'Monk' indicted for assault

Gang leader caught after shootout with Pinkertons

On this date in 1904:

Eastman

A New York grand jury on February 4, 1904, indicted gang leader Edward "Monk" Eastman for assault and attempted murder. He was charged with attacking and trying to kill agents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who confronted him after he robbed a drunk man of some cash two days earlier.

Eastman, his pal Christopher Wallace and other members of Eastman's gang ventured beyond the confines of their usual Lower East Side territory in the early morning of February 2. On Forty-second Street in Midtown, they spotted a drunk young man counting out cash in a doorway. Eastman and Wallace advanced. Eastman delivered a devastating punch to the man's abdomen, while Wallace grabbed the money.

Two Pinkerton agents, George F. Bryan and John Rogers, then jumped out at the robbers. A scuffle occurred, handguns were drawn and shots were fired. Additional Eastman gangsters rushed in to help Eastman and Wallace escape the Pinkertons. The group ran off on Forty-second Street toward Broadway. But they ran right into New York Police Officer Healy.

Once arrested, Wallace confessed to attempted grand larceny and is believed to have cooperated in the case against Eastman.

At trial in April, it was revealed that the Eastmans' robbery target had been a wayward son of the wealthy Wetmore family and the Pinkertons had been hired by the family to watch over him.

Eastman was convicted of felonious assault. General Sessions Court Judge John W. Goff sentenced him on April 19 to ten years in Sing Sing Prison, the maximum term allowed. The cooperative Wallace was sentenced to just two and a half years for his part in the crime.

While held at Tombs Prison in Manhattan awaiting transfer to Sing Sing, Monk Eastman was interviewed by New York reporters. He expressed just one concern: several of his pet pigeons had eggs that were ready to hatch and he hoped to learn "how they came out" before he was taken out of the city.

Sing Sing Admission Register

He entered Sing Sing on April 22. He would serve better than seven years of his sentence before being released. 

Much more on Monk Eastman and other gangsters of Manhattan's Lower East Side can be found in the 2023 issue of Informer: The History of U.S. Crime and Law Enforcement (available in magazine, book and electronic formats).

Sources:

• Edward Eastman, no. 54863, Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, received April 22, 1904.
• "Monk Eastman in pistol battle," New York Evening World, Feb. 2, 1904, p. 2
• "'Monk' Eastman now indicted," New York Evening World, Feb. 4, 1904, p. 3.
• "Monk Eastman on trial," New York Sun, April 13, 1904, p. 12.
• "Monk's pal gets light sentence," New York Evening World, April 21, 1904, p. 7.
• Statement of commitments to the Sing Sing State Prison during the month of April 1904.
• "Ten years for 'Monk,'" New York Daily Tribune, April 20, 1904, p. 6.

Anastasia tale told by his priest brother

I've been reading Anastasia Mio Fratello (Edizioni di Novissima, 1967), written by Albert Anastasia's little brother, Rev. Salvatore Anastasio, a Roman Catholic priest who served for a time in New York City parishes before returning to his native Calabria. 

It's a plodding effort for me, as I'm virtually illiterate in Italian and need to work on translating as I go. I've gotten through Father Salvatore's discussion of the murder of Joseph Terella (pages 58 through 66). This was the murder for which Albert Anastasia was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair (reversed on appeal). 

Father Salvatore insisted that he researched this matter more carefully than any other in the book. (He wrote: "...io abbia dedicato ad esso le ricerche più accurate.") So, we should be free to gauge his commitment to accuracy by seeing how well he did here: 

• Well, he misspelled the victim's name (but, OK, nearly everyone has done that - I recall spelling Terella's name a number of different ways over the years). 
• Father Salvatore placed the killing on May 19, 1921, when it was actually one year and a few days earlier, Terella died in Long Island College Hospital on May 17, 1920, of injuries suffered the previous day. 
• He indicated the murder was committed through repeated stabbings with a steel hook. The real cause of death was a gunshot wound to the belly that sliced through the liver, pancreas, several vertebrae and other stuff, causing internal hemorrhage. 
• Anastasia, he claimed, was working each day at the Brooklyn docks during the period of the murder and its aftermath. But, really, Anastasia took off and hid in Providence, Rhode Island, after the murder. 
• Father Salvatore said that Anastasia's enemies brought four longshoremen into court to lie about witnessing Anastasia murder Terella. The state's case actually had one key witness, a woman.
• Father Salvatore's account neglected to mention Anastasia's pal Giuseppe Florino, who was also convicted of this murder, also faced execution and also was later freed.

