# Senate Report 120: proceedings against Carlos Marcello (1951)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-marcello-contempt-1951/

Senate Report No. 120, 82d Congress, on the Kefauver Committee's contempt proceedings against Carlos Marcello, who refused to answer questions at its New Orleans hearing of January 25, 1951. The hearing transcript excerpt is printed as Annex I.

The printed caption is "Proceedings against Carlos Marcello for contempt of the Senate." It is Senate Report No. 120, 82d Congress, 1st Session, ordered to be printed February 21 (legislative day, January 29), 1951, and submitted by Senator Kefauver for the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. The text was read from the Serial Set PDF on govinfo.

The report states that the committee subpoenaed Marcello to appear "on January 25, 1951, at 9:30 a. m., at their committee room 245, Main Post Office Building, New Orleans, La.," and to bring records of his income, assets, and tax returns from January 1, 1944. The deputy marshal's return states that the subpena was served "by handing same in person to the within-named Carlos Marcello, at 335 Huey P. Long Ave., Gretna, La., at 10:15 o'clock a. m., on the sixteenth day of January 1951." A committee resolution of December 22, 1950 authorized subcommittee hearings "in the vicinities of the cities of Tampa, Fla., and New Orleans, La.," and the chairman sat as a subcommittee of one at New Orleans on January 25 and 26, 1951.

Annex I prints the transcript of his appearance. Marcello read a statement: "I am going to refuse to answer any and all questions other than my name and place of residence on the ground that the answer might tend to incriminate me." Asked about a series of companies and places, among them the Dixie Coin Machine Co., the Jefferson Music Co., the Beverly Club, and Fogarty's News Service, he gave the same answer. The questions are the committee's; his refusals are not admissions.

On January 29, 1951 the committee resolved to ask the Senate to direct the United States attorney for the eastern district of Louisiana to proceed against him. Annex II is associate counsel Downey Rice's memorandum that the refusals were "contemptuous." The report does not print the full New Orleans hearing; that volume was not opened for this archive.

## Sources

- GovInfo, United States Congressional Serial Set: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-11486_00_00-121-0120-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-11486_00_00-121-0120-0000.pdf