# Kefauver Committee, Detroit: testimony of William Tocco (9 February 1951)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-part-9-william-tocco-testimony-1951/

William Tocco, with his attorney Walter Schweikart, testified at Detroit about his family, his businesses and the State Products Co., named 'Joe Zerrilli' among its partners, and answered 'Yes' when asked whether he had been a bootlegger during Prohibition.

Printed pages 248 to 254 of Part 9 of the Kefauver Committee's hearings, from the session of February 9, 1951 in room 734, Federal Building, Detroit. William Tocco appeared "accompanied by Walter Schweikart, attorney." He said he had lived in Detroit "over 38 years," that he was born in Italy "near Palermo," and, asked about sons: "I have two sons. Jack and Anthony." He gave his businesses as "the fruit business, Lakeshore Boats, the bakery business and I am employed by the Lafayette Motors," and said his son was an officer of Lafayette Motors. A photograph of his house was received in evidence; the transcript calls it exhibit No. 42 once and No. 22 once, and the schedule of exhibits lists it as 22.

Committee counsel John L. Burling read arrests from a Detroit police record, beginning with an arrest for armed robbery on May 26, 1920. Tocco answered, "I was arrested, but you know they put anything on." Asked, "You were a bootlegger during prohibition, were you not?" he said, "I guess so," and then "Yes." He denied that a January 1951 arrest recorded as a gambling charge was anything but the occasion on which he was served with the committee's subpoena, and a police official present agreed. Questioned through his attorney, he said he had never been brought to trial on any of the arrests.

Asked who was with him in the State Products Co., later the Pfeiffer Brewing Co., Tocco named "Anthony Lambert," "Herman Weil," and "Alfred Epstein and Mr. Zerrilli." Counsel asked, "Is that Joe Zerrilli?" and Tocco answered, "Yes." Schweikart told the committee that the company "manufactured malt, which was practically legal," that the partners were in it "from around 1927, 1928, or 1929 up until the repeal of the prohibition law," and that Tocco's and Zerrilli's interest was later sold to Epstein, "in 1933 or 1934." Tocco said he came to the United States in 1912, "barely 15 year old," and served twenty-one months in the United States Army.

The arrest list is counsel's reading of a police record; it shows arrests, not convictions. The committee did not charge Tocco. The transcript prints his street address, which this archive does not repeat.

## Sources

- Internet Archive, scan of the printed hearings, Part 9: Michigan (Boston Public Library copy): https://archive.org/details/investigationofo09unit
- Full text (OCR) on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/download/investigationofo09unit/investigationofo09unit_djvu.txt