Manhattan Mafia Guide (6 page)

Frank Costello was able to keep much of his illegal interests and spent the rest of his life behind the scenes, acting as an adviser to the family until his death of a heart attack in 1972. He was eighty-two years old.

The criminal legend was buried at Saint Michael’s Cemetery in Queens.

D’A
QUILA
, S
ALVATORE

91 Elizabeth Street, 1919

Alias: Toto

Born: 1878, Sicily

Died: October 10, 1928, New York City

Association: D’Aquila crime family boss

Salvatore D’Aquila was a powerful transplanted Mafioso from Palermo who ruled the American Mafia at the dawn of Prohibition.

With a record in the United States dating back to 1906, D’Aquila was a highly intelligent gangster who also seemingly happened to be in the right position at the right time. First, his outfit’s biggest early century rival, the Morello gang, suffered a huge setback when its leaders were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 1909.

Then, in 1916, Morello gang leader Nicolas Terranova was ambushed and killed by a Neapolitan gang out in Brooklyn. Not only did the Morellos lose another strong leader, but also Pellegrino Morano, the boss of the gang that did the shooting, was arrested and eventually deported back to Naples.

91 Elizabeth Street today.
Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski
.

Elizabeth Street, looking north from Hester Street, 1902.
Library of Congress
.

With two major adversaries out of the way in one fell swoop, D’Aquila capitalized by absorbing as much Brooklyn territory as possible and expanding his operations in East Harlem and the Lower East Side—a location that would prove to be valuable in the ensuing bootlegging wars of the 1920s, giving D’Aquila a leg up on competition in this city.

D’Aquila was arguably the most powerful member of the American Mafia by the beginning of Prohibition in 1920. His influence extended to several East Coast and midwestern cities, and he had a virtual monopoly on much of the Italian underworld alcohol trade in of this city; that is, until the remaining Morellos found a formidable new leader by the name of Giuseppe Masseria.

On a crisp fall evening in 1928, the nearly three-decades-long career of Salvatore D’Aquila ended in a hail of bullets on an Avenue A street corner. Masseria replaced D’Aquila as head of the Italian underworld.

D
ELLACROCE
, A
NIELLO

232 Mulberry Street, 1914–1960s

Alias: Father O’Neil

Born: March 15, 1914, New York City

Died: December 2, 1985, New York City

Association: Gambino Crime Family Underboss

With a criminal career spanning half a century, this longtime influential mob leader was a protégé of Albert Anastasia in the 1930s and a mentor to John Gotti in the 1970s.

Born and raised in the heart of Little Italy (232 Mulberry Street was his lifelong home address), Dellacroce’s first arrest was at sixteen years of age for the robbery of a local man named Antonio Derosa. Within a few years, he found himself working for Mangano family underboss and Murder, Inc. gunman Albert Anastasia. Dellacroce headquartered out of the Ravenite Social Club, where he allegedly oversaw loan-sharking, extortion and other illegal activities for three decades between the 1950s and 1980s.

232 Mulberry Street, the nearly lifelong home address of Aniello Dellacroce, today.
Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski
.

Some insiders believe Dellacroce was a triggerman in the murder of an Anastasia (Gambino) family capo referred to as Johnny Roberts, who was loyal to underboss Carlo Gambino’s bid to dethrone Albert Anastasia in the 1950s. Despite his early support of Anastasia, Dellacroce somehow was able to make peace with Gambino by the time he took over the family in 1957 and was allowed to retain his position as capo. When Joseph Biondo died in June 1966, Dellacroce was elevated to underboss.

Shortly after becoming underboss, on September 22, 1966, Dellacroce and a dozen fellow Mafia leaders gathered at the La Stella Restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens (at 102–11 Queens Boulevard), in what has become known as the Little Apalachin conference.

