Ippolito (Paul the Zip) Agresta

Paul Agresta was believed to have been a formally inducted member of the Calabrian “Honored Society” before coming to the United States. In later years, he was said to have also become a formally inducted mafia member under the flag of the Anastasia/Gambino Family of NY .

Ippolito (Paul the Zip) Agresta -- aka The Greaseball, Paul the Greaser, Paul Agresta and Ippolito Paolo Agresta (TN) -- was born on June 18, 1906, in the Port City of Gioia Tauro Reggio, Calabria, Italy.

After immigrating to the United States in 1935, he moved to Connecticut and took up residence in the city of Bridgeport. On June 20, 1945, it is documented that he became a naturalized U.S. citizen at Bridgeport.

Paul Agresta

He stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 155 pounds. His immigration photo shows Agresta with black-grey, close-cropped hair, brown eyes, and an aquiline nose. He was described as having a scar on his lip.

By the late 1930s, he had met and would later marry a fellow Calabrian-born immigrant like himself named Francesca (nee’ Corica). Only 20 years old at the time they met, she was eleven years younger than Agresta. He and Francesca lived in a small home they owned at 85 Steuben Street in Bridgeport.

He also had a large immediate blood family of six siblings, some of whom had immigrated with him, including four brothers named Joseph, Vincent, Rocco, and Anthony, and two sisters.

A Major Underworld Power

Although not much was ever uncovered about his shadowy underworld career, the quiet Agresta was indeed known for many years as one of the major underworld powers in Bridgeport and its surrounding towns and territories.

He was believed to have been a formally inducted member of the Calabrian “Honored Society” before coming to the United States. In later years, he was said to have also become a formally inducted mafia member under the flag of the Anastasia/Gambino Family of NY.

He numbered among his associates notorious mafiosi such as Gambino caporegime Frank (The Cigar) Piccolo, Genovese capo Giuseppe (Joe Adonis) Doto, Lucchese soldier Settimo (Big Sam) Accardi of New Jersey, and Harlem-based Lucchese capo and drug kingpin John (Big John) Ormento.

Local Connecticut-based Gambino mob figures he was known to keep in steady contact with included William (Willy the Creep) Conforte, Raymond (Lemons) Maresca, Nicholas (Nick) Patti, Frank Visone, and Ignazio (Okay Benny) Marchese. Each of whom was a convicted drug dealer with a long criminal record.

But Agresta himself had a very limited criminal record.

He listed one arrest in 1947 for extortion in Milford, Connecticut, for which he later pled out and received an 8-month jail term that he served in Federal Prison. His only other known arrest and conviction was on a gambling-related charge in May 1967, for which he was sentenced to serve 6 months (3 months in jail, 3 months of probation).

Other than these two convictions, he seems to have kept his head under the radar throughout the years.

Ziganette and Bookmaking

He was suspected of holding a controlling interest in various dice and card games run by Italian nationals, such as the Italian card game Ziganette. The game was “floated” for years at different locations around Bridgeport.

Agresta was also thought to have kept a steady hand in narcotics trafficking through his frequent trips to Ital,y where it was suspected he would negotiate drug prices for future shipment into the United States.

Agresta was also known to be active in bookmaking and the numbers racket in partnership with Piccolo. He was also thought to be active in fencing stolen goods and passing counterfeit money through a close associate of his named Peter Genova. Genova was generally known to act on behalf of Agresta and was known as one of his underlings.

Agresta was typically known to hang out at various businesses that his friends operated or that he held interests in around the Bridgeport area, such as Mento’s Service Station, the Ocean Sea Grill, and The Hotel Savoy.

For years, he listed his employment as an auto salesman for Columbia Motors, Inc., a used-car business owned by his close associate Frank Piccolo.

After a lifetime spent in the Calabrian “Honored Society” and later amid Connecticut’s underworld, mafioso Ippolito (Paul) Agresta disappeared without a trace on July 4, 1974 (police believed he was murdered.) He was 68 years old.

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Ippolito (Paul the Zip) Agresta

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