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Stephen "Stevie Coogan" Grammauta (December 6, 1916 – 2016 [1] ) was a caporegime with the Gambino crime family who allegedly participated in the murder of mob boss Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia and was the acting underboss of the family. [2]
Born in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan, Grammauta was a drug trafficker by the early 1930s. In the late 1940s, Graummauta became a full member, or made man, with the Mangano crime family, later known as the Gambino family, under its founder and boss Vincenzo "Don Vincent" Mangano.
In 1951, with the disappearance of Vincent Mangano and the murder of his brother Phil Mangano in 1951, then caporegime Anastasia became boss. A former head of Murder, Inc., Anastasia was one of the most dangerous and murderous mobsters in New York. Anastasia promoted another caporegime after the murder of previous Anastasia underboss Frank Scalise, Carlo Gambino, to be his underboss. During this period, Grammauta worked in a crew with brothers Joseph "Joe Piney" Armone and Stephen Armone.
In 1957, the other New York City crime families started questioning Anastasia's leadership. Anastasia had reportedly been murdering innocent people just because he felt like it, as he once ordered the murder of a tailor he saw on television, just because the tailor had been robbed and reputedly was filing his report. Other Mob bosses such as Vito "Don Vito" Genovese and Thomas "Tommy Brown" Lucchese and Meyer Lansky eventually had enough of Anastasia. In 1957, Gambino ordered Joseph "Joe the Blonde" Biondo and Stephen Armone to murder Anastasia. Stephen reportedly included his brother Joseph on the hit, but Joseph had been arrested on drug charges. Stephen then replaced Joseph with Grammauta. On the morning of October 25, 1957, Anastasia entered the barber shop of the Park Sheraton Hotel (now the Park Central Hotel) in Manhattan. As Anastasia relaxed in the barber chair, Grammauta, Arnold Wittenburg, and Stephen Armone rushed in, shoved the barber out of the way, and started shooting. The wounded Anastasia allegedly lunged at his killers, but only hit their reflections in the wall mirror. Anastasia died at the scene.
After Anastasia was killed, Profaci crime family mobsters Carmine "Junior" Persico and Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo claimed credit for the murder. Grammauta and his two associates were never seen as the real killers. No one was ever arrested or tried for the murder of Albert Anastasia. [3]
In 1965, Grammauta and Joseph Armone were convicted of smuggling heroin into the United States from the Netherlands and received eight-year prison sentences. In 1970, both men were released from prison and Armone was promoted to caporegime of his brother's old crew. Graummauta spent the next 25 years as a soldier in Joseph Armone's crew.
After Gambino's death in 1976, his brother in law Paul Castellano became family boss. Castellano soon became enmeshed in a rivalry with caporegime John Gotti. Gotti had a poor relationship with Grammauta as Gotti considered him to be a dangerous rival. In 1985, Gotti organized Castellano's assassination and became the new Gambino boss. Grammauta's shot of becoming promoted sank. In 1992, Gotti was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
With Gotti in prison, Grammauta finally became a caporegime in 1994, taking over Jack Giordano's crew. In 1996, Grammauta was named to a Ruling Committee/Panel to assist acting boss John "Junior" Gotti in running the family. Grammauta sat and contributed as acting boss in the panel from 1996 to 2002, when it was disbanded after John Gotti's death. Grammauta then went back serving as caporegime.
John Joseph Gotti Jr. was an American mafioso and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss Paul Castellano in December 1985 and took over the family shortly thereafter, leading what was described as America's most powerful crime syndicate.
Constantino Paul Castellano was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Castellano ran the organization from 1976 until his assassination on December 16, 1985.
Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian-born American crime boss who was the leader and namesake of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Following the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia and played a powerful role in organized crime until his death from a heart attack in 1976. During a criminal career that spanned over fifty years, Gambino served only twenty-two months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.
Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano is an American former mobster who became underboss of the Gambino crime family. As the underboss, Gravano played a major role in prosecuting John Gotti, the crime family's boss, by agreeing to testify as a government witness against him and other mobsters in a deal in which he confessed to involvement in 19 murders.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominated organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
Aniello John "Neil" Dellacroce was an American mobster and underboss of the Gambino crime family of New York City. He rose to the position of underboss when Carlo Gambino moved Joseph Biondo aside. Dellacroce was a mentor to future Gambino boss John Gotti.
Thomas "Tommy" Bilotti was an American mobster who served as underboss of the Gambino crime family in New York City for two weeks. It was this promotion that helped trigger the 1985 assassination of Gambino boss Paul Castellano; Bilotti would end up killed as well as part of the assassination.
Frank "Frankie Loc" LoCascio was an American mobster who rose to become consigliere of the Gambino crime family under the administration of John Gotti.
John "Jackie" D'Amico was an American mobster and caporegime in New York City who served as street boss of the Gambino crime family from 2005 to 2011. "Street boss" had been the family's number one position ever since official Boss Peter Gotti started serving a life sentence in prison.
Anthony Frank Gaggi, better known as Nino Gaggi, was an American mobster who was a caporegime in the Gambino crime family. Based in Canarsie, Gaggi was a criminal mentor to Roy DeMeo and a longtime partner of the infamous DeMeo crew.
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Frank DeCicco, also known as "Frankie D" and "Frankie Cheech", was an American mobster and eventual underboss for the Gambino crime family in New York City.
Frank "Punchy" Illiano was a Brooklyn Captain with the Genovese crime family. During the 1960s and 1970s, he served as a top lieutenant to the Gallo brothers in their two wars with the Colombo crime family leadership.
Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr., also known as "Quack Quack", was a member of the Gambino crime family and a friend of John Gotti's. Once Gotti became leader of the family he made Ruggiero a caporegime. Although he showed little organizing or money making ability, anyone questioning Ruggiero's suitability for a top position in the hierarchy did so at their peril so the FBI regarded Ruggiero as an unpredictable psychopath not amenable to confrontational tactics. While Gotti was held in pretrial detention for a state case that he eventually beat, Ruggiero served as his contact with the crime family until the impulsive capo got himself thrown in jail beside Gotti by cursing and arguing with the judge during a hearing. This blunder lost Ruggiero any chance he had of becoming Gotti's underboss.
Thomas Francis Gambino was an Italian-American New York City mobster and a longtime caporegime of the Gambino crime family who successfully controlled lucrative trucking rackets in the New York City Garment District. He was the son of Carlo Gambino and nephew of Paul Castellano.
Joseph Armone, also known as "Joe Piney" and "Shorty", was an American mobster in the Gambino crime family of New York City who served as underboss between 1986 and 1990, and consigliere from 1990 until his death in 1992.
Stephen Armone, also known as "14th Street Steve", was an Italian-American mobster with the Gambino crime family of New York City who ran gambling operations in Lower Manhattan and was involved in the "French Connection" heroin smuggling network. He was the older brother of Gambino capo Joseph "Joe Piney" Armone.
Louis Vallario, also known as "Big Louie" and "Big Lou", is a member of the Gambino crime family who was a top aide to boss John Gotti and Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano in the late 1980s.
The Lucchese crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata; borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived from a Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The members of other crime families sometimes refer to Lucchese family members as "Lukes".
The Genovese crime family's New Jersey faction is a group of Italian-American mobsters within the Genovese crime family who control organized crime activities within the state of New Jersey. The New Jersey faction is divided into multiple crews each led by a different caporegime who oversees illegal criminal activities in labor racketeering, illegal gambling, loansharking and extortion. The Genovese crime family's New Jersey faction has maintained a strong presence in the Northern Jersey area since the early prohibition era. A number of powerful mobsters within the New Jersey faction such as Guarino "Willie" Moretti, Gerardo "Jerry" Catena and Louis "Bobby" Manna have each held positions within the Genovese family's administration. From the 1990s until his death in 2010, Tino "the Greek" Fiumara was one of the most powerful caporegimes in the New Jersey faction.
