These files were leaked to us by a source who wishes to remain anonymous.
In part one of this exclusive 5-part series, we detailed the Youngstown Mob scene in the late 1970s/early 1980s and the previously unsolved murder of Joe DeRose Jr.. Now in part 2, we explore who killed Dominic "Junior" Senzarino, a cousin of the Carabbia brothers and experienced burglar, safecracker and gambler, who was murdered in his garage by shotgun in 1980. His killing was considered an unsolved cold case for decades, until the Ohio Attorney General's Organized Crime Task Force successfully solved the case and gained admission and conviction of the killer in 2001.
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Episode Transcript
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You're listening to an amazing podcast from an amazing podcast company.
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What's up, Mob Associates?
Jimmy Naples here back for another episode of Youngstown Mob Talk.
Hey, I just want to thank everybody out there for listening
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Become a part of our family.
You know, we really just enjoy what we do here.
And we love, you know, talking history of organized crime here in the Mahoney Valley.
You know, I just want to recap.
We had part one from our organized crime task force files.
So that video is out there.
Make sure you check that out.
And don't forget to leave some comments in there.
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Here we go.
This is part two.
Check it out.
The organized crime task force files, part two.
Who bumped off Junior Cenzarino and other mob family matters?
The facts from this story were compiled from information contained within
investigative task force files from the Ohio Attorney General's
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Organized Crime Investigation Commission.
Included are details about crimes which have never been publicly released.
These files were provided to us by a source who wishes to remain anonymous.
In part one of this series, we learned about the Ohio Attorney General's
Organized Crime Task Force investigating a large burglary ring from the 1990s
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and eventually a handful of unsolved mob murders from the city's mafia heyday
in the 70s and early 80s.
It was during those earlier decades when the Youngstown area underworld
was split between two groups.
The Cleveland faction represented by Ronnie, Charlie, and Orly Carabia
against the Pittsburgh faction, headed by Jimmy Prado and Joey Naples.
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Each faction kicked up percentages of their monthly gambling income to mafia
overlords in their respective sister cities.
Territory of these groups was split up as such.
The Carabias controlled their hometown of Struthers and all of Trumbull County,
while the Prado-Napoles group ran the city of Youngstown and the rest
of Mahoning County.
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As long as each faction kept their operations limited to their own turf
and kicked up to their bosses, everything was copacetic.
But in October of 1977, that all began to change.
That was when the Cleveland Cosa Nostra blew up their biggest threat,
an outlandish gangster of proud Irish descent named Danny Green.
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Jack White, Lickavoli's crime family, had tried unsuccessfully to eliminate Green
on several occasions before turning to the rising star in the Mahoning Valley,
Ronnie the Crab Carabia, to help get the job done.
Together with an eerie hitman and bookmaker named Ray Frito,
Ronnie delivered a Youngstown tune-up, a car bombing heard around the mob world.
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When Green parked his car in the lot of the Lindhurst Plaza for a trip
to the dentist, Ronnie and Ray planted another vehicle,
rigged with explosives, beside Green's ride.
Then upon exiting the dentist's office, Ronnie was the one to allegedly flip
the switch on a remote and blow up the Irishman for good.
Unfortunately for Ronnie, he and Frito were spotted at the scene by eyewitnesses
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and were later charged for the crime.
Frito ended up flipping and becoming a witness for the prosecution,
while Ronnie was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
The six defendants are charged with conspiring to control organized crime
in Northeast Ohio through murder and bribery.
Ronnie Carabia convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment
for the bombing of Danny Green.
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The federal indictment charges that reputed Cleveland mob boss James
Liccavoli, Carabia and the others, conspired to kill Green,
former Teamster official John Nardi, and to bribe an FBI clerk for inside information.
Federal investigators acknowledged that the conviction of Carabia
sparked the latest Mahoning Valley war for control of the Trumbull County
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rackets with nine dead and two unaccounted for in the last three years.
Based upon the murder town days of the 1960s, it is a classic case,
they say, of history repeating itself.
Ronnie's absence left an immediate void in the Mahoning Valley's underworld.
His brothers, Charlie and Orley, were left in charge of the family's operations,
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but they clearly lacked his leadership abilities.
This presented an opportunity for Joey Naples to expand his operations
into Trumbull County.
According to the FBI, Naples gave the green light to a bookmaker named
Charles Spider Grisham to start a protected gambling operation in Carabia territory.
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Feeling empowered by his Pittsburgh connections, Grisham proceeded to
humiliate a Carabia ally, allegedly pulling a gun on the man and making him
crawl on his hands and knees.
This would wind up being a deadly mistake.
Once Charlie Carabia got wind of this public embarrassment, he ordered Joe DeRose
to squash the spider with Likavoli's express blessing.
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On December 3rd, 1978, Grisham was killed in the parking lot of his Howland
apartment with a high-powered rifle.
A little more than a month after Grisham's death, another Naples man was
gunned down.
James Peep's canonical had become a trusted associate who acted as a bodyguard
while serving time with Joey Naples in Allenwood, a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
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For his prison protection, Peep's was promised some gambling action upon parole.
Once again, Joey Naples was giving away territory that wasn't his to give.
The FBI says he convinced Canonico that since Ronnie Carabia was out of the
picture, Jack Likavoli was a washed-up old man who had too much to worry about
to stand in their way.
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But just as Charles Grisham found out, the Cleveland family still had some muscle.
On the night of January 11th, 1979, Peep's took a fatal shotgun blast to the
chest while returning to check in for the night at a halfway house on Market
Street in Youngstown.
Thirty.
That is the number of people murdered in the city of Youngstown last year alone.
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And the sobering fact is that that figure is almost 53% higher than the
previous year.
In 1978, 19 homicides were reported within the city limits.
The majority of them have already been solved.
Thirty-one homicides were reported in the city last year, including one
justifiable homicide.
Seven of those killings remain unsolved.
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The most notable falling under that category is the January 11th shooting
death of area rackets figure James Peep's Canonico.
Canonico was gunned down outside of a Market Street prisoner rehabilitation
center known as an alternative.
Indeed, the suspect remains at large, but police investigators admit that the
books have not been closed on that investigation.
You may ask why the sudden surge in violent deaths here in the city, while
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police investigators say many motives are spurred by either narcotics or
theft.
