Pre-1900 Sicilian links to New Orleans.

[Angelo Santino]

1879

La Mantia Rosario, an old criminal, who has just returned from jail and is condemned for being fat, lives in America with Salvatore Marino, a well-known convict. He accepts the favors, the hospitality, the confidence and sells him as Judas for thirty dollars, he assists the last moments, he collects the extreme will with which you want to burn some cards and he takes the cards away from the fire, and believing them important puts on his heart and with the precious load he travels half the world. The Italian consulates of Madrid, of Zaragoza of Marseille, the ministry of the interior in Rome, the police headquarters of Palermo trade the filthy goods.

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The public prosecutor came later to present to you the frightening figure of the ex-brigand Salvatore Marino, who charged with crimes had gone to America, to New Orleans and from there kept in correspondence with the evildoers of Monreale and Palermo, who in he recognized the supreme head of the association, gave him news of the most important events, sent him part of the sums obtained from thefts and extortions. Thus Marino is presented as head of the Stoppaglieri association, under whose immediate orders were Saverio Spinnato in Morreale and Salvatore Amoroso in Palermo; and we will remember that the instructor of this trial in 1879 had to believe that the association between imalfactors of Morreale, Palermo, Auditor, Bagheria, Misilmeri was only one, which manifested itself in the different centers in a different way, according to the conditions of the places and people. In the meantime, it is observable and must make weight, that in all the aforementioned processes, this Marino was never mentioned as the supreme chief; yet in some of the aforementioned trials such as those of Morreale and Bagheria, there were minute revelations on the establishment of the company, on the leaders, on the purpose, on the means used and were, as always, traitor affiliates who brought to justice; why then we never talk about Marino? Indeed, it is noteworthy that in the Stoppaglieri trial, speaking of it by accident and straforo, he was sentenced in absentia as a simple member of the association and never as chief!

And that trial, as you heard, ended in Catanzaro with a solemn acquittal verdict.

But the Fr. M document the proof and bring to your desk the two letters that Rosario La Mantia carries on his heart through his peregrinations, like Cesare i commentarî and Camoens his Lusiadi! Those letters, which are supposed to be in the name of Salvatore Amoroso because they are signed Totò, it is agreed that they were not written by it, being illiterate and it is added that they are written by his secretary, Salvatore DiPaola, the brother of the delegate of Fr. S.

I will not go into the authority and merit of those letters in order not to invade the field of the excellent defender of Di Paola, colleague Caputo.

We of the defense, in such a long case, must try not to repeat ourselves, mami it is necessary to mention some circumstances in flight, so that my picture is not incomplete. And first of all you must know that those letters are attributed to Di Paola on the faith of a single expert calligrapher who had no other than two signatures of Di Paola, then fugitive, for comparison documents.

Di Paola later came to justice.

Do you think I have been questioned about letters sometimes? Never. And there were so many doubts about the author of them, notwithstanding the declarations of La Mantia, to prove the character of Emanuele and Michele Amoroso and of Angelo's son.

But did you hear those letters read repeatedly and how do they feel? At best they are good at showing that Marino had preserved epistolary relationships with some of his ancient acquaintances,
who occasionally informed him.

And the most important events in the field of the mafia. And you will not have forgotten that the correspondent from Palermo, writing to Marino, tells him:
your friends Turretta and Buscemi were killed: and this is an irony says the Attorney General as Turretta and Buscemi were enemies of Marino and had attempted to kill him; but in another letter it is added: we had another loss, it was Damiano Seidita killed: is this also an irony? Is everything to be understood upside down? "

If, therefore, anything proves those letters, it is that they do not belong to the current accused or their adherents, but rather to those of the opposing party, to the prayers of the other religion.
Moreover, these letters were not believed much, and our distinguished General Prosecutor and the Section of Prosecution in 1879 estimated them to be insufficient evidence.

How insufficient they estimated the declarations of La Mantia that made those notes and appendix to those letters. And, as I said before, the concept of the Chambers of Council and the Section of Prosecution at that time was that of not believing the spontaneous, non-compliant declarations of people who were prejudiced and capable of lying for remote purposes.

