Chicago mafia power John (Pudgy) Matassa, Jr. is in hot water with the feds. The 65-year old Outfit advisor who has deep ties in the crime family’s Westside, Southside, Elmwood Park and Cicero crews was indicted on eight counts of fraud earlier this week, with four counts arising from alleged labor-union racketeering out of Local 711 of the Independent Union of Amalgamated Workers. He’s scheduled to be arraigned June 1. Matassa, booted out of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) in the late 1990s for his connection to organized crime, is Local 711’s Secretary-Treasurer. Among other infractions, he’s being accused of providing his wife a “no-show” job at the union and having her paycheck deposited into his personal bank account as well as fraudulently applying for and receiving early retirement benefits via Social Security. Back in 2009 at a federal trial he wasn’t a part of, Matassa was revealed as the go-between for disgraced U.S. Marshal John Ambrose and Chicago mobsters in the Outfit’s ultimately unsuccessful quest to locate and kill Southside crew hit man turncoat Nicholas (Nicky Slim) Calabrese before he could reach the witness stand in the Operation Family Secrets case two years prior. Matassa’s dad was a Cicero police officer and part-time bodyguard and chauffer for slain Outfit don Sam Giancana, assassinated in his own home in 1975 after returning from years in exile out of the country. According to FBI files and Chicago Crime Commission records, Matassa came up through the ranks of the Chicago mafia in the now-defunct Northside crew, acting as a go-to enforcer for deceased Northside capo Vincent (Innocent Vince) Solano and a driver, emissary and overall right-hand man for long-departed mob porn boss Michael (Mikey the Fireplug) Glitta before being made into the Outfit at a 1989 Father’s Day induction ceremony conducted in the basement of the old Como Inn on Milwaukee Avenue. Glitta was Matassa’s uncle. Sources tell Gangster Report, today Matassa is a top advisor to current Outfit boss Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis – made alongside Matassa at the ’89 Como Inn button bequeathing – and for a period of time earlier in the decade was considered the syndicate’s acting consigliere. He beat a federal extortion rap in the 1980s. DeLaurentis, 78, hails from the Chicago mafia’s Cicero regime.