Terella death certificate.

In almost every detail, aside from the mention that Anastasia was convicted of this murder and later freed, Father Salvatore's account was lacking.

Interestingly, the author stated that an unnamed Calabrian, who felt protective toward Anastasia, acted on his own and without Anastasia's knowledge to kill Terella after it became clear that Terella and his friends (motivated by envy) intended to harm Anastasia. The supposed killer reportedly admitted his crime to Father Salvatore, with Albert Anastasia present, when the Father confronted Anastasia in 1950 about his criminal reputation. The Calabrian said he had been willing to admit his guilt at the time of Anastasia's trial, but Anastasia would not put the man in harm's way and made him swear to keep quiet about it.

It is a nice story. But it seems no more than that. The author, in this case and others. apparently was willing to go to any lengths to deny what everyone else knows to be true: Albert Anastasia was a ruthless and accomplished killer.

By the way, Father Salvatore's book was turned into a movie, released in 1973, just as Father Salvatore passed away. He did not live long enough to see it, and before his death expressed concern that it would not help to repair the reputation of his long-deceased brother. The movie, starring Alberto Sordi as the priest and Richard Conte as Albert Anastasia, is generally billed as a comedy. If anything about the film can be said to be humorous, it is Father Salvatore's blissful ignorance of his brother's long-term role as a gangland boss.

Still from movie Anastasia Mio Fratello

New in paperback: Fred 'Killer' Burke

Just released: Fred “Killer” Burke: The Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive by Chriss Lyon. The book is available in paperback, 394 pages, through Amazon.

This is an updated special edition of A Killing in Capone’s Playground: The True Story of the Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive, which won a National Indie Excellence Award for True Crime in 2016. It includes new details and photographs acquired since the earlier book's release in 2014.

“Bloody Chicago” was the name given to America’s most corrupt city after the grotesque scene that left seven humans embedded into masonry walls and oil-slickened concrete. Two Thompson submachine guns did the majority of the damage, but the masterminds behind the St. Valentine's Day Massacre escaped. Ten months later on December 14, 1929, St. Joseph, Michigan Police Officer Charles Skelly, working a routine traffic crash, came face to face with a killer.

Shots were fired, the assailant escaped, and the dying Officer Skelly identified his murderer before taking his last breath. The trail led to a home in Stevensville, Michigan, where authorities found an arsenal of weaponry, over $300,000 worth of stolen bonds, bulletproof vests and two Thompson submachine guns. The hideout belonged to Fred Burke, a highly sought suspect in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the most wanted man in the nation.

Lyon

The “backwash of bloody Chicago” had made its way into the rural neighborhoods of Southwestern Michigan and Northern Indiana. Citizens who turned a blind eye to crime helped create “Capone’s Playground,” an environment abundant in all that is illegal and immoral.

Using unpublished police reports, interviews with family members of key witnesses and leading experts, historian Chriss Lyon establishes the foundation for what would develop as a haven for gangsters from the onset of the Prohibition Era through to the mid-twentieth century, while revealing new information about the eventual capture of notorious gangster Fred “Killer” Burke.

Chriss Lyon, a retired public safety professional and historian, has not only walked the beat but shot the most famous Thompson submachine guns in the world, all while documenting and researching the historic era of "The Roaring Twenties." Using techniques of forensic genealogy combined with investigative research, Lyon has been able to uncover little known facts about the people and events surrounding the notorious St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Ex-New England boss Manocchio dies

Former New England Mafia boss Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, known by the nickname "Baby Shacks," died Sunday, December 8, 2024, at the age of ninety seven. He was a resident of the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol, Rhode Island, at the time of his death.

