Tom Kapatos
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Thomas Kapatos (January 1, 1915 – January 22, 1977), nicknamed as "Tommy the Greek", was a
Greek-American Greek Americans ( el, Ελληνοαμερικανοί ''Ellinoamerikanoí'' ''Ellinoamerikánoi'' ) are Americans of full or partial Greek ancestry. The lowest estimate is that 1.2 million Americans are of Greek descent while the highest es ...
gangster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
who was associated with the
Irish mob The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish mafia or Irish organized crime) is a collective of organized crime syndicates composed of ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia, and have been in ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. A convicted armed robber, Kapatos was an enforcer for
Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...
crime boss
Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have ...
during his war against Jimmy Coonan in the 1970s. He was murdered in 1977 as a result of a conflict between Spillane's gang and the
Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...
.


Early life

Born in
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
on January 1, 1915, to Florence ( née Kalais) and Gregory Kapatos, Greek immigrants from
Karpathos Karpathos ( el, Κάρπαθος, ), also Carpathos, is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Together with the neighboring smaller Saria Island it forms the municipality of Karpathos, which is part o ...
, his surname derived from the Dodecanese island.Ο Καρπάθιος γκάνγκστερ με το όνομα...Kapatos!
Manolis Dimellas, ''
HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' (4 August 2015)
Kapatos, who was also known as Thomas Russo, lived in Fort Lee, Union City and West New York in New Jersey and was employed as a shoreman on the West Side of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York.A Hard-Way Guy Convicted
'' New York Daily News'' (October 7, 1966)
$500,000 holdup is solved by FBI
Al Post, '' Paterson Evening News'' (December 18, 1968)
Thomas Kapatos
National Registry of Exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society. The Registry was co-founded in 2012 ...
He was described by '' New York Daily News'' writer Joseph McNamara as a muscular man standing five feet, nine inches tall with an "explosive temper".Honor Among Thieves
Joseph McNamara, '' New York Daily News'' (June 11, 1989)


Criminal career


Murder conviction and exoneration

On October 6, 1937, Kapatos was arrested in possession of two handguns – a
.32 caliber .32 caliber is a size of ammunition, fitted to firearms with a bore diameter of . .32 in caliber variations include: * .32 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol), a pistol cartridge * .32-40 Ballard, an American rifle cartridge * .32 H&R Magnum, a rimmed ...
revolver and a
.38 caliber .38 caliber is a frequently used name for the caliber of firearms and firearm cartridges. The .38 is considered a large firearm cartridge; anything larger than .32 is considered a large caliber.Wright, James D.; Rossi, Peter H.; Daly, Kathleen ...
Smith & Wesson Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (S&W) is an American firearm manufacturer headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. Smith & Wesson was founded by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson as the "Smith & Wesson Revolver Company" in 1856 ...
police revolver – shortly after the fatal shooting of Albert DiLlulio on 48th Street in Manhattan. The .38 calibre revolver contained four discharged cartridges, and boxes containing .32 calibre cartridges and .38 calibre cartridges were subsequently found during a search of Kapatos' home. He claimed to have unwittingly picked up the guns after finding them on a stoop as he made his way to the elevated train after finishing work at the 48th Street pier. Discovering DiLlulio's body nearby, he became frightened that he might be framed as the killer and started running away from the scene when he was apprahended by police. Kapatos was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of DiLlulio and sentenced to twenty-years-to-life in prison on November 29, 1938. He was paroled in 1954 but was returned to prison for violating parole.Convict Free After 22 Yrs; DA Hid Slaying Witness
Neal Patterson, '' New York Daily News'' (July 10, 1962)
Years after his murder conviction, Kapatos learned that there had been a witness, Michael Danise, who had seen two individuals fleeing from the scene of DiLlulio's killing immediately after the gunshots were fired, and that Danise had stated that Kapatos was not one of these two individuals. Danise had also said that after the two persons fled the scene, he had then seen Kapatos walk upon the scene of the crime. This statement by Danise was consistent with Kapatos’ version of events. The existence of Danise had never been disclosed to the defense by the prosecution. Kapatos' attorney, Joseph Aronstein, filed a ''
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' petition on his behalf based on this new information. On July 9, 1962, judge Edmund L. Palmieri granted the writ of ''habeas corpus'' on the basis that the Manhattan district attorney's office had prejudiced his case in failing to disclose the existence of the witness, thus depriving him of the due process of law at his trial in 1938. Having served twenty-three years in prison, Kapatos was released in August 1962 after the charges against him were dismissed.


