Jul 05 2007
The Mafia Plot To Kill Dennis Kucinich
A Former Cleveland Police Chief Finally Tells The Whole Story
The meeting went down at Burke Lakefront Airport in 1978. A small prop-engine plane owned by the Maryland State Police was parked on the tarmac. Inside was a sergeant from Maryland and “The Old Man,” a professional hitman-turned-rat who was working with Maryland police in sting operations. Cleveland Police detective Ed Kovacic climbed into the plane and sat next to The Old Man.
Kovacic showed him a photo spread of suspects. The Old Man pointed to number four, Thomas Sinito. “This is Tommy,” he said.
“Is that the man who hired you to hit Dennis Kucinich?” the Maryland officer asked.
“Yes.”
“How much was he going to pay you?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
Kovacic knew Tommy Sinito well. The man was a rising star in the Cleveland faction of La Cosa Nostra, and was already connected to the attempted murder of local housing official Robert Doggett, though there hadn’t been enough evidence to charge him in that case. Surely only Sinito was brazen enough to hire a professional hitman to take out Cleveland’s mayor.
“Let’s get out of here, right now,” The Old Man said to the Maryland cop. His skin had gone pale. And for good reason. The Old Man recognized the other mugs Kovacic had placed in the photo spread. They were the highest-ranking members of the Cleveland mafia. And if they were involved in a plot to kill a big-city mayor, why would they hesitate to kill a dirty snitch like him?
PROHIBITION BROUGHT THE MOB to Cleveland. North Coast bootleggers needed corn sugar to brew their black-market booze. And two large families, the Lonardos and the Porrellos, ran the corn- sugar trade in town. The two clans warred with each other for a bigger share of the honey pot, and after the murder of two Lonardo bosses, the Porrellos established control of Cleveland’s crime syndicate.
But it was a made man by the name of John Scalish who organized the local underworld into one tight empire. He took over in 1944 and ruled as Don for 32 years, running profitable numbers rackets, using front companies to secure lucrative city contracts, and forming alliances with New York’s Genovese crime family and mobsters in Chicago. Unfortunately, Scalish didn’t name a successor before undergoing heart surgery in 1976. When he died on the operating table, leadership of Cleveland’s mafia was up for grabs and it seemed every capo wanted to make a play.
“Everyone thought it should be “Big Ange’ Lonardo,” says Rick Porrello, whose grandfather was murdered during the Prohibition sugar wars. Instead, Jack Licavoli, known on the street as “Jack White,” assumed control. “But there were other people interested in taking over.”
An Irish union racketeer named Danny Greene tried to wrestle control of organized crime in Cleveland from Licavoli, with the help of mob henchman John Nardi. Licavoli, however, was in no hurry to leave. A car bomb killed Nardi outside the Teamster Hall on May 17, 1977. Another one snuffed out Greene in October that year; his left arm was found 100 feet from the rest of his body.
