FBI New York teletypes on Luciano's custody and departure (February 25 to 27, 1946)

Pages 20 to 28 of Part 01 of the Vault’s Luciano file are three urgent teletypes from the FBI’s New York office to the Director, under the caption “Lucky Luciano, Misc., Departure” (later “Info Concerning Departure”), sent on February 25, 26 and 27, 1946 and signed Conroy. They are in capitals, and were read from the viewer’s OCR; the page images could not be fetched. Quotations below are legible OCR. Some dates on the first page are garbled and are not used.

The first teletype gives background. It says Luciano was “CONVICTED NY COURT … IN JUNE, THIRTYSIX, ON CHARGE OF COMPULSORY PROSTITUTION,” was committed to Dannemora prison at Clinton, New York in July 1936, and that the New York Appellate Division upheld the sentences on July 16, 1937. It records an application before Judge McCook to suspend two fifteen-year sentences, and that “GOVERNOR DEWEY, GRANTED PAROLE JAN THREE, FORTYSIX,” on condition that he be released to the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at Sing Sing “AND REMOVED TO ELLIS ISLAND, NYC.” The teletype calls the governor’s act a parole. The state papers on it were not opened, and the conviction itself was a state case.

The second and third teletypes report what INS officials told agents. A reporter was ejected from the Ellis Island ferry lobby in Manhattan while “FRANK COSTELLO AND ATTORNEY POLAKOF” were let through. Reporters were kept off the Brooklyn pier by stevedores and pier officials, and INS said it had no authority over entry to the pier. On February 2, 1946 INS issued passes to Luciano’s attorney, Moses Polakoff, whose group included Frank Costello; the guard on duty said the attorney “ADVISED LUCIANO TO RETURN TO ITALY AS DEPORTEE,” that Luciano gave Costello $400 in cash under the currency rule, and that “COSTELLO HANDED LUCIANO TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN UNSIGNED TRAVELERS CHECKS.” The teletype records: “SUBJECT PLACED ABOARD FREIGHTER SS LAURA KEENE AT TWO FORTYFIVE PM FEB. EIGHTH FORTYSIX,” at Pier Seven, Brooklyn, private premises policed by the Bush Terminal Company. Six INS guards watched him until two in the afternoon of February 10, “AT WHICH TIME SHIP WAS ON HIGH SEAS,” and they denied that he had any visitors or liquor on board.

The New York office called its report “A FACTUAL SUMMARY OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THIS CASE AS OBTAINED FROM DEPT. OF JUSTICE EMPLOYEES CONNECTED WITH INS” and said it would not interview pier officials or newspapermen without the Bureau’s authority. The teletypes describe the deportation; the deportation order itself is not in the pages read. A remark in the first teletype about a gang Luciano was said once to have headed is not repeated here.