Peter Morello

Giuseppe "The Clawed Hand" Morello

Giuseppe "The Clutch Hand" Morello , also known as Peter Morello (born May 2, 1867 in Corleone , Sicily , † August 15, 1930 in New York City ), was a Sicilian-American mafioso and founder of the Morello family , which today is considered the forerunner of the Genovese family . He was considered the first so-called Capo di tutti i capi (German: "Boss of all bosses"). He got his nickname "Die Klauenhand " due to a birth defect on his right hand.

biography

Early years

Giuseppe Morello was born on May 2, 1867 in Corleone (Sicily). His birth father, Calogero Morello, died when Giuseppe was five years old. A year later, his mother Angelina Piazza married the mafioso Bernardo Terranova, a member of the Corleonesi , a mafia clan from Corleone. During their marriage, the two had three sons named Vincenzo (born 1886), Ciro (born 1888) and Nicolò (born 1890), as well as two daughters Lucia (born 1877) and Salvatrice (born 1880). It is believed that Giuseppe had another sister named Maria (born 1869) from the Morello-Piazza marriage and a possible third half-sister named Rosalia (born 1892, died October 14, 1915). Giuseppe married Maria Rosa Marvalisi and in November 1892 they had their son Calogero "Charles" Morello.

Already at a young age, Giuseppe, like his stepfather, worked for the local boss Salvatore Cutrera. Giuseppe Battaglia, who later succeeded Salvatore Cutrera, is said to have been Morello's uncle. In 1892, at the age of twenty-five, Giuseppe was forced to immigrate to the United States after becoming a suspect in a Corleone murder case and compromising his counterfeit ring. Although he was now based in the United States in New York City , the Italian government took the case to court. In September 1894 he was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to 6 years in prison. His family arrived on March 8, 1893, six months after Morello's arrival in New York.

It was around this time that Morello founded the 107th Street Mob , a small gang of crooks who were involved in areas such as blackmail; that gang later came to be known as the Morello family . The family had been in New York City for over a year, but made no career progress. Giuseppe Morello went to Louisiana to live with a family cousin, and here too the entire family followed him two months later. Giuseppe and his father worked there on a sugar cane plantation for about a year and then went to Bryan, Texas as a cotton picker, but gave up the job when family members fell ill with malaria .

new York

In 1896 the family was back in New York City, again it was Giuseppe and his father who initially worked as pavers, possibly also running a small coal shop, but then from 1898 opened a pub on 13th Street and soon after a second on Stanton Street . In 1898, Morello's wife Maria Rosa Marvalisi died and sometime in the early 1900s he married Nicolina "Lena" Salemi. On June 11, 1900, Giuseppe "Peter" Morello and Calagero Meggiore were sentenced to a fine of 5,000 US dollars for possession and distribution of counterfeit money. The conviction was the result of an intelligence operation carried out when poor quality counterfeit $ 5 bills appeared in Brooklyn and North Beach . The case became known as the "Morristown Fives" because the $ 5 printing plate used was stolen from the National Iron Bank in Morristown .

In 1902, Morello and his (half) brother Ciro Terranova acquired a restaurant on 8 Prince St. in Manhattan , which became the official meeting place for the gang. In the adjoining house No. 9 was the import shop of Ignazio "Lupo" Saietta , the boss of the Black Hand Gang , with whom Giuseppe now re-entered the counterfeit money business. This time, however, the quality of the notes was excellent. Ignazio married Morello's half-sister Salvatrice in 1903. Morello built his empire on the basis of his merciless order of death sentences against all who dared to stand against him. Ignazio, his chief executor, is said to have been responsible for more than sixty murders over a period of 10 years. By 1905, Morello had built the largest Italian-American mafia clan in the United States, and illegally earned money was then legitimized through legitimate family-owned businesses such as shops and restaurants.