The city's police department has its hands full now, and it's a major battle
it has to deal with.
Some moves have been taken to battle the increase in violent crime.
It's easy to spot more police officers cruising the streets of the uptown
district.
In fact, a new police substation opened shortly after a brutal Market Street
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murder last summer.
Mayor George Vukovich has pledged his support behind the department's efforts.
The mayor admits that his number one priority is to beef up the staff
existing on the police force.
But we should keep in mind that the Detective Bureau solved 24 of the 31
murders last year, and that's a pretty good batting average in anyone's book.
Over the next 13 months, four more local mob associates were all found murdered.
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They included Robert Fury, an employee of Naples' Youngstown United Music, a
prominent bookmaker, Jack Tobin, John Magda, who was a Naples associate and
also a close friend of Joe DeRose, and Bobby DiCerbo, who at one time had been
aligned with the Carabias but was believed to have changed sides before he
was killed.
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These hits were followed by the attempts on Joe DeRose and his girlfriend,
Cheryl Durkin, as well as the wounding of Sam Faseska, both detailed in part
one of this series.
When do you think this sort of stuff is going to leave you?
Probably, probably never, because this is the way Youngstown is.
They love it this way in this town.
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The politicians make more money.
Do you believe everybody is corrupt here?
Three quarters of them, yeah.
If you're honest, you won't make it here.
How do you know that?
It's the law of average in this town.
That brings us to October of 1980 and the next target in the crosshairs,
Dominic Junior Cenzarino.
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All of the previously mentioned mob hits are officially considered unsolved cases,
but the Organized Crime Task Force was actually able to get a conviction for the
murder of Cenzarino.
Before we get to that, here's what we knew about him going into this research.
Junior Cenzarino was born in 1932 and was a familiar figure in local crime circles.
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His name appears frequently alongside the usual suspects of the day within the FBI's
CAV bomb files of the 1960s.
That's when federal agents were sent to Youngstown on orders of then US Attorney General Robert
F. Kennedy to investigate the tragic Cavalero car bombing.
Cenzarino was a gambler and a burglar who, according to Cleveland's super thief, Phil
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Christopher, was the first person to teach him how to crack safes.
In celebrated true crime author Rick Perrello's biography on Phil Christopher, Phil says Cenzarino
had what he called a jig custom made to bolt onto the safe door to make it easier to drill
into.
Apparently, Junior liked to mentor young crooks because he also worked with a young Joe DeRose
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Jr., albeit unsuccessfully.
In 1974, the two were arrested by FBI agents five days after they burglarized $55,000 worth
of guns from the Miller Rodden Gun Store in Struthers.
Both were later found guilty and sentenced to federal prison.
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We also knew that Cenzarino was a cousin of the Carabia brothers and that he was ultimately
found shotgun to death two weeks before his 48th birthday in his garage on Saginaw Drive
in Poland Township in 1980.
Cenzarino was entering his house from the garage when the hitman fired four times.
There were no eyewitnesses, although neighbors heard shotgun blasts.
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We came out and there were two cop cars and an ambulance over there.
And that's when we saw they pulled the car out after the ambulance got there and we saw
the body propped up in the window or by the door between the family room and the garage.
The killer entered the garage when Cenzarino automatically opened the door.
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After hitting his target, the suspect dove through a window and was apparently cut by
the glass.
He ran behind the house where a bloodstained handkerchief was found.
This morning, FBI agents and Poland Township police tracked the trail of blood through
the field to Klingen Road a few blocks away.
You got a footprint sliding down over there and you got one digging in right here.
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Right there in front of the book.
Right there.
One slides down there and the next one comes up and digs in right over here.
You got the same fingerprint in that bank.
Well, he went both ways.
Right here.
He's standing there and he's holding it behind in case a car comes up the street so he can't
see it.
I've been waiting for the car.
Maybe it's radio.
The hitman probably waited to be picked up by the getaway car.
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A Poland Township cruiser patrolled the area shortly before the killing but spotted nothing
unusual.
According to Chief Lee Gooden, clues are few.
We picked up some shotgun shells and we did recover some lead.
We have some good footprints here, good tire tracks, but something to go on.
We have a little something anyhow.
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But not much.
Not much.
FBI agents wonder whether Censoreno's killing is related to the fact his cousin, Ron Carabia,
is now in jail and not personally controlling the area underworld.
We're told retribution of some sort is obviously involved.
In the last 20 months, there have been at least eight so-called mob hits in the valley,
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some with the same pattern.
None have been solved.
Whoever killed Junior left a messy scene behind.
The killer waited for Censoreno to come home and while he was pulling into his attached
garage, the gunman snuck in behind his car.
The garage door was closed and as Censoreno exited his vehicle and headed toward the house,
he was suddenly struck by shotgun blasts to the face and the shoulder, killing him instantly
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as he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The killer then made a mistake.
They leapt through a window to escape from the garage, but sliced themselves open, leaving
a blood splatter trail in their wake.
Poland police would later find blood on the window curtain and on a handkerchief outside.
Now how did the Organized Crime Task Force find Junior's killer?
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It started with a tip from Charlie Treharne, who as detailed in part one of the series,
helped Sam Faseska get rid of Joe DeRose and was convicted for that murder over 20 years
later.
In 2001, detectives were contacted by Treharne, who at that time was in protective custody
while cooperating with the task force.
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Treharne proceeded to tell them about his interactions with a hitman for the Carrabias
named Bob.
About a week after Junior Censoreno's murder in 1980, Treharne says he was at a restaurant
with Sam Faseska, Joe DeRose, and this guy Bob, who had a bandage on his arm.
Treharne claimed Bob was laughing and telling Joe DeRose that they have the same blood type
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and that the cops believed DeRose was responsible for rubbing out Censoreno.
DeRose promptly went to the FBI not to snitch on Bob, but to proclaim his innocence and
show them that he had no lacerations and wasn't missing any blood.
There was a good chance that we could have gotten him.
I had to go right past him that night because I was in the immediate area and I went right
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by the spot where he was picked up that night.
If Dominic Censoreno's silencing had been dispatched as a shooting, Poland Police Chief
Lee Gooden believes he could have caught the killer.
