Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Don Billy to uncover one of the lesser-known but potentially important gatherings in American Mafia history—the 1928 Cleveland Mafia Summit.
On December 5, 1928, during the height of Prohibition, mob figures from around the country gathered at Cleveland’s Hotel Statler. A Cleveland patrolman noticed several carloads of suspicious men arriving at the hotel. Before long, dozens of police officers descended on the Statler and rounded up 23 men.
Among those caught were men who would become major figures in American organized crime, including Joe Profaci, future boss of the family that became the Colombo crime family, and Vincent Mangano, future boss of the organization that became the Gambino family. Other attendees had connections to Chicago and Al Capone.
But Don’s research suggests the 23 men arrested may have represented only part of the gathering. Newspaper accounts indicated other mobsters escaped from the Statler and nearby hotels. Local Cleveland figures—as well as visitors who could stay with relatives or associates—may never have been identified by police.
So what brought all these gangsters to Cleveland?
Gary and Don examine several possibilities: the continuing violence and leadership struggles in New York and Chicago, the possibility that Joe “The Boss” Masseria was consolidating his power, disputes involving Prohibition rackets, and efforts to bring greater organization to an underworld still plagued by assassinations and territorial wars.
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They also discuss what happened after the arrests. The mobsters were charged under Cleveland’s broad “suspicious person” ordinance, but after lawyers became involved, the cases quickly began falling apart. Some men pleaded guilty only to have their sentences effectively waived if they left town, while the remaining cases were dismissed.
Don explains how he used old newspaper accounts, police records, National Archives material and other primary sources to reconstruct the meeting and identify many of the mysterious men appearing in the famous police photographs.
Was Cleveland an important step toward the more organized national Mafia structure that emerged in the years that followed? This episode explores a forgotten gathering that brought some of America’s future Mafia leaders together in one Cleveland hotel.
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Transcript
Gary Jenkins: [00:00:00] hey all you wiretappers. Gary Jenkins here, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. And we’re going to Cleveland today with a man named Don Billy, who’s written a book about a really famous mob meeting that most people don’t know much about.
And we know about Apalachin, we know about the one at Atlantic City, but this one in Cleveland is during prohibition era, we don’t know much about. So welcome, Don. I’m really happy to have you on the show.
Don Billy: Yeah. Thank you, Gary, so much for having me. Like I said, a lifelong Clevelander author done a few books about Cleveland items.
This is my first one on organized crime. In addition to writing, my career, I’ve been a business analyst, so lots of research and writing and presentations. This is just another cool thing about Cleveland I wanted to share with everyone.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. It’s an interesting town, especially an interesting mob town.
Kansas [00:01:00] City our crime family has a long-term re- or had a long-term relationship with the Cleveland guys through the Teamsters union, of course. The-
Don Billy: Yeah,
Gary Jenkins: yep … the Cleveland family controlled a Teamsters pension fund, a man who was also an FBI informant. They shared the skim with Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. So there’s a long-term relationship. Yeah. I’ve got a couple of wiretaps where Tuffy DeLuna, our underboss, is talking to Scalise not Scalise, but the Jewish guy to Rockford back in those days about the skim.
, We’re here to talk about this big mob meeting in the 1920s, which was really interesting.
And it’s so little is known about it that you’re gonna bring it to light with your research.
Yep.
Don Billy: And this is the famous photo you were talking about, Gary, that we’ve seen in various versions over the years, and it happened in Cleveland in December 5th, 1928 at the Hotel Statler.
And just a quick recap of where we were with that time [00:02:00] period was we know that was in the middle of prohibition, and that was the rise of organized crime to the next level. We know organized crime had been around for a long time, but prohibition really sparked it to the next level. During that time period a lot of power struggles, people getting murdered people dying from the bad alcohol they were creating.
What happened around that timeframe, once again, was you had the two of the biggest names at that time towards the late 1920s. We know Al Capone was rising in Chicago after taking over from Torrio. And then in the New York City area, Joe the Boss was rising up quickly over the years.
And related to that, right before the meeting in 1928, it was a crazy volatile time. There were quite a few big name murders that happened in the [00:03:00] months preceding the December 5th, 1928 meeting. So you can still see that okay, Gary? I’m just double checking. Yeah. Yeah, it looks good. Okay. So yeah, it seemed like there was a lot of volatility going on in multiple cities around the country, so it seemed like a good time for a meeting one way or another.
