The Mafia Encyclopedia (80 page)

Read The Mafia Encyclopedia Online

Authors: Carl Sifakis

Tags: #True Crime, #Organized Crime, #test

BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
6.54Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Page 228
When he was released in 1946, Luciano was deported to Italy. He sneaked back to Cuba later that year to run the American syndicate from that off-shore island. From Cuba, Luciano approved the execution of Bugsy Siegel for looting the syndicate's money in building the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. But government agents soon discovered Luciano's presence in Cuba, and he was forced to return to Italy where he continued to issue orders to the states and got his monthly cut of syndicate revenues delivered by special couriers, including Virginia Hill.
With the assassination of Albert Anastasia (1957) and the forced retirement of Frank Costello shortly thereafter, Luciano's influence started to wane. Vito Genovese even plotted to have him assassinated, but Luciano was still powerful enough to form a plot with Lansky, Costello and Carlo Gambino by which Genovese was delivered into the hands of U.S. narcotics agents in a rigged drug deal.
Near the end of his life relations between Luciano and Lansky started to sour. Luciano felt he was not getting a fair cut of mob income, but having suffered a number of heart attacks was in no shape to mount a serious protest. Gradually, he began to reveal to journalists his version of many of the past criminal events in the United States and, obviously, some of his revelations were self-serving. In 1962, he died of a heart attack at the Naples airport. Only after his death was Lucky Luciano allowed to come back to the United States, the country he considered his only true home. He was allowed burial in St. John's Cemetery in New York City.
See also:
Atlantic City Conference; Broadway Mob; Havana Conference
; Normandie,
S.S.; Seven Group
.
Luciano-Costello Crime Family: See Genovese Crime Family.
Lumping: Construction racket for skimming federal dollars
In recent decades, federal contracts that mandate the use of union labor have been easy prey for the mob. The scam, known as "lumping," calls for substituting union workers with cheaper nonunion labor and backing them up with mob muscle to guarantee the cooperation of union workers on the job. For example, suppose a drywall company gets a multimillion-dollar contract for a housing rehabilitation project. Although the contract calls for union laborers, the company hires an outside firm (which may or may not be mob-connected) to do the actual drywall work.
A major scam outfit of this kind was owned by Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, the later mob turncoat. Using the mob's influence on certain construction unions, Sammy paid off the top union officials and then used cheaper, inferior labor. Sammy and the major contractor holding the contract would split the profit. Most of the other jobs were manned by union workers, and they did not protest, having been warned by their union officers, usually in an effective handwringing act, that the mob was muscling in on the job and that dire things could happen if anyone interfered. Undoubtedly few union workers believed their officers were not involved, but they knew better than to say anything about the scam.
Lupo the Wolf (18771944): Black Hander and murderer
While it would be useless to name any particular mafioso in America as the most fearsome of all, Ignazio Saietta would certainly rank as a contender. Better known to the Italian immigrants of New York as Lupo and to the press as Lupo the Wolf, he was the most proficient and deadliest of the Black Hand racketeers victimizing the Italian community with extortion demands.
The Black Hand was not an organized society but was various gangs and freelancers. Lupo the Wolf, however, was a leader of the Morellos, the foremost Mafia crime family in the city in 1900. Lupo the Wolf refined the techniques of the Black Hand extortion method, promoting himself into the very embodiment of evil in the Italian community.
Lupo came from Sicily in 1899 and gained his awesome reputation within the next two years. It was common for Italians to cross themselves at the mere mention of his name. His underlings knew they had to obey him implicitly, never debating an order. Lupo was known to have murdered a young relative on mere
suspicion
that he had betrayed him.
Many of Lupo's victimsat least 60, according to many estimateswere Lupo's Black Hand targets who refused to pay and others were gangsters in competition with Lupo and the Morellos. They were dragged to and tortured in what became known as the Murder Stable at 323 East 107th Street in Italian Harlem. Screams in the night, common in the area, filled neighbors with fear but seldom brought police investigation; the screamers were murdered and buried on the premises.
Lupo attracted police attention fairly often for various murders and kidnappings, but firm evidence was not found. He was finally nailed by the Secret Service for a counterfeiting operation he ran in the Catskill Mountains. He was sentenced to 30 years and after serving 10 was paroled in June 1920. The following year Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty gave him permission to make a trip to Italy. This was not viewed as any sort of favoritism, the hope being he would not
Page 229
return. Lupo did return in 1922 and entered the wholesale fruit and bakery business with his son.
Over the next decade the crime scene changed in America and Lupo clearly did not fit in. His methods, based so completely on terror and murder, were becoming obsolete. The emerging national crime syndicate always tried first to operate through bribery. Lupo was informed he was out, and he retired to Brooklyn where he was permitted to run a small Italian lottery. On his own he formed a protection racket involving bakers. In 1936 Governor Herbert Lehman petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt to have Lupo returned to prison for racketeering on a broad scale. Lupo went back to Atlanta to serve out another few years on his original sentence. When he returned to Brooklyn he had no remaining power and died a few years later.
See also:
Black Hand; Murder Stable; Petrosino, Joseph
.
Page 230
M
Mcgurn, Machine Gun Jack (19041936): Capone enforcer
