Carlos Joseph Marcello (Italian: [mar'tʃɛlːlo], born Calogero Minacore, Italian: [kaˈlɔːdʒero minaˈkɔːre]; February 6, 1910 – March 3, 1993) was an Italian-American crime boss of the New Orleans crime family from 1947 to 1990.
Aside from his role in the American Mafia, he is also notorious for the reason that G. Robert Blakey and others have alleged that Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr., and Sam Giancana conspired in the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in retaliation for federal investigations and prosecutions that threatened both the power and the
multibillion-dollar profits of organized crime.
Marcello was born on February 6, 1910, to Sicilian immigrants Giuseppe and Luigia Minacore, in Tunis, French Tunisia. With his family, Marcello immigrated to the United States in 1911 and settled in a decaying plantation house near Metairie in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. His father adopted a different family name to avoid confusion with his supervisor on the sugar plantation where he had started work. His overseer, also Minacore, chose the appellation Marcello. The family changed all their other names, and Calogero Minacore became Carlos Joseph Marcello. He had eight siblings: Peter, Rose, Mary, Pascal, Vincent, Joseph Jr., Anthony and Salvador Marcello.
His first arrest occurred in 1929 following the robbery of a local bank, the charges were eventually dropped. In 1930 Marcello hired two youngsters, aged 13 and 16, to perform an armed robbery at a grocery store. The robbery was unsuccessful and Marcello was tried as an accessory, receiving a sentence of nine years minimum imprisonment. In 1935 he was released after four years when he received a full pardon from the Louisiana Governor O.K. Allen. In 1938 he was arrested for involvement in what was then called "the biggest marijuana ring in New Orleans history". He served 10 months in prison in the Atlanta penitentiary. He also received a $76,820 fine but managed to reduce this down to $400 on grounds of poverty.
By the 1940s Marcello developed a relationship with Frank Costello, boss of the Luciano crime family. He arranged a deal with Costello whereby he would utilize Jefferson Music
Company and Southern News Service, both companies Marcello owned, to control the pinballs, slot machines, and horse-playing handbooks in Louisiana. He also joined Costello and Meyer Lansky as a partner in the New Southport and Beverly Club casinos of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. In 1946 he attended the Havana Conference in Cuba.
By the end of 1947, Marcello had taken control of Louisiana's illegal gambling network. He had also joined forces with Genovese crime family associate Meyer Lansky in order to skim money from some of the most important casinos in the New Orleans area shortly after becoming associated with the Todaro family through marriage. According to former members of the Chicago Outfit, Marcello was also assigned a cut of the money skimmed from Las Vegas casinos, in exchange for providing "muscle" in Florida real estate deals. By this time, Marcello had been selected as "The Godfather" of the New Orleans Mafia, by the family's capos and with the approval of The Commission after the deportation of his predecessor, Silvestro Carollo, to Sicily. He held this position for the next thirty years. In a 1975 extortion trial, two witnesses described Marcello as "The Godfather" of the New Orleans crime syndicate.
Marcello cultivated a relationship with politician Earl Long, who was re-elected governor in 1948. Marcello gave Long $10,000 before the election and an additional $100,000 after he won. He later bragged that he had "bought Earl Long". When the 1956 election came around, Marcello upped his donations, this time giving Long $250,000. He continued to curry favor with later governors, like John McKeithen. In 1979 Marcello was recorded by the FBI venting that although he gave McKeithen $168,000, Louisianan politicians "take your fuckin' money, man, and then they tell you goodbye...I had McKeithen for eight years...then that son of a bitch too scared to talk to me". As one of his last acts as governor in 1964, Jimmie Davis approved a plan for the building of a levee at Marcello's property Churchill Farms. The contract stipulated that the state would put up $500,000 for its construction. In 1967 Davis' successor McKeithen approved the issuance of the check. When Life magazine exposed the contract McKeithen denied that he had ever issued a check.
Marcello appeared before the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee on organized crime on January 25, 1951. He pleaded the Fifth Amendment 152 times. The Committee called Marcello "one of the worst criminals in the country".
Marcello continued the family's long-standing tradition of fierce independence from interference by mafiosi in other areas. He enacted a policy that forbade mafiosi from other families from visiting Louisiana without first asking permission.
On March 24, 1959, Marcello appeared before the United States Senate's McClellan Committee investigating organized crime. Serving as Chief Counsel to the committee was Robert F. Kennedy; his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, was a member of the committee. In response to committee questioning, Marcello invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any questions relating to his background, activities, and associates. From then on, Marcello became an avowed enemy of the Kennedys. He pled the Fifth just short of 70 times.
The New Orleans crime family frequently met at Mosca's Italian restaurant in the New Orleans suburb of Avondale, in a building which Marcello had owned.
Beginning in 1952 the US government had attempted to deport Marcello on the grounds of his 1938 drug conviction. In order to avoid deportation he dispatched Carl Noll to Guatemala, who arranged for Marcello's name to be inserted in a blank spot on the birth ledger of the village of San Jose Pinula. A clerk was paid to write in Marcello's birth with the same handwriting and ink as the other entries. The deportation endeavor had stalled but when Robert F. Kennedy was appointed Attorney General he revived the efforts. Marcello tried to use Frank Sinatra to convince Kennedy to ease off on his deportation attempts. Marcello contacted Santo Trafficante Jr., who in turn contacted Sinatra, requesting that he speak with Joseph Kennedy Sr., Bobby Kennedy's father. This attempt was unsuccessful.
In January 1961 Marcello met with a lobbyist for Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. He offered him $200,000 for safe refuge in the country, however before they could come to an agreement he was deported. On April 4, 1961, the U.S. Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, apprehended Marcello as he made what he assumed was a routine visit to the immigration authorities in New Orleans, then speedily deported him to Guatemala before his lawyer could initiate court action to delay or stop the deportation. He returned to the United States on 28 May, onboard a Dominican Air Force jet. Thereafter, he successfully fought efforts by the government to deport him.
In November 1963, Marcello was tried for "conspiracy to defraud the United States government by obtaining a false Guatemalan birth certificate" and "conspiracy to obstruct the United States government in the exercise of its right to deport Carlos Marcello". He was acquitted later that month on both charges. However, in October 1964, Marcello was charged with "conspiring to obstruct justice by fixing a juror [Rudolph Heitler] and seeking the murder of a government witness [Carl Noll]". Marcello's attorney admitted Heitler had been bribed but said that there was no evidence to connect the bribe with Marcello. Noll refused to testify against Marcello in the case. Marcello was acquitted of both charges. Through Noll, Marcello had made an agreement with a local Guatemalan to enter Marcello's name and birth into the ledger of a Guatemalan village.
In September 1966, 13 members of the New York, Louisiana and Florida crime families were arrested for "consorting with known criminals" at the La Stella Restaurant in Queens, New York. However, the charges were later dropped. Returning to New Orleans a few days later, Marcello was arrested for assaulting an FBI agent. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but he was retried and convicted. He was sentenced to two years but served less than six months. In January 1975 he was acquitted of federal charges that he had used extortion to take over the Crash Landing nightclub.