Dominick F. (Libby) Nuccio – aka Little Libby, Dominick Nuzzo, Domenic Nuccio, Lucky, Joe Delano, and Ercoli Liberatori – was born on April 9, 1895, on the North Side of Chicago in an area considered an Italian ghetto to immigrant parents Filippo and Maria (nee’ Calata) Nuccio. Dominick was one of seven children. His siblings were Josephine, Mary, Rose, Laura, Michael and James.
As young adults, his two brothers, James and Michael, also became associates of Chicago’s underworld and were commonly known around town as “Jimmy Nuzzo” and “Mike Nuzzo.” They became Libby’s sidekicks and assisted their older brother as asked of them.
During those early years, the Nuccio family lived at 4240 North Mozart Street. As a youth, he acquired the street nickname, Libby. It was a moniker that would stick. As the years passed, everyone knew “Libby” as being synonymous with Nuccio.
When he was only 22, Dominick married a local Irish girl named Helen (Ellen) Dewey. They wed on December 28, 1917. The following year, on October 26, 1918, he and Helen gave birth to their first son. They named the boy Philip Joseph after his grandfather Filippo. At the time, Nuccio, his wife, and his son resided at 1103 Cambridge Street in Chicago.
That same year in 1918, Nuccio was required to register for the draft. In 1925, another son was born. Libby named this second boy after himself: Dominick Peter. Shortly after, Dominick and Ellen divorced and Dominick retained custody of the children.
By 1930, Libby had met another young girl, of similar English-Irish descent, who was then working as a dancer in a Chicago nightclub. Her name was Inez Parsons. The young, up-and-coming mafioso quickly took a liking to her, and they were married.
At the time, Dominick, Inez, and the boys were living at 5704 North Ardmore Avenue in Chicago. By 1942, they were renting a private home at 1925 N. Clark Street. That same year, Nuccio claimed on government census documents that he was conveniently “employed” right down the block at 1220 N. Clark Street.
On review, during his lifetime, Clark Street would become a favorite area of town for Nuccio.
Side note: On June 11, 1944, tragedy struck Dominick Nuccio’s life when he lost his youngest son, Dominick. During WWII, the young man bravely enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces to defend his country and died heroically while fighting during the bloody battles to liberate France. Young Dominick was only nineteen years old at the time of his death. (1925-1944.)
Side note: Libby’s father, Filippo Nuccio, passed away from natural causes on December 29, 1953; he was 92 years old. His mother Maria passed away nine years later, in 1962; she was 87 years old.
Keeping Tabs on the Undesirables
By at least the 1940s, Nuccio and his family had relocated to 7436 West Carmen in Harwood Heights.
In May 1950, FBI agents updated their files after they were advised by Chicago Police Department investigators that Libby and his wife were now actually residing at a local hotel. The Nuccios had reserved a long-term lease for room #602 at the North Park Hotel.
Shortly afterward, it was reported that Nuccio had relocated once again. This time, Libby and Inez moved into a private residence at 2731 North Neva in Chicago where they would remain throughout most of the 1950s.
Dating back to at least the late 1920s to early 1930s era, Dominick Nuccio had associated himself with various bars and nightclubs. After Prohibition ended, he continued his love affair with liquor-licensed businesses. By the 1950s, despite a lengthy police record, he had officially listed his legitimate occupation as the owner-operator of the Innuendo Tap, a local bar located at 1120 Park Avenue in North Chicago.
Nuccio was small in stature, hence one of his nicknames, “Little Libby.” He stood a mere 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed only 135 pounds. Official police records list him as having dark brown eyes and wearing eyeglasses. As a young man, he sported a full head of straight, jet-black hair that had turned salt-and-pepper by middle age. Police intake reports note that Nuccio had three small moles on his right cheek.
Law enforcement intelligence reports also noted that he wasn’t known to have any particular hobbies other than being an avid horse player who liked to live well, was prone to smoking Salem brand cigarettes, and enjoyed eating good Italian food at some of Chicago’s best-known restaurants. He was known to dress conservatively and generally gave off the appearance of a gentle grandfather.
