Nov 11 2007
Apalachin raid on Mafia reverberates 50 years later
Impact of event remains vivid for former prosecutor, reporter
Five decades ago this week, a police raid sent Mafia bosses, their underbosses and capos running through the woods of Apalachin — and into American history and popular culture.
Carlo “Don Carlo” Gambino - N.Y. Gambino Family Boss (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Some of the most famous names in the Mafia — Carlo Gambino, Michael Genovese, Russell Bufalino (later crime boss of northeastern Pennsylvania), Joseph Profaci (the model for Don Corleone of “The Godfather” fame) — were in town Nov. 14, 1957, ostensibly for a steak roast at the Tioga County estate of ailing local mobster and Endicott soda distributor Joseph Barbara.
But in reality, they were there to divide up the New York City area empire of Albert Anastasia, former head of the Genovese family, who’d been taken out in a mob hit while sitting in a barber chair the month before. They also were there — as many as 120 mobsters, some from as far away as California — to decide whether the Mafia should get involved in the nation’s illegal drug trade.
But the peaceful mobster conclave got interrupted by two wily state police investigators who showed up and began writing down license plate numbers.
A day before the raid, state police Sgt. Edgar Croswell and Investigator Vincent Vasisko were sniffing around at the Parkway Hotel in Vestal on another case when they got wind of the Mafia conclave. They had overheard Joseph Barbara’s son making reservations for some “distributors” who were coming to town. The two cops shuttled back and forth between Vestal and Apalachin taking down license plate numbers.
When the cops showed up at Barbara’s the next day, some of the visitors took to the hills; others were questioned and let go at a police roadblock on McFall Road, where Barbara lived.
And about 20 of them were rounded up and taken to the state police station, then in Vestal.
Earlier that day, Binghamton Sun reporter David Rossie had been making police checks at the Vestal barracks when he noticed there were numerous trooper cars parked out back. Ever the great reporter, Rossie, now a Sunday columnist for the Press & Sun-Bulletin, asked the desk sergeant what was up.
A “speedometer check,” he was told.
Hours later, Rossie got a hurried call from the same desk sergeant.
“Get your ass down here,” Sgt. Walt Kennedy told Rossie.
He did.
Straight into the fire.
What he found were numerous well-dressed men wearing thousand-dollar coats.
No one seemed to want to talk to him, he recalled. “I was just a raggedy-ass reporter,” Rossie said. “They acted like I was from another planet.”
Croswell let Rossie sit in on some of the police interviews. One of the mobsters — a Californian — was asked to empty his pockets. He pulled out a rolled-up wad of cash the size of a beer can, Rossie recalled. Croswell asked the mobster what he did for a living.
“I’m unemployed,” the mobster replied.
No one was arrested that day. “It wasn’t against the law to gather and talk about how they were going to kill someone,” Rossie said.
But the day had far-reaching effects, Rossie said. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could no longer pretend that the crime families were not organized, Rossie said. What followed were decades of prosecutions, hits, informants, books and movies.
The Mafia became a household word.
For Rossie, it brought a fascination with the mob.
He was a faithful fan of the HBO series hit, “The Sopranos.”
“I have never missed an episode,” he said.
Gary Sharpe also is a self- admitted fan of “The Sopranos.”
The Albany-based federal judge prosecuted members of the mob as a U.S. attorney in Binghamton in the 1980s and 1990s.
Sharpe prosecuted Joseph “Guv” Guarnieri, a capo in the Barbara family, who’d been present at the Apalachin conclave. Sharpe was 10 in 1957.
The local mob has waned, if not disappeared, since Sharpe was a prosecutor.
“I know or believe there is little if any mob left in the area,” the judge said. “What the current state is, I don’t know.”
And the man who once rubbed shoulders in a courtroom with mobsters agrees that the mob has been romanticized in popular culture. Mobsters are criminals, he said flatly. No more. No less.
But he said there is fairness in the way Tony Soprano was portrayed in the HBO series.
“It shows how endearing he can be,” Sharpe said. “Then he holds a gun to a person’s head and pulls the trigger.”
Apalachin raid on Mafia reverberates 50 years later - By Nancy Dooling - Sunday November 11, 2007 - Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin - http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071111/NEWS01/711110391/1001
Albert Anastasia was the boss of what is now known as the Gambino family, not the Genovese family as is said in the article above.
Is funny how can you find out things by Hollywood. I have just seen this movie Analyze this, with Robert De Niro, and Billy Crystal, there are some things very interesting.