Giuseppe Morello
Giuseppe Morello | |
---|---|
Counterfeiting (1910) | |
Criminal penalty | 25 years' imprisonment |
Giuseppe "the Clutch Hand" Morello (Italian:
In the 1890s, Giuseppe founded a gang known as the 107th Street Mob, which would later evolve into the Morello crime family. Today the Morello crime family is known as the Genovese crime family and is the oldest of the Five Families in New York City.
Early life
Giuseppe Morello was born in Corleone, Sicily on May 2, 1867.[2] His father Calogero Morello died in 1872 and his mother Angelina Piazza remarried one year later to Bernardo Terranova, who was a member of the Corleone Mafia.[3] Bernardo and Angelina had seven known children: two sons named Vincenzo (the first, born in 1874,[4] died at age two;[5] the second was born in 1886), Ciro (born 1888), Nicolò (born 1890), Lucia (born 1877) Salvatrice (born 1880), and Rosalia (born 1892-died October 14, 1915). The Morello and Terranova children grew up together and Bernardo may have facilitated Giuseppe's early induction into the local cosca, or Mafia clan.[6] Author David Crichley notes that Morello also had an uncle, Giuseppe Battaglia, who was a leader in the Corleonesi Mafia and who may have assisted in his nephew's passage.[2] Giuseppe Morello married Maria Rosa Marsalisi (1867–1898) in 1889;[7] the couple had two children: a daughter, Angela (born 1891[8] and died 1892[9]), and a son, Calogero "Charles" Morello (born November 1892 in Corleone-died 1912).[3]
The year of Morello's emigration to the United States is not certain.
Morello's three half brothers Nicolò, Vincenzo and Ciro, his stepfather Bernardo, his mother Angelina, his sister Maria, his half sister Rosalia, his wife Maria Rosa Marsalisi and son Calogero would arrive in New York City on March 8, 1893.[3][10] In the mid-1890s, Giuseppe Morello moved to Louisiana in search for employment and was joined by the other members of the Morello-Terranova family. The following year they moved to Texas and farmed cotton.[2] After contracting malaria they returned to New York around 1897.[2] Morello tried his hand in different business ventures, including failed investments in a saloon and a date factory. Morello's first wife, Maria Rosa Marsalisi, died in 1898 in Corleone.[11] In 1902, he acquired a saloon at 8 Prince Street in Manhattan which was to become a meeting place for members of his gang.[2] In December 1903, Morello married Nicolina "Lena" Salemi (1884–1967),[12] who stayed with him for the rest of his life.[3]
Morello crime family
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2021) |
In the 1890s, Giuseppe founded the 107th Street Mob which would later evolve into the Morello crime family. In 1903, Ignazio "the Wolf" Lupo, the Sicilian Mafia boss in Little Italy, Manhattan, married Morello's half sister Salvatrice.[3]
Morello built his empire based on his merciless ordering of death sentences against everyone who dared to face him. Lupo, his main enforcer, was responsible for more than sixty murders in a 10-year period. The Morello family would frequently employ the notorious barrel murder system, dumping dismembered corpses into large wood barrels. The barrels would then be thrown into the sea, left on a random street corner, abandoned in a back alley or shipped to nonexistent addresses in another city.
Family businesses included extortion,
Two members of Morello's famiglia who became Captains under Morello and who later gained much prominence in the New York underworld were
By 1905, Morello had created the largest, most influential Sicilian crime family in New York City and was recognized as
Fall and return
Morello was found guilty of counterfeiting again in 1910 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was later paroled. In 1922, President
The youngest of his three half brothers,
Newly released from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in 1920 and trying to retake control of his empire, Morello found himself considered a threat to his former captain, now turned Mafia boss, Salvatore D'Aquila, who, within a year of Morello's release, ordered Morello killed.[1]
Morello, along with a number of others now under orders of death by D'Aquila, fled to Sicily for a spell. One of these men, a former D'Aquila gunman,
Castellammarese War and death
During the Castellammarese War, between 1930 and 1931, Masseria and Morello fought against a rival group based in Brooklyn, led by Salvatore Maranzano and Joseph Bonanno. Morello, an old hand at killing, became Masseria's "war chief" and strategic adviser.[15]
One of the first victims of the war, Giuseppe Morello was killed along with associate Joseph Perriano on August 15, 1930, while collecting cash receipts in his East Harlem office.[18][19] Joseph Valachi, the first made man in the American Mafia to turn state's evidence, identified Morello's killer as a Castellammarese gunman he knew as "Buster from Chicago".[20]
Filmmaker Martin A. Gosch's The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, a purported autobiographical account of Charles Luciano of disputed authenticity, claims that Luciano orchestrated Morello's murder.[21]
References
- ^ OCLC 428027812.
