With its powerbase eroding and the embarrassing revelations about Hines’s blatant corruption, Tammany went through some leadership changes at the top in which Costello played a major role. A former Congressman, Christy Sullivan, had taken over as boss of Tammany in 1937 but bore the responsibility for some significant election reverses, including the reelection of La Guardia, the organization’s nemesis. So, in 1942, Sullivan was voted out and Michael J. Kennedy voted in as boss by Tammany’s executive committee. Costello influenced the four district leaders he was close with—Sarubbi, DeSalvio, Rosenthal, and Neal—to back Kennedy. As historian Allen later reported, the committee had Costello as its guest the day of the vote, a man some in the organization called “the boss.”
Costello’s power behind Tammany had been generally obscured from the public, which had no inkling of what went on in the smoke-filled rooms and private restaurant meetings where he excelled at making his influence felt. Those politicians who knew of Costello’s reputation in the underworld also knew he was a major mob boss. But they also were taken in by his smoothness and his persuasiveness, Costello’s style of doing business. He had cultivated an image as a gentleman above suspicion.
The secrecy that surrounded Costello’s political role suddenly stripped away when Manhattan’s new district attorney, Frank Hogan, decided to place a wiretap on Costello’s home telephone in mid-1943. Hogan had succeeded Dewey as district attorney in 1942, after the racket-busting prosecutor became Governor of New York. The exact reason for the placement of the tap on Costello was never made clear but likely stemmed from his various mob associations and intelligence about his secret business dealings in the Manhattan nightclub world and the suspicions of him holding a hidden interest in the Copacabana and other venues.
Normally, wiretaps don’t become public unless they are part of a court case or other proceeding. Costello was never charged with any crimes as a result of the fruits of the Hogan wiretap, which appears to have ended in November 1943. But on August 28, 1943, Hogan released details of one recording, which had captured Costello talking with Magistrate Thomas A. Aurelio, a judicial candidate in the upcoming election for a spot on the New York County Supreme Court.
“Gangster Backed Aurelio For Bench, Prosecutor Avers,” blared The New York Times on a front paper headline the next day. In a public statement Hogan admitted that while Costello’s backing of the candidate wasn’t a crime, the prosecutor made clear that his sense of decency was offended by the ties that existed between the gangster and Aurelio.
“Although the facts developed so far do not disclose the commission of a crime, this affront to the electorate and the threat to the integrity of the judiciary called for action on my part,” said Hogan as he released the materials. The prosecutor admitted that he was publicizing his evidence in the hopes that Tammany’s leader Michael Kennedy—an ally of Costello as it turned out—would take action to repudiate Aurelio’s candidacy.
Had a prosecutor in modern times released piecemeal evidence of political meddling from a wiretap, the action might be considered a crime. But Hogan was operating at a point in history when the city had been primed, by La Guardia’s words and deeds, to hold gangsters in disdain. It was as if anything goes in the fight against the mob. The disclosure would bring grief and embarrassment to Costello and Aurielio and lead to the further slide in Tammany’s power and prestige.
Just what did Hogan capture on the wiretaps? The evidence Hogan revealed in a transcript was of a conversation Aurelio had with Costello the morning of August 24, four days before the prosecutor told the world about the existence of the wiretap. It was a call that candidate Aurelio made to Costello’s private, unlisted home telephone, and he seemed jubilant over getting the nomination.
The transcript described the conversation:
AURELIO: Good morning, Francesco. How are you, and thanks for everything.
COSTELLO: Congratulations. It went over perfect. When I tell you something is in the bag, you can rest assured.
AURELIO: It was perfect. Arthur Klein did the nominating; first me, then Gavagan, then Peck. It was fine.
COSTELLO: That’s fine. AURELIO: The doctor called me last night to congratulate me. I’m going to see him today. He seems to be
improving. He should be up and around soon and
should take the train for Hot Springs.
COSTELLO: That is the plan.
