Gangster 'Legs' Diamond shows up in Europe

On this date in 1930...

Legs Diamond

Authorities had speculated for days about the location of notorious New York gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, when Legs appeared aboard the Red Star Line steamer Belgenland in the English port of Plymouth on Sunday, August 31, 1930. Alerted by New York police to reports that Diamond was sailing for Europe, British and Irish Free State officials pledged to refuse him admittance to their countries. As Diamond made no attempt to disembark from the Belgenland at Plymouth, law enforcement merely noted his presence on the ship.

An international search for Diamond was first noted in newspapers on Tuesday, August 26. At the time, police were investigating the disappearance and likely murder of Harry Western (also spelled Weston), operator of a roadhouse near Kingston in upstate New York, and the discovery of a Diamond-linked arsenal in Brooklyn. (Some newspapers engaged in wild speculation about the bullets, bombs and bulletproof vests found in Brooklyn, insisting that an interstate underworld conflict was about to erupt between a New York gangland army and forces loyal to Chicago underworld boss Alphonse Capone.)

In the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, New York State Police from Saugerties and Troy raided Diamond's summer home in the hamlet of Acra, about thirty-five miles southwest of Albany. They found only Mrs. Alice Diamond, her friend and the friend's young daughter, a maid and nineteen-year-old errand boy William Warring. Warring told police that Diamond boarded a transatlantic liner in New York several days earlier.

Wrong ship

Lucania

Warring's story was initially considered a red herring, but police checked into it. They found that Diamond had purchased a ticket to travel to Europe aboard the White Star Line's Baltic, scheduled to stop at Cobh, Ireland, on August 31, and then at Liverpool, England, on September 1. The police contacted authorities in Ireland and England and managed to send an image of Diamond using radio and transatlantic telephone.

White Star Line contacted the captain of the Baltic, and he reported that no one matching Diamond's description was aboard the vessel. Police had some lingering doubts.

On August 30, the New York Times reported that Jack "Legs" Diamond was aboard the Baltic and accompanied on the liner by four of his henchmen: Salvatore "Charlie Lucky" Lucania later known as Charlie Luciano, Charles "Charlie Green" Entratta, Salvatore Arcidiaco and a man named Treager. The report caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the pre-FBI Bureau of Investigation.

Years later, the FBI made note of the trip in a memorandum:

A confidential circular from the Bureau of Narcotics in the files of the Identification Division reflects that Luciana was an associate of the late Jack Diamond and accompanied him, Diamond, and [name deleted] to Europe in the summer of 1930, when it was believed that a conspiracy existed to smuggle narcotics from Europe into the United States...

Entratta

When the Times report hit the streets, the police had already become convinced that Diamond was not on the Baltic. Concerned that his travel plans were known by too many people, Diamond made a last minute switch and boarded the Belgenland, they reasoned. Belgenland left on the same day and from the same location - New York's North River Pier 60 - as the Baltic. It was due to land at Plymouth before proceeding on to Cherbourg, France, and Antwerp, Belgium.

While British authorities noted the arrival of Belgenland on the thirty-first and the presence of Diamond, reportedly traveling under the name of Jack Nolan, there was no mention in press accounts of the Diamond companions named in the New York Times. Lucania, Entratta, Arcidiaco and Treager possibly were unnoticed. They may have sailed as originally planned on the Baltic or they may not have made the trip at all (despite the later claims of FBN and FBI).

New York Sun, Aug. 30, 1930

In Europe

Diamond remained aboard Belgenland until she docked at Antwerp on September 1. As he disembarked, Brussels officials ordered him detained.

Diamond expressed astonishment when interviewed by the press:

I do not understand what is going on. I embarked from New York under my own name and not for one moment have I concealed my identity. I wonder who imagined I was traveling under the assumed name of Knowland or Nolan. I left the states to take a rest on the continent where I was years ago. I even have a French identity card dating from my first visit three years ago. It is not my intention to remain in Belgium more than a day or so. I am suffering from my stomach and I want to go to Vichy immediately to cure myself.

Diamond

While Vichy was mentioned to the press, Diamond also expressed an interest in visiting Magdeburg, Germany, and in conferring with German medical specialists about his stomach problems. United States officials believed that his trip was related either to securing a source of high quality liquor for New York bootlegging operations or to establish narcotics supply connections with European pharmaceutical companies.

Officials at Antwerp found his travel papers in order and released him. They quickly changed their minds about Diamond and took him again into custody and insisted that he leave Belgium. Because he was found to possess a valid visa for Germany, he was allowed to exit the country at the German border.

German police arrested him as he entered that country. The United States embassy suggested to German authorities that Diamond was a wanted criminal in New York. That was not entirely true. While New York police had been looking for the gang leader, they publicly stated that there were no current charges against Diamond.

Germany decided that Diamond was an undesirable alien and ordered him out of the country. On September 6, he was driven by detectives to the port of Hamburg and placed aboard the freighter Hannover bound for the U.S.

'Clay pigeon'

Three weeks after his return to the U.S., Diamond was seriously wounded by gunmen who broke into his room at Manhattan's Hotel Monticello. Doctors saw little chance that he would survive. But Diamond managed to recover from his wounds and walked out of the hospital before the end of the year.

Near the end of April 1931, he was shot several times outside a roadhouse near Acra. Again he recovered.

As Diamond was charged with bootlegging offenses that summer, the often-targeted gang leader was referred to in the press as "the clay pigeon of the underworld." The bootlegging case resulted in a conviction and a prison sentence, but Diamond remained free pending legal appeal.

Several bullets to the skull, fired as Diamond was asleep in a cheap Albany roominghouse, ended the gangster's life on December 18, 1931.


