Big Jim Capotorto was a wannabe Florida “mobster” who became too big for his britches. He got tied up in a huge narcotics trafficking case involving associates of the Gambino and Genovese families. But it was a big shootout in 1976 with Patrick (Patsy) Truglia that Big Jim met his mobster dreams.
James (Big Jim) Capotorto was born in 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was a high school dropout, though he is alleged to have been a football star and Golden Glove boxer. Big Jim was one of two adopted children in a household of 52 others his parents had fostered.
When Big Jim got into big trouble in Florida in 1962, the Fort Lauderdale News contacted his mother for more information about Big Jim. She told them they usually had six children had six children under their roof at any given time, including Big Jim and his adopted sister.
He was arrested after being caught using a credit card he had stolen from a businessman in Cleveland. The store manager reported him because he thought there was something odd about this huge guy from Cleveland buying so many tires and so much gasoline.
By the time of this arrest, he had also been arrested and charged with resisting an officer, three counts of disorderly conduct, interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, and a federal charge of interstate transportation of stolen property – the stolen credit card. By 1964, he had two more federal charges of transportation of forged securities.
The high school dropout had definitely gone “astray,” just as his mother described in her interview with the newspaper.
