Samuel “Frog” Glorioso was a low-level soldier known for collecting the mob’s “street tax” from Northwest Indiana gambling operators. Glorioso was a close associate of Bernard J. “Snooky” Morgano, whom the FBI said controlled Northwest Indiana. Snooky reported to the Chicago Heights crew of the Chicago Outfit.
In 1986, Franklin Burton, a fixture in Indiana betting circles, was taking bets on horse races and sports events at his walk-in gambling den at 16 E. 39th Ave., in Gary`s Glen Park area. Burton`s troubles with the mob began when “Cadillac Pete” sought him out to explain how the cost of running a gambling business was about go up. Burton refused to pay and showed his visitor the door. Shortly thereafter the windows of his backroom business were shattered by gun shots, and he got an ominous call.
It was then that Sam “Frog” Glorioso entered the picture, offering to negotiate the $1,000 demand but warning “the guys over there (Illinois) don`t fool around.” Glorioso asked Burton if he could pay $500. “I knew a kid over there, he owed $300…They broke both his legs.” Burton refused and Glorioso became suspicious and spoke sternly to him, asking if he was working for the feds or something.”
According to his associates, his attorney and even one of his alleged victims, Glorioso, was bug-eyed with black, horned-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, is at worst a reluctant mobster and at best is little more than an anxious-to-please buffoon with costly bad habits like overeating, picking slow horses, and buying too many rounds of drinks. Glorioso acted as the bagman only because he had gotten himself so deeply in debt to Outfit gamblers that working for them was the only way he could climb out of the monetary hole he had dug for himself.
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