Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca: 2021

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Ambush reignites New Orleans feud

May 6, 1890:

Six stevedores of New Orleans' Matranga and Locascio firm were heading home in a horse-drawn "spring wagon" after a late night unloading fruit from the steamship Foxhall. Tony Matranga, Bastiano Incardona, Anthony Locascio, Rocco Geraci, Salvatore Sunseri and Vincent Caruso all lived close together, and generally took the same route home from their work at the docks.


Daily Picayune, May 6, 1890	Daily Picayune, May 7, 1890

Their wagon reached the intersection of Claiborne Street and the Esplanade close to one o'clock in the morning, May 6, 1890.

There were flashes of light accompanied by the thunder of rapid gunshots from a cluster of trees nearby. Dozens of bullets crashed into the wagon. Matranga's left knee was completely shattered by a large caliber slug. (His leg was later amputated at the lower thigh.) Caruso suffered a smaller caliber gunshot wound to his right thigh and another to his right calf, which severed the nerve to his foot. A large slug tore a gaping wound just above Sunseri's hip.

Times-Democrat, May 7, 1890

Some of the Matranga men drew firearms and shot in the direction of the trees. The gunfight ended as suddenly as it began. The attacking gunmen ran off on Claiborne to Kerlerec Street and then toward the river.

When police arrived, it was immediately clear that the Provenzano and Matranga families - rival powers in Crescent City underworld rackets - were once again at war. Leading members of the Provenzano family and their known associates were gathered up and placed under arrest.

New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy, who had only recently brokered a truce between the feuding Provenzano and Matranga families, took personal charge of the investigation. In a few months, his decision to become involved and the outcomes of Provenzano trials would cause him to be targeted for assassination by the Matranga Mafia.

Read more about the Provenzano-Matranga feud and the early history of the New Orleans Mafia in:

Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia
by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Disturbance at trial of accused killers

On this date in 1891, one of nine accused Mafiosi, standing trial in New Orleans for plotting and carrying out the assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy, created a sensation in the courtroom.

There had been just one day of prosecution testimony in the case, which began on Saturday, Feb. 28. Manuel Polizzi already had been identified by witnesses as one of the five gunmen who participated in the October 1890 murder of the police chief.

When brought into the courtroom with his codefendants on Monday morning, March 2, Polizzi hesitated to take his seat. He talked loudly in Italian and tried to get the attention of Judge Joshua Baker. Two deputies forced him to sit, but he once again stood and addressed Baker rapidly in his native tongue, waving his arms and punching at his own chest as he spoke. As a deputy attempted to force the defendant into his chair, Baker instructed, "Let him alone."

The judge asked defendant Charles Matranga (the reputed leader of the regional Mafia organization and an accused accessory to the Hennessy assassination) what was happening. Matranga replied only that Polizzi wanted an interpreter. "Talk to him and find out what he wants," Baker said. Matranga and Polizzi exchanged a few words, and Matranga told the judge, "He don't want to talk to me." Baker then attempted to use defendant Joseph Macheca (a politically influential, Mafia-linked businessman who also was an indicted accessory in the Hennessy killing) as an interpreter, but Polizzi was entirely unreceptive to that as well.

Before Baker could send for an independent interpreter, a defense attorney objected. "We would like an opportunity to speak to this man ourselves," attorney Lionel Adams said. "He is our client and it is our right."

Noting that Polizzi clearly had something he wished to express directly to the court, Baker brushed aside the complaint and sent for an interpreter. Baker met with Polizzi and the interpreter, as well as attorneys from both sides of the case, in his chambers.

Polizzi

Polizzi's statement to the judge was kept secret. However, when the group returned to open court, defense counsel Thomas J. Semmes announced that the defense team could no longer represent Polizzi. That appeared to confirm the widespread suspicion that Polizzi was turning state's evidence, but prosecutors apparently were unimpressed with the quality of Polizzi's statement and did not separate him from the case. Lead prosecutor Charles H. Luzenberg would not comment on the matter. (Though he did not speak of it, thanks to an undercover Pinkerton operative inserted into the Orleans Parish Prison with the defendants, Luzenberg possessed information others did not have about Polizzi's mental state and its underlying causes.) Another defense attorney was selected to represent Polizzi, and the trial went on.

Polizzi was visibly afraid and tried to keep away from his codefendants. The court agreed to Polizzi's request to be held in separate quarters from the other accused.

Newspapermen learned that Polizzi made a confession "of a startling character" to Judge Baker, and they reported on his paranoid behavior. Defense attorneys told the press that Polizzi insisted both that he knew all about the conspiracy to murder Chief Hennessy and yet also took no part in the killing. They suggested that Polizzi was crazy. Reporters said they learned the defendant acknowledged being present when $4,000 was divided up among men selected to be the triggermen in the Hennessy assassination. He claimed, however, to have been at his home on Julia Street at the time witnesses saw him take part in the shooting of Chief Hennessy on Girod Street.

Just a few days after giving his statement to Judge Baker, Polizzi created an even greater disturbance, as he had an emotional breakdown in open court. When he was removed to the office of the sheriff, he attempted to throw himself through a closed window.

