Detroit's Godfather [alleged of course ;-)] has passed on.
Whatever he did, if he did, he got away with it mostly and lived 87 years in a dangerous world.
Nice summary in DeadlineDetroit by Alan Lengel.
Raised in the upscale Windmill Pointe section of Grosse Pointe Park, Tocco earned a finance degree from the University of Detroit In 1949, according to an entry in Wikipedia.
He went on to own businesses around the state and built up an impressive real estate portfolio, all while managing to maintain a fairly low profile, particularly when it came to media attention. The Giacalone brothers, who were capos, and underlings of Tocco, had far more recognizable names in Metro Detroit.
Tocco's only felony conviction came in 1998 in a major racketeering case, which sent him off to federal prison for two years. Before that, his only previous conviction was for attending an illegal cock fight, according to a history of the Detroit on the FBI's website.
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