Antonio Paretti (1892 - February 17, 1927), also known as Tony Paretti or Tony the Shoemaker, was a Camorra gangster. He was a member of the Brooklyn-based Coney Island gang in New York City, serving as the right-hand man of Pellegrino Morano. [1]
Paretti received a death sentence for his part in the killing of Nicholas Morello and Charles Ubriaco on September 7, 1916, during the Mafia–Camorra War. [2] [3] Paretti originally fled to Italy to escape capture, while his brother Aniello Paretti was imprisoned and charged with another unrelated murder. [4] Both were also involved in the murder of Joe Nazzaro, [5] the alleged killer of Giosue Gallucci, on March 16, 1917.
Paretti returned to New York in March 1926, confident that most of the witnesses against him would no longer be there. [6] Nevertheless, Paretti was convicted for first degree murder. Notably, several of the witnesses who were called to testify against him "suddenly developed a surprising lack of memory," replying, "I cannot remember" to all questions asked of them. [2] However, the prosecution was able convince a fellow gangster, Alphonso Sgroia, to return to New York from Italy and testify against Paretti. [7]
In the months leading up to his execution, security in Sing Sing prison was enhanced from 16 hours a day to 24 hours a day. Paretti attempted to pressure authorities to reject the death penalty and commute his sentence to no avail. He was electrocuted on February 17, 1927, at the age of 35. One of his last visitors was future Mafia boss, Vito Genovese, [4] and his brother Aniello who had spent 8 months on death row himself before being released. [8]
Murder, Inc. was an organized crime group active from 1929 to 1941 that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate – a closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia.
Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria was an early Italian-American Mafia boss in New York City. He was boss of what is now called the Genovese crime family, one of the New York City Mafia's Five Families, from 1922 to 1931. In 1930, he battled in the Castellammarese War to take over the criminal activities in New York City. The war ended with his murder on April 15, 1931, in a hit ordered by his own lieutenant, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, in an agreement with rival faction head Salvatore Maranzano.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominated organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia that took place in New York City, New York, from February 26, 1930 until April 15, 1931, between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. The war was named after the Sicilian town of Castellammare del Golfo, the birthplace of Maranzano. Maranzano's faction won and divided New York's crime families into the Five Families; Maranzano declared himself capo di tutti i capi. However, Maranzano was murdered in September 1931 on orders of Lucky Luciano, who established a power-sharing arrangement called the Commission, a group of Mafia families of equal stature, to avoid such wars in the future.
The Genovese crime family, also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. They have generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families.
Paul De Lucia, known as Paul Ricca, was an Italian-American mobster who served as the nominal or de facto leader of the Chicago Outfit for 40 years. In 1958 he was named "the country's most important criminal" by a Senate crime investigating subcommittee. Ricca died on October 11, 1972.
Nicolò Terranova, also known as Nicholas "Nick" Morello, was one of the first Italian-American organized crime figures in New York City he succeeded Giuseppe Morello as boss of the then Morello Gang in 1909 and was succeeded by Vincenzo Terranova in 1916. Along with his half-brother Giuseppe Morello and brothers Ciro and Vincenzo Terranova, he founded the Morello crime family, and was later one of the participants in the Mafia-Camorra War of 1915–17.
The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn. They were the predecessors of what eventually became known as the Genovese crime family.
Alfonso Sgroia, also known as "The Butcher" was a New York gang member who became a hitman for the Navy Street gang connected to the Camorra in New York City.
The Mafia–Camorra War was a gang war in New York City that lasted from 1915–1917. On one side was the originally Sicilian Morello crime family of Manhattan; on the other side were gangs originally from Naples and the surrounding Campania region, based in Navy Street in Brooklyn and Coney Island referred to as the Camorra. The fight over the control of the New York rackets started after the killing of Giosue Gallucci, the undisputed King of Little Italy, and his son on May 17, 1915. The trials that followed in 1918 completely smashed the Camorra gangs; the protection that they enjoyed was demolished from the testimonies of their own men. It was the end of the Camorra in New York and the rise in power of American-based Sicilian Mafia groups.
Alessandro Vollero was a New York mobster and a high-ranking member of the Neapolitan Camorra Navy Street gang in Brooklyn. Vollero served as a lieutenant to gang boss Pellegrino Morano during the Mafia-Camorra War of 1916.
Rocco Valenti was a New York City gangster and prominent member of the Camorra in New York during the early 1910s.
Pellegrino Morano (1877–unknown) was the head of a group of Neapolitan criminals with roots in the Camorra based in Coney Island, where he owned the Santa Lucia restaurant, which was often used as the headquarters for their gang, known as the Coney Island gang. He is also known as Marano.
Ralph Daniello (1886–1925), also known as "The Barber", was a New York criminal who belonged to the Brooklyn Navy Street Gang and participated in a major gang slaying in the Mafia-Camorra War. In 1917, Daniello eventually became an informant for the New York police and helped destroy the Camorra crime gangs in Brooklyn. Daniello's testimony helped to clear up 23 homicide cases in New York.
The 116th Street Crew, also known as the Uptown Crew, is a group of Italian-American mobsters within the Genovese crime family. In the early 1960s, Anthony Salerno became one of the most powerful capos in the family. Salerno based the crew in the Palma Boys Social Club located at 416 East 115th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 116th Street Crew had absorbed and initiated many former members of the vicious East Harlem Purple Gang, an Italian-American murder for hire and drug trafficking gang operating in 1970s Italian Harlem and acting generally independent of the Mafia.
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".
Francesco Bidognetti is a powerful Italian Camorrista. He is the chief lieutenant of Francesco Schiavone, boss of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, and head of the Bidognetti clan, one of the five clans which make up the Casalesi. He is known as "'Cicciott' 'e Mezzanotte'".
The Brooklyn Camorra or New York Camorra was a loose grouping of early-20th-century organized crime gangs that formed among Italian immigrants originating in Naples and the surrounding Campania region living in Greater New York, particularly in Brooklyn. In the early 20th century, the criminal underworld of New York City consisted largely of Italian Harlem-based Sicilians and groups of Neapolitans from Brooklyn, sometimes referred to as the Brooklyn Camorra, as Neapolitan organized crime is referred to as the Camorra.
Giosuè Gallucci, also known as Luccariello, was a crime boss of Italian Harlem in New York City affiliated with the Camorra. He dominated the area from 1910–1915 and was also known as the undisputed "King of Little Italy" or "The Boss", due to his power in the criminal underworld and political connections. He held strict control over the policy game, employing Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers.
Nicolo "Cola" Schiro was an early Sicilian-born New York City mobster who, in 1912, became the boss of what later become known as the Bonanno crime family.