Showing posts with label Pittsburgh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pittsburgh. Show all posts

01 November 2022

November 2022 issue of Informer

The Mob in Youngstown

Organized Crime in the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


17 July 2022

Car-bomb takes Youngstown rackets chief

On this date in 1961...

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


Vehicle wreck removed from scene of explosion.

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

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

DeNiro

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

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

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

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


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


Sources:

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

19 May 2019

The Pittsburgh machine gun murder that wasn't

'The Big Gorilla' may have been
killed with his own shotgun

On this date in 1927...

Lamendola
A Pittsburgh booze racketeer known as "The Big Gorilla" was murdered May 19, 1927, in what was initially proclaimed by the local press to be the city's first underworld assassination to involve machine guns. Newspapers subsequently backed away from the machine gun claim, when law enforcement concluded that a shotgun was instrument of death.

Coverage of the killing of Luigi Lamendola involved a great many journalistic disagreements. Newspapers could not agree even on the age of the victim. He was reported to be twenty-seven years old, thirty-two and thirty-five. (He was probably close to twenty-seven.) And the uncertainty did not end there. He was said to be a member of a Black Hand extortion organization or a victim of a Black Hand extortion organization or possibly neither. He suffered either three or six bullet wounds in the head. And he was killed in a hail of machine gun fire or through a double-barreled blast of a shotgun. Or possibly two shotguns.

There was general agreement that Lamendola - known to his friends as "The Big G" - was a bad guy. He was a brutal Prohibition Era gang leader, who held a monopoly on moonshine liquor distribution in Pittsburgh's Hill District and used threats of violence and a fair amount of actual violence to maintain that monopoly.

Some have claimed that he learned his craft from the Capone Outfit in Chicago before striking out on his own. (It is difficult to support this claim. However, Lamendola may have had connections with the underworld in the Hamilton, Ontario, area.) He may have served as a lieutenant of sorts for the Pittsburgh Mafia organization (led in the period by Stefano Monastero) until ambition caused him to strive for greater status.

Lamendola knew well that he had enemies. It was said that he did not often stray from the Hill District restaurant, 27 Chatham Street, that served as his headquarters. The building was also his home, as it contained a well furnished bachelor apartment upstairs. When he did go out, he carried a sword-cane with him. With the touch of a button, the outer cane covering fell away to reveal a fifteen-inch blade.

Late Thursday evening, May 19, after he locked up the restaurant and relaxed in the establishment with a couple of business partners, some enemies came calling. A large touring car with curtained windows pulled up in front. Two men got out and tapped on the restaurant's front window and called for Lamendola to come outside.

The Big Gorilla made it to the doorway. The two who tapped on the window ducked behind the car, and two others pointed weapons - most likely shotguns - at Lamendola through the car window curtains. The weapons fire, according to the Pittsburgh Press, "shattered" Lamendola's head. The damage done left the impression that a machine gun was used.

Pittsburgh Post


Lamendola partner Peter Curatolo, nearby at the time of the shooting, was superficially wounded by some of the shrapnel.

The automobile then proceeded north on Chatham Street, while the gunmen inside of it continued to fire. At least one bit of the fired lead cracked through the window of Charles Sparano's New Italian cafe at the corner with Webster Street - still busy at that late hour - and passed within inches of the head of a violinist in the cafe orchestra. The vehicle turned onto Bigelow Boulevard and sped away to the northeast.

Lamendola was rushed to Mercy Hospital. He was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Authorities noted that he was wearing diamonds valued at about $12,000 and had four $1,000 bills in his wallet. His death certificate attributed the end of Lamendola's life to "shock and hemorrhage following gunshot wound of head. Prob. murder."

During their investigation of the killing, police searched the Lamendola restaurant and discovered several hundred gallons of moonshine whiskey. In the upstairs apartment, they found automatic pistols, knives and ammunition, including shotgun shells that matched those that took his life. They found no shotgun. At least not right away.