That initial piece of the conversation was Aurelio recounting for Costello what had happened during the nominating convention. The doctor he referred to was apparently Dr. Sarubbi, a district leader who was Costello’s personal physician as well. It appeared that Sarubbi was recovering from an illness and was planning to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas, a resort where Costello himself liked to take the waters.
Later in the conversation, Aurelio mentions a man whose name was deleted from the transcript but whom Costello should do something for because “he certainly deserves something.”
“Well, we will have to get together, you, your missus, and myself and have dinner some night real soon,” said Costello.
“That would be fine,” answered Aurelio, “but right now I want to assure you of my loyalty for all you have done. It’s undying.”
“I know,” replied Costello. “I will see you soon.”
On its face, the conversation Costello and Aurelio had that day was innocent of any suggestion of wrongdoing. But for Hogan, it was a question of Costello’s disreputable character and the suggestion—which the prosecutor never proved—that Aurelio knew of Costello’s bad reputation when he accepted his support in getting the nomination. The intimacy and influence Costello seemed to have with Aurelio, as shown in the one conversation, seemed an affront to the judiciary and law enforcement. Hogan had the job of derailing Aurelio and in the process undercutting any political power Costello had, while trying to make him a pariah.
Hogan recounted Costello’s criminal record, admitting he only had the one gun-possession conviction as a young man, and noted his arrests on federal charges. There was also Costello’s reputation as a “racketeer and gangster,” as well as his notoriety as “czar of the slot machine and gambling racket and as a banker and money man for innumerable gambling enterprises.” On top of all that, Hogan noted Costello’s close ties to Luciano and Joe Adonis as well as Jewish gangsters Louis Buchalter, Jacob Shapiro, Abe “Longie” Zwillman, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel. For an added kick in the pants, Hogan said that federal authorities had Costello on a “blacklist” of narcotics traffickers. He was referring to some vague rumblings federal narcotics officials had picked up that Costello was somehow involved in drug trafficking, although there was nothing concrete.
The reaction from the political establishment was predictable. Kennedy proclaimed that all the judicial candidates were chosen solely on merit and their “high, professional reputation.” There had been no pressure to put Aurelio on the ballot.
“No pressure or influence of any kind from any source was exerted on me or on any of my colleagues on the executive committee,” said Kennedy, referring to the Tammany committee. But if the charges by Hogan about Aurelio having taken Costello’s help were true, then the candidate’s nomination should be “repudiated,” said Kennedy.
Aurelio was the most unlikely whipping boy for the reformers. After graduating law school in 1918, Aurelio had worked as an assistant district attorney before Mayor Jimmy Walker appointed him a magistrate in 1931. La Guardia reappointed him to the post in 1935 and said that “his work on the bench and his age are all in his favor.” La Guardia also noted that Aurelio had “not abused the police,” indicating he sided with cops who were going after criminals. In short, he seemed a competent law-and-order magistrate.
Similar condemnations came from other Democrats and Republicans, as well as smaller political groups like the American Labor Party, bar associations, and good-government groups. There was no way that Aurelio, or Costello for that matter, would be able to weather the storm of indignation swirlin
g around them without any consequences. As a result of the Hogan revelations, the Appellate Division in Manhattan, the court that supervises attorneys and admits them to the practice of law, was going to hold a disbarment hearing on Aurelio after a formal complaint had been made by the Association of The Bar of The City of New York. Disbarment was the only way to keep Aurelio off the ballot since he refused to withdraw and too little time remained before the upcoming election for any party to get a new candidate.
The court set a schedule of public hearings in October for the disbarment action and subpoenaed a number of people, including Aurelio and Costello. Faced with a new legal challenge and more scrutiny, Costello needed a good lawyer, and for that he turned to George Wolf, an attorney whom he knew vaguely since he had represented one of the defendants in the old bootlegging cases years earlier. As Wolf recalled in his book, Costello summoned him to his apartment at 115 Central Park West with a telephone call on September 13.
