Joseph Bruno's Blog, page 56
July 6, 2012
July 5, 2012
July 4, 2012
Excerpt # 3 – Murder and Mayhem in the Big Apple – From the Black Hand to Murder Inc.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008G0J77S
The man who was the biggest torn in the side of the Black Hand was Police Lieut. Joseph Petrosino.
Petrosino was born in 1860 in Padula, Campania, in the southern tip of Italy near Naples. When he was a child, Petrosino’s parents sent him to live with his grandfather in America. Soon after Petrosino arrived in America, his grandfather was killed in an automobile accident. As a result, Petrosino was briefly sent to an orphanage. However, the presiding judge in Petrosino’s custody case, feeling sorry for the young boy, took Petrosino into his own home until Petrosino’s parents arrived from Italy.
While waiting for his parents to travel across the Atlantic (they arrived in America in 1874), Petrosino lived with the politically-active Irish judge and his family. As a result, Petrosino received a fine education, which increased his chances of obtaining a decent job in America; unlike the other poor Italian immigrants who were arriving from Italy in droves.
Because of the Irish judge’s connections in the political arena, on Oct. 19, 1883, Petrosino became a New York City police officer.
When he started “on the job,” Petrosino’s mentor was Police Inspector Alexander “Clubber” Williams, who was called “Clubber” because of his fondness for battering unruly arrestees with his police baton (club) to keep them in line. Williams took a liking to Petrosino (it was reported Petrosino wielded a mean police baton, too), and as a result, Petrosino rose quickly up the ranks in the New York City police department.
Petrosino’s speedy promotions were mostly the result of hard work and dedication, but also because Petrosino had been born in Italy and could speak the Italian language fluently. This made it possible for Petrosino to infiltrate the Italian crime circles, which were operating openly in New York City.
In 1895, Petrosino was promoted to detective and assigned to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which was populated by a large contingent of Italian immigrants, including Joe Morello, Ciro and Nick Terranova, and Ignazio “Lupo the Wolf” Saietta. The short, stocky, bull-necked, and barrel-chested Petrosino was a familiar sight on the streets of Little Italy. He was recognizable by his large pumpkin head and a pockmarked face, which had an extreme reluctance to smile.
Petrosino first achieved prominence when he investigated the infamous “Barrel Murder” of 1903.
Although several men were brought to justice for killing a man named Benedetto Madonia (then stuffing him into a barrel and leaving the barrel on the street), Petrosino knew the man who ordered the murder was Joe Morello. However, knowing and being able to prove it were two different things. Morello skated on the Barrel Murder charges, but Morello was now directly in Petrosino’s crosshairs. In the following years, Petrosino did everything he could to make Morello’s and the other Black Hander’s lives miserable.
One such instance occurred in the case of famous Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso. Caruso, who was then singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, received a Black Hand letter demanding that he pay $2,000, or else. To avoid a big headache, Caruso decided to pay the amount requested. Yet before he could do so, he received a second Black Hand letter which raised the demand to $15,000.
Caruso immediately contacted Lieut. Petrosino, the leader of the “Italian Squad,” which was created in 1905 by Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham. After reading the second letter sent to Caruso, Petrosino directed Caruso to comply with the letter’s demands and to drop off the money at a pre-arranged place directed by the Black Hand letter. When the two Italian Black Handers arrived to pick up the cash, Petrosino slapped the cuffs on them, and to punctuate the arrest, he gave them a few slaps with his police baton.
In 1906, acting on information given to him by an informant, Petrosino got a warrant to investigate a horse stable (later called the Murder Stables) at 304 108th Street in Italian Harlem.
Upon his arrival at the stable, Petrosino ordered his men to dig up the grounds, and as a result, they found the remains of more than 60 human bodies.
The owner of the stable was none other than “Lupe the Wolf” Saietta. When approached by Petrosino, Saietta feigned innocence, saying, “I am only the owner of the property. I am not responsible for the actions of my tenants.”
Saietta provided Petrosino with a list of names of his supposed “tenants.” Although all the names provided by Saietta had Italian surnames, Petrosino could not determine if these men actually existed, or were just a figment of Saietta’s imagination.
Not being able to cuff Saietta legally, Petrosino paid a little visit to Saietta in Saietta’s Little Italy grocery store.
The New York Times reported, “Petrosino walked up to Lupo and said something in a low voice. Then the detective’s fist shot out and Lupo fell to the floor. Petrosino, according to several eyewitnesses, gave Lupo a “severe beating.”
Soon after his trouncing at the hands of Petrosino, Saietta met with Joe Morello and the Terranova brothers.
Raising a glass of wine in a toast, Saietta told his fellow Black Handers, “He has ruined many. Here’s a drink to our success here and the hope of debt to him. It is a pity that it must be done stealthily – that he cannot first be made to suffer, as he has made so many others suffer. But he guards his hide so well that it will have to be done quickly.”
http://www.josephbrunowriter.com/joe-...
Joe Bruno on the Mob – Nicky Santora to Plead Guilty – Junior “Hector” Pagan off the Hook
http://www.josephbrunowriter.com/joe-...
July 3, 2012
Like I said in a previous blog; some guys have all the luck.