Masseria would be accompanied by [Giuseppe] Morello, whom the Castellammarese knew as Peter Morello – 'Don Petru' – an alias he adopted since leaving prison.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-99030-1.
- ^ a b c d e Critchley p.51–54
- ^ Certificato di nascita, stamped 13 January 1998 by the municipality of Corleone, received by Justin Cascio from Vivian Lima on 1 September 2016.
- ^ Certificato di morte, stamped 13 January 1998 by the municipality of Corleone, received by Justin Cascio from Vivian Lima on 1 September 2016.
- ^ a b Yardley, Jonathan (16 August 2009). "Review of 'The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia' by Mike Dash". The Washington Post.
- ^ Marriage of Joseph Morello and Maria Rosa Marsalisi, record no. 24, 2 March 1889, "Italia, Palermo, Diocesi di Monreale, Registri Parrocchiali, 1531–1998", images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11622-19708-55?cc=2046915&wc=MG37-L23:351041801,351041802,351112201 : accessed 21 January 2015), Corleone > San Martino > Matrimoni 1888–1902 > image 47 of 445; Archivio di Arcidiocesi di Palermo [Palermo ArchDiocese Archives, Palermo].
- ^ Baptism of Angela Morello, record no. 380, 3 August 1891, "Italia, Palermo, Diocesi di Monreale, Registri Parrocchiali, 1531–1998", images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-12332-72847-30?cc=2046915 : accessed 29 November 2015), Corleone > San Martino > Battesimi 1889–1895 > image 156 of 427; Archivio di Arcidiocesi di Palermo (Palermo ArchDiocese Archives, Palermo).
- ^ "Italia, Palermo, Palermo, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1866–1910", images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-32358-14590-78?cc=2051639 : accessed 10 March 2016), Palermo > Corleone > Nati, pubblicazioni, matrimoni, cittadinanze, morti 1882–1893 > image 2478 of 3063; Tribunale di Cagliari (Cagliari Court, Cagliari).
- ^ Hunt, Thomas (2002). "'Clutch Hand' Confusion - Mafia Boss of Bosses Giuseppe Morello". The American Mafia. Archived from the original on 23 January 2012. Note: the archived link has four pages; the live version, dated 18 November 2019, only includes the first page.
- ^ Death of Maria Rosa Marsalisi, record no. 159, 30 June 1898; "Italia, Palermo, Diocesi di Monreale, Registri Parrocchiali, 1531–1998", images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11742-45466-24?cc=2046915&wc=MG3W-JWP:351041801,351041802,351085401 : accessed 4 March 2015), Corleone > San Martino > Morti 1889–1910 > image 246 of 546; Archivio di Arcidiocesi di Palermo [Palermo ArchDiocese Archives, Palermo].
- ^ Marriage of Giuseppe Morello and Nicolina Salemi, Transcript: Church of Santa Lucia, 344 East 104th St, New York, NY. Record no. 108, "Italia, Palermo, Diocesi di Monreale, Registri Parrocchiali, 1531–1998", images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11580-167401-72?cc=2046915 : accessed 3 October 2015), Corleone > San Martino > Matrimoni 1903–1911 > image 41 of 284; Archivio di Arcidiocesi di Palermo (Palermo ArchDiocese Archives, Palermo).
- ^ Annual Report of the U.S. Attorney General, 1922, p. 400.
- OCLC 57428053.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8160-5694-1. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
- ^ Revisits The Death Cell, The New York Times, February 13, 1927
- ISBN 9781848589445– via Google Books.
- ^ Sifakis, p. 313.
- ]
- ISBN 0-671-63173-X.
- ^ Sifakis, pp. xi–xii, 313
Further reading
- Critchley, David (2008). The Origin of Organized Crime: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415882576.
- ISBN 9781400067220.
- Flynn, William J. (1919). The Barrel Mystery. New York: The James A. McCann Company.
- Sifakis, Carl (2005). The Mafia Encyclopedia (Third ed.). New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0816056943.
- Black, Jon (October 2020). Secret Societies. ISBN 9781527268074.