Felice (Paul Ricca) DeLucia – aka Felice Lucia, Paul DeLucia, Paul the Waiter, Paul Lucia, Paul Maglio, and Paul Viela – was born in Naples, Italy (Campania region) on July 10, 1898.
DeLucia was one of five children, and the only son, of Italian immigrants Antonio and Maria (nee’ Annunziata) DeLucia. His four sisters were named Emilia, Anna, Clementina, and Luisa.
His criminal career allegedly started back in Naples while he was still in his teens.
He was once reportedly charged with a murder said to have been ordered by the Camorra and later served several years behind bars before being paroled.
He was suspected of another murder shortly after his release from prison and fled to the United States under an assumed name.
Upon immigrating to the United States, DeLucia quickly made his way to the midwestern state of Illinois where he settled down in the City of Chicago.
Never known to have held a steady job or performed any legitimate work, by the 1920s Depression Era, the young racketeer had already been drawn into Chicago’s criminal underworld and was well on his way to Mafia stardom.
Side Note: Mob lore has it that DeLucia actually received his underworld moniker of “Paul the Waiter” after fellow mobsters referred to him as that for his “employment” as Maitre d’ at Chicago’s infamous mobbed-up restaurant, the Bella Napoli Cafe.
But one has to seriously doubt if Ricca ever actually “waited” on the tables of patrons.
From Felice DeLucia to Paul Ricca
By this time, Felice DeLucia had also started calling himself by the more easily pronounced name of Paul Ricca.
In the mid-1920s, he met and married a local girl named Nancy Gigante. They soon started a family of their own that eventually included two sons they named Paul Jr. (after his dad) and Anthony, and a daughter they named Mary in honor of DeLucia’s beloved mother Maria.
The DeLucia family relocated several times within Chicago, over the years, while raising their children.
But with his fast-growing wealth and underworld status, eventually, Paul Ricca decided to buy a larger, more beautiful home for his family at 1515 Bonnie Brae Place in the prestigious northwestern Chicago suburb of River Forest .
Along the way, he had also been astute enough to apply for, and be granted, permanent citizenship in the United States.
Ricca stood 5-feet 8-inches tall and weighed a solid 180 pounds. Old police photos show Paul had smooth features, light hazel eyes, and was balding and turning grey by his mid-fifties.
FBI #832514, CHICAGO-PD #D78267
Murder, Extortion, and More
His criminal record with the Chicago Police Department started very late in life, especially for a top racketeer and mafioso of his standing.
Although Ricca was allegedly picked up for a murder back in Italy as a youth, his first official “recorded” arrest in the U.S. came much later in 1943 when he was named in a high-profile Federal indictment along with other top hierarchy members of Chicago’s “Outfit” for “shaking down” movie producers and major Hollywood film studios in Los Angeles, California.
The “old Capone Outfit,” or Chicago Family, was charged with extorting huge payoffs and kickbacks to ensure “labor peace” and “protection” by using labor unions under their dominion to threaten movie studios with labor strikes, employee walk-outs, and worse.
Ricca and the others were all charged with extortion, criminal conspiracy, and violating the Federal Anti-Racketeering Laws. They were later convicted at trial. Ricca received a 10-year prison term.
Other top mobsters charged and convicted in the case included Frank (The Enforcer) Nitti, who later committed suicide; Johnny Roselli; Philip D’Andrea; Louis (Little New York) Campagna; and Charles (Cherry Nose) Gioe.
By the late 1950s, Ricca had been nailed once again.
This time around, Ricca was hit with several different counts of Federal income-tax evasion. He was once again later convicted at trial and sentenced in 1959 to serve a three-year jail term.
Around this same point in time, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) brought a case against Ricca to have his citizenship revoked and deport him back to his birthplace of Italy as an undesirable.
They charged in “Count One” that he had entered the country illegally under a false name, and in “Count Two” that he had a serious criminal record, both back in Italy and in his adopted home in the United States.
After a lengthy court battle, the U.S. Government eventually won a deportation order. But Ricca later won a reversal and had the case overturned on appeal.
A Who’s Who of the American Underworld
Ricca’s criminal associates and mob connections read like a “Who’s Who” of the American underworld.
It would not be an overstatement to say that he knew virtually everybody who was anybody in the Chicago Outfit. But he was a first, and quite possibly “the” very first, among top-tiered equals.
It is said that Ricca was partners with the equally notorious and deadly Anthony (Joe Batters) Accardo.
Together these two mafiosi ran the City of Chicago from the shadows for many decades while letting other lesser mafia members serve as the “frontmen” and “straw bosses” to avert law enforcement’s attention away from themselves.
It was a brilliant plan…and it worked like a charm!
Through the years, both Ricca and Accardo were suspected of having gotten a piece of every single “racket pie” operated or controlled by members and associates of the Chicago Family.
And although, as mentioned earlier, Ricca was never known to engage or invest himself in any legitimate business, per se, there is no doubt, through the years, that he received steady cash income from numerous businesses and legitimate enterprises under the Outfit’s control.
Among Ricca’s closest associates, aides, and subordinates were such notorious figures as former bosses Alphonse (Scarface Al) Capone and Salvatore (Sam Mooney) Giancana, Frank Nitti, Louis Campagna, Rocco Fischetti and his brother Charlie Fischetti, Jack (Greasy Thumb Jake) Guzik, Charles (Chuck English) Inglesia, Eddie Vogel, Marshall (Johnny Marshall) Caifano, Jack (Jackie the Lackey) Cerone, William (Willy Potatoes) Daddano, Murray (The Camel) Humphreys, Samuel (Teets) Battaglia, and Samuel (Golf Bag) Hunt.
And as a decades-long member of the Mafia’s national “Commission” based in New York, Ricca was also an intimate of such mob luminaries as Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, Carlo Gambino, Joseph Profaci, and Thomas Lucchese…to name but a few.
From coast to coast, New York to California, and everyplace in between, DeLucia and Accardo were highly-respected and held sway!
The wily and shadowy Chicago “Outfit” boss Felice DeLucia, aka “Paul Ricca,” died on October 11, 1972. He was seventy-four years old.
Until next time…”The Other Guy”
