Giovanni Pecoraro was a peer of Giuseppe Morello’s with an extensive network of his own, connecting him to the highest levels of the Mafia in Palermo and Los Angeles, California.
Pecoraro was distinguished from the other members of Morello’s inner circle in that he wasn’t from Corleone. He was born the same year as Morello, and like the infamous New York boss of bosses, Pecoraro was a mafioso before and after migration from their native Sicily. He seemed to know everyone Morello knew, and was a suspect in the most notorious Mafia conspiracy of his age. His support during a crisis for the Morello-Terranova family cost him his life. So why haven’t we heard of him?
Giovanni Pecoraro was born on the first of August 1867 in Piana dei Greci, an Arbereshe comune in the same district as Corleone. He was the fourth of seven children, and the youngest of three sons. His father, Michele, was a sieve maker.
Before emigrating, Giovanni Pecoraro was involved in organized crime in Sicily. While working as a broker in San Cipirello, he was accused of embezzlement. Later he was tried again, this time for murder, and again he was acquitted. He was described by police in San Giuseppe Jato as a mafioso who sent Black Hand letters to his neighbors.
Pecoraro left in 1902 to avoid arrest. In NYC he worked first as a bartender, later in the trucking business, and in 1914 he became a naturalized citizen. His wife ran a dry goods store and the couple had two children. Giovanni was briefly detained by New York City police investigating the 1903 murder of Benedetto Madonia, and again in 1908 in connection with a bombing.
In the spring of 1909, Pecoraro was one of five suspects Palermitan police had in the murder of New York police detective Joseph Petrosino in Palermo. He was arrested in Sicily with Vito Cascio Ferro and Carlo Costantino.
Pecoraro had a number of connections to Giuseppe Morello, who was suspected of orchestrating the assassination of Petrosino. One that appears in Critchley’s 2009 book is that Giovanni’s brother, Domenico Pecoraro, was seen by law enforcement walking with Vito Cascio Ferro and Giuseppe Morello in Brooklyn in 1903. (Critchley writes on page 32 that he will discuss the Pecoraro brothers in Chapter 3; in that chapter we meet both Domenico and Giovanni, though Critchley has no more to say about their relationship.)
Domenico Pecoraro was the first substitute boss of the Morello gang after his imprisonment, doing Morello’s bidding by correspondence. However, Domenico is of no relation to Giovanni. Domenico Pecoraro (1851-1934) was born in Bagheria, the son of Girolamo Pecoraro and Rosa Tripoli. There is nothing to connect him to Giovanni Pecoraro, who was born in Piana dei Greci to Michele Pecoraro and Marianna Virga, two natives of the comune. Nothing, that is, except for their associations with such mafioso powerhouses as Cascio Ferro and Morello.
In 1909, when Giovanni Pecoraro was arrested, he appeared to know Antonio Cecala, his kidnapping victim, the Calabrian printer Antonio Comito, and the secluded Highland, New York, farm where they both were employed in printing counterfeit bills for Morello.
After their release from prison in Atlanta in 1920, brothers-in-law Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo returned to their families in New York City. Morello began working for Joe “The Boss” Masseria, drawing the ire of Masseria’s chief rival, Salvatore D’Aquila.
In the fall of 1921, D’Aquila had Morello and Lupo denounced at a Mafia general assembly, and they were condemned to death. Morello fled with Umberto Valenti to Sicily to seek the support of the powerful mafioso mediator, Nicola Gentile. Ciro Terranova joined his older half-brother in Sicily with an old friend: Giovanni Pecoraro. Terranova and Pecoraro made their travel arrangements in concert, both in October 1921; Pecoraro identified Terranova for his passport application, claiming they’d known one another for twenty years.
The same month, Ignazio Lupo asked permission to leave the country (he was on conditional release). He stayed in Italy for a few years, and was sent back to prison on his return, for violation of the conditions of his release.
Terranova and Pecoraro returned on the SS Colombo early in 1922. Valenti came back in January on the Presidente Wilson; Morello’s return trip hasn’t been found, but he came back to New York around the same time as the others.
Valenti quickly abandoned his alliance with Morello and Lupo and returned to D’Aquila. Vincent Terranova was killed in May 1922. Evidently, Valenti tried to shoot Masseria to prove himself to D’Aquila but missed, and the following day killed a Terranova brother instead, to make up for it. Valenti was shot dead in August.
Pecoraro paid the ultimate price for his loyalty to the Morello-Terranova family. He was assassinated at his wife’s dry goods store below their apartment, and died from multiple gunshot wounds in March 1923. The gunman was allegedly Philip Mangano; he was acquitted of the crime.
Giovanni Pecoraro’s son Michele, aka “Skinny Mike,” born in 1898 in San Cipirello, was also a gangster in New York. His career ended when an arrest for forgery sent him fleeing arrest to California, like Jack Dragna and Ben Rizzotto had done, a generation earlier. In both cases, a surprisingly robust safety net of extended family was waiting for them in the Golden State.
Pecoraro’s family ties to the Mafia don’t stop there. To learn more about his family connections in the Los Angeles Mafia, follow this link to Patreon. Member level supporters of Mafia Genealogy get access to the article and more original content created exclusively for Patreon subscribers.
Sources
Atto di nascita, Giovanni Pecoraro. (1867, August 1). Record no. 217. “Italia, Palermo, Palermo, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1866-1910,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L97B-43XS?cc=2051639&wc=MCTM-GWG%3A351055601%2C353029401%2C353029402 : 22 May 2014), Palermo > Piana degli Albanesi > Nati, pubblicazioni, matrimoni, cittadinanze, morti 1867-1879 > image 66 of 2722; Tribunale di Cagliari (Cagliari Court, Cagliari).
Atto di nascita, Michele Pecoraro. (1897, October 15). Record no. 139. “Italia, Palermo, Palermo, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1866-1910,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-997B-FKH7?cc=2051639&wc=MCTM-538%3A351055601%2C353384901%2C353409001 : 22 May 2014), Palermo > San Cipirello > Nati, pubblicazioni, matrimoni, cittadinanze, morti 1894-1902 > image 444 of 862; Tribunale di Cagliari (Cagliari Court, Cagliari).
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Death of John Pecoraro. (1923, March 6). Cert. no. 7349. Manhattan. DORIS. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/5605596
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Warner, R., Santino, A., and Van ‘t Riet, L. (2014, May). The early New York mafia: an alternative theory. Informer Journal. Pp. 4+.
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