that he moved up quickly and was given his first hit contract. In 1962, Anthony joined Sam and two other mobsters in torturing and murdering two individuals: Bill McCartney and Jimmy Miraglia. Anthony put McCartney's head in a vice and tightened it until his eye popped out, giving him huge notoriety among the other gangsters. He was made by the family in 1963 and joined Felix Alderisio's group.

Anthony was immediately put in charge of a bookmaking territory and, after running it successfully for a year, he was sent to Miami. In Miami, he protected Frank Rosenthal, a handicapper, and made sure that no other families muscled their way in on family businesses there.

In 1967, he was brought back to Chicago for 4 years, where he continued making a name for himself. In 1971 Anthony was sent to Las Vegas as a replacement for Marshall Caifano and he set up a headquarters in the gift shop at the Circus Circus casino. Anthony took care of quite a few loose ends, torturing and murdering at least five people, a few of which were found in the desert.

In 1972, Anthony was indicted in a murder case along with Mario DeStefano and his brother Mad Sam DeStefano. Mario and Anthony decided to murder Mad Sam with a shotgun to make sure the trial went smoothly for them. However, Mario was still found guilty, but Anthony was acquitted and returned to Vegas.

Almost immediately after the end of this case, there was another indictment, this time with Joseph Lombardo for another murder, but they took out the witness and were acquitted of all charges.

Finally free of court cases, Anthony was able to make sure the casino's skim operation was running smoothly and that no scam operations were run by other mobsters. Spilotro was reunited with his pal Frank Rosenthal and worked with him a lot on protecting the Stardust and other interests.

In 1979, Anthony was put in the black book, meaning that he could no longer step foot in a Las Vegas casino. He was very angry, but continued to run his business in the city. Anthony started a gang called "The Hole in the Wall" Gang that was notorious for making holes in walls to steal jewelry from stores. Things were going very well and Anthony was gaining power.

However, Anthony started getting into drugs more and more and even got involved wtih Frank Rosenthal's wife, Geri. The family back in Chicago didn't like the sleeping around and had Anthony and his brother whacked during a meeting in a remote Indiana cornfield. The murder was very gruesome since they were both beaten to a pulp with baseball bats and buried alive.

Anthony Spilotro was portrayed as Nicky Santoro by Joe Pesci in the movie "Casino".