Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno; Once Nation’s Top Mafia Boss

Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, the scowling, cigar-chomping mobster once considered the nation’s top Mafia boss, has died of a stroke in federal prison where he was serving a 170-year sentence, authorities said Tuesday.

Salerno, 80, the onetime boss of the New York-based Genovese crime family, suffered a stroke about a week ago and died Monday at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners here, said Charlie Peterson, executive assistant to the warden.

Salerno suffered from diabetes, the aftermath of several earlier strokes and suspected prostate cancer, Peterson said. He had been in the medical center since May, 1989.

In 1986, Salerno was sentenced to 100 years for his racketeering activities with the New York Mafia. In 1988, he was sentenced to 70 years in connection with an organized crime bid-rigging scheme that affected virtually every high-rise building in Manhattan that used more than $2 million worth of concrete.

For years, investigators said, Salerno presided over a multimillion-dollar gambling and loan shark operation.

Salerno rose steadily in the Genovese hierarchy, becoming boss sometime in the early 1980s after the retirement of Philip Lombardo.

He supervised an organized crime network that stretched across the Northeast, and was said to have used his control of powerful Teamsters Union locals to influence the election of several international presidents, including Jackie Presser and Roy Williams.

After his imprisonment, Salerno was allegedly succeeded atop the Genovese family by Vincent (Chin) Gigante, who police say has dodged prosecution by pretending to be insane.