James Torello

Who was James Torello?

James Vincent "Turk" Torello was an Italian-American mobster who became a caporegime and leading enforcer for the Chicago Outfit during the mid-to-late 1970s.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Torello's first arrest was in 1945; his rap sheet would eventually include convictions for auto theft, armed robbery, burglary and hijacking. Torello would serve two years in federal prison for violating firearms laws. Torello would serve as capo of the South Side/26th Street crew. Union boss and mob associate John Serpico would later testify after turning informant that he and Torello were born on the same street and lived half a block away from one another.

In the late 1960s, Torello sent Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel to Las Vegas to help collect $87,000 from an associate of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the Outfit agent at the Stardust Hotel & Casino. This story was related by Siegel at the "Family Secrets" organized crime trial, in Chicago, in the summer of 2007.

On another occasion, an angry mob boss Sam Giancana dispatched Torello and mobster Jackie Cerone to kill Outfit member Frank Esposito, in Florida.