Anastasia tale told by his priest brother

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

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

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

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

Terella death certificate.

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

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

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

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

Still from movie Anastasia Mio Fratello

Ex-New England boss Manocchio dies

Former New England Mafia boss Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, known by the nickname "Baby Shacks," died Sunday, December 8, 2024, at the age of ninety seven. He was a resident of the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol, Rhode Island, at the time of his death.

Manocchio

Manocchio was the last New England crime boss based in Rhode Island before the mob's power center shifted back to Boston. He term as boss began with the 1995 arrest of Boston-based leader Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, and it concluded with his retirement in 2009.

Manocchio was born in Providence in June of 1927. He provided birth dates of June 9 and June 23 for official records. His parents were Nicola and Anna Mary Marino Manocchio. His father, Nicola, originally from the community of Baranello, within Campobasso, Molise, Italy, settled on Providence's Acorn Street with his family while still a minor. Anna Mary was a Rhode Island native born to immigrants from Pietra Vairano, Caserta, Campania, Italy. She was raised on Vinton Street, near Gesler Street, about a block south of Atwells Avenue in the northern portion of Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Anna Mary was not yet fifteen when she and Nicola were married on May 17, 1921. 

Luigi Giovanni Manocchio was the second son born to Nicola and Anna Mary. Five years separated him from older brother Andrew. A third brother, Anthony, was born more than a decade after Luigi, about 1939.

Luigi grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood on Providence's Federal Hill during the desperate years of the Great Depression. The family home in 1930 was an apartment at 34 Vinton Street, close to Gesler Street. Nicola worked in the Fulford Manufacturing Company jewelry factory in East Providence. Soon after the state census of 1936, the family moved to 36 Gesler Street. Nicola was a foreman for Fulford by that time, and Andrew had begun work in jewelry manufacturing.

At the age of eighteen, early in 1946, Luigi Manocchio enlisted at Boston as a private in the U.S. Army. His enlistment stated his education included just one year of high school and his civil occupation was "semi-skilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck and tractor." His term in the Army lasted just one year. He was discharged in March 1947. The reason for the discharge is uncertain. He returned to live with his parents and little brother, then residing at 17 Vinton Street just south of Atwells Avenue. 

Luigi Manocchio's first known arrest occurred in December of 1952. He and two accomplices were charged with the $3,800 gunpoint robbery of a D.R. Carner Company payroll truck. Initially charged with two counts of assault and robbery, illegal possession of a revolver and driving a stolen car, Manocchio managed to have all but the possession charge dropped. He received a suspended sentence.

In the later 1960s, Manocchio was apparently part of the Providence Mafia organization run by Raymond L.S. Patriarca out of the Coin-O-Matic Distributing Company headquarters on Atwells Avenue. He had acquired the nickname "Baby Shacks," an apparent reference to an older underworld-connected relative known as "Shacks" for his common practice of "shacking up" with women. 

Patriarca

At that time, Patriarca had a brief conflict with the Marfeo brothers, stubbornly independent gambling racketeers in Providence. On July 13, 1966, William Marfeo was shot four times in a Federal Hill restaurant phone booth. He died on the way to Rhode Island Hospital. Press reports indicated that the forty-one-year-old Marfeo had a police record dating back twenty-five years. Manocchio, then forty two, was shot and wounded in the neck in a gunfight on Federal Hill on December 1, 1967. Police later arrested his pal Joseph A. Schiavone, who was found to be carrying a pistol. They initially (and, it seems, incorrectly) charged Schiavone with committing the shooting assault of Manocchio. According to reports, Manocchio and Schiavone went into hiding in the Midwest for a time until the matter was forgotten.

Rudolph Marfeo, younger brother of the murdered William, was struck and killed by a shotgun discharge on April 20, 1968, while in Pannone's Market, 282 Pocasset Street in Providence. His associate and supposed bodyguard Anthony Melei was also killed. The market was a regular hangout for Marfeo, who lived in an apartment upstairs. Police determined that Patriarca had ordered the killing of Marfeo because, despite what occurred to his brother, he still refused to share the proceeds of his gambling operations with the crime family. The order reportedly was passed through Patriarca aide Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Manocchio was one of the men accused of taking part in the planning of the hit.

In the fall of 1968, Manocchio was arrested in connection with the killings of Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei. By that time, Patriarca and two codefendants had already been convicted of the earlier murder of William Marfeo. Manocchio was released on bail and promptly disappeared. 

A nationwide search was conducted for him over the course of the next decade. The FBI watched and repeatedly questioned those known to be close to him, including attorney and friend Thomas DiLuglio and Manocchio's brother Anthony, by then a practicing medical doctor. FBI agents received tips that Manocchio was hiding in New York with Nicholas Bianco. A Providence native and a former New England mafioso, Bianco had relocated to Brooklyn and associated himself with the Colombo Crime Family. Agents found no evidence to support the tip and learned from police agencies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that there was no information connecting Manocchio with Bianco. Interviewed by the FBI in autumn 1970, Bianco denied knowing Manocchio. Agents also looked into tips that Manocchio was in Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Baltimore, Maryland; Florida; various locations in Europe.

During Manocchio's absence, Patriarca's problems grew. He was tried (acquitted) for loan sharking in 1969 and indicted in that same year of conspiracy to murder in the Rudolph Marfeo case. He and four codefendants were convicted in March 1970. The different cases and convictions resulted in Patriarca being transferred back and forth between state and federal lockups. He was paroled from his last remaining state sentence early in 1975. (He faced additional charges of murder conspiracy and labor racketeering late in life but died in 1984 before those could be brought to trial.)

Manocchio surrendered himself to authorities on July 13, 1979, apparently believing that advancing years and declining mental faculties of a key witness against him would prevent him from being convicted. However, a jury found him guilty as an accessory to murder in 1983, and he was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences plus ten years. He won release on bail during a 1985 appeal and succeeded in having his conviction overturned.

The later 1980s saw Manocchio rise to become a powerful leader in the New England Crime Family and a close ally of Boston-based "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Manocchio reportedly oversaw bookmaking, loan sharking and robbery rackets in Rhode Island. He used a Federal Hill laundromat as his headquarters and lived modestly in an apartment above the Euro Bistro restaurant on Atwells Avenue. Overall leadership of the New England organization was cloudy in the period. Patriarca was succeeded for a time by his son. Factions emerged and some violence erupted. Bianco returned to New England to oversee operations for a time, but he was removed by a successful prosecution for racketeering conspiracy. By 1991, Salemme was in control.

Manocchio (1990s)

A reputed hit man, Kevin Hanrahan was murdered in 1992. Law enforcement later learned that Hanrahan had been involved in a failed effort to murder Manocchio through a bombing of the Euro Bistro. Statements obtained for court documents indicated that Salemme and Manocchio planned the vendetta murder of Hanrahan, but neither Mafia leader was charged.

