Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set

by Bruno, Joe

  If it had been a gambling pinch, Luciano would have lawyered up with the best attorneys in town, turned himself in, and he would have stood a decent chance of beating the rap. But prostitution was uncharted territory for Luciano.

  His pal Lansky would later say, “Charlie had the same revulsion about running brothels that I did. He believed no respectable man ever made money from a woman in that horrible way.”

  It took four months for Dewey to locate Luciano, and when he did, he sent 20 Arkansas Rangers to Madden's resort, where they cuffed Luciano and threw him on a train back to New York City.

  It was a three-week trial, and Luciano never stood a chance.

  Dewey paraded hooker after hooker, and pimp after pimp onto the witness stand. The hookers told of the degradation they had suffered toiling in the field of their choice. And the pimps testified that the money the hookers handed over to them was kicked up the ladder to Mr. Ross – a.k.a. Lucky Luciano.

  When Luciano took the stand, his coarse manner stood in stark contrast to the intelligent and erudite Dewey, who had been training for this moment all his life. When the verdict came in, Luciano was found guilty of 558 counts, and he was sentenced to 30-50 years in prison; the longest prison sentence ever rendered for prostitution in United States history.

  There was immediate outrage in the ranks of organized crime throughout America. All the top gangsters knew for sure Luciano never had a thing to do with prostitution. Dewey had broken the rules, and he showed no shame in doing so.

  In 1941, the imprisoned Gurrah Shapiro sent a note to his pal Louie Lepke, who was awaiting the electric chair.

  The note said, “I told you we should have killed Dewey when we had the chance.”

  In Rich Cohen's book Tough Jews, Cohen said crime writer and former cop Ralph Salerno had once told him on this subject; “The gangsters said to us: Don't frame me. Don't drop a little envelope in my pocket, then run up and say 'I caught you with narcotics.' That's a frame-up. That's a no-no. That's what I demand of you, Ralph. But what I give you in return is, if you ever catch me right, I go to jail and do my time. And they don't drag me out of the courtroom saying, 'You son of a bitch, you and your family are dead.' None of that crap. I'm a professional. And if you be a professional too and catch me right, then it's not personal.”

  Luciano did a little over 10 years in the slammer. But after World War II, he was freed from jail. As part of his deal with the government for having his men protect the waterfront from enemy sabotage, Luciano was deported to Italy. One of the men who signed off on this deal was New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. It was also alleged, in 1944 and again in 1948, when Dewey was running for President of the United States, Luciano's pals had contributed $600,000 to Dewey's campaign coffers.

  In 1962, before he died of a heart attack at the Naples International Airport, Luciano wrote in his autobiography The Last Testament, which he planned to make into a movie, “After sittin' in court and listenin' to myself being plastered to the wall, and tarred and feathered by a bunch of whores who sold themselves for a quarter, and hearin' that no-good McCook [the judge] hand me what added to a life term, I still get madder at Dewey's crap than anythin' else. That little shit with the mustache comes right out in the open and admits he's got me on everythin' else but what he charged me with. I knew he knew I didn't have a fuckin' thing to do with prostitution, not with none of those broads. But Dewey was such a goddamn racketeer himself, in a legal way, that he crawled up my back with a frame and stabbed me.”

  With the Luciano trophy on his prosecutorial mantle, Dewey set his sights on one of Luciano's fellow National Crime commission members: Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. But Buchalter, still seething over the way Dewey railroaded Luciano, went on the lam for four years to avoid prosecution. When Lepke finally turned himself in 1939, Dewey already had bigger fish to fry: he decided he wanted to become governor of the state of New York.

  In 1938, Edwin Jaeckle, the New York Republican Party Chairman, selected Dewey, only 36-years-old, to run for governor against the extremely popular incumbent governor Herbert H. Lehman. The liberal Republican Dewey ran his entire campaign on his record as “racket-buster,” especially the successful prosecution (frame-up) of Lucky Luciano.

