Albert "Albie" Cianflone (1940–) is an Italian-American mobster who is the current consigliere of the Lupertazzi crime family since 2007. Prior to this, he also served as acting consigliere from 2004 to 2006, succeding official advisor Jimmy Petrille.
Biography[]
Born in 1940 to an Italian-American family in New York City, Albie Cianflone became a made man in the Lupertazzi crime family, as part of capo Phil Leotardo's crew. Cianflone was a trusted aide of Leotardo, and he would often use him to deliver messages or to accompany him, eventually becoming one of his most trusted advisors. When newly proclaimed boss Johnny Sacrimoni was arrested by the FBI in December 2004, he made Leotardo acting boss of the family, and he decided to name Cianflone as consigliere.
During this time, in 2006, Cianflone helped with negotiations concerning the dealings of the New Jersey DiMeo crime family and its boss Tony Soprano, specifically the Barone Sanitation dispute and the distribution of stolen BetaMax vitamins from a truck hijacking. When Soprano blew up Leotardo's wire room in December 2006 as retaliation for the murder of DiMeo family capo Vito Spatafore, Cianflone sat at a meeting with Leotardo and capos Gerry Torciano and Butch DeConcini to discuss their next move, remaining neutral, but acknowledging Soprano's nerve. Shortly after that, Leotardo suffered a severe stroke and was hospitalized, and Cianflone supported him in his recovery. Cianflone briefly lost his position as acting consigliere as a result of Leotardo's condition, but became the official counselor once Leotardo killed then boss Faustino Santoro in September 2007.
Later that year, after several conflicts with the DiMeo family, Leotardo decided to go to war. Cianflone initially rejected the idea, deeming it as too far-fetched, but eventually had to acquiesce, and met at now underboss Butch DeConcini's shop in Brooklyn to arrange the murder of the DiMeo administration. Though they succeded in murdering underboss Bobby Baccalieri and left consigliere Silvio Dante comatose, Tony Soprano went into hiding, and Leotardo, impatient and having fled himself, became irrational. DeConcini thought about organizing a truce by himself, and Cianflone agreed with him, meeting with Tony Soprano and his confidant Paulie Gualtieri at a storage house in New York where they gave their blessing for him to murder Leotardo. He was shot and killed at a raceway gas station in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and DeConcini stepped up as boss of the family.