Sources:

• "'Legs' Diamond to be barred from Ireland," Brooklyn Standard Union, Aug. 29, 1930, p. 14.
• "Asserts Diamond is on the ocean," New York Sun, Aug. 27, 1930, p. 2.
• "Britons think 'Legs' Diamond is in London," Syracuse NY American, Aug. 31, 1930, p. 2.
• "Charles Luciana, with aliases," FBI memorandum, file no. 39-2141-X, Aug. 28, 1935, accessed March 2017.
• "Diamond held upon arrival at Antwerp," Malone NY Evening Telegram, Sept. 1, 1930, p. 1.
• "Diamond home Catskill raid gives no clue," Albany Evening Journal, Aug. 27, 1930, p. 1.
• "Diamond in Antwerp detained for checkup," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 1, 1930, p. 1.
• "Germany arrests 'Legs' diamond, American gunman," Saratoga Springs NY Saratogian, Sept. 2, 1930, p. 1.
• "Ireland will refuse landing to Diamond," New York Times, Aug. 30, 1930.
• "Irish Free State bans Legs Diamond, New York gangster," Niagara Falls NY Gazette, Aug. 30, 1930, p. 18.
• "Jack Diamond shot 5 times by gunmen in a 64th St. hotel," New York Times, Oct. 13, 1930, p. 1.
• "Legs Diamond hiding out, New York police believe," Buffalo Courier-Express, Aug. 27, 1930, p. 5.
• "Legs Diamond is now believed to be passenger on Belgenland," New York Sun, Aug. 30, 1930, p. 1.
• "Sails from Hamburg," Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 7, 1930, p. 8.
• "The four-year sentence...," Boston Globe, Aug. 14, 1931, p. 18.
• Berger, Meyer, "'Legs' Diamond slain in sleep at Albany by two assassins," New York Times, Dec. 19, 1931, p. 1.
• Reynolds, Ruth, "And Legs came sailing home," Catskill NY Recorder, Sept. 19, 1930, reprinted from New York Sunday News, Sept. 11, 1930.

More about "Legs" Diamond:


Legs Diamond: Gangster by Patrick Downey.

Trial of king's killer takes just one day

On this date in 1900...

Bresci

Gaetano Bresci, accused assassin of Italy's King Umberto I, stood trial August 29, 1900, in Milan's Palace of Justice. The trial was concluded in a single day. A jury unanimously found him guilty. Bresci was sentenced to life in prison (the greatest punishment then allowed under Italian law), with the first seven years to be spent in solitary confinement and the rest to be spent in penal servitude.

King Umberto was shot to death in front of numerous witnesses at Monza on July 29. As the monarch concluded an appearance at an athletic awards presentation, three bullets were fired from point-blank range into his neck and chest.

Bresci, with a smoking revolver still in his hand, was attacked by the crowd. A force of carabinieri police rushed in to take custody of Bresci, likely saving him from a beating death at the hands of the angry mob.

The authorities identified their prisoner and learned that he was born in Prato, near Florence, on November 10, 1869. Though raised in a family with no known Leftist leanings, Bresci reportedly was influenced by the teachings of Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta and became a radical opponent of the political and religious establishments of his day. Records showed that he was imprisoned for about two weeks in 1892 after disregarding police instructions during an Italian labor strike.

Further radicalized in U.S.

La Questione Sociale HQ

He subsequently sailed for America, settling in the Paterson, New Jersey, area, then the center of the United States textile industry as well as of a growing anarchist-communist movement. Paterson was the home of the Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza (Right to Existence Group) anarchist organization. The organization's newspaper, La Questione Sociale (The Social Issue), had an international readership.

Bresci worked in New Jersey silk mills, married mill worker Sophie Knieland and started a family during the few years he was in America. He spent much of his free time with the Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza.

His political thinking in the period moved further Left, leaving behind the teachings of Malatesta. He aligned himself with the political philosophy of recently deceased Carlo Cafiero and La Questione Sociale editor Giuseppe Ciancabilla. That philosophy called for individual acts of violence against the establishment - referred to as "propaganda by the deed" - in an effort to trigger a worldwide worker revolution.

With little advance notice or explanation, Bresci said goodbye to his wife and young daughter in May 1900 and set sail back across the Atlantic to his native Italy. He was determined to energize the anarchist cause through a bloody deed of propaganda.

At trial in Milan

Umberto I

Bresci's defense counsel at his August 29 trial was the influential radical Francesco Saverio Merlino. As the trial began, Merlino stated that his defense strategy would be to show why Leftists like Bresci considered the assassination of the king to be essential to curing social, economic and political ills in Italy. The attorney planned to recount the crimes of Umberto against his people and to portray Bresci's action as justifiable retaliation.

The court refused to allow Merlino to make any such arguments.

Bresci went to the witness stand in the afternoon. His testimony only aided the prosecution. He admitted to returning to Italy for the purpose of murdering the king. In the time between his return and the assassination, he practiced his marksmanship and prepared special bullets by carving notches into their tips and filling them with dirt, which he believed would make their wounds more deadly.

He readily admitted firing three shots into King Umberto "to avenge the misery of the people and my own." Bresci insisted that he planned and carried out the assassination "without advice or accomplices."

When the jury returned its guilty verdict, Bresci stated, "Sentence me. I am indifferent. I await the next revolution."

After sentencing, Bresci was taken from Milan to an old Bourbon prison on the island of Santo Stefano in the Tyrrhenan Sea. He was to serve his sentence there.

Martyr to anarchism

Bresci's "life" prison term lasted less than nine months. On May 21, 1901, he was found dead in his prison cell. Officials attributed his death to suicide. It was reported that he used a towel to hang himself. Guards discovered the word, "Vengeance," scratched into his cell wall.

Sophie Bresci

Despite the official report, Leftists around the globe believed that the Italian authorities were responsible for Bresci's death.

Back in New Jersey, Sophie Knieland Bresci had recently given birth to a second child and, with the support of local radical organizations, had opened a boarding house in Cliffside Park. The young widow refused to accept the suicide account. She told the press that her husband had recently written to her and told her that prison guards were trying to talk him into killing himself. She said he was too strong to succumb.

