Serafino (Sam) Grio – “Unofficial Consigliere”

This is the third profile in a continuing series on Utica-based mafiosi which I’ve found to be very interesting.

Sam Grio was a highly respected "key" soldier in the Falcone regime of the Magaddino Family.

He was paramount among a small cadre of men who ran the Utica-Rome rackets . I hope you enjoy reading his story as much as I did while researching him.

Serafino (Sam) Grio - aka “Uncle Sam” - was born on June 10, 1894, in the little town of Cosoleto, Italy, located in the Southern province of Calabria. He was the eldest of four children born to Antonio Grio and Caterina (nee Sgrio.)

He was thought to have immigrated to the United States by himself as a boy of 19 years old in 1913. Grio eventually found work as a laborer in the little city of Utica in Upstate New York.

Grio went on to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1917 at the age of 23. He served with the #320 Sealed Artillery in France during WWI and fought in the Marbache Sector at St. Michel and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensives. He saw plenty of bloody combat.

In May 1919, he was honorably discharged and finally returned home to Utica.

Once back in his adopted new hometown of Utica, he went about establishing himself.

He eventually met and married a local woman by the name of Rose (nee Murine) Caporusso, who had four young children from a previous marriage. Sam adopted her kids and treated them as his own.

From that day forward, they were now the Grio family. Sam would eventually buy a nice home for them at 1017 Ontario Street where they would live for many years.

The Industrious Sam Grio

Sam Grio was an industrious type of guy and soon opened up a small import-export company that he operated for years to support his young family.

Later, as he got a bit older, he also built and operated the Venezia Cafe at 883 Bleecker Street. A few years later, Sam also opened up Grio’s Food Market down the block from his cafe at Third Avenue and Bleecker Streets.

One of his very first arrests was in 1921 when he was arrested along with a confederate named Carmine Figani on counterfeiting possession and forgery charges for passing the bills. Sam Grio, 26 years old at the time, and Ficone were charged with having passed a counterfeit "raised" $10 note of U.S. currency.

In reality, it was a $1 bill that had been "doctored" to appear as though it were a $10 note. They had been going into local stores and shops in the upstate town of Jamestown.

Modus Operandi

Their typical modus operandi was to go into the store and make a small purchase of gum or a bottle of soda for .50 cents or so and then present the “$10 note” as payment. They would receive $9 back in change.

After examining the case, the U.S. Secret Service tied Grio and Figani into a major ring of counterfeiters they had been investigating who had been passing "raised" $10 and $20 notes for the last 18 months throughout the entire upstate New York region.

Secret Service agents were called to Jamestown after the two men had been arrested to grill them on what they knew of the spurious money ring.

It seems that Grio and Figani had spent that entire day in the shopping district of Jamestown passing $10 and $20 counterfeits in various stores. When arrested by local police, the men had five more counterfeit notes in their pockets, and shopkeepers were contacted who identified the young men as passers.

Their modus operandi and that of other "counterfeit crews" working in different upstate towns and villages were to target a particular area for a day or two, saturate it with as many counterfeits as possible, and then quickly leave the area before they could be discovered and move onto another location to pass more counterfeit bills.

Federal agents believed the men were part of a much larger, well-organized ring of Italian-based counterfeiters.

Part of a Larger Ring

Similar counterfeit notes had turned up both before and after the arrest of the two men in cities and towns across the state such as Auburn, Seneca Falls, Jamestown, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs, Scotia, Homestead, and Geneseo.

“Raised notes” similar to these were also discovered by agents being passed in Bridgeport, Connecticut .

At the time of their arrests, Grio and Figani had the names of several suspected fellow counterfeiters among their personal notes in their pockets. They included Vincenzo Cutri of Auburn; Rosario Surace of Auburn; and Mario Tongallo of Buffalo.

Note: During the 1930s, the Venezia Cafe was said to have been the headquarters for a multimillion-dollar liquor bootlegging ring run by mafiosi Salvatore and Joseph Falcone.