So it happened to be in Cleveland. Everybody gathered at the Cleveland Hotel Statler. It’s a downtown hotel part of the Statler chain. It’s across, multiple cities in the United States, but a very opulent nice hotel at the time. And so these guys were secretly starting to gather, and what happened was- The patrolman, Frank Osowski, he was wrapping up his night shift, and he just happened to stumble upon a few carloads of gangsters that [00:04:00] were heading into the Statler.
Went inside, got a little information went back to the main Cleveland police station and, based on some of the names and information he gave they figured out that, yeah, these guys looked like they were some, mobsters from other cities. So they weren’t sure what to do, but one thing they knew was they wanted to go down there and round them up as quickly as they could.
So this is a quote from Patrolman Osowski from the next morning in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, one of our three local newspapers that covered the event So they came down there, and here’s a few of the headlines from the newspapers. Cleveland had two afternoon newspapers. The ones on the outer sides were talking about that.
And at that time, as, as Gary a lot of the New York mobsters, they tried to keep a very low profile. But Chicago with [00:05:00] Capone, he seemed to thrive on it. So when this happened, of course the first thing they thought of was that Capone was, the guy related to this, and his name was, in these headlines.
And then across the country when the newspapers were putting the stories out, Capone’s name was mentioned pretty much all the time, and a lot of the other guys were, barely mentioned at all. So that was- Yeah … just a, a sign of, Capone’s popularity,
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Don Billy: notoriety, whatever you wanna call it at the time.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Capone Capone, he was a, a headline hog, man. He was, It was like they said about Rudy Giuliani, never get between him and camera. Never get between Capone and a good headline. It’s yeah … not your modern mobster at all. You know- … it’s interesting how many guns. They got 13 guns, thir- 13 people, and that’s just the ones they got were packing heat in that.
I just don’t think of modern mobsters as walking around with guns stuck in their belts, but [00:06:00] they must have all had guns stuck in their belts or in their shoulder holster or whatever. It’s like the movies, man.
Don Billy: Yeah. That was one of the things they mentioned in the different s- stories in the various newspapers as well as commenting how they were, like, ver- very well dressed.
The one in the left there says how they were nattily dressed foreigners.
Gary Jenkins: I see that. That’s interesting. Yeah. Now, how did the cops, how did they deal with this, that many people? This is 1928 Cleveland- Yeah … Police Department. Yeah. I guess early in the morning. That had to take a lot, certain amount of organization to even snag all these guys.
Don Billy: Yeah. So the… Based on the different stories, There were between 50 or 60 police officers who came down there, and, they rounded them up. They went along peacefully, and then they snapped a couple photos. And the one on the bottom is the more famous photo that everybody has seen, and then the one on the top [00:07:00] is the lesser-known photo.
So they had two groups there. And the stories that were across the United States newspapers and dozens of newspapers, they didn’t list specifically who was who in these pictures. But in some of the stories, they did mention what some of the names were based on what they had gotten either from the hotel register or initially from the questioning in the police station.
As it turned out, somewhat as you expect some of the names they gave were aliases-
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Don Billy: or, so it took a while before they got a lot of their real names and, where they were from and things of that nature. But so these are the majority of the people. And one of the mysteries was tracking down who most of these people were, which I was able to do so, and I listed it out in the book.
There’s still a few that are open for debate. And out of all the [00:08:00] 23 that they rounded up, like I said there were some pretty well-known people. But most of them, I’ll say, were more rank and file members of the mob.
And here’s the, Better known photo. And if you notice, it’s a little hard to see, but there’s actually numbers-
Gary Jenkins: Yeah,
Don Billy: I see it
by the mob- mobsters. So nobody really knew what those were, and through my research I found an article from one of the newspaper guys who had written the different names down, and then it sat in some locker of his for decades. And then his wife seemed to find it when she was cleaning out some stuff, like 30 years later.
So I list out the names that are there. And then the other ones I found, like I said, some information, but still there’s a, a bit uncertainty as far as who these guys are. L- the guy, the gentleman sitting in the chair is probably the best known of the people there. [00:09:00] And these were the bigger names that were in there.
And- Oh, yeah,
Gary Jenkins: I see. Yeah, Joe Profaci and Vincent Mangano. Yeah- Yeah …
Don Billy: these
Gary Jenkins: guys lo- New York was pretty well represented.
