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11 June 2017

Vendetta ends life of 'Black Sam' Todaro

Son, wife, nephew of murdered 'Big Joe' Lonardo
participate in the slaying of Cleveland Mafia boss

Salvatore Todaro
On this date in 1929 - Cleveland Mafia boss Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro was murdered in front of a Porrello corn sugar warehouse at Woodland Avenue and 110th Street. Though recent killings in the region had resulted from underworld rivalries, authorities determined that the assassination of Todaro was an act of personal vengeance.

Todaro took power in the local crime family after the October 1927 murders of boss Joseph "Big Joe" Lonardo and his brother John. His position was secured with the murder of Lonardo loyalist Lorenzo Lupo the following spring. The Lonardo faction, closely aligned with the national Mafia leadership of boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila, was replaced by an administration of Todaro and the Porrello brothers. The new regime was supported by rising New York Mafia boss Giuseppe Masseria. (Masseria had relatives in Cleveland.)

The murdered Lonardos were given a lavish gangland funeral - reports said their caskets were silver. But Lonardo kin almost immediately began experiencing money problems.

Concetta Lonardo and Fannie Lanzone Lonardo both claimed to be the widows of Joseph Lonardo. Though never formally married, Concetta had lived with Lonardo for many years until their 1925 separation and she was mother to their five children. Fannie was with Lonardo in the last few years of his life and claimed that the two had been married in Sandusky, Ohio on September 8, 1925. A court battle between the widows tied up the family fortune - cash and property estimated to be worth $200,000. Lacking financial resources, Concetta faced the loss of the family home at 13700 Larchmere Boulevard. She reached out for support from the new underworld boss.

Concetta Lonardo
(Cleveland Public Library)
Early in 1929, she began making regular visits to the front of the Porrello corn sugar warehouse - the Mafia leadership's local headquarters. Todaro dutifully stepped out of the building to meet her at her car, a maroon and black Chrysler Model 75 coupe, and provide her with some money. (Cleveland detectives considered the possibility that these were blackmail payments extracted by the Lonardo family under threat of cooperating in the investigation of the Joseph and John Lonardo murders.) Concetta was generally driven to the meetings by her oldest child, eighteen-year-old Angelo.

On the afternoon of June 11, Concetta's twenty-two-year-old nephew Dominic Sospirato came along for the  ride to see Todaro. As usual, Todaro emerged from the warehouse to greet his former boss's widow. As he crossed the sidewalk toward the waiting car, gunshots were heard and "Black Sam" collapsed. He had been shot five times. The Chrysler sped away.

Todaro's brother-in-law, Angelo Sciara, witnessed the shooting and gave authorities the names of the occupants of the car. Concetta was later taken into custody as a material witness, though she claimed to know nothing of the fatal shooting of Todaro. Angelo Lonardo and Dominic Sospirato could not be located. Concetta and the two young men were all indicted for first-degree murder.

“Black Sam” Todaro's funeral featured an expensive bronze and silver casket and abundant floral tributes, but restrictions on the use of marching bands and the route of the cortege were put in place by local Safety Director Edwin Barry.

On November 12, Concetta went to trial alone for the Todaro murder. The prosecutor argued that she must have known that occupants of her automobile planned to shoot and kill Todaro. The state's case included a jury visit to the Cleveland corner where Todaro was killed. After a deliberation of more than six hours, the jury acquitted her.

Angelo Lonardo in later years.
The not-guilty verdict seems to have encouraged Angelo Lonardo and Dominic Sospirato to come out of hiding and take their own chances with a jury. They surrendered to authorities in February 1930, pleading not guilty to the murder charges against them. They were convicted of second-degree murder on June 11, 1930 (the anniversary of Todaro's killing). They were immediately sentenced by Judge James B. Ruhl to life terms at the Ohio State Penitentiary. A successful legal appeal gave them a second chance, and they were both acquitted at retrial in November 1931.

Authorities briefly considered Lonardo a suspect when Rosario and Raymond Porrello and their bodyguard Dominic Mangino were murdered in February 1932.

Many years later, the seventy-seven-year-old Angelo "Big Ange" Lonardo, by then a former Cleveland Mafia underboss who had become a government informant, testified before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Early in his testimony, he matter-of-factly stated, "...My father was murdered by Salvatore Todaro in 1927. In revenge, my cousin, Dominic Sospirato, and I killed Todaro."

Sources:
  • Gentile, Nick, Vita di Capomafia, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963.
  • Neilsen, Sgt. William T., Criminal Complaint, Cleveland Police, June 11, 1929.
  • Porrello, Rick, The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: Corn Sugar and Blood, Fort Lee NJ: Barricade, 1995.
  • Reports of the Detective Bureau, Police Department of the City of Cleveland, Oct. 13-16, 1927; June 13, 1929; July 2, 1929.
  • United States Census of 1930.
  • United States Census of 1940.
  • Zicarelli, Det., Information report to Inspector of Detectives Cornelius W. Cody, Oct. 16, 1927, Nov. 16, 1929.
  • "2 brothers murdered in bootleg war," Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 14, 1927.
  • "Hits new lead in murder of two Lonardos," Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 15, 1927.
  • "Police seek gunman in yellow car," Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 1, 1928, p. 1.
  • "Seize gunman as suspect in Lupo murder," Cleveland Press, June 1, 1928, p. 1.
  • "Police hunt Lonardo, Jr. as slayer," Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 12, 1929.
  • "Lonardo's son indicted for feud killing," Cleveland Press, June 12, 1929.
  • "Bootleggers in Cleveland open warfare," Mansfield OH News-Journal, June 12, 1929, p. 1.
  • "Mrs. Lonardo indicted with son in murder," Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 13, 1929.
  • "Detectives see blackmail sign as murder clue," Akron OH Beacon Journal, June 13, 1929, p. 20.
  • "Slain 'baron' given gangster funeral," Cleveland Press, June 15, 1929.
  • "Royal burial," Wilmington OH News-Journal, June 17, 1929, p. 4.
  • "Mrs. Lonardo faces trial for murder," Akron OH Beacon Journal, Nov. 12, 1929, p. 29.
  • "Try woman for gang murder in Cleveland," Zanesville OH Times Recorder, Nov. 13, 1929, p. 3.
  • "Gang murder trial," Zanesville OH Times Recorder, Nov. 14, 1929, p. 1.
  • "Acquit Mrs. Lonardo of Todaro's murder," Mansfield OH News-Journal, Nov. 15, 1929, p. 19.
  • "Fails to get share of Lonardo estate," Akron OH Beacon Journal, Feb. 24, 1930, p. 23.
  • "Cleveland racketeers are under pen life sentence," Chillicothe OH Gazette, June 12, 1930, p. 1.
  • "Cleveland men found guilty," Mansfield OH News-Journal, June 12, 1930, p. 1.
  • "Extermination of gang about complete today," Piqua OH Daily Call, June 12, 1930, p. 1.
  • "United States Courts," Cincinnati Enquirer, July 19, 1930, p. 20.
  • "Marriage here basis of suit," Sandusky OH Register, July 22, 1930, p. 12.
  • Kenen, I.L., "Corn sugar racket has taken seven lives in Cleveland with five marked for death; once mighty Porello clan is tottering," Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 4, 1930, p. 13.
  • "Acquitted at retrial," Akron OH Beacon Journal, Nov. 25, 1931, p. 9.
  • "Free two convicts," East Liverpool OH Evening Review, Nov. 25, 1931, p. 11.
  • "Jail Lonardo in probe of feud killings," Cleveland Plain Dealer, Feb. 28, 1932.
  • Koziol, Ronald, "Jailed mob chief agrees to testify in casino trial," Chicago Tribune, Aug. 29, 1985, p. 10.
  • Culnan, Dennis, "Former boss calls Mafia disrespectful," Cincinnati Enquirer, April 16, 1988, p. A4.
Read more about Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro, Prohibition Era underworld murders and the Mafia organizations of the region in DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Volume I - to 1937 by Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona.

05 December 2016

Caught in Cleveland

On this date in 1928, Cleveland police discovered a convention of U.S. Mafiosi at the Hotel Statler on Euclid Avenue and East 12th Street. 

Scores of detectives and uniformed police officers quickly surrounded the hotel and raided rooms occupied by out-of-town visitors with Italian-sounding names. Twenty-three men were arrested as suspicious persons. Eighteen of them were found to be armed. Among the suspects were known crime figures from Chicago, New York, Buffalo, Tampa and St. Louis.

The sole representative of Buffalo was Salvatore "Sam" DiCarlo. The youngest son of western New York's earliest known Mafia boss, at the time Sam DiCarlo was a trusted member of Stefano Magaddino's underworld organization.

