Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Other Family - Inside New Jersey’s DeCavalcante Crime Syndicate
70 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Pieces of History, I’m heading into the shadow world of organised crime with crime historian and author Scott M. Deitche, whose books and documentaries have become essential reading for anyone interested in the American Mafia. From Garden State Gangland to Cigar City Mafia and The Silent Don, Scott has built a career uncovering stories hidden in court files, surveillance tapes, and long-forgotten archives.
Our conversation focuses on the DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey — a lesser-known but powerful organisation that operated alongside New York’s syndicates while carving out its own territory in Newark and Elizabeth. Scott charts their rise, internal tensions, brushes with law enforcement, and gradual decline, revealing how leadership, loyalty, and paranoia shaped their fate.
We also explore the challenges of researching groups built on secrecy, and the family’s pop-culture shadow through The Sopranos.
It’s a story of myth versus reality, and of how even the most hidden worlds leave a paper trail — if you know where to look.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
Facebook: Pieces of History podcast
Instagram: @pieceofhistorypod
Scott M. Deitche - Tampa Mafia - tampamafia.com
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello
Introduction to the Decavacante Crime Family
00:00:14
Speaker
and welcome to Pieces of History. I'm Colin McGrath and in each episode i explore both the well-known and the overlooked stories that have shaped our world. Today, we're travelling across the Atlantic into the shadowed world of organised crime in 20th century America.
Scott Dietschy's Journey into Crime Research
00:00:31
Speaker
Through the work of crime historian and author Scott Dietschy, we uncover the story of the Decavacante crime family of New Jersey, a group that operated just beyond the spotlight of New York's infamous mafia dynasties, yet quietly built its own influence and power.
00:00:46
Speaker
Together we'll explore who they were, how they carved out territory in places like Newark and Elizabeth, how secrecy and loyalty shaped their world and how investigators and historians pieced together stories that were never meant to be told.
00:01:00
Speaker
Along
Early Career and First Book
00:01:01
Speaker
the way, Scott reflects on his years researching organised crime, the challenges of working with court files and surveillance records and what groups like the Decavillacantes can teach us about the reality beyond the mafia myth.
00:01:13
Speaker
I hope you enjoy.
00:01:17
Speaker
Scott, thanks very much for joining me. I really appreciate it So before we dive into the Cavalic Hante family itself, could you tell listeners a little bit about your background and what first drew you to researching organized crime and American mafia history?
00:01:32
Speaker
I
Personal Interest in Mafia Stories
00:01:33
Speaker
grew up in New Jersey, so hence the general interest in the topic. I grew up right outside Staten Island, so right outside New York City. So we got a lot of the New jerseys or the new York City news,
00:01:45
Speaker
distinctly remember when Paul Castellano was killed, some of those big moments. But it never was. It was just something that was around. My mom was always a big fan of gangster movies and stuff. After I saw Goodfellas in the theaters, I was like, oh, this was a really cool movie. i
Research Challenges Before the Internet
00:02:00
Speaker
want to read the book. It was based on the book Vice Guide by Nick Pileggi.
00:02:04
Speaker
And at that time, there there really weren't a ton of mafia books out. This is, you know, 1990. So I read that and then I was like, that started getting the hooks into me and then started doing more just just purely fun research.
00:02:19
Speaker
And around nineteen late 94, early 95, I started going online. And there wasn't a whole heck of a lot, but there was this mafia website. And I always remember because it was one page, so you'd keep having a scroll to get all new stuff. It was
Exploration of Decavacante Family's History
00:02:34
Speaker
pretty rudimentary.
00:02:35
Speaker
But I um met a gentleman who's a historian in England. He's like, oh, I see. At that time, I moved to the Tampa-St. Pete area. And he said, you know anything about the mob in Tampa? And I'm like, not really.
00:02:49
Speaker
So he sent me a bunch of information and that kind of kicked this into more of a, oh, wow, I'm going to really do some of my own research on this. I say about 1998, 99. I'm like, oh, you know what? I think I want to write a book.
