Jr: 1643 books

Angelo Palmeri and Joseph DiCarlo were prominent figures in the early Mafia days of Buffalo, New York. Palmeri was also affiliated with Anthony "Baby Face" Palmisano and many other contemporary gangsters. Palmeri came to the United States from Castellammare, Italy in 1906. By 1912 he had settled in...

Frank Valenti was a Mafia figure who controlled Rochester, New York underworld activities from 1964-1972. He was an integral part of the Stefano Magaddino criminal syndicate, based in Buffalo. Costenze "Stanley" Valenti, Frank's brother, was his partner in crime. Costenze was sentenced to prison...

Anthony Salvatore "Gaspipe" Casso was a significant caporegime and underboss in the Lucchese family organization. My e-book looks at his criminal career from a parole bribery scheme that was penetrated in 1974. The ruse was operative at Rikers Island prison in Yorktown, New York. Casso later...

In 1972 the Gambino and Colombo crime families were involved in a spree of gangland killings throughout the New York City metropolitan area. Murdered mobsters were found throughout Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. The internecine war quickly followed the April 7th murder of Mafia boss Albert Gallo....

Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno was a major figure in the western Massachusetts underworld until he was gunned down in 2003. Bruno and his associate John Nettis were tried on two occasions in connection with the attempted murder of bookie Joseph Maruca. One of the trials was for trying to kill him...

Jacob Gurrah Shapiro was a Mafia enforcer in the fashion fur industry. He worked as a lieutenant to the notorious Louis Lepke Buchalter who was himself executed at Ossining Prison (Sing Sing) in 1944. Shapiro and Buchalter were a tandem that single handedly dominated an industry in which shopkeepers...

John Tortora, aka "Johnny T", was a Yonkers mobster who first made headlines in 1958 by wrestling and pinning an alligator. Tortora was a member of the Genovese crime family, involved closely with Ralph Ferrara. At issue in 1969 was the opening of the mob controlled Red Grove Social Club...

George "Big Frenchy" DeMange is a somewhat murky figure in criminal history. A mobster with a long criminal record he avoided jail for his entire career. Not even his business partner, the more well-known Owen "Owney Madden", was able to elude imprisonment. Madden went to prison at Sing Sing in 1923....

My father was a boatswain's mate-pipefitter seaman aboard the U.S.S. Hyman DD-732, a Sumner Class Destroyer. The ship was stationed largely in the Pacific Theater for much of World War II. My father remembers hearing stories of a Japanese Kamikaze plane crashing into one of the ship's smokestacks....

Sam Lagattuta is well-known for his appearance at the Apalachin meeting of November 14, 1957. A New York State Policeman informed his colleagues about the big mob conclave that had descended on the small town in upstate New York. Lagattuta entered crime as early as 1933. In 1937 he was one of five...

James Vintaloro was a Lucchese soldier who is most often remembered for the death of heavyweight boxer Johnny Grosso. Grosso and Vintaloro argued repeatedly when both were involved in gambling rackets in New York City. Grosso was gunned down while crossing the street with some companions in 1932....

Anthony Corallo was an important figure in the history of New York City Mafia crime. Beginning in the 1950s, as a capo for the Lucchese family, he teamed with garment industry hoodlum Johnny Dio and Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa to pack Teamsters Joint Council 16 with thugs. The so-called paper unions...

Francis "Two Gun" Crowley was a young criminal who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Only 20 when he murdered a Long Island police officer, Crowley held out for several hours against an enormous police siege near Harlem. The date was May 7, 1932. With him were an accomplice, chauffeur Rudolph Durlinger,...

Claudia Jennings was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before moving to Evanston, Illinois for her high school years. She joined a theater company in Chicago and while working as a receptionist at the Playboy Building she was asked to pose nude for Playboy Magazine. Her September 1969 centerfold was...