AN ITALIAN BOY'S CONFESSION

'Bless me Father, for I have sinned.   
I have been with a loose girl'.   
The priest asks, 'Is that you, little Joey Pagano ?'   
'Yes, Father, it is.'   
'And who was the girl you were with?' 
'I can't tell you, Father. 
I don't want to ruin her reputation'. 


"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or 
later so you may as well tell me now. 
Was it Tina Minetti?' 
'I cannot say.' 
'Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?' 
'I'll never tell.' 


'Was it Nina Capelli?' 
'I'm sorry, but I cannot name her.' 
'Was it Cathy Piriano?' 
'My lips are sealed.' 


'Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?' 
'Please, Father, I cannot tell you.'   
The priest sighs in frustration.   
'You're very tight lipped, and I admire that.   
But you've sinned and have to atone.   
You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months.   


Now you go and behave yourself.'   
Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and whispers,   
'What'd you get?' Four months vacation and five good leads.

Frank Nitti

Nitti was Al Capone's main enforcer and second in command. Nitti became boss of the Southside gang after Capone went to jail for tax evasion. He also engineered the assasination of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, after Cermak sent two policemen to kill Nitti so he could take over Nitti's criminal operations. When Nitti tried to extort money from four Hollywood studios, he bought unwanted government attention to the gang which prompted other gang members to revolt and insist that Nitti take the fall. Nitti commited suicide instead. It was also rumored that Nitti suffered from stomach cancer and did not want to die in jail. Mount Carmel Cemetery, Hillside, Illinois.


Date of Birth
1888, Italy


Date of Death
19 March 1943, Chicago, Illinois, USA. (suicide by gunshot)


Birth Name
Francesco Raffaele Nitto


Mini Biography
Although Frank Nitti has gotten the reputation over the years as the right-hand man of gangster Al Capone and a feared killer in his own right, this has actually proven not to be the case. Although Nitti and Capone were as youths in New York City both members of the Five Points Gang--one of the most notorious of the city's many violent street gangs at the turn of the century--they apparently were in the gang at different times and didn't know each other. It wasn't until Nitti later moved to Chicago, where Capone was already established as a major gangland figure, that the two became acquainted. Nitti ran a barber shop from where he peddled bootleg liquor and where various denizens of the neighborhood would fence stolen property. He had a knack for smuggling whiskey from Canada to Chicago and distributing it throughout the city, a talent that brought him to Capone's attention. He was subsequently brought into the Capone mob, where he did indeed become "Big Al's" right-hand man. When Capone went to prison for income-tax evasion in 1929, Nitti was installed as head of the Capone mob by Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, who was the real power in Chicago's gangland hierarchy. Nitti's position was solely as a frontman, to take the spotlight off Ricca and the other gangsters who actually ran things; he had no real power and his "orders" were usually countermanded by Ricca, who--unlike Nitti--was a member of the Commission, a "board of directors" of Mafia crime families.

Nitti did manage to get into trouble on his own, though. In late December of 1932 he had a run-in with a gangster named Ted Newberry, who was running what used to be the Moran/O'Bannion gang. Newberry, it was rumored, had Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak on his payroll and vowed to get Nitti. Shortly afterwards two Chicago detectives showed up at Nitti's office, sent there by Cermak to arrest him, and a few minutes later a gunfight erupted, during which one of the detectives was shot in the hand and Nitti himself was badly wounded and almost died, and spent several months in the hospital. When he recovered he was put on trial for the attempted murder of the officers. However, at the trial it came out that the detectives had been paid to assassinate Nitti, although it wasn't determined by whom, and that the officer who was shot had actually deliberately shot himself in the hand so as to provide an excuse to kill Nitti, who was in fact unarmed. He was acquitted of the charges.

In 1943 two Chicago mobsters were indicted for labor racketeering in a scheme to take over several Hollywood labor unions and extort money from the movie studios in exchange for labor peace. They were tried and found guilty, but instead of going to prison they made a deal to inform on their gangland bosses, among whom were Nitti and Ricca, who were soon indicted. Ricca and the other mobsters ordered Nitti to take the blame for the scheme, since the two gangsters who turned on them were Nitti's men. Nitti, who had served 18 months in prison in the early 1930s for income tax evasion, was extremely claustrophobic and the thought of spending several years in a small prison cell was too much for him to bear. He refused the order to take the rap for them all, and a violent argument ensued between Nitti and the other gangsters. The next day Nitti went for a walk along the railroad tracks near his home, and as several railroad employees working nearby were looking at him, he pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head

Somewhere New For The Witness Protection Crew here in Az ???

Transplanted Chicagoans were downright giddy Tuesday at the news that Portillo’s Hot Dogs is looking to expand its restaurant chain to the Phoenix area.

Portillo’s is an icon in Chicagoland, loved and remembered by the tens of thousands of local residents who moved out of Illinois over the years to make Arizona their home.

You can include me in that bunch. I grew up eating the scrumptious Chicago-style hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches at the local Portillo’s just a few minutes away from where my parents still live in Naperville, Ill. And yes, I went to Portillo’s for lunch when I was back to visit for Christmas. That’s just what you do when you “go back.”

Portillo’s is looking to build new restaurants at Tempe Marketplace, Chandler Fashion Center and other locations in Phoenix or Scottsdale.
When word spread of the news yesterday, I received a handful of emails and Facebook messages about the news. Al Maag, chief communications officer at Phoenix-based Avnet Inc.    , is a Chicago native. He said one of the reasons he loves the Phoenix area is because there are so many Chicagoans here.


“I feel it’s the western suburbs of Chicago without the snow and traffic congestion,” he said.Maag said there are thousands of hot dog stands in Chicago, but Portillo’s stands out.
“When I travel back to Chicago my first stop is Portillo’s for a beef sandwich and hot dog,” he said. “Heck, my family and I have it shipped here four times a year for special parties. I remember when In-N-Out came here the lines were pretty long. When Portillo’s comes it will be a happening of a higher magnitude. My guess is the last car will be in Tucson.”

Stephanie Lough, an account coordinator at HMA Public Relations    in Phoenix, didn’t grow up in the Chicago area, but she’s been bitten by the Portillo’s bug.