Returning home October 2, 1980 from making rounds in Struthers, Censoreno automatically
closed the garage door, trapping his killer inside.
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The hitman panicked, jumped through a window, and left a bloody trail traced the next day
to a ditch off Klingen Road.
Blood samples matched the rare type of 32-year-old Joe DeRose, a former Carabia clan bodyguard
who survived a May 1980 shooting, then disappeared a month ago after his father was mistakenly
gunned down in February.
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A month after Censoreno's slaying, federal agents conducted a body search of DeRose and
found scars from arm wounds Censoreno's hitman could have suffered, but since DeRose was
previously shot in the arm, the finding was inconclusive.
Physical evidence also hints of DeRose's style, a strange twist, since DeRose and Censoreno
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are suspected partners in the February 1980 killing of one-time Carabia confidant Robert
DiCerbo.
Censoreno is a cousin of Carabia's.
I don't believe that the Carabias had him put away.
I do believe that from the information I've gathered along the way that there is some
sort of a power struggle going on somewhere, either between here and Cleveland or maybe
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even possibly the Pittsburgh area.
Are you coming back with the name Joey Naples?
Pardon?
Joey Naples?
The name has been mentioned along with a few other names that I'm not even familiar with
out of the Cleveland area.
Forty-eight-year-old Joey Naples of Youngstown was released from prison about the time the
Carabia clan was trying to recover from the imprisonment of Ron and the falling out with
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Cleveland's LeCavoli family.
Reportedly, Naples decided to rebuild with the help of the late Kelly Manarino of New
Kensington gambling kingpin of the Pittsburgh area.
When Sandy Naples and Vince De Niro were killed in the 60s, the Carabias were questioned.
Junior Censoreno was mentioned in the 1963 killing of Cadillac Charlie Cavallaro, an
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underworld war viewed as Cleveland's consolidation.
Reason why some wonder if the circle has come around.
Two nights before Censoreno's shooting, two well-known Youngstown police figures were
spotted casing his home from this point on Route 220 Forum, Poland Township.
If Joe DeRose acted as hitman, then he was either a plant within the Carabia organization
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or he secretly switched sides.
The case would remain unsolved in Poland Township for the next two decades until the bloody
handkerchief was turned over to the task force following Treharne's tip in 2001 and submitted
to the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigation in London, Ohio.
DNA tests of the handkerchief showed a match to one Robert Bob Dorler, an inmate serving
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a life sentence without parole in Pennsylvania.
When the task force detectives visited Bob Dorler in prison, they presented their evidence
against him and convinced him to cooperate.
He talked candidly with them for hours, detailing his wild activities in the Mahoning Valley
during a brief period in the early 1980s.
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For Dorler, a career criminal with mob ties across Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania,
his association with the Youngstown mob started when he first befriended Ronnie Carabia behind
bars.
Once paroled from that earlier prison stint, Dorler saw Carabia, who was then on trial
for the killing of Danny Green in Cleveland.
According to Dorler, he visited Ronnie at the courthouse during the trial and was told
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that he should go see Ronnie's brothers for work.
Dorler did just that.
Upon his arrival in Struthers in 1980, Dorler met with Orly Carabia and not long after,
was given an assignment, kill Dominic Cenzarino.
Junior had been a big money earner for the mob, but despite being cousins with the Carabias,
he was kicking up a percentage of his gambling operation through the rival Jimmy Prado.
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Dorler didn't care about familial associations.
He was just in town for the work.
Still, Orly made it a point to declare that Dorler was not Italian, and even if he did
the job, he could never become a made man.
This did not deter Bob Dorler.
He staked out the location of the game in Struthers and waited for Cenzarino to show
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up, but he never did.
So the next day, Orly showed him Junior's house in Poland Township.
Dorler then acquired a sawed-off shotgun from an associate and waited outside the home on
Saginaw Drive.
When Cenzarino arrived, Dorler slipped in behind his car and professionally dispatched
his target, but he was in such a hurry to flee the scene that he dove out the window
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and cut himself up.
Had he taken a few moments to compose himself, he may have found Cenzarino's profits inside
the car, or, at the very least, located the garage door opener.
Instead, he sliced his arm open and nearly bled out during his escape.
Dorler says he ran to the crabby his mother's house and waited for Orly to come out and
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get him.
At that point, Orly paid him $1,000 in cash and told him to get out of town for a while.
Dorler made it down to Columbus, where he finally sought medical attention and laid
low for a few days before returning to the Mahoning Valley.
There, he had earned Orly and Charlie Carabbi's trust as well as a job on the payroll at their
vending business.
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Dorler's statement to the task force detectives was full of other riveting details, which
we'll get to shortly.
After all, he had come to town in the midst of a violent mob war and could share details
that few others alive would be privy to.
But there's an entire narrative that was happening under the surface, one we haven't even touched
on yet, which was directly connected to this conflict.
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At its center, a colorful character then emerging on the local political scene.
He was a former high school football star at Cardinal Mooney, turned college quarterback
at Pitt, who had returned to the Valley a decade prior and worked as an executive director
of the Mahoning County drug program.
His name was James Trafkin, and in 1980, he threw his name into the hat as a candidate
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for Mahoning County Sheriff.
In a town as corrupted by the mafia as Youngstown was, the county sheriff was traditionally
a coveted position for wise guys to control.
It's time to stop rubber stamping patronage and political deals.
Together we can strike a blow against political bosses.
At some point during Trafkin's campaign, he was approached by the Carabbi brothers and
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bribed.
The offer was simple, take the money, and if you become sheriff, leave our gambling
joints alone.
Trafkin defied the odds, won the May Democratic primary with the Carabbi's support, and was
then a shoe-in to win the November election.
Charlie Carabbi made it known to his fellow gangsters that Jimbo was in the Carabbi's
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pocket.
When Joey Naples approached Trafkin, he was told he would have to go through Charlie Carabbi.
This did not sit well with Naples, but together with Jimmy Prado, they would end up funneling
the former football player $60,000 through the Carabbi brothers, who themselves gave
Trafkin another $103,000.
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Did you receive any money from one Joseph Naples?
No, I did not.
Did you return any money to one Charlie Carabbi to return to James Prado?
Yes, I did, so I can arrest the whole damn town.
