Albert Anastasia: The Lord High Executioner of the American Mob #sponsored

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Some called him the Mad Hatter,

others the one-man army or the Lord High Executioner.

One thing was certain about Albert Anastasia.

He left a trail of bodies in his wake,

perhaps more than any other mob boss.

Whether he was just a low-level street thug in charge of Murder Incorporated

or running his own family,

Anastasia only knew one way to solve his problems. violence.

The NYPD closely linked Anastasia to dozens of murders.

He was arrested for five of them,

tried in a court of law for two

and even sentenced to death for one of them.

And yet, none of them proved to be his downfall.

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Let's get to it.

Ombberto Anastasio was born on September 26th,

1902 in the small resort town of Tropea Calabria,

Italy to Bartalomeo Anastasio and Mariana Polistana.

He was part of a large family.

Exactly how large seems to be uncertain,

but he had as many as 11 siblings.

That's a lot of mouths to feed on his father's salary

as a railroad worker.

And things got significantly worse for the family

when Bartalomeo Anastasio passed away shortly after World War I.

The elder brothers had to find jobs to support their mother and siblings.

So when he was 15,

decided to forgo his education in order to work aboard a freighter alongside some

of his brothers.

He did this for a

while until a golden opportunity presented itself

that was too enticing to pass up.

In 1919, the ship Emberto was working on docked in New York Harbor.

With a land of rich opportunities revealed in front of them,

the Anastasio brothers decided to leave the past behind them

and begin a new in America.

They found work as longshore men on the Brooklyn waterfront.

As far as we can tell, there were four brothers at first, Ombberto, Antonio,

Gerardo, and Juspi. later joined by a fifth one, Salvatoreé.

They soon discovered that the docks were a dangerous place controlled by the mob.

This was fine by them because the Anastasio brothers could be dangerous men,

particularly Ombberto, who took to crime like a duck to water.

He only understood one thing, violence.

For Ombberto Anastasio, it was the cause of

and the solution to all of life's problems.

Unsurprisingly, it did not take very long before Anastasio claimed his first victim

that we know of.

In 1921, he killed a fellow long shoreman named George Torino.

The exact reason why he did it

and the details behind the crime have been obscured.

But there is one thing we know for sure.

For the murder.

On March 17th, 1921,

he was sent to Singh Prison for a date with the electric chair.

For a while, it looked like this would be the end of the line,

but fate threw him a bone.

Due to a technicality, he was granted a retrial.

And by the time it started,

several witnesses either disappeared or didn't want to testify anymore.

So after 11 months in prison, Ombberto Anastasio was a free man.

And one more thing, while incarcerated, he decided to Americanize his name a bit,

ostensibly so that his family back home wouldn't find out about his extracurricular activities.

Now he was Albert Anastasia.

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It's difficult to say exactly who intervened on Anastasia's behalf to secure his freedom.

Newspaper reports were all over the place.

Some claimed that witnesses met violent ends,

while others said that they changed their stories or moved away.

And one paper reported that the prosecution refused to call its main witness again,

a woman named Margarita Vieti, after investigating her character.

So maybe the case against Anastasia was never that strong to begin with.

Or maybe the obvious happened

and Anastasia's criminal friends on the outside persuaded the witnesses

that it was in their best interest to forget what they saw

that day.

But what friends?

The mob interfering with witnesses isn't hard to believe at all.

What is hard to believe is

that it would bother to do

that for some low-level long shoreman

that nobody's ever heard of.

If anyone had played a role in introducing Anastasia to some well-connected men,

it might have been a guy named Jimmy the Shiv Dphano,

the so-called death house barber of Singh Prison.

He got that nickname

because he gave haircuts to guys right before they got strapped in the electric

chair.

But he also had ties to people like Al Capone

and Lucky Luciano on the outside

and supposedly acted as a talent scout of sorts,

letting them know when he ran into a guy with potential who might be

worth springing free.

It's possible that he recruited Anastasia.

However, it happened.

Anastasia didn't stay a free man for long.

He was arrested twice the following year.

The first time was for assault,

but the charges against him were dropped

when witnesses did not want to testify again.

The second time, however, Anastasia got popped for illegal possession of a gun.

There were no witnesses to intimidate this time,

so he was found guilty

and sentenced to 2 years in the penitentiary on Blackwell Island.

In 1925, Anastasia was once again a free man

and began working for the most powerful mobster in New York City,

Jeppe Maseria, aka Joe the Boss.

