Columbus Neighborhoods
Columbus Mafia: Uncovering the Baldasarro Crime Family
Special | 1m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Baldasarro family built a gambling empire in Columbus.
From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Baldasarro family built a gambling empire in Columbus. But their reign was rocked by a massive police bribery scandal. Join Grace Freeman of the Columbus Metropolitian Library as she uncovers this infamous part of Columbus history through rare photographs.
Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU
Columbus Neighborhoods
Columbus Mafia: Uncovering the Baldasarro Crime Family
Special | 1m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Baldasarro family built a gambling empire in Columbus. But their reign was rocked by a massive police bribery scandal. Join Grace Freeman of the Columbus Metropolitian Library as she uncovers this infamous part of Columbus history through rare photographs.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship>>> In processing the Columbus Dispatch photo collection.
We came across quite a few photos featuring many members of the same family.
We were intrigued and learned about the Baldesarro family.
They lived here in Columbus beginning around 1930, 1935, and patriarch Phillip basically began a large-scale gambling operation here in town.
He eventually passed the business on to his five children, some of whom are pictured here.
Frank, in particular, was a big figure here in Columbus.
He was in and out of courtrooms and often accused of various crimes, including there was a massive corruption scandal with the Columbus police, basically a bribery bribery scheme.
He was paying off police officers to kind of look the other way to the family business.
His sister, Marie, was another big name in the family.
She sort of ran things when he was unavailable.
Some of the other sisters there were five in that generation were also very involved, along with some of their children.
So Frank's son was in and out of courtrooms with him and tried to keep a lower profile, but wasn't always successful with it.
But they were often front-page news.
This was probably the biggest 1969 when that corruption scheme came to light.
They were all found innocent of this particular crime, but there were quite a few others that are pretty well documented.
By the 1970s, things started to settle down.
Some of the older family members were passing away and the younger ones moved to various places around the country and seemed to have sort of left this life behind.
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Ohio Snapshots in Time is produced by WOSU Public Media in partnership with the staff of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU