John Russomano

On Decem­ber 15^th, 1912, a peace meet­ing had been arranged between Gio­sue Gal­lucci and Aniello Prisco. Prisco trav­elled to see Gal­lucci at his bak­ery on E109th. Once there he was killed by two bul­lets to the head from John Rus­so­mano, a nephew of Gio­sue Gal­lucci. Rus­so­mano was later released when the police believed his story of self defence.

On Feb­ru­ary 18^th, 1913, John Rus­so­mano and his body­guard, Capa­longo, were shot stand­ing in the door­way of Russomano’s home at 329 E109th. Capa­longo died instantly, Rus­so­mano was shot in the arm, break­ing the bone. Rus­so­mano later told police that he had not heard the shots, the police sus­pected the killers had used silencers to help them escape eas­ily. Although no one was arrested for the killing, it was thought that the shoot­ing was arranged by Ama­dio Buonomo in revenge for the killing of his friend Prisco.

35 Ital­ians were arrested in late July, 1913, in con­nec­tion with pol­icy games. Most were charged with aid­ing and abet­ting pol­icy shops and some were charged under the Sul­li­van law. Rus­so­mano was arrested along with his Uncle Gal­lucci and Joseph “Chuck” Naz­zaro, all were charged with car­ry­ing con­cealed weapons. Rus­so­mano man­aged to delay his trial until March 27^th, 1914, when the Gen­eral Ses­sions court would find him guilty and send him to Sing Sing for seven years.