Throughout 1980 and concurrent with bribing the flamboyant sheriff candidate, Prado and
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Naples wanted to eliminate Charlie Carabbi.
Unfortunately for them, Charlie was in charge of Cleveland's gambling operations in the
Mahoning Valley following Ronnie's arrest, and Cleveland wanted to make sure their monthly
cut was unfazed.
So, Likavoli talked with Charlie and told him to tone it down.
By all accounts, Charlie did not listen.
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Again, Prado and Naples met with Likavoli and asked for permission to take out Charlie,
this time telling the Cleveland boss that Carabbi was disparaging him as well.
They also had doubts that Charlie delivered some of their bribes to Jim Trafkin.
These concerns, as well as Likavoli's own disappointment with Charlie, worked in Prado
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and Naples' favor.
The FBI believes Likavoli had demanded a bigger cut of Carabbi's gambling profits, which Charlie
refused.
So, this time, Likavoli told Prado and Naples he'd talk to Charlie once more, and if the
trouble continued, they could do whatever they wanted with him.
Likavoli's logic was that there was still one more Carabbi a brother to work with, meaning
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no matter what happened to Charlie, Orly was completely off limits.
On December 13, 1980, Charlie was contacted by Prado and Naples' associate Lenny Strolo.
He was to meet Strolo at the Stardust Motel in North Lima to discuss gambling operations
in the Valley.
According to summaries of FBI interviews provided to the task force, Strolo murdered Carabbi
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at this meeting and earned his button to become a made man in the Pittsburgh crime family.
Carabbi's car was then towed and dumped in Cleveland.
Naples would later tell Angelo Leonardo and Likavoli that whomever left Carabbi's car
in Cleveland did so by mistake because they didn't realize where they were.
With Charlie now out of the picture, Orly was the sole crab brother left on the street.
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Robert Dorler was working as Orly's de facto bodyguard and was teamed up with two other
guys, Joe DeRose and Skinny Sanfasesco.
According to Dorler, the trio was summoned to the Cuyahoga County Jail shortly after
Ronnie's guilty verdict in the Danny Green trial.
On February 20, 1981, while awaiting his transfer to prison, Ronnie gave Dorler, DeRose, and
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Sanfasesco simple instructions.
Take out Joey Naples' crew and then the Mahoning Valley's underworld would belong to them.
But there were plenty of double crosses afoot.
First, Sanfasesco, fearing for his life, had made an arrangement with Naples to kill his
pal DeRose and save himself.
On top of that, Orly Carabia had met with Joey Naples, Jimmy Prado, and Angelo Leonardo
(25:16):
on several occasions at Prado's Calamart restaurant, where Orly was given the green light to manage
gambling in Trumbull County as long as he did not object to the murders of DeRose and
Fasesco.
Caught in the middle of this tangled web was Robert Dorler.
He began getting paranoid and didn't know who to trust.
So he told the task force he began to secretly record his conversations with Orly Carabia.
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On tape, Orly said he'd had a sit-down with the other side, during which it was hashed
out that DeRose and Fasesco had to go, and that if Dorler left Youngstown and never returned,
he could live.
Once Dorler got this admission from Orly on tape, he took the recording to Joe DeRose
and Sanfasesco and played it for them.
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He says they were both clearly upset with Orly for stabbing them in the back.
But DeRose was dead set on fulfilling his mission from Ronnie.
If they eliminated the Naples crew first, Orly's side deal wouldn't matter.
Fasesco, as detailed in part one of this series, would go on to make his own arrangement with
Naples behind DeRose's back.
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By killing Joe himself, Sam's life was spared.
After playing the tape for Joe and Sam, word got out that Dorler had recorded Orly.
A confrontation ensued where Orly asked why Dorler had taped their conversation.
Dorler let it be known that he didn't trust Orly and even brought up the traffic-in recordings
that Orly and Charlie Carabia had made as a counterpoint.
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By the end of the heated conversation, Orly told Dorler that what was done was done and
if he left town, he would be unharmed.
Not satisfied, Dorler went to Chillicothe, where he visited Ronnie Carabia in prison.
Dorler says Ronnie was very angry with Orly for what he'd done, telling Dorler,
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.
One of them was that I should have left this guy a truck driver.
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Referring to his brother Orly.
When the smoke finally cleared during this tumultuous time in Youngstown, Joe DeRose
was eliminated, Orly was in charge of the Carabias territory, Joey Naples became the
dominant mobster in town, and Dorler left the Mahoning Valley.
Orly would eventually go to prison on charges of trafficking marijuana and later for bribery.
(27:32):
He was never charged for his role in the murder of Dominic Censoreno.
He died of natural causes April 3rd, 2021.
Ronnie Carabia was paroled for the killing of Danny Green in 2002.
How does it feel to be out?
Good.
Feel good?
He too would die of natural causes on December 22nd, 2021.
Interestingly enough, the obituaries for both Orly and Ronnie name their other siblings,
(27:57):
but not one another.
Following the disappearance of Joe DeRose in 1981, the FBI searched a Pittsburgh apartment
he shared with a girlfriend.
There they found the Carabias secret tape recordings on which James Trafikant, by then
elected sheriff of Mahoning County, admitted to taking $163,000 in bribes from both the
(28:19):
Carabias and Naples predo factions.
The tapes were used against Trafikant in a federal trial, in which he defended himself
pro se and was acquitted.
Trafikant would go on to be elected to the House of Representatives in 1984.
He was convicted of more bribery and racketeering charges in 2001 and was expelled from Congress
in 2002 before serving seven years in federal prison.
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Robert Dorler was convicted in a later murder in Pennsylvania and was serving a life sentence
when he was charged with killing Dominic Censoreno in 2001.
He pleaded guilty and for his cooperation with the Organized Crime Task Force, he was
relocated to a prison in Ohio so he could be closer to his family and died while incarcerated
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a few years later.
Still to come, who killed John Magda and left him to rot in a Struthers dump site?
Why was the murder of a mob connected fence and ATF informant never prosecuted?
And newly unearthed evidence that could upend a notorious triple murder conviction?
(29:46):
.
You're listening to an amazing podcast from an amazing podcast company.
(00:05):
What's up, Mob Associates?
Jimmy Naples here back for another episode of Youngstown Mob Talk.
Hey, I just want to thank everybody out there for listening
and tuning into our show.