Wolf described the impressive setting he found at the apartment: His apartment was a seven-room penthouse on the eighteenth floor, obviously furnished in extremely good taste by a fine decorator. The living room was enormous, with antique gold hangings with scalloped valances, lamp tables of beautiful mahogany, antique lamps, and a wood-burning fireplace with a Howard Chandler Christy oil portrait above it.
Costello was wearing a conservative dark suit and impressed Wolf as being a “swarthy man, with black hair brushed straight back from his forehead, brown eyes and creases around his thin lips. His nose was sharp and gave him a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac profile.”
Wolf kept a diary and noted that in their meeting Costello admitted giving help to Aurelio by telling the then-magistrate to get the support of Italian organizations and speak with Kennedy, the head of Tammany. Also, according to Wolf’s account, Costello said he also urged Aurelio to get La Guardia’s support and for the Mayor to speak to Kennedy. Costello noted that he spoke to Kennedy but that Aurelio had said his case was hopeless.
Wolf said he pressed Costello on why private politicians would come to him for advice on a candidate and how he had such power in the party, questions which Costello avoided answering at that time.
“Look, Mr. Wolf, I told you enough. You want to find out more, go talk to Abe Rosenthal, Clarence Neal, Dr. Sarubbi,” said Costello, Wolf recalled.
Wolf took on Costello as a client and would be his counselor at law for most of the rest of the Mafia leader’s life. Wolf had one bit of advice for his client: tell the truth. The only thing that can get you into trouble was lying under oath. If Costello needed assurance about his new lawyer, Meyer Lansky gave it to him: “You got yourself a good lawyer there.”
The first order of business was the disbarment hearing against Aurelio, and the event turned into a spectacle. Hogan indicated he thought it would take four days to present evidence to the presiding referee, a former Appellate Court and Court of Appeals judge named Charles B. Sears. Hogan was certain that disbarment of Aurelio would be the end result. Hogan’s strategy was to show Costello’s criminal life, the bootlegging and the gambling, and all the disreputable Mafiosi and gangsters the man knew. He planned to do that through Costello’s own words.
Costello took the stand in the disbarment case on October 26, 1943, and was described as being modest in the way he admitted helping Aurelio get the nomination but that he was able to do so because of having helped Kennedy become leader of Tammany Hall. Because of that, said Costello, he was able to hold Kennedy to his promise to help Aurelio get the nomination.
Hogan dug into Costello’s background, the usual stuff that was already known about his days as a bootlegger and gambler. Yet at one point Costello pointedly told Hogan that he had held an honest job a number of times, from the time he was arrested on the gun charge in 1915 to the present day where he was involved in the manufacture of Kewpie dolls.
“I gamble yes, but I never stole a nickel in my life,” an indignant Costello said at one point.
The slot machines he had weren’t all bad, he said. A bettor can always get something: “They do have slugs, but you always get a mint.”
Hogan couldn’t resist dragging up Costello’s friends in the mob, and Costello didn’t duck the questions. There was Arnold Rothstein, who Costello knew well and lent “quite large” amounts of cash. Gangsters like Frank Nitti, Lucky Luciano, “Trigger Mike” Coppola, Louis Buchalter, Joe Rao, Jerry Catena, Owney Madden, and Anthony Carfano were all “very good friends” or else “acquaintances.”
As far as Costello was concerned, a promise was something to be kept, be it in the Mafia or politics. When Kennedy seemed to be cooling off toward Aurelio’s candidacy, Costello told Hogan that he confronted the Tammany boss and chided his manhood.
“I asked him, what are you, a man or a mouse?” related Costello. “You made a promise and should live up to it. You’re the Tammany Hall leader—you’re the boss—and your word should be your bond. You ought to declare yourself.”
In the end Kennedy did say he was going to back Aurelio, said Costello. He related that he had other meetings with Neal, Sarubbi, DeSalvio, and Kennedy at nightclubs and restaurants. As a courtesy to Costello, referee Sears held a secret hearing to allow Costello to relate the names of respectable people he knew. They were acquaintances of ten to twenty years whom Costello met for an occasional round of golf or a drink.
