Tony Accardo

Anthony Joseph Accardo (born Antonino Leonardo Accardo, ; April 28, 1906 – May 22, 1992), also known as "Joe Batters" and "Big Tuna", was an American longtime mobster.

Accardo was born on April 28, 1906, in Chicago's Near West Side, the second of six children of shoemaker Francesco Accardo and Maria Tilotta Accardo.

One year before his birth, the Accardos had emigrated from Castelvetrano, in the Province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy to America.

At age 14, Accardo left school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls.

He soon joined the Circus Cafe Gang, run by Claude Maddox and Tony Capezio, one of many street gangs in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago.

These gangs served as talent pools (similar to the concept of farm teams) for the city's adult criminal organizations.

Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, one of the toughest hitmen of Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone, recruited Accardo into his crew, along with long time associate Tony Mazlack of Gary, Indiana.

During Prohibition, Accardo got the nickname "Joe Batters" after using a baseball bat to murder three mobsters who had betrayed the Outfit.

Capone was allegedly quoted as saying, "Boy, this kid's a real Joe Batters".

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

In a criminal career that spanned eight decades, he rose from small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit in 1947, to ultimately becoming the Outfit authority in 1972.

Accardo moved the Outfit into new operations and territories, significantly increasing its power and wealth during his tenure as boss.

Ricca and Accardo ran the Outfit for 30 years until Ricca died in 1972.

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.