Ennio Salieri was an Italian-American mafioso and the boss of Chicago's Salieri crime family during the Prohibition era. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1938 for murder, racketeering, drug trafficking, and several other charges.
Biography[]
Ennio Salieri was born in Sicily, Italy, and he was childhood friends with Frank Colletti. They emigrated to the United States in 1908 and settled in Chicago, Illinois, where they became involved with Felice Peppone's Mafia crime syndicate. He and Marcu Morello became Peppone's two caporegimes, and, on Peppone's murder in 1921, they divided Chicago between themselves. They gradually became rivals due to their clashing business interests and personalities; Salieri thought like a businessman and put rationality before impulse, while Morello had a hot temper and made irrational decisions, which he could afford to make due to his connections within the Chicago Police Department (CPD). From 1930 to 1933, Salieri's family engaged in a cold war with the Morello crime family, which was backed by city councilman Roberto Ghillotti. In 1933, Colletti, who had served as Salieri's trusted consigliere for years, attempted to turn states to protect his family from the Morellos, so Salieri ordered his soldato Tommy Angelo to kill Colletti. Angelo secretly spared Colletti and retrieved the stolen account books he had stolen.
Following the end of Prohibition, Salieri and Morello moved their families into new rackets and continued their war. Morello sent hitmen to assassinate Salieri at a restaurant to prevent him from stealing his contacts in politics and the police, leading to an all-out gang war which resulted in the murders of Ghillotti and Morello by Angelo. By 1938, the Salieri family was completely in control of the city's rackets, but, after Salieri reneged on his earlier philosophy of not engaging in the drug trade, his made men Angelo and Paulie Lombardo decided to engage in their own side hustles. That same year, Salieri discovered that Colletti was alive in Italy and had him killed, and he also discovered Angelo and Lombardo's duplicity. He sent Sam Trapani to murder both of them; while Trapani succeeded in killing Lombardo, he was, in turn, killed by Angelo. Angelo then turned states and met with detective John Norman, resulting in a series of investigations and mob trials which landed Salieri and most of his family's members in prison with life sentences. In 1951, the imprisoned Salieri had his revenge by sending Vito Scaletta and Joe Barbaro to assassinate Angelo at his home in New York City.