Fortunato Lomonte

For­tu­na­to Lomonte, a cousin of the Morel­lo fam­i­ly, ran a hay and grain office with his broth­er Tomas­so. The busi­ness was locat­ed at 2103 1^st Avenue, on the junc­tion of E108th Street — just a few doors away was the infa­mous’Mur­der Sta­ble’.

The police were sur­prised to learn of Lomon­te’s mur­der on May 23^rd, 1914. For­tu­na­to, who had just left his busi­ness premis­es on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing, was walk­ing along E108th Street when he was shot in the back with three bul­lets. The killer had appeared from the hall­way of a ten­e­ment, then escaped by return­ing to the hall­way and vault­ing a fence at the rear of the build­ing. Lomon­te’s friends drove him to Harlem Hos­pi­tal where he was revived. Detec­tive John Cas­set­ti pushed Lomonte for the killers name, but he refused to talk before he fell uncon­scious and died.

Physi­cians at the hos­pi­tal said that the vis­it­ing Tomas­so Lomonte swore revenge for his broth­er. The fam­i­ly house at 213 E107th Street was later besieged by friends and fam­i­ly, every­one who entered the house was ques­tioned by the police about their busi­ness before being allowed entry.

Accord­ing to Nico­la Gen­tile, the killers were Umber­to Valen­ti and Accur­sio Dimi­no, sent by “Toto” D’Aquila who was look­ing to remove the power of Lomonte. Gen­tile described D’Aquila as hav­ing “the absolute pre­dom­i­nance in the quar­ter around 106^th Street”, but the killing may have also been for the recent killing of D’Aquila’s friend Giuseppe Fontana, a long time Morel­lo asso­ciate who had defect­ed from the weak­en­ing gang.