Frank Costello

• Born: January 26, 1891
• Birthplace: Lauropoli, Calabria, Italy
• Died: February 18, 1973
• Place of death: New York, New York

Italian American Mafia kingpin

Major offenses: Contempt of Congress and tax evasion

Active: 1920’s-1973

Locale: United States, mainly New York, New York

Sentence: Eighteen months’ imprisonment for contempt of Congress, of which he served fourteen months; five years’ imprisonment for tax evasion, of which he served forty-two months

Early Life

Frank Costello (caws-TEHL-oh) was born Francesco Castiglia in Italy, and at the age of four years, he sailed to the United States, carried by his mother in a large cooking pot. He despised his father’s acceptance of poverty in their East Harlem ghetto, so he left school in the fifth grade and turned to various street crimes: purse-snatching, petty theft, and rifling vending machines. One day, in the balcony of a film theater, he met Lucky Luciano; both boys were kicked out of the theater for throwing trash at the audience below.

Criminal Career

In 1914, Costello, a Roman Catholic, met and married a Jewish girl, Loretta Geigerman. A year later, he was sentenced to one year in prison for carrying a concealed weapon. Thereafter, he resolved to work with persuasion rather than with weapons and used his skill at meeting the right people to work in his favor. His circle of close acquaintances included Owney Madden, a beer baron who became a celebrity gangster, and Arnold Rothstein, a businessman who reputedly fixed the 1919 World Series. Costello also worked with other known mobsters, including Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Vito Genovese, Vincent Alo, Joseph Doto (better known as Joe Adonis), and William Vincent Dwyer, who was later elected mayor of New York.

During Prohibition, Costello, working in partnership with Meyer Lansky under Luciano’s leadership, made a fortune in bootlegging with such daring tactics as using seaplanes to keep hijackers away from his boats filled with alcohol. However, he was soon arrested and charged with organizing a multimillion-dollar liquor ring and bribing the coastguard to let liquor into the country. The jury in this case was hung, and Costello went free on January 20, 1927.

After Prohibition, Costello focused on slot machines. When Mayor Fiorello La Guardia attempted to prosecute Costello’s operation, Costello moved it to New Orleans, where it found tacit protection from Senator Huey Long, the former governor of Louisiana. Costello poured his profits into joint ventures with friends in order to build swanky nightclubs and casinos in New York and Florida, as well as regional vice centers around the country. Later, along with Luciano and Lansky, Costello invested heavily in Siegel’s dream to build the casino capital of the world in Las Vegas, Nevada, where gambling was legal.

Costello inherited valuable connections with Democratic politicians in New York from Rothstein, who was killed in 1928. Because Costello’s Mafia niche was his skill with political influence, his friends counted on him to protect their illegal activities by bribing police, politicians, and judges. He accompanied Jimmy Hines, Manhattan’s Democratic party boss, to the Democratic National Convention, where he helped Franklin D. Roosevelt win the presidential nomination in 1932.

Costello wielded enormous political influence during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Legend has it that, during this period, no judge reached the bench in New York without Costello’s approval. In 1940, Costello used his political influence to arrange a payoff to police in exchange for silencing a witness who had turned into an informer. Abe “Kid Twist” Reles began telling authorities what he knew about forty-nine mob killings. However, while in police custody, Reles mysteriously fell to his death from a hotel window.

In 1934, after mob leader Luciano was jailed and left Vito Genovese in charge as his underboss, Genovese fled to avoid prosecution for the murder of mobster Ferdinand Boccia. Captured by Army officers in Italy, Genovese was returned to the United States after World War II. However, before trial, the key witness against him was poisoned in his prison cell, and Genovese was released on June 11, 1946. Costello had served as “caretaker” while Genovese was away, but Genovese began to resume power upon his return, a move contested by Costello. The power struggle between the men had repercussions more than a decade later, when Genovese’s bodyguard, Vincent Gigante, shot Costello at point-blank range on May 2, 1957. The bullet grazed Costello’s skull but did not kill him. True to the Mafia code, Costello refused to identify his assailant in court.

Legal Action And Outcome

During the 1950’s, Costello was in and out of courtrooms and jails. He was subpoenaed to appear before the Kefauver Committee investigations into organized crime in March, 1951. However, his reluctance to answer questions before the Senate committee led both to his conviction of contempt of the Senate and to a sentence of eighteen months in prison; he served fourteen months. In April, 1954, Costello was convicted of evading federal tax on $51,095 income. He served forty-two months of a five-year sentence.

Costello faced more trouble in 1957 after police—investigating the attempt on Costello’s life by Gigante—found a note in Costello’s coat pocket that proved the mob was behind the buildup of Las Vegas. Costello was sent to prison for fifteen days for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions about the murder attempt.

Lengthy legal maneuvers to deport Costello came to a surprising end in February, 1961, when the United States Supreme Court overturned his deportation order. The high council of the American Mafia then allowed Costello to take most of his money into retirement with his wife on Long Island.

Impact

With his dapper dress, dignified bearing, and diplomatic aplomb, Frank Costello brought to organized crime more than a veneer of civility. To a degree, he was able to suppress violence and prevent Las Vegas and New York from becoming violent cities, as Chicago had become. Known as the Prime Minister of the Mob, he was a peacemaker who reconciled opposing factions, adjudicated disputes, and brought about significant results.

Costello was, foremost, a bridge between the underworld and the political powers of his era. Despite his penchant for crime, he was a practical man who took a long-range view of what needed to be accomplished. He saw that both bootlegging and gambling supplied public demands, which were soon to be declared legal and operated as government monopolies.

At a time when the Mafia was abandoning its old ways and reorganizing itself according to principles of business management, Costello perfected the art of political corruption. A man with old-fashioned moral values, he understood the benefits and detractions of bribery. He shunned drug dealing and ordered his associates not to engage in it. Because he hated fascism, he supported Roosevelt and other politicians who waged war against Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Likewise, because he hated bigotry, he supported politicians who respected diversity and who put equality on the national agenda.

Bibliography

Katz, Leonard. Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello. New York: Drake, 1973. A sympathetic portrait drawn principally from published accounts and interviews with people who knew Costello. Photographs and index are included.

Raab, Selwyn. Five Families. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. Definitive history of the rise and fall of New York’s most powerful mobs, written by a New York Times reporter.

Reppetto, Thomas. American Mafia. New York: Holt, 2004. A chronicle of the Mafia’s rise to power in the United States from 1890 to 1951. Includes an excellent bibliography.