(Originally published by the Daily News on Feb. 19, 1973. This story was written by Paul Meskil.)
Frank Costello, 82, the retired “prime minister of the underworld,” who survived a gangland execution attempt and successfully defied efforts by the U.S. government to deport him to his native Italy, died at 7 a.m. yesterday in Doctors Hospital.
A hospital spokesman declined to disclose the cause of death. Costello, who entered the hospital at 170 East End. Ave. on Feb. 8, had been operated on for throat cancer many years ago and recently had been under a physician’s care.
Costello became a household name in 1951 when he testified at televised hearing held by the U.S. Senate Crime Committee headed by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.).
His Face Unseen
Television audiences never saw his face because Costello refused to be televised, explaining that he didn’t want to make a spectacle of himself. The viewers saw, instead, his well manicured hands which fidgeted as he testified in a rasping voice.
He admitted under oath that he had once been a bootlegger and a bookmaker, but he insisted he had reformed. However, he invoked the Fifth Amendment when the committee began questioning him about his wealth and properties.
These refusal brought about his indictment for contempt on April 4, 1952. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $5,000. Although he had been arrested many times before, this was the first prison sentence since his conviction in 1915 of carrying a pistol. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
On May 13, 1954, he was convicted on three counted of federal income tax evasion and sentenced to five years in prison and fined $30,000. He was released from prison after serving 3 1/2 years. His citizenship was revoked and he was ordered deported, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964 overturned the ruling.
Born Francesco Castiglia on Jan. 26, 1891, in a poverty-stricken village in Italy, he came to the United States at the age of 4.
Reared in the Italian area of East Harlem, he joined the notorious Gopher Gang while in his teens and later switched to the equally bloodthirsty Hudson Dusters during World War I.
He became a prohibition bootleggers and invested his booze profits in legitimate businesses and underworld enterprises, including slot machines and gambling casinos. Mixing financial wizardry with strongarm muscle. Costello built and ruled a gambling empire that stretched from New York to Florida, Havana and Las Vegas.
A long-time lieutenant of Charles (Lucky Luciano) Lucania, he became underboss to Vito Genovese, Lucky’s second in command, when Luciano was sent to prison for running a multi-million-dollar vice ring. Later, when Genovese fled to Italy to beat a murder rap and Luciano beat a murder rap and Luciano was deported, Costello took over the Luciano mob in addition to his own gambling syndicate.
Genovese returned from Italy after World War II and resumed leadership of the Luciano crime clan, but Costello refused to relinquish control of the gambling rackets. Even became bosses of the American Mafia, Costello held on to his underworld fiefdom. So Genovese orders his execution.
Shortly before 11 p.m. on May 2, 1957, Costello got out of a taxi in front of the Majestic Apartments, 115 Central Park West near 71st St., where he had lived for many years. A black sedan parked at the curb behind the cab. A tall, heavyset man got out of the car and followed Costello into the building.
Just inside the front door, the big man pulled a gun and shot Costello in the head. The bullet grazed his scalp but failed to pierce his skull. Costello escaped with nothing worse than a headache.
Genovese gangster Vincent (Chins) Gigante later was charged with the murder attempt but was acquitted when Costello refused to testify against him.
Shortly after the assassination attempt Costello retired from the rackets. His retirement was hastened by the demise of his old friend and staunch supporter, Albert Anastasia, chief executioner of the old Murder, Inc. killer cops. Anastasia was gunned down in the barber shop of the Park Sheraton Hotel in October 1957.
Costello’s first arrest was in 1908 for assault and battery. He became a naturalized citizen in 1925, but his citizenship was revoked in 1959 on the ground that he had obtained it by fraud, failing to report his arrest record.
Fights Deportation
Ordered deported to Italy, he fought the order all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won.
Although he was a multimillionaire, police arrested him for vagrancy — no visible means of support — in 1964 when he was caught dining with an alleged top bookie in a Times Square restaurant. The vagrancy charge came when the cops found only $6 in the pockets of Costello’s $300 suit.
“Sure,” He Said.
When reporters asked if he was broke, Costello grinned, jingled some coins together and growled: “Sure.”
Costello married Loretta Geigerman in 1914. A devoted couple, they lived together in their seven-room apartment on Central Park West and their country home at Sands Point, L.I., until his death.
His body was taken to Frank E. Campbell funeral home, 81st and Madison Ave.
