Umberto Valenti

Umberto Valenti (* 1895 - August 11, 1922 in New York City ) alias Rocco Valenti was an Italian-American Camorrista and underboss of the Morello family .

As the alleged perpetrator in the murder of Vincent Terranova , on the one hand he ultimately gave his opponent Joe Masseria supremacy in the Morello Terranova clan, on the other hand he took an important ally from him in the later war of Castellammare .

biography

Even before Valenti joined the Italian-Neopolitan Navy St. Gang in the early 1910s , he was known only as Rocco Valenti. On July 20, 1916, he murdered Joe DeMarco and Charles Lombardi, along with Nick Sassi , another gang member . At this time, the Neopolitan Camorra was at war with the Sicilian Mafia.

Valenti was not arrested by Michael Meali until September 7, 1916, after Nicholas Morello and Charles Ubriaco had been killed in a shooting in a public billiard room . The allegation only related to the carrying of a hidden weapon and Valenti was released.

It was not until January 26, 1918, that Valenti was brought to justice for the double murder of DeMarco and Lombardi and was imprisoned for ten months. As a result of the so-called Mafia Camorra War , Valenti became the best shooter in New York and has been linked to a total of over twenty murders.

In 1920 Umberto visited Nicola Gentile in Cleveland, with whom he was considered an ally. He himself had become an underboss in the Morello family . Umberto was obviously under pressure from " Mustache Pete " Toto D'Aquila and told Gentile about an attack on his life. They decided to take action against D'Aquila together. Gentile later returned to Sicily to organize the resistance from there.

Obviously it was about the supremacy in the Morello Terranova clan, which controlled most of New York City at the time , and Umberto Valenti also belonged to this gangster complex, which played a key role and from which the mafia, later classified as the Genovese family , was formed -Clan crystallized.

In the power struggle, "Rocco" is said to be responsible for the murder of Vincent Terranova on May 8, 1922, who was considered a strong supporter of Joe Masseria . In a first attack on "Rocco" on the same day, his bodyguard Silva Tagliagamba was killed, Rocco Valenti escaped and Joe Masseria's escape was observed, but the crime could not be proven. This same-day attack feeds the alternative thesis Masseria was also the perpetrator at Terranova and wanted to assert himself violently in the family anyway.

The successful attack on "Rocco" himself was probably organized by Lucky Luciano , a subordinate of Masseria from the very beginning, and carried out on August 11, 1922. A trap is said to have been set for Umberto Valenti; d. H. Joe Masseria apparently announced his retirement as boss. When Umberto Valenti was leaving a restaurant , he was shot dead in the street at number 233 on East 12th Street .

Joe Masseria had finally prevailed and many men from Ciro Terranova and Umberto Valenti now moved under his command, which laid the foundation of the La Cosa Nostra clan in New York City, which was later classified as the Genovese family .

literature

• Davis Critchley: The Origin of Organized Crime: The New York City Mafia, 1891-1931 . New York, Routledge, 2008.
• Mike Dash : The First Family: Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia . London, Simon & Schuster, 2009.
• Carl Sifakis: The Mafia Encyclopedia . New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Tales of the Artichoke King" by Allan May at www.crimemagazine.com
2. ↑ History of the Mafia on archived copy ( 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.