Carmine Lupertazzi Sr.

Lupertazzi, 2002

**Carmine** "**The Old Man**" **Lupertazzi Sr.** (1926–2004) was an American mobster and the longtime Boss of the New York Lupertazzi Crime Family from 1951 to 2004. One of the last old generation gangsters of his era, Lupertazzi controlled the largest and most powerful crime family in New York City, and shared close relations with the New Jersey DiMeo Crime Family and Boss Tony Soprano. Despite being indicted on federal racketeering charges, he never spent an extended amount of time in prison and retained his influential position until his death. He experienced difficulties with the DiMeo Family in 2002 when Soprano went behind his back to capitalize on major business deals without his knowledge, and the friction nearly resulted in an attempt on Lupertazzi's life backed by his own Underboss Johnny Sacrimoni, but matters were ultimately resolved peacefully. Lupertazzi died of a stroke in March 2004, leading to an internecine leadership struggle between his son and Sacrimoni.

## Early career

Carmine Lupertazzi was born in 1926 to an Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, and soon began involving himself in illicit activities. One of the most respected and visionary mobsters of his time, Lupertazzi was a criminal pioneer and introduced many new illegal schemes and operations to the underworld. He was famously known as the "inventor of point shaving" stemming from his involvement in the rigging of the 1950 CCNY-Kentucky college basketball game in favor of New York; many of his contemporaries, including Corrado "Junior" Soprano, took a cut from the scam as well. In 1951, Lupertazzi became the head of his own crime family, which he ruled for the following 50 years.

## Boss

Lupertazzi was a pragmatic and efficient Boss, prioritizing business over personal mob disputes and a safe and consistent money flow. This was all accomplished through an entourage of efficient and loyal underlings, including Consigliere Angelo Garepe, a traditional mobster who supervised illegal construction projects in Yonkers, and Underboss Johnny Sacrimoni, a suave and charismatic right-hand man who carried out Lupertazzi's orders and acted as his messenger with other crime families. In addition, his son Carmine Jr. was made a Capo in the Family and controlled its operations in Miami, Florida, though he was held in low regard by the members of other families, who saw him as dim-witted and unfit for his position. Federal authorities indicted Lupertazzi on racketeering charges shortly after the RICO Act was put into use to incarcerate Mafia members, but Lupertazzi was acquitted of all charges through the efforts of a legal team for which he was forced to pay many expenses. By the early 2000s, Lupertazzi was recognized as the last old-style Boss of New York's Five Families, and his family was estimated to have approximately 200 made men within its ranks.

## Business with the DiMeo Family

### Esplanade Construction project

In 2000, Lupertazzi and DiMeo Crime Family Boss Tony Soprano devised a scheme together to pull money out of the Esplanade Construction project on the Newark waterfront, a massive portion of land that was being reconverted into various buildings and establishments along the river. The building permits and contracts were secured by New Jersey Assemblyman Ron Zellman, who used his influence within the Carpenters Union of North America to fasten the deal and recruit several New York and New Jersey mobsters who were given employment without a prior professional background and practically worked "no-show" jobs. The deal was a success and by October 2000, reaped millions for both Lupertazzi and Soprano.

### Sacrimoni's complaint

In October 2002, Sacrimoni was informed by the incarcerated DiMeo Underboss Paulie Gualtieri that Capo Ralph Cifaretto, who was supervising the waterfront project, had made a disparaging remark about his wife's weight. Affronted by the news and learning, in addition, that Cifaretto had been stealing several thousands of dollars from the job site, Sacrimoni requested to Lupertazzi that he sanction a contract on Cifaretto. The Boss was shocked that Sacrimoni would go so far as to have Cifaretto killed for such a menial offense, especially since he was a crucial element to their joint scheme, and proposed instead to tax him $200,000, which Sacrimoni refused to accept. Upon learning of the incident and Cifaretto's feigned apology to Sacrimoni failing, Soprano agreed to hold a sitdown to resolve matters. With assistance from Lupertazzi, Soprano's Consigliere Silvio Dante and his uncle and official Boss Corrado, he attempted to make Sacrimoni come to reason to no avail, as he stormed out of the meeting, frustrated.

