Giuseppe Marcuccio

Giuseppe Marcuccio (March 15, 1914 - June 23, 1996) is the former boss and namesake of the Marcuccio crime family of South Philadelphia. He played a key role in one of the bloodiest periods in mob history and helped transition the defunct Philadelphia mob into two families and helped integrate a new generation of leaders.

Marcuccio was born in Sicily in 1914 and immigrated with his family to the United States through Canada in 1921. They settled in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. He got his start in crime at the tail end of prohibition as a bootlegger, and it was in that trade that he first met his future nemesis Luca Vitale, as well as other key mobsters on the way up.

Early Life

The mob wars of the late 1920s opened a door to organized crime for Marcuccio. In the final years of Prohibition, the New York Mafia was largely divided between two men: Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Each had allies, and each wanted the same thing: total control of the mob.

Most of the up-and-coming gangsters sided with Maranzano. They included Bonanno, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky. The Castellammarese War was long and bloody, but the Maranzano organization was better equipped. Marcuccio fought for the winning side.

The hostilities finally ended in 1931, when Masseria was murdered in a Coney Island restaurant. That put Maranzano in charge, and he proceeded to divvy the mob into its present structure.

Castellammarese War

Maranzano cut America’s organized crime network into 24 pieces, with each “family” electing its own boss. Beneath the boss would be the underboss, then the caporegime, or lieutenant, and beneath him the soldier. New York would have five families: Maranzano (now Bonanno), Luciano (now Genovese), Mangano (now Gambino), Gagliano (now Lucchese) and Profaci (now Colombo).

At the top of it all would be the capo di tutti capi, or boss of bosses. Maranzano appointed himself to this position.

But he didn’t hold it for long. He may have been victorious in the Castellammarese War, but another battle was brewing, and he was on the losing side. Maranzano was a Mustache Pete, an old-school Sicilian who believed in ethnic barriers and liked to raid the till.

The men who worked for him, particularly Luciano, were Young Turks who believed in business above all, even if that meant working with Jews and other ethnic groups. Maranzano knew the Young Turks were trouble, so he arranged a hit, but Luciano got wind of it, and Maranzano was rubbed out in 1931.

Luciano crime family

Associate

During the Castellammarese War, Marcuccio, although still very young, showed promise and Luciano's administration recognized his efforts. Marcuccio was brought in as an associate of the family where he worked under Luciano leadership like Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo and Guarino "Willie" Moretti. It was his efforts around future boss Vito Genovese that proved to catapult Marcuccio into the fast lane in the family as he rose from associate to made man in under two years.

Made man

In 1933, Marcuccio made his bones and became an official member of La Cosa Nostra. Marcuccio led a relatively quiet but productive criminal life for the next 13 years. In 1946 his old mentor Vito Genovese, who had fled New York for Italy to avoid being indicted for the murder of Ferdinand Boccia, returned to the Luciano family and promptly pulled Marcuccio back under his wing as Genovese was given control of his old crew, the Greenwich Village Crew. Over the next sixteen years Marcuccio's star continued to rise. A shrewd businessman, Marcuccio worked with gangsters like Joseph Valachi, future consigliere, Alberto Sandino, and Vito Genovese brother, Michael "Mike" Genovsese who had become something of a liaison between New York families and a player in Marcuccio's eventual move to the Bruno crime family in 1962.

By 1956 Marcuccio was getting tired of Vito Genovese's relentless pursuit of power in the Luciano family. He had moved against Frank Costello, forcing him into retirement, had taken a position against Albert Anastasia who Marcuccio respected, and according to Marcuccio himself, was a loose cannon and wanted to distance himself from Genovese eventual downfall. It was after Anastasia was murdered in 1957 on the order of Carlo Gambino and Genovese where Marcuccio was first invited to join the Bruno crime family, a family largely influenced by Genovese. Sighting the timing wasn't right, Marcuccio declined the invitation.

Bruno crime family

In 1959 Angelo Bruno, a close ally of Gambino and Genovese was appointed by the commission to run the Philadelphia crime family. Although an ally of the much more aggressive Genovese, Bruno had a reputation for seeking peaceful solutions to family issues instead of violence. Marcuccio noticed how Bruno focused mostly on low risk crimes and gave his subordinates autonomy as long as he received a share of the profits. He was against any of his men getting involved in narcotics trafficking, fearing the long prison sentences that drug trafficking charges could bring. Although many of his men disagreed with this decision, Marcuccio appreciated the way Bruno ran the family.