00:03:02
Speaker
Never done it before. I had no idea. So that started that process. I was fortunate enough to get an agent and my first book, Cigar City Mafia, came out in 2004. And since then, it's, you know,
00:03:14
Speaker
kind of snowballed into, you know, into this kind of second career. Fantastic. Yes. and I think for me personally as well, I kind of went into the same boat. Whenever I was younger, I watched The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas and all those type of um films. And again, I suppose within Northern
Unique Characteristics of the Decavacante Family
00:03:33
Speaker
Ireland, that wasn't really in the headlines, you know, American mafia history history, it wasn't a thing. So I had to go and seek it out myself. So I read a lot of books, had to physically go, physically go to a bookshop, Scott. I don't know if people do that anymore, but that's what I did.
00:03:45
Speaker
I got some books and i anyway, read up like during my teenage years, and that stuck with me. um So I'm delighted you're here. One other the quick thing, you know you mentioned that I always tell people, When I started researching there, you couldn't find a lot online. So you had to go like the newspapers, look at their old clippings or micro fish at the library. So yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from on that.
00:04:07
Speaker
Compared with names like Gambino or Genovese, the Calvacante family is far less widely known. and How did you first come across them and what made you feel they deserve deeper attention?
00:04:19
Speaker
So I'd always
Independence and Operations
00:04:20
Speaker
been familiar with the Calvacante family growing up in Jersey. you always kind of knew there was this other family, the sixth family, if you will. And it actually there are seven families in New Jersey that because the Bruno Scarfo family out of Philly had Atlantic city in the South part.
00:04:34
Speaker
But, um you know, for my first couple of books, i was I was really focused on Florida, the Tampa area. But in the back of my mind, I always thought, you know, there's never been a really good general overarching history of the mafia in New Jersey. There have been a couple books. There was the book Made Men about about the DeKalbacantes, but a much later era.
00:04:54
Speaker
There were some other books here and there. So when I started thinking about doing Garden State Gangland, I really wanted to to cover the DeKalbacantes and kind of bridge those histories.
00:05:05
Speaker
in the context of all the other families that, and all the other activity in New Jersey. So that that was kind of, you know, the the opening. let Let me see what I can pull together to kind of tell this family story along the same level as the Gambinos, or especially the Genovese who are were very powerful in New Jersey.
00:05:23
Speaker
So yeah, that was kind of the the impetus to start looking a a little bit more than my surface level knowledge of the family. how
Research Methods and Historical Insights
00:05:30
Speaker
did you find that process of going into like, were you going like news news? I suppose you just touched on it. Newspaper archives, you know, internet, very early stages.
00:05:40
Speaker
And again, with that type of family, there's been so much written about the New York families. Did you find it a tough process to begin with? So the, the more recent stuff, not as much because there, there have been a few informants and the DeKalbicante is the big 2000 case or the early two thousand s um,
00:05:57
Speaker
really kind of ah led a lot of their newer stuff. Really, i wanted, the hard part was getting into the the really early years, and theres there's been a really concentrated effort by mafia researchers, I'd say over the past five to eight years, that really uncover a lot of like the pre-1930 stuff,
00:06:17
Speaker
and So getting some of that information was was a little bit more difficult. But you know through contacts I made, through FBI files, through other sources, able to pull together some some interesting pieces of information.
00:06:31
Speaker
And I suppose, now, things are being digitized more and more. so it is easier to trace things online and you know and physically having to go to a library or archives. And the yeah the other big thing that that's become really big, especially for research, when you're looking at family connections is Ancestry.com or a lot of the genealogical websites have been been a big help.
00:06:52
Speaker
So let's go into the family themselves. So for are some people encountering them for the first time, and if I'm honest, I had never heard of them until several months ago whenever I was researching this episode. Who were they? Where were they based? And how did they fit into the wider landscape of American crime?
00:07:09
Speaker
So the DeCalvaconte family are the only homegrown New Jersey crime family. And they're for For a long time, and they still they're known as the Elizabeth Prime family because they're really centered in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And, you know, one of the things that's interesting about them is that really the core group of guys, the core membership, are all from or have ancestry from Ribera, Sicily. So there's a lot of deep familial connections. You'll see, like, multiple generations, nephews, sons.
00:07:44
Speaker
So it's it's a very... It's a very close-knit family, and they never they never really looked to expand, so they always kind of kept their niche. And I think that's why they were able to survive when you had these larger families, obviously, operating and in their orbit.
00:08:00
Speaker
and And even the stuff they were doing, whether it was labor racketeering especially, was real big with them. they They stayed out of the way. They would partner with the other families, but there was never really a a lot of conflict between them.