According to an article in the New York Post, Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora has finally agreed to a plea deal that will prevent his racketeering case from going to trial. Santora is expected to appear before the judge soon and admit he took part in a “loan-sharking shakedown.”
This means that former Mob Wives star Junior “Hector” Pagan, who recorded over 70 conversations with Santoro for Team America, will not have to show his ugly face in court.
Pagan, who was once married to Mob Wives’ Renee Graziano, not only taped Santoro, but also several other alleged wiseguys, one of whom was his own former father-in-law Anthony “TG” Graziano, Renee’s father. Graziano has already agreed to a plea deal that will net him around three years in prison. In addition, all the other defendant in the case have also made deals with the government, which means Pagan will not have to sit eye-to-eye in a courtroom and testify against men he so cowardly betrayed.
In all likelihood, Pagan will get little or no jail time for several crimes he committed, including allegedly taking part in a robbery that resulted in the death of James Donovan. Soon, Pagan will be enjoying the benefits of the Witness Protection Program, including a new life in a new locale, far away from New York City.
What a deal!
I can see him soon sitting on a beach somewhere, sipping an umbrella drink, with a smirk on his face; knowing he beat the system and beat it good.
The moral of the story is that if you croon a good enough tune for the government – you can get away with almost everything, including murder.
No wonder so many so-called knock-around guys are tuning up their vocal cords. The better aria they warble for the Feds – the less time they will have to do in prison – if they have to do any time at all.
What a sick joke on society.
http://www.josephbrunowriter.com/joe-...
July 3, 2012
Excerpt # 2 – Murder and Mayhem in the Big Apple – From the Black Hand to Murder Incorporated
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008G0J77S
Ignazio Saietta, known as “Lupo the Wolf,” had a different type of journey before he hooked up with Joe Morello and the Terranovas in America.
Saietta was born in Corleone, Sicily, on March 19, 1877. Before he reached the age of 20, Saietta was a top killer for the Corleonesi Mafia. However, after killing a man – he said in self-defense – Saietta was forced to flee to America.
Saietta told this sad story in American court years later, when he was being tried on a counterfeiting case along with Joe Morello.
As was reported in the New York Times, Lupo told the court:
“When I was a manufacturer in Italy, I trusted Salvatore Morello, a storekeeper in Viapiatepoli for 500 lire (about $100), and I trusted another storekeeper, Francesco Vitalli, an old man. One day Morello came to me and said I must not sell silk handkerchiefs to Vitalli and more. ‘Vitalli is an old man. Do not bother him,’ I told Morello.
“But Morello grew worse and would not pay me the money he owed me. One day he came to my store and said, ‘Did I tell you not to sell any more handkerchiefs to Vitalli?’ Then he added: ‘You will not get your money until you sell me the handkerchiefs instead.’
“‘You are crazy’ I said, but Morello responded, ‘You must obey my orders.’ ‘Are you crazy?’ I told him. And he said, ‘Are you taking his part?’ I said, ‘This is an old man. Do not bother with him.’
“Then he grabbed me by the throat. I tried to get away from him. He seized me by the throat again. He pulled out a stiletto and I broke away and ran behind the counter. I got my revolver and shouted, ‘Don’t touch me.’
“He came and I shot. He fell. I don’t know what was happening then. I ran away.”
According to the New York Times, “Saietta was sobbing when he finished his tale. Saietta then told of going home and telling the story to his family. His family dissuaded him from surrendering to the police, telling him that the Morello family was big and powerful, and the best thing for him to do was to run away.
“He escaped to England, thence to Montreal. Next he went to Buffalo, New York, and finally came here (to New York City).”
Of course, this was all nonsense. Salvatore Morello was not related to Joe Morello, or any member of Joe Morello’s family. Salvatore Morello just happened to have the same last name.
The truth was – Ignacio “Lupo the Wolf” Saietta escaped to America to avoid prosecution for the murder of Salvatore Morello, and also to hook up with Joe Morello and the Terranovas to engage in a series of legal and illegal endeavors, most of which terrorized the Italian immigrants in New York City.
When he first reappeared in New York City, Joe Morello ostensibly tried to earn an honest living, but this was all a front for his illegal activities: bookmaking and loansharking. Soon flush with money, Morello invested in several small businesses, including a coal store in Little Italy, and several bars and restaurants in Little Italy, and as far north as 13th Street, all of which soon folded for “lack of business.” In 1899, Morello went back to what he knew best: counterfeiting – but this time the counterfeiting of American currency.
Morello installed a small printing press in an apartment at 329 106th Street, in the area known as Italian Harlem. He printed up mainly two and five-dollar bills, which were the most commonly used American currency. To spread these bills around New York City, Morello hired several men, both of Italian and Irish descent.
The New York City police got wind of the counterfeiting ring and arrested several of Morello’s workers. A man named Jack Gleason (not the comedian) immediately flipped and told the police Morello was the mastermind of the counterfeiting operation. Morello was arrested, but since none of the other men arrested dared to testify against Morello – and also since when Morello was taken into custody he had only legitimate American currency in his possession – Morello strolled out of jail without even being indicted; figuratively giving the middle finger to American justice.