Fourteen of the twenty-three arrested men were photographed by police as a group. Giuseppe Profaci is at center, seated in a wheelchair due to a recent accident. Sam DiCarlo of Buffalo stands behind him. Joseph Magliocco is to the right of DiCarlo. Pasqualino Lolordo of Chicago is seated to the right of Profaci.

The others arrested on December 5, 1928, were Pasqualino Lolordo, Giuseppe Giunta, Frank Alo, Tony Bella, Emanuele Cammarata, James Intravia, Sam Oliveri and Giuseppe Sacco from Chicago;  Giuseppe Profaci, Giuseppe Magliocco, Vincenzo Mangano, Giuseppe Traina, Andrea Lombardino, Salvatore Lombardino, Giuseppe Palermo and Michael Russo from New York and New Jersey; Ignazio Italiano and Giuseppe Vaglica from Tampa; Giovanni Mirabella and Calogero SanFilippo from St. Louis; Paul Palazzola of Gary, Indiana; and Sam Tilocco of Cleveland. (The suspects gave various stories to explain their presence in Cleveland. Officials accepted only the tales told by Mangano and Traina, and those two Mafia leaders were quickly released. The rest were interrogated by police and immigration officials and then arraigned.)

Portsmouth OH Daily Times, Dec. 5, 1928.

Police expressed their certainty that other organized criminals were staying elsewhere in the city. Rumors indicated that Chicago's Al Capone had been seen in the area.

Local authorities believed they had broken up a meeting called to settle feuds over Prohibition Era corn sugar, a necessary commodity for moonshining operations. They were mistaken. The bloody corn-sugar wars of the Cleveland underworld already had been resolved.

Some historians have suggested, quite wrongly, that the Cleveland gathering was the first formative convention of the U.S. Mafia (a number of writers have referred to the criminal society as the "Unione Siciliana"). Actually, a national Mafia network had been in place for many years, and meetings of Mafiosi occurred fairly regularly.

Masseria
Other explanations have been offered. Some say that the convention was called to reallocate underworld rackets following recent gangland assassinations, to resolve underworld disagreements in Chicago or to recognize the ascension of Profaci to the rank of family boss. However, local or regional issues would not warrant the calling of a national convention. It appears far more likely that the convention's purpose was to recognize the U.S. Mafia's new boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria.

At war with reigning boss of bosses Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila since the dawn of the Prohibition Era, Masseria had assembled the strongest and wealthiest crime family in the country. The recent murder of D'Aquila on a Manhattan street left Masseria's appointment as boss of bosses a mere formality. Though Masseria's own home base was in New York City, many of his kin resided in Cleveland, and Masseria allies in Cleveland had recently defeated a pro-D'Aquila faction there. The city would have been an entirely appropriate selection for a Masseria coronation.

Critics of this view note that Masseria and his allies were not among those taken into custody at the Hotel Statler. Of course, with much of his family in the area, there would have been no reason for Masseria to stay at any hotel. And police publicly expressed their disappointment that the hasty raid at the Statler allowed other conventioneers to get away.

Read more about the 1928 Mafia convention in Cleveland and other Cleveland underworld events in:

12 January 2019

Cali cops called for Caddy corpse

Cleveland-connected
killer confesses


Petro
On this date in 1969...

On Sunday, Jan. 12, 1969, police found a dead man behind the wheel of a '66 Cadillac convertible parked in the Los Angeles International Airport lot. There was a small-caliber bullet wound at the base of the man's skull. The man had been dead for a couple of days.

A local resident, departing the airport Saturday for a one-day flight, parked near the Cadillac and noticed the driver slumped over the steering wheel. When the resident returned Sunday night and found the Cadillac and its driver in the same position, he alerted police.

No identifying papers were found on the body. Police used fingerprints to identify the victim as forty-six-year-old former Cleveland robber/safecracker Julius Petro. They learned that Petro had borrowed the Cadillac from a woman friend two days earlier.

Petro had survived at least two brushes with death during his young adult years in Ohio. He was sentenced to be executed for murder, but won a retrial on appeal and in 1948 was acquitted of that murder. Months later, he and four accomplices held up the Mafia-linked Green Acres casino outside of Youngstown, Ohio. The robbers took about $30,000 in cash and jewels, including a large diamond ring belonging to regional gambling boss Joseph DiCarlo. Shots were exchanged between the robbers and casino guards. Petro suffered gunshot wounds to his right chest and arm, but managed to recover.

An early 1950s bank robbery conviction sent Petro to prison for about thirteen years. Following his May 1966 release, he joined a wave of Cleveland-area racketeers relocating to California. Initially serving as an enforcer for a gambling operation, in a short time Petro was viewed as a threat to displace racket overseer John G. "Sparky" Monica. The killing of Petro eliminated that threat.

Ferritto
Authorities were unable to solve the Petro murder until about a decade later, when Raymond W. Ferritto became an informant and confessed that he performed the killing for Monica. He said he shot Petro on January 10, 1969. Ferritto, a western Pennsylvania native connected with the Cleveland Mafia, also confessed to participating in the 1977 bombing murder of Cleveland mobster Danny Greene.

Monica denied any involvement, but he was indicted for hiring Ferritto and a man named Robert Walsh to kill Petro because Petro was extorting money from him. Prosecutors seeking to bring the gambling boss to trial encountered a number of obstacles that delayed for years a preliminary hearing in the case. A Monica arraignment was finally set for Monday, February 22, 1982. Just a few days before that, however, fifty-six-year-old Monica, free on bail, died in a traffic accident on US-70 near Tularosa, New Mexico.

Investigators were able to track some of Monica's movements and guessed that he was returning from a visit to a girlfriend in Odessa, Texas, when the highway accident occurred.

Sources:
  • “Petro, freed in killing, is found shot,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 18, 1948.
  • "Reputed Mafia figure," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 1982, p. 35.
  • California Death Index.
  • Demaris, Ovid, The Last Mafioso, New York: Bantam Books, 1981.
  • Dye, Lee, “Parolee’s murder mystifies police,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1969, p. 1
  • Farr, Bill, “’Hit man’ admits murder at airport,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1978, p. 5
  • Hazlett, Bill, "1969 gangland slaying case headed for trial," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8, 1982, p. II-6.
  • Hazlett, Bill, "Judge to appeal closed hearing order," Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1979, p. II-4.
  • Hertel, Howard, and Gene Blake, "Reputed Mafia chief defies court, jailed," Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1969, p. 1.
  • Hunt, Thomas, and Michael A. Tona, DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Volume II, 2013.
  • "Fatal wreck adds twist to murder," El Paso Times, March 17, 1982, p. 11.
  • Petro v. United States, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Feb. 12, 1954. (Also Joseph J. Sanzo v. U.S.)
  • Porrello, Rick, Superthief, Next Hat Press, 2006.
  • Porrello, Rick, To Kill the Irishman, Next Hat Press, 1998.
  • Social Security Death Index.
See also:

17 July 2022

Car-bomb takes Youngstown rackets chief

On this date in 1961...

Minutes after midnight on Monday, July 17, 1961, the "Uptown" (South Side) business district of Youngstown, Ohio, was shaken by the explosion of a car-bomb. The blast claimed the life of rackets boss Vincent DeNiro.


Vehicle wreck removed from scene of explosion.

In addition to controlling vending machine, lottery and other rackets as the local representative of the Cleveland Mafia, the thirty-nine-year-old DeNiro co-owned Cicero's restaurant at Market Street and Indianola Avenue, across the street from the explosion.

Cicero's was closed on Sunday. DeNiro had a late dinner that night with friends at the Cafe 422 near Warren. At midnight, his companions - pizza restaurant owner Robert Parella and jeweler James Modarelli - drove DeNiro to a parked car on Market Street. The car belonged to a DeNiro girlfriend, Edith Magnolia. DeNiro's own car was parked behind Parella's pizza shop just a few blocks away, but he chose to drive Magnolia's car that night because he feared a car-bomb attack. (FBI was later told that DeNiro's enemies knew he was using different vehicles and had wired explosives to three different automobiles that night.)

DeNiro

The bomb erupted as he started the car at eleven minutes after twelve. The strength of the blast was said to be equivalent to ten sticks of dynamite. The hood of DeNiro's car was blown onto the roof of a nearby one and a half-story building. Windows around the business district were shattered. DeNiro's body was torn to pieces in the explosion. There was no autopsy.

The press reported that it was the seventy-fifth bombing in the Youngstown area in a decade and the fifth gangland murder in less than two years.

DeNiro was killed in retribution for the shotgun slaying of Youngstown's leading Pittsburgh-aligned racketeer, S. Joseph "Sandy" Naples in March 1960. Naples and DeNiro, once partners in the rackets, had become bitter rivals since the early 1950s. The brothers of Naples hired Dominick Moio of Canton, Ohio, to arrange the killing of DeNiro.