Don Billy: So you had a couple Chicago guys. You had a couple, New York guys. Joe Traina, he’s somewhat overlooked, but he was very important. He’s one of those, old school mustache Petes, as they used to call them, even though he doesn’t have a mustache there, that they did their best to stay out of the limelight.
So the few times he was nabbed, he always seemed to get off the hook or whatever. The other thing that’s interesting with these guys, and Profaci was the gentleman in the wheelchair. He’d recently had a boating accident.
Looking at these guys here like I said, two of the bigger names there were Vincent Mangano and Profaci.
And as the years went a little later, they were both the original heads of what became the Gambino and Colombo families. And like I said, this, the [00:10:00] Cleveland police, they didn’t even realize, like I said, who most of these guys were. They got some information from other cities like Chicago and New York that some of these guys had records, but I really don’t think, and from what it appears, that they realized how important these few guys were.
So much so that initially when they rounded up to 23 once again, I mentioned Joe Profaci. Just, his nickname as the Olive Oil King was interesting in that years later when they made The Godfather, first Mario Puzo did the book and then he worked with Francis Ford Coppola on the movie.
As they had written it and then created the figure of Don Corleone, they said it was a compilation and Joe Profaci with the olive oil was one of the things that influenced the character development of Vito Corleone. And if you remember in the [00:11:00] second one where, you know, Vito’s going back to Sicily, in the movie it was the Genco Oil Company.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah.
Don Billy: But so it’s interesting that they got the guy that influenced the character development of the Godfather. So that was a- Really … interesting one. Yeah. But like I said, they, they-
Gary Jenkins: The Mamma Mia Olive Oil Company. I wonder whatever happened to Mamma Mia Olive Oil. It probably was blended in with some other olive oil company.
Don Billy: I think it still might be there. Oh, really? I’m not sure. Yeah, I’m not sure. But we’ll have to, we’ll have to see. I’m sure this will help sales.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Somebody’ll, somebody’ll comment on the YouTube- Yeah … as if there really is Mamma Mia oil still out there. Yeah. If you hear that, comment and let me know if there’s still Mamma Mia Olive Oil.
Don Billy: Yeah. So like I said, they weren’t sure who a lot of these guys were, and interestingly, two of the guys who they let go out of the 23 immediately were Vincent Mangano and Joe Traina. And they ended up being two [00:12:00] of the bigger names that were there. From what I could tell they just weren’t sure who these gentlemen were.
Mangano and Traina I put a note in the book how they had actually traveled to Sicily together, and Traina was the front of a company that he kind of inherited, a yeast company based on another mobster getting killed before this. So maybe he… they were able to convince them they were just a couple businessmen, and pretty much that’s what most of them said to the police was they just happened to be in Cleveland for some business meetings, and they were just, mere businessmen.
So these two they sent- Now, who did they send
Gary Jenkins: down… Who did Chicago send down?
Don Billy: So Chicago, they sent in quite a few of them, and I’m gonna get to two of the important ones, was Joe Giunta and Patsy Lilardo. And interestingly, those two guys- a good lead into this next slide right here is when these guys originally [00:13:00] got rounded up, there were, like I said, 23 of them.
They let Trana and Mangano go. Another guy one of the Lombardinos, he was wanted for a murder rap back in New Jersey, so they just, didn’t charge him with this. And the rest of these guys were charged with suspicious person ordinance. But what was interesting is that first day when they came in, it was Wednesday, December 5th.
These gentlemen were not charged at all the entire first day. So they ended up spending the night in the Cleveland jail. And so what happened the following morning is one of the Cleveland prominent lawyers, he came charging into the Cleveland Police Department and got into a loud altercation with the safety director, and he was demanding that these three clients…
Now, once again, this is the, [00:14:00] interesting tie-in to Capone. These were Capone associates. Joe Diunto, Patsy Lombardo, and then the mystery man, Sam Oliveri. He demanded that they either be charged or released. And from the police blotter that you can see on the screen here, I highlighted the gentlemen in the yellow on the left, and the time they were actually charged as suspicious persons.
They were the first three people to be charged at 3:00 PM on the following day, which was that Thursday. Everybody else got charged later 5:30 or slightly after. So that was… seems to be quite, quite a suspicious coincidence that these three guys linked to Capone were the first three guys that they wanted to get out of there.
