Showing posts with label Alphabet War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alphabet War. Show all posts

11 May 2018

1978 murder of Rochester's Sammy G.

Gingello
Reporter Gary Craig of the Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle recently wrote about the mysterious spring 1978 gangland murder of Sammy Gingello.


See: "40-year mystery: Where were the police when mobster 'Sammy G' Gingello was murdered?" by Gary Craig


A bomb exploded beneath Gingello's car early on April 23, 1978, taking the life of the notorious Rochester gangster. Gary Craig reports that two city police investigators, assigned to shadow Gingello, were given that night off.

Less than three months earlier, a Gingello murder conviction was overturned in court. He was released from custody, along with codefendants Rene J. Piccarreto, Richard Marino, Samuel "Red" Russotti and Thomas Marrotta, after the court found that evidence against them had been fabricated. A sixth codefendant, Eugene DiFrancesco, continued to be held in custody on unrelated charges. The group had been convicted of the murder of Vincent "Jimmy the Hammer" Massaro.

Gingello and codefendant Piccarreto also had been recently acquitted of conspiracy to bomb public buildings and the residence of a local union leader.

From the time of Gingello's release, five murder attempts were made against him in what became known as the "A-B War" or "Alphabet War" within Rochester's divided underworld.

For more on this and related subjects:


DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Vol. II, From 1938, by Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona.