Charles Gioe
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Charles "Cherry Nose" Gioe (died August 18, 1954) was a lieutenant in the Chicago Outfit and a partner in the Hollywood Extortion scandal involving Willie Morris Bioff and George Browne.
A member of the Chicago Outfit, Gioe eventually became a high ranking lieutenant, specializing in extortion and blackmail, under Frank Nitti and Vito Genovese during the early years following Al Capone's tax evasion conviction in 1931. Gioe was later sent to Des Moines, Iowa to expand syndicate operations in 1936, eventually leaving protege and underboss Louis "Cock-Eyed Louie" Fratto in control, after returning to Chicago. During the mid-1930s Gioe, with Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna, began financially supporting extortion operations by Willie Morris Bioff and George Browne against Hollywood movie studios who, in exchange for annual payoffs to the Chicago syndicate, would allow syndicate controlled projectionist trade unions from striking.
When the extortion racket was revealed in the late-1930s, Gioe was indicted on March 18, 1943 along with several members of the Chicago Outfit, including Ricca and Campagna, after Bioff and Browne agreed to testify against the syndicate upon their conviction in 1941. Gioe was later convicted on December 31 of extortion and sentenced to ten years. Gioe was later paroled in 1947, despite protests from Senator Estes Kefauver, along with the other syndicate members where upon his release becoming, second to Ricca and Campagna, as the top Chicago syndicate leader. During the 1950s however, with the death of Campagna in 1952 and Ricca's retirement, he became involved in a struggle for power against rivals Anthony Accardo and Sam Giancana before eventually being killed by Fratto, supposedly under orders from Giancana, on August 18, 1954.
[edit] External links
- Charles “Cherry Nose” Gioe by Allen May
