MAFIA IN APALACHIN? (con't.)    

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            At 12:50, Croswell and his companions set up what amounted to a roadblock at the base of the hill about half a mile from Barbara's home and. The first car to leave Barbara's was driven by Zicari and contained Alaimo. They were both known to Croswell and they were let pass without being stopped.  However, a few minutes later Croswell radioed to approaching troopers and had the Zicari vehicle stopped, about seven miles east on RT 17, and the two men formally identified.
            At about 1:20 P.M., two of Barbara's guests, Emanuel Zicari and Dominic Alaimo, drove to the roadblock.  They were stopped and asked to identify themselves.  Next came Russel Bufalino in his Chrysler Imperial with passengers Joseph Ida, Gerardo Catena, Dominic Oliveto and Vito Genovese. 
            When questioned, Vito Genovese asserted that he didn't have to talk to the trooper and would not respond to questioning.  As more vehicles were stopped by the blockade, the line of cars could be seen from Barbara's house.  The remaining guests quickly realized the coast was not clear. 
            Some estimated that 50 men fled into the woods muddying their silk suits, their expensive shoes slipping on wet autumn leaves and tearing their fine coats on barbed wire.  Croswell indicated that it was more like ten to twelve men.  Allegedly, some threw away guns and wads of cash, but this all appears to be newspaper literary hype.  In the words of Carl Sifakis, “It was a ludicrous scene:  immaculately tailored crime bosses, mostly in their 50’s or older and no longer fleet of foot, climbed out of windows or bolted through back doors and went racing through the woods, burrs and undergrowth in a frantic attempt to escape.” 
            In his book, Honor Thy Father, Gay Talese indicated that there were about 70 "delegates" at this "summit meeting" in Apalachin.  Most of them represented families in the Northeastern area of the United States, "the center of many of the current problems" facing the Mafia at the time.  Twenty-three men were from New York City or New Jersey, nineteen were from other parts of New York State, only eight had come from the Midwest, three from the West, two from the South, and three from overseas - two from Cuba, one from Sicily.  The surprise raid sent men fleeing.
            Robert R. Hickey, a Harpur College student, lived down the road from Barbara.  As a child, he used to play with Joseph Barbara’s children. Two well-dressed men wearing camel hair coats and spats stopped Hickey while he was driving home from school.  “It was an unusual day.   My actual encounter with them was brief.  They got in my car and I took them down the road.  Then they flagged down another car, a friend of mine.”  The two were picked up in a car driven by local resident Glen Craig.  Hickey later discovered one of the men was Frank Majuri of Elizabeth, N.J. and the other Louis LaRasso.  Majuri was the underboss of the New Jersey family, (Presently called the DeCavalcante family. LaRasso would later succeed Majuri as the New Jersey underboss.)

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