It was around this time

that he became associated with other criminals such

as Lucky Luchiano,

Frank Castello, and Veto Genevese.

They would all go on to play important roles in his life,

some as friends, others as enemies.

As an underling from Macedia, Anastasia handled the docks on the Brooklyn waterfront.

It's what he knew best.

And by the end of the decade,

he was officially a peer superintendent

and controlled six local chapters of the International Long Shore Men's Association.

But Anastasia's steady rise to power only emboldened him and made him more violent.

According to FBI records,

he was charged with another three murders during the late 20s, early 30s,

but got off each time due to insufficient evidence

or because the witnesses were too afraid to testify against him.

Anastasia had quickly become one of the most feared killers in New York City,

and his skills were put to good use in 1931 during the Castella Maurice

War.

If you've watched our other bios on mobsters,

that should be a name

that is very familiar to you since we brought it up a lot.

So maybe give some of those a watch to get a fuller picture.

Basically, it was a conflict between the old school and the new school.

Guys like Jeppe Maseria

and his main rival Salvatorei Maranzano preferred the classic approach where they each fought

to become the boss of all bosses.

Younger guys like Lucky Luchiano and his associates, however,

thought that the mob would be more efficient

if it was ruled over by a commission of the most powerful families.

That way they wouldn't have to spend all their time shooting

and killing each other

and you know instead focus on making money.

But for that to happen, Maseria and Maranzano needed to go.

Anastasia had a vested interest in seeing Luchiano succeed.

Besides wanting to be the top dog,

the old school guys also discouraged working with non-Sicilians.

For a Calabrian like Anastasia,

this was a problem because it would have significantly limited his career opportunities.

Joe the boss was first up.

On April 15th, 1931,

Maseria went to Nova Villa tomorrow in Coney Island for lunch at the invitation

of his lieutenant,

Lucky Luchiano.

Little did he know

that Luchiano had struck a deal with Maranzano to betray him.

While Joe, the boss, was enjoying a few rounds of post-launch peanuckle,

Lucky excused himself to go to the bathroom.

At that point, four armed men entered the restaurant

and shot Masadia several times in the back

and the head before making their getaway.

As to the identity of the triggermen,

it was never firmly established beyond the level of rumors,

but the names that get mentioned the most often are Veto Genevese, Bugsy Seagull,

Joe Adonis, and Albert Anastasia.

Not hard to believe at all since they were among the most dangerous enforcers

associated with Luchiano.

With Maseria out of the way,

Maranzano was sitting at the head of the table with Lucky next to him

as a reward for betraying his former boss.

But Mansano's reign was shortlived

as he too was assassinated a few months later on September 10th again on

Luchiano's orders.

Anastasia wasn't tied to the hit this time

as the shooter supposedly came from Bugsy Seagull's crew.

With both Maranzano and Maseria gone,

organized crime in America saw a drastic redistribution of power

as the National Crime Syndicate was born,

governed by the commission,

which consisted of the most powerful crime families in the country.

And of course, the head of the commission,

who was the boss of the most powerful family, was Lucky Luchiano.

For his part, Anastasia was made a lieutenant in the Mongano family,

headed by Vincent Mongano with the help of his brother Philip.

However, Luchiano had an additional role in mind for Anastasia,

one that made better use of his ruthlessness and pension for violence.

He would be put in charge of the deadliest

and most infamous group of the crime syndicate,

Murder Incorporated.

This wasn't a name that the mobsters actually used,

but rather one given by the media once its activities were exposed during the

1940s.

But in essence, it was the enforcement arm of the syndicate

that handled contract killings.

It acted as an intermediary between the ones pulling out a hit

and the ones who carried it out,

creating an additional layer of protection for the mobsters at the top.

Murder Incorporated was only around for a decade,

but estimates claim it was responsible for at least 400 killings

and possibly as many

as 1,000.

One of the headquarters of Murder Incorporated was the Midnight Rose Candy Store on

the corner of Saratoga

and Leavonia in Brownsville.

It was run by a little old lady in her 60s named Rosie Gold.

Anyone who walked into the store would have seen a row of payoneses on

the back wall and a group of men casually passing away the time by

having a chat or drinking a milkshake.

Little would they know just how sinister the scene in front of them would

be as the men were all contract killers calmly waiting for the phone to

ring to give them the details of their next victim.

The men in charge of murder incorporated were Anastasia and Louis Lepki Bakalar.