  However, Lehman, on the coattails of his association with the popular President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, won a close election, beating Dewey by a mere 1.4 percent of the vote. But Dewey's good showing against Lehman propelled him into being one of the leaders of the Republican Party.

  In 1940, Dewey tried to get the Republican nomination for President to run against FDR. Although he was considered an early favorite, most Republican bigwigs thought Dewey, then 38, was too young and inexperienced to go against a titan like FDR. With the threat of World War II imminent, the Republicans wanted a leader more experienced than Dewey to lead our nation in wartime. They instead selected Wendell Willkie to run for president. Willkie lost by a landslide to FDR, who won his third term as President.

  In 1942, Dewey ran for governor of New York again. And this time he won by an avalanche over Democrat John J. Bennett. Dewey would run for governor twice more, in 1946 and 1950, and he would be successful both times. But Dewey's goal was the presidency, and when Dewey sunk his teeth into something, he never let go.

  In 1944, Dewey again sought the Republican nomination for president. At the 1944 Republican Convention, Dewey's two main rivals were Ohio governor John Bricker and former Minnesota governor Harold Stassen. After some backroom dealing, both men withdrew from the nomination, and Dewey was selected unanimously as the Republican candidate. Dewey immediately named Bricker as his running mate.

  Using his usual tactics during his campaign against Roosevelt, Dewey, without any proof, insisted there was corruption and communist influences in Roosevelt's New Deal Administration. Then Dewey was ready to throw a bombshell that would devastate America: he was going to claim that President Roosevelt had known, in advance, about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was only through the intervention of Army General George C. Marshall that Dewey decided against using this dirty and disprovable tactic. Roosevelt won the election handily by a 54 percent to 46 percent margin. But Dewey's showing was better than any other Republican had done running against FDR for president in four tries.

  President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, a mere 82 days into his fourth term as president. This made Roosevelt's Vice President Harry Truman the new President of the United States. However Truman, a conservative-leaning Democrat, was a polarizing figure as president, even in his own party.

  In early 1948, Truman’s approval rating as president was a paltry 36%. As a result, the Democratic Party was seriously divided at its Convention in 1948. Although Harry Truman was nominated as his Party’s candidate for president, two Democratic leaders, Henry A. Wallace and Strom Thurmond, broke ranks and ran for the presidency as third-party candidates. Meanwhile, Dewey easily garnered the Republican Party nomination. Because of the split among Democrats, the general feeling was Dewey only had to play it safe to win the election.

  The 1948 Presidential Election ran long into the night and through the early morning hours of the next day. The liberal press was so confident of a Dewey win, on the morning of November 3, 1948, the Chicago Tribune ran the front page headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman!”

  However, the man who railroaded Lucky Luciano into a long jail term could not convince the American public he was the right man to be the President of the United States. Even with the Democratic nomination split three ways and the liberal press in the tank for Dewey, Truman beat Dewey fairly easy. Truman garnered 303 electoral votes, while the liberal Republican Dewey received 189, Thurmond, 39, and Henry Wallace received no electoral votes at all.

  Dewey declined to run for president in 1952. However, Dewey was instrumental in getting the moderate, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the presidential nomination over Dewey's conservative foe Robert Taft.

  Eisenhower won two terms as president. But
in 1964, when Taft's protégé Barry Goldwater was nominated for president, Dewey, stewing in his own juices, declined to even attend the GOP Convention in San Francisco.

  It was the first Republican Convention Dewey had missed since 1936.

  When Dewey's third term as governor expired in 1955, Dewey decided he had gone as far as he could go in the political arena, and he could make his fortune in private law practice with his law firm Dewey Ballantine. And that Dewey did, making him a millionaire many times over by 1960.

  Dewey's wife, Frances, died of cancer in 1970, and within months Dewey was dating sultry actress Kitty Carlisle. There were rumors of an imminent engagement. But before there was any formal announcement, Thomas E. Dewey died of a sudden heart attack on March 16, 1971, eight days before his 69th birthday.

  Somewhere, Lucky Luciano must have been smiling. Lucky might even have met his old foe, face-to-face; most likely in a hot joint with no air conditioning.