The cafe figured into one of the largest federal alcohol-tax evasion cases in the nation and was later named in public court testimony during a highly publicized trial. Sam was named as a top lieutenant of the Falcone’s in the bootlegging racket operation.

Camaraderie and Confidence

Utica is where he would live for the next four decades with his devoted wife Rose and their children until 1966 when he eventually semi-retired and moved out to sunny Sacramento, California with his wife so they could be closer to their daughter and grandchildren.

Although Calabrian by birth, law enforcement said that Grio enjoyed a level of camaraderie and confidence with Sicilian mobsters to the point that he was considered "one" of them.

So, besides the respect he was always afforded within the Calabrian underworld, his very close affiliation and friendship with many Sicilians and specifically with Buffalo-Niagara Falls Mafia boss Stefano (The Old Man) Magaddino, in particular, served Grio tremendously during his lifetime.

Both local and federal law enforcement mob specialists identified Grio as a formally inducted "soldier" in the Magaddino Crime Family based in Western New York.

The Falcone Regime

He specifically served in the regime of resident Utica capodecina Salvatore Falcone and his brother and successor, "acting capo" Giuseppe (Joe) Falcone.

Founding Utica capo Salvatore Falcone

In fact, of all the varied racketeers and hoodlums who served the Falcone brothers through the years, Grio could arguably be considered one of their closest men. Possibly even their most trusted man.

Not only was he considered a smart individual and level-headed soldier which only served to have Falcone utilize Grio more and more on sensitive matters, but Sam seemed to have also had the ear of Magaddino himself.

Some federal agents even considered Grio as serving more in the capacity of a "counselor" or "consigliere" to the Falcone regime as opposed to a simple soldier.

In fact, on several occasions, FBI agents who had the Falcone’s, several key crew members, and Steve Magaddino under constant surveillance noticed that Grio had traveled himself by car up to Buffalo to visit the boss. On more than one occasion, he was welcomed by Magaddino to have a "private" audience with the boss.

Overall territory boss Stefano Magaddino

Note: In the early 1960s, FBI technicians had successfully installed a "bug" in the inner office of the Magaddino Funeral Home to capture the mafioso’s private conversations with other mob figures.

They recorded Magaddino warmly greeting Grio as he would a very old and dear friend. For whatever reason, Grio clearly held a special place in Magaddino’s heart and mind.

A Pivotal Player

Dating back to the early 1920s, and 1930s, Grio seemed to have been knee-deep in various rackets. He always seemed to play a pivotal role in whatever activity authorities tied him in with.

For instance, in 1939, he was one of 67 bootleggers nabbed by Federal agents for an almost decade-long evasion of paying taxes on the manufacture, sale, and distribution of over $5,000,000 in alcohol.

During this long, protracted investigation, federal law enforcement agents and local police surveilled Sam and recorded him in constant meetings with other top players of the alky-bootleg network including Joe Falcone himself on almost a daily basis.

Other top hoodlums he interacted with to coordinate the operation was soldier John Melito and Warren Melito.

The boss - Capo Joseph Falcone

Just before the case came to a head, Grio was said to have taken off.

He allegedly hid out for over one year while prosecutors had repeatedly attempted to locate him so they could put him on the stand as a witness during the subsequent bootlegging trial against the Falcone brothers and their men.

The government claimed at trial that the defendants had defrauded the U.S. Treasury of approximately $2.50 per gallon of liquor, depending upon the proof and purity of the alcohol product.

When the massive indictment came down, Sam Grio was nowhere to be found among all the original suspects during the execution of dozens of arrest warrants.

Feds on the Hunt

After Grio himself was indicted on a related alcohol tax case more than a year later, he was finally arrested five months after the filing of the criminal case in the city of Syracuse by ATU investigators on the hunt for him.

Charged with alcohol tax conspiracy, he went before a federal magistrate and was eventually released after posting up $7500 cash bail.

