Charles Luciano

The backstory

The investigation

In 1935 and 1936, an investigation directed by special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey and Assistant District Attorney Eunice Carter examined organized crime’s control of prostitution in New York City, according to the city’s Municipal Archives, which hold the prosecution’s files.⁵ On Feb. 1, 1936, Dewey’s office raided brothels across the city and arrested women, madams and bookers, which allowed prosecutors to build a case against Luciano and his subordinates.⁵⁸ Under a new state law passed at Dewey’s urging, the so-called joinder law, many crimes against many defendants could be combined in one indictment for the first time.⁸

The arrest

Luciano left New York and was arrested in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on April 1, 1936.⁸²¹ After an extradition fight in which Arkansas state troopers took him from the Hot Springs jail, he was returned to New York, where Justice Philip J. McCook set bail at $350,000.⁸¹¹

The charges

The indictment had 90 counts, “each charging a separate crime in violation of one of the subdivisions of section 2460 of the Penal Law,” the Court of Appeals wrote.¹ It charged three kinds of compulsory prostitution: placing a woman in a house of prostitution, receiving money for placing her there, and receiving money from her earnings “without giving a consideration therefor.”¹ Before the case went to the jury, 28 counts were withdrawn.¹

The combination

According to the Court of Appeals’ statement of the facts, the defendants were “members of a combination to control commercialized vice in the city of New York” that “attempted to gain a monopoly on prostitution and to exact tribute from those engaged in that unlawful calling.”¹ Women were required to work through the combination’s agents, called “bookers,” who told them each week which house to work in; the keeper of the house took part of their earnings.¹ Each woman paid the “combine” $10 a week for “protection,” in return for bail if she were arrested and help with her defense.¹ “The operations of the conspirators were extended by force and violence,” the court wrote, so that everyone in the trade would be brought under their control.¹

The court described the roles of the men convicted with Luciano who appealed with him: Thomas Pennochio as treasurer, David Betillo as the man in active charge, James Frederico as a manager, Abraham Wahrman as leader of the collectors and a strong-arm man, and Ralph Liguori as a strong-arm man.¹⁵ Of Luciano, it wrote that he “did not take an active part in the daily operations of the business, but that he was the directing head and moving force behind it all, the evidence adduced on the trial leaves no doubt.”¹ Because of that position, much of the evidence against him came from his own acts and statements and those of his co-conspirators, the court said.¹

The trial

The trial opened in May 1936 before Justice McCook in Manhattan and lasted nearly a month; the prosecution called 68 witnesses.⁸¹¹ Several women who had worked in the houses testified that they had seen Luciano meet with codefendants and give instructions, according to the Court of Appeals.¹ This page does not name the women witnesses, who were private individuals.

Luciano testified in his own defense on June 2, 1936, against the advice of his trial lawyer, George Morton Levy.⁸ He “testified that he did not know any of the defendants except Betillo,” and the Court of Appeals wrote that “he was contradicted not only by the women witnesses, but by employees of two different hotels.”¹ On cross-examination, Dewey established over the defense’s objections that Luciano had been a gunman and had engaged in other misconduct, the ABA Journal later reported.⁸ The trial judge later wrote that “as a witness in his own behalf he supplied very damaging testimony against himself.”³

The verdict and sentence

The jury returned its verdict at 5:25 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, 1936, finding Luciano and eight others guilty of compulsory prostitution, the New York Times reported on its front page the next day.⁶⁸ The jury found him guilty “on each of the sixty-two remaining counts.”¹ On June 18, 1936, McCook sentenced him to consecutive terms of 10 to 20 years, 10 to 15 years and 10 to 15 years on three groups of counts, a total of 30 to 50 years in state prison, according to a wire report.⁷⁸ He was sent to Clinton Prison at Dannemora.¹¹

The recantations

Three of the women who testified against Luciano later signed sworn affidavits recanting their testimony, and the defense alleged that Dewey’s office had rewarded its cooperating witnesses.⁸³ Luciano moved for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence, and his codefendants joined the motion.³ On May 7, 1937, McCook denied it.³ He wrote that the witnesses “were all interviewed under oath by the court, after the trial,” that “their trial testimony was substantially true,” and that their new statements were “poisonously false,” “induced by fear, financial pressure and craving for drugs.”³ He held that the defendants could not produce evidence that “would probably have changed the verdict.”³

