30 Illegal Years To The Strip by Bill Friedman

Author:Bill Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

THE ACTION MOVED INTO CAJUN COUNTRY

COSTELLO FROM YOUTH THROUGH PROHIBITION

Frank Costello was born Francesco Castiglia on January 26, 1891 in Cosenza in southwestern Italy. His family immigrated and settled in Harlem when he was 4. He dropped out of elementary school, but little else is known about his youth beyond his police record. He became a stick-up man who robbed working people of the cash they were carrying. This resulted in assault and robbery arrests at the ages of 17 and 21. Both were dismissed, although he was undoubtedly guilty. He listed his occupation with the NYPD as plumber or pipefitter. 321

At age 24, Costello was arrested for carrying a concealed revolver and the charge was plea-bargained down from a felony to a misdemeanor. The Judge accepted the DA’s bargain but at sentencing considered Costello’s two prior robbery arrests by saying, “One case was he assaulted and robbed a woman going to the bank with $1,600. … I have looked him up, and I find his reputation is not good. On the contrary, it is bad. … I have got it right from his [Greenwich Village] neighbors that he has the reputation of being a gunman, and in this particular case he certainly was a gunman. … Now, I commit him to the penitentiary for [the maximum of] one year.” The 10 months he served in Welfare Island Penitentiary made an impression. Costello came to realize carrying a gun gave the cops an easy way to incarcerate him. He later told his pal Jimmy Blue Eyes and his attorney separately, “I made up my mind I would never pack a gun again. And I never did.” 322

Charlie Luciano and his Prohibition partners also developed a no-weapons policy. They only carried guns when riding shotgun over liquor shipments or when dealing with ominous enemies. This policy was part of their penchant for peaceful resolution of conflict, and early in Prohibition, they converted former street-heist man Costello into an advocate for their non-violence initiative. Costello was already moving towards non-violence because he had a great talent for negotiation and compromise with both competitors and adversaries. Since Costello shared these key values with Luciano and his partners, he became an integral member of the group’s inner circle, even though he was their biggest liquor-importing competitor.

Criminals who use guns in the commission of their crimes select weapons that cannot be connected to them. Organized-crime shooters typically steal and do not register their hit guns because the ownership records would assist the police to quickly identify them as the likely culprits. In contrast to violent criminals who prey on innocent people, Luciano and his associates used guns only for self defense, so they registered them with the police. They warned other criminals that the jail sentences for carrying an unregistered gun was much longer than for Prohibition violations. Thus, the Young Turks often carried concealed weapon permits alongside their gun-registration cards in their wallets. At that time concealed weapon permits were extremely difficult to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.