Vittorio "Little Vic" Amuso (born November 4, 1934) is an American mobster and the boss of the Lucchese crime family. He was described as "The Deadly Don" by Assistant United States Attorney Charles Rose. Amuso's reign is considered one of the bloodiest periods in American Mafia history during the late 1980s and early 1990s, alongside his former underboss and close protégé Anthony Casso, who turned informer against him in 1994. Since the death of Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico in March 2019, Amuso is currently the longest-serving crime family boss of the Five Families, dating back to 1987. Amuso has been serving a life sentence on murder and racketeering charges since 1992, and is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner in North Carolina.Federal Bureau Prison Inmate Locator: Vittorio Amuso (Serving Life)
Early life Vittorio Amuso was born November 4, 1934, and grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn. In the late 1940s, he was introduced to Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo, a prominent caporegime in the Gagliano crime family, a forerunner of the Lucchese crime family. Amuso acted as a bodyguard and chauffeur for Carmine "Gribbs" Tramunti.
Amuso was married to Barbara,Mob boss 'Vic' Amuso given life sentence The Daily Gazette (October 10, 1992) and the couple had one daughter, Victoria.Mafia Sons Play For Reel Cash by Jerry Capeci They live in Howard Beach, Queens.
Colombo crime family Enforcer for Gallo Amuso later became an enforcer for Profaci crime family mobster, Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo, in Brooklyn.Michael Codella and Bruce Bennett. Alphaville: 1988, Crime, Punishment, and the Battle for New York City's. 2010. View In the early 1960s, the Gallo brothers declared war against longtime crime boss Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci and the old Profaci faction of the family, because Profaci had cut into Gallo's profits. Amuso would allegedly kill several members of the Profaci faction, but was sent to prison sometime in the early 1960s, along with Joey Gallo and a dozen others, for extortion charges.
After Joe Gallo's release from prison in early 1971, he continued his war against the family on June 28, 1971, when boss Joseph Colombo was shot. Months later, on April 7, 1972, Joe Gallo was shot to death in Little Italy, Manhattan, while he was celebrating his 43rd birthday. Many Colombo crime family members, especially those from the old Gallo crew, defected to other crime families. Amuso went to the Lucchese family sometime during that year, as an associate in the "19th Hole Crew," whose capo was Christopher "Christie Tick" Furnari.
Lucchese crime family
Associate Amuso became one of Furnari's top protégés along with Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. On December 21, 1972, Amuso was arrested by police outside the "House on Morgan Avenue," a front for the "Bronx Connection" kickback scheme, selling prison paroles for as high as $20,000 to prison inmates. Presumably to meet with the building owner, Richard Curro, a city corrections officer and Lucchese family associate, who acted as liaison between inmates and the Luccheses, Amuso was in possession of a switchblade and a file folder of parole documents at the time of his arrest.
Made man to prison
In 1977, Amuso became a "made man" in the Lucchese family.Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss by Philip Carlo (pg. 296) On May 30, 1977, Amuso was arrested with Casso, for their involvement in a drug trafficking ring smuggling heroin from Bangkok. At the time of the Brooklyn mobsters' arrest, he had been found with three pounds of heroin in his possession. Reportedly, the heroin operation was headed by Amuso, his cooperator Casso, and two other associates of the Lucchese family. They were all sent to prison.
Furnari was promoted to consigliere in 1980, and Amuso succeeded him as capo. Furnari wanted Casso to succeed him, but Casso preferred to become Furnari's aide-de-camp; a consigliere is allowed to have one soldier work for him directly.
Murder of Frank DeCicco On April 13, 1986, the underboss of the Gambino crime family, Frank DeCicco, was killed when a bomb placed under his car went off.Jerry Capeci. The complete idiot's guide to the Mafia. view The bomb had been planted by Herbert Pate, while Amuso, Casso, and Vic's brother Robert watched from a parked car. The target was allegedly Gambino boss John Gotti, who earlier, with DeCicco, had organized the murder of former boss Paul Castellano, without the permission of the Commission. Reportedly, Amuso and Casso, along with Genovese crime family boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante, had planned Gotti's execution, but killed DeCicco by mistake. Although Casso later testified that both he and Amuso had conspired with Gigante, this was never raised at the trial, because Casso was dropped from the Witness Protection Program many years later.
Murder of Anthony Luongo On February 15, 1985, Corallo, Furnari and underboss Salvatore "Tom Mix" Santoro were indicted in the Mafia Commission Trial, along with the top major heads of the Five Families. To replace him, Corallo put his protégé Anthony "Buddy" Luongo as acting boss sometime in early 1986. However, around December of that same year, Luongo disappeared. It was rumored that Amuso, then Luongo's driver and bodyguard, killed him to remove his last major opponent, with the assistance of Casso.
