Anastasia tale told by his priest brother

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

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

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

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

Terella death certificate.

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

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

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

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

Still from movie Anastasia Mio Fratello

Ex-New England boss Manocchio dies

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

Manocchio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patriarca

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Manocchio (1990s)

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Joe 'Adonis' Doto dies in exile

On this date in 1971:

New York Daily News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources 

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

Valachi's world

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magazine layouts

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

Book layouts

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

Gangsters of Lower East Side

Informer's October 2023 issue, entitled "Gangsters of New York's Lower East Side," includes twelve feature articles and eleven sidebars related to the gangland history of the area known as the "greatest breeding ground for gunmen and racketeers... this country has ever seen." The issue also includes several articles on other subjects.

Magazine (left) and book covers.

Thomas Hunt, Justin Cascio, Patrick Downey, Michael O'Haire, Steve Turner and Matt Ghiglieri contributed articles.

The Informer issue is available in seven formats. Print magazine and electronic (PDF) magazine editions can be obtained through the MagCloud service. Hardcover and paperback print book and Kindle ebook formats are listed with Amazon. EPUB ebook and abridged audiobook editions are sold through Google Play Books.

Lower East Side history articles focus on the following subjects:

• The Whyos gang.
• Bandits' Roost photograph.
• John McGurk's "Suicide Hall." (Sidebar on gambling.)
• Monk Eastman. (Sidebar on Eastman's killer.)
• Mafia boss Nicola Taranto. (Sidebar on rumored Mafia headquarter on Mott Street.)
• Paul "Kelly" Vaccarelli. (Sidebars on Irving Berlin, Sirocco and Tricker, Torrio and Vannella, Bellantonis of Broome Street.)
• Chinatown Tong Wars.
• Frank Lanza businesses.
• "Johnny Spanish" Mistretta
• Meyer Lansky's youth. (Sidebars on Mutty, Lucy and Kitty; Dutch Goldberg; Gurrah, Lepke, Curly and Bugsy; Red Levine.)
• Killings on Second Avenue.
• Narcotics racketeers.

The issue is illustrated with numerous photographs and a dozen maps. It runs 174 pages (including covers and ads) in magazine format and 370+ pages in print book format. The auto-narrated audiobook omits some material unrelated to the main subject. It runs about eight and a half hours. This is the thirty-third issue of the journal, first published in 2008.

For more information, visit Informer's website.

Los Angeles boss Dragna found dead in hotel

 On this date in 1956:

San Bernardino County Sun

Jack Dragna, longtime underworld boss of southern California, was found dead of an apparent heart attack in a Los Angeles hotel room on February 23, 1956. 

Dragna appeared to rise to command a Los Angeles-based Mafia organization during the Prohibition Era. He was uncontested boss from about 1931 until the moment of his death and evidently had strong connections to underworld leaders in New York and Cleveland. The regional Mafia during his reign was noted for its involvement in luxurious off-shore gambling ships as well as its failures to secure control of nearby Las Vegas casinos and, despite several attempts, to eliminate rival gambling racketeer Mickey Cohen. Dragna was succeeded as boss by attorney Frank DeSimone.

Often suspected of wrongdoing but rarely convicted, Dragna managed to avoid serious legal jeopardy between Prohibition and the early 1950s. Then the attention of local, state and federal law enforcement fell on him. His first dramatic setback occurred in late June 1951, when he was convicted of "lewd vagrancy" and "resorting" for an affair with twenty-three-year-old "cigarette girl" Annette Eckhardt. The case involved tape recordings of Dragna and Eckhardt activities (including a nude canasta cardgame) inside a love-nest at 330 S. Mariposa Street. Dragna that July was initially sentenced to six months behind bars, but he was able to reduce the jail sentence to under a month, which he served in June of 1952.

A state crime commmittee report released in 1953 labeled him the chief of the southern California branch of the U.S. Mafia (referred to in the jargon of the time as "L'Unione Siciliano"):

There can be little doubt that Jack Dragna and his gang of associates, such as the Sicas and the Adamos of Los Angeles, and the Matrangas, Dippolitos and Le Mandris of San Bernardino County, were all connected with the notorious L'Unione Siciliano. Certain papers seized by the Los Angeles police on February 14, 1950, from the Dragnas definitely tend to confirm this view. Several small address books were taken from the gangsters. The names listed read like a Who's Who of the Mafia in the United States. Some of them are regarded as among the most powerful and dangerous professional criminals in the Country. They also contained, of course, the usual sprinkling of names of police officers, district attorney's investigators, bail bond brokers, lawyers and lobbyists. That these acquaintances were business rather than social is indicated in many instances by Dragna's canceled checks, the payees of which were often known gangsters. The seized papers also showed that gangster funds are being invested in certain legitimate businesses, such as clothing, fruit, wine, olive oil and importing.

