Angelo Bruno

Infobox Person
name=Angelo Bruno

250px|right|thumb
caption=FBI surveillance photo of Angelo Bruno
birth_date=May 21, 1910
birth_place=Villalba, Sicily, Italy
death_date=March 21, 1980
death_place=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Angelo "The Gentle Don" Bruno (May 21, 1910 - March 21, 1980) was an Italian-American mobster who ran the Philadelphia crime family for two decades. Bruno gained his nickname and reputation due to his preference for conciliation over violence.

Early years

Born in Villalba, Sicily, Bruno emigrated to the United States in his teens and settled in Philadelphia. The son of a grocer, Bruno was a close associate of New York City boss Carlo Gambino. In 1959, he succeeded Joseph Ida as boss of the Philadelphia crime family. Bruno was a cousin of mobster John Simone who was a bootlegger and had convictions including assault and robbery. He resembles Lucchese crime family mob associate and actor John Manca who would later portray "Nick Eyes" in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas.

Bruno was married to Sue Maranca and had two children. Bruno owned an extermination company in Trenton, New Jersey, an aluminum products company in Hialeah, Florida, and a stake in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Bruno's first arrest was in 1928 for reckless driving. Subsequent arrests included firearms violations, operating an illicit alcohol still, illegal gambling, and receiving stolen property.

Family leader

Bruno's leadership of the family was regarded as successful. He avoided the intense media and law enforcement scrutiny and outbursts of violence that plagued other crime families. Bruno himself avoided lengthy prison terms despite several arrests; his longest term was two years for refusing to testify to a Grand Jury. In addition, Bruno did not allow his family to deal in narcotics, preferring more traditional Cosa Nostra operations like bookmaking and loansharking.

However, Bruno did allow members of the Gambino crime family to distribute heroin in Philadelphia for a share of the proceeds. This angered many members of his own family, who were barred from narcotics trafficking and wanted a share of the profits made from drug dealing. Bruno also came under fire for not allowing other families a share of the profits in increasingly lucrative Atlantic City Under the Cosa Nostra rules, Atlantic City was regarded as part of the Philadelphia family's domain and no other family could move in without Bruno's permission.

Rebellion and Death

Before long, several factions within the family began conspiring to betray the aging Bruno. On March 21, 1980, the sixty-nine-year-old Angelo Bruno was killed by a shotgun blast in the back of the head as he sat in his car. It is believed that the killing was ordered by Antonio Caponigro (aka Tony Bananas), Bruno's consigliere. A few weeks after Bruno was murdered, Caponigro was found stuffed in a body bag in the trunk of a car in New York. About $300 in bills were jammed in his mouth and anus. It was alleged that the Mafia Commission ordered his murder because Caponigro had assassinated a family boss without their sanction.

After Caponigro's murder, Philip 'Chicken Man' Testa led the family for a brief period (one year), but was killed by a nail bomb at his home. Testa's death resulted from an attempt by Peter Casella, Testa's underboss, to become the boss of the Philadelphia family. Through shrewd insight, Nicodemo Scarfo, a violent rising mob figure and the boss in Atlantic City, took over Bruno's crime organization. However, the death of Bruno marked the decline of the Philadelphia family due to informants, infighting, and successful prosecutions of high-profile mobsters like Scarfo.

External links

* [http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/AngeloBruno.html Gangsters Incorporated: Angelo "The Gentle Don" Bruno]
* [http://glasgowcrew.tripod.com/bruno.html Mafia International: Angelo "The Gentle Don" Bruno]
* [http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Philadelphia.html American Mafia's brief history of the Mafion sentencea in Philadelphia]

References

*Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - The Mafia's Most Violent Family by George Anastasia, 2004, ISBN 0-9410159-86-4
*Bureau of Narcotics, U.S. Treasury Department, "Mafia: the Government's Secret File on Organized Crime, HarperCollins Publishers 2007 ISBN 0-06-136385-5