Mussolini and the Mobsters

The Explosive Bugsy Siegel

In 1922, when Fascist dictator Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini came to power in Italy, he immediately launched an all-out war on the Mafia in Sicily. This wasn’t to America’s benefit as it launched an exodus of gangsters to the U.S.

While Mussolini obviously had an aversion to gangsters, he still found himself dealing with them in the future. As Mussolini was preparing to join Adolf Hitler and Germany in war in 1938, he was approached by Count DiFrasso with news of a new explosive, Atomite. His wife, the Countess Dorothy DiFrasso, along with her friends Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Marino Bello had witnessed a demonstration of the explosive in the Imperial Valley desert in the U.S. At the demonstration, it tore apart two small mountains.

Mussolini forwarded the threesome $40,000.00 and requested a demonstration in Italy. The three arrived, along with the two chemists who developed the explosive. Unfortunately, the demonstration in Italy, in front of dignitaries from Mussolini’s war ministry, was a failure. Il Duce demanded his money back and seized the Count and Countess’s residence, Villa Madama.

While staying in the stables as a guest of Mussolini, Siegel, a Jew, had the opportunity to rub shoulders with Herr Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, and General Hermann Goering, the leader of Hitler’s Luftwaffe, who were also guests of Mussolini. Not a fan of the Nazis, and aware of their anti-Semitism, Siegel decided he’d kill them. The Countess, unfortunately, talked him out of it. It would have been the only good hits Siegel ever made.

 

A Hit for Mussolini

No one likes a critic—especially a dictator. In 1937, in an effort to avoid a murder charge, Vito Genovese fled to Italy, where he quickly ingratiated himself with Mussolini and his son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano.

Back in New York, antifascist, anticommunist editor Carlo Tresca (1875-1943) was criticizing Il Duce in his newspaper, Il Martello. Tresca had known the dictator since 1904 and had left Italy as an exile. Looking to gain favor with the dictator, Genovese offered to take care of Tresca.

On January 11, 1943, Tresca, who was strolling along New York’s 5^th Avenue, with another Italian exile, Giuseppe Calabi, was shot twice by a lone gunman, who fled in a car. The shooter was future Bonanno Family crime boss Carmine Galante. He’d acted on orders that had come from Genovese in Italy.

As his friend laid dead in the gutter, Calabi got the license number on the getaway car: 1C-9272. Earlier that day, Galante was visiting his parole officer in Manhattan and a police officer had recorded the license number as the vehicle he left in. Galante was questioned, but claimed to have taken a subway and gone to the theatre to see Casablanca, despite not remembering much about it. It was 1943 and New York was on dim-out orders, so witnesses were unable to identify the gunman on the dark street and Galante walked free. Mussolini gave Genovese the title of Commendatore, one of Italy’s highest honors.

That wasn’t it for Genovese during World War II. On July 10, 1943 the U.S. 7^th Army landed at Gela and Licata on the south Sicilian coast. When southern Italy fell the Allies set up a military government headquarters in Nola near Naples, Genovese’s home town. Genovese became one of their trusted interpreters. While providing this service, he also ran a black market in stolen American food, trucks, petrol and anything else he could get his hands on.

Genovese held no loyalties, happy as long as he benefited. A crack military detective, Orange Dickey stumbled on Genovese’s black market and came across the information he was wanted in the U.S. He arrested him and set about arranging his return to America, which took months. He finally took him back himself. Luckily for Genovese, one of the witnesses who was supposed to testify against him turned up dead and the government’s case became weak. Genovese, who had sided with Mussolini and then the Allies, went free.

Death of a Don: The Assassination of Paul Castellano

“Law enforcement has an obligation to investigate fully and to try and identify and prosecute those people who are responsible for the shootings. A murder makes the whole world a little less safe for everyone—no matter who is murdered.”

U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani

 

The death of Gambino crime family head, Paul Castellano ruined Giuliani’s plans for a major prosecutorial victory over organized crime. He was hoping to bring down Castellano and the Gambino family and wasn’t happy that three assassins had beaten him to it.

The death of Paul Castellano and his driver, Thomas Bilotti, was accomplished with great ease, considering the man’s stature in the Mafia—the Boss of Bosses. Castellano and his driver, bodyguard and underboss, Bilotti were both unarmed and were not travelling accompanied by another car of armed bodyguards. They were alone, with more than a few individuals aware of their agenda for that day.

It was December 16, 1985, 14 days since the death of Castellano’s underboss, Aniello “Mr. Neil” Dellacroce, a much feared and respected leader in the Gambino crime family. As Dellacroce had been serving as a go-between between Castellano and factions of the Gambino family who were upset with his rule, Castellano should have been more cautious. Instead he was living under a false sense of security.

As head of the Gambino crime family, Castellano, who owned a wholesale meat company, Meat Palace, a distributor of Perdue Chicken, considered himself a legitimate businessman. While he certainly gave orders to eliminate others, he was said to abhor excessive violence and avoided dealing with those who did. As a matter of trade, Castellano ignored many of the hoodlums in his own organization, breeding distrust and disloyalty in many of them.

On this particular day, Castellano was sure he could forge a peace within his family. He was scheduled to meet with several members of his family, including capo John Gotti and Armond Dellacroce, Aniello’s son. Castellano had upset many when he failed to attend Aniello’s wake.

The day was going well. The 70-year-old Boss of Bosses was under indictment on murder-conspiracy charges and running a car theft ring. Court was in recess on the 16^th. At 2:30 p.m. he drove to Manhattan to meet with his attorney, James LaRossa, who expressed his belief that due to some uncredible witnesses, the case would turn in his favor. As he had time before his dinner engagement, Castellano set out to do some Christmas shopping.

Having carefully planned the evening’s hit, and aware of Castellano’s agenda, a group of eight to ten men took up position around Sparks Steak House at 210 East 46^th Street in downtown Manhattan. A table had been reserved under the name Mr. Boll, for 5:00 p.m. Before 5:00 p.m., Frank DeCicco, Jimmy Failla and Armond Dellacroce entered the restaurant and took their seats.

Castellano and Bilotti were running late and didn’t arrive at Spark’s until shortly after 5:30 p.m. The city streets were busy when Bilotti pulled the car in front of the restaurant and he and Castellano got out. Castellano was immediately approached by three men identically dressed in trenchcoats and fur hats, who opened fire with semi-automatic weapons. He went down, falling backwards, he head coming to rest just inside the car door, his body between the car and curb and his feet stretched out across the sidewalk. Although he was all ready dead, one eyewitness to the scene reported one of the hit men walked over to his body and delivered one gun shot to his head.

Bilotti had no time to react—unarmed, there would have been very little he could have done. At the same time Castellano was being cut down, so was he. According to the book, Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family by John H. Davis, a witness to the crime scene was able to identify Gotti associate Tony “Roach” Rampino as the man who pumped six bullets into Castellano.

The killers had succeeded and the Boss of Bosses was dead. He’d finally lost a power struggle within the Gambino family, which saw him and future Boss of Bosses, John Gotti at odds with one another. On December 16, 1985, it was Gambino capo John Gotti, accompanied by Sammy “The Bull” Gravano who drove by the prone bodies of Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti just moments after both were murdered.