Dragna was battling a U.S. deportation order at the time of his death. The government's case against him related to a Mexico vacation he took in 1932. When reentering the U.S. from Mexico, Dragna falsely claimed U.S. citizenship. (Dragna applied for citizenship in the 1940s, but his application was denied.) The false claim resulted in his arrest by federal authorities twenty years later. That arrest occurred December 8, 1952, at 3927 Hubert Avenue, Los Angeles, his home at the time.

Dragna (LA Times)

In the summer of 1953, he was held for deportation at a detention center on Terminal Island (Los Angeles Harbor Region) when his wife Frances passed away. Through legal maneuvers, he managed to delay deportation and to win release under $15,000 bond.

At about that time, he reportedly had a home at 4757 Kensington Drive in San Diego and apparently visited with his nephew Louis Dragna at 1429 Thelborn Street in the Los Angeles suburn of West Covina. On February 10, 1956, however, he became a resident of the Saharan Hotel, 7212 Sunset Boulevard (described in one newspaper as a $7 a day motel). According to hotel manager Alexander Germaine, he checked in under the alias of "Jack Baker."

On Thursday, February 23, hotel maid Mrs. Alice Charles (named "Alice Dick" in one account) found Dragna dead in his bed and summoned authorities. Reports stated that Dragna was dressed in a set of pink pajamas. Police found bottles of heart medication at his bedside, along with two sets of false teeth. They concluded that he suffered a heart attack sometime the previous night.

A total of $986.71, including nine hundred-dollar bills, was found in his possession. An identification card bore the name Jack Ignatius Dragna, accompanied by the address of nephew Louis. Dragna's late model Cadillac was found parked outside the hotel. In Dragna's luggage, police found a small statuette of Jesus.

While police were searching the hotel room, they received a call on the room telephone from Dragna's daughter Anna Niotta of San Diego. Mrs. Niotta reportedly had heard a report of her father's death on the radio.

In its report of the sixty-four-year-old Dragna's demise, the Los Angeles Times noted that the longtime gangland leader had always been conspicuously absent from incidents of bloodshed during his reign:

The reputed top man of this area's Sicilian Black Hand society never turned up in the vicinity of violence. It was standing conversation in the underworld that whenever the shotguns began to go off, Dragna would be discovered peacefully undergoing a checkup in a hospital.

Sources:

• "Dragna, 66, dies of heart attack," San Fernando CA Valley Times, Feb. 24, 1956, p. 2.
• "Dragna arrested for deportation by U.S.," Hollywood CA Citizen-News, Dec. 8, 1952, p. 1.
• "Jack Dragna, Mafia gang figure, found dead in bed," San Bernardino County CA Sun, Feb. 24, 1956, p. 1.
• "Jack Dragna," Findagrave.com, March 21, 2002, accessed Jan. 1, 2016.
• "Jack Dragna behind bars," Los Angeles Mirror, June 5, 1952, p. 6.
• "Jack Dragna found dead in Sunset Blvd. hotel," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 24, 1956, p. 1.
• "Jack Dragna held guilty in vag case," Los Angeles Mirror, June 27, 1951, p. 12.
• "Jack Dragna in move to quit jail," Los Angeles Daily News, June 13, 1952, p. 57.
• "Jack Dragna sentenced to 180 days in jail," Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1951, p. 2.
• "U.S. nabs Jack Dragna on illegal entry charge," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9, 1952, p. 2.
• Jack Ignatius Dragna, California Death Index, Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 1956.
• Special Crime Study Commission, Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime, Sacramento: State of California, 1953, p. 64.

November 2022 issue of Informer

The Mob in Youngstown

Organized Crime in the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Car-bomb takes Youngstown rackets chief

On this date in 1961...

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

Vehicle wreck removed from scene of explosion.

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

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

DeNiro

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

Agents arrest woman counterfeiter in 1902

‘Pretty Italian woman’ was ‘genius’

of Mafia-linked phony coin ring

On this date in 1902...

Paterson NJ Morning Call

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stella Franto's background

New York Sun

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

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

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

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

The 1902 case

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

New York Tribune

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

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

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

Later

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

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

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

Sources:

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

Remote bomb shreds Philly boss Testa

On this date in 1981...

Just before three o'clock on Sunday morning, March 15, 1981, an explosion shook the Girard Estates neighborhood of South Philadelphia. Patrol cars sped to the home of regional crime boss Philip C. "Chicken Man" Testa, 2117 West Porter Street. Officers found that the blast had thrown bricks, mortar and concrete from the home's front porch into the roadway - some bits of brick reached the grounds of Stephen Girard Park across the street. The porch roof, torn apart, had collapsed. The force of the explosion forced the home's front door fifteen feet into the residence.

