The Utica Mob – Anthony (Tony) Falange

Here is the fourth profile on a Utica-based mafioso who I found interesting enough to highlight in a mini-biography. Falange was another decades-long top player in the Falcone regime of Utica, NY. I hope you enjoy his story as much as I did writing it.

Anthony Frank (Tony) Falange - aka “Tony Fern” - was born in Utica on December 22, 1913, to immigrant parents named Achille and Elenora (nee’ Damanda) Falange.

The family had come from a little town named Sicignano near Naples in the Province of Salerno to the city of Utica in 1906. The Falanges eventually had three children that Achille and Elenora raised in the family’s home they had purchased at 1151 Leeds Street.

In 1935, as a young man of only 21 years old, Tony had met and married a local girl named Louise (nee’ Della-Gala), who was also 21 years old, at the R.C. Church of St. Anthony of Padua in Utica. Although they were both only young kids themselves and first starting out in life, Tony nonetheless footed the bill for a nice honeymoon for he and his new bride down on the Island of Bermuda (which was a rare occurrence in those years for young couples.)

Anthony Falange

Louise Falange on her wedding day!

In their next few years together, they had three children, two sons they named Dennis and Achille (named after his grandfather as is the Italian custom), and a daughter named Karen.

In those early fledgling years together, the young Falange family first made their home in the residence of Louise’s parents at 522 Wetmore Street, but as Tony better established himself in the rackets, he later moved the family to their own residence he purchased at 1157 Hammond Avenue in Utica.

This is where the Falanges would reside for the remainder of their lives. Living close by, were his two sisters Sara Jean and Frances and his brother Daniel A. Falange, all of whom also lived in Utica.

Falange was a man of medium height at around 5-feet 6-inches with a medium build, thick jet-black hair, and a dark mustache. Tony had a typical Mediterranean olive-complexion.

His early affiliation with organized crime dates back to at least 1933 when he was elected as the secretary-treasurer of Local #186 - International Hod Carriers Union (AFL-CIO) of the Laborers International. This was a mobbed-up labor organization that was to become one of the notorious Cosa Nostra tools used in their labor racketeering schemes through the decades.

Elected alongside Falange that day was none other than Rosario (Russ) Mancuso, a well-known mafia soldier who was installed as the president of the local. Mancuso would become infamous in 1957 after he was nabbed along with 60 other top mafiosi from across the country at the underworld barbecue thrown by Binghamton mob boss Giuseppe (Joe the Barber) Barbara at his sprawling ranch-styled estate up in Apalachin, New York.

To this day, “The Apalachin Meeting” ranks as one of the most pivotal events in underworld history.

Soldier - Rosario (Russ) Mancuso

From that day forward, Mancuso’s name and the others caught would all become household names in newspapers and on television as federal investigators started numerous grand juries to probe the unique underworld meeting that had been exposed, and this deadly new nemesis called “The Mafia.”

But before all that came about, Falange and Mancuso quietly operated Local #186 as a vehicle by which to extort ‘shakedown’ money from building contractors on construction projects across central New York State. Local #186 had territorial jurisdiction over Essex, Clinton, and Franklin Counties.

They ran the local smoothly and quietly for over 20 years until a major complaint was lodged against them by Thomas R. North then District Attorney of Clinton County to Fred Melito, who was the union’s state traveling representative of the Hod Carriers Union. After an internal probe, Melito was compelled to obtain the resignations of both Mancuso and Falange.

But it was nice while it lasted. For over two decades, the Falcone regime of the Magaddino Crime Family of Buffalo had plundered the Unions' treasury with padded expense accounts and had embezzled monies in other ways. Not to mention all the fat envelopes stuffed with cash they had accepted over the years to turn a blind eye to violations of union contracts for their members and other payoffs they received from employers.

It was a nice ‘plum’ of an assignment for Tony as well. He had a good thing going for many years. It provided him a steady salary, a union-paid car, and a nice monthly union expense account.

Shortly after their resignation as union officials, both Mancuso and Falange got involved in another business venture together. Along with an associate named Jimmy Cornacchia, they formed a concrete contracting firm they incorporated as the Nu-Form Concrete Company.