 

The Decision

The murder of a Godfather is serious business. A crime that cannot be entered into light-heartedly. Castellano’s death wasn’t. As Ronald Goldstock, director of the State Organized Crime Task Force explained, Castellano’s murder was sanctioned by the heads of New York’s four other crime families for a number of reasons:

 

• The dispute between the Castellano and Dellacroce factions.
• The belief that Castellano was neglecting the business affairs of the Gambino family because of his legal difficulties.
• In addition to the murder-conspiracy charges, he also faced five other State and Federal indictments.
• The various mob bosses worried that Castellano was becoming careless, and had done nothing to avoid being indicted. They cited as evidence the fact that Federal Agents had been able to successfully bug his Staten Island home.
• Castellano could not meet with various crime family leaders because he was under constant surveillance. He couldn’t authorize new ventures or run earlier business ventures because he was being watched so closely.

 

Many within the Gambino family felt that Castellano had not won the right to be head of the family, denying Dellacroce his right, and was a weak leader. Facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in jail, it was feared he might take the easy way out and cut a deal with the Feds. No Godfather had ever turned stool-pigeon, however, some felt he might be the first.

 

The Gambino Crime Family

The Gambino Crime Family has a long history in America, dating back to the reign of the “Mustache Petes,” namely Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria (1880-1931). Under his rule, Alfred Mineo and Steve Ferrigno were in charge until they were killed in an ambush in 1930 by Joe Profaci (a future crime family boss), Nick Capuzzi, Joseph M. Valachi (future informer) and an unknown killer from Chicago known as Buster.

On April 15, 1931, Masseria met his end at the Coney Island restaurant Nuova Villa Tammaro. He was lured there by Charles “Lucky” Luciano, a trusted member of his family, who excused himself during the meal so that Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia could enter the establishment and gun down the boss. On September 10, 1931, Salvatore Maranzano (1868-1931), who had been at war with Masseria (the Castellammarese War), was also set up by Luciano and murdered in his office. This marked the end of the old-time Mafia rule in America, allowing Luciano to set up a crime syndicate and commission, re-inventing organized crime in the U.S.

As well as setting up the crime families, opening the way for Irish, Italian and Jewish gangsters to work together, and introducing the concept of a consigliere (“advisor”) to the families, Luciano placed Vince and his brother Phil Mangano in charge of the family. Together the brothers focused their activities in Brooklyn and the waterfront.

By the start of the 1950’s there was dissension in the family, as Vince Mangano’s underboss, Albert Anastasia, the head of Murder, Inc. became disillusioned with Vince and his brother’s leadership. A die-hard supporter of Luciano, Anastasia had formed a close bond with Frank “Prime Minister of the Underworld” Costello, who was acting head of Luciano’s family (later the Genovese family).

On April 19, 1951, authorities found the body of Phil Mangano in a marshland near Sheepshead Bay. He’d been shot three times in the back of the head and in both cheeks. Vince Mangano had also gone missing. His body would never be found. It was assumed by the authorities that Anastasia had sought and received permission from the Commission to eliminate the Mangano’s.

As acting head of the family, Anastasia expanded it into new rackets in gambling, loan sharking and narcotics trafficking. He maintained his relationship with Costello, who was locked in a power struggle for control of Luciano’s family with Vito Genovese, who was back in town after a nine-year exile in Italy. When Costello was successfully dropped from the Commission and his place of power in the Genovese family, Anastasia kept conferring with him.

Unfortunately, Anastasia, who was also known as the “Mad Hatter” was becoming a liability to the underworld, having arranged a hit on Brooklyn clothing salesman Arnold Schuster, who had spotted notorious bank robber Willie Sutton on the streets of Brooklyn and notified the police. Neither men had anything to do with the Mob, or Anastasia’s business, but he became enraged while watching the news report on Schuster, screaming, “I hate squealers!” Schuster’s murder outraged the public, who insisted the authorities crack down on the Mob.

When he took over, Anastasia named two underbosses, Joe Adonis and Frank Scalise, and gave capo Carlo Gambino a higher standing within the family. Gambino became the sole underboss, after the Immigration and Naturalization Service succeeded in deporting Adonis back to Italy in 1956 and Scalise was murdered in 1957, while buying fruit at a fruit stand in the Bronx.

In true Mafia tradition, Anastasia knew he was a wanted man, a target now that Scalise had been killed. He could assume Gambino was a target also. Carlo Gambino was not an intimidating figure within the Mob. While he could be ruthless in ordering deaths, he presented himself as weak and gentle, always with a smile, forcing many to underestimate him. In his 1980 biography, A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, Bonanno wrote this about Gambino:

 

“He was not a warrior. Given a choice he avoided violence. He was a squirrel of a man, a servile and cringing individual. When Anastasia was alive, Albert used to use Gambino as his gopher, to go on errands for him. I once saw Albert get so angry at Carlo for bungling a simple assignment that Albert raised his hand and almost slapped him. In my tradition, a slap on the face is tantamount to a mortal offense. Another man would have not tolerated such a public humiliation. Carlo responded with a fawning grin.”

 

That grin was deadly. Behind Anastasia’s back, Genovese had been cultivating a relationship with Gambino, planning to use him to double cross his boss. If Genovese could eliminate Anastasia and put a puppet like Gambino at the head of the family, he’d be closer to his ultimate goal of naming himself the Boss of Bosses of the entire Mafia.

On the morning of October 25, 1957, Anastasia arrived at the Park Sheraton barbershop at 7^th Avenue and 55^th Street, and prepared to be pampered when the Gallo brothers, Crazy Joe, Louie and Kid Blast ambushed him and shot him dead. Gambino was now head of the family—but he was nobody’s puppet!

A true ruthlessness and cunning lay under Gambino’s quiet, amiable façade. He was one family boss who used his brains, as opposed to brawn, in his climb to the top. As soon as Anastasia was out of the way, Gambino set a plan in motion to get Genovese out of the way. With the support of Costello, Luciano and Meyer Lansky he conspired to get Genovese involved in a multi-million dollar international heroin conspiracy. Surprisingly, in an effort to avoid the wrath of the Federal government, which had put the new Narcotics Control Act into effect, Genovese had declared that any soldier or capo in his family caught dealing drugs would face immediate death.

Gambino and his compatriots arranged for a Puerto Rican hoodlum, Nelson Cantellops to testify that he had personally witnessed Vito Genovese buying large quantities of heroin. Cantellops was paid well for his lie, which ended in Genovese’s imprisonment in 1959, where he died in 1969.

Under Gambino’s rule, the Gambino Family rose in power to become the most influential Mafia family in the country, with Gambino realizing Genovese’s dream by becoming the de facto Boss of Bosses. All was well in the family, with Gambino avoiding the occasional assassination attempts, until his death of a heart attack in October 1976.

 

The Rise of a Mob Star

“Gotti looks like a movie star,” commented a detective who knew the man well. “He wears hand-tailored clothes, drives a big black Lincoln and likes good restaurants.” This wasn’t always the case.