(Shortly after Bresci's death, Sicilian Mafia leader Vito Cascio Ferro traveled to the United States. A political radical in his homeland, Cascio Ferro reportedly met with Sophie Knieland Bresci in New Jersey.)

Two strong anarchist groups in the region, Gruppo Diritto all-Esistenza and Gruppo L'Era Nuova (New Age Group) echoed Sophie's position. La Questione Sociale openly accused the Italian government of deliberate murder.

Bresci became a martyr to the anarchist cause. The philosophy of initiating revolution through individual violent action won many converts. A young anarchist group based in East Harlem, New York, expressed its high regard for him by naming itself the Gaetano Bresci Circle. A short time later, that group waged war on the United States government and on prominent capitalists through a wave of terror bombings.

Read more:



Wrongly Executed? The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution" by Thomas Hunt

Visit:
Wrongly Executed? website.

'Dandy Phil' exits in his pajamas

On this date in 1962...

Shreveport Times

Nancy Kemp, a private nurse caring for aging gambling racketeer Philip F. "Dandy Phil" Kastel, was startled by the sound of a gunshot on Thursday, August 16, 1962. The noise came from inside Kastel's ninth-floor apartment at New Orleans' Claiborne Towers, Claiborne Avenue and Canal Street.

Entering the bedroom of her patient, she found a pajama-clad Kastel slumped in a chair, a gunshot wound through his skull and a .38-caliber handgun on the floor beside him.

Kastel's wife Margaret, who had a separate bedroom, was awakened by the shot. She was terribly upset but apparently not surprised by the obvious suicide. Phil Kastel had been distraught by his failing eyesight and a recent discovery of cancer in his abdomen. When police arrived, she told them that her husband had spoken about killing himself.

Police found the bullet that caused Kastel's death embedded in the bedroom wall. A coroner's examination determined officially that the wound was self-inflicted and confirmed the diagnosis of cancer.

---

Philip Kastel

Government records and press reports indicated that "Dandy Phil," longtime gambling racketeer and close friend of New York-based crime boss Frank Costello, was sixty eight years old at the time of his death. That was probably just an estimate, as available Kastel-related records suggest a range of birthdates spread out across more than a decade.

Census records believed to be of Philip Kastel's family in 1905 and 1910 suggest that he may have been as old as seventy-seven when he passed. A World War II draft registration card shows Kastel's birthdate as April 2, 1891, making him seventy-one. The 1940 U.S. Census suggests a birth year of 1892 or 1893, making him sixty-nine or seventy. During a 1931 trip to Havana, Cuba, Kastel said he was born on March 2, 1893. Social Security records contain a birthdate of April 2, 1893. Those birthdates would have made him sixty-nine.

When Kastel was called to testified before the Senate's Kefauver Committee in 1951, he told the committee that he was born in New York in 1898. If that was true, it would have made him just sixty-three or sixty-four when he breathed his last.

What happened to girl wounded by stray bullet?

Media quickly lost interest in
Connecticut girl caught up in
New York City underworld hit

When Mafia assassins opened fire in a crowded Manhattan intersection at midday, Aug. 11, 1922, they inflicted a mortal wound on their target but also wounded two bystanders.

The intended victim, Umberto Valente, died an hour later at St. Mark's Hospital. A young girl and a municipal street cleaner - "collateral damage" in the hit - were rushed to Bellevue Hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds.

Agnes Egglinger

Street cleaner Joseph Schepis, forty-two, suffered a wound to his throat that was not life-threatening. Eleven-year-old Agnes Egglinger, a visitor from Connecticut, was more seriously hurt.

Newspapers in New York City and around the country told of Agnes being struck by a stray slug in the right chest. The New York Daily News, "New York's Picture Newspaper," ran a photograph of the girl. The papers said the young girl might lose her life. It appears, however, that no one in the media thought of following up to see whether Agnes survived.

Public records indicate that she did. Federal and state census records show Agnes becoming an adult, and state records appear to show her marriage as well as her death.

Agnes was the third child - and first daughter - born to Harry and Erna Schultz Egglinger of Jamaica, Queens, New York. At least two additional siblings were born after her. Harry worked as a metal lathe operator. The Egglinger family moved in 1919 from Queens to New Haven, Connecticut, first settling at 34 Sylvan Avenue and later moving about a mile south to 42 Hurlbut Street. While in New Haven, Erna's younger brother Reinhold Schultz, Jr., - Agnes' Uncle Reinhold - lived with the family as a boarder.

New York Daily News, Aug. 12, 1922.
Scene of the attack on Valente.

In early August of 1922, the Egglingers went to visit Erna's father, Reinhold Schultz, Sr., at his Manhattan home, 232 East Twelfth Street. They were a few days into their visit when a feud within the New York City Mafia erupted in gunfire at the intersection of East Twelfth Street and Second Avenue.

Agnes and her four-year-old sister Dorothy were playing on the sidewalk, as gunmen loyal to Manhattan gang boss Giuseppe Masseria murdered Umberto Valente. Valente, a trusted assassin of Brooklyn-based Mafia boss of bosses Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila, had failed in an assassination attempt against Masseria just three days earlier (a half-dozen striking garment workers were wounded - at least one fatally - when their group got in the way of the getaway car and mobsters fired at the ground to disperse them). Little Dorothy was fortunate to escape injury as the bullets flew on August 11; reports stated that a slug passed through the fabric of her dress.

Masseria

The media lost track of Agnes Egglinger after her arrival at Bellevue Hospital. But the 1925 New York State Census showed that Agnes was alive and living with her family at 12009 Baisley Avenue back in Jamaica, Queens. Sometime between the 1922 visit to Manhattan and the 1924 birth of Agnes' little brother Alfred, the family had returned to New York from New Haven, Connecticut. Agnes, eighteen, also appeared in the 1930 United States Census. She was still living with her parents, though their address had changed to 120-19 153rd Street, Queens. Harry Egglinger owned the home at that address. The census placed the home's value at $10,000 and noted that it was equipped with a radio.