Lepki was almost unique among mobsters

because he was a high-profile gangster who was found guilty of murder,

sentenced to death, and actually executed in 1944 at Singh in the same chair

that Anastasia narrowly avoided two decades earlier.

The undoing of Murder Incorporated came when one of its most notorious hitmen,

Abe Kidwist Release, was arrested in 1940

and offered to turn states witness to save his own skin.

He gave the authorities everything he had, names, dates, places,

and information on over 70 contract killings.

Ultimately, it didn't help release.

On November 12th, 1941,

while staying at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island under police surveillance,

he took a swan dive out of a seven-story window,

likely with some assistance,

even though the official verdict ruled that he fell accidentally while trying to escape.

Anyway, release was dead,

but not before supplying the police with the information needed to bring down Murder

Incorporated.

Most of its prominent members ended their lives either in prison

or in the chair,

including the affforementioned Lepki Balter. but not the Mad Hatter who got lucky again.

District Attorney and future New York Mayor William O Dwire built a case against

him that relied heavily on release's testimony.

So when release went out the window, so did the chances of convicting Anastasia.

Even so, Anastasia considered it prudent to lay low for a while.

So with World War II in full swing, he joined the army.

Although he never saw combat,

he did serve for two years

as a technical sergeant training army longshore men at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania.

Anastasia received an honorable discharge in 1944

and benefited from a new law

that granted quick citizenship to servicemen,

thus becoming a legal citizen of the United States.

But if you think he had any plans to go straight from then on,

you are sadly mistaken.

All the time while Anastasia was in charge of Murder Incorporated,

he was also working for the Mongano family,

eventually becoming under boss to head honcho Vincent Mangano.

But the two never really got along.

Anastasia was always more chummy with guys from his own generation like Luchiano

and Castello.

Whereas Mangano was one of the few old school mobsters who stuck around after

the Castella Marice war.

Mangano was useful to the syndicate due to his close connections to the International

Longshore men's association,

which gave him tight control over the docks.

It's probably also why Anastasia ended up working for him since he too concentrated

most of his rackets on the docks.

But Mangano was never okay with Anastasia's role outside the family.

He resented that his underboss did

so much stuff without his permission

and more to the point

that there was nothing he could do about it.

Anastasia's position was given to him by Lucky himself.

Plus, Murder Incorporated provided a useful service to all the families,

and Mago would have made many enemies

if he tried to undermine it in any way.

So, he just had to grin and bear it,

maintaining a cold relationship with his underboss

that slowly deteriorated to the point where the two nearly came to blows on

multiple occasions.

Given the circumstances, it's actually surprising

that Anastasia and Mangano managed to work together for two decades.

But the love fest couldn't last forever,

and given the nature of the two men involved,

it was only ever going to end with one of them dead.

The late 1940s saw the balance of power change once more.

In 1946, Lucky Luchiano was deported to Italy.

And besides one failed attempt to relocate to Cuba,

he stayed in Italy for the rest of his life.

Technically, he was still in charge of his family

and the head of the commission,

but being across the Atlantic made it harder for him to assert his authority.

Luchiano had previously appointed Frank Castello as his acting boss.

But Veto Genevese wanted to take over not just the family,

but the entire commission.

A war was brewing and both sides needed allies.

Geneovise chose Carlo Gambino while Castello picked Albert Anastasia.

And if you want to know how this whole thing went down from any

other perspective,

we have bios on Genovves, Castello, Luchiano, and Gambino ready to go.

Anyway, back to Anastasia.

Knowing that he had Castello in his corner,

he made his move against Mongano on April 19th, 1951.

Both Vincent and Philip Mangano disappeared that day.

Philip was found in the wetlands of Brooklyn's Sheep's Head Bay,

shot three times in the head and neck.

His brother's body was never recovered, so technically he is still missing,

but everyone understood that he had met the same fate,

just like everyone understood that it was Anastasia who was behind the hit,

even though he never admitted it.

But still, you can't just whack a mob boss and get away with it,

can you?

Well, actually, if you do your homework beforehand, turns out you can.

All Anastasia had to say for himself was that Mangano wanted him dead.

So, if he took any action against Mongano,

it was purely out of self-defense, which he didn't, of course,

but if he had, it would have been warranted.

Anyway, Anastasia did his whole song

and dance routine before the commission to provide some kind of justification for his

actions.

What really mattered was that Anastasia had Castello there to back up his story.

So, the other Dons were content with letting the matter drop

and putting Albert Anastasia in charge of the Mongano family.