During his early rise in organized crime, John Gotti (1940-2001) was a screw-up. A far cry from the polished, ruthless and feared Mafia leader the world came to know. His early forays into crime, as a petty criminal resulted in his becoming acquainted with the law. Even in 1966, at the age of 26 when he joined capo Carmine “Charlie Wagons” Fatico’s crew, working the East New York section of Brooklyn, he repeatedly failed in his endeavors. Gotti did six months after blowing the theft of a Avis rental car, was arrested in 1969 while trying to pass off fraudulent documents to steal freight at Kennedy International Airport, and was arrested again several weeks later, along with Angelo Ruggiero, after a failed attempt to hijack two trucks on the New Jersey Turnpike. Little did Gotti know, this was the best thing to happen to him.

It could be said the authorities made John Gotti. In 1969, Lewisburg Federal Prison held approximately 400 Mafiosi of varying stature. Gotti’s two years in Lewisburg on a four-year rap was like going to Mafia University. In Lewisburg he met mobsters he normally wouldn’t have been allowed to associate with as a low-ranking soldier on the streets, like 57-year-old Bonanno family boss, Carmine Galante (1919-1979), who took a shine to the young mobster.

Upon release in January 1972, the 31-year-old Gotti was ready to take another stab at a criminal life and this time succeeded. He rejoined Fatico’s crew, which had moved to Ozone Park in Queens, having lost the Brooklyn neighborhood to black criminals. Gotti was put in charge of all gambling operations, where he succeeded in proving himself. Gotti was especially effective in collecting debts.

The year 1972 was a big one for Gotti. Fatico found himself indicted on loan-sharking charges in Suffolk County, and as such made Gotti acting leader of his Bergin crew (the crew was based out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club at 101^st Avenue), while Fatico concentrated on his defense. This placed Gotti in the position of reporting directly to Gambino underboss Aniello Dellacroce, who quickly became impressed with the young man.

It was also during 1972 that Gambino’s nephew, Emmanuel “Manny” Gambino was kidnapped by a gang of Irish mobsters led by James McBratney. He’d been making a living preying on low-level Gambino associates, kidnapping them for ransom. A ransom of $100,000 was arranged for the nephew’s release, which McBratney took, but instead of being released, Manny Gambino’s body was found in a New Jersey dump. Gambino immediately started planning McBratney’s death.

Still not a “made” man within the Gambino family, and looking to achieve that honor, Gotti was thrilled when he, Angelo Ruggiero and Ralph Galione were given the task of avenging the death of the Don’s nephew. They planned to kidnap McBratney, and work him over accordingly before killing him, making him pay dearly for his actions. Unfortunately, when they tried to kidnap him from a Staten Island restaurant called Snoope’s, a fight broke out, ending with Galione pumping three bullets into McBratney, killing him. It was a sloppy hit, performed in front of many witnesses.

Shortly after McBratney’s murder, Galione was murdered. Realizing they were now targets, Gotti and Ruggiero laid low. Having helped the Don, however, Gotti couldn’t remain quiet, and his bragging of the hit eventually led to his and Ruggiero’s arrest. To help the two men out, Carlo Gambino hired attorney Roy Cohn to represent them, but, through Dellacroce, instructed the two to plead guilty. Gotti didn’t like it, but he followed orders and was surprised when he found out the Staten Island Attorney’s Office had agreed to a plea bargain in which the two men pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted manslaughter and only received four-year sentences.

In August 1975, Gotti and Ruggiero were sent to Green Haven State Prison. Both were unconcerned as they knew two things: for avenging the death of Gambino’s nephew, they would be treated well in prison and upon release will have earned their right to be formally inducted into the crime family as ‘made’ men. Despite a rough start, Gotti was on his way.

 

The Succession of Power

In 1977, after almost two years in prison, Gotti was paroled. He was rewarded by becoming a ‘made’ man in the Gambino organization. His brother Gene and Angelo Ruggiero had all ready been ‘made.’

Previous to Gotti’s release, Don Carlo Gambino fell ill. On October 15, 1976, he died peacefully at his home at Massapequa, Long Island. Realizing the end was near, Gambino had made arrangements for his cousin and brother-in-law, Paul “Big Paulie” Castellano to take over as head of the family. This move was unprecedented, as underboss Aniello Dellacroce was next in line and should have been named instead.

In an attempt to keep the peace within his crime family, Gambino used his cunning to make this transition work. He was well aware that if Dellacroce decided to take on Castellano, Castellano would lose. Castellano considered himself a refined man, who really didn’t have a taste of the strong-arm killing aspect of the job. Dellacroce, however, was a well respected leader and killer with an edge. According to a federal agent, “He likes to peer into a victim’s face, like some kind of dark angel, at the moment of death.”

At the time of Gambino’s death, Dellacroce was in prison. To appease his underboss, Gambino gave him almost near absolute control of the family’s lucrative Manhattan rackets. Dellacroce was unhappy, but given this control, he accepted. He and Castellano worked relatively well together for the rest of the decade and during the early 1980’s.

Out of respect for the former underboss, Castellano wasn’t officially made the boss until Dellacroce’s release from prison that Thanksgiving. For day one, Castellano’s rule didn’t sit well with many of the family’s capos, soldiers and associates. Along with believing he had unfairly bypassed Dellacroce, Castellano had an attitude about him that didn’t endear him to his men. He acted and believed he was better than and set himself apart from them. He brought this attitude to his relations with leaders of the other four New York crime families. Not realizing the mistake he was making as a leader, he also lacked one other important element that had kept other crime bosses alive and healthy—paranoia.

It is commonly believed that Dellacroce was responsible for keeping those dissatisfied with Castellano in check—whether out of respect for him or out of fear of him. One of those dissatisfied capos, working under Dellacroce’s rule, was John Gotti. One fact that annoyed the future Don was the fact that despite isolating himself from him and the crew, Castellano still demanded his share of the profits from them. Gotti’s crew was earning a lot of money for Dellacroce and the relationship the two men were developing had Dellacroce giving Gotti jobs and responsibilities that reached beyond his responsibilities running the Bergin crew.

Upon being made head of the family, Castellano had declared two things: under his rule there were to be no cop killings and no dealing in drugs, the latter rule punishable by death. Castellano wanted to keep the family business in areas that the Feds weren’t as concerned about, like loan-sharking, construction job shakedowns, labor racketeering in the cartage, meat and garment industries, waterfront extortion and car theft. Unfortunately, Gotti was quite the gambler, but not very good at it. Always finding his personal finances in trouble, and determined to make more money, he got involved in drug dealing, putting up the money for drug buys. Even as a well-respected and feared capo in the Gambino organization, Gotti would be subjected to immediate execution if this were found out.

 

Bugs—A Mafia Pest

If there wasn’t all ready enough dissension in the Gambino family’s ranks, the efforts of law enforcement to put them away was about to add to this problem. At this particular time in New York (the early 1980’s), Rudolph Giuliani, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was hard at work assembling a case against Castellano, members of his crew and other crime family bosses. In March 1983, the Feds scored a victory when they managed to plant an electronic bug in the kitchen of Castellano’s Staten Island mansion. The kitchen was where he conducted business, and the resulting tapes became known as the ‘White House Tapes’, and an embarrassment to Castellano. The Feds had successfully planted many more bugs, including one in the home of Angelo Ruggiero.