By late 1986, Corallo realized that he, Santoro and Furnari were headed for convictions that would send them to prison for life. To avoid internal war and keep up the family's tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, Corallo summoned Amuso and Casso to a meeting at Furnari's house, and decided that one of them would succeed him as boss. Furnari then met with his two protègés and told them to decide which one would take the mantle. They ultimately decided that it should be Amuso. He was named acting boss later in 1986, and the new official boss on January 13, 1987, when Corallo and others were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Boss of the Lucchese family
The Windows case
From 1978 to 1990, four of the five crime families of New York, including the Lucchese family, rigged bids for 75 percent of $191 million, or about $142 million, of the window contracts awarded by the New York City Housing Authority. Installation companies were required to make union payoffs of between $1 and $2 for each window installed.Suspected New York Mob Leaders Are Indicted in Contract Rigging (May 31, 1990) New York Times
Dispute with Accetturo The bloodletting only increased after Amuso named Casso as his underboss in 1988. Toward the late 1980s, Amuso and Casso began arguing with Anthony "Tumac" Accetturo, head of the family's powerful New Jersey faction, "The Jersey Crew," about the profit that Accetturo sent to the family administration. Accetturo had only been sending $50,000 a year to New York, but Amuso and Casso wanted half of the Jersey Crew's yearly take. When Accetturo refused, Amuso stripped him of his rank.
In the fall of 1988, the entire Jersey Crew was summoned to meet with Amuso in Brooklyn. Ten of the crew's members showed up for the meeting. However, fearing that they were being set up to be killed, they all abruptly drove off. In a fury, Amuso ordered the entire Jersey Crew killed—the now-infamous "whack Jersey" order. Soon, the entire New Jersey crew had gone into hiding, decimating the Lucchese interests in New Jersey. Amuso and Casso went on to eliminate anyone on even the merest suspicion that they might be defectors or if they were considered potential rivals. Over the next 12 months, most of the New Jersey crew members returned to the family. Amuso told the crew members who came back that Accetturo was an outlaw and needed to be disposed of. Amuso sent hitmen to Florida to search for Accetturo. However, what Amuso didn't realize was that Accetturo was jailed in New Jersey for refusing to testify in front of a state panel. Accetturo would later become an informant. Accetturo's former protégé and longtime rival, Michael "Mad Dog" Taccetta, who was also despised by Amuso, reputedly took over Lucchese Jersey Crew, the nickname of their faction in Northern New Jersey, toward his conviction in 1993, before Accetturo eventually agreed to become an informant.
Fugitives and convictions
On May 30, 1990, Amuso and Casso were indicted as part of the Windows Case racketeering investigation. Acting on prior knowledge, Amuso and Casso went into hiding. Amuso named Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco as acting boss. But the bloodshed of Vic Amuso and Tony Casso wasn't over yet, as Lucchese caporegime Peter "Fat Pete" Chiodo was charged with violations of the RICO act in 1991.
Suspecting that Chiodo had turned informer, Amuso decided to have Chiodo killed. On May 8, 1991, three gunmen shot Chiodo 12 times, but failed to kill him. A few weeks later, Amuso sent word to Chiodo's attorneys that his wife had been marked for death. This violated a longstanding Mafia rule that women are not to be harmed. Later, a hit team nearly killed Chiodo's sister. The move backfired spectacularly, as Chiodo became a government informant and agreed to testify against several major heads of the Five Families, including Amuso, that same year. Chiodo revealed details of the entire Windows Case operation, several murder and conspiracy charges, loansharking and extortion, as well as money laundering and drug trafficking operations around Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.
Amuso issued several other orders that led many inside and outside the Lucchese family to conclude he was no longer acting rationally. He and Casso crafted a list of 49 people that they wanted dead—half of whom were Lucchese made men. He also ordered D'Arco to bring in a bomb expert from the Philadelphia crime family as part of a plan to blow up Gambino boss John Gotti. Amuso then turned his wrath on D'Arco, whom he held responsible for the failed hit on Chiodo. He effectively demoted D'Arco by naming a four-man panel to run the family in his absence.
On July 29, 1991, FBI agents captured Amuso at a suburban mall outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. There were strong indications that the FBI had been tipped off by someone with knowledge of the clandestine telephone system Amuso used to pass on orders.Raab, p. 498-499. Shortly afterward, D'Arco was set up to be killed at a meeting of top Lucchese leaders at a Manhattan hotel. D'Arco spotted a man carrying a gun under his shirt. The man later went to the bathroom—and when he came out, the gun was gone. Realizing that the next guy to come out of the bathroom would likely come out shooting, D'Arco fled for his life and turned state's evidence. His testimony, and that of Chiodo and many others, proved to be devastating to Amuso's case. In a separate racketeering trial, Amuso was convicted of all 54 charges on June 15, 1991, including nine murders. On October 9, 1992, Amuso was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Casso managed to remain free for two more years until he himself was apprehended in 1993. By then, Amuso had been seething over the circumstances of his arrest for some time, and had come to believe that Casso had tipped off the FBI in hopes of seizing the boss' mantle for himself. In late 1993, Amuso removed Casso as underboss and decreed that all Lucchese mafiosi should consider him a pariah—in effect, banishing his comrade of some three decades from the family. Casso responded by turning informer himself. After the incarcerations of both Amuso and Casso, the U.S. government learned that they each had, allegedly, ordered more than 10–12 slayings while they were fugitives and while on trial, using two corrupt NYPD detectives, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, as their personal hit men.
List of murders committed/ordered by the Amuso administration