No Hollywood scriptwriter could create a more fitting gangster character than the real life Machine Gun Jack McGurn. In fact, he served as a model for so many movie characters, heor at least, his estateshould have been able to sue for infringement of copyright. McGurn had it all: the good boy turned bad to avenge his father's murder; the boxer; the high-life sport who dolled himself up like Rudolph Valentino, with his normally curly black hair parted in the middle and pomaded straight; the lady's man, slick with women, preferably blondes, draped all over him; the sheik of the jazz age, a ukelelestrumming snaky dancer. And, in criminal action, he was also dramatic, mowing down foes with the tommy gunhis favorite weaponand, for the perfect movie touch, often pressing a nickel into the hand of a victim.
Born James DeMora, McGurn was still a teenager when his father was murdered in Chicago's Little Italy by the Genna gang which controlled alcohol production in the area. His father made the mistake of selling his homemade stuff elsewhere for a higher price, and that earned him fatal retribution. Legend has it that the son soaked his hands in his father's blood and vowed revenge. He started preparing for his vengeance by perfecting his shooting aim, popping birds off telephone wires with a Daisy Repeating Rifle.
For a time he tried boxing and became a reasonably efficient welterweight under the name of Battling Jack McGurn, but it soon became apparent he didn't have the stuff to make it to the top, and his manager dropped him. McGurn went back to hunting his father's killers. Since he knew they were Genna men, he finally hooked up with the Capone mob since he knew sooner or later he'd be shooting at Gennas that way.
McGurn became one of Capone's most reliable hit men, especially adept with a newfangled instrument of death, the tommy gun. Thus Battling Jack McGurn was transformed into Machine Gun Jack McGurn. The police at various times credited him with from 25 to 28 known kills, including five or six from the Genna Gang, presumably those whom he decided had taken part in the murder of his father. In the hand of each Genna man, McGurn placed a nickel to indicate his contempt for the dead menlousy nickel-and-dimers.
Capone relied on McGurn more and more, and in time hardly went anywhere without Machine Gun Jack somewhere nearby. When Capone personally beat the brains out of three gangsters who had betrayed himAlbert Anselmi, John Scalise and Hop Toad GiuntaMcGurn did the holding. He was also suspected of being a principal and perhaps the planner of the St. Valentine Day's Massacre.
He was arrested, but charges against him had to be dropped when showgirl Louise Rolfe insisted he'd been with her at the time of the massacre, winning for herself eternal fame as what the newspapers called "the Blonde Alibi." Later that alibi was proved to be false, and McGurn was charged with perjury. The Blonde Alibi was going to be forced to testify against him, but he solved that dilemma by marrying her; she could then legally refuse to do so.
McGurn spent so much money in nightclubs that he decided it would be cheaper to own them, and he even-
Page 231
tually had pieces of six or seven of them. One of them was the Green Mill which had done terrific business for an entire year with a young comic named Joe E. Lewis. At contract renewal time, Lewis was offered a hefty raise to $650 a week, but a rival joint, the New Rendezvous Cafe, topped that with a $1,000 offer, plus a piece of the cover charge. Lewis gave notice.
McGurn was irate. "You'll never live to open," he warned Lewis. Lewis did open on November 2, 1927, but eight days later McGurn's promise bore bitter fruit. Lewis answered a knock at his bedroom door and let three men in. Two carried pistols with which they proceeded to beat him, fracturing his skull. The third man had a knife and with it carved up Lewis's face, throat and tongue. Somehow Lewis survived. He had to learn to talk all over again, and it was 10 years before he made it all the way back to the top of his profession.
After Capone went to prison for income tax evasion, McGurn's star started to set. He may have been a Capone favorite, but he was not necessarily the pal of other gang members. He was iced out of a number of rackets and left with little besides his nightclubs. They folded because of the Depression, and Louise Rolfe dumped him as well. He apparently was reduced to getting by in some small narcotics deals.
On February 13, 1936, the eve of the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, McGurn was in a bowling alley with two men when three gunmen walked in. The trio drew guns, so did the pair with McGurn. All five guns turned on McGurn. In McGurn's right hand they left a nickel, and beside the body they left a comic valentine, which read:
You've lost your job,
You've lost your dough,
Your jewels and handsome houses.
But things could be worse, you know.
You haven't lost your trousers
.
All that gave the newspaper plenty to speculate about. The nickel could indicate the slaying was the work of some remaining Genna men or relatives of those he'd killed. On the other hand, since the shooting happened on the night before the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, that meant Bugs Moran or some remaining North Siders were involved. More likely it was the work of Capone gangsters who wanted him out of the way and knew how to leave some false leads. It was all worth thinking about, but hardly worth doing anything about. Nobody seemed too concerned about finding the killersand nobody ever did.
Macintosh, Hugh "Apples" (1927): Colombo crime family enforcer
Hugh "Apples" Macintosh couldn't help but make a big impression. A size-52 suit, but not the least bit fat (he did not like being called fat), this dreaded enforcer was considered, with Carmine "the Snake" Persico, the toughest and roughest at his calling.
Apples started out as an associate of the Gallo brothers, but switched allegiance with Persico back to Profaci, where the pair ultimately sided with Joe Colombo against the Gallos. In the Gallo wars he was charged in the murder of a Gallo gunner, Alfred Mondello, but the indictment was later dismissed.
MacIntosh was with Persico during the 1960s mob war for control of the Colombo crime family. A government-taped conversation of Apples with an IRS agent, Richard Annicharico, posing as a bribetaker, and Victor Puglisi, the Colombos' alleged go-between with Annicharico, illustrates his casualness toward violence:
Macintosh: "I was there when he [Persico] got shot
."
Puglisi: "I bear they didn't use pistols; they used carbines.... How far were they? Close?
"
MacItosh: "They were close, Vic. They pulled up alongside
."
Annicharico: "They were good shots
."
MacIntosh: "They didn't have no balls
."

Other books

Blood of the Nile by Annalynne Russo
King of Foxes by Raymond E. Feist
Pride of the Clan by Anna Markland
Guardian Angel by Adrian Howell
Something More by Watson, Kat
The Imperial Wife by Irina Reyn