Bill Bufalino | |
---|---|
Occupation | Lawyer |
Spouse(s) | Marie Antoinette Meli ( m. 1945) |
Children | 5 |
Relatives | Russell Bufalino ("cousin") Angelo Meli (uncle-in-law) Vincent Meli (brother-in-law) |
William Eugene Bufalino ( / ˌbʌfəˈliːnoʊ /; April 13, 1918 – May 12, 1990) was an American attorney who represented the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1947 until 1971. He retired in 1982. Bufalino worked closely with …
May 27, 2004 · For most of his 32-year career as a lawyer, William Bufalino II was one of the most colorful and reliable sources of quotes for news reporters covering the Detroit mob. Over the past two decades, he was involved in some of the most publicized criminal cases in the city, and was the gatekeeper for reporters trying to reach criminal defendants for their comment for stories.
Lawyer Mark William Bufalino, graduated from Villanova University, Class of 1992, B.S., Political Science, magna cum laude Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, Class of 1995, J.D., is now employed by Elliott Greenleaf at Suite 300, 253 Franklin Street Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701. While being a member of , Mark William Bufalino is one of the more than one million …
May 13, 1990 · May 13, 1990. DETROIT (AP) _ William E. Bufalino Sr., a longtime attorney for the Teamsters Union and its vanished ex-president, Jimmy Hoffa, has died of heart failure. He was 72. Bufalino, who died Saturday at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., maintained homes here and in Pompano Beach, Fla. He had retired from private practice in 1982.
Russell Alfred Bufalino (/ˌbʌfəˈliːnoʊ/; born Rosario Alfredo Bufalino, Italian: [roˈzaːrjo alˈfreːdo bufaˈliːno]; September 29, 1903 – February 25, 1994) was an Italian-American mobster who became the crime boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Italian-American Mafia crime family known as the Bufalino crime family, ...
Deceased (1918–1990)Bill Bufalino / Living or Deceased
When he left the service, Sheeran became a meat driver for Food Fair, and he met Russell Bufalino in 1955 when Bufalino offered to help him fix his truck, and later worked jobs driving him around and making deliveries.
Charles Bufalino Jr., an attorney who is related to Russell Bufalino, described by the Crime Commission as a Mafia boss.
Bufalino was a Teamster official for 20 years serving as president of Local 985 in the Detroit-area. A Senate investigation portrayed Local 985 as "a collection agency for gangster-dominated operators". Bufalino was repeatedly accused of Mafia connections.
After Bufalino was imprisoned in the late 1970s on extortion charges related to the collection of a debt, his underboss, Edward Sciandra, became the acting boss of the family.
O'Brien was the driver of the maroon Mercury Hoffa was last seen in, but he has repeatedly denied that Hoffa was ever in the Mercury, according to 2001 archived UPI article. ... He drives Hoffa to a house where Sheeran shoots him twice in the back of the head.Nov 27, 2019
'The Irishman' is a fictionalized true crime story about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, a mystery that still hasn't been solved. Long-time International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss, James "Jimmy" Hoffa, went missing in 1975.Nov 30, 2020
James P. HoffaJimmy Hoffa / SonJames Phillip Hoffa (born May 19, 1941) is an American labor leader and attorney who is the tenth General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He is the son of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was first elected in 1998, and subsequently re-elected in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 to five-year terms.
Victor AmusoCurrent leadership Although in prison for life, Victor Amuso remains the official boss of the Lucchese crime family.
“The ring is a thing that Russell had custom-made for himself, Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime family, and then Frank,” explains Peterson. “And it's composed of like an 1851 liberty coin, and it's surrounded by about it must be about 25 diamonds.”Feb 4, 2020
Giovanni RiggiToward the late 1990s, the Ruling Panel kept running the DeCavalcante crime family with Giovanni Riggi still behind bars as the boss.
Bufalino was born on April 13, 1918, in Pittston, Pennsylvania, to Salvatore and Louise Bufalino, Italian immigrants from Montedoro, Sicily. He was one of nine children in a coal mining family. He studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood for two years before switching to law.