But despite his slight stature, during his lifetime, Nuccio would gain a fearsome reputation for being one of the Chicago Outfit’s most deadly and efficient assassins. In fact, Nuccio, along with two of his fellow soldiers, Dominick Brancato and Dominick DiBella, were considered to be among the most proficient and efficient killers in all of Chicago. Collectively, this trio became notorious as “The Three Doms.”
Nuccio’s career dates back to the 1920s Prohibition Era, the era of “Scarface” Al Capone. He was said to have been one of Al Capone’s key men. And although he only ranked as a soldier, nonetheless, Nuccio was always considered to be one of the more important mafiosi in the greater Chicago area.
FBI #559718, Chicago-PD #D-15232, Anti-Racketeering File #CG-92-1989
A Very Dangerous Guy
Dominick Nuccio’s criminal record with the Chicago Police Department dates back to January 6, 1918. On that date, he was arrested for the first time on vagrancy charges and was eventually sentenced to serve 60 days in the Chicago House of Corrections. From that time forward, through the years, Nuccio would be arrested more than 25 additional times for criminal offenses ranging from vagrancy (thrice,) assault, grand larceny, possession of a gun, burglary (convicted, but reversed on appeal,) theft, possession of burglary tools, bootlegging, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, promoting gambling, possessing gambling records, assault with intent to commit murder, premeditated homicide (of Joe Adducci,) prime suspect in a murder investigation, conspiracy to violate the Internal Revenue laws, and violation Illinois State traffic laws.
On April 28, 1921, Nuccio was one of two hoodlums fresh out of Joliet Penitentiary, after their release on a writ of supersedes, who were rearrested and brought to court to face new charges. Police accused them of being two of the four members of the notorious “Gloriana Gang” that had robbed the Summit State Bank of $11,000 in cash only weeks earlier on April 1, 1921.
Nuccio was nabbed along with an accomplice named Thomas Moretti. They were picked up along with a third fellow gang member, later identified as Lawrence Chambers. Authorities say they had been seeking Nuccio and Moretti about several payroll robberies as well as the murder of Hjalmar Johnson, an employee of the Brinks Armed Express Company.
Side note: Even during these early years, Nuccio was identified by the Chicago Crime Commission as one of the “Three Doms” and as the former head of the old Gloriana Gang of Italian rum runners. Throughout 1926, the Gloriana Gang had bloody skirmishes with the gang headed by the legendary Irish mob boss Dean O’Banion.
On June 19, 1929, Federal Alcohol Tax Agents arrested Henry Finkelstein, a member of the old Bugs Moran Gang along with Dom Nuccio and Ross Prio after police staged a surprise raid on a still they were operating at 2014 W. Kinzie Street. Government agents later called it “one of the largest alcohol stills ever uncovered in the Chicago territory.”
Election Fraud in the Windy City
In December 1932, Nuccio’s name resurfaced amidst the fiercely contested re-election campaign of Rep. Fred A. Britten for the 9th District congressional seat. This followed the filing of papers by democratic candidate James McAndrews, who had challenged Britten for the seat but lost.
McAndrews had contested the election results, alleging election fraud and the pervasive intimidation of election workers counting the votes at the polling booths. McAndrews claimed that the ‘split’ vote for Rep. Britten was so disproportionate compared with split votes recorded in other elections that it indicated “dishonesty in counting the ballots.”
While the “split vote” charge formed the principal basis for his contest, McAndrews further asserted that Rep. Britten had toured the district on election day in the company of Dominick “Libby” Nuccio, whom he described as “a very notorious hoodlum.” Nuccio, McAndrews alleged, entered local polling places after they had closed for the day and intimidated election judges and clerks into capitulating with his wishes.
