Bufalino and his men
Russell A. Bufalino (1903-1994) Head of the local crime family that bore his name, Bufalino was involved in labor racketeering, illegal gambling, fencing stolen goods and other crimes, according to prosecutors. He served two federal prison sentences for extortion and conspiring to kill a government witness. Bufalino had the respect of many local business leaders and politicians, who turned out in the hundreds for an annual dinner that coincided with his birthday, according to the FBI.
Frank Sheeran (1920-2003) An official in the Teamsters union, Sheeran told his biographer that he killed Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the union, on Bufalino’s orders. Hoffa’s bid to regain control of the union angered Bufalino and other Mafia chiefs who used the Teamster pension fund as a source for quiet loans on easy terms, according to Sheeran. Bufalino’s FBI file shows the agency probed both men’s relationship to Hoffa’s unsolved disappearance in 1975.
William D’Elia (b. 1946) Bufalino’s former driver and successor as head of the family, D’Elia is serving a seven-year sentence for money laundering and witness tampering. Federal prosecutors say D’Elia’s arrest in 2006 led them to investigate former Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan, a longtime friend of the mob boss. Conahan and another former judge now face decades in prison for taking illegal payments from a for-profit prison that housed county juveniles.
James David Osticco (1913-1990) A longtime Bufalino lieutenant, Osticco was found guilty in 1983 of jury tampering in the 1977 federal fraud trial of three Lackawanna County officials and Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples. A hung jury was declared when a single juror, who had been bribed by Osticco, held out for acquittal. Osticco was released from prison in 1988 and died in Pittston in 1990.
http://citizensvoice.com/news/bufalino-and-his-men-1.1175901
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