Salvatore Avellino

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Salvatore Avellino in a mid-1980s FBI mugshot.

Salvatore "Sal" Avellino (b. 1936) is a New York mobster and caporegime in the Lucchese crime family who was involved in labor racketering in the garbage and waste management industry in Long Island, New York. Avellino also served as right-hand man and chauffeur to boss Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo.

For nearly 15 years, Avellino used aggressive strong-arm tactics to keep Long Island's garbage hauling industry under Lucchese family control. In 1983, Avellino ordered his son Michael Avellino and son-in-law Michael Malena to set fire to competitors' garbage trucks.

Avellino was a frequent subject of undercover federal surveillance. During one bugged phone call, Avellino explained Lucchese plans to an associate "We're gonna knock everybody out, absorb everybody, eat them up, or whoever we, whoever stays in there is only who we allowing to to stay in there." Federal agents also used undercover informant Robert Kubecka, the owner of a Suffolk County, New York, garbage hauling business, to gather evidence on Avellino. In 1982, Kubecka, who had been harassed and intimidated by Lucchese associates, agreed to wear a wire. Although Kubecka was unable to get close to Avellino himself, the information gathered eventually persuaded a judge to allow a wire tap on Avellino's home phone in Nissequogue, New York. In 1989, Kubecka was found murdered in his office.

Later on, federal agents bugged Avellino's Jaguar and listened to conversations between Corallo and Avellino as they drove around the city. Avellino was very curious and was constantly asking Corrallo and other Lucchese family members about how the family operated. From these recorded conversations, federal agents learned the organization's internal structure, history, and relations with other crime families. These conversations provided prosecutors with valuable evidence to use against Corallo and bosses from the other families.

In 1993, Avellino was convicted on racketeering charges and sent to prison. He was originally scheduled for release in 2006. However, in March 2001, Avellino pleaded guilty to using threats of violence to run his Long Island garbage business from federal prison. As part of a plea deal, Avellino was to serve five more years in prison after the end of his racketeering sentence. On October 13, 2006, Avellino was released from prison.

[edit] Further reading

Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-016357-7

[edit] References

Fox, Stephen. Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989. ISBN 0-688-04350-X
Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8
Jacobs, James B. and Friel, Colleen. Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated From the Grip of Organized Crime. New York: NYU Press ISBN 0814742475