Rudolph (Rudy) Farone – “This Tootsie Don’t Roll”

In the coming years, Rudy would continue to operate as a valued soldier of the DeCavalcante network. He remained one of their key operatives in the New York City regime under Cocchiaro.

Rudolph (Rudy) Farone , aka “Tootsie” - in later years, he also became known “Uncle Rudy” to fellow mafiosi - was born in Brooklyn as Rudolph Edward Farone, on September 11, 1928 (other documents reflect his dob as 11/09/1928) to Amilio (Emil) and Anna Farone, who were Italian immigrant’s.

They first resided at 1428 7th Street, and later moved to 109 Fifth Avenue, in South Brooklyn.

Rudy Farone

Still later, they moved down the block to #423. After he got married in 1950 to a childhood sweetheart, he and his wife soon gave birth to three children.

By the late 1950s, they had relocated and were now residing on the first-floor of a two-family residence at 1697 East 52nd Street, off Avenue O, in Brooklyn. This residence was owned and shared by his in-laws, who resided on the second floor.

NYCPD B-227412, FBI #106192A, NYS-DCI #304517X

It was noted by FBI agents surveilling Farone in 1965, that he was the owner-driver of a new dark blue, 4-door, 1964 Pontiac Bonneville. He later acquired a second automobile, another 1965 Pontiac model, this one had a black exterior.

In those early years, Farone’s nemesis was most often FBI Special Agent Mario J. Simeone, Jr., a young agent of Italian-American ethnicity who was assigned to Farone, and who made it his mission to ‘clock’ his suspect every chance he got to learn his moments and modus operandi.

For instance, they learned that Farone’s mother Anna had died when he was only six years old. He had a tattoo in honor of her on his right arm that was a picture of a Catholic cross, with an anchor and heart beneath it, with the inscription above that read “In Memory of My Dear Mother.”

Another tidbit of intelligence that might come in handy down the road was the circumstances of Farone’s first arrest for attempted burglary. He and two accomplices were nabbed as they dropped into a welding shop through the skylight. A responding police officer shot and killed Frank Ireno, one of Rudy’s two burglary buddies.

The other kid, Nicholas Volpe, was arrested along with Farone. These little things helped with the psychological profiles of suspects when doing investigations that Simeone learned in his training at Quantico, Virginia, as a young agent.

It basically became a young Italian vs. a young Italian who just happened to be on opposite ends of the justice system. Both men just trying to do their best at their chosen line of work.

The New York Police Department’s criminal record for Farone dated to at least the early 1940s, and was documented as follows:

1942 - juvenile delinquency (put on probation)

1944 - wayward minor, burglary of vacant building (probation)

1948 - wayward minor (probation)

1948 - attempted burglary, and possession of burglar tools (dismissed)

1949 - attempted burglary (2.5 to 5 years at Elmira State Prison)

1951 - paroled

1959 - policy (acquitted)

1959 - consorting with known criminals (acquitted)

1960 - bookmaking (disposition not recorded)

1967 - illegal gun possession

1971 - felonious assault

1971 - promoting a gambling business, possession of policy slips

1986 - RICO conspiracy, racketeering, gambling, extortion, narcotics trafficking

By the early 1960s, Rudy Farone was described as being active in the gambling rackets, especially policy-numbers. He was also said to be actively engaged as a ‘fence’ for stolen goods heisted off the Brooklyn docks, and the various trucking company warehouses that dotted the waterfront. For instance, in 1964 he was said by informants to be offering for sale two cases of Ronson-brand shavers for $10 each.

In 1962, he was known to operate his rackets out of a private neighborhood social club located at Carroll Street and Third Avenue in South Brooklyn area around the Gowanus Canal. Augmenting his income he was said to have bought into the Club 18 as an undisclosed owner, located along 18th Street at 17th Avenue.

This neighborhood watering hole soon became another hangout for the fledgling Mafia ‘associate.’ He later also opened up another notorious mob social club on Fifth Avenue, between Second and Third Streets. Farone was said to have also formerly been a hidden partner of both the 1717 Club, on 86th Street and 17th Avenue, and Knock-Knock Club, on New Utrecht Avenue, both in Brooklyn.

Rudy most often hung around and operated out of Brooklyn. He ran rackets and associated with mob guys throughout all Kings County, but could usually be found in the South Brooklyn, Coney Island, and Bensonhurst sections.

He would eventually affiliate with a New York-based faction of New Jersey’s DeCavalcante Family. But early on in his underworld career, Farone mobbed-up with members of the Joe Colombo Family.