Moio was later hired by the Cleveland Mafia to set up the vendetta car-bomb murder of Billy Naples in 1962. Moio played for both sides in the feud until summer of 1963, when Cleveland bosses decided he was a liability. Moio's remains - shot and burned - were found in the trunk of his car outside of Canton.


Note: The November 2022 issue of Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement will contain more on DeNiro, his associates and the underworld history of the Youngstown area.


Sources:

  • "Bomb leads checked at Youngstown," Dayton Daily News, July 18, 1961, p. 7.
    "Fifth gang killing in Youngstown," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 18, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Gangland bomb kills Vince DeNiro; DiSalle assigns Melillo to probe," Youngstown Vindicator, July 17, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Naples murder gun owned by Canton police," Youngstown Vindicator, March 16, 1960, p. 1.
  • "Police quiz associates of slain Ohio racketeer," Chillicothe OH Gazette, July 18, 1961, p. 5.
  • "Rackets figure blown to bits," Sandusky OH Register, July 17, 1961, p. 1.
    "Won't enter Youngstown slaying probe yet -- Di Salle," Akron Beacon Journal, March 13, 1960, p. C1. 
  • "Youngstown night club owner killed by bomb," New Philadelphia OH Daily Times, July 17, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Youngstown slaying stirs Di Salle action," Akron Beacon Journal, July 18, 1961, p. 17.
  • Perkins, Zach, "Remembering Uptown (Part One)," Urban Youngstown, urbanyoungstown.weebly.com.
  • Peterson, Stanley E., "Unknown subjects: Bombing - Murder, Charles Cavallaro...," FBI report from Cleveland office, file no. CR 157-742-498, NARA no. 124-10220-10492, Sept. 9, 1964, p. Cover-S.

27 March 2019

Buffalo mobster Sam DiCarlo dies in Florida

On this date in 1987...

Sam DiCarlo
Retired Buffalo Mafia member Sam DiCarlo, brother of the notorious Joseph DiCarlo, died March 27, 1987, in Miami, Florida, at the age of 82. While often in the shadow of his better known brother, Sam DiCarlo was an influential underworld leader and participated in some of the more important Mafia events in U.S. history.

Born Salvatore DiCarlo on April 2, 1904, he was the fourth child (third son, after Francesco and Giuseppe/Joseph Jr.) of Giuseppe and Vincenza Grasso DiCarlo of Vallelunga, Sicily.

At the age of two, "Sam" crossed the Atlantic with his mother and siblings. Giuseppe DiCarlo had made the trip the previous September, settling in a New York City colony of Vallelunghesi that included the related Mistretta, Muscarella and Bonasera clans. Giuseppe was late meeting his family at Ellis Island, and the first meal eaten in America by Vincenza and her children was the boxed lunch provided by the immigration center.

The family lived briefly in Brooklyn and then moved in 1907 to Manhattan's East Harlem. Giuseppe DiCarlo commuted to work at a Manzella grocery business, 190 Elizabeth Street, between Spring and Prince Streets. Giuseppe was friendly with Pasquale Enea and Isidoro Crocevera, associates of local Mafia leader Giuseppe Morello. In summer 1908, apparently with the blessing of Morello, Giuseppe DiCarlo became boss of the Mafia organization in Buffalo, New York (he had been a regular visitor to the city since March 1907), and resettled his family there.

Giuseppe DiCarlo
The Buffalo area was home to large numbers of Sicilian immigrants from the inland Vallelunga-Valledolmo area (where the provinces of Palermo and Caltanissetta meet) and the coastal city of Castellammare del Golfo (province of Trapani). Castellammarese Mafioso Benedetto Angelo Palmeri, likely a Giuseppe DiCarlo acquaintance from their time in New York City, soon moved into Buffalo and became a key figure in the DiCarlo underworld administration. (Palmeri later married into the Mistretta family, relatives of Vincenza Grasso DiCarlo.)

Sam and the other DiCarlo children grew up in comfort, thanks to their father's position. But the family was not immune to tragedy. Francesco just reached the age of eighteen when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in January 1917. He died of the disease in March 1918. The following year, Vincenza, age forty-six, died following cancer surgery.

Sam was in his early teens when brother Joseph (four and a half years older than Sam) became an aide to their father in the early days of Prohibition. Joseph was involved in a shooting incident in August 1920 that left one man dead and one man wounded. The wounded man was Vincent Vaccaro, connected with local Black Hand extortion rackets. The dead man was eventually identified as Giuseppe DiCarlo's old friend Isidoro Crocevera. Police pieced together enough about the incident to decide that it was related to a squabble over bootlegging proceeds. Joseph DiCarlo was charged with first-degree assault in the shooting of Vaccaro. Vaccaro's brother Anthony was charged with Crocevera's murder. Witnesses refused to cooperate with authorities, and the charges were later dropped.

Sam got into trouble with the law at about the same time. At the age of sixteen, he and a nineteen-year-old friend were arrested for assaulting two young women. Charges were dismissed.

Joe DiCarlo
Giuseppe DiCarlo died July 9, 1922, at the age of forty-eight. The cause of death was reported as acute pulmonary edema. Ill (and likely depressed) for years, with diabetes and heart and kidney problems, he had recently pulled out of a number of legitimate businesses and spent his time at a "country home" in Bowmansville, New York. His death left the Mafia of western New York leaderless.

Sam was eighteen and Joseph was twenty-two. Buffalo Mafia leaders considered installing Joseph as the new boss, but decided he did not have the maturity for the position. Angelo Palmeri was given the nod instead, perhaps as a sort of regent for Joseph. Joseph's path toward the top spot in the organization set up by his father was blocked by the Buffalo arrival of Stefano Magaddino later in 1922. Palmeri turned power over to the more senior Castellammarese Mafioso.

Joseph viewed Magaddino as a rival and an obstacle and spent the rest of his life trying to build an underworld organization of his own. Sam DiCarlo, however, seemed to have an easier time finding his place in a crime family run by Magaddino. He became a Magaddino ambassador, representing his boss at national Mafia events.

During his underworld career, Sam DiCarlo was arrested twice at Mafia conventions. The arrests helped to reveal the interstate nature of organized crime many years before the famous gathering at Apalachin, New York.

Sam DiCarlo
Sam was arrested along with more than twenty other Mafiosi from around the country at the Cleveland Statler Hotel in December of 1928. That gathering, held following the New York murders of Mafia boss of bosses Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila and Brooklyn leader Frank "Yale" Ioele, was probably intended as a coronation of the Mafia's new supreme arbiter, Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. (Some disagree with this view, noting that Masseria and his known associates were not among those arrested at the Statler Hotel. But, with Masseria kin living in Cleveland, his presence among the out-of-town visitors at the hotel would have been odd.)

In the summer of 1932, Sam DiCarlo was found with gathered Mafiosi from around the country in New York City. At the time, Sam was free on bail pending his appeal of a year-and-a-day federal sentence for interstate transport and possession of a stolen automobile. He was taken into custody as New York police investigated the ice pick murder of visiting Pittsburgh crime boss John Bazzano. A loose-cannon in the Mafia, Bazzano had recently ordered the killing of several Neapolitan associates, apparently as a form of ethnic cleansing in his underworld organization. Bazzano was called to New York by Mafia higher-ups to answer charges. His answer was deemed insufficient, and he was executed.

Magaddino
Sam's appeals kept him out of federal prison long enough to attend the summer 1933 wedding of his sister Sarah to Cassandro "Tony the Chief" Bonasera. A member of the Brooklyn-based Profaci (later Colombo) Crime Family, Bonasera was one of the Mafiosi rounded up following the murder of Bazzano.

Frustrated by Magaddino's increasing power and influence in western New York, Joseph DiCarlo began to search for greener pastures. In the mid-1940s, he established himself as leader of gambling operations in the City of Youngstown, Ohio. He was assisted in that role by his brother Sam, two brothers-in-law of the Pieri family and John "Peanuts" Tronolone (later Mafia boss of Cleveland). The DiCarlo brothers within a few years also involved themselves in gambling rackets in Miami Beach, Florida.

These rackets were exposed through the Kefauver Committee hearings of the early 1950s. Sam DiCarlo and John Tronolone were arrested together at a Miami Beach barbecue restaurant on New Year's Eve, 1953. They were charged with running a gambling house, gambling and bookmaking. Joseph DiCarlo was arrested a few days later.

John "Peanuts" Tronolone and Joseph DiCarlo

The U.S. Senate's McClellan Committee opened hearings into organized crime in summer of 1958. As it did so, it published the names of 135 individuals who were found to be attendees or associates of attendees of the November 1957 Apalachin meeting. Joseph and Sam DiCarlo were included on that list.

Sam DiCarlo, in his mid-fifties, seems to have made it a point to avoid public scrutiny following the McClellan Committee revelations.