  Farrell, Sadie “The Goat” - The Queen of the Waterfront

  She was not as vicious with her claws as the Dead Rabbits' Hellcat Maggie; nor as big and strong as an Amazon riverfront bouncer named Gallus Mag. But Sadie “The Goat” Farrell made more money than both women combined when she was the “Queen of the New York Waterfront.”

  Sadie Farrell was born and raised in the slums of the Fourth Ward near the East River. As a young girl she hung around with street hustlers and thieves. Slight of built, but mean and vicious, Sadie usually worked the streets around the docks in concert with a male companion, who gave her the muscle backup she needed.

  When a mark emerged drunk from one of the local dives, Sadie would take a running start, then ram the top of her head into the victim's stomach. This was a dangerous maneuver, since sometimes the person delivering the headbutt does more damage to themselves than to the intended victim. But Sadie was a pro, and she made sure only the top of her head made contact with the victim's gut, and not sensitive areas like her nose and forehead. The headbutt stopped the victim in his tracks, and as soon as he turned his attention to Sadie, her male companion used a slingshot to propel a rock into the side of the victim's head. If that didn't work, a bat or a sap always did the trick. Then Sadie and her partner would take everything of value from the unconscious mark, even his shirt, pants, and shoes. This was small-time work for Sadie, but it still puffed up her reputation on the East Side docks.

  One day, Sadie made the mistake of having one too many belts in the Hole-in-the-Wall Bar on Dover Street, just two blocks from the East River. The bouncer at the Hole-in-the-Wall was a six-foot female creature from England named Gallus Mag. Mag patrolled the bar with a small bat strapped to her wrist, which she was not reticent to use on unruly customers. If after a few whacks on the head the drunk was still feisty, Mag would then wrap him in a headlock and bite off one of his ears, before she flung him out the front door. The ear would then go into a jug of alcohol, which Mag proudly displayed behind the bar. The jars filled with ears behind the bar were called “Gallus Mag's Trophy Case.”

  Sadie being Irish and Mag being from England was an accident waiting to happen. It's not certain who started the slurs first, but it's a good bet it was Sadie and that was not a smart thing to do. Mag, who was twice Sadie's size, bopped Sadie on the head a few times with the bat, but Sadie still flailed away at Mag with a vengeance.

  Another smart thing not to do.

  Mag enveloped Sadie's head with her massive arms, and in a flash, one of Sadie's ears had been detached from the side of her head. Mag deposited Sadie on her rump on Dover Street, and then she deposited Sadie's ear in an alcohol-filled jug and proudly displayed it behind the bar. Mag even scripted on the jug, “Sadie the Goat's Ear.”

  Disgraced and disheartened, Sadie took her show on the road, and she wound up on the West Side docks over on the other side of Manhattan from her former haunts. One day while wandering around trying to figure out how to make a score, Sadie witnessed members of the Charlton Street Gang unsuccessfully attempting to board a small sloop anchored in the middle of the North River (now called the Hudson River).

  The Charlton Street Gang was so inept and disorganized, the ship's crew had no trouble beating them back and beating them up in the process. Sadie figured with her expert direction, the gang could do much better if she were the boss. Sadie helped the gang members lick their wounds, and then she convinced them with her brains and with their brawn, they could make a very successful team indeed.A few days later, with Sadie leading the gang, they were able to hijack a much larger sloop.

  With the “Jolly Roger” (skull and crossbones) flying from the masthead, Captain Sadie the Goat led the gang up and down the North and Harlem Rivers, up to Poughkeepsie and beyond. They raided small villages; robbing poor people's farm houses and the riverside mansions of the rich. Because ocean liners and major shipping vessels were so well-protected, Sadie and her crew concentrated on raiding smaller up-river merchant ships instead.

  Sadie was so into her “river pirate” routine, she began reading voraciously on pirate history and pirate lore. After discovering that pirates had once kidnapped Julius Caesar, she ordered her crew to go on a kidnapping spree. In the spirit of old pirate traditions, some true, some contrived, Sadie even forced several members of her own gang to walk the plank if they did not do exactly as she demanded.