So like I said it’s hard not to, make some assumptions, but this one looks pretty straightforward. And in two [00:15:00] of the daily Cleveland newspapers, they even had cartoons of the lawyer arguing with the safety director- Yeah … noting that he was demanding these three guys, get released or charged as soon as possible.
Gary Jenkins: Like I said- Yeah, it’s interesting in that Chicago is geographically a lot closer to Cleveland and, f- also, closer family connections or friend connections because of the ge- the geography, how much closer they are. So they probably were quickly able to find a local lawyer quicker than New York was to get down there and get their guys out.
Yeah. Whereas New York is not so close and maybe doesn’t have any connections at all personally in Cleveland- Yeah … like Chicago Al Capone would have.
Don Billy: Yeah. And so in the newspaper accounts of what happened they didn’t mention that these guys were associated with Capone, but it seems quite a coincidence ’cause later on- Yeah
Like I said, just played out that way. So there was a mad rush then once everybody officially got [00:16:00] charged with the suspicious persons and to, post the bond and all that good stuff. And I detail that out in the book quite a bit. But like I said, the most important guys interestingly their bond was posted by the Cleveland racketeers, and the rest of them were by just I’ll say regular Cleveland residents that-
They, had never met these guys. And there was a lot of, discussion in the newspapers by some of the people like, “How could these people who don’t even know these gentlemen, why are they posting their bond?” And- … thing, things of that nature. So just some-
Gary Jenkins: Really …
Don Billy: in- interesting, highlights from what happened,
Gary Jenkins: yeah.
Don Billy: Go ahead.
Gary Jenkins: It looks like you, you were able to find some really good primary source documents, like this document here with the Ch- Cleveland Police blotter from that particular day. How were you able to find some of those things?
Don Billy: From contacting… I talked to so many different authors and then who gave me information here and there, and then the National Archives, and then just a lot of local Cleveland stuff,
Gary Jenkins: okay.
Don Billy: [00:17:00] Part of the fun from doing this was just connecting with so many different people who were just so awesome with their backgrounds and just, It was such a good, as Gary, such a great community-
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Don Billy: It is … of people who are willing to talk about and share a lot of the information.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Don Billy: And I shared some of the stuff I found, which quite a few of them were quite interested in too. So- Yeah … like I said, just these little nuggets as I found them here and there. And then, this one, after I, went through all the microfilms and online stuff with the newspaper stories, and I see this guy trying to get these three guys out who were Capone associates, and then, yeah, they were the first three that were charged.
That seems to be a bit of a coincidence, so moving on. So this was they did the 20 out of the 23 got charged with the suspicious person. And as it says at the bottom, these were folks who obtained their living by criminal means. So that was what they were officially charged with.
And,
Gary Jenkins: or even it says, or [00:18:00] even a companion or associate of criminals or other dissolute persons. Wow. Yeah. That’s a pretty broad charge there, isn’t it?
Don Billy: I think it… I think they’re probably like we got all these guys. We don’t really know too much about them. They, some of them have some records.
What can we actually charge them with?” So this is what they charged them with. And then what they did was like I said, this happened on a Thursday. They had to appear in court the next morning to officially, Get set as far as like what, was gonna transpire. So they lawyer once again, by that time he took over for all the Cleveland guys and, he wanted them released right away.
But the judge said, “No, we need to, do a little more research.” So they said, “You g- you 20 gentlemen need to stay in town for a week and then we’ll reveen, reconvene rather a week from now.” That would’ve been Friday, December 14th. So they had to stay in Cleveland, so whatever meeting they wanted to, do, it [00:19:00] seemed like they would have had plenty of time in Cleveland to figure out some of the interesting details.
Now, the newspaper said, “Oh, we’re gonna keep an eye on them from the police,” but there was literally no fo- follow-up stories from any of the three newspapers saying, they found them or tracked them or anything. It went from, “You guys are charged on December 7th,” to, “Here they are appearing in court a week later.”
There were other stories relating to their bond not being sufficient and the Cleveland town, It wasn’t quite the mayor at that time. They had the town director. I can’t remember the name of it. But city manager. I’m sorry. So the city manager was saying, “Oh, they should’ve waited, and rounded up more of them,” and this, that, and the other.
But then the police were saying if we waited, they might’ve gotten away.” So there, there were some disputes, but long story short, nothing as far as what the actual mobsters did during that week while they awaited the [00:20:00] beginning of their trial.