When detectives traced the escape route taken by the gunmen, they found a shotgun discarded on Bigelow Boulevard, near Washington Street. They assumed the gunmen tossed it out of the car as they drove away.

Days later, rumors circulated that Lamendola had been betrayed by someone in his own organization and had been killed with his own shotgun.

Adding further insult to fatal injury, press coverage subsequently suggested that Lamendola was working in the U.S. as an agent of the Fascist government of Italy. That charge seems to have resulted merely from the fact that Lamendola's remains were returned to his native city of Caltanissetta, Sicily, for burial.

Authorities held Lamendola's business partners for a while and questioned known members of the Pittsburgh underworld. But Lamendola's murder was never solved.

Sources:

  • "'Ghost' of murdered bootleg czar stalks through 'Hill' with death in either hand," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 23, 1927, p. 3.
  • "Death spurts from auto in Chatham St.; misses girl," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 20, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Hill District man victim of machine gun slayers," Pittsburgh Post, May 20, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Hunt slayers of Lamendola," Pittsburgh Press, May 20, 1927, p. 23.
  • "Italian murdered by gang here believed Fascist agent," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, July 16, 1927, p. 3.
  • "Lamendola, slain here, is buried in Italy," Pittsburgh Press, July 16, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Machine gun killers sought in Pittsburgh," New Castle PA News, May 20, 1927, p. 26.
  • "Machine gun theory falls when weapon that killed Hill District man is found," Pittsburgh Post, May 21, 1927, p. 5.
  • "Man ambushed and killed," Pottsville PA Evening Herald, May 20, 1927, p. 9.
  • "Murder cafe owners held," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 22, 1927, p. D-12.
  • "Nab gangster as murderer of Monastero," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 9, 1929, p. 1.
  • "Pittsburgh police probe slaying of restaurant owner," New Castle PA News, May 20, 1927, p. 31.
  • "Two more padlocks are clamped on," Pittsburgh Post, April 9, 1926, p. 3.
  • Gazarik, Richard, Prohibition Pittsburgh, The History Press, 2017.
  • Luigi Lamendola Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, file no. 45184, registered no. 4142, May 19, 1927.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Conte Rosso, departed Naples, Italy, on Nov. 20, 1926, arrived New York, NY, on Nov. 30, 1926.

06 August 2018

Unlucky date for Steel City underworld bosses

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on these subjects:

05 June 2018

Buckshot finishes Tampa big shot

On this date in 1950:



James Lumia, businessman, gambling rackets boss and Tampa Mafia leader, was in his car, double-parked on 19th Street near Harper Street(*) in the Palmetto Beach neighborhood south of Ybor City. The headquarters of his gasoline and oil distributing company was close by. It was about 10 o'clock Monday morning, June 5, 1950, and he had stopped to give some instructions to employees Fernando Gil and Gaspar Montes, parked in a Chevrolet pickup used for oil company maintenance work.

James Lumia
As he spoke to the men through the passenger side window of his new, green, Chrysler sedan, a blue Ford pulled alongside and slightly in front of him. The driver of the Ford tapped his horn, causing Lumia to turn to his left and look out his window. A man rose from the Ford's back seat and fired a shotgun into Lumia's face.

The buckshot blast tore off the top front of Lumia's head, leaving a five-inch wound that stretched from "an inch or so below his eyes to some distance above the hair line." Blood, flesh and brain tissue were splattered about the inside of the vehicle. The gunman's car then drove off. In a futile effort to save his boss, Gil climbed into the driver's side of Lumia's car, pushing Lumia just enough to the right to allow him space on the seat, and raced off toward the hospital. Montes got the attention of off-duty Hillsborough County, Florida, Deputy Sheriff George Penegar, who was driving by, and told him to follow the gunman.

The speeding Chrysler caught Penegar's eye, and the deputy sheriff pursued it rather than the Ford. He stopped Gil at the busy intersection of 19th Street and Adamo Drive. Penegar seized a pistol found in the vehicle and called for an ambulance.

