Giuseppe Masseria

A Sicil­ian immi­grant from west­ern Sici­ly, Masse­ria arrived in Man­hat­tan around 1900.¹New York, State Cen­sus, 1905. New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Pop­u­la­tion Cen­sus Sched­ules, 1905; Elec­tion Dis­trict: A.D. 06 E.D. 16; City: Man­hat­tan; Coun­ty: New York. 40 He began his crim­i­nal career as a pro­fes­sion­al bur­glar. In 1907, twenty-one-year-old Masse­ria received a sus­pend­ed sen­tence after break­ing into an apart­ment on Eliz­a­beth Street.²New York Munic­i­pal Archives. DA Record of Cases no. 58645, The Peo­ple vs. Giuseppe Lima and Joseph Masse­ria. Later that year, he was arrest­ed and dis­charged after mak­ing Black Hand threats against his own fam­i­ly.³The Stan­dard Union Thu Aug 1 1907. 12 By 1908, he and his wife ran a saloon oppo­site the fam­i­ly home on Forsyth Street.⁴The Lloyd Sealy Library of John Jay Col­lege of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice. Crim­i­nal Trial Tran­scripts (1883 – 1927) No. 1736. Peo­ple of the State of New York against Pietro Lagatut­ta and Giuseppe Masse­ria. … Con­tin­ue read­ing Police believed Masse­ria was part of a pro­fes­sion­al bur­glary gang active through­out the region, after he was caught attempt­ing to break into a New Jer­sey home in 1911.⁵The New York Times (Apr 15, 1913) 7
Pas­sa­ic Daily News (Nov 13, 1911) 1

Masse­ria and three asso­ciates were cap­tured in 1913, while try­ing to rob a Bow­ery pawn­shop con­tain­ing prop­er­ty val­ued at $300,000. The gang was also sus­pect­ed of twelve other bur­glar­ies in the area. One of Masseria’s accom­plices, Giuseppe Ruffi­no, was the son-in-law of Sebas­tiano Di Gae­tano, the recent inter­im Mafia boss who had been sus­pect­ed of a Black Hand kid­nap­ing with Masse­ria in 1910.⁶The New York Times (Apr 15, 1913) 7 
New York Tri­bune (Dec 10, 1910)
Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. The Informer. May 2014. Thomas Hunt. 64

The police found an assort­ment of tools that “any bur­glar would have been envi­ous of.” They also dis­cov­ered fin­ger­prints at the scene that matched those taken from Masse­ria in 1907. The sci­ence of fin­ger­print iden­ti­fi­ca­tion had only been recent­ly intro­duced to US courts. At trial, a skep­ti­cal jury was given a live demon­stra­tion of its mer­its by a detec­tive from the Bertillon Bureau. The pros­e­cu­tion also had Masse­ria dis­play his impres­sive gold teeth to the court before his career as a bur­glar was final­ly ended with a four-and-a-half-year sen­tence in Sing Sing Prison.⁷The Evening World (Apr 14, 1913)The New York Times (Apr 15, 1913) 7New York Tri­bune (May 9, 1922) 1Edmonton Jour­nal (May 3, 1913) New York Tri­bune (May 24, 1913) 8People against Lagatut­ta and … Con­tin­ue reading

In 1921, Mafia lead­ers Ignazio Lupo, Giuseppe Morel­lo and other allies made a short trip to Paler­mo.⁸U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion (here­after referred to as NARA), RG 87, Daily Reports of Agents, (here­after referred to as DRA). New York. Vol. 76 (Dec 2, 1921) The rea­son for their voy­age was later described in a con­fi­den­tial Secret Ser­vice report: ⁹NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 80 (Oct 5, 1922)  

When Lupo and Morel­lo were con­vict­ed fif­teen or six­teen years ago on our coun­ter­feit­ing case, new lead­ers arose. Since that time they have grown very strong and very pop­u­lar. Upon the release of Lupo and Morel­lo they tried to come back into power, but the new orga­ni­za­tion here in Amer­i­ca would not per­mit this. Con­se­quent­ly, Lupo and Morel­lo and a few of their old ‘stand­bys’ went to Sici­ly, tak­ing it up there with the main head­quar­ters endeav­our­ing to be put back in power. They also refused … since that time Morel­lo has moved to the West Side and both he and Lupo are liv­ing behind bars and shut­ters. Their assas­si­na­tion is expect­ed momentarily.

Fur­ther detail was given in the mem­oirs of Mafioso Nico­la Gen­tile. He explained that Lupo, Morel­lo and ten oth­ers had been con­demned to death by boss of boss­es Sal­va­tore D’Aquila at a meet­ing of the US Mafia’s Gen­er­al Assem­bly. “It was a ques­tion of power. D’Aquila was a very author­i­ta­tive fig­ure and that meant that those who didn’t sup­port him were con­demned to death.”¹⁰Critch­ley, David (2009) The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca: The New York City Mafia, 1891 – 1931. New York: Rout­ledge. 155 Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive … Con­tin­ue read­ing D’Aquila made peace with one of the con­demned men, Umber­to Valente, with the agree­ment that Valente would kill Masse­ria, who “at the time was capo of a New York bor­ga­ta” and a grow­ing threat to D’Aquila.¹¹Gen­tile, Nick (1963) Vita di Capo­mafia. Rome. Edi­tori Riu­ni­ti. 78 – 79

The ongo­ing war result­ed in many casu­al­ties on both sides. Vin­cen­zo Ter­ra­no­va was assas­si­nat­ed in May 1922. He was gunned down out­side the Morel­lo fam­i­ly home at 338 East 116^th Street.¹²Brook­lyn NY Daily Eagle (May 8, 1922) Later that day, Valente ambushed Masse­ria on lower Manhattan’s Grand Street in a chaot­ic gun bat­tle that left five inno­cent bystanders wound­ed. Masse­ria sur­vived a sec­ond assas­si­na­tion attempt in August that left anoth­er eight bystanders wounded. 