Gary Jenkins: So moving on- Oh, they had a trial later that week.
Interesting. But one thing I’d like to comment on and get your idea on, this is pre Lucky Luciano. This is pre national convention. This is pre the big meeting that Lucky and Al Capone both attended in Atlantic City. A- and so was this… Do you think this had anything to do with dividing up the bootlegging territory?
Or was this to help but to solve internal disputes? Or do you- … have any idea what it was about?
Don Billy: Yeah, actually that’s one… That’s a great question, and that, that’s a chapter I have near the end where I kinda-
Gary Jenkins: Okay …
Don Billy: review, and I’ll show a few here in a couple minutes. But which ones were more likely than others to, be part of the reason that they were there?
So I list them out and then I group them by these were the more likely ones, the maybes, and then the lesser, ones that people threw out there over the years that didn’t make as much sense once I [00:21:00] did my research. So one of the great things I found, Gary, was- As I was reviewing this, I was like, I saw a couple stories, and then I found several more on microfilm where in addition to the 23 who were rounded up, there were several others stating that a lo- a bunch of other people actually got away.
So that was one of the interesting things. ‘Cause as I mentioned from the original 23, there were a handful of leaders, but a lot of the other guys were more rank and file mobsters. So I started, as I’m reviewing it, and I’m like it seemed like quite a few of the bigger names at that time were, missing.”
So as I did it, I mapped out… So this is a map of the cities where the mobsters came from who were caught. And if you look at it, yeah, you see the, the big ones, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and a number of the other ones. [00:22:00] But the thing that jumped out at me as I did my research, I’m like what about…”
Going to the next slide here. “What about all these cities?” Because there were a big mob presence in Boston, Philly, Kansas City, as you mentioned, New Orleans, several other cities. So- Yeah,
Gary Jenkins: Detroit and Milwaukee
Don Billy: yeah.
Gary Jenkins: And Pittsburgh, you would’ve thought they’d been there too if this was a true-
Don Billy: So-
national
Gary Jenkins: meeting …
Don Billy: so that, that was the thing that, jumped out at me. And as I, I said, thinking about not this one, going back, that yeah, there were indeed other stories that played out a few days later about more, folks who had escaped that kind of you know, tied into, this whole, yeah, it looks like a bunch of them got away.
And the other thing that was interesting is as I go back to here, Think about it. With regards to Cleveland, there was only one guy they picked up from Cleveland. So if this meeting’s in Cleveland, you’re likely gonna have several Cleveland [00:23:00] representatives there who wouldn’t have checked into a hotel.
And as I talked with some of the people from the other cities here like the two closest ones being Pittsburgh and Detroit, they’re not gonna check into hotels if they’re coming in for a one-day meeting in-
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Don Billy: cleveland. I’ve been to both cities from Cleveland and both of them are a little over two, two and a half hours depending upon what side of town.
So those guys wouldn’t have been there. And perhaps the most interesting one is the guy who wasn’t scooped up. And a lot of people say, “Oh, yeah, they didn’t catch Joe the Boss.” And they … What people don’t know, most people don’t realize, is Joe the Boss Masseria, the majority of his adult relatives moved to Cleveland.
From 1911 through the 1920s, eight of his 10 adult relatives moved- … from New York City to Cleveland. [00:24:00] So if Joe and some of his guys are coming from New York, are they gonna check into hotels, or are they gonna check in with Joe’s brothers who they … At ti- at that time, at least four of them were still living there that I’m aware of.
So that
Gary Jenkins: was- Yeah, that
Don Billy: makes
Gary Jenkins: sense. Stay
Don Billy: with relatives.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah so you know what- And that may be what happened to Kansas City and and Milwaukee- Yeah … or even New Orleans. They had some relatives up there. What- Yeah … what, did they mainly catch people who were checked into the Statler?
Is that
Don Billy: the- Yeah, they, th- that was at, that was where they caught everybody was in- Okay … the Statler. So they had 23, but the other story said including at least three other hotels these people had gotten away from the hotels in addition to the Statler, that there was 44 of them. And I’m like that’s 44 at the hotels.
What about the other local Cleveland members, guys from Detroit- Yeah … and Pittsburgh most likely. Yeah. And Masseria and some of his folks. That number 44 jumps [00:25:00] up quite higher, whether that’s 60 or 70 or whatever. But once again, that just seems to be common sense that’s a high likelihood of what happened.