They ran the business for several years until they ran into withholding tax problems from the IRS. The government eventually took a lien against the company for payment of back taxes, and a personal judgment against Mancuso as well. But by the time of the government’s action, Falange and Cornacchia had both resigned from the corporation so they were not held accountable for any taxes due.

At about this same point in time in Federal Senate Rackets Committee hearings, Mancuso and Falange were both mentioned yet again in public testimony.

A Federal Narcotics Agent testifying before the committee was quoted as saying that investigators had discovered that the two hoods had infiltrated and acquired a Plattsburgh, New York restaurant named The Italian Village Restaurant that was soon turned into a mob hangout for mafia higher-ups.

Agents also did a deep probe into allegations that Mancuso, Falange, and a third Rome-based gambler and labor racketeer named Carl G. Giardino were making attempts to infiltrate and then take over the construction business in Plattsburgh after it was discovered that they were angling to muscle-in and then secure several lucrative government contracts for the building of a new Plattsburgh Air Base in the city.

The gross worth of the contracts amounted to over $100,000,000 in building expenses.

It was discovered that they had applied for a liquor license for the restaurant but had been denied. There was also evidence that they had tried setting up a floating crap game in a Plattsburgh hotel room after a chambermaid discovered a rectangle green-felt table with numbers on it similar to a Vegas-styled dice table.

And after interviewing construction laborers and workers of several building firms, evidence emerged that the hoods were trying their best to get their shark teeth into the area's construction, but it seems all their efforts failed because they eventually returned to Utica empty-handed.

Anthony (Tony) Falange

Dating to 1944, police reported that the then 30-year-old Falange was said to have owned a piece of a local barbershop at 240 South Street. He was exposed as the owner of record after police had traced a load of stolen cigarettes to his shop. He was arrested for possession of stolen property ($70 worth of cigarettes stolen from the Gem Drug Store) by a local thief who then ‘fenced’ the load to Tony.

It was an activity that Falange would dabble in his entire lifetime. For this particular offense, “criminal receiving of stolen goods,” Tony was sentenced to one year in jail (suspended,) and three years on probation.

Tony Falange’s name was starting to get bandied around more and more throughout law enforcement as a close associate of both Salvatore and Joseph Falcone who were the acknowledged mafia bosses of Utica-Rome as well as other mafia figures. His name was beginning to turn up before grand juries, racket investigations, and in local newspapers and other periodicals.

Acting Capo Joseph Falcone

Caporegime - Salvatore Falcone

Before long Falange started to receive subpoena notices for appearances before local and federal investigative bodies including those investigating gambling, narcotics, the immigration status of fellow mob figures, etc - The heat was starting to be turned up!

After his stints as a union official, concrete company owner, restauranteur, and barbershop owner, Falange went knee-deep even more into the crew’s street rackets. He started dabbling in the crew’s gambling and loanshark operations.

In 1963, he and another man named Johnny George were arrested together for bookmaking after police nabbed them accepting horse race bets on several different occasions over tapped telephones. George was nabbed accepting bets at King’s Lunch Shop, 675 Bleecker Street. And Tony got grabbed while taking bets over the phone at the Mellow Shop, directly next door at 677 Bleecker Street.

They were allowed to plead down the charges in city court to common gambling and were sentenced to a fine of $250 each and one-year suspended jail sentences.

Pinched for bookmaking

Before long both local and federal investigators were reporting through their informants that Falange had been installed as the resident ‘overseer’ of all Falcone regime loansharking operations.

He was said to have taken over the prior responsibilities of Russ Mancuso, who had allegedly been the top man for Joe Falcone. Within a decade Falange was also being labeled a ‘top mafia lieutenant’ and possible successor to Joe Falcone himself.

It was now said that Tony Falange was fully in charge of both approving loans to new borrowers as well as the collection over all shylock money ‘on the street’ for the family which was said to exceed $100,000 in annual profits.

He controlled a small crew of money ‘pushers’ and strong-arm collectors who went around weekly picking up the envelopes of ‘vigorish,’ or interest, paid on all outstanding loans. Interest rates were said to run anywhere from 2%, up to 5%, weekly.

