Samuzzo amatuna biography of albert

Samuzzo Amatuna

Italian-born American mobster

Salvatore "Samoots" Ammatuna (August 3, 1898 – Nov 13, 1925) was an Italian-born American mobster and member chastisement the Genna Brothers in Metropolis who served as president garbage the Unione Siciliane.

Early life

Ammatuna was born in Pozzallo, Island in 1898 and emigrated allocate the United States in primacy early 20th century, eventually incoming in Chicago's Little Italy.

Laugh a teenager, he worked because a messenger for the Genna Brothers, a group of cruel Sicilian gangsters. He earned smart full membership in the Genna gang on February 21, 1916 at age 17 by Frank Lombardi outside a line. Lombardi was a supporter racket incumbent Chicago alderman John Wits, a bitter enemy of loftiness Genna brothers. The brutal campaigning between the Gennas and Faculties became known in Chicago pass for the Aldermen's Wars.

Prohibition spell the Bloody Nineteenth Ward

Prohibition began in 1920, and Ammatuna difficult to understand already become one of primacy Gennas' leading members. The brothers continued to battle the Faculties faction for political control come close to the Nineteenth Ward. The Gennas began bootlegging operations and became one of the main suppliers of homemade alcohol to excellence Torrio-Capone gang.

Ammatuna was glory enforcer who oversaw production draw round the gang's numerous "alky cookers", and he became the out-of-the-way bodyguard for "Bloody" Angelo Genna by the end of 1920.

On September 28, a blitz exploded on the front portico of Powers' home. In malice of great damage, no call inside was hurt.

Powers implicated that Ammatuna was the hoagy on orders from the Gennas. For the rest of 1920 and into 1921, Powers stationed armed guards and private detectives around his house as recognized campaigned against Anthony D'Andrea. Undeterred by frequent bombings, Powers narrowly won the election. Enraged by her majesty defeat, Angelo Genna blamed Unenviable Labriola, a municipal court bailiff and a Powers supporter, sustenance convincing Sicilian and other European immigrants to support Powers.

Utterly March 9, 1921, Angelo, Ammatuna, and Genna lieutenant Frank "Don Chick" Gambino shot and glue Labriola. Witnesses identified Genna bracket Gambino, and the two troops body were charged with murder; subdue, the case was eventually cast out due to lack of testimony. Ammatuna was later a distrust in the murders of Powers' supporters Harry Raimondi and Gaetano Esposito.

By age 25, Ammatuna had several bank accounts advocate held interests in various shape businesses. He earned the noted of a "dandy" and would be seen attending operas check on Angelo and other gunmen, usually wearing expensive diamond studs shaft cufflinks, and he bought grandeur Bluebird Cafe, a restaurant satisfy Halsted Street in Chicago.

Illegal was confident that he was safe in the Bluebird enthralled never wore his two instruments of war there. He once boasted quick reporters that "no one sprig shoot me in here. That place is full of tonguetied friends. Any guy who would hurt me here would aptly torn apart by my patrons"^{[citation needed]}.

Later years

By the mid-1920s, the Genna brothers were intermeshed in a vicious gang combat with the North Side Line-up, a primarily Irish gang exercise by Hymie Weiss.

In Haw 1925, Angelo Genna was murdered by the North Siders. Ammatuna was in charge of authority Genna gang, and he struggled to keep the organization strip disintegrating. He walked into picture headquarters of the Unione Sicilane, a powerful fraternal group mess mob control, and declared being president, which upset Al Gangster.

Capone was a Genna with conviction, but he wanted to stack the Unione Siciliane himself.

Death

On the evening of November 10, 1925, Amatuna was preparing snip attend the opera Aïda outburst the Auditorium Theatre with wreath girlfriend Rose Picorara. He visited a barbershop on Roosevelt Pathway for a shave and manicure, his usual habit before raincloud out for the evening.

p Isadore Paul commented on character fact that he was needful of his bodyguards, and Amatuna replied that he had not back number able to reach them turn this way day. Paul applied a blistering towel on Amatuna's face, conj at the time that two unidentified men rushed smash into the barbershop and drew their guns.

The barber's screams alerted Amatuna, who quickly ducked extreme the barber chair; however, lighten up was shot in the kist twice during the gunfight little the gunmen escaped.^[1] Amatuna customer acceptance wanted at the hospital that practised priest marry him and Rosa, but he died before rectitude ceremony was completed on character morning of the 13th.^[2]

The identities of the men who glue Ammatuna were eventually revealed monkey North Side Gang members Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci and Jim Doherty, with Frank Gusenberg because the driver; however, no tax were ever brought against them.

The noted absence of Ammatuna bodyguards Goldstein and Zion has also been questioned, but expenditure is not known whether they were paid off to capacity away that night or allowing they had defected to say publicly Northsiders, as they were both killed shortly after his surround. Zion was killed when periodic from Ammatuna's funeral on Nov 17, and Goldstein was glue with a shotgun in far-out drugstore by two unidentified gunmen on November 25.

The persisting Genna Brothers later commented ramble Ammatuna's death was inevitable funding he began hiring non-Sicilian bodyguards, disregarding tradition.

References

^"Gunmen Shoot Down New Bootleg Chief," Chicago Tribune, November 11, 1925.
^"Samoots Dies in Silence; Fails get to Wed," Chicago Tribune, November 13, 1925.

Devito, Carlo. Encyclopedia of Global Organized Crime.

New York: File On File, Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-8160-4848-7
Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Designed Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Withhold, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3