However, this embarrassment taught Morello a stern lesson: never work closely with anyone except men he knew from Sicily.
It is not clear whether Joe Morello or Ignazio Saietta originated the Black Hand extortion scheme in America. What is clear is that around 1898 or 1899 both Morello and Saietta, along with the Terranova brothers Vincenzo and Ciro, began terrorizing local Italian businessmen of some means by sending them “Black Hand” or “La Mano Nera” extortions letters.
These letters threatened local Italian businessmen with the bombing of their businesses, or even death, if the businessmen didn’t immediately cough up some substantial cash. On the bottom of the extortion notes was the imprint of a “Black Hand,” which was made by a hand dipped in black ink (due to the inroads law enforcement had made with fingerprinting at the time, the “Black Hand” was later drawn instead).
If the businessmen did not comply with the note’s demands, they would get their business bombed, and sometimes they was tortured and killed in the infamous Murder Stables, located at 323 East 107th Street in Harlem.
An example of such a letter was printed in a local New York City newspaper. It read:
“If you have not sufficient courage you may go to people who enjoy an honorable reputation and be careful as to whom you go. Thus you may stop us from persecuting you as you have been adjudged to give money or life. Woe upon you if you do not resolve to buy your future happiness, you can do from us by giving the money demanded.”
One such incident occurred in 1905, and the unfortunate victim was a butcher named Gaetano Costa, who received a Black Hand letter demanding $1,000. The letter instructed Costa to put the money into a loaf of bread, then hand the loaf of bread to a man who came into his butcher shop the next day and waved a red handkerchief. Costa refused to give in to the extortion, and two days later two men marched into his butcher shop and shot Costa to death.
Literally, hundreds of Black Hand letters were sent out each year. One such letter was sent to a landlord named Salvatore Spinelli, who took his grievance to the New York Times, which printed the following letter from Spinelli:
My name is Salvatore Spinelli. My parents in Italy came from a decent family. I came here eighteen years ago and went to work as a house painter, like my father. I started a family and I have been an American citizen for thirteen years. I had a house at 314 East Eleventh Street and another one at 316, which I rented out. At this point the ‘Black Hand’ came into my life and asked me for seven thousand dollars. I told them to go to hell and the bandits tried to blow up my house. Then I asked the police for help and refused more demands, but the ‘Black Hand’ set off one, two, three, four, five bombs in my houses. Things went to pieces. From thirty-two tenants I am now down to six. I owe a thousand dollars interest that is due next month and I cannot pay. I am a ruined man. My family lives in fear. There is a policeman on guard in front of my house, but what can he do? My brother Francesco and I do guard duty at the windows with guns night and day. My wife and children have not left the house for weeks. How long can this go on?
To increase his collections, Joe Morello added a new wrinkle to the Black Hand extortion scheme. First, Morello would mail an extortion letter to his victim, and then wait near the victim’s store as the postman delivered the letter the following day. While the victim was reading the letter, Morello would enter the victim’s store. Noting the consternation on his victim’s face, Morello would inquire as to the cause of the victim’s distress. The victim, knowing Morello’s high status in the local Mafia, would hand Morello the letter and beg him to intercede with whomever had sent the letter; and maybe reduce the price, if not eliminate the extortion payment completely. Morello would take the letter and tell the victim he would find out who had sent the letter, and what could be done about it.
Of course, since Morello had sent the letter himself, there was no chance of the demand being withdrawn completely. And since Morello was now in possession of the letter, the victim did not have any evidence to show the police confirming the extortion attempt.
In a few days, Morello would return to the victim’s store, and tell a tall tale of how he was able to reason with the extortionist and get the demand reduced to a smaller amount. At this point, the victim was only too happy to still be alive and his store still intact. So he would eagerly pay the extortion money to Morello, who would, in turn, promise he would deliver the cash to the extortionist, putting this matter to rest once and for all.
To give you an idea of how extensive the Black Hand bombings and murders were in New York City in the first decade of the 20th Century, The New York Times ran the following article on Jan. 26, 1908.
MUST STOP OUTRAGES BY THE BLACK HAND
APPALLING LIST OF OUTRAGES – 52 SUCH CRIMES LAST YEAR – SIX BOMB ATTACKS IN THE THREE WEEKS SINCE.
“Murders, bold attempts at extortion, and explosions, all of which the police attribute to the Black Hand, or to small organizations which take advantage of the popular belief in the existence of that society, averaged last year almost one every week. In the first month of the year there have been six such outrages, all serious explosions; and the police believe that many demands for money, under threats, are immediately complied with.
“In view of these facts, a number of prominent Italians, stirred by the blowing up of Pasquale Pati’s bank on Elizabeth Street on Thursday, will hold a meeting on Thursday night at 178 Park Row, above the office of Bolletino Della Sera, an Italian newspaper, in order to devise some means similar to the “White Hand” in Chicago, to suppress Black Hand outrages.”
Pasquale Pati was a self-made man who opened the Pasquale Pati & Son bank at 238 — 240 Elizabeth Street. Pati’s bank was so profitable; it was capitalized at $500,000. Pati was adept at self-promotion and he lured investors with his gimmick of proudly displaying piles of money behind the bank’s secured windows, as proof of his ability to pay depositors. It was said Pati was the most successful banker in New York City; making him ripe for the Black Hand’s methods.
