One night in the spring of 1940, gambling
kingpin
Charlie Wall was being driven into downtown Tampa by
his bodyguard, when the driver suddenly slammed on the
brakes, smashing Wall's head into the windshield. Wall
realized quickly what was happening:
"Then, when I came up I saw something out of
an
automobile in front of me- and they were stopped too-
like a hoe handle or a fishing rod or something about
that width. Why, somebody shot and, of course, I
ducked down under the front of the car."
This was the third attempt on the life of
Wall, and
it came during the "Era Of Blood", when the Mafia was
attempting to wrestle control of the bolita rackets
and other illicit ventures, from the Cuban and Anglo
crime groups. What was unique was the identity of the
two assailants in the Wall incident. Police later
confirmed (23 years later) that they believed the
hitmen to be James DeSimone and Nicholas Impastato.
DeSimone and Impastato were imported Mafia
killers
from Kansas City and they were staying at the time
with the Anotnori family, whose patriarch was Ignacio
Antinori. Ignacio was a top narcotics supplier to the
Kansas City crime family, as well as to St. Louis and
Chicago. Ignacio would buy large quantities of
narcotics from Cuban suppliers in Tampa and Havana,
then send them across the country with the help of his
two sons, Paul and Joe. Ignacio's reign, however,
would not last long.
In the early morning hours of October 23,
1940,
Ignacio Antinori was sipping coffee at the Palm Garden
Inn, with a friend and a young female companion. He
was amicably chatting away when, unbeknownst to him, a
gunman came up to the glass in front of the bar and
fired two shotgun blasts at Antinori. The buckshot
blew the back of Ignacio's head off.
His demise was linked to a bad shipment of
narcotics
that was sent to Chicago, reputedly to the top men in
the Outfit. The drugs were poor quality and the
Chicago group wanted a refund. Anitnori balked and
ended up in a closed casket at his funeral.
The death of their father gave Paul and Joe
the
opportunity to lead the trafficking organization.
They kept the Kansas City connection alive, and
strengthened ties with DeSimone and Impastato. They
once again set up a large scale drug ring between
Tampa and Kansas City, with members of the Kansas City
Mafia family, including Carl Carramusa. In 1942,
however, Carammusa was indicted for narcotics
violations and decided to turn state's evidence and
testify against his fellow co-defendants which
included: Paul and Joe Antinori from Tampa; Charles
Gerrigimina, Nick Impastato, James DeSimone, Charles
Tiabi, Samuel Pernice, Louis Ventola, Patsy Ventola,
and Fellipo Fernice, all from Kansas City.
All the defendants were found guilty, and
Carramusa
went into hiding in, of all places, Chicago. That
ruse didn't last too long, and in June of 1945
Carramusa had his head blown off by a shotgun, while
he was seated in his car. The main suspect in the
killing was James Lumia, a ally of the Antinori's and
a top racket man in Tampa. Lumia himself was killed
in June of 1950, in one of the most spectacular of
Tampa's gangland killings. One of the suspects was
Nicola Impastato.
Following the rise of the Mafia to power in
Tampa in
the mid 1940's and the emergence of the Trafficnate
family, the link between Kansas City and Tampa
deteriorated with respect to the Anitnori's. After he
was released from prison, Joe Antionri himself became
the victim of a gangland assassination (read my story
on Johnny Scaface for the details). Paul Anitnori
fell out of the rackets after his brother's death.
Nicolo Impastato died in September of 1979. James
Desimone died in May of 1977.
* the testimony of Charlie Wall came form the Kefauver
hearings in Tampa
� 2000 Scott M. Deitche
|