In April 1962 Marcuccio finally had enough of Genovese after the later sanctioned and carried out a hit on an old friend of Marcuccio's from the early days, Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo. The very next month, Giuseppe Marcuccio petitioned and won the right to move the Genovese family to the Bruno family. Looking back, Marcuccio has said if Genovese was so caught up in his thought, which proved to me accurate, that Joseph Valachi was talking to Federal agents, Genovese would likely have ordered Marcuccio's murder for the disrespect.

Caporegime (Hawthorne crew)

It's fair to say Marcuccio's star was bright while he was with the Luciano family. With his move to the Bruno family he entered and was given his own crew by late 1965. The Hawthorne crew as they came to be known included future administration members of the Marcuccio and Vitale crime families. Don Donatello, who was just as associate at the time he was brought into the Hawthorne crew would become the future boss of the Marcuccio family after Marcuccio's death. Luca Vitale who left the Genovese crime family in 1968 would join the Hawthorne crew and later would be granted his own family by the mafia Commission in April 1984.

As the leader of the Hawthorne crew, Marcuccio led a particularly progressive movement in the Bruno family. Instead of stealing and killing their way to the top, Marcuccio focused on more legitimate sources of income. Although many of the legitimate businesses were obtained illegally through force and were frequently busted out, Marcuccio did start, invest, and grow several legitimate businesses throughout the East coast.

Fish company murder

One of the legitimate businesses Marcuccio started and ran in the 1970's and the early 1980's was the Marcuccio Fish Company, which was involved in the taking, processing, distributing and marketing of fish and other seafood from the North Atlantic Ocean. With offices in Philadelphia, and New Jersey, the business became an almost instant success. At its peak, the Marcuccio Fish Company was taking in access of $75 million dollars per year. Its only rival at the time was Harpoon Seafoods which was relatively new to the market, but also doing well with nearly $100 million in annual revenue.

By the late nineteen seventies, Marcuccio was facing almost constant pressure from environmentalists who claimed the Marcuccio Fish Company was harming the marine life ecosystem on the east coast, by commercially fishing illegally in Raritan and Sandy Hook Bays off New York and New Jersey respectably. At the time, it had been illegal for nearly fifty years to commercially fish within two miles off shore. Despite Giuseppe Marcuccio's repeated denials any of his boats were fishing with two miles of shore, the pressure, led by environmentalist, Robert Hardy, increased to include several criminal and environmental charges. To say the distain Marcuccio and Hardy had for one another was palpable, was like saying the Cuban Missile Crisis was no big deal.

Eventually their feud came to a head on July 7, 1981 when an agreed upon meeting between Marcuccio and Hardy took place in the fishery processing plant of Marcuccio Fish Company in South Philadelphia. Despite being driven to the plant with his two top advisors, Robert Hardy entered the plant alone, but never exited. Less than an hour later, Hardy's advisors were run off the plant grounds after refusing to leave without Hardy. Law enforcement was summoned and subsequently conducted a search of the plant for Hardy, but came up empty handed. Marcuccio, along with Steven Abate, and another Marcuccio Fish Company executive and known affiliate of the Bruno crime family, Luis Reina were questioned, but no charges were filed citing all three men witnessed Hardy walk out of the plant in fine health.

Nine months after the meeting, Hardy was officially declared deceased and all charges he filed against the Marcuccio Fish Company were dropped. One year later, on Jun 23, 1982, Marcuccio sold Marcuccio Fish Company to Harpoon Seafoods for an undisclosed amount.

Angelo Bruno murder

On October 15, 1976, Carlo Gambino died of a heart attack. With Gambino gone, Bruno lost his most important ally in the underworld. Many of Bruno's subordinates felt that they were missing out on money because of Bruno's old-fashioned and content ways. His consigliere Antonio Caponigro approached Genovese family boss Frank Tieri in order to seek the Commission's permission to kill Bruno and take over the crime family. Tieri, sensing an opportunity to take Caponigro's North Jersey gambling operation and set up operations in Atlantic City, lied to Caponigro and told him he had the Commission's support. On March 21, 1980, Bruno was shot in the back of the head while in his car in South Philadelphia by a gunman working for Caponigro. That April, Caponigro visited New York City under the assumption that he was going to be confirmed as boss. Instead, he was tortured and murdered for killing a Commission member without permission. Caponigro's co-conspirators Frank Sindone, Alfred Salerno, and John Simone were also murdered for killing a mob boss without the permission of the Commission.

