Frederick J. Tenuto

Last updated
Frederick Tenuto
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive
ChargesPrison escape
AliasAngel of Death
Description
BornFrederick J. Tenuto
(1915-01-20)January 20, 1915
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
GenderMale
Status
AddedMay 24, 1950
Number14
Removed from Top Ten Fugitive List

Frederick J. Tenuto [1] (born January 20, 1915) was a New York City mobster and criminal who was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for over a decade, the longest on record at the time. As Top Ten fugitive number 14 [2] he replaced Stephen William Davenport, #12, as the first replacement of a fugitive who was not among the original ten. [1]

Contents

Background

Tenuto was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 20, 1915. [3]

Tenuto was a career criminal who was believed by police to have served as a hit man in several organized crime murders. A police psychiatrist who interviewed him described Tenuto as a man who could murder someone and then calmly sit down to a meal. [4]

Tenuto escaped from the Philadelphia County Prison in a jailbreak with four other inmates including bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton on February 10, 1947. Eluding authorities for several years, Sutton was eventually identified in early 1952 while riding in a New York City Subway train by Brooklyn resident Arnold Schuster. After Schuster was murdered following a television interview, authorities suspected Tenuto of the killing, supposedly on the orders of New York mobster Albert Anastasia. [5] Tenuto, who had been officially placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list on May 24, 1950, [6] was never captured. [7]

Tenuto's name remained on the FBI's Most Wanted list for over 14 years. It was removed on March 9, 1964, amid reports Tenuto had been killed and secretly buried.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sting operation</span> Deceptive way to catch a person committing a crime

In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather evidence of the suspect's wrongdoing. Mass media journalists occasionally resort to sting operations to record video and broadcast to expose criminal activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willie Sutton</span> American bank robber

William Francis Sutton Jr. was an American bank robber. During his forty-year robbery career he stole an estimated $2 million, and he eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison and escaped three times. For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie". Sutton is also known as the namesake of the so-called Sutton's law, although he denied originating it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitey Bulger</span> American gangster and crime boss (1929–2018)

James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Boston. On December 23, 1994, Bulger fled the Boston area and went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. Bulger remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 arrest, federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Eugene Webb</span> American criminal (1931–1999)

Donald Eugene Webb was an American career criminal wanted for attempted burglary and the murder of police chief Gregory Adams in the small town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1980. It was only the second murder in the town's nearly 150-year history; the first murder occurred in 1842.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmine Persico</span> American mob boss (1933–2019)

Carmine John Persico Jr., also known as "Junior", "The Snake" and "Immortal", was an American mobster and the longtime boss of the Colombo crime family in New York City from 1973 until his death in 2019. He had been serving 32 years in federal prison from 1987 until his death on March 7, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ignazio Lupo</span> Italian crime boss

Ignazio Lupo, also known as Ignazio Saietta and Lupo the Wolf, was a Sicilian American Black Hand leader in New York City during the early 1900s. His business was centered in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he ran large extortion operations and committed other crimes including robberies, loan-sharking, and murder. By the start of the 20th century, Lupo merged his crew with others in the South Bronx and East Harlem to form the Morello crime family, which became the leading Mafia family in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Corozzo</span> American New York mobster

Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo is an American mobster who is a captain in the Gambino crime family of New York City.

The Colombo crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Salemme</span> American criminal (1933–2022)

Francis Patrick Salemme, sometimes spelled Salemmi, also known as "Cadillac Frank" and "Julian Daniel Selig", was an American mobster from Boston, Massachusetts who became a hitman and eventually the boss of the Patriarca crime family of New England before turning government witness.

Arnold Ezekiel "Squiggy" Squitieri was an American former acting boss and underboss of the Gambino crime family. He is also known as "Zeke", "Bozey", and "Squitty".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1960s</span>

In the 1960s, for a second decade, the United States FBI continued to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1960s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual suspects whose names first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list during the decade of the 1960s, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Amuso</span> New York mobster

Vittorio "Little Vic" Amuso is an American mobster and the boss of the Lucchese crime family. He was described as "The Deadly Don" by Assistant United States Attorney Charles Rose. Amuso's reign is considered one of the bloodiest periods in American Mafia history during the late 1980s and early 1990s, alongside his former underboss and close protégé Anthony Casso, who turned informer against him in 1994. Since the death of Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico in March 2019, Amuso is currently the longest-serving crime family boss of the Five Families and American Mafia, dating back to 1987. Amuso has been serving a life sentence since 1992 and is currently located at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner, in North Carolina, on murder and racketeering charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Crea</span> American mobster

Steven L. "Stevie" Crea is an American mobster and former underboss of the Lucchese crime family. In August 2020, Crea was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and racketeering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Schuster</span>

Arnold L. Schuster was an American clothing salesman and amateur detective known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton and for Schuster's subsequent murder by either the Gambino crime family, associates of Sutton, or any one of the many suspects police questioned about his death. He was a distant paternal cousin of literary agent and book publisher M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster of Simon & Schuster.

The Lucchese crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata; borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived from a Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The members of other crime families sometimes refer to Lucchese family members as "Lukes".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Grant Dunn</span> American bank robber who died under mysterious circumstances

Frederick Grant Dunn (1905–1959) was an American criminal, burglar and bank robber whose career spanned over four decades from 1919 until his mysterious death in 1959. He led a small gang during the 1940s and 1950s, Dunn becoming referred to by the press as "the modern John Dillinger", and whose activities eventually resulted in his being listed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted in 1958.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikey Coppola</span> American mobster

Michael J. Coppola, also known as "Mikey Cigars", is an American mobster and captain in the Genovese crime family active in their New Jersey faction. He made national headlines when he went into hiding for 11 years to avoid a possible murder conviction. He should not be confused with Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), also a member of the Genovese family.

The Bonanno crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City as part of the criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia.

References

  1. 1 2 Dolan, Francis X. (2007). Eastern State Penitentiary. Arcadia Publishing. p. 67. ISBN   978-0738550398 . Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  2. "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives 1 to 100". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  3. "Clipped from the Burlington Free Press". The Burlington Free Press. May 24, 1963. p. 16.
  4. SCHUSTER SUSPECT ALREADY A KILLER; Tenuto, 37, Has One Murder, Many Burglaries and Prison Breaks in 21-Year Record, The New York Times, 10 March 1952, p. 13
  5. Tuohy, John William (January 2002). "New York Stories Part III". American Mafia. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  6. Clark, Jerry; Palattella, Ed (2019-09-17). On the Lam: A History of Hunting Fugitives in America. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   978-1-4422-6259-1.
  7. Clark, Jerry; Palattella, Ed (2019-09-17). On the Lam: A History of Hunting Fugitives in America. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   978-1-4422-6259-1.

Further reading