Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Case file

1910-01-29

Internet Archive (digitised copy)

Post Office album (1916), volume 2: the Marion, Ohio, black-hand letter conspiracy, sentences of 29 January 1910 at Toledo

Entries in the 1916 Post Office album record sentences passed at Toledo on 29 January 1910, from two to ten years, for 'conspiring, with others, to obtain $10,000 by means of black-hand letter mailed at Marion, Ohio, June 7, 1909'.

Date
1910-01-29
Kind
case-file
Source
Internet Archive (digitised copy)
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
Published by the Post Office Department, Office of the Chief Inspector, and printed by the Government Printing Office in 1916. A United States government work, public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The Internet Archive record reads "Not in copyright. The Library knows of no copyright restrictions on this item."

At least nine consecutive entries in volume 2 of the Post Office Department’s 1916 album (printed pages about 332 to 340) record sentences passed at Toledo, Ohio, on 29 January 1910 for “conspiring, with others, to obtain $10,000 by means of black-hand letter mailed at Marion, Ohio, June 7, 1909” (History file 15760). The terms run from two years to ten years at Leavenworth, with one two-year term at the reformatory at Elmira, N.Y. Some entries add a later release date or a commutation, in 1914 or 1916.

The surnames and the date match the federal case filed in the Northern District of Ohio: the indictment filed on 11 December 1909, which charges a conspiracy begun at Marion on 3 November 1908 (NAID 219793790), and the guilty verdict of 29 January 1910 (NAID 219793791). The album does not use the name “Society of the Banana,” which appears on the Postal Inspection Service’s modern history page.

The album prints a photograph, Bertillon measurements and a physical description of each person. This archive does not reproduce or summarise those, and names no one from the album who is not already the subject of a court file filed here. Printed page numbers were read from the Internet Archive’s OCR text and should be checked against the scan before they are cited.

itemPhotographs, Descriptions and Records of Persons Charged with Violation of the Postal Laws, volume 2 (Post Office Department, 1916)A 1916 Government Printing Office album for post-office inspectors. Its fraud section tags 23 entries '[BLACK HAND.]', recording federal sentences for mailing black-hand letters at Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Marion and Toledo, Trenton, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh and Clarksdale between 1910 and 1915.itemUnited States v. Salvatore Lima et al.: the Marion, Ohio, Black Hand indictment, December 1909 (case file)National Archives case file for the federal indictment of sixteen men in the Northern District of Ohio, filed 11 December 1909, charging a conspiracy begun at Marion, Ohio, to use the mails to defraud by threatening letters as members of an organisation the indictment calls 'The Black-Hand'.itemUnited States v. Salvatore Lima et al.: trial file with the verdict of 29 January 1910Companion National Archives file to the Marion, Ohio, Black Hand indictment: the catalog note says it holds the indictment, the threatening letters in Italian with translations, other filings, and the verdict of 29 January 1910 finding the defendants guilty.