Although Castellano didn’t like the violent aspects of family life, he couldn’t avoid it. One particular capo, who was also involved in Castellano’s car theft operations, would be his downfall. Roy DeMeo was a cold-blooded killer who essentially ran a death factory for hire. Between January 1975 and June 1982, his crew was credited with murdering 25 people. It is believed there were many more. Authorities actually believe he and his crew are responsible for the most individual murders than any other killer in U.S. history.

Giuliano’s investigation of DeMeo and his crew, also ensnared Castellano. In early 1984, a Federal RICO (Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act—enacted in 1970) indictment was issued against Castellano and 20 members of DeMeo’s crew on 51 counts of racketeering in connection with the activities of DeMeo’s crew. Castellano issued a hit on DeMeo and on January 10, 1983 he was found dead in the trunk of his car.

The indictments continued. Eleven high-ranking members of the Lucchese family were indicted, including its’ boss Tony “Ducks” Corolla. In February 1985, Giuliani indicted the bosses and underbosses of the five New York families (Gambino, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo, Genovese) under the RICO act for conspiring to operate an illegal enterprise—the Commission. And later in 1985, he indicted Castellano for conspiring to murder former Bonanno family boss, Carmine Galante. Giuliano was determined to hurt organized crime in America, and they were running scared.

If the indictments weren’t bad enough, news of the ‘White House Tapes’ were a huge embarrassment to Castellano, who had been caught on them revealing family business and saying disparaging things about members of his family and leaders of other families.

The Ruggiero tapes proved potentially troublesome for Gotti, as it revealed his and his crew’s contempt for Castellano, along with their foray into drugs. Despite having been bugged himself, Castellano let Ruggiero have it for allowing himself to be taped, and insisted that copies of the transcripts Ruggiero was given be turned over to him. Ruggiero and Gotti used Dellacroce to try and stall Castellano from getting them, although as Dellacroce told them, it was a constant request of Catellano’s.

Life was falling apart for Castellano, although he didn’t know it. Although facing a jail term at the age of 70, he felt he could rule the family from prison, using Tommy Gambino (Carlo’s son) to run the day-to-day operations, along with Bilotti and John Gotti. Gotti didn’t want to share the power.

 

The Turning Point

On December 2, 1985, Dellacroce, who had been indicted himself, died of cancer. There was nothing stopping Gotti from bringing Castellano down.

As far as many in his family and outside the family were concerned, Castellano wasn’t one of them. He’d set himself apart, making no efforts to endear any of his capos to him. He’d been stupid enough to allow his home to be bugged, where he had said too much, and because of his dislike for violence, was considered weak. As far as many were concerned, Castellano was a strong prospect for turning against the family in an effort to cut a deal that would keep him out of prison. He was a liability.

Making matters worst, under Gambino’s rule, the Gambino family had become the most powerful in the country. Under Castellano’s rule, and based on his refusal to take the family into certain illegal activities (drugs), it lost some of it’s’ influence, with the Genovese family, under Funzi Tieri become number one. The Gambino family only regained its prominence with Tieri’s death in 1981. His successors were weaker men who couldn’t keep the Genovese family on top.

Gotti had no trouble receiving permission to eliminate Castellano, which he quickly did.

 

The Aftermath

No witnesses came forward in the death of Paul Castellano. Even an eventual showcase of TV’s America’s Most Wanted didn’t spark any calls. Who would be stupid enough to testify against the Gambino family and it’s new Don, John Gotti?

On December 19, John Cardinal O’Connor of the New York Archdiocese refused to allow a public funeral mass for Castellano. The Reverend Peter Finn, a spokesman for the Cardinal explained, “Holding such a mass was ruled out because of the notoriety of Castellano’s death and his alleged—and I underline the word alleged—connection to the organized crime syndicate.” The family was allowed to conduct a private memorial service at the Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church, although the body wasn’t allowed to be present. Permission was also granted for a Priest to say prayers over his grave. Paul Castellano was buried at the Moravian Cemetery in West Brighton on Staten Island.

In 1986 the verdicts came down in the U.S. attorney’s Commission case. Castellano’s fellow Godfathers each received one hundred year sentences plus fines as high as $250,000. He’d escaped prison, something newly inducted Gambino crime family head, John Gotti would do for quite some time, until he too was betrayed, indicted and finally sent to prison where he eventually died of cancer—but that’s another story.

The Marquis de Sade - The Sexual Law of the Jungle

“Pleasure, that was what we were discussing. Here we still have to distinguish the pleasure you sense from that which you think you bestow. Now, from Nature we obtain abundant information about ourselves, and precious little about others. About the woman you clasp in your arms, can you say with certainty that she does not feign pleasure? About the woman you mistreat, are you quite sure that from abuse she does not derive some obscure and lascivious satisfaction? Let us confine ourselves to simple evidence: through thoughtfulness, gentleness, concern for the feelings of others, we saddle your own pleasure with restrictions, and make this sacrifice to obtain a doubtful result. Rather, is it not normal for a man to prefer what he feels to what he does not feel? And we have ever felt a single impulse from Nature bidding us to give others a preference over ourselves.”

From the novel Justine.

 

“What evil do I do, what crime do I commit when upon meeting some lovely creature I say, ‘Avail me of that part of you which can give me a moment’s satisfaction and, if you wish, make full use of that part of mine which may prove agreeable to you?’”

The Marquise’s ‘Rights of Eroticism’

 

“In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.”

Marquise de Sade

 

There are very few individuals throughout the course of history who can lay claim to the fact their very existence and work have inspired a new word in the English lexicon—nor lay claim to as explosive a word as ‘sadism.’ Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, a.k.a. the Marquis de Sade (June 2, 1740—December 3, 1814) can. With such works as The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette, and Philosophy in the Boudoir—all illegal works of fiction in their time—the Marquise has left an indelible impression on the world of erotic fiction.

The image of the Marquis today is one of a ravishing young French nobleman who takes great pleasure in torturing young maidens for his own sexual gratification. He stands poised, whip in hand, ready to strike a beautiful young woman who stands naked before him her hands tied above her head and her firm young flesh ready to take his punishment first before taking him second. And, the Marquis is not a lover of mutual consent, but uses his superiority and strength to take whatever he wants from whomever he wants, male of female, confident in the fact that individual is happy that a superior individual is willing to use them in such a way. Rape is not rape, but merely his right to take whatever he wants from an inferior individual.

The philosophy of the Marquis is accurate, the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, however, the image isn’t entirely correct. While the Marquis did engage in what was considered aberrant sexual behaviour in his day, he spent the majority of his life in prison. The Marquis’s most heinous crimes existed within his fertile imagination, which he committed to paper and snuck out of prisons to be illegally printed and distributed—his true legacy.