The underworld career of his big brother Joseph was far from over. In the late 1960s, Joseph DiCarlo returned to Buffalo to aid and advise the Pieri faction in a revolt. Under the leadership of Sam Pieri and Joseph DiCarlo, the Mafia organization within the City of Buffalo broke away from the regional Mafia of western New York commanded from the Niagara Falls area by Stefano Magaddino. Diminished in power and influence, Magaddino died after a heart attack in 1974.

Sam DiCarlo was the longest-lived of his siblings. Sarah DiCarlo Bonasera died October 19, 1975, in Brooklyn at the age of seventy-three. After more than a decade as consigliere of the Buffalo Crime Family he helped build, Joseph DiCarlo died Oct. 11, 1980, at the age of 80.

A resident patient of the Four Freedoms Manor facility in Miami, Sam DiCarlo died at the age of eighty-two following a stroke.

Read much more about the DiCarlos, 
Magaddino and the Mafia 
of western New York in:


DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime - Vol. 1, to 1937, by Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona.


DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime - Vol. 2, from 1938, by Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona.

10 June 2017

Youngstown racketeer Farah killed at his home


On this date in 1961: Mike Farah, 56, was practicing his golf swing outside his Warren, Ohio, home, when gunshots from a gray-green Chevrolet cut him down. 

Mike Farah
Two or three shotgun blasts were fired. Farah's hip was badly damaged and some of the fired shot penetrated the side of his abdomen. His 16-year-old daughter Grace witnessed the shooting. She said the Chevrolet pulled up to the curb, about 30 feet from where her father was standing. Shotguns were fired from the rear seat of the vehicle, and it then sped away around a corner toward Youngstown, Ohio.

Farah dragged himself into the house, and an ambulance was summoned to take him to the nearby hospital. About two hours later, Farah died of internal bleeding.

Police found the Chevrolet abandoned just a half mile from Farah's home. They determined that it had been stolen from Canton three months earlier.

Mike Farah was known to authorities as the former part-owner (with his brother John and Tony Delsanter) of the Jungle Inn gambling casino, in Liberty township, just outside of Youngstown. James "Jack White" Licavoli, Cleveland-based Mafia leader, also appeared to hold an interest in the establishment. (Licavoli was known to have partnered with Mike Farah in the Girard Novelty Company in Niles and the Triangle Novelty Company in Warren.) The casino, opened following the repeal of Prohibition, proved itself impervious to law enforcement until the late 1940s, when the Ohio governor sent in agents from the state liquor control board. The Jungle Inn was closed after a raid in 1949.

Authorities in the region believed that Farah continued to be involved in racketeering, though he insisted that he was retired. He was charged with assault with intent to kill following an attack against Trumbull County Republican chairman and Board of Elections member Jean Blair in June 1959. In that case, he was convicted on a lesser charge of assault and battery and was sentenced to four months in county jail, a $200 fine and court costs. He did not begin serving that sentence until his the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.

Farah served two and a half months of the sentence before being released on March 31, 1961. Common Pleas Judge G.H. Birrell granted Farah's freedom in consideration of his good behavior while behind bars.

The Jungle Inn
Before "retirement," Farah had been imprisoned on racketeering charges (later pardoned by the governor) and for operating a still.

The Farah murder was counted as the fourth in a series of shootings in Mahoning and Trumbull counties dating back just over a year. The first was Joseph "Sandy" Naples, killed along with his girlfriend on the front porch of her home. Joseph Romano was struck by a shotgun blast but survived. He said he could not identify the shooters. "Big John" Schuller was shotgunned to death while fixing a tire on his car at the side of the highway. Authorities determined that the tire had been rigged to go flat. Additional murders of underworld figures would follow in the very near future.

Rumors indicated that the shootings were part of an effort by Cleveland mobsters to take direct control of gambling operations in the Youngstown area.

Sources:
  • "Motion filed by Mike Farah for new trial," Dover OH Daily Reporter, Jan. 6, 1961, p. 12.
  • "Warren rackets figure released," Salem OH News, April 1, 1961, p. 8.
  • "Around Ohio," Akron OH Beacon Journal, April 1, 1961, p. 19.
  • "Ohio mobster slain in own front yard," Pittsburgh Press, June 11, 1961, p. 7.
  • "Racketeer Farah slain in Warren," Akron OH Beacon Journal, June 10, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Warren racket boss Mike Farah slain by gunmen," Salem OH News, June 10, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Youngstown racketeer fatally shot," Chillicothe OH Gazette, June 10, 1961, p. 1.
  • "Clues sought in murder of rackets boss," Sandusky OH Register, June 12, 1961, p. 7.
  • "Purple gang member quizzed on slayings," Sandusky OH Register, Aug. 1, 1961, p. 1.
Youngstown-area organized crime was the focus of the November 2022 issue of Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement. The issue contains more on Farah and other regional racketeers.

06 August 2018

Unlucky date for Steel City underworld bosses

August 6 has been a bad date
to be a Pittsburgh Mafia boss.

On that date in 1929, thirty-nine-year-old underworld chief Stefano Monastero was murdered as he went to visit an ailing henchman at St. John's General Hospital on Pittsburgh's North Side. 



Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Calogero Spallino (also known as Sparlino), free on bail as he awaited trial for an attempt on the life of Monastero rival Joe "Ghost of the Hill" Pangallo, went into St. John's for appendix surgery. Stefano Monastero drove to the hospital in an armored automobile, featuring steel plating and three-quarter-inch bulletproof glass windows. But he had to leave the protection of the vehicle to enter the building. When he emerged, shotguns erupted from a nearby parked car.

Pangallo
Monastero was knocked down by the shots. One of his assailants then approached with a handgun and fired into the boss's head to finish the job. The murder remained unsolved, but Joe Pangallo was generally believed responsible.

Stefano Monastero rose to power about 1925, assuming control of a regional underworld network in western Pennsylvania assembled largely by the linked Calderone and Landolina families. Monastero and his older brother Salvatore ran a produce business but earned considerably greater income through North Side stores that provided ingredients and equipment for bootleggers. Monastero had been fighting a gang war with Pangallo since about 1927. (In September of that year, the local press reported on a car bombing that threw Pangallo twenty feet into the air but failed to kill him.)

Monastero's Mafia pedigree was noteworthy. He was the son of Pietro Monastero, a Caccamo native who was among those charged with the 1890 Mafia murder of Police Chief David Hennessy in New Orleans. Stefano Monastero was very young, living with his mother and brothers in Sicily, when Pietro Monastero was killed by a lynch mob at Orleans Parish Prison in 1891. The family relocated to New Orleans following Pietro's killing and moved from city to city in the U.S. before settling in the Pittsburgh area.

On the same date three years later, recently installed Pittsburgh boss John Bazzano was called to a meeting of the nation's Mafia leaders on Hicks Street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. He was to answer for his involvement in the recent murders of Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, racketeers John, James and Arthur Volpe. Bazzano did not leave the August 6, 1932, meeting alive.

Pittsburgh Press
The Volpes, under the protection of New York underworld power Vito Genovese, were gunned down within Bazzano's Rome Coffee Shop on Pittsburgh's Wylie Avenue on July 29. Genovese, suspecting that the Volpes were victims of an anti-Neapolitan conspiracy among Calabrian and Sicilian Mafiosi in Pittsburgh, New York and Cleveland (including Bazzano and Nick Gentile in Pittsburgh; Albert Anastasia, Joe Biondo and Vincenzo Mangano in New York; Frank Milano in Cleveland), assembled the disciplinary hearing for Bazzano.

During the meeting, the forty-four-year-old Bazzano did not deny responsibility for the murders of the Volpes. Instead, he called on other Mafia leaders to join in a war to exterminate the Neapolitans in their organization.

Bazzano's words and recent deeds presented a threat to the still-shaky underworld alliances that emerged from the bloody Castellammarese War concluded one year earlier. His punishment was immediate. He was gagged and tied with rope, while his body was punctured more than twenty times with ice picks. Some of the wounds reached his heart, causing a fatal hemorrhage. The body was found August 8, wrapped in burlap near the intersection of Centre and Clinton Streets in Red Hook. It could not be identified until relatives from Pittsburgh arrived in New York looking for Bazzano.

Authorities subsequently learned of an assembly of U.S. Mafiosi at New York City and rounded up fourteen underworld figures from Brooklyn (Albert Anastasia, John Oddo, Cassandro Bonasera, Ciro Gallo, Joseph Traina) and Buffalo, New York (Paul Palmeri, Salvatore DiCarlo); Pittsburgh (Calogero Spallino, Michael Bua, Michael Russo, Frank Adrano) and Pittston, Pennsylvania (Santo Volpe, Angelo Polizzi); Trenton, New Jersey (Peter Lombardo). The suspects, represented by attorney Samuel Leibowitz, were quickly released for lack of evidence.