Leadership and Resilience
00:08:15
Speaker
Again, that goes back to my point as well. Whenever I was doing my research, I kind of, even like I've read all those books about Gambinos over the years and whatnot in Bonanno family. They're not mentioned that all. It's because they kept to themselves. And that's maybe why they were so successful, would you say, as well? They didn't branch out. rub people up the wrong way, which which is what happened within the five million families. They also had a seat on the commission. Is that right?
00:08:40
Speaker
They didn't have a seat specifically on the commission, but Sam DiCalvaconte, who was the boss in the 60s, was very well respected. He was consulted by the commission, specifically during the the Joe Bonanno disappearance and and the internal war in the Bonanno crime family.
00:08:56
Speaker
um So in many ways, he kind of punched above his weight in terms of ah of influence for for being a relatively small family, certainly in in comparison to the New York families.
00:09:09
Speaker
And if we just touch a circle back again, Scott, just to your your books themselves, I know we have touched on like some of your research as well, but what were some of the pivotal pieces of information that you had to research? So like, were you talking court records, surveillance videos, documentation, informants, and then just journalism at the time? So would you say the golden period was roughly around the 60s to the 80s, 90s or so?
00:09:35
Speaker
um ah For the Tecalma Contes, would say maybe like the
Strategies and Low Profile Operations
00:09:38
Speaker
50s to the 70s. One of the things that happened, this might touch on ah another question you might have, but In the 1960s, Sam DeCalvicante becomes boss of the family. that's when That's when a lot of the families get their names in the early 60s. So you know obviously he wasn't boss before then, so it wasn't the DeCalvicante family. That's kind of a colloqui colloquial name for them.
00:10:00
Speaker
But he was wiretapped by the FBI. And really a lot of information came out because of those wiretaps. the Decalte-Vicante family's interactions with other families and things like that.
00:10:13
Speaker
So those wiretaps became a really important source of of information because they would just sit around and of shoot the shit and talk about the old days and you would get pieces of information about, oh, this guy was made then or this guy was from this neighborhood.
00:10:28
Speaker
So going through those was was really helpful, getting kind of some of their unguarded conversation. And always curious, they had this particular area, like you said, within New Jersey as well. Was there a lot of payoffs, let's just say, between local police enforcement, judges, people like that to kind of keep themselves under the radar? Because I'm sure within their own neighborhoods, people know who they were.
00:10:52
Speaker
And it's one of those things within New York, it's a large city, you can maybe you go in the back streets, but generally people know who they because I suppose if we go slightly ahead of time, like John Gotti, everybody knew who John Gotti was. They knew who Sammy the Bull Gravano was, all those different people. But again, these folk, were were they able to kind of go under the radar because they they did infiltrate local politics?
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, there
Operations in New Jersey and Florida
00:11:14
Speaker
there was definitely local political corruption. And even up in the statehouse, there's some conversations that that are intercepted with DeKalbacante talking other mobsters about state representatives they own or police they own.
00:11:27
Speaker
An example kind of parallel to that is like the Genovese family in Newark. They had the chief of police. They would you know call them up for favors. The mayor was similar with the DeKalbacantes and elizabeth Elizabeth and some of the other areas he operated. So the The political corruption in New Jersey was was probably per capita larger because because they were operating in kind of a smaller, you know, in the shadow of of New York City. But yeah, to your point, absolutely, there there was that going on.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm always amazed how some of these people did stay in organized crime because if they worked in a supposed mainstream society, the logistics that goes on in some of these crime families is absolutely amazing because they're very good businessmen. Take away, obviously, the murder and all the violence it goes along with running a crime group. But like they did illegal gambling and numbers, loan sharking and extortion, drug distribution and prostitution, murder and murder conspiracies, labor racketeering and fraud. Now, Scott, that is a lot on your p plate for first thing on a Monday morning. morning ah
00:12:33
Speaker
What size of organization are we talking about here? So I would say the type probably around 40 made guys, 40 to 50 made guys. And, you know, there's there's always those numbers always vacillate. um when you're dependent on the sources and, you know, few hundred thousand associates may be through at their height.