 

An Impressionable Young Mind

Born on June 2, 1740 to Jean Baptiste, Comte (Count) de Sade and Marie-Elonore de Maille de Carman, Comtesse de Sade, the young Marquis quickly established he was a handful. As a young boy, the Marquis’s mother served as a lady in waiting to the Princess de Conde and watched over her son, the Prince de Conde, the Marquis’s senior by four years. During one playtime skirmish, when the Prince tried to extract a toy from the 4-year-old Marquis, and by right of birth and rank should have been given the toy, the Marquis fought the older boy for it and pummeled his cousin in a fierce display of violence. Based on this incident, the Marquis was immediately shipped off by his mother to his grandmother.

His father, who at the time was an ambassador to the court of the Elector of Bavaria, wishing his son had a more masculine presence in his upbringing, bounced his son to live with is brother, Abbe Jacques-Francois de Sade, a noted scholar and author.

In that day and age throughout France and other European countries, clergymen, like the Abbe were expected to avail themselves of the pleasures of the flesh. It was not uncommon for orgies to be held between priests, nuns, prostitutes and nobles within the wall of abbeys and convents. Abbe engaged in a vast number of carnal activities, and it was within this environment that the Marquis lived his formative, development years. When not observing his Uncle’s activities, he had at his disposal various erotic tombs to peruse, such as The Book of Postures, Venus in the Cloister, Nun in Her Nightdress and John the Fucker Debauched.

At the age of 10, the Marquis was shipped off to Paris to continue his education at the College Louis-Le-Grand, a Jesuit prep school for young men of noble lineage. Noted scholars, the Jesuits were also known for their carnal pursuits with their young charges, which included sodomy and corporal punishment.

The Marquis survived four years at the College, before transferring to the military academy and entering the King’s light cavalry regiment as a sub-lieutenant in 1755.

 

Maintaining one’s Noble Heritage

As in today’s society, maintaining one’s lifestyle or rank in life was not a guarantee, and unfortunately for the Marquis, his father had aligned himself, placing his families fortunes, with the Prince de Conde, who became one of France’s most despised noblemen. With a poor protector to guarantee his standing in life, the Comte married a lady in waiting of a Princess from Germany and set about looking for a suitable wife of high standing for his young son.

In 1762, the Comte came to an arrangement with the parents of Renee-Pelagie de Montreuil, who were members of the bourgeoisie with powerful connections to the King’s court. Pelagie has been described as a homely woman, but this didn’t bother the Comte, as his son’s reputation for licentious behaviour had all ready destroyed the possibility for other marital pairings, which would have been equally beneficial for the Comte and his son.

The Marquis honoured the marriage, and for a brief time did his best to be the perfect son-in-law for his new father-in-law and mother-in-law, who had the title of the “Presidente” because her husband had been appointed to a prestigious judgeship and, upon his retirement, retained the honorary title of President. This didn’t last long—and little did he know that annoying Presidente was a crime that would one day seriously affect his personal freedom.

 

The First Sexual Crime

Despite marriage and station in life, the Marquis could not contain his unique sexual desires, which would prove his undoing. In October of 1763, the Marquis enlisted the aid of a young prostitute, Mademoiselle Jeanne Testard, leading to his first arrest for deviant sexual behaviour.

Upon bolting himself and Mlle. Testard in his room, the Marquis pelted the young woman with vile and degrading insults based on her beliefs in the Roman Catholic faith. He then engaged in such provocative and blasphemous acts as masturbating into a chalice, referring to God as a “motherfucker”, inserting communion hosts into her vagina before penetrating her himself, while screaming blasphemous statements, masturbating once again with a pair of crucifixes, and forcing her to repeat vulgar, blasphemous statements. The only activity Mlle. Testard managed to escape was allowing the Marquis to beat her with a cat-o-nine-tails and convincing her to beat him.

The following day, Mlle. Testard was taken to the local police commissioner where she related her experience. Ten days later, the Marquis was arrested by Paris Police Inspector Louis Marais, and imprisoned for acting in a lewd and debauched manner. This was merely the start of his crimes. Of course, at that time, based on his noble upbringing, the Marquis did not see why he should be held accountable for his actions—lewd and debauched behaviour amongst France’s noblemen and woman was not uncommon, even his father had partaken in such activity, with both men and women.

Imprisoned in the dungeon of Vincennes, a Parisian fortress, the Marquis pleaded for mercy, and through the influence of the de Montreuil family, was released after three weeks. The Presidente strived to keep her son-in-law’s activities from her daughter.

 

Continued Debauchery

Not having learned his lesson, the Marquis continued to explore his sexual appetites, developing an erotic relationship with an 18-year-old French actress Mlle. Colet and engaging in scandalous parties in the spring of 1765 at his ancestral estate of La Coste, just east of Avignon, with a woman and guests who were not his wife. What the Marquis didn’t know was the Presidente had hired Inspector Marais to keep him under official police surveillance.

Despite Pelagie giving birth to their son, Louis-Marie de Sade on August 27, 1767, the Marquis remained less than a dedicated husband and father.

On April 4, 1768, the Marquis victimized Rose Kellor, an unemployed cook and widow he hired for “domestic” services. Taking her to his cottage he immediately demanded that she disrobe, whereupon he threw her on the bed, face down and proceeded to whip her with his cat-o-nine-tails. She eventually managed to escape, find the authorities and turned her unfortunate experience into a scandal for the Marquis and his family. The Presidente could no longer keep this matter from her daughter, but instead of being enraged by her husband’s activities, upon hearing of them, Pelagie began arranging for her husband’s defense. Throughout the course of her life, Pelagie never turned her back on her husband, defending him to the death, but unable to loosen her mother’s iron grip on keeping him incarcerated. At this point, Pelagie’s defense of her husband landed him only four months in prison for the offense.

Despite this incident, in 1772, the Marquis, his valet, Latour, and four prostitutes engaged in a scandalous six-week orgy at La Coste, which included all manner of perversion and escalated to the point where the four prostitutes, frightened by the bizarre and brutal nature of the Marquis requests, begged to be let go.

The La Coste debauchery turned especially bad when he engaged the services of a new woman, Marguerite Coste. The Marquis had tried to sodomize the young lady, but she had refused. At that time in France, sodomy was a crime punishable by death. It was a crime to spill one’s seed in an orifice where the possibility of procreation wasn’t possible. When Marguerite became sick after consuming candies laced with Spanish Fly, her tale of the Marquis’s activities came to light. This, coupled with the testimony of the four other prostitutes resulted in an arrest warrant being issued for him and Latour.

The Marquis went on the lame for many months, roaming around Europe. All in all, despite being imprisoned in Miolans in France and escaping, the Marquis spent almost two years on the run before feeling confident enough to return to his wife in December 1774.

 

The Final Debauchery

The final straw for the Presidente’s was the Marquis’s next sexual escapade known as ‘The Little Girls’ Affair.’

Having turned his attention to younger and younger girls, the Marquis hired six teenage girls to work at La Coste during the winter months, and proceeded to torment, abuse and violate them. Daily activities included masturbation, fellatio, sodomy (both male-female and male-male), sodomy chains, and scourging (whipping). Six weeks of debauchery, and its eventual discovery, led to the Marquis’s final incarceration. Upset with the disgrace her son-in-law’s activities had brought onto her family’s good name, the Presidente arranged for his arrest and stay in prison—but not right away; although the Presidente arranged for the authorities to raid La Coste, the Marquis escaped and between 1775 and 1777, traveled back and forth between France and Italy.