Bufalino represented union leader Jimmy Hoffa for nearly 25 years. He helped the union and Hoffa fight racketeering charges. Bufalino represented the union in seven trials, winning five. Hoffa was eventually jailed for jury tampering.
Bufalino died of leukemia on May 12, 1990, at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Michigan.
Bufalino is portrayed by Ray Romano in Martin Scorsese 's 2019 crime film The Irishman.
"Bill Bufalino". Find a Grave. February 24, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
On August 8, 1978, Bufalino was convicted and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for his part in the extortion attempt. He served almost three years . Bufalino was released in May 1981, but was indicted again, this time for conspiring to kill the witness, Napoli.
Bufalino was born on September 29, 1903, in Montedoro, Sicily, to Angelo Bufalino and Cristina Buccoleri. On July 9, 1903, his father immigrated to the United States, settling in Pittston, Pennsylvania, working as a coal miner. With his mother and siblings, Bufalino entered the United States through the Port of New York in December 1903. A few months later, Bufalino's father died in a mine accident, and his family returned to Sicily. Bufalino emigrated to the United States again in January 1906. After his mother died in 1910, he returned to Sicily again. He returned to the United States in February 1914, settling in Pittston. At the age of 14, Bufalino moved to Buffalo, New York, where he became a criminal during his teenage years. On August 9, 1928, he married Carolyn "Carrie" Sciandra, who came from a Sicilian Mafia family. Bufalino worked alongside many Buffalo mobsters, some of whom would become top leaders in the Buffalo crime family and other future Cosa Nostra families along the East Coast of the United States. These relationships proved very helpful to Bufalino in his criminal career. Family and clan ties were important to Sicilian-American criminals; they created a strong, secretive support system that outsiders or law enforcement could not infiltrate. A significant friendship was with his first boss, and fellow immigrant from Montedoro, John C. Montana .
In 1957, after taking control of the Luciano crime family from boss Frank Costello, boss Vito Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting. Genovese elected Buffalo, New York boss and Commission member, Stefano "the Undertaker" Magaddino, who in turn chose northeastern Pennsylvania crime boss Joseph Barbara and Bufalino to oversee all the arrangements.
Retrieved July 1, 2020. The role in “The Irishman” has earned Pesci his third Oscar nod for supporting actor; he was also nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. for the Golden Globe Awards, SAG-AFTRA for the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for the BAFTA Awards.
Yet it is believed that Hoffa may have been doing exactly that, attempting to gain control of his old union, when he went missing in 1975. Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982, though his body has never been found. His son, James P. Hoffa, took up his father’s mantle, serving as Teamsters president since 1999.
Based on the best-selling book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, The Irishman (which opens Nov. 1 in limited theaters, then streams on Netflix Nov. 27) shows Sheeran’s sordid journey through both the Philadelphia mob underworld and the only slightly less corrupt Teamsters union, led by its brash, charismatic president Jimmy Hoffa.
He was serving a 20-year racketeering sentence in California when he died in 1988. Jimmy Hoffa (center) with his attorney William Bufalino (left) and an aide, leaving federal court after Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering. Bettmann Archive/ Getty Images.
This is a crooked mid-century world where truth is never certain — be it in the promises of the Cosa Nostra or the credibility of the film’s narrator, Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a man whose assurances to his family are as much in doubt as his admissions to the audience.
A crusader to some, and a villain to many, Jimmy Hoffa (played by Al Pacino) was, for a time, one of the most powerful labor leaders in the U.S. From 1957 to 1971, he was the president of the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, a trucking union that Hoffa helped build into the largest union in the country.
As in real life, Joe Pesci’s Russell Bufalino in The Irishman cuts a low profile that conceals his influence. A quiet leader of a Northeast Pennsylvania crime family, the real Bufalino was a powerful player in the Teamsters union, according to Brandt, and had even allegedly been recruited to spy in Cuba by the CIA.
