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Two other men who ran away from Barbara’s house made it to nearby Apalachin
Elementary School, which had just been built and was to be dedicated the
next day. Morris J. Cape, the school’s principal, met with the men as they
wandered into the empty building. “These two fellas came in and walked all
around and asked to use the phone. They looked no different than anyone
else. In fact, I thought they were a couple of contractors.” Cape called a
cab for the men and they rode away. Russell Cabs of Endicott picked up
the two guys and two others further down the road. The men had the cab take
a circuitous route to Owego, on to Endicott, and then over to the Parkway.
That was their mistake. As the four tried to leave the area their car was
stopped by Trooper F.A. Tiffany and the four men identified.
At the
roadblock, Croswell, Visisko and his reinforcements rounded up 63 men and
took them to the New York State Troopers' substation in Vestal where they
were questioned. Among the stated reasons for being at the gathering was
Russell Bufalino and others’ claim that they had come to visit a sick
friend, Joseph Barbara, who was suffering from a heart ailment. It was
apparently a coincidence that so many people chose the exact same day to
visit a sick friend. (Purpose #5)
Croswell was anxious to charge any of these 63 men with some violation.
When a Californian named Simone Scozzaro indicated that his hometown was
Palermo, Sicily, Croswell asked for proof. Scozzaro said he had no wallet
or identification papers. Croswell considered filing a vagrancy charge on
Scozzaro. When Scozzaro reached in a pocket and pulled out a $10,000 wad of
bills, Croswell quickly determined that a vagrancy charge would be
fruitless.
Joe Bonanno, in his 1983 autobiography, claimed he was opposed to the
meeting, never planned to attend but had simply gone to the area to try and
discuss a number of issues with Stefano Magaddino, his cousin and Mafia Boss
in Buffalo. They met in a small town near Apalachin, but Bonanno
claims he wasn’t at Barbara’s that day. According to Bonanno, when all the
fleeing from Barbara’s house began, two of his men were hunting in the area
and accidentally drove across Barbara’s property. Cops wrongly thought they
were Barbara’s guests since one of them was carrying Bonanno’s driver’s
license. |
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Until this day, John Montana was considered an upstanding Buffalo
businessman. The Buffalo Police Organization had recently awarded him “Man
of the Year” honors. His masquerade and demise started that day in
Apalachin. Montana’s excuse was that he had car problems while driving by
the area and had stopped at the Barbara house looking for a mechanic.
(Purpose #6) To his surprise, Barbara was hosting a convention of some
sort, which broke into panic when cops arrived. Looking to avoid the
confusion, Montana went for a walk in the woods and was detained by police,
a victim of innocent circumstances.
The discovery of the Mafia at the Apalachin meeting became a large
legal issue. Law enforcement wasn’t buying the stories of the men visiting
a sick friend, false identification and car problems. On May 13, 1959, a
federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted the sixty-three men for perjury and
obstruction of justice by refusing to divulge the true purpose of their
meeting at the Barbara home. The trial went before Judge Irving R. Kaufman
and lasted eight weeks before going to the jury on December 17, 1959. After
fifteen hours of deliberation, the jury found twenty defendants guilty. The
American Civil Liberties Union contended that the trial raised "serious
Constitutional issues" and announced it would consider supporting an
appeal. Nonetheless, Judge Kaufman, on January 14, 1960 sentenced the
twenty defendants to rather long prison terms ranging from three to five
years and thirteen of them were fined $10,000 each.
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Joseph Barbara’s estate located on McFall Rd., Apalachin,
NY |
MAFIA IN APALACHIN?
(con't.)
