Ray Ferritto

Raymond W. Ferritto (April 8, 1929 - May 10, 2004) was an American mobster from Erie, Pennsylvania.

He served as hitman and soldier for the Cleveland and Los Angeles crime families.

Raymond Ferritto was born Remo Ferretti on April 8, 1929, in Erie, Pennsylvania, to Michael and Rose ( Fracassi) Ferritto.

He was the fourth of five children, and the second of three sons.

Within a year of his birth, the family had changed its last name to Ferritto, and Remo began using the name Raymond when he began attending school.

As a child, Ferritto was rebellious and often fought with other children in the neighbordhood.

He attended Roosevelt Junior High school, where he befriended Armond "Peeps" Farranti and Tommy LaCastro.

He and Farranti obtained employment at a local grocer, but soon began stealing his chickens to sell on the local black market.

After being taunted about his knee breeches, he stole long dress pants from a local clothier.

He was 13 years old when he and Farranti ran away from home and burglarized a closed filling station in Ashtabula, Ohio, but were caught by police a few hours later.

Ferritto obtained a job at Urick Foundry when he was 14 years old after lying about his age.

He suffered severely broken toes in one foot after a work-accident, and his family filed a lawsuit.

The suit was settled for $50 when the foundry discovered Ray had lied about his age.

A short time after his accident, Ferritto formed a gang called "The Wasps" with Farranti, LaCastro, and a few other local teenagers.

For two years, the gang smashed vending machines at gas stations, movie theaters, and other businesses, looting them of their coins.

They were caught after robbing a cigar store owned by Dominic A. "Dee" Adiutori, an associate of James "Westfield Jimmy" Salamone of the Buffalo crime family.

A judge declined to sentence him after a local priest intervened on his behalf.

Ferritto was drafted into the United States Marine Corps about June 1946.

His mangled foot was unable to take the stress of boot camp.

He was transferred to the Casualty Company in July, and discharged in October.

Ferritto was arrested, along with four other men, of attempting to rob a gas station in Erie, in August 1957.

Ferritto pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to three to six years in state prison.

In Warren, Ferritto met Ronald "The Crab" Carabbia and Tony "Tony Dope" Delsanter.

Carabbia and his three brothers were all known as "the Crab", which was a play on their last name, and had become prominent in the organized crime scene in Youngstown.

Delsanter was a made man in the Cleveland crime family.

He managed the family's gambling interests in the Mahoning Valley.

In 1958, at age twenty-nine, Ferritto was arrested for burglary.

He pleaded guilty and served three years of a three- to five-year sentence.

Once out, Ferritto spent some time in the Cleveland area where he committed several burglaries with his childhood friends, Allie Calabrese and Pasquale "Butchie" Cisternino.

By the late 1960s, Ferritto had moved to Los Angeles where he was associated with a group of Cleveland mobsters, including Julius Petro.

In the forties, Petro avoided a death sentence on a retrial in a murder case.

Ferritto and Petro were associates of Jimmy Fratianno, who was closely associated with the Los Angeles crime family.

Likewise, Ferritto was trying to make a name for himself.

In 1969, Ferritto booked a flight from Los Angeles to Erie.

He was driven to the airport by another burglar, originally from Cleveland.

Accompanying the two to the airport was gangster Julius Petro.

The accomplice wheeled the car into an airport parking garage spot.

Ferritto waited for a plane to take off, put a gun to the back of Julius Petro's head and fired a shot, killing him.

The single fatal shot was muffled by the jet engines.

Ferritto is best known for assassinating rival mobster Danny Greene in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1977 in order to prevent Greene from overthrowing the Cleveland Crime Family.