More on these subjects:

01 November 2022

November 2022 issue of Informer

The Mob in Youngstown

Organized Crime in the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys

Informer's 32nd issue was released today (Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022). "The Mob in Youngstown" issue tracks the history of organized crime in the area of Youngstown, Ohio, from the earliest reports of the 1890s though the exposure and destruction of the Mob presence more than a century later. 

The Youngstown underworld was unusually complex, as four Mafia organizations - those from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo - a non-Mafia Calabrian criminal society and other gangs all had interests in the region, cooperating and competing with each other at different times. Sitting at the approximate midway point between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, assigned "open city" status by U.S. Mafia bosses and afflicted by intensely corrupt political and law enforcement leaders, Youngstown was an underworld frontier where the rules - even those made by outlaws to govern their own interactions - were widely ignored.

Readers of this issue will learn about the secret regional groups behind names like, "Society of Honor," "Sacred Circle" and "Society of the Banana." They will encounter crime figures like "Fats" Aiello, Ernie Biondillo, Frank Cammarata, "Cadillac Charlie" Cavallaro, Joe Cutrone, "Tony Dope" Delsanter, Vince DeNiro, "Wolf" DiCarlo, "Big Jim" Falcone, Mike Farah, "Red" Giordano, "Big Dom" Mallamo, Dominick Moio, "Two-Gun Jimmy" Prato, Rocco Racco, Rocco Strange, Lenny Strollo, "Zebo" Zottola, as well as the Barber brothers, the Carabbia brothers, the Naples brothers, the Romeo brothers and many more.

"The Mob in Youngstown" features the writing and research contributions of James Barber, Justin Cascio, Margaret Janco, Thom L. Jones, Michael A. Tona, Edmond Valin and Thomas Hunt.

The issue is available in Informer's traditional print magazine (188 pages, including covers) and electronic PDF magazine formats through the MagCloud service.

Like recent issues, this one is also available as a paperback print book (378 pages) and Kindle-compatible ebook through Amazon and as an EPUB-compatible ebook through Google Play Books.

This November 2022 issue is the first Informer issue to be made available as a hardcover print book (378 pages) through Amazon and as an audiobook (10 hours: 22 minutes) through Google Play Books.

For more information on the issue, summaries of its articles and details of the different format options, visit the Informer website. Informer, a journal of U.S. crime and law enforcement history, has been published since September 2008.


26 January 2019

Awaiting airport arrival, Lucky departs

On this date in 1962...


Longtime Mafia leader Salvatore "Charlie Luciano" Lucania, sixty-four, died January 26, 1962, of an apparent heart attack at Capodichino Airport north of Naples, Italy.

Lucania was at the airport to meet movie producer Martin Gosch and discuss a Gosch script for a Mafia-related movie.

Gosch later suggested, without providing any evidence, that Lucania had dictated his life story to Gosch. Gosch and Richard Hammer authored a book, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, that was packaged as Lucania's memoirs. The book was released in 1975, after Gosch's death. The book's publisher, Little, Brown & Company, claimed in advertisements that Last Testament was based upon tape-recorded conversations with Lucania. The publisher later issued a correction, revealing that no such recordings were ever made. Little, Brown & Company followed up with a claim that a collection of Gosch's original notes - seen by no one connected with the project and allegedly burned by his widow after his death - was based upon thirty interviews of Lucania by the producer between 1959 and 1962. Over time, the story was altered to suggest that Gosch provided handwritten notes to Hammer or provided his own recorded dictation of his original notes to Hammer. It was later discovered that Last Testament contained factual errors on matters that would have been well known to Lucania and also was built upon quotations attributed to Lucania that were fabricated by Hammer. An FBI investigation of Gosch labeled the producer an untrustworthy opportunist trying to profit from his association with Lucania. FBI records reveal that Gosch told a representative of the FBI that his movie script, the only product of his interaction with Lucania, was a work of fiction. The Bureau dismissed the Gosch and Hammer book as a fraud, stating, "It is not believed that this book has any value to the FBI, or to anyone else for that matter." (Richard N. Warner's detailed analysis of the book was published in the April 2012 issue of Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement.)

United States Narcotics Bureau agents and Italian law enforcement had been trailing Lucania, known to many as "Lucky Luciano," believing that he was an organizer of an international narcotics smuggling ring. They were preparing to arrest him at the time of his death.

NY Daily News
Gosch reached Lucania as he collapsed. Knowing that Lucania had a heart condition, he searched the Mafia leader's pockets for pills. Finding a small box of pills, he put one into Lucania's mouth. Observers found the activity suspicious, and there were persistent rumors that Lucania was poisoned. Police questioned Gosch for about five hours. The producer said he first met Lucania in 1960 and was working on a movie about Lucania's life.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Lucania was born to Salvatore and Rosalia Lucania in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, in November of 1897. He was brought to the U.S. as a child around 1905. His family settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Lucania attended public school until sixth grade. He got into some trouble as a teenager and was sent for a time to Brooklyn Truant School. In 1916, he was convicted of a narcotics offense (sale of morphine) and served a sentence at the New Hampton Farms Reformatory.

NY Times
Following his release, he participated in gambling rackets and continued involvement in narcotics sales. He became an associate of Jack "Legs" Diamond and Arnold Rothstein and, later, of Manhattan Mafia boss Giuseppe Masseria. As Masseria reached the position of boss of bosses, Lucania was his top lieutenant.

Lucania and other members of Masseria's organization betrayed their boss at the end of the underworld's 1930-31 Castellammarese War and set him up for assassination in spring 1931. Lucania took over the Masseria operation. Months later, he arranged the assassination of another Mafia boss of bosses, Salvatore Maranzano. With Lucania's backing, the U.S. Mafia discarded the old boss of bosses system of resolving inter-family disputes and installed a representative panel known as the Commission.

Lucania was convicted of compulsory prostitution in 1936. He testified in the trial and was forced to admit past crimes and lies told to authorities. He was sentenced to serve thirty to fifty years in prison. He was released from prison on a conditional executive commutation from Governor Thomas Dewey and deported from the U.S. to Italy in 1946. His release and deportation were arranged after a former member of the Office of Naval Intelligence vaguely claimed that the imprisoned Lucania rendered assistance to U.S. forces during World War II.

Wishing to be closer to his longtime home, his associates and his lucrative rackets, Lucania traveled back across the Atlantic and settled in Havana, Cuba, in autumn 1946. Pressure by U.S. agencies on the Cuban government succeeded in forcing him back to Italy March of 1947.

During his years in Italy, Lucania reportedly hoped to someday return to the U.S. His return occurred only after his death. His remains were transported by plane from Rome to New York City in February 1962. He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York.

Sources:

  • Anderson, Jack, "The Last Days of Lucky Luciano," Parade, June 17, 1962.
  • Dewey, Thomas E., Twenty Against the Underworld, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1974.
  • FBI cablegram to Director, Charles "Lucky" Luciano FBI file, Jan. 26, 1962.
  • Feder, Sid, and Joachim Joesten, The Luciano Story, New York: Da Capo Press, 1994 (originally published in 1954).
  • Gage, Nicholas, "F.B.I. tells agents not to trust book on Luciano," New York Times, March 14, 1975, p. 30.
  • Gage, Nicholas, "Questions are raised on Lucky Luciano book," New York Times, Dec. 17, 1974, p. 1.
  • Lewis, Norman, The Honored Society, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964.
  • Packard, Reynolds, "V-King Luciano's luck runs out: drops dead," New York Daily News, Jan. 27, 1962.
  • Poulsen, Ellen, The Case Against Lucky Luciano: New York's Most Sensational Vice Trial, Little Neck, NY: Clinton Cook Publishing, 2007.
  • Powell, Hickman, Lucky Luciano: The Man Who Organized Crime in America, New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006 (reprint of 1939 work).
  • "Publisher of book on Luciano says it was based on interviews," New York Times, Jan. 21, 1975, p. 46.
  • Receiving blotter, Chas. Luciano, no. 92168, Sing Sing Prison, June 18, 1936.
  • Rosen, A., "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano parole," FBI memorandum to E.A. Tamm, April 3, 1946.
  • Rosen, A., "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, was miscellaneous information," FBI memorandum to E.A. Tamm, Feb. 10, 1947.
  • Rosen, A., "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano's parole and deportation," FBI memorandum to E.A. Tamm, March 6, 1946.
  • The People of the State of New York against Charles Luciano, et al., Record on Appeal, Volume III, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division - First Department, 1937
  • Vizzini, Sal, with Oscar Fraley and Marshall Smith, Vizzini: The Story of America's No, 1 Undercover Narcotics Agent, New York: Pinnacle, 1972.
  • Whitman, Alden, "Publisher to go ahead with Luciano book," New York Times, Dec. 27, 1974, p. 23.
  • "'Lucky' Luciano succumbs' was underworld czar," Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle, Jan. 27, 1962, p. 1.
  • "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, information concerning," FBI memo, Feb. 19, 1962.
  • "Charles Luciana, with aliases," FBI memorandum, file no. 39-2141-X, Aug. 28, 1935, p. 4, 5.
  • "Charles Luciano, Anti-Racketeering," translations of Italian language articles appearing in the Jan. 11, Jan. 18 and Jan. 25, 1959, issues of L'Europeo magazine, FBI memo, Feb. 18, 1959.
  • "In the end 'Lucky' Luciano was not really so terribly lucky after all," Bridgeport CT Sunday Post, Feb. 4, 1962, p. 14.
  • "Lucania is forced to admit crimes," New York Times, June 4, 1936, p. 1.
  • "Luciano dies at 65; was facing arrest," New York Times, Jan. 27, 1962, p. 1.
  • "Luciano dies of seizure," Poughkeepsie Journal, Jan. 26, 1962, p. 1.
  • "Luciano's links to underworld investigated by Italian agents," New York Times, Jan. 28, 1962, p. 66.
  • "Salvatore Lucania...," FBI report Albany 100-5170, Oct. 16, 1942.
  • "Salvatore Lucania...," FBI report NY 62-8768, file no. 39-2141-9, May 5, 1946
  • "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," FBI memorandum to Mr. Cleveland, Oct. 2, 1974.

