Johnny Esposito
Alias: Lefty Esposito
Born: 1893
Nationality: American
Died: Decemeber 31st 1924.
Where: New Jersey
Cause: Shot
Killer:
Born in Brooklyn, Esposito grew up in New York. He used to hangout in Harlem around 105th St with the Del Gaudio brothers, occasionally roughing people up on their order. Esposito left Harlem sometime after he was convicted of a shooting and received a 6 month jail term. Moving back south to Brooklyn he began to hang with the Navy St gang.
On June 24th 1916 a meeting took place at Coney Island between the Sicilian Morello gang, the Neapolitan Navy Street gang and the Neapolitan Coney Island gang. The idea of the meeting was to discuss the expansion of gambling dens in lower Manhattan. Pelligrino Morano, from Coney Island, began talking about the lucrative Italian Zaconette card games. Nick Terranova and Steve LaSalle explained that Joe DeMarco would have to be killed before they could expand in the area. The Brooklyn gang also had an interest in killing DeMarco as he had recently taken over one their games on Mullberry Street.
Around three weeks later Nick Terranova, Steve LaSalle, Ciro Terranova and Giuseppe Verazzano travelled to Navy St to discuss the plan to kill Joe DeMarco.
On the morning of July 20th 1916, the Navy St gunmen, Pagano, Esposito and Fetto, made their way to a saloon on Elizabeth St to await their signal to move. At around five O’clock Verazzano arrived at the saloon and notified the waiting gunmen that Demarco had arrived at James St, they left and made their way to the entrance of the gambling house. Verazzano sat down opposite DeMarco to help identify him to the gunmen who were now standing watching the game. Nick Sassi and Rocco Valente from Navy St waited outside to help the gunmen escape. Esposito and Pagano misread the signals from Verazzano and shot and killed Charles Lombardi by mistake, Verazzano managed to kill DeMarco. The gunmen made their escape through the bedroom window into Oliver St.
Esposito was also involved in the later ambush of Nicholas Terranova and Charles Ubriaco for which he received 6–10 years in June 1918.
He was later killed in New Jersey while on parole in 1924.