He had grown up and gone to grade school with many young hoodlums like himself, most of whom would one day become soldiers in the old Joseph Profaci Family, which was the resident Cosa Nostra Family in control of Rudy’s neighborhood growing up. By the time he was knocking around in the underworld, this borgata was known as the Colombo Family.

But somewhere along the line Rudy became friendly with Sam DeCavalcante’s crew out in Jersey, and he chose to permanently tie his racketeer wagon to that borgata. In truth, there was a well-established DeCavalcante crew in his neck of the woods. How this came to be is anyone's guess, but its resident Brooklyn-based ‘capo di decina’ was known to be another up-and-coming South Brooklyn hood named Frank (Big Frankie) Cocchiaro.

During the late-1950s, the FBI documented Cocchiaro as overseeing a crew of young hoodlums that were based in Brooklyn and a few others in Queens as well. Aspiring hoods with names like Louie Telese, Umberto (Vadoo) Gallo, his brother Angelo Gallo, Robert (DB) DiBernardo, and Cocchiaro’s own younger brother Carmelo (Milio) Cocchiaro, who lived in the Jackson Heights section.

With the exception of Di Bernardo who later joined up with the Gambino’s, years later all the others would eventually become inducted members of the DeCavalcante Family.

Another fellow who originally came out of Brooklyn, but later relocated to the Astoria section of Queens where he helped develop a second ‘regime’ for the DeCavalcante Family in Queens County was Joseph (Uncle Joe) Giacobbe.

He was born back in 1910, and had been a soldier and borgata operative for decades. He had resided at 1701 East 52nd Street, Brooklyn, before migrating to Queens with his mafioso brother Lenny, and their hoodlum nephews.

In those days, Joe Giacobbe had been installed through a mob ‘hook’ at the Newspaper Workers & Delivery Union into a solid position at The New York Times daily newspaper, located at 229 West 43rd Street, on Manhattan’s Westside. It was a sweet ‘no-show’ job with full union benefits.

But back in the mid-1960s, informants were reporting that although not yet a ‘button man,’ he was a very active hoodlum. One informer told his FBI handler that Rudy Farone was known around town as a bookmaker and shylock, who was known to operate out of his Oceanside Boys Social Club, Inc., at 320 5th Avenue, and a few doors down at Danny Jordon’s Bar and Grill, located at 299 5th Avenue.

This social club was a notorious mafia hangout. Numerous mafiosi were members and known to frequent the storefront daily. The bar and grill a few doors down was another known mob hangout. In fact, the owner-operator of the place was Daniel Jordon, a roly-poly of a man at 5’-3” tall, who tipped the scales at over 200 pounds.

Jordon himself had once been convicted of bookmaking and operating a dice game, and his tavern was thought by the local 11th Division of the NYCPD to house a bookmaking operation. Jordan was known to the NYPD as # B-14336, as there listed him as a “KG” (known gambler).

As they put Rudy under surveillance more and more, the FBI soon came to realize that Farone basically had the entire block of 5th Avenue on lockdown. He was also a near-daily presence at the nearby Rex Fish Market, which was owned by a mob buddy named Frank Betulia and Carlo Silinonte, and only a few doors down from the Oceanside Boys Club, and Jordon’s Bar, at 278 5th Avenue.

The building that housed the bar was owned by Stephen Silinonte, the brother of Carlo, and a cousin of infamous Family boss Joseph (Joe Bananas) Bonanno. Both Silinonte’s were considered mob associates, and the fish store was strongly suspected of being a numbers drop.

And by the mid-1960s the Federal Bureau of Investigation had now decided to open up a full-blown ‘anti-racketeering’ case on the fledgling mafioso, 92-Case # 8831. They also started coordinating with their FBI counterparts in their Newark, NJ, office.

This was done to tie into a growing investigation being conducted against boss Samuel (Sam the Plumber) DeCavalcante. It would soon become a full-court press against the Garden State mobsters and their New York affiliates.

With this weekly surveillance, Farone was now being connected more and more to other local hoodlums such as Ignatius DeBella, a Gambino figure who was employed down at Pier #3, on the Manhattan docks.

Another was top Profaci hoodlum, Carmine (Junior) Persico, who of course in later years would rise to the top of the Colombo Family. He was also seen on several occasions with renegade faction leaders Larry and Joey Gallo.

Another friend with the Colombo’s was soldier Jerome D’Agati. The FBI also noted that Farone had become extremely close to Frank Cocchiaro, who by this time had been well documented as a capo with the DeCavalcante’s.

They started logging additional meeting places of the mobsters and the various social clubs and locations where they did their business. One was the Garfield Glass Corporation, of 31 Garfield place, in Red Hook.

