History
Early history
The Matranga crime family, established by Charles (1857 – October 28, 1943) and Antonio (Tony) Matranga (d. 1890), was one of the earliest recorded American Mafia crime families, operating in New Orleans during the late 19th century until the beginning of Prohibition in 1920. Silver Dollar Sam (Silvestro Carollo), Carlos Marcello, and Anthony Carollo were the main men associated with the New Orleans Mafia in the 19th Century during the peak of their criminal activities.
Born of Arbëreshë descent and members of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church in Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily, Carlo and Antonio Matranga immigrated to New Orleans during the 1870s and eventually opened a saloon and brothel. Using their business as a base of operations, the Matranga brothers began establishing lucrative organized criminal activities including extortion and labor racketeering.
Once the Matranga brothers began to put down roots and begin their organized criminal activities, they began receiving tribute payments from Italian laborers and dockworkers, as well as from the Provenzano family. They eventually began moving in on Provenzano fruit loading operations intimidating them with threats of violence.
Although the Provenzanos withdrew in favor of giving the Matrangas a cut of waterfront racketeering, by the late 1880s, the two families eventually went to war over the grocery and produce businesses held by the Provenzanos. As both sides began employing a large number of Sicilian mafiosi from their native Monreale, Sicily, the violent gang war began attracting police attention, particularly from New Orleans police chief David Hennessy who began investigating the warring organizations.
The murder of Hennessey created a huge backlash from the city and, although Charles and several members of the Matrangas were arrested, they were eventually tried and acquitted in February 1891 with Charles Matranga and a 14-year-old member acquitted midway through the trial as well as four more who were eventually acquitted and three others released in hung juries. The decision caused strong protests from residents, angered by the controversy surrounding the case, and the following month a lynch mob stormed the jail killing 11 of the 19 defendants—five of whom had not been tried—on March 14, 1891.
Matranga was able to escape from the vigilante lynchings and, upon returning to New Orleans, resumed his position as head of the New Orleans crime family [10] eventually forcing the declining Provenzanos out of New Orleans by the end of the decade. Because of the Hennessy lynchings, the American Mafia agreed that law enforcement officials should not be harmed in their crossfire. Matranga would rule over the New Orleans underworld until shortly after Prohibition [11] when he turned over leadership over to Sylvestro "Sam" Carollo in the early 1920s. [12]
Silver Dollar Sam
"Silver Dollar Sam" Carollo led the New Orleans crime family transforming predecessor Charles Matranga's Black Hand gang into a modern organized crime group. [13]
Born in 1896 in Sicily, Carollo immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1904. By 1918, Carollo had become a high-ranking member of Matranga's organization, eventually succeeding him following Matranga's retirement in 1922. Assuming control of Matranga's minor bootlegging operations, Carollo waged war against rival bootlegging gangs, gaining full control following the murder of William Bailey in December 1930.
Gaining considerable political influence within New Orleans, Carollo is said to have used his connections when, in 1929, Al Capone supposedly traveled to the city demanding Carollo supply the Chicago Outfit (rather than Chicago's Sicilian Mafia boss Joe Aiello) with imported alcohol. Meeting Capone as he arrived at a New Orleans train station, Carollo, accompanied by several police officers, reportedly disarmed Capone's bodyguards and broke their fingers, forcing Capone to return to Chicago.
In 1930, Carollo was arrested for the shooting of federal narcotics agent Cecil Moore, which took place during an undercover drug buy. Despite support by several New Orleans police officers who testified Carollo was in New York at the time of the murder, he was sentenced to two years.
Released in 1934, Carollo negotiated a deal with New York mobsters Frank Costello and Phillip "Dandy Phil" Kastel, as well as Louisiana Senator Huey Long, to bring slot machines into Louisiana, following New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's attacks on organized crime. Carollo, with lieutenant Carlos Marcello, would run illegal gambling operations undisturbed for several years.
