Giuseppe Boscarino

Giuseppe Boscarino

Giuseppe Boscarino was born in Corleone around 1850, he arrived in America in 1890. Secret Service records from 1903 describe him as a pool room owner and a ‘good friend’ of Vito Cascioferro. Both Cascioferro and Giuseppe Morello were noted to be guests at his house on East 11th Street, and a nephew to Cascioferro helped to run Boscarino’s pool room.

During early 1903 Boscarino was helping the Morello gang to distribute counterfeit money under the alias of Giuseppe Monte. The New York Times claimed that Boscarino

“gained control of a quarter of a million dollars of spurious notes, known as Morristown Fives, and began to superintend their distribution.”

After the famous Barrel Murder in 1903, Boscarino was arrested along with the rest of the gang but was never brought to trial, although in 1910 the NYT claimed:

“Boscarino is as closely connected with the famous Barrel Murder of several years ago as any member of the gang now alive or at liberty since Lupo the Wolf went away.”

He was later given the maximum sentence of 15 years at Atlanta Penitentiary after a conviction for distributing money for Morello and Lupo. His prison record shows a long list of violations for fighting and theft and general disobedience, with two denials of parole. His mail records show correspondence with Pietro Inzerillo’s wife and Giuseppe Palermo’s nephew, Frank Minore.

He died in prison on 28th August, 1919, from a strangulated hernia, he had refused treatment for the condition for sometime even after being warned it may kill him. His wife, Maria Boscarino, instructed the prison to bury him there as she could not afford the service. Her cable to the prison reads : “No funds to pay burial here. give christian burial there”.

His pall bearers at his funeral included Giuseppe Morello, Antonio Cecala, and several other well known Italian counterfeiters.