Showing posts with label Lucky Luciano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucky Luciano. Show all posts

02 February 2020

'Lucky' out of prison, held at Ellis Island

Authorities prepare to deport NY Mafia boss

On this date in 1946:

New York Mafia boss Salvatore "Charlie Lucky Luciano" Lucania, age forty-eight, was removed from temporary custody at Sing Sing Prison on February 2, 1946, and placed in a holding area at Ellis Island, as authorities prepared to deport him to his native Italy.

Lucania
Lucania, leader of a powerful crime family (later known as the Genovese Family) and one of the architects of the Mafia's national Commission, was convicted about nine and a half years earlier on sixty-two counts of compulsory prostitution. On June 18, 1936, he was sentenced to a prison term of thirty to fifty years.

The case that put Lucania behind bars was handled by then-Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey also was responsible for Lucania's release. Entering the final year of his first term as New York governor, Dewey on January 3, 1946, commuted the remainder of Lucania's sentence on the condition that he be deported to Italy.

The governor issued a statement relating to the commutation, which revealed that the imprisoned Lucania rendered some sort of assistance to the U.S. military during World War II:

Luciano is deportable to Italy. He was a leader of a syndicate which supervised and gave orders relating to the operation of a vice combine which "booked" women for houses of prostitution and provided other service incidental to the operation of houses of prostitution. He has previously been convicted of the possession of drugs. Upon the entry of the United States into the war, Luciano's aid was sought by the armed services in inducing others to provide information concerning possible enemy attack. It appears that he cooperated in such effort, though the actual value of the information provided is not clear. His record in prison is reported as wholly satisfactory.

Wild stories quickly grew out of the news of Lucania's aid to the military. Just a few days after Dewey's statement, a New York Daily News entertainment page featured an article that claimed Lucania was single-handedly responsible for saving the lives of countless American servicemen. The article, by Robert Sylvester, quoted an unnamed underworld source:

Remember the Sicily campaign was one of the easiest of the war? Well, Charley made it that way. He turned over a whole Cloak & Dagger Crew which worked before and during the invasion. You can thank Charley Lucky for saving thousands and thousands of American lives.

Dewey
Some questioned Dewey's motivation for commuting Lucania's sentence. (The state administration conducted an investigation of its own decision-making.) Some years later, it was suggested that Lucania had obtained damaging information against Dewey. An autobiography of narcotics agent Sal Vizzini claimed that, while in exile, Lucania boasted about that: "I had a whole damned battery of lawyers. I told them I didn't care what it cost but I wanted them to dig into Dewey's background. They came up with a pile of information on him that might have put his ass in the can..."

SIx days after Governor Dewey's sentence commutation, Lucania was transfered from Great Meadow State Prison in the upstate New York hamlet of Comstock (just east of Lake George) to Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, about thirty miles from New York City.

The Board of Parole approved Lucania's release for the purpose of deportation on February 2. Immigration and Naturalization agents took custody of him on that date and brought him to the federal immigration facility at Ellis Island. While at Ellis Island, he was permitted to visit briefly with underworld associates Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello and Michael Lascari and with attorney Moses Polakoff.

His stay on the island lasted less than a week. He was taken to Brooklyn and put aboard the S.S. Laura Keene at Pier 7 of the Bush Terminal on February 8. The ship's departure was delayed by bad weather, but she sailed for Italy on February 10, reaching Naples seventeen days later.

Read the details of Lucania's imprisonment and release:
"When 'Lucky' was locked up," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us

Sources:
  • Abrams, Norma, "Poor Italy: Defeat and now, Luciano!" New York Daily News, Feb. 9, 1946, p. 3.
  • "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.
  • Conroy, E.E., FBI teletype, file no. 39-2141-5, Feb. 26, 1946.
  • Conroy, E.E., FBI teletype, file no. 39-2141-6, Feb. 27, 1946.
  • Conroy, E.E., Letter to Mr. Hoover, Charles Luciano FBI file, no. 39-2141-8, March 1, 1946.
  • "Dewey commutes Luciano sentence," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1946, p. 25.
  • "A French payment," editorial, Brooklyn Citizen, Jan. 5, 1942, p. 4.
  • Herlands, William B., Report of the Commissioner of Investigation to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Sept. 17, 1954.
  • Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce (Kefauver Committee), U.S. Senate, 81st Congress 2nd Session and 82nd Congress 1st Session, Part 7, Meyer Lansky testimony of Feb. 14, 1951, p. 606-607.
  • "'Lucky' Luciano to be paroled and deported," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 3, 1946, p. 1.
  • Rosen, A., "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano," FBI memorandum to E.A. Tamm, file no. 39-2141-39, May 17, 1946.
  • "Salvatore Lucania...," FBI report NY 62-8768, file no. 39-2141-9, May 5, 1946.
  • Sylvester, Robert, "A B'way hoodlum lives a melodrama nobody would write," New York Daily News, Jan. 8, 1946, p. 27.
  • Vizzini, Sal, with Oscar Fraley and Marshall Smith, Vizzini: The Story of America's No, 1 Undercover Narcotics Agent, New York: Pinnacle, 1972, p. 77.

27 June 2019

Lucky's 1916 narcotics conviction

On this date in 1916...

Eighteen-year-old Salvatore Lucania (later known as Charlie "Lucky" Luciano) was convicted June 27, 1916, of narcotics possession. He was sentenced to eight months in the reformatory.