Whence the trials of Castelbuono, Corleone and others failed.

We had not, as today, sworn on the word of a Carratello or a Gambino who denounced for interest or for cowardice.

! Mantia was therefore not believed in 1879.

It should be believed today. But we did not have the opportunity to see him and hear him in public debates because he, in due time, took off again, embarking for America on May 25, 1882, when the instructor would have needed him most. In fact, in the first fifteen years the accused and especially Di Paola were questioned and you see the opportunity, at least, to compare it with La Mantia.

- But La Mantia wants to leave and asks P. S a passport. The Police Headquarters, scrupulous about the citizens' freedom, especially since they were a respectable person, an ex-convict for fatigue,
hesitates; however, the Prefect and the Attorney General feel the need for advice and on trial. And all in chorus to repeat that the Statute guarantees individual freedom and that that worthy citizen was
free to leave.

And La Mantia left while the trial was being prepared, accompanied by the happy wishes of the Quaestor, the Prefect and the Procurator General.
How eviscerated love of legality and justice!

But these scruples did not occur when the people arrested a month in the gates of the police station were held with unheard of arbitrariness, when the strangest propalations were fashioned, without the intervention of a magistrate, when they dared to enter the judicial prison to place the five complainants in the O send them, deceiving the instructor and violating the discipline of that place!

In truth, you give me the air of that beguine who confessed to having succumbed to a drop of milk on a slim day, silencing the priest who had eaten a good thigh of mutton! (hilarity).

And La Mantia starts and with this departure he furnishes one of the most beautiful oratory moments for the eminent General Prosecutor!

He said that La Mantia, leaving, obeyed the instinct of conservation; he did not want to end Salvatore D 'Amico, the witness of the trial of the Stoppaglieri of Morreale, murdered at 23 for having revealed the secrets of the sect to justice!

It is true: Salvatore D 'Amico was assassinated! But was he assassinated for making revelations in the Morreale and Bagheria trials? And by whom was he murdered? We must not be too corrivia affirming that the mystery has been revealed.

First of all, it should be noted that Salvalore D ’Amico was killed when the instruction made on his propalations was entirely completed.

For four months D 'Amico was seen every day in the Palermo office of education, where he fashioned his legends of hundreds of pages, and during that time he supported many confrontations with the prisoners, causing the arrest of many people in Morreale and Bagheria. ; and nobody killed her. When everything was done, when D'Amico no longer had a word to add D 'Amico disappeared, killed treacherously.

And by whom was he killed?

Human justice then responded to his brothers, to his brothers, associates and sicarios of the sect of the fratuzzi of Bagheria. In the statutes of that sect it was written that the brother had to take charge of killing the traitor brother.

And the brothers Cosmo and Giuseppe D 'Amico were arrested on the initiative of a Gandolfo, well - known brigadier of the soldiers on horseback, father - in - law of D' Amico, to whom he had suggested the initiative of the propalations.

--

La Mantia, for the most part, does nothing but report what his companion Salvatore Marino had to tell him in various breaths, in the various reasons they had together before he fell ill with yellow fever and died. I do not reread the long - winded declarations of LaMantia, which were read to you at the last hour, after all the defense was understood, so that the impression is fresh in you. - And admittedly that Marino had all those stories told and that they are not inventions of La Mantia, it is spontaneous the concept that Marino told those braggart in order to make La Mantia believe to be a man of great importance, who from far America directed in Palermo the ranks of a great conspiracy and which had under his command nothing less than a force of forty five thousand affiliates.

Other than that association, gentlemen Jurors! If what La Mantia says were true, we should now flee this soil, populated by evildoers, of whom only twenty are in the hand of justice while 44, 980 still roam our country (long live hilarity).