With the party secluded in a private basement dining room and the meeting underway, police burst through the door and arrested all thirteen guests as material witnesses to several Queens County murders and organized crime rackets. It was the most successful roundup of mobsters since the 1957 Apalachin incident, in which sixty were arrested fleeing from an upstate farmhouse. Detectives said that the purpose of the raid was to “keep track of how the men relate to each other in importance within the underworld hierarchy.”
²¹

La Stella Restaurant’s “Little Apalachin” seating arrangement, September 22, 1966: Carlos Marcella (New Orleans boss), Joseph Marcello (Carlos’s brother), Santo Trafficante Jr. (Tampa boss), Thomas Eboli (Genovese acting boss), Aniello Dellacroce (Gambino underboss), Mike Miranda (Genovese consigliere), Joseph Colombo (Colombo boss), Joseph Nicholas Gallo Jr. (Gambino capo, future consigliere), Carlo Gambino (Gambino boss), Dominick Alongi (Genovese capo, future acting underboss), Anthony Corolla (New Orleans, future boss), Frank Gagliano (New Orleans, future underboss) and Anthony Carillo (Genovese soldier).
Federal Bureau of Investigations, NARA Record Number 124-10371-10179
.

A hearing was held for twelve of the thirteen on December 19, 1966 (minus Gambino, who was excused due to poor health). The defense team made headlines when they accused Queens district attorney Nat N. Hentel of conducting a publicity stunt in order to further his career. One lawyer stated, “Barnum and Bailey couldn’t have dreamed up a bigger three-ring circus.”
²²
Despite not being charged with a crime, the mobsters were held on $100,000 bail; most paid that within thirty-two hours and went free.

On November 25, 1966, local police raided the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street and arrested Dellcroce, Joe N. Gallo, Paul Castellano and eight others who were out on bail. All charges were dismissed within a few hours by a night court judge because the arresting officers could not provide evidence that the group was gathered for the purpose of engaging in illegal activities.

On November 30, seven of the La Stella arrestees were called to testify before a grand jury, but they offered nothing but their names and addresses. In a show of defiance, the mobsters and their lawyers actually went to La Stella for lunch during the hearings, and the press followed. The resulting story and accompanying photos made the newspapers, and it became a public embarrassment for the prosecutors. As District Attorney Hentel became desperate for the case not to collapse, full immunity was offered to all thirteen mobsters in exchange for testimony; again, all balked at the proposition.

On May 18, 1967, Dellacroce, Miranda, Carillo and Gallo were rearrested and charged with contempt of court. All four men pleaded not guilty the next morning and were released on $5,000 bail. Eboli, Alongi and Colombo were also named in the indictment, but Eboli did not turn himself in until January 4, 1969.

Despite the media circus, the case lost steam and eventually fizzled out.

Evading serious prison time throughout his life, seventy-one-year-old Dellacroce was eventually indicted on March 28, 1985, under federal racketeering (RICO) charges, as part of an investigation that sent the top dozen New York Mafia leaders (and dozens more) to prison. However, Dellacroce would die of lung cancer eight months later, before being sentenced.

One reliable insider told me a story of how Dellacroce and Peter DeFeo were longtime rivals, and on one occasion in Las Vegas, the pair got physical and had to be separated. Stories like this are not documented and unfortunately cannot be proven.

D’E
RCOLE
, J
OSEPH

428 East 116
^th
Street, Apartment 18

Alias: Joe Z, Josey, Joe Morelli, Josie Romano, Joe the Book

Born: November 16, 1911, New York City

Died: May 1976

Association: Gambino crime family

According to the FBN, this portly, five-foot-seven, 210-pound mobster—whose official employment was that of a bouncer at the Delightful Luncheonette at East 116
^th
Street and 1
^st
Avenue—was a “controlling member” of the Mafia in Harlem by the 1950s and engaged in large-scale narcotics sales and auto theft.

Twenty-five-year-old D’Ercole was arrested in 1936, along with nine other members of the Manhattan Social Club (354 East 114
^th
Street) in connection with the murder of gangster Dutch Schultz and his three bodyguards in Newark, New Jersey, on October 23, 1935.

Police traced a car found at the murder scene back to club member Joseph Tortotici
²³
and raided the East Harlem establishment on January 7, 1936. It turns out that Tortotici had lent his car to Schultz bodyguard Bernard Rosenkrantz on the day of the hit, but since there was no direct connection with the murder, Tortotici, D’Ercole and their crew were only charged with vagrancy.
²⁴

In the early 1950s, a Bronx-based front for a large-scale auto-theft ring was established by D’Ercole under the name United-Drive-Yourself. Using the name Joseph Romano, D’Ercole and his associates resold over one hundred stolen cars within its first week of operation in October 1953.
²⁵