Rocco Perri
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Rocco Perri, crime b. 27 December 1887 at Plati, Calabria, Italy; common-law husband of Besha Starkman (a.k.a. Bessie Perri); disappeared, 23 April 1944, last seen in Hamilton, Ontario.
Rocco Perri, the most famous and successful Mafia boss in Canadian history, was born in a small, poor village in southern Italy in 1887, Like many Italians who sought a better life, Perri left his homeland for America while still young. He arirved in Boston in 1903, and moved to New York City. Nothing is known of his life in the United States. However, he arrived in Canada in 1908, living for a few months in Montreal; then for the next three years in Parry Sound, Ontario, from there, he moved to Trenton, Ontario for six months, and then to Hamilton.
By the Spring of 1912, Perri was living in Toronto, working as a labourer in the Ward. It was there that he met Besha (Bessie) Starkman. Although she was married to Harry Tobin, Starkman soon fell in love with Perri, and the couple moved to St.Catharines, where Perri worked as a labourer on the Welland Canal.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the government cut off all funding to the Welland Canal, and Perri was unemployed. After working for a while in a bakery, Perri moved to Hamilton to take position as a salesman for the Superior Macaroni Company. Life in Hamilton during the years of the First World War was not very pleasant. Although the economy was strong as a result wartime demand for steel and textiles, conditions for labourers were abysmal, In particular, non-British immigrants faced widespread hostility and racism. Perri and Starkman, who sought a better life for themselves, found the opportunity they needed when, on 16 September 1916, the Ontario Temperance Act came into effect.
Although the Act did not completely prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol in the province, it placed severe restrictions on its sale and distribution. Perri and Starkman entered the bootlegging business immediately, and using Starkman's business acumen and Perri's connections, established a profitable liquor distribution business. By the summer of 1917, they were wealthy enough to hire a yacht 'that sailed out into Lake Ontario for parties far away from the prying eyes of the Hamilton police.'
In the following years, three developments ensured Perri's bootleg operations would continue to profit: the first of these was the declaration of Prohibition in Canada on 23 December 1917 by the Borden government. Using the powers of the War Measures Act, Borden declared that the recent federal election had given his coalition government a mandate to prosecute the war, and that the sale of liquor in Canada was inconsistent with that goal; in April 1918, it became illegal to transport alcohol in Canada; in 1920, the ratification of the Eigteenth Amendment to the United States' Constitution prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol in the United States. Perri began expanding his operation to the Niagara frontier and the Buffalo area.
Through the 1920s, Perri became the leading figure in organzed crime in Southern Ontario. Not limiting himself to the bootlegging business, Perri diversified into gambling, extortion and prostitution. Starkman remained the business "brains" of the operation, and it was she who specialized in laundering the profits from their various enterprises.
Perri became a well-known figure in Hamilton and it was his reputation and influence which established Hamilton rather than Toronto as the 'mob capital of Ontario.' Throughout the 1920s, Perri was under constant surveillance by the police, and his activities were widely known. He specialized in exporting liquor from old Canadian distileries, such as Seagram's and Gooderham's to the United States, and, in effect, helped these companies to obtain a large share of the American market--a share which they were able to retain after Prohibition was lifted.
In 1922, the suicide of Olive Routledge who had been Perri's mistress outside of Hamilton, brought further attention to Perri's activities, as did the murder, in 1930, of Bessi Perri. While in the garage after returning to their home on Bay street on 15 August 1930, Starkman and Perri were fired at by gunmen. Starkman died, but Perri was unharmed. There was speculation as to the motive for the murder. Some believed that Perri had arranged the killing in order to wrest control of their finances from his wife, while others suggest that Starkman was killed because of the Mafia's displeasure with a woman in a position of influence in their organization. In any event, the murderers were not apprehended. The elaborate funeral, and controversy surrounding Starkman's buriel in a Jewish cemetery (she had renounced her faith some fifteen years earlier) brought more notoriety to the Perri name.
Following the death of Starkman, Perri went into a severe depression. Not only was he upset over the loss of his wife, but the economic realities of the Depression, and the lifting of Prohibition in North America meant sharp decline in bootlegging profits. He diversified into the narcotics trade, but was facing a number of law suits as a result of debts he had incurred during the 1920s. In the fall of 1933, Perri was sentenced to ten days in jail for failing to pay a debt to a Hamilton tin dealer. Newspapers heralded the 'downfall' of Rocco Perri, declaring that 'Bessie Perri was really the brains and direction force behind the whole Perri organization' and that without her help, Perri was facing 'an ignoble end.'
However, in 1933, Perri's new common-law wife and partner in crime, Anne Newman, helped him to reorganize his life and business. The end of prohibition in the United States had made it a source of cheap, high quality liquor for the Ontario market, which although not as restricted as it had once been, was still governed by strict liquor laws. Perri simply reversed the flow of alcohol, and instead of exporting to the United States, he began importing liquor into Ontario.
During the 1930s, Perri prospered once again, and resumed his role as Ontario's premier mobster. However, with the entrance of Italy into the Second World War, Perri, along with many other Italian Canadians, were rounded up by the RCMP and interned in Camp Petawawa in Northern Ontario. By the time he was released on 10 October 1943, Perri was no longer a public figure. Preoccupied with the Second World War, Canadians had little time for news of mob activities, which, in any event, had sharply decreased.
On 23 April 1944, Rocco Perri was seen for the last time in Hamilton. Although his body has never been found, there is speculation that he was murdered, possibly by being put in a barrel filled with cement and dumped into the Burlington Bay. As one RCMP concluded in a 1954 interview, "We won't find his body until the Bay dries up."
Although he was the most significant mob figure in Canadian history, few people outside the Hamilton area have heard of Rocco Perri, as he has been overshadowed by his American counterparts. As Al Capone said when asked if he knew Rocco Perri, "I don't even know what street Canada is on."
Rocco Perri's Associates:
- Besha Starkman, Perri's common-law wife ("the Brains"). 1889-1930.
- Olive Routledge, Perri's mistress. 1895-1922.
- Charles William Bell, Playwright, Politician and Perri's Lawyer. 1876-1938.
- Anne Newman, Perri's second common-law wife.
[edit] References
- "King of the Mob: Rocco Perri and the women who ran his rackets" by James Dubro & Robin F. Rowland (Toronto)-1987.
- Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol. III, 1925-1939); Thomas Melville Bailey (W.L. Griffin Ltd.)-1992; Pg. 167-169
