John Sebastian Larocca
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John Sebastian LaRocca (December 19, 1901-December 3, 1984) was a Pittsburgh mobster and controled illegal gambling in southwestern Pennsylvania from the 1950s until his death in 1984.
Born in Sicily, Larocca immigrated with his family to the United States in 1910 settling in Indiana County. Larocca went to work as a coal miner until 1922 when, at the age of 20, he was arrested for assault with the intent to kill and maim a young woman and was sentenced to three years.
Larocca succeeded longtime crime boss Frank Amato as head of criminal operations in Pittsburg and southwestern Pennsylvania in 1956. However, vice and other traditional criminal activities such as prostitution, illegal gambling, and numbers rackets had been long been controlled directly by the city's political machine since the early 1900s. Despite possessing lucrative illegal gambling operations, Larocca was unable to develop his own operations and was long regarded as a minor organized crime figure given his secondary status to ward politicians.
Apparently not in attendance during the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, one of the few crime bosses not arrested by federal authorities, Larocca continued to control his territory until his death on December 3, 1984, at age 82. Larocca was succeeded by Michael James Genovese, Sr. as acting boss following his death.
[edit] Further reading
- Moldea, Dan E. The Hoffa Wars. New York: Charter Books, 1978. ISBN 0-441-34010-5
- Scott, Peter Dale. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 0-520-08410-1
- Pennsylvania Crime Commission. St. Davids, Pennsylvania: DIANE Publishing, 1984. ISBN 0-8182-0000-6
[edit] References
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