The Lord High Executioner was now boss thanks in no small part to his

alliance with Frank Castello.

But it was that same alliance that sealed his fate.

During the 1950s, Anastasia was the head of his own family with a guy

named Frank Scaliche acting

as his underboss.

But Anastasia was about to learn

that holding on to power can be a lot harder than getting a hold

of it.

First off, the authorities were hot on his trail.

They tried to get him with the Alapone special tax evasion,

but only managed to obtain a one-year sentence plus a $20,000 fine.

They then tried to have him denaturalized and sent back to Italy.

It worked for Luchiano, so why not Anastasia?

Again, they were somewhat successful.

Initially, the court ruled in the government's favor,

but the ruling was overturned on appeal in 1956.

Given more time, the authorities might have found a way to rid themselves of

Anastasia,

either by putting him in prison or deporting him.

But he simply didn't live that long.

Ultimately, it was a threat from the inside that did him in.

Just as Anastasia plotted against his dawn when he was under boss,

so did his own lieutenant, Carlo Gambino, conspire against him.

He had allied himself with Genovves, who intended to take down Castello.

Genovves was confident that with Castello

and Anastasia out of the way

and Luchiano far away in Italy,

there was nobody else who could stop his ascent to the top.

In exchange for his help, Gambino would become the new boss of his family.

Genovves made the first move.

On May 2nd, 1957, a hitman in his employee,

commonly identified as future mob boss Vincent Jagante,

shot Castello as he was entering his apartment building.

Fortunately for Castello, it was a grazing wound

that missed his head

and hit his right ear.

He was double fortunate

that his would-be assassin didn't go for the double tap just to be sure

and instead ran into the getaway car.

Castello survived the ordeal,

but it became clear to him

that trying to stay the boss of the family would not lead to a

long and happy life.

So Frank Castello willingly relinquished control of the Luchiano family over to Veto Genevvis

and retired.

Frank Scaliche was next to go.

He was assassinated a month later at a fruit market in the Bronx.

To be fair, there is still some doubt over who ordered the hit.

Some even say that it was Anastasia himself who had his underboss whacked after

Scaliche was caught selling memberships into the family,

or that at least he approved the hit.

Either way, Carlo Gambino was now the underboss

and one step closer to his ultimate goal.

All that was left was the Lord High executioner himself.

Anastasia's demise came a few months later on October 25th, 1957.

For lack of a better term, it was a classic hit,

one that went down in the annals of mafia history.

The mob boss entered the barber shop of the Park Sherin Hotel in Manhattan

for a nice relaxing shave.

He was alone.

Anastasia felt confident that he was safe,

which was surprising given

that he had threatened all-out war against Genovves for what he did to Castello.

But according to fellow Don Joseph Bonano, who oddly enough published his autobiography,

Anastasia and Genovves had hashed out their differences during a dinner gathering involving the

highest ranking members of New York's five families.

He wrote, "Albert and Veto exchanged accusations and made countercharges.

They clarified and rationalized their positions, but at last, though reluctantly,

they renounced going to war against each other.

The rest of us raised our glasses in a toast for peace.

Albert and Veto kissed each other on the cheek.

It seems that Anastasia genuinely believed there would be peace,

which turned out to be a fatal mistake.

While he was sitting in the barber's chair, hot towels wrapped around his face,

two mass gunmen stormed into the shop and opened fire.

At least they shoved the barber out of the way first,

so the mobster was the only casualty.

Apparently, Anastasia had the strength to get out of his chair

and charge his attackers,

but in the confusion,

accidentally lunged at their mirror reflections before falling to the floor.

Like we said, classic hit.

This time, the shooters plugged a few more bullets into the body to make

sure the Lord High executioner was dead before making their escape in the getaway

car.

We're not really sure who killed Albert Anastasia.

Obviously, Genovves and Gambino were involved,

but the rumor is that the shooters came from the Proface family,

who were also in on their alliance.

Braface family hitman Crazy Joe Gallow bragged about taking the contract,

telling a police informer named Sydney Slater

that he should call Gallow's crew the barbershop quintet.

With a Mad Hatter dead, the power struggle raged on.

Veto Genevese would go on to win the war.

Although Castello and Luchiano would have their revenge,

but ultimately it was Carlo Gambino who came out on top above all the

rest.

And if you want to know how he did that,

you can find out the conclusion in our bio for Carlo Gambino.

Hope you learned something today.

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I'm Eric Malikite, and we'll see you next time.