Danny Greene

Danny Greene (1959)

Daniel "Danny" Patrick Greene (born November 14, 1933 in Cleveland , Ohio ; † October 6, 1977 there ; pseudonym: The Irishman ) was an Irish-American mobster .

Childhood and youth

Greene was born on November 14, 1933 at St. Ann's Hospital in Cleveland. His father, John Henry Greene, and his mother, Irene Cecilia (former Fallon; parents married five days before their firstborn was born), were Irish immigrants . However, Irene's health deteriorated visibly after the birth and she officially died three days after the birth of Daniel as a result of an enlarged heart . Only after the funeral did the newborn baby (until then only known as "Baby Greene") receive its name in reference to the paternal grandfather. Because of the tragedy over his wife, John Greene sought solace in alcohol. Daniel Greene was taken to an orphanage only a little later ( Parmadale Catholic Orphanage ).

When he was six, Greene returned to his father, who was now married to a nurse. However, conflicts arose with his stepmother again and again and so he was later housed in the house of his single grandfather, which was in the Cleveland district of Collinwood . Due to a job in the printer factory (for the Cleveland daily newspaper The Plain Dealer ), however, the grandfather was only able to take care of his grandson to a limited extent, which led to the fact that he was already wandering around the streets of the neighborhood early on and made the acquaintance of groups there. which consisted mainly of Italians and Slovenes, who often attacked children of Irish descent. Even in his youth, he repeatedly came into conflict with authorities e.g. B. in elementary school ( Saint Jerome's Catholic School ) or with the Boy Scouts (where he was already "kicked out" after three weeks because of a lack of discipline). Despite everything, he was also positively noticed due to his sporting activity. At Saint Jerome's he excelled in baseball and was an excellent basketball player (so, despite his disciplinary problems and poor school performance, the nuns let him play basketball games because he was extremely valuable to the team). In Collinwood High School , too , he continued to attract attention for his athletic achievements, but was decried as a loner who was constantly attacked by schoolmates of Italian origin. This time may have shaped his antipathy towards the Italians, which would mark his later life. Because of these problems, Danny's grandfather decided to take him to Saint Ignatius Catholic High School from Grade 10 . But even there the disciplinary problems persisted and Greene was expelled from school, whereupon he returned to Collinwood High School.

Greene's rise and fall in the ILA

In 1951, Danny Greene dropped out of high school and joined the US Marines . There he served at Camp Lejeune , North Carolina . Here, too, he had disciplinary problems, although he gained respect among his comrades for his boxing skills. In 1953 he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. He returned to Cleveland, where he soon worked as a dock worker. Here, too, he again showed signs of laziness, for example he was fired once when he slept while working. Despite all of this, he was able to win sympathy among his work colleagues because of his charisma. In 1961 he was appointed interim president of the local branch of the ILA ( International Longshoremen's Association ), which covered the Cleveland port area. In the same year he succeeded in an official election as the legitimate successor of his predecessor Walter Weaver in the presidency. In 1962 he became District Vice President for the Great Lakes Region.

In his time as a trade unionist , he began to develop the discipline that he had lacked in his youth. He stood up for his employees and used his office as a contact point for union-related projects. It was also around this time that he began to proudly display his Irish heritage in public. He painted his office in typical green, used green letters for the statutes and drove a Cadillac in this color.

In order to enforce his demands for the union members, he gathered around himself a group of former boxers and gangsters who threatened stevedoring companies for him and thus forced them to give up. His new status brought him into the powerful areas of the criminal underworld and he began to frequent notorious nightspots. In one of them, the Theatrical Bar & Grille, he made the acquaintance of local mobster greats such as Alex "Shonder" Birns and Frank Brancato, a member of the Cleveland family .

Greene's growing interest in Cleveland nightlife should also usher in his downfall in the union. His rising spending gradually eroded his union reputation and prompted an investigation by the local newspaper The Plain Dealer, particularly by the young reporter Sam Marshall . Research by the newspaper revealed that Greene allowed his workers to work unpaid overtime. Instead, Greene kept much of the payroll to himself. The reports in the newspaper now caused an investigation by US prosecutors, the FBI , the United States Department of Labor , the National Labor Relations Board and the US Treasury . Greene has been charged with embezzlement and forgery of union records.

In 1966 he was convicted and received a five-year prison sentence , which was initially suspended because it was Greene's first criminal offense. Greene appealed , which was upheld in 1968 due to a formal error. In 1970 there was a deal ; prosecutors dropped the embezzlement charges; in return, Greene pleaded guilty to forging documents and was fined $ 10,000. In addition, he was banned from any union activity for the years to come. Before the indictment, Greene resigned from his presidential post.

