Michael A. Tona

Michael A. Tona Raised in a Sicilian-Italian family in the Buffalo area, Mike Tona became familiar with gangland history and legend at an early age. Family gatherings often included tales of mob violence recalled by relatives reared in the Italian colony of Buffalo's lower west-side. His uncle, Angelo Tona, added interesting stories of cases he investigated and prosecuted as chief of the Organized Crime Section of the Brooklyn District Attorney's office during the Gallo/Profaci mob wars. During college, Mike's interest naturally turned toward that underworld history, a pursuit that was encouraged by family friend Joe Giambra. A detective in the Buffalo Police Department, and head of its Intelligence Unit, Giambra was an expert in local organized crime and taught a course in the subject at the University of Buffalo. Mike's interest focused on underworld figure Joseph DiCarlo. The son of the region's first known Mafia boss, DiCarlo had achieved celebrity status as an elder statesman of the Buffalo Crime Family. In 1973, Giambra arranged for Mike to meet DiCarlo at his Santasiero's Restaurant hangout. The meeting triggered a DiCarlo-focused college research paper and made Mike a regular at Santasiero's. After earning his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, Mike's interest in crime history momentarily waned. However, in 1980, Mike found himself being questioned by a special agent of the FBI. The agent was seeking information related to the recent murder of Mafioso Carl Rizzo. Mike was taken aback by the questioning as he discovered its cause: Investigators had found his college research paper among Rizzo's personal possessions. Through the decades that followed that incident, Mike has pursued underworld history research as a mission, paying close attention to detail and accuracy. He has accumulated a vast collection of FBI files, newspaper articles, court transcripts and other documentation. When one long and difficult Freedom of Information Act process finally resulted in the FBI's release of DiCarlo's file, Mike discovered that his old DiCarlo college paper was part of it. It seemed an unmistakable sign that Tona was destined to tell the DiCarlo story. A chance online encounter with Tom Hunt in the summer of 2006 resulted in collaboration on a series of articles for crime history journals, Informer and On the Spot, and evolved into a partnership on the DiCarlo book project. Contact Mike by email: matona@buffalomob.com http://www.buffalomob.com/ https://www.facebook.com/dicarlobook https://twitter.com/DiCarloBook