According to court records, Lucania had been a seller of morphine for some weeks. In June, he made his third purchase of a one-eighth bottle of morphine* and began selling doses. He reportedly sold fifteen doses from that eighth-bottle before he was caught by a law enforcement agent. [*Records do not indicate the volume of morphine, but the amount was sufficient for a large number of doses.]

When on trial for compulsory prostitution in 1936, defendant Lucania took the witness stand and was questioned about the 1916 narcotics arrest. He recalled that he was arrested on Fourteenth Street as he made a sale "to a dope fiend."

Morphine sale and possession were regulated under the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson late in 1914 and effective on March 1, 1915. Morphine could only be obtained legally under a physician's prescription for treatment of an issue unrelated to addiction and through a federally licensed and taxed dispensary.

Lucania did his sentence at the recently opened 610-acre New Hampton Farms reformatory upstate in Orange County, New York. He was released early, at the conclusion of six months, close to Christmas 1916.

New Hampton Farms

Sources:

  • "'Ride' victim wakes up on Staten Island," New York Times, Oct. 18, 1929.
  • "Charles Luciana, with aliases," FBI memorandum, file no. 39-2141-X, Aug. 28, 1935, p. 5.
  • "DEA history in depth: The early years," Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA.gov, May 2018.
  • "Heroin, morphine and opiates," History.com, June 12, 2017, updated June 10, 2019.
  • "Lucania is called shallow parasite," New York Times, June 19, 1936.
  • "Open new reformatory," New York Times, April 1, 1916, p. 9.
  • "Charles Luciano, with aliases Charles Luciana, Lucky Luciano, Miscellaneous, Information Concerning," FBI memorandum, file no. 39-2141-2, Feb. 26, 1946.
  • Dewey, Thomas E., Twenty Against the Underworld, Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, p. 185.
  • Feder, Sid, and Joachim Joesten, The Luciano Story, New York: Da Capo Press, 1994 (originally published in 1954), p. 46.
  • 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, p. 5182, 5200, 5209.

01 April 2018

The Priest, The Gangster, and the Church of St Dismas

Church of the Good Thief. Original press photo circulated
at the time of the chapel's inaguaration (ganglandlegends.com collection)
It was a holy structure - assembled by what some might consider an ensemble of 'unholy' craftsmen -erected within the unwelcoming walls of upstate New York's Clinton Correctional Facility, aka Dannemora Prison, aka 'Little Siberia.' An ambitious project set into motion by a compassionate priest, this Catholic house of worship would enter history as the first of its kind; underscored by a series of events that encompassed everything from comedy to empathy to unfortunate tragedy.  Here is a tale of a 'Prison Padre,' his grand idea of building a chapel within a place of despair, the all-volunteer workforce whose labor brought the vision to life,  the 'Saint' who inspired it, and even an anectdote involving America's most notorious gangster of the time.

"That which you bring here in your heart cannot be taken from you at the gate." - Father Ambrose Hyland

When Father Ambrose. R. Hyland arrived to the gates of his new parish in the fall of 1937 he observed a scene of general melancholy; Dannemora's prison had a bad reputation and the faces of inmates certainly conveyed as much.  There were a few positive elements - a good library and fine kitchen facility - but the landscape was missing something. "Where's the Church?" the Chaplain asked his tour guide. The query fell on somewhat dumbfounded ears.  No prison had a literal free standing house of worship on its grounds. For the first few months, Father Hyland and his colleagues made do with makeshift services above the assembly hall.

Hyland dismissed the odds and allowed very little to deter his passion -  to bring some peace and hope to the otherwise hopeless place. The new clergyman wasted no time in developing a plan to put a real chapel on the grounds.  Notwithstanding the unusual and undeniably daunting precedent he intended to set, Ambrose was a determined. It took a couple years, but he eventually won over the necessary factions (the Governor, the Cardinal, and both his clergy counterparts - a Protestant minister and a Jewish Rabbi), and inspired two-hundred convicts to volunteer their blood, sweat and tears in constructing the building (the workforce was comprised of various ethnicity and religious denominations, even atheists). Hyland received $5000 dollars from the Catholic Church, but the rest of the funding had to come from other sources. The project, which was inspired by and named after The Good Thief - Saint Dismas -  officially broke ground in 1939; the remnants of a demolished cell block served as the initial building material, donors (also from various denominations) would later supply other materials, decor and funding.




 Dismas, The Penitent Thief

"As far as I know, it is the first church in the United States to be dedicated to Saint Dismas." - Father Ambrose Hyland, 1939

Who is this Dismas fellow anyway? The 'good thief' is commonly recognized as a Saint of the condemned, and celebrated March 25 - Feast Day.  As the story goes... of the two theives cruxified with Christ, one was peninent, one was not.  The former, who was not identified by name in the Bible, admitted his guilt and earned immediate salvation from Christ himself - "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Interestingly, although Dismas is a venerated figure within Catholicism - he is not officially recognized as a Saint in Catholic canon.
The Good Thief' by Michelangelo Cerquozzi





"Every other saint in the book is there on hearsay. Dismas got tapped right from our Lord himself." - Edwin A. Lahey, Chief Correspondent Knight Newspapers, 1968




Unusual Tithes and Offerings


Dannemora's infamous dungeon held more than a few equally infamous criminal figures over the years. Of the convicts who volunteered their time and talents, there was a safe-cracking nitroglycerin expert, a forger, and a stick up man who made an offer the good Chaplain definitely had to refuse!

