Giuseppe Morello

On the record

• April 1903 — A Secret Service report of about 8 or 9 April 1903 records an application for search warrants for premises including those of "Giuseppe Morrello" (NARA 151173326, page 49).
• 13 April 1903 — Secret Service operatives followed "Morrello" to La Duca's butcher shop at #16 Stanton Street and to Elizabeth Street, where he met "Cascioferro" and other men (NARA 151173326, page 87). An agency's surveillance report.
• 14 April 1903 — An operative identified the body found in a barrel, at the Morgue, as "that of a man I had seen the day previous, with Morrello et al." (NARA 151173326, page 111). An agency's report, not a finding about the killing.
• 15 April 1903 — Arrested. The New-York Tribune lists "Giuseppe Morello, agent" among eight men held and calls him "the leader of the band, according to the police"; the Sun reports his arrest with Petto at the Bowery and Delancey Street; the Secret Service report puts it at Delancey and Forsyth Streets. Newspaper reports and an agency report.
• 16-17 April 1903 — A telegram from Flynn to Chief Wilkie, copied in the Secret Service report, says Morrello mailed a letter to a man in New Orleans and that the "Letter indicated that murder was to be done" (NARA 151173326, page 106). The agency's belief; the letter is not in any record filed here.
• 15 November 1909 — Secret Service agents with ten members of the Italian Squad executed search warrants on "Morrello et al."; the report's writer was "satisfied" that Morrello held "very damaging 'Black Hand' letters" (NARA 151194549, page 165). An agent's belief in an internal report, not a finding; no extortion charge followed in any record filed here.
• 19 February 1910 — Convicted with seven others of counterfeiting and sentenced to twenty-five years, as the New-York Tribune and the Sun of 20 February report. The Sun quotes Judge Ray as saying "Lupo and Morello were at the head of this enterprise." Newspaper reports of the sentencing.
• 19 June 1911 — The Second Circuit affirmed the convictions in Calicchio v. United States, 189 F. 305, for making counterfeit $2 silver certificates and $5 notes. On a question put at trial about his 1903 arrest as "the principal in the murder" of the barrel victim, the court wrote: "The arrest of Morelio for the murder proved nothing."

The records spell the name Morello, Morrello, Giuseppi Morello and, in the OCR of the 1911 opinion, Morelio. No record filed here gives his date of birth, his release from prison or his death.

Role and family. The 1903 Tribune reports that police called him “the leader of the band,” the 1910 Tribune calls him “alleged leader of the band,” and the Sun reports the trial judge’s remark that he and Lupo “were at the head of this enterprise.” These are newspaper reports about a counterfeiting group. No federal record filed here states a role or a family for him, so both fields are left empty and nothing here supports a family-chart seat.

The barrel killing of April 1903 was never the subject of a conviction in any record filed here. The 1911 court’s sentence that his arrest “proved nothing” is the limit this archive places on the 1903 and 1910 press accounts that connect him with it, and on the February 1910 suggestion that he was connected with Petrosino’s killing.

Records