Vito Genovese

Vito Genovese was an Italian-born American mafioso and the leader of the Genovese crime family in New York City. A childhood friend and criminal associate of Lucky Luciano, Genovese took part in the Castellammarese War and helped Luciano shape the Mafia's rise as a major force in organized crime in the United States. He would later lead Luciano's crime family, which was renamed by the FBI after Genovese in 1957.
Along with Luciano, Genovese facilitated the expansion of the heroin trade to an international level. He fled to Italy in 1937, and for a brief period during World War II he supported Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime for fear of being deported back to the U.S. to face murder charges. After returning to the U.S. in 1945, Genovese served as mentor to Vincent "Chin" Gigante, the future boss of the Genovese family.
In 1957, Genovese vied for the title of capo di tutti capi by ordering the murder of Albert Anastasia and the botched hit of Frank Costello. Immediately following this, he called a mafia summit to consolidate his power, but the meeting was raided by police. In 1959, Genovese's reign was cut short as he was convicted on narcotics conspiracy charges and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. While he and his underling Joe Valachi were in prison together, Valachi killed an inmate he thought to be a hitman sent by Genovese. Valachi then became a government witness. Genovese died in prison on February 14, 1969.

Early life

Vito Genovese was born on November 21, 1897, in Risigliano, a frazione in the comune of Tufino, in the Province of Naples, Italy. His father was Frances Felice Genovese and his mother Nunziata Aluotto. Vito had a sister, Giovanna Jennie, along with two brothers, Michael and Carmine, who later joined Genovese's crime family. His cousin, Michael, became boss of the Pittsburgh crime family.
As a child in Italy, Genovese completed school only to the American equivalent of the fifth grade. In 1913, when Genovese was aged 15, his family immigrated to the United States onboard the SS Taormina and took up residence in New York City's Little Italy.
Until 1934, Genovese lived in New York City. In 1935, looking for country retreat for his family, Genovese purchased a mansion in rural Middletown Township, New Jersey. The mansion's grounds were extensively landscaped into Italian gardens evoking Genovese's homeland, and included a small rock replica of Mount Vesuvius. Today, it is the site of a public botanical gardens called Deep Cut Gardens.
In 1937 while Genovese was in Italy due to the Boccia murder, the mansion burnt down and was never rebuilt. After the mansions' destruction, he and his family lived a quiet life in a house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.

Criminal career

Genovese started his criminal career stealing merchandise from pushcart vendors and running errands for mobsters. He later collected money from people who played illegal lotteries. At 19, Genovese spent a year in prison for illegal possession of a firearm.
By the 1920s, Genovese started working for Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, the boss of a powerful Manhattan gang that would evolve into the family he would eventually lead. Charlie Luciano and his close associates started working for gambler Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, who immediately saw the potential windfall from Prohibition and educated Luciano on running bootleg alcohol as a business. Luciano, Frank Costello, and Genovese started their own bootlegging operation with financing from Rothstein.
In 1930, Genovese was indicted on counterfeiting charges when police found $1 million of counterfeit US currency in a Bath Beach, Brooklyn, workshop. Later in 1930, Genovese allegedly murdered Gaetano Reina, the leader of a Bronx-based gang. Reina had been a Masseria ally, but Masseria decided to kill him after he began to suspect him of secretly helping Masseria's archrival, Brooklyn gang leader Salvatore Maranzano. On February 26, 1930, Genovese allegedly ambushed Reina as he was leaving his mistress's house in the Bronx and shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun. Masseria then took direct control of the Reina gang.

Castellammarese War

In early 1930, the Castellammarese War broke out between Masseria and Maranzano. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer the death of his boss, Masseria, in return for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. On April 15, 1931, Luciano had lured Masseria to a meeting where he was murdered at a restaurant called Nuova Villa Tammaro on Coney Island. While they played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to the bathroom, with the gunmen reportedly being Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel; Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car, but legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and had to be shoved out of the driver's seat by Siegel. Luciano took over Masseria's family, with Genovese as his underboss.
In September 1931, Luciano and Genovese planned the murder of Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano had received word that Maranzano was planning to kill him and Genovese, and prepared a hit team to kill Maranzano first. On September 10, 1931, when Maranzano summoned Luciano, Genovese, and Frank Costello to a meeting at his office, they knew Maranzano would kill them there. Instead, Luciano sent to Maranzano's office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been secured with the aid of Meyer Lansky and Siegel. Luciano subsequently created The Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime.
In 1931, Genovese's first wife, Donata Ragone, died of tuberculosis and he quickly announced his intention to marry Anna Petillo, who was already married to Gerard Vernotico.
On March 16, 1932, Vernotico was found strangled to death on a Manhattan rooftop, and on March 28, 1932, Genovese married his widow, Anna, who was Genovese's cousin via her mother, Concetta y Cassini Genovese.