It took Lumia's forty-seven-year-old body nearly a half hour from the time of the shooting to acknowledge what was obvious to everyone else: Lumia was dead. His breathing reportedly continued for about fifteen minutes after he reached the hospital.

Lumia's funeral was held on Wednesday afternoon, June 7. He was entombed in the family mausoleum at L'Unione Italiana Cemetery.

Traffic is directed around the Lumia automobile.

Police investigators were quickly frustrated. Gil and Montes said they could not recall any helpful details about the gunman's car or its occupants. Their instincts for self-preservation may have clouded their memories.

There was reason to believe that the brothers of crime figure Jimmy Velasco, shot to death in 1948, had set up the killing of Lumia to avenge Jimmy. When Jimmy Velasco's accused killer, Joseph Provenzano, was brought to trial in 1949 (he was acquitted), Velasco's widow testified that Lumia was a leader of a regional gambling syndicate and an enemy of her husband.

Detectives questioned Roy and Arthur Velasco about the shooting of Lumia. Though neither was at all upset at learning of Lumia's demise, each provided alibis. The possibility that Lumia had a falling out with underworld figure Salvatore "Red" Italiano could not be pursued, as Italiano was known to be away in Italy, arranging wine deals for his Tampa business.

Lumia's name had been mentioned in the press recently in connection with the trial of several - including Roy and Arthur Velasco - who were accused of plotting to kill Hillsborough County Sheriff Hugh Culbreath. Defense attorneys suggested that the plot against Culbreath was fabricated by Lumia, Italiano and Primo Lazzara, working with Culbreath, in order to halt the Velasco brothers' investigation into Jimmy Velasco's murder. The defense wanted to call Lumia, Italiano and Lazzara as witnesses, but they could not be located. The trial was paused on May 11 at the request of the defense. At the time Lumia was murdered, he was scheduled to appear as a witness when the trial resumed in mid-June.

Lumia was known to be well connected politically and was found to have close acquaintances in the Mafia across the U.S. Within the Tampa area, Lumia had kinship ties to the Diecidue and Antinori clans. It was later revealed that the godfather of Lumia's son was Pittsburgh Mafia leader John LaRocca and that LaRocca attended the wedding of Lumia's daughter. (Pittsburgh area Mafia leader Gabriel Kelly Mannarino later served as godfather to a Lumia grandchild.) Upon the arrest of southern California crime boss Jack Dragna, Lumia's telephone number was found to be in Dragna's possession.

The interior of Lumia's Chrysler is examined.

Local police Chief J.L. Eddings told the press of rumors that Lumia worked in the background of the regional gambling syndicate. He noted, however, that Lumia had never been arrested.

A week and a half after the Lumia murder, with the investigation going nowhere, Chief Eddings announced his resignation. The fifty-year-old Eddings indicated that his doctor required him to take a long rest. In the same period, Hillsborough County Sheriff Culbreath and State's Attorney J. Rex Farrior were criticized for underworld links and failure to resolve a series of gangland killings.

Lumia was discussed when the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee investigated the impact of interstate rackets on Florida. One witness brought before the committee, the ex-wife of Deputy Sheriff DiLorenzo, said her ex-husband appeared to know about the Lumia murder before it occurred. She said Anthony DiLorenzo was familiar with Santo Trafficante and Primo Lazzara and served as a messenger between law enforcement and organized crime. The deputy sheriff indicated beforehand that he had some role to perform in connection with the Lumia murder. He told his wife that he wished he could get out of it, but "he was in it so deep that he couldn't get out." DiLorenzo allegedly told his wife years earlier that Lumia was "getting too big and someone had to stop him."

(*) These Tampa streets, 19th and Harper, no longer intersect.

