Chicago Mob 1990s Hit List
Outfit Murders – 1990-2000
Damage Toll: 10 bodies
*Violence in the Windy City mafia dipped sharply in the 1990s, the amount of gangland slayings were down 21 hits from the previous decade
May 14, 1990 – Outfit associate Jimmy Pellegrino found shot in the back of the head, wrapped in a tarp and floating down the Des Plaines River
July 2, 1990 – Outfit associate and bookmaker Victor Lazarus is found shot in the back of the head in a Northside parking lot. Lazarus, 86, took action in both Las Vegas and his hometown of Chicago
November 6, 1991 – Outfit associate Edward Pedote, a stolen jewelry fence and convicted burglar and drug dealer from Naperville, Illinois is bludgeoned with a table leg and shot in the face in a Chicago furniture store
November 21, 1991 – Outfit business associate and real estate liquidator Wally Lieberman from ritzy Northshore Chicago suburb Northbrook is shot to death in Cicero. Lieberman was connected to imprisoned Outfit lieutenant Robert (Bobby the Gabeet) Bellavia. His wife was Bellavia’s secretary. Bellavia was jailed months earlier on a racketeering and murder indictment centered around the Cicero crew’s Lake County wing
November 5, 1992 – Outfit associate and drug dealer Sam Taglia is shot twice in the back of the head, his throat slit and his body stuffed in the trunk of his car. Chicago mobster Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena was put on trial but acquitted for the Taglia hit. Vena was seen with Taglia in the hours before his killing
November 5, 1994 – Outfit bookie and native-Italian Giuseppe Vicari is beaten and shot to death inside his Westside Chicago restaurant, La Casa De Caffe. Vicari had been in the United States for five years and was under indictment in a gambling case at the time of his murder
January 6, 1997 – Jewish Chicago mob associate and then-independent bookie and loan shark Herbert (Fat Herbie) Blitzstein is killed inside his Las Vegas home in an ill-conceived takeover of Blitzstein’s rackets hatched in tandem by representatives from the Los Angeles and Buffalo mob crime families operating in Nevada. Blitzstein was a lieutenant under the Outfit’s slain Las Vegas crew boss Tony (The Ant) Spilotro in the 1970s and 1980s.
July 2, 1997 – Outfit associate and Chicago businessman William (Bill the Pallet Man) Benham is killed inside his own office by Windy City mob loanshark and Southside crew member James (Jimmy Poker) DiForti
May 15, 1998 – Mike Cutler, set to be a witness against the son of Outfit’s Southside crew capo Frank (Tootsie) Caruso in a racially-motivated attempted murder case involving the beating of a 13-year old boy, is shot to death on the Westside after a night of partying with friends
December 23, 1999 – Chicago mafia lieutenant, hit man and Southside crew member Ronnie Jarrett is gunned down en route to a funeral. He doesn’t die until January 25, 2000. Jarrett was once a part-time member of the notorious Wild Bunch assassin crew in the 1970s and 1980s and had been feuding with Outfit street boss John (Johnny Apes) Monteleone.
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