“The Balistrieri Tapes” was a twelve-part series originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel beginning October 31, 1988. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is republishing select excerpts from the series.

Frank Balistrieri died in 1993 and his son Joseph Balistrieri died in 2010. His son John Balistrieri was released from prison in 1989, after the publication of this series. In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied John Balistrieri’s request to reinstate his law license despite the recommendation of a court-appointed referee who said his conduct had been exemplary since his release.

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It was a meeting about bloodshed. Frank P. Balistrieri wanted some. His father-in-law didn’t.

After Balistrieri threatened to kill at least two men, he shouted at his father-in-law, who pleaded for a more merciful solution.

“L’amazzari,” Balistrieri said in Sicilian, meaning, “l got to kill them.”

The meeting was in 1964, when once again Balistrieri was upset with August J. Maniaci, a smalltime businessman, pizza cook and sometime associate of Balistrieri.

Balistrieri’s threats against Maniaci, which apparently were nothing new, were made at a meeting that included some of the top advisers in Balistrieri’s organized crime family.

The meeting was conducted mostly in Sicilian.

The sometimes joking, sometimes serious, sometimes emotional, sometimes wild meeting was tape recorded by the FBI.

The meeting ended after John Alioto, the former chief of organized crime here, commented on the business style of Balistrieri, Alioto’s son ­in-law and the current head of organized crime.

“I don’t know why you’re so anxious for blood,” Alioto said.

Earlier in the meeting, speaking in Sicilian and English, Balistrieri said, “Let’s talk about our soldiers. What a bunch of garbage that we’ve got. We really have a bunch of garbage. We have as good a family now as anywhere in the United States, but we still got garbage.”

Referring to Maniaci and John Aiello, Balistrieri said, “At first, we had decided to leave them alone, as if God forgave them. To leave them alone again. For a while, they were like strangers. But, you know, I can’t throw anybody out from our family. There is an order here, and I’m not going to go against that order. I can make who I want but I can’t throw nobody out.

“So therefore I got to kill them …. So with these (Maniaci and Aiello) they’re not worth the bullets. They’re not worth a nickel worth of bullets. They are the cancer of this family in Milwaukee. They brag a lot, they tell everybody who they are…

“And yet we try to keep them in line and they’re telling everybody that they’re making money. And that Vince Maniaci (the brother of August Maniaci), that’s a real cancer. What am I going to do with that?”

At another point, Balistrieri said, “Augie Maniaci, I don’t even want to bring it up anymore, and John Aiello.”

Maniaci, who was 54 then, and Aiello, who was 48, were among eight people arrested in what police called a fraudulent home improvement ring in 1961. The local and state investigation of this scheme went on for several years.

Referring to Maniaci and Aiello, Balistrieri said, “We fight one way to keep our prestige, then these two come along to tear it down. So you see, we’ve got to maintain the family.”

Balistrieri apparently spoke Sicilian as a sign of respect to the older men at the meeting, although he sounded more comfortable speaking English. Alioto was referred to several times as zzu Vanni, or Uncle John, another sign of respect.

However, there weren’t many signs of respect near the end of the meeting, when Balistrieri and Alioto, who reportedly often did not get along, shouted at each other.

During the argument, Alioto sounded emotional as he pleaded with Balistrieri in Sicilian and Balistreri replied in English.

The recording did not reveal who Balistrieri was talking about when he said, “I’m going to give him a last warning.”

“Frank, listen to me, if you respect me, forget about it,” Alioto said.

“But he’s got to pay,” an unidentified man said.

“If somebody from Chicago comes in and tells you to do it, you do it,” Alioto said. ‘If somebody from New York comes and tells you to do it, you do it. And there’s no need to. I can handle it. I can do it.”

“We been through this thing 100 times,” Balistrieri said. “You think I’m going to forget it or swallow it? I don’t see nothing to swallow.”

“If you respect me, if you respect your father-in-law, please do me this big favor,” Alioto said. “Do this for me, Frank.”

“You never did a goddamn thing for me,” Balistrieri said. “You make up your mind one way or the other, because I’ll show you who’s close and who’s not close …. I just want you to mind your own business the way you’re supposed to mind your own business.”

“I beg you like a son,” Alioto said.

Noting that he was often criticized in newspapers, Balistrieri said, “You ever come up and say, ‘You need anything, you want anything?’ … It’s your obligation to come to me, not me to you.”

At one point, in the midst of shouts, Alioto said something about dying and Balistrieri shot back, “You’re not going to die, he’s going to die.”

“I don’t know why you’re so anxious for blood,” Alioto said. “… Do it for me, do it for me…. I’m your father-in-law. You married my daughter, your kids are my grandchildren… Do something for me, show you care.”

Alioto also asked Balistrieri If Balistrieri thought Alioto was garbage.

“You’ve been for yourself all your life,” Balistrieri said. “You never did anything for me.”

Balistrieri said it was time to leave.

“I hope you open up your goddamn heart because you have no heart for me,” Alioto said. “Think this through and you’ll realize that your father­-in-law was right.”

At another meeting, at which Augie Maniaci was present, Maniaci seemed to refer to the fraud case against him.

“And you know, this is serious,” Maniaci told Balistrieri. “I can get 15 years. I am charged with one count that I can get 15 years and there’s seven of them. They can throw away the key if they want.”

Apparently referring to another person involved in the fraud scheme, Maniaci said, “You know what I told him? … To keep you all out. I’ll take the rap for everybody. And you get out and you support my family, take care of them.”

Maniaci once operated an East Side tavern with his brother, Vincent. Their father, Nunzio (Pop) Maniaci, was a widely known restaurant owner and leader in the Italian­-American community.

Maniaci’s explanation of his problems apparently didn’t satisfy Balistrieri.

After Maniaci left the meeting, Balistrieri said, “I’ll tell you something, I am very, very disgusted.”

Balistrieri said Maniaci had told him Maniaci was afraid of the FBI.

“A true member of the family would just keep his mouth shut,” an unidentified man said.

Balistrieri then asked his consigliere (top adviser), whom he didn’t name, to look into the matter involving Maniaci and Aiello and report back.

Besides the mortgage fraud case, Maniaci was the subject of another case. The case was No. 1794:

“DOB: 6/16/09. Date: 9/11/75, 8:30 a.m. Date-Time Injury: 7:20 a.m. Place Injury: Alley, to the rear of 2121 N. Newhall St.

“Immediate Cause of Death: MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS TO THE HEAD.”

Two years after August Maniaci was murdered, an attempt was made on the life of his brother, Vincent. However, the dynamite attached to the engine of Vincent’s automobile did not explode because the wiring was loose.

August Palmisano, who was a friend of Vincent Maniaci and who had had a heated argument with Balistrieri, was blown up in his car in 1978.

Balistrieri is serving a 13-year term in federal prison on extortion and other charges.

But not for murder. Or for talking about it.

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Read the next selected excerpt: The Balistrieri Tapes, Part 5: “Sally Papia target of Balistrieri ire, FBI agent says”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Frank Balistrieri Tapes: Part 2 of the Milwaukee Sentinel investigative series