Sources:
  • Images from June 6, 1950, issue of Tampa Tribune.
  • "Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce," Hearings Before a Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, U.S. Senate, 81st Congress, 2d Session, and 82nd Congress, 1st Session, Part 1-A Florida, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, p. 39-44.
  • "Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce," Hearings Before a Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, U.S. Senate, 81st Congress, 2d Session, and 82nd Congress, 1st Session, Part 1-A Florida, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, p. 49.
  • Forsyth, Thomas G. III, "Gabriel Mannarino," FBI report, file no. 92-2914-351, NARA no. 124-10277-10007, June 26, 1969, p. 2.
  • Voege, Robert A., "Sebastian John La Rocca," FBI report, file no. 92-2940-33, NARA no. 124-90104-10151, July 9, 1958, p. 11-12.

  • "Golden wedding today," Tampa Tribune, Aug. 12, 1945, p. 29.
  • "Funeral notices," Tampa Tribune, April 25, 1947, p. 2.
  • "Defendants accuse sheriff of frame-up," Palm Beach FL Post, May 12, 1950, p. 11.
  • "Rodrigez charges 'frameup,'" Tampa Tribune, May 12, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Tampa murder plot suspects charge sheriff with frame-up," Tampa Tribune, May 12, 1950, p. 12.
  • "Tampa gambler murdered," Orlando FL Evening Star, June 5, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Lumia killed; described as gambling boss," Binghamton NY Press, June 5, 1950, p. 14.
  • "Gambler slain in gang-style," Franklin PA News-Herald, June 5, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Funeral notices," Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1950, p. 2.
  • Murray, J.A., "Two men in blue car...," Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Warren silent on slaying of Luma; warning recalled," Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1950, p. 1.
  • Abbott, Bill, "Lumia's slaying 15th spewed on Tampa by flaming gang guns," Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1950, p. 1.
  • "None of 15 gambling slayings here ever solved," Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1950, p. 6.
  • "Fla. gambler is killed by gun blast," Shreveport LA Times, June 6, 1950, p. 15.
  • "Lumia murder may again baffle Tampa police force," Orlando FL Evening Star, June 6, 1950, p. 11.
  • "Tampa gang style killing puzzles police," Fort Lauderdale FL News, June 6, 1950, p. 13.
  • "Slaying of Lumia baffling to police," Tallahassee FL Democrat, June 6, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Tampa gaming czar is slain," Palm Beach FL Post, June 6, 1950, p. 1.
  • "Tampa chief of police resigns," New York Times, June 16, 1950, p. 20.
  • "Crime probe of Miami underway," [Salem OR] Daily Capital Journal, Dec. 29, 1950, p. 2.
  • "Text of Rex Farrior's sworn statement to senators is released," Tampa Times, Feb. 22, 1951, p. 1.

04 December 2017

Chased from Boston to Chicago to Pittsburgh

Camorra killers catch up with
their target in the Steel City

1 - Location of the Scalise residence on Sixth Avenue in Pittsburgh.
2 - Frank Yacca is arrested by special officers near the city morgue.
3 - A railroad employee spots a suspicious man at the B&O Railroad yard.
(Map by Thomas Hunt.)

"Get up! We have come to kill you," a man called out.

Peter Scalise was shaken to consciousness. It was about nine o'clock in the evening of December 4, 1904, and Scalise already had been in bed at his sister Louise's Pittsburgh home, 546 Sixth Avenue, for about an hour. The twenty-year-old Sicilian stone carver opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by three Italian men, killers belonging to a criminal society that had followed him through several states.

Pittsburgh Post, Dec. 5, 1904.
This "rude awakening" of Peter Scalise provided the public a rare glimpse of an interstate Neapolitan criminal network operating in the United States.

Scalise let out a scream for help as the intruders pulled out knives and began stabbing and slashing at him through his heavy winter blankets. His sister and a cousin, who were visiting with neighbors, heard the scream and rushed to his aid. They entered the bedroom and grappled with the knife-wielding attackers, suffering blade wounds to their hands and wrists but continuing a determined fight.

