04 February 2025

'Monk' indicted for assault

Gang leader caught after shootout with Pinkertons

On this date in 1904:

Eastman
A New York grand jury on February 4, 1904, indicted gang leader Edward "Monk" Eastman for assault and attempted murder. He was charged with attacking and trying to kill agents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who confronted him after he robbed a drunk man of some cash two days earlier.

Eastman, his pal Christopher Wallace and other members of Eastman's gang ventured beyond the confines of their usual Lower East Side territory in the early morning of February 2. On Forty-second Street in Midtown, they spotted a drunk young man counting out cash in a doorway. Eastman and Wallace advanced. Eastman delivered a devastating punch to the man's abdomen, while Wallace grabbed the money.

Two Pinkerton agents, George F. Bryan and John Rogers, then jumped out at the robbers. A scuffle occurred, handguns were drawn and shots were fired. Additional Eastman gangsters rushed in to help Eastman and Wallace escape the Pinkertons. The group ran off on Forty-second Street toward Broadway. But they ran right into New York Police Officer Healy.

Once arrested, Wallace confessed to attempted grand larceny and is believed to have cooperated in the case against Eastman.

At trial in April, it was revealed that the Eastmans' robbery target had been a wayward son of the wealthy Wetmore family and the Pinkertons had been hired by the family to watch over him.

Eastman was convicted of felonious assault. General Sessions Court Judge John W. Goff sentenced him on April 19 to ten years in Sing Sing Prison, the maximum term allowed. The cooperative Wallace was sentenced to just two and a half years for his part in the crime.

While held at Tombs Prison in Manhattan awaiting transfer to Sing Sing, Monk Eastman was interviewed by New York reporters. He expressed just one concern: several of his pet pigeons had eggs that were ready to hatch and he hoped to learn "how they came out" before he was taken out of the city.

Sing Sing Admission Register

He entered Sing Sing on April 22. He would serve better than seven years of his sentence before being released. 

Much more on Monk Eastman and other gangsters of Manhattan's Lower East Side can be found in the 2023 issue of Informer: The History of U.S. Crime and Law Enforcement (available in magazine, book and electronic formats).

Sources:

  • Edward Eastman, no. 54863, Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, received April 22, 1904.
  • "Monk Eastman in pistol battle," New York Evening World, Feb. 2, 1904, p. 2
  • "'Monk' Eastman now indicted," New York Evening World, Feb. 4, 1904, p. 3.
  • "Monk Eastman on trial," New York Sun, April 13, 1904, p. 12.
  • "Monk's pal gets light sentence," New York Evening World, April 21, 1904, p. 7.
  • Statement of commitments to the Sing Sing State Prison during the month of April 1904.
  • "Ten years for 'Monk,'" New York Daily Tribune, April 20, 1904, p. 6.

02 January 2025

Anastasia tale told by his priest brother

I've been reading Anastasia Mio Fratello (Edizioni di Novissima, 1967), written by Albert Anastasia's little brother, Rev. Salvatore Anastasio, a Roman Catholic priest who served for a time in New York City parishes before returning to his native Calabria. 


It's a plodding effort for me, as I'm virtually illiterate in Italian and need to work on translating as I go. I've gotten through Father Salvatore's discussion of the murder of Joseph Terella (pages 58 through 66). This was the murder for which Albert Anastasia was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair (reversed on appeal). 

Father Salvatore insisted that he researched this matter more carefully than any other in the book. (He wrote: "...io abbia dedicato ad esso le ricerche piĆ¹ accurate.") So, we should be free to gauge his commitment to accuracy by seeing how well he did here: 

  • Well, he misspelled the victim's name (but, OK, nearly everyone has done that - I recall spelling Terella's name a number of different ways over the years). 
  • Father Salvatore placed the killing on May 19, 1921, when it was actually one year and a few days earlier, Terella died in Long Island College Hospital on May 17, 1920, of injuries suffered the previous day. 
  • He indicated the murder was committed through repeated stabbings with a steel hook. The real cause of death was a gunshot wound to the belly that sliced through the liver, pancreas, several vertebrae and other stuff, causing internal hemorrhage. 
  • Anastasia, he claimed, was working each day at the Brooklyn docks during the period of the murder and its aftermath. But, really, Anastasia took off and hid in Providence, Rhode Island, after the murder. 
  • Father Salvatore said that Anastasia's enemies brought four longshoremen into court to lie about witnessing Anastasia murder Terella. The state's case actually had one key witness, a woman.
  • Father Salvatore's account neglected to mention Anastasia's pal Giuseppe Florino, who was also convicted of this murder, also faced execution and also was later freed.

Terella death certificate.

In almost every detail, aside from the mention that Anastasia was convicted of this murder and later freed, Father Salvatore's account was lacking.

Interestingly, the author stated that an unnamed Calabrian, who felt protective toward Anastasia, acted on his own and without Anastasia's knowledge to kill Terella after it became clear that Terella and his friends (motivated by envy) intended to harm Anastasia. The supposed killer reportedly admitted his crime to Father Salvatore, with Albert Anastasia present, when the Father confronted Anastasia in 1950 about his criminal reputation. The Calabrian said he had been willing to admit his guilt at the time of Anastasia's trial, but Anastasia would not put the man in harm's way and made him swear to keep quiet about it.

It is a nice story. But it seems no more than that. The author, in this case and others. apparently was willing to go to any lengths to deny what everyone else knows to be true: Albert Anastasia was a ruthless and accomplished killer.

By the way, Father Salvatore's book was turned into a movie, released in 1973, just as Father Salvatore passed away. He did not live long enough to see it, and before his death expressed concern that it would not help to repair the reputation of his long-deceased brother. The movie, starring Alberto Sordi as the priest and Richard Conte as Albert Anastasia, is generally billed as a comedy. If anything about the film can be said to be humorous, it is Father Salvatore's blissful ignorance of his brother's long-term role as a gangland boss.

Still from movie Anastasia Mio Fratello