Albert Anastasia
Feb. 26, 1902, to Oct. 25, 1957
Umberto Anastasio

Anastasia was dubbed by the press as "the Lord High Executioner" of Murder Inc., the enforcement arm of the Mafia. He was an devoted ally of Charlie Luciano in the 20s and 30s and an enforcer of the will of Frank Costello after that.

With Joe Adonis, he reportedly controlled a portion of the Brooklyn docks and the unions that worked them. Anastasia's brother, Tony Anastasio, was a dock workers' union leader. Anastasia was also thought to be the organizer of a narcotics trafficking network.

Anastasia supported boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria in the Castellammarese War. After the war, Anastasia emerged as the underboss in the Mangano Family.

Anastasia once approached the Mafia Commission asking to support Dutch Schultz by eliminating New York State Prosecutor Tom Dewey. Mob boss Joe Bonanno suggested that Luciano had Anastasia float that idea before the Commission so Luciano himself would not be linked with it.

Dewey later hoped to use hitman-turned-state-witness Abe Reles' testimony to prosecute Anastasia as the official go-between for the Mafia hierarchy and the hired killers of Murder Inc. But Reles suddenly decided to step out of a high-rise hotel window, ending the state's case against Anastasia.

In 1951, with the Manganos suddenly gone, Anastasia rose to the leadership of their Family.

As Anastasia reached the pinnacle of the Mafia underworld, an old rivalry with Vito Genovese turned deadly. Anastasia was shot to death Oct. 25, 1957, as he sat in a barber's chair in the Park Sheraton hotel lobby. The killing appeared to be part of a effort by Genovese to eliminate the Costello-Anastasia influence in the underworld (Costello was shot in the head - but survived - just a few months earlier and turned control of his organization over to Genovese).

However, the assassination also might have been the result of Anastasia's recent moves to establish a gambling empire in Cuba outside of the influence of usual Mafia-Cuba go-between Meyer Lansky. Anastasia had made a recent trip to Havana and later scheduled a meeting with representatives of Cuban gaming interests in New York. Carlo Gambino, who succeeded Anastasia as boss, Genovese and Lansky all had motives to do away with Anastasia and could have cooperated on the assassination.

Addresses used by Anastasia:

• 387 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, NY
• 151 Sackett Street, Brooklyn, NY
• 636 Arthur Street, Utica, NY
• 1146 73rd Street, New York, NY
• 75 Bluff Road, Cliffside Park, NJ

Criminal record of Anastasia (according to FBI files):

• 1921 Mar 17 - charged in Brooklyn with homicide, convicted, sentenced to electrocution on July 3, 1921, retrial later ordered, acquitted Aug. 21, 1922.
• 1922 - charged with homicide, indictment later dismissed.
• 1923 Apr 06 - charged in Brooklyn with felonious assault, discharged on April 24, 1923.
• 1923 Jun 06 - charged in Brooklyn with possession of a firearm, convicted, sentenced to two years at Blackwell's Island Penitentiary.
• 1928 - arrested for homicide, not prosecuted.
• 1932 - arrested for homicide, not prosecuted.
• 1933 - charged with homicide, not convicted.
• 1941 - Kings County district attorney assembles murder case related to the May 1939 killing of Morris Diamond, but abandons it after the November 1941 death of turncoat witness Abe Reles.
• 1942 Jan 21 - arrested for harboring, not prosecuted.
• 1954 Apr 14 - stripped of citizenship acquired through military service, reversed on appeal.
• 1954 Mar - indicted by federal grand jury for income tax evasion, mistrial in Florida declared Nov. 21, 1954, retrial in Camden, NJ, results in guilty plea and a June 3, 1955 sentence of a year in federal penitentiary.
• 1956 Mar 28 - released from Milan, Michigan, federal penitentiary.

Related Links:

• Anastasia article
• Crime boss listing
• Newspaper clipping
• Book - Mafia in Havana by Enrique Cirules.
• FBI Files

© 2008 T.Hunt
The American "Mafia"