The corpse in the barrel

Barrel murder suspects

On April 14, 1903, at 743 East 11th Street, not far from the corner of Avenue D, a body was found in a sugar bowl that had been covered with a coat.

The case became known as " Barrel Murder " (German: barrel murder). In the course of the investigation, nine people - including Peter Morello - were arrested. The man killed with 18 stab wounds was last seen alive when he entered Peter's shop . In addition, the sugar barrel could be assigned to the Wallace & Thompson company , which only had one Sicilian customer: Peter Inzerillo , who was a member of the group around Peter Morello . In addition, cigar stubs corresponding to the preferred brand of Peter Morello had been found in the sawdust at the bottom of the barrel .

Finally, the Italian-American policeman Joseph Petrosino managed to identify the body. Petrosino asked Giuseppe De Primo , who was incarcerated in Sing Sing, who recognized his brother-in-law Benedetto Madonia in a photo . He also admitted that he and his brother-in-law had been involved in a counterfeit money distribution and that his brother-in-law had been commissioned to retrieve his property from Peter Morello .

When the dead man's wristwatch could also be secured in a pawn shop , which had been handed in there by Tomasso Petto , who also belonged to Peter Morello's environment , the content of the case was in principle cleared up. However, there was no conviction. In court, all witnesses adhered to the mafia's duty of confidentiality, the Omertà , and De Primo no longer made any useful testimony either.

Sicilian connections

There are many indications that the new forgeries were made in Italy, so Vito Cascio Ferro could have been the necessary contact person to the Sicilian mafia. But the new distribution of the better forgeries from Italy could also be traced. Becoming aware of the Barrel murder, Joseph Petrosino had taken further investigations and measures. It became known to the public that it was apparently possible for Sicilians to legally wield a weapon in New York just 28 days after entering the country. Morello and his entourage all had a gun license . Shortly after an article in the New York Herald , the police chief revoked 322 gun licenses in the city.

In 1909 the Secret Service succeeded in smashing the entire counterfeit ring. The trial began on January 26, 1910 and the verdict was passed on February 19, 1910: Ignazio Saietta was fined 30 years and fined $ 1,000, his brother-in-law Peter Morello was fined 25 years and fined $ 1,000. The other accomplices: Giuseppe Calicchio , 17 years old, fine of 600 US dollars; Giuseppe Palermo, 18 years old, $ 1,000 fine; Nicola Sylvestro, Cantonio Cecala, Vincenzo Giglio, and Salvatore Cina each 15 years and $ 1,000 fine. In addition, were Saietta and Morello taken to a labor camp in Atlanta. Half of the penalties were imposed because of the old "Morristown Fives" case, the reason for the other half was the continuation of the counterfeit money distribution with new production and help from the Sicilian Cosa Nostra .

Change of power

Giuseppe's youngest half-brother, Nicholas Terranova, took control of the family with the help of his older brothers Vincenzo and Ciro. Under his leadership, the typical structure arose as it still applies to the American Cosa Nostra today. Between 1914 and 1918 there was a conflict with the Neapolitan Camorra in Brooklyn. Around 1919, after several years of mutual murders with constantly changing coalitions, the Camorra finally lost the war due to criminal trials. However, Nicholas Terranova also died on September 7, 1916 during the conflict. After Nicholas was assassinated, Vincent Terranova took over and maintained control of the family with his brother and underboss Ciro Terranova . While his brother Ciro gained the monopoly on artichokes , Vincent became quite wealthy in the 1920s thanks to alcohol smuggling prohibition . Many former Brooklyn Camorra members (e.g. Umberto Valenti ) joined the Morello family.