So one of the other mysteries was, Capone was not included in that. But, sure enough, a story surfaced later on, a f- a few days into it that, Capone was indeed on his way here. But then once he found out he didn’t he didn’t decide to stay, let- let’s say that. This was an interesting story.
Is it true? Is it not true? I don’t know but there was a story in here about that. So that like I said, that was just adds to the intrigue of the meeting. And like I said, a lot of big names that were associated with him, were the ones who were in town and they were the first ones that officially got charged with the suspicious person crime.
So moving forward the interesting thing was these guys came to [00:26:00] trial a week later on December 14th. On Friday, it was a quick one-hour meeting, not much was talked about. A couple minor things relating to the bond. The following day, Saturday, December 15th, they continued. Joe Profaci was on the stand briefly.
They talked a little m- more about the bond. And they were going to recess and reconvene on Monday. So they didn’t get too far between Friday and Saturday with the case. And the guys dashed out for the afternoon newspapers, the Cleveland Press and the Cleveland News, and they already had their story saying pretty much, “Yeah, not too much was talked about.
Profaci was on the stand. And this will continue on Monday morning.” So interestingly what happened was they ended at noon after this brief one-hour session on Saturday and Interestingly, [00:27:00] behind the scenes, their lawyer had been Martin McCormick. A new lawyer stepped in quickly, and they made a plea deal with the judge and the Cleveland Police director and the safety director and a few others.
And they reached a deal with this new lawyer who suddenly, took over, and they charged all 20 guys, or all 20 gentlemen who had been charged initially with the suspicious persons. 15 of them pled guilty to the charge, and they were given a 30-day sentence in the workhouse and a $50 fine, which the judge then dismissed and said, “If you leave town, you’ll be free to go.”
This bulletin showed up on one of the Saturday afternoon newspapers. Now, the [00:28:00] stories were still there in both of the newspapers saying, the case is gonna reconvene basically on Monday, but this bulletin they threw in right before they went to press. So the other remaining guys, besides the 15 who pled guilty but then were pretty much off the hook they didn’t want it on their record, so they decided to not plead guilty, and guess what happened?
Come Monday their cases were all dismissed. And here they were. So the-
Gary Jenkins: Surprise. Yeah.
Don Billy: So here’s the- these guys. So the guys on Monday, were freed outright. Joe Profaci was freed outright, and the rest of them had their cases nulled or dismissed. And so that was it.
So it went from, “These guys are in court,” to, “Here’s this kinda quick backroom deal with the new lawyer, and then everybody’s pretty much free to go.” So that just added to the intrigue of the already [00:29:00] mysterious happenings over the last, week and a half here in Cleveland.
Gary Jenkins: I like the headline, “Gang suspects win in court.”
Yeah. So much winning. That’s winning there. You pay off the judge and he just lets you go.
Don Billy: Yeah, so what- whatever happened, but like I said, once again, you, you can make your own conclusions, there’s nothing in there that says the new lawyer helped bribe, somebody, but,
Gary Jenkins: yeah.
Don Billy: You can make your own conclusions. You’ve been around long enough. So these were all dismissed. So the intrigue then over the years, Gary was so what really happened? What were they there for? And as we mentioned, Before items… These were the likely ones, items two, three, and four.
I showed the slide earlier how there was a lot of assassinations that had occurred in the months leading up to this in both- Yeah. Let- … New York City and Chicago.
Gary Jenkins: And- Let, let’s go over these so the, the people on the [00:30:00] audio can… and hear it. They can’t… They’re, they also have a audio audience out here.
So number one is Joe Masseria was be named the boss of bosses. That’s a possibility.
Don Billy: And what better place to do it than in s- in Cleveland, where a, a lot of his relatives are? Several other mob historians have thrown that out there. But when I dove in and I really saw how many of his relatives were there and the influence he had in Cleveland as far as going back to what you said the previous Cleveland mob leader had been Joe Lonardo, had been assassinated in 1927.
And coming in after him, there’s been debate whether a lot of people state that Joe Parella was the leader at that point, but there were also several other mob historians who say Salvatore Black Sam Todaro was the mob boss at that time. [00:31:00] So whether it was one or the other, in my book I make a strong case, I’ll say, for Black Sam being the mob boss versus Parella.