In early January of 1908, Pati received a Black Hand extortion letter. Pati scoffed at the idea that he or his bank could be harmed, and he refused to pay any extortion money to the Black Hand. After his refusal to pay, a bomb blew out the entire front of his bank on January 23, sending the piles of money on display flying in all directions.
Pati’s son, Salvatore, was in the bank at the time and he was able to secure the money, while the bomb-throwers disappeared into a frenzied crowd on Elizabeth Street. However, because of the bombing, worried investors at the bank made a run on their money. In the next four months, $400,000 was withdrawn from the Pasquale Pati & Son bank.
On March 6, 1908, three armed Black-Handers entered the bank in an attempted robbery. However, Pasquale Pati pulled out his own gun and shot one of the bank robbers dead, as the two other bandits escaped empty-handed.
On March 26, a bomb exploded at 246 Elizabeth Street (a few doors down from Pati’s bank), at a small bank owned by Dominick Bonomolo, who, with his wife and two daughters, Marie and Angelina, lived in the tenement above the bank. They also had a kitchen and dining room on the ground floor just behind the bank. Dominick Bonomolo was not there at the time of the explosion, but his wife and two daughters were injured; their clothing nearly torn off their backs from the explosion.
A bloodied Angelina Bonomolo told the police, “We were seated at the table about to begin supper when we heard an awful noise and the wall fell in on us, knocking us from our chairs.”
While Angelina was telling her tale to the police, her father fought his way through the crowd in front of his bank, looking for his wife and two daughters. The police stopped Dominick Bonomolo, and assured him his wife and daughter were safe.
Dominick Bonomolo told the attending police (called the Italian Squad and headed by Police Lieut. Joseph Petrosino), “This has happened because I did not heed their warnings. For five years, scarcely a month has gone by that I have received one or more Black Hand letters. They asked for sums from $1 to $1,000, but nothing ever happened, and recently I had paid no attention to their threats. This is to warn me. Next time I will be killed.”
On March 27, 1908, after a group of men tried to set his Brooklyn home on fire, Pasquale Pati closed the Pasquale Pati & Son bank.
Pati left a note pinned on the front door of the bank that said, “The clientele of this bank be calm and trustworthy, as the banker, Pasquale Pati, has long been obliged to absent himself to protect his existence and family. He has been molested and threatened, and will be back soon. He possesses 45 houses and $100,000 life insurance and has bonds of $15,000 with the State of New York.”
It was also reported that Pati had disbursed some of the remaining money to depositors, but had taken the last $50,000 for himself.
On March 28, after Pati had flown the coop, Achilles Starace, the government receiver for the Pasquale Pati and Son bank, opened the large safe at the bank, as hundreds of people pressed close to the windows outside so that they could see what was happening. When the safe was opened, Starace found not even a single cent inside. All the money had been taken by Pati when he left the bank and placed the dubious note on the front door.
According to the New York daily newspapers, “Not a negotiable paper was in the safe. All that was found by the receiver was a little pile of cash books, ledgers, and journals. And some of the entries seemed to have been erased and altered.”
When the crowd outside the bank found out what had transpired, they erupted into a frenzy.
One man bellowed, “If Pati ever comes back he will get what he deserves – death.”
Another man screamed, “All that talk of the Black Hand is rubbish! It was only an excuse to get away with our money! He has robbed us of our savings and we want revenge! And we will have it!”
The crowd started chanting, “We will! We will!”
Then the crowd surged towards the bank, trying to break inside, but they were beaten back by a squad of policemen.
Days later, most of the people in Little Italy did not think Pati had closed his bank because of the Black Hand.
“It was not the Black Hand that he feared,” a well-know Little Italy resident said. “He was afraid that he would be killed by some Sicilian who had lost his money in the Pati bank. Most of the depositors were Sicilian and Pati’s family is from Calabria. A Sicilian will forgive another Sicilian, but he will not forgive a Calabrian. I doubt that Pati will show up in the near future.”
As this man predicted, Pasquale Pati never stepped foot in Little Italy again.
As to why Pati disappeared with the 50 grand (and maybe more), that’s up for conjecture. No doubt, Pati feared the Black Hand, but he absconded with the money because it was there, and because he could. At this point in time, all Pati could possibly lose was the $15,000 bond. Pati probably figured taking the money was a win-win situation.
The mayhem caused by the Black Hand bank bombings forced the residents of Little Italy to lose faith and trust in the local banks. The day the Pati bank closed, the crowd in front of his bank, which had packed Elizabeth Street from Houston to Prince Street, began to hurry towards the next largest Italian bank: F. Acritelli & Son, at 239 Elizabeth Street. After the depositors made a run on their money, this bank was forced to close too.
To show how ambivalent the Italian press was about the Black Hand situation, in February of 1908, before the bombing of Pati’s and Bonomolo’s banks, 500 Italians held a meeting at the offices of Bollettino della Sera, an Italian newspaper edited by Frank L. Frugone. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the Black Hand extortion scheme and what they could do about it. Yet oddly, the Italian newspaper’s position was that the entire situation was overblown by the American press, and American law enforcement.
