John Roselli

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John Rosselli (right) with his lawyer Frank DeSimone , 1948

John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli alias Filippo Sacco (born July 4, 1905 in Esperia (Latium) , Italy , † August 9, 1976 in Dumfounding Bay , Florida ) was an American mobster of the Cosa Nostra and represented for and with the help of Chicago outfits whose interests in Hollywood and Las Vegas .

Roselli maintained contacts with the CIA , which, with the help of the Mafia , sought the death of Fidel Castro in the early 1960s.

In various conspiracy theories he is with the assassination of John F. Kennedy moved from 1963 in connection.

Life

John Roselli

Roselli was born Filippo Sacco . His father Vincenzo Sacco initially emigrated to the USA alone, in 1911 his family followed him to Somerville (Massachusetts) near Boston .

After Sacco was implicated in a murder in 1922 , he fled to Chicago and changed his name to John Roselli . The name pays homage to the Italian Renaissance artist Cosimo Rosselli . He became a member of the Chicago outfit and was soon referred to among gangsters as "Handsome Johnny".

Exactly when and why Roselli went to Los Angeles is unknown. Today it is assumed that he was sent by either Al Capone or Frank Nitti to represent the interests of the outfit there. In any case, he was in town in 1924 and began working there with the local family under Jack Dragna .

Hollywood and Las Vegas

Roselli became a close friend of film producer Bryan Foy ; As a co-producer in his small Eagle Lion Studio , Roselli became one of the first gangsters in the Hollywood film business and was thus involved in the exploitation of the film industry by the mafia in the 1940s. In 1940 he married Hollywood actress June Lang , who divorced a few years later.

Like many other US trade unions at the time, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees was also infiltrated by gangsters. Roselli was accused of this criminal influence along with their presidents George Brown and Willie Bioff in 1942 and arrested on March 19, 1943. He was represented by Frank DeSimone , a mobster who had also become a lawyer.

On December 30, 1943, Roselli, Paul Ricca , Phil D'Andrea , Willie Bioff and others were sentenced to long prison terms, which they were to serve in Atlanta State Prison. Detainees attempted to be transferred to Leavenworth Federal Prison , but prosecutor Boris Kostelanetz had spoken out against it. Under his successor General Clark , the transfer was carried out in July 1945 and on August 6, 1947, the prisoners were even released early on payment of a fine of 500,000 US dollars. The outfit's attorney was later found to be a personal friend of the chairman of the parole board. These remarkable circumstances led to a hearing in Congress in September 1947.

Roselli returned to Hollywood. The influence of the mobsters is particularly evident in the 1948 case of Marilyn Monroe ; Anthony Accardo put pressure on Harry Cohn  - powerful boss of Columbia Pictures  - through Roselli to sign the then completely unknown Monroe. Cohn - whose controversy was legendary - agreed straightforwardly; especially because he had built his studio with the financial help of the outfit .

In the mid-1950s, Roselli went to Las Vegas in Nevada , where he can be seen as chief representative of the Chicago outfit and the Los Angeles family from 1956 ; in particular, he should ensure that his family received the agreed shares when the casinos were skimmed off. Roselli was officially working as a film producer for Monogram Studios .

Cuban Revolution

In 1959, as a result of the Cuban Revolution, the casinos in Cuba were closed and the mobsters had to leave Cuba. Gangster bosses like Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante wanted to get the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro out of the way.

The CIA also planned the assassination of Fidel Castro ( Operation Mongoose ) for political reasons in the 1960s . On March 12, 1961, William Harvey organized a meeting with Sam Giancana , Santo Trafficante , Johnny Roselli and Robert Maheu at the Fontainebleau Hotel , which was also attended by Jim O'Connell of the CIA. At the meeting, O'Connell presented some poison pills and $ 10,000 to be used against Fidel Castro.

Roselli maintained a secret training camp for the CIA in the Florida Keys , where snipers could also be trained. After the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the camp had a high priority. Roselli's involvement there was exposed in 1971 by Jack Anderson in the Washington Post .

death

On June 24 and September 22, 1975, Roselli testified before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCIA) - chaired by Senator Frank Church  - about his involvement in Operation Mongoose . Sam Giancana  - also summoned - was murdered on June 19, 1975 shortly before the first testimony. Roselli, who had lost an important supporter in Giancana, no longer returned to Los Angeles or Las Vegas, but went to Miami , Florida .

On April 23, 1976, Roselli was summoned again to testify in the case of the murder of John F. Kennedy . When he was due to testify again three months later, that was no longer possible, since Roselli had disappeared without a trace on July 28, 1976. The search by the FBI , which the new SSCIA chairman Howard Baker had initiated on August 3, 1976, did not change anything.

On August 23, 1976, Roselli was found with her legs cut off in a 55 gallon oil drum off the coast of Florida . Roselli had been strangled. His body also had gunshot wounds.

In the movie

literature

  • Charles Rappleye & Ed Becker: All American Mafioso: The Johnny Roselli Story . Barricade Books, Inc., 1995, ISBN 1-56980-027-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CIA's Family Jewels ( English ) Retrieved on 23 May 2012 found.
  2. ^ The Free Lance Star - Google News Archive Search. In: news.google.com. September 7, 1976, accessed January 3, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Peter Dale Scott: Deep Politics and the Death of JFK . University of California Press, 1993, ISBN 9780520917842 , limited preview in Google Book Search
  4. ↑ Deep Six for Johnny (English) . In: Time Magazine , August 23, 1976. Retrieved May 23, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME Roselli, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sacco, Filippo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian-American mobster
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Esperia (Lazio) , Italy
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1976
Place of death Dumfounding Bay , Florida