Allan May

Allan May has been interested in organized crime since he saw his first episode of the old "Untouchables" television series. An admirer of Eliot Ness for years, in 1997, May initiated the movement which resulted in the spreading of Ness's ashes, along with his third wife's and adopted son's, at a memorial service in Cleveland's historic Lake View Cemetery.

May's organized crime writing first appeared as "Big Al's Corner," in Jerry Capeci's internet Gang Land column. He now works with author Rick Porrello writing a weekly column for AmericanMafia.com. May's personal library on organized crime contains over 450 volumes. He is currently working on a book about the history of organized crime in Cleveland and his columns will be the basis of a second book.

In addition, May teaches classes on the history of organized crime for Cuyahoga Community College and Lakewood Adult Education.

May is also the historian at Lake View Cemetery and on the speaker's bureau. He wrote the "Who's Who of Lake View Cemetery" which includes biographies on over 250 noted personalities buried there. In the past he has written a monthly historical column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine.
Oct 15, 2009
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Louis Fratto "Cockeyed Louie" Fratto stared down three U.S. Senate committees -- Kefauver, McClellan, and Capehart -- by taking "the Fifth." His 30-year reign as the mob's lead man in Iowa netted him numerous civic honors, but not one day in jail. by Allan May According to...
Oct 15, 2009
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Tom Pendergast Other than Tammany Hall in New York, the Pendergast machine in Kansas City was the longest-running and most thorough melding of vice and politics ever seen in the United States. So complete was the marriage of underworld to political world, that Tom Pendergast...
Oct 15, 2009
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James Capone Imagine having the most notorious gangster in U.S. history for a brother. James, the oldest of the seven Capone brothers, did everything he could, including changing his name and becoming a Prohibition agent, to distance himself. He didn't quite make it. The...
Oct 15, 2009
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Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson For 15 years "Willie Boy" Johnson ratted out his mentor John Gotti and other major New York crime family figures to save his own skin and got away with it. And then an assistant U.S. attorney, in a turf battle with the FBI, deliberately blew his...
Oct 14, 2009
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Anthony D'Andrea The political feud between Anthony D'Andrea, the head of Unione Siciliana, and John Powers, the entrenched alderman of Chicago's 19th Ward, was a fight to the death. by Allan May The Unione Siciliana was as mysterious an organization as the Mafia, the...
Oct 14, 2009
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Mike Merlo As president of Unione Siciliana, Mike Merlo was able to keep the peace among Chicago's various underworld factions during the early years of Prohibition. When he died of cancer in 1924, Al Capone set his sights on taking over control of the Unione and its...
Oct 14, 2009
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Antonio "Tony" Lombardo Being the president of Chicago's Unione Siciliana was a ticket to the morgue, but that didn't stop Tony Lombardo, Capone's man, and Joe Aiello from wanting that job more than any other. by Allan May With the death of Samoots Amatuna in November,...
Oct 14, 2009
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Joseph Aiello Joseph Aiello was Al Capone's most bitter rival. Each wanted control of Chicago's Unione Siciliana and the enormous profits its "alky cookers" generated during Prohibition. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, plus the rise and fall of Aiello play out in this...
Oct 14, 2009
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Charles "Vannie" Higgins and William Bailey Prohibition spawned greed, and greed in turn spawned mayhem and murder throughout the underworld. Bootlegger Vannie Higgins ran booze by seaplane, speedboat, a fleet of trucks and by taxi to his Brooklyn customers. When he...
Oct 14, 2009
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Herbert Blitzstein At 300 pounds, Chicago mobster Herbert Blitzstein looked like a heart attack waiting to happen. Instead it was three bullets to his head that stopped his heart. As his profits from loan sharking and auto insurance fraud were piling up in Las Vegas, crime...

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