Daniel Tedesco, longtime operator of a numbers game in Hartford, CT, died this week at the age of 84, according to a story by Edmund H. Mahony of the Hartford Courant.
Tedesco, reputedly linked to the New England Mafia Family based in Providence RI, ran his gambling racket from Tunnel Variety on Main Street. Some law enforcement officials believe he figured out a way to rig the "second-chance drawings" of the Connecticut State Lottery back in the 1970s. He was never charged with that offense.
Known as "the Fat Man," he was allegedly involved in stealing guns from the Colt armory and in dealing in other stolen property. Tedesco reportedly denied any involvement with organized crime and called the gun charge a "frame-up."
The Courant story details many of Tedesco's kind-hearted and generous contributions to the needy of the community.
Tedesco served some time in prison in the 1990s when he refused to identify for the FBI the source of an underworld loan he obtained. He was jailed on a contempt charge.
In recent years, Tedesco's gambling ventures became small-time affairs, as the region's gamblers looked to Connecticut's Indian casinos for action. He was a resident of the Newington Nursing Home at the time of his death on Thursday.
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About Me
- Thomas Hunt
- Writer, editor, researcher, web publisher, specializing in organized crime history. (Available to assist with historical/genealogical research, writing, editing. Email at tphunt@gmail.com.)
Editor/publisher of crime history journal, Informer; publisher of American Mafia history website Mafiahistory.us; moderator of online forums; author of Wrongly Executed?; coauthor of Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia and DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime; contributor of U.S. Mafia history to Australian-published Mafia: The Necessary Reference to Organized Crime; writer/co-writer of crime history articles for several publications.
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