"Father, I'll get it all for you.  Just give me two nights and two guns."

And then there was Charlie. One of the most notable standouts of the entire inmate lot had been placed there just a year prior to Father Hyland's arrival.  Convicted of being a pimp overlord, Salvatore Lucania, aka Charles 'Lucky' Luciano , once dubbed "the most dangerous gangster" by the zealous prosecutor who rallied to have him put away for 30 to 60 years, came to Dannemora after a very short stint in Sing Sing.  Despite not being a particularly religious guy himself, the incarcerated crime lord offered the kind priest some assistance... in trademark Lucky style of course.

Father Hyland told Luciano about the initial donation the Cardinal had given, but the cost of construction would ultimately far exceed the appreciated and generous (yet considerably small) sum.  "You now have $5000?" the gangster asked rhetorically. "I read the New York papers every day, and I know how to pick horses." Father Hyland listened as Luciano continued his proposal, pointing to the paper, "Bet it on these three horses tommorow."  

The priest gracefully declined the offer, adding - "The Cardinal wouldn't like it, even if they all won." Curiosity however got the best of Father Hyland. He looked into the results of the longshots Lucky insisted were sure bets. Indeed, Charlie Lucky's tips, had Father Hyland acted on them, would have netted the payout as promised.
1936, Charles 'Lucky' Luciano
"Follow my advice and your five (thousand) will become fifty (thousand)" - Charles 'Lucky' Luciano to Father Ambrose Hyland.

Not long after the incident, the young chaplain was summoned to the Warden's office.  Naturally, Hyland felt confident the 'Luciano' issue probably had something to do with it.  To his surprise, the Warden hadn't mentioned Lucky at all, but rather an entirely different kind of controversy brewing. "It seems a committee has been formed," Warden Snyder began. "Calls itself the New York League for Separation of Church and State." Snyder went on to explain how the group filed an injunction to stop the construction of the church.  Father Hyland and his attorney went on to win the case and on April 6, 1941 the 156' by 50' structure (topped with a 106' spire pointing to the heavens) named St Dismas Church of the Good Thief was inaguarated.



Gates of Heaven

Father Ambrose Hyland's dream came true and it garnered national attention.  The media clammored to tell the story, even Hollywood came calling.  On a deeper level, inmates would go on to speak of how the project and the good priest quite literally changed their lives for the better, which was truly all that Hyland hoped for all along.

Father Hyland had been dealing with some health problems - blood clots in particular - and left the prison in 1953. He returned to his hometown of Chateaugay, New York, but  continued to visit churches and do speaking engagements.  He was on his way to one such engagement on October 2, 1954 when tragedy struck.  It was just about midnight when motorist John Slatcher noticed a burning vehicle on the side of the Route 9, near Schroon Lake.  He quickly called for neighbors and the fire department, but it took several more hours for positive identification of the lone male victim inside the burned out car.  The dead man was indeed Ambrose Hyland.  The 54 year old priest was found on the passenger side of the sedan, which was parked well off the road, with the ignition off. The clues caused suspicious concern, and authorities considered an inquest. Investigators ruled out 'foul play' though, as the coroner's findings stated a "heart attack" as the cause of death. Additional factors, which included Father Hyland' fondness for cigars (a 'heavy smoker' of the product, it was reported) and of course the blood clots that plagued him for the last couple years, led to the media reporting a theory that investigators had apparently been leaning heavily toward - Father Hyland died of a heart attack and dropped a lit cigar which ignited the vehicle's interior.



Other Interesting Anecdotes

1. Journalist Robert 'Bob' Considine wrote the screenplay for the purposed movie version of Father Hyland's story.

2. MGM offered Father Ambrose Hyland a handsome fee to option the movie rights, but the project was scrapped 1945.

3. The story did however get a well-received book version released - 'Gates of Dannemora' written by another priest, Jon Louis Bonn, Doubleday, 1951.

4. Father A.R. Hyland was the first 'paid' New York State chaplain.

5. The church's first organ, a $25,000 theatrical model donated by two Jewish brothers, was later replaced by a then-modern electronic model.  The original organ had to be relocated to a state museum in order to save it from further damage (the extreme temperature fluctuations in the prison were to blame).

6. Sources often state Lucky Luciano donated red oak for the church pews (seating capacity = 1200). According to a 1989 interview with Father Hyland's niece - Luciano donated some special oak which was used in the church doors.

7. The church alter was made of wood from one of Ferdinand Magellen's ships, donated by a distant relative of the explorer.

8. Carmelo Soraci, convicted of forgery, hand painted all the stained glass windows and the Dismas mural behind the altar. Twenty years later his artwork (Dannemora and Sing Sing) was valued at $100,000.  Soraci left the prison system for good in 1960 and went on to write an autobiography "The Convict and the Stained Glass Windows."



References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVuftGUjRBE
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/stephaniemann/the-challenge-of-march-25
AP. "Prison Walls Converted to Churchly Use." Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. July 23, 1939. P. 11.
Brandeis, Eric. "Looking at Life." Montana Standard. October 31, 1954. Page 4.
Considine, Bob. "Prison Life." The Cincinatti Enquirer. January 10, 1944. P. 14.
Botsford, Sue. Fiftieth Anniversary of Inmate-Built Church Observed. Press Republican. April 8, 1989. P. 9
Lahey, Edwin A. "Does Anybody Here Remember Dismas?" Akron Beacon Journal. March 31, 1968. P. D3
Lyons, Leonard. "The Lyons Den." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 10, 1943. Page 25.
Lyons, Leonard. "The Builder." San Mateo Times, October 12, 1954, P. 14.
Lyons, Leonard. "The Lyons Den." New York Post. January 29, 1962. P. 3.
Mooring, William H. "Hollywood Veers Away From Religious Pictures." August 31, 1945. Section 2. Page 1.

