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Sebastiano DiGaetano
Sebastiano DiGaetano
	DiGaetano, 1910
Born	c. 1862; Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Kingdom of Italy
Disappeared	1912
Status	Missing for 112 years and 7 or 8 months
Nationality	Italian
Occupation(s)	Crime boss, mobster
Predecessor	Paolo Orlando
Successor	Nicolo Schiro
Allegiance	DiGaetano crime family

Sebastiano DiGaetano (Italian pronunciation: [sebaˈstjaːno diɡaeˈtaːno]; c. 1862 – disappeared March 1912) was an Italian-born American New York City mafia boss of what would later become known as the Bonanno crime family. He briefly attained the title capo dei capi (boss of bosses) of the Sicilian-American mafia, after Giuseppe Morello had been convicted of counterfeiting money in 1910. DiGaetano stepped down as boss of his crime family in 1912, and disappeared shortly thereafter.

Early days

Sebastiano DiGaetano was born in the town of Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily in c. 1862, to Arcangelo DiGaetano and Angela DiBenedetto. He first arrived in the United States on October 24, 1898, with his wife and daughter joining him in 1901. By 1908 the DiGaetano family had moved from Manhattan to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, with Sebastiano becoming a barber.^[1] DiGaetano's daughter, Angelina, married Joseph Ruffino, who was arrested for burglary in 1913 along with future mafia boss Joe Masseria.^[2]

Brooklyn crime boss

DiGaetano is believed to have become the boss of the Williamsburg-centered mafia sometime in 1909 or 1910.^[a]^[5] DiGaetano first came to the attention of authorities in December 1910, when he was arrested under suspicion of orchestrating the kidnappings of eight-year-old Giuseppe Longo and seven-year-old Michael Rizzo for ransom.^[6]^[7] The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.^[5]

A few months later, Salvatore Clemente, a Secret Service informer who was a counterfeiter in the Morello gang was summoned to a meeting with DiGaetano. DiGaetano told Clemente to refrain from his counterfeiting activities until another mafioso, named Carmelo Codaro, who was suspected of disloyalty was "disposed of."^[5] DiGaetano was able to dictate orders to a member of a different mafia crime family because he had been made a temporary capo dei capi, or "Boss of bosses", after the previous one, Giuseppe Morello, had been imprisoned in Atlanta on counterfeiting charges. DiGaetano had assumed that role due to his relative weakness as a crime boss. Morello had been hoping that would allow him to continue to dominate the New York mafia from prison. However, the arrangement had collapsed by 1912 which led to Salvatore D'Aquila being selected as a permanent replacement as capo dei capi.^[8]

In March 1912, DiGaetano stepped down as boss of his crime family and was soon replaced by Nicolo Schiro.^[1] Clemente claimed that DiGaetano was stepping down because he had "lost his nerve". Shortly after he stepped down as boss, DiGaetano disappeared; some researchers believe he and his wife may have returned to Italy.^[1]

Notes

^ This timeframe is based on an April 1909 letter sent by an anonymous informant in Brooklyn to the Palermo police commissioner claiming that a Paolo Orlando was the boss of Brooklyn mafia^[3]^[4] and DiGaetano's December 1910 arrest.^[5]

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b ^c Warner, Santino & Van't Reit 2014, pp. 54–55.
^ Warner, Santino & Van't Reit 2014, pp. 64, 100n136.
^ Petacco 1974, pp. 168–169.
^ Warner, Santino & Van't Reit 2014, p. 52.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Warner, Santino & Van't Reit 2014, p. 54.
^ "Police Reserves Guard Italian Gang Members From Angry Crowds: Alleged Kidnappers Arraigned in the Fifth Ave. Court and Each is Held in $10,000 Bail – Longo Child As Accuser, Tot Points Out Those Responsible for His Detention in the Sixty-third Street House". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 9 December 1910. Retrieved 30 June 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "One Kidnapper Hides, Ten Others are Held in $10,000 Bail Each; Barber Accused by the Police as Leader of Child Stealers. Little Giuseppe Longo Identifies Couple Who Held Him Prisoner, but Says Actual Kidnapper Has Not Been Arrested". The Evening World (New York, N.Y.). 9 December 1910. ISSN 1941-0654. Retrieved 30 June 2017 – via Chronicling America.
^ Hunt 2016, pp. 70, 215.

Sources

Critchley, David (2009). The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781135854935.
Hunt, Thomas (2016). Wrongly Executed? – The Long-forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution. Whiting, Vermont: Seven Seven Eight. ISBN 9781365528729.
Petacco, Arrigo (1974). Joe Petrosino. Trans. by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: MacMillan Publishing.
Petepiece, Andy (2021). The Bonanno Family: A History of New York's Bonanno Mafia Family. Tellwell. ISBN 9780228852919.
Warner, Richard; Santino, Angelo; Van't Reit, Lennert (May 2014). "Early New York Mafia: An Alternative Theory". Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement.

External links

American Mafia
Preceded by Paolo Orlando?	Bonanno crime family Boss 1909?–1912	Succeeded by Nicolo Schiro
Preceded by Giuseppe Morello	Capo dei capi Boss of bosses 1910–1912	Succeeded by Salvatore D'Aquila