Salemme was taken into custody in 1995, and Manocchio was elevated to the position of boss. In the following year, Manocchio was tied in with a large New England burglary ring. Investigators learned that he installed stolen appliances, gifted to him as tribute from ring members, in an apartment he renovated for his mother. After some negotiations, Manocchio pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of accepting stolen applicance and received a suspended sentence. 

FBI agents in 2008 linked Manocchio to the extortion of protection payments from Providence-area strip clubs, but he was not immediately prosecuted. Perhaps anticipated the case against him, in 2009, Manocchio decided to step down from New England Mafia leadership. The federal extortion case proceeded in 2011 with his January arrest at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. The case involved threats of violence against strip club owners if monthly payments were not provided. Though Manocchio insisted that he had never threatened anyone, early in 2012 he reached another plea deal. He admitted conspiring in a racketeering enterprise. On May 11 of that year, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. He made a brief comment at his sentencing hearing: "By virtue of my position, I inherited the deeds of my associates. I simply do not want my family and my friends to think that I personally threatened anyone."

He was released from federal prison in North Carolina in 2015 and was allowed to spend six remaining months of his sentence in home confinement. He reportedly lived quietly through his remaining years.

Sources

• "Alleged N.E. Cosa Nostra chieftain faces trial," Springfield MA Union, Dec. 14, 1967, p. 15.
• Barry, Dan, "R.I. crime figure Nicholas Bianco dies in prison," Providence Journal, Nov. 15, 1994, p. 1.
• Berger, Joseph, "Raymond Patriarca, 76 dies; New England crime figure," New York Times, July 12, 1984.
• Clendinen, Dudley, "Of crime, equal rights and a mental hospital," New York Times, Nov. 5, 1984.
• Connolly, Richard J., and Jim Calogero, "Raymond Patriarca dies at 76; reputedly ruled N.E. organized crime," Boston Globe, July 12, 1984.
• "FBI nabs a fifth in R.I. gang killings," Newport RI Daily News, Aug. 15, 1969, p. 1.
• "Gang killing being probed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, July 14, 1966, p. 13.
• "Hub death may be gang slaying; man also wounded in Rhode Island," Holyoke MA Transcript-Telegram, Dec. 1, 1967, p. 14.
• Krupa, Gregg, "A look inside the Boston mob," Providence Journal, May 26, 1985, p. A1.
• Louis Manocchio World War II Army Enlistment Record, Fort Banks, Boston MA, service no. 31507596, Jan. 10, 1946.
• MacGougall, Ian, "Reputed mob boss pleads not guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 25, 2011, p. B3.
• Marriages registered in the City of Providence R.I. for the Year Ending December 31st, 1921, p. 197, Ancestry.com.
• McWeeney, Sean M., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio... Fugitive," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-42, NARA no. 124-10212-10052, Oct. 23, 1969.
• Mooney, Tom, "'I inherited the deeds of my associates,'" Providence Journal, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Murphy, Shelley, "Reputed ex-N.E. mob boss arrested," Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 2011, p. 1.
• Nicola Manocchio World War I Draft Registration, serial no. 3871, order no. 3746, Division No. 9, Providence RI, Sept. 12, 1918.
• Nicola Manocchio World War II Draft Registration, serial no. T-790, oreder no. T10-160, Local Board No. 11, Providence RI, Feb. 16, 1942.
• "Patriarca is released in $25,000 bail; arrested for first time in 20 years," Nashua NH Telegraph, June 22, 1967, p. 20.
• "Patriarca jailed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 19, 1969, p. 5.
• "Patriarca released on parole," Berkshire Eagle, Jan. 9, 1975, p. 8.
• "Patriarca, 2 others sentence date set," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 9, 1968, p. 1.
• "Patriarca, four others convicted," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 28, 1970, p. 1.
• "Patriarca: The man and the mob," Providence Journal, July 15, 1984.
• "Raymond Patriarca," TIME, July 23, 1984, p. 103.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchi, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-98, NARA no. 124-10207-10267, Sept. 25, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-100, NARA no. 124-10207-10269, Oct. 30, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio," FBI report BS 166-845, NARA #124-10207-10271, Jan. 29, 1971. 
• State of Rhode Island Census, Providence County, Providence City, Census Tract 253, Jan. 20, 1936.
• Sullivan, John G., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-120, NARA no. 127-10207-10290, Jan. 31, 1972.
• "Two men slain gangland-style in Providence," Boston Globe, April 21, 1968, p. 22.
• "Two mob members admit to extortion," Boston Globe, March 14, 2012, p. B2.
• United States Census of 1920, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 286.
• United States Census of 1930, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 4-104.
• United States Census of 1940, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 13, Enumeration District 6-253.
• United States Census of 1950, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Enumeration District 7-366.
• White, Tim, "Manocchio, last New England mob boss from Rhode Island, dead at 97," WPRI, wpri.com, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Valencia, Milton J., "5 Mafia figures to plead guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 17, 2012, p. B1.
• Valencia, Milton J., "Former N.E. mob boss gets 5 1/2 years," Boston Globe, May 12, 2012, p. B2.

Joe 'Adonis' Doto dies in exile

On this date in 1971:

New York Daily News

Giuseppe Doto, better known by gangland nickname Joe Adonis, died Friday, November 26, 1971, at the general hospital in Ancona, Italy. He was sixty nine years old. Death was caused by complications of pneumonia and heart disease.

Born in Montemarano, near Naples, late in 1901, young Doto entered the U.S. with his parents and settled in Brooklyn. As Adonis, he grew into a U.S. Mafia powerhouse from the days of Prohibition into the 1950s. Hounded by city authorities in the early 1940s, he relocated to the Fort Lee, New Jersey, area. Though involved in numerous rackets for decades, he managed to avoid prison until a New Jersey gambling conviction in 1951 earned him a two- to three-year sentence.

In 1954, he got into some trouble due to his under-oath claims of being born in Passaic, New Jersey. A supporting record was found to be fraudulent, and Adonis was traced to his origin in Montemarano. Faced with prison sentences and likely deportation for perjury, Adonis agreed to leave the country.

Leaving behind his wife Jean and four children in New Jersey, he sailed for Italy aboard the ocean liner Conte Biancamano in 1956 (reportedly booking an expensive three-room cabin for the trip). He stayed for a time with relatives in the Naples area, but eventually settled in downtown Milan in northern Italy.

He was reported to be weak and in poor health in spring of 1971, when authorities decided that his apparent continuing underworld connections were a threat to order. A court sentenced him to four years of close police surveillance in the small community of Serra de Conti, about twenty five miles inland of the Adriatic coastal community of Ancona. At the time, Adonis protested his relocation: "I'm just a poor old man. I don't understand what you've got against me." He called the sentence an exile within an exile and expressed his certainty that the move "will kill me."