28 September 2017

White Sox players indicted for throwing Series

On this date (Sept. 28) in 1920, eight players on the Chicago White Sox baseball team were indicted by a Cook County, Illinois, grand jury for conspiracy to commit an unlawful act. The eight were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series (five games to three) to the Cincinnati Reds in what became known as the Black Sox scandal.

Following the indictments, prosecutors tried to locate former featherweight prizefighter Abe Attel, believed to be the link between the players and a gambling syndicate that made payoffs to players and benefited financially from bets on the longshot Reds. At the time, the New York-based Atell, reputedly an associate of Arnold Rothstein and "Legs" Diamond, threatened to release a damaging story with regard to the fixing of the World Series but denied he had a role in it. A Rothstein representative told the press that Rothstein was approached about entering into a conspiracy but refused to take part.

Chicago Tribune, Sept. 29, 1920

Two of the indicted players confessed to the conspiracy. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte admitted he received $10,000 from the agent of a gambling syndicate for his role in throwing the series. Outfielder "Shoeless Joe" Jackson confessed to investigators that he received $5,000. Jackson said he asked for $20,000 but was paid the lesser amount through pitcher "Lefty" Williams.

The others indicted were:

  • Oscar "Happy" Felsch, centerfielder;
  • Arnold "Chick" Gandil, first baseman;
  • Fred McMullin, utility;
  • Charles "Swede" Risberg, shortstop;
  • Claude "Lefty" Williams, pitcher;
  • George "Buck" Weaver, third baseman.

New York Tribune, Sept. 29, 1920.

Cicotte met with White Sox owner Charles "Commy" Comiskey in the morning before he testified to the grand jury, and confessed to him. "I don't know what you'll think of me, but I got to tell you how I double-crossed you," Cicotte told the team owner. "I did double-cross you. I'm a crook. I got $10,000 for being a crook."

The pitcher reportedly told grand jurors that Risberg, Gandil and McMullin pressured him for a week before the World Series started: "They wanted me to go crooked... I needed the money. I had the wife and the kids. The wife and kids don't know this. I don't know what they'll think. I bought a farm. There was a $4,000 mortgage on it. There isn't any mortgage on it now. I paid it off with the crooked money."

The Sun and NY Herald, Sept. 29, 1920

Late in 1920, baseball team owners decided that a new central authority was needed for the sport. They voted to install federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner of baseball. Negotiations over the authority of the office continued into early 1921. Ultimately, Landis was given complete power over all the participants in the sport's major and minor leagues.

Before the 1921 baseball season began, Landis put the eight accused White Sox players on a list that made them ineligible to participate in professional baseball at any level.

In the summer of 1921, the eight defendants were brought to trial. Signed confessions of Cicotte and Jackson could not be located and the two players recanted. All of the accused players were found not guilty. There was widespread belief that jury acquittal would be followed by reinstatement in baseball.

One day after the August verdict, Landis announced that his decision on the players' ineligibility was final:

Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball... Regardless of the verdict of juries, baseball is entirely competent to protect itself against crooks, both inside and outside the game.

(When Cicotte attempted to arrange a semi-professional exhibition game in Saginaw, Michigan, a month later, Landis threatened to permanently throw out of baseball any player who participated in the event.)

Eddie Cicotte won 29 games for the White Sox during the 1919 regular season. Though it was thought that his career was over in 1915, he returned stronger than ever in 1916 and was a major factor in the White Sox World Series win over the New York Giants in 1917. Cicotte was known for an unusual delivery that some said made his "shine ball" unhittable.

Joe Jackson, considered one of the finest outfielders ever to play the game, joined the Sox six years earlier after playing six years for Cleveland. He batted .351 in the 1919 season and was a lifetime .356 hitter. Over the course of his big league career, he totaled 1,772 hits and 202 stolen bases.

Buck Weaver entered baseball as a shortstop with the White Sox in 1912. He moved to third in 1917 (when Risberg joined the team) and established a reputation as one of the league's best at the "hot corner." Though Weaver admitted he was aware of the conspiracy to throw the 1919 World Series and did not report it, he insisted he had no part in it. After batting .296 in the regular season, he turned in a .324 average in the Series against the Reds. Following the decision of Landis, Weaver fought unsuccessfully to win reinstatement to baseball.

Sources:

  • "Two Sox confess," Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 29, 1920, p. 1. 
  • "Eight White Sox are indicted; Cicotte and Jackson confess gamblers paid them $15,000," New York Tribune, Sept. 29, 1920, p. 1.
  • "Eight White Sox indicted for throwing 1919 series; Cicotte confesses plot," The Sun and the New York Herald, Sept. 29, 1920, p. 1.
  • "The man who rescued baseball," New York Times, Nov. 12, 1920.
  • "Players plan fight," New York Times, Dec. 19, 1920, p. 19.
  • "Majors and minors reach agreement," New York Times, Jan. 13, 1921, p. 1.
  • "White Sox players banned by Landis," New York Times, March 13, 1921, p. 16.
  • "Baseball leaders won't let White Sox return to the game," New York Times, Aug. 4, 1921, p. 1.
  • "Landis warns players," New York Times, Sept. 22, 1921, p. 24.
  • Pomrenke, Jacob, "Closing the door on Black Sox reinstatement," The National Pastime Museum, thenationalpastimemuseum.com, Jan. 4, 2016. (Link)
  • "SportsCenter Flashback: The Chicago Black Sox banned from baseball," ESPN Classic, espn.com, Nov. 19, 2003. (Link)
  • "Buck Weaver," Baseball Reference, baseball-reference.com. (Link)
  • "Eddie Cicotte," Baseball Reference, baseball-reference.com. (Link)
  • "Shoeless Joe Jackson," Baseball Reference, baseball-reference.com. (Link)


18 December 2020

Capone-Johnson photo: A new identification

The Atlantic City Al Capone - Nucky Johnson Photo: A New Identification?



Updated January 9, 2021

The Conference

On May 13, 1929, Al Capone and several of his associates - along with several of his gangland enemies - converged on Atlantic City, New Jersey, for a conference with the stated goal of bringing peace between the powerful bootlegging gangs of Chicago. It was at least the third peace conference that we know of. Ever since the photo was published in 1930 there have been questions over the identities of the men with Al Capone and Enoch L. "Nucky" Johnson. After an evaluation of the available evidence it may now possible to narrow down the mystery to one person.

Chicago Gang Conferences Before Atlantic City

On October 8, 1926, the Chicago Daily News reported that the Windy City held its first big gangland peace conference. According to information supplied by "an important official and a policeman" (later identified as a police lieutenant and an official of the Italo-American National Union) who sat in on the grand meeting held at the Hotel, one of the city's premier hotels. The Chicago Daily Tribune adds that Maxie Eisen, a labor racketeer associated with the late Samuel "Nails" Morton (some sources believe the friend of Morton and the labor racketeer were two different people), joined with Antonino "Tony" Lombardo, the rappresentante of the Chicago Mafia, to bring together the leaders of the Cicero-based organization headed by Capone, the North Side gang led by Hymie Weiss, Vincent "the Schemer" Drucci and George "Bugs" Moran, and their second-tier allies.

Preliminary to the meeting, Eisen met with the Mafia boss in Lombardo's office, and ideas were then passed from Eisen to Drucci and Moran, and Lombardo to Capone. They then agreed to send delegates to appear in person for the conference. The Cicero group was represented by Lombardo, Capone, Frank Nitto and Jack Guzik; the North Siders by Drucci, Moran, Eisen, Barney Bertsche and William Skidmore; and the minor racketeers included members of the North Side-friendly Myles O'Donnell and McErlane-Saltis gangs, and the Capone allies Ralph Sheldon and Danny McFall gangs. Sheldon was one of the participants. 