Confrontation with Alex Birns

Frank Brancato appointed Greene to succeed Joseph Messina . He should recruit new members for the Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild . This made him a background figure in waste management and the illegal activities widespread there.

At the same time, however, Greene intensified his contacts with Alex "Shonder" Birns. This introduced Greene to other illegal sources of income (English rackets ) of organized crime , in particular in his experiences as a loan shark and in the lottery (English Numbers racket ).

Especially in the lottery, Birns held the leading position in Cleveland. He took Greene on as a bodyguard in his service. During an operation, Greene was supposed to use a bomb to remind a competitor of Birns that the protection money was outstanding . However, due to his inexperience with the detonator, the attack failed and the bomb exploded in Greene's car. Barely escaping, Greene suffered from chronic hearing loss . In the following years, Greene began to intensify his obsession with early Irish history, whereby he was particularly fascinated by the philosophy and history of the Celtic warrior cult.

In November 1971, Greene was targeted by a former friend and colleague of the Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild , Mike "Big Mike" Frato . He left the union after learning that his friend Greene smuggled people in through Mafia contacts in order to gain advantage for the union with their violent aid. Frato founded a new union ( Cuyahoga County Refuse Haulers Association ), which was soon able to successfully lure members away from the competition. Greene's accomplice, Art Sneperger , who occasionally carried out bomb attacks for Greene as a demolition expert, was hired by Greene in September to place a car bomb under Mike Frato's car.

But Sneperger did not carry out this assignment and instead informed Frato of the planned attack. A few days later he was contacted by the Cleveland Police, who he gave detailed information about Greene's criminal business. Sneperger is said to have called Greene an informant for the FBI. (See below: Greene as FBI informant )

On October 31, 1971, Mike Frato's car exploded outside the Cuyahoga County Refuse Haulers Association office. Police discovered a tattered corpse at the scene - but this was not Frato, but Art Sneperger . He was quoted at work by Greene on the same day (according to his girlfriend). Police investigations suspect that Greene asked Sneperger that evening to install another explosive device under Frato's car. After the work was done, Greene decided to increase the explosive strength and he asked Sneperger to go back to the car. At that moment Greene used the remote detonation of the bomb and killed Sneperger. The motive for this was presumably his conversations with the police, but Greene could never be officially proven.

On November 26th, Frato tried to shoot Greene, who was jogging, from a car. Greene shot back and hit Frato in the head. A friend took him to the hospital, but died on the way there. Greene surrendered to the police two days later, but was released days later as he was given legitimate self-defense . Only a few months later, Greene escaped another attack by a sniper . Here too, Greene took up his weapon and tried to get the assassin ; however, he was able to escape undetected. Greene soon realized that Alex Birns was the man behind these attacks.

The conflict between the two criminals began in 1970 when Greene borrowed a large sum of money from his former mentor to open a club. In return, Birns demanded the employment of an African-American drug dealer , who did his business in the club. However, only a few days later, Greene's club was the target of a raid because the African American was already under police surveillance. Birns then demanded the loaned money back from Greene, who refused.

Even when Birns revealed that the money had come from the US Mafia (Birns had contacts with the Gambino and Genovese families ), Greene refused to repay. Shortly thereafter, Birns put a $ 25,000 bounty on Greene, which resulted in the assassinations and bombings mentioned. But the more attacks Greene survived, the more fearful he became. Captivated by the identification with the ancient Celtic warriors, he was convinced of the eternal journey of his immortal soul, in which death is only a transition.

On March 29, 1975, Alex Birns was murdered by a car bomb with high explosive power in front of the Saint Malachi Church .

The conflict with the mafia

La Cosa Nostra, however, struck back shortly afterwards; In May 1975 a bomb exploded in Greene's apartment, where Greene was staying with his girlfriend. The blast injured Greene only slightly and while the entire second floor of the building slowly collapsed, Greene and his girlfriend were able to flee the apartment. However, police investigations revealed that the bomb that exploded was only part of the attack. A second explosive device, which consisted of a combination of Tetrytol and a large canister of gasoline , would have devastated the entire neighborhooddue to poor wiring. The intention was probably toincite the neighborhood against Greenewith possible collateral damage , but this failed completely. Rather, Collinwood stoodunited behind the Irishman as one of their own. Danny Greene cultivated this by and large. He began using part of his income from illegal businessto leavelarge tips or pay the bills for well-known Collinwood residents. The neighborhood developed into a network of informants for Greene, who quickly gave him interesting information when suspicious people or the FBI in the area asked questions. Just one day after the apartment exploded, Greene begansetting uptwo trailers in front of an empty building, not far from the scene. While one was used as a residential unit, the second was an office and wasdeclared thefuture home of the Celtic Club . He indicated his fearlessness after the attacks in a television interview in which he openly threatened his assassins.

