Rizzutos vs. Violis: Mafia war in Montreal

The Rizzuto-led Sicilian faction of our local Mafia took power after slaughtering the three Calabrian Violis from 1976-1980.

Paolo Violi

  The more recent killings of several Rizzutos during the chief's incarceration could be seen as karmic retribution for those killings, or just plain Calabrian revenge for the premature deaths of Rocco, Francesco and Paolo Violi so long ago.

 
   The Violis were headliners from the moment they arrived in Hamilton, Steel City Canada in 1958. 

    Two of the four (the twins) were busted for crimes in 1960 and ordered deported. 

   A high-profile case that went to the Supreme Court resulted in a decision allowing them to stay.

Vic Cotroni

  Paolo, once setting in Montreal, was favoured by big-swinging, fellow-Calabrian Vic Cotroni who had led the Mafia in an uneasy duopoly with Louie Greco, (aka Luigi Greco) the Sicilian strongman who died in a freak industrial inferno.

 
   Greco burnt himself to death after unwisely using flammable solvents while laying new ceramic tile with his brother at his St. Leonard restaurant, Gina's Pizzeria (on Jarry near St. Michel) on December 3, 1972.

   Sicilians were flooding Montreal with heroin around that time so Nicolo Rizzuto, with the help of the Caruana and Cuntrera families, became a lynch-pin as an ethnically-acceptable heroin importation expert.

 
   As his power and wealth increased, Rizzuto began ignoring his mentors, Violi and Cotroni and started lobbying for local leadership.

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   But Rizzuto failed to get New York onside against Violi. He began fearing for his life so he took off to Venezuela to live for a few years where he organized heroin trafficking.

 
   Violi cemented his authority in Montreal until the arrival of Shotgun Bob Menard, an undercover cop posing as an electrician, complete with an apartment above Violi's Reggio Bar at 5880 Jean Talon East (now La Bella Italliana Restaurant and yeah they still serve a lot of Italian ice cream). Menard moved into the apartment in December 1970 and befriended Violi.

Tony Mucci in 1975 and recent

   Paolo Violi could be a prick with no qualms about preying on innocent entrepreneurs and neighbours.

 
   Violi ordered Tony Mucci to extort $5,000 from Giuseppe Petrozza, owner of the nearby Tricolori Restaurant.

 
   Violi extorted an Italian window washer by holding a gun to the poor guy's head. He had deliveries suspended to an immigrant business competitor named Mauro Marchettini and then had the poor guy beaten with a wooden paddle as punishment for opening a pool hall on his block.

 
   Violi organized a theft at his neighbour's house. There were murders too: in 1975 there were 73 gangland executions in Montreal according to cops.

 

Violi and Mucci leaving
Reggio's 1975

  Menard's tapes, witnesses and other wiretaps were unveiled in the Crime Commission. One anonymous witness detailed how Violi had taken over the local Italian ice cream trade by threatening one of the two established producers.

 
   Violi, the records revealed, terrorized the other ice cream company until its owner signed over his business. 

   Violi's army of 1,000 brutes would threaten legitimate businessmen that they'd cut off their legs if they didn't pay protection. Violi led a gang in which Frank Cotroni, Joe DiMaulo, Carlo Arena and the gambling Irving Goldstein were also participants.  

   As well, there was Tony Mucci, a thuggish extortionist working for Violi who had pissed off authorities by shooting Le Devoir crime reporter J. P. Charbonneau in May 1973.

  

   Charbonneau later went on to become a longtime Parti Quebecois MNA.

Louie Greco

  Paolo Violi, chubby, mid-fortyish white-Cadillac-driving, separatist-hating, father of five, had been taped speaking in a way deemed inappropriate. 

   As a result, Rizzuto finally got the green light to take over. 

   The opportunity arose when Violi was sentenced to a year in prison after refusing to testify at the Commission. 

   Violi was, in fact, released just a few weeks after entering prison in December 2, 1975 but he soon was back inside on an extortion conviction.   

   Paolo's brother Francesco took charge in the interim in April 1976.
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   The slaughter of the Violis began February 14, 1976 when Pietro Sciarra, 60, from Agrigento (a small Sicilian province birthplace of the Rizzutos) was shot dead after exiting an Italian language translation of the Godfather II at the Cotroni-owned Rivieria Theatre at 8820 St. Lawrence.

   That movie theatre has since become the Solid Gold strip club.