30 January 2018

When 'Lucky' was locked up

Salvatore Lucania, widely known as Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, late in 1931 became the most powerful crime boss in the U.S. He personally commanded a sprawling New York-based Mafia organization, held one of seven seats on the Mafia's ruling Commission and maintained valuable alliances with non-Italian racketeering organizations across the country.

Less than five years after achieving gangland eminence, however, Lucania was taken into custody on compulsory prostitution charges. Due to the efforts of Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Lucania spent most of the next decade - from the prime years of his life into middle age - behind prison bars.

Held at Clinton State Prison beginning in the summer of 1936, he was largely out of touch with the rich criminal empire he assembled and remote from friends and family. He depended upon pennies earned through manual toil and occasional contributions from relatives and associates to finance his many purchases through prison commissaries.

Yet, even during a lengthy and humiliating prison stay, Lucania found a way to make himself important. In the spring of 1942, Lucania convinced New York County prosecutors, New York State corrections officials and the United States Office of Naval Intelligence that he was indispensable to the U.S. war effort.

In the remaining years of World War II, Lucania arranged for a more convenient placement at Great Meadow Prison in the Lake George area and for suspension of visitation rules and recordkeeping. He managed in those few years to build a reputation for patriotic service that led to a 1946 commutation of sentence.

Very few official records remain of Lucania's long term in state prisons. From the period before 1942, only a small collection of documents is held at the New York State Archives. These include receiving blotter pages, health and psychiatric reports, visitor logs and financial transactions that shed some light on his brief time at Sing Sing Prison and his longer incarceration at Clinton Prison. From the period between his 1942 transfer to Great Meadow Prison and his 1946 parole and deportation, even less survives. Some details of these later years were pieced together when the State of New York, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Navy looked into Lucania's alleged contributions to the war effort. Wartime records of the Office of Naval Intelligence, which could have provided the most useful window into Lucania's service, were deliberately destroyed.

Available details of Lucania's time in prison and related events have been assembled into a 1936-1946 timeline on The American Mafia history website. These details range in excitement level from hum-drum to spectacular. Quotes from documents and links to documents - including all available pages of the Clinton Prison files - are included.

See: "When 'Lucky' was locked up."

24 May 2017

On This Day in 1933: Lepke & Lucky Linked to Broadway Shootout



The well-dressed patrons of Broadway's evening thoroughfare likely expected to be wowed and dazzled by any number of eateries, cabarets or simply the neon lit spectacle.  Slugs from automatic shotguns? The unmistakable scent of gunpowder? A wildly out of control car chase?  No, these were not what visitors  foresaw, but a loud outdoor show they most certainly did get, and it ended with bloody collateral damage.

Irene Savage
On May 25th, 1933, As people were filtering in and out of various establishments around Manhattan's 80th and 81st street, two sedans raced by (one report claimed three vehicles were involved), with one vehicle's occupants visibly the aggressor, firing high-powered shotguns and/or machine guns at the other.  The gun battling pursuit, though short-lived, ended when the presumed dominant car sped off east on 81st while the bullet-ridden loser vehicle crashed into a fence on 84th.  All of the firefight participants escaped - including two bloodied, limping mobsters who fled the wrecked vehicle.  The shooting, however, put three of four civilian victims in the hospital:  Irene Savage, 24, took a bullet in the shoulder, Walter O' Donald, a visiting shopper from Hornell New York, suffered a presumed minor scalp grazing via shotgun slug, Sadie Fontine, 45, suffered the worst injuries, hit directly with a bullet in the back and shrapnel in her hips. Edward Safern, whose car was struck by stray bullets, suffered no physical injuries.

Waxey Gordon
Despite plenty of witnesses  the only physical evidence retrieved from the scene - blood throughout the crashed car, two pearl colored fedoras with New Jersey haberdashery labels, car registration to an 'Edward Rosen' of the Bronx, and the inch think glass of the vehicle windshield.  The thick car windows were obviously intentional 'bullet proofing' (though proved a failure against the high powered rounds), the hats helped in the police theory that a bootlegging war involving Irving Wexler, aka Waxey Gordon could be the motive, but upon following up the registration lead... it appeared Edward Rosen was a manufactured name, and the vehicle didn't belong to anyone at the given address in the Bronx.

"As police locked the trio up, they announced they had definite information that a beer war between Gordon and two men whom they named as Louis "Lefty" Buckhalter and Charles Luciano, has been ended by a truce." - Associated Press, September 1, 1933.