Robberies

On November 8, 1963, Kapatos and four others took part in what was dubbed by the press as the "Great Bungled Jewel Robbery of 1963", the attempted theft of a $3 million interstate jewelry shipment being transported in a station wagon by six employees of the AAA Jewelry Service. Driving a black sedan and disguised as policemen, he and another man ordered the station wagon to pull over in
Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...
, Manhattan before holding the employees at gunpoint and ushering them into a following panel truck, where they were shackled and handcuffed.''United States of America v. Thomas Kapatos''
Justia Justia is an American website specializing in legal information retrieval. It was founded in 2003 by Tim Stanley, formerly of FindLaw, and is one of the largest online databases of legal cases. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, Cali ...
(September 14, 1970)
The heist failed, however, as the robbers were unable to drive the station wagon because it had a standard gear shift which they did not know how to operate. Rather than alert authorities, nearby workers who witnessed the attempted robbery then looted the jewels themselves. Approximately 90% of the stolen valuables were ultimately recovered. Kapatos was identified as a suspect by the
New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
(NYPD) shortly after the failed robbery. In early 1964, Kapatos joined a gang of would-be robbers consisting of John Pierce, Charles Roberts, Frank "Machine Gun" Campbell, and Henry "Speedy" Speditz. The group were known to each other and frequented the Market Diner on West 51st Street in Hell's Kitchen, which was a gathering place for men who worked in the neighborhood. Recruited by Pierce because he owned several garages in New Jersey, as well as pistols, a machine gun and other necessary equipment and paraphernalia, Kapatos orchestrated a plan to heist a First National Bank of
Passaic County, New Jersey Passaic County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of New Jersey that is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the population of Passaic County was enumerated at 524,118, an increase of 22,892 (4.6%) from ...
money truck as it passed through a secluded side street in Paterson. Requiring a fifth man for the job, Kaparos brought his friend, Thomas Callahan, in on the scheme in late March or early April 1964.''United States of America v. Thomas Callahan and Thomas Kapatos''
Justia Justia is an American website specializing in legal information retrieval. It was founded in 2003 by Tim Stanley, formerly of FindLaw, and is one of the largest online databases of legal cases. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, Cali ...
(January 20, 1971)
After two attempts were abandoned, Roberts and Campbell quit the planned robbery due to Kapatos' objectionable temper, and Campbell died from a heart attack on October 4, 1964. The bank truck's route was subsequently altered to include stops at several churches. On the morning of December 21, 1964, three masked men armed with pistols handcuffed four priests and a janitor inside St. Anthony's church on Beech Street in Paterson and then held two guards at gunpoint as they arrived to pick up the church's Sunday collection. The three gunmen then escaped with $1,100 in collections from the church and $511,000 from the money truck in a Chevrolet driven by a fourth robber. The robbery was the largest ever to occur in Paterson and the largest in the New York metropolitan area since the theft of $3 million in cash and securities from a Manhattan bank in 1878. Kapatos' share of the loot exceeded $100,000; he and Callahan used the proceeds of the robbery to begin
loansharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...
. Callahan and Speditz attracted the attention of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) in early January 1965 after buying new cars and going on expensive vacations in
Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
. Callahan was questioned at the Miami FBI office on January 22, 1965, but refused to speak. Various items reported missing from two stolen cars used in the bank truck robbery were then discovered during a search of Speditz's apartment in
the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, and a streak of white paint found on the fender of one of the vehicles was traced to a scraped door in a garage owned by Pierce. In March 1965, an FBI surveillance team observed Kapatos talking with Roberts, who was subsequently questioned but did not reveal any information about the robbery. In November and December 1965, the victims of the jewelry heist were taken by FBI agents to view Kapatos outside a restaurant and as he worked underneath the
Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressw ...
on
Delancey Street __NOTOC__ Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of New York City's Lower East Side in Manhattan, running from the street's western terminus at the Bowery to its eastern end at FDR Drive, connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge and Broo ...
on the Manhattan's Lower East Side; four of the AAA employees positively identified him as one of the robbers disguised as a policeman. A nun at St. Anthony's also recognised Kapatos as a "beggar" who had twice stopped by a convent two doors down from the church in the months before the Paterson robbery; investigators believe he may have been carrying out reconnaissance on the location. Roberts was shot and wounded by an unidentified man on November 8, 1965, and he survived a car bombing in August 1966, although he lost his right leg and his wife Evelyn was also critically wounded. Roberts subsequently decided to cooperate with the FBI, and he and his wife entered the
witness protection Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial, usually by police. While a witness may only require p ...
program. Pierce and Speditz also disappeared afterwards; investigators believe the pair were murdered by gangsters in order to stop them from cooperating. On October 7, 1966, Kapatos was convicted on two counts of theft from an interstate shipment for his part in the attempted jewelry heist and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. His four accomplices in the bungled robbery were never identified. While imprisoned at
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
in December 1968, he was indicted for the 1964 bank truck robbery along with Callahan, Pierce and Speditz, and the deceased Campbell. Callahan was arrested by the FBI in New York City on December 17, 1968, while Pierce and Speditz were never located. None of the $513,509 stolen was ever recovered. Kapatos and Callahan went on trial on conspiracy charges in New York before judge Thomas Murphy in June 1970. Charles Roberts, walking on a prosthetic leg, served as a witness for the prosecution. Both men were convicted of conspiracy and transporting a stolen automobile in interstate commerce, and each sentenced to ten years' imprisonment – consecutive five-year terms on each count. The
U.S. Court of Appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals fr ...
upheld their convictions on March 22, 1972.