   Sciarra's wife, 53, was grazed. Sciarra had been recently ordered deported and had told the Crime Commission that he had never even heard of the Mafia. Sciarra was a Sicilian working with the Calabrian Violi. He once warned a St. Leonard mayoral candidate not to run against Jean DiZazzo. Sebastiano Messina, 34, was the likely assassin.

Sebastiano Messina killed 10/3/76 on Tillemont. Brother Dino
 and friends on the scene of the killing.

Enzo Porco

    

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      Messina, 34, was a longtime assassin, father of two young children and associate of onetime co-capo Louie Greco. He had been a suspect in the 1968 murder of Francesco Grado.

   Messina was killed on March 10, 1976 inside a small pool hall on Tillemont.

   Messina had fired at Violi's bodyguards Tony Russo and Enzo Porco in 1970. 

 

   Porco worked also worked for Paolo Violi as bartender at the Reggio and was suspected of killing Messina.

   The next victim to make an early exit from life was nightclub owner Gerry Turenne who was shot dead in January 1977.
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Francesco Violi's funeral

 

  On February 8, 1977 it was time for Francesco Violi, taller, crazier and nine years older than Paolo.

  Francesco had taken over while his little brother was behind bars.

   Francesco was shot dead in his industrial area office of Violi Importing and Distributing (Candies and chocolates) 8540 Lafrenaie. 

  The local English paper seems to have let it go unreported.


   Paolo Violi was released from prison in December 1977. On January 22 1978 he was invited to play cards at his former cafe, which had since been sold to a Sicilian.

Francesco Violi

   Paolo Violi was shot dead by two masked men who came from behind the building in a Camaro and shot him with a 12-gauge Italian-made Zardini shotgun with larger-than-usual pellets within the shells. 

   The killers shot Violi in the head from behind and again from above. 

   

  "The pig is dead," one of the killers said in a phone call afterwards. Menard, the cop, once told me that he still holds admiration for Violi for what walking into the room and bravely facing his fate.

 

   Paolo Violi's body was transported to the Rene Theriault funeral home at 1120 Jean Talon East and his funeral service was held at the Madonna Della Fesa Church at the east end of Dante, the same place that Nicolo Rizzuto's services were held at this week under the watchful gaze of Benito Mussolini whose image is painted on the ceiling. 

Domenico Manno, Giovanni Di Mora and Agostino Cuntrera plead
guilty to conspiracy to commit murder

  

 Some point out that after Mussolini had fought to quash the Mafia, the Allies revived the Cosa Nostra by allying with the mob when taking over from the fascists in 1943.

  

  Many local Italians complained that a such a thug as Violi should not be honoured in such a hallowed place.

    Four Rizzuto family hoods were swiftly caught and given short sentences.
 

    They included chubby Giovanni Dimora, 35. Paolo Renda, who married Nicolo Rizzuto's daughter and went missing earlier this year, had initial charges against him dropped. 

   On the evening of October 17, 1980 Rocco Violi, the last of the Violi brothers (a fourth, Giuiseppe, had died in 1970 in a car crash) was shot dead in his kitchen at 6027 Houel by a sniper with a .308 caliber rifle with a telescopic lens found in a vacant third floor office building on nearby Jean Talon (here's an image to give you an idea of the impressive sniping involved in that).

   Rocco had survived a drive-by murder attempt that summer. The murder seemed gratuitous overkill as Rocco had not been an important Mafioso and had not sought revenge for his brother's deaths.

 
   Thirty-plus years later, Rizzutos and their Sicilian associates are being slaughtered with the same zeal that they themselves applied to the task of exterminating the Calabrian Violis.

   On December 28, 2009 Nick Rizzuto Jr. was shot dead outside of his friend Tony Magi's office on Upper Lachine Road in NDG. Paolo Renda, Nicolo's son-in-law disappeared May 20.

   Agostini Cuntrera, who was involved in the murder of Paolo Violi, was killed along with his chauffeur on June 30. 

  November 10 Nicolo Rizzuto, 86, was killed in his kitchen near the window by sniper fire from the woods behind his home.

 
   So if you are a Rizzuto, you might ask: should I worry? Along with the obvious Vito Rizzuto (still in prison) and handsome Tony Mucci, one might speculate on who else might be losing sleep.

   What about longtime Liberal MP and Canadian federal cabinet minister Alfonso Gagilano, who was allegedly the accountant for Agonstino Cuntrera and according to a 2004 New York Daily News report a made man of the Bonnano crew?