On appeal, Adonis succeeded in having the surveillance sentence reduced from four years to three. But he was losing a battle against pneumonia. On November 23, 1971, he was admitted to the hospital in Ancona. When he died, a few days later, his thirty-two-year-old secretary, Rosemarie Bloch, was by his bedside. According to one report, Adonis's wife and two of their four children, learning of his illness, flew to Italy and arrived in Ancona just minutes before he passed away.

Rosemarie Bloch and Adonis's daughter, Mrs. Dolores Maria Olmo, made arrangements with the U.S. consulate at Rome to have Adonis's remains flown back to the U.S. for burial. The body arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York on December 2. It was contained in a burnished bronze coffin in the cargo hold of an Alitalia jet. The A.K. Macagna Funeral Home of Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, handled the final arrangements. 

Adonis was buried at Madonna Cemetery in Fort Lee on December 6. His send-off was modest by gangland standards. Three cars of floral tributes led a cortege of fifteen cars between the funeral home and Epiphany Church, where a funeral Mass was celebrated. Family members and close friends proceeded on to Madonna Cemetery, straddling the Fort Lee-Leonia boundary. They were met there by a group of newsmen. The family left the site before the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Sources 

• "Adonis to lie in N.J. grave," New York Daily News, Nov. 30, 1971, p. 80.
• "Adonis' body returned for U.S. burial," Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 3, 1971, p. 33.
• "Adonis' mourners," photo caption, Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 7, 1971, p. 32.
• "Joe Adonis one of 8 cited in Dewey reply," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 3, 1937, p. 1.
• "Joe Adonis, underworld gambling king, dies," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
• Charlton, Linda, "Returned to Italy in '56," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
• Lee, Henry, "Joe Adonis dies unwanted," New York Daily News, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 2.
• Murray, Leo, "Offer birth certificates from Italy in Adonis case," Paterson NJ Morning Call, Jan. 15, 1954, p. 1.
• Packard, Reynolds, "Adonis' kin here asks for body," New York Daily News, Nov. 28, 1971, p. 14.
• Plosia, Les, "Few turn out for Adonis burial," Passaic NJ Herald-News, Dec. 7, 1971, p. 12.
• Pugh, Thomas, "The late Joe Adonis home again," New York Daily News, Dec. 3, 1971, p. 4.
• Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 7, New York - New Jersey, U.S. Senate, 81st Congress 2nd Session, 82nd Congress 1st Session, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, p. 280-301. 

Valachi's world

Issue 34 (November 2024) of Informer has been released and is widely available in magazine, book and electronic formats. The issue, titled The Treacherous World of Joseph Valachi, focuses on Mafia informant Valachi, his time and place, and many of the individuals who played roles in his life.

A rare primary source into Castellammarese War-era Mafia history, Joseph Valachi also described the early gangland of East Harlem, Manhattan and the Bronx, and provided a unique soldier-level view of New York-area organized crime from Prohibition to Apalachin. An early FBI informant, Valachi was the focus of a best-selling book and a popular movie, as well as televised Senate testimony and a lengthy autobiography. Yet, a great deal of the true Valachi story has remained untold.

Now, 60 years after Valachi put pen to paper to tell his story, a team of historians from around the globe is revealing long hidden aspects of his life and investigating the individuals who influenced him.

This Informer issue features articles on various phases of Valachi's existence in and out of "cosa nostra," bios of those who played important roles in his life and background of his time and place. The issue is illustrated with photos, documents and maps. 

Individual biographies are presented for Judge Matthew Thomas Abruzzo, Frank “Big Dick” Amato, Ludwig “Dutchman” Augustine, Brother Abel, Frank “Chic 99” Callace, Edward “Eddie Starr” Capobianco, Angelo Caruso, Stephen “Buck Jones” Casertano, Joseph “Muskie” Castaldo, Carmine “Dolly Dimples” Clementi, Ettore “Eddie” Coco, Vincent “Doc” D’Anna, John “Johnny Dee” DeBellis, Dominick “Dom the Sailor” DiQuarto, Michael DiBenedetto, Assoc. Warden Marion Jesse Elliott, Stephen Franse, Narcotics Agent George H. Gaffney, Eugene “Gene” Giannini, Peter “Thomas O’Neill” Heslin, Peter “Muggin” Leone, Frank “Cheech” Livorsi, Samuel “Sam Medal” Medaglia, Nick Paduano, Michael “Little Apples” Reggione, John “Bum” Rodgers, John “Curley” Russomano, “Sadie,” Fiore “Fury” Siano, Innocenzio “John the Bug” Stoppelli, Giuseppe “Diamond Joe Peppe” Viserti, Tony “Sharkey” Zaccaro. The life stories of many other individuals are explored within feature articles and sidebar articles.

Contributors to the issue: Thomas Hunt (U.S.), Steve Turner (U.K.), Fabien Rossat (France), Jon Black (U.K.), Thibaut Maïquès (France), J. Michael Niotta PhD (U.S.), Thom L. Jones (New Zealand), Patrick Downey (U.S.), Ellen Poulsen (U.S.), Justin Cascio (U.S.), Scott Deitche (U.S.).

In addition to Informer's traditional print and electronic magazine formats, this issue is available in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats.The magazine and e-magazine editions total about 260 pages, and the book editions are about 500 pages. The available formats are compared here:

Magazine layouts

• Print magazine, 8 1/4" x 10 3/4", 262 pg incl covers, color, sold through MagCloud service, list price $62.00.
• PDF magazine, color, sold through MagCloud, list price $20.00.

Book layouts

• Print Hardcover, 6" x 9", 500 pg, B&W, sold through Amazon, list price $32.95.
• Print Paperback, 6" x 9", 500 pg, B&W, sold through Amazon, list price $24.75.
• Kindle Ebook, B&W, sold through Amazon, list price $15.75.
• EPUB Ebook, B&W, sold through Google Play Books, list price $15.75.

William Flynn bio, 'Bulldog Detective'

The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America's First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists by Jeffrey D. Simon was released today (January 16, 2024). It is available in hardcover and ebook formats through popular booksellers Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, as well as through academic nonfiction publisher, Rowman & Littlefield.

Publisher's description: 

America in the early twentieth century was rife with threats. Organized crime groups like the Mafia, German spies embedded behind enemy lines ahead of World War I, package bombs sent throughout the country, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing dominated headlines. Yet the story of the one man tasked with combating these threats has yet to be told. The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America’s First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists is the first book to tell the story of Flynn, the first government official to bring down the powerful Mafia, uncover a sophisticated German spy ring in the United States, and launch a formal war on terrorism on his way to becoming one of the most respected and effective law enforcement officials in American history.