Don't forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
That's YouTube.com forward slash Amazing Podcast Company.
You can find all the episodes of Youngstown Mob Talk there.
(00:27):
You can also find Vice Squad, Vegas Player and various other content
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(00:49):
Become a part of our family.
You know, we really just enjoy what we do here.
And we love, you know, talking history of organized crime here in the Mahoney Valley.
You know, I just want to recap.
We had part one from our organized crime task force files.
So that video is out there.
Make sure you check that out.
And don't forget to leave some comments in there.
(01:11):
Here we go.
This is part two.
Check it out.
The organized crime task force files, part two.
Who bumped off Junior Cenzarino and other mob family matters?
The facts from this story were compiled from information contained within
investigative task force files from the Ohio Attorney General's
(01:33):
Organized Crime Investigation Commission.
Included are details about crimes which have never been publicly released.
These files were provided to us by a source who wishes to remain anonymous.
In part one of this series, we learned about the Ohio Attorney General's
Organized Crime Task Force investigating a large burglary ring from the 1990s
(01:55):
and eventually a handful of unsolved mob murders from the city's mafia heyday
in the 70s and early 80s.
It was during those earlier decades when the Youngstown area underworld
was split between two groups.
The Cleveland faction represented by Ronnie, Charlie, and Orly Carabia
against the Pittsburgh faction, headed by Jimmy Prado and Joey Naples.
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Each faction kicked up percentages of their monthly gambling income to mafia
overlords in their respective sister cities.
Territory of these groups was split up as such.
The Carabias controlled their hometown of Struthers and all of Trumbull County,
while the Prado-Napoles group ran the city of Youngstown and the rest
of Mahoning County.
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As long as each faction kept their operations limited to their own turf
and kicked up to their bosses, everything was copacetic.
But in October of 1977, that all began to change.
That was when the Cleveland Cosa Nostra blew up their biggest threat,
an outlandish gangster of proud Irish descent named Danny Green.
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Jack White, Lickavoli's crime family, had tried unsuccessfully to eliminate Green
on several occasions before turning to the rising star in the Mahoning Valley,
Ronnie the Crab Carabia, to help get the job done.
Together with an eerie hitman and bookmaker named Ray Frito,
Ronnie delivered a Youngstown tune-up, a car bombing heard around the mob world.
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When Green parked his car in the lot of the Lindhurst Plaza for a trip
to the dentist, Ronnie and Ray planted another vehicle,
rigged with explosives, beside Green's ride.
Then upon exiting the dentist's office, Ronnie was the one to allegedly flip
the switch on a remote and blow up the Irishman for good.
Unfortunately for Ronnie, he and Frito were spotted at the scene by eyewitnesses
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and were later charged for the crime.
Frito ended up flipping and becoming a witness for the prosecution,
while Ronnie was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
The six defendants are charged with conspiring to control organized crime
in Northeast Ohio through murder and bribery.
Ronnie Carabia convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment
for the bombing of Danny Green.
(04:05):
The federal indictment charges that reputed Cleveland mob boss James
Liccavoli, Carabia and the others, conspired to kill Green,
former Teamster official John Nardi, and to bribe an FBI clerk for inside information.
Federal investigators acknowledged that the conviction of Carabia
sparked the latest Mahoning Valley war for control of the Trumbull County
(04:25):
rackets with nine dead and two unaccounted for in the last three years.
Based upon the murder town days of the 1960s, it is a classic case,
they say, of history repeating itself.
Ronnie's absence left an immediate void in the Mahoning Valley's underworld.
His brothers, Charlie and Orley, were left in charge of the family's operations,
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but they clearly lacked his leadership abilities.
This presented an opportunity for Joey Naples to expand his operations
into Trumbull County.
According to the FBI, Naples gave the green light to a bookmaker named
Charles Spider Grisham to start a protected gambling operation in Carabia territory.
(05:06):
Feeling empowered by his Pittsburgh connections, Grisham proceeded to
humiliate a Carabia ally, allegedly pulling a gun on the man and making him
crawl on his hands and knees.
This would wind up being a deadly mistake.
Once Charlie Carabia got wind of this public embarrassment, he ordered Joe DeRose
to squash the spider with Likavoli's express blessing.
(05:30):
On December 3rd, 1978, Grisham was killed in the parking lot of his Howland
apartment with a high-powered rifle.
A little more than a month after Grisham's death, another Naples man was
gunned down.
James Peep's canonical had become a trusted associate who acted as a bodyguard
while serving time with Joey Naples in Allenwood, a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
(05:52):
For his prison protection, Peep's was promised some gambling action upon parole.
Once again, Joey Naples was giving away territory that wasn't his to give.
The FBI says he convinced Canonico that since Ronnie Carabia was out of the
picture, Jack Likavoli was a washed-up old man who had too much to worry about
to stand in their way.
(06:13):
But just as Charles Grisham found out, the Cleveland family still had some muscle.
On the night of January 11th, 1979, Peep's took a fatal shotgun blast to the
chest while returning to check in for the night at a halfway house on Market
Street in Youngstown.
Thirty.
That is the number of people murdered in the city of Youngstown last year alone.
(06:35):
And the sobering fact is that that figure is almost 53% higher than the
previous year.
In 1978, 19 homicides were reported within the city limits.
The majority of them have already been solved.
Thirty-one homicides were reported in the city last year, including one
justifiable homicide.
Seven of those killings remain unsolved.
(06:55):
The most notable falling under that category is the January 11th shooting
death of area rackets figure James Peep's Canonico.
Canonico was gunned down outside of a Market Street prisoner rehabilitation
center known as an alternative.
Indeed, the suspect remains at large, but police investigators admit that the
books have not been closed on that investigation.
You may ask why the sudden surge in violent deaths here in the city, while
(07:19):
police investigators say many motives are spurred by either narcotics or
theft.
The city's police department has its hands full now, and it's a major battle
it has to deal with.
Some moves have been taken to battle the increase in violent crime.
It's easy to spot more police officers cruising the streets of the uptown
district.
In fact, a new police substation opened shortly after a brutal Market Street
(07:41):
murder last summer.
Mayor George Vukovich has pledged his support behind the department's efforts.
The mayor admits that his number one priority is to beef up the staff
existing on the police force.