Boccia murder and flight to Italy

In 1934, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of mobster Ferdinand Boccia. Genovese and Boccia had conspired to cheat a wealthy gambler out of $150,000 in a high-stakes card game. After the game, Boccia demanded a share of $35,000 because he had introduced the victim to Genovese. Rather than pay Boccia anything, Genovese decided to have him murdered. On September 19, 1934, Genovese and five associates allegedly shot and killed Boccia in a coffee shop in Brooklyn.
On June 18, 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison as a result of his conviction on pandering. With Luciano's imprisonment, Genovese became acting boss of the Luciano crime family.
On November 25, 1936, Genovese became a naturalized United States citizen in New York City. On January 10, 1937, fearing prosecution for the Boccia murder, Genovese fled to Italy with $750,000 cash and settled in the city of Nola, near Naples. With Genovese's departure, Costello became acting boss.
After bribing some fascist party members, Genovese became a friend of Galeazzo Ciano, Benito Mussolini's son-in-law; it is believed Genovese provided Ciano with cocaine. Genovese donated nearly $4 million to Mussolini's fascist party by the end of World War II. He was also awarded the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and made a commendatore, after he participated in helping create a new fascist party headquarters in Nola.
In 1943, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of Carlo Tresca, the publisher of an anarchist newspaper in New York and an enemy of Mussolini. Genovese allegedly facilitated the murder as a favor to the Italian government. On January 11, 1943, a gunman shot and killed Tresca outside his newspaper office in Manhattan. The shooter was later alleged to be Carmine Galante, a member of the Bonanno crime family. No one was ever charged in the Tresca murder.

Return to New York

When the Allies invaded Italy in September 1943, Genovese switched sides and quickly offered his services to the U.S. Army. Former New York governor Charles Poletti, then attached to the U.S. Army, accepted a 1938 Packard Sedan as a personal gift from Genovese. Genovese was appointed to a position of interpreter/liaison officer in the U.S. Army headquarters in Naples and quickly became one of Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories' most trusted employees. Poletti and the entire AMGOT department were completely unaware of his history.
Genovese established one of the largest black market operations in southern Italy, together with the Cosa Nostra's boss Calogero Vizzini. Vizzini sent truck caravans loaded with all the basic food commodities necessary for the Italian diet rolling northward to hungry Naples, where their cargoes were distributed by Genovese's organization. All of the trucks were issued passes and export papers by the AMGOT administration in Naples and Sicily, and some corrupt American army officers even made contributions of gasoline and trucks to the operation. According to Luke Monzelli, a lieutenant in the Carabinieri assigned to follow Genovese during his time in Italy: "Truckloads of food supplies were shipped from Vizzini to Genovese — all accompanied by the proper documents which had been certified by men in authority, Mafia members in the service of Vizzini and Genovese."
In the summer of 1944 in New York, Genovese was implicated in the Boccia murder by mobster Ernest "The Hawk" Rupolo, a former Genovese associate. Facing a murder conviction, Rupolo had decided to become a government witness.
On August 27, 1944, U.S. military police arrested Genovese in Italy during an investigation into his running of a black market ring. It was revealed that Genovese had been stealing trucks, flour, and sugar from the Army. When Agent Orange C. Dickey of the Criminal Investigation Division examined Genovese's background, he discovered that Genovese was a fugitive wanted for the 1934 Boccia killing. However, there was seemingly little interest from the Army or the federal government in pursuing Genovese.
After months of frustration, Dickey was finally able to make preparations to ship Genovese back to New York to face trial, but came under increasing pressure. Genovese personally offered Dickey a $250,000 bribe to release him, then threatened Dickey when the offer was refused. Dickey was even instructed by his superiors in the military chain of command to refrain from pursuing Genovese, but refused to be dissuaded.
On June 2, 1945, after arriving in New York by ship the day before, Genovese was arraigned on murder charges for the 1934 Boccia killing. He pleaded not guilty. On June 10, 1946, another prosecution witness, Jerry Esposito, was found shot to death beside a road in Norwood, New Jersey. Earlier, another witness, Peter LaTempa, was found dead in a cell where he had been held in protective custody.
Without anyone to corroborate Rupolo's testimony, the government's case collapsed, and the charges against Genovese were dismissed on June 10, 1946. In making his decision, Judge Samuel Leibowitz commented:

I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe that if there were even a shred of corroborating evidence, you would have been condemned to the chair.