When he finally decided to return to La Coste, he made the mistake of believing his mother-in-law had forgiven him. On February 13, 1777, the Marquis was arrested by Inspector Marais and incarcerated within the wall of the fortress of Vincennes in Cell 11.

 

A New Notoriety

This time the Marquis spent thirteen years in prison, moved to a variety of them, before ending up in the infamous Bastille. He was freed during the 1780s, during the French Revolution. During the time he spent in prison, his health deteriorating, the Marquis completed his life’s work, secretly penning the novels Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, The 120 Days of Sodom, The Misfortunes of Virtue and other writings.

With descriptions of perversion and debauchery far exceeding what he’d committed as a free man, the Marquis’s writing was banned from publication. But like anything that is banned, it found its way to the masses and has survived to this day.

And, despite his vile ways, the Marquis’s work has found value, forcing scholars to deal with conflicting emotions when considering the man and his legacy. In a 1951 essay, Must We Burn Sade, Simone de Beauvoir identifies the Marquis as a forerunner of Freud, with an intuitive grasp of the nature of the human heart:

 

It is remarkable, for example, that in 1795 Sade wrote: “Sexual pleasure is, I agree, a passion to which all others are subordinate, but in which they all unite.” Not only does Sade, in the first part of this text, anticipate what has been called the “pansexuality” of Freud, but also he makes eroticism the mainspring of human behaviour. In addition, he asserts that sexuality is charged with a significance that goes beyond it. Libido is everywhere, and it is always far more than itself. Sade certainly anticipated this great truth. He knew that the “perversions” that are vulgarly regarded as moral monstrosities or physiological defects actually envelop what would now be called an intentionality. He understood, too, that our tastes are motivated not by the intrinsic qualities of the object, but by the latter’s relationship with the subject. In a passage of La Nouvelle Justine he tries to explain coprophilia (arousal from playing with feces). His reply is faltering, but clumsily using the notion of imagination, he points out that the truth of a thing lies not in what it is but in the meaning it has taken on for us in the course of our individual experience. Intuitions such as these allow us to hail Sade as a precursor of psychoanalysis.

 

A Final Resting Place

The Marquis spent the last years of his life in Charenton, an insane asylum, where he died on December 3, 1814. For a man whose life was devoted to scandal and sensationalism, his final request was to be buried anonymously in a thicket, so that “all traces of my tomb will disappear from the face of the earth, just as I hope all trace of my memory will be erased from the memory of men.” He was buried in the cemetery at Charenton.

The Marquis’s memory lives on. And despite facing persecution in his lifetime, his works of fiction, which contain his philosophies, have lived on, giving his legacy value to scholars attempting to understand the nature of men and sexuality.  ♥

Damage Control with Damon Runyon

Why do they blame me for something that happened when I was miles away?” asked Al Capone at the time of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. “They accuse me of killing everything except the Dead Sea—and they’ll get around to that eventually.

Based on the national attention the massacre was bringing him, Capone turned to his journalist friend, Damon Runyon (1884-1946) to act as his press agent and apologist, and help him rebuild his image.

Runyon, who started out as a columnist and sportswriter for Hearst newspapers, liked to hang out with gangsters, not to get the scoop on them, but to understand their world for use in his short stories. Runyon’s Guys and Dolls is a short story collection seeded with gangsters based on the likes of Al Capone, Frank Costello, and many more. Guys and Dolls, of course, was eventually turned into the popular Broadway musical, based on two short stories within it.

On September 22, 1927, Runyon attended the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fight at Soldiers Field in Chicago with Capone. He turned to prizefighting to try and soften Capone’s image after the massacre. Runyon’s first step was to instruct Capone to give the media the impression he was retiring from Chicago and bootlegging.

Runyon arranged for Capone to have his picture taken with prizefighter Jack Sharkey at his training camp in Miami. Capone is photographed standing between the fighter and former All-American football star Bill Cunningham. The photo ran in the New York American newspaper, with the following cutline, written by Runyon: “The somewhat portly person is none other than ‘Scarface’ Al Capone, once a well-known Chicago gangster, now residing quietly in Florida, who has never been photographed. Although the police have lately mentioned his name in connection with the Chicago rum massacre—which Capone says he knows nothing about—the hitherto shy Al consented to pose with guess whom? Jack Sharkey, the sunshine of Miami Beach.”

Runyon also encouraged Capone to throw a lavish prefight party at his Palm Island estate for sixty sportswriters attending the Sharkey fight. In the course of the party, one of them writers made off with $300,000.00 worth of Mae Capone’s jewelry, which was never recovered. Nevertheless, Capone attended the fight at Flamingo Park on February 27, 1929, resplendent in a tuxedo, handing out $100.00 bills and sitting with Jack Dempsey.

Runyon’s spin on Capone’s image proved ineffective. His high profile in Miami didn’t give anyone the impression he was retiring, but prompted the Chicago Tribune newspaper to proclaim that Capone was planning to take over Miami, just as he had Chicago.

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

Reinhardt H. Schwimmer was a “buff.” A Chicago optometrist who actively sought the company of hoodlums and racketeers—for kicks and bragging rights.

Reinhardt H. Schwimmer was destined for fame, but not by name. Instead he would be forever linked with Frank Gusenburg, his brother Pete, Adam Heyer, John May, Albert R. Weinshank and James Clark.

On February 14, 1929, Reinhardt, along with his hoodlum friends were lined up against a brick wall at 2122 North Clark Street by two Chicago policemen. Facing the wall, they anticipated a hard time from the two officers. It was possible the cops knew George “Bugs” Moran, leader of the North Side Gang was on his way over to receive a shipment of bootleg booze. The garage, S.M.C. Cartage Company was Moran’s main headquarters, and six of the seven men lined up against the wall were Bug’s men.

What Reinhardt and the others didn’t know was the two men weren’t policemen, but henchmen for Bug’s rival, Alphonso “Scarface” Capone. What they also didn’t notice were two other Capone trigger men who had entered the garage after the two cops, brandishing Tommy guns and shotguns.

The seven men had no time to notice anything.

The garage quickly erupted in a volley of Tommy gun and shotgun fire. Reinhardt hit the ground, his head nearly blown off by a point blank blast from a double-barreled shotgun.

Reinhardt had found eternal fame, as one of the victims of Chicago’s worst mass murders—the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

 

The Alibi

Only Capone kills like that,” Moran told the police about his main rival, a man he’d referred to publicly as “the Beast” and “the Behemoth.” And while this was true, Capone had an airtight alibi on the morning of the massacre, he was in the office of Dade County solicitor Robert Taylor, who was interested in questioning him regarding his relationship with Parker Henderson, Jr., the manager of the Ponce de Leon Hotel. Henderson had previously picked up money at a Western Union location earmarked for A. Costa. Taylor believed A. Costas was Capone.