For his part, Rep. Britten told the media that he would draft an answer to the “false” charges, although he believed the case would be taken up by the House Elections Committee in the next Congressional session. He described the papers as “the most ridiculous documents I have seen in a long, long while,” and said he was very surprised that “Jim McAndrews would be a party to such utter nonsense.”
Of course, nothing ever came of McAndrews’ allegations, and Britten served out his term.
Hosting Friends from New York
In 1948, after placing them under surveillance, the Chicago Police moved in and detained Nuccio and two other notorious hoodlums, one of them from New York City, as suspicious characters. They were later identified as Joseph LaBarbera and Frank (Frankie the Hawk) Borelli.
LaBarbera, suspected of now being affiliated with the Outfit, was described as a hoodlum transplant from Buffalo, New York who was a former soldier of the Stefano Magaddino crime family and a known narcotics dealer.
Federal authorities described his associate Borelli as a well-known narcotics racket kingpin in New York City who was also a prime suspect in the gangland murder that took place only months earlier of John Jackson, who happened to be the star prosecution witness in a Hackensack, New Jersey-based narcotics case with Borelli as a lead defendant.
Upon searching the men, police say they found a key to a railroad station locker in Borelli’s pants pocket. When police later opened the locker, they discovered $9,000 worth of hard narcotics stashed inside.
The authorities said this was yet another connection linking the Chicago Outfit to drug trafficking operations.
On July 13, 1948, the Chicago American, a local Chicago newspaper wrote a damning article about Nuccio stating he had been brought in and interrogated as a murder suspect on numerous occasions. He had been questioned as a suspect in no less than eight gangland slayings up to that point in time. One of his suspected murder victims was Irish mob boss Dion (Dean) O’Banion, who had been murdered in 1924.
The other listed homicide investigations he was hauled in for questioning about included Joseph Adducci (September 1934,) Estelle Carey (February 1943,) Thomas Oneglia (December 1943,) Lawrence (Dago) Mangano (August 1944,) Donald Falcon (July 1946,) Vincenzo (Don Vincenzo) Benevento (September 1946,) and Tina Jacobs (September 1947.)
Windy City Rodents Spill the Beans
Throughout the years, at least three different federal informants were known to have provided a continuous stream of information about Nuccio and his activities, helping the FBI keep tabs on their prey. The informants were identified in FBI #302 reports as CG T-1, CG T-2, and CG T-11.
On April 10, 1963, informants notified their handlers that Dominick had returned to Chicago from a trip to Miami, Florida. But only days later, on April 15, they reported that Nuccio was still in Florida and hadn’t yet returned to Chicago. Years later, in December 1968, informants reported that Nuccio had once again traveled to Miami, Florida for the winter.
As a highly trusted soldier of bosses Felice DeLucia, Tony Accardo, and other Outfit brass, Nuccio was generally assigned to oversee the mob’s North Side racket operations.
He and his two partners, Dominick (Nags) Brancato and Dominick (Dom Bello) DiBella, were also known to have financial interests in a slew of nightclubs, restaurants, and other types of entertainment venues around Chicago’s near North Side.
Nuccio himself allegedly held hidden ownership interests in many bars and licensed liquor establishments, including the Rip Tide Cocktail Lounge at 935 North Rush Street. He was also a partner in the Left Bank Cafe on North State Street. Libby also reportedly favored Chicago’s Loop area and could often be seen frequenting and operating in that part of the city.
Authorities say that Nuccio was heavily engaged in controlling a large interlocking network of “handbook” operations. Aside from his primary duties as a strong-arm enforcer and assassin, on a more daily basis, Nuccio and his associates were known to control and oversee the near North Side for the Chicago Family.
Their primary duties included making sure the Outfit got its cut of illicit rackets by shaking down and extorting all independent and semi-independent criminals operating on the mob’s North Side turf such as bookmakers, “juice” loan sharks, boosters and thieves, cat-houses, fraudsters, and others operating within their territory.
