[3] Once released from prison, Ricca killed Vincenzo Capasso, who had testified against him in the Parillo trial, by slitting his throat.
After killing Capasso, Ricca assumed the name Paul Maglio and fled to the United States through Cuba.
[1] While in Cuba, Ricca had met Joseph "Diamond Joe" Esposito, a Chicago bootlegger and restaurant owner.
Sharing several mutual friends among Neapolitan gangsters who had returned to Italy, Ricca soon quit his restaurant job and joined the South Side Gang.
An early event that contributed to his rise occurred outside Capone's headquarters in the Hawthorne Hotel in Cicero, Illinois, on September 20, 1926.
Ricca sustained a gunshot wound to his left shoulder and, when asked by the police for his name, identified himself with an alias, Louis Barko.
[8] In the early 1940s, Nitti convinced Ricca and the rest of the Outfit leadership to participate in a labor racketeering and extortion scheme aimed at the movie studios in Los Angeles, California.
Chicago mobster John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli gained control of the Projectors Union and threatened the studios with strikes and other labor problems.
To avoid labor unrest, RKO, Paramount, MGM and 20th Century Fox paid several hundred thousand dollars to the Outfit.
The Atlanta warden, reportedly prejudiced against Italians, had severely beaten Outfit mobster Phil D'Andrea, making Ricca and the others fearful for their lives.
After a series of contacts, St. Louis, Missouri, lawyer Paul Dillon allegedly offered the head of the federal parole board payment to approve a transfer to Leavenworth for the Outfit mobster.
During this period, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accepted a cash settlement from Ricca for back taxes.
Accardo was facing tax evasion charges, and Ricca allegedly wanted him to disappear from public view.
As Ricca aged, Accardo began to make more high-level decisions, ultimately pushing Giancana out in favor of Sam Battaglia in 1966.
In 1957, the federal government charged Ricca with illegally entering the United States under the alias Paul Maglio.
Three years earlier, the government had located the real Paul Maglio in Chicago and brought him to testify against Ricca, whose citizenship was revoked.