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to the FBN, this portly, five-foot-seven, 210-pound mobster—whose official employment was that of a bouncer at the Delightful Luncheonette at East 116 th Street and 1 st Avenue—was a “controlling member” of the Mafia in Harlem by the 1950s and engaged in large-scale narcotics sales and auto theft.
    Twenty-five-year-old D’Ercole was arrested in 1936, along with nine other members of the Manhattan Social Club (354 East 114 th Street) in connection with the murder of gangster Dutch Schultz and his three bodyguards in Newark, New Jersey, on October 23, 1935.
    Police traced a car found at the murder scene back to club member Joseph Tortotici 23 and raided the East Harlem establishment on January 7, 1936. It turns out that Tortotici had lent his car to Schultz bodyguard Bernard Rosenkrantz on the day of the hit, but since there was no direct connection with the murder, Tortotici, D’Ercole and their crew were only charged with vagrancy. 24
    In the early 1950s, a Bronx-based front for a large-scale auto-theft ring was established by D’Ercole under the name United-Drive-Yourself. Using the name Joseph Romano, D’Ercole and his associates resold over one hundred stolen cars within its first week of operation in October 1953. 25
    In 1964, D’Ercole was sentenced to twenty years in prison for heroin distribution; 26 he died sixteen years later.
    D E F EO , P ETER
219 Mott Street, 1910–20; 276 Mulberry Street, 1930; 130 West Twelfth Street
Alias: Phil Aquilino
Born: March 4, 1902, New York City
Died: April 6, 1993, New York City
Association: Genovese crime family capo
    This “Mayor of Little Italy” was a popular longtime capo in the Genovese crime family who also operated the Ross Paper Stock Company at 150 Mercer Street and Ross Trucking Company on Mulberry Street through the 1980s.
    DeFeo’s parents, Giuseppe and “Mary,” immigrated to New York City in 1893 at sixteen and thirteen years old, respectively. They married soon after, in 1896, and gave birth to Peter while living on Mott Street.
    Young Peter DeFeo “came up” through a Vito Genovese crew based in his native neighborhood, which was led by (future consigliere) Michele “Mike” Miranda. DeFeo proved his loyalty to Genovese on September 9, 1934, when he, Miranda and three associates gunned down a man named Ferdinand “the Shadow” Boccia, a racketeer who had a fallout with Genovese over a business venture. Both Genovese and DeFeo were indicted for the murder, but Genovese fled to Italy, while DeFeo hid out at a hotel resort in Tennanah Lake, New York. 27
    The group would eventually reunite in New York City, where DeFeo continued his support of underboss Vito Genovese’s quest for control of the family. By the time Genovese had dethroned Costello via a bullet to the head in 1957, DeFeo had risen to the rank of capo and would, for the next couple of decades, control his crew’s operations out of Little Italy.
    In October 1963, DeFeo and six other Mafioso were arrested while drinking coffee in Lombardi’s Restaurant at 53 Spring Street and charged with “consorting for unlawful purposes”; however, all charges were dropped by November 3. 28
    In May 1968, Peter DeFeo, along with gangsters James “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri and Edward “Eddie Buff” Lanzieri, was charged with conspiring to share in tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from union member welfare and pension plans. 29
    In August 1969, DeFeo was identified in a Unites States Justice Department press release listing the nation’s top Mafia bosses. 30 Between 1969 and 1970, DeFeo’s name was mentioned several times by witnesses in the public hearing of a Joint Legislative Committee on Crime investigation into the mob.
    In 1979, during a two-year investigation into corruption of the local construction industry, authorities taped the president of the twenty-five-thousand-strong New York District Council of Carpenters, Theodore “Teddy” Maritas, bragging about his mob connections,