Manhattan Mafia Guide (8 page)

Di Palermo and Genovese would be housed in the same Atlanta prison as future informer Joe Valachi. According to Valachi, while locked up in 1962, he felt that family boss Vito Genovese was out to have him killed, suspected of working with the federal authorities. On June 22 of that year, Valachi bludgeoned to death a fellow inmate he says he mistook for Genovese’s go-to hit man, Joseph Di Palermo, hoping to make a preemptive strike. Faced with first-degree murder charges and the possibility of being whacked in prison, Valachi negotiated a deal with the FBI that probably saved his life, but it turned the Mafia inside out and led to revelations that continue to fascinate and terrify the public to this day.

D
I
P
ALERMO
, P
ETER

61 Second Avenue, Apartment 3-B, 1950s

Alias: Petey Beck, Pete Palmer

Born: October 18, 1914, New York City

Died: [?]

Association: Bonanno crime family

Along with brothers Joseph and Charles, Peter made up one-third of the notorious Beck Brothers. His record dates back to 1931 with arrests for counterfeiting, alcohol manufacturing and receiving stolen goods. According to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Di Palermo frequented the Thompson Social Club at 21 Prince Street and Nancey’s Candy Store at 240 Elizabeth Street but had no record of owning a legitimate business.

In 1950, Di Palermo was convicted on three counts of counterfeiting and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Di Palermo attempted to appeal by arguing that he was suffering from encephalitis (sleeping sickness) during the first trial and that he had been essentially deprived of his constitutional right to proper representation. He was unsuccessful.
⁴⁰

D
I
P
IETRO
, C
ARLI

21 Monroe Street, 1962; 1 Cardinal Hayes Place

Alias: Charles, Cosmo

Born: October 15, 1930, New York City

Died: 1978
⁴¹

Association: Genovese crime family

This Genovese crime family mobster was a former professional boxer and suspected narcotics smuggler with ties to the Canadian Mafia, as well as part owner of the Vivere Lounge at 199 Second Avenue.

Di Pietro was a childhood and lifelong friend of fellow gangster Frank Mari. As teenagers on the Lower East Side, the boys invented various schemes and hustles to earn a buck, wisely seeking the blessing of the local mob first. No matter how trivial, the wise guys in training always paid tribute and showed respect. So the mob, impressed with Di Pietro and Mari, gave them permission to push small amounts of heroin around Rivington and Stanton Streets, which earned the team about $20,000 a year.
⁴²

Di Pietro and his old friend, Frank Mari, were inducted into the Mafia in 1957 during a ceremony presided over by Thomas Lucchese, Albert Anastasia and others. Di Pietro went to the Genovese, and Mari was recruited by the Bonannos.

Di Pietro would soon find himself involved in a major narcotics operation that allegedly brought large amounts of heroin to New York City through Canadian criminal networks. The ring, which included Frank Mari and was led by Carmine Galante, set up its plant in an apartment at 226 East Eighteenth Street. After allegedly processing and packaging the drugs at this location, large quantities would be delivered to several locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including the Vivere, where it was passed off to street distributors in shoe boxes and suitcases.
⁴³

Federal authorities caught up with the crew by the end of the 1950s. Di Pietro, Galante and several codefendants were convicted on July 10, 1962, after a colorful ten-week trial rife with several outbursts and attempts by the co-conspirators to disrupt proceedings in hopes of “provoking an irreversible error.” Despite underhanded tactics and several appeals, Di Pietro and Galante were sentenced to twenty years in prison and fined $20,000 each. (Mari was the only one who avoided being sentenced; he was acquitted.)

E
BOLI
, T
HOMAS
V
ITO
M
ICHAEL

177 Thompson Street, 1960

Alias: Tommy Ryan

Born: June 13, 1911, Scisciano, Italy

Died: July 16, 1972, Brooklyn, New York

Association: Genovese crime family acting boss

This former professional boxing manager worked as a bootlegger in the Masseria crime family as a teenager and had become Vito Genovese’s personal guard by the 1930s. Despite multiple arrests for gambling and disorderly conduct, Eboli’s only recorded conviction came in the 1960s, when he spent sixty days in jail for assaulting a referee at Madison Square Garden after a fighter he managed lost a bout.

