DOUBLE VISION - A COUPLA ASNERS

Carl Cappi
'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'
"COMMITTEE FOR THE 25TH"

Vince Leonard
'THE NAME OF THE GAME'
"THE PERFECT IMAGE"

Twin brothers who grew up in a Mafia family back in the thirties and forties kept to the family trade and made their marks in Toobworld in the 1960s.
 
One yet lives; the other died in his only "adventure".
 
Vincente and Carlo "Cappi" Leonardi were born in Chicago in November of 1929.  Both of them grew up bad to the bone, but Cappi was far worse.  Before he was twenty, Cappi "made his bones" for his crime family.  And he indulged in various dark pursuits. 
 
Vince Leonardi was the more level-headed of the two, knowing that he had to keep himself away from any taint of scandal if he wanted to rise up in the organization and eventually take it over.
 
Both brothers decided to change their names in order to make good their ambitions.  Vince simply dropped the last letter of the name and became Vince Leonard before he muscled his way into the labor movement and up through its ranks to become its leader.
 
Cappi had to change his name more drastically if he wanted to pass muster as a casino owner in the changing world of organized crime and its involvement in the Las Vegas gambling culture.  From Carlo Leonardi, known to his friends as "Cappi", he became Carl Cappi.  (My theory for the nickname "Cappi"?  He was a fan of Captain America during World War II.)
 

Cappi became obsessed with a flower child of the sixties named Sarah Sinclair, and he had her working as a dancer in one of the cages in his casino's nightclub.  He also hooked her on heroin so that she would have to stay with him.
 
Let's face it: with the way she looked in comparison to him, Cappi needed every advantage he could get to keep her.
 
Sarah was a runaway from San Francisco and her father had been the former mayor of the City by the Bay, Dwight Sinclair.  

  Family friend Paul Bryan called her father to come help rescue her from Cappi's clutches and Paul even had to use a bit of blackmail to force the Syndicate to pull its backing of Cappi.  With the loss of Sarah from his control and the loss of his casino holdings, Cappi was now vulnerable to prosecution for several past crimes, including murder.  Blaming Paul Bryan, Cappi tried to assassinate the former lawyer in broad daylight, instead killing Sarah and a uniformed policeman before being shot dead by Paul.
 

This happened in October of 1966.
 
Meanwhile, Cappi's twin brother Vince Leonard was finally brought to justice for racketeering by an idealistic young prosecutor named John Adrian.  And it was because of the success of that court case that Adrian was able to ride into the Chicago Mayor's office, succeeding political insider and Daley crony Ed Brock.  But there was no forgiveness in Vince's heart, only the need for revenge.  And so he arranged a somewhat complicated smear campaign against John Adrian in hopes that he would be railroaded into resigning from office which would lead to his chances at an influential position in Washington being scuttled.

The plot unraveled in November of 1969, when Vince had just turned forty.
 
Carl Cappi
Cappi doesn't appear in this clip, but he is mentioned.  We do get to see the woman he controlled, Sarah Sinclair, however.....

 

Vince Leonard

 
Vince Leonard is still alive, 86 this year.  He's not in prison anymore, but he never regained his standings in the unions and probably was lucky not to be bumped off by the mob.  

BCnU!