Lepke Buchalter 1933
It took a few months for all the puzzle pieces to fall into place, climaxing when police pinned charges on Charles 'Chink' Sherman, his brother Henry, and Jack Weinstein.  The trio had already been in custody for other weapons and narcotics charges, and were noted as being "the few remaining members of the Waxey Gordon Gang."  Although the three men denied any participation in the May 25th shootings, information led police to identify two other involved individuals, both of whom carrying reputations  known to certain law enforcement entities, yet not very familiar to the larger public.  Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter and Charles Luciano.  Indeed, in 1933 neither man was a household name, but within the underworld they possessed quite a resume and status.
Lucky Luciano 1931

Waxey Gordon, once allied with Luciano, Lepke, Meyer Lansky, and so on, had been losing favor with the group and feuds erupted between the factions, which included Dutch Schultz who, at the time, was in good graces with the likes of Luciano.  Some theorize it was Meyer Lansky who filtered tips to police that eventually put Gordon away on narcotics charges.  In any case, Gordon was in jail, several allies had been murdered both in New York and Los Angeles, and 'Chink' Sherman's fate would be far worse than that of the innocent bystanders caught in his gang's fusillade. 


Sherman, who had bad blood with Dutch Schultz dating back to knife and gunfights in 1931, met the grim reaper in 1935. His body... discovered in a shallow lime pit within a barn in Monticello New York.  Sherman had been shot in the arm, his skull showed a bullet wound and that of a blow from a fire axe, presumably.  The property where the body was found belonged to the Drucker family.  It took another five years before the connection was made that Sherman's grave was one of several in the region, and that  one of the property owners -  Jack Drucker - served as an icepick wielding member of Murder Inc. The greater gangland irony - Schultz, who also eventually fell out good graces with the fellas, was gunned down by Murder Inc. henchmen barely two weeks before Chink Sherman got whacked. Further, 1935 was also the year that Charles Luciano's name escalated into public recognition,  having made much larger headlines in regard to theories of who may have ordered the Dutch Schultz murder.





Sources:
AP. "Gang Gunners Hit Two Women On Broadway." Geneva Daily Times. 25 May 1933. P.3.
"Auto Gun Duel Injuring Three Laid to Beer Feud." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 25 May 1933. P. 8.
Cipollini, Christian. "Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangland Legend." Strategic Media Books. 2014.
AP. "Sherman, One of Few Left Of Gordon's Gang, Nabbed." Buffalo Courier Express. 1 September 1933. P. 3.









22 February 2017

Nicola Gentile - Meet the Mafia's Most Elusive Yet Revealing Historical Figure


Nicola Gentile
Nicola Gentile
aka Nick Gentile, Zu Cola
Code Name: Joe Mollica

Birth: 12 June 1885
Death: see endnotes









Significance:
  • Mafia mediator
  • International drug trafficker
  • Escaped mob-issued death sentence... twice!
  • Published memoirs which exposed the inner working of the Mafia, and, provided perhaps the most important and intriguing first-hand account of the American mob's evolution - particularly the who, what, when, and how of the so-called Castellammarese War.
The Parrot Murder Case

Mary Siragusa had an unusually bad feeling as she prepared for church. "Maybe I shouldn't go," she told husband Joe.  "Nothing will happen to me, you go ahead," Joe insisted. Reluctantly, and with a foul premonition lingering, Mary headed to St. Philomena's on nearby Forward Avenue.  There she prayed the entire time that husband Joe and their seven year old daughter Catherine were in no danger.

Just before noon, Joe ventured to the basement apartment and prepared for a shave. Up several floors, Catherine still in slumber.  As Joe put the finishing swath of cream on his cheeks, something or someone was approaching. He turned face to face with several armed men. Joe knew what was going down and tried desperately to escape up the staircase. He made it up three steps before copper jacket .38 slugs pummeled his torso. Grasping the railing, Joe turned his head ever so slightly to capture one more look at his assassins. His lathered face shattered by a .32 round.  Catherine, unharmed, never heard a sound. Mary... she knew what she'd find upon returning.

"Poor Joe, Poor Joe!" shrieked one of Giuseppe Siragusa's pet birds. Nonstop the parrot repeated the phrase while Pittsburgh detectives sifted through the bloody scene at 2523 Beechwood Boulevard on the morning of September 13, 1931.  A dozen rounds had been fired.  Five hit the target.  Four .38 in Siragusa's body; one .32 in the face.  Dangling on the wall above his lifeless body, rosary beads and broken picture frames.

You Don't Know Nick!

Now, you might ask, what the hell does that story have to do with Nicola Gentile?!  We'll be getting to that soon.  First, who is Nick?!

Much of Gentile's history has been elusive, to say the least.  One of the factors behind the many question marks was Gentile's own ability to remain transient.  Use of aliases, residing for short stints in various cities, and remaining fairly under the law's radar helped Gentile become more like a phantom of mob history, especially in terms of the public recognition.  The government however, or a few entities within it, were aware of Gentile, though perhaps not the extent of his business and alliances within the network of national organized crime.   That would all change by 1937, when the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (predecessor to the DEA) netted the mob's 'elder statesman' in a large scale drug bust. Of the eighty-eight (this figure varies from source to source) individuals law enforcement figured involved in the widespread drug ring - Gentile turned out to be the missing link, or so they thought.  That was just the start of a bizarre, stealthy and historically-hazy relationship between the Gentile, the governments of two nations, and more than few famous underworld associates from the good old days.
1937 Drug bust in New Orleans. L to R: Nicola Gentile, Jerry Feraci, Thomas Siracusa, Onofia Pecararo


Background Info:

Since Gentile's name doesn't generally ring of familiarity in pop culture, and obviously his story has proved a bit mysterious even for hardcore mob history aficionados, here's the brief lowdown (For further reading, there exist some succinct bio's, backstory and timeline's reflecting what was taking place in the underworld and Gentile's rise and role within significant moments.):


1907 'Zu Cola' in Montreal Notary Records
Gentile, born in Siculiana Sicily, quickly immersed himself and gained influence within Mafia factions upon arrival in the United States (approximately 1903). His official initiation into the Mafia occurred in 1905 (Philadelphia), and from then on maintained strong underworld ties both in the States and in Italy (he traveled back and forth periodically between the countries).  Gentile resided and worked in numerous cities, including Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Montreal, as far as San Francisco, and served in positions that included advisor, negotiator and/or Capo.


Gentile arrest Pittsburgh PA
1921 Ship Manifest
"You have to be strong, courageous, cruel to live in that country." - Nicola Gentile, discussing life in the United States, September 19, 1963.
By 1931, Gentile counted among his friends many of the soon-to-be mob all-stars.  This crop of enterprising criminals - which included a who's-who of gangland infamy, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Tommy Lucchese, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, etc., among their ranks - were launching a two-phase coup de tat on warring bosses - Giuseppe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, aka the Castellammarese War.  Also that same year, Gentile, who was married with six children, made an attempt to become a naturalized citizen. That effort didn't go quite as planned, which we'll get to shortly. Back to the 'purge' of battling bosses...
1931 Nicola Gentile Declaration of Intention

The murder of Giuseppe 'Joe the Boss' Masseria in April 1931 ended the so-called 'war' and opened the door to underworld supremacy for Salvatore Maranzano.  It is believed that shortly before or during Maranzano's coronation that Pittsburgh boss, Giuseppe "Yeast Baron" Siragusa,  attempted to have Gentile put in very bad graces - the kind that get a mobster killed. However, Nicola Gentile, the proven master negotiator, successfully applied such skills in his own defense to claims made by the Pittsburgh boss. It worked.  In fact, it impressed the hell out of Al Capone, and that in turn saved Gentile's life.  Siragusa's move against Gentile was not to be forgotten.  Being loyal to Maranzano as he reportedly was, Siragusa already earned himself a death sentence, he just didn't know it yet.  Luciano, Vito Genovese, and most of the men who eventually 'sided' with Maranzano... they had quickly realized the new boss wasn't going to last.  Sending a team of Jewish assassins into Maranzano's Manhattan office on September 10th, 1931 sealed the fate of, what some believe, a whole slew of loyalists.  It became known in almost mythical terms as the "Purge" and the more dramatic sounding "Night of the Sicilian Vespers." 

Origins of the Vespers and other revelations

Up until the early 1950's (and that's even pushing it; 1963 was truly the turning point) what the American public knew about the 'Mafia'** and for that matter, organized crime in general, was almost entirely provided by the press and/or whispers, hearsay, a few books (written by former journalists usually). To that point, plenty of law enforcement and government agencies had little clue beyond that as well.  Although there were indeed government agents and entities very familiar with underworld subculture, it took several sensational whistle-blowers, over the course of basically three decades, to truly expose the complex history and reach of the 'Mob.'  There were three primary individuals who 'blew the lid off' mob secrecy: Gentile, Valachi, Bonanno (the latter's memoirs were discovered during a 1979 arrest). Most famously, Joe Valachi, whose televised testimony in 1963 before a Senate committee essentially forced FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Bobby Kennedy did the forcing) to admit their was a 'Mafia.'

Gentile's account served as the most fascinating, if not most revealing look inside the criminal underbelly (albeit a memoir, which by nature is often self-serving) because unlike Valachi (a foot soldier) Gentile was a top guy.  Historical accounts of how and when Gentile's 'memoirs' came to fruition, now that's where history gets dark, elusive and truly makes research daunting. The various written accounts are conflicting, and that's of no surprise when considering the two primary investigative bodies (Anslinger's Bureau of Narcotics and Hoover's Bureau of Investigation) that delved into Gentile's life were almost polar opposites in terms of investigation 'style' and (as this author believes) the two investigative bodies were rarely on the same page, metaphorically and literally speaking.  The FBI Encyclopedia states Robert Kennedy infuriated J. Edgar Hoover (a common occurrence between the two, no doubt) when the former presented FBN files on over seventy mobsters compared to the latter's office dossiers which numbered around thirty.  The point being that the FBI took much credit in the 1960's but the real working knowledge of men like Gentile had been followed closely by the Bureau of Narcotics, and therefore it is more than possible that Nicola Gentile's early memoirs - if actually written as far back as some historians believe - were acquired and translated by FBN agents before the FBI even knew of such memoirs.

"Today, the same as he did yesterday, Nicola Gentile says: 'I am alive because I always acted as an honest man. I always worked for justice. I always respected the law.' In reality what he means is: 'I have always acted as an honest mafia man. I have always worked for mafia justice. I have  always respected the law of the mafia.'" - Felice Chilanti, notes translated by FBI.