The trial continued until March 13, when a jury failed to reach agreement on the guilt of Polizzi and two other accused assassins and found the six remaining defendants not guilty. The New Orleans community became aware of evidence of jury tampering in the case, and Polizzi was one of eleven Italian inmates lynched at Orleans Parish Prison the next morning. Only much later was Polizzi's apparently irrational behavior at trial fully explained...

For more about this subject:
Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the
Birth of the American Mafia
by Thomas Hunt and
Martha Macheca Sheldon
(Second Edition, Createspace, 2010)

Sources:

"Desperate Politz," New York World, March 7, 1891, p. 1.
"Hennessy assassin confesses," New York Tribune, March 3, 1891, p. 1.
"Hennessy murder," New Orleans Times-Democrat, March 3, 1891, p. 6.
"Hennessy murder," New Orleans Times-Democrat, March 7, 1891, p. 3.
"The Hennessy case," New Orleans Daily Picayune, March 3, 1891, p. 3.
"Hennessy's murderers," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 6, 1891, p. 2.
"The Mafia at bay," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1891, p. 2.
"The New Orleans vendetta," New York Sun, March 3, 1891, p. 2.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Jury complete, 1891 Mafia trial begins

A lengthy jury selection process concluded Friday, February 27, 1891, and the trial of nine men accused of the assassination of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy began with the reading of the indictment by Court Clerk Richard Screven.

Screven read:

The grand jurors of the State of Louisiana, duly impaneled and sworn in and for the body of the Parish of Orleans, in the name and by the authority of the said state, upon their oath, present:
That one Peter Natali, one Antonio Scaffidi, one Antonio Bagnetto, one Manuel Politz, one Antonio Marchesi, one Pietro Monastero, one Bastian Incardona, one Salvador Sinceri, one Loretto Comitz, one Charles Traina and one Charles Poitza, late of the Parish of Orleans, on the 16th day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety, with force of arms,... feloniously did shoot and murder one David D. Hennessy with a dangerous weapon, to-wit, a gun, with felonious intent willfully, feloniously and of their malice aforethought, to kill and murder him...
And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath foresaid, do further present that one Asperi Marchesi, one Joseph P. Macheca, one James Caruso, one Charles Matranga, one Rocco Geraci, one Charles Patorno, one Frank Romero and one John Caruso, before the said felony was committed in form aforesaid... did feloniously and maliciously incite, move, procure, aid, counsel, hire and command the said Peter Natali, the said Antonio Scaffedi, the said Antonio Bagnetto, the said Manuel Politz, the said Antonio Marchesi, the said Pietro Monastero, the said Bastian Incardona, the said Salvador Sinceri, and the said Loretto Comitz, one Charles Traina, and one Charles Poitza, the said felony in manner and form aforesaid...

Though the indictment contained charges against nineteen men, just nine of those were going on trial. District Attorney Charles H. Luzenberg handled the prosecution. The lead defense counsel was Lionel Adams.

Court adjourned at just after five o'clock in the afternoon. The start of testimony was scheduled for 10:30 the next morning, Saturday, February 28.

Through a period of twelve days, the court had summoned 1,221 prospective jurors. Of that number, 780 had been examined before the twelfth man of the panel could be placed.

A total of 557 men were prevented from jury service in the case for causes such as objecting to capital punishment, objecting to conviction based on circumstantial evidence, holding a fixed opinion in the case and exhibiting extreme prejudice against Sicilian-Americans. Physical disability excused ninety-five of those examined. The defense used 100 of its 108 peremptory challenges (twelve per defendant) against prospective jurors, while the prosecution used twenty-eight of its fifty-four peremptory challenges (half the total allowed to the defense).

The completed jury consisted of Jacob M. Seligman, jeweler, of 636 Carondelet Street; Solomon J. Mayer, real estate dealer, of 500 Franklin Street; John Berry Jr., flour company solicitor, of 137 Gravier Street; Walter D. Livaudais, Southern Pacific Railroad clerk, 209 1/2 Magazine Street; Henry L. Tronchet, cotton company clerk, of 411 Dauphine Street; William H. Leahy, machinist, of 439 Constance Street; Arnold F. Wille, grocer, of Lafayette and Franklin Streets; Edward J. Donegan, molder, of 299 1/2 St. Thomas Street; William Mackesy, bookkeeper, of 235 1/2 Julia Street; Charles Heyob, jewelry repairer, of 242 Royal Street; William Yochum, grocer, of Fourth and Dryades Streets; Charles Boesen, shoe company clerk, of 402 Customhouse Street.

The trial continued until Friday, March 13, when the jury returned with its verdicts. It found Bagnetto, Incardona, Macheca, the Marchesis and Matranga not guilty and could not reach a verdict on Politz, Scaffedi and Monastero. Suggestions that the jury had been bribed by agents employed by the defense were already being discussed in the community. The failure to convict anyone for the killing of the local police chief further incited the community.

Though not convicted, the nine case defendants could not be released until a related charge was dismissed. They were held overnight at Orleans Parish Prison, along with their untried indicted co-conspirators. Release of the acquitted defendants was expected to occur the next morning.

Overnight, however, political leaders hastily arranged a community mass meeting. On the morning of March 14, they stirred up a large crowd and swarmed the prison. A squad of gunmen penetrated the prison and murdered eleven of the prisoners held there, including six of the trial defendants.