As an example of the crew's methods of operation, there was a Utica bookmaker named Louis Kallasy who interacted with the Falcone crew in gambling on occasion. He was also a steady ‘shylock’ customer of theirs when his book got hit hard for the week.

Tony would regularly loan him money at the going rate of 10% monthly or 2.5% weekly. It aggregated to an annual percentage rate of 120% a year. And that was a reasonable rate by underworld standards only because Kallasy was a mob affiliate of theirs. Straight-up loan customers often paid weekly rates of 3% to 5% or more.

Side Note: In 1967, as a sign of his growing underworld notoriety and of future trouble on the horizon, Tony and his wife Louise were detained by local police as they departed a flight at Las Vegas airport with the intentions of spending a leisurely and fun-filled weekend along the Vegas strip.

Authorities had Falange’s name on a list of underworld undesirables to be banned from the city. They had him listed as a convicted felon (which at that time he wasn’t.) But it made no difference. Mr. & Mrs. Falange were on the next flight back to Utica, NY. He was considered ‘persona non grata’ in the city of Las Vegas.

He owned and operated a swap shop that he ran for years. It ostensibly provided him a decent living and a way to explain his lifestyle to law enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service, if required to. It also provided him with a perfect vehicle by which to traffic in stolen goods that various street people and ‘connected’ guys would bring to Falange on occasion for disposal.

Falange closes his Swap Shop biz

Appropriately named “Tony’s Swap Shop,” the business served as the conduit by which Tony accepted and then ‘fenced’ stolen goods from burglaries, robberies, and other types of thefts committed by criminal types that he knew.

It was located at 200 South Street which was a busy thoroughfare in the heart of Utica. It was well-situated and well-known as the place to go to dispose of stolen goods at the going rate of 20% of an item's face value. He operated out of a front office with a small warehouse in back to store merchandise.

In 1969, Falange was indicted in a major “Task Force” probe of the Utica underworld. This investigation was undertaken in an attempt to break the back of the local mafia. It was a concerted effort that Federal Task Forces across the country were coordinating by the mid-1960s forward, targeting various mob operations in different U.S. cites.

Tony was charged along with three other associates, Delwright T. Dyman, Rocco (TO) Taurisano, and Joseph Tebsherany in a conspiracy to transport stolen goods from North Carolina to Utica.

They were accused and later convicted of conspiring together to burglarize the home of a business executive who owned a department store. The home supposedly had $100,000 in cash stashed there, but in reality, the home, located in Elizabethtown, North Carolina had no such loot. The burglars got away with a paltry $900 in cash and seven gold coins.

The burglary-fencing ring

Federal prosecutors alleged that Falange had been the mastermind of the burglary plot who had set up the ‘score’ in exchange for part of the loot. A defendant named Emory Elias later testified at trial against Tony and his accomplices after turning informant. Elias told investigators that Tony was supposed to have received 20%, or $20,000 of the cash taken in the $100,000 robbery.

After their convictions, prosecutors said the case dealt a major blow to local mafia operations because Falange was thought to be the ‘righthand’ man to Joe Falcone and that he handled the crew's loansharking.

Assistant Prosecutor Donald Campbell said, “The conspiracy charge brought the full weight of the federal authorities into the case as part of a ’task force’ effort to break the mafia.”

It was a combined effort of the FBI, Secret Service, Treasury Department, state, and local police. Falange received five years in federal prison and a $5000 fine. His codefendants were jailed as well. Dyman go five years and $5000 fine; Taurisano got three years and $3000 fine, and Tebsherany got three years and $5000 fine.

An early pinch fencing stolen goods

Side Note: As early as 1951, police had tied Falange to the organized ‘criminal receiving and disposal of stolen goods.’ He was a well-known ‘fence’ who made a steady racket out of buying up stolen goods from truck hijackings, warehouse thefts, burglaries, and other robberies. That year, he was held as a material witness against two men, Samuel Grossman and Joseph Glynn, who were arrested for second-degree grand larceny in regards to the theft of sewing machines taken from tractor-trailer shipments. He was also tied to the fencing of stolen men's suits from Silverdee Clothes Factory.