Book Report

The official 'published' memoir 'Vita di Capomafia' was released in Italy in 1963 (and was originally going to be titled '40 Years in the Mafia'), and has not been translated from the Italian nor reprinted for retail sale.  Journalist Felice Chianti once said Gentile approached him to take the dictation and write the story, but he declined the initial request until Gentile agreed to allow for annotation.  From September through October 1963, Gentile and Chilanti  also did a series of columns for Rome's Paese Sera newspaper, further divulging the intricacies of mafia life, and more importantly for the Gentile - answering the question of Why he wrote his life story (again, generally self-serving, possibly to improve his reputation), which he said had a lot to do with redemption to the family he shamed. The FBI translated the manuscript and Paese Sera articles in November 1963.  But... the book was not an exact printing of the original memoirs.  Those original notes, though largely similar to the published version, bear a few differences, and were thought to have ended up in the hands of American law enforcement possibly as early as the late 1940's or 1950's.  Nicholas Gage stated in 1971 that the FBI acquired the memoir in 1961 after hearing about its existence from Italian sources. Gage also said the first time the memoirs were mentioned in the United States was in the book 'The Honored Society,' by Norman Lewis in 1964, and further discussed in Hank Messick's book 'Lansky'.
1940 From the Declassified Gentile Files

Nicola Gentile may have actually begun penning his story shortly after he skipped bond and fled to Italy in 1937. Then again, it's also possible he never dictated nor jotted a word until lawmen put him under pressure (some documentation states this occurred in 1958 after a letter to Joe Biondo was intercepted and agents basically caught Gentile in a sting operation).  Treasury Department declassified documents reveal that as early as 1940 (probably earlier than that) an agent of the Bureau of Narcotics - Frank Di Lucia - had made contact with Gentile. The Treasury Department (which oversaw the FBN) wanted Gentile back in the United States, but not to prosecute him.  With regard to the New Orleans drug bust, well, the Feds wanted Texas mobster Sam Maceo and they wanted him bad, and under that pretense they figured Gentile could deliver just the testimony they needed.  From March 1940 through 1942, correspondence was exchanged between the State Department, the FBN, Treasury Department, American diplomats, Italian police, Agent Di Lucia, and Nicola Gentile.  The deal to get Gentile (who was identified as 'Sam Mollica' - which was either a code name or his own chosen alias) into the United States, protect his safety, and get him back into Italy afterwards.  The deal never materialized.  Gentile assured Di Lucia he would do as asked, but the Italian government refused to issue a passport. If the deal had gone through, police in Palermo wanted the U.S. to deposit at least $9000  - just in case something happened to Gentile, and the money would be given to his wife, of course.  After memo upon memo, letter upon letter back and forth between agencies, the final determination stated that bringing Gentile to the United States wasn't worth the trouble, but... they wanted to keep lines of communication open. Although no specific mention of 'memoirs' were mentioned in the correspondence, the government did think Gentile likely had further information to offer, particularly on the traffic of narcotics.  Thereafter, documents make note of Sam Maceo and others indicted in the 1937 narcotics ring, some of whom plead guilty, some dismissed, others became fugitives.***

Keeping tabs on Nick

Between 1942 and 1947 Gentile was thought to have continued working within the Italian Mafia, assisted the controversial 'government/mob alliance' during WWII, and reunited with former American gangsters. The declassified Bureau of Narcotics paper trail picks back up in spring of 1947, showing their interest in two of Gentile's old friends: Giovanni Schillaci (exiled in 1947) and Charlie Lucky Luciano (exiled in 1946).  Italian police kept tabs on Luciano from the moment he arrived til the day he died, and in doing so they discovered what American authorities viewed as sort of gangland reunion.  The correspondence from Questura (Police headquarters) to the American Consulate, December 4, 1947, read:  "Schillaci arrived at Capri on July 3, 1947 together with Salvatore Lucania, the American citizen, Sharon Mildred Block, Saverio Cuccio, also an American citizen, Igea Lissoni and Ida Pogi..."

The letter later states that police lost track of Schillaci and Lucania after the group left Capri in September. Then Lucania was spotted by police in Rome, in November, with Nicola Gentile, whereby they listed the latter's criminal record: "The Questura in Palermo informed this office that Gentile was sentenced in 1900 to five months of prison for deliberate assault (lesione voluntare) that in 1929 he was acquitted by the Accusation Section of the Tribunal of Palermo of the charges of robber, extortion, and homicide, and in 1929 he was sentenced to two years prison and to liberty under surveillance for conspiracy. He obtained release from the above mentioned with decree of October 23, 1946."

Back to the 'Parrot' story, sort of...

Nick Gentile's early memoirs and published memoirs both described the 1931 hit on Maranzano, with a few subtle variations in wording between the two.

Here's how Gentile's original notes described Maranzano's murder and the actions taken immediately afterward:


“They hurried to telephones and informed the boys in various parts of New York advising them that they could start the purging operation. Almost immediately with that word there took place the slaughter of the ‘Sicilian Vespers’. In fact, many of the followers of Maranzano were killed, who were stained with the most atrocious wickedness.
No sooner did the news of the death of Maranzano reach Cleveland that I and Bazzano thought of eliminating Siragusa of Pittsburgh... ”
 
Compared to the 1963 published published version found in 'Vita di Capomafia':
Excerpt from pages of Vita di Capomafia


"They rushed to the phone to inform picciotti (the boys, slang for thugs, mafia friends) in different neighborhoods in New York who could begin the operation of purging.
So it was the massacre of all those followers of Maranzano who had committed the cruelest atrocities.

Once in Cleveland news came of the death of Maranzano,  Bazzano and I think to suppress Siragusa of Pittsburgh."


