Old-school Pittsburgh mob figure Robert (Bobby I) Iannelli, 88, was indicted this week in state court on charges of running a large sports bookmaking operation and numbers business out of Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties. Iannelli’s son, Rodney (aka “Rusty”) was also nailed in the case. The indictment named 13 co-defendants and was jumpstarted by a former bookie and event planner for the Iannelli family turning informant in 2015. According to the indictment, the investigation into the Iannelli gambling enterprise lasted almost four years and estimated the enterprise was clearing upwards of $50,000-to-$100,000 per week. The Iannellis headquartered their gambling rackets out of a restaurant called Chub’s Place in the North Park section of Allegheny County which has served as Bobby I’s home base for decades. Pittsburgh’s LaRocca crime family, the once-powerful Steel Town mafia, pretty much died when longtime boss Mike Genovese passed away peacefully in his own bed on October 31, 2006, though remnants of the syndicate have refused to go dormant. Bobby I is one of those remnants Iannelli took a bookmaking pinch in 1991 and did a short prison stint. He has over a half-dozen arrests, all gambling related, in his career working in the Pittsburgh mob. Under Genovese, Iannelli ran a robust sports book and a lucrative policy lottery. Rusty Iannelli, 58, went down in a 2013 state gambling bust targeting a crew led by Ron (Porky) Melocchi and Jeff (The Biscuit) Risha, one-time right-hand man to Pittsburgh mafia lieutenant Thomas (Sonny) Ciancutti, the last true gangland juggernaut left in the region said to be in semi retirement at the ripe old age of 89. The younger Iannelli was named in his dad’s 1991 indictment as well. Risha died of natural causes in 2016.
