Anthony (Little Pussy) Russo

New Jersey-based Genovese soldier Anthony Russo who controlled much of the organized gambling rackets emanating from the Jersey Shore area with his older brother John. Russo was additionally very active in loansharking, labor-union extortion, bribery, and infiltrating the local government and the police department. He was also known to have been a strong-arm enforcer and a contract killer for the Family.

Unfortunately, Little Pussy also became well-known for his big mouth, and as we know, Cosa Nostra always has a solution for that!

Anthony (Little Pussy) Russo was born on July 13, 1916, and raised in New Jersey. He operated from there his entire life. He had an older brother named John - aka Big Pussy - who was just a year older than him and was also a top Genovese soldier.

Russo was said to have had very little formal education. He reportedly only reached a third-grade level and was not able to either read or write. Yet, all who ever met him said that he was more intelligent than he was given credit for, and ran several businesses as well as operated various racketeering schemes.

Russo was stocky at about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds, with a bald pate and a generally happy-go-lucky demeanor. Although quite vicious when he wanted to be, Russo was said to be outwardly jovial and easy-going to talk to. Many of the public who interacted with him found him to be quite engaging and generous.

But he was also well known to be very loose-lipped, even a braggart and blabbermouth of sorts. An extremely bad thing to be when your vocation is that of a mafia member.

Known as a big nightclubber and bon vivant, Anthony Russo was a very flashy, ostentatious mobster who typically wore a lot of gold and diamond jewelry. He was known to always drive a late-model Cadillac Coupe de Ville, tip waitstaff very generously, and generally throw money around like water. Some say it was a subconscious effort to compensate for a bad inferiority complex from his lack of formal schooling, and his inability to read or write.

John (Big Pussy) Russo

His comments were often embarrassing, unintended bloopers. As an Illiterate, unwittingly Russo would spin off malapropisms worthy of Slip Mahoney in "The Bowery Boys," repeatedly telling for example of putting his bank assets “into escarole.” Funny and innocent enough when dealing with legitimate people, but his underworld associates slowly but surely started to realize what a loose cannon Russo potentially was.

It’s mob lore that Anthony Russo received his underworld nickname because his older brother John had started his criminal career as a cat burglar and was dubbed “Pussy.” Young Anthony subsequently received the moniker “Little Pussy.”

Although active throughout all of New Jersey, the Russo brothers were known primarily as Jersey Shore hoods who came to control much of the organized gambling rackets emanating from that section of the Garden State, especially around the town of Long Branch. Little Pussy was largely considered the top mafia member overseeing the Monmouth and Ocean County areas for the Vito Genovese Family.

Although technically believed to only hold the “rank” of a soldier, Russo was known as an intimate of the boss himself. Vito was said to like Little Pussy, who would sometimes chauffeur Genovese around town whenever the boss desired.

An intimately placed Genovese member, besides Vito and his brother Johnny, Russo was also closely affiliated with top mafiosi, including Antonio (Tony Bender) Strollo, Angelo (The Gyp) DeCarlo , Simone (Sam) DeCavalcante, Ruggiero (Richie the Boot) Boiardo , Anthony (Tony Boy) Boiardo, Angelo (Chippo) Chieppa, Gerardo (Jerry) Catena, Eugene (Gene) Catena , Anthony DeVingo, Thomas (Pee-Wee) DePhillips, Joseph (Indian Joe) Polverino, and Daniel (Red) Cecere.

And these names represent but a drop in the bucket of the laundry list of major mafiosi who Russo called his “friends.”

Soldier Anthony (Tony Boy) Boiardo

Despite his lack of education and reserve, Russo was making plenty of money. With his growing wealth, at one time he owned a large residence in an expensive section of Deal, New Jersey, but had given that up for life in a luxury condominium at Spring Lake Heights.

He pampered himself daily at the luxurious, oceanfront Harbor Island Spa which he also had a permanent residence at. Complete with massages and a sauna, weekly haircuts, manicures, and shoe shines, Little Pussy made sure to live the high life.

He also kept a winter home down at 622 Harbor House in Bal Harbour, FL., and held a piece of Ciro’s Restaurant, located at 15090 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. Russo also had some gambling interests (bookmaking and card games) out of the 79th Street Spa in North Bay Village.

Russo owned a legitimate partnership interest in a large construction company at 265 Monmouth Park Highway in West Long Branch which he made his unofficial headquarters and worked from. He would typically start his day by arriving at the office at 7 a.m. promptly each weekday morning. He also owned a hidden partnership in the Surf Lounge, a popular eatery on Ocean Boulevard in Long Branch. This eatery was another constant hangout of the mafioso.

Anthony and his brother John controlled bookmaking and numbers betting, floating dice and card games, and extorted independent gamblers operating within Genovese territory. Russo was additionally very active in loansharking, labor-union extortion, bribery, and infiltrating local government and the police department. He was also known to have been a strong-arm enforcer along with his brother, and a contract killer for the Family.

The Russos soon garnered themselves notorious reputations in the Garden State, especially Little Pussy, who by the mid to late 1960s had figured into many interlocking major investigations into New Jersey’s organized crime and pervasive corruption scandals.

