On this day‬ in 1993 Samuel Russotti passed away at the age of 81. Red was a powerful member of the Rochester crime family and its last reputed Godfather. He seized control of Rochester’s organized crime family in 1972 but in 1984, Russotti and six others were convicted of murdering two of their rivals, as well as attempted murder and extorting millions from illegal gambling in the 1970s and 1980s.

Russotti would have been eligible for parole in October 1994 but a fatal heart attack a year before meant he would never see the outside again.

As for the Rochester Crime Family, it is currently considered to be extinct, as many of its members have either been killed, imprisoned or retired.

On this day in 1993, Samuel "Red" Russotti drew his last breath inside a prison cell, dying of a heart attack at the age of 81. A man who had clawed his way to the summit of upstate New York's underworld, Russotti never got to taste freedom again, falling just one year short of his earliest parole eligibility date in October 1994. It was a fittingly grim end for a man who had spent decades operating in the shadows of one of America's lesser-known but genuinely formidable crime organisations — the Rochester crime family.

The Rochester family had deep roots stretching back to the Prohibition era, when figures like Salvatore "Sam" Valenti helped establish the city as a significant outpost of organised crime in New York State. Though always operating in the considerable shadow of the New York City Five Families, the Rochester outfit maintained its own sphere of influence, with ties to the Buffalo crime family and, through the broader network of American La Cosa Nostra, connections to the structures put in place by Lucky Luciano's reorganisation of the mob in the early 1930s. Rochester may not have been Chicago or New York, but it was nobody's backwater.

Russotti assumed control of the Rochester family in 1972, taking the reins of an organisation deeply entrenched in illegal gambling, loan sharking, and labour racketeering across the region. His tenure as boss, however, would ultimately be defined not by his criminal achievements but by his downfall. In 1984, federal prosecutors secured convictions against Russotti and six associates on charges that included the murder of two rivals, attempted murder, and extorting millions from illegal gambling operations throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was a crushing blow, effectively decapitating the organisation at its highest level and signalling the beginning of the end for the Rochester family as a functioning criminal enterprise.

The family never truly recovered. Without strong leadership and facing relentless law enforcement pressure in the post-RICO era, its remaining membership dwindled through imprisonment, death, and quiet retirement. Today, the Rochester crime family is widely regarded as extinct, a casualty of the same federal offensive that dismantled so many American mob outfits during the late twentieth century.

Russotti's legacy is one of rise and ruin — a boss who held genuine power but could not escape the consequences of his own brutality, leaving behind an organisation that died alongside him.