Carollo's legal problems continued as he was scheduled to be deported in 1940, after serving two years in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, following his arrest on a narcotics charge in 1938. His deportation was delayed following the U.S. entry into World War II, and Carollo would continue to control the New Orleans crime family for several years before a campaign, begun by reporter Drew Pearson, exposed an attempt by Congressman James H. Morrison to pass a bill awarding Carollo with American citizenship (thereby making deportation illegal). [14] Carollo would be deported in April 1947. [15]
Soon after returning to Sicily, Carollo organized a partnership with fellow exile Charles Luciano, establishing criminal enterprises in Mexico. Briefly returning to the United States in 1949, he was deported the following year as control of the New Orleans crime family reverted to Carlos Marcello. Living in Palermo, Sicily until 1970, Carollo once again returned to the US. According to Life Magazine, [6] he was asked to return by Marcello, who needed him to mediate disputes within the New Orleans Mafia. After a subsequent attempt to deport him failed, he died a free man from a heart condition in 1972. [11]
Carlos Marcello
Carlos Marcello was born February 6, 1910, to Sicilian immigrants in Tunis, French Tunisia. He immigrated to the United States in 1911 and settled in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. As a young child and teenager, Marcello often committed petty crimes in the French Quarter. When he was 28 years old in 1938, Marcello was arrested and fined $76,830 for selling 23 pounds (about 10 kilograms) of marijuana. He faced a lengthy prison sentence but only served 10 months because of he deal he made with Governor Huey Long. This ordeal got him involved with Frank Costello, leader of the Genovese crime family in New York City, where he began working for Costello. [16]
By the end of 1947, Marcello had taken control of Louisiana's illegal gambling network. He had also joined forces with New York mob associate Meyer Lansky in order to take money from some of the most important casinos in the New Orleans area. According to former members of the Chicago Outfit, Marcello was also assigned a cut of the money skimmed from Las Vegas casinos, in exchange for providing "muscle" in Florida real estate deals. By this time, Marcello had been selected as "The Godfather" of the New Orleans Mafia, [17] by the family's capos and the National Crime Syndicate after the deportation of Sylvestro "Silver Dollar Sam" Carollo to Sicily. He held this position for the next 30 years. [18]
On January 25, 1951, Marcello appeared before the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee for organized crime. Robert F. Kennedy served as the chief counsel to the committee with his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy. Marcello pleaded the Fifth Amendment 152 times. The Committee called Marcello "one of the worst criminals in the country." [19]
When John F. Kennedy became president, he appointed his brother Robert Kennedy as U.S. Attorney General. With these titles, the two men worked to have Marcello deported to Guatemala [20] [21] which was the fake birthplace Marcello had claimed. On April 4, 1961, the U.S. Justice Department, under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, apprehended Marcello as he made what he assumed was a routine visit to the immigration authorities in New Orleans, [21] then deported him to Guatemala. [20] He struggled to make it back to New Orleans and sustained many injuries on his way back; however, two months later, he was back in New Orleans. [11] [22] Thus, he successfully fought efforts by the government to deport him.
In November 1963, Marcello was tried for "conspiracy to defraud the United States government by obtaining a false Guatemalan birth certificate" and "conspiracy to obstruct the United States government in the exercise of its right to deport Carlos Marcello." He was acquitted later that month on both charges. However, in October 1964, Marcello was charged with "conspiring to obstruct justice by fixing a juror [Rudolph Heitler] and seeking the murder of a government witness [Carl Noll]". Marcello's attorney admitted Heitler had been bribed but said that there was no evidence to connect the bribe with Marcello. Noll refused to testify against Marcello in the case. Marcello was acquitted of both charges. [23] [24]
In September 1966, Marcello was summoned to La Stella restaurant in Queens, New York to defend himself at a secret trial for the Mafia. At this meeting, which came to be known as "Little Apalachin", police raided the restaurant, arresting Marcello and twelve other senior Mafiosi, including the "Judge" of the meeting Cosa Nostra Commissioner Carlo Gambino, with charges of "consorting with known criminals." [25] Before the raid took place, however, Marcello successfully defended himself and won his "case." When Marcello arrived at New Orleans Airport after being released on bail, he greeted FBI agents and reporters with the phrase, "I am the boss here" and proceeded to prove his point by punching FBI Agent Patrick J. Collins. [26] [27] After this, Marcello landed himself back in federal prison. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but he was retried and convicted. He was sentenced to two years but served less than six months. [28]