Costello’s testimony proved what was already known to law enforcement—that he was an old bootlegger and gambler. Did he have notorious friends? Certainly. He also reminded everyone that he had respectable associates as well. Did Costello have political power because he was a gangster? Hogan’s questioning and Costello’s answers danced around the issue and left it to the imagination of where his power really came from. But the prosecutor knew he had scored points by showing to the world what Costello was about.
“Hogan merely smiled, apparently satisfied with the spectacular testimony he had drawn forth,” Wolf later recalled. “It would alert both government and civic leaders that a criminal with nationwide underworld connections controlled the Democratic Party at every level in New York.”
Aurelio’s day as a witness was more important because his future depended on it. Costello wasn’t facing any charges, at least not yet. But Aurelio could see his progression to a vaunted judgeship come to a disgraceful end if Sears ruled against him. Described by one newspaper account as being a “meek-mannered, puffy-cheeked individual with a mild voice,” Aurelio told Sears that his chance at a judgeship came out of the blue when he was at a meeting with Kennedy, who was not yet Tammany leader, and others at the New York Athletic Club. It was then that Kennedy, who was vying for control of Tammany, said “If I was the leader of Tammany Hall, there’s the man I would have nominated, Tom Aurelio.”
Encouraged by Kennedy’s remark, Aurelio said he then went about trying to get the nomination, talking to veterans’ groups, prominent Democrats, as well as La Guardia, in the weeks before the judicial convention. It was Joseph Lescalzo, an assistant district attorney in Queens County who introduced him to Costello in February 1943, remembered Aurelio.
“That was the first time I ever saw or heard of that man,” Aurelio said.
Aurelio recounted a meeting at Kennedy’s office, which other witnesses had testified about, in which the Tammany boss took him outside of the room and told him: “Your leader is behind you, but I want you to know that I’m promising you nothing. It’s too early. I am considering it.”
As the summer went on, Aurelio testified that he became concerned when another candidate might be emerging for Supreme Court and asked Costello about it. Costello responded, said Aurelio, by saying “everyone believes you are going to get the nomination” and that it was “in the bag.”
How then did Costello know Aurelio had a good shot at the nomination? Did he coerce leaders like Kennedy and the others at Tammany? Or was Kennedy too frightened of what he may have heard about Costello’s role as boss of the crime family to act contrary to his
wishes? At least one witness testified that Costello was consulted for approval of prospective patronage appointments. It was fair to speculate on either question, but the simple fact was that there was no proof on either of those points presented by Hogan. In the end it just seemed to be innuendo based on Costello’s career as a gangster.
Aurelio’s attorney was about to ask him about the infamous telephone call to Costello when referee Sears adjourned the hearing for a short recess. The hearing had not brought out any direct evidence that Aurelio knew of Costello’s past and in the face of that flaw in his case, Hogan ended his presentation. Other witnesses admitted knowing about Costello and his slot machine empire but Aurelio denied knowing about Costello’s criminal ties or bad character.
Less than a week after the disbarment hearing ended, Sears put a stake in the heart of Hogan’s effort to crush Aurelio. In a 7,000-word report dated October 30, 1943, Sears said that there was no question Aurelio sought out the aid of Costello to get the Democratic nomination for the judgeship. It was also clear that, as Sears noted, “Frank Costello is a man of bad character, an associate of malefactors” who himself was convicted of a crime and violated the law. But Hogan didn’t prove that Aurelio knew of any of Costello’s character flaws, Sears stressed.
“The defect in the proceeding is that the record is wholly barren of any fact showing [Aurelio] had knowledge of Costello’s bad character, or information to put [Aurelio] on inquiry with respect to his character,” said Sears. “The testimony of Costello’s bad character and bad reputation is not sufficient to establish [Aurelio’s] knowledge in the face of his positive and unqualified denials.”
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