Author Jeffrey Simon

Long before Eliot Ness and the Untouchables went after Al Capone and the Italian mob in Chicago, Flynn dismantled the first Mafia family to exist in America. Next stop for the indefatigable crime fighter would be Chief of the Secret Service where he would set his crosshairs on the country’s most notorious currency counterfeiters. Coined “the Bulldog” for his tenacity, Flynn’s fame soared as he exposed Kaiser Germany’s sophisticated spy and sabotage ring on the cusp of America’s entry into World War I. As the Director of the Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner of the FBI), the Bulldog would devise the first counterterrorist strategy in U.S. history. In this riveting biography, author Jeffrey D. Simon brings to life the forgotten saga of one of America’s greatest crime and terrorist fighters.

---

Jeffrey Simon's other works include America's Forgotten Terrorists, The Alphabet Bomber and Lone Wolf Terrorism. 

'In Our Blood' by Justin Cascio

In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone by Justin Cascio is now available in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions.

While the Mafia criminal society is traditionally viewed as a hierarchical organization, author Justin Cascio argues in this book that Mafia networks are largely based on kinship ties. 

The publisher of the Mafia Genealogy website and a frequent contributor to Informer journal, Cascio has channeled years of research into his first book-length project. He notes that pivotal figures in Mafia history, including present-day mafiosi, have direct genealogical ties to one another and to the earliest recorded gangs in Corleone, Sicily. In addition to bloodline and marriage connections, some mafiosi also linked through the significant religious/family role of godparent. 

Cascio discusses dozens of gangland figures in the United States and Sicily as he analyzes family-based networks that include thousands of individuals. Along the way, he tackles some of the lingering questions about the Mafia: How old is the criminal society? Where was it formed? How did it spread from Sicily to the U.S.?

For the benefit of researchers, Cascio has provided references supporting his assertions. The hardcover and paperback editions of In Our Blood weigh in at 390 pages and can be ordered now through Amazon.com. The Kindle ebook, rated by Amazon at a print length of 532 pages, can be preordered now, with deliveries beginning November 12. 

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.

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.
  

Agents arrest woman counterfeiter in 1902

‘Pretty Italian woman’ was ‘genius’

of Mafia-linked phony coin ring

On this date in 1902...

Paterson NJ Morning Call

U.S. Secret Service agents on Wednesday evening, May 21, 1902, arrested Stella Franto (also often written "Frauto" and occasionally "Fraute") and her teenage son Antonio at their Manhattan apartment, 949 First Avenue. Agents regarded Franto as leader of a determined gang of Mafia-linked Sicilian coin counterfeiters operating in New York, New Jersey and Canada.

Salvatore and Maddalena Clemente, husband and wife, also were arrested in the apartment, and agents led by William Flynn seized a quantity of phony 10-cent and 25-cent coins. Early Thursday morning, the Secret Service agents arrested Giuseppe Romano and Vito Cascio Ferro at Romano's barbershop, 969 First Avenue. (They did not realize it at the time, but Cascio Ferro was a visiting Sicilian Mafia leader and an organizer of left-wing radicals.) The accused counterfeiters, all Sicilian immigrants, were locked up in Ludlow Street Jail until they could be processed on Thursday.

The arrests followed a raid by Flynn's men on a cottage at Dyatt Place and Hackensack Avenue in the Little Italy section of Hackensack, New Jersey. The cottage was being used as a counterfeiting plant and was found to contain tools, molds, machinery and counterfeit coins valued at several hundred dollars.

Franto and her son were arraigned May 22 before United States Commissioner John A. Shields in Manhattan's Federal Building. The commissioner had the two held in $5,000 bail each for further examination. The other four suspects were taken before Commissioner Linsley Rowe in Jersey City, New Jersey, who held them under bond for examination.

As the story of the arrests hit the New York press, Agent Flynn commented that Franto was one of the most persistent counterfeiters in the country and one of the cleverest passers of bad money. He noted that Franto had been arrested and convicted of counterfeiting in 1895, arrested but not convicted in 1898 and watched and warned by the Secret Service several times after that.

While Flynn did not discuss the oddity of a Sicilian gang apparently under the command of a woman, the New York Press newspaper made it a point to describe Franto as "matronly looking."

Stella Franto's background

New York Sun

Stella Franto was thirty-six at the time of her 1902 arrest. Born in Palermo, Sicily, in March 1866, she reached the U.S., along with four children, in 1892. (Her fifth child was later born in the U.S.) She and her husband Salvatore soon joined the Clementes in a closely knit counterfeiting operation.

Their little ring began circulating phony dimes and quarters around January of 1895. Stella Franto was the primary passer of the counterfeit, brazenly using them in Manhattan shops for a month. The Secret Service caught up with her and walked in on an active counterfeiting operation in a top floor apartment at 307 East Seventieth Street. The suspects in that case included Franto's husband Salvatore and son Benjamin, as well as both Clementes and several others. In April 1895, Stella Franto, Salvatore Franto, Salvatore Clemente and several codefendants were convicted of counterfeiting offenses. Stella Franto was sentenced to two years in Erie County Penitentiary in Buffalo, New York. Other defendants, including Clemente and Salvatore Franto were sentenced to eight years.

Salvatore Franto had become seriously ill and a physician estimated he had just three months to live. The physician's estimate was off by a couple of months. Salvatore Franto died in Erie County Penitentiary on May 29, 1895.

Stella Franto was back on the streets and back to work counterfeiting coins in the spring of 1898. She and an accomplice referred to as Antonio Franko (possibly son Antonio Franto) were arrested by the Secret Service for passing phony coins. In this case, the government could not make the charges stick.

The 1902 case

The Secret Service had better luck with the 1902 case against Stella Franto. On June 27, U.S. Judge Thomas sentenced Franto to three years and six months in Auburn Prison. Franto, thirty-six, entered the prison the following day. The prison admission register recorded that she stood just five-foot-one, weighed 126 pounds and previously worked as a housekeeper.

New York Tribune

Some of the names of defendants in the 1902 counterfeiting case are difficult to track, but it appears little effort was made to prosecute either Antonio Franto or Vito Cascio Ferro. Cascio Ferro would linger in New York City until police began arresting suspects connected to the April 1903 Barrel Murder. Cascio Ferro was believed to be involved in that killing, but he could not be located. Months later, it was learned that he escaped to New Orleans and then crossed the Atlantic back to his native Sicily.

A great deal more attention was paid to Salvatore Clemente and one Andrea Romano (possibly the same as the Giuseppe Romano mentioned in the initial arrests), who fled before they could be brought to trial. Clemente traveled north across the border into Canada but was captured by police in Toronto and was tried for circulating counterfeit in that country. He was convicted and sentenced to thirteen years in prison. Law enforcement finally caught up with Romano in Niagara Falls, New York, in November 1902.