The FBI reported that Nuccio derived most of his income from “controlling ‘wire-rooms’ and ‘walk-in street handbooks’ on the north side of Chicago. During the 1950s he was also known to operate wire rooms in Miami, Florida during the winter months.
Additional sources of income included liquor bootlegging, sports books, dice and poker games, “juice” racketeering, varied extortions, shaking down prostitutes and whorehouses, unlicensed after-hours bars, and handling the “pad,” slang for the pervasive and systematic bribery racket that paid off police and local politicians each month to insure their continued cooperation and complacency.
At one point, Libby went partners with a Korean-born associate named Jason Lee in a string of gambling parlors that catered to Asians. Lee ran the Asian-American Legion Post at 1358 N. Clark Street where Chinese and Japanese nationals would frequent to gamble on high-stakes games such as Fan-Tan and three dice as well as traditional card games like blackjack and American stud poker.
After his son’s death during WWII, Libby applied for an Illinois State charter and opened up another club that he named the Dominick Nuccio Jr. American Legion Post in honor of his fallen son. This club, located at 1218 N. Clark Street, was to become one of his key bases of operation. He also took over and operated from another storefront right next door at 1220 N. Clark Street, which he named the Club Innuendo.
Another major hoodlum hangout that Nuccio and other crew associates regularly frequented was a haberdashery called Shirts Unlimited, at 843 N. State Street, which was opened and operated by another key Outfit figure, soldier Placido (Joey Caesar) Di Varco.
Still another favored watering hole was the Melody Casino, which was operated as a B-girl clip joint, located at 1260 N. Clark Street. This bar was ostensibly owned and operated by a mob associate named Cosmo Orlando. But in actuality, it was a joint partnership between the “Three Doms” and their fellow soldiers, the three Lisciandrella brothers, Joe, Sam, and Frank.
Territory Boss – Rosario (Ross Prio) Priolo
As an inducted soldier of the Chicago Family, Nuccio was required to obey orders from any of the Outfit’s brass. But for many years, his direct superior was a highly-respected capo by the name of Rosario Priolo, better known to his underworld brethren and law enforcement alike as simply Ross Prio.
Prio was considered the overall “capo di decina” and territory boss in charge of the North Side’s 43rd Ward, with Nuccio serving as his direct subordinate and one of his closest aides and functionaries.
Nuccio had been around for so long, since the early days of Prohibition, that he pretty much knew everybody there was to know within Chicago’s underworld. These included such notorious men as Outfit bosses Samuel (Sam Mooney) Giancana, Felice (Paul Ricca) DeLucia and Anthony (Joe Batters) Accardo, as well as the equally notorious Rocco Fischetti, Joseph Fischetti, Rocco (Gramps) DeGrazia, Leonard (Lenny Green) Calamia, Placido (Joey Caesar) Di Varco, Anthony (Tough Tony) Capezio, Lawrence (Larry the Hood) Buonoguidi, William (Willie Potatoes) Daddano, Daniel Lardino, Joseph (Big Joe) Arnold, Albert (Obie) Frabotta, Frank (Al Brown) Laino, as well as his closest daily partners, Dominick DeBello and Dominick (Nags) Brancato. Mike Glitta, Anthony (Tony Mack) DeMonte, Frankie Orlando, James (Jimmy the Monk) Allegretti and Marshall Caifano.
The above dirty laundry list is just a smattering of all the varied hoodlums and racketeers whom Libby knew intimately and associated with through his long criminal career.
Nuccio Family Honor
On July 16, 1948, Nuccio was picked up for questioning by police after a local restaurant waiter named Doward Falcon was slain. Falcon was a former head busboy at The Pump Room in the Ambassador East Hotel and later became a waiter at Fritzel’s in the Loop.
Police Captain Tom Kelly told reporters that Nuccio was a former underling of Al Capone and had returned voluntarily to Chicago from Minocqua, Wisconsin for questioning about the slaying. Capt. Kelly also said he planned to grill Nuccio about gambling rackets in Chicago and ask him to submit to a lie detector test in connection with the Falcon murder. He said that Nuccio’s 35-year-old wife, Inez, had accused the 24-year-old Falcon of attempting to rape her in Lincoln Park a month earlier, on June 16.
