Davis noted, had shot and killed “a federal narcotics agent by the name of Cecil Moore.” Carolla served only two years in federal prison for the crime and emerged to continue heading the organization into the 1930s and mid-1940s.
Carlos Marcello was born Calogero Minacore on February 6, 1910, in Tunisia, the son of a Sicilian mother who soon joined her husband in New Orleans. After dropping out of school at age fourteen, Carlos helped his large family of six brothers and two sisters by delivering vegetables from the family’s farm to the New Orleans market, which was controlled by the Mafia. Carlos soon saw crime as a greater opportunity than farming, and at age nineteen he and three friends robbed a bank of $7,000. However, after they were caught and forced to return the money, all the charges were dropped.
Marcello quickly learned that it was better to have others commit his crimes, so he had two teenagers rob a grocery store. While Marcello was planning a follow-up crime with the two—another bank robbery—the teens were arrested. One of them told the authorities everything, and the police also arrested Marcello. In the future, Marcello would come to rely on only close family members and associates who could be trusted not to talk. He had a lot of time to think about such things after “he was sentenced to nine to twelve years in prison,” a term he began serving in May 1930 when he was just twenty. Thanks to a corrupt governor, Marcello was pardoned after only four years.
After leaving prison, Marcello bought his first bar, beginning a pattern that would eventually see him owning or controlling dozens of bars, clubs, and restaurants in cities ranging from New Orleans to Dallas, where he would secretly control even gay bars and Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. The following year, in 1936, the twenty-six-year-old Marcello officially joined the New Orleans Mafia and married the daughter of one of Sam Carolla’s underbosses. Less than two years later, Marcello was arrested again, this time for selling twenty-three pounds of marijuana from his bar. He was sentenced to a year and a day and ordered to pay a fine of $76,830, but thanks to the mob’s influence, he paid only $400 and was released after just nine months. In the future, Marcello would leave the actual trafficking of drugs to others to insulate himself from risk of arrest.
After his release, Marcello focused on a music company he owned with one of his brothers. It was just a front for putting their jukeboxes and pinball machines in bars, restaurants, and clubs in the cities of Gretna and Algiers, just outside New Orleans. Any owners who didn’t want Marcello’s machines were dealt with brutally.
Those machines—and Marcello’s ruthless powers of persuasion—proved to be his ticket to the big time because Sam Carolla had just closed a deal with New York mob boss Frank Costello to put a thousand of Costello’s slot machines in and around New Orleans. Carolla ordered Marcello to get a fourth of the machines into New Orleans’s west side. In return, Marcello would keep two-thirds of the money while Costello got one-third. The deal was incredibly profitable for both thanks to Marcello’s fearsome reputation among bar and club owners. At this time Marcello made his first steps at large-scale bribery of public officials. He later boasted that he gave the Gretna Police Chief “$50,000 in cash every few months,” as well as distributing much smaller bribes to lower-level police.
Marcello was so ruthlessly efficient and the slots so profitable that when Costello and Meyer Lansky decided to build a plush gambling casino called the Beverly Country Club near New Orleans, they made Marcello a 12.5 percent partner. The club opened in 1945 and soon featured top nightclub acts of the day, including such Hollywood stars as Jimmy Durante. Marcello was soon managing not only the club but all of Costello’s gambling operations in the New Orleans area. All of that
Carlos Marcello was born Calogero Minacore on February 6, 1910, in Tunisia, the son of a Sicilian mother who soon joined her husband in New Orleans. After dropping out of school at age fourteen, Carlos helped his large family of six brothers and two sisters by delivering vegetables from the family’s farm to the New Orleans market, which was controlled by the Mafia. Carlos soon saw crime as a greater opportunity than farming, and at age nineteen he and three friends robbed a bank of $7,000. However, after they were caught and forced to return the money, all the charges were dropped.
Marcello quickly learned that it was better to have others commit his crimes, so he had two teenagers rob a grocery store. While Marcello was planning a follow-up crime with the two—another bank robbery—the teens were arrested. One of them told the authorities everything, and the police also arrested Marcello. In the future, Marcello would come to rely on only close family members and associates who could be trusted not to talk. He had a lot of time to think about such things after “he was sentenced to nine to twelve years in prison,” a term he began serving in May 1930 when he was just twenty. Thanks to a corrupt governor, Marcello was pardoned after only four years.
After leaving prison, Marcello bought his first bar, beginning a pattern that would eventually see him owning or controlling dozens of bars, clubs, and restaurants in cities ranging from New Orleans to Dallas, where he would secretly control even gay bars and Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. The following year, in 1936, the twenty-six-year-old Marcello officially joined the New Orleans Mafia and married the daughter of one of Sam Carolla’s underbosses. Less than two years later, Marcello was arrested again, this time for selling twenty-three pounds of marijuana from his bar. He was sentenced to a year and a day and ordered to pay a fine of $76,830, but thanks to the mob’s influence, he paid only $400 and was released after just nine months. In the future, Marcello would leave the actual trafficking of drugs to others to insulate himself from risk of arrest.
After his release, Marcello focused on a music company he owned with one of his brothers. It was just a front for putting their jukeboxes and pinball machines in bars, restaurants, and clubs in the cities of Gretna and Algiers, just outside New Orleans. Any owners who didn’t want Marcello’s machines were dealt with brutally.
Those machines—and Marcello’s ruthless powers of persuasion—proved to be his ticket to the big time because Sam Carolla had just closed a deal with New York mob boss Frank Costello to put a thousand of Costello’s slot machines in and around New Orleans. Carolla ordered Marcello to get a fourth of the machines into New Orleans’s west side. In return, Marcello would keep two-thirds of the money while Costello got one-third. The deal was incredibly profitable for both thanks to Marcello’s fearsome reputation among bar and club owners. At this time Marcello made his first steps at large-scale bribery of public officials. He later boasted that he gave the Gretna Police Chief “$50,000 in cash every few months,” as well as distributing much smaller bribes to lower-level police.
Marcello was so ruthlessly efficient and the slots so profitable that when Costello and Meyer Lansky decided to build a plush gambling casino called the Beverly Country Club near New Orleans, they made Marcello a 12.5 percent partner. The club opened in 1945 and soon featured top nightclub acts of the day, including such Hollywood stars as Jimmy Durante. Marcello was soon managing not only the club but all of Costello’s gambling operations in the New Orleans area. All of that
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