A grand jury probed and later brought numerous charges against eight men tied to an organized theft ring in the Utica area. Among those arrested during this investigation were Jerry Dolce, Leonardo (Leo) Falotico, Samuel Hanauer, Peter Maliani, Joseph Glynn, Sam Grossman, Patrick (Patty) DeRosa, and Falange. The ‘key’ steady source of disposal of stolen goods for the ring was alleged to be Tony.

Over the years, local police continued to occasionally keep an eye on the swap shop and come in to check his transaction books and records trying to match up items he bought and sold with goods listed as stolen on their police reports.

On one such occasion, in 1976, Falange got himself arrested again for stolen goods in a highly publicized case involving an expensive diamond ring that had been stolen in a house burglary on Hoffman Road in New Hartford. The owners of the home were Joseph and Gina Deyo.

Falange was arrested and later indicted on several felonies involving ‘criminal receiving of stolen property’ charges for a $1500 diamond ring and several other rings and pieces of gold jewelry he’d bought from thieves. Tony posted up $5000 bail for his release.

He ended up being prosecuted for this case, and it was widely reported in the newspapers because he was considered one of the premier organized crime figures in the Utica area.

One of the reasons why the case was pushed so hard against Falange was that the house that was burglarized on Hoffman Road just happened to be the home of an active FBI agent - Special Agent Joe Deyo - and the stolen ring belonged to the agent’s wife, Gina.

So, the FBI made sure to press the investigation.

Falange ended up having to go to trial with the case because the feds wouldn’t plead it down. His first trial ended in a hung jury. He was later convicted after pleading guilty before a second trial.

In a deal finally worked out with prosecutors, Falange was fined and placed on probation but was able to avoid a prison term by the skin of his teeth.

Falange hits the front pages

In 1973, Tony figured into another major criminal probe of Utica’s underworld. This time around he was named as the ‘guiding force’ and ‘bank’ behind several mob associates in a loanshark racket operation. It was an activity Falange specialized in.

Previously documented crew associates Delwright T. Dyman, Jimmy Talerico, Carl J. Mazza, Louis King, Albert (Big Al) Marrone, and Jack Zogby were nabbed by federal agents after they were caught in a ‘sting’ operation set up by the FBI to ensnare the mobsters.

A Syracuse businessman who had turned snitch for the feds was set up to borrow several usurious loans from the hoods under the guise of helping his business. The ‘wired-up’ FBI informer was J. Schuyler Sackman.

When he intentionally started defaulting on the ‘vigorish’ payments at the FBI’s urging, the hoodlums predictably started to threaten him with bodily harm if he didn’t cough up the monies due them.

They were each charged with loansharking, conspiracy, and extortionate money transactions. After several lengthy trials, all defendants were convicted. Because of their known mob ties and a slew of previous criminal convictions, prosecutors asked for - and got - the judge to sentence them to heavy prison time.

Talerico was slammed with 40 years behinds bars and was fined $20,000; Mazza and Zogby were each sentenced to 10 years; Dyman was sent up the river for 5 years and fined $5000.

The others all received jail time at a later sentencing date. Tony Falange was not charged in the case because the feds didn’t have enough direct evidence against him and none of the other defendants rolled over on him. So, he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. But the feds strongly suspected that he was the boss behind the shylock ring.

Tony gets ready for the 'big house'!

In 1977, Tony was pulled into another FBI investigation when he was allegedly caught on a wiretap or ‘bug’ set up by the feds at the Victory Luncheonette, a primary hangout and unofficial headquarters of the Falcone regime that had been targeted by law enforcement.

Noted defense attorney Louis T. Brindisi, a well-known mob mouthpiece often used by local mob figures, put in a motion for discovery after the mobsters received legal notices that their voices had been captured over a public telephone at the luncheonette. The wiretap order signed by a federal judge authorized the recording of all conversations for a period of no more than 20 days.

The motion made by Brindisi was filed on the behalf of Falange and his capo Joseph Falcone himself, Angelo Conte, Anthony Inserra, Jack Minicone, Jack Zogby, Angelo Thomas (who owned the luncheonette,) his son Frank Thomas, and even Lou Brindisi himself who had also been picked up in conversations.

It was a regular ‘who’s who’ of the local mob. So, they filed a joint motion for discovery and later another motion to suppress all evidence emanating from the bug.