He was one of a group of top Genovese and DeCavalcante Family mafiosi whose voices were caught on a hidden microphone operated by the FBI from 1961 through 1965. This “bug” captured the mafia talking about their rackets, the bribery and corruption of numerous public officials and high-ranking police, as well as numerous gangland murders committed by their own hands. And Little Pussy was right in the thick of it.

He unwittingly spoke into the microphone describing his methods of shooting, garroting, and hitting victims with crowbars. He talked about when he shot one guy as they walked through the door into a room together. He spoke of locking another murder victim in the man’s own automobile, dousing it with gasoline, and then setting the car ablaze noting, “he must have burned like a bastard.”

It was very raw and damning evidence of the mafia's true tactics in Northern New Jersey, and its successful efforts to gain control over various cities and townships including Newark, Bayonne, Elizabeth, among others, and several key South Jersey areas as well.

Arguably no other state in the union was ever corrupted by Cosa Nostra as thoroughly and efficiently as New Jersey was, and Anthony Russo was central to much of it. As the righthand man to capo “Richie the Boot” Boiardo, he was in the rather unique position to have either witnessed or participated in it knee-deep.

For many years he was thought to have been a central player making it all happen on behalf of his mafia benefactors. Russo became a big man in the eyes of many of his fellow racketeers, and unfortunately a big man in the eyes of law enforcement as well.

By 1971, Russo was indicted for failure to file corporate income tax returns. He pled guilty to that charge and was sentenced to three years in jail, to run concurrently with another New Jersey State Court sentence for perjury.

Over the years, he had been repeatedly subpoenaed before various grand jury probes, and things were getting hotter and hotter for Russo. His mouth, loose lips, and penchant for talk had gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion in the past with his superiors.

In another undercover wiretap probe during the late 1970s, Russo and several of his closest henchmen were again recorded, this time on over 60 hours of tape that truly exposed just how bumbling Russo and his men really were.

The recordings, made with court-approved wiretaps, room bugs, and on-body devices in 1977 and 1978, were invaluable to public understanding of the Byzantine world of the New Jersey Mafia. But the picture that emerged from the tapes was not one of a coolly efficient band of underworld masterminds as the State tried to portray. The Mafiosi revealed themselves as misfits and braggarts, but very scary misfits just the same.

Anthony (Little Pussy) Russo through the years.

As their chieftain, Russo showed what a blabbermouth he truly was. He talked to almost anyone, including several reporters about his strongarm activities. They taped Russo dropping names of dozens of police officials, politicians, and businessmen he claimed to have in his pocket. Later, state investigators said they found most of his claims were false.

It was borne out on the tapes that Russo was obsessed by the perceived “lack of respect” shown him by his colleagues and underlings alike. He was like the Rodney Dangerfield of the mob, always complaining about his lack of respect.

He would repeatedly demand “tribute” payments from his minions, yet they rarely ponied up. He was a very frustrated “wiseguy,” to say the least, and always complaining. It got to the point where it was almost comical.

His easy, chatty way was well known within the underworld. And when it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter. But now things were getting a bit hot under the collar, and many important mafia heads were on the potential chopping block, including top wiseguys, police brass, and high public officials alike.

On April 26, 1979, Russo was found in his suite at the Harbor Island Spa in Long Branch, clad only in his bathrobe, lying face-up on his bed ice cold. Someone had shot him in the head three times with a .32 caliber weapon hours earlier. A fourth slug had missed its mark and lodged in a door jam. His brain matter and the blood that flooded from his skull had completely saturated the silk-covered pillow his head rested on.

Finito la musica!

At the time of his death, Russo had been the subject of intense state and federal law enforcement investigations. The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation was actively probing his activities, as well as that of the North Jersey mob. Russo himself had been on a weekend furlough from serving a criminal contempt of court sentence at Trenton State Prison for refusing to answer questions concerning the mob activities and the corruption of public officials in Monmouth County.

And he faced an additional 6-year sentence for a perjury conviction for having been caught repeatedly lying to the state grand jury again.

Anthony (Little Pussy) Russo was 63 years old.

Until next time...”The Other Guy!”

Postscript : Years after Russo’s slaying, a former aide of his who turned informant told investigators that he had been killed by his own underlings. The informant named Thomas (Pee-Wee) DePhillips, Anthony DeVingo, and Joseph (Joe Z) Zarro, as the three mafiosi who had committed the murder. With Zarro acting as a getaway driver, DePhillips and DeVingo visited Little Pussy at his oceanfront apartment the night he returned from a Florida vacation.

While turning to pour drinks for his buddies and himself, one of them put three slugs in the back of Pussy’s skull. Law enforcement theorized that Russo was killed shortly after his brother John died of natural causes because his mob associates feared he might talk to authorities about mafia murders and their rackets. It was just safer and better for everybody (except Anthony Russo of course) that their potentially chatty friend was off the scene once and for all.

They had waited to kill Little Pussy out of respect for his older brother until John had died.

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Anthony (Little Pussy) Russo

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