Monday Morning Montreal Mafia roundup

Inside Giuseppe "Ponytail" De Vito 

  Some impressive images were aired this week of Giuseppe "Ponytail" De Vito, who police now say had a hand in something like 20 killings.
  De Vito rebelled against the Rizzutos and recently died of cyanide poisoning in prison.

Ponytail De Vito

  The videos include one which show him staring silently and mournfully into the camera after learning that his two daughters had been killed. His ex-wife was later convicted of killing her daughters.
   De Vito worked for Paolo Gervasi, owner of the now-long-gone Castel Tina strip club at Viau and Jean Talon.

Tomasino

   Police say that De Vito killed his boss Gervasi in 2004.
   The shocking part of the story is De Vito might have also killed one of his own guys simply because he was injured during the affair
  Police now say that Carmelo Tomasino, 32, was hit by a stray bullet while helping De Vito kill Gervasi.
   Rather than drop him anonymously at a hospital, as one of the group members suggested, De Vito simply shot his friend to death.
  The group then burned Tomasino's body in the woods.
  Paolo Gervasi had been aggressively trying to find out who killed his son Salvatore, 31, killed four years earlier due to his drug ties to the Rock Machine biker gang.
   Salvatore was a bearded guy who managed the Castel Tina and married one of the dancers. After he was killed Paolo demolished the club, which featured a stage that had a bed that came out of the floor and rotated around.
   Paolo Gervasi survived several murder attempts before finally getting killed. His wife later committed suicide.

Vito's father-in-law Leonardo Cammalleri 

  Let's talk Leonardo Cammalleri, Vito's father-in-law who died aged 92 in 2012 in Toronto after moving to Canada from Italy in the 1950s.
   Cammalleri was convicted in absentia in Italy for the assassination of a left-leaning politician Giuseppe Spagnolo on Aug 14, 1955.
   This story will soon come to a spot near the Mount Royal metro, so keep reading.
   Italian police solved the Spagnolo assassination with a brilliant piece of detective work.
   They came across a donkey that was employed in the killing so police caught their man simply followed the beast back home.

Leo Cammalleri

   The donkey's owner, Giuseppe Gurreri  admitted to lending it to other guys and named the killers four years later.
   He said he wasn't involved in the murder but he probably was.
   Gurreri, after naming the others, was pardoned and came to Canada.
   Cammalleri had already fled Italy to avoid the rap. He ended up in Venezuela and eventually found his way to Canada but there was no way he could ever return to Italy and Canada apparently made no effort to extradite him.
   As for Gurreri, the donkey-owner who squealed on Cammalleri?
   He did not live a long and healthy life, as you might imagine.
   He came to Montreal and opened a restaurant across called the New Miss Mont-Royal Restauarant at 707 Mount Royal East in 1967.
   He was forced to publish his real name in the newspaper as part of his liquor license request.
   Gurreri continued using his real last name but used a variety of first names, including Rosario. That didn't help him much.
   Gurreri received visitors at his restaurant - located in what's now the Echange record store -  on March 5, 1972.
   The killers put an end to Gurreri's life with a knife, axe and fists. They were not apprehended.

 Charbonneau Commission report printouts will kill the forests

The Charbonneau Commission report has been online for several days now, but think twice before you click print on that pdf.
   It comes in at 1,741 pages.
   It is, however, searchable, however but you'll still have to do much flipping around.
  The name Rizzuto comes up 359 times Zampino 528 times. (Tony) Magi 85. Accurso 218 times.
  My man Giuseppe Fetta didn't get a mention. Sorry guy maybe next time.

Tony Magi

   No luck if you're hoping to find some smoking guns about such interesting projects as the old age home at the SW corner of Decarie and Cote St. Luc (the tower that came about after nearby nimbyites opposed the relatively benign pharmacy).
  Nor is there much about how the dodgy condo project at Upper Lachine and Wilson came to be.
  Not that those projects aren't mentioned.
   Indeed the report goes into some detail about the friendship between Nick Rizzuto and Tony Magi and Vito's input into their real estate affairs.
  It notes that the Rizzutos managed to make a good profit, possibly at Magi's expense.
  This might be interesting on some level but it doesn't appear to be anything other than normal, regular business done by business people doing business.
  Its inclusion into a crime report suggests that the writers are not necessarily familiar with the way that businessmen hustle deals, often at the expense of some other guy.
   Once again the gulf between the legislative/legal class and the entrepreneurial class is exposed.