Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Illustration: a dossier collage of maps, photographs and redacted case files. Not an archive object.

Pittsburgh family

The chart is empty. The Justice Department refers to a RICO trial of "the Pittsburgh La Cosa Nostra organized crime family" without dates or names. The other records on file are 1958 Senate committee testimony and staff summaries about Pittsburgh-area men at or linked to Apalachin.

Illustration, not an archive object

Empty seats. They stay empty until a citation on this page supports a name, and a name is then added only by a separate, cited decision.

  • BossNot filled
    • UnderbossNot filled
    • ConsigliereNot filled

Key to statement kinds (defined in the text below)Justice Department releaseCommittee staffPolice testimonyCourt opinion

This page is a hub for the organization that a 2018 Justice Department release calls “the Pittsburgh La Cosa Nostra organized crime family.” That release says only that a former prosecutor tried the family “on RICO charges” in an eight-week trial; it gives no date, no defendants and no docket, and none is supplied here. The chart above stays empty.

  • Justice Department release. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh describing a past prosecution in one clause.
  • Committee staff. McClellan Committee investigators testifying in 1958, and the committee’s staff list, which the chairman said “is not evidence.”
  • Police testimony. A Los Angeles police captain in 1958, and Tampa’s police chief in 1963 summarizing earlier Senate testimony.
  • Court opinion. The Second Circuit’s Apalachin opinion (1960) names Pittsburgh-area men among those stopped or charged but gives no city for anyone.

The person pages

  • John LaRocca: committee investigator Sherman Willse named “John LaRocca, Pittsburgh” among five men added to the Apalachin list, and investigator George H. Martin said he was in business in Pittsburgh “With Gabriel Mannarino, I believe.” Committee staff. A Los Angeles police captain said the press had quoted a senator calling him “the top racketeer of the Pittsburgh area.” Police testimony repeating a press report. No record states a role.
  • Gabriel Mannarino: the staff list calls him a former owner, “with brothers, of Sans Soucie, Habana.” Committee staff. Tampa’s police chief said earlier testimony had Santo Trafficante, Jr. taking over the Sans Souci “from the Mannarino brothers in Pittsburgh, Pa.” Police testimony. The Second Circuit lists him among the men taken to the Vestal barracks. Court opinion. No record states a role.

The staff list also names Michael James Genovese of Gibsonia, Pa., as LaRocca’s partner in a coin-machine company in 1956, and Martin named him as LaRocca’s business partner. Two staff statements are not enough for a person page here.

What the chart still waits for

The seats are Boss, Underboss and Consigliere. No record on file puts any of those titles on a named person in Pittsburgh. The “top racketeer” phrase about LaRocca is a newspaper’s report of a senator’s remark, repeated by a police captain, and is not a seat. A 1992 Third Circuit table decision from the Western District of Pennsylvania and a 1957 Third Circuit opinion in a perjury case against a John S. Larocca of Pittsburgh were opened during research; neither states a connection to this organization, so neither is filed. A name goes into a seat only by a separate, cited decision on this page.