Dante Strollo services will be Saturday

Staff report

CAMPBELL

Dante D. “Danny” Strollo, 89, who once played a role in the Mahoning Valley’s organized crime past, died Tuesday.

Family and friends will be received from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Wasko Funeral Home in Campbell. Funeral services will be at noon Saturday at the funeral home.

Strollo was a self-employed vending-machine owner, according to his obituary in today’s Vindicator. He was a 1945 graduate of East High School and a member of Christ the Good Shepherd Parish at St. Joseph the Provider Catholic Church.

His wife, Eleanor, died in 1985. He leaves a daughter, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

According to Vindicator archives, his older brother Lenny, who survives, was a mobster in the Pittsburgh crime family who operated in Youngstown, aided by his brother.

Lenny Strollo in February 1999 became a government witness and provided the FBI and federal prosecutors with important information about the Mafia in the United States – he had firsthand knowledge of the players in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and New York – including the murder of rival gangster Ernie Biondillo Jr. and attempted murder of Mahoning County Prosecutor-elect Paul Gains.

Dante Strollo was among 48 summoned to appear before a Mahoning County grand jury in 1963 in a crime probe.

In 1964, Dante Strollo was among 27 called by a grand in a new “bug” numbers probe; and in 1972, he and another Campbell man, Milo Lazich, were listed as heads of a bug number operation in Campbell and Youngstown.

Dante Strollo in 1999 was sentenced to 46 months in prison for racketeering, according to Vindicator records.

At the time, then-Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley sentenced him in U.S. District Court to the low end of a 46- to 57-month range of federal sentencing guidelines because of failing health. He was released on $50,000 unsecured bond and was permitted to self-report to prison.

According to Vindicator files, Dante Strollo struck a plea deal with the government – agreeing to testify against his brother and acknowledging that he knew that Lenny Strollo intended to have Biondillo killed. Biondillo, a rival of Lenny Strollo, was shotgunned to death June 3, 1996.

In pleading guilty in 1999 to violating RICO, Dante Strollo admitted that he delivered bribes to Campbell police, engaged in illegal gambling and served as a liaison for his brother, with others involved in the enterprise, Vindicator files reveal.

At the time, Dante Strollo was credited by an assistant U.S. attorney with playing a large role in getting Lenny Strollo and others to reach plea agreements.