As Romano was returned to New York City for his trial, the press reflected on the history of the Franto organization that had just been dismantled: "A dozen years ago the Secret Service agents discovered the existence of the Frauto band. A pretty Italian woman of twenty appeared to be its genius." (She could not have been younger than twenty-six when the Secret Service first became aware of her.)

Later

Stella Franto was released from Auburn on February 27, 1905, and apparently began a less adversarial relationship with the U.S. Secret Service. March 10, 1910, Secret Service records indicate that she contacted the New York office and noted that her former accomplice Clemente would soon receive an early release from prison in Canada. She said she did not know Clemente's plans but promised, "if he started to make cft. coin she would advise this office of same."

(Within a short time, Clemente reportedly became a law enforcement informant, providing details of activities within a New York Mafia organization led by Giuseppe Morello, recently imprisoned for counterfeiting paper currency.)

Franto for decades lived with her children in Manhattan. In 1910, they resided at 406 West Eighteenth Street. In the mid-1910s, they moved a short distance away to 209 Tenth Avenue. That remained their home through the time of the 1930 U.S. Census, when sixty-four-year-old (the census recorded her age as sixty) Stella Franto made what seems to be her final appearance in government records.

Sources:

• "A woman caused their arrest," New York Sun, Feb. 19, 1895, p. 4.
• "Alleged counterfeiters caught," New York Times, April 14, 1898, p. 9.
• "Bad coins made in Hackensack," Paterson NJ Morning Call, May 23, 1902, p. 11.
• "Big counterfeiter caught," New York Tribune, Nov. 28, 1902, p. 10.
• "Bogus silver pieces found in counterfeit raid," New York Times, May 23, 1902, p. 2.
• "Catch six counterfeiters," New York Tribune, May 23, 1902, p. 6.
• "Caught eight counterfeiters," New York Herald, Feb. 17, 1895, p. 12.
• "Clever counterfeiters at last run to earth," Washington Evening Times, Nov. 28, 1902, p. 5.
• "Coin makers captured," New York Times, Feb. 17, 1895, p. 8.
• "Counterfeiter caught and brought here," Buffalo Evening News, Nov. 28, 1902, p. 1.
• "Counterfeiters caught," New York Sun, Feb. 17, 1895, p. 5.
• "Counterfeiters convicted," New York Evening Telegram, April 8, 1895.
• "Counterfeiters in the toils," New York Evening Telegram, Feb. 18, 1895, p. 10.
• "Counterfeiters sent to prison," New York Press, June 28, 1902, p. 4.
• "Gang led by woman is now completely broken," St. Louis Republic, Nov. 28, 1902, p. 6.
• "Have got them all now," Buffalo Morning Express, Nov. 28, 1902, p. 1.
• "Last of coining gang caught," New York Sun, Nov. 28, 1902.
• "Makers of bad money caught," New York Sun, May 23, 1902, p. 4.
• "Motherly look belied record," New York Press, May 23, 1902.
• "She shoved the queer," Auburn NY Bulletin, June 28, 1902, p. 6.
• "Spurious coins made by woman," New York Evening World, June 27, 1902, p. 4.
• "Two counterfeiters arrested," New York Sun, April 14, 1898, p. 5.
• "U.S. prisoners sentenced," New York Sun, April 18, 1895, p. 9.
• "Women coiners captured in raid on gang and plant," New York Evening World, May 22, 1902, p. 3.
• Antonio Franto World War I Draft Registration Card, no. 56. Precinct 18, New York County, New York, June 5, 1917.
• Bagg, G. Ray, Daily Report, March 4, April 8, April 9, April 17, June 29, 1895, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Roll 16, Vol. 6, National Archives.
• Flynn, William J., Daily Report, April 16, 1903, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Roll 109, Vol. 9, National Archives.
• Flynn, William J., Daily Report, March 21, 1904, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Roll 109, Vol. 11, National Archives.
• Henry, John J., Daily Report, March 10, 1910, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Vol. 29, National Archives.
• Petacco, Arrigo, translated by Charles Lam Markmann, Joe Petrosino, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974, p. 94.
• "Names, etc., of Convicts Pardoned or Discharged from the Women's State Prison during the Fiscal Year Ending September 30th, 1905," Auburn Prison Records, registered no. 459, February 27, 1905.
• "Names, etc., of Convicts Received in the Women's State Prison," Auburn Prison Records, registered no. 459, June 1902.
• New York State Death Index, Department of Health, City of Buffalo, 1895-1896, p. 129.
• Passenger manifest of S.S. Letimbro, departed Naples, arrived New York on Sept. 2, 1890.
• Trow's General Directory of the Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, for the Year Ending August 1, 1911, New York: Trow Directory, 1910, p. 480.
• United States Census of 1900, New York State, New York County, Manhattan Borough, Enumeration District 334.
• United States Census of 1910, New York State, New York County, Manhattan Borough, Ward 16, Enumeration District 860.
• United States Census of 1930, New York State, New York County, Manhattan Borough, Enumeration District 31-284.

October 2021 issue of Informer

Mafiosi of the West Coast

Our look at mobsters who set up shop on America's West Coast begins with excerpts from a fact-based crime noir by J. Michael Niotta PhD. These excerpts relate to the escape to California of New York gangsters - a young Jack Dragna and his cousin Ben Rizzotto - implicated in the 1914 murder of wealthy Manhattan poultryman Barnett Baff (PREVIEW). This is Dr. Niotta's first article in Informer. A brief biography of Baff is provided as a sidebar.

Dragna and Rizzotto also make appearances in Justin Cascio's study of the legendary “San Pedro Gang” and Corleone Mafia transplant Sam Streva (PREVIEW).

The San Francisco gangland murder of Nick DeJohn, found stuffed into the trunk of his car in 1947, and that killing's possible relationship with Chicago's so-called “Cheese War” are considered by Thomas Hunt (PREVIEW). The article is accompanied by a sidebar story on early Chicago shootings linked with the DeJohn family and by a collection of other car-involved murders of crime figures who settled in California.

Michael O'Haire reveals that San Francisco crime boss Francesco Lanza played important roles in the development of the Mafia in Colorado (PREVIEW). Lennert van 't Riet explores connections between the early San Francisco and New Orleans Mafia organizations, focusing on 1898 murder victim Francesco DiFranchi (PREVIEW).

In addition to the California-related material, we look into reports of another, “other Gentile family” (PREVIEW) and Jeffery King describes the career of Reinhold Engel, who led “one of the cleverest and most efficient” bank robbery gangs (PREVIEW).

