Willie Moretti
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Willie Moretti (1894-October 4, 1951) was an Italian-American gangster who, along with fellow mafiosi Lucky Luciano, Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Al Capone, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello was working under Joe "The Boss" Masseria during the Castellammarese War.
From 1933 to 1951, Willie Moretti, the supposed Mafia boss of New Jersey, was the muscle behind the Genovese family founders Frank Costello, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. During the 1940's, he (in association with Joe Adonis & Abner Zwillman) ran lucrative gambling dens in New Jersey and Upstate New York from his Monmouth County home.
Although married, Moretti was known to have seen many cheap prostitutes, preferably, ethnic ones. Eventually, he contracted syphilis, which was said to have caused Moretti brain damage. Tellingly, it is believed that he placed bets on non-existent horses, told runaway stories that led nowhere and may have even let slip Syndicate secrets to the press.
Along with other members of the Costello gang, Moretti was called to appear at the Kefauver hearings; however, of all the gangsters who showed up to testify, Moretti was the only one who cooperated with the committee. Moretti's cohorts repeatedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment, whereas he told jokes, talked candidly, and generally played it up for the cameras. In doing so, he was violating the Mafia code of silence, known as omertà.
In 1951, members of the National Crime Syndicate met to discuss Willie Moretti's loose tongue. While Frank Costello and Joe Adonis were strongly opposed to it, Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia demanded Moretti be killed. On October 4, 1951, the latter two took matters into their own hands. Three of Anastasia's hitmen bought him lunch, then shot him repeatedly in the chest. He was 57 years old.
Frank Sinatra was also allegedly personally linked to Willie Moretti. His first wife Nancy Barbato was a cousin of one of Moretti's senior henchmen and he sang at his daughter's wedding in 1948. According to testimony from Moretti, Sinatra received help from him in arranging performances in return for kick-backs. It is also rumored that Moretti got Sinatra out of his contract with Tommy Dorsey by threatening to kill Dorsey if he did not let Frank go. [1]
In September 1951 Moretti had also become acquainted with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis while they were performing at Ben Marden's Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where Moretti and Longy Zwillman kept an eye on things for Marden in the club's cardroom. Martin and Lewis did a command performance at the wedding of Moretti's daughter and were supposed to have lunch with him on the day of his death. Lewis had learned that morning he had the mumps and they had forgotten about their lunch engagement with Moretti. While trying to reach him to apologize and explain, they learned of his lunch-time murder from the television news (Lewis 2005).
In A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, Simon & Schuster , ISBN 0-671-46747-6, Joseph Bonanno referred to Willie Moretti as Frank Costello's "strength", which would later be compared to the relationship between Mario Puzo's character Luca Brazi and Don Vito Corleone's "strength." in the Godfather saga. [2]
[edit] References
- Lewis, Jerry and James Kaplan. Dean & Me (A Love Story). New York: Doubleday, 2005. ISBN 0-7679-2086-4
[edit] Further reading
- Reid, Ed and Demaris, Ovid. The Green Felt Jungle. Montreal: Pocket Books, 1964. 241 pages.
- Bonanno, Joseph. In A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, Simon & Schuster, 1984. ISBN 0-671-46747-6