At his questioning back at police headquarters, Nuccio told his police interrogators that he left Chicago at 1 p.m. Friday for a resort hotel in Minocqua, Wisconsin, remaining there until the Chicago Police Department called on him and he agreed to return to town for questioning.
Falcon was shot to death on Saturday, July 10, 1948, in front of his parents’ home at 1837 Lincoln Avenue. Authorities said the victim was accosted by two unidentified men, who fired two shots that killed him. One bullet struck Falcon directly in the head, the second bullet entered his abdomen.
Captain Kelly stated that the Lincoln Park police had received two mysterious phone calls the evening of the murder, both made by women callers. The first call, received by Police Sgt. Samuel Gildo, came in at 7 p.m. on Saturday, just 3 hours before Falcon was shot down on his doorstep.
Sgt. Gildo said that the woman caller did not identify herself, but asked him, “When is the Falcon case coming up in court?”
He went on to say that Falcon had been scheduled to appear in felony court that Tuesday, July 13th, on charges of assault and attempted rape on a complaint of Mrs. Inez Nuccio.
He had been arrested in Lincoln Park by park police at 6:30 a.m. Mrs. Nuccio told the police Falcon had knocked her down and attempted to attack her as she was walking the family dog in the park. During questioning, Falcon admitted knocking her down but claimed he was dizzy at the time.
The second mysterious phone call was received by Sgt. Edwin A. Nelson of the Lincoln Park Police at 10 a.m. Sunday, nearly 12 hours after Falcon had been killed. The officer said the woman who called identified herself as Mrs. Nuccio and said she was calling long distance, but didn’t say from where.
He said she asked about the court date and when he told her, she informed him she no longer wanted to prosecute Falcon in deference to his wife and family.
The officer then asked her, “Lady, have you seen the morning papers?” She told him she hadn’t and he said, “Don’t you know Falcon was murdered last night?” Once again, she replied no then hung up.
A Perfect Alibi
Nuccio’s wife Inez later provided an ironclad alibi for him. She told police detectives that he had been with her in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at the exact time the murder was committed.
Questioned at Lake Geneva by Police Captain Kelly himself, Mrs. Nuccio said she and her husband had arrived in Lake Geneva on Saturday afternoon, registering at the Luzerne Hotel there.
“He was with me all Saturday evening until 10 or 11 o’clock at night when he left me to go to a local tavern for a little while,” she said. “He returned about an hour later and remained in the hotel with me the rest of the night.”
Records of the Hotel Luzern later confirmed that she was indeed telling the truth. Libby and Inez signed into the hotel book at the front desk on Saturday as Mr. and Mrs. Dominick Nuccio.
Falcon had been slain as he walked up the front steps to his home at 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
At a formal inquest, Mrs. Falcon, the victim’s wife, testified that she knew of no reason why anyone would want to kill her husband, but stated, “unless it was someone in connection with that rape charge against him”
Under further questioning by Deputy Coroner Ed Edelstein, the widow added, “Shorty after my husband got arrested, I went to the Nuccio apartment to talk with Mrs. Nuccio. She told me that she had no desire to prosecute my husband for the attempted rape, but that she feared if she dropped the charges, her husband Dominick might kill my husband.”
Inez Nuccio later vehemently denied ever making that statement to Mrs. Falcon. She gave a written statement contradicting Mrs. Falcon’s allegations, stating, “Mrs. Falcon came to my home and told me she was the mother of two children and wanted to know if I couldn’t drop the charges.”
Mrs. Nucicio continued, “So while she was there, I called the state’s attorney’s office and asked if I could withdraw the charges, and they said I could not because I was a state’s witness, so I told Mrs. Falcon I couldn’t drop the charges.”