In our “Just One More Thing” column, Thomas Hunt considers the rare appearance of law enforcement officers on United States postage stamps (PREVIEW). This issue also includes “Hundred Years Ago” notes on a crime boss desperate to leave the country and the murder of a St. Louis political boss, as well as a new book announcement for Rogues' Gallery about the Gilded Age revolution of policing in New York City. 

This issue is available in five formats: Print magazine, electronic PDF magazine, paperback book, EPUB-compatible e-book and Kindle-compatible e-book. Kindle e-books can be "preordered" immediately, but Kindle downloads will not be available until Sept. 29. The e-books and the electronic magazine are priced at $9.49 (USD). The print paperback retails for $14.95 (USD). The color-printed magazine retails for $25.50 (USD).

• MagCloud - print and PDF electronic magazine formats (color).
• Amazon - print paperback and Kindle e-book formats (B&W).
• Google Play Books - EPUB e-book format (B&W).

NYC revolutions in policing and in crime

Press release:

Chilling and thought-provoking, John Oller's Rogues' Gallery (available September 21, 2021, in hardcover and ebook formats) is an epic saga of two revolutions playing out on the streets of New York City during the Gilded Age, each one dependent on the other.

For centuries, New York had been a haven of crime. A thief or murderer not caught in the act nearly always got away. But in the early 1870s, an Irish cop by the name of Thomas Byrnes developed new ways to catch criminals. Mug shots and daily line-ups helped witnesses point out culprits; the fames rogues' gallery allowed police to track repeat offenders; and the third-degree interrogation method induced recalcitrant cooks to confess. Byrnes worked cases methodically, interviewing witnesses, analyzing crime scenes, and developing theories that helped close the books on previously unsolvable crimes.

Yet as policing became ever more specialized and efficient, criminals found new ways to ply their trade. Robberies became bolder and more elaborate, murders grew more ruthless and macabre, and the street gangs of old transformed into hierarchical criminal enterprises, giving birth to organized crime, including the Mafia. As the decades unfolded, corrupt cops and clever criminals at times blurred together, giving way to waves of police reform at the hands of leaders like Theodore Roosevelt.

Rogues Gallery encompasses unforgettable characters such as:

• Marm Mendelbaum, a matronly German-immigrant woman who paid off cops and politicians to protect her empire of fencing stolen goods.
• "Clubber" Williams, a sadistic policeman who wielded a twenty-six-inch club against suspects, whether they were guilty or not.
• Danny Driscoll, the murderous leader of the Irish Whyos Gang and perhaps the first crime boss of New York.
• Big Tim Sullivan, the corrupt Tammany Hall politician who shielded the Whyos from the law.
• The suave Italian Paul Kelly and the thuggish Jewish gang leader Monk Eastman, whose rival crews engaged in brawls and gunfights all over the Lower East Side.
• Joe Petrosino, a Sicilian-born detective who brilliantly pursued early Mafioso and Black Hand extortionists until a fateful trup back to his native Italy.

With impeccable research that leaves no stone unturned, Oller dispels the many myths that have survived with these stories, while proving that truth is often stranger than fiction. Rogues Gallery is a colorful and captivating history in the bustling streets of Old New York, from the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia. With its extremes of plutocratic wealth, tenement property, and rising social unrest, the story of crime and punishment in New York's Gilded Age echoes for our own time.

John Oller is a retired Wall Street attorney, and author of critically acclaimed biographies of figures such as Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, Hollywood actress Jean Arthur, and Civil War socialite Kate Chase Sprague. He lives on New York's Upper West Side.

The principle text, maps and images of Rogue's Gallery consume about 400 pages. An additional 80-plus pages is used for endnotes and bibliography. The index runs 19 more pages. The book is being released through the Dutton imprint of Penguin Random House. As of this writing, preorder price on Amazon.com is $27.99 for hardcover and $16.99 for Kindle-compatible ebook.

FBI gives post-Brasco warning to 'Sonny Black'

On this date in 1981...

FBI Special Agents Doug Fencl, Jim Kinne and Jerry Loar visited Motion Lounge, a nightclub and Bonanno Crime Family headquarters at 420 Graham Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in late July of 1981 (the specific date is in doubt).  They pulled Bonanno capodecina Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano aside and revealed that Special Agent Joseph D. Pistone had successfully infiltrated Napolitano's organization as part of the "Donnie Brasco" undercover operation.

FBI agents Loar, Kinne and Fencl (left to right)
leaving Motion Lounge.

According to Pistone's book, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, the encounter occurred on July 28. Pistone wrote that the agents showed Napolitano a photograph of Pistone in the company of several fellow federal agents. As the photograph was shown, the agents asked Napolitano, "Do you know this guy? He's an FBI agent. We just wanted to tell you."

Napolitano had known and confided in Pistone - believing him to be jewel thief Brasco - for months. But he remained poised in front of the other agents and replied, "I don't know him, but if I meet him, I'll know he's an FBI agent."

Pistone could only have heard of this encounter second-hand. Fencl, who was actually there, recalled it differently for his testimony in the 2004 trial of Bonanno boss Joseph Massino. He placed the encounter two days later, July 30.

Motion Lounge

"I asked [Napolitano] if he knew Donnie Brasco and Tony Rossi, and he said that he did, and I told him they were FBI agents," Fencl testified. "I told him I wanted to make sure of his safety and that he was going to have a potential problem with the Bonanno Crime Family"

Fencl offered Napolitano his business card, hoping that he would contact Fencl and agree to cooperate with law enforcement. Napolitano refused, saying, "You know better than anybody that I can't take that, but I know how to get a hold of you."

Napolitano

According to Fencl, he brought along a photograph of Pistone and several other agents just in case Napolitano needed proof that the man he knew as Brasco was actually an agent. In his testimony, Fencl did not indicate whether the photograph was actually used.

Despite the government warning, Napolitano made no effort to protect himself. After Fencl, Kinne and Loar left the lounge, he scrambled to inform Mafia higher-ups of the possible infiltration and to locate the man he knew as Brasco. Napolitano was soon murdered by his underworld colleagues - under orders from rapidly rising Bonanno leader Massino - for taking the undercover agent into his orbit as a crime family associate. Late in the year, Napolitano was called to a meeting with bosses. He did not return.

Picked up in Brooklyn by mobster Frank Lino, he was driven to a house in Staten Island and murdered in the cellar. According to later testimony, two gunmen were assigned to perform the killing. One fired a less-than-fatal shot, and the other's gun jammed. Before a fatal shot was fired, Napolitano was heard to say, "Hit me one more time, and make it good." In the summer of 1982, Napolitano's badly decomposed body, minus its hands, was found wrapped in a city mortuary bag in woods near a creek in western Staten Island. Identification of the remains took considerable time because of the decomposition. A medical examiner reporting to the scene of the body's discovery was unable even to determine its sex.

