Read The Mob and the City Online
Authors: C. Alexander Hortis
Tags: #True Crime, #Organized Crime, #History, #United States, #State & Local, #Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), #20th Century
June 1935, United States v. Joseph Lanza, et al., Federal Courthouse, Manhattan
In
United States v. Joseph Lanza, et. al.
, the United States Attorney charged eighty individuals and corporations with conspiring to monopolize the freshwater fish industry in New York City in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Joseph “Socks” Lanza and his United Seafood Workers local were accused of conspiring with several crooked businessmen. The defendants included twenty-five corporations with respectable names like the Delta Fish Company, Inc., the Geiger Products Corporation, and the Lay Fish Company.
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The June 1935 trial did not involve any accounts of homicide or even physical assaults. Rather, the witness testimony revealed how the conspirators cleverly used a trade association and business coercion, along with the labor union and subtle threats, to obtain control of the fish markets. Lanza lurked in the background, only occasionally revealing himself.
The Trade Association and Business Coercion
The aim of the conspiracy was to control the supply of fresh fish going into New York City to thereby artificially fix prices. To accomplish this, several retail fish dealers organized into a citywide trade association. The trial testimony showed that the retail dealers combined “into what became known as the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, and Brooklyn Fish Dealers Association, with one of the defendants [Jerome] Kiselik, acting as the so-called impartial chairman.”
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To extend their control, Kiselik and a wholesale organizer named O'Keefe set up a meeting of the fish wholesalers at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, Brooklyn “to organize to remedy the market conditions in concert with retailers.” Joe Lanza sat with Kiselik at a table on the dais, but he did not speak during the meeting.
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The businessmen defendants formed a committee to “work out a satisfactory plan for the division of profits on a percentage basis” and to “collect information as to supply, prices…and the elimination of duplication” in the fresh-fish market of New York City. Although it sounded benign, as the court properly found, the scheme “was really one to monopolize the business” of
the fish market in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. And it was done by businessmen.
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United Seafood Workers Local 359 and Subtle Threats
The fish cartel probably could not have been maintained without Joseph “Socks” Lanza and the United Seafood Workers union. As shown in detail later, cartels are intrinsically unstable, and usually require some mechanism to police the cartel. In this case, it was Joe Lanza and the United Seafood Workers union. Given that almost all the hand truckmen in the fish markets in Gotham belonged to this union, it was a powerful stick in the hands of racketeers.
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The Seafood Workers union was integral to policing the cartel and controlling the supply of fish. When a new retailer brought in fish he bought from outside of New York, he would be educated on the cartel's rules. Kiselik would come by to “straighten this thing out” and instruct the retailer that he “should buy fish in New York.” Lanza would drop in on the conversation but say nothing. The union boss's mere presence was sufficient.
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For wayward retailers, Lanza engineered union problems to bring them into line. When a veteran retailer brought in fish from Philadelphia, Kiselik came by demanding to know why the retailer dared to purchase sweet-water fish in Philadelphia. The retailer replied simply that “it was cheaper.” A few minutes later, fish handlers returned and took the Philadelphia fish off his truck.
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When Booth Fisheries, one of the largest fish dealers balked at some of the association's fees, Kiselik and Lanza together paid a visit to some of Booth's intermediaries. With Lanza standing nearby, Kiselik told the intermediaries that Booth Fisheries “was not behaving in a cooperative fashion” and that he hoped “the matter might be straightened out.” Booth ended up paying the agreed fees and, in exchange, was allotted 12.5 percent of the fresh-fish market in New York—a blatantly illegal allocation of the market.
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For Joe Lanza's “services,” fish dealers funneled strange fees and payoffs to him as well. At trial, a fish retailer testified about what happened when he opened a new place of business in the market. The retailer was visited by Kiselik of the fish retailers’ association. Kiselik asked the new retailer to “see his friend Joe Socks” and pay him $500 (about $8,000 in 2013 dollars). The only reason
Kiselik gave for the payment was that “Joe Socks needs the money.” During an intimidating follow-up conversation with the retailer, Lanza stood silent a couple steps away. Joe Socks got his money. But he was convicted in June 1935 and sent to federal prison.
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Case Three: Evading a Union—Keeping Out the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
The Cosa Nostra's relationship to labor unions was purely opportunistic. When the Cosa Nostra could not gain control over a labor union, it often sought to end-run the union altogether. This is shown by the mob's attempts to keep out the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) from certain garment shops. It led to tragic results in 1949.
The Mafia and the Garment Industry
The garment industry's labor force was originally Jewish, and so were its gangsters. Benjamin “Dopey Benny” Fein was hired as a “labor slugger” for the United Hebrew Trades union to do battle with
shtarkes
(strongarm men) hired by employers to break strikes. In 1926, the Communist Party–controlled ILGWU brought in the gangster Arnold Rothstein to end a disastrous strike.
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Later Jewish gangsters graduated to more sophisticated labor racketeering. In 1936, Louis Buchalter and his friend Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro were convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by restricting competition in the fur-dressing trade.
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Buchalter and his henchmen were later found guilty of murder for the slaying of Joseph Rosen, a candy-store owner who was cooperating in an investigation. They were electrocuted at Sing Sing in 1944.
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Italians who grew up in Lower Manhattan were familiar with the needles trades around them. Indeed, Joe Masseria and Charlie Luciano worked briefly in the industry before they were
mafiosi
. The Gagliano Family had held interests in piecework shops since the early 1930s.
