Giuseppe Masseria

The ear­li­est known arrest of Masse­ria is 1^st Feb­ru­ary 1907. Francesca Delise, of 198 Eliz­a­beth Street, returned to her sec­ond floor apart­ment and found her front door had been smashed in. Inside she found Masse­ria and Giuseppe Lima steal­ing her valu­ables. Masse­ria, 20, gave his address as 217 Forsyth Street and claimed to have lived there for three years. He was held on $2000 bail and even­tu­ally received a sus­pended sentence.

Masse­ria was arrested again for bur­glary after a botched job took place on the night of April 13^th, 1913. The police were tipped off about a rob­bery in progress at John Simpson’s Pawn­shop, 164 Bow­ery. The police sur­rounded the block and arrested four men includ­ing Masse­ria. Using fin­ger­prints and study­ing the rob­bers meth­ods, the police linked the four men to twelve other bur­glar­ies in the area.