Scalise, wounded more than a dozen times (some accounts said eighteen times, while others claimed more than twenty) and losing blood through slashes on his chest, legs and forehead, rose from the bed to engage one of his assailants. Grabbing at the man's knife, Scalise suffered a hand wound that nearly cost him his left thumb.

The would-be killers, perhaps discouraged by their loss of numerical advantage or perhaps concerned that the police would soon appear, withdrew, fled the building and ran off into the chilly night (it was just below freezing). Peter Scalise, wearing only his underclothes, pursued the men toward the Monongahela River along Ross Street. That route caused the men to pass in front of several city buildings, including the jail and the morgue.

Near the corner of Ross and Diamond Streets, Scalise collapsed to the pavement and shouted for police. Two special officers of the police, John J. Dillon and John McDonough, responded by grabbing one of the fleeing men, Frank Yacca, sixteen years old. They immediately brought him to the fallen Scalise, who identified Yacca as one of the three men who tried to kill him. Yacca was dragged off to the police central station, while Scalise was taken for treatment to Homeopathic Hospital on Second Avenue near Smithfield Street. Scalise's wounds were ugly but, likely due to the protection afforded by the thick, dense blanket, they were not life-threatening.

A short time later, Dispatcher Hugh O'Donnell of the Pittsburgh Railways Company, spotted a suspicious person around Try Street near the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad yards. O'Donnell went after the man but lost him in the railyard.

At the hospital, Scalise gave a description of the two assailants still at large. He also provided police with an explanation of the attempt to murder him. Scalise said he committed some offense against an Italian criminal society known as "Camorra." While a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, a death sentence was passed against him.

New York Tribune, Dec. 5, 1904.


Learning of his situation, Scalise traveled west to Chicago. The Camorra discovered his presence in that city and plotted his murder there as well. Apparently benefiting from some inside sources, Scalise was alerted to the threat in time to depart Chicago for Pittsburgh. Fearing for his life, Scalise seldom left his sister's residence. But the Camorra killers eventually followed him to the western Pennsylvania city and all the way into his bedroom.

Believing that Scalise might provide some useful information on the increasingly troublesome Italian underworld societies in the Pittsburgh area, Police Superintendent Alexander Wallace took personal charge of the case.

Scalise's sister and cousin were taken into custody as material witnesses (one early local report suggested that they were arrested as suspects in the stabbing of Peter Scalise). They were locked up in a cell opposite the one occupied by suspect Frank Yacca. Special Officer Peter Angelo, an Italian American, was secretly positioned nearby. According to published accounts, the special officer overheard Yacca making threats against the witnesses. He told them that if they dared to testify against him, his friends in the Camorra would kill them.

Note: The local press provided little in the way of updates to this case - odd, considering the national interest the story generated when first reported. But a Sunday supplement article from a West Coast newspaper months later included the attempted murder of Scalise in a collection of reported "Black Hand" extortion crimes. The article stated that $5,000 had been demanded from Pietro and Luise [sic] Scalise of Pittsburgh.


Sources:
  • Brandenburg, Broughton, "The spread of the Black Hand," Los Angeles Herald, Sunday Supplement, June 25, 1905, p. 1.
  • "Aroused from sleep to be killed," Mount Carmel PA Item, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 3.
  • "Camorra pursued Sicilian," New York Tribune, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 1.
  • "Italian was stabbed in fight," Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 1.
  • "Incurred enmity of the Camorrata," Elmira NY Gazette and Free Press, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 8.
  • "Secret agents stab Italian," Pittsburgh Post, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 1.
  • "Waked him and said: 'Get up we have come to kill you,'" Detroit Free Press, Dec. 5, 1904, p. 1.

22 February 2017

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


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

Birth: 12 June 1885
Death: see endnotes









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

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

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

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

You Don't Know Nick!

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

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


Background Info:

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


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


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

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

Origins of the Vespers and other revelations

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

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

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

Book Report

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

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

Keeping tabs on Nick

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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



Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics File


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

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

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

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