At that point, Lupertazzi believed the only course of action was to have Sacrimoni killed, as he could potentially endanger their shared interests for personal reasons, and he made a coded telephone call to Soprano requesting he use his own underlings to kill Sacrimoni. Though initially reticent, Soprano ultimately obliged and, on advice of his uncle, contacted the Atwell Avenue Boys from Providence to assassinate Sacrimoni as he was on his way to visit his father in Boston. Unbeknownst to Lupertazzi, Sacrimoni decided to take matters into his own hands and hired a hitman to eliminate Cifaretto while he stayed at a resort in Miami. However, just as Cifaretto's would-be killer prepared to fulfill his contract, Sacrimoni discovered his wife was not actively seeking to lose weight and still regularly consumed unhealthy food, thus nullifying Cifaretto's comment's offensive nature in his perspective, and he had his protégé Joey Peparelli phone the hitman to call off the murder. After announcing his dispute with Cifaretto was squashed, Lupertazzi himself told Soprano to abandon the plan and nobody was ultimately hurt in the aftermath of the event.

### HUD dispute and murder conspiracy

In January 2003, the DiMeo Family increased tensions with the Lupertazzis once more when Soprano and Cifaretto invested in a housing and development scam in the Newark suburbs with the assistance of Zellman without notifying Lupertazzi about it or giving him a cut of their proceeds. Gualtieri, in keeping with his role of acting as Sacrimoni's spy, informed him of the scam and Cifaretto bragging about the amount of revenue they were gaining. When Sacrimoni confronted Soprano on the subject and told him to cut a deal, Soprano flew into a rage and angrily refused, later offering a 5.5% share of the earnings, a quantity Lupertazzi considered ridiculous, instead demanding 40%, which Soprano refused to give up. As a result, Lupertazzi ordered Soprano's appraiser, V.I. Trifunovitch, to be assaulted by Peparelli, who convinced him into working for their family. Hoping to resolve the dispute in a cordial manner, Soprano met with Carmine Lupertazzi Jr. in Miami to ask he go to New York and reason with his father. While initially complacent to mediate the conflict, Lupertazzi Jr. had a change of mind once his father began favoritizing Soprano over him, which made him put words in Soprano's mouth to aggravate his father, who did not back down from his position and continued demanding the 40%. Soprano then had Lupertazzi's newly opened restaurant burglarized and vandalized as a show of force. As a last resource, Lupertazzi made the Carpenters Union manager shut down the Esplanade under the pretense of there being several non-Union workers at the site.

At that point, while the work stoppage was mainly affecting Soprano's interests, it also caused a rift between Lupertazzi and Sacrimoni, whose main source of income was the Esplanade, and in a ploy to both return to business as usual and take control of the family, he approached Soprano and convinced him to orchestrate Lupertazzi's murder. While initially reticent as killing a family Boss was forbidden without authorization in the Mafia, he went along with the plan in exchange for leaving their previous disputes behind, getting to keep his share of the HUD scam, and receiving a 60% cut in all future construction operations. With Sacrimoni reluctantly agreeing to his conditions, Soprano began arranging the hit and relayed the orders to his nephew Christopher Moltisanti, telling him to get outside help so the murder wouldn't be traced back to them. After Moltisanti got in contact with two of his heroin dealers, Credenzo Curtis and Stanley Johnson, to shoot Lupertazzi to death as he made his daily stroll through a strip mall, Sacrimoni told Soprano Lupertazzi was willing to settle on their dispute. In a meeting between Soprano and Moltisanti and Lupertazzi and Sacrimoni, the two sides compromised and Lupertazzi ultimately accepted Soprano's offer of 15%, looking forward to continue doing business. However, the power-hungry Sacrimoni told Soprano to go on with the hit despite the agreement. Soprano refused, having Moltisanti kill Curtis and Johnson so the conspiracy against Lupertazzi would never be discovered and recovering the money he had paid them; once they capped off the HUD feud, Soprano saw no incentive to go on with the murder, and realized Sacrimoni may have set him up to take the fall by blaming him for Lupertazzi's killing.

## Death

Lupertazzi suffered a massive stroke in March 2004 as he was having lunch at a country club with Soprano, Sacrimoni and his newly-released former Consigliere Angelo Garepe, collapsing from his chair and being taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. He died a week later, and Sacrimoni arranged his funeral; however, Lupertazzi Jr. took offense to an Opus Dei rosary in his father's body, knowing Sacrimoni's wife was part of the institution and he likely placed it for that reason, which began a rivalry between the two. Over the next months, the two engaged in a power struggle for the leadership of the family, which set the organization into further instability. Ultimately, Sacrimoni won over Lupertazzi Jr. and became head of the Family.