Capone had played it safe, fleeing to his Palm Island estate in Florida. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Chicago before, during or after the hit. Phone records revealed that for several days before and after the murders, he had received no calls from Chicago or made any to his associates. For two days following the massacre, he also made a point of keeping a high profile in Miami, making sure to appear completely unconcerned with the events unfolding in his hometown.

While Capone had made sure he couldn’t be directly linked as a participant in the killings, he’s underestimated the public’s reaction to them. Along with the public, business and civic leaders, as well as reform associations demanded a stop to the ten years of gangland warfare that had defined Chicago.

“Don’t get the idea that I’m one of those goddamn radicals. My rackets are run along strict American lines. This American system of ours, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it,” Capone had explained in previous years, during his rise to power. “I make my money by supplying the public demand. If I break the law, my customers are as guilty as I am. I call myself a businessman.”

For the most part, the public, many of whom were also against prohibition tolerated the gangsters and the service they provided, ignoring their flaunting of the law, and at times even celebrating it. Capone, along with many others, working Chicago, New York, and various other cities around the United States, were often considered businessmen.

With the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, although Capone hadn’t achieved his primary goal of killing Moran, he’d affectively neutralized him. Bugs Moran, fearing further attempts on his life, gave up any claim to Chicago and faded from the scene. As a matter of fact, on February 18, a train from Chicago to Miami held no fewer than 50 hoodlums, fading from the scene, fearing a gang war. The Chicago Tribune placed the exodus at 500 hoodlums.

Capone owned Chicago, but had cemented a national reputation as a cold-hearted killer, forever distancing himself from the ‘businessman’ moniker. He even attracted the attention of President Herbert Hoover who immediately directed all Federal agencies to concentrate on convicting Capone and his allies for their crimes.

 

Whatever ‘Bugs’ You

Born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Alphonse “Scarface Al” Capone (1899-1947) began his criminal career in New York, before fleeing to Chicago in 1919 to avoid the heat of two murders the police were trying to pin on him. Having left school in the sixth grade, Capone had learned his criminal trade in the James Street Gang, run by Johnny Torrio. At the time of his troubles in 1919, Torrio himself was heading for Chicago to help his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo, the city’s leading pimp, run his empire. Capone gladly joined him.

Soon after arriving, Torrio and Colosimo fell out with one another, when Colosimo, favoring prostitution, refused to get into the bootlegging business. Both Torrio and Capone recognized how lucrative it would be and ventured into the trade after arranging Colosimo’s murder. The Torrio-Capone gang began taking on other Chicago mobs, including arranging the death on November 10, 1924 of Dion O’Banion, head of the Irish North Side Gang. Unlike other gangs, they’d defeated, the North Side Gang did not crumble, but entered into a war with the duo that resulted in a February 1925 assassination attempt on Torrio, which led the gangster to give control of their gang to Capone, once he’d recovered.

Torrio wasn’t the only target of the North Side Gang. On September 20, 1926, a machine-gun motorcade consisting of six automobiles swept past the Hawthorne Inn, Capone’s Cicero headquarters, riddling the joint with an estimated 1,000 rounds. They failed to hit Capone. For two years following O’Banion’s death, his good friend “Hymie” Weiss (Earl Wajcieckowski) and George “Bugs” Moran made several attempts on Scarface’s life.

Born in Minnesota in 1893, George Moran (1893-1957) and his parents moved to Chicago in 1899, where he grew up on the city’s predominantly Irish North side, called Kilgubbin. Before he was 21, the enterprising young hoodlum had committed 26 known robberies and been incarcerated three times. One method the youngster used to raise money was kidnapping horses off delivery wagons and holding them in abandoned garages or storefronts until their owner paid a ransom. This earned him the nickname “Jesse James” and “Little Horse-Napper.”

It was while plying a criminal trade in Kilgubbin that Moran fell in with Dion O’Banion, one of the districts leading delinquents. O’Banion took Moran’s focus away from stealing horses and onto other loftier pursuits, such as pick pocketing, shoplifting, breaking and entry, armed robbery and safecracking.

With the death of O’Banion in 1924, Hymie Weiss assumed control of the North Side Gang. On October 11, 1926, three weeks after the attempt on Capone’s life at the Hawthorne Inn, Weiss was machine-gunned to death while crossing a street to enter the gang’s headquarters above Schofield’s Flower Shop. Vincent “Schemer” Drucci assumed command but was shot to death in April 1927, in broad daylight by police detective Dan Healy, while sitting in the backseat of a police car at the corner of Wacker Drive and Clark Street. While the police surrounding the car claimed Drucci had become violent, reports from witnesses, including one journalist claim the detective, for no apparent reason simply turned around and pumped four bullets into the gangster. Drucci’s death placed Moran at the head of the North Side Gang.

Moran was a man known for his violent temper and sudden outbursts. They had earned him the nickname “Bugs.” No one made his blood boil more than Capone, whom he considered less than human. While Moran had no qualms about murder, he had an aversion to prostitution. Moran was a devout church-goer and held true to his gang’s position of not allowing prostitution in their territory. Capone kept trying to set up in their area, even offering to split profits with the North Side Gang, prompting Moran to respond, “We don’t deal in flesh. We think anyone who does is lower than a snake’s belly. Can’t Capone get that through his thick skull?”¹

He could. And he knew as long as Moran ran the gang he’d forever be a thorn in his side. Capone knew Moran had to go.

 

The Plan

When Torrio left the Torrio-Capone gang he forced his partner into not only being the ‘brawn’ of the gang, but also the ‘brains.’ Surprisingly, Capone rose to the challenge, building a formidable criminal empire with close to 1,000 associates, mostly gunmen. He’d established bases on the south side of Chicago at the Lexington Hotel and at several other locations, such as the suburban areas of Cicero and Chicago Heights. He’d also set up a winter retreat in Miami Beach and a summer hideout in Lansing, Michigan. It was estimated that Capone had at least half of Chicago’s police force on his payroll, as well as politicians, states attorneys, city aldermen, mayors, legislators, governors, and congressmen.

Capone also realized the importance of public relations and was often seen about town in the company of top political, business and social leaders. He controlled his mob and gave the public what they wanted: alcohol, gambling and prostitution. His image was solid and he owned Chicago, or would if he could eliminate Moran and the North Side Gang.

To bring about Moran’s death, Capone turned to Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn (1904-1936), his principal lieutenant. McGurn was thrilled with the assignment and the opportunity to exact revenge. Previously, Moran had assigned Peter and Frank Gusenburg with the task of killing McGurn. Catching him by surprise, while making a call in a phone booth on Rush Street, the Gusenburg’s filled him full of lead from a Tommy gun and pistol. McGurn was tough and cheated them by surviving, recovering from multiple bullet wounds at Northwestern Hospital. So, when Capone gave him $10,000.00 plus expenses to wipe out Moran, he readily accepted.