But we should keep in mind that the Detective Bureau solved 24 of the 31
murders last year, and that's a pretty good batting average in anyone's book.
Over the next 13 months, four more local mob associates were all found murdered.
(08:06):
They included Robert Fury, an employee of Naples' Youngstown United Music, a
prominent bookmaker, Jack Tobin, John Magda, who was a Naples associate and
also a close friend of Joe DeRose, and Bobby DiCerbo, who at one time had been
aligned with the Carabias but was believed to have changed sides before he
was killed.
(08:26):
These hits were followed by the attempts on Joe DeRose and his girlfriend,
Cheryl Durkin, as well as the wounding of Sam Faseska, both detailed in part
one of this series.
When do you think this sort of stuff is going to leave you?
Probably, probably never, because this is the way Youngstown is.
They love it this way in this town.
(08:46):
The politicians make more money.
Do you believe everybody is corrupt here?
Three quarters of them, yeah.
If you're honest, you won't make it here.
How do you know that?
It's the law of average in this town.
That brings us to October of 1980 and the next target in the crosshairs,
Dominic Junior Cenzarino.
(09:08):
All of the previously mentioned mob hits are officially considered unsolved cases,
but the Organized Crime Task Force was actually able to get a conviction for the
murder of Cenzarino.
Before we get to that, here's what we knew about him going into this research.
Junior Cenzarino was born in 1932 and was a familiar figure in local crime circles.
(09:31):
His name appears frequently alongside the usual suspects of the day within the FBI's
CAV bomb files of the 1960s.
That's when federal agents were sent to Youngstown on orders of then US Attorney General Robert
F. Kennedy to investigate the tragic Cavalero car bombing.
Cenzarino was a gambler and a burglar who, according to Cleveland's super thief, Phil
(09:53):
Christopher, was the first person to teach him how to crack safes.
In celebrated true crime author Rick Perrello's biography on Phil Christopher, Phil says Cenzarino
had what he called a jig custom made to bolt onto the safe door to make it easier to drill
into.
Apparently, Junior liked to mentor young crooks because he also worked with a young Joe DeRose
(10:17):
Jr., albeit unsuccessfully.
In 1974, the two were arrested by FBI agents five days after they burglarized $55,000 worth
of guns from the Miller Rodden Gun Store in Struthers.
Both were later found guilty and sentenced to federal prison.
(10:37):
We also knew that Cenzarino was a cousin of the Carabia brothers and that he was ultimately
found shotgun to death two weeks before his 48th birthday in his garage on Saginaw Drive
in Poland Township in 1980.
Cenzarino was entering his house from the garage when the hitman fired four times.
There were no eyewitnesses, although neighbors heard shotgun blasts.
(10:59):
We came out and there were two cop cars and an ambulance over there.
And that's when we saw they pulled the car out after the ambulance got there and we saw
the body propped up in the window or by the door between the family room and the garage.
The killer entered the garage when Cenzarino automatically opened the door.
(11:23):
After hitting his target, the suspect dove through a window and was apparently cut by
the glass.
He ran behind the house where a bloodstained handkerchief was found.
This morning, FBI agents and Poland Township police tracked the trail of blood through
the field to Klingen Road a few blocks away.
You got a footprint sliding down over there and you got one digging in right here.
(11:44):
Right there in front of the book.
Right there.
One slides down there and the next one comes up and digs in right over here.
You got the same fingerprint in that bank.
Well, he went both ways.
Right here.
He's standing there and he's holding it behind in case a car comes up the street so he can't
see it.
I've been waiting for the car.
Maybe it's radio.
The hitman probably waited to be picked up by the getaway car.
(12:06):
A Poland Township cruiser patrolled the area shortly before the killing but spotted nothing
unusual.
According to Chief Lee Gooden, clues are few.
We picked up some shotgun shells and we did recover some lead.
We have some good footprints here, good tire tracks, but something to go on.
We have a little something anyhow.
(12:26):
But not much.
Not much.
FBI agents wonder whether Censoreno's killing is related to the fact his cousin, Ron Carabia,
is now in jail and not personally controlling the area underworld.
We're told retribution of some sort is obviously involved.
In the last 20 months, there have been at least eight so-called mob hits in the valley,
(12:48):
some with the same pattern.
None have been solved.
Whoever killed Junior left a messy scene behind.
The killer waited for Censoreno to come home and while he was pulling into his attached
garage, the gunman snuck in behind his car.
The garage door was closed and as Censoreno exited his vehicle and headed toward the house,
he was suddenly struck by shotgun blasts to the face and the shoulder, killing him instantly
(13:12):
as he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The killer then made a mistake.
They leapt through a window to escape from the garage, but sliced themselves open, leaving
a blood splatter trail in their wake.
Poland police would later find blood on the window curtain and on a handkerchief outside.
Now how did the Organized Crime Task Force find Junior's killer?
(13:34):
It started with a tip from Charlie Treharne, who as detailed in part one of the series,
helped Sam Faseska get rid of Joe DeRose and was convicted for that murder over 20 years
later.
In 2001, detectives were contacted by Treharne, who at that time was in protective custody
while cooperating with the task force.
(13:56):
Treharne proceeded to tell them about his interactions with a hitman for the Carrabias
named Bob.
About a week after Junior Censoreno's murder in 1980, Treharne says he was at a restaurant
with Sam Faseska, Joe DeRose, and this guy Bob, who had a bandage on his arm.
Treharne claimed Bob was laughing and telling Joe DeRose that they have the same blood type
(14:21):
and that the cops believed DeRose was responsible for rubbing out Censoreno.
DeRose promptly went to the FBI not to snitch on Bob, but to proclaim his innocence and
show them that he had no lacerations and wasn't missing any blood.
There was a good chance that we could have gotten him.
I had to go right past him that night because I was in the immediate area and I went right
(14:42):
by the spot where he was picked up that night.
If Dominic Censoreno's silencing had been dispatched as a shooting, Poland Police Chief
Lee Gooden believes he could have caught the killer.
Returning home October 2, 1980 from making rounds in Struthers, Censoreno automatically
closed the garage door, trapping his killer inside.
(15:03):
The hitman panicked, jumped through a window, and left a bloody trail traced the next day
to a ditch off Klingen Road.
