From The Archives - October 2013

Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio

Giovanni Torrio, also known as "The Brain", "The Fox", and "The Immune", but more commonly known as "Johnny", is credited with having furthered the Outfit's bootlegging ventures during the beginning of Prohibition, and is known as having mentored Al Capone.  Torrio was born in southern Italy in 1882, and emigrated to New York City with his mother at the age of 2.  After starting out as a porter, he found himself to be the leader of a small group of hoodlums known for their thievery as the James Street Gang.  He soon set up a billiards parlor with the gang's proceeds, which later housed such illegal activities as gambling and loansharking.  Torrio's business methods eventually caught the interest of Paul Kelly, then the leader of the notorious Five Points Gang.  Torrio thus became Kelly's number two after Kelly incorporated the James Street Gang into the Five Points Gang, using it to serve as a training ground for the gang's younger members.  Torrio eventually hired Al Capone and Jimmy DeStefano to bartend at the Harvard Inn, a bar in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn run by Torrio's associate, Frankie Yale.  Torrio first came to Chicago in 1909 when his aunt, Victoria Moresco, solicited his help to stave off those sending her husband, "Big Jim" Colosimo, extortion threats via the "Black Hand" (see Colosimo's entry above).  Torrio soon after moved to Chicago to help Colosimo manage his over 200 brothels.  In 1918, Torrio solicited the help from Yale to send someone to help assist in his illegal affairs.  Yale sent Capone, who was facing murder charges and retribution from rival gang members at the time.  Capone moved from New York to help as a bouncer at one brothel known as the Four Deuces, thus the beginning of Capone's career in Chicago.  Torrio took control of the Outfit once he had Collosimo killed over a dispute over bootlegging expansion (see Colosimo's entry above).  Torrio and Capone often quarried with the Irish North Side Gang led by Dean O'Banion over bootlegging territory.  The feud culminated when Torrio returned home to an ambush of three of O'Banion's men, where he was shot several times in the jaw, torso and legs.  He underwent emergency surgery and survived the ordeal, but was sentenced to a 9-month prison sentence for violating the Volstead Act.  Once he was released, he handed control of the Outfit over to Capone and "retired".  He moved to Italy with his wife and mother in 1925, but returned to the United States in 1928.  He is credited with having supported the first governing body of American organized crime, which eventually came to be recognized as the National Crime Syndicate.  Like Capone, Torrio was arrested and convicted of income tax evasion, and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1939.  His later years were spent under the radar.  In 1957, Torrio suffered from a heart attack while sitting in a chair at his barber, and died several hours later at a hospital.  This article discusses Torrio's role as an arbiter for the National Crime Syndicate.  

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