Reportedly both sides agreed to cease killings and beatings, consider past killings and shootings to be closed, disregard malicious gossip, and have leaders responsible for violations by the rank and file. However, a snag hit when Weiss and Drucci insisted that Capone put two of his men "on the spot" in retaliation for an ambush shooting a month prior. Lombardo refused the demand. When the Mafia boss told the Big Fella he supposedly said, "I wouldn't do a thing like that to a yellow dog." One of the two men whose death was demanded by Weiss and Drucci  (and the only one named), Frank Clemente, was reportedly wounded by machine-gun fire in Cicero. A follow-up piece identified the second potential victim as "Mops" - but not Anthony "Mops" Volpe. (This writer is unaware of any other Outfit member with that nickname. Later sources identify the two men as Volpe and Frank Rio, or Albert Anselmi and John Scalise.)

Later, the conference attendees were whittled down to five men sitting around a table: a prominent attorney, a police lieutenant, an official of the Italo-American National Union (known as the Unione Siciliana until 1925), and presumably Eisen and Lombardo. Not long after the conference, on October 11, Hymie Weiss and associate Paddy Murray gunned down in the street. Three others with them were hit by gunfire.

FBI HSCA Subject file LCN, MI 92-262

A second meeting was held in Milwaukee between 1926 and 1927, or maybe even 1928, in a nightclub owned by that city's boss, Pete Guardalabene. According to a member of the Milwaukee borgata (and confidential informant), Chicago Mafia underboss Joseph Aiello, regularly lost large sums of money gambling in Capone-owned joints. Afterward, Aiello sent his men to raid the games to take back what he lost - and more. The peace conference consisted of members of both factions, as well as leaders of other crime families from across the country. "The meeting ended with everybody throwing fruit and vegetables at each other," the source said. Aiello, who led a renegade faction of the Chicago Mafia allegedly over Lombardo's friendliness to Capone, was machine-gunned to death by Outfit killers while hiding out at a friend's home in 1930.

Lead-Up To A Third Conference

The third mobster conference, held in Atlantic City, followed the attempts on the life of top Capone gunman Jack McGurn (born Vincenzo Gibaldi in Licata, Sicily), first on March 7, 1928, and then barely a month later on April 17. The first attempt left McGurn with serious injuries after gang rivals fired off a Tommy gun in a drive-by shooting. The second shooting was also a drive-by using a machine gun. The Gusenberg brothers, James Clark and Billy Davern - all North Siders - were suspected of the brazen attacks.

It followed the assassination of Mafia chief Lombardo on September 7, 1928, and his successor Pasqualino Lolordo on January 8, 1929. Lombardo, who had been an ally of Capone, was reportedly killed either by Aiello or Frankie Yale of Brooklyn. Insider sources, however, gave a different story. Informants Nick Gentile and August Maniaci reported that Capone was actually inducted into the Mafia by Joe "the Boss" Masseria, head of what is now the Genovese crime family, as a capodecina (equivalent to captain or boss of a street crew) in 1928 with the authority to "make" ten men into his crew. Masseria told him that if he eliminated Lombardo he would recognize him as the head of the Chicago borgata. It was Al Capone, not Aiello or Yale, who was responsible for killing Lombardo. 

Mob turncoat Joe Valachi also supports this version. He recalled attending a lecture given by Salvatore Maranzano of what is now the Bonanno crime family in early 1931 after he was made the Capo di Capi (Boss of Bosses). At a large meeting celebrating his victory over Masseria, Maranzano recited the crimes committed by his enemy Masseria, including the murder of a "big boss" named Don Antonio, who was undoubtedly Lombardo.

It followed a national Mafia gathering in Cleveland on December 5, 1928, that featured a large contingent from Chicago. Local police were suspicious of the outsiders entering the swank Hotel Statler early in the morning and soon it was raided. Police arrested 23 men, most of whom were armed. Among those arrested were Tampa Don Ignazio Italiano, future Brooklyn bosses Vincenzo Mangano and Joseph Profaci, and from Chicago came Mafia chief Pasqualino Lolordo, Joseph Giunta, Frank Alo, James Intravia, Sam Oliveri, Giuseppe Sacco, and Phil Bacino (AKA Tony Bello). It was rumored that Al Capone was due to arrive but turned around when he heard of the raid, however, his presence probably wasn't necessary. Lolordo was said to be Capone's "puppet."

Arrested Mafiosi after meeting in Cleveland on December 5, 1928

It followed the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of seven members and associates of the North Side Gang, then headed by Moran after Drucci was slain in a shoot-out with police. Among those killed was Moran's second-in-command Albert Kachellek and his top gunmen Pete and Frank Gusenberg.

It also followed the brutal killings of Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta - Lolordo's replacement - and mob executioners Anselmi and Scalise by beating and gunfire. Giunta, who attended the Cleveland meeting with Lolordo, allegedly connived with Aiello, Anselmi and Scalise to eliminate Capone until their plot was discovered. Al Capone, who had been staying at his Florida home, returned to the Windy City on May 7, 1929, narrowly avoiding two Moran gunmen who just happened to be picked up by police.

A banquet was held in Capone's honor, and the guests included the aforementioned three Mafiosi. Depending on the source the dinner was either held in a Hammond, Indiana, roadhouse called The Plantation, or the Chicago Heights nightclub Miami Gardens. Jesse George Murray, a columnist for the Chicago American, imagined a ruse concocted by Frank Rio and Capone to expose the plotters. However it happened, they suffered a painful death. An inside source associated with Accardo's original crew told this writer that future Outfit boss Anthony Accardo did indeed earn his moniker "Joe Batters" by beating the men at a dinner before they were shot on May 8, and their bodies left in a vacant section of Hammond, Indiana. (It should be made clear that this triple homicide remains officially unsolved and that the Moran gang was also suspected of the killings.)

Five days after the deaths of the three traitors Al Capone found himself in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The city, which was considered the gambling mecca of the East Coast, thrived under the rule of Republican political boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. The two had known each other since 1921, when Capone's mentor John Torrio took him to see the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in Jersey City. They met again for the 1927 Dempsey-Tunney bout at Soldier Field in Chicago, known as the Long Count. Nucky was welcomed by entourages from fellow GOP leaders, such as Illinois States' Attorney Robert E. Crowe. Capone made sure the visiting dignitary had a fleet of limousines at his disposal.

Despite Nucky Johnson's influence his control over the city was not absolute. Capone and his bodyguard were seen at a nightclub and a boxing match, and there was a rumor that he was staying as a guest "who has a palatial home in the [center] of the fashionable Chelsea district." When Director of Public Safety W. S. Cuthbert found out about the gangster's presence he ordered the police "to pick up Al Capone if he is found in the city and arrest him as an undesirable." 

Conference Details

After the Atlantic City conference concluded, Capone and his entourage drove for Philadelphia to board a train bound for Chicago. Unfortunately, their vehicle broke down near Camden and they did not arrive in Philadelphia until the evening. Capone made arrangement for a later train and decided to take in a movie. He and bodyguard Frank Rio were promptly arrested as soon as they exited the theater. They were charged with carrying concealed weapons and rushed before a judge and jury, where they were convicted and sentenced to a year in prison. The speed of the entire process was mind-blowing. Capone and Rio arrived in Philadelphia at approximately 6:30 pm, they were arrested at 8:30 pm, brought before a grand jury at 10:15 am, tried at 12 noon, then pleaded guilty and sentenced at 12:21 pm.

Fortunately for us, however, Capone was interviewed by Philadelphia Director of Public Safety Lemuel B.. Schofield, and the director shared his conversation with the press. Capone, Moran, and several other Chicago gang leaders signed a "peace pact" during his brief stay in Atlantic City. "With the idea in mind of making peace among the gangster in Chicago I spent the week in Atlantic City, and I have the word of each of the men participating that there shall be no more shootings," the crime lord said.

Capone added a few details of the conference. "We stopped at the President Hotel, where I registered under an assumed name. Bugs Moran, the leader of the West Side gang, seven of whose men were killed in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, and three or four other Chicago gang leaders whose names I don't care to mention participated. We talked over our troubles for three days. We all agreed at the end of that time to sign on the dotted line to bury the past and forget warfare in the future for the general good of all concerned," he said. The only names he provided besides his own were Rio and Moran. He also implied that the parley was small with only a handful of attendees.

The local newspaper, the Atlantic City Daily Press, reported that "the past few nights found him making whoopee, boom-boom, or what have you in several of the resort's best known night clubs." Look magazine wrote that Tony Accardo got a blue dove tattoo on the back of his left hand between the thumb and index finger during the trip to Atlantic City when he was acting as one of Capone's bodyguards.