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By the time the Mafia came to the forefront, the ILGWU was under the leadership of David Dubinsky, a dynamic unionist with a record of fighting both Communists and gangsters. The ILGWU became a strong union that prevented
the mob from gaining control over its upper-level administration. But even Dubinsky gave up on some areas of the union, like Local 102, a trucking local hopelessly lost to gangsters.
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Mafiosi
end-ran the ILGWU by diverting production to their own mob-owned shops. Joe Valachi described how he kept his dress shop union-free. “I never belonged in any union,” Valachi recalled. “If I got in trouble, any union organizer came around, all I had to do was call up John Dio or Tommy Dio and all my troubles were straightened out.”
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By shutting out the ILWGU, these garment contractors held major competitive advantages over rival companies.
“Not to the Bothered by the Union”
Rosedell Manufacturing Company ran a nonunion garment shop on West 35th Street. In 1948, ILGWU organizer Willie Lurye was leading union picketers outside the company's building. They talked truckers out of crossing the line and slowed deliveries into the factory. Rosedell's owners cast about for someone to deal with their union problem.
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Rosedell's owners were put in contact with Benedict Macri. Macri had served as a front man for Albert Anastasia. His brother Vincent Macri was Anastasia's close friend and bodyguard. Rosedell's owners told Macri they wanted either “an International contract or—not to be bothered by the union.” For Macri's services in dealing with the ILGWU, the owners promised Macri a 25 percent share of their business profits.
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Macri had no interest in getting an ILGWU contract. Macri tried to restart operations under the new “Macri-Lee Corporation,” but he still could not get deliveries through his freight entrance. Next, they tried to open a secret cutting room on Tremont Avenue in central Bronx. On Friday, May 6, 1949, the ILGWU picketers got wind of it and went up to the Bronx. According to prosecutors, the pickets slashed about eighteen dresses, infuriating Macri.
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On Monday, May 9, 1949, Willie Lurye was back on the picket line on West 35th Street. In the late afternoon, the ILGWU organizers started to go home. Around 3:00 p.m., Lurye went into the building lobby to make a call from a telephone booth. When Lurye was in the booth, two men trapped him. He screamed in terror as they stabbed him repeatedly. Lurye, bleeding, staggered to
the sidewalk. He died the next day. On May 12, 1949, an estimated one hundred thousand New Yorkers participated in or watched the funeral procession down Eighth Avenue. Lurye's grief-stricken father died the following week.
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An eyewitness named Sam Blumenthal told police that he saw two men attacking Lurye with a knife. Blumenthal identified them from photographs as Benedict Macri and John “Scarface” Giusto. Macri, who had gone on the lam within hours after Lurye's murder, surrendered to authorities a year later. Giusto never returned.
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October 1951, People against Macri, Court of General Sessions, Manhattan
On October 11, 1951, the case of
People against Benedict Macri
commenced in a packed courtroom in Manhattan. The prosecution's initial witnesses testified as expected, establishing Macri's motives and movements that Monday. Then shockingly, the key eyewitnesses to the murder changed their stories on the stand. Sam Blumenthal developed amnesia:
Q Do you remember that you saw, as I have asked you, two men outside the right hand phone booth, moving their hands in the direction of inside that phone booth?
….
A I don't honestly know. In my imagination he did, and yet I'm not sure.
….
Q Did you not tell me, and swear it, on September 21st, 1951, this statement…. “This movement of the hands of the first and second men in the direction of the man in the booth took about a minute.”
….
A I am in doubt of it.
Later in the trial, another prosecution eyewitness seemed to develop vision problems.
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With key eyewitnesses changing their stories, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. “A lot of strange things have happened,” the judge commented after the verdict. “The witness Blumenthal lost his memory; the witness Weinberg
lost his vision.” The judge suggested that these “strange coincidences…might bear some further investigation in the future.”
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Subordination of Perjury
The district attorney's office investigated the witnesses. In March 1952, Sam Blumenthal pled guilty to perjury. Blumenthal admitted that he was approached by George “Muscles” Futterman, a business agent for a mobbed-up jewelry workers’ union. Futterman gave Blumenthal $100, told him to “do what he could not to hurt Macri,” and warned him that he'd be “as good as dead if you don't do what you're told.” Futterman was convicted for subordination of perjury. At sentencing, the judge denounced Futterman as the front man for a “ruthless band of assassins.”
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Although Benedict Macri escaped the law, his mob ties came back on him. In April 1954, Benedict and his brother Vincent Macri went missing after Benedict talked to authorities investigating Albert Anastasia for tax evasion. Vincent's body was found in the trunk of his brother's car. Benedict's body was never found.
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Case Four: Expanding a Mobbed-up Union—Teamsters Local 183 and the Waste Hauling Industry in Westchester County
We look last at how the Mafia spread rackets through mobbed-up unions. This is illustrated by the Cosa Nostra's expansion of its “property-rights” system of waste hauling to the suburbs.
The Mafia and the Waste-Hauling Industry
New York's waste-hauling industry was predominantly Italian, a legacy from when Italian immigrants were relegated to the dirtiest jobs in sanitation. As a young man, Joe Valachi worked as a garbage scow trimmer, the same workers organized by Paolo Vaccarelli. Most commercial waste haulers, or “carting companies,” were small family businesses with a few trucks passed down from father to son. This was a prototypical “fragile” industry.
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In 1929, the City of New York started withdrawing public waste hauling for commercial businesses, viewing it as a public subsidy for private companies. This expanded the market for private waste haulers and, unintentionally, created a fat new target for racketeers.
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