Paulie Lombardo (1900-4 November 1938) was an American mafioso and Salieri crime family soldato who was active in Prohibition-era Chicago. He was assassinated in 1938 for his insubordination towards Don Ennio Salieri and for planning to retire from the Mafia lifestyle.
Biography[]
Lombardo in 1930
Paulie Lombardo was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1900, the son of Italian immigrant parents from Sicily. He worked as an errand boy for Don Felice Peppone as a young boy, and he became a made member of the Peppone crime family in 1920. After Peppone's murder a year later, Lombardo became a member of Ennio Salieri's organization in Little Italy, and he became close friends with fellow soldato Sam Trapani. Lombardo was a heavy drinker, an amiable and comical man, and a flop with women (apart from prostitutes), and Don Salieri looked down on Lombardo because he pre-judged him as an unintelligent man due to his drinking, his hot temper, and his womanizing. On 22 September 1930, he and Trapani forced the cab driver Tommy Angelo to help them escape Morello crime family hitmen, and they would gradually befriend Angelo and recruit him into the family.
Angelo eventually came to outrank Lombardo after Don Salieri made him a caporegime, while Lombardo continued to struggle financially. Angelo repeatedly tried to secure a bigger salary for Lombardo, but Don Salieri rejected these efforts, and, by 1938, Lombardo had grown disillusioned with the Mafia life. After discovering that Don Salieri engaged in heroin trafficking despite his prohibition of drug dealing by his associates, Lombardo and Angelo came to resent the Don's hypocrisy, an Lombardo persuaded Angelo to help him with a bank robbery to fund their impending retirements from the Mob (Lombardo planned to open a pizzeria and find a lasting relationship). However, Don Salieri later sent Trapani to execute Lombardo for his actions behind his back, and Trapani shot Lombardo twice in the head at his apartment. He was then sent to kill Angelo as well, but Angelo killed Trapani first.