The published version didn't consistently share the colorful wording of the early translation, but basically the theme and gist of events remained constant.  Also of note, Gentile never explicitly states in the either version that he and Bazzano actually killed Siragusa.  This intentional 'leaving out finer details' is not surprising of course.  Gentile admits he has committed violent acts, confirms the brutality that is innate to mafia life, yet keeps most of the self-incriminating specifics under wraps throughout the memoirs - that is with the exception of when he felt wronged, and he tends to divulge much more detail in such instances.

Both versions of Gentile's life story regard his entrance into narcotics as almost forced. Although he may have taken a hit in the press when authorities labeled him the big shot of the drug ring (he probably wasn't the top individual, though definitely a major figure, and that later government correspondence admits the weakness of the case against him in the first place), his blaming the younger mobsters (Luciano, etc.) for pushing him into the lowly dope business, nearly ousting him from relevance, contradicts his later actions in Italy, which include remaining quite chummy with many of those old pals and associates.

1937 Captured in New Orleans with Gentile. Antoinette Lima & Mrs. A. Scontrino
Now things are about to get full-on bizarre

As for Gentiles life after the book release, stories later circulated that Gentile had been issued a death sentence,  for the second time in his life. This instance was deemed punishment for the published revelations, but the faction tasked with carrying out the assassination simply decided - for whatever reason - not to kill the old man.  Hmmm... but then there's this:

Sometime in the 1960's Soviet spy/KGB agent Leonid Kolosov befriended Gentile and recruited him as an unknowing informant. This particular segment of Gentile's life isn't a secret, nor a new revelation to most historians. However, as disclosed in a 2003 Italian Parliament transcript interview with Kolosov, the former KGB agent's story filled in a few gaps and contradicted original versions thereof. In a nutshell, Kolosov explained he met Gentile through Felice Chilanti (whom he described as 'lonely') and was offered the chance to meet the mafiosi. Now, all the while, according to the spy, Chilanti nor Gentile knew he was KGB, but probably knew he wasn't just a nosy Russian journalist. Kolosov asked his Soviet bosses for permission and they told him 'yes' but the responsibility was all on Kolosov's shoulders.  In the parliament interview Kolosov went on stating that Gentile was killed several years later. Kolosov mentions 1971, but later admits it could've been in the 1960's, and that Gentile's death had nothing to do with him. Pressed for clarity by the parliament, Kolosov said he visited with Gentile on several occasions in Palermo, whereby the Mafia capo revealed information regarding what later became known as the 'Piano Solo Coup Scandal.'  The parliament President reminded Kolosov that scandal occurred in 1964, to which Kolosov admitted his memory of dates could be off, but that in fact Gentile died several years later and that Kolosov's book - 'Farewell, My Dear Colonel' - even featured a photograph of the funeral.   If in fact Kolosov's account of Gentile's death was accurately recalled, then that would make the date of death somewhere between 1966 and 1972, approximately.  However, that he describes Gentile's death with the word 'killed,' and makes a point to clear himself from having had anything to do with it, contradicts previous (and often accepted) accounts of Gentile dying of old age (see below).
"At the end of his days, Gentile was a pitiful figure who only survived through the pasta which his neighbors gave him." - Pino Arlacchi, author of 'Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonio Calderone,' 1992.



Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics File


*Details on Gentile's exact date and circumstances of death are sketchy at best, and information is conflicting.  Nicholas Gage commented in 1971 that, to his knowledge, Gentile was still alive. However, a report allegedly from the FBI, dubbed the 'Dead List,' marks Gentile's death as 1966. Author Helen Womack's 1998 book 'Undercover Lives: Soviet Spies in the Cities of the World' , which covers Leonid Kolosov's association with Gentile, marks Gentile's death - heart attack - in December 1964.

** Gentile stated the commonly-called 'mafia' was actually known as 'L'Onerata Societa'

***The 1937 drug bust was, according to Gentile, a result of Gentile's girlfriend 'Dorothy' tipping authorities off. In his memoirs he strongly suspected she was actually an undercover FBN agent. The bust itself ultimately led authorities to link Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter, Ralph Liguori (already incarcerated with Lucky Luciano on the vice charges in 1936), and other New York gangsters including Charles La Gaipa, Gentile's son-in-law, who at the time had been operating in the Southwest.

Sources:
Ancestry.com
National Archives
Informer Journal
http://people.com/archive/in-the-literary-coup-of-the-year-the-f-b-i-grabs-mafia-leader-joe-bonannos-memoirs-vol-11-no-23/
http://internetmanasaynotocorruption.blogspot.com/2014/08/italy.html
https://www.tni.org/en/paper/rothschilds-mafia-aruba
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/lucky-luciano-wwiis-operation-husky/
Dickie, John. Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia. Palgrave Macmillan LTD. 2004. pp 176-189.
Reppetto, Thomas. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. Holt. 2005.  pp. 190-192.
Critchley, David. The Origins of Organized Crime in America; The New York City Mafia 1891-1931, Routledge, 2008. pp. 168-173.
Cipollini, Christian. Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangland Legend. Strategic Media Books. 2014.
Wife Finds Husband Slain As She Returns Home From Mass. The Pittsburgh Press. 14 September 1931. p. 2.
Gage, Nicholas. New York Times News Service. Nashua Telegraph. April, 21, 1971. p.14.
Gage, Nicholas. Memoirs of a Elder Support Late Valachi's Testimony. The Arizona Republic. April 12, 1971. p. 8.
Newton, Michael. The FBI Encyclopedia. McFarland. 2012. p. 18.
RG 59 ARC Identifier 6100835 Gentile, Nicola