In the 1960s, due to Marcello's stubborn refusal of inducting new members into the family, the organization dwindled down to a paltry four or five made men, with hundreds of associates throughout the United States. [29] However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation believed there were a bit over 20 made men at the time, or more than 20 associates so close to Marcello and to each other, that they were considered a formal part of the New Orleans family hierarchy. [10] [30] Although the family was small in size, it exerted significant influence due to Marcello's political connections with state and federal judges, prosecutors, governors, senators, labour leaders, and law enforcement officials. Members of the New Orleans family received protection from Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, who dismissed eighty-four cases brought against Mafiosi, including one for attempted murder, three for kidnapping and one for manslaughter. Additionally, Marcello kept close associations with other Mafia bosses across the country, including Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa of the Chicago Outfit, Santo Trafficante Jr. of the Tampa crime family, Nicholas Civella of the Kansas City crime family, Dominic Brooklier of the Los Angeles crime family, and Angelo Bruno of the Philadelphia crime family. The New Orleans family was also closely linked with the Dixie Mafia, initially through Marcello's association with LeRoy Hobbs, the Sheriff of Harrison County, Mississippi. [16] Marcello permitted the Dixie Mafia to operate in New Orleans in exchange for a percentage of that group's earnings and on the condition that Dixie Mafia members avoid the attention of authorities and refrain from encroaching on Marcello's rackets. [4] Under Marcello's rule, the family outsourced debt collection and contract killing to members of the Dixie Mafia and the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. [4] [5]
In its 1978 investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the House Select Committee on Assassinations said that it recognized Jack Ruby's murder of Lee Harvey Oswald as a primary reason to suspect [31] organized crime as possibly having involvement in the assassination. In its investigation, the HSCA noted the presence of "credible associations relating both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby to figures having a relationship, albeit tenuous, with Marcello's crime family or organization". [31] Their report stated: "The committee found that Marcello had the motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, though it was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity". Thus, Marcello was free of all accusations of killing John F. Kennedy. [31]
In 1981, Marcello, Aubrey W. Young (a former aide to Governor John J. McKeithen), Charles E. Roemer, II (former commissioner of administration to Governor Edwin Edwards), and two other men were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans with conspiracy, racketeering, and mail and wire fraud in a scheme to bribe state officials to give the five men multimillion-dollar insurance contracts. [32] The charges were the result of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe known as BriLab. [33] U.S. District Judge Morey Sear allowed the admission of secretly-recorded conversations that he said demonstrated corruption at the highest levels of state government. [34] Marcello and Roemer were convicted, but Young and the two others were acquitted. [35] In January 1982, Marcello was sentenced to seven years in federal prison. [36]
Joseph Marcello and Anthony Carollo
Due to his imprisonment and ill health, Carlos Marcello lost the ability to manage the New Orleans family, and the organization became effectively leaderless. [37] Carlos Marcello's younger brother and former underboss, Joseph Paul Marcello Jr., took control of the family as acting boss but was an ineffective leader. [37] [38] The owner of several restaurants in the New Orleans area, Joseph Marcello dedicated most of his efforts into the restaurant industry, while three other Marcello siblings, Vincent, Sammy and Anthony, focused solely on the family's slot machine business. The oldest Marcello brothers, Peter and Pascal, went into retirement, and Carlos Marcello's only son, Joseph "Little Joe" Marcello, was a multimillionaire legitimate businessman who never joined his father's crime family. [37] In April 1982, Joseph Marcello was indicted on charges of lying to a grand jury investigating the assassination of Texas judge John H. Wood Jr.. [39] Wood had been killed in 1979 by the hitman Charles Harrelson under contract from the Texas drug lord Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra, an associate of the Marcello family. [37]
By 1986, two associates of the New Orleans family operating in the French Quarter, Frank Carraci and Nick Karno, had begun acting as independent racketeers, refusing to answer to Marcello and instead encouraging the arrival of the Gambino crime family and the Philadelphia crime family into New Orleans. [37] In 1990, Anthony Carollo, the son of Silvestro "Silver Dollar Sam" Carollo and longtime New Orleans family member, became boss of the organization after Joseph Marcello stepped down. [40] Carollo and an associate, Sebastian "Buster" Salvatore, met in New York with John Gotti and Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano of the Gambino family to seek assistance in taking over the soon-to-be-legalized video poker industry in Louisiana. [41] Carollo's underboss, Frank "Fat Frank" Gagliano Sr., also authorized a request by representatives of the Philadelphia family for permission to move into casino gambling and cocaine trafficking in New Orleans. [37]
In 1993, the FBI bugged Frank's Deli in the French Quarter, a popular meeting place for New Orleans Mafiosi, as part of an investigation into how the Mafia was infiltrating the new poker industry in Louisiana. [8] FBI wiretaps recorded conversations between the New Orleans Mafia leaders and helped authorities gain insight into the family's operations on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. [42] The investigation also helped uncover the loose structure of the New Orleans Mafia. [43] In May 1994, following an FBI sting dubbed "Operation Hard Crust", Carollo with 16 members of the Marcello, Gambino and Genovese families were arrested on charges of infiltrating the newly legalized Louisiana video poker industry, racketeering, illegal gambling and conspiracy. [44] In September 1995, Carollo pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering conspiracy, with associates Frank Gagliano, Joseph Gagliano, Felix Riggio III, and Cade Farber. [45] Carollo and Gagliano were each sentenced to three years in prison, in March 1996. [46]
Current status
The convictions which resulted from "Operation Hard Crust" dismantled the New Orleans family, and in 2003 U.S. Attorney Jim Letten described New Orleans as an "open city" for Cosa Nostra activity. [41]