Blood samples matched the rare type of 32-year-old Joe DeRose, a former Carabia clan bodyguard
who survived a May 1980 shooting, then disappeared a month ago after his father was mistakenly
gunned down in February.
(15:25):
A month after Censoreno's slaying, federal agents conducted a body search of DeRose and
found scars from arm wounds Censoreno's hitman could have suffered, but since DeRose was
previously shot in the arm, the finding was inconclusive.
Physical evidence also hints of DeRose's style, a strange twist, since DeRose and Censoreno
(15:47):
are suspected partners in the February 1980 killing of one-time Carabia confidant Robert
DiCerbo.
Censoreno is a cousin of Carabia's.
I don't believe that the Carabias had him put away.
I do believe that from the information I've gathered along the way that there is some
sort of a power struggle going on somewhere, either between here and Cleveland or maybe
(16:09):
even possibly the Pittsburgh area.
Are you coming back with the name Joey Naples?
Pardon?
Joey Naples?
The name has been mentioned along with a few other names that I'm not even familiar with
out of the Cleveland area.
Forty-eight-year-old Joey Naples of Youngstown was released from prison about the time the
Carabia clan was trying to recover from the imprisonment of Ron and the falling out with
(16:31):
Cleveland's LeCavoli family.
Reportedly, Naples decided to rebuild with the help of the late Kelly Manarino of New
Kensington gambling kingpin of the Pittsburgh area.
When Sandy Naples and Vince De Niro were killed in the 60s, the Carabias were questioned.
Junior Censoreno was mentioned in the 1963 killing of Cadillac Charlie Cavallaro, an
(16:53):
underworld war viewed as Cleveland's consolidation.
Reason why some wonder if the circle has come around.
Two nights before Censoreno's shooting, two well-known Youngstown police figures were
spotted casing his home from this point on Route 220 Forum, Poland Township.
If Joe DeRose acted as hitman, then he was either a plant within the Carabia organization
(17:18):
or he secretly switched sides.
The case would remain unsolved in Poland Township for the next two decades until the bloody
handkerchief was turned over to the task force following Treharne's tip in 2001 and submitted
to the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigation in London, Ohio.
DNA tests of the handkerchief showed a match to one Robert Bob Dorler, an inmate serving
(17:44):
a life sentence without parole in Pennsylvania.
When the task force detectives visited Bob Dorler in prison, they presented their evidence
against him and convinced him to cooperate.
He talked candidly with them for hours, detailing his wild activities in the Mahoning Valley
during a brief period in the early 1980s.
(18:05):
For Dorler, a career criminal with mob ties across Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania,
his association with the Youngstown mob started when he first befriended Ronnie Carabia behind
bars.
Once paroled from that earlier prison stint, Dorler saw Carabia, who was then on trial
for the killing of Danny Green in Cleveland.
According to Dorler, he visited Ronnie at the courthouse during the trial and was told
(18:29):
that he should go see Ronnie's brothers for work.
Dorler did just that.
Upon his arrival in Struthers in 1980, Dorler met with Orly Carabia and not long after,
was given an assignment, kill Dominic Cenzarino.
Junior had been a big money earner for the mob, but despite being cousins with the Carabias,
he was kicking up a percentage of his gambling operation through the rival Jimmy Prado.
(18:54):
Dorler didn't care about familial associations.
He was just in town for the work.
Still, Orly made it a point to declare that Dorler was not Italian, and even if he did
the job, he could never become a made man.
This did not deter Bob Dorler.
He staked out the location of the game in Struthers and waited for Cenzarino to show
(19:17):
up, but he never did.
So the next day, Orly showed him Junior's house in Poland Township.
Dorler then acquired a sawed-off shotgun from an associate and waited outside the home on
Saginaw Drive.
When Cenzarino arrived, Dorler slipped in behind his car and professionally dispatched
his target, but he was in such a hurry to flee the scene that he dove out the window
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and cut himself up.
Had he taken a few moments to compose himself, he may have found Cenzarino's profits inside
the car, or, at the very least, located the garage door opener.
Instead, he sliced his arm open and nearly bled out during his escape.
Dorler says he ran to the crabby his mother's house and waited for Orly to come out and
(20:02):
get him.
At that point, Orly paid him $1,000 in cash and told him to get out of town for a while.
Dorler made it down to Columbus, where he finally sought medical attention and laid
low for a few days before returning to the Mahoning Valley.
There, he had earned Orly and Charlie Carabbi's trust as well as a job on the payroll at their
vending business.
(20:23):
Dorler's statement to the task force detectives was full of other riveting details, which
we'll get to shortly.
After all, he had come to town in the midst of a violent mob war and could share details
that few others alive would be privy to.
But there's an entire narrative that was happening under the surface, one we haven't even touched
on yet, which was directly connected to this conflict.
(20:46):
At its center, a colorful character then emerging on the local political scene.
He was a former high school football star at Cardinal Mooney, turned college quarterback
at Pitt, who had returned to the Valley a decade prior and worked as an executive director
of the Mahoning County drug program.
His name was James Trafkin, and in 1980, he threw his name into the hat as a candidate
(21:09):
for Mahoning County Sheriff.
In a town as corrupted by the mafia as Youngstown was, the county sheriff was traditionally
a coveted position for wise guys to control.
It's time to stop rubber stamping patronage and political deals.
Together we can strike a blow against political bosses.
At some point during Trafkin's campaign, he was approached by the Carabbi brothers and
(21:32):
bribed.
The offer was simple, take the money, and if you become sheriff, leave our gambling
joints alone.
Trafkin defied the odds, won the May Democratic primary with the Carabbi's support, and was
then a shoe-in to win the November election.
Charlie Carabbi made it known to his fellow gangsters that Jimbo was in the Carabbi's
(21:54):
pocket.
When Joey Naples approached Trafkin, he was told he would have to go through Charlie Carabbi.
This did not sit well with Naples, but together with Jimmy Prado, they would end up funneling
the former football player $60,000 through the Carabbi brothers, who themselves gave
Trafkin another $103,000.
(22:15):
Did you receive any money from one Joseph Naples?
No, I did not.
Did you return any money to one Charlie Carabbi to return to James Prado?
Yes, I did, so I can arrest the whole damn town.