The bat­tle ended three days later, when Valente was killed on a crowd­ed Man­hat­tan Street.¹³Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 155 – 156Warner, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 79 – 85The New York Times (May 9, 1922) 1 New York Her­ald (Aug 9, … Con­tin­ue read­ing Masse­ria man­aged to escape con­vic­tion for any involve­ment with the shoot­ings and later relo­cat­ed his fam­i­ly from Man­hat­tan to the rel­a­tive safe­ty of Brook­lyn. He lived on Sixty-First Street, a short dis­tance from Frankie Yale’s neigh­bor­hood and close to his own con­sigliere, Save­rio Pol­lac­cia.¹⁴New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Pop­u­la­tion Cen­sus Sched­ules, 1925; Elec­tion Dis­trict: 13; Assem­bly Dis­trict: 16; City: Brook­lyn; Coun­ty: Kings; Page: 24U.S. Pass­port Appli­ca­tions, … Con­tin­ue read­ing 

In Octo­ber 1922, the Secret Ser­vice learned that Masse­ria was involved with a large coun­ter­feit­ing oper­a­tion import­ing notes from Italy. He had set up head­quar­ters in Tommy Dyke’s Ital­ian Gar­dens restau­rant on Broome Street, where the pair were sus­pect­ed of work­ing togeth­er.¹⁵Buf­fa­lo Couri­er (Jan 4, 1920) 34 NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 73 (Apr 9, 1921); Vol. 80 (Oct 5, 1922); Vol. 80 (Oct 18, 1922) (p.829); Vol. 80 (Oct 20, 1922) (p.869); Vol. 81 (Dec 23, 1922) … Con­tin­ue read­ing Also sus­pect­ed was “Tony Cheese” San­tul­li, an ex-Sirocco-Tricker gang mem­ber who had been involved in the Camorra’s 1916 killing of gam­bler Giuseppe Ver­razano at the restau­rant.¹⁶The New York Times (Jan 11, 1914) 1 
Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 120/127
NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 81 (Dec 23, 1922) (p.1217)

In July 1923, Masse­ria was seen at café run by a nephew of one of Giuseppe Morello’s close coun­ter­feit­ing allies. Masse­ria was try­ing to deter­mine whether a coun­ter­feit­er who claimed to belong to the D’Aquila Fam­i­ly was truly a mem­ber of the “Fratel­lan­za” (broth­er­hood) before agree­ing to do busi­ness with him.¹⁷The café was run by “Mimi” the nephew of Anto­nio Pugliesi. NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 84 (Jul 26, 1923) Morel­lo and mem­bers of the Pugliesi gang were the pall bear­ers at Giuseppe … Con­tin­ue read­ing The coun­ter­feit­er in ques­tion had been try­ing to sell print­ing plates with­out D’Aquila’s knowl­edge.¹⁸ NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 84 (Jul 30, 1923) Although D’Aquila was also active in coun­ter­feit­ing, his deep-seated hatred toward Lupo and Morel­lo caused him to for­bid any of his clan to con­duct busi­ness with their fol­low­ers. Break­ing the rule meant cer­tain death.¹⁹NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 83 (Mar 20, 1923) Vol. 84  (Jul 14, 18, 30, 1923)  

The war­ring fam­i­lies made tem­po­rary peace in August 1923 after a large con­fer­ence at High­land, New York. It was agreed that Lupo would be brought back into the Fratel­lan­za – but Morel­lo was still to be exclud­ed. Yale explained to an infor­mant that peace had been declared between the coun­ter­feit­ing gangs, as some­thing “big was com­ing out” and they were plan­ning to work togeth­er. Yale and Masse­ria were involved togeth­er in large coun­ter­feit­ing schemes in the fol­low­ing weeks.²⁰NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 85 (Aug 28, 30, 1923) & (Sep 21, 25, 1923) ‘Messeri’, ‘Mas­sari’, ‘Maz­zari’ etc. men­tioned in the daily reports are believed to be incon­sis­tent … Con­tin­ue read­ing 

Con­flict between the Mafia Fam­i­lies flared-up again in 1928. Fifty-year-old Mafia leader D’Aquila was killed dur­ing a fam­i­ly visit to a doctor’s office in Man­hat­tan. The assas­si­na­tion was ordered by Masse­ria, who replaced D’Aquila as the new boss of boss­es, with Giuseppe Morel­lo as his sec­ond in com­mand. Masseria’s reign was brief. Both he and Morel­lo were killed in the “Castel­lam­marese War,” a vio­lent strug­gle for con­trol of the Mafia which began just two years later.²¹Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 88 – 89Critchley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 157, 181, 185Bonanno, Joseph, and Ser­gio Lalli. A Man of Hon­our: the … Con­tin­ue read­ing Morel­lo was killed in August 1930 in Harlem at East 116^th Street, bring­ing the career of the first boss of the US Mafia to an end. Masse­ria was assas­si­nat­ed eight months later in Coney Island.²²New York Times (Aug 16, 1930) & (Apr 16, 1931) 1