Frank Fevrola

Frank Fevro­la was a mem­ber of the Brook­lyn based Navy St gang.

On March 16^th, 1917, Joseph ‘Chuck’ Nazzaro was shot and killed in Yonkers NY. Naz­zaro had been spot­ted talk­ing to the Morel­lo gang in Harlem, and was sen­tenced to death by the Neapoli­tan gangs in Brook­lyn. Fevro­la, Sgroia, and the Paret­ti broth­ers, all from the Navy St gang lured Naz­zaro out to Yonkers under the pre­tence of killing Fevro­la for giv­ing the police infor­ma­tion about a gang. The gang then shot Naz­zaro and left his body on the trol­ley tracks.

Frank Fevro­la was tried for the mur­der of Joe ‘Chuck’ Naz­zaro on April 18^th, 1921. Judge Tomp­kins found him guilty and sen­tenced him to the death house at Sing Sing. His con­vic­tion was large­ly due to his wife’s tes­ti­mo­ny against him.

On April 14^th, 1922, a notice was served on DA Weeks, that a motion would be made to grant a retri­al on the case of Fevro­la. His wife had with­drawn all her pre­vi­ous state­ments, say­ing she had been threat­ened and bribed by the police. DA Weeks tried to oppose the retri­al by rub­bish­ing her new affi­davit. On May 23^rd, 1922, Jus­tice Tomp­kins denied any motion for a retrial.

On May 29^th, 1923, lawyer Thomas O’Neil made a last minute attempt to save Fevro­la from exe­cu­tion. His request for a retri­al was again put before Supreme Court Jus­tice Tomp­kins. On Thurs­day 28^th June, 1923, with just seven hours left until his exe­cu­tion and in a state of col­lapse, Fevro­la received a reprieve, spar­ing his life until Octo­ber 7^th. The death sen­tence was even­tu­al­ly com­mut­ed to life imprisonment.