Frank Sheeran. Depending on who you ask, the real Frank Sheeran was something between a crooked two-bit Philly Teamsters leader and one of the most prolific mafia hitmen of all time. His own version, as told to Charles Brandt near the end of his life, was the latter.
The newspaper identified William D’Elia as then “the reputed head of the Bufalino crime family,” and said he was being held in a federal prison in Arizona, where he was serving a 9-year sentence meted out in 2008 for money laundering and witness tampering conspiracy charges.
Some believe its Mafia chief, the powerful and secretive Russell Bufalino, called for the hit against Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. The Bufalino Crime Family and the theories linking it to Hoffa’s death feature prominently in the new Netflix mob movie by Martin Scorsese, The Irishman.
The Irishman in the movie and in real life was a man named Frank Sheeran who, newspaper articles from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s show, openly admitted associating with Russell Bufalino, the crafty Bufalino Crime Family boss who sat at the top of the Family’s hierarchical chart for decades. The Family was primarily based in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, ...
Russell Bufalino (played by Joe Pesci in The Irishman) was born as Rosario Alberto Bufalino. He was the leader of the Family for decades. Citizens Voice, which obtained Bufalino’s FBI file, described him as the “soft-spoken, eight-fingered Sicilian with a lazy eye, known to his closest associates as ‘McGee.'”.
The Family’s underboss was named as James Osticco, 76, in the 1989 report. The Bufalino Family was “involved in illegal gambling, loansharking, narcotics trafficking, and labor racketeering,” according to the report, which added that it was “involved in labor racketeering with members of the Teamsters Union.”
For Years, Authors & Others Have Linked the Bufalino Crime Family to the Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Getty Jimmy Hoffa (l) and the house where Frank Sheeran said he killed him. Writer Stephen Brill identified Bufalino as playing a “key role” in Hoffa’s disappearance in a book on the Teamsters.
Russell Alfred Bufalino was an Italian-American mobster who became the crime boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Italian-American Mafia crime family known as the Bufalino crime family, which he ruled from 1959 to 1989. He was a cousin of attorney William Bufalino, the longtime counsel for Jimmy Hoffa. Bufalino died on February 25, 1994.
Bufalino was born on September 29, 1903, in Montedoro, Sicily, to Angelo Bufalino and Cristina Buccoleri. On July 9, 1903, his father immigrated to the United States, settling in Pittston, Pennsylvania, working as a coal miner. With his mother and siblings, Bufalino entered the United States through the Port of New York in December 1903. A few months later, Bufalino's father died in a mine accident, and his family returned to Sicily. Bufalino emigrated to the United States agai…
In 1957, after taking control of the Luciano crime family from boss Frank Costello, boss Vito Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting. Genovese elected Buffalo, New York boss and Commission member, Stefano "the Undertaker" Magaddino, who in turn chose northeastern Pennsylvania crime boss Joseph Barbara and Bufalino to oversee all the arrangements.
Following Barbara's death in June 1959, The Commission recognized Bufalino as the official family boss.
In 1972, after singer Al Martino had the role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather stripped from him and given to Vic Damone, he went to Bufalino, his godfather, who then orchestrated the publication of various news articles that claimed director Francis Ford Coppola was unaware of producer Alb…
With Bufalino again in prison and the family under federal investigation, the organization's strength began to wane. In 1989, Bufalino was released from prison, and the operations of the remainder of the Northeastern family were given to Billy D'Elia.
On February 25, 1994, Bufalino died of natural causes at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital in Kingston, Pennsylvania, aged 90. He is buried in Denison Cemetery in Swoyersville, Pennsylvania.
Bufalino is portrayed by Joe Pesci in the 2019 Martin Scorsese film The Irishman. Pesci was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
The Quiet Don: The True Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino by Matt Birkbeck was published in October 2014 by Berkley Books.
• Capeci, Jerry (2002). The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books. ISBN 978-0-02-864225-3.
• Neff, James (1989). Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-0-87113-344-1.
• Scott, Peter Dale (1993). Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08410-0.