Conviction and Retaliation
In 1986, Aiuppa was convicted of skimming profits from Las Vegas casinos and received 28 years in prison. In June 1986, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael were beaten and strangled to death in Bensenville, IL, and buried in a cornfield in Enos, IN, five miles away from Aiuppa property near Morocco, Indiana. It was commonly assumed that the Outfit ordered Tony Spilotro's murder because of his misbehavior in Las Vegas. It was also rumored that Aiuppa ordered the executions because he blamed Spilotro for the skimming conviction. However, in a 2010 interview with Maxim Magazine, while promoting the opening of the Las Vegas Mob Experience at the Tropicana Hotel, Tony Spilotro's son Vincent revealed that the real target was his uncle Michael, and Tony was killed to prevent any revenge.
In 1996, Aiuppa was released from prison. On February 22, 1997, Joseph Aiuppa died of natural causes at Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois. He was buried at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Aiuppa
Famous quotes containing the words conviction and/or retaliation:
“What does headquarters think these guys came over here for, a sewing circle? They go up playing for keeps. Cops and robbers with rocks in the snowballs. Brass knuckles and lead pipes and a roughneck conviction they can lick any man in the world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“The retaliation is apt to be in monstrous disproportion to the supposed offense; for when in anybody was revenge in its exactions aught else but an inordinate usurer?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)