On the far side of a thirty-inch wide crater punched through the six-inch concrete porch floor, officers found fifty-six-year-old Testa, somehow still alive.[1]

The explosion left Testa's body burned and as badly torn as the clothes he wore. His lower body was mangled. One of the officers told the press, "[Testa] looked like he went through a giant paper shredder."[2] Testa, unconscious, was rushed to St. Agnes Hospital, about a mile away at 1900 South Broad Street. Doctors did what they could to bring the bleeding under control. At four-fifteen, Testa died of his wounds.[3]

Assistant Medical Examiner Halbert Filinger blandly reported that death had been caused by "multiple injuries" to Testa's "head, trunk, arms and legs."[4] Filinger could have added that a contributing factor was Testa's forty-year-old decision to pursue an underworld career.

Philip Testa was the second Philadelphia crime boss to be murdered within a single year. (See Philadelphia Mob leaders at mafiahistory.us.) His predecessor and close friend Angelo Bruno was fatally shot on March 21, 1980. Since the Bruno assassination, the dead bodies of Philly mobsters had been regularly turning up. Authorities wondered if the violence was the result of internal rivalries, frustration over crime family rules against narcotics trafficking or efforts by aggressive New York Mafia bosses to seize control of Philadelphia and southern New Jersey rackets.[5]

Angelo Bruno (l) and Philip Testa

Investigators at Testa's residence concluded that a powerful bomb packed with nails exploded behind a short brick wall that edged the two-story duplex's front porch.

Testa, who lived alone since the 1980 death of his wife, arrived there after finishing a night's work at his business, Virgilio's Restaurant, 5 Bank Street in the Old City District. He double-parked his black, Chevrolet Caprice Classic in the street, climbed the steps onto the porch, where the bomb was hidden in shadows. Testa opened the home's storm door and was beginning to put a key in the front door lock when the bomb was detonated.[6]

The bomb must have been set off by a sort of remote control, investigators determined, and the person responsible must have been within sight of the porch at that moment.[7]

Testa's son Salvatore (center)

Killings within the Philly Mob continued after Testa was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in the borough of Yeadon.[8] Some of the homicides were determined to be the result of a vendetta pursued by Testa's son Salvatore.

Salvatore reportedly concluded that his father's murder was planned by important rackets figure Frank "Chickie" Narducci possibly in conspiracy with Testa's underboss Peter Casella.[9]

When Casella attempted to take over the organization, Nicodemo Scarfo and his allies in New York forced Casella out of Philadelphia and into a Florida retirement.[10]

Marinucci

Narducci, forty-nine, was shot to death in front of his South Philadelphia home on January 7, 1982. Informer Thomas DelGiorno later told authorities that Salvatore Testa was personally involved in the Narducci murder and made sure Narducci saw who was taking his life.[11]

On the one-year anniversary of the Testa bombing, Rocco "Rocky" Marinucci, thirty, owner of Pop's Pizza in South Philadelphia, was found dead in a pile of debris left at a parking lot, South Eighth Street and Tasker Street. Marinucci, previously a driver for Casella, had been questioned after the bombing at Testa's home, as some witnesses reported seeing a black van like one he used speeding away from the scene just after the explosion. Police discovered that Marinucci had been beaten as well as shot. They found three large firecrackers stuffed in the mouth of his corpse and interpreted that as a symbolic link to the 1981 bombing.[12]

In September 1983, Theodore DiPretoro, twenty-three, already serving a life prison sentence on another matter, confessed to participating in the Testa bombing with Marinucci.[13]

A year later, reportedly on orders from boss Scarfo, twenty-nine-year-old Salvatore Testa was shot to death, his body dumped beside a road in southern New Jersey.[14]

Notes

1- Sutton, William W. Jr., Ray Holton and Marc Schogol, "Bomb blast kills Testa at his S.Phila. home," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 16, 1981, p. 2; "Bomb kills mob boss Testa," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1981, p. 3.

2- "Hint N.Y. mob killed crime boss in Philly," New York Daily News, March 16, 1981, p. 8.

3- Anastasia, George, Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - the Mafia's Most Violent Family, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991, p. 108; Sutton, et al; "Bomb kills mob boss Testa."

4- "Bomb kills mob boss Testa."

5- Sutton, et al; "Hint N.Y. mob killed crime boss in Philly"; Culnan, Dennis M., and Margaret A. Scott, "Testa killed by bomb blast," Camden NJ Courier-Post, March 16, 1981, p. 1; "House bombing kills mob suspect," Newsday, March 16, 1981, p. 3.

