Louis Fratto

Who was Louis Fratto?

Louis Thomas Fratto, born Luigi Tomaso Giuseppi Fratto, also known as "Lew Farrell" and "Cock-eyed", was a labor racketeer and organized crime figure in Chicago, Illinois and Des Moines Iowa, from the 1930s to 1967. In 1939, Fratto replaced Charles "Cherry Nose" Gioe as the Mob Boss of Iowa, making his headquarters in Des Moines . He was later implicated in the murder of Gioe, who went back to Chicago, but who later tried to reclaim his control over the rackets in Iowa. Among other things, Fratto became the Iowa distributor of "Canadian Ace Beer" which was a Capone Family enterprise.

Fratto is the brother of Frank "Frankie One Ear" Fratto, a hitman for the mob, the uncle of Rudy Fratto Jr. and Gill Vlerio, and a cousin to alleged hitman, bagman, enforcer and short-lived Chicago front boss, Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio.

For all of his period in Iowa, Fratto lived and operated under the alias "Lew Farrell." He claimed that he took the Irish name as a young man when he was a boxer. In the early 1950s Fratto / Farrell was subpoened by the Kefauver Organized Crime Senate Committee where he pled the 5th Amendment.