Anthony Giacalone

Anthony "Tony Jack" Joseph Giacalone (January 9, 1919 – February 23, 2001), also known as Tony Jocks, was a Sicilian-American organized crime figure in Detroit.

He served as a capo in the Detroit Partnership, and later as a street boss.

Giacalone was born on January 9, 1919, on the Eastside of Detroit.

He was born to Sicilian immigrant parents, the oldest son of seven siblings.

He often helped his father, Giacomo, sell produce from the back of a horse-drawn wagon in the Indian Village section of Detroit.

He began to aspire to work in organized crime after seeing the wealth its leaders had, in contrast to the meager living his father earned.

He particularly looked up to his father's relative Salvatore "Sam" Catalanotte, a leading figure in Detroit's growing Italian underworld.

Giacalone was charged with his first criminal offense at the age of 18, the first of multiple run-ins with the law.

By the time he was in his 30s, he was working as a pickup man in the local numbers racket, run by Peter Licavoli, and as collector of delinquent gambling debts for Joe Zerilli.

Both of these men were highly respected in local crime organizations and they helped protect Giacalone from the law.

Between 1950 and 1952 he was arrested multiple times for various gambling offenses, but avoided prosecution.

In August 1954, he had his first conviction after 14 arrests.

He was sentenced to 8 months in jail and ordered to pay court costs.

After that stint in jail he served another 7 days in jail for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating gambling in the Detroit area.

On August 9, 1954, Giacalone was arrested for the bribery of a patrolman on the racket squad of the Detroit Police Department.

Giacalone offered $200 a month in return for information regarding any possible gambling raids.

He was sentenced to 8 months in jail in addition to a $500 fine.

In terms of Mafia organization, he was listed by the FBI in 1963 as one of the “Big Men” and deemed an administrator or heir apparent.

He was arrested for a similar offense in June 1963, bribing Lieutenant James W. Thomas with $50 a month to look the other way in regard to a numbers gambling operation.

This arrest, his fifteenth, led to an investigation of his mafia-related activities.

Giacalone was charged with bribery conspiracy, but was freed on $7,500 bond.

This sudden conviction led Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards to believe that Giacalone was not only the boss of the numbers racket in southeastern Michigan, but also the head of the Detroit Mafia.

Edwards later testified in front of the Senate's permanent investigations subcommittee in October 1963, and identified Giacalone as the Mafia gambling boss of the Detroit area.

In November 1963, Giacalone and his brother, Vito Giacalone, were indicted in a Washington tax evasion hearing.

The brothers received over $40,000 as fake sales representatives of two companies also indicted in the testimony.

Giacalone's hearing in 1964 for bribing Lt. Thomas caused quite a stir within the legal system.

It was originally set for February 28, 1964, before being pushed later into 1965.

He came to public notice during the 1970s investigations into the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, as he was one of two Mafia members – the other being Anthony Provenzano – that Hoffa had arranged to meet on the day he disappeared.

Giacalone gained national fame in the 1970s with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

Prior to then, there had been growing tension between Hoffa and several Mafia members, who opposed his plans to return to prominence in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The latter included Giacalone, Anthony Provenzano and Giacalone's brother Vito.

Despite the mounting strain between the two groups, it appears as though there were never any public displays of ill will or malicious intent; though he, along with his brother Vito, was allegedly involved in a plot gone awry to rob a safe belonging to Hoffa in Washington D.C. On July 30, 1975, Hoffa, who had mentioned his plans to acquaintances and family members to meet with Giacalone and Provenzano at 2:00 p.m. at the Machus Red Fox restaurant parking lot in Bloomfield Township, a Detroit suburb; was never seen again.

It has been posited that Giacolone may have been motivated by the fact that Hoffa would not acquiesce to Mafia demands and retire.

Though Giacalone was suspected of being involved in a conspiracy to murder Hoffa, Giacalone and Provenzano, who denied having scheduled any such meeting or appointment with Hoffa, were found not to have been near the restaurant that afternoon.

In 1976, Giacalone was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion.

In 1976, Giacalone was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion at FCI, Oxford, Wisconsin.

He died of natural causes on February 23, 2001.

Giacalone died on February 23, 2001, aged 82.

He had been admitted to St. John's Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit for heart failure and complications arising from kidney disease.

He was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan.