Written by :
Published on :
OAKLAND PARK, Fla (Gambling911.com) - The title says it all. This video exposes what happened at the funeral of a close relative of deceased Detroit LCN Boss Joseph Zerilli, and leaves questions as to why certain Mob genre content creators refuse to report when Rats and Snitches misbehave. The incident in question happened back in April.
The back story: Zerilli was an Italian-born American mobster who rose to power in the crime family known as the Detroit Partnership, leading from the 1930s through much of the 1970s. He immigrated to the United States from Sicily in 1914 at the age of 17.
Zerilli began working with mobster Gaspar Milazzo to expand into loansharking, extortion, narcotics, labor racketeering, and bookmaking. The Purple Gang dominated the Detroit underworld into the early 1930s.
Zerilli would ultimately retire from racketeering in 1970. His son, Anthony Zerilli, known as Tony, assumed control. With gambling in Michigan limited to betting at racetracks, Hazel Park generated millions of dollars in revenue for the Detroit Partnership.
On October 30, 1977, Joseph Zerilli died of natural causes. He was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan. His nephew Jack Tocco was named to head the partnership. After Tony Zerilli got out of prison, he became an underboss reporting to Tocco.
In April 2000, Joseph Zerilli's grandson, Nove Tocco, a Detroit syndicate soldier, agreed to testify against his cousin Jack Tocco, still boss of the Detroit crime syndicate. Nove Tocco was the first member of the Detroit crime family to turn state's evidence since the family's founding in 1921.
A close family member of Zerilli's died this spring and a fight broke out at his April 17 funeral. That fight was between Tocco and Dominic LaRocca, great grandson of Joseph Zerilli.
Watch below as The Mobster Chronicles details what transpired.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