So-
Gary Jenkins: Okay …
Don Billy: that’s up to you the reader, to decide. But I, I put a lot of information out there that previously hadn’t been. So- So
Gary Jenkins: number two, review of New York City leadership. Now, what what was that about?
Don Billy: So that was even though you had Joe the Boss coming in still the recent assassination of Salvatore D’Aquila and Frankie Yale and a couple of the other, turf wars that were going on.
I’m sure there was discussions about some of these other mob territories that were still kinda being firmed up. As you mentioned, stuff really came together a little more officially in 1931. But leading up to this, there were still a lot of little, kingdoms, fightle- fighting each other for different controls, and there was a lot [00:32:00] of turnover and disputes about leadership, things of that nature.
So the timing seemed to be good with that as far as, like I said, the same thing that was happening in Chicago. And then also to a lesser degree in St. Louis, there’d been some recent lesser-known, murders and challenges and things like that. I put a few of them in the book there. So that, that…
These are the ones that seemed to be the most prevalent from the different mob historians I communicated with, and then complementing that with my own research. So those were the bigger ones. Some of the other ones you had mentioned with regards to, prohibition and different disputes and things of that nature, I’m sure that was probably in there.
But maybe a secondary context to what was going on. But I included that one in there along with a couple others. So that is- these [00:33:00] are the…
Gary Jenkins: It’s so interesting in that, we had… For a long time they had the Black Hand, the mustache piece running their little fiefdoms just mainly in their neighborhoods.
In our neighborhood in, in Columbus Park down there, they ran… they had pool halls, and they ha- ran their own little fiefdoms down there. But then in every city was probably like that. Now, by prohibition, this is… in the middle of prohibition when people start really getting organized, then they actually n- on a national level by now they figured out that we need to do something on a national level to, straighten these things out and not have all these assassinations, and not have all these headlines so we can make money.
Is that… That’s like the precursors to all the rest of it.
Don Billy: And as you mentioned, there was, Things were evolving towards that way, but it seemed like it was still a bit of a bumpy ride in lieu of how many high-profile assassinations there were leading up to the meeting [00:34:00] here in Cleveland.
So yeah, these were, a lot of the things moving in that same direction. And then one of the other things people have asked me about is what kind of meeting was it, pre- pre-commission? And what was interesting is through the, the research I found there were, like, two basic meetings that had actually occurred over time.
One was a smaller group of, top guys, the Grand Council or Grand Consiglio, and then a bigger meeting, the General Assembly one where a lot of people come from the different families and cities from across the country. And I think it would be a good assumption based on the number of people between, the ones that were caught, the ones that the newspapers mentioned, you know, the 44 plus the local Cleveland and Masseria folks, and Pittsburgh and Detroit folks, that would have been much more [00:35:00] likely a general assembly meeting.
And one of the things I included in the book was a description of these meetings from two different sources. One was Nicole Gentile And then also Giuseppe Morello. I’m sure you’re familiar with both of those guys.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Don Billy: But they both independently described these meetings happening over the years.
So my take was that, it was a general assembly meeting, and it seems to definitely point in the, that direction given the number of people- Yeah … and given that there were a lot of rank and file guys there in addition to the leaders. But I think at the end of the day like I said, this meeting remained somewhat of a mystery, and this is from one of the FBI documents, and they pointed out, and as you’re aware, like there really wasn’t a whole lot of research by the FBI over the years until a [00:36:00] lot of these, big things occurred in the 1950s, the Kefauver, if I’m pronouncing it right, the 1950, ’51, and then Appalachian and the congressional hearings after that in the late ’50s.
And then they finally kinda realized or for whatever reason that, yeah, there had been a, a, an organized crime faction going on in the United States for years, but they really just… It wasn’t a priority. And then later on once they started figuring out what some of these meetings were that they had rounded up people here and there, they put Cleveland as, the first one that was really a milestone meeting, at least as far as the one where the law enforcement people had rounded up the different people.
And locally, that’s what the Cleveland Police referred to it. This is from the Cleveland Police Museum. They did a little story about it, and their quote was that, “It is the first [00:37:00] documented meeting of organized crime ever identified by law enforcement in the United States held right here in Cleveland.”