Bruno family war (1980 - 1984)

Beginning with Bruno's murder in 1980, a violent struggle for power erupted within the Philadelphia Mafia. Bruno's successor, his former underboss Philip Testa, lasted just under a year as the boss of the family before he was killed by a nail bomb under his front porch on March 15, 1981. Afterwards, Giuseppe Marcuccio and Luca Vitale, two powerful caporegimes, were both vying to take over the family. Violence between the two factions ensued. Blood filled the streets for nearly four years as both factions attacked each other in both business and life. It wasn't until the mafia commission stepped in with a solution, did the violence come to an end.

Commission steps in

The members of the commission watched the war escalate for years. The members were split down the middle on who should take over the Philadelphia crime family. Some, namely the Genovese wanted Luca Vitale, a powerful caporegimee who grew up tough on the streets and had good business sense. Despite those qualities, Vitale was also know to attract attention. He'd been under indictment from the feds several times, and spent time in prison as a result. Due to this attention, part of the commission wanted Giuseppe Marcuccio as boss of the family. Marcuccio had proven himself with the Marccuccio Fish Company to be a wise businessman, and until that point had never served a day in prison or been the focus of a federal investigation.

It wasn't until the remaining commission members who wanted both purposed the idea of splitting the Philadelphia family into two smaller families, each with their own territory. In addition to splitting the family into two, both new families would be required to kick up a portion of their revenue to the commission and neither would receive an actual seat at the table. Instead, each family would have a current member of the commission as a liaison that would first investigate, and second report any grievances or issues the family is facing. The Genovese became the reporting family for the Vitale's and the Gambino's became the reporting family for the Maruccio's.

Marcuccio crime family

Despite his feelings for Luca Vitale, when the commission sent down their decision, Marcuccio was plenty satisfied. He would now have control of his own family, and in his eyes the power to bring about a new generation of mafioso, one that could live and earn amongst the community as legitimate business owners, as well as the caretakers of the underworld. In Marcuccio's eyes, the pimps, drug dealers, thieves, street gangs, and white collar criminals all were welcomed to earn a living in South Philadelphia. The Marcuccio's might even lend a hand from time to time as their family and their power and reach grew, but one thing would be for certain, and it was Giuseppe Marcuccio's number one priority. All criminals, no matter how big, or how small. How sophisticated or basic. Anyone would made an illegal profit in South Philadelphia was required to kick up a portion of that profit to the Marcuccio's.

Boss

April 1, 1984 Giuseppe Marcuccio became the boss of the newly formed Marcuccio family. With his appointment the remaining members of the Bruno crime family were given a window to choose their alliance to either the Marcuccio's or the Vitale family. Future notables who placed their loyalty to Giuseppe Marcuccio, was every member of the Hawthorn crew, except Luca Vitale. Other notables were, Salvatore Trillo, Lorenzo Brunetti, and Marco DiMaggio.

Arrest and conviction

In June 1988 Giuseppe Marcuccio was arrested for the murder of environmentalist Robert Hardy after partial remains were found in the soil of the Harpoon Seafoods. The prosecution used DNA found in the bones on the site, matched those remains to Hardy family members, and reopen the investigation into Hardy's disappearance at the previously own Marcuccio Fish Company. Marcuccio's trial took place in December 1989 and lasted two months. The prosecutors case relied solely on the DNA found at the site, and witnesses, namely the two advisors who accompanied Hardy to the location and the testimony of Steven Abate, who had become an informant in exchange for a lessor sentence. The advisors testified neither was allowed to enter the warehouse and after more than an hour were asked to leave by Luis Reina and Steven Abate, two men known to be associated with the Marcuccio crime family. Reina was not brought up on charges as he arrived in a vehicle to escort Hardy's advisors away from the warehouse and were never seen inside the building before Hardy entered. That left Giuseppe Marcuccio and Abate the two people to see Robert Hardy alive and with his remains found on location and the testimony of Abate, Marcuccio was convicted and sentence to the state minimum for murder in the second degree or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Marcuccio reorganization

In June 1991, a year and a half into Giuseppe Marcuccio's sentence and after pressure from the Gambino family, Marcuccio began the reorganization of the Marcuccio family. His first move was to make Don Donatello the acting boss or street boss. His second move was to make Salvatore Trillo the official underboss. Subsequent changes were made by Donatello to fill his position as caporegime by making Marco DiMaggio new caporegime and with that move the most powerful caporegime in the family.

Death

On June 23, 1996 Giuseppe Marcuccio died in prison of natural causes at the age of 82. After his death, Don Donatello became the official new boss of the Marcuccio crime family with support from the Gambino family and the commission.