Murder

Kapatos became a chief lieutenant and enforcer for Hell's Kitchen crime boss
Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have ...
. During the 1970s, a conflict arose between Spillane's
Irish mob The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish mafia or Irish organized crime) is a collective of organized crime syndicates composed of ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia, and have been in ...
and the
Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...
over control of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which was being built in the
Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
neighborhood of Manhattan just south of Hell's Kitchen. As Spillane's gang had been successful in denying the
Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...
from being involved in the Javits Center, the Genovese family retaliated by contracting freelance Irish-American hitman Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan to secretly eliminate Spillane's associates. On the afternoon of January 27, 1977, Kapatos was gunned down on West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan by a hired assassin in the employ of Genovese boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno; he was the third member of Spillane's inner-circle, after Tom Devaney and Eddie "the Butcher" Cummiskey, who had been killed in a six-month killing spree.English, T.J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins, 2005; Mafia Hit List – Top Irish Mob Murders
Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (August 4, 2014)
Spillane himself was ultimately shot dead outside his apartment in Woodside,
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
on May 13, 1977, allowing the Gambino-backed Jimmy Coonan to assume control of the Hell's Kitchen Irish mob.Mafia Hit List: The Top 5 NYC “Westies” Irish Mob Murders
Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (April 22, 2019)


Bibliography

*


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kapatos, Thomas 1915 births 1977 deaths 1977 murders in the United States 20th-century American criminals American male criminals American gangsters of Greek descent Criminals from New Jersey Criminals from Manhattan Gangsters from New York City People from Fort Lee, New Jersey People from West New York, New Jersey People from Union City, New Jersey People convicted of murder by New York (state) People wrongfully convicted of murder American people convicted of robbery Murdered American gangsters People murdered by the Genovese crime family People murdered in New York City Male murder victims Deaths by firearm in Manhattan Westies (New York gang)