Police investigators then asked, “Did you tell her your husband would kill Falcon if you dropped the charges?”
“No, I called my husband on the telephone and told him I didn’t want to appear in court, and he told me I would have to appear.”
The police then asked her, “Did your husband ever tell you that Falcon would be killed?”
Mrs. Nuccio responded, “My husband was mad at me because I needn’t have been in the park around the bushes, and if I watched myself and been more careful that wouldn’t have happened to me.”
The Near North Side
Back in December 1941, several teams of Chicago policemen, led by Captain Frank Reynolds, conducted a surprise raid on a second-floor apartment at 59 East Chicago Avenue, where they found Lawrence (Dago) Mangano presiding over what they described as the “nerve center” for a huge gambling operation. As they entered the premises, the raiders said they found nine telephones in use, with Mangano wearing a telephone operator’s headpiece.
Arrested along with Mangano were Nuccio and three other men later identified as Thomas Stapleton, Myles Loefler, and Henry Philips. All five suspects were charged with operating a gambling house and possession of gambling paraphernalia.
In 1948, an FBI informant reported that Chicago hoodlum Gerald (Jerry) Covelli was a close “lieutenant” and aide of Dominick Nuccio.
On August 5, 1949, the then-54-year-old Nuccio was picked up on a charge of disorderly conduct. When he appeared before the court for arraignment, the judge quickly dismissed the charge.
When questioned as to why they had arrested Nuccio, Detective William Mandell of the Summerdale Stationhouse advised the judge that Nuccio was “a well-known hoodlum and racketeer” and was arrested for investigation in conformity with Police Captain John Warren’s order to pick up all known hoodlums when they enter the district.
Less than one year later, on March 12, 1950, Police Captain Thomas A. Kelly ordered the arrests of Nuccio, Brancato, and DiBella after he received information that the three hoodlums had been attempting to gain a controlling interest in gambling activities around the Town Hall Police District. The three were also accused of using terroristic strong-arm methods such as beatings and other violence against independent bookies to cut themselves in on horserace betting volume.
In the mid-1950s, the FBI noted that Nuccio now owned a 1956 DeSoto automobile. This fact became important because during the many surveillance operations they undertook against Outfit members, this particular car was repeatedly observed parked in front of Family boss Sam Giancana’s home at 1147 South Wenonah in Oak Park.
The repeated presence of Nuccio’s automobile parked by the boss’ home only served to confirm the FBI’s opinion about Libby’s standing and importance within the overall Chicago underworld, and to Giancana, in particular.
The Capone Method
Then, on June 8, 1951, Libby became one of 150 key investigative targets of the IRS.
Referring back to their old playbook, which decades earlier they used to nail mob leader Al Capone, the federal government released a formal list of potential targets they referred to as “hoodlum tax targets” to all the Chicago daily newspapers. The released documents amounted to a “Who’s Who” of Chicago’s most notorious hoodlums and gamblers as well as those politicians suspected of being corrupt, whose income-tax returns were now slated to be investigated by a specially empaneled fraud squad of the bureau’s internal revenue enforcement division.
Comprised of approximately 100 IRS agents, the “fraud squadm” as it was called, began targeting more than 1,600 persons all across the northern Illinois district.
The tax investigations probe was prompted by a series of U.S. Senate investigation subcommittee hearings then being conducted throughout the country targeting the underworld, which had criticized the Treasury Department after focusing their investigation intently on the Greater Chicago area.
After several weeks of testimony before a panel of senators, the senate subcommittee released a scathing report accusing the IRS of gross negligence for permitting known hoodlums to file vague and incomplete tax returns, thereby skirting federal tax laws and evading income taxes due the government.
Among the many top racketeers and hoodlums who earned the dubious distinction of making it onto the list, which named them in an A to Z fashion, were the following notorious Chicago characters: Anthony Accardo, Joseph Aiuppa, Gus Alex, James Allegretti, William Alosio, Salvatore Battaglia, Dominick Brancato, William Bioff, Marshall Caifano, Louis Campagna, and Anthony Capezio. And this was just the listing from letter A through letter C. There were a host of others named as well.