The speakers at the meeting said that the Black Hand existed only in Sicily and was a “mild form of the Mafia.”
Robert Park wrote the following in his 1921 publication, Old World Traits Transplanted:
“The Italian press got as much news value as possible out of the situation, and threw the blame on the Americans, claiming that they had admitted too many Italian criminals, and that the American police and court systems were defective in comparison with the Italian’s. The Italian papers protested violently against the blackening of the Italian name. The Bollettino claimed that ‘the fear of the Mafia is in great part a product of the reporter’s fancy.’ The Bollettino resented the fact that the odious word ‘Mafia’ is continually thrown in our faces.”
However, after the epidemic of bank bombings, the Bollettino began to change its tune.
In April of 1908, the Bollettino ran an editorial that called on, “Italians to rise up and put a stop to the crimes which are besmirching the Italian name.”
A few days later, another editorial entitled “The Cry of Alarm” warned that the “doors of this country would be closed to Italians if the Black Hand atrocities continued.”
A third editorial entitled “Against the Black Hand,” advised all honest Italians “to aid Police Commissioner Bingham by sending him all threatening letters, and information about Black Handers and idle Italians, with a description of individuals.”
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July 2, 2012
Excerpt # 1 – Murder and Mayhem in the Big Apple – From the Black Hand to Murder Incorporated
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008G0J77S
They came from the mobbed-up city of Corleone, Sicily, but they perpetrated their murder and mayhem in the mean streets of New York City.
The co-leader of the Black Hand was a monstrosity of a man named Giuseppe (Joe) Morello. Morello was born in 1867 with a severely deformed right hand, which featured only an elongated pinkie finger, which was bent grotesquely downward. As a result, Morello was called, “The Clutch-Hand,” “Little Finger,” and “One Finger Jack.”
Joe Morello’s father, Calogero Morello, died in 1872 and his mother, Angelina Piazza, remarried one year later to Mafioso Bernardo Terranova. Joe Morello’s stepfather and mother had four children together: Nick, Ciro, Vincent, and Salvatrice. There is some confusion as to the exact relationships, but Nick Terranova, also known as Nick Morello, was, in fact, not Joe Morello’s brother, but his half-brother. Salvatrice Terranova married a wicked man named Ignazio “Lupo the Wolf” Saietta, who later in America, along with Joe Morello and Nick and Vincent Terranova, formed the hated and much feared Black Hand. For all practical purposes, Saietta and Morello had equal powers in the organization.
While still in Corleone, Joe Morello and his three half-brothers were introduced by Bernardo Terranova into the Corleonesi Mafia (sometimes called the Fratuzzi), where they made their bones by killing whomever the Corleonesi bosses said needed to be killed. One such victim was Giovanni Vella, the head of a quasi-police force called the Guardie Campestri, or Field Guards, which patrolled Corleone on foot, looking for Corleonesi Mafia members up to no good. In 1888, Joe Morello was arrested for the murder of Vella, but then strange things started to happen.
First, the smoking gun Morello was arrested with minutes after the Vella murder oddly disappeared from the local carabinieri (police) lockup. Apparently, the gun was snatched by an enterprising carabinieri, who was paid molto lira to do so.
Secondly, there was the slight problem of a woman named Anna Di Puma, who claimed she saw Joe Morello shoot Vella to death in a darkened alleyway. Two days after Vella’s demise, Anna Di Puma was sitting outside a friend’s house shooting the breeze, when a gunman walked up behind her and shot her several times in the back, killing her instantly. With no smoking gun, and no witnesses to testify against him, Joe Morello was released from jail.
His status in the local Mafia augmented by the Vella murder, Morello decided to make a bigger killing by dealing in the sale of “funny money,” or counterfeit bills. This went fine and dandy for a while, until Morello was arrested in 1892 with a fistful of phony cash in his good left hand. Rather than face charges in Sicily, Joe Morello thumbed his nose at the Italian authorities and absconded secretly to America, settling on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Little did it matter that Morello was tried “in absentia” in Sicily and sentenced to six years in solitary confinement. Morello was a vast ocean away from his punishment and ready to make his mark in the majestic “Mountain of Gold” – New York City.
Soon after Joe Morello escaped from Sicily and landed illegally in America, Bernardo Terranova, his wife Angela, and six of their children, boarded the ship Alsatia and headed for America to join Joe Morello. Also with them was Joe Morello’s wife, Lisa Marvelesi, with her two-month-old baby, Calogero, who was named after Joe Morello’s blood father. They passed, as did all immigrants at the time, through Ellis Island and entered America legally.
While most immigrants came to America with only the clothes on their back and a few bucks in their pockets, the Terranovas brought with them the stunning total of 18 pieces of luggage, filled with the finest clothes, and who knows how much cash. Even though this was not against American law, it should have raised some eyebrows among Ellis Island officials, since Sicilian Mafioso Bernardo Terranova listed his occupation as “laborer,” even though he was a well-known Mafioso in Corleone. You can believe something of value changed hands from Bernardo Terranova to a few crooked immigration officials
When they first came to America, Morello and the Terranovas tried their best to fly under the radar of American law enforcement. Even though there was basically no communication between the Sicilian police and their American counterparts, there was a three-year grace period after which an Italian immigrant became immune to deportation. The Terranovas joined Morello and settled in Manhattan’s Little Italy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. At first, they tried to make a living in a series of legal jobs, including plastering.