In 1940, Grio had been nabbed while walking on a Syracuse street by an ATU agent who had allegedly recognized him after receiving an anonymous tip about his whereabouts.

He had been reportedly quietly living at 759 Moulton Street, Syracuse while "on the lam." Other informant reports claimed that he had gone to Canada and had even hidden out in Italy for a time.

He was named in this superseding indictment along with six others on bootlegging charges for operating a 400-gallon "alky-still" at an old milk plant at German Flatts in 1938.

The other five arrested were Joseph Fortuna, Gaetano (Tommy) Morreale, Louis Clemente, Charles Pollack, Joseph Laucello, and Henry Paul.

They were all eventually convicted in federal court.

Grio was fined $200 and sentenced to three years and eight months imprisonment at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for liquor bootlegging conspiracy.

Louie Clemente received three years and one month in jail. The others all received lesser jail terms of one year or less.

Back to Back Indictments

Back to back with these two arrests, Grio was indicted yet a third time on bootlegging charges in Albany County along with thirteen other rum-runners.

A Federal Grand Jury sitting in Albany County returned an indictment accusing Grio and the others of operating a continuous series of unlicensed alcohol stills set up in six counties.

They operated in Rensselaer, Saratoga, St. Lawrence, Montgomery, Albany, and Oneida Counties from June 1939, until January 1941.

Among the suspects in this latest case was Grio, James (Carmen) Riggione, Charles Casale, Carmen Costa, Charles (Charlie Van Dyke) Hildebrand, Charles Davis, Joseph Leone, Michael Levensky, John Lenney, and Louis Zanella.

Suspects from Utica who were directly affiliated with the Falcone regime were Rocco Timpani, Joseph Battaglia, Alphonse Caprarelli, Patsy Catalano, and Tullio Iannone.

They all went to trial, but midway through the case, Grio decided to plead guilty along with two of his codefendants at Albany Federal Court before sitting Federal Judge Frank Cooper.

Along with Pasquale (Patsy) Catalano, and Ottilio (Tullio) Iannone, Grio pled to “conspiracy to engage in illicit liquor traffic.”

It disposed of the case, but Sam feared there might still other cases out there that might come back to haunt him yet.

In 1945, by then out on parole, Grio was forced back to civil court to pay fines and restitution from his old 1940-41 bootleg convictions. He had ducked the payment for over five years until the tax department finally sued him to recover the monies owed them.

An Underworld Veteran Backs Up

By the early 1960s, Grio was already in his late 60s and was looking to back up a little bit from the street. An underworld veteran for upwards of a half-century already, it was the smart thing to do.

He had been through it all over the years while at the side of the Falcone brothers. It was an era of intense law enforcement scrutiny and the brotherhood was being exposed daily in the newspapers and other news media with its members being identified and targeted by the FBI and local police.

So, as I stated above, Sam and his wife decided to relocate out to the Sacramento area of sunny California. He decided to retire from the grind and intrigue of underworld life. It was 1966, and Sam was already pushing 72 years old age.

After moving out west Sam kept in touch periodically with the boys back home. He also maintained contact with several ‘amici’ of Cosa Nostra who operated out that way. But his name soon ceased to be mentioned in future probes and investigations. He was retired!

Serafino (Sam) Grio finally passed away at the ripe old age of 89 years old in 1984 in Elk Grove, California. His loving wife Rose had passed away four years earlier at the age of 75 in February of 1980.

In the last years of his life, he had been residing with a granddaughter named Roseanne Paladino Schafer who lovingly doted on him hand and foot.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Serafino (Sam) Grio – “Unofficial Consigliere”

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Serafino (Sam) Grio – “Unofficial Consigliere”

Unlock The Door to the Underworld

Take the Journey!

You May Also Enjoy

The Utica Mob – Giovanni (John) Melito

The Utica Mob – Anthony (Tony) Damiano

The Utica Mob – Angelo Thomas

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