Throughout 1980 and concurrent with bribing the flamboyant sheriff candidate, Prado and
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Naples wanted to eliminate Charlie Carabbi.
Unfortunately for them, Charlie was in charge of Cleveland's gambling operations in the
Mahoning Valley following Ronnie's arrest, and Cleveland wanted to make sure their monthly
cut was unfazed.
So, Likavoli talked with Charlie and told him to tone it down.
By all accounts, Charlie did not listen.
(22:59):
Again, Prado and Naples met with Likavoli and asked for permission to take out Charlie,
this time telling the Cleveland boss that Carabbi was disparaging him as well.
They also had doubts that Charlie delivered some of their bribes to Jim Trafkin.
These concerns, as well as Likavoli's own disappointment with Charlie, worked in Prado
(23:19):
and Naples' favor.
The FBI believes Likavoli had demanded a bigger cut of Carabbi's gambling profits, which Charlie
refused.
So, this time, Likavoli told Prado and Naples he'd talk to Charlie once more, and if the
trouble continued, they could do whatever they wanted with him.
Likavoli's logic was that there was still one more Carabbi a brother to work with, meaning
(23:43):
no matter what happened to Charlie, Orly was completely off limits.
On December 13, 1980, Charlie was contacted by Prado and Naples' associate Lenny Strolo.
He was to meet Strolo at the Stardust Motel in North Lima to discuss gambling operations
in the Valley.
According to summaries of FBI interviews provided to the task force, Strolo murdered Carabbi
(24:07):
at this meeting and earned his button to become a made man in the Pittsburgh crime family.
Carabbi's car was then towed and dumped in Cleveland.
Naples would later tell Angelo Leonardo and Likavoli that whomever left Carabbi's car
in Cleveland did so by mistake because they didn't realize where they were.
With Charlie now out of the picture, Orly was the sole crab brother left on the street.
(24:32):
Robert Dorler was working as Orly's de facto bodyguard and was teamed up with two other
guys, Joe DeRose and Skinny Sanfasesco.
According to Dorler, the trio was summoned to the Cuyahoga County Jail shortly after
Ronnie's guilty verdict in the Danny Green trial.
On February 20, 1981, while awaiting his transfer to prison, Ronnie gave Dorler, DeRose, and
(24:53):
Sanfasesco simple instructions.
Take out Joey Naples' crew and then the Mahoning Valley's underworld would belong to them.
But there were plenty of double crosses afoot.
First, Sanfasesco, fearing for his life, had made an arrangement with Naples to kill his
pal DeRose and save himself.
On top of that, Orly Carabia had met with Joey Naples, Jimmy Prado, and Angelo Leonardo
(25:16):
on several occasions at Prado's Calamart restaurant, where Orly was given the green light to manage
gambling in Trumbull County as long as he did not object to the murders of DeRose and
Fasesco.
Caught in the middle of this tangled web was Robert Dorler.
He began getting paranoid and didn't know who to trust.
So he told the task force he began to secretly record his conversations with Orly Carabia.
(25:41):
On tape, Orly said he'd had a sit-down with the other side, during which it was hashed
out that DeRose and Fasesco had to go, and that if Dorler left Youngstown and never returned,
he could live.
Once Dorler got this admission from Orly on tape, he took the recording to Joe DeRose
and Sanfasesco and played it for them.
(26:03):
He says they were both clearly upset with Orly for stabbing them in the back.
But DeRose was dead set on fulfilling his mission from Ronnie.
If they eliminated the Naples crew first, Orly's side deal wouldn't matter.
Fasesco, as detailed in part one of this series, would go on to make his own arrangement with
Naples behind DeRose's back.
(26:25):
By killing Joe himself, Sam's life was spared.
After playing the tape for Joe and Sam, word got out that Dorler had recorded Orly.
A confrontation ensued where Orly asked why Dorler had taped their conversation.
Dorler let it be known that he didn't trust Orly and even brought up the traffic-in recordings
that Orly and Charlie Carabia had made as a counterpoint.
(26:47):
By the end of the heated conversation, Orly told Dorler that what was done was done and
if he left town, he would be unharmed.
Not satisfied, Dorler went to Chillicothe, where he visited Ronnie Carabia in prison.
Dorler says Ronnie was very angry with Orly for what he'd done, telling Dorler,
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.
One of them was that I should have left this guy a truck driver.
(27:10):
Referring to his brother Orly.
When the smoke finally cleared during this tumultuous time in Youngstown, Joe DeRose
was eliminated, Orly was in charge of the Carabias territory, Joey Naples became the
dominant mobster in town, and Dorler left the Mahoning Valley.
Orly would eventually go to prison on charges of trafficking marijuana and later for bribery.
(27:32):
He was never charged for his role in the murder of Dominic Censoreno.
He died of natural causes April 3rd, 2021.
Ronnie Carabia was paroled for the killing of Danny Green in 2002.
How does it feel to be out?
Good.
Feel good?
He too would die of natural causes on December 22nd, 2021.
Interestingly enough, the obituaries for both Orly and Ronnie name their other siblings,
(27:57):
but not one another.
Following the disappearance of Joe DeRose in 1981, the FBI searched a Pittsburgh apartment
he shared with a girlfriend.
There they found the Carabias secret tape recordings on which James Trafikant, by then
elected sheriff of Mahoning County, admitted to taking $163,000 in bribes from both the
(28:19):
Carabias and Naples predo factions.
The tapes were used against Trafikant in a federal trial, in which he defended himself
pro se and was acquitted.
Trafikant would go on to be elected to the House of Representatives in 1984.
He was convicted of more bribery and racketeering charges in 2001 and was expelled from Congress
in 2002 before serving seven years in federal prison.
(28:44):
Robert Dorler was convicted in a later murder in Pennsylvania and was serving a life sentence
when he was charged with killing Dominic Censoreno in 2001.
He pleaded guilty and for his cooperation with the Organized Crime Task Force, he was
relocated to a prison in Ohio so he could be closer to his family and died while incarcerated
(29:04):
a few years later.
Still to come, who killed John Magda and left him to rot in a Struthers dump site?
Why was the murder of a mob connected fence and ATF informant never prosecuted?
And newly unearthed evidence that could upend a notorious triple murder conviction?
(29:46):
.
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