Eboli was made capo in 1957 and awarded control of the Genovese family Little Italy crew. When Genovese was sent to prison in 1969, Eboli was made acting boss, though a committee actually made decisions regarding the organization’s operations.

At one point in the early 1970s, it is said that Eboli borrowed over $3 million from Carlo Gambino to set up a narcotics ring; however, the shortlived operation was thwarted by authorities, and Eboli could not pay his debt. Some theories suggest that Eboli was set up by Gambino in the first place, knowing the money could never be repaid. But $3 million is a lot of money to spend to dispose of a rival.

Thomas Eboli, 1960 naturalization record.

On July 16, 1972, Eboli was shot five times and killed in front of his girlfriend’s Brooklyn apartment by unknown assailants driving a yellow van. This murder remains unsolved.

E
MBARRATO
, A
LFRED
J
OSEPH

96 Oliver Street, 1920; 122 Madison Street, 1925; 43 Market Street, 1950s

Alias: Scalisi, Al Walker, Aldo Elvarado

Born: November 12, 1909, Adrano, Sicily
⁴⁴
(b. Imbarrato, Alfio)

Died: February 21, 2001, Fairfax, Virginia

Association: Bonanno crime family capo

Embarrato was a tough enforcer for the Bonannos who, early in his career, kept a close eye on the mob’s shipping industry dealings along the Lower Manhattan waterfront before getting involved in narcotics distribution and large-scale racketeering.

Sicilian-born Embarrato immigrated to New York City in 1914 at age five, arriving on the steamship
Taormina
on November 19 of that year with his young siblings, Santina and Giuseppe; a two-year-old boy named Luigi Bivona; and a thirty-three-year-old woman named Carmella Cappella. He grew up on the Lower East Side in the traditionally mob-heavy district around Knickerbocker Village.

96 Oliver, the childhood home of Alfred Embarrato, today.
Courtesy of Sachiko Akama
.

He was neighbors with the (soon-to-be) father of Anthony Mirra, Albert, who ended up marrying Embarrato’s sister, Carmella (Millie), and was listed as a witness in Embarrato’s 1930 bid at becoming a United States citizen.

Little is known about Embarrato’s initiation into organized crime, but his earliest recorded arrest came in 1930 and his first conviction for violation of federal narcotics laws came on September 9, 1935, with a second in 1955, where he received the minimum five-year sentence as a two-time offender.
⁴⁵
In 1987, Embarrato was indicted on multiple RICO charges, along with several other family members like Joseph Bonanno, Philip Rastelli and Benjamin Ruggiero.
⁴⁶

His troubles continued in 1992, when it was uncovered that the Bonannos and top managers at the
New York Post
newspaper were working together to illegally inflate circulation numbers. Embarrato held the position of delivery foreman at the
Post
for several years (though he didn’t actually punch any time cards) and was believed to be organizing the racket. A November 18, 1991 telephone conversation between Embarrato and a
Post
manager was recorded during a yearlong investigation led by legendary Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. The conversation implicated
Post
vice-president Richard Nasti and Controller Steven Bumbaca in the scheme, both of whom ended up pleading guilty to labor law violations.
⁴⁷

Alfred Embarrato’s 1930 petition for U.S. citizenship, witnessed by Anthony Mirra’s father, Albert.
U.S. petition for citizenship, Southern District of New York, no. 252179
.

However, the relationship between the Bonannos and the
New York Post
may not have ended there. In July 2004, Embarrato’s own nephew, Richard “Shellack Head” Cantarella, flipped and testified that in 2000 the Bonannos conspired with a
Post
executive to help a garbage-carting company win a contract with the newspaper. The former capo claimed that the carting company paid the Bonannos over $2,500 a month for their help.
⁴⁸

E
VOLA
, N
ATALE

12 Prince Street, 1930

Alias: Joe Diamond

Born: February 22, 1907, Sicily

Died: August 28, 1973, Brooklyn, New York

Association: Bonanno crime family boss

Evola was a veteran mobster with a lengthy record dating back to 1930, charged with everything from coercion and gun possession to narcotics trafficking. The future mob leader was allegedly present for a dinner at the Nuovo Villa Tammara restaurant in Coney Island, Brooklyn—the site of Giuseppe Masseria’s murder—during a weekend-long celebration honoring new boss Salvatore Maranzano in August 1931.