Marco Reginelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marco Reginelli (1897-1957) was an Italian-American underworld boss.
Born in Nepezzano, near Teramo, Abruzzo, Italy, at the age of 17 he emigrated to the United States. He first settled in Penns Grove, New Jersey where he lived on #59 Pitman Street in an Italian-American community, many from his home area of Valle San Giovanni and Teramo. Many of these immigrants came to the United States to work at the DuPont chemical factory.
Marco later moved to Camden, New Jersey where he soon established himself as a member of the Cosa Nostra underworld. Marco's specialty was gambling and the numbers racket although he was also convicted of larceny, receiving stolen goods, and violation of the Mann Act. He was physically short in stature and was known by the nickname, "Small Man".
Reginelli extended his influence as far away as Atlantic City. It was there that he built the famous 500 Club, a nightclub that in the late 1940s and early 1950s hosted Dean Martin and served as the location where he first teamed up with Jerry Lewis. A congressional committee once described him as "the top hoodlum in the Philadelphia-New Jersey area".
The federal government was unsuccessful in their attempts to block his citizenship application (he was not naturalized until June 1955) or to have him sent back to Italy. They were able to deport at least one of his mid-level bosses, a man known as "Scalapip",
Reginelli died in 1956, aged 58, and is buried in the Calvary Cemetery in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. His successor was Angelo Bruno.