“I didn't run away from the explosion. Someone said they saw me running away. I walked away. "

“I didn't run away from the explosion. Some say you saw me run away. I went."

- Danny Greene

Partnership with Nardi and the Cleveland Mafia Wars

Shortly thereafter, Daniel Greene came into contact with John Nardi , a local union official with Mafia connections. He had also had problems with the Mafia family in Cleveland recently and barely escaped several attacks on his life. This decided now with another adversary of the Cleveland family, precisely that Danny Greene, to enter into a partnership in order to take action against the enemy together. A proposal that Greene immediately responded to, also knowing that he would now have access to more traditional sources of income.

In the period that followed, what would go down in city history as the Cleveland Mafia Wars began . In 1977 alone there were 37 bombings in Cuyahoga County , including 21 in Cleveland. Then Cleveland got the nickname of the bomb capital of America. The New York Mafia Family Commission was also concerned about these events and so Anthony Salerno , the boss of the Genovese family, decided to introduce ten new members into the family who should only deal with the elimination of the "Irishman" and Nardis. Shortly afterwards, the first hit men appeared in Cleveland.

The first victim was John Nardi in May 1977 by a car bomb. Shortly before, Nardi and Greene were planning a project in Texas , which prompted Greene to consider moving to that state. However, this company failed with the death of his partner. Nevertheless, Greene was typically defiant in further interviews. In September of the same year he managed to kill another high-ranking capo with a bomb, which led the mafia family to ask for a ceasefire . Greene saw this as an opportunity to gain access to the Mafia-controlled sources of income. At a meeting with local mob giants and an envoy from the Genovese family, Greene was assured of part of the West Side gambling operation that John Nardi had previously owned. Greene agreed to the deal.

Greene's death

However, it was just a mafia tactic. Although there was a noticeable calm in Cleveland in the following period, the truce served from the start only to lull Greene into safety and to stir up hope that he would neglect his caution. A team of contract killers from outside clung to Greene's heels unnoticed and watched him over the coming months. The breakthrough came when they managed to tap Greene's friend's phone. So they got the information during a phone call that Greene was organizing an appointment at the dentist through his girlfriend because of a loose tooth filling . On October 6, 1977, Greene went to the dentist's office in the afternoon. He had previously notified a helper who was supposed to guard his car during this time. However, the latter did not receive the message in time because his pager was not active due to discharged batteries. While Greene kept his appointment, the Mafia team drove up with a car and parked this car next to Greene's car. In their vehicle they deposited a bomb, which was equipped with a remote ignition, and switched to another vehicle themselves. Just at the moment when Greene was about to unlock his car, they set off the bomb and killed Daniel Patrick "Danny, the Irishman" Greene.

Greene as an FBI informant

It was not until a few years after Greene's death that it became known that he had worked as an undercover agent for the FBI (similar to James "Whitey" Bulger ). Not much is known about the extent of his involvement, but he presumably passed information on to the FBI about rivals in the underworld. In return, he received information that should warn him of planned attacks by the mafia, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation received through wiretapping .

Greene's entry as a covert informant probably happened at the same time as his local ILA presidency. Here he was approached by FBI agent Marty McCann, who was investigating an incident involving a dock worker. He managed to recruit Greene as an informant. It is unclear whether (and if, to what extent) Greene's cooperation with the FBI ensured that he received a relatively mild sentence on his indictment, which led to his demise at the ILA. (Greene, for example, only paid a small fraction of the fine that was actually imposed.)

Movie

The biography was processed in the 2011 feature film Bulletproof Gangster (Kill the Irishman) .

literature

• TJ English: Paddy Whacked. The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster . HarperCollins 2005, ISBN 0-06-059003-3
• Rick Porrello: To Kill The Irishman. The War That Crippled The Mafia ; Next Hat Press 2001; ISBN 0-9662508-9-3

Web links

• Kill the Irishman in the German and English versions of the Internet Movie Database .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mobsters, unions, and feds: the Mafia and the American labor movement by James B. Jacobs, p. 28
2. ↑ [1] Explanation of the concept of transmigration of souls among the ancient Celts