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in
aftermath of revelations at Kefauver
hearings. He abandoned his real name.
Joseph Doto, for the Adonis moniker
in honor of his self-proclaimed
good looks.
When Luciano was sent away in prison, he left Frank Costello in charge of his own crime family and Adonis in nominal charge of the combination's affairs, but he told Adonis, "Cooperate with Meyer." Meyer was Meyer Lansky, who was to become the guiding genius of the syndicate. Adonis understood both his role and Lansky's and proved smart enough to take orders.
After the end of Prohibition, Adonis extended his interests over waterfront rackets both in Brooklyn and New Jersey and became a power in syndicate gambling enterprises as well. Despite the fact he had moved up to multimillionaire class, Adonis also masterminded a string of jewelry thefts. For a man in his position, it was foolhardy and an activity his bigwig associates viewed with considerable amusement. But Adonis was a thief at heart and happiest when handling an old-fashioned heist.
In 1944 Adonis moved the center of his activities to New Jersey and there presided over the affairs of the syndicate in what was to become a famous mob

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headquarters, Duke's Restaurant in Cliffside Park. The political and police situation in New Jersey had become far more hospitable than in Brooklyn, and Adonis readily switched from Democratic politics to Republican, the dominant power in Jersey.
Despite a long and dishonorable career in crime, Adonis avoided prison until 1951 when, in the aftermath of the Kefauver hearings, so much heat was generated that he was forced to plead guilty to violation of state gambling laws. He was hit with a two-year sentence. In 1956, pressed hard by the federal government and facing perjury charges, Adonis agreed to accept a deportation order once his foreign birth was established. Adonis lived out his days in lavish comfort in exile in Milan. Occasionally he met with Luciano who was in exile in Naples, but relationships between the two men deteriorated badly. Adonis was in far better financial shape than Luciano but pointedly never asked Lucky if there ever was anything he needed. More important, he did not aid Luciano's efforts to prevent Vito Genovese from making a play for preeminence in the Mafia in America.
By the 1960s the two men had more or less fallen out of touch. However, when Luciano died in 1962 Adonis procured permission from Italian authorities to attend a requiem mass for Lucky in Naples. Tears flowed down his cheeks as Adonis presented a final tribute to his old criminal leader: a huge floral wreath with the obligatory mob farewell, "So Long, Pal."
See also: Broadway Mob; Duke's Restaurant .
Aiello, Joseph (18911930): Chicago Mafia leader and Capone foe
Just as Lucky Luciano wiped out the Mustache Pete influences in New York to create a new Mafia along multiethnic syndicate lines, Al Capone did the same in Chicago, wiping out the Aiello familyespecially Joe Aiello, often described as the Mafia boss of the city. Aiello was a Castellammarese and sided with Salvatore Maranzano in the great New York Mafia War against the then-dominant forces of Joe the Boss Masseria. Aiello dutifully forwarded the Maranzano forces $5,000 a week for the war chest. According to informer Joe Valachi, this meant Capone was supporting Masseria and what happened to Aiello was determined by the Chicago gang wars.
As Aiello and Capone jockeyed for supremacy Aiello and his brothers, Dominick, Antonio and Andrew, fought hard and allied themselves with other Capone enemies, especially the North Side Mob, the O'Banions, then under the control of Bugs Moran. Aiello carried the murder campaign against Capone to intriguing heights, once trying to persuade the chef of a favorite Capone restaurant, Diamond Joe Esposito's Bella Napoli Cafe, to put prussic acid in Capone's minestrone soup. Although the fee escalated from $10,000 to $35,000, the chef shrewdly figured that if the fatal recipe did the job, he would