A decade later, eighteen years from the shooting that nearly cost Agnes her life, the 1940 U.S. Census found the twenty-eight-year-old in her parents' home on 153rd Street. Her two younger siblings were also still in the household, and an older brother was renting rooms in the house for himself, his wife and their young son. Agnes was working as a clerk in an insurance office.

While available records are not definitive, it appears that the Agnes Egglinger who was accidentally shot in the summer of 1922 was the same Agnes Egglinger who became the wife of Frank Seelinger in Queens in late September of 1946. It could be argued that marriage was a greater threat to her health than a bullet. Records show that Agnes Seelinger died in July 1949 - twenty-seven years after the nearly fatal gunshot wound and less than three years after taking her wedding vows.

Sources:

• "1 dead, 2 shot, as bootleggers again fight on East Side," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.
• "Bootleggers at war," Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 2.
• "Cloakmaker, victim of gunman, dies; 3 more in hospital," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 9, 1922, p. 20.
• "East Side bad man killed as shots fly," New York Herald, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 16.
• "Eight men shot in mysterious battle on street," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 8, 1922, p. 1.
• "Gang kills gunman; 2 bystanders hit," New York Times, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 20.
• "Gunman's volley fatal to striker," New York Times, Aug. 10, 1922, p. 13.
• "Gunmen shoot six in East Side swarm," New York Times, Aug. 9, 1922, p. 1.
• "Man dies from bullet, girl is seriously hurt," New York Evening Telegram, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.
• "Mystery in rum street battle near solution," New York Tribune, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 16.
• "New Haven girl wounded in New York bootleggers' feud," Bridgeport CT Telegram, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 1.
• "One killed, two shot in pistol battle," Brooklyn Standard Union, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.
• "One man killed, two wounded, in gang war," New York Call, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 4.
• "Three shot down in crowd in East Side gang warfare," New York Evening World, Aug. 11, 1922, p. 1.
• "Valente's arrest balked by murder," New York Evening World, Aug. 12, 1922, p. 3.
• New York City Death Index, certificate no. 8666, July 3, 1949.
• New York City Marriage License Index, license no. 10522, Sept. 28, 1946.
• New York State Census of 1915, Queens County, Jamaica village, Assembly District 4, Election District 27, Ward 4.
• New York State Census of 1925, Queens County, Baisley Park village, Assembly District 4, Election District 36, Ward 4.
• United States Census of 1920, Connecticut, New Haven County, City of New Haven, Enumeration District 505.
• United States Census of 1930, New York State, Queens County, Baisley Park, Assembly District 4, Enumeration District 41-376.
• United States Census of 1940, New York State, Queens County, Enumeration District 41-1287B.

See also:

• Hunt, Thomas, "Live by the sword... Mafia assassin Umberto Valente killed in East Village shooting," Writers of Wrongs, Aug. 11, 2017.

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."

Criminal Curiosities: Twelve Remarkable reprobates you've probably never heard of.

Out now for the Amazon Kindle.

As a crime writer with a long-time interest in crime's more unusual aspects, I often try to find some of its more overlooked stories. Who needs yet another rehash of Jack the Ripper or JFK reshuffling old evidence while seldom offering anything new? Apart from accountants at publishing companies wanting bestsellers to boost their quarterly balance sheets, at any rate?

All walks of life have their pioneers, those who stand out as the first, last or only example in thier field. Crime is no exception., but crime's stand-outs are seldom as widely acknowledged as, say, the first Moon landing or the discovery of the New World. It's time that changed. Criminal Curiosities is a small step toward that.

Some readers will have heard of William Kemmler or Herbert Rowse Armstrong. Kemmler was, after all, the first convict ever to be legally electrocuted. Armstrong was (and remains, the UK having abolished capital punishment) the first and only British lawyer to be hanged for murder.

But who was the first convict to face the guillotine? Why were legendary figures Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse so closely entwined with William Kemmler and he with them? Whose murder trial saw the victim's body transported to the scene of the crime, then used in a live reconstruction in front of the jury? And how on earth did Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren get away with trading a fake Vermeer for 137 genuine paintings (today worth around $60 million with, of all people, Gestapo founder and Luftwaffe commander Herman Goering? 

You probably don't know. Criminal Curiosities is where you find out.

They're all singular in their own particular way. All have a fascinating tale to tell of their own misdeeds and how they sometimes forever changed the world around them. All of them are often overlooked and some are barely historical footnotes, if that.

Criminal Curiosities is currently available for the Amazon Kindle.

Dutch Schultz, aides, fatally shot in New Jersey

On this date in 1935, mob-affiliated assassins invaded the Newark, New Jersey, headquarters of gang boss Arthur "Dutch Schultz" Flegenheimer. They opened fire on Schultz and his aides, mortally wounding Schultz, Abe Landau, Bernard  "Lulu" Rosencrantz and Otto "Abbadabba" Berman. 

Berman and Landau were dead by the next morning. Schultz lingered through the following day before succumbing to his wounds.  Rosenkrantz died hours after his boss.

The killings reportedly were ordered by the leaders of New York City Mafia organizations, who sought to prevent Schultz's planned murder of prosecutor Thomas Dewey and to consume Schultz's lucrative underworld rackets. Murder, Inc., gunmen Charles Workman and Emanuel Weiss have been identified as the shooters.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

New Brunswick NJ Home News

Plainfield NJ Courier-News

Quad City IA Times

Tampa FL Daily Times

New York Times

Philadelphia Inquirer

Fort Myers FL News-Press

Mafia leader's corpse discovered in Long Island

Cutolo

On this date (Oct. 7) in 2008, a body excavated from a roadside in Farmingdale, Long Island, was officially identified as that of William "Wild Bill" Cutolo, former underboss of the Colombo Crime Family. The partly decomposed remains, found wrapped in a tarp beneath a grassy area east of Route 110, were identified through dental and medical records.

