Jul 24, 2009 6:00 am US/Mountain
Author Sheds Light On Famous Denver Crime Family
Written by Brooke Wagner
DENVER (CBS4) ―
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The Smaldone Family opened Gaetano's Restaurant on the corner of 38th and Tejon in 1947. Sixty-two years later, diners can still imagine the crime syndicate's leader, Clyde Smaldone, sitting in one of the glossy, padded booths.
Brothers Clyde, Eugene "Checkers," and Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone may be gone, but they're not forgotten in their hometown. That's why long-time Denver Post columnist Dick Kreck decided to pen the book Smaldone.
"For me, it was about Denver history, and people love the mob connection," Kreck said. "Even today, there's a certain romanticism around them."
The Smaldones got their start during prohibition.
"Their dad was running bootleg in the 20s, so they started delivering booze to the speakeasies downtown," said Kreck.
The Smaldones expanded into the loan and gambling businesses, operating in Denver for 40 years. At one point, the Smaldones partnered with Al Capone's gang.
"If you borrowed $100 on Monday, you owed them $125 on Friday, and you'd better pay," said Kreck. "There was certainly a lot of violence. There were a lot of dead guys and they weren't against calling on people who wouldn't pay up on money they'd loaned them."
The sensational cases of the day, from bombings to murders, often brought mention of the Smaldone name. But, many of those crimes went unsolved. Still, the brothers were in and out of prisons over the decades. Chauncey was 72 when he received his last sentence.
The politically-savvy Clyde Smaldone was the syndicate's leader.
"He could be rough with guys on the street, but he could also fit in at the Brown Palace with President Hoover," Kreck said.
Clyde Smaldone's sons, Gene and Chuck, agreed to tell Kreck their side of the Smaldone story. They saw a very different side of their father.
"He was very affectionate and a good dad," said Chuck. "He had a big heart and a soft heart."
"When you met him, you'd never forget him," said Gene.
Gene and Chuck Smaldone say their father was loathe to take credit for good deeds such as providing Christmas gifts for orphans, or giving groceries to starving neighbors during the Great Depression.
"If it was a cold day out and somebody was walking without a coat, he'd take his coat off, put money in the pocket, and walk away," Chuck said.
"If you needed coal or you needed groceries during the Depression, you'd go to the Smadlones for help. One lady told me, if she needed help, she wouldn't go to the city, she'd go to the Smaldones," said Kreck. "They were always giving money to people who came and said they needed groceries and they wouldn't expect it back."
In prison, Clyde painted religious pictures and was known to fight for tolerance and civil rights - literally.
"He got in trouble in prison because there were some black guys who weren't getting fed properly and he actually beat up the guys who were serving the food."
Gene Smaldone also remembers his father's favorite sayings.
"He'd ask you, 'do you know how to keep a secret?' and you'd say all kinds of things trying to answer, but he wouldn't tell you the answer until a week or a month later. And, of course, it was 'don't tell anyone.'"
They also remember being chased by photographers and hounded by the press when their father came home. Smaldone headlines sold papers.
"We were big press at that time," said Chuck. He recalled climbing out his kindergarten window to escape a photographer.
"My mom called and said 'they're going to be at school to take pictures of Chuckie. Get him out of the school,'" said Chuck, who remembered a friend of his father's pulling him through the window.
"No matter what happened, (the police) would always arrest (the Smaldones) because they would get big publicity," Gene said. "He'd say, 'I know what I'm doing's wrong, and if I get caught, I'll go to jail. But, the guys putting me in jail are bigger crooks than I am,' because he'd pay them and they'd take the money."
Despite the notoriety, Gene said the boys had a fairly normal childhood, though he does remember seeing large piles of money divided into stacks on the table.
"One was from gambling, one was for loaning money, and the other was his own money, and that was kind of a routine thing," said Gene Smaldone.
Both Gene and Chuck Smaldone remember the last time their father came home from Leavenworth Prison. They said he had changed, and wanted out.
"The last time Clyde got out, he'd had enough. He was 60, but his younger brothers Checkers and Chauncy and Paulie kept on doing it. Checkers went to jail for the last time when he was 73 years old," said Kreck.
Checkers, considered to be the "tough" of the three brothers, was the first of the three to pass away. He died in 1992, followed by Clyde in 1998, then Chauncey, "the quiet one," in 2006. Many say the Smaldone crime syndicate died with Chauncey.
Gene Smaldone played football at the University of Denver and eventually coached the sport. Chuck went into the clothing business. To this day, neither man can believe how often people comment on their last name.
"Even today, when we put out a credit card, they say, 'are you related to this Smaldone or that Smaldone?' We say yes, and then they don't know what to say."
(© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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