Giuseppe Morello Prison Documents

Giuseppe Morello (1867-1930) was the reigning boss of bosses over the U.S. Mafia when he was convicted of counterfeiting in February 1910 and sentenced to twenty-five years in Atlanta Federal Prison. He arrived at the prison on February 20, 1910. Around 1912, as Morello's legal appeals were exhausted, the Mafia installed a new boss of bosses, Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila. Morello attorneys eventually won a commutation of Morello's sentence down to fifteen years. That term was further reduced through a "good time" allowance, causing his sentence to expire on March 18, 1920. While blocked by D'Aquila from a return to his former boss of bosses role, Morello served as a top adviser to later boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria and then became an early casualty of an insurrection against Masseria's leadership (the Castellammarese War). During the 121 months that Morello was incarcerated, hundreds of pages of material went into his prison file. This material related to his letters, his visitors, his health, his legal appeals, his past criminal endeavors, ... We acquired a copy of Morello's file, scanned its contents and attempted to organize the material in a way that would be useful for organized crime history researchers. We provide access to the files through the links shown below. (For a more complete Morello biography, see "Sinistro: The underworld career of Giuseppe Morello.")

Administrative

Clemency

Ignatz Florio Society

Justice Department

Letters

Ortelero

Sentence & Record

Visits

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Other Morello-related items on this website:

• The Barrel Mystery (1919) by William J. Flynn.
• Memoirs of a Murder Man (1930), Chapter X, by Arthur A. Carey.
• Autobiography: The Real Thing by Joseph Valachi (1964).
• Badges in Little Italy: New York's Italian Squad (2007).