Manocchio

Manocchio was the last New England crime boss based in Rhode Island before the mob's power center shifted back to Boston. He term as boss began with the 1995 arrest of Boston-based leader Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, and it concluded with his retirement in 2009.

Manocchio was born in Providence in June of 1927. He provided birth dates of June 9 and June 23 for official records. His parents were Nicola and Anna Mary Marino Manocchio. His father, Nicola, originally from the community of Baranello, within Campobasso, Molise, Italy, settled on Providence's Acorn Street with his family while still a minor. Anna Mary was a Rhode Island native born to immigrants from Pietra Vairano, Caserta, Campania, Italy. She was raised on Vinton Street, near Gesler Street, about a block south of Atwells Avenue in the northern portion of Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Anna Mary was not yet fifteen when she and Nicola were married on May 17, 1921. 

Luigi Giovanni Manocchio was the second son born to Nicola and Anna Mary. Five years separated him from older brother Andrew. A third brother, Anthony, was born more than a decade after Luigi, about 1939.

Luigi grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood on Providence's Federal Hill during the desperate years of the Great Depression. The family home in 1930 was an apartment at 34 Vinton Street, close to Gesler Street. Nicola worked in the Fulford Manufacturing Company jewelry factory in East Providence. Soon after the state census of 1936, the family moved to 36 Gesler Street. Nicola was a foreman for Fulford by that time, and Andrew had begun work in jewelry manufacturing.

At the age of eighteen, early in 1946, Luigi Manocchio enlisted at Boston as a private in the U.S. Army. His enlistment stated his education included just one year of high school and his civil occupation was "semi-skilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck and tractor." His term in the Army lasted just one year. He was discharged in March 1947. The reason for the discharge is uncertain. He returned to live with his parents and little brother, then residing at 17 Vinton Street just south of Atwells Avenue. 

Luigi Manocchio's first known arrest occurred in December of 1952. He and two accomplices were charged with the $3,800 gunpoint robbery of a D.R. Carner Company payroll truck. Initially charged with two counts of assault and robbery, illegal possession of a revolver and driving a stolen car, Manocchio managed to have all but the possession charge dropped. He received a suspended sentence.

In the later 1960s, Manocchio was apparently part of the Providence Mafia organization run by Raymond L.S. Patriarca out of the Coin-O-Matic Distributing Company headquarters on Atwells Avenue. He had acquired the nickname "Baby Shacks," an apparent reference to an older underworld-connected relative known as "Shacks" for his common practice of "shacking up" with women. 

Patriarca

At that time, Patriarca had a brief conflict with the Marfeo brothers, stubbornly independent gambling racketeers in Providence. On July 13, 1966, William Marfeo was shot four times in a Federal Hill restaurant phone booth. He died on the way to Rhode Island Hospital. Press reports indicated that the forty-one-year-old Marfeo had a police record dating back twenty-five years. Manocchio, then forty two, was shot and wounded in the neck in a gunfight on Federal Hill on December 1, 1967. Police later arrested his pal Joseph A. Schiavone, who was found to be carrying a pistol. They initially (and, it seems, incorrectly) charged Schiavone with committing the shooting assault of Manocchio. According to reports, Manocchio and Schiavone went into hiding in the Midwest for a time until the matter was forgotten.

Rudolph Marfeo, younger brother of the murdered William, was struck and killed by a shotgun discharge on April 20, 1968, while in Pannone's Market, 282 Pocasset Street in Providence. His associate and supposed bodyguard Anthony Melei was also killed. The market was a regular hangout for Marfeo, who lived in an apartment upstairs. Police determined that Patriarca had ordered the killing of Marfeo because, despite what occurred to his brother, he still refused to share the proceeds of his gambling operations with the crime family. The order reportedly was passed through Patriarca aide Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Manocchio was one of the men accused of taking part in the planning of the hit.