The Brasco operation began in 1976 as an effort to penetrate the "fences" who processed stolen goods for organized crime families in New York. Special Agent Pistone first encountered Bonanno members in front of a mob social club on Madison Street in lower Manhattan. He gained the trust of Manhattan-based Bonanno soldier Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero and his immediate superior Napolitano.

Pistone

During the operation, Pistone participated in underworld rackets - fencing of stolen goods, gambling, loansharking - and learned of gangland murders. When pressure was put on him to participate in a murder, the FBI ended the operation. Through his undercover work, the FBI gained information on a Bonanno Crime Family civil war that included the assassination of leader Carmine Galante and the later killings of three rebellious group leaders, Alphonse Indelicato, Philip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera. The Bureau also learned of relationships between elements of the Bonanno organization and crime families as far off as Florida and Wisconsin.

Donnie Brasco's true identity was publicly revealed for the first time in the federal racketeering conspiracy trial of Ruggiero and four other defendants in the summer of 1982. Judge Robert W. Sweet refused a prosecution request to allow the agent to testify only under his code name, finding that doing so would hamper defendants' ability to cross examine the primary witness against them. Pistone took the witness stand on August 2, 1982. His testimony focused on four of the five defendants. All four were convicted on August 27. The fifth defendant - charged on the basis of informant testimony - was acquitted. Ruggiero, then fifty-six, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for racketeering conspiracy including three murders.

Sources:

• DeStefano, Anthony M., "Hardened felon chokes up on stand," Newsday, May 27, 2004, p. 22.
• Lubasch, Arnold H., "3 of 5 convicted of conspiracy in 'Bonanno Family' rackets," New York Times, Aug. 28, 1982, p. 1.
• Lubasch, Arnold H., "6 get jail terms in rackets case tied to mobsters," New York Times, Nov. 16, 1982, p. B1.
• Lubasch, Arnold H., "Defense assails agent's actions in Mob inquiry," New York Times, Aug. 6, 1982, p. B1.
• Lubasch, Arnold H., "F.B.I. agent, dropping disguise, tells court of life inside the Mob," New York Times, Aug. 3, 1982, p. 1.
• Lubasch, Arnold H., "F.B.I. infiltrator says Mob chief told of slayings," New York Times, Aug. 4, 1982, p. B1.
• McPhee, Michele, "'Brasco's long wait," New York Daily News, Jan. 19, 2003, p. 10.
• Pistone, Joseph D., with Richard Woodley, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, New York: NAL, 1987, pp. 363-368.
• Schmetterer, Jerry, and Paul Meskil, with D.J. Saunders, "Victim was mobster who let fed agent in," New York Daily News, Nov. 16, 1982, p. 3.
• Smith, Kati Cornell, "Brasco fiasco," New York Post, June 5, 2004.
• Weiss, Murray, "Find body in a bag," New York Daily News, Aug. 13, 1982, p. 29.

Spilotro bros killed by underworld colleagues

On this date in 1986...

Michael and Anthony Spilotro

Brothers Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro, forty-eight, and Michael Spilotro, forty-one, were murdered by underworld colleagues in the basement of a Bensenville, Illinois, home on Saturday, June 14, 1986. The brothers' remains were discovered buried in an Indiana cornfield nine days later.

Nicholas Calabrese, an Outfit member who later turned informant, told authorities that the Spilotros were called to a June 14 mid-afternoon meeting with Chicago bosses. The brothers left Michael's Oak Park, Illinois, townhouse (1102 S. Maple Avenue) at about two o'clock and traveled in Michael's 1986 Lincoln Continental to their appointment. Reports indicate they were met by James Marcello, who brought them to the basement in Bensenville, a suburban DuPage County village adjacent to O'Hare International Airport.

The pretext for the meeting reportedly was the promotion of Michael Spilotro from Outfit associate to full member. The brothers had schemed against Outfit bosses and were apprehensive about the meeting. Michael told his wife if he wasn't back home by nine o'clock that night, "it was no good." But they went to their appointment unarmed.

Nicholas Calabrese

When the brothers arrived, they were attacked by Nicholas Calabrese and other mobsters. Years later, Calabrese recalled that James LaPietra, John Fecarotta, John "No Nose" DiFronzo, Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Louie "the Mooch" Eboli, James Marcello, Louis Marino, Joseph Ferriola and Ernest "Rocky" Infelise were present at that time. Calabrese asserted that he tackled Michael Spilotro and held his legs, while others beat and strangled him. Anthony Spilotro made a last request: for a moment to say a prayer. No one responded to his plea, and he was mercilessly beaten until he was dead.

Fecarotta and others were responsible for disposing of the brothers' remains. They drove the bodies about seventy-five miles southeast of Bensenville (sixty miles south of Chicago) to the outskirts of Enos, in Newton County, Indiana. There, the brothers' bodies, stripped down to their underwear, were buried on top of each other in a shallow grave in a recently planted corn field.

When Michael did not return home that night, his wife called police to report him missing. On the sixteenth, the Lincoln Continental was located at a Schiller Park motel near O'Hare. There was no indication that any struggle or violence had occurred within the car, and its doors were found locked. The next day, federal agents joined the search, as a fugitive arrest warrant was issued by a U.S. magistrate in Las Vegas for Anthony Spilotro. "The Ant" had been due to appear in a Las Vegas court on the seventeenth in preparation for a retrial on a burglary ring case.

Farmer Michael Kinz discovered a patch of freshly turned earth within his corn field at the Willow Slough wildlife preserve on June 23. He first thought that a poacher had covered up the carcass of a deer killed out of season. Kinz contacted Dick Hudson of the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife, and they began digging. They discovered the human remains about three feet down. The Newton County Sheriff's Department was summoned.

Law enforcement reportedly identified the bodies using dental records. Autopsies on June 24 revealed that the Spilotros died of blunt force trauma to head, neck and chest, which the medical examiner attributed to punches and kicks, and asphyxiation due to hemorrhage. (The listing of asphyxiation as a cause of death prompted some in the news media to incorrectly conclude that the brothers had been buried alive. The medical examiner could not precisely relate the time of death to the time of burial but noted that asphyxiation was caused by the lungs filling with blood.) Toxicology reports indicated that they had consumed alcohol shortly before their deaths, giving rise to the speculation that they may have had drinks with the men who killed them.

On June 26, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago determined that the brothers should be denied church funeral services. That decision was made after the Rev. Thomas Paprocki, vice chancellor of the archdiocese, reviewed criminal information supplied by an undisclosed source. Father Paprocki indicated that the church refused to grant funerals to crime figures in order to avoid public scandal. But the denial itself turned into a scandal, as many in Chicago protested it and called attention to the church's willingness in the past to accept large financial contributions from Michael Spilotro. (Father Paprocki argued that cash contributions from known crime figures were sometimes rejected by the church and that donations generally did not result in public scandal as they were made privately.)