However, the Panic of 1893 changed everything.
In the 1880s, America was the land of milk and honey. Railroads were being built at a record pace, and, in fact, they were over-built, because railroad revenues could not cover the expense of the railroad’s construction. By 1893, new silver mines had flooded the market with silver, causing the prices of silver to plummet. In addition, the American farmers, especially the wheat and cotton farmers, suffered low prices, triggering their markets to dive as well.
The combination of all three crises reverberated throughout America, but it especially devastated the metropolis of New York City. The final nails in the economy’s coffin were driven in when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad claimed bankruptcy in February of 1893, and almost simultaneously, President Grover Cleveland convinced Congress to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Americans panicked and rushed to the banks to withdraw their cash. This effect rippled across the Atlantic, and United Kingdom investors quickly sold off their American stocks and replaced them with stocks backed by gold. This caused the second biggest national credit crises ever; topped only by the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
With no jobs available in New York City, and figuring it was not the right time to return to a life of crime, in 1893 Joe Morello, to support his family, traveled to Louisiana to work in the cotton fields and sugar plantations. Eventually, Morello became a fruit peddler, selling lemons from a sack on his back. In two months, Morello had accumulated enough cash to send up north, so that the rest of his family could come south to work on the plantations with him. Since Sicilian laborers were highly valued by the southern plantation owners for their hard work, Morello, Bernardo Terranova, and all their women and children, easily obtained jobs cutting and stacking cane sugar.
The work was grueling and the pay nothing to write home about, but it was better than anything they had back in New York City. Working 18-hour days during the height of the sugar season (known as the zuccarata) the grown men were paid as much as $1.50 a day. Woman and children were not valued as highly, and as a result, the Morello and Terranova women earned only $1 a day, and their children were paid as little as 10 cents a day.
Still, it all added up and the family earned enough cash in two years to move to a rural area near Dallas, Texas, where they were able to obtain work as sharecroppers. The money was good, but the work was hard and malaria was easily contracted. In 1897, after all members of the family had endured bouts of malaria, Joe Morello and the Terranovas, now with more than a few bucks in their pockets – blood money they had earned in the fields down south – made the trek back north.
It was time for Joe Morello, his stepfather, and his half-brothers to go back to what they did best, being Mafioso – this time in New York City.
http://www.josephbrunowriter.com/joe-...
July 1, 2012
Introduction – Murder and Mayhem in the Big Apple: From the Black Hand to Murder Incorporated
By Joe Bruno
PUBLISHED BY:
Joseph Bruno Literary Services
EDITED BY:
Marc A. Maturo
COVER BY:
Nitro Covers
Copyright 2012 — Joseph Bruno Literary Services
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When it comes to murder and mayhem, there has never been a more fertile backdrop than the mean streets of New York City. Whether it was murder for profit, or a contract hit ordered by mob bosses, or maybe just a simple hit because the killer didn’t like the victim’s face (this happens more often than you think), there have been more dead bodies deposited in the gutters of New York City than on the streets of any other city in the world. This is in addition to the thousands of murder victims whose bodies “did a Houdini”; or in other words – disappeared.
Whether they would admit, most people enjoy reading about a gruesome murder – the bloodier the better. Besides the casual civilian reveling in the miseries of others, certain killers also enjoy reading about their achievements in the press. Other killers couldn’t care less about the notoriety, but instead view the publicity as a method of convincing potential victims if they don’t cough up the cash requested, or do the right thing in other matters; their mutilated bodies might wind up on the front page of the newspapers, too.
Then there is the psyche of the killer himself. Usually, the killer’s first hit makes little psychological impact on him. He doesn’t enjoy it too much, but he figures if this is to be his business of choice, he had better get used to the blood and gore, or slide into another line of work.
However, certain killers (we’ll meet some of them in this book) enjoy the act of killing so much, they have no qualms about carving up some poor soul’s throat and torso (or maybe both), then celebrating the hit by devouring a rare roast beef sandwich, minutes after slicing his victim into the hereafter.
In highlighting the most prolific killers in the history of New York City, if not the world, this book starts with the bloody Black Hand and then pitches forward a decade later to the Boys from Brownsville, who morphed into the greatest death machine in the history of America: Murder Incorporated, better known as Murder Inc.
So fire up your ebook reader, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage, and enjoy the most vicious killers ever to prowl the streets of New York City.
However – a word of caution. While reading, stay away from rare roast beef sandwiches, dripping in blood.
They might not go down too well.
June 26, 2012
Book Review – Boardwalk Empire
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After watching the HBO program “Boardwalk Empire Season One” on Netflix (4 disks – 12 episodes), I decided to purchase the book “Boardwalk Empire,” written by Nelson Johnson, on which the HBO program was based. Whereas, the TV program concentrates on Enoch “Nucky” Johnson’s control of Atlantic City in the Roaring Twenties, the book gives a much more comprehensive look at Atlantic City; from its creation in the 1850’s, up until the publication date of the book, which was published in 2002. Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of Atlantic City’s gambling interests are highlighted here too.
