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The New Orleans "Mafia" Trial: 1891
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The supects from left to right are: Joseph P. Machela, Charles Matranga, Antonio Bagnetto, Antonio Scaffid, and Pietro Monasterio.
The following is a summary from Crime and Punishment volume 20:
For months throughout 1890, the year in which mafia first outraged New Orleans, the city's chief of police, David Hennessey, had gathered evidence against the organization which had established a stranglehold on the waterfront and docks. The busy Louisiana port was one of the most vital links within the Latin American fruit trade, which was rapidly growing in prosperity and in importance. However, no banana boat could unload its cargo until "dues" had been paid to the Matranga brothers. Antonio and Carlo, from Palermo, Sicily. Anyone, owner or worker, who refused to "do business" with the Matrangas was liable to have his throat cut, be shot outside his home, or else beaten half to death and then thrown into one of the canals. It was this reign of bloodshed and terror that Hennessey had sworn to end. Due to threats made to himself and his staff, his was practically a one-man campaign, ignoring the threats, and contemptuously rejecting the bribes that went before or after them, he methodically built up his dossier. A snippet of information here, a tidbit of gossip there, a word from an informer, a tip from a member of a rival gang. This was how he gathered enough evidence to put a case before a grand jury. And that was what he shortly intended to do on the evening that he left police headquarters and began to walk through darkened streets to his home. Suddenly, four men came out of the misty night and aimed shotguns at him. They opened fire at point-blank range, riddling his body with pellets. Even though mortally wounded, Hennessey dragged out his service revolver from where he lay on the sidewalk. Propping himself up on one arm, he fired at his attackers until they melted into the blackness and he had no bullets left. Then, using the last of his strength, he dragged himself to the stoop of a nearby house, where he was discovered by one of his own detectives. The police chief, close to death, managed to say one word, "Dagoes". Nineteen Sicilians were tried for the murder of David Hennessey, 60 witnesses were persuaded to give evidence against the Mafia members, and it was then that the organization moved in armed with money in one hand and a gun in the other. The jurors were so intimidated that they acquitted 16 of the defendants, and could come to no decision about the other three. Infuriated by the verdicts, a mob of New Orleans citizens stormed the jail in which the accused were still being held. Two of the mafia men were hanged from lamp posts outside the prison, and nine more were lined up against a wall and shot. Shortly before that the mayor, Joseph A. Shakespeare, told the city: "The Sicilians that come here must become American citizens and obey the law of the land, or else there is no place for them in our country."
The following picture dipicts the slain Italian-Americans after the raid on the prison. Vandetta: Richard Gambino.
http: //www. uno. edu/~dneubaue/studentpapers/ed wards/trial. html
9/2/04