In the fall of 1968, Manocchio was arrested in connection with the killings of Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei. By that time, Patriarca and two codefendants had already been convicted of the earlier murder of William Marfeo. Manocchio was released on bail and promptly disappeared. 

A nationwide search was conducted for him over the course of the next decade. The FBI watched and repeatedly questioned those known to be close to him, including attorney and friend Thomas DiLuglio and Manocchio's brother Anthony, by then a practicing medical doctor. FBI agents received tips that Manocchio was hiding in New York with Nicholas Bianco. A Providence native and a former New England mafioso, Bianco had relocated to Brooklyn and associated himself with the Colombo Crime Family. Agents found no evidence to support the tip and learned from police agencies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that there was no information connecting Manocchio with Bianco. Interviewed by the FBI in autumn 1970, Bianco denied knowing Manocchio. Agents also looked into tips that Manocchio was in Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Baltimore, Maryland; Florida; various locations in Europe.

During Manocchio's absence, Patriarca's problems grew. He was tried (acquitted) for loan sharking in 1969 and indicted in that same year of conspiracy to murder in the Rudolph Marfeo case. He and four codefendants were convicted in March 1970. The different cases and convictions resulted in Patriarca being transferred back and forth between state and federal lockups. He was paroled from his last remaining state sentence early in 1975. (He faced additional charges of murder conspiracy and labor racketeering late in life but died in 1984 before those could be brought to trial.)

Manocchio surrendered himself to authorities on July 13, 1979, apparently believing that advancing years and declining mental faculties of a key witness against him would prevent him from being convicted. However, a jury found him guilty as an accessory to murder in 1983, and he was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences plus ten years. He won release on bail during a 1985 appeal and succeeded in having his conviction overturned.

The later 1980s saw Manocchio rise to become a powerful leader in the New England Crime Family and a close ally of Boston-based "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Manocchio reportedly oversaw bookmaking, loan sharking and robbery rackets in Rhode Island. He used a Federal Hill laundromat as his headquarters and lived modestly in an apartment above the Euro Bistro restaurant on Atwells Avenue. Overall leadership of the New England organization was cloudy in the period. Patriarca was succeeded for a time by his son. Factions emerged and some violence erupted. Bianco returned to New England to oversee operations for a time, but he was removed by a successful prosecution for racketeering conspiracy. By 1991, Salemme was in control.

Manocchio (1990s)

A reputed hit man, Kevin Hanrahan was murdered in 1992. Law enforcement later learned that Hanrahan had been involved in a failed effort to murder Manocchio through a bombing of the Euro Bistro. Statements obtained for court documents indicated that Salemme and Manocchio planned the vendetta murder of Hanrahan, but neither Mafia leader was charged.

Salemme was taken into custody in 1995, and Manocchio was elevated to the position of boss. In the following year, Manocchio was tied in with a large New England burglary ring. Investigators learned that he installed stolen appliances, gifted to him as tribute from ring members, in an apartment he renovated for his mother. After some negotiations, Manocchio pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of accepting stolen applicance and received a suspended sentence. 

FBI agents in 2008 linked Manocchio to the extortion of protection payments from Providence-area strip clubs, but he was not immediately prosecuted. Perhaps anticipated the case against him, in 2009, Manocchio decided to step down from New England Mafia leadership. The federal extortion case proceeded in 2011 with his January arrest at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. The case involved threats of violence against strip club owners if monthly payments were not provided. Though Manocchio insisted that he had never threatened anyone, early in 2012 he reached another plea deal. He admitted conspiring in a racketeering enterprise. On May 11 of that year, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. He made a brief comment at his sentencing hearing: "By virtue of my position, I inherited the deeds of my associates. I simply do not want my family and my friends to think that I personally threatened anyone."

He was released from federal prison in North Carolina in 2015 and was allowed to spend six remaining months of his sentence in home confinement. He reportedly lived quietly through his remaining years.