Over the next several years, many of the Outfit’s most active members would feel intense heat as IRS agents went around town turning over every rock and peeking inside every crevice in an unwavering attempt to make tax evasion cases against their targets. Some successful criminal tax cases were made from these investigations.
A Top Soldier and Leader
As mentioned, Dominick Nuccio was long considered one of the “top lieutenants” of North Side caporegime Ross Prio. As such, he was subjected to a continuous, seemingly never-ending series of FBI probes. He was constantly on their minds.
A 1960s internal FBI memo, commonly known as a #302 report, described Nuccio as follows: “As the bureau is aware, Dominic Nuccio has been a long-time leader of organized crime in Chicago, having responsibilities on the near North Side of Chicago. Subject’s brother Michael operates the Gold Coast Realty Company and the Gold Coast Insurance Company, both located at 206 Shermer Road, Glenview, IL. Although neither one of these two companies possess the valid state licenses required to operate these companies.”
Another FBI 302 memo from 1970 stated: “Nuccio and Inez are currently living in apartment #917, at the Webster Hotel, 2150 North Lincoln Park West, Chicago. They pay a rent of $350 a month. The subject maintains a second residence at Indiana Creek Apartments, 5980 Indiana Creek Drive, Miami, Florida where he’s known to spend the winter months, generally from the months of November through April.”
The report went on to state, “The subject (Nuccio) frequently attends racetracks in the Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida areas and in the evenings, the subject can usually be located at Milano’s Restaurant, 1159 North State Street, Chicago, which is operated by his close friend, Anthony (Tony Milano) Amadeo.”
Around this same period, another FBI field agent of the Chicago Office reported that Nuccio was also “known to frequent the haberdashery store of his associate Joseph DiVarco, “Shirts Unlimited,” 843 North State St. When in Florida, he is observed on a daily basis at the Hialeah Racetrack.”
In 1970, FBI agents also took note that Nuccio was currently considered inactive in criminal activities and had been for the past 10 years or so. He was reportedly now receiving a weekly monetary “stipend” from the Outfit for his past services.
This particular report stated that he was then driving a black-over-white color 1968 Buick Electra. Four years later, in 1974, he was observed driving a brand new 1974 two-door Ford Thunderbird.
To the Bitter End
In August 1969, Nuccio was reported to have been detained by racetrack security and subsequently ejected from Arlington Park Racetrack by the track’s private security force. Never one to worry about such trivialities, agents were told that Nuccio repeatedly attempted to sneak back into the track but was caught and expelled.
That same year, Libby’s lifelong smoking habit finally caught up to him. He was suffering from lung damage and had to undergo a very serious operation to remove a section of his lung. Doctors said his condition was a direct result of his heavy,decades-long cigarette smoking.
During his retirement years, it seems that Libby became a daily habitué of the Hawthorne Park Racetrack whenever he was in Chicago. And when he wasn’t, he’d regularly visit the horse and dog tracks during the winter months he spent in South Florida for his health.
Follow-up #302 memos report that same thing. They state that by 1960 or so, Nuccio was considered retired from any active organized crime involvement and was, at that time, in ill health, maintaining a low profile, and staying away from his former underworld associates.
In the remaining years of his life, Libby’s health issues became such that he was constantly in and out of the hospital due to bouts of ever-increasing emphysema disease and lung cancer.
During the last few years of their lives, the Nuccios were said to be residing at 60025 Glenview Street in Chicago.
Libby’s beloved wife, Inez, passed away on November 11, 1979, at the relatively young age of 66. Just over one month later, it would be Libby’s turn to meet his maker.
Dominick (Little Libby) Nuccio died in Chicago on December 19, 1979. He was 84 years old. Nuccio was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in River Grove, IL.
Until next time…”The Other Guy”