Frank Fevrola

On March 16^th 1917, Joseph “Chuck” Naz­zaro was shot and killed in Yonkers NY. Naz­zaro had been spot­ted talk­ing to the Morello gang in Harlem, and was sen­tenced to death by the Neapoli­tan gangs in Brook­lyn. Fevrola, Sgroia, and the Paretti broth­ers, all from the Navy St gang lured Naz­zaro out to Yonkers under the pre­tence of killing Fevrola for giv­ing the police infor­ma­tion about a gang. The gang then shot Naz­zaro and left his body on the trol­ley tracks.

Frank Fevrola, on April 18^th 1921, was tried for the mur­der of Joe “Chuck” Naz­zaro in 1917. Judge Tomp­kins found Fevrola guilty and sen­tenced him to the death house at Sing Sing. His con­vic­tion was largely due to his wife’s tes­ti­mony against him. On April 14^th, 1922, a notice was served on DA Weeks, that a motion would be made to grant a retrial on the case of Fevrola. Fevrola’s wife had with­drawn all her pre­vi­ous state­ments made against her hus­band, say­ing she had been threat­ened and bribed by the police. DA Weeks tried to oppose the retrial by rub­bish­ing Tessie Fevrola’s new affi­davit. On May 23^rd, 1922, Jus­tice Tomp­kins denied any motion for a retrial of Fevrola. On May 29^th, 1923, lawyer Thomas O’Neil made a last minute attempt to save Fevrola from exe­cu­tion. His request for a retrial was again put before Supreme Court Jus­tice Tomp­kins. On Thurs­day 28^th June, 1923, with seven hours left until his exe­cu­tion and in a state of col­lapse, Fevrola received a reprieve, spar­ing his life until Octo­ber 7^th. The death sen­tence was even­tu­ally com­muted to life imprisonment.