In the early 1800s, Atlantic City, originally called Absecon Island, was nothing but swamps and weeds on the banks of the Atlantic Ocean. However, Dr. Jonathan Pitney saw potential in the tiny island; as a vacation spot for the not-so-rich – people who couldn’t afford the tony beach resorts that dotted the Jersey shore from Philadelphia to central New Jersey.
Pitney started his quest to build his dream resort – his “city by the sea” – in the 1830’s. However, since Absecon Island was reachable only by boat, and horse and wagon, it wasn’t until 1851, that Pitney convinced the Jersey state legislature to construct a railroad from the mainland to his new city, which he christened “Atlantic City.” As soon as the railroad was completed, Atlantic City started teeming with tourists, but only in the warm summer months – from mid- May to mid-October. Still, that was enough time for the entrepreneurs who set up shop in Atlantic City to make enough cash to support them through the frigid fall and winter months.
By 1890, Atlantic City was known as “Philadelphia’s Playground,” and raking in tons of cash for its businesses. But it was ripe for a corrupt takeover, and that takeover arrived in the name of Louis Kuehnle, known as “The Commodore.” Kuehnle owned Kuehnle Hotel, where he presided over the Republican Party’s interests with an iron fist covered by a velvet glove.
Kuehnle got kickbacks from everyone and everything in Atlantic City. Gamblers, bars, restaurants and even brothel’s kicked into Kuehnle’s coffers. Soon Kuehnle had interests in the Atlantic City Gas company, and the Central Passenger Railroad Company, which transported passengers into Atlantic City.
However, the reformists in the state of New Jersey, led by moderate Governor Woodrow Wilson (who later became President of the United States), finally got the goods on Kuehnle. Kuehnle was tried and convicted of corruption, and sentenced to one year of hard labor.
However, the Republican Party barely missed a beat. Kuehnle’s place was taken by former Atlantic City Sheriff Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, and Johnson transformed Kuehnle’s crude corruption machine into a fine art form.
Johnson ran Atlantic City like a well-oiled machine – raking in cash with both hands – until he was taken down by the reformers in the New Jersey Congress. Johnson’s reign lasted until 1941, when he was tried and convicted of corruption, and sentenced to four years in the slammer.
The rest of “Boardwalk Empire” illuminates how the corruption in Atlantic City continued under New Jersey States Senator “Frank “Hap” Farley for more than 30 years, until Farley was booted out of office by his disgruntled constituents in 1974.
For those people who are looking to read a book that resembles the HBO program “Broadwalk Empire,” you might be a tad bit disappointed. Less than 25 % of the book deals with Nucky Johnson and most of that takes place in the 1930’s; whereas the TV program concentrates on Johnson’s exploits in the Roaring Twenties.
Nevertheless, “Boardwalk Empire” is a must-read for those who like a peek into the inner workings of the corrupt government that thrived in Atlantic City for the major part of the 20th Century.
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The book “Boardwalk Empire” is a great read and highly recommended, as is the television program of the same name; but for entirely different reasons.
June 23, 2012
Joe Bruno on the Mob – 400-pound Hit Man Claims He Was Sent to Whack Sammy the Bull
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Is this what the mob has become; sending a calzone with feet to whack a top-echelon mob rat?
Well, if 400-pound former Gambino crime family member Salvatore “Fat Sal” Mangiavillano can be believed (and that’s doubtful, since he’s now a government informant and known for telling a fib or two), the mob was so desperate to whack Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, in the early 1990’s they sent this blubbering whale Mangiavillano to Arizona to track down Gravano, and then kill him. (There was a rumor that the method of the proposed murder was for Mangiavillano to sit on Gravano until Gravano became a pancake.)
Editor’s note: the first part of Mangiavillano’s name is “Mangia” which means “eat.” How ironic.
The skinny (no one has used that word in the same sentence with Mangiavillano before) on how this transpired started in Argentina where Mangiavillano was born. At the age of eight, Mangiavillano moved to Brooklyn and commenced a life of crime. He never did apply for American citizenship.
After probably reading a bio on Willie Sutton (or more likely, someone read it to him), Mangiavillano decided to become a bank robber. This was not a very bright idea, since Mangiavillano was caught robbing a bank (imagine this whale trying to flee the scene of a crime) and sentenced to eight years in prison. After he did his stint in the can, Mangiavillano was deported back to Argentina.
However, Fat Sal longed for his old haunts back in Brooklyn.
Mangiavillano’s trip back to Brooklyn was a circuitous one. He somehow illegally made it into Canada, where he was met by a few fellow wiseguys, who snuck Mangiavillano back into the United States (no doubt in a very large tractor trailer). The next thing he knew, Fat Sal was back in Brooklyn, happy as a pig in slop and eating with both hands.
According to Fat Sal, in the early 1990’s he was assigned the Sammy the Bull hit. As a result, he made several trips to Arizona looking for Gravano, but was unsuccessful in finding him. (There is a good chance Gravano spotted Big Sal first and went into hiding, since spotting Mangiavillano could be done from the distance of the width of three American states).