00:12:53
Speaker
um Certainly that's, that's not what it is now, but yeah, they, they were in, again, if you're looking at the Gambino's or the gender, they were definitely a smaller family. They were smaller
Leadership Transition to John Riggie
00:13:03
Speaker
than Philadelphia, at Philadelphia's height, but you know, keeping that, that kind of smaller, family oriented family, kind of like the Detroit is another example of a crime family that similar like that. Um,
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think that helped them out for a while to law enforcement really started cracking down. But to your point, yeah, it's funny. You look at especially like some of the labor stuff they did, they probably could have done very well.
00:13:29
Speaker
And there were mobsters and and some of the DeKalbicondes that kind of started bleeding over into more legitimate businesses and enterprises because it you know it's kind of that natural progression. Scott, whenever you were, suppose, I kind of picture in you you in your room researching this and you see like in those crime documentaries, we've got like a big piece of paper on the wall you've got all these red lines going all these different people here. Did you have to do that type of work yourself? So you've got to you've got the boss and then how does it work down in the structure of this family? Like you said, there's about 40 people, so it's not too big, but were they but they structured very similar to Gambino, Bonanno, all those type of families too?
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, they were. They were structured very similarly to to those families. so You know, not as many crews because you didn't have as many guys, a couple crews. ah There was a New York crew, which is later becomes the crew that gets busted in the early 2000s.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah. But for the most part, they were definitely a ah not as numerous in terms of of their operations. One of the other areas they did operate were that a lot of families operated was Florida.
00:14:35
Speaker
In fact, Sam DiCavoconte in the 70s retires to Florida. yeah ah you know He gives up his boss title. He ends up in Florida, but he's still showing up, meeting with mobsters down there.
00:14:48
Speaker
So like like a lot of Northeasterners, they there was a Florida aspect to their operation as well. So after Sam DiCavlicante, what happened to Sam? Who took over from him? I'm also almost very curious about the naming conventions because a lot of these crime families, they maybe had like an original innovator and that's where those names came from.
00:15:08
Speaker
Did you have to be a DiCavlicante to take on the mantle of boss once Sam left the scene, so to speak? No, ah when he left, ah John Riggie, the nickname, the Eagle, became the boss.
00:15:22
Speaker
in the seventies. And like I said, to Cavalcante retired to Florida and he lived there. He passed, I want to say 97, I think he passed away in Florida, but John was the boss throughout the late seventies in through the eighties. And if he was arrested, then you had a kind of a revolving door of, of different, different bosses and, and,
00:15:42
Speaker
kind of ruling panels. So the DeKalbaconte name, once Sam left the mantle, there wasn't another one that that ascended to the top spot. And if we trace
Decline in the 90s and 2000s
00:15:52
Speaker
the family history then from the late 80s into the 90s, is that whenever it's supposed to kind of fall of the family then? You've got the wiretops, you've got people turning states' evidence and things like that. it up Is that what we're talking about roughly around the that time?
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, so the 90s, John gets arrested, gets charged with racketeering, he goes to prison. There's some internal strife in the family. There's reports that the Gambinos are kind of extending their influence over the family.
00:16:22
Speaker
ah But things really kind of in the early 2000s really fall apart when the New York crew is arrested and some of the Jersey guys. And then you have some top guys, and including Vinny Ocean's Palermo, who turn become government informants. You have a couple of capos like...
00:16:41
Speaker
ah Anthony Rotondo, Anthony Capo, who turned. So a big chunk of the upper echelon of the crime family suddenly becomes you know informants or you know turn states evidence.
00:16:54
Speaker
That really starts dismantling the family. the The other thing that you have, especially with these smaller families, is you don't have a large recruiting pool. you have aging membership in the old basically start dying out. And you also, so you had kind of two things going on at the same time there.
00:17:13
Speaker
And then I'm assuming if we kind of bring it up to the present day, is there any presence whatsoever of the family still in New Jersey? Any chance? Yes. A small, small presence, probably not too, too much.
00:17:27
Speaker
Um, but there, there was a case of less than 10 years ago, Charles Stagno and and some of his associates were arrested. There was a really large undercover operation by agent Giovanni Rocco. He wrote ah
Current Status and Legal Impact
00:17:40
Speaker
wrote a really good book about it where he went undercover against the DeKalbacantes.
00:17:45
Speaker
And there are still some guys left. It's not as big as it was. There's probably not a lot going on, you know, and especially in Jersey now sports book sports betting is legal.
00:17:56
Speaker
Marijuana is legal. A lot of devices that they used to make their money are legal. Labor unions aren't quite as active. There's still activity on the waterfront. So you're seeing some different type stuff, a little bit more drug activity with some of them.
