Tobias DeMicco Jr. was the son of a Mafia figure. His father's mob background was mentioned by ex-Mafioso Joseph Valachi during his October 1963 testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating organized crime. Tobias Jr. was intricately tied to an illegal mob scheme involving a Ramapo, New York landfill. Mobsters had intervened to extort money from the city through illegal landfill dumping. DeMicco Jr. and multiple associates were indicted for this conspiracy in 1979. Among his earliest offenses was a 1937 conviction for robbery. He was sentenced to ten years for this offense.