Cutolo had been missing and presumed dead since 1999. On May 26, 1999, the forty-nine-year-old underworld leader told his wife Marguerite "Peggy" Cutolo that he was going to a meeting with acting boss Alphonse T. Persico in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He never returned. His death was immediately suspected when he did not show up for a weekly dinner with his crew at the Friendly Bocce Social Club in Brooklyn that evening.

Investigators noted that Cutolo's underworld rackets - including a lucrative loan sharking operation - and business interests were immediately taken over by Alphonse Persico. In 2001, Persico pleaded guilty to federal racketeering, loan-sharking and money-laundering charges. The case was built in part on Cutolo financial records found in Persico's possession.

In 2006, Persico and his top aide John DeRoss were tried in federal court for racketeering and murder. They were charged with ordering the killing of Cutolo. That case ended in mistrial, but Persico and DeRoss were retried and convicted on the charges in 2007. For that trial, Cutolo's wife emerged from the federal witness protection program to testify against them. In addition to noting that her husband was on his way to meet with Persico when he disappeared, Marguerite testified that, the day after the disappearance, John DeRoss showed up at the Cutolo home demanding all of "Wild Bill's" money and financial records.

Persico

On Feb. 27, 2009, Persico and Cutolo were given life prison sentences. At the time, prosecutors believed that Cutolo's remains had been disposed of in the Atlantic Ocean and would never be found. It was argued that Persico and DeRoss, fearing that Cutolo and his faction (described as remnants of the Vittorio Orena faction that years earlier warred with the Persicos for control of the organization) intended to take over the crime family, had Cutolo murdered.

Acting on a tip from informant Joseph "Joey Caves" Competiello, agents of the FBI's Evidence Recovery Team and police officers from Suffolk County began digging at several Farmingdale locations on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008. They hoped to find the bodies of Cutolo, Richard Greaves and Carmine Gargano, all believed murdered by the leadership of the Colombo Crime Family.

They discovered the tarp-wrapped body, said to still be wearing a pair of Italian loafers, the following Monday, Oct. 6. In addition to dental records, the body was identified as Cutolo's through a distinctive physical feature - the tip of the right middle finger was missing.

Gioeli

The story of Cutolo's murder was made public in Brooklyn Federal Court in March of 2012. "Big Dino" Calabro, a Colombo Family capodecina, cooperated with authorities and testified against his underworld associates. According to Calabro, Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli (who later rose to acting boss) arranged the 1999 hit. Cutolo was to be called to a meeting of crime family leaders. Gioeli planned to drive Cutolo to the meeting at the home of Calabro's cousin, "Little Dino" Saracino. There Cutolo would be killed and his body disposed of.

Calabro recalled; "When the time came, we were sitting in the basement. [Calabro was apparently looking out a basement window at Saracino's house, expecting to see Gioeli and Cutolo walk up.] We seen one set of legs walking by, not two. I went outside to see who it was, and it was Billy Cutolo. I shook hands with him. He asked me where to go. I showed him the stairs. He walked ahead. I pulled out my gun and shot him in the head. I closed the door. I went outside. I seen Tommy. He said, 'What happened?' I said, 'It's done'"

Cutolo's body was then tied up and wrapped in the tarp and buried in what at the time was a wooded lot.

According to prosecutors, Calabro was promoted to capodecina as a reward for eliminating the Cutolo threat.

Sources:

• Newman, Andy, "Reputed Colombo mob family boss pleads guilty to racketeering," New York Times, Dec. 21, 2001.
• "Mistrial is declared in mob murder case," New York Times, Nov. 4, 2006, p. B3.
• Algar, Selim, "Mob widow points finger at Persico," New York Post, Nov. 9, 2007.
• "Is a mob hitman buried in Farmingdale?" Eyewitness News, WABC-TV, New York, Oct. 1, 2008.
• "F.B.I. digs for mob bodies on L.I.," New York Times, Oct. 2, 2008, p. B6.
• "F.B.I. may have found body in search of L.I. burial site," New York Times, Oct. 7, 2008, p. 27.
• Marzulli, John, and Leo Standora, "Corpse found at Long Island mob dig may be Wild Bill Cutolo," New York Daily News, Oct. 7, 2008.
• "Body identified as missing mobster's," New York Times, Oct. 7, 2008, p. 28.
• Feuer, Alan, "Awaiting an awkward burial," New York Times, Oct. 9, 2008, p. 31.
• Wilson, Michael, and William K. Rashbaum, "11 years after officer's slaying, reputed mob figures are indicted," New York Times, Dec. 19, 2008, p. 38.
• Marzulli, John, "Former Colombo family boss indicted in 1997 murder of NYPD cop Ralph Dols," New York Daily News, Dec. 19, 2008.
• Marzulli, John, "Colombo boss Alphonse Persico sentenced to life in prison for 1999 hit," New York Daily News, Feb. 27, 2009
• "Colombo organized crime family acting boss Alphonse T. Persico and administration member John J. DeRoss sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of William 'Wild Bill' Cutolo and related witness tampering," press release of U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, Feb. 27, 2009. (LINK)
• Rashbaum, William K., "F.B.I. resumes search for mob graves," New York Times, March 9, 2009.
• Secret, Mosi, "Witness testifies how plot to kill officer was set up," New York Times, March 28, 2012, p. 22.
• MobNews blog entries for "Cutolo." (LINK)

Anarchist bomb destroys NYC building

On this date in 1914 - An Independence Day explosion demolished the upper stories of an apartment building in East Harlem, killing leftist radical Arthur Caron and several colleagues. Caron had been among those who protested the involvement of the Rockefeller family in April's "Ludlow Massacre." It appeared that Caron and his associates were building the bomb when it exploded.

