Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Pink printed commitment form marked ORIGINAL, signed by U.S. Commissioner Mark A. Foote on 1 June 1915, committing Paul Mennite to the Cook County jail on a postal-law complaint.
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Commitment of Paul Mennite by U.S. Commissioner Mark A. Foote, Chicago, 1 June 1915

Printed commitment form from the Mecca and Mennite case file: U.S. Commissioner Mark A. Foote commits Paul Mennite to the Cook County jail in default of a $10,000 recognizance, on a complaint that he mailed three letters in a scheme to defraud Antonio Petrone.

Date
1915-06-01
Kind
case-file
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
49550600
Rights
A record of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, held by the National Archives at Chicago in Record Group 21. A United States government work, public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog lists access and use as unrestricted.

This is file page 1 of the case file NAID 49550600, a pink printed form marked “(ORIGINAL).” It is addressed by the President of the United States to the Marshal of the Northern District of Illinois and the keeper of the Cook County jail, and recites that Paul Mennite was brought before Mark A. Foote, United States Commissioner, on a complaint charging him “with violation of the Postal Laws, to-wit, section 215 of the Criminal Code; at Chicago aforesaid, April 29th, May 6th & 11th, 1915; in depositing, and causing to be deposited in the post office of the said United States, for mailing and delivery to one Antonio Petrone … three certain letters in and for executing a scheme and artifice theretofore by them devised to defraud said Antonio Petrone of his moneys.”

The examination was adjourned to 3 June 1915 at two o’clock, and Mennite, having not offered a recognizance of $10,000, was committed to jail until then. The form is signed by Mark A. Foote and dated 1 June 1915.

The form uses the language of the mail-fraud section; the words “Black Hand” do not appear on it. It prints the addressee’s street address, which is legible in the image and is not reproduced in this text.

itemThe United States vs. Pietro Mecca and Paul Mennite: threatening-letter case, Chicago, 1915 (case file)National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says Mecca and Mennite were accused of mailing letters threatening to kill a man and his family and to bomb his home unless he paid $300; both were sentenced to five years at Leavenworth.itemPost Office album (1916), volume 2: Chicago black-hand letter sentences, 1912 to 1915Entries in the 1916 Post Office album record federal sentences at Chicago for mailing black-hand letters: two men in January 1912, one in February 1914, and Paul Mennite and Pietro Mecca on 16 August 1915, each to five years at Leavenworth.