Read Online The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino by Matt Birkbeck - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matt Birkbeck
Ads: Link
take a peek inside organized crime. The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, had put his resources into fighting Communism and had long dismissed the notion that a national Italian crime syndicate even existed. But the committee found there was in fact an organized crime structure that was, in many places, aided and abetted by law enforcement, which cared little about the mobsters’ activities so long as they remained out of sight and produced little violence.
“The public knows that the tentacles of organized crime reach into virtually every community throughout the country. It also knows that law enforcement is essentially a local matter calling for constant vigilance at the local level and a strengthening of public and private morality,” read a passage from the report.
The committee put a particular focus on law enforcement and wanted to know why police throughout the country seemingly looked the other way when it came to lucrative vices, such as gambling. One of the cities studied was Scranton, where by 1950, Bufalino held a death grip not just over the garment industry, but over all gambling activity in Scranton and the Wyoming Valley. No poker parlor or sports book could operate without Bufalino’s permission, and he collected a cut of all gross profits while the police looked the other way.
In its final report, in 1951, the committee delivered a lengthy and scathing criticism of Scranton law enforcement and police departments in neighboring cities and towns:
Gambling Law-enforcement officials in Scranton seemingly are afflicted with the same peculiar blindness toward organized gambling that has been apparent to the committee in its inquiries in other cities. Four horse rooms running wide open and heavily patronized were found by committee investigators. A numbers banker testified that he did business for twenty years without ever having been arrested himself, although there were three or four occasions when his runners were picked up. Punchboards littered store counters, and U.S. Treasury balance tickets were openly sold. It is clearly evident that there is a strange reluctance on the part of the police in Scranton to arrest anybody for violations of the gambling laws. Horse rooms are never raided. Periodically, when “the heat is on,” the order goes out to “close and stay closed,” but such an edict lacks any prolonged or lasting effectiveness. The same can also be said for the cities of Pittston and Wilkes-Barre adjoining Luzerne County.
To units of the Pennsylvania State Police must go credit for the only successful forays against the gambling interests, even though they usually follow a policy of not going into the cities unless requested to do so by the district attorney or city officials themselves.
In March of this year, without notice to the Scranton police, several details of state police staged a series of raids in the city designed to cripple the operations of Louis Cohen. Vast quantities of Treasury-balance tickets, printing equipment, engraving plates, stapling machines and supplies were seized. Seven persons were arrested. The value of the seized material was in excess of $50,000, and the tickets being processed were intended for distribution in the months between October 1951 and February 1952. A similar seizure in Wilkes-Barre, also by the state police, yielded an even greater volume of tickets, materials and equipment, and struck hard at the source of supply for so-called independent operators not linked with Cohen. The committee endeavored unsuccessfully to serve a subpoena on Cohen prior to its hearing in Washington on August 7 in connection with the Scranton investigation. Accompanied by counsel, Cohen subsequently appeared in Washington and presented himself to the committee, but insufficient time remained for proper interrogation of the witness.
While Cohen was evading process, the committee subpoenaed his chief lieutenant in Pennsylvania, Patrick Joseph Size, of Scranton. Claiming that
“The public knows that the tentacles of organized crime reach into virtually every community throughout the country. It also knows that law enforcement is essentially a local matter calling for constant vigilance at the local level and a strengthening of public and private morality,” read a passage from the report.
The committee put a particular focus on law enforcement and wanted to know why police throughout the country seemingly looked the other way when it came to lucrative vices, such as gambling. One of the cities studied was Scranton, where by 1950, Bufalino held a death grip not just over the garment industry, but over all gambling activity in Scranton and the Wyoming Valley. No poker parlor or sports book could operate without Bufalino’s permission, and he collected a cut of all gross profits while the police looked the other way.
In its final report, in 1951, the committee delivered a lengthy and scathing criticism of Scranton law enforcement and police departments in neighboring cities and towns:
Gambling Law-enforcement officials in Scranton seemingly are afflicted with the same peculiar blindness toward organized gambling that has been apparent to the committee in its inquiries in other cities. Four horse rooms running wide open and heavily patronized were found by committee investigators. A numbers banker testified that he did business for twenty years without ever having been arrested himself, although there were three or four occasions when his runners were picked up. Punchboards littered store counters, and U.S. Treasury balance tickets were openly sold. It is clearly evident that there is a strange reluctance on the part of the police in Scranton to arrest anybody for violations of the gambling laws. Horse rooms are never raided. Periodically, when “the heat is on,” the order goes out to “close and stay closed,” but such an edict lacks any prolonged or lasting effectiveness. The same can also be said for the cities of Pittston and Wilkes-Barre adjoining Luzerne County.
To units of the Pennsylvania State Police must go credit for the only successful forays against the gambling interests, even though they usually follow a policy of not going into the cities unless requested to do so by the district attorney or city officials themselves.
In March of this year, without notice to the Scranton police, several details of state police staged a series of raids in the city designed to cripple the operations of Louis Cohen. Vast quantities of Treasury-balance tickets, printing equipment, engraving plates, stapling machines and supplies were seized. Seven persons were arrested. The value of the seized material was in excess of $50,000, and the tickets being processed were intended for distribution in the months between October 1951 and February 1952. A similar seizure in Wilkes-Barre, also by the state police, yielded an even greater volume of tickets, materials and equipment, and struck hard at the source of supply for so-called independent operators not linked with Cohen. The committee endeavored unsuccessfully to serve a subpoena on Cohen prior to its hearing in Washington on August 7 in connection with the Scranton investigation. Accompanied by counsel, Cohen subsequently appeared in Washington and presented himself to the committee, but insufficient time remained for proper interrogation of the witness.
While Cohen was evading process, the committee subpoenaed his chief lieutenant in Pennsylvania, Patrick Joseph Size, of Scranton. Claiming that
Similar Books