By 1967, the 37-year old Farone was listing his employment with Rex Fish Market. He was there daily, so his constant presence seemed to like a normal occurrence to anyone paying attention. An official check of company records revealed that a Rudolph Farone was listed as the vice-president of Rex Fish Market Company.

Additionally, the FBI documented that by August of 1967, Rudy was also collecting a paycheck of $100 weekly gross earning from the Garfield Glass Company.

But his alleged employment at Garfield Glass was actually only a front for income-tax purposes, so he could show good ole Uncle Sam that he was gainfully employed to substantiate his lifestyle and cover up his illegal activities.

Rudy would allegedly go to Garfield monthly to collect his check, then sign the back of it, and hand it right back to the company.

A jewish friend of his by the name of Nathan Stern actually owned Garfield and did Rudy a favor. During the calendar years 1962, thru 1966, Farone declared between $4,000 and $5,200 a year on his tax return.

By this time the feds had upgraded their criminal file on Farone.

They documented his expanding involvement with bookmaking, policy, card and dice games at gambling clubs, shylocking, extortion, various heists and thefts off the waterfront piers, the fencing of those stolen and hijacked goods, and labor-union racketeering along the Brooklyn and Manhattan waterfronts. He was a very ambitious hoodlum to put it mildly….They also took note that Rudy Farone had the supposedly well-earned reputation of a strong-arm man and mob enforcer.

By this time Farone was becoming more deeply involved in pier thefts at the South Brooklyn docks, which was located only a few blocks away from his social club, and was considered within his general purview as a racketeer and up and coming mafioso.

In fact, several other important members of the DeCavalcante crew were actually employed as longshoremen and were card carrying members of International Longshoreman's Union, Local # 1814 (Independent).

DeCavalcante soldiers that doubled as longshoremen included Angelo and Umberto (Vadoo) Gallo, and their son Umberto Jr. Family capo Vincent (Jimmy the Gent ) Rotondo, who led the Brooklyn faction in the 1980s, would later rise even higher in the borgata as underboss.

He also doubled in his ‘official’ job as ‘organizer’ for Longshoreman's Local #1814. Other ‘associates’ included Giovanni Pugliese, who was employed by the Pittston Stevedoring Company; and Dominick Perrone, who was a stevedore and checker on the docks.

In 1968, the FBI started probing the March 1967 theft of three cases of .22 caliber Luger automatic pistols, stolen off the docks from the Eastern Express Company, of Akron, Ohio. Because it was a ‘theft from interstate shipment,’ if gave the feds automatic jurisdiction over the case. Rudy had been arrested by the NYCPD along with three others on August 17, 1967, in possession of a .22 caliber Luger.

They had all been picked up inside the Rex Fish Market. At the time the cops swooped in, they discovered the gun.

The case started when detectives of the Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, connected to the 78th Precinct, entered the fish market with a search warrant. They were looking for policy slips, bookmaking bet records, and other gambling paraphernalia.

During the course of the search, they came upon the following weapons secreted in a wall panel: one .22 caliber Ruger pistol; one .22 caliber Marlin rifle; one .12 gauge shotgun; two boxes of .22 caliber ammunition; and twelve shotgun shells.

The suspects were subsequently arrested and each charged with violation of NYS-Penal Law #1897, illegal possession of a handgun and other weapons. But because they was found inside the store itself, and not on anyone per se, the case was eventually dismissed on November 16, 1967, in Brooklyn Criminal Court because of a lack of evidence as to who the weapons actually belonged to.

But a month later Silinonte was rearrested on various promoting gambling charges for records they later also found during that search. The FBI decided to probe deeper into this interstate theft case to determine who were the original principals involved but eventually were told by FBI higher-ups to drop the matter because it was a weak case.

Around this same time, in the year 1968, it was reported to the FBI by their informants that Rudy Farone had become a ‘made’ guy. That he was in fact now operating and being afforded the respect on the streets of a formal ‘inducted’ soldier of the Simone DeCavalcante Family.

The agents noticed this same thing as they watched him interact at the May 20, 1968, wake for Larry Gallo, at Bensonhurst’s Prospero Funeral Home, 2444 86th Street, Brooklyn.

Informants also said that Rudy was now active in a large card game that he operated on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings inside a private home on 5th Avenue, around Garfield Place, but the exact location could not be determined.

He was said to also be so big in the numbers business that he had about 40 to 50 runners. Some of his numbers locations where policy slips were sold were said to be the Picture Box Bar on McDonald Avenue, the Key Food Store, and an ice cream factory in that same area. He also became a regular at another mob watering hole, the Intermission Bar, on New Utrecht Avenue.