A service was conducted the next morning at the non-denominational Salerno Galewood Chapel funeral home on North Harlem Avenue. Numerous floral offerings filled the chapel and surrounded the two bronze coffins. The Rev. John Fearon of St. Bernardine's Roman Catholic Church in Forest Park, of which Michael was a member, delivered a homily. About 300 people attended the service. The chapel was closed to the press, but observers noted the presence of Anthony Spilotro's Vegas lieutenant Herbert Blitzstein and actor Robert Conrad. Following the service, the Spilotro brothers were buried at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Background

The motives for the Spilotro murders were fairly well understood in 1986 and became more clear with the passage of time. As soon as their bodies were found, former FBI Special Agent William Roemer told the press, "[Anthony] Spilotro wasn't doing his job in Las Vegas. He maintained too high a profile there... He was under the glare of the harshest spotlight."

Anthony Spilotro

Anthony Spilotro, a "made" member of the Chicago Outfit since 1963, mismanaged Outfit affairs in Las Vegas and drew excessive attention upon himself, while attempting to enhance his own wealth and power. Rather than focus on quietly maintaining order and ensuring a lucrative and smoothly run skim operation, Spilotro insisted on engaging in more conventional and order-threatening rackets, such as extortion, burglary, loan sharking. His obvious criminal activity got him banned from Vegas casinos. His violent tendencies - he was linked with a number of murders but never convicted - caused some of his Vegas underlings, including Frank Cullotta, to seek protection from federal agents and become witnesses against Spilotro and Chicago underworld bosses. Outfit leader Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa was convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with skim operations, in large part because of scrutiny triggered by Spilotro. Reportedly, "the Ant's" fate was sealed when Aiuppa learned that Spilotro was having an affair with the wife of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal.

An accomplished and innovative gambler, Rosenthal was responsible for managing Outfit investments in the Stardust and other Las Vegas casinos and maximizing the underworld's illegal "skim" siphoned off pretax casino income. Spilotro endangered important underworld relationships through the affair with Rosenthal's wife, and reportedly went so far as to plot the murder of Rosenthal himself. (Rosenthal also became a government informant, though his role, hidden by the codename "Achilles," was not exposed until after his 2008 death.) Spilotro and Rosenthal had been close friends in Chicago - "Lefty" reportedly once talked Fiore "Fifi" Buccieri out of murdering Spilotro - but their relationship quickly soured after their early 1970s arrival in Las Vegas.

In the 1980s, Spilotro became a favorite target for prosecutors. He faced charges of directing a burglary ring in 1980-1981. Prosecutions relating to his "Hole in the Wall Gang" continued for years. He was due to be retried on the matter in Nevada on the same day his body was discovered in the corn field. A 1986 prosecution for racketeering ended in an April 8, 1986, mistrial, but more charges loomed. He faced federal trial in Kansas City, Missouri, in connection with casino skimming operations and another federal case in Las Vegas, relating to the 1979 murder of a police informant. Before the end of April, a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Michael Spilotro, owner of Hoagies restaurant in Chicago, for extortion.

Anthony Spilotro

'Family Secrets'

Outfit bosses were brought to trial for the Spilotro killings and many other offenses in the "Family Secrets" case of 2007, which resulted in plea deals and guilty verdicts. Turncoat Nicholas Calabrese testified for five days. While Calabrese listed the mobsters present at the time of the Spilotros' murders, he could not say who specifically was responsible for the fatal beatings given to the brothers. He testified that he, with help from Louie Eboli, was holding down Michael Spilotro and had his back toward Anthony Spilotro.

Though the Calabrese account of the killings included John "No Nose" DiFronzo, DiFronzo was not charged in the case.

Five of the original fourteen Family Secrets defendants remained at the close of the trial. The others had been removed through plea deals. After the ten-week trial, jurors deliberated for four days before finding the defendants - Frank "the Breeze" Calabrese, Sr. (brother of government witness Nicholas Calabrese), Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul "the Indian" Schiro and Anthony "Twan" Doyle - guilty on all counts on September 10, 2007.

The jury separately considered the issue of whether Marcello, Frank Calabrese, Lombardo and Schiro used murder to advance the interests of their criminal conspiracy. Eighteen murders and one attempted murder had been charged against the defendants. On September 27, the jury reported that Marcello, Calabrese and Lombardo were guilty of racketeering murders. (The panel deadlocked on the charge against Schiro.) Marcello specifically was convicted of participating in the killings of the Spilotro brothers, as well as in the 1981 beating death of Nicholas D'Andrea.

Government witness Nicholas Calabrese was sentenced March 26, 2009, to serve a term of twelve years and four months in prison. He admitted involvement in a number of mob murders, including the killing of the Spilotro brothers.

Sources:

• "14 defendants indicted for alleged organized crime activities...," press release of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, U.S. Department of Justice, April 25, 2005.
• Anthony Spilotro Certificate of Death, Indiana State Board of Health, signed by coroner on July 25, 1985.
• Cawley, Janet, "Spilotro a 'nice boy' who grew up tough," Chicago Tribune, March 13, 1983, p. B1.
• Chicago Tribune, "Did reputed mob brothers run or were they killed?" Elyria OH Chronicle-Telegram, June 19, 1986, p. B2.
• Dwyer, Bill, "Details of Spilotro murders revealed in mob trial," Oak Park Journal, oakpark.com, Aug. 14, 2007, updated Feb. 11, 2021.
• Goudie, Chuck, "The last family secret: 30 years after the Spilotro hit," ABC-7 Chicago, abc7chicago.com, June 24, 2016.
• Hidlay, William C., "Mourners weep at funeral for Spilotro brothers," Associated Press (AP), apnews.com, June 27, 1986.
• Houston, Jack, "Secrets led to Spilotro rites denial," Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1986.
• Hunt, Thomas, "Family Secrets" coverage, Mob-News, mob-news.blogspot.com, 2007-2009.
• Hunt, Thomas, "Outfit boss DiFronzo fought the law, and the law lost," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, 2018-2021.
• Koziol, Ronald, and Edward Baumann, "Spilotros found beaten to death," Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1986.
• Koziol, Ronald, and John O'Brien," "Spilotros may have had drinks with killers," Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1986.
• Manning, Mary, "Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal dies at age 79," Las Vegas Sun, lasvegassun.com, Oct. 14, 2008.
• Michael Spilotro Certificate of Death, Indiana State Board of Health, signed by coroner on July 25, 1985.
• Schumacker, Geoff, "Tony Spilotro's last act," Nevada Public Radio Desert Companion, May 23, 2016.
• Valin, Edmond, "'Lefty' Rosenthal was high-level FBI source into activities of Chicago Outfit," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, 2018.