| abstract | - Giuseppe Xavier Cerrito was born in Palermo, Sicily and immigrated to New York in the 1920s where he became associated with the Profaci/Colombo crime family. In the 1940s, Cerrito moved to California where he became a member of the local mob and quickly rose up in the ranks of the San Jose crime family. He was married to Elizabeth Agnes Ardizzone (possibly related to early Los Angeles crime boss Joseph Ardizzone). Cerrito owned a Lincoln and Mercury car dealership in the San Jose area and one in Los Gatos. He also owned a foreign-car sales and a repair center in San Jose. Cerrito was a very successful businessman. He often frequented New York and Detroit. By the 1960s Cerrito was a multimillionaire. Cerrito was associated with mafia members throughout the nation and in Sicily. He was one of many mob leaders that attended the 1957 Apalachin Mafia Conference and escaped arrest along with many others. In 1959, San Jose mafia boss Onofrio Sciortino died of natural causes and Cerrito became the new boss of the crime family. In 1964, Cerrito was identified as meeting in Palermo, Sicily with Bonanno crime family mobster Francesco Garafolo, of whom Cerrito was a close associate. It has been speculated that they were either discussing Heroin trafficking or the gang war that was taking place in Brooklyn within the Bonanno family, especially the situation with Joseph "Bananas" Bonanno who was inciting a war within his own crime family, planning to kill the bosses of other crime family's and take over the rackets on the West Coast. Cerrito had been somewhat submissive to Bonanno's take over bid when he began to form a power-base in Tucson, Arizona (without knowing), and had allowed Bonanno to set up operations in San Jose, where he had a crew and many business interests. Six months later in Palermo, warrants were issued for the arrest of Cerrito, Garafolo and 12 others for aggravated criminal conspiracy as members of the international mafia. His meetings with Garafolo in Palermo were all watched and photographed by Italian police. The charges against Cerrito did not make him extraditable and were later dismissed due to lack of evidence. Cerrito was however placed on the Italian police's "watch list" and was not allowed to return to Italy.
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