In 1920 Morello was released from prison along with Ignazio Lupo. The balance of power in New York City within the American Cosa Nostra had changed during the ten years in prison. For the freed Giuseppe, his original management position - many saw (and see) him at his wedding as the de facto "boss of all bosses" - was lost to others anyway. Nicola Gentile - according to his own account in his biography - a traveling mafia diplomat between Italy and the United States, describes his efforts for Peter Morello during his short-term exile in Sicily in 1919, where he especially hoped to avoid his potential assassination and to solve the problem non-violently. Gentile himself was in Sicily for similar reasons. One of Gentile's allies was in turn a rival of Peter within the Morello Terranova clan: Umberto Valenti , who apparently wanted to put himself at the head of the Morello Terranova family and had Vincent Terranova eliminated in 1922. However, he himself was murdered in the same year. His murder is said to have been organized by the young Lucky Luciano , who worked for Joe Masseria and thus in turn brought his boss to the head of the "family" which he himself was soon to lead and which was classified as a Genovese family under his successor Vito Genovese .

Diplomatic mediation succeeded at the latest after the question of power had been resolved: Peter returned to New York, subordinated himself to Joe Masseria and was soon considered to be his consigliere , who, however, could continue to be quite active.

War of Castellammare

Masseria itself was now regarded as “Capo di tutti i capi” and essentially the structure of the later Five Families in New York had already emerged. With Salvatore Maranzano , who had arrived in New York (not before 1918) , this supremacy of Masseria was called into question and a conflict between the two within the families became apparent. Apparently - Gentile and Joseph Bonanno assume - it was Morello's task to diplomatically resolve the conflict in the sense of masseria, which in Mafia circles can also mean exploring a violent solution and "politically" preparing it. However, he could not bring this project to a successful conclusion.

Peter Morello was shot dead in his office in East Harlem on August 15, 1930, along with his debt collector Giuseppe Periano . This murder is now considered to be the prelude to the so-called War of Castellammare , whose first victim is Peter Morello and which ended with the murder of Maranzano.

Due to the old conflict between Masseria and Morello, there was a defensive thesis - mainly by non-members of the Mafia - that Masseria herself should have been involved in the murder of Peter Morello. In any case, with the murder of Nick and Peter Morello, Masseria had lost important and experienced allies and ultimately became the (before) last victim in the “War of Castellammare”.

But even so, the perpetrators remained controversial: Lucky Luciano claimed that the perpetrators were Francesco Scalice and Albert Anastasia , who were up-and-coming members of the Gambino family at the time and who supported Salvatore Maranzano. The Pentito Joe Valachi later named as a murderer a person who, even in the gangster milieu, should only have been known as Buster from Chicago . This statement by Valachi is controversial and there is the assumption that Valachi only wanted to cover up his own perpetration in the murder of Peter Morello.

literature

• Mike Dash: The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia. [About the Morello Clan]. Ballantine Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84737-173-7 (print); ISBN 978-1-58836-863-8 (eBook)

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} The American Mafia - Sinistro: The Underworld Career of Giuseppe Morello (1867-1930) ( Memento of the original from November 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Critchley p.51-54
3. ^ David Critchley: The Origin of Organized Crime in America: the New York City Mafia, 1891-1931 . Routledge, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-99030-1 , pp. 37-40.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} American Mafia History - Giuseppe “The Clutch Hand” Morello - The First “Capo di Tutti Capi” of New York
5. ↑ John Dickie: Cosa nostra: The history of the mafia. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-17106-4
6. ↑ Gangrule - Mafia: The Morello Family
7. ↑ www.onewal.com ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
8. ↑ GangRule - Giosue Gallucci
9. ^ The Brooklyn Daily Eagle - Camorra Secrets Revealed at Trial
10. ↑ GangRule - The Struggle for Control
11. ^ The New York Times - 2 Die In Pistol Fight on Brooklyn Street
12. ↑ Nicola Gentile & Felice Chilanti: Vito di capo mafia , Editori Riunit, Rome 1963
13. ↑ The American Mafia - History of the Mafia Section III ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ^ Joseph Bonanno: A Man of Honor. , Buccaneer Books 1998. ISBN 978-1-5684-9722-8

Web links

• Gravestone on www.findagrave.com (English)