In January 1981, in a seemingly never-ending game of cops and robbers, Falange was one of 30 mob figures who received federal subpoenas to testify yet again before another organized crime grand jury that had been empaneled to probe the local mob.

Others receiving subpoenas included his direct superior capo Joseph Falcone and another ‘key’ crew member of theirs named Angelo Conte.

The probe reportedly centered on allegations that members of the Falcone crew were going around Utica and Rome and its outlying territories ‘shaking down’ all local bookmakers and gamblers for $5000 apiece annually for the ‘privilege’ of operating their illegal gambling businesses within Falcone territory.

It was a well-worn racket that the Falcone regime had employed for decades against all gamblers and other independent criminals operating within their perceived ‘fiefdom’ and sphere of territory. Pay up to operate or cease to operate. Under the pain of death!

Falcone and other members of his crew had made good steady money through the years from this type of criminal activity. In fact, extortion was one of the mafia’s key rackets.

The feds were zeroing in on conspiracy and Federal Hobbs Act violations, which is the technical term used to describe extortion tactics. The investigation started after several bookies complained to their federal friends about being approached by mafia hoodlums who demanded payment to operate. According to these informants, it was either “pay up or get out of the gambling business or get a beating!”

A few of them claimed that when they balked at coughing up the cash as demanded of them, they were punched in the face and assaulted or otherwise banged around and threatened to try and convince them to “straighten up and fly right.”

Chief among these ‘convincers’ and shakedown artists was Falange and his sometime partner in crime, Angelo Conte. The two seasoned hoodlums had in their employ several younger Falcone crew associates such as Ralph Centolella, Al Marrone, and Vinny Marrone.

This young tag team of enforcers and collectors were instructed to go around town and grab a predetermined list of targeted ‘independent’ gamblers, bookies, policy runners, and dice game operators and read them ‘the riot act.’ That in no uncertain terms, if they wanted to continue to operate in the fashion they had been, to pay up an agreed-upon monthly envelope to keep the Falcone regime happy.

They were also told that if they didn’t pay up, they’d get their head cracked open like a walnut. Most paid up as the cost of doing illegal business.

But there were those few knuckleheads who thought they could skirt the mob - the same way they were skirting the law. And a few of these independents were also not opposed to ‘ratting out’ other underworld operatives to the cops.

The end result was that several bookies got ‘busted up’physically, and word soon traveled to law enforcement about the shakedown payments. In the eyes of the FBI, even though the bookies themselves were illegal operators, this amounted to ‘extortion.’

The law enforcement pressure that was soon brought to bear on the mob convinced them to retreat from these heavy-handed tactics. Falcone ordered all shakedowns to stop, and any of his men who continued to seek making quick money in this fashion would find themselves in the river.

As the years marched on, Joe Falcone slowly faded from power. Falange, his partner Conte, and the few other ‘originals’ who were left standing of their crew were left to fend for themselves.

They marched forward the best they could, consolidating the younger troops that were left and pushed forward to earn a dishonest buck as any self-respecting mafiosi would do. But the times had changed. The same quality of rackets and racketeer no longer existed in Utica. And the same mentality that once forged such a strong cohesion among the men was nonexistent. It was over!

The end result was that trouble in the form of bloodshed and subsequent police crackdowns were on the horizon for all those who remained on the streets…This will be addressed in a later storyline.

Anthony Frank (Tony) Falange passed away from natural causes on April 24th, 1988. He was 74 years old.

He had managed to outlive Sal Falcone, Conte, Mancuso, most other original key members of their regime. He even outlived his beloved wife Louise by one year. She had passed away in 1987.

Tony and Louise had been married for 52 years. That fact, in and of itself, was a tremendous accomplishment and a great source of pride for them both. Only the wily old mafioso Joe Falcone lived passed Falange. Joe passed away in 1992. He was 90 years old.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

The Utica Mob – Anthony (Tony) Falange

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The Utica Mob – Anthony (Tony) Falange

Unlock This Door to the Underworld

Take the Journey!

You May Also Enjoy

Racketeer Snapshot: Connecticut’s Frank (The Cigar) Piccolo

The Anthony Strollo Regime of NY/NJ

The Day Charlie (the Bug) Workman Saved a Horse

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