Before this comedy of errors could reach the desired conclusion of the mob in Brooklyn, Gravano, along with his wife, son, and daughter Karen (of Mob Wives fame), was arrested for running an drug ring that specialized in the sale of Ecstasy. With Sammy the Bull back in the can, Big Sal went back to what he did best – shoveling food into his mouth.
Soon, Fat Sal was arrested (probably for felonious piggishness), and facing big time in the slammer, he decided to become a rat like Gravano; albeit a much heftier rat.
The moral to this story is this: If you want a person to find and kill someone, don’t send someone whose footsteps can be heard five miles mile away.
A 400-pound hitman!
What’s next; a 400-pound Olympic sprinter?
Makes just about as much sense.
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June 20, 2012
Mob Wives – Fuhgeddaboudit!
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INTRODUCTION
People love to watch train wrecks, and the VH1 hit show Mob Wives is a train wreck of biblical proportions.
Mob Wives is such a monstrosity, that it is almost beyond belief that a show staring several loud, cranky, surgically-altered, unpleasant, and uninteresting women could be such a commercial success; so much so, there’s a spinoff already airing called Chicago Wives, and another spinoff to be aired later this year: Big Ang staring Big Ang Raiola. (Big Ang is a character in Mob Wives, who is so big in so many ways she resembles a WWE wrestler in drag; with breasts the size of boulders and lips the size of limousine mud flaps.)
I never realized the phenomenon of Mob Wives until Monday morning April 2, 2012. Early that morning I checked on my blog called Joe Bruno on the Mob and I almost had a heart attack. My blog is basically a compilation of short articles having to do with anything about the mob; in America and abroad. It was doing extremely well: getting about 600 hits a day on the more than 300 articles I had already posted there.
But On April 2, when I checked my blog at 9 a.m. I already had 17,000 hits – in less than half a day!
I thought it must be some sort of computer glitch, but then I checked the sources of the hits (the website WordPress where I have my blog allows you to do this). Ninety-five percent of the hits were on six measly articles I had written concerning the show Mob Wives; and especially on how Junior “Hector” Pagan, ex-husband of one of the show’s co-stars Renee Graziano, had become an FBI informant. Not only did Pagan flip for the Feds, but he even wore a wire on his ex-father-in law Anthony Graziano (Renee and the producer of the show Jennifer Graziano’s father). This resulted in Anthony Graziano, who was at the time in home detention on his last leg of an eight-year prison sentence, getting re-arrested. (He has since pled guilty and will do about another three years in the can.)
Then I finally figured it out.
Mob Wives is a Sunday night show, and on its April 1 show, the producers finally told the truth that Pagan, who was appearing in almost every episode, had become a canary for the government. This was in spite of the fact that Pagan’s treachery was already common knowledge since late November of 2011.
As a result, on the following morning, hundreds of thousands of people started googling Hector “Junior” Pagan and they came up with my six blogs. At the end of the day, Joe Bruno on the Mob had the astounding amount of 23,652 hits for the day, more than I previously had in the past month. And this phenomenon continued every Monday after a Sunday night Mob Wives show. My daily hits increased to over a thousand a day, but on each succeeding Monday, I averaged 10,000 hits.
So as a result, I had to do something drastic: I finally had to force myself to watch the show.
What a disaster!
I grew up in Manhattan’s Little Italy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and I lived in the neighborhood for 48 years. But I had never met such over-the-top, vulgar, and obscene women in my life. Every second word out of their mouth is a variation of the f-bomb that thankfully, VH1 has the good grace to beep over. This could never happen in my neighborhood, or in any Italian neighborhood I have ever visited, and I’ve visited plenty.
Women don’t curse in front of men. Period. And men never curse in front of women either, otherwise a slap in the face would ensue, or maybe something even worse. Men have been whacked for cursing in front of women.
But in Mob Wives, these women don’t only curse rapidly, they do it in front of millions of viewers every flippin’ week.
What a disgrace!
Since I was getting so many hits on my Mob Wives blogs that I had written, I decided to watch the show every Sunday night; after taking two valium washed down by a bottle of Scotch, of course.
And guess what?
The show was bad from the start and never got any better.
The only interesting story line was the one about Pagan, who is no longer on the show because he had been pulled off the streets by the FBI and rushed into the Witness Protection Program.
Because of its inexplicable popularity, a show that is absolutely abominable in content, with horrible over-the-top acting, has now morphed into three shows (Mob Wives, Chicago Mob Wives and The Big Ang Show). This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt P.T. Barnum was right: there is a sucker born every minute.
So for the rest of this book I will re-print my Joe Bruno on the Mob blogs concerning Mob Wives, along with all the responses I’ve received from my readers, both on my blog and on my Facebook page where I also post my blog. Some of the responses are hysterical; some are dumb, and some are downright obscene. I tried to clear up the curse words the best that I could.
If after reading this book, you still watch Mob Wives, well then there’s nothing I can do for you. You’re hooked and you probably will watch Chicago Wives and The Big Ang Show too.
God have mercy on your soul.
And if you have never seen Mob Wives and are contemplating watching one of the three shows, or any combination thereof, maybe this book will talk you out it.
One can only hope.
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