And I remember in this regard that, for some time now, finding myself in Rome I had to see in the window of a bookseller a new pamphlet the Mafia written by such an A. Vizzini, who now my colleagues perceive to have been a delegate of Fr. S Attracted by the title that promised a study on the Sicilian thing, I made a purchase and read, or gentlemen, a very strange, very strange book. - In it there is a history of this mafia which is claimed to be a secret society founded in Palermo by Giuseppe Mazzini who went there for this purpose personally, from Mazzini who proclaimed the new sect and imposed the mysterious name of mafia on it.

Vizzini concluded by deploring the inaction of the government which, in more than twenty letters announcing the gravity of the danger, had replied with the most unsettling silence. And I will even say that the ungrateful government, instead of listening to him and rewarding him, has locked him up in the asylum in Rome! There, the poor Vizzini vents his historical-political accesses and perhaps meditates some other book that must increase the psychiatric sciences archive.

But that rapprochement! A fool and a rascal come to the same conclusions to slander their country: the one unconscious and harmless locks himself in among the idiots, the other greedy and wicked serves as a text for the search for justice! .

Speaking of the association of Palermo, chaired by Salvatore Marino from distant America, La Mantia wanted to name, but removed Amoroso and Di Paola, whom the two famous letters were supposed to have dealt with, and removed some others whose processes were already mentioned. closed, no one else La Mantia knew how to indicate. In this way, I show that I know nothing of the true facts of the supposed society and that I speak only on the guide of what was known for the existing processes.

I speak, it is true, of Michele Amoroso who said he belonged to the sect, and deposited with other documents a piece of paper written in pencil, containing these simple words to Michele Amoroso
Corso Corsico Tukery, 158. ”He added that he had seen that piece of paper written to Marino.

And in this you lie shamelessly because that is not Marino's handwriting.

Justice had in hand a letter signed by Salvatore Marino, exhibited by an Englishwoman residing in New Orleans, who had been in a love relationship with Marino and to whom he wrote without mysteries, signing with his true generality, while for all he it was not Salvatore Marino but Francesco Alessi.

That letter was shown to La Mantia and he said that he seemed to recognize Marino's character.

Well: having ordered a calligraphic report on the letter and address, it was liquidated that the two autographs were absolutely of a different hand.

- Should we believe the experts? The prosecution should give you faith because the professor Favaloro who makes this report is the one who examined the two famous letters attributing them to Di Paola.
So the address was not Marino 's, yet La Mantia claimed to have seen him write.

Pres. (Interrupting) Mr. lawyer, it seems to me that that letter was in English.

MARINUZZI Lawyer. It seems to me that it was in Italian. After all it is something that can occur.

But remember the distinguished Mr. President, the love relationship between Salvatore Marino and the charming English one began precisely with a language lesson, and there are no more profitable lessons than those that give a man to a woman. Perception is faster, ideas communicate in an admirable and indelible way.
Pres. But don't you remember what Dante said?

Avv, Marinuzzi. Let's leave poor Dante alone, mr. President. And then it is natural that the student wanted to give a first test of his progress to the teacher.

But I appeal to how many kind women are present here.

However, it is not presumable that Marino, living in New Orleans under a fake name, sent a letter signed by Salvatore Marino to his sweetheart and had it written by others.

And then that letter was presented by the instructor to Rosario La Mantia and he said that the character seemed to him precisely that of Marino!

But - admit that that address is of a Marino character: the concession costs me nothing: what does it feel? That address was found amidst a large amount of papers all belonging to commercial affairs: such as invoices, correspondences and more.

Well: among other addresses there was that of a Michele Amoroso, who could have been in correspondence with Marino for the fruit shop that he had planted.

PRES. Remember, Mr., a lawyer, that La Mantia added that he had learned from Marino that Michele Amoroso of the address was the one who had taken part in the blackmail of young Parisi and was the proceeds from the blackmail that Marino was waiting for Amoroso.

[Angelo Santino]

If people are interested there is one chapter in the Sangiorgi report that goes into New Orleans, this would have been in 1898. About a decade after the previous stuff I posted.

[sdeitche]

Very interesting

[Dwalin2014]

Thanks for the information!

"Di Paola later came to justice", means that he turned himself in or was arrested? Do you know what happened to him later, was he convicted with the Amoroso brothers or acquitted?