The appeals

On July 16, 1937, the Appellate Division affirmed the judgments and the order denying a new trial without a majority opinion.² Justice Untermyer, concurring in part, thought the sentences “excessive” and wrote that the new evidence, recantations by three of the four principal witnesses against Luciano, was important enough to require the trial judge to compel the witnesses’ examination “under oath in open court”; Justice Cohn joined him on that point.²

The New York Court of Appeals affirmed on April 12, 1938, in an opinion by Chief Judge Crane, with Judge Rippey dissenting.¹ Martin Conboy argued for Luciano, and Dewey, by then district attorney, for the state.¹ The court held that although no conspiracy was charged in the indictment, “there was ample proof of a conspiracy among appellants,” so the statements of co-conspirators were admissible against each of them.¹ As to Luciano, it held that “the evidence produced against him is amply sufficient to warrant the verdict of guilty against him.”¹ On Oct. 10, 1938, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review.⁴

Commutation and deportation

During World War II, Naval Intelligence officers sought the underworld’s help on the New York waterfront, and on May 12, 1942, Luciano was moved from Dannemora to Great Meadow prison, a transfer the Mob Museum describes as made under the pretense of making meetings with him more feasible.¹² In May 1945 his lawyer, Moses Polakoff, applied for parole, citing his “invaluable service” to the military.¹² On Jan. 3, 1946, Dewey, then governor, commuted the rest of the sentence on condition that Luciano be deported to Italy.⁹¹² In his statement Dewey wrote that “Luciano is deportable to Italy,” that “He was a leader of a syndicate which supervised and gave orders relating to the operation of a vice combine,” and that “His record in prison is reported as wholly satisfactory.”⁹ A commutation is a reduction of a sentence, not a pardon, and it did not change his record.¹²

The Board of Parole approved his release for deportation on Feb. 2, 1946, and immigration agents took him to Ellis Island.⁹ He was put aboard the S.S. Laura Keene at Bush Terminal in Brooklyn on Feb. 8, and the ship sailed for Italy on Feb. 10.⁹

The Herlands report

After rumors that the commutation had been bought, Dewey asked William B. Herlands, New York’s commissioner of investigation, to look into Luciano’s wartime role.¹⁵¹⁴ Herlands reported to Dewey on Sept. 17, 1954.⁹ The Navy objected to publication of the report, which was not made public for years.¹⁵ According to the Washington Post, the commission “documented that Luciano’s involvement with both the OSS and the Navy was limited to providing a network of informants to help protect the New York waterfront against sabotage and to help prepare for the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily.”¹⁴ The text of the report itself was not available for this page.

Personal backstory

Early life

He was born Salvatore Lucania in Lercara Friddi, Sicily.²⁰²¹ Sources give different birth dates, so none is given here. His family emigrated to New York in 1906 and settled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.⁵²⁰ According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, his father worked in sulfur mines in Sicily, and he was the third of five children.²¹ As a teenager he took part in petty crime and gangs, according to the Municipal Archives.⁵ He changed his first name to Charles and later his surname to Luciano.²¹

Early arrests

In 1916 he served about six months for a narcotics offense, Britannica records.²⁰ Dewey’s 1946 statement noted that “He has previously been convicted of the possession of drugs.”⁹

Before the trial

During Prohibition he worked in bootlegging and illegal gambling, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says.²¹ He became known as “Lucky”; Britannica attributes the nickname to his success at evading arrest and winning at craps, while the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says Meyer Lansky gave it to him after he survived an attempt on his life in 1929.²⁰²¹ By the early 1930s, the Municipal Archives say, he led a syndicate involved in many illegal enterprises.⁵

In custody

He served his sentence at Clinton Prison at Dannemora and, from 1942, at Great Meadow.¹¹¹² Dewey’s 1946 statement described his prison record as “wholly satisfactory.”⁹

Exile and death

He lived the rest of his life in Italy, and the U.S. government blocked his attempts to return to the Americas, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says.²¹ On Jan. 26, 1962, he died of a heart attack at Capodichino Airport in Naples, where he had gone to meet a would-be film producer.¹⁰²⁰¹¹ He was buried at St. John’s Cemetery in Queens, New York.¹⁰²¹