  For several months, Sadie and her crew were extremely successful in their endeavors. They stashed their booty in several hiding places, until they could dispose of it for cold, hard cash, using the various fences along the North and East Rivers. One of these fences was Marm Mandelbaum, who through her store on Clinton Street, was said to be the largest fence on the entire East Coast of America.

  But all good things must come to an end.

  After several home owners were murdered by Sadie and the Charlton Street Gang, the upstate Hudson Valley residents banded together, and they formed a force of resistance. The farm folk ambushed the Charlton Street Gang as it came ashore, and police patrolling New York's harbor stopped them from pillaging smaller merchant ships on the North River. Soon, so many gang members were killed, Sadie was forced to abandon her pirating ways. What was left of the Charlton Street Gang went back to the West Side docks, and soon they disbanded completely.

  No longing having a mob to lead, Sadie decided to return to her old haunts in the Fourth Ward, where she was now hailed as the “Queen of the Waterfront.” With the cash she had earned from her pirating days, Sadie opened up her own ginmill.

  Soon after Sadie's return to the East Side docks, the Hole-in-the-Wall Bar was the site of seven murders in just two months. As a result, the New York City police shut down the Hole-in-the-Wall Bar for good. But before last call at the Hole-in-the-Wall, Sadie visited Gallus Mag. The two girls made up, and Mag was so gracious, she went behind the bar, retrieved Sadie's pickled ear and returned it to its rightful owner.

  Sadie wore her severed ear in a locket around her neck for the rest of her life.

  Galante, “Lilo” Carmine - “The Cigar”

  He was as vicious a Mafia boss as Vito Genovese, as ambitious as Genovese, and as deeply involved in the heroin business as Genovese.

  However, Carmine “The Cigar” Galante would not die of natural causes as did Genovese (albeit in prison). Instead, Galante was murdered in one of the most memorable mob hits of all time. After his body was filled with lead, he lay sprawled on his back in the tiny backyard patio of a Brooklyn restaurant, his trademark cigar clenched tightly between his teeth.

  Camillo Galante was born on February 21, 1910, at 27 Stanton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Because both of his parents, Vincenzo, a fisherman, and his wife (maiden name Vingenza Russo), had been born in the seaside village of Castellammarese del Golfo in Sicily, Galante was a pure first generation Sicilian/American. Galante had two brothers and two sisters, and when he was in grade school, Galante ditched his given name Camillo, and he insisted he be called Carmine instead. Over the years it was shortened to “
Lilo,” which was the name most of his associates called Galante. At least to his face.

  Galante first got into trouble for petty theft from a store counter when he was 14 years old. But since he was a juvenile at the time, an account of this arrest is not in his official police record.

  At various times, Galante attended Public High Schools 79 and 120, but he dropped out of school for good at 15. Galante was in and out of reform school several times, and he was considered an “incorrigible delinquent.”

  From 1923 to 1926, Galante was ostensibly employed at the Lubin Artificial Flower Company at 270 West Broadway. But this was a ruse to satisfy the law that Galante was gainfully employed, when, in fact, he was engaged in a very lucrative criminal career.

  In December 1925, Galante was arrested for assault. However, money changed hands between Galante's people and crooked policemen, and as a result, Galante was released without serving any prison time.

  In December 1926, Galante was arrested again, but this time he was found guilty of second degree assault and robbery, and sentenced to two-to-five years in prison. Galante was released from prison in 1930, and in order to satisfy his parole officer, he got another sham “job” at the O'Brien Fish Company at 105 South Street in the Fulton Fish Market.

  It was not Galante's nature to stay on the right side of the law.

  On March 15, 1930, five men entered the Martin Weinstein’s shoe factory on the corner of York and Washington Streets in Brooklyn Heights. On the fifth floor of the building, Mr. Weinstein was in the process of getting his weekly payroll together, under the protection of police officer Walter De Castillia of the 84th Precinct.