Sources

• "Alleged N.E. Cosa Nostra chieftain faces trial," Springfield MA Union, Dec. 14, 1967, p. 15.
• Barry, Dan, "R.I. crime figure Nicholas Bianco dies in prison," Providence Journal, Nov. 15, 1994, p. 1.
• Berger, Joseph, "Raymond Patriarca, 76 dies; New England crime figure," New York Times, July 12, 1984.
• Clendinen, Dudley, "Of crime, equal rights and a mental hospital," New York Times, Nov. 5, 1984.
• Connolly, Richard J., and Jim Calogero, "Raymond Patriarca dies at 76; reputedly ruled N.E. organized crime," Boston Globe, July 12, 1984.
• "FBI nabs a fifth in R.I. gang killings," Newport RI Daily News, Aug. 15, 1969, p. 1.
• "Gang killing being probed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, July 14, 1966, p. 13.
• "Hub death may be gang slaying; man also wounded in Rhode Island," Holyoke MA Transcript-Telegram, Dec. 1, 1967, p. 14.
• Krupa, Gregg, "A look inside the Boston mob," Providence Journal, May 26, 1985, p. A1.
• Louis Manocchio World War II Army Enlistment Record, Fort Banks, Boston MA, service no. 31507596, Jan. 10, 1946.
• MacGougall, Ian, "Reputed mob boss pleads not guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 25, 2011, p. B3.
• Marriages registered in the City of Providence R.I. for the Year Ending December 31st, 1921, p. 197, Ancestry.com.
• McWeeney, Sean M., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio... Fugitive," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-42, NARA no. 124-10212-10052, Oct. 23, 1969.
• Mooney, Tom, "'I inherited the deeds of my associates,'" Providence Journal, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Murphy, Shelley, "Reputed ex-N.E. mob boss arrested," Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 2011, p. 1.
• Nicola Manocchio World War I Draft Registration, serial no. 3871, order no. 3746, Division No. 9, Providence RI, Sept. 12, 1918.
• Nicola Manocchio World War II Draft Registration, serial no. T-790, oreder no. T10-160, Local Board No. 11, Providence RI, Feb. 16, 1942.
• "Patriarca is released in $25,000 bail; arrested for first time in 20 years," Nashua NH Telegraph, June 22, 1967, p. 20.
• "Patriarca jailed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 19, 1969, p. 5.
• "Patriarca released on parole," Berkshire Eagle, Jan. 9, 1975, p. 8.
• "Patriarca, 2 others sentence date set," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 9, 1968, p. 1.
• "Patriarca, four others convicted," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 28, 1970, p. 1.
• "Patriarca: The man and the mob," Providence Journal, July 15, 1984.
• "Raymond Patriarca," TIME, July 23, 1984, p. 103.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchi, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-98, NARA no. 124-10207-10267, Sept. 25, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-100, NARA no. 124-10207-10269, Oct. 30, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio," FBI report BS 166-845, NARA #124-10207-10271, Jan. 29, 1971. 
• State of Rhode Island Census, Providence County, Providence City, Census Tract 253, Jan. 20, 1936.
• Sullivan, John G., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-120, NARA no. 127-10207-10290, Jan. 31, 1972.
• "Two men slain gangland-style in Providence," Boston Globe, April 21, 1968, p. 22.
• "Two mob members admit to extortion," Boston Globe, March 14, 2012, p. B2.
• United States Census of 1920, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 286.
• United States Census of 1930, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 4-104.
• United States Census of 1940, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 13, Enumeration District 6-253.
• United States Census of 1950, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Enumeration District 7-366.
• White, Tim, "Manocchio, last New England mob boss from Rhode Island, dead at 97," WPRI, wpri.com, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Valencia, Milton J., "5 Mafia figures to plead guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 17, 2012, p. B1.
• Valencia, Milton J., "Former N.E. mob boss gets 5 1/2 years," Boston Globe, May 12, 2012, p. B2.