The Ludlow Massacre occurred April 20, 1914, when Colorado state troops and a private force hired by a Rockefeller-owned coal mining company attacked and destroyed a tent camp of striking miners and their families. The attackers fired machine guns and repeating rifles into the camp and then poured oil on occupied tents and set them on fire.

The camp had been home to about nine hundred people, including two hundred and seventy-one children, ejected from company-owned housing in October 1913 due to the strike. Strikers, most of them Greek and Italian immigrants, spent the winter in their tent community with limited supplies.

An official report stated that at least twenty-five people - including fourteen children and two women - perished in the massacre. Earlier reporting put the death toll at a minimum of forty-five people, with women and children accounting for thirty of those deaths. Because bodies were completely destroyed in an oil-fueled blaze and government agencies restricted access to the campsite, the precise number of the dead continues to be debated.

In New York City, unionists and anarchist-communist radicals demonstrated against Rockefeller. Author Upton Sinclair joined the protests by organizing a "mourning picket" on Broadway. Arthur Caron and a number of anarchists decided to bring their protests to the Tarrytown, New York, region, where the Rockefeller estate was located. (John D. Rockefeller, Jr., insisted that his company-hired forces acted in a disciplined manner. He attributed the violence to the poorly led Colorado militia.)

A Caron-led group was arrested at the end of May after assembling in a Tarrytown public park and denouncing John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a murderer. Caron, ten other men and one woman (Rebecca Edelson, who stated that the only thing Rockefeller ever gave away for free was the oil used to burn women and children in their Ludlow tents) were charged with blocking traffic and holding a street meeting without a permit. They were scheduled for trial in July.

On Friday, July 3, political radicals (including anarchist editor Alexander Berkman) met at the anarchist Ferrer Center in New York City to plan demonstrations in support of Caron. A plot to bomb the Rockefeller estate may have been set in motion at the meeting.

At about 9:15 the next morning, July 4, the three upper stories of the seven-story building at 1626 Lexington Avenue, between 102nd and 103rd Streets, were turned to rubble in an explosion that witnesses compared to a "broadside from a battleship."

Windows along both sides of the street were shattered. Building debris and bits of human remains rained down on the neighborhood. Body parts were discovered on the roof of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at 103rd Street and Lexington.

Authorities, likely benefiting from some inside information, quickly identified Caron as one of those who died in the explosion. Also killed were Charles Berg (he was listed as a fatality even before his remains were discovered), Carl Hanson and Mrs. Marie Chavez. Reports indicated that seven people were seriously injured.

Editors Alexander Berkman and Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Flynn of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Rebecca Edelson spoke to a crowd of 5,000 people assembled at Union Square on July 11 for a memorial to the bomb victims. Berkman did not deny that Caron and his associates were building a bomb to attack the Rockefeller estate, but he suggested that Rockefeller's "many murders" justified their action. "I say that death in such a cause, which is a cause directed against oppression and tyranny, makes of those who so die martyrs," Berkman said.

The Independence Day explosion on Lexington Avenue led to a series of violent exchanges between anarchist groups and law enforcement agencies that comprised America's first "War on Terror."

Sources:

• "45 dead, 20 hurt, score missing, in strike war," New York Times, April 22, 1914, p. 7.
• "The Ludlow camp horror," New York Times, April 23, 1914, p. 12.
• "Saw militia fire tents," New York Times, April 20, 1914, p. 5.
• "Swear militia fired tents," New York Times, May 2, 1914, p. 3.
• "Sinclair mourners split by discord," New York Times, May 3, 1914, p. 3.
• "Hear Colorado women," New York Times, May 24, 1914, p. 25.
• "I.W.W. invades Tarrytown," New York Times, May 31, 1914, p. 12.
• "I.W.W. bomb meant for Rockefeller kills four of its makers, wrecks tenement and injures many tenants," New York Times, July 5, 1914, p. 1.
• "Find Berg's body in bomb wreckage," New York Times, July 6, 1914, p. 1.
• "Plan big meeting for dead bomb men," New York Times, July 10, 1914, p. 18.
• "5,000 at memorial to anarchist dead," New York Times, July 12, 1914, p. 3.
• "Berkman interview arouses the police," New York Times, Feb. 17, 1915, p. 20.

Read more about America's first "War on Terror" in:

Wrongly Executed?:
The Long-forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution
by Thomas Hunt

Gangland assassination in Brooklyn

Capone gunmen blamed in Frankie Yale's murder

At about 4 p.m. on July 1, 1928, Brooklyn underworld leader Francesco "Frankie Yale" Ioele, 35, was driving his Lincoln automobile along 44th Street in Brooklyn, when he was overtaken by a black sedan.

Spot of Yale's death. (Police had removed his body from the car.)

Shots were fired into the Lincoln's rear window, and Yale accelerated in an effort to escape. The two cars came abreast between 9th and 10th Avenues, and a volley was fired by pistols and a sawed-off shotgun into Yale's car.

Yale's skull was cracked open by the slugs, and his car veered off the road, crashing into the stone steps in front of 923 44th Street. He died immediately.

Though some press accounts referred to the killing as the first New York gangland murder to feature the use of a "Tommy Gun" submachine gun, an autopsy attributed Yale's fatal wounds to a shotgun and a pistol.

At the time of his murder, Yale was believed to be a top lieutenant in the Manhattan-based Mafia organization of Giuseppe Masseria. Yale appeared to be the top-ranked Calabrian in the Sicilian-dominated Mafia network, which opened to non-Sicilians in the Prohibition Era. Later in 1928, following the slaying of Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila, Masseria became the U.S. Mafia's boss of bosses.

