17. Luigi Di Cicco avoided entering the lifestyle followed by his father
Luigi Di Cicco spent the early years of his life visiting his father, Giuseppe Di Cicco, in various Italian prisons. Giuseppe was a boss in the Neapolitan Camorra, who ran organized crime activities from prison, through his brothers. Luigi and his uncles lived in a house which was heavily fortified, equipped with hidden rooms and escape tunnels. Closed circuit television and stout fences protected the grounds. As Luigi grew older he recognized the respect and deference he received as he went about his business on the streets and in shops and offices. As a teenager, Luigi enjoyed the respect he received, though it was never enough to entice him into his father’s and uncle’s chosen career paths. He reported being tempted from time to time, but his father never encouraged his son to enter the family business. Instead, he was told to choose his own way.
Luigi was close enough to mob activities to witness the bodies of two of his uncles lying dead in the streets shortly after hearing the shots which killed them. He was eleven years of age at the time. His father remained imprisoned until Luigi was in his twenties. Though Luigi visited him often, he managed to avoid linking his father to the mob violence which occurred with alarming frequency in their home town of Lusciano. When Giuseppe was allowed to attend a funeral in his hometown, under a heavy security guard, Luigi noted the near reverence directed by the townspeople to the crime boss. Nonetheless, he avoided the “life”. He worked in sales, served in the military, and eventually became a restauranteur, while his father continued in his chosen career after his release from prison. In 2014, Giuseppe returned to prison. By then his son owned his own restaurant in Civitavecchia, Italy.