Over the decades there has been much speculation as to the four hitmen who committed the crime. It was believed that the killers were brought in from out of town. Amongst those named was a ruthless bank robber wanted in four States, Fred “Killer” Burke. St. Louis-based Burke was associated with the Egan’s Rats gang, which played a part in Capone’s bootlegging network. Burke was supposedly paid $5,000.00 for his services and enlisted the help of Egan’s Rat gunman James Ray. The two were then joined by Joseph Lolordo, as well as John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, the two Capone henchmen credited with killing O’Banion, and who eventually fell victim to a baseball bat swinging Capone when he suspected them of betraying him. Another name often associated to the killings was that of Rio Burke from Michigan.

‘Little Al’ told another tale. In the late 1950s and ‘60s, ‘Little Al’ was the first microphone the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) were able to secretly place in a mob hangout, where it spent six years recording conversations. At that time in mob history, gangsters weren’t afraid of electronic mics, only worried about phone taps. According to mob historian and FBI agent William F. Roemer, Jr., in his book Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, ‘Little Al’ picked up a conversation between Tony Accardo and Murray Humphreys in which they reminisced about the massacre and revealed the four shooters were McGurn, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi and Tony Accardo himself.

 

The Setup

Aware that Moran ran his bootleg distribution operation out of 2122 North Clark, McGurn rented an apartment at 2119 North Clark, paying a week’s rent in advance, and brought in two members of Detroit’s Purple Gang, Harry and Phil Keywell to watch the cartage company. He then had Claude Maddox, a Capone associate steal the necessary police uniforms and vehicle. Finally, he supplied a booze hijacker with a shipment of Old Log Cabin whiskey, originating from Canada, and had him offer it to Moran at $57.00 per case, an excellent price. He also had the hijacker arrange the day, time and place of the deal. Everything was set up.

 

St. Valentine’s Day

On the morning of February 14, 1929, the seven victims gathered in the garage, waiting for the boss to arrive. Forty-year-old Pete Gusenburg had been a criminal for about 25 years, with a criminal record including burglary, robbery and hoodlumism. He’d all ready served three years in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet and another three years in a federal penitentiary for participating in the 1923 Dearborn Station mail robbery, which netted $4 million.

Frank Gusenburg, Pete’s younger brother was 36-years-old and luckier than his sibling in that he’d managed to beat most raps, including murder. He’d only done 90-days on a sentence of disorderly conduct.

Adam Heyer, alias Frank Sneyder, was the owner of the S.M.C. Cartage Co. and part owner of the Fairview Kennels, a dog racing track which competed with Capone’s Hawthorne Club. The 35-year-old had also done time in Chicago’s Bridewell Jail in 1908 for robbery and time in Joliet in 1916 for his part in a confidence racket.

John May, in his mid-forties, was a father of seven and a one-time safe-blower. He was presently working as a mechanic for the cartage company. Albert R. Weinshank was connected to the Central Cleaners and Dryers Co., a prestigious firm Moran was interested in. Moran had backed him in the Alcazar Club at 4207 Broadway, which was an outlet for Moran’s booze. In his early forties, James Clark, Moran’s brother-in-law, was a killer who had done time for burglary and robbery in Illinois prisons. He was one of Moran’s top henchmen. The final man was the above mentioned Reinhardt H. Schwimmer.

Little did they know, but Moran, along with his two top guns, Willie Marks and Ted Newberry were running late. When the Keywells saw the booze arrive and spotted someone they thought was Moran (possibly Al Weinshank) arriving at the garage at 10:30 a.m., they made the call to McGurn, who was waiting in a nearby phone booth. He immediately moved in with the other three killers, arriving at the garage with the police car’s gong clanging. Moran and his two gunmen, who were approaching the garage, spotted this and backed off, anticipating a police shakedown.

Once the two fake cops had disarmed the men and lined them up against the wall, the other two men entered and together they cold-bloodedly killed them—all except for Frank Gusenburg, who was found alive at the scene with 22 bullets in him. He died three hours later in the hospital. The two gunmen posing as policemen then turned their guns on the two others and escorted them out to the police car, where the four of them took off. This gave the impression to bystanders that the police had caught the culprits. It all went smoothly.

 

The Aftermath

The first cop on the scene was Sergeant Thomas Loftus. Lieutenants John L. Sullivan and Otto Erlanson of Chicago’s Homicide Division were assigned to investigate the scene. Immediately, Capone and his organization came under suspicion, but, of course, Capone had expertly planned his alibi. McGurn did so also.

Realizing he’d come under suspicion, McGurn orchestrated his own alibi, checking into the Stevens Hotel on South Michigan with his showgirl girlfriend Louise Rolfe, under the pseudonym Vincent Gebaldi. Checking in under his real name would have raised suspicion that he was trying to set up an alibi. When he was arrested for the crime, Rolfe explained he was with her at the time of the killings, providing for him what the press dubbed ‘the Blonde Alibi.’ Later, when it was proven false and McGurn was charged with perjury, he married Rolfe, which now gave her the right to refuse to testify against her husband in court.

The authorities had nothing to go on. The only witnesses to the crime was Frank Gusenburg, who in the little time he had left refused  to say who shot him, and Highball, a German Shepherd watchdog who was tied to a pipe.

 

A Miscalculation

“Nothing that’s ever happened in this town since Prohibition can compare with it,” said Patrick Roche, a federal investigator of the massacre. “Never in all the history of feuds or gangland has Chicago or the nation seen anything like today’s wholesale slaughter. I’ve seen Chicago’s booze and vice rackets for years, but never before have seven men been lined up and shot down in cold blood. Never has there been such a massacre.”²

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre generated national headlines and national outrage. Capone had miscalculated, the massacre destroying his carefully planned public image and beginning his downfall. As noted above, now, even the President wanted something done about the high profile gangster.

For more than a decade, citizens had put up with gangland killings. As long as no innocent parties were gunned down, all was all right. Killers were killing killers. And, as long as the killings were drive-by attacks or similar there was a belief that at least the victims had a chance to fight back and defend themselves. It was like the Wild West and somewhat tolerable. On February 14, 1929, four cold-blooded killers line up predominantly seven other cold-blooded killers, unarmed them and shot them in the back. According to Dr. Herman N. Bundesen, the Cook County coroner, each man had been shot at least 15 times. The nature of the deaths were appalling and unacceptable, and ended Capone’s love affair with Chicago, resulting in a new determination by the authorities to bring him down, which they eventually did for tax evasion.

As for McGurn, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre eventually caught up with him. On February 13, 1936, he was gunned down in a bowling alley by three men who threw a comic valentine on the gangster’s bullet-ridden body. It was immediately speculated that the hit was a long overdue retaliation for the massacre by members of the now depleted and ineffective North Side Gang. Others felt it was the work of Capone’s organization, who had decided to eliminate one of their own and used the anniversary of the massacre to create false leads for the police to consider and follow. Much like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre deaths, no one was ever brought to trial for McGurn’s murder.

As previously noted, Moran, the target of the massacre, faded from the scene, returning to armed robbery as a means of getting by. He died in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary while doing time for a post office heist. He’d outlived Capone by ten years.

 

1. Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia: From Accardo to Zwillman. NY: Facts On File Publications, Inc., 1987
2. Bergreen, Laurence. Capone: The Man and the Era. Simon & Schuster, 1994.