6- "Bomb kills mob boss Testa"; Sutton, et al; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3. The Chevrolet was reportedly registered to his son. The restaurant was conducted in the name of his daughter. Testa and his son were the owners of the restaurant building, and Testa used a back room as his personal office.

7- Cooney, Tom, "The Mob Chronicles: Part 2: Indictments begin to break up the family," Philadelphia Daily News, April 24, 1987, p. 6; Daughen, Joseph R., "The bloody battle for control of the Phila. Mob," Philadelphia Daily News, April 24, 1987, p. 36; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1984 Report, presented to Pennsylvania General Assembly, p. 40; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3.

8- "Philip 'Chickenman' Testa," Memorial ID 18254, Find A Grave, findagrave.com, Nov. 2, 2000.

9- Cooney; Daughen.

10- Anastasia, p. 112.

11- Cooney; Daughen.

12- Cooney; Daughen; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3; Shuttleworth, Ken, "Slaying may be tied to Testa killing," Camden NJ Courier-Post, March 16, 1982, p. 10.

13- "Philadelphia man pleads guilty in Testa slaying," New York Times, Sept. 21, 1983, p. 18.

14- Cooney; Daughen; Heneage, Bill, "Salvatore 'Salvy' Testa," Memorial ID 6529146, Find A Grave, findagrave.com, June 20, 2002.

Some JFK documents to be released today

The Biden Administration is expected to release a small number of secret JFK Assassination-related documents today (December 15, 2021). 

Update: The just-released files can be accessed through this National Archives web page.

Thousands of partial and whole documents related to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John Kennedy continue to be withheld from the public. A 1992 law (the JFK Act) called for all records to be released after twenty-five years unless the President decided that postponement was necessary on the grounds of "identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or foreign relations... [that] outweighs the public interest in disclosure."

The Trump Administration released a number of files and document redactions in the autumn of 2017. In spring 2018, it extended the wait for additional releases until autumn of 2021.

In October, the Biden Administration postponed until December 2022 the release of most of the files still held as official secrets. Government departments have indicated that releasing those documents could harm the national security or the foreign relations of the United States. With COVID-19-era processing backlogs, the National Archives and federal departments were said to be unable to fully evaluate the potential for harm in time to meet the October 2021 deadline.

President Joseph Biden set a December 15, 2022, deadline (one year from today) for completion of a security review and release of remaining files. He stated that any documents that have already passed their review should be released today.

See also:

• Another JFK files deadline - Updated (Sept. 30, 2021)
• Many, but not all, JFK files released (Oct. 27, 2017)
• CIA joins with Mafia in effort to kill Castro (Oct. 30, 2017)
  
• JFK wait extended three and a half more years (April 28, 2018)

Another JFK files deadline (Updated)

Update: Release postponed again

Oct. 22, 2021: U.S. President Joe Biden has postponed until at least December of 2022 the legally required release of the remainder of federal JFK assassination documents. A White House statement indicated that the delay had been requested by National Archives, which is dealing with COVID-19 pandemic-related backlogs in document processing. According to the statement, the President has ordered National Archives to complete an intensive review of the remaining secret files by December 15, 2022, and to make electronic copies of all JFK files available to the public online. The statement suggests that some currently withheld documents - those already designated as suitable for release - could be provided by National Archives a year earlier, December 15, 2021. Our original Sept. 30 post follows:

About one month remains before President Joe Biden is due to decide if the remaining redactions will be lifted from federal Kennedy Assassination records.

During the Trump Administration, a number of CIA records were released and redactions were removed from many National Archives documents. These contained no "blockbuster" revelations about the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John Kennedy but some interesting details. President Donald Trump decided at that time that other records should continue to be withheld from public scrutiny for three years past the October 26, 2017, expected release date.

U.S. Chief Archivist David Ferriero was scheduled to make a recommendation on the remaining records to President Biden this past Sunday (September 26, 2021). The following day, the Public Interest Declassification Board wrote to the President:

"We understand that agencies are asking you to extend the postponement of public disclosure... The Board unanimously recommends that you limit any further postponements of public disclosures of the Kennedy assassination records to the absolute minimum."

A 1992 law (the JFK Act) related to Kennedy assassination records called for all records to be released after twenty-five years unless the President decided that postponement was necessary on the grounds of "identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or foreign relations... [that] outweighs the public interest in disclosure."

According to the National Archives and Records Administration, there are remaining redactions in 15,834 documents - most of these created by the CIA. NARA states that 520 full documents, still withheld and not identified by the agency, are not subject to the JFK Act.

Related posts:

• Many, but not all, JFK files released (Oct. 27, 2017)
• CIA joins with Mafia in effort to kill Castro (Oct. 30, 2017)
  
• JFK wait extended three and a half more years (April 28, 2018)

 

October 2021 issue of Informer

Mafiosi of the West Coast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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