White-Collar Mafioso

Tommy Lucchese (1899-1967)

Exposure and decline

Lucchese's success also brought government scrutiny. He was called to testify before the New York State Crime Commission in September of 1952. The commission hearings unearthed the gang boss's connections to a sitting U.S. attorney, a former New York mayor and a future city police commissioner.20

Immediately after the state hearings, federal authorities moved to have Lucchese denaturalized and deported. He was able to defeat the attempts in court.21

Carlo Gambino

In the early 1960s, mob informer Joe Valachi indicated that Lucchese was one of the five New York members of the U.S. crime syndicate's ruling Commission. He served alongside Vito Genovese's acting boss Tommy Eboli, Carlo Gambino, Giuseppe Magliocco and Joseph Bonanno (Bonanno would soon after be thrown out of the Commission for plotting against Lucchese and Gambino).

Lucchese, once a rival of Gambino, had developed a close with the crime family boss. The two men became related by marriage.22

When questioned by the Nassau County district attorney about Valachi-related allegations, Lucchese reportedly said, "Valachi's crazy. I know nothing about any Cosa Nostra. The only thing I belong to is the Knights of Columbus."23

Lucchese went into Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in early August of 1965 with a brain tumor and a heart ailment. A year later, he was still hospitalized and the Mafia's Commission began dividing up his rackets.

LaStella Restaurant arrests

A September 1966 raid in a basement dining room at La Stella Restaurant in Queens, NY, netted Carlo Gambino, Mike Miranda, Joe Columbo, Tommy Eboli, Joey Gallo, Aniello Dellacroce and other mafiosi from New York and New Orleans. The apparent purpose of the meeting was to decide the future course of the Lucchese Crime Family. Police dubbed the gathering a "Little Apalachin."24

"Three-Finger Brown," aging and frail, returned to his Lido Beach, Long Island, home April 11, 1967. He died there on July 13 at the age of sixty seven.25

Rao was prevented from taking over the family, as he was beginning a five-year federal sentence for perjury (another five-year sentence would be added on an additional perjury charge two years later). Antonio "Tony Ducks" Corallo's election to the top post was delayed, as he was finishing up a prison term for bribing a city water commissioner.

Racketeer Carmine Tramunti kept the seat warm as acting boss for Corallo for several years. Corallo, Lucchese's formal successor, ran the Lucchese Crime Family empire for a decade and a half until the federal Commission trial in 1986. Corallo, already in his 70s, was sentenced to serve 100 years in prison. He died Aug. 23, 2000, at the age of 87.26