Police linked the Yale murder to gunmen working for Chicago's Al Capone, a Brooklyn-born gangster whose family was rooted in the Naples area of Italy. Capone and Yale, both vassals of Giuseppe Masseria, had been rum-running partners. Perhaps concerned that Yale was not dealing with him fairly, Capone inserted a spy named James DeAmato into Yale's organization. DeAmato was found dead on a Brooklyn street in July 1927, likely forcing Capone to take more decisive action.

Yale's funeral was an extravagant gangland sendoff, featuring a silver coffin, mountains of floral tributes and a cortege of two hundred automobiles.

For more on Frankie Yale, see 
"What do we know about Frankie Yale?" 
on The American Mafia history website.

Eddie McGrath and West Side's waterfront racketeers

In his first book-length project, Neil Clark  takes aim at the mobsters of New York's West Side waterfront. This selection of subject puts Clark in the footsteps of giants. 

An early journalistic account of waterfront corruption and racketeering by Malcolm Johnson of the New York Sun won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. On the Waterfont, a fictional film handling of gangster rule along the wharves, won a trunkload of 1954 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Writing. More recently, historian Nathan Ward revisited the Hudson River docks for his 2010 book, Dark Harbor, examining Malcolm Johnson's groundbreaking effort to bring waterfront organized crime to light.

While much of the material in Dock Boss is familiar, Clark expands on previous coverage with information drawn from court and prison files, FBI archives and other state and federal agency records. He delivers an informative and intriguing history. The Greater Toronto Area resident strays just a bit from the beaten path and approaches the subject through the life and career of a real-world "Johnny Friendly," Eddie McGrath.

An altar boy in his youth, McGrath became a clever, charming and resourceful criminal on his way to the leadership of an influential and largely Irish-American underworld organization. McGrath attained official recognition from the International Longshoremen's Association and the American Federation of Labor and proved himself useful to corrupt union officials and national racketeering networks.

McGrath's life story is a virtual Who's Who of Gotham outlaws. On his way to boss status, he benefited from alliances with such figures as "Big Joe" Butler, "Peck" Hughes, "Red" McCrossin, "Farmer" Sullivan, Andrew "Squint" Sheridan, John "Cockeye" Dunn and James "Ding-Dong" Bell. The résumés of his associates and his underworld rivals featured service with some of New York's most notorious gang chieftains, including Dutch Schultz, "Legs" Diamond, "Mag Dog" Coll and Owney Madden. Working relationships with Joey Rao, Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo and Giuseppe "Joe Adonis" Doto, eventually brought McGrath into contact with syndicate bosses like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello.

Due to a (perhaps fortunate) stay in Sing Sing Prison, McGrath played a relatively minor role in the most exciting portion of Dock Boss, the mid-1930s conflict between the Butler and Yanowsky gangs for control of the West Side dock rackets. It was a true gangland war. Clark's description of the bloody one-and-a-half-year conflict, from late December 1934 to summer of 1936, moves rapidly from one shooting to the next and still manages to consume about forty pages of the book.

The war set the stage perfectly for McGrath. With allies and rivals eliminated through bullets or courtroom convictions, McGrath and his partners, John Dunn and Georgie Daggett, assumed control of the former rackets of the Butler Gang and quickly established control along the docks.

Clark takes the time to explain the atypical workings and the special economic and historic value of New York City's docks, as well as the rackets used by gangsters, union leaders and politicians to profit from them. He notes and explains the strong Irish influence on the West Side piers and the surrounding neighborhoods. He explores the corruption-encouraging "public loader" system unique to the Big Apple, which significantly increased the cost of goods moved off of ships in New York harbor. The "shape-up" method of rewarding cooperative longshoremen with work - illustrated in the movie On the Waterfront - is also detailed. The author even describes the competitive pressures on labor leaders that drove them to support the McGrath outfit. Clark is well-versed in this field, proof of his extensive research.

This reviewer can manage only a few minor complaints about Clark's work (in addition to his insistence on using the "Oxford comma"):

•  Chapters are unusually short. With about 270 pages of text divided up into forty chapters, the average chapter length is less than seven pages. Some chapters are only about three pages long. It is likely that many readers will view this as a positive thing. But I found the chapter interruptions annoying, as they often occurred where there was no logical break in the story. The Butler-Yanowsky War, for example, is a single logical event occurring over a fairly short period of time. However, it is broken up among five or six chapters. 
•  While the text is generally well written, it would have benefited from an editor's attention. There are occasional misspellings, a bit of indecision over whether to use U.S.- or Canada-preferred spellings for terms ("cheque," "offense"/"offence," for example) and some incorrect dates and figures (passage of Volstead Act, percentage of alcohol in beverages permitted by the Harrison Act, date of the police raid of Tully house...). 
•  There is also a frequent and annoying use of the name "Greenwich" to refer to the Manhattan neighborhood of "Greenwich Village." In this reviewer's experience, the name "Greenwich" on its own refers to a district in London, the base for worldwide timekeeping, a town in southwestern Connecticut and a town and village in upstate New York. When a shortened name for "Greenwich Village" is needed, it generally takes the form of "The Village."
•  The author may have been overly accepting of earlier histories, including the Pulitzer-winning articles by Malcolm Johnson. Some small Dock Boss flaws (these turned up when this reviewer closely examined newspaper records of early McGrath arrests) can be traced to Johnson's work and reports based on Johnson's articles. 
•  Dock Boss provides a bibliography and an index - useful tools for researchers - but does not include notes. The absence of source citations for statements of fact in the text appears to have been the result of publisher policy. This may be mildly frustrating for some researchers, but it should not be interpreted as a lack of documentary support. Clark has proved to this reviewer's satisfaction that he has command of the available sources in this subject area. 

Nitpicking aside, Neil Clark has produced a solid history and an enjoyable read. With luck, he will soon set to work on additional crime-history projects.

Dock Boss; Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront (Barricade) by Neil G. Clark is scheduled for a July 1 release. An excerpt from Dock Boss can be found in the summer 2017 issue of Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement.