The feds also learned from their street sources that Carmine Persico and Rudy didn’t get along at all. In fact, they actually hated each other. It was said that Persico would have loved to clip Farone, but that because he was a made guy connected with another crew, his hands were tied.

Over the next several years or so the feds would continue to keep Farone in their crosshairs. The Brooklyn Strike Force made him a prime target. He was considered to be the principal operator of a large numbers and horse bookmaking ring based out of the Rex Fish Store, which was thought to be used at the primary ‘drop’ off and bank for the network’s ‘runners.’

In December of 1971, they nabbed him again. In a funny twist of an arrest, Rudy was picked up and charged by Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold’s office for heading what was described as a $ 4,000,000-a-year policy ring.

The 43-year-old mafia soldier was charged as the overall ‘kingpin’ and hit with several counts of gambling and felonious assault. The entire affair started with a weird incident that happened on a Brooklyn street corner.

A 19-year-old youth spotted three men roughing up another older guy at 3 am inside a White Castle Restaurant. He approached them, coming to the aid of the older gentleman. When he tried intervening the three fellas chased him down the block and proceeded to give him a beating. After they left, the youth, Tommy Clementi, called the police.

A patrolman soon showed up on the scene. He and the youth started combing nearby streets looking for the assailants. The kid soon spotted Farone stepping into his Cadillac a few blocks away.

The cop put Farone under arrest for assault. But this was only the start of Rudy’s problems. After learning who they had in custody, a grand jury was started to investigate the incident.

It eventually led to the unraveling of Farone’s gambling operation, which was operating in the Bay Ridge/Bensonhurst sections of the borough.

In the coming years, Rudy would continue to operate as a valued soldier of the DeCavalcante network. He remained one of their key operatives in the New York City regime under Cocchiaro.

After Big Frank relocated down to South Florida, another member was elevated to serve as caporegime over the crew. Brooklyn native Jimmy Rotondo would be his direct superior for years to come.

Farone also started operating more in Staten Island, which had become more developed over the years as more and more Brooklynites relocated out there.

By the 1980s, the FBI had heard that Farone had also been elevated to a ‘capos’ position. Informants reported that he had expanded his rackets to the neighboring sections of Park Slope, Coney Island, and Staten Island. He was also suspected of engaging in criminal activity (narcotics) in the states of Utah and California through several of his crew associates.

He was now associating on a weekly basis with such DeCavalcante heavyweights as capos Charles (Charlie Ears) Majuri, Luciano (Big Louie) Larasso, consigliere Steve (The Truck Driver) Vitabile, and boss John Riggi Sr., himself. But he essentially always remained a street hood who was active in the more ‘blue collar’ rackets of the underworld.

He was never a ‘finesse’ guy who cared to engage in more ‘white collar’ type operations. He was also suspected of strong-arm ‘enforcement’ for the Family. During this same time period the feds ‘came-a-calling’ again.

In 1986, he was charged along with soldier Gaetano (Corky) Vastola and 19 others, in a sweeping 119 count federal RICO indictment alleging, “a classic racketeering case of gambling, loansharking, extortion, and narcotics trafficking.”

A highly-placed mob informant named Anthony Rotondo, the son of murdered capo Jimmy Rotondo, who himself had become a mafia member and risen to a capos post, implicated Farone in a mob hit that was allegedly performed in the basement of his Mill Basin home in 1989.

The victim was DeCavalcante associate Joseph Garofano. But because of rules of evidence or the lack thereof, Farone was never charged with this homicide.

Rudy Farone died in 1997, at the relatively young age of 68 years old.

Rudolph (Rudy) Farone – “This Tootsie Don’t Roll”

You May Also Enjoy

The Anthony Strollo Regime of NY/NJ

The Day Charlie (the Bug) Workman Saved a Horse

Racketeer Profile – San Francisco’s “Jimmy the Hat” Lanza

Welcome Back!

Create New Account!

Retrieve your password

Are you sure want to unlock this post?

Are you sure want to cancel subscription?

Rudolph (Rudy) Farone – “This Tootsie Don’t Roll”

Unlock This Door to the Underworld

Take the Journey!

You May Also Enjoy

The Anthony Strollo Regime of NY/NJ

The Day Charlie (the Bug) Workman Saved a Horse

Racketeer Profile – San Francisco’s “Jimmy the Hat” Lanza

Welcome Back!

Create New Account!

Retrieve your password

Are you sure want to unlock this post?

Are you sure want to cancel subscription?