Guesses as to the names of the other conference attendees began immediately. The Tribune believed that Joe Aiello, [Frank] McErlane, Joe Saltis, and John Torrio were there "either in person or by proxy." George Wolf, a criminal defense attorney who represented Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello, claimed in his biography of Costello that the two New York mob leaders organized the conference. Their guest list included Jewish and Italian mobsters from all over the country, such as "Lou Rothkopf and Moe Dalitz from Cleveland, King Solomon from Boston, John Lazia from Kansas City, Joe Bernstein and others from Detroit, Sam Lazar from Philadelphia...and Al Capone and his boys from Chicago." Luciano and Costello brought Joe Adonis, Lepke Buchalter, and Torrio. In this account not only do Torrio and Costello tell Capone to turn himself in for prison, but that they were forming the Commission, which we know from other sources was not created until 1931.

Some journalists, like Robert T. Loughran of the United Press, created an imaginary tale that stretched out the few points of agreement Capone spoke of into a fourteen-point plan. Among the points in Loughran's plan, Aiello was to be the head of the "Unione Siciliano," but subject to Torrio; and Torrio was to be the "king" of the rackets over Chicago. These and other points simply had no basis in reality.

The New York Evening Journal, owned by William Randolph Hearst, an FDR-supporting Democrat who drooled at embarrassing the Republican political boss, was the first to publish the photo. The authenticity of the photo was confirmed in 1941 when Elmer Irey of the IRS Intelligence Unit was targeting Johnson for tax fraud. Irey not only took down Capone in 1931, but his mentor John Torrio in 1939. In July 1941, newspapers all across the country reported Johnson's admission that he was with Capone when a New York photographer grabbed his image.

Arizona Republic, July 13, 1941

The Chicago beer baron admitted that he and all of his mobster guests registered using false names. Rio, for example, gave his name as Frank Cline. In the caption underneath only four of the five men are identified. The man on the far left was the man not ID'd, but next to him was David Palter, then Charles T. "Chuck" Greene, Capone, Johnson, and Lou Irwin. Palter and Greene were said to have been "high pressure" men, a euphemism for gangsters. Greene is also very likely an alias. All three men to Capone's left were underworld figures from Chicago.

New York Evening Journal, January 17, 1930

Mystery Man Number One: David Palter

The man second to the end to the left of Capone (from the viewer's perspective) is identified by the New York Evening Journal as David Palter, who "admitted paying $65,000 to avoid a year vacation in Atlanta, Ga. Federal Penitentiary after being convicted of mail fraud." This matches the David Palter listed as a defendant in a 1927 story from the Associated Press. Twelve individuals and a corporation were convicted of "using the mails to defraud in the sale of stock of the Glass Casket Corporation of Altoona, Pa." On March 7, 1927, the convictions were upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals. Gaston B. Means, an ex-Secret Service agent, and the late attorney Thomas B. Felder had promised to "fix things" for $65,000. In a separate case from 1938, a 46-year-old David Palter was described as a "former associate of 'Jake the Barber' Factor." Jake the Barber was known to be a crony of Capone and Nitto.

David Palter was born in New York on June 12, 1893, and worked as a jewelry salesman before serving in the military. He is probably the same person who in early 1924, along with his wife, was robbed by two armed burglars who forced their maid to lead them to his bedroom in a Manhattan high-rise. They forced Palter, a broker, and his wife, to hand over $5,400 worth of cash and jewelry. In the summer of 1930 a Mr. and Mrs. David L. Palter celebrated their niece's fourth birthday at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. In 1933 Palter and his partner Martin Lederer, who owned a stock brokerage at 82 Wall Street, were charged with conspiracy and threatened with a permanent injunction for selling worthless gold stock.

David Palter

On January 11, 1938, the Hollywood Citizen-News reported that David Palter, alias David Hunter, 46, who was indicted the previous October in New York for a bait and switch of $14,200 worth of whiskey warehouse receipts, was arrested at his apartment on the Sunset Strip. Another friend of Palter's was J. Richard "Dixie" Davis, mobster Dutch Schultz's former attorney. "In Palter we have one of the cleverest stock racketeers who ever operated in New York," Gang buster John A. Klein said.

Later it was reported that the fraud case was in Reading, Pennsylvania, not New York. On February 10, 1938, the case against him was dismissed for lack of evidence. On March 15 he was exonerated after it was shown that Palter had separated from the warehouse company before the fraud took place. Palter returned to New York and passed away on April 15, 1965.

Mystery Man Number Two: Charles T. Greene

The man to Capone's immediate left (from our viewpoint) is more problematic than Palter. Due to the constant threat of death, Capone did not venture out in public without a bodyguard unless circumstances ruled it out. None of the men in the famous photograph, however, are identified as being one of his bodyguards. If the Chicago mob boss did have a bodyguard he most likely would have been walking next to him, and the person next to him was reportedly one Charles T. Greene. So who was Charles T. Greene? Could he have been a local gangster?

A search of newspapers in that time period using the newspaper databases at Newspapers.com, GenealogyBand.com, and Fulton Post Cards do not make a single reference to a mobster, gangster, or criminal named Charles T. Greene or Charles Greene in either New Jersey nor the East Coast. However, there was one mobster who had an alias of Charles Green (not Greene), and that was Charles Entratter. Entratter was a top lieutenant of Jack "Legs" Diamond who was murdered in New York in 1931. This Charles Green, however, did not resemble the man in the photo.

Charles Entratter (AKA Charles Green)

When Capone was arrested in Philadelphia he readily admitted to registering at an Atlantic City hotel using an alias, as did the other men who attended the conference. So perhaps Charles T. Greene was an alias for one of Capone's other bodyguards. We know that Capone traveled with Frank Rio, who was one of his many bodyguards (who often tended to be high-ranking lieutenants), since they were arrested together in Philadelphia. Yet, Rio does not resemble anyone in the photo.

Frank Rio, 1929

His other bodyguards were well known. Gunmen such as Jack McGurn, Louis Campagna, Willie Heeney, Phil D'Andrea, Mike Spranze, and Tony Accardo were all known bodyguards who accompanied him at various times. Yet none of them resembles the mysterious man in the photo.

Tony Accardo, 1930

Another candidate is Anthony "Mops" Volpe, whose features appear to very closely match the man in the photo. The height of the man in the photo is between the height of the Palter, who stood 5'6," and the nearly 5'11" tall Al Capone. Volpe's height ranges between 5'7" and 5'10," which averages to 5'8.5" and accords with Greene.

Who was Volpe? "Mops" was born in Argentina to Italian parents and worked in Chicago Mafia-affiliated Giuseppe "Diamond Joe" Esposito's Italian restaurant before joining Capone's Outfit. When the press first became aware of his existence back in 1916, he was a gang leader arrested for a shooting that was apparently ruled self-defense. Arrested with him was a gang member nicknamed Nickelodeon, whose real name was Nick Circella. Later known as Nicky Dean, Circella would become a close friend of Capone and involved in extorting the Hollywood studios with labor racketeer Willie Bioff in the 1930s.

Anthony "Mops" Volpe, 1930

In 1921, Volpe was a Cook County deputy sheriff and a secretary to (and brother-in-law of) Diamond Joe, a Republican committeeman in the old Nineteenth Ward. In 1925 Volpe was described as a "notorious gun fighter," and by 1928 he, along with Rio, Nitto and a Joe Kelly, was noted to be one of Capone's bodyguards. In 1930 he joined Capone, Rio, Moran and twenty-four others on the first list of Public Enemies.

On December 15, 1930, the Secretary of Labor had Volpe arrested by immigration agents to deport him to Italy. Several months later it was confirmed that he was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, sometime in October between 1890 and 1892, but his Italian-born parents had taken him back to their home country to be naturalized as a child. He came to the U.S. at age 15 and became a citizen in 1920. Italy and Argentina, however, refused to accept him, asserting that he lost his right to return when he was naturalized in America. Nevertheless the government did not give up its fight to deport him until 1953. As for his mob status, Volpe remained a fixture in Cicero as an old-timer in the crew headed by Joseph Aiuppa until his death in January 1965.

So was Volpe the mysterious Charles T. Greene? John Binder, who teaches at the University of Illinois and has written two books on the Chicago Syndicate, followed-up this question. Using Biometric Vision's FaceMatch software, which claims a success rate of 99.9% accuracy, Binder compared four photos of Volpe taken between 1930 and 1945 with a high quality scan of the Atlantic City photo contributed by researcher Mario Gomes. The result was that the man identified as Greene did not match Anthony "Mops" Volpe. So for now the definitive identification of the man next to Al Capone in the 1929 photo remains an unsolved mystery.

This essay will be updated if new information becomes available.

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Thanks to John Binder for providing photo analysis, David Critchley for additional material, and to Edmond Valin for his editorial comments and suggestions.