Gerald Scarpelli

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Gerald Hector Scarpelli (January 22, 1938 – May 2, 1989) was an American mobster for the Chicago Outfit who later became a government informant. He was born in Manhattan and raised on Chicago’s Near West Side, in the Taylor Street Italian neighborhood. A lifelong fitness fan, he boxed as a youth and finished Austin High School in 1957.

Scarpelli had a long criminal record, with his first arrest in 1960 and many more to follow. In 1965 he pleaded guilty to armed robbery in Wisconsin, receiving a suspended sentence and probation, and was arrested for burglary in Illinois thirty days later. He worked with the Cicero crew under Joseph Ferriola, gaining a reputation as a leading loan shark and overseeing illegal gambling in southwest Chicago. He also tried to run a boutique and later hoped to open an auto salvage yard, but his criminal record kept him from achieving these goals.

In 1979, Scarpelli participated in the murder of George Christofalos, owner of a North Chicago roadhouse, acting alongside mobster John Borsellini. Borsellini was found dead two months later, and Scarpelli became a prime murder suspect. He also took part in a 1979 raid on an Elk Grove Village adult bookstore where Michael Oliver was shot, and Oliver’s body was later buried in a buried site along with others. In 1980, Scarpelli helped kill William and Charlotte Dauber, who controlled auto chop shops for the Outfit.

On July 31, 1988, federal agents arrested Scarpelli for a robbery in Michigan City, Indiana. After hearing wiretaps from James Basile about assassination methods, Scarpelli agreed to become an informant. He later admitted involvement in the Dauber murders and in the killings of mob chauffeur Gerald Carusiello and chop shop owner Timothy O'Brien. On May 2, 1989, two days before a court ruling on his robbery case, Scarpelli died by hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. It was believed he killed himself after a judge ruled against him regarding the Basile tapes.