00:18:12
Speaker
But there' there's, real yeah, it's really in ah in a much reduced capacity. Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose with this denagent surveillance, Scott, it's probably not as... harder to kind of go under the radar like it was in the 60s 70s 80s while the police and law enforcement just used wiretaps why now there's so many i suppose mobile phones everyone can be tracked it's easy you know it's not really probably worth a lot of people's while to kind of get into this business anymore yeah absolutely it things have changed you know quite dramatically and and you're talking you know with the fbi that have been investigating really hardcore since the 60s on a lot of these current families that's
00:18:50
Speaker
50 plus years of intelligence that they've been gathering. So there's a lot of, a lot of work there. And the flip side though, as those families get smaller, you're seeing the FBI and and law enforcement around the world gravitating towards the larger transnational, know, organized criminal syndicates.
00:19:07
Speaker
So,
Inspiration for The Sopranos
00:19:08
Speaker
know, there, there's, there's the mind that if you take the eye off the ball that, you know, these mafia families might try to resurge and, But, you know, for a family that like the DeKalbacante family, that that's so small, I don't and don't think you're going to see any kind of major, major resurgence on that.
00:19:24
Speaker
the The family is often linked in popular culture to the Sopranos. So how accurate is that association association and what does it get right and also wrong? So whenever you're watching the show, were you kind of thinking they would never do that?
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah. So the Sopranos DeCalva Conte analogy comes from a couple different places. Probably most interesting is from wiretaps of the DeCalva Conte family themselves, where they're caught on wiretap comparing themselves against guys on the Sopranos. Hey, that's you, or no, that's this guy. and that's So similarities, the Sopranos are a small New Jersey based family.
00:20:04
Speaker
They kind of you know, they're under New York in the sense that New York kind of looms large over a lot of what goes on over the course of that series. ah You have changing leadership like you did in the DeKalbicantes and some of that mirrors actual stuff going on.
00:20:20
Speaker
ah There's probably a lot of evidence that that Tony Soprano is just probably more closely modeled after Tony boy Boyardo of the Genovese family, but they're you know, a small New Jersey based crime family in Northern New Jersey, that that's ah you know certainly a similarity.
00:20:38
Speaker
Of note though, the Sopranos are Neapolitan. more in their kind of heritage, whereas the DeKalbacondes were really strictly, almost strictly Sicilian. So, but yeah, there are certainly a lot of similarities and you most of the differences come from the fictionalization storylines and how the interaction with, with especially with New York. But yeah, there's an answer to say that that's probably, DeKalbacondes guys were right that David Chase probably looked at that as some inspiration for for how that family was structured.
Upcoming Book: 'Jersey Boss'
00:21:11
Speaker
And then just to finish off, Scott, as well, did you mentioned that you have a book coming in March. Do you want to give ah a plug for the book? Yeah, the book is called Jersey Boss, The Rise of Mafia Power Jerry Katina.
00:21:22
Speaker
It's coming out from Bloomsbury, who did my last two books, Garden State Gangland and Hitman. And it's it's I was fascinated by Jerry Katina, born in New Jersey, becomes the first New Jersey born guy to become an acting boss. He's acting boss of the Genovese crime family, official boss for a little while. But more importantly, here here's a guy that was maybe more successful in legitimate business than he was in marketing business through activities in Las Vegas, through his activities with Valley Gaming.
00:21:53
Speaker
It's really an interesting picture of a character. that And then much like Sam DiCavaconte, he retires, but really retires and spends the last 20 years of his life in Florida and passes away in his own bed at 98 years old. And that's, you know, that's very few guys of of his generation in that line of business were we're able to do that. So.
00:22:17
Speaker
That was Scott Dietschy, whose research into American organised crime helps bring to light histories that were deliberately hidden, preserved not in memory or folklore, but in wiretaps, courtrooms and paper trails.
00:22:30
Speaker
The story of the Decavacante family reminds us that history often lives in the margins, in the worlds operating just out of sight, shaping communities and economies in ways we don't always see.
00:22:42
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about Scott's books and research, you can find links and sources in the episode notes. Make sure to subscribe and rate Pieces of history History on iTunes and Spotify and follow the podcast on Instagram and Facebook at Pieces of History.
00:22:57
Speaker
Thanks for listening.