Tony Accardo

During Prohibition, Accardo got the nickname "Joe Batters" after using a baseball bat to murder three mobsters who had betrayed the Outfit.[4] Capone was allegedly quoted as saying, "Boy, this kid's a real Joe Batters". In 1939, Chicago newspapers dubbed Accardo "The Big Tuna", after a fishing expedition to Wedgeport, Nova Scotia, Canada where Accardo caught a giant 400 pound tuna and was famously photographed with his catch.[5][4] In later years, Accardo boasted over federal wiretaps that he participated in the infamous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which, allegedly, Capone gunmen murdered seven members of rival Bugs Moran's North Side Gang. Accardo also claimed that he was one of the gunmen who murdered Brooklyn gang boss Frankie Yale, again by Capone's orders to settle a dispute. However, most experts believe Accardo had only peripheral connections, if any, with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and none whatsoever with the Yale murder, which was most likely committed by Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, and Louis Campagna. However, on October 11, 1926, Accardo may have participated in the assassination of Northside gang leader Hymie Weiss near the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.[6]

In 1932, Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison for an 11-year sentence, and Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti became the new Outfit boss after serving his own 18-month sentence for tax evasion. By this time, Accardo had established a solid record of making money for the organization, so Nitti let him establish his own crew. He was also named as the Outfit's head of enforcement. Accardo soon developed a variety of profitable rackets, including gambling, loansharking, bookmaking, extortion, and the distribution of untaxed alcohol and cigarettes. As with all caporegimes, Accardo received 5% of the crew's earnings as a so-called "street tax". Accardo, in turn, paid a tax to the Outfit's boss. If a crew member refused to pay a street tax (or paid less than half of the amount owed), they would be killed. Accardo's crew included future Outfit heavyweights Gus "Gussie" Alex and Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa.

In the 1940s, Accardo continued to gain power in the Outfit. As the decade progressed, senior members of the Outfit were investigated and charged with using the threat of strike action by the labor unions they controlled to extort millions of dollars from Hollywood studios. Nitti, who was claustrophobic and fearful of serving a second prison term, committed suicide in 1943. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, who had been the de facto boss since Capone's imprisonment, took the role officially and named Accardo as underboss. Ricca and Accardo ran the Outfit for 30 years until Ricca died in 1972.[6] When Ricca subsequently received a 10-year prison sentence for his part in the Hollywood scandal, Accardo became acting boss. Three years later, when Ricca was barred from contact with mobsters as a condition for his parole, Accardo became boss of the Outfit; in practice, he shared power with Ricca, who remained in the background as a senior consultant.[4][7]

Under Accardo's leadership in the late 1940s, the Outfit moved into slot and vending machines, counterfeiting cigarette and liquor tax stamps, and expanding narcotics smuggling. Accardo placed slot machines in gas stations, restaurants, and bars throughout the Outfit's territory. Outside of Chicago, the Outfit expanded into Las Vegas and took influence over gaming away from the Five Families of New York City. Accardo ensured all the legal Las Vegas casinos used his slot machines. In Kansas and Oklahoma, he took advantage of the official ban on alcohol sales to introduce bootlegged alcohol. The Outfit eventually dominated organized crime in most of the western United States. Accardo phased out some traditional activities, such as labor racketeering and extortion, to reduce the Outfit's exposure to legal prosecution. He also converted the Outfit's brothel business into call girl services. These changes resulted in a golden era of profitability and influence for the Outfit.

Accardo and Ricca emphasized keeping a low profile and let flashier figures, such as Sam Giancana, attract attention instead. For example, when professional wrestlers Lou Albano and Tony Altomare, wrestling as a Mafia-inspired tag team called "The Sicilians", came to Chicago in 1961, Accardo persuaded the men to drop the gimmick to avoid any mob-related publicity.[8] By using tactics such as these, Accardo and Ricca were able to run the Outfit much longer than Capone. Ricca once said, "Accardo had more brains for breakfast than Capone had in a lifetime".[4]

After 1957, Accardo turned over the official position as boss to Giancana because of "heat" from the IRS.[9] Accardo then became the Outfit's consigliere, stepping away from the day-to-day running of the organization, but he still retained considerable power and demanded ultimate respect. Giancana still had to obtain the sanction of Accardo and Ricca on major business, including murders.[6]

However, this working relationship eventually broke down. Unlike Accardo, the widowed Giancana lived an ostentatious lifestyle, frequenting posh nightclubs and dating high-profile singer Phyllis McGuire. Giancana also refused to distribute some of the lavish profits from Outfit casinos in Iran and Central America to the rank-and-file members. Many in the Outfit also felt that Giancana was attracting too much attention from the FBI, which was forever tailing his car around the Chicago metropolitan area. Around 1966, after Giancana began a year in jail on federal contempt of court charges, Accardo and Ricca replaced him with Aiuppa. In June 1975, after spending most of his Outfit-exile years in Mexico and unceremoniously being booted from that country, Giancana was murdered in the basement apartment of his home, in Oak Park, Illinois, while cooking Italian sausages and escarole.[10]

Ricca died in 1972, leaving Accardo as the ultimate authority in the Outfit.

In 1978, while Accardo vacationed in California, burglars entered his River Forest home.[11][12]

Shortly afterward, the three suspected thieves and four related persons were found strangled and with their throats cut.[12][13][4] Law enforcement officials believed Accardo had ordered the killings in retaliation for the burglary.[2] In 2002, this theory was confirmed on the witness stand by Outfit turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, who had participated in all of the murders. The surviving assassins were all convicted in the Family Secrets trial, and sentenced to long prison terms.