And I’ll say maybe the first larger meeting of organized crime, but that’s, that was the takeaway from it was, yeah, it was a, a key milestone meeting given that, a lot of important people were rounded up, but I don’t think at that time the Cleveland folks or anybody else really realized how many important members of the early mafia that they had corralled here in Cleveland
Gary Jenkins: Well, that’s that’s quite a, a work that you have there.
The Cleveland Mafia Summit by Don Billey. Guys, I’ll have links to it down in the show notes in both the YouTube and the audio version. Billy, I really appreciate you sharing your information with us. This has just been a, a great show and a lot of stuff that, that most of us didn’t really know about.
I [00:38:00] knew about all the other meetings, but this one I’d read a little snippet about, but I didn’t know anything about it. It was really, it was hugely important, wasn’t it?
Don Billy: Yeah. Yeah. In, in retrospect it was. And like you said, there hadn’t been too much written about it. A couple snippets, by a couple authors here and there.
Or maybe they put a little bit about it in a book here or there. But yeah, it’s like I said, when I first came across, I was like, “Wow, this is so cool.” And in retrospect so important too,
Gary Jenkins: yeah. Is that Statler Hotel building still there? Probably
Don Billy: not. It is still there. Oh, still there, okay. I actually I actually went there, in the lobby, they have a photo of the meeting there hanging up- … along with a few other things. It’s the quite interesting history for it. There were a number of stars and starlets who stayed there over the years. So they have photos of Olivia de Havilland from Gone With the Wind who was there, and George Burns and Gracie Allen spent their honeymoon there.
And this is a great [00:39:00] trivia one, is after he did a concert at a nearby venue Jimi Hendrix, … came there at the club in the basement, and he was photographed with Leonard Nimoy, who’s Mr. Spock.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Don Billy: So there’s this photo on the wall there of Mr. Spock with Jimi Hendrix,
Gary Jenkins: oh, wow.
Don Billy: Some interesting Cleveland, Yeah
trivia there.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. But, and guys I wanna tell you something. I went to Cleveland this last year, and Cleveland is a really cool place to visit. Downtown, stay downtown, and you can walk to a baseball game or a football game or a basketball game, depending on what the season is. And you can walk to the Rock & Roll Museum, which is a-
Don Billy: Yeah
Gary Jenkins: a top dollar, first-class museum. And now I wish I’d a known about the Statler Hotel. I would’ve walked to the Statler Hotel too. Yeah.
Don Billy: Yeah. It’s an apartment building right now. Is it? But I think, they’ll let you in because they’re always trying to lease you know- Yeah … the different rooms.
So if you tell them “Oh, I’m here to take a look around-” … [00:40:00] they’ll- they’ll let you in or whatever, but yeah it’s pretty amazing and cool that it is still there.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Don Billy: And then in Cleveland you mentioned so thank you for, coming to Cleveland and enjoying it.
This past weekend was our big Feast of the Assumption in Little Italy.
Gary Jenkins: Oh, really?
Don Billy: It’s, yeah. Yeah. And that’s where some interesting Cleveland mob history- occurred over the years. And then there’s some other interesting tie-ins here and there. But no, it was, great fun talking about this with you, Gary, and I love sharing the story now that I learned about it myself.
Gary Jenkins: Don, we really appreciate you sharing the story with us. I it’s really good solids, well-researched stuff is what we like on this show here thanks so much, Don.
Don Billy: Okay. Thank you. And if you’re need… I’m sure you’ll probably put the link there in the bottom, but,
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Don Billy: the site is clevelandmafiasummit.com, all one word, clevelandmafiasummit.com.
And it details where you could get a book. And if [00:41:00] you’re in the area some of my upcoming presentations, which I’ll start doing a few of them here in September and October.
Gary Jenkins: Oh, okay. Great. All right. Those will be in the show notes, guys. Thanks so much, Don.
Don Billy: Thank you so much, Gary.
Gary Jenkins: All right, you guys.
Don’t forget, I have that other podcast out there Murder Blueprint. Now, I’ve said this before, tell your wives, your girlfriends, your sisters, women love horror crimes, and I decided to do a horror crime podcast. It’s called Murder Blueprint. My first two, first four episodes are about Kansas City serial killers.
We have two different serial killers that I know about, and got the guys investigating it. So check that out and look down in the show notes for links to all my books and stuff that I’ve done, and links to the Cleveland Mafia Summit. So thanks a lot, Don.
Don Billy: Thank you.