Vito Cascioferro

Son of Accur­sio and Santa Ippolito, an early fol­lower of Anar­chism in Europe, his crim­i­nal record began with assault in 1884, with later charges of arson, extor­tion and kid­nap. Cas­cio­ferro emi­grated to Amer­ica in 1901, to escape police “spe­cial sur­veil­lance, he lived with a sis­ter, Francesca, and brother in law, Sal­va­tore Armato in an apart­ment on 103^rd St, before find­ing his own place in Mor­gan St. Among his papers was a let­ter he received a let­ter shortly after arriv­ing in New york:

New York, 12^th Sep­tem­ber 1901

My very dear Don Vito,
I wel­come you and allow myself the plea­sure and the lib­erty of invit­ing you to my home. I have also taken the lib­erty of invit­ing friends, Giuseppe Morello, Francesco Megna, Giuseppe Fontana, Carlo Costan­tino, and Gioacchino di Mar­tino to eat a plate of mac­a­roni together. We thought that next Mon­day would be good and that the best time might be three o’clock in the after­noon. I hope that you will not fail to come, and, if the day and the time are not con­ve­nient for you, let me know by mes­sen­ger.
I kiss your hand.
Your
Sal­va­tore Brancaccio

On May 21^st, 1902, Cas­cio­ferro was arrested on coun­ter­feit­ing charges along with the Frauto/Clemente gang. They had been man­u­fac­tur­ing coins at a plant in Hack­en­sack, NJ. Cas­cio­ferro man­aged to escape con­vic­tion with an alibi that he worked at a local paper mill.

He returned to Sicily shortly after Pet­rosino ordered his arrest for involve­ment with the 1903 “Bar­rel Mur­der”, con­se­quently his appli­ca­tion for Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship was blocked.

Cas­cio­ferro is thought to be the mas­ter­mind behind the killing of New York police­man Giuseppe Pet­rosino on March 12^th 1909. Pet­rosino was in Sicily to gather infor­ma­tion from local police files to help deport Ital­ian gang­sters from New York, and upset Cas­cio­fer­ros” inter­na­tional rela­tion­ships. Although arrested, Cas­cio­ferro was never charged with the murder.

At the age of 47 Cas­cio­ferro held power over at least seven major Mafia cosche in and around Palermo, Bisac­quino, Cam­pofior­ito, Cor­leone, Con­tessa Entil­l­ina, Chiusa Scal­fani, Bur­gio and Vil­lafranca Sic­ula. In 1927, Pre­fect Mori, under orders from Mus­solini to destroy the Mafia, arrested Cas­cio­ferro in 1928. Tried in court for smug­gling he stood and said:

Gen­tle­men, as you have been unable to obtain proof of any of the numer­ous crimes I have com­mit­ted, you have been reduced to con­demn­ing me for the only one I never committed.

Sen­tenced to life in Uccia­r­done prison in Palermo, he died there in 1945 due to nat­ural causes.