Joseph Gelosi, Madison Rum Runner
Joseph Gelosi came to America from Sciliy around 1916.
Bootleg king Joseph Gelosi was about to enter his home on Regent Street Sunday, September 22, 1929 when a shotgun blast went off, seriously injuring him and instantly killing his 3-year old son, Frank. By Monday, a suspect was held by Madison police based on Gelosi’s statement from the Madison General Hospital and the eyewitness account of a 6-year old neighbor boy.
After the death of his son, Gelosi moved to Elmira, New York.
On July 5, 1932, Gelosi hired two Cicero, Illinois men (Frank Maio, alias Frank Delmonti, and Joseph Ross, alias Charley Maw) to lure laborer Andrew Presti from his home in Madison. The men shot Presti in an automobile and brought his body to Janesville for disposal. In Janesville, they picked up a cinder block for the purpose of weighting down the body if they came across a stream. The corpse was ultimately dumped from a car near Belvidere, Illinois.
During the trial on December 17, the state called witness Sandria Livingston, 21, who said she had been with the slayers at the time of the murder up until the time the body was dumped. She said she did not know that Presti was going to be killed, but after he was shot, Joseph Ross explained that Presti was “a pig” and that he had shot a kid (presumably Frank Gelosi) a few years ago and Ross’ brother fourteen years prior. She said that the killers called Gelosi “the boss” but that she understood little of the conversation, because she did not speak Italian. Darrel D. MacIntyre, chief defense counsel, tried to discredit the girl, saying she had run with a gang since she was 15. Livingston admitted that she was married at age 15, later divorced, and had previously worked at a roadhouse in Milwaukee. The judge denied MacIntyre the chance to ask Livingston about her childhood in Memphis, Tennessee.
For his defense, Gelosi had two policemen from Elmira, New York as alibi witnesses. The cops said that Gelosi had received a traffic ticket from them at the the time of the murder. This defense fell apart, however, when a private investigator overheard the officers saying they had not been paid enough for their services, suggesting they had been bribed to lie.
On January 4, 1935, Gelosi’s attorney O. A. Stolen filed a writ of error asking that the conviction be thrown out on the grounds that the jurors were prejudiced. Stolen insisted that as many as seven of the jurors learned before the trial began that three defense witnesses had been arrested for perjury.
Gelosi was pardoned by Governor LaFollette in December 1937, on the condition that he be sent back to Italy. This did not prove to be so easy.
Gelosi met with the Italian consul, Angelo Cerminara, in Milwaukee on Friday, February 17, 1939 in the company of his attorney, Lester Lee, and prison guard William Dusenberry. Cerminara refused to grant Gelosi a visa to return to Palmero. Robert P. Clark, immigration inspector of Milwaukee, also relayed that the Italian embassy in Washington refused to issue a visa unless a full, unconditional pardon was granted. Rumors floated around that Andrew Presti’s family lived in Gelosi’s home village, and Gelosi’s return could spark a revenge killing. This rumor was unconfirmed. On Monday, March 6, Cerminara passed his report on to the Italian consul general in Chicago.
After some delay, Gelosi was finally on his way Saturday, May 20, 1939. He was taken from Waupun to Chicago and put on a deportation train and sailed for Naples on May 27. From there he was scheduled to go to his native home in Palermo. Before deportation, he will be allowed a brief reunion with his wife and two children in Elmira, New York where she operated a beauty parlor. They were expected to join him in Sicily in 1941 or when the children graduated high school.