June 25, 1906: Murder at the Garden

On this date in 1906, prominent architect Stanford White was shot and killed at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden. The shooter was Harry Kendall Thaw, of Pittsburgh. Thaw, the heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, held a grudge against White, whom he blamed for thwarting his efforts to achieve the respect of high society. White was also the former lover of Thaw’s wife, Evelyn Nesbit. Nesbit had been a popular model and chorus girl and was the inspiration for the movie The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.

At trial, Thaw went with a temporary insanity defense (“temporary” probably being the only part that was exaggerated). The jury wound up deadlocked. At the second trial, Evelyn Nesbit took the stand and testified that Stanford White had abused her and that Thaw was just acting in her defense. She performed this task in exchange for the promise of a divorce and a million dollars from Thaw.  The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. Thaw received a sentence to the state mental hospital at Matteawan. Nesbit received her divorce, but not the money.

Thaw escaped from Matteawan in 1913 and fled to Canada. He was eventually apprehended and extradited to New York. After receiving a new trial, he was found sane and not guilty of murder. He was released from state custody in 1915.

Thaw was arrested again in 1916, this time for the abduction and sexual assault of 19 year old Frederick Gump (no relation to Forrest). He was found not guilty by reason of insanity (it’s like déjà vu all over again). In 1924, Thaw was judged sane and released from the asylum where he had been incarcerated.

Harry Thaw died of a heart attack in Florida in 1947. In his will, he left Evelyn Nesbit ten thousand dollars, about one percent of his estimated net worth.

Further reading:

Murderpedia – Harry Thaw  

Famous Trials - Thaw (White Murder) Trials 1907-08

Wikipedia – Harry Kendall Thaw

IMDb – The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing

San Francisco boss succumbs to blood disorder

On this date in 1937 - Francesco Lanza, Mafia boss of the San Francisco area, died of natural causes. His son Mariano Vincenzo (James) was deemed too young to succeed him, and the role of boss was passed to Tony Lima.

Originally from Castelbuono, Sicily, where the family surname was Proetto, Francesco Lanza entered the U.S. through New York in the early 1900s. His family, including two-year-old Mariano Vincenzo, joined him in New York in February of 1905.

The family made its way west during the World War I years and settled in San Francisco by the start of Prohibition. A low-profile Mafioso, Lanza ran produce-related businesses and became a legal supplier of grapes to illegal wine-making operations across the U.S. He remained far in the background while more conspicuous underworld figures perished in Prohibition Era gangland conflicts.

In the 1920s, he became part-owner of a vineyard in Escondido, California. Nick Licata, a Mafia leader from the Los Angeles area, later partnered in that business. California Mafioso Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno recalled Lanza as San Francisco's regional Mafia boss and partner with Giuseppe Alioto in a restaurant at the city's Fisherman's Wharf.

Lanza died at the age of 64. Historian Christina Ann-Marie DiEdoardo noted that the apparent cause of Francesco Lanza's death was aplastic anemia, a blood disease that could have been treated through transfusions. "Ironically," DiEdoardo wrote, "this made him the only boss around during the Booze Wars who died because his blood stayed in his body..."

A couple of decades after Francesco Lanza's death, his son James became boss of the San Francisco crime family. Unnoticed by the early 1950s Kefauver Committee, his name came up during the McClellan Committee hearings later in that decade. It was believed that James Lanza traveled east for the 1957 Apalachin convention as representative of San Francisco but managed to escape the notice of authorities. His presence in New York City and Scranton, Pennsylvania, hotels at the time of the convention was noted. The FBI began watching Lanza in the late 1950s and conducted electronic eavesdropping on his operations in the early 1960s. A widely publicized U.S. Justice Department listing of U.S. Mafia leaders in the late 1960s named James Lanza as the boss of the San Francisco crime family. James Lanza died in February 2006 at the age of 104.

See also:

O'Haire, Michael, "San Francisco boss Lanza held key role with Colorado's Mafia," Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement, October 2021.

Sources:

• "Mafia's leadership list updated by Justice Dept.," Palm Springs CA Desert Sun, Aug. 22, 1969, p. 7
• "San Francisco deaths," Oakland CA Tribune, June 15, 1937, p. 35. 
• California Death Index, Ancestry.com.
• Demaris, Ovid, The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno, New York: Times Books, 1981, p. 137.
• DiEdoardo, Christina Ann-Marie, Lanza's Mob: The Mafia and San Francisco, Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2016.
• Hart, Arthur V., "Meeting of hoodlums, Apalachin, New York, November 14, 1957," FBI report, file no. 63-4426-171, NARA no. 124-90103-10092, July 8, 1958, p. 103.
• Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Hearings Before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Part 32, 85th Congress, 2d Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958.
• Mudd, Herbert K. Jr., "La Cosa Nostra San Francisco Division," FBI report, Aug. 23, 1968, file no. 92-6054-2397, NARA no. 124-10297-10131, p. Cover-C.
• Passenger manifest of S.S. Sicilia, departed Palermo on January 26, 1905, arrived New York City on Feb. 10, 1905.
• Polk's Crocker-Langley San Francisco City Directory 1934, San Francisco: R.L. Polk & Co. of California, 1934, p. 635.
• SAC San Diego, "La Cosa Nostra AR - Conspiracy," FBI airtel, file no. 92-6054-1907, NARA no. 124-10222-10055, March 13, 1967, p. 4.
• SAC San Francisco, "Mariano Vincenzo Lanza, aka James Joseph Lanza," FBI memorandum, file no. 92-3432-87, NARA no. 124-10222-10385, Dec. 29, 1960.
• Social Security Death Index, Ancestry.com.

Read more